The Talking Donkey

from K

In Revelations 2, I came across the church of Pergamos and was digging into exactly what it was the Christ was warning that church about. He talks about Balaam and Balak and thought it'd make sense to review that story. It takes place during the wanderings in the wilderness during those 40 years. Balak was a Moabite king who was freaking out because he saw all those Israelites coming near. He called upon Balaam, an Israelite prophet, and asked him to curse the Israelites so that the Israelites wouldn't destroy the Moabites. He offered money to Balaam for it.

The rest of the story is this struggle of Balaam a prophet, saying he can only do what God asks him to do, but clearly being enticed by the offer of money.

Then there's this funny story about how Balaam actually starts to head for Balak's home (not sure if it's a palace or whatever), and how his donkey won't cooperate. Stops dead in its tracks. Balaam beats the donkey for it and finally the donkey talks to him, pointing out-- hey dummy, I'm just a donkey and even I see the angel standing in my way, and you're a prophet and can't even see him? That isn't the exact words, but that's the gist of it. Balaam finally recognizes he has to do only what God says and the rest of the story is pretty cool.

Since you were so bored with the audio on bibletracks, I thought I'd try a cute way to help you get the story of Balaam and Balak - a kids cartoon. You might think it childish, but I happened to like the presentation…

Click here for the video (11 minutes)

That is only half the story of Balaam (in Numbers 21 and 22). Later, after all this being tempted to curse Israel for money and then doing God's will instead and blessing Israel, Balaam went on to conspire with Midianites and Moabites by having their woman sexually entice the Israelite men and lead them that way to worship their pagan gods. This is in Numbers 31, 32.

Anyway--- the point of reviewing the story of Balak and Balaam is that Christ uses that example to warn the church at Pergamos that just like Balaam later used the Moabite women to entice Israelite men to sin and stop following God, the people of the church at Pergamos were being enticed to sin and stop worshiping Christ.

Hope that helps shed some light on one of the seven churches!