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Scripture

August 30, 2016 by Leave a Comment

The Essentials: Scripture
Sycamore Creek Church
August 21, 2016
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

How ’bout them Tigers?  Well, OK.  Maybe they’re not doing as well as you might hope, but here’s a question for you: when it comes to the Tigers or any baseball game, what is essential?  What do you absolutely have to have to play baseball?  You need a ball, a bat, players, and a field.  If you’ve got those four essentials you’ve got baseball.  There are a lot of great things about baseball that aren’t essential.  Dugouts.  Uniforms.  Lights.  Scoreboard.  None of these things are essential.

When it comes to our beliefs, there are likewise some things that are essential and other things that, while important, may not be so essential.  We’re in a series called The Essentials and we’re exploring five essentials of Christian belief: Christ, Faith, Grace, Scripture, and Glory.

Once a year we do a “belief series.”  We take four or five weeks to look at our beliefs or theology or doctrine.  Why do beliefs matter?  Beliefs matter because what you believe contributes significantly to how you live.  If you believe in an angry God, you’ll live like God is out to get you.  If you believe in an uninvolved and disinterested God, you’ll live like God doesn’t care what you do.  If you believe in a loving God, you’ll live like you’re on God’s mission in this world.

This series was conceived by a conference that I went to here in Lansing back in 2013.  It was called “Sola13” (check it out at www.sola13.com).  It was put on by some of the more conservative and reformed churches in the Lansing area.  Many big speakers came to Lansing to talk about the Christian faith over several days.  People from all over the nation came here to hear them.  I wasn’t able to go to every day of the series, but I did catch some of it.  It got me thinking that I’d like to explore the same issues but from a slightly different perspective.  Maybe a more “moderate” perspective.

The series was called “Sola” because it was built on five “Solas” from the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century.  “Sola” is Latin for “only.”  Here are the five Solas:

  1. (Sola) Christ Alone
  2. (Sola) Faith Alone
  3. (Sola) Grace Alone
  4. (Sola) Scripture Alone
  5. (Sola) God’s Glory Alone

Each of these Solas are a protest against certain beliefs or misunderstandings about the Catholic Church.  Christ alone, not priests or sacraments (you don’t need priests or sacraments as a mediator to God).  Grace alone, not merit (you don’t deserve and aren’t entitled to anything, especially from God).  Faith alone, not works (you didn’t earn anything, especially your salvation).  Scripture alone, not tradition (the Bible is enough without all the “traditions” of the Catholic Church).  And lastly, God’s glory alone, not glory to the church or saints (you don’t worship saints, the church, etc.).

In this series I want to propose a “middle way.”  I’d like to suggest that we understand “Sola” or “alone” as “Solus” or “primary.”  Thus the five Solas become five primary beliefs or essentials.

  1. Primacy of Christ
  2. Primacy of Grace
  3. Primacy of Faith
  4. Primacy of Scripture
  5. Primacy of Glory

Scripture
Today we’re going to look at Sola Scripture or the Primacy of Scripture.  Of all the “solas” Scripture alone is the one I wrestle with the most.  What does it mean?  Only scripture and not science?  Only scripture and no other books?  Only scripture by whose interpretation?  Only scripture and check your brain at the door?  Only scripture in what translation?

Growing up I was taught that scripture was inerrant.  What I understood that to mean was that the Bible is never wrong.  Well, as I’ve grown up and studied I’ve realized that those who believe in inerrancy have a more nuanced view than my childhood and teenage brain could fully understand.  One theologian defines it this way:

The view that when all the facts become known, they will demonstrate that the Bible in its original autographs and correctly interpreted is entirely true and never false in all it affirms, whether that relates to doctrine or ethics or to the social, physical, or life sciences.
~Paul D Feinberg (Professor of Biblical and Systematic Theology, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School)

The verse that is usually used to defend this view is from Paul’s letter to his protégé, Timothy:

All scripture [is] inspired by God and [is] useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.
~2 Timothy 3:16 NRSV

I put the word “is” in brackets because when I began to study Greek, the original language Paul was writing in, I learned that the word “is” is implied.  It’s not really there.  So you can always ask, where should the “is” go?  There is another place to put the “is” in this verse.  One translation gives us a different way of understanding what Paul is saying:

Every scripture inspired of God [is] also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness.
~2 Timothy 3:16 ASV

Put the “is” in a slightly different place and the meaning changes, doesn’t it?  So what do we believe about scripture?  Perhaps the most succinct place is found in our Articles of Religion:

The Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation; so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any [person] that it should be believed as an article of faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.
~Article V of The Articles of Religion of the Methodist Church (Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church)

Notice it’s Article V.  Four other things come before it: God, Jesus, Jesus’ resurrection, and the Holy Spirit.  In contrast, The Baptist Faith and Message puts their belief about scripture in the number one spot.  What should come first?  Belief in God or belief in the Bible?  Well, they’re very closely tied, but if I had to pick one, I’d go with belief in God first.

My View on Scripture has been in flux over the past ten years or so.  If I were to rank the Solas I’d put Sola Scripture in the 5th place.  That doesn’t mean I don’t deeply value scripture.  I read it every morning.  I read it multiple times a day.  I’ve spent countless hours studying scripture. I trust it.  And yet over the years I’ve found the whole thing pretty complicated.  Amidst the complications, there are five things I’ve found that are helpful to know about the Bible.  So in honor of its fifth-place rank, here are five things to know about the Bible:

1) Know the Weight
All scripture is inspired but not all scripture is equal.  There was a time in my life where I would have stopped listening to someone who told me this.  But then I read the Bible myself and I came across Jesus having this argument with the religious leaders of his day:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others.
~Jesus (Matthew 23:23 NRSV)

Here’s the question: how do you determine “weight”?  What is Jesus’ answer?  Jesus says the weightiest things fall under the categories of justice, mercy and faith.  So while he doesn’t neglect or throw out other things, he gives preference to these three essentials in the Bible.  Does your own reading of the Bible and living of life focus primarily on justice, mercy, and faith?  If you read the Bible like Jesus does, it will.

2) Know your Geometry
Yes, geometry.  Or sorta.  While studying John Wesley, the co-founder of the Methodist movement, I came across the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral.”  A quadrilateral is a four-sided object.  The four sides of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral are scripture, tradition, reason, and experience.

