Fallen Into Knowledge

When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not wrong? And when you offer those that are lame or are sick, is that not wrong? Try presenting that to your governor; will he be pleased with you or show you favor? says the Lord of Hosts.

Ouch. How often do I “squeeze god into my schedule?” Even the concept of “my schedule” seems to put the priority on myself, as if my needs were the most important thing, and of the highest priority.

{thus ends the Old Testament. I have to say, right now I am tired. I think the prophets, since I am not nearly as familiar with them as I ought to be, are hard to read. Easter is coming, Matthew is tomorrow.}

Okay. Zechariah has to be the strangest book in the Bible. Hands down.
I really don’t know how to read Apocalyptic literature. Clearly the language is not “literal” in a “please buy sour cream at the store” kind of way, but beyond that, I am not really sure how it functions, rhetorically speaking. Or, to say that a little clearer: What is the author’s expected response to this strange book?

There are two pictures in Haggai:
First, the people strive and work and toil, but its never enough. Its like eating but never being full, or putting you money in a bag full of holes. Life feels like that for me more often than I care to admit.

The second is of God’s blessing when Israel goes about His business, in this case, re-building the Temple. It is a picture worth striving toward.

At that time I will change the speech of the peoples
To a pure speech
That all of them may call upon the name of the Lord
And serve him with one accord.

The Creation was instigated by divine fiat: “then God said.” God spoke the cosmos into being. The power of language was given to humans; Adam was given the task of naming the creatures in the garden. The power wielded by the one who names is tremendous, remember that after Isaac blessed Jacob (who also received a new name, Israel), He could not revoke it.
Milton, in his extraordinary poem Paradise Lost, wrestles with the changes that must have taken place to our language capacity as a consequence of the Fall. To Milton’s credit, he recognizes that from this side of the fall (post-lapsarian) we cannot conceive of ourselves in a pre-lapsarian state. Our knowing is corrupted: In Paradise Lost, the language between Adam and Eve changes drastically after the fall, lapsing into metaphor and sarcasm. Knowledge was no longer direct, as when Adam named the creatures, but via analogy.
We have Fallen into Knowledge.
The centrality of language to the fall is highlighted just a few chapters later: Babel. English translators cannot resist the similarity between Babel and babbling, yet in Genesis we are to link Babel with Babylon. That is: the enemy of the people of God.
The law of Moses takes up the subject of language again: “You shall not take the Lord’s name in vain.” I’m not entirely certain what this entails, but there are times when language should fall short - it is an unholy vehicle: “The Lord is in heaven, so let your word be few.” The First commandment is also relevant here: We are not to make analogies of God. An idol is a proxy - it stands in place of a God. They are also metaphors, analogies.
Our fallen-ness encompasses our entire being: not only is my eyesight fading, and not only do I have a propensity to sin, but my capacity to know and to speak is corrupted also.
This will change, as the passage from Zephaniah seems to indicate, when God establishes His Kingdom.

The trailing question is: If the church is the Kingdom of Heaven - as we move toward the kingdom - how do we cultivate and reflect redemption of language?