Daniel 1:17 – “Good At It – 2”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹⁷And the children the these four – God gave to them knowledge and insight in all writing and wisdom and Daniel understood in all vision and dreams.

In my last post I presented what I think is the amazing truth that everyone of us are gifted by God very specifically to do what He made us to do. It’s true of everyone that they’re “good” at something. It’s true of everyone that there’s something that “comes easy” for them. Daniel makes it clear that the abilities he and his three friends had were gifts from God.

I want to stay on the subject just to think through what are possible practical implications of this truth.

First of all, I think it would be very humbling for all of us to really think hard about what we’re “good” at and to realize it is a gift from God. I like what He says in I Cor 4:7, “For what do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if you didn’t receive it?” The things I’m “good” at don’t make me “better” than someone else. I have those gifts only because God gave them to me – and the fact is that other person has gifts I don’t have. Also, it would help us not to diminish what we’re “good” at. It’s easy to see other people who have “amazing” gifts and think ours are “not much good.” The fact is few of us will ever have “amazing” gifts. As Abraham Lincoln said, “The Lord must have loved the common man – He made so many of them!” Seriously, it doesn’t matter how seemingly insignificant our gifts may be – those things we’re “good” at – they are gifts from God and He intends we use them to bless others, even in simple ways.

Frankly as I would survey my own life, I would say there really isn’t much I’m “good” at.  I love my engineering, but there are a lot of guys way smarter than me. I like to run, but I rarely even place in my age group. I like to draw but I’m no “artist.” I’m really pretty average even at the things I’m “good” at. But so what? The gifts I have are gifts from God, just like Daniel, and my job is to give them to those around me even if they’ll never “amaze” anyone.

Another implication of this truth would be that one of the major ways parents can bless their children is to help them realize what they’re “good” at. If a child obviously has musical talent, then parents can get them lined up with lessons and help them learn the disciplines of practice. If a child seems particularly artistic, then parents can encourage them to pursue those things. Obviously this can go a million different directions, but that is precisely why a child needs their parents’ input – they need someone who can “see the forest for the trees.” Of course the flip side of this is that a good parent will help their children realize what they’re not “good” at. We’re living in this “positive self-esteem” age where we’re supposed to tell them they’re good at everything. That is so ludicrous it would be laughable, if it wasn’t so sad and destructive. The fact is I am “good” at some things and not at others. I need to capitalize on the things I’m “good” at and not waste time trying to become something I’m not. A parent can help a child immensely by steering them away from things they simply are not good at and never will be and help them focus their efforts on those things that will pay big dividends in their life.

Another implication is that I think it would help us appreciate each other far more if we saw that everyone around us is a person uniquely gifted by God. Maybe they’re not “good” at what I do, but what are they good at? Everyone is good at something! We should be looking to see what others are “good” at and then appreciating them for it. If we see that in fact someone else really is “good” at something, we ought to do everything we can to encourage them in it. We should tell them they’re good at it. We should point out when they’ve done those things they’re “good” at and let them know we appreciate what they do. I’m afraid we live in a world where all most people ever hear is criticism and put-downs and sarcasm. What a shame – when they’re each one a person gifted by God to do amazing things the rest of us would struggle to accomplish! We would value each other so much more if we just saw this giftedness and we could be so much more encouraging if we deliberately appreciated it.

Maybe last of all, I’d like to take this discussion back to the workplace. What if we all saw our job as a place to give our gifts? What if we really appreciated what the Lord has given us and then saw our mission in life as taking those gifts and putting them to work all day every day in the job we do? Every single legitimate job that anyone has anywhere is a way of being kind to other people, a way to “help” them in some way or another. The whole purpose of life itself is to love God and love others. What if we all saw our job as a place to give our gifts as a way of doing just that – loving God and others?

Daniel 1:17 – “To these four young men God gave ..”

You have given me …

Daniel 1:17 – “Good At It”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹⁷And the children the these four – God gave to them knowledge and insight in all writing and wisdom and Daniel understood in all vision and dreams.

“God gave …”

Here are these four young men. What will they do in this pagan world? How will they survive?

God gives to them the knowledge and insight they’ll need to do their jobs and He even gives to Daniel a spiritual gift for understanding “vision and dreams.”

How do we survive? It is God who gives us what we need. Consider these verses:

“For the Lord gives wisdom, and from His mouth come knowledge and understanding” (Prov 2:6).