There’s an online series of videos called Chuck Knows Church.  I think Chuck can probably explain the Wesleyan Quadrilateral in a more engaging and entertaining way that I can.  So watch it:

If we go back to the baseball metaphor, I like to think of the primacy of scripture as the playing field.  Tradition is the coaches and their theories of how to play the game on the field.  Reason is the umpires and the rules of the game.  And experience is like the stats of individual players and even teams.  Coaches come and go.  Umpires come and go.  Stats come and go.  But the game is always played on the field.  The game always begins and ends on the field.  It’s not played in the stands or outside the stadium.  Christian belief and practice always begins and ends on the playing field of scripture.

3) Know Literature
I know. I’m stretching your brain right now. We were in geometry class just a moment ago and now we’re talking literature?  Hang with me.  Different kinds of books come with different kinds of expectations.  Same thing is true about most of life.  If you go to a baseball game expecting football, you’ll be sorely disappointed.  If you go to the new Harry Potter movie expecting a documentary, you’ll be really confused.  If you go to Jackie’s Diner expecting a BBQ place, you’ll miss all the great diner food they serve there.  If you come to any particular book of the Bible with the wrong set of expectations, you’re going to get really confused.

The Bible is not one book.  It is sixty-six books written by dozens of authors over thousands of years.  It’s more like a library of books.  Each of those books is a different genre or kind of literature.  Each genre comes with its own set of expectations.  Do you come to the Old Testament expecting a science book, or history or something else?  I like to think of a book like Genesis as “family history.”  It’s the stories that a family tells that define who the family is.  For example, one of the stories my family always tells is about the time my grandma put a piece of pie in front of my grandpa.  She went to scoop out some ice cream and when she turned back to his plate, the pie was gone!  Now did it happen exactly like that?  Probably not.  But did he eat it fast?  Yes.  That’s the whole point.  And it tells you something about my family and its history.  Genesis is like that: family history.  Leviticus, on the other hand, is ancient government law code.  Very different than family history.  The book of Psalms is like reading someone’s prayer journal. The book of Proverbs is wisdom.  Wisdom is different than promise.  Wisdom is what happens most of the time.

When it comes to the New Testament, are we reading journalistic reporting, apologetic debates, or something else?  I think it’s helpful to think of the gospels, the books that tell the story of Jesus’ life, as painted portraits.  Not photographic portraits, but painted portraits.  Like a good painter, every gospel author has taken some artistic liberties with painting a portrait of Jesus.  They all get the basics the same, but they each paint a slightly different picture.  The “epistles” are like reading someone else’s mail.  They were written by one person to another person in a particular context.  Our context may be similar or it may be different.  The book of Revelation is the one that people always want me to talk about.  We did a whole series on it some time ago, but I think the book of Revelation is probably best understood as political cartoons.  If you look at a contemporary political cartoon and you see an elephant and a donkey, you know that they’re talking about the Democratic and Republican parties.  When you see the colors of red, white, and blue you know they’re talking about the USA.  Revelation has all kinds of similar symbols that ancient people understood but we no longer understand.  Look at a political cartoon from a hundred years ago and you have no idea what all the symbols mean.  Multiple that by 2000 years and you’ve got the book of Revelation.

When you come to a particular book in the Bible you have to adjust your expectations depending on what kind of literature you’re reading.

4) Know the BIG Picture
Details matter less than the BIG picture.  That’s the fourth thing to know about the Bible.  The early Christian leaders called this the “analogy of faith.”  Read the hard, difficult, or unclear scripture in light of the clear scripture.  All interpretations must fit with the big picture/narrative of the Bible and Christian belief.  Paul, the first missionary of the church and author of many of the “epistle” letters in the Bible, wrote to the church at Corinth saying:

For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.
~Paul (1 Corinthians 15:3-4 NRSV)

Paul is giving us the big picture, the analogy of faith.  A couple of hundred years later St. Augustine, a church leader said something similar:

Whoever, then, thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures, or any part of them, but puts such an interpretation upon them as does not tend to build up this twofold love of God and our neighbor, does not yet understand them as he ought.
~St. Augustine (4th & 5th Century Church Leader)

Fit the details within the BIG picture.  If you’re not sure about something, look at it from the perspective of the BIG picture.  God created.  We rebelled.  God loved us.  God loved us in many ways including a unique relationship with the ancient Hebrew people.  God show us his love most fully in Jesus.  Jesus taught us and showed us what love looks like.  Jesus was executed but love won when he was raised from the dead.  Jesus created a community of people to follow his way of love.  That’s the BIG picture.  Interpret everything else in the Bible in light of that BIG picture.

5) Know who to Trust
All of us come to reading the Bible with a basic disposition: trust or suspicion.  If you always only read the Bible with suspicion, you’re going to miss something that you can only get when you approach the Bible with trust.  The Bible is like a trusted mentor.  It’s not that you always agree with your mentor.  But you do trust a mentor.  And when a mentor asks you to do something you’re not sure about, you’re willing to give it a try because you trust your mentor.  I think about when I learned to ski.  The ski instructor said that our instinct when we’re learning to ski is to lean back on the skis.  But when you do this you lose control really quickly.  You have to go against your instinct and lean forward, down the hill, to have the most control.  When I finally began to really trust my ski instructor, I began to really figure out how to make those beautiful S-curves on the slopes.  When you approach the Bible with trust, you try things you wouldn’t like or that don’t always make sense and you find that there’s a way you’re blessed in doing so. Psalm 1 says it this way:

Happy are those
who do not follow the advice of the wicked,
or take the path that sinners tread,
or sit in the seat of scoffers;
but their delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law they meditate day and night.
~Psalm 1:1-2 NRSV

When you have a trusted mentor you stay away from things that the mentor says aren’t good for you.  You trust their warning.  I had a friend who came over one night to try my sushi that I had just learned to make in a sushi-making class.  He had never had sushi or wasabi.  Wasabi is the spicy green paste usually served with sushi.  He tried a little and really liked it.  He thought, “A little is good, so a lot must be great.”  He took a spoonful of wasabi and put it on top of a sushi.  As all of us told him this was not a good idea, he ignored us and popped it in his mouth.  Within seconds he jumped up from the table, ran to the bathroom, and proceeded to throw up his entire dinner.  He didn’t trust us when we told him that a spoonful of wasabi wasn’t going to be good for him.  When you trust what the Bible tells you, you find that you don’t have to eat the wasabi to know that a spoonful isn’t going to be good.  The mentor is trustworthy.  The mentor is trustworthy because God speaks through scripture.  Does God still speak today through scripture?  Absolutely.  Will you give it try?  Dedicate ten or fifteen minutes each day to reading the Bible or reading a devotional book about the Bible.  You’ll find there a trustworthy mentor.

