No Compromise
The biblical story clearly shows God's involvement in the life of the Babylonians—interacting with King Nebuchadnezzar and later with King Cyrus. He is portrayed as the God not only of the children of the Israel but of all nations.
Read Isaiah 56:1-8. Think of the time when it was written. What is the crucial point made there?
Read Daniel 1:6, 7. What is going on here? What reasons did their captors have for doing this?
The meaning of names was important to Jewish families, and children were named carefully. The names Daniel (God is my judge), Hananiah (God has favored), Mishael (who is what God is), and Azariah (Jehovah has helped) reflect the high priority the parents placed on their children's spiritual lives.
Nebuchadnezzar's top official, Ashpenaz, gives the four young Jewish men new Babylonian names—Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—which were mainly tributes to Babylonian gods.
But that is the closest these four men would get to idolatry, names over which they had no choice but to go by. Under God's blessing they soon moved into prominent positions in the court and government of Babylon.
After their period of preparation, Ashpenaz presents the four young men to the king. The king talks with them and "found none equal" to them (Dan. 1:19, NIV). "In every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king questioned them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom" (vs. 20, NIV).
What a tremendous testimony to what God could do through four faithful young men. Taken from obscurity in Jerusalem to the court of the most powerful person in the world, they rose to the occasion and stood before the king as witnesses to the power of God.
| Why was it acceptable for the four Jewish young men to take pagan names but not acceptable for them to eat pagan food? How do we draw the line in our own lives between what are merely cultural issues and what are moral or religious ones? Be prepared to discuss your answer in class. |
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