“Thoughts and Prayers”

Here is what people are doing when they offer up prayers after a tragedy.

1)     INDIRECT HELP: Many people are at a disadvantage in terms of distances and resources to have direct impact on events they hear about. With rapid communication across the globe, tragedies are not just what you hear about instantly in your town but what happens on the other side of the world that 20 years ago would make a brief article in a national newspaper a week later. People hear about, are concerned, want to help, are at a loss to directly help, and, instead, rightly communicate to the creator of the universe to instruct those who can directly help.

2)     DIRECT HELP: Many people have the advantage of distance and resources and can have direct impact on tragic events. When they are offering up prayers, they are asking the creator of the universe – the source of all knowledge and wisdom – how best to engage. How should they help? Where should they help? What resources are necessary? That’s how prayer works. It’s communication with God to address a problem and seek a solution.

Exile, Forgiveness of Sins, and Its Cosmic Impact

Exile was the curse that the covenant stipulated for sin (Deut 29). There’s evidence that the exile continued after the return from Babylon (Ezra 9:7; Neh 9:36-37; Deut 30). If the Jews were still under the curse of the exile, then it must be because God had not yet fully forgiven the sins that led to that exile. In Daniel 9:24-25, the seventy years exile mentioned by Jeremiah (Jer 25:11f; 29:10; Zech 1:12; 2 Chron 36:20f; Ezra 1:1) is reinterpreted to mean “seventy weeks of years” or 490 years. It is after this symbolic duration that sin will be defeated, atonement made, righteousness will come, & forgiveness granted. Jesus picks up on Daniel 9 in Matthew 18:21-35 where he connects forgiveness of sins with 70x7. So Jesus ties “forgiveness of sins” with ending exile. How did this have cosmic impact? The Hebrews believed that because the one creator God of the cosmos had elected Israel as his special possession (Deut 32) that whatever happened in and to Israel had universal impact for the cosmos. It was also believed that the King/Christ/Messiah summed up and represented the entirety of his people Israel. Therefore, what happened to Christ happened to Israel happened to the entire cosmos.