Here’s a prayer that I use from time to time to help my spirit open up to what God is going to say to me through Scripture:

Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

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Dance with Abandon

October 25, 2013 by Leave a Comment

DancingWithGod

 

 

 

 

Dancing with God – Dance with Abandon
Sycamore Creek Church
October 20/21, 2013
Tom Arthur
2 Samuel 6:14-16 

Friends, let’s dance!

Growing up I hated being on the dance floor.  I hated going to school dances.  They never turned out well.  A friend of mine held a dance at his house.  He paired me up with a girl, and I didn’t know what I was doing.  She put her arms around my waist, and I put my arms around her shoulders.  Then I noticed that all the guys had their arms around the waist and the girls had their arms around the shoulders.  Embarrassing!  At another dance my date danced with a bunch of other guys who all seemed to dance better than I did, and then she took off my wrist corsage.  I conferred with my friends, and they told me to give her a quarter to call home and get a ride.  This was before cell phones.  So that’s what I did!  Even though I’ve been swing dancing for about fifteen years now, I still always feel a little embarrassed dancing with someone besides Sarah.  I don’t want to be seen as a “bad dancer.”  The dance floor is full of potentially embarrassing moments.

Today we’re continuing a series called Dancing with God, and we’re looking at the parallels between learning to dance and the spiritual life.  Today I want to explore that sense of embarrassment we often have when it comes to dancing and the embarrassment we often feel in our culture being a follower of Jesus.

The Problem
Here’s the problem I want to deal with today when it comes to these moments of embarrassment: We are more interested in saving face than living faith.  We play it safe when it comes to God.  We’re reserved.  We don’t want to be fanatical.  We don’t want to be seen as a weirdo.  We’re concerned about what others think.  We’re more interested in saving face than sharing faith.

I struggle with this myself.  I’m never quite sure how people will respond when I answer their question, “What do you do?”  I have a pastor friend who responds saying: “I’d be embarrassed to tell you.”  I often meet with people in coffee houses.  When we spend time in prayer, I pray quietly.  I don’t pray quietly so that only God can hear me.  I pray quietly because I’m a little embarrassed about what others will think.  There are in our cultural context some “rough” or “hard to swallow” beliefs of Christianity, and I tend to downplay those rough spots with my non-Christian friends.  In the end, I want to be seen as smart, educated, together, emotionally stable, a successful leader, creative, entrepreneurial, and on and on.  And I often want these rather than to fully live out my faith.

When was a time you were more interested in saving face than living faith?

Dance with Abandon
So today I want to look at a moment when someone danced with abandon before God even though it was embarrassing to some of those around him.  The story is told of the time King David, one of the greatest kings of ancient Israel, came back from a particularly successful battle.  Here’s what happened:

David danced before the LORD with all his might; David was girded with a linen ephod.  So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet.  As the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, Michal daughter of Saul looked out of the window, and saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD; and she despised him in her heart.
2 Samuel 6:14-16

And you thought there was no dancing in the Bible!  King David danced with abandon ignoring what others might think of him.  Now Michal and David have some baggage together.  Michal and David were married.  Michal was the daughter of Saul, the first kind of Israel who David overcame with God’s anointing to become king.  While David and Saul were fighting for the kingdom, Saul married Michal off to someone else.  When David eventually won the power struggle, Michal was taken from that husband and given back to David.  So their relationship at this point isn’t a blank slate.  And it may be because of this baggage that she despised him.  But there are several other possible reasons too.

We read that David was wearing an ephod.  An ephod is a priestly gown.  Was David wearing sacred clothes reserved for priests?  Maybe by doing so he was demoting himself from King to priest and Michal thought this was below David.

An ephod by itself is also a rather revealing garment.  Consider it the ancient hospital gown.  It certainly didn’t cover up everything as David danced with abandon into the city.  Perhaps Michael thought that David was being immodest as a king.

The ephod was white, and white is a symbol of purity.  Was David pure?  From Michal’s perspective, David had led a “coup” of her father.  Later David would see another woman he wanted, Bathsheba, and would have sex with her even though she was married.  He was the king after all.  When she became pregnant, David had her husband killed on the battlefield.  David was not the most pure guy around.

Or we read that David was leaping and dancing.  Leaping and dancing are not respectable decorum for a king.  A king is supposed to carry himself with dignity and restraint.  He’s not supposed to let his emotions show.  Maybe Michal despised him because he wasn’t acting his part.

So here’s the point of today’s message: Dance with abandon before God.   Live in the rhythm of the Holy Spirit, the beat of God’s heart for the world.  Ignore what others might think of you and dance with an audience of one: God!

Now when I say dance with abandon I don’t mean do any little whim that comes into your mind.  I said I wanted you to listen to the rhythm of the Spirit.  The rhythm of  God’s Spirit is always an improvisation rooted in tradition.  I don’t mean tradition in a negative sense.  I mean it in the most positive sense.  For example, Jarsolav Pelikan, a Yale church historian said, “Tradition is the living faith of the dead.  Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.”  He also liked to quote Goethe, a German writer of the 18th and 19th centuries, who said, “Take what you have inherited from your fathers and work to make it your own.”  You have to remain rooted in the tradition while at the same time dancing with abandon into the future.  The reason you have to remain rooted in tradition is because if you don’t learn the tradition, you may mistake your own whims for the rhythm of the Holy Spirit.  David was dancing within a tradition in the story we just read.  The Ark of the LORD was going along with them.  He wasn’t just doing whatever he wanted.  The tradition of Israel was present with him.

The same thing is true on the dance floor.  Dancing with abandon is always rooted in a tradition of dance.  To be the most creative, you have to learn the basic steps of dance and then the advanced steps and then the creativity and abandonment comes when you add your own little twist.  To get a sense of that, let’s look at a dance form that is perhaps one of the most clear forms of dance where you dance with abandon: Breakin.

The Tradition of Breakin
Breakin, sometimes called break dancing, at first glance looks like it has no order to it.  It looks like it is complete and total dancing with abandon.  But breakin has a deep tradition.  Those who dance this dance are called b-boys or b-girls or breakers.  The “b” comes from the word “break” which is a “break” from the main parts of the song or piece.  To get a sense of what a break is, watch the first couple minutes of this video.  It’s about the “Amen Break”, perhaps the most famous six seconds of any song of all time.  The Amen Break was recorded in 1969 by The Winstons for the song “Amen Brother.”  It was on the B-side, the back side, of their album Color Him Father, and it won them a Grammy Award.

