by Randy Vaughan

Created on: April 29, 2008

Asking what someone's favorite passage is can be tricky. It's very much like asking what is your favorite movie, or book, without allowing one to consider the "genre". Or maybe more like asking which of your three children you like the best. I have all sorts of "favorite" passages, but each seems to "fit" for a different reason. But be that as it may, I never find myself far away from:

2 Chronicles 32:31-Howbeit in the business of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, who sent unto him to inquire of the wonder that was done in the land, God left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart. (speaking of Hezekiah)

On the surface, this easily becomes ammunition for those who love to point out alleged contradictions in the Bible. I mean when compared with passages such as "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee," you can see why people insist the Bible contradicts itself. The irony, of course, is that we accept all sorts of contradictions in our daily lives but for reasons that escape me, it has been decided that the Bible should be free from such realities. Foolish people and their foolish ideas.

The context, of course, is both clear and simple enough. Hezekiah was King and the "princes of Babylon" were coming to "inquire of the wonder that done in the land". The next part fits in with my previous comment about so-called contradictions, meaning only that the charge can be made that here we have an instance of an alleged all-knowing God putting a man to a "test" in order that he, God, might learn something about the man.

Now forgetting the point of view of those who use such arguments to disprove the validity and applicability of lessons found in the Bible, it is true that right here is where Christians themselves begin to part company. Some would suggest that because of "free will" it is possible, if not probable, that God really didn't know what to expect from Hezekiah, and so forth.

I'm of the conviction, simply because of my own experiences, that God "left" Hezekiah not so He, God, could or would learn anything about Hezekiah, but rather that Hezekiah would learn something about himself. In other words, it's safe to conclude that up to this point Hezekiah had enjoyed a very profound and personal relationship with the presence of God. And that presence was now about to removed. He was now facing a future without the presence of God in his life and he would be left therefore to quite literally "prove what was in his heart". Would he take all

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next Page >>