“I’ll never speak to you again.”

Not something you really want to hear, is it? Must be pretty awful, whatever you did, to deserve that.

Maybe your first reaction is, “Is that a promise?” But if you’ve ever seen the movie Coraline, you know that sarcastic sentiment is fleeting.

So, I wonder, why did Muhammed believe that God designated him to be the Last Prophet?

Sure, there’s a lot of repetition from prophet to prophet.

Maybe God was saying, “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times. This is it! I’m not saying it again!”

I could certainly understand that.

In a separate reading on Jewish history, I discovered a similar thought process. The Jewish rabbis who wrote Babylonian Talmud believed that God had said all he was going to say. It was now up to humans, in particular the rabbis, to interpret what had been said, to mine the meaning out of His Word.

But I still think it sounds like abandonment. A mother leaving her kids’ babysitter with a “How To Raise Your Children” tome, never to return. No poison hotline. No phone numbers to call in case of emergency. No neighbors dropping in to keep an eye on things.

I just can’t believe it. My faith in God’s love for us won’t accept it. Prophets give human voice to God within the context of their own time. And a God who loves his people isn’t going to give them the silent treatment. Not for long. And certainly not forever.