Dear friend,
I want to tell you about a book of the Bible that almost nobody reads.
Not because it is hard to understand. It is one of the simplest books in the entire Old Testament. Not because it is long. It is the shortest book in the Old Testament. Twenty one verses. You can read the whole thing in four minutes.
Nobody reads it because it is uncomfortable.
And I have come to believe that the things we find most uncomfortable in Scripture are almost always the things we most need to hear.
So tonight I want to walk you through it. Slowly. Because I think what is in these twenty one verses is one of the most relevant things in the entire Bible for the moment you are living through right now.
The book is called Obadiah.
You may never have heard of it. That is exactly my point.
Let me tell you the story behind it.
The nation of Edom was the descendants of Esau. Jacob's brother. Which means the Edomites and the Israelites were family. Not distant relatives. Close ones. The kind that share a bloodline and a history and a set of promises that go back to the same grandfather.
And when Jerusalem fell — when the Babylonians came and destroyed the city and carried the people into exile — the Edomites watched.
They did not help. They did not intervene. They stood on the sidelines and watched their family be destroyed.
And then they did something worse.
They helped themselves to the spoils. They blocked the roads so the fleeing Israelites could not escape. They handed survivors over to the Babylonians. They celebrated in the streets while Jerusalem burned.
And they called it neutrality.
We are not getting involved, they said. This is not our fight.
God's response to that is the entire book of Obadiah.
I want to read you the part that stopped me cold the first time I read it carefully.
Obadiah verse 11.
On the day you stood aloof while strangers carried off his wealth and foreigners entered his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem, you were like one of them.
Read that again.
You stood aloof. You did nothing. You were neutral. You kept your head down and minded your business and told yourself this was not your fight.
You were like one of them.
God does not distinguish between the people who attacked Jerusalem and the people who watched and said nothing. He puts them in the same category. You were like one of them.
That is not a comfortable verse. That is why nobody reads Obadiah.
Verse 12.
You should not gloat over your brother in the day of his misfortune. You should not rejoice over the people of Judah in the day of their destruction. You should not boast so much in the day of their trouble.
You should not have stood at the crossroads to cut down their fugitives. You should not have handed over their survivors in the day of their trouble.
The Edomites did not start the war. They did not swing the sword. They just watched. And helped themselves to what was left. And blocked the escape routes. And handed over the people who were trying to flee.
And God recorded every single thing they did. In detail. And called it what it was.
Not neutrality. Betrayal.
I want to ask you something tonight.
Who are the Edomites in your life right now?
Not the Babylonians. The Babylonians are obvious. The people openly attacking the things you love and the man you believe in and the country you were born in. You know who they are. You have been watching them for years.
I am asking about the Edomites. The ones who stood aloof. The pastors who went quiet when they should have spoken. The Christian leaders who calculated the cost of standing and decided it was too high. The family members who watched and said nothing and told themselves it was not their fight. The institutions that claimed neutrality while everything burned.
God has a word for that. Obadiah verse 11. You were like one of them.
I want to show you one more verse before I close this section.
Obadiah verse 15.
The day of the Lord is near for all nations. As you have done it will be done to you. Your deeds will return upon your own head.
As you have done it will be done to you.
God is not indifferent to the people who stood by and said nothing while the faithful were attacked. He is not neutral about neutrality. He recorded it. He named it. And He said plainly that it has consequences.
That is why nobody reads Obadiah.
Because most of us have been the Edomite at some point. Most of us have stood at the crossroads and chosen safety over solidarity. Most of us have told ourselves it was not our fight when we knew it was.
God saw it. He always sees it. And He has never once recorded it as wisdom.
Now I want to tell you why I have been thinking about Obadiah this week specifically.
Because I have been watching the same pattern play out in real time.
The faithful people who have been standing for something — paying a real cost for it, being attacked from every direction for it, carrying it when the weight was almost unbearable — and the people around them who stood aloof. Who said I am not political. Who said both sides have problems. Who said I do not want to get involved.
The Edomites are always well dressed and well spoken and very reasonable. That is what makes them so effective and so dangerous.
And then I think about the man at the centre of all of this. The one who has been attacked from every direction including by people who were supposed to be family. The ones who ate at his table and then blocked the crossroads. Who called their betrayal wisdom and their silence neutrality.
I wrote about this pattern in They Tried To Stop Him: What The Bible Says About Donald Trump. Not just the attacks from outside. The specific, Biblical, recorded pattern of betrayal from the people who were supposed to stand with him. The Judases and the Edomites and the disciples who scattered. The playbook that has been used against every man God placed in a significant moment.
If you have been watching what is happening and wondering how so many people who should have stood up have managed to stand so quietly — that guide will give you the Biblical framework for exactly that. You can find it by clicking on the image below
Alternatively, you may find it here: https://fatherthomasletters.com/products/they-tried-to-stop-him-what-the-bible-says-about-donald-trump
I want to close with the end of Obadiah.
Because it does not end with judgment. It ends with restoration.
Verse 17. But on Mount Zion will be deliverance. It will be holy. And Jacob will possess his inheritance.
The people who were attacked and scattered and betrayed by their own family — God does not leave them there. The story does not end with Jerusalem burning and the Edomites celebrating in the streets.
It ends with deliverance. With inheritance. With the people who endured the attack coming into what was promised to them all along.
The Edomites are gone. The nation of Edom no longer exists. Their name is a footnote in a book nobody reads.
Jerusalem is still there.
That is the ending God wrote for the people who stayed faithful when everything burned around them. And I believe it is the ending He is writing for the people reading this letter tonight.
Stay faithful, friend. The Edomites never get the last word.
God bless you. I mean that tonight more than usual.
With you in prayer always,
Father Thomas
This week I want you to do three things:
One. Read Obadiah. The whole book. Four minutes. Tonight if you can. Read it slowly. Read verse 11 twice. Let it ask you the question it was designed to ask — where have I stood aloof when I should have stood with someone.
Two. Think of one person in your life who has been standing for something at a real cost while the people around them stayed quiet. Reach out to them this week. Not with advice. Just with the acknowledgment that you see what they are doing and you are not going to be an Edomite about it.
Three. Read They Tried To Stop Him this week: https://fatherthomasletters.com/products/they-tried-to-stop-him-what-the-bible-says-about-donald-trump.
The pattern Obadiah describes — the betrayal from family, the people who stood aloof, the God who recorded every moment of it — is the context for everything that guide describes. Read them together and see if the picture becomes clearer.
P.S. If you want to go deeper on anything I have written, everything is available at fatherthomasletters.com/products — including The Signs Are Here, which maps today's headlines directly against the specific passages that described them, and the Father Thomas Prayer Card Collection, which many of you have told me you return to every morning. Take a look when you have a moment.