Catching Fog

“Listen to me, descendants of Jacob,
all you who remain in Israel.
I have cared for you since you were born.
Yes, I carried you before you were born.
I will be your God throughout your lifetime—
until your hair is white with age.
I made you, and I will care for you.
I will carry you along and save you.
“To whom will you compare me?
Who is my equal?
Some people pour out their silver and gold
and hire a craftsman to make a god from it.
Then they bow down and worship it!
They carry it around on their shoulders,
and when they set it down, it stays there.
It can’t even move!
And when someone prays to it, there is no answer.
It can’t rescue anyone from trouble.
“Do not forget this! Keep it in mind!
Remember this, you guilty ones.
Remember the things I have done in the past.” Isaiah 46:3-7

We’re not on our own. The Assyrians invaded Israel around 722 BC and took captive a little less than 30,000 of the people, mostly the upper classes and the well-to-do: those who were most likely to lead an uprising. God spoke to the Israelites left behind after that destruction, who would be wondering what the future might hold, who might think that God no longer cared about them.

Even though they might not realize it, God had been carrying them, watching them, taking care of them since before they were born and he would continue carrying them until they were old and white-haired. There was no stage of life where God would not be present. They could not get away from him, no matter how hard they might try. There was no way that God had, or ever could, abandon them.

In contrast, the idols that the Israelites had focused so much of their energy on were nothing more than the wood, stone or precious metals out of which they were manufactured. How could God ever be compared to them? They were worthless, but God was valuable: he would always be there for them. We don’t carry idols any longer. But it is all too easy to trust in our jobs, our abilities, our technology. But if the economy goes bad, if we get sick or disabled, if the batteries run out or we can’t find a plug, what then? God never gets sick, his arm is never weak, and his batteries really will keep going and going and going.

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Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And the LORD stood beside him and said, “I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the LORD is in this place—and I did not know it!” And he was afraid, and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” (Genesis 28:10-17)

God came one dark night. Jacob was desperate, on the run, and everyone was against him. He was scared. Jacob knew he was in trouble. He’d deceived his old father in order to rob his brother of his birthright. Both his father and his brother were understandably mad at him. In fact, his brother had threatened to kill him and so that’s why he’d had to leave home. His mother had arranged his escape, just as she’d arranged for him to steal the birthright. Perhaps, as he lay down to sleep that night alone and forsaken, he wondered whether that had been such a good idea after all—and whether maybe heading off toward his mom’s relatives was such a good idea, either.

Sleeping with a rock for a pillow, he had weird dreams. And then God talked to him and promised him that everything would be okay. His response was to get scared again, since the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. This was his first encounter with God, but would not be his last. Love casts out fear and eventually he would learn to love God instead of being afraid of him. But it would take his whole life. He promised God his devotion, responding to God as human beings always do: first with fear, then with love, knowing that though he was leaving his home, he wouldn’t be alone after all. Our lives teach us that we can trust God to take care of us.

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Again, God said to Noah and his sons:

I am going to make a solemn promise to you and to everyone who will live after you. This includes the birds and the animals that came out of the boat. I promise every living creature that the earth and those living on it will never again be destroyed by a flood.

The rainbow that I have put in the sky will be my sign to you and to every living creature on earth. It will remind you that I will keep this promise forever. When I send clouds over the earth, and a rainbow appears in the sky, I will remember my promise to you and to all other living creatures. Never again will I let floodwaters destroy all life. When I see the rainbow in the sky, I will always remember the promise that I have made to every living creature.” (Genesis 9:8-16)

The need for punishment is long past. On the surface, the story of the post-flood rainbow resembles stories like, “how did the bear lose its tail?” But the story of Noah and the ark was not devised simply to explain where rainbows come from. In fact, rainbows predated the flood, just as circumcision predated Abraham. God simply imbued both the rainbow, and later circumcision, with a new significance: they became signs, or symbols of a contract. They were the equivalent of what we would see later when the patriarchs such as Jacob would set up a stone or a pile of stones to serve as a kind of marker for an agreement, promise, or significant incident. The rainbow served as an everlasting reminder to the human race and to every other creature living on Earth, that God would never again allow all life to be destroyed by a great flood. It also served as a reminder to God. It was an everlasting promise, one that he would always keep and never break, despite the sad reality that human behavior had not changed at all. Soon Noah would be getting drunk. Since Noah, other bad behavior has followed: wars and rumors of wars, murder and violence of every kind.

