A prophet’s diet
It was a crucial lesson for a prophet to learn: his words would not be his own, but God's. He would not have to fabricate his message, or concoct it out of thin air. He's assured that what he spoke would be nothing less than God's word.
And yet it has to become his own before he can present it to others. He must absorb it into his own personality. And in that process of digestion, the words of God would also be nothing less than Ezekiel's own words.
He will sound like he has always sounded; his mannerisms will be recognisably his; his interest in all things to do with holiness and the temple will be readily apparent; and he will still have a curious penchant for going into more detail about those matters than many of us care for... Even so, God will embody his own words in the words of a human being, such that Ezekiel's message will be fully God's message.
In Revelation 10:8-10, John undergoes a similar experience. There too we have a dramatic picture of a prophet of God internalising the word of God. It's a powerful demonstration of what we're called to in our own engagement with God's word. Not that we will become merely more technically competent in handling Scripture, nor even that we just learn more about God and his word; but that his word will become so much more a part of us. It's an encouragement to read the Bible and to be read by the Bible; to read not merely to be informed about God, but to be transformed by God. It's a challenge to make sure we do not stand over Scripture seeking to make sense of it, without first making sure we stand under it, allowing it to make sense of us, to work on us from the inside out.
It's a great image to keep before us as a directing principle for the ethos of our whole lives; as we live for Christ in the face of the contemporary world, we seek do so in line with Scripture: eat this scroll.
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