Humble

And there before me was a man mounted on a red horse. (Zechariah 1:8)

I am sure I am not alone in being reminded of the four horsemen of the apocalypse in Revelation. This is not surprising as the two appear to be connected for Revelation contains much of the imagery of the great OT prophets. Maybe John was reading Zechariah when he had his visions. Red then means something, for I've not seen many red horses. My thoughts are inevitably drawn to war, in Revelation civil war, or wars of persecution, genocide even, but this is not obvious in Zechariah. In Zechariah they appear to be agents of God, inspectors of the state of the land, and have nothing to do with war at all. 

So, I guess when reading the Bible, don't jump to conclusions, don't read in what you want or expect to see, or all you will see is what you want to see. Reject all 'feminist' or 'colonial' or even 'anglican' or 'evangelical' readings and start with what the author understood it to mean, or what Jesus understood it to mean. Start humble not proud and hope that you may learn something. Or at least that's what it tells me.



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