T-56: Forced Influences

As Christians, we are called to be set apart for service to the King. Our service though does not involve our being cloistered in a walled compound where we would be free from worldly influences. To the contrary, our calling is to walk in the world but to lead a life the is not of the world. In that, we are called to be countercultural rebels who persistently resist the sensual indulgences of the world.

In our text today, Daniel 1:5, we see a process of indoctrination being foisted upon a group of obedient Jewish children. Let’s consider the text… Daniel 1:5 (NIV)
5 The king assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the king’s table. They were to be trained for three years, and after that they were to enter the king’s service.
[1]

Being selected to serve in the courts of the king was no small matter. In fact, it would be considered an honor to be selected for such duty and a testimony to the physical, mental and spiritual qualities of those so appointed. A slave such as these might consider this a great and wonderful alternative when compared to the other capacities in which slaves served their masters in Babylon. But as much of an honor as such an appointment would be, it was equally a difficult trial.

On first reading, you might be inclined to think that the king is acting in an altruistic manner; by sharing his own food, he is making certain that those who eat of it are kept in the best health. While that may be one component of that situation, there is another more insidious purpose. The setting apart for service to the king, the place at the king’s table, the portions of the king’s food, the cup of the king’s wine, the three years of teaching and training; these are all elements of a process of indoctrination, the purpose of which was to change godly Jewish boys into idolatrous Babylonians. To be sure, the food would taste delicious and the wine would be the best available. Learning a new language and the history of a people, these would be easy for these boys for indeed, they were gifted and blessed by the God to whom they were devoted. But the purpose of the process is to strip them of the very things that set them apart, their very Jewishness and to render them as Babylonians.

You see, the problem with the food and the wine was not so much the food itself. Certainly there would be food on the table which any self-respecting Jew would eschew. The Jews had a very strict diet not as to what they could eat but the rules of preparation were equally restrictive. To eat of the unclean food or food that had not been prepared according to the laws as handed down by their forefathers would render them immediately and ceremoniously unclean. A logical man would argue that these boys then should eat only of those things that were in keeping with God’s commandments and that in so doing, they would not defile themselves.

But… even if the food were prepared according to strict guidelines and even if the food were of suitable quality, it would have been rendered unfit for consumption by any god-fearing Jew. Not because of the food itself for the real problem is that the food and the wine had been offered as sacrifices to idols. For only the food fit for the Babylonian gods would be fit for the Babylonian king. So the food, having been offered in sacrifice to false gods would be unfit for consumption.

There are many that would argue that these boys had no choice in the matter; that they had been handed over to the Babylonians by God and that God himself and placed the Babylonian king upon the throne. As such, the boys should accede to his authority, setting aside their standards and receive what he has offered. Others might posit that the boys had no individual choice and they should compromise as necessary to ensure their own survival.

By this point, the similarities between what these Jewish boys faced and what the early church faced and indeed what we face today should be glaringly obvious. These boys were set apart for service not to an earthly king but to God. They found themselves in an alien culture surrounded on every side by sin and perversity. Within that culture they were separated for special honor. But with that honor came a price; a requirement for compromise.

We live in such a culture today. We, as Christians, have been set apart for serve to God. Our culture bombards us from every side with temptations for sensual indulgences and worldly thinking. We may find ourselves on the ‘fast track’ to worldly success, financial prosperity or perhaps political office. And all the time is the constant drumbeat of compromise. That same process of indoctrination that the Jewish boys faced glares at us today. Satan, who was present in Babylon is present today and he continues to spout the same lies and deceptions: “you have no choice”, “it is under God’s authority”, “it’s only a little lie”, “nobody will ever know”, “nobody will blame you”, “you’re better than the rest”, “you deserve it”, “all this could be yours if you would just… bow down and worship me” and the list goes on and on.

Though we are free from the dietary restrictions of early Judaism, we are not free from God’s directive that ‘we be holy.’ We must be discerning with respect to the worldly banquet before us and we must be vigilant against the seemingly innocuous attacks from the world that reveal the underlying process of indoctrination that has been mounted against us.


Regards,
Carl
[1] The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.