Catching Fog

In order to illustrate God’s troubled relationship with his people, he had his prophet Hosea marry a woman that would give Hosea nothing but trouble. He told her to marry a prostitute named Gomer and though Hosea seems to have loved her, his love was hardly returned. She continued seeing other men, and it would surprise no one if the children she gave birth to were not Hosea’s. Eventually she left him and continued her promiscuous ways. But her life choices resulted in disaster for her and she wound up getting herself sold into slavery.

At that point, God told Hosea to buy her back, to rescue her from the consequences of her bad behavior and bad choices—and to love her.

There is nothing in Hosea’s short book of prophesy to let us know if Hosea and his wife wound up living happily ever after, or if once again, she went back to sleeping around.

Love is rarely rational and it is easy to give our heart to a person who will not take care of it.

But Hosea’s love for his wayward wife, and God’s love for his wayward people, serve as an illustration of what love means to God. For Him, love is not a many splendored thing. Instead, it is merely painful and never fully requited. True love desires and works for the best of the one beloved, regardless of the response: the best most people ever come to it is in our relationship with our children. An infant does nothing but cry, demand immediate attention. It gives back nothing but sleepless nights and dirty diapers. Things don’t change all that much as they grow older–especially when they become teenagers. And yet, despite everything, we continue to love our children and want what’s best for them, no matter how they treat us.

God loves us more than we love our babies, more than the father loved the prodigal son (in Luke 15:11-32).

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The seventh year of King Hezekiah’s reign brought crisis to both him and his nation. A recorded in 2 Kings 17-18, the Assyrian king Sennacherib had already invaded the northern kingdom of Israel and had conquered it. After deporting nearly thirty thousand of its inhabitants, he sent his “supreme commander, his chief officer and his field commander with a large army from Lachish to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem” and demanded surrender, pointing out that the gods of each of the other kingdoms Sennacherib had invaded had failed to withstand him and protect their peoples. Therefore, why should Hezekiah or the people of Judah think that their god, Yahweh would be able save them?

Hezekiah took the letter, with it’s insults and took it to the temple, then spread it out before the altar and prayed, “O LORD, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Give ear, O LORD, and hear; open your eyes, O LORD, and see; listen to the words Sennacherib has sent to insult the living God.”
The news was bad and realistically, Hezekiah knew that the situation was hopeless. His wisest course of action was an unpleasant one: to obey the king of Assyria and simply surrender. At least then, his people would be spared war, siege, starvation and the like.

The prophet Isaiah responded with an answer from God: fear not. The army of Sennacherib would be vanquished and all would be well: both Sennacherib and the people of Judah would see the power of Yahweh.

That very night, Sennacherib’s army died of a plague, forcing Sennacherib to withdraw.

Bad news is not always unexpected. When you can’t pay your car payment for several months, a call from the finance company informing you that they are repossessing the vehicle is bad news but not unanticipated.

But sometimes bad news comes out of the blue, as when you turn on the television and discover that terrorists have destroyed the World Trade Center in New York. Or when you wake up in the morning and discover that your baby died of SIDS. Or the phone rings and you learn that one of your friends is dead from a heart attack at the age of forty.

Hezekiah’s news from an invader shows us a helpful response to bad news: prayer.

Regardless of whether God answers as he did Hezekiah, or with a quiet “no”, as he does other some other characters in the Bible, the comfort in prayer is the knowledge that God is still there, going through the problem with you. For the believer, the answer is not as critical as the relationship. Simply having someone to talk to, to share, to bear the burden with you, is a comfort.

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Elijah told Ahab, the king of Israel, that God would not send rain again until Elijah said so. Elijah then immediately went into hiding. Although he knew Ahab probably wouldn’t believe at first, after three years of drought and then famine, Elijah knew that Ahab would start hunting for the prophet. And the king was not averse to using whatever methods might be necessary to get Elijah to beg God for rain.

So, Elijah spent the beginning of the drought living in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan river. There was a brook there, supplying his water, and ravens brought him bread and meat each morning and evening. Eventually, however, the brook dried up. There was a drought on, after all. God told him to go to Zarephath of Siden, where there was a widow who would be happy to take care of him.

