The Bible is filled with questions—one from God to the prophet Ezekiel was the focus of Fresno Pacific University’s Spring Convocation.
Exiled in Babylon, the Israelites were suffering what speaker Terry Brensinger told the faculty, staff and students assembled February 21, 2018, was “The Jewish version of 911.” Brensinger told how after Ezekiel walked among the bones of the people of Israel, his people, God asked him: “‘Could these bones live again?’”
Brensinger, Ph.D., vice president of FPU and president of Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary, invited those gathered in the Special Events Center on the main university campus to judge for themselves whether the prophet’s first response—“Oh Lord, only you know”—was a statement of strong faith or mild sarcasm. “But it’s a question that refuses to leave him alone,” Brensinger said of Ezekiel.
God followed his mysterious question with an impossible command. To prophesy to the dead that “You will return to your land, and when you do you will rebuild your temple,” Brensinger said.
Neither should God’s question nor his command leave us alone today. It applies to our churches, our country and our university, according to Brensinger. “Can these dry bones live again, or are they too far gone?”
Ezekiel, and all who seek to follow God, must look inside themselves and ask their own question. “Is Ezekiel fundamentally a person of hope?” Not optimism, Brensinger cautioned, which can be built on naivete. “Hope is built on a foundation of God,” he said.
See the entire event at portal.stretchinternet.com/fpusf/portal.htm?eventId=429698&streamType=video