Journal: Puritan Reformed Journal
Volume: PRJ 05:2 (Jul 2013)
Article: The Message Of Obadiah: It’s Going To Be Okay
Author: Michael P. V. Barrett

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PRJ 5:2 (July 2013) p. 15

The Message Of Obadiah:
It’s Going To Be Okay

Michael P. V. Barrett

How goes the world? Answering that question can be discouraging. Everything seems to be upside down. Evil is considered good; good is considered evil. Truth has fallen in the street and is trampled by academic processions, political machinery, and populous parades. It seems that Christianity is an ever-shrinking minority with even less influence than numbers. Who is in control? How can these things be? Some Christians find ready answers in and seem to thrive on conspiracy theories: every global, domestic, or financial crisis is orchestrated by some secretive few who rule absolutely yet surreptitiously from some secluded throne or conference room. Others console themselves in a “last-day” theology that generates a fatalistic passivism counter to biblical faith. I confess that I do not know why things are the way they are and often wish that they were different. But I have to believe the Bible is true and that there is a throne secluded from natural sight that governs absolutely with an agenda for Self-glory and salvific good: God’s throne.

Obadiah, “the servant of the LORD,” was a prophet with a message of encouragement at a time when things were not going so well for the chosen nation. God had loved Jacob and hated Esau (Mal. 1:2-3), yet it appeared that Esau had the advantage. What started as a struggle in Rebekah’s womb escalated to deep-seated antagonism between the descendants of the twins, Israel and Edom. Although Edom never had the power to be a real threat to Israel’s national security, its hatred of Israel earned it the role of Israel’s “number-one” enemy and the biblical representative of all the nations of the world that oppose God and His people.

Even conservative scholars disagree about the date of Obadiah’s prophecy. Some date it to the mid-ninth century BC, making Obadiah

PRJ 5:2 (July 2013) p. 16

the first of the writing prophets. The Edomite revolt along with the Philistine and Arabian conspiracy that occurred during the reign of Jehoram is probably the historical occasion (2 Chron. 21:5-17). That would be my view. Others, however, date it to the exilic period, most likely sometime in the sixth century. But either way, it is an ancient message. Yet Obadiah’s message of the doom of Edom has significant relevance for God’s people in every age. Although many of the details of the prophecy have been historically fulfilled and some await their eschatological climax, there is a message of reality that cannot be relegated to either the past or future. The message is timeless. I want to summarize Obadiah’s visi...

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