The break is the short part of the song that everyone waited for to really let it all go on the dance floor.  In the early 1970s DJ Kool Herc, a Jamaican, was the first to realize that he could extend the short break by buying two copies of one record and have them side by side so as to be able to mix the two records back and forth between the same break.  This extended the break so that you could keep dancing to it.  So what before was a dance-with-abandon-to-six-seconds-of-music became a dance with abandon for as long as the DJ kept the records spinning.  Thus was born b-boys/girls or break-boys/girls.

B-boying consists of four kinds of movement: toprock, downrock, power moves, and freezes. Toprock is anything in a standing position.  Downrock is when the arms and legs are both supporting the body down on the ground.  Powermoves are the amazing acrobatics of b-boying.  And freezes are suspensions of the body in the air.

Breakin, which at first glance doesn’t look like it has any tradition, actually has quite a deep tradition.  It’s from that tradition that you end up with amazing dancers who add their own little touch, style, and improvisation, and dance with abandon.  There are hundreds if not thousands of videos displaying the amazing dancing of b-boys and b-girls, but here’s one of my favorites:

It’s within the tradition of breakin that a b-boy or b-girl is able to dance with abandon.  The same is true of the spiritual life.

The Tradition of the Church
It probably goes without being said, but the church has a tradition.  We’ve been exploring the pieces of it through this series.

First, get in the dance.  Show up on the dance floor.  You can’t learn to dance if you don’t join a community of dance.  In the same way, it’s pretty hard to learn the dance of faith without a community of faith.  So regularly join the community of faith and its “dance”, that is worship & small groups.

Second, there’s only one leader on the dance floor.  God leads and you follow.  God is in an eternal dance.  The Father and Son dance in the Spirit, and the Spirit is continually inviting you to join that dance of love, mercy, and grace.  To do so, you’ve got to let God lead, and you have to follow.

Third, to let God lead you’ve got to learn a couple of basic steps.  A woman can follow a man on the dance floor if she knows a basic step, and that leader can make her do all kinds of things she’s never done before, but it is all dependent on learning the basic step.  The basic steps of the life of faith are prayer and scripture reading.

Fourth, once you’ve got the basic steps down, then you can go on to the advanced steps.  In swing dancing, the basic step is the triple step.  More advanced steps are the Charleston or aerials.  In the life of faith, the advanced steps are things like fasting, meditation, simplicity, solitude, and service.

Once you’re showing up regularly on the dance floor; once you’re letting God lead while you follow; once you’ve learned the basic steps of prayer and scripture; once you’ve begun to learn the advanced steps of the spiritual disciplines, then you’re ready to dance with abandon by improvising and being creative; then you’re ready to listen to really listen to the beat of God’s heart of the world and step out unconcerned about what others will think of you.  That’s when some pretty amazing things begin to happen in your life:

Worship and work weave together.
Church and community converge.
Recreation and redemption reconnect.
Evangelism and entertainment equate.
Discipline and devotion don’t divorce.
Faith and fun fuse.

All of the Above
There’s a hip hop group in Lansing called All of the Above.  Many involved in it are Christians who are dancing with abandon in the streets of Lansing.  If you want to know what it looks like when you improvise on a tradition and dance with abandon before God, here’s what it looks like:

That’s no stuffy faith.  That’s no spirituality stuck in the 16th century.  That’s a vibrant and living tradition of those who came before us dancing with abandon in the present and future.  That’s the kind of church I want to be: a b-boy and b-girl church breakin into our community with the love of God.  I want us to dance with abandon before God without regard for what others might think, and I want us to be surprised when people see us dancing with abandon and say, “I don’t know that I could ever do that, but boy is that beautiful.  Boy is that what our world needs.  I’m not sure I could ever abandon myself like that, but boy am I glad that they are.  I’m going to have to send my kids over there to learn to dance the way that church dances.”  Friends, let’s dance with abandon.

O heavenly Father, in whom we live and move and have our being: We humbly pray thee so to guide and govern us by thy Holy Spirit, that in all the cares and occupations of our life we may not forget thee, but may remember that we are ever walking in thy sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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Old Testament, Part II

September 4, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Bible 101

Bible 101 – Old Testament, Part II
Sycamore Creek Church
September 2, 2012
Tom Arthur

Peace Friends!

Today we wrap up a series that was originally supposed to be one week on the Old Testament and one week on the New Testament.  But once I began working on trying to give you an overview of the Old Testament, I found that I couldn’t do it in one week.  In fact, two weeks is still pushing it.  So I’m putting the New Testament off for another day.  And what was a Bible 101 series has become an Old Testament 101 series.

I have struggled with the Old Testament.  In fact, as I was getting ready to go to seminary I was on the verge of another faith crisis around several questions I had about the Old Testament.  I know it’s a little weird to hear someone talk about going to seminary to be a pastor and being on the verge of a faith crisis because of the Old Testament, but I’m just telling you how it was.  I thought that my Old Testament class was going to be a serious challenge to my faith, but what I found instead was that my Old Testament professor, Ellen Davis, saved my faith.  She didn’t save me (that’s Jesus’ job), but she did renew my faith and trust in the Bible, particularly the Old Testament.

I’m not the only person to struggle with the Old Testament.  I hear questions all the time about how to understand the Old Testament.  It seems so, well, old.  Any anything that is old just smacks of old underwear, old moldy cheese, old fashion, and old technology.  Who would want to spend any time with old stuff that is outdated?  I’d sum up people’s concerns about the Old Testament in this way:

The Old Testament is hard to understand, scientifically inaccurate, and presents an immoral angry and vengeful God.  Given all this, why would I care to spend any time at all in the Old Testament?

These are important questions, and let me speak to the guest for a moment.  If you’ve joined us today and have these kinds of questions about the Bible, you’re not alone.  We’ve got them too.  Hey, I’m the pastor at Sycamore Creek Church, and I’ve still got questions like this.  Your questions are welcome.  We’re a curious church.  We’re curious about God and the Bible.  You don’t have to check your questions at the door when you come here.  You are welcome, questions and all.

So last week I began to unpack these questions with another question: what does Jesus think of the Old Testament?  And because Christians think Jesus is God’s son, we can rephrase the question this way: What does God think of the Old Testament?  We get a glimpse of an answer to that question when Jesus is arguing with some of the religious leaders of his day.  He says:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others.
Matthew 23:23 NRSV

In this argument about tithing, giving ten percent of what you make back to God, Jesus points out that the religious leaders of the day are following the letter of the law so closely that they’re missing some weightier parts.  Jesus thinks there are parts of the Old Testament (although he would have simply called it “the scriptures” because there was not yet a compiled New Testament) that carry more weight than others.

