Josiah found the book of the Law, God’s Word as embodied in the Torah. When he first saw it and what it contained. he repented of the evil he and the nation had done. Yet he consulted a prophet of the Lord, a woman named Huldah, to confirm what he had read. This shows us that although the word of the Lord is written in languages so that almost everyone can read it, there is always an inherent inability to understand and interpret it because those of us who live in the 21st century are unfamiliar with the cultural context of Bible times. Thus we need the agency of the Holy Spirit working through those He has chosen, working through the church itself to correctly interpret what we read.
The amazing thing about Josiah was that he launched sweeping reforms even though he knew that whatever he did would not change the determined judgment of the Lord. He undertook reform not because it would assuage God’s wrath, but because it was the right thing to do. He acted with righteousness even though he derived no benefit from doing so.
Many people today would not do as he did if they knew it would have no benefit to them personally. Many people today want to know what the advantages of Christianity are before they will believe. What’s in it for me? Will it heal my illness? Will it make me happy? Will it make me prosperous and rich? And many churches, preachers and individual Christians go out to their way to accommodate them to make Christianity more palatable. Yet the message of Josiah is that we should do the right thing because it honors God, no matter what the cost to us.
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