Over the last two days we’ve read the story of King Belshazzar’s feast, a defiant rallying of the troops in the face of a looming Persian invasion – and a brazen slap in the face to Israel’s God, using the temple cups in drunken worship of his idols. So God writes some graffiti on the… Continue reading Daniel 5 – Part Three-and-a-half

Yesterday, we saw how King Belshazzar gave a banquet, probably as a rallying-cry to war, with the Persians approaching the gates of the city. During the banquet, he deliberately brought out the gold and silver cups stolen from the temple in Jerusalem by one of his predecessors, Nebuchadnezzar, as a way of reminding the faithful… Continue reading Daniel 5 – Part Two (Fresh pants, please)

Welcome back to our Daniel series. Today, we begin a three-part look at chapter 5:  Belshazzar’s Feast. Daniel 5:1-4 King Belshazzar gave a great banquet for a thousand of his nobles and drank wine with them. While Belshazzar was drinking his wine, he gave orders to bring in the gold and silver goblets that Nebuchadnezzar… Continue reading Daniel 5 – Part One (Belshazzar’s Feast)

Yesterday, we read most of the way through the story of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream (Daniel 4:1-33). The king dreamed of a tree – the symbol of created order, given by the gods and maintained by the king. (In other words, he dreamed of himself.) But the tree was cut down, sent mad, and forced to live like… Continue reading Daniel 4 – Part Two

Continuing in our series in Daniel, we begin a two-part look at chapter 4: the story of King Nebuchadnezzar, and his dream about a tree. Today, we’ll mostly just read the story (with a little bit of comment). It’s a long one, but we need the whole story before we can think about what we… Continue reading Daniel 4 – Part One

Yesterday, we started the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego – three faithful Jews who defied King Nebuchadnezzar’s order to bow down before a 90-foot-tall golden statue whenever they heard (memory test: can you name all the instruments?). We ended with their expression of loyalty to God – whether he ended up rescuing them or… Continue reading Daniel 3 – Part Two (Hot enough for you?)

In chapter 2, we saw how Daniel’s interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream led to the king acknowledging Daniel’s God as “the God of gods and the Lord of kings” (2:47). But it seems the king isn’t quite ready to act like that’s the case. As in the very next chapter, we read this: Daniel 3:1 King Nebuchadnezzar made… Continue reading Daniel 3 – Part One (Idol Threats)

Last week we looked at the story of Daniel miraculously recounting and then interpreting Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, and how it portrayed him as a “new and improved” Joseph. It gave a model (for second century Jews, and for us) of how to relate to a secular culture in a way that doesn’t sell out to its… Continue reading Daniel 2 – Part Three (Paper, Scissors, Rock)