God's challenge

Micah 5 and 6 Click here for the reading

In Micah 5 and 6, God's challenge meets a tension between what God's judgement will be and God's saving action will be.  God's judgement is to provide consequences of the people's disloyalty and neglect of God's ways AND God will provide a ruler to save them. 

This challenge fits so well into a world that desire black and white laws of right and wrong and God seems to provide a muddled grey area of blurring that judgement and salvation.  God also recalls that this is part of what God has already instructed: You know O mortal what God desires....to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.

In a way God provides remembrance of old to the new path God is about to take.  This future leader, the Messiah, will be rooted of old (in the house of David) with the provision of new paths.