“I will give you [Solomon] a wise and discerning heart … and they saw that he had wisdom from God to administer justice” (I Kings 3:12,28).

“To the man who pleases Him, God gives wisdom, knowledge, and happiness” (Eccl 2:26).

“I have given skill to all the craftsmen to make everything I have commanded you (Ex 31:6).

“Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17).

Daniel himself will say:

He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. He reveals deep and hidden things; He knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with Him. I thank and praise you, God of my fathers: You have given me wisdom and power …” (2:21-23).

What I’d like to point out is that this isn’t just “religious” wisdom of some sort. In Daniel and his friends’ case, it is wisdom to do their jobs in service to the king. For Solomon, it was specifically wisdom to “administer justice,” his job being to serve as the king himself and provide leadership to the people. In Exodus, God is giving skill to the craftsmen “… to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver, and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of craftsmanship.”

In fact, this is true for all of us. What are you “good” at? And why? You might say, “because I took lessons” or “that’s what I went to school for.” On the surface, that may sound like an adequate explanation. But I think we all know it goes much deeper than that. Why did you “take lessons” to start with? Why did you go to school for “that?” Is it not true most of the time there was already some obvious inclination in that direction?

I think about the girl who is always “doing” the other girls’ hair, who then becomes a beautician and a very good one at that. I think of the boy who loves tools and “fixing things” and becomes a mechanic and a good one at that. My wife has always been an amazing musician, but watching my son “learn” piano from her was even more amazing. My oldest daughter took sewing lessons probably starting around 5 or 6 years old and almost instantly became an amazing seamstress. My youngest daughter wanted to take dance and before long was actually doing ballet!

We’re all “good” at some things. Sometimes they turn into entire careers and sometimes they’re just skills to bless other people or hobbies. But why is that? Why do we find we’re “good” at some things? Daniel would tell us it all comes from God. “Every good and perfect gift …”

I have noticed over the years, when someone is working at whatever it is they’re “good” at, it seems to me they don’t even have to “learn” it. It’s as if they “realize” it. It’s like music. All of us can take lessons. If we grind through our lessons and do it over and over and over, eventually most of us will “get” it. But I’ve watched Joan and Daniel. There’s very little of the “grinding through it.” It’s as if, as they look at the sheet music or whatever, it just “happens.” Compared to the rest of us, it “comes easy” to them. And I think that is true of all of us – we all know in our hearts that, when it comes to whatever we’re “good” at, we don’t really have to “learn” it. There’s something already there inside of us, something that just needs a little coaxing and suddenly it’s ours forever.

For myself, school always came “easy.”  Math and science always came very easily to me, and so upon High School graduation, I entered Purdue’s school of Engineering. Right away I discovered two things – first of all that the course work was unbelievably hard, far beyond my wildest imagination, but second of all, that no matter how difficult it was, I could do it – and enjoyed doing it too. And it has been that way my whole career. I have been faced with what other people thought were impossible situations and yet, I figured them out. I have to say without any doubt, in every one of those situations, it was very clear to me that it was God who gave me the insight. It’s not that I’m a “smart guy.” Yes, I can learn material, take tests, get good grades, and all the rest. But there is something much deeper than that going on inside of me that allows me to figure out things no one else seems able to.

Another thing I’d like to say from my own career is that not only has it been obvious to me that my “success” came from God, but I also owe it to other people who are “good” at what they do. In every one of my “successes” there have been other people who contributed their gifts and abilities. I am very proud to say, as I look back, “They couldn’t have done it without me,” but it is equally true, I couldn’t have done it without them.

It is a wonderful thing, I think, to realize that God has gifted all of us to do many different things and that we can come together, contribute those gifts, and do what are often amazing things. And I particularly want to point out this happens at work. Too much church teaching about giftedness ends up applied only to “church” ministries. But people live their lives at work and their God-given giftedness is just as important there.

No matter what we’re “good” at or what successes we may enjoy, we can say with Daniel,

He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. He reveals deep and hidden things; He knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with Him. I thank and praise you, God of my fathers: You have given me wisdom and power …”

You have given me …

Daniel 1:15, 16 – “What a Day Will Bring”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹⁵And from the end of ten days their appearance was seen good and fatter of flesh from the all of the children eating the food of the king, ¹⁶and the overseer was lifting their food and the wine of their drinks and giving to them vegetables.