I use dumbbells in the morning to exercise.  Some are light and some are heavy.  They’re all dumbbells but because of their different weights they’re used for different things.  Light weights are used in high repetition to build endurance.  Heavy weights are used in low repetitions to build strength.  They are all useful for training to get stronger, but they are not all used in the same way because some are weightier than others.

So here’s the main point of these two weeks on the Old Testament:

Main Point: All scripture is inspired, but not all scripture is equal.

If that makes you a little nervous to say that, then we can say it exactly the way Jesus would have said it: all scripture is inspired (God breathed), but not all scripture is equally weighty.

The big question then is how do you know which parts are more or less weighty?   I think one key to understanding the weightiness of a section is to read slowly, carefully and humbly paying special attention to genre.   Genre?  Yes.  Genre.

You may not know the word but you know genre.  Let me explain it this way.  Here’s your Bible quiz for the morning.  What does “Bible” literally mean?  Bible means library.  The Bible is a library of sixty-six books and thirty-nine of them are in the Old Testament.  A library is like a bookstore, it is arranged with different topics in different sections.  Those different sections are the different genres: fiction, cookbooks, biography, gardening, memoir, etc.

When I recently went on vacation I picked up two kinds of books from the library: historical fiction and some cookbooks.  You read these kinds of books very differently.  I read the fiction for long stretches of time in my bed before I go to sleep.  I read the cookbook in short spurts in the kitchen paying very close attention to details.  The difference between one teaspoon and one tablespoon can be disastrous.  You would think I was weird if I took the cookbook to bed and read it for hours at a time before I went to sleep.  There are different kinds of books for different kinds of situations that are read very differently.

Another kind of reading I do is magazine reading.  Where do you read magazines?  I prefer to read magazines while sitting on the throne in the throne room of my house, if you know what I mean.  So you even read some kinds of books or reading material on the toilet.  What do you read on the toilet?

So there are three big sections of the Old Testament:

1. Story of Israel (Pentateuch/Torah & History)
2. Wisdom (Emotions & Wisdom)
3. Prophets (Major & Minor)

Last week we looked at the first big section: the Story of Israel.  We saw that this section is made up of books that tell the stories that define who the family of Israelis and is not (Israelliterally means “those who wrestle with God”).  Today we’ll look at the other two big sections of the Old Testament: wisdom and prophets.

Wisdom
Within the wisdom books I’d suggest that there are two big sections: wisdom “proper” and emotion books.  That may not be quite right, but that’s what I’m going with today.  The wisdom “proper” books include Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes.  The emotion books include Psalms, Song of Songs, and Lamentations.

Before we get much further let’s talk about a definition of wisdom.  Wisdom is what is true for most people most of the time.  Wisdom is practical common sense knowledge.  Wisdom is not a promise.  Take for example this very popular proverb about parenting:

Train children in the right way, and when old, they will not stray.
Proverbs 22:6

Many parents get very confused and end up feeling very guilty because they take this as a promise from God.  It’s as if God is saying to each parent: if you do the right things, you can rest assured that your child will grow up and do the right things.

Now of course, that is what Sarah and I are planning.  We are being perfect parents so that Micah will be a perfect child and later a perfect adult.  We read the Bible religiously and do all that it says in regard to parenting.  We add to biblical knowledge all the contemporary parenting books.  We will make no mistakes.  So far in about two years of Micah’s life, we’re doing pretty good.  We’re raising him in the right way, and we expect it to pay dividends.  When he is an adult, we look forward to kicking back, enjoying his lucrative career and having him take care of us in our old age.  All the while we expect that he will be a model Christian completely and totally holy without sin always doing exactly what God would want.  Proverbs 22:6 is a promise to this end.  Right?  NO!

It’s not a promise because it’s wisdom literature.  It tells you what happens most of the time for most people.  But to think that it’s a formula for 100% success in raising children completely and totally neglects the reality of free will.  God has given us the wonderful and terrible freedom of choosing or rejecting God’s love.  Children are given this freedom just like the rest of us.  Hey wait.  We were all once children!

OK, the point of that was to say that if you’re not paying attention to the genre of wisdom, you’re going to miss something really important about how to read the proverbs.  You’ll be sitting in bed with your cookbook reading it for hours.  All scripture is inspired but not all scripture is equal.

Emotions
Then there’s the emotional wisdom books of the Bible: Psalms, Song of Songs, and Lamentations.  Often in these books we learn more about the emotions of the person writing the book than we do about God who it is written to or about.  Consider some of the psalms that we often have a difficult time with: the cursing psalms.

One of the worst cursing psalms is Psalm 137.  It is written during the time of exile in Babylon.  Remember from last week the big historical timeline ofIsrael?  They began in Egypt as slaves and were delivered by God through Moses.  They entered the promised land and were ruled first by judges and then by kings.  There was civil war that split Israel in half.  The Assyrian empire sacked the northern kingdom of Israel and then the Babylonian empire sacked the southern kingdom of Israel, calledJudah.  It was in this sacking that the temple was destroyed.  In both instances the attacking empire took the wealthy and elite away from their homeland and into exile.

Imagine with me for a moment the devastation of having your city sacked and then being carted off into exile in a foreign land.  Imagine this happening today to us.  Psalm 137 is written by a worship leader so let’s imagine this happening to our worship leader, Jeremy.  Jeremy’s pregnant wife has been killed in the siege.  The foreigners have also killed his son.  Then they’ve carted him off to their homeland away from everything that is familiar to him.  When they get there they rub salt in the open wounds by asking him to sing one of those praise songs that he used to sing at SycamoreCreekChurch.  He says, Sure.  I’ll sing you a praise song.  You’ve killed my wife, my unborn child, and my two-year-old:

Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!
Psalm 137:9

Now in that context, are you learning more about God or more about Jeremy?  When you are reading the books of emotion, be careful to make that distinction.  All scripture is inspired but not all scripture is equal.

Prophets (Major & Minor)
Last week we looked at the books that tell the story of Israel and today we’ve looked at the wisdom books.  There’s only one more section: the prophets.  Within the prophets there are major prophets and minor prophets.  What’s the difference between a major and minor prophet?  It’s not the key he sings in.  (That was a joke.)  It’s simply the length of the book he wrote.  The major prophets were more wordy than the minor prophets.

The Major Prophets are: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel & Daniel (Apocalypse).

The Minor Prophets are: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.

A prophet is generally someone who speaks for God who reminds the family of God when it is living into God’s story and when it is not living into God’s story.  There are several ways that the prophets go about doing this.  One way is through apocalyptic literature.  Apocalypse simply means “revelation.”

