Friday, October 11, 2019

Why I Say The Bible Is A History Book, Part 2: Introducing Arguably The Most Difficult Passage In The Bible

Reflective tangent, post-Part 1: I felt it best to chop this topic up in multiple posts. Today's post was my original focus, but I found myself needing to give some background to some of the most common and current opposition to the Bible. In today's climate, even simply declaring that the Bible is a history book is becoming scandalous even here in the United States of America. I get it: sadly, many Americans (including the most vocal Americans) who identify as a Bible-believing Christian also tend to ally themselves politically against race reconciliation and against social justice, both of which I believe Jesus cares a lot about. As such, a large plurality of Americans who happen to be vocal about racial reconciliation and about social justice, tend to look at those who identify as Bible-believers and automatically think "I want no part of whatever they're drinking." I repeat: I get it. I wouldn't either.

My heart for those who identify as a non-Christian -- are least as a non-Biblical-inerrancy-believing Christian -- who are still pro-racial reconciliation and pro-social justice is that you can separate the two. I believe it is not only possible to be a Bible-inerrancy-believing, racial-reconciliation-advocating, and social-justice-activist Christian, but that that's actually a big and important part of the heart of following Jesus. I am happy to then set this post as a plug for the Evanston Vineyard: as a church, that's what we are about. We are very much about racial reconciliation (the fact that we have no single ethnic majority, and that we have representatives from over 50 nations around the world, should prove that). And we are very much about social justice, between the Harvest Pantry, the Care Center, as well as various small groups and Bible studies that also focus on building godly relationships with those that might be culturally or ethnically different from us.

And, we also believe that the Bible is indeed the Word of God. 100 percent of it.* It is off this point that I wish to now delve into perhaps the most difficult passage that exists in the Bible. There are plenty of others, but this jumped out at me. Chances are, you are unlikely to hear a Sunday morning sermon on this in most churches, because... yow. Why am I attempting to examine this passage? That's a good question. I'm not a pastor, and, because I don't have the seminary training, I lack certain tools to be able to do it scholarly justice. But, what I do have is the heart to look at a Biblical passage through the lens of Christianity as a relationship with Jesus, and not merely a religion, and for me that's enough.

So I am here presenting to you the truth that the Bible is a history book. (One final side note, for those with technical minds: sure, some books are letters written from one person to another; but just know that when I've studied history-history, like say, the Civil War, part of our curriculum included reading letters from soldiers, from plantation owners, and others. It may not be in the textbook, but it is still part of the history. The Bible works the same way: King David's Psalms, King Solomon's several wisdom books, and Apostle Paul's letters to various churches and friends are as much part of the fabric of the ongoing story of our God in our midst as much as the accounts are.)

