Preaching Daniel at Harderwyk - Daniel 1 - Sunday, Sept 20

 Our collaboration on Daniel has been really rich, so I'm taking an idea we have talked about for a while and will try and massage it into a workable form that we can sustain week by week.  I'm hoping to collect material from each Harderwyk preacher that was really interesting in our preparation, but that we either decided not to use or want to more clearly reference, and then put it into a weekly blog post.  Sort of like picking up pieces of a film from the cutting room floor.

Use the comment section to tell me what you think and guide our future development of these resources.

 Babylon wants to change our names

• Daniel (God is my Judge) to Belteshazzar (Protect the life of the King)
• Hananiah (the Lord is Gracious) to Shadrach (Command of Aku, the Moon God)
• Mishael (who is what God is?) to Meshach (who is what Aku is?)
• Azariah (the Lord is Helper) to Abednego (servant of Nabu/Nebo)

From Pastor Aaron at Watershed - Daniel (Reformed Expository Commentary) by Iain Duguid

"There is one final note that we must not miss in all of this. The reality for most of us is that when we look at our lives, we find we are not like Daniel and his three friends. We are far more like the nameless multitude who were deported along with Daniel, who adopted foreign names, ate the king’s food, and altogether became like the Babylonians. In many respects, we are assimilated to the world system in which we live, and our futures are mortgaged to it. So if the message of this book is simply “Be like Daniel and all will be well,” then we might as well stop reading now. The more we get to know Daniel, the more we come to realize that we are not Daniels. 

The good news of the gospel, however, is not simply that God is faithful to those who are faithful to him. It is that a Savior has come to deliver faithless and compromised saints like us. Our salvation rests not on our ability to remain undefiled by the world, but rather on the pure and undefiled offering that Jesus has provided in our place." (p. 16)

 From Pastor JB Wernlund - guest at Fusion: Strange Days: Life in the Spirit in a Time of Upheaval by Mark Sayers

"We have all experienced this phenomenon, ducking into the store to grab a handful of groceries but emerging with a new pair of sneakers or an electronic gadget.  This phenomenon does more than simply make us buy items we do not need; it creates a kind of person, one docile and easily manipulated, individualistic and confused about their identity, thus looking for products and experiences that will fulfill our desires for meaning and identity.  As psychologist Dan Ariely writes, 'The world is not acting in our long-term benefit.  Imagine you walk down the street and every store is trying to get your money right now; in your pocket you have a phone, and every app wants to control your attention right now.  Most of the entities in our lives really want us to make mistakes in their favor.  So the world is making things very, very difficult.'  (p. 67)

 "Melancholic, anxious, and pining for the warmer days of the past, churches, Christian organizations, and believers can find themselves retreating from their God-given mandate, forgetting their prime place in Christ's mission to win the world.  Instead of providing a shining alternative light to the anxiety and despair of the surrounding culture, we can simply be a mirror reflecting its worries.  For when we look at the world through a biblical lens, we see God's relentless love for humanity, HIs victory over sin and the powers, His desire to move beyond borders, and His gospel spreading to the ends of the earth."  (p. 117)

From Pastor  Bill at Celebration

One of the background issues in Daniel 1 is "How in the world do you raise children like Daniel when you are living in Babylon?!?"  Real question, with no easy answer as best I can tell.  Still, I'll share with you two resources that helped me wrestle with that question:

Pandemic Parenting - Podcast by Dr. Leonard Sax - CLICK HERE
A practicing pediatrician and PhD Research Psychologist that I have followed for years, I find Dr. Sax to be well-researched, to the point, and often, quite humorous.

Condemning "Cuties" Should Be Noncontroversial - Blog by Brett McCracken - CLICK HERE
A Gospel Coalition post that helped me think through a controversial Netflix offering without having to watch what I abhor.  I agree with Rachael Denhollander “One can’t protest sexualizing children by . . . sexualizing them.”

Daniel (Reformed Expository Commentary) by Iain Duguid
The issue here was not simply that the Babylonian food was not kosher—that is, prepared according to the Jewish dietary laws. Nor was the issue that the meat and wine had first been offered to Babylonian idols, for that would have been the case with the vegetables as well.7 If there had been something intrinsically evil about the Babylonian food, then Daniel would have had to abstain permanently from royal meat and wine, which does not seem to have been the case (see Dan. 10:3). The key to understanding why the four young men abstained from the royal food and wine is noticing that instead they chose to eat only those things that grow naturally—grains and vegetables—and to drink only naturally occurring water (1:12). This suggests that the goal of this simple lifestyle was to be constantly reminded of their dependence upon their creator God for their food, not King Nebuchadnezzar.8 Dependence on Nebuchadnezzar’s rich food would have been defiling because it would have repeated in their own lives the sin of King Hezekiah that brought this judgment upon God’s people in the first place (see 2 Kings 20:17). (p. 13)