Describe how you imagine the sound of [the astrologers’] tone. “tattling, snotty and snobbish”
What do you believe was their motive? “making themselves look good/more loyal by pointing out disobedient ones”
What does Galatians 5:15 warn will happen if people don’t cease ‘biting and devouring each other’?
“They will be destroyed by each other.”
What kind of reactions might biters and devourers (with words) be seeking? “victory in a conflict when directly, elevation of own status when indirectly”
Do you have scars from word bites? “yes” If so, what have you done about them? “forgiven them”
Unlike the scene in Daniel 3, biting and devouring is probably most common within family walls. Why might this be true?
“Maybe people feel safest to let their anger out unchecked because they know they’ll still be loved? I don’t know. I’ve never understood why anyone would want to fight.”
Does [this] example speak to you personally in any way? If so, how?
“I guess it explains to me why the whole concept is as foreign and undesirable as smoking or doing drugs.”
If we’re people who enjoy talking about others behind their backs, yet we’re realizing how unpleasing it is to God, how could we apply our sister’s example in the previous paragraph for breaking a backbiting habit?
“Deliberately practice better speech and keep record of the days ‘sober’”
Daniel 3:8 specifies that they ‘came forward and denounced the “Jews”’
Daniel 3:12 reeks with attitude: ‘There are “some Jews” whom you have set over the affairs of the province of Babylon’
How is this statement true of all prejudice? “Prejudice is only seeing people by their group rather than as individuals.”
Applying the figure of speech used in Zachariah, 2:8, whoever touched Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, people of his chosen nation, also touched “the apple of God’s eye”
Think of the apple of an eye as the pupil. How quickly would you notice something touching the pupil of your eye? “Immediately – even before, I would flinch as it approached”
► Nothing touches you without touching His eye. Nothing bites you without Him feeling it. He sees. He knows. He acts. And, best of all, He heals.
Dearest Rachel –
While I certainly agree with you that it’s a very bad idea to foul one’s own nest with backbiting and ‘devouring’, those people that are closest to you are, after all, the ones you know the best, and, more specifically, the ones whose foibles and irritating tics get the deepest under your skin, assuming you let them. Each of you have to make accommodations for the other in order to get along; some people either aren’t capable of that, or would rather try to change the other person into what they would rather see them become (which, ironically, could be an irritating trait in and of itself).
What is it that one comedian (I think it was Emo Phillips, but don’t hold me to that) said about this sort of attitude? “Why do we have so much prejudice towards other people because of their race, or color, or creed… when there are so many real reasons to hate each other?”
Meanwhile, the more time goes on, and the more things change, the more things stay the same. All this talk in this passage about those who would hate on the Jews is buttressed by current headlines; the last year or so has been peppered with all sorts of protests, spurred on by the events of one October 7, which is effectively Israel‘s new September 11. The thing is, so many people are mad at Israel for striking back, rather than the folks that stormed into the kibbutzim to kill and destroy. And maybe it is God’s own right to administer justice and vengeance – they are the apple of His eye, after all – but it doesn’t seem right for a nation to be criticized – protested, even – for fighting for its existence, especially given how it’s surrounded by so many enemies.
You would think that the world would love a good underdog story; a tiny nation fighting to a survive in a hostile environment. but it would seem that the whole world is that hostile environment. And it doesn’t help that they fight back so well; at a certain point, they don’t actually seem like the underdogs.
Ah, but look at me; incorporating politics even into a Bible study. My apologies, honey. Guess I need to reset my “days since last political reference” meter back to zero, huh?
In any event, I also have to apologize for giving this day’s answers such short shrift, as we’re bundling ourselves to head home today. I’ll do what I can to send you an extra note later on today. Until then, keep an eye on us, and wish us luck; we’re going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 