With that, here is arguably the most difficult passage in the Bible. Judges 19 (link to entire chapter here). First, the background (aka, the not-so-painful part):
1 In those days Israel had no king.
Now a Levite who lived in a remote area in the hill country of Ephraim took a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah. 2 But she was unfaithful to him. She left him and went back to her parents’ home in Bethlehem, Judah. After she had been there four months, 3 her husband went to her to persuade her to return. He had with him his servant and two donkeys. She took him into her parents’ home, and when her father saw him, he gladly welcomed him. 4 His father-in-law, the woman’s father, prevailed on him to stay; so he remained with him three days, eating and drinking, and sleeping there.
5 On the fourth day they got up early and he prepared to leave, but the woman’s father said to his son-in-law, “Refresh yourself with something to eat; then you can go.” 6 So the two of them sat down to eat and drink together. Afterward the woman’s father said, “Please stay tonight and enjoy yourself.” 7 And when the man got up to go, his father-in-law persuaded him, so he stayed there that night. 8 On the morning of the fifth day, when he rose to go, the woman’s father said, “Refresh yourself. Wait till afternoon!” So the two of them ate together.
9 Then when the man, with his concubine and his servant, got up to leave, his father-in-law, the woman’s father, said, “Now look, it’s almost evening. Spend the night here; the day is nearly over. Stay and enjoy yourself. Early tomorrow morning you can get up and be on your way home.” 10 But, unwilling to stay another night, the man left and went toward Jebus (that is, Jerusalem), with his two saddled donkeys and his concubine.
Judges 19:1-10, NIV
So far, not too terrible. Seemingly an ordinary story about a seemingly random Hebrew from the tribe of Levi and his concubine (or, his wife). They were so insignificant that they don't even have names. Basically, a Levite guy got married. His wife cheated on him. Then she left him to go back to her parents' house. (Great catch, dude! (Sarcasm)) He goes to her parent's house to pick her up and bring her back, but her father continually entreats him to stay, which he does, until the fifth day, when he's had enough. As far as I'm concerned, it's like: OK, why are we reading a story about an insignificant family? Let's read on.
11 When they were near Jebus and the day was almost gone, the servant said to his master, “Come, let’s stop at this city of the Jebusites and spend the night.”
12 His master replied, “No. We won’t go into any city whose people are not Israelites. We will go on to Gibeah.” 13 He added, “Come, let’s try to reach Gibeah or Ramah and spend the night in one of those places.” 14 So they went on, and the sun set as they neared Gibeah in Benjamin. 15 There they stopped to spend the night. They went and sat in the city square, but no one took them in for the night.
16 That evening an old man from the hill country of Ephraim, who was living in Gibeah (the inhabitants of the place were Benjamites), came in from his work in the fields. 17 When he looked and saw the traveler in the city square, the old man asked, “Where are you going? Where did you come from?”
18 He answered, “We are on our way from Bethlehem in Judah to a remote area in the hill country of Ephraim where I live. I have been to Bethlehem in Judah and now I am going to the house of the Lord.[a] No one has taken me in for the night. 19 We have both straw and fodder for our donkeys and bread and wine for ourselves your servants—me, the woman and the young man with us. We don’t need anything.”
20 “You are welcome at my house,” the old man said. “Let me supply whatever you need. Only don’t spend the night in the square.” 21 So he took him into his house and fed his donkeys. After they had washed their feet, they had something to eat and drink. 
Judges 19:11-21, NIV
Still nothing out of the ordinary. At this point, the Levite, his wife, and their servant are journeying from Bethlehem back to the hilly country in northern Israel. ("Road trip!") They ended up stopping in the town of Gibeah for the night. After hanging out in downtown Gibeah for what seemed like quite a while, waiting for someone to show up to take them in (they didn't have motels in those days), an elderly man came from the fields and offered to take them in. From the text, this elderly man was moved to host them, likely because he was afraid for them if they spent the night outside in the center of town. (It's possible that it might not have been a safe neighborhood at night.) So, they spent the night at his house.

As a side note, I also realize I am inadvertently also proving how boring the Bible can be. Please try to understand, this book is in the heart of the Old Testament, which is also the entire Jewish Bible. It is both part of our Bible and a shared history and faith-heritage with those of the Jewish faith.

Anyway, this is where the boring part of the story ends. Given my parenthetical about how safe the neighborhood really was, the next bit of text seems to indicate that it really wasn't:
22 While they were enjoying themselves, some of the wicked men of the city surrounded the house. Pounding on the door, they shouted to the old man who owned the house, “Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him.”
23 The owner of the house went outside and said to them, “No, my friends, don’t be so vile. Since this man is my guest, don’t do this outrageous thing. 24 Look, here is my virgin daughter, and his concubine. I will bring them out to you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish. But as for this man, don’t do such an outrageous thing.”
25 But the men would not listen to him. So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go. 26 At daybreak the woman went back to the house where her master was staying, fell down at the door and lay there until daylight.
27 When her master got up in the morning and opened the door of the house and stepped out to continue on his way, there lay his concubine, fallen in the doorway of the house, with her hands on the threshold. 28 He said to her, “Get up; let’s go.” But there was no answer. Then the man put her on his donkey and set out for home.
29 When he reached home, he took a knife and cut up his concubine, limb by limb, into twelve parts and sent them into all the areas of Israel. 30 Everyone who saw it was saying to one another, “Such a thing has never been seen or done, not since the day the Israelites came up out of Egypt. Just imagine! We must do something! So speak up!” 
Judges 19:22-30, NIV

...Yeah. Basically some wicked men (modern term: "hoodlums") show up wanting to rape the Levite. The elderly man who was hosting the Levite and his wife offered both his own daughter and the Levite's wife. Somehow, only the Levite's wife -- you know, the one who had cheated on him and then left him to go back to her parent's house -- she was the one raped and murdered. At best, it was very questionable judgment on the elderly man's part, offering his own daughter, let alone also offering one of his guests. It is notable that the Levite (the husband of the woman sacrificed to the hoodlums) appeared never to speak up, let alone to object to his decision. Same thing with the Levite's servant.