The widow didn’t know anything about that, however, and when Elijah showed up at the city gate and asked her for a jar of water, she was happy to oblige. But when he also asked for some bread, she told him, “I don’t have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die.” (1 Kings 17:12).

Elijah told her not to worry about that, that God promised to take care of her and that “The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the LORD gives rain on the land” (1 Kings 17:14). So she made him bread, and took care of Elijah and her only son for a long while.

But then one day, her son became desperately ill and died.

She blamed Elijah, but Elijah prayed to God, complaining also, “O LORD my God, have you brought tragedy also upon this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?” (1 Kings 17:20) God heard his prayer and raised the boy back to life. The widow then commented, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the LORD from your mouth is the truth.” (1 Kings 17:24)

In the New Testament, Jesus is recorded as commenting, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself! Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’
“I tell you the truth,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon.” (Luke 4:23-26)

Our parents did not give us everything we asked for at Christmas. With parents, there are several reasons for this. Sometimes, it’s a simple matter of economics: they would love to give what their child asked for, but there is simply not enough money in their bank accounts to afford it. Sometimes, it’s because what the child asked for is impractical for their situation–such as when a family lives in a tiny apartment in the heart of New York City and the child asks for a pony. The child is going to be disappointed.

With God, when we face hard times and ask for help, sometimes the help we want doesn’t arrive. I knew an out of work couple who begged God for work to keep them from losing their home to foreclosure. But the work didn’t come. Their prayers to God for money, for some way out, were met with the same silence. They lost their house.

Does that mean that God was unable to help? Or that it was impractical? We have no way of knowing.

On the other hand, I know people in the same situation who begged God for help and the help arrived in the nick of time.

Sometimes, in desperate circumstances, as with the widow with whom Elijah lived, the cavalry rides in. But as Jesus pointed out, there were many widows in Israel during Elijah’s life. Only one got Elijah.

Why?

Neither Jesus nor the author of the book of Kings bothers to tell us.

What of the couple who lost their home? They eventually found jobs and a place they could rent. Within a few years, they’d saved enough to buy another house. Why did they have to suffer the loss of their jobs, suffer the indignity and stress of foreclosure, make-do for years, and only after much effort, finally return to the same status they had before?

Some look at such suffering and conclude that it means there cannot be a God, because they cannot understand why God would allow such misery. Unfortunately, those who argue that way are making the same mistake, in reverse, that those who argue God exists because no one can explain how a given thing works. God-of-the-gaps is a mistake. You cannot prove the existence of God by pointing at ignorance. The opposite, Atheist-of-the-gaps (that no one can explain how come God allows evil and pain) is just as flawed–and for exactly the same reason.

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Walking in the path that God has laid out for you might be neither easy nor pleasant. Jesus himself told his followers that:

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14)

Certainly it is the case that many people in the Bible faced setback after setback as they did exactly what God told them to do.

In Judges 20, after a horrible crime went unpunished by the people of the tribe of Benjamin, the rest of the Israelites went to war against them. The Israelites had an overwhelming advantage numerically over the Benjamites. And when they came to the point of battle, the asked God: should we do this? And God told them yes. And so they attacked and the Benjamites slaughtered 22,000 of the Israelites and routed their army, despite the fact that the Benjamites had but 26,000 soldiers compared to the Israelite 400,000.

After the defeat the Israelites once again asked God, should we attack? And once again, God told them to attack.

And this time the Israelites lost the battle, were routed and 18,000 more Israelite soldiers lay dead.

Finally, the Israelites asked God a third time whether they should attack the Benjamites, and once again, God told them to attack. And finally, on that third attack the Israelites defeated the Benjamites.

So. Three times they did what God told them to do, but only on the third attempt did they achieve what they thought God wanted them to accomplish. The first two times, things went really, really badly.

Moses went to Egypt to rescue the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. He had two signs to impress the Pharaoh: a stick that could become a snake and then turn back into a stick, and he could make his hand become leprous and un-leprous. Pharaoh was unimpressed with both signs and instead of letting the people go, he made their lives more miserable, increasing the amount of labor they were required to do. God told Moses to rescue the Israelites, but instead, he made things worse for them—and the Israelites knew he was responsible and hated him for it.