Large portions of Ezekiel and Daniel are apocalyptic.  Here’s a taste:

In the middle of it was something like four living creatures. This was their appearance: they were of human form. Each had four faces, and each of them had four wings…As for the appearance of their faces: the four had the face of a human being, the face of a lion on the right side, the face of an ox on the left side, and the face of an eagle.
Ezekiel 1:5-12 NRSV

I think one of the most helpful ways to understand apocalypse is as an ancient political cartoon.  If you saw a political cartoon today that had a donkey and an elephant in it you’d know immediately that we’re talking about the democrats and republicans.  If the cartoon has the colors red, white, and blue in it, then you know we’re talking about the USA.  In the same way, apocalyptic literature uses symbols that everyone in its day understood but today we’ve lost the meaning because we aren’t in that culture.  So it takes some extra work to unpack the symbolism of apocalypse.

Another way that prophets speak for God is through “sign acts” or what I like to call “performance art.”  In the performance art of the prophets we get a taste of what God’s emotions are like.  Hosea was called by God to marry an unfaithful wife to symbolize Israel’s unfaithfulness to God.  Whew!  Here’s another somewhat startling performance art act by the prophet Isaiah:

At that time the LORD had spoken to Isaiah son of Amoz, saying, “Go, and loose the sackcloth from your loins and take your sandals off your feet,” and he had done so, walking naked and barefoot. Then the LORD said, “Just as my servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot for three years as a sign and a portent against Egypt and Ethiopia…”
Isaiah 20:2-3 NRSV

Isaiah walked around butt-naked for three years to make a point about God!  Teenagers, tell your parents next week when you come to church that you’d like to go naked and barefoot to make a point about God.  See what happens.

I like to think of the prophets as ancient hippies.  In fact, this November we’re going to be doing a series called Ancient Hippies looking at four of the prophets: Micah, Amos, Hosea, and Jonah.  Within the words and performance of these ancient hippies we see within God a deep passion and love for you that sometimes looks like the passion of a middle school girl for Justin Bieber.  It makes God do some crazy stuff.  Maybe that’s why we at  Sycamore Creek Church talk about igniting authentic life in Christ.  But we not only ignite it, we fan it into an all consuming passion for God.

A third way that the prophets remind God’s family who they are and are not is through proclamations of justice.  My wife and I named our son Micah because of a famous verse in the book by the prophet Micah about justice:

He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
Micah 6:8 NRSV

It is our hope that he would grow up to be one who does justice, loves kindness, and walks humbly with God.  That’s why we named him Micah.  And now we are back full circle to what Jesus thinks of the Old Testament and what is weighty and what is not so weighty.  Let’s read that argument again that Jesus was having with the religious leaders:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others.
Matthew 23:23 NRSV

What are the weightier matters of the law?  Justice.  Mercy.  Faith.  If you want to know what to pay special attention to in the Old Testament look for the moments of justice, mercy, and faith.  All scripture is inspired but not all scripture is equal.

Practical Suggestions
So here are some really practical suggestions for how to do that:

  1. Read together – Read with other people and don’t forget the people who have come before you.  Read what other Christians have thought historically.  Also, don’t forget to read with people who are different than you.  Sometimes you’ll be blind to something obvious that someone from another culture or ethnicity will notice.
  2. Pray a psalm a day – The psalms are emotion filled prayers.  Pray one each morning.  There are 150 of them.  So it will take you roughly five months to work your way through them.  Over time you will find that the psalms provide you words to pray when you don’t have your own words.
  3. Read a proverb a day – The proverbs are full of practical wisdom for living today.  Read one proverb a day.  I have an app on my phone that displays one proverb each day.
  4. Read with a good Bible dictionary – If I had to pick one book besides the Bible to help me read the Bible it would be a good Bible dictionary.  My favorite is Eerdman’s Bible Dictionary.  When you’re reading a book of the Bible, look that book up and read the brief entry about the context and themes of that book.  When you come across the name of a place or person, look that up in the dictionary and learn more about that person or place.  It will help you know whether that part of the Bible is weighty or not.
  5. Read with a good atlas – My favorite is Baker’s Atlas of Christian History.  In the Bible you’re reading about a foreign land.  It is helpful to see a map and know where you’re reading about.  Is it happening in the dessert, on a mountain, or on the coastlands?  These will give you clues to deeper meanings.
  6. Read with a good handbook – Lastly, pick up a Bible handbook.  My favorite is How to Read the Bible Book by Book.  You’ll find a chapter on each book of the Bible with helpful guides for what to look for as you’re reading it.  Another helpful guidebook is Philip Yancey’s The Bible Jesus Read.  Yancey unpacks much of what I’ve said in his characteristically deep and meaningful way.

Here’s the problem we’ve been wrestling with today:

The Old Testament is hard to understand, scientifically inaccurate, and presents an immoral angry and vengeful God.  Given all this, why would I care to spend any time at all in the Old Testament?

Here’s one answer to that problem:

Where did Martin Luther King Jr. get his inspiration for his I Have a Dream speech?  The Old Testament:

Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.
Isaiah 40:4-5 KJV

 

All scripture is inspired but not all scripture is equal.

Prayer
God, sometimes the Old Testament seems very difficult to read.  Help us pay attention to which parts are weightier than others.  Help us read slowly, carefully, and humbly while paying special attention to the kind of genre we’re reading.  Help us meet you in the pages of the Old Testament so that our lives are transformed into ones that seek justice, mercy, and faith.  Then use us to transform the world.  Amen.

Each week we provide discussion questions for small groups that meet regularly to discuss the message for the week.  Want to find a small group to join?  Email Mark Aupperlee – m_aupperlee@hotmail.com.

  1. What do you like or not like about reading the Old Testament?
  2. What is your favorite or least favorite story from the Old Testament and why?
  3. Read Matthew 23:23.  What do you make of Jesus’ statement that some parts of the Law/Old Testament are “weightier” than others?
  4. What resources (books, apps, websites, etc.) have you found helpful for reading the Old Testament or Bible?
  5. How can we pray for you in your discipline of reading the Bible?

 

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The Old Testament, Part I

August 28, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Bible 101

Bible 101 – The Old Testament Part I
Sycamore Creek Church
August 26, 2012
Tom Arthur
Matthew 23:23 

Peace, Friends!

Anything called “old” must not be very good.  Right?  Well today we begin a Bible 101 series on the “Old” Testament.  The Bible is split into two big sections: Old and New.  The Old Testament happens before Jesus.  The New Testament happens after Jesus.