So, how do I explain that? The truth is, I can't. There is nothing to defend. It is clear as day that what happened here was wrong. Sure, the three men (the Levite, the Levite's servant, and the elderly man) might have been between a rock and a hard place. But it doesn't explain why they didn't try to fight for their women. It doesn't explain why they didn't put themselves on the line. (We don't know how able-bodied the elderly man really was, in regards to fighting. But it doesn't explain why neither the Levite nor his servant fought.)

But, the truth is all of human history is like that. Our history books record events like the Holocaust, the Apartheid, the slave trade, Jim Crow, 9-11, unpopular wars like the Vietnam War, the Iraq War, among many others. It records assassinations of Abraham Lincoln, John F Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr, and countless others. It records rulerships of dictators like Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Fidel Castro, Pol Pot, and more. All of those things that are recorded were wrong at the time, and are still wrong. Not only so, but they were and are horrendous events, horrendous rulerships.

Just check out the list of kings below. It's a list of every king of Israel and of Judah who did evil in God's eyes, starting from Saul and going all the way to the Hebrews' exile into Babylon. Of the kings listed below, Saul and Joash were the two cases where they each started out doing what was good before doing what was evil, and Amaziah did what was good but not wholeheartedly. All the others, however, did what was evil from beginning to end. All translations New International Version (NIV):
As much as we would love our history to only be full of good things, like the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the signing of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (for other nations insert your equivalent points in history), the presidencies of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and maybe a couple others... and as much as we like our Bible to have only stories of miracles, like Moses parting of the Red Sea, Young David slaying the Philistine, the birth of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, what earth will be like after Christ comes back and destroys all those who are evil... the truth is, all of our history has both beauty and ugliness, joy and pain, victories and losses. And like the above passage from Judges 19 -- as well as the very many passages I referenced regarding all the kings who did evil in God's eyes -- the Bible is full of ugly moments. Just like every honest history book ever written.

One other thing I think it's important to note: just because it records a woman getting raped, murdered, and cut up into twelve pieces, it doesn't mean that God was OK with it happening. In fact, I believe that God was not OK with it happening. Even though it doesn't say it, I believe God -- the Father, Son Jesus, and the Holy Spirit -- grieved not only over her passing, but also the manner in which she passed on. Not only so, but perhaps also grieved over the loss of her soul as well. The text does not say whether she ever repented to the Lord (or her husband) for cheating on him or for running off. We don't know what happened; and sadly it is our loss that we don't get to know. As such, we also do not know, nor do we get to know, the fate of all the men in the story: neither the Levite, nor his servant, nor the elderly man who hosted them, nor the hoodlums. What I do know is that I believe God judged each of the men according to their actions. How He judged, I cannot say. I wasn't there. But I do believe that He judged them.

A final piece of context: the entire book of Judges takes place when Israel itself was not following God nor His commandments. Yes, even after settling in the Promised Land that Moses led them to and Joshua led them into. Yes, even after tale after tale after cautionary tale of their ancestors disbelieving and disobeying God and reaping the consequences (i.e. they forfeited their privilege of being allowed into the Promised Land). The simple truth is, not two generations later, the Israelites forgot everything that God and their ancestors had warned them.
1 The angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bokim and said, “I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land I swore to give to your ancestors. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you, 2 and you shall not make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall break down their altars.’ Yet you have disobeyed me. Why have you done this? 3 And I have also said, ‘I will not drive them out before you; they will become traps for you, and their gods will become snares to you.’”
4 When the angel of the Lord had spoken these things to all the Israelites, the people wept aloud, 5 and they called that place Bokim. There they offered sacrifices to the Lord. 
Judges 2:1-5, NIV

10 After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel. 11 Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals. 12 They forsook the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They aroused the Lord’s anger 13 because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. 
Judges 2:10-13, NIV
This was not a good time for the Kingdom of Israel. The book of Judges, as such, is dark. But it was honest. And, for those of you who like your history books to be honest, to truthfully record history as it happened, and not some kind of rose-colored glasses perspective, there are parts of the Bible that are going to be hard, and dark, and bloody, and rather disgusting. These events aren't in Scripture because God was OK with it. In fact, I believe that He was not OK with it. But they still happened. And I believe that He dealt with the individuals individually once they passed out of the flesh.

