Monthly Archives: March 2010

A thought about covetousness

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Presumably, those who are poor are as likely to covet as those who are wealthy.  One might even think they are more likely to covet.

But where is there a story in the Bible about someone who is poor coveting something belonging to the wealthy?

I am thinking of David and Bathsheba and Ahab and Naboth’s vineyard.

Am I missing anything?

I need to think about it and do some reading, but at this point (feel free to shoot down in the comments) I wonder if it is a perpetual temptation of the rich to decide life is not worth living unless they can take something more from the poor.

This would explain how many poor people’s homes get declared blighted and sold to corporations.

Tolkien and too good or too evil characters

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One criticism of Tolkien was that his good characters were unrealistically good and his evil characters too purely evil.

Tolkien did write a fantasy story with sentient monsters, so in keeping with that setting there are irredeemably evil “persons” (Sauron, Orcs, etc).  And many of these same critics don’t like fantasy stories at all.  So I can see why this springs to mind as a valid criticism.

It is also true that Tolkien had options.  Stephen Donaldson’s anti-hero Thomas Covenant is a great example of another way one can write fantasy.  But not everyone likes Donaldson’s story and it doesn’t make sense to say that Tolkien had to do things in that way.  (By the way, I had forgotten all about all the Thomas Covenant reading I did in college.  I have to thank Tom Shippey for reminding me about him in his excellent J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century.)

But while it is true that there are portrayals of mixtures of good and evil missing from Tolkien’s story, and there are heroes like Aragorn who don’t have much of an apparent “dark side,” the criticism is simply wrong.

Is Gollum/Smeagol pure evil?

What about Boromir?

What about Theoden who allowed himself to be lulled and then only awoke to act almost too late?

What about Saruman who was evil in most of the story but only because he was corrupted?

Why can no one safely handle the ring?  Why do Gandalf and Galadrial refuse it?  Because there is darkness in their hearts that can be seduced by the ring.

And the Hobbits are portrayed both a noble and as ridiculous.

Notice how easily the idyllic Shire goes bad and has to be rescued at the end.

I don’t see the issue.

Does the Bible require a free market?

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I was asked this awhile back via email and realize I didn’t reply.  I thought maybe it would be good to answer it here.  The problem is time.  So I’ll do this in installments.  Please feel free to leave questions in the comments so that I can address everything.

No Impatient Rebellion Against the Status Quo

First of all, Christians can live as Christians with all sorts of slavery.  Christian slaves are supposed to serve their masters diligently and cheerfully according to the teaching we find in the New Testament.  That would apply to slaves in the Mediterranean world in the Roman Empire and it would apply to conquered countries that had to serve the Roman Empire.

If I tried to get the story of Joseph made into a movie, Hollywood would want Joseph to acquire a weapon and kill Potiphar, escape back to Canaan and avenge himself on his brothers.  The story in the Bible has Joseph working hard and faithfully so that he rules and saves the world.

(One might ask about Southern culture teaching slaves to obey their masters but not feeling the same quiet piety when they had to submit to a political regime they didn’t like.)

So it doesn’t demand that we be obstinate in a rigged market situation.

Private Property is Fundamental

But the Bible does affirm private property.  The Eighth and Tenth Commandments together clearly spell this out:

You shall not steal…  You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.

And consistent with these two basic commands in the Decalogue, there follow other laws about honest weights and measures and impartial justice favoring neither the poor nor the rich.

So that’s the basic “blueprint”: private property, equal justice, honest trade.

Israel & Jubilee

Of course, Israel was a special case.  It didn’t acquire territory through individual homesteading like much of the American West was settled.  Rather, the twelve tribes came into the Land, killed everyone else (or were supposed to) and gave every household unit an equal parcel of usable land, through casting lots as the way of knowing which part of the Land God wanted to give that family forever.

This may have affected wealth differences, but it was not meant to end them.  Some people rented out their land for others to farm.  Some worked it well and made a fortune, while others were reduced to poverty.  The book of Ruth shows some of these dynamics and shows family being the main way that these circumstances, when they arose, were alleviated.  Likewise Paul says that any Christian who has a needy relative needs to take care of them so that the Church is not burdened.  Otherwise, they are worse than unbelievers.

TO BE CONTINUED

A Place at the Table VII (Conclusion)

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Continued

The New Covenant

At His last meal with His disciples, Jesus “took the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood’” (Luke 22.20/ Matt 26.28/ Mark 14.24). Except for a reference in the prayer of Zacharias when John the Baptist was born (Luke 1.72), this is the only incident when the covenant is explicitly mentioned in the Gospel accounts. However, it would be a major mistake to think that, simply because there is no specific mention of the covenant, that means the covenant is not important to the ministry and message of Jesus. On the contrary, a great deal of Jesus’ ministry is explained by this reference to the covenant.

The covenant was central to Jesus’ ministry precisely because eating and drinking was central to His ministry. All the eating and drinking which Jesus has been doing, with all it’s significance is passed on to His disciples as “the Lord’s Supper” and is interpreted as a new covenant. What it means that Jesus established a “new covenant” will be considered more fully below, when we look at the Old Testament background.

Conclusion

Jesus was forming a new community–a community of table fellowship where sins were forgiven and people could be assured that they would inherit and/or remain in the Kingdom. This community possessed the promise of the Kingdom, a new covenant made with a new Isreal. It was especially associated with those who were baptized.

Tolkien’s LOTR as rage against the machine

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Tolkien was sent to war when the new age of mechanical weapons were introduced. Machine-guns, tanks and poison gas. He fought in the Battle of The Somme, which is where over a million people were killed. You can see his experiences shine through especially in the fight scenes in the films..

You can also see his anger towards the massive cities that churn out great products in quick succession, and that end up destroying the urban land because of the size of factories. This can be seen in the story when Saruman destroys a wide part of the forest to make way for his new army..

via BackToTheFuture: Tolkien’s Hate of the Mechanical world.

Benbacchus (Part One of Two)

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“I am looking for Benbacchus!”

The man who went by that name looked up from his cups and squinted into the sunlight streaming through the doorway from behind the messenger.  He made a quick gesture.  “Come in and close the door.  You will set off many hangovers if you let more sunlight in.”

The messenger came through and let the curtain fall over the doorway.  Once visible by the lamplight, Benbacchus recognized the elderly and well-dressed slave of Tullus his Roman business partner.  “What is it?” he asked.

“Leta has lost the sight.”

“Are you sure!” He knocked one of his empties off the table, but it didn’t shatter on the soft earthen floor.

The slave gave a short shake of his head.  “We are sure of nothing.  Those two Jewish men she was following…”

“I told Tullus to keep her away from them!”  Benbacchus picked up the cup.  It was chipped at the edge.  There was no way of knowing