Habakkuk
Study Fourby Eric Miller
The context
Kenya’s Nairobi Baptist Church (NBC) is an urban evangelical congregation characterized by diversity of nationalities (40 countries represented in the congregation), ethnicities and generations. Founded in 1958 by a small group of Africans, Asians and Europeans, the church has always sought to serve a multi-ethnic population. While widely perceived as a middle- to upper-class congregation, membership ranges from farmers, students and refugees to business owners, professionals and missionaries to people at the highest level of national politics.
NBC’s emphasis on Scripture extends beyond the Sunday services to nearly 80 Home Group Fellowships meeting weekly around the Word. The editorial team which produced these weekly studies is headed by Ugandan Noah Nsubuga, and includes long term Kenyan resident Briton Lynette Walters, Kenyan Nelius Kareri, InterVarsity Link missionary Rev. Eric Miller among others.
The study
As the editorial team began working on January’s studies, they began reading the book of Habakkuk. They immediately realized that this Old Testament book strikes a chord with what many were feeling in Kenya as they faced the current crisis. (Eric Miller has a long history with Habakkuk, having led manuscript study in the book in many countries and contexts. Miller also spearheaded InterVarsity’s 2100 Productions development of the 26-projector multi-image travelling presentation, Habakkuk, in the late 1970s and early 80s.)
As they produced the study, Nsubuga quickly realized that the book’s usefulness extended far beyond the Kenyan context. He asked the team to develop that broader emphasis. So the study which follows, they feel, will be useful in many contexts where people are dealing with issues of institutional and societal sin and evil.
An inductive study relies heavily on observing and interpreting the text in context, before moving to specific applications. While useful for personal study, gathering as a group brings a richness as participants glean from each other’s interaction with the text and their own life experiences.
Preamble
The Old Testament book titled “The Oracle that Habakkuk the Prophet saw,” which we refer to as “Habakkuk,” appears to have been written before the cities of Palestine were overrun by the Chaldeans (Babylonians), but during a time of extreme moral decay among the people of God.
In addition to being rich in the audio and visual imagery suggested by the title, it is written as poetry. Hebrew poetic style usually uses a parallel structure, where couplets or short series of phrases are used to repeat the same idea in a different way, to set things in juxtaposition or contrast.
This book addresses God’s approach to dealing with issues of sin – individual and corporate, injustice, violence and exploitation, God’s governance of the nations and the root causes of chaos. The book takes the form of a dialogue as Habakkuk confronts God and in turn is confronted by God’s response.
As we begin our study of this profound book, may God, in some measure, reveal something of what He is doing in our midst at this present moment in our history.
Study Four: Habakkuk sees God at work
In our last study, we saw how God has built, into the very fabric of history, punishment of sin appropriate to the particular sin of the arrogant who stand against him and those He values. We ask the question, “Can this repetitive cycle of inbuilt judgment of sin – which some call karma – ever be broken?”
Read: Habakkuk 3: 1-21. How does Habakkuk respond to Chapter 2?
2. What does Habakkuk plead for from the Lord?
3. What Old Testament events does the imagery in this vision remind you of?
4. What, if any, connection do you see between God’s activity here and what Habakkuk pleads for in verse 2?
5. What do you find in this passage that gives you hope?
Read: Habakkuk 3: 16-19
6. In verse 16, what is Habakkuk’s response to all he has seen and heard?
7. Describe Habakkuk’s response in verses 17-19.
Read: Habakkuk 3: 20
8. What makes it possible for Habakkuk to live rejoicing in dangerous times? (See also 2:4.)
9. Having studied Habakkuk, how might you be able to continue believing in the Lord, and serving Him, when all around you is in disarray and the Lord doesn’t appear to be responding?
10. In what historic event do Christians see God supremely breaking into history with both His wrath (judgment) and with His mercy (grace)? (Hint: See Mark 10:33-34, Mark 15:12-39, 1 Peter 2:24)
Memory Verse:
“Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour.” Habakkuk 3:17-18 (NIV)
Refer to Study One, Study Two, Study Three
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