Micah 6:1-7:20; II Corinthians 11:1-15

Thought from Today’s Old Testament Passage: [Micah 6:6-8] Two different and opposing kinds of false claims are made about this text. Some readers see the text refuting all external, ceremonial religion in favor of a totally internalized faith response to God. Others, reacting against more conservative theologies of the atonement, argue that essential religious acts focus solely on issues of justice, mercy and humility; all else is beyond what even God expects of the most devout. Unfortunately, both positions are extremes that fail to grasp the prophet Micah’s point…. Three items are mentioned: justice, mercy and humility before God. The norm of justice had been set by the character and person of the Living God, not by human standards. God’s norm of justice, announced in his law, demanded perfect righteousness available only by faith in the God who had promised to send the seed of promise. Mercy, the second demand, should be patterned after God’s mercy as defined in his Word—an unselfish love toward God and one’s neighbor. The third was a call for the people to remember that any good found in them was due to the Lord’s enabling. Those claiming the Lord as their God were to prove it by a godly lifestyle. Pride was the antithesis of what is required here: faith. To walk humbly was to live by faith. Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., Hard Sayings of the Old Testament (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988), pp. 226-227.