For those of us living in the real world, I think it good to pause and remember that, at the end of v14, the boys did not know what the outcome would be. At the end of v14, the overseer has agreed to Daniel’s “test.” When Daniel first pondered the problem, it was just that – a problem. Day after day after day, Daniel and his friends were waking up not knowing what the day would bring. This has been true ever since Nebuchadnezzar’s army showed up to besiege Jerusalem. When the city gates were opened and the Babylonians entered, no one could know what it would mean. And when Daniel and his friends were “selected,” they were suddenly torn away from their families and their homes and their people and found themselves on a long journey to a far away and foreign city.

Every day they woke up not knowing what that day would bring. Then Daniel finds himself and his friends in this quandary -- for whatever reason, they think it will be “wrong” for them to accept the king’s food and drink. Daniel first went to the chief with his concern but got a “no” for an answer. At that point, he had to be wondering (and praying), “What should I do?” He then came up with the idea of the ten day test and went to the overseer. As he went to him, he had no idea if the man would agree to it or perhaps have him horse-whipped for even asking. Yet he went. As we see in v14, the man agreed to the test and they started on it, but for the entire ten days, they did not know what the outcome would be.

Finally, the day comes. Daniel and his friends went to bed the night before and wake up in the morning, not knowing what the outcome will be. The overseer does his inspection. What will be his decision?

In this case, he decides in their favor. All their worst fears come to nothing. In fact, not only do they look no different, they actually look better than the other boys. Had they simply looked “the same,” no doubt the overseer might have continued the test but with a constantly wary eye. As it was, they actually looked better, so he concludes the matter decisively – that they officially should be fed their diet of vegetables and water.

And so this trial ends and ends positively.

Sometimes they do.

And sometimes they don’t.

Or so it seems.

Next thing they know, Daniel’s friends are getting thrown into a furnace. Not the “positive” result they were hoping for. Years later, an elderly Daniel will get thrown into a lion’s den. Definitely another undesirable outcome. This time it “worked.” Sometimes it doesn’t. You never know when you get up in the morning what a day will bring.

So what do you do?

Get up.

Walk out into God’s world.

And live your life.

In this case and even in the case of the furnace and lion’s den, what did they find?

God was in it.

For Daniel, He’s been “in it” ever since king Josiah died and evil Jehoiakim took the throne. He’s been “in it” ever since Nebuchadnezzar’s army surrounded the city. And He’s still “in it” in the passage before us. And He’ll still be “in it” the day they face the furnace and the day Daniel faces the lion’s den. And He’s still “in it” in your life and mine 2500 years later.

“Be still and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10).

What a blessed freedom we enjoy. I want to go out into my world today and try to work hard. I want to be faithful, to do what I should. I want to somehow live a life of love toward all the people I meet and especially toward all the people who are depending on me in a million different ways.

But I don’t know what a day will bring.

I find myself sitting here at 7:00 AM and as I would mentally survey my world, it is filled with possible fearful outcomes. My imagination can see how some things could go really badly. And the truth is, in most of those cases, there is little I can do about it. I don’t know. I don’t know what this day will bring – or the next, or the next, or the next.

So what should I do?

“Be still and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10).

Walk up to the plow. Take it in hand. Say “getti-up” to the horse and head down the row.

God will be in it.

Be faithful.

Love.

Do your best.

And God will be in it.

Here we go.

Daniel 1:11-14 – “Sweet Spirits”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹¹And Daniel said to the overseer whom the chief of the court officials had appointed upon Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, ¹²“Test, please, your servants [for] ten days and give to us from vegetables and we will eat and water we will drink. ¹³And let be seen to your face our appearance and the appearance of the children eating the food of the king and according as you see, do with your servants, ¹⁴and he listened to them to this matter and he tested them [for] ten days.

An enormous amount of ink has been spilt commenting on these verses, so I’m reluctant to say anything and add to the cacophony. But, since it’s my blog, there is one thing I think worth noting and that is Daniel’s gracious respectfulness with which he conducts himself.

First of all, we don’t really know why, having been refused by the chief, Daniel resorts to the boys’ immediate overseer. The only thing we know, at least from what is recorded, is that Daniel did not become belligerent. He simply retreated, regrouped and tried again by a different route.