The reasons for the flood have not gone away; but God will never again punish us like that. Perhaps, therefore, the flood and the rainbow stand as symbols of something else: that Jesus died once for our sins and he never has to do that again. Jesus suffered once for all the punishment we have ever, or will ever, deserve.

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Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Acbor, Shaphan and Asaiah went to speak to the prophetess Huldah, who was the wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe. She lived in Jerusalem, in the Second District.

She said to them, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Tell the man who sent you to me, ‘This is what the LORD says: I am going to bring disaster on this place and its people, according to everything written in the book the king of Judah has read. Because they have forsaken me and burned incense to other gods and provoked me to anger by all the idols their hands have made, my anger will burn against this place and will not be quenched.’ Tell the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the LORD, ‘This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says concerning the words you heard: Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before the LORD when you heard what I have spoken against this place and its people, that they would become accursed and laid waste, and because you tore your robes and wept in my presence, I have heard you, declares the LORD. Therefore I will gather you to your fathers, and you will be buried in peace. Your eyes will not see all the disaster I am going to bring on this place.’”

So they took her answer back to the king. (2 Kings 22:14-20)

Hey, look what we found! During the reign of Josiah, the last good king, the priests discovered a copy of the “book of the Law” while they were renovating the Temple. The book of the law is most likely the book of Deuteronomy, though it’s possible it might be the entire Pentateuch, Genesis through Deuteronomy. Besides not worshipping God like they were supposed to, and besides not loving one another like they were supposed to, the Israelites had misplaced their copy of God’s word to them, a metaphor of how they had misplaced God from their lives. Startled by what they read, the priests took it to the king and read it to him. He reacted by tearing his robes and exclaiming that God was angry at them. So he told the priests to go and find out what God’s intentions were. Was there any hope? Could they fix the problem—pay a penalty short of foreclosure? So Hilkiah, along with other religious and government officials went to Huldah. We know nothing more about her than what is related here.

Upon receiving her message, which was simply a confirmation that they had accurately understood the contract and that indeed, they were in serious trouble with God, the priests and other officials returned to Josiah and relayed her words. Then Josiah went to the Temple, along with a large percentage of the population of Jerusalem. There, he read the words of the contract to the people and renewed it, encouraging them to abide by the terms of what was in the “book of the law.” He knew that the judgment would not come in his day because of Huldah’s words. But he hoped that if he could get his people to genuinely repent—as he had—and thereby gained God’s forbearance. He hoped that the same would happen to his nation as well.

Unfortunately, the people of Judah did not genuinely repent and the judgment that God had long promised came. Ignorance of the law would not protect them. Without repentance, discipline is inevitable. God wants to change our lives for the best. He’ll do whatever it takes to make it happen.

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On average, I manage to consume at least two books, usually three or four, every week. I’ve been doing this for as long as I can remember. It started when my mom began taking me to the library when I was very young. My reading fixation has never wavered since, even through college and graduate school.

Though I spend an inordinate amount of time reading science fiction novels, there’s another sort of book that I read through every year. Given that I’m a theologian, college professor, and author of several religious books, it’s no surprise that it’s the Bible. But why do I read it cover to cover every year? Did I lose a bet? Do I do it out of a sense of religious duty?
I read it regularly for the same reason I read anything: entertainment and knowledge. At sixteen, I had never read through the entire Bible even once. All I knew of it were a few bits and pieces, mostly from what I’d heard in Sunday School and church. I decided I needed to learn the book for myself.

Reading through it the first time was eye opening: I discovered stories I’d never heard before. And the ones I had heard before? Sometimes what was written in the Bible was not exactly the way I’d learned it in Sunday School.

When I first started reading the Bible I tended to treat it like the man in the old story who wanted to know what God’s will for his life was each day. One morning he pointed at a spot on the page with his eyes closed. Opening his eyes, he read “Judas hanged himself.” Finding no comfort there, he tried again, only to have his finger land on the phrase, “Go and do thou likewise.” In a panic, he tried a third time, only to read “Whatsoever thou doest, do quickly.” Of course, the Bible is not designed to be used like a Ouija board or Magic Eight Ball. It is not a fortune cookie.