I’ve got to admit: I’ve struggled with the Old Testament.  When I went to seminary I had several unanswered questions about faith and the Bible.  I even anticipated having a big faith crisis when I began to really dig down and study the Bible, especially the Old Testament.  I had grown up being taught that the Bible was “inerrant.”  That means that it was “without error.”  I was told that if the was ever an error in any part of the Bible, then all the rest of the Bible was suspect.  And it seemed to me that if you were going to find an error in the Bible, it was going to be in the Old Testament.  Of course, “error” always ends up equaling someone’s very literal interpretation of some passage here or there.  But the struggle with this idea and with the Old Testament almost cost me my faith.

But then I had a surprise: I expected my Old Testament class in seminary to seriously challenge and test my faith.  Rather what I found was that Ellen Davis, my Old Testament professor, saved my faith.  She didn’t save me (Jesus did that), but she did save my faith.  Or maybe not exactly my faith but my faith and trust in the Bible.

Today I’d like to take on an almost impossible task.  I’d like to give you an overview of the Old Testament, thousands of pages, in thirty minutes.  Actually, I originally intended this series to be two weeks, one week on the Old Testament and one on the New Testament.  But after wrestling with this task of teaching the Old Testament probably as much as I’ve wrestled with the actual Old Testament itself, I’ve decided to make it two weeks on the Old Testament and save the New Testament for some other time.

I have a fear about this message: that it will be a little too “professorial.”  I’ll do my best to not get too “teachy” but bear with me and I think you’ll gain a deeper appreciation of the Old Testament when we’re done and some helpful guidance for how to make use of it in your life.

I’m not the only one who has struggled with the Old Testament.  I asked my friends on Facebook about their own struggles with the Old Testament.  Here’s some of what I heard:

  • I have a difficult time relating it directly to my life.
  • It’s SO negative and punitive. It depresses me to read it.
  • The fact that god is needy, insecure, vindictive and overly punitive.
  • Not understanding all the customs and circumstances of the age.
  • It’s longer than the New Testament.
  • Sometimes the repetition from one book to the next makes me less enthusiastic to continue reading. And sometimes I feel like I don’t want to read the OT because of all the repetition. Then there’s the repetition. 

Here’s the problem: The Old Testament is hard to understand, scientifically inaccurate, and presents an immoral, angry and vengeful God.  Given all this, why would I care to spend any time at all in the Old Testament?

If you’re a guest here today, I want you to know that these kinds of questions really are live here atSycamoreCreekChurch.  We’re a curious community.  We’ve got questions about God, the Bible, and especially the Old Testament.  We want to invite you to be curious about God with us.  Your questions are welcome right alongside our own questions.

Jesus’ View of the Old Testament

So what to do with the Old Testament?  Let’s begin our exploration today with Jesus’ view of the Old Testament.  What does Jesus think of the Old Testament?  Since Christians believe that Jesus was not only fully human but also fully divine, we could rephrase the question this way: What does God think of the Old Testament?

I’d like to focus on one verse today to help us answer that question: 

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others.
Matthew 23:23 NRSV

So Jesus is arguing with the religious leaders of the day and calls them out for being hypocrites.  They follow to the letter the laws about tithing.  They take this so seriously that they tithe their herbs and spices!  Anybody here tithe?  Anybody here tithe their herbs and spices?

So Jesus lays into them.  What does he say, “You neglect the weightier matters of the law.”  Implied in this critique of the religious leaders of the day is a view of the Old Testament: some things in it are weightier than other things.  In other words, they’re not all equal.  It’s like the rubber bands and dumbbells I use for exercising in the morning.  They all help me exercise but some are weightier than others.

So you may wonder: “Is this just Jesus’ view in the New Testament?  But what does the Old Testament think of itself?”  Well, there’s actually quite a conversation within the Old Testament about what exactly is really important in the Old Testament.  Consider Psalm 51 as it reflects on all the various commandments and details about offering sacrifices at the temple to God, a major part of some of the books in the Old Testament.  Psalm 51 says:

For you [God] have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased.  The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Psalm 51:16-17 NRSV 

So one part of the Old Testament tells us that God doesn’t take delight in sacrifices while another part tells us all the details of how to offer sacrifices.  What’s up with that?

Here’s the main point of today’s message, the one point take-away:   All scripture is inspired, but not all scripture is equal.  Or you might say, “All scripture is inspired, but not all scripture is of equal weight.”  But how do we know which parts of scripture are more weighty than others?  One key to that is to read slowly, carefully, and humbly paying extra attention to genre.

Genre? 

What is “genre”?  You already know it.  What’s your favorite mystery novel?  How about  romance?  Fantasy?  Biography?  Memoir?  Graphic Novel?  Self-help?  Politics?  Cookbook?  They’re all books, but they’re not all the same kind of books.  If you pick up a cookbook and you’re expecting to read a romance novel, you’ll be seriously confused and disappointed.  You don’t even read those books the same way.  You read a romance  sitting in bed over long stretches of time before you go to bed.  You read a cookbook little bits at a time in your kitchen. 

Here’s your Bible quiz for the day: What does “Bible” mean?  “Bible” literally means library.  The Bible is a library of sixty six books.  I’ve got this really cool version of the Bible that shows that really well.  It’s a boxed set where each book of the Bible is individually bound.  There are thirty nine books of the Bible that are written by dozens of authors over thousands of years.  Just like you read a cookbook differently than you read a romance novel, you can’t bring the same expectations to each book of the Bible, or even different parts within the same book.  All scripture is inspired, but not all scripture is equal.

There are three big parts to the Old Testament:

  1. The Story ofIsrael
  2. Wisdom Literature (sometimes called “The Writings”)
  3. The Prophets.

Let’s look at each part one at a time. 

1. Story of Israel

The first big part of the Old Testament is the Story of Israel.  These are the family stories you tell and retell that define who your family is and is not.  For example, my family likes to tell the story of my Grandpa White who was being served pie by my grandma.  She served up a piece of pie and before she could turn back and dish out some ice cream, he had eaten the entire piece of pie!  That tells you something about my family.  It tells you something about my family especially when you compare it to a more recent story that Sarah’s family likes to tell about me and them.  The first time that Sarah’s family served me s’mores, her mom put all the ingredients out on the table: marshmallows, graham crackers, and chocolate.  After her dad had roasted one marshmallow for each of us, Sarah’s mom began putting everything away.  I protested: you can’t call them s’mores if you only get one!  These are stories that we tell and retell over and over.  What stories does your family tell and retell about themselves?  How does the telling and retelling of those stories define who your family is?