The next place we see his respectfulness is even how he addressed the overseer. I translated his opening words, “Test, please, your servants …” That is as close as I can get in English to what he actually said (as recorded in Hebrew – who knows what language he spoke in actually?). The word I translated “please” is the Hebrew particle “nah,” which actually has no English translation. It is a word a Hebrew subordinate would inject when speaking with a superior, acknowledging his proper place. The closest thing I know of to explain it is how in America, when a subordinate is conversing with a superior, we will give our head a little bob, a sort of hint at bowing to them, to show respect. (Maybe I’m dating myself – I don’t know if anyone does that anymore, but I certainly learned to in my childhood, and I’m just old-fashioned enough to still think it is proper.) At any rate, the “please” is as close as I can come in a translation, but I hope anyone reading this can see that the Hebrew word picture is saying much more. Daniel is not being “militant.” He is not “asserting” himself. He is not “in anyone’s face.” He rather is very politely and respectfully placing his case before a superior who has the authority to grant his request.

Another thing to admire is the fact that Daniel didn’t present it as an ultimatum. He presents it as a test, and only a ten day test at that. The king himself won’t be seeing these boys for three years! Ten days is a very, very gracious offer. I would even suggest the idea must have been either a result of divine revelation to Daniel or enormous faith, because the truth is, good diet or bad, you wouldn’t expect any significant difference to show up in ten days. Maybe a month? Three months? But ten days??? That’s very gracious because it realistically isn’t putting anyone in danger (except the boys).

It is then also interesting that Daniel proposes to leave the conclusion up to the overseer. “Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see.” One has to wonder what Daniel would have done at the end of the ten days, had the overseer refused their request. Would it have then been off to the fiery furnace or into the lions’ den? We don’t know. What we do know is that even this is an expression of respect – that Daniel proposes the test with the idea that the overseer will in fact have the “final say.”

I’ve probably spilt enough ink myself but I’ll conclude by saying I don’t think our modern Christian culture teaches anything like what Daniel is doing. For one thing, we don’t even mention people’s jobs from the pulpit, and churches certainly do nearly nothing to actually equip our people and prepare them to live their faith in their almost totally pagan work environments. The sum total of American evangelical teaching for Christians in the workplace is that we should all pass out tracts and start Bible studies over lunch. That’s it. Nothing about being hard workers. Nothing about being dependable, punctual, skillful, considerate, or humble. And I’m afraid rather the undercurrent promulgated is to be “militant” – which, in the workplace, translates into “arrogant,” and only further alienates our bosses and co-workers from the very  faith we think we’re trying to share.

For all the barrels of ink that have been spilt on this passage down through the centuries, it is a shame the modern church has learned little or nothing.

Rather than encouraging our people (and young people especially) to be “militant,” we ought to be teaching them that the very essence of a Christian is to be a person who accepts authority and lives respectfully even under those who may not deserve our respect. We are not belligerent and we’d rather (like Daniel) die respectfully than live in spiteful arrogance.

Daniel’s example ought to shine in the hearts of every single believer as we go to work, go to school, participate in sports, serve in our communities and in our churches – anywhere we find ourselves under the authority of others. We ought to be “adorning the doctrine of God our Savior in all things,” rather than giving unbelievers “a reason to blaspheme.”

God help me to be a Daniel and may Your Spirit move across our nation to give our people sweet spirits, no matter what they face.

Daniel 1:8-10 – “People Business”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁸And Daniel set upon his heart which he [would] not defile himself with the food of the king and with the wine of his drinking, and he sought from the chief of the court officials which not he [would] defile himself.  ⁹And God gave Daniel to favor and to the affections to the face of the chief of the court officials. ¹⁰And the chief of the court officials said to Daniel, “I [am] one fearing my master, the king, who has appointed your food and drink. Which to what he [should] see your faces [being] ones troubled from the young men which [are] as your circle and you (pl.) will make guilty my head to the king?

I think it is helpful at this point to stop and consider the “people business” we see in this passage. In other words, let’s stop and consider what is going on in the hearts and minds of the people involved and hope it is instructive to us.