Moses returned to the LORD and said, “Why, Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people? Is this why you sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble on this people, and you have not rescued your people at all.” (Exodus 5:22-23)

Then, it took ten plagues before the Pharaoh finally agreed to let the Israelites go. So nine times out of ten, the plagues accomplished nothing.

And then we have these words from Paul, the apostle:

I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. (1 Corinthians 11:23-28)

Paul was doing what God asked him to do, walking the Path that God laid out for him, living precisely in the center of God’s will for him—and look at all the problems he faced as a result!

So, just because you face setbacks, obstacles, and misery, and you don’t see that what you’re doing is ever going to pay off or achieve what you thought God asked you to do, it doesn’t mean you didn’t hear God or aren’t doing what he wants you to do. What you need to understand is that things are usually a lot more complicated than you expected—but it doesn’t mean you’re not making progress just because you can’t see where you’re going and you’re wondering if it’s worth the effort when nothing seems to be working right. God sees the whole picture, he knows the whole plan. You, not so much. Just do God’s will. That’s always your best choice, no matter how unreasonable or stupid it might seem at any given moment.

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. (Galatians 6:9)

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While Moses was receiving the ten commandments from God on top of Mount Sinai, the Israelites despaired of his ever returning. As his time with God stretched from days to weeks, the people began to lose hope and asked Moses’ brother Aaron to do something. So Aaron made a couple of calf idols and the people began having orgies.

God told Moses what was going on and said:

“Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’

“I have seen these people,” the LORD said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.” (Exodus 32:7-10)

Interesting how the people were now Moses’ people, whom Moses’ had brought out of Egypt. “Go talk to your son,” said the father to the mother.

But notice something interesting. Moses didn’t just acquiesce to God’s plan. Instead, he told God no. “Don’t do that.”

Based on some traditional notions of God, one might expect Moses to now become a smoking pile of ash. But that’s not what happened.

Instead, God listened to Moses–and he spared the disobedient Israelites:

But Moses sought the favor of the LORD his God. “LORD,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’ ” Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened. (Exodus 32:11-14)

God does not ask for blind obedience. It’s apparently okay to question God, disagree with him, discuss things with him, and ask him to change his plans. And remarkably, sometimes God listens and does what he’s asked. One might argue that God’s plans all along were to spare the Israelites, and that God said what he said to Moses in order to elicit the reaction he got. But that’s not how the story reads, is it?

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I learned about something new today from what someone posted to me on Facebook. It’s called Christian Domestic Discipline. The focus is on “disciplining” one’s wife, including physical disciplining: that is, they advocate spanking. Now if they were simply advocating some odd Christian version of BDSM, then that would be fine and kinky. But that’s not what the site is about. Instead, despite repeated denials (which in itself kind of raises red flags) they seem to actually be advocating domestic violence and try to argue how it is a good and biblical thing. They use a whole raft of verses to try to justify their point of view and lifestyle.

It reminds me of stuff I’ve seen on MEMRI.org that is common in the Muslim world: http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1478.htm and http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/440.htm

I don’t know how much more strongly I can state it: beating one’s spouse, spanking one’s spouse, “disciplining” one’s spouse is simply wrong and is domestic violence. It is evil. Besides just being peculiar.

The website I saw was painful to read and there is so much wrong with it that it becomes overwhelming to talk about it all. So instead, I’ll focus on foundational principles: when one thinks about how spouses are to relate to each other, Jesus made it really, really simple:

“Jesus called them together and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’” (Matthew 20:25-28)

It’s a passage I rarely see ever appearing in traditional excuses about how spouses should relate to one another. Instead, as with this site, they misuse the passage in Ephesians 5 about the wife submitting, missing the beginning verse that all Christians are to submit to one another, and that in fact it is being used as a synonym for love–which is the core of the biblical message after all (Jesus said it’s the theme of the Bible–see Matthew 22:36-40). Based on what Jesus said about love being the theme of the Bible, the basic interpretive principle for understanding it is not so tough: if you read a passage and you think it’s telling you its okay to do something that isn’t love, then you’ve misinterpreted it. Start over.