I eventually learned the importance of context: understanding what was happening on the page, as well as taking into consideration the cultural and historical setting. The comfort I could gain from the Bible moved from seeking what mattered to me, to seeking what mattered to God.

As I saw how God worked with the characters in the Bible, learned about their struggles and concerns, I discovered that these ancient individuals faced the same doubts, confusions, and problems that I did. They were just as flawed as me, just as troubled. And God stayed with them regardless. I learned that they didn’t always get the answers they wanted. I learned that they weren’t always comforted. But through it all, they stayed with God anyway.

The stories in the Bible have helped me in times when I couldn’t make sense of my world, when everything was going wrong, and when there seemed to be no hope. I found no guarantees that I’d always get out of my problems, but I did find out that even if I couldn’t understand why, God’s love remained—and He hadn’t left me just because I was hurting.

One day most of the followers of Jesus left him. Jesus turned to the twelve apostles and asked, “Are you also going to leave?” Peter responded, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:66-68). During those times that I get so low that I wonder what’s the point, why go on, why not just give up on God, I remember Peter’s words.

During the reign of king Jehoshaphat, the people of Judah faced an overwhelming invasion. There seemed to be no way out. They saw no hope. So king Jehoshaphat prayed to God: “For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.” (2 Chronicles 20:12). If nothing else, we can always keep our focus on Him.

The prophet Habakkuk asked God to do something about the misbehaving people of Israel. God answered that he’d send the Babylonians to punish them. This puzzled the prophet, since he knew the Babylonians were far more deserving of God’s judgment than the Israelites. How could God use a greater evil to judge a lesser evil? God gave him no satisfactory answer. But the prophet decided to trust God anyway:

I heard and my heart pounded,
my lips quivered at the sound;
decay crept into my bones,
and my legs trembled.
Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity
to come on the nation invading us.
Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.
The Sovereign LORD is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to tread on the heights. (Habakkuk 3:16-19)

Sometimes life just doesn’t make sense. But that’s no reason to give up on God. If you give up on God, has your problem gone away? Does it make you feel better?

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Back at the turn of the millennium, the Southern Baptist Convention decided to modify their statement of faith which goes by the title, The Baptist Faith and Message. The 2000 revision added the following:

The Christian & the Social Order

All Christians are under obligation to seek to make the will of Christ supreme in our own lives and in human society… in the spirit of Christ, Christians should oppose racism, every form of greed, selfishness, and vice, and all forms of sexual immorality, including adultery, homosexuality, and pornography. We should work to provide for the orphaned, the needy, the abused, the aged, the helpless, and the sick. We should speak on behalf of the unborn and contend for the sanctity of all human life from conception to natural death…

And,

Family

God has ordained the family as the foundational institution of human society. It is composed of persons related to one another by marriage, blood or adoption.

Marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime. … The husband and wife are of equal worth before God, since both are created in God’s image. A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. He has the God-given responsibility to provide for, to protect, and to lead his family. A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. She, being in the image of God as is her husband and thus equal to him, has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household and nurturing the next generation… Children, from the moment of conception, are a blessing and heritage from the Lord. Parents are to demonstrate to their children God’s pattern for marriage.

I wrote a letter to the California Southern Baptist newspaper expressing my disagreement with this change. I was reminded of this when someone asked me today why the School of Theology website doesn’t have the up-to-date version of the Baptist Faith and Message. Primarily, it’s because I don’t agree with it. Of course, The Baptist Faith and Message is not supposed to be prescriptive, anyhow. It is supposed to be merely descriptive since Baptists don’t believe in creeds. If you are required to agree with a statement of faith, it has become a creed–and no matter how much you claim to believe that the Bible is the final authority for faith and practice in the church, if you have to abide by a creed, regardless of what you call it, that creed has replaced the Bible as the final authority for faith and practice. I won’t abide that.

So, anyhow, here is what I wrote to the California Southern Baptist; they actually published part of it:

The problem I have with the recent amendments to the Baptist Faith and Message, condemning homosexuality as a sin and telling wives to submit to their husbands are as follows:

1. If we believe that homosexuality is a sin, why do we feel the need to list that one sin in particular? If we’re going to start listing sins, then we need to list all of them. Anything else doesn’t make any sense. After all, salvation is by grace, not by works. Why should we be emphasizing a specific sin? Didn’t Jesus and Paul both say that the law is summarized with the statement that we should love God and love our neighbor as ourselves? Then why this need to pick out this one sin above all others? I’m sorry, but I just don’t approve of fan clubs for specific sins, however useful bandying them about may be for the purpose of rallying troops and raising funds. It misses the point of what we’re about.