My hope, from having delved into these passages (particularly Judges 19, though) is to help remove what I think is and has been a stumbling block for many: if God is so good, and the Bible is so good, why are there so many terrible things recorded? Another form of that question can be: if God is God, why do bad things still happen? The short answer is that it's the consequence of Him giving us humans free will, in the hopes that we would choose to love Him, rather than this alternate idea that God should just force us to love Him. He's not that way, and it doesn't work that way. But the messiness of this world -- sin, horror, war, famine, pestilence, genocide, racism, slavery, rape, etc -- is the risk that He has taken with us from the beginning. Personally, I still struggle with that in my heart, and I expect that I will struggle with it for the rest of my life. But the hope is that I can still draw near to Jesus in spite of everything that is wrong in the world, in me, and in my ever-evolving circumstances. And, that if I am able to succeed at connecting with Jesus through Scripture every day, maybe I could be able to overcome my struggle with this question, at least for a moment. At the very least I'll grow closer to Him. That would be nice.

* Both my church and I support women being pastors. I understand that it is a sticky and hard topic among many other churches. As the Holy Spirit leads, maybe someday I'll challenge myself to look at it with fresh eyes and see what it is in the text (specifically Paul's letter to Timothy) that has led many churches to not support women as pastors, and maybe even to offer clarity and encouragement for those whose stumbling block regarding trusting the Bible rests on this topic.
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Wednesday, October 9, 2019

Why I Say The Bible Is A History Book, Part 1: Attempting To First Diffuse The New Belief That The Bible Is "Hate Speech"

I begin with a tangential disclaimer: not all churches agree on what constitutes "The Bible" or "The Holy Scriptures." From what I understand, most true-to-the-Bible churches agree (if not all) that the Bible constitutes of the following books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon), Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, and Revelation.

There are a number of mainline churches though that add the following books to the above list: Tobit, Judith, Additions to the Book of Esther, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus (not to be confused with Ecclesiastes), Baruch, The letter of Jeremiah (separate from the Book of Jeremiah in the previous list), The Prayer of Azariah, the Song of the Three Jews, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, 1 Esdras, Prayer of Manasseh, Psalm 151, 3 Maccabees, 2 Esdras (not to be confused with the Book of Nehemiah in the previous list), and 4 Maccabees. These books make up what is commonly referred to as the Apocrypha, which some churches include in their Bible. To be clear, my church doesn't count it as part of Holy Scripture, and neither do I.

And then the Jewish synagogues, minus the Messianic congregations, include all books from Genesis to Malachi in their Holy Scriptures, but not the Apocrypha, and not the New Testament (Matthew to Revelation). At least, it is to the best of my understanding that this is so.

I begin with this tangential disclaimer not to put any church down or even to pump myself up with any sermon along the lines of "this is right and that is wrong" (although personally I do stand with what I listed in the first paragraph as what are the true Biblical books). Rather, my purpose is to attempt to illustrate the climate of the common beliefs among places of worship (churches and synagogues alike) as my backdrop for my main point: that the Bible is a history book, or at least, much of it is. While not all churches and synagogues will agree on what the full compilation of our "history book" actually is, I still choose to hope and believe that we do agree that it is a history book, that it is true, and not just something we refer to in our worship services because it's tradition.

In 2019, we are beginning to reach the point in the United States (and have already been there awhile across Europe) where not only do the majority of people consider the Bible non-historical, but also consider it "hate speech." This has been the result of a slow decay not only in morality but also in the pervasive belief that there is not only a God but only one God, that Jesus Messiah is the one and only way to heaven and there are no shortcuts, etc. This belief -- and truth -- has been replaced not only by science (which by the way I think science is good, to a point), but also an accompanying belief that, if science cannot prove it, it therefore cannot exist. That is to say, science can neither prove nor disprove that God exists, so the natural conclusion (if science is now the be-all, end-all for all things) is that somehow, God must not exist at all. And if God doesn't exist because science cannot prove it, then the result is a godless world where the only real plumb line of right and wrong is our own feelings, our own "innate sense" of right and wrong, finicky in and of itself. Then things like divorce, abortion, sex (of all kinds), and now "gender identity" become new gods and new religions unto themselves. In place of a god who no longer exists (because science cannot prove it), we begin to look at things like churches and Bibles as either unnecessary or evil.