This Christian Domestic Discipline site misuses and ignores the context of just about all the biblical passages they reference. For instance, one person wrote this in an essay on the site: “Part of the curse was that Eve would no longer easily follow her husband, but rather would want to control him.”

This is flat out wrong–though I’ve seen the interpretation before. It is not a possible interpretation, even if a certain large church in southern California thinks so. There is a word in Genesis 3:16 that is being interpreted by that essayist and others to mean “desire to rule over” –which is nonsense. The other usages of the word in the Bible refer to sexual desire. Not quite the same thing. The curse on the woman was pain in childbirth. Despite that, she will still enjoy having sex. That’s all it is saying.

Another weird one used in the Christian Domestic Discipline website was how they applied Proverbs 13:24, about using a rod on children. The word “rod” is metaphorical for discipline (and we see it used that way in quite a few OT passages). It is not to be understood as meaning that it is good to take a big old stick, perhaps a curtain rod or a large wood dowel, to your children. Even those who advocate corporal punishment for their children, for the most part, do not take the passage about using a rod literally. Instead, they reduce the “rod” to their hand or a switch.

Another passage that these people seem to miss is from Paul:

“The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife.” 1 Corinthians 7:3-4.

Notice: the husband does not have authority over his own body: it belongs to the wife (and vice versa); again that whole mutual submission, not lording it over one another, and, you know, love. The other odd thing I noticed on this website was their emphasis on proper “authority.” That has more to do with something out of Bill Gothard’s Basic Youth Conflicts than it does the Bible. They simply don’t understand what they are talking about, in my estimation about much in the Bible.

And one final thing: people who are in abusive relationships commonly justify the abuser’s behavior and find ways to explain that it is really okay and they deserve it. That’s the feeling I got in reading through this website.

“Stockholm syndrome can be seen as a form of traumatic bonding, which does not necessarily require a hostage scenario, but which describes ‘strong emotional ties that develop between two persons where one person intermittently harasses, beats, threatens, abuses, or intimidates the other.’ One commonly used hypothesis to explain the effect of Stockholm syndrome is based on Freudian theory. It suggests that the bonding is the individual’s response to trauma in becoming a victim. Identifying with the aggressor is one way that the ego defends itself. When a victim believes the same values as the aggressor, they cease to be a threat.” (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome )

And of course the whole premise of the site about Christian Domestic Discipline is incredibly misogynistic: it is degrading to women. They obviously believe that women are less than men and in need of a man’s help in order to become good and proper and to behave as they should. There is no recognition that women are created in the image of God and are equal to men. There is no recognition that women are adults.

Of course there are those who might argue that the only reason women want to work outside the home, get careers and the like, is because the feminist movement has filled them with wrong-headed dreams and aspirations. Those darn feminists are the ones who’ve made women unhappy and dissatisfied with their “proper, God-given roles” in the home.

Uh huh.

Like the slave holders of a different era, who complained that “If it weren’t for those durn abolitionists filling the n**s with wool-headed ideas they wouldn’t be near the trouble; getting them all riled up about liberty and equality and who knows what other gosh durn foolishness!”

The reason a woman might like a career and be dissatisfied fulfilling the role of a slave is because she is a human being, created in the image of God, with the same common ideals and aspirations, hopes and fears, that fill the male half of humanity, since woman, too, is as much a part of humanity as man.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Gen. 1:27)

Abraham Lincoln is quoted as saying, regarding slavery, that it was quite easy to realize it was wrong: ask yourself, would you care to be a slave? If the answer is no, then that tells you slavery is wrong. Likewise, if you ask yourself, “would I care to be ‘disciplined’ like a dog or other animal? (which is how Christian Domestic Discipline seems to treat women)” If the answer is no, then that tells you it is wrong. If a man wouldn’t like the restrictions placed on women in some churches and other places, then he should know just from that it is wrong. You see, it violates the Golden Rule: do to others as you’d have them do to you (see Matthew 7:12).

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