{"id":5781,"date":"2014-09-08T00:05:04","date_gmt":"2014-09-08T07:05:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=5781"},"modified":"2014-09-07T15:24:53","modified_gmt":"2014-09-07T22:24:53","slug":"5781","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2014\/09\/08\/5781\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Because of the violence you did
\nto your close relatives in Israel,
\nyou will be filled with shame
\nand destroyed forever.
\nWhen they were invaded,
\nyou stood aloof, refusing to help them.
\nForeign invaders carried off their wealth
\nand cast lots to divide up Jerusalem,
\nbut you acted like one of Israel\u2019s enemies.
\n\u201cYou should not have gloated
\nwhen they exiled your relatives to distant lands.
\nYou should not have rejoiced
\nwhen the people of Judah suffered such misfortune.
\nYou should not have spoken arrogantly
\nin that terrible time of trouble.
\nYou should not have plundered the land of Israel
\nwhen they were suffering such calamity.
\nYou should not have gloated over their destruction
\nwhen they were suffering such calamity.
\nYou should not have seized their wealth
\nwhen they were suffering such calamity.
\nYou should not have stood at the crossroads,
\nkilling those who tried to escape.
\nYou should not have captured the survivors
\nand handed them over in their terrible time of trouble. (Obadiah 1:10-14)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Love your neighbor even if he\u2019s your enemy. We\u2019d like to rejoice when bad things happen to our enemies, but God loved us when we were his. He expects us to be like him. Schadenfreude is an uncomfortable German word that has come into English; it is used for the feeling of pleasure we have when something bad happens to someone else, especially if we think they deserved it. But God tells us we shouldn\u2019t rejoice when our enemy stumbles and so he criticized the people of Edom for how they reacted to Israel\u2019s punishment. <\/p>\n

The Edomites were descendents of Esau, the hairy brother of Jacob whom he had deceived and from whom he\u2019d stolen the birthright. King Herod, the king of Judea when Jesus was born, was an Edomite. The prophet Obadiah brought a message of judgment against these Edomites for how they had acted when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem: they had rejoiced and taken part, grabbing some of the plunder for themselves. God condemned their attitude and their behavior and promised that they would suffer his wrath as a consequence, in keeping with God\u2019s promise to Abraham: those who blessed him would be blessed and those who cursed would be cursed. Although Esau\u2014and the Edomites\u2014were descended from Abraham, they were not in the line of promise: that had gone to Jacob and his descendents. Jacob may have stolen the birthright, but it was supposed to be his all along, anyhow.<\/p>\n

God expects us to love our neighbors, even those neighbors who hate us. When our neighbor is in trouble, we\u2019re supposed to help him, whether he\u2019s a nice guy or not. True love is not dependent upon the worthiness of the one who needs love.<\/p>\n

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Because of the violence you did to your close relatives in Israel, you will be filled with shame and destroyed forever. When they were invaded, you stood aloof, refusing to help them. Foreign invaders carried off their wealth and cast … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5781"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5781"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5783,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5781\/revisions\/5783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}