The first big part of the Old Testament is the Story of Israel.  Within the Story of Israel are two more big parts: the first part is the Pentateuch often called the Torah and the second part is the History.  Pentateuch means “five books” and Torah means “teaching.”  The five books of the Torah are Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy.  Genesis has two big parts: the pre-history and the story of the matriarchs and patriarchs.  The pre-history sometimes reads like it was taken out of the Lord of the Rings.  For example:

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown.
Genesis 6:4 NRSV 

Did everything written in the pre-history happen exactly as it is written?  Some of it I think should be read metaphorically like the story of creation in six days.  Other parts of it, I don’t know.  I wasn’t there.  But nonetheless, these stories define who the family ofIsraelis, and consequently who we are.

Exodus is the story of the, well, Exodus.  Numbers is the story of the number of people who traveled through the wilderness fromEgyptto the Promised Land.  Numbers is one of those books we love to hate because it just has one list of people after another.  We don’t know how to pronounce their names and we really don’t care.  But here’s a trick, just read the names with authority.  Nobody else knows how to pronounce them either.  Let’s practice:

From Reuben, Elizur son of Shedeur.  From Simeon, Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai.  From Judah, Nahshon son of Amminadab.  From Issachar, Nethanel son of Zuar.  From Zebulun, Eliab son of Helon.  From the sons of Joseph: from Ephraim, Elishama son of Ammihud; from Manasseh, Gamaliel son of Pedahzur.  From Benjamin, Abidan son of Gideoni.  From Dan, Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai.  From Asher, Pagiel son of Ochran.  From Gad, Eliasaph son of Deuel.  From Naphtali, Ahira son of Enan.
Numbers 1:5-15 NRSV 

I used to not get these lists of names.  But then I went to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Mall inWashingtonDC.  I was overwhelmed with emotion.  I cried as I read through the list of one name after another on this amazing memorial.  I cried at a list of names!  Do I want to stand at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial every day and read all those names every day?  Probably not.  But I did gain an appreciation for the power of writing down and reading names.  Or take the one-year anniversary of 9-11.  Do you remember what they did at ground zero?  They read each of the three thousand names who died.  It took a very long time.  But it was powerful to listen to and remember all those names of people.   That’s what the book of Numbers is about. 

Another book we love to hate is Leviticus.  Countless jokes are made about Leviticus.  It is a book of law, many of which seem completely irrelevant to us.  But not all laws are made equally.  There are ceremonial laws, ethical laws, and civil laws.  Buried within this book are amazing gems.  Do you know what the second greatest commandment is according to Jesus?  Do you know where Jesus got that from?  The book of Leviticus:

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Leviticus 19:18 NRSV 

“Deuteronomy” literally means “second law.”  Once again we’re in the law.  Irrelevant?  Do you know what the greatest commandment is according to Jesus?  Do you know where Jesus got that commandment from?  Deuteronomy.  

You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.
Deuteronomy 6:5 NRSV

That’s the Pentateuch or Torah.  That’s the first part of the Story of Israel.  The second part of the Story of Israel is the history.  Here’s how the history of Israel works:

There are several books that describe what life was like before there were kings that ruledIsrael: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel

There is much in these books that is disturbing.  But when we read books of history, we need to remember that often times what we’re reading is simply reporting what happened without a lot of commentary on whether it was wrong or right.  But one big piece of commentary we get from the book of Judges is this:

In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes.
Judges 17:6 NRSV

One of the big stories that rubs people the wrong way is Lot offering his daughters to be gang raped by a mob.  When you read this story, you must keep in mind that there is nothing in the story that says that God toldLotto do this.  What you read is simply a report of what happened.

But that doesn’t totally get us off the hook in these difficult moments.  We read in Samuel:

Thus says the LORD of hosts, “I will punish the Amalekites for what they did in opposing the Israelites when they came up out of Egypt.  Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.”
1 Samuel 15:2-3 NRSV

YIKES!  If you’ve got questions about stuff like this, well, you’re in good company.  I’ve got questions too.   When I come to sections like this it is helpful to remember that there are other parts of the Old Testament that tell a very different story.  Consider this passage from Micah: 

They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
Micah 4:3 NRSV

The Old Testament can be very bloody, but it also almost always points to, even longs for, a day when war will be a thing of the past.  All scripture is inspired, but not all scripture is equal.

Moving on in the books of history there are several books that describe what life was like after kings took power in Israel: 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles.  Here’s where much of the repetition comes from.  The books of Kings was written by one group of people.  The books of Chronicles tells the exact same story by another group of people.  Some parts of these books are identical.

So during the king part of the Story of Israel there is a civil war and Israel is split into two kingdoms: the Northern Kingdom, Israel, and the Southern Kingdom, Judah.  This civil war weakened Israel and Judah and soon the empires of Assyria and Babylon came and sacked these two kingdoms and took the people of Israel off to Exile.  One book that tells what it was like to live in Exile is Esther.

Soon another even bigger Empire,Persia, takes down Assyria andBabylonand allowsIsraelto return to their land.  Two books tell this story – Ezra & Nehemiah.

So we’ve covered the first big part of the Old Testament: the Story of Israel.  There are two big parts left to go, but you’re going to have to come back next week to learn about those.

All scripture is inspired, but not all scripture is equal.  When we really take this point into account we will read slowly, carefully, and humbly with special attention to genre of what we’re reading.  I think that this kind of reading takes a lot of work.  It doesn’t come easily.  Next week we’re going to look at some practical strategies for how to do this kind of work.

When we read the Old Testament in this way it transforms our life and the lives of those around us.  Lately I’ve been on a community learning tour.  I’ve been visiting various places in our community and this past week I met our county sheriff, Sherriff Wrigglesworth.  One of his deputies, Steve Martin (not the comedian) gave me a tour of the jail.  Steve retires in about two weeks.  He’s a seasoned policeman.  As Steve walked me around showing me all the ins and outs (it was serious maze!), he told me about how he treats the prisoners: with respect.   He said that he doesn’t yell at them or curse at them.  If he has to speak words of discipline to an inmate, he takes him aside away from his buddies so as not to shame him in front of others.  He told me how some of the younger deputies don’t treat the prisoners in this way and how they often end up having to resolve issues physically.  After Steve told me this, I said to him, “I don’t know your faith history, but I’d say you’re treating the prisoners with a basic biblical dignity.”  He went on to tell me that he was a Christian and that while many of these inmates have done some pretty heinous stuff, they are worthy of being treated with respect as humans because they each bear the image of God.  Where do you think he got that idea from?  The Old Testament.

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