We have already admired Daniel for his brave resolve. As I noted earlier, the Hebrew actually says literally that Daniel “set upon his heart” not to defile himself. It wasn’t that Daniel was suddenly faced with some youthful temptation and had to “quickly think it through.” He had already thought it through and made a decision in his own heart. Ah, the unassailable citadel of a human heart. The heart – that part of every person which no one else can control. I don’t doubt that Daniel’s parents were very good, godly people who prayed hard and strove to teach their son to be a man of integrity. But for all that prayer and teaching, one thing yet remained – for the young man himself to embrace that teaching. The world can rise and fall around us, it can threaten us, tempt us, hurt us, help us, flatter us, demean us, applaud us or condemn us – but for all of that, there remains this person within, the “me” who lives inside here, who thinks, evaluates, and decides what I will believe, what I will and won’t do and be. It’s the “me” who finds himself alone with God (if I acknowledge His presence). As a parent myself, I confess that this was and is the place of my deepest, deepest fear – the hearts of my children – because I knew all along it was the one part of them I could not control. I knew that, for all my prayers, for all my teaching, for all my tearful concerns, it was the one thing that had to happen before anything I’d ever done would make any difference – they themselves had to “set upon their hearts.” And there was nothing I could do to make it happen. It would be (and is) between them and God alone. Now I add to that my own grandchildren, along with all my nieces and nephews and their children, not to mention the swirl of work associates, neighbors, and church friends I know.

No one can command a heart but the person alone. If you have enough power you can make people say and do anything, but you can’t change their heart. Daniel “set upon his heart” and therein is the real reason for his success. If you read back through the kings of Judah and Israel you will often find it written, “So-and-so did evil in the eyes of the Lord because he prepared not his heart to seek the Lord,” then of others, “So-and-so did right in the eyes of the Lord because he had prepared his heart to seek the Lord.”

This is “people business” because it reminds us of the importance of other people’s hearts and the fact that we absolutely cannot control them. When we’re tempted to take up our verbal clubs and start beating other people into whatever it is we think they should do and believe, Daniel reminds us to just stop it. We need to win their hearts not bludgeon them into submission. The Islamic terrorists think they can tell people to convert or die, and then when the person “converts” they think they’ve won. The truth is that person hasn’t changed at all and first chance they get they’ll dart right back to what their own heart truly believes. You can change the outside, but you can’t change a heart. It is every human being’s unassailable citadel.

Then for ourselves, it reminds us that the all-important factor in our life is something no one else can control – our hearts. In that deep, dark place where I think and evaluate and decide, there is no one there but me and God. The person I am, the things I’ll think and do and be, are all a matter of how I “set upon my heart.” This is precisely why the Proverb admonishes us, “Above all else guard your heart, for out of it are the issues of life.”

The next people business I’d like to note is how “God had caused the official to show favor and sympathy to Daniel.” As many, many others have noted, there are actually two things going on here – one is that God Himself is putting it in the heart of the chief to “like” Daniel. The other is that Daniel’s behavior has everything to do with this favor. These same things happened with Joseph in Potiphar’s house and in the warden’s prison, to Nehemiah in Xerxes’ court, to Esther in the eyes of Ahasuerus, to David in Saul’s court and in Israel, and in later years to Daniel under Darius. In each case (and many others), the Lord brought these people into favor with their rulers, but, at the same time, you had people who were very hard workers, who were faithful and winsome.

On the one hand, that is hopeful to us believers – to remember that “the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord.” As we go out into our pagan worlds, we can be assured that God goes ahead of us and is actually causing even wicked people to favor us. He’s certainly done that for me all these years. Everywhere I’ve gone most people have “liked” me, in spite of the fact that I know in my own heart I’ve done nothing to deserve it. On the other hand, it reminds us that we do have a part to play. If you’re sincerely trying to be a decent, considerate person, you’re already miles down the road. If you are sincerely trying to do good work, you’re already miles down the road. “Do you see a man who is skillful in his work? He will stand before kings” (Prov 22:29). One of the most frustrating problems in life is to have people working for you but to know you cannot depend on them. On the other hand, what we all want is to have people under us like Joseph:

The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, ... When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph’s care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate.

I fear that too many Christian people totally don’t realize this. I’ve worked alongside too many professing Christians who frankly were lousy workers, who then can’t understand when their bosses don’t like them, and too often they write it off as “persecution” because they’re Christians. Christian or not, if you’re a lousy worker and a jerk, you shouldn’t be surprised when the world “doesn’t like you.” On the other hand, if, like Daniel (and Joseph and David and Esther and Nehemiah and …) you’ll just resolve to actually be what you should be, you can count on two things – there’s a good chance people will “like” you, and you’ll have the Lord Himself helping to make it happen.

