Today, I am reading and commenting on  Ezekiel 1-4.

Whenever I read Ezekiel’s descriptions of the living creatures in his visions I wish I had the artistic talent to draw out what those words describe.  It always feels to me like I am missing something significant because my mental picture is incomplete.  On the other hand, another part of my wonders if perhaps we make too much of the vision, that perhaps it was just intended to convey the glory, and majesty, of God as He called Ezekiel to his mission.  In any case, I do not want to get too caught up in the description of the four living creatures because the actual message of Ezekiel’s calling is worth our full attention.

I want to consider three elements of Ezekiel’s calling.  God gives Ezekiel a scroll which He tells him to eat, then to go speak to the people of Israel.   To use a modern idiom, God was telling Ezekiel to internalize His message before speaking to the people of Israel.  When God gives us a message for people, our first step should be to “eat” that message and make it part of us.  Before we preach God’s word to others we should live by it ourselves.

That first element (first in my relating, not in the passage itself) I believe applies to everyone who follows God.  The next two elements of Ezekiel’s call do not.  God called Ezekiel to speak His words to the people of Israel, not to people who spoke a different language from him, or lived in a far away land.  However, because those people spoke the same language as he did, they would be stubborn and refuse to truly listen to what he had to say.  So, God would make Ezekiel just as stubborn and hard-headed as they.  We often think that being called to go to a foreign land as a missionary is the more difficult calling, but this passage suggests that may not be true.  If we find ourselves with a ministry to the members of the society in which we were born, we must be prepared to be stubborn and obstinate..  And wherever we are called to minister, we must not allow the disapproval of those around us to silence us when God tells us to speak. If God gives us a message telling sinners of their sin, we dare not keep silent.  If we do not speak the message which God gives us, their blood will be on our hands.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.