February 18, 2022
Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.
Reading along with us in Isaiah? Here’s today’s reading:
Isaiah 23 (NIV)
A Prophecy Against Tyre
1 A prophecy against Tyre:
Wail, you ships of Tarshish!
For Tyre is destroyed
and left without house or harbor.
From the land of Cyprus
word has come to them.
2 Be silent, you people of the island
and you merchants of Sidon,
Isaiah 23
I read that because it was such an important harbor and center for shipping, Tyre was synonymous with commerce and materialism. This made me think of how important our “stuff” can be and how much we put it before the things of God.
What we consider ours that really has just been given us from God. We are less likely to give back to God in tithes or helping those in need because we feel we must use our resources for things we “need” things that are in reality “wants”. Tyre is our example of putting aside our pride and our stuff and remembering we are simply stewards of what God has entrusted to us.
Tyre and Sidon were both major cities in the nation of Phoenicia. On the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, they were ship building peoples and know for commerce, trade and wealth. Wealth is often associated with evil as many evil endeavors are attracted to it. Wealth also brings power so one would wonder who orchestrated Tyre and Sidon’s demise? Who brought down it’s wealth and the pride associated with it? In this chapter that prophesies Tyre’s destruction, God makes clear that it is He who orchestrated it. He is not opposed to wealth per se, but He is opposed to wealth and prosperity that promotes evil and independence from Him. We in America have a lot to learn from passages like this as we consider how much material things mean to us and how much they control our hearts. As the end of the chapter shows, wealth that honors God is ok in God’s economy, we just need to make sure that wealth doesn’t become an idol and take us away from God and cause us to pursue things that are about our glory and not His.
The downfall of the very materially prosperous Tyre and Sidon.
I was thinking just as Pastor said, that we as Americans should heed what is spoken here. I have been thinking lately about self-reliance and how material/financial security is often translated in my mind as personal, physical security. I fear the possibility of lack, but then I remind myself in Whom I should be trusting, I have been in this place before in our financial situation, where I have said to myself, “well, whether we have a 9-5 job, or self-employed, or no employment at all, ultimately our reliance is….should be, on God and God alone.”