We also can’t pass the opportunity to point out what our Daniel does, living in his pagan world, and being forced to do things against his conscience. He doesn’t jump up and shout “I’m not eating your dirty pagan food!” As a continuation of the last paragraph, Daniel continues to conduct himself in a winsome manner. Daniel is a living illustration of the old saying, “You’ll draw more flies with honey than with vinegar.”  We’ll visit this subject again in the next verse, but for now it is highly worth noting.

Finally, I’d like to note the chief himself. The man’s response is one of fear – which he readily admits: “I fear my master the king.” Should he? Duuuuuh, yes! Oriental kings are notorious murderers. Displease them in the slightest way and it’s “Off with his head!” Nebuchadnezzar is no exception – as Daniel’s friends will soon find out. This man has every reason to be very fearful. He has been charged by the king himself to take these Hebrew boys and make them into happy, healthy Babylonians. If he does anything less, he’ll face the king’s murderous rage.

Why do our bosses and co-workers do a lot of the things they do? Fear. Though today we generally don’t lop off people’s heads, we certainly fire them, demote them, consign them to the dirty jobs, the undesirable tasks. Do our bosses and co-workers have good reason to fear? Duuuuuh, yes. But in a pagan world, do they have a God to trust? Not that they know of. You and I get to coast along and, although we certainly have reason to fear too, yet we have that hope always that our God is in control. They don’t.

As we’ll see in the following verse, Daniel next went to the man below the chief. We don’t know if there was any more conversation between Daniel and the chief but obviously, whatever Daniel did, he did nothing to worsen the situation. Somehow he was sensitive to the chief’s fears and chose a further path that didn’t make the man angry.

I think there is a “people business” lesson for us here – to realize and to be sensitive to other people’s fears, especially in the work place. Again, you and I have a God to trust. They don’t. Whatever is going on, I would like to try to be more aware when the people around me are fearing and to do whatever I can to help them be assured. Even if I’m myself in one of those “draw the line” situations, I hope I’m not so self-consumed I can’t see how I’m affecting the people around me. God’s job is to run the universe. Our job is to love. Always. Even when I myself may be struggling with fear.

People business. It is our business. Love God, love people – that’s what we’re all about. Daniel is doing a really good job with the “people business” in his world. May we all be encouraged by his example. Daniel did well in his day. May we do well now that it’s our turn up to bat.

Daniel 1:8 – “Questions”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁸And Daniel set upon his heart which he [would] not defile himself with the food of the king and with the wine of his drinking, and he sought from the chief of the court officials which not he [would] defile himself.

In my last post, I admired Daniel’s integrity and noted how we live in the same world, where we sometimes have to make decisions and “draw lines.” I also noted that, at those times, others can question whether our “issues” are really that important. I even find as I think back over my life that I question my own decisions. Maybe it simply wasn’t “that important.” What matters for all of us is that, at the time, if we are convinced we must draw lines, then we simply must. And in the end it really doesn’t matter if others agree with us. It is our own integrity, our own relationship with God, which is at stake.

All that said, I would like to visit the “issues” involved in this passage and record some thoughts I have. In the end what I’ll probably propose is just a bunch of questions. But these are things I often wonder about as I study the Bible and try to live my life. After nearly 40 years of knowing the Lord and studying His Word, there are still some things that make no sense to me at all. I know, if I live long enough, the Lord will explain some of it to me, but for now I just want to record my questions.

My question really boils down to a Jewish person’s relationship to the Law when they’re living outside of Palestine. Notice how the Lord spoke in Deut 6:1: “These are the commands, decrees and laws the Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, …” Notice they were to observe them “in the land.” 12:1 is similar: “These are the decrees and laws you must be careful to follow in the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has given you to possess—as long as you live in the land.”

I could multiply examples of this throughout the Pentateuch. In fact, I would suggest the very nature of the Old Covenant required that the people be in Palestine. In Deut 12:4ff, the Lord told them, “You must not worship the Lord your God in their way. But you are to seek the place the Lord your God will choose from among all your tribes to put his Name there for his dwelling. To that place you must go; there bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, …”  The entire system of Jewish worship centered around Jerusalem. Three times a year, every Jewish male was to appear before the Lord at Jerusalem. What is my point? My point is that, in order to keep these commands, a Jewish person had to live in Palestine. What if they lived in Alaska or Australia? Today they could perhaps fly there, but at great expense. Certainly throughout history, travel to Jerusalem would be impossible except for those who lived very nearby. My point is that, when or if a Jewish person was to live their life far from Jerusalem, the fact is they simply could not “keep” the Law.

