Daniel 2
Over the next few months, our morning gatherings will be working through the book of Hebrews, and our evening gatherings through the book of Daniel.
Click here for a pdf of these readings
Day 1 – In the Way of Danger
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Daniel 2:1-18
Daniel does the last thing that we might want to do in this situation. With the king (unreasonably?) threatening his astrologers and magicians with death if they can’t both tell him what his dream was and interpret it, Daniel jumps up and offers to do so himself. Crazy! With the king keeping the contents of his dream close to his chest, yet demanding people accurately relay and interpret it on pain of death, surely the best thing to do is keep your head down and remain quiet. But Daniel has the courage to stand up and put himself in the middle of a very precarious situation because he knows that God is still in charge of all things. With death threatening on all sides – for Daniel, his friends and others – he boldly puts himself in its way.
But Daniel is not relying on his own strength and resources. The first thing he does after making his offer is to exhort his friends to pray that God might have mercy on them and reveal the answer to the mystery of the dream so they will not be executed. Daniel knows that what he hopes to achieve is beyond him, but not beyond God. Daniel displays both the courage to stand up to tyranny, violence and oppression on behalf of others, and the faith that God will come through for them all. We need to be bold like Daniel – and like Jesus – putting ourselves on the line for the sake of others, not because we are amazing people with super-skills, but because we have an amazing God who can work wonders through his faithful people. It might be beyond us, but it is not beyond him.
Question to Consider
When have you ever gone out on a (dangerous) limb for others, like Daniel, and had God come through for you?
Prayer
Lord God, give me the courage not to shy away from potential danger, but instead to look to you and where you would have me be. May I learn to look first for your grace and power. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 2 – Not Taking Advantage
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Daniel 2:19-30
In this passage we see Daniel do something very impressive, and in the process, we also see him completely fail to do something that, if he were living in our time, most people would expect him to do. Firstly, harking back to the resolve and determination we saw in chapter one, we see Daniel having the courage, again, to follow through on what he said he would do. He’s in action again, this time actually standing before the king, the man who has the power of life and death over him. He is standing before authority, but also standing up to authority, presenting a different perspective to the king, a different way of acting and thinking. Despite the danger, Daniel steps up, steps out, and stands before the king.
But there’s also the thing Daniel doesn’t do: he doesn’t try to curry favour with the king. He doesn’t attempt to use his position, and the present opportunity it has given him, to gain any advantage or benefit from his closeness to the throne. He doesn’t seek favour for himself. Instead, he points to God as the one who reveals mysteries, as the one who has done what no human being could do, not even Daniel. He points to God and says, “He is the one. He is the one who did this. He is the Almighty one.” Whatever God was doing through and in Daniel, Daniel was placing all praise and acclaim for it back onto God. We, like Daniel, are to be signposts that point to God, so others can see what he does, who he is, and come to know him for themselves.
Question to Consider
What places and times in your life this week could be an opportunity for you to point out to others the power and majesty of God? How will you do this?
Prayer
Gracious God, may more of what I say and do be a signpost to you and your goodness – and not just in easy times and situations but in the difficult times and places too. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 3 – The Dream
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Daniel 2:31-35
Through God’s gift, Daniel was able to give the king exactly what he demanded: an accurate recounting of his dream. No clues, no hints, no tips – the king had shared the content of his dream with no one and yet there was Daniel, boldly standing right in front of him and sharing the details of the dream. God moved, providing a sign of his power and knowledge, showing through the miracle of Daniel’s interpretation that God was all-powerful; shaming the court astrologers and magicians, who had been unable to fulfil the king’s request, even going so far as to declare it impossible.
Sometimes a sign is what it takes to get someone’s attention, to force them to take note and actually attend to what someone (God) wants to say to them. Throughout the Bible there are many instances of signs and wonders as the arresting catalyst that grabs someone’s attention and gets them to stop and take God seriously. When God turns up, people notice. When God heals someone, people notice. When God sends a sign, people notice. They might notice his power when the impossible happens. They might notice his wisdom and knowledge when God seems to know things that others don’t (like dreams). They might notice his love and care when someone is healed and restored. When God reveals himself to be greater than all other gods, and more involved in his people’s lives than all other gods, people tend to sit up and take notice.
Questions to Consider
How has God grabbed your attention in the past? What signs has he used to stretch your faith and grow your hope in him?
Prayer
Heavenly Father, though I might not crave a sign, give me the wisdom to see it when you provide one. Give me the wisdom to recognise you. Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 4 – When All Seems Hopeless
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Daniel 2:36-45
However nervous Daniel may have been when he first promised to speak of the king’s dream, I think he would have been significantly more nervous when the time came to tell Nebuchadnezzar the interpretation of the dream. Kings and other rulers like to think they are all-powerful, that they will reign for a long time and build an amazing world – and legacy – that will last even longer. It took a lot of courage for Daniel to stand in front of the king and tell him to his face that his empire would not last, there would be empires after his that would be even greater, and even they would eventually fall and be destroyed. Bad news for the king – and (a different sort of) bad news for the people too: more all-embracing empires, more tyranny, more oppression, more suffering.
But once again God promises, like he did in yesterday’s reading when he gave a sign of his power, that he will move – that tyranny will not have the last word, and that his kingdom is even greater than the current Babylonian kingdom and the kingdoms foretold in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. Here, in the king’s very throne room, God offers hope. A new kingdom will come, and this kingdom and its king will reign forever. It might seem impossible to those subject to Babylonian authority; it might seem impossible to a nation defeated and exiled far from home. But God is the God of the impossible and uses seemingly impossible means (a crucified Rabbi?) to rescue his people – who, yes, sometimes need the courage of Daniel to hold onto hope for the future. But that hope is there.
Questions to Consider
When you look at the ‘empire’ around you, what makes it hard for you to hold onto hope? What signs of hope do you see?
Prayer
Father God, teach me the ways of hope in hopeless times. May I see hope in the lives of those you love, and in the world around me. Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 5 – True Reliance
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Daniel 2:46-49
The king bowed down before Daniel. That is exactly the opposite way to how these things are supposed to go. The king bows to no one; everyone bows down to the king. It is simply astonishing that something like this has happened, and that it is before a prisoner, a captive, a foreigner – and his foreign God – that the king has prostrated himself. Perhaps more than anything else, this unbelievable event is a sign of the miraculous power and almighty majesty of God. Something has caused a change in Nebuchadnezzar, something has prompted him to act and speak in a way that is unheard of. The power of God to change any one of us is always present and available, if we will let it be.
With all we have seen of Nebuchadnezzar so far, the question is whether this change is permanent, whether it signals a deep change in the king’s outlook – a transformation in his beliefs, or whether it is merely transitory, brought on by fear or astonishment, a change spurred by the need for self-preservation in the face of possible self-transformation. As we shall soon see, the change is not permanent, but that merely raises the question: why not? Why did this humbling of the king before God and God’s authority and power not stick? Probably for the same reasons that our resolutions and commitments fail, peter out, or are forgotten: we don’t submit all of who we are to God, we try and hold something back for ourselves, we fail to rely on him to achieve what we cannot.
Questions to Consider
What is your stumbling block? Why is such change often only temporary? What is the thing that keeps you from truly changing?
Prayer
Lord God, help me surrender more of myself, help me to truly submit to you and your power at work in me to change me more and more into your likeness. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)