And that presents an interesting quandary: because churches are run (stewarded) by human beings, they have the power to change their mission statements, either in accordance with what people want, or in outright hostility to what people want, or (hopefully) to stand true with what God has called them. But at least churches have the power to change or not to change. The Bible cannot change. Sure, new translations can arise that are more palatable to modern human sensibilities. Even then, that presents a new danger: if we change the Bible to appease humans who now view the Scriptures as unnecessary at best and evil at worst, then we are compromising the Bible to suit people's wants, rather than God's will. And that's dangerous.

But, if we don't, then we risk at best passive indifference, or at worst open hostility to the Scriptures. We're seeing it in Europe now: the idea that the Bible is "hate speech" has been floating around. I of course disagree, and not only that but can prove that it is rather love speech, with this one passage: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16, NIV.

Notice that it doesn't say: "for God so hated the world." It says: "for God so loved the world." Loved. Loved. Loved. Check out the subsequent verse: "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." John 3:17, NIV. Let's break it down into its three parts:

1.) God sent Jesus (His Son) into the world. It clearly states that Jesus is God's Son. It clearly states that God sent Him. It also clearly states that God sent Him into the world, meaning that Jesus did actually exist in our time at one point in time in our past.

2.) God didn't send Jesus into the world to condemn us. This directly contradicts the belief that the Bible is "hate speech." Because condemnation and "hate speech" are one and the same. A modern way of looking at that part of the verse could be: "God did not send His Son Jesus to hate on the world..."

Side note: Another verse from Apostle Paul that clearly talks about the Bible: "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work" 2 Timothy 3:16-17, NIV. It clearly says that the Bible was breathed by God. What it means is that while humans did jot down the words themselves, God still directly dictated every word, from each book of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation (but not any of the books from the Apocrypha, for they were written quite a bit later, well after the early church was underway). So, as far as I'm concerned, the Gospels are not hate speech, Jesus is not a hater (He was angry with the Religious Right of the Jewish leaders during the Roman times when He appeared, but He didn't hate them), and coming off Apostle Paul's note to Timothy, if the Gospels are not hate speech, then neither is the entire rest of the Bible. And for anyone reading who directly opposes this truth, might I remind you that there is a bevy of historical scholarship that supports it, as well as sites across Israel and neighboring lands that stand as physical proof of these places recorded in the Bible.

Back to John 3:17. 3.) God sent Jesus into the world to save us. To save us. Not to hate on us; not to condemn us; but to save us. Why? Well, because humans are inherently selfish and evil by nature. If the story of Adam and Eve isn't enough proof for you, then this verse will have to suit you: "As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one;'" Romans 3:10, NIV. Want context? Here it is:
9 What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. 10 As it is written:
“There is no one righteous, not even one;
11 there is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.
12 All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.”
13 “Their throats are open graves;
their tongues practice deceit.”
“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”
14 “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 ruin and misery mark their ways,
17 and the way of peace they do not know.”
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. 20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin. 
Romans 3:9-20, NIV
It states that Jews and Gentiles (basically, every other race on this planet) alike are all under the power of sin. To double down: every human being who has ever lived has been under the power of sin. As such, every human being who has ever lived stills needs to be saved. And the fact that Jesus came to save us is good news. Not bad news. Not hate news. Good news. And to bring it back full-circle regarding an increasing number of human beings who proclaim the Bible as "hate speech," who am I inclined to believe? The Bible which solidly and unequivocally calls itself God-breathed and the Good News for all, or a bunch of evil human beings who claim that the Bible is "hate speech"?

At this point, I will leave my defense there. As far as I'm concerned, the text passages I have shared are sufficient for me. If the above verses do not suffice for any of you who are still in sharp disagreement with the Bible being true, and moreover "love speech" and not "hate speech," I will need to continue that in another post or in another space.
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