2. I don’t have a problem with wives submitting to their husbands; however, stopping there creates a false sense of what we as Christians are called to do. After all, if we look at Ephesians 5:21 we discover that all of us, regardless of gender, are supposed to submit to one another. That puts what follows in 5:22 about wives submitting in a little different light. So my argument against the recent addition to the Baptist Faith and Message is essentially that it has taken a biblical passage out of context and focused on only half an issue. I think it would be useful, if we want to think about the nature of our interpersonal relationships, to also consider what Jesus had to say about leadership in Matthew 20:25-28 (Cf. Mark 10:42-45, Luke 22:25-27):

“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.'”

The interesting passage in 1 Corinthians 7:4 also indicates that the point, scripturally, is mutual submission: “The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife.”

We need to recognize that submission is an act of love motivated by a free will choice; it cannot be made to happen. The meaning of the term “submit” in Ephesians 5, and the point of Paul’s argument, can be summed up in Matthew 22:36-40:

“‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?’

“‘Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.'” (cf. Galatians 5:14 and Romans 13:8-10)

Everything boils down to loving one another. Jesus is so bold as to say that love is the whole point of the Bible: its central theme. Everything else is commentary. Thus, any interpretation we make of the Bible must make sense in light of the two commands, to love God and to love people. If our conclusion puts us at odds with either of these commandments, we can be certain that we have failed to interpret a passage correctly. If our attitudes toward one another violate the spirit and letter of 1 Corinthians 13 (Paul’s famous passage explaining what love is), then we are out of line.

Those men who are uncomfortable with the equality of women should ask themselves a slightly modified version of a question Abraham Lincoln asked those who advocated slavery. Would you like to be a slave? If the answer is no, as it must be, then perhaps it is obvious that slavery is a violation the golden rule. Likewise, if you are uncomfortable with the idea of being forced into a subservient role yourself, how can you in good conscience advocate it for others?

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The word of the LORD came to me: Mortal, you are living in the midst of a rebellious house, who have eyes to see but do not see, who have ears to hear but do not hear; for they are a rebellious house. Therefore, mortal, prepare for yourself an exile’s baggage, and go into exile by day in their sight; you shall go like an exile from your place to another place in their sight. Perhaps they will understand, though they are a rebellious house. You shall bring out your baggage by day in their sight, as baggage for exile; and you shall go out yourself at evening in their sight, as those do who go into exile. Dig through the wall in their sight, and carry the baggage through it. In their sight you shall lift the baggage on your shoulder, and carry it out in the dark; you shall cover your face, so that you may not see the land; for I have made you a sign for the house of Israel.

I did just as I was commanded. I brought out my baggage by day, as baggage for exile, and in the evening I dug through the wall with my own hands; I brought it out in the dark, carrying it on my shoulder in their sight. (Ezekiel 12:1-7)

A picture is worth a thousand words. Houses in the ancient Middle East were usually built of clay bricks, mixed with straw. Digging through such a brick wall was as easy as digging a shallow hole in the ground. But it wasn’t the sort of thing that people ever did. Thus, Ezekiel’s peculiar behavior would have attracted attention—which of course was God’s point in having him do it.
God used Ezekiel to illustrate the words that he had spoken to his people. God hoped that his people might pay more attention to his illustrated message than they usually did to his text only presentations. What story were Ezekiel’s actions the pictures for?

Ezekiel was living in Babylon. Back in Jerusalem, Zedekiah was sitting on David’s throne. He had been put there by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, after Zedekiah’s nephew Jehoiachin had rebelled. Learning nothing from his predecessor, Zedekiah rebelled, too, and so Nebuchadnezzar attacked. Zedekiah tried sneaking away by night. Nebuchadnezzar captured him, killed his children and then blinded him, before hauling him away in chains back to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar burned Jerusalem and its temple to the ground.

Zedekiah had refused to listen to Jeremiah. The exiles in Babylon paid about as much attention to Ezekiel. God is speaking even now, whether we chose to listen to him or not. We’d do well to listen.

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