If I could belabor this point, it is also critical to understand that “the Land” is an integral part of the Law itself. Clear back in Genesis 12, what the Lord promised to Abraham were three things: 1) that He would be their God, and they would be His people; 2) that He would greatly multiply their numbers, and 3) that He would give to them the land of Palestine forever. For Abraham’s descendants it was always a bad decision to leave “the Land.” It was the worst judgment of all for the Lord to “spew them out of the land.” The very reason why Daniel is not “in the Land” is because the Lord has brought down judgment on the people. And what is their great hope? That this exile from “the Land” will only last 70 years. And then what will the Lord do? Send them back to “the Land.” My conclusion would be that, for Abraham’s descendants, being “in the Land” is a critical part of the Law itself.

The Mosaic Law is, in reality, a national Constitution. If one reads it carefully, you can’t help but realize it is actually a very complete system of government, of how a nation is to be run. It only “works” if you’re talking about the Jewish people living together in Palestine. Again, I am observing that the very essence of the Law, of the Old Covenant, of Jewish life required that the Jewish people be “in the Land.”

And that brings me back to my question: “What if they’re not?”

Daniel is not “in the Land.” He cannot keep the entire Law. He has no choice but to keep parts of it while not keeping others. But what is it to keep “parts” of the Law and not others? Is that not, by definition, to violate the Law? I’m suggesting that, for a Jewish person to live outside “the Land” is for him to be a law-breaker – unless the stipulations of the Law are only binding when that Jewish person is actually in Palestine. The hard, cold fact is that you simply cannot truly “keep” the Law unless you are actually in Palestine.

Where I’m going with all of this is to ask what would have “defiled” Daniel from the king’s food and wine? We could answer that the food might include unclean meat. But is it “unclean” if Daniel isn’t home in Palestine? Does the “clean/unclean” even matter outside of “the Land?” I’m seriously doubtful that it did. On the  other hand, would a young Jewish man have thought this all through long enough to realize these things? Not very likely. And so, perhaps, that is exactly what he was concerned about.

I wish I could talk to the old Daniel at the end of the book, and ask him if he still thought it had been that important. I strongly suspect he would say something like, “No. As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to realize those are not the important things in my relationship with God. I’ve learned that the kingdom of God is not about food and drink, but about things like faithfulness and kindness and love.” I think he would say at the time, he really did think it was important, and obviously the Lord knew his heart and honored his commitment, but looking back, it simply wasn’t one of those places where he really needed to “draw a line.”

I don’t know. I wish I did know. It’s one of those things I wonder about and never seem to come to any conclusion.

The whole discussion, on the other hand, is not far from your heart and mine. We’re not Jews and there is no insistence at all that we all move to Israel. But we are followers of the Lamb living in an almost totally pagan world. Though we do not have “the Law” bearing down on us, we still have our desire to live lives that are pleasing to our wonderful Lord. And that means, we too have to think through and make decisions about what we will and won’t do. Jesus actually wants us to be “in the world” though not “of it.” He does want us to be in it.  He wants us to go to work. He wants us to live in neighborhoods and buy groceries and mow our grass and go to our daughter’s dance recitals. He wants his people to be “in the world.” But somehow we can’t be “of it,” and that puts us in exactly the same place as Daniel – making decisions how to strike that balance.

So, in the end, I’m still wondering if Daniel needed to draw the line about the king’s food and drink. But then on the other hand, even the question itself is practically instructive to us. It teaches us to expect that, living in a pagan world, we will have to make decisions, that sometimes those decisions may not be as crystal clear as we wish they were, that we simply have to stick to our convictions at the time, that the Lord knows our heart and will probably honor even our immature decisions, that others may question whether it is really “that big a deal,” that we ourselves may later on question whether it was really “that big a deal,” and it’s all simply a part of being a believer, living in a pagan world. It’s part of being “in the world but not of it.”

And may I add one last thought – perhaps if we really realized this and understood it, maybe we wouldn’t be so hard on our fellow believers. They may make decisions that we deem “overly scrupulous and unnecessary,” or we may conclude they’ve “gone liberal!” Maybe we ought to realize it is a difficult quest to sort out exactly where we need to draw our line. And maybe we should let them make their decisions, value them as fellow believers, and then get on with the challenging task of living our own lives in a pagan world?

Lots of questions.

But I suspect Daniel teaches us that’s not all bad. It’s just part of it.