Readings:
Micah 1-4
2 Corinthians 1

Micah 1-4

This book is another of the writings of the minor prophets. This one takes us back about 150 years from the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. Micah is a prophet during the reign of several kings of Judah, and that’s from around 750-700 BC.

It begins with the Assyrian destruction of the northern kingdom of their turning towards Judah and invading it too. Partially a telling of the coming destruction from the Assyrian siege, though ultimately not successful in conquering Judah, the Babylonian siege and exile, and the restoration after these events.

He mostly calls out the northern kingdom of Israel in the first three chapters, but he does have some words in there for Judah too. He accuses them of the standard charges we’ve read in the other prophets, but an interesting twist is that he accuses the people of Jerusalem of presumption. Essentially they do whatever they want, and then say they’ll be ok because the temple of God is in their city and he is in their midst. Either presuming upon his mercy if asked for, or thinking he wouldn’t destroy Jerusalem because it would endanger his own temple. Either one is the wrong way to think about sin and righteousness.

But chapter 4 ends on a high note, with a promise of restoration and a new kingdom that’s envisioned as drawing people from all around and ruling over them rather than being a vassal state to its neighbors like Israel and Judah have been.

2 Corinthians 1

Paul is writing here the second letter to the church he founded in Corinth, but it is actually at least the third or even fourth letter he had sent to them. In 1 Corinthians, Paul refers to a now seemingly lost letter that he previously sent to the Corinthians, and then in 2 Corinthians he recounts a letter he had sent in ‘tears and anguish’ became of the unresolved state of the local church’s disputes when he made a visit to them after writing 1 Corinthians.

The tone of 2 Corinthians shifts in chapters 10-13 so that some scholars say this is the so called “severe letter” added on to his later letter by scribes, while others propose he had written 1-9 when word came of renewed dissension in the church so that his tone and purpose of writing shifts.

Whatever the cause, and whether or not the severe letter is lost to history, we know that Paul is writing about a year after 1 Corinthians and this letter is also very pastoral in trying to guide the church while also emphasizing his authority to preach and teach because of his commissioning as an apostle by Jesus Christ himself.

He starts with encouraging them to persevere through suffering as he has persevered through suffering, because God is with them and grants them the grace to get through it. He then switches gears to address the fact that he didn’t visit the church in Corinth on his way back from Macedonia, but instead went straight to Asia Minor. He says it wasn’t that he was being indecisive or trying to slight them in anyway, but after his visit on the way to Macedonia he felt it better to let his message sink in and give them all time to cool off, rather than revisit all the topics they went over on his first visit.

Tomorrow’s Readings:
Micah 5-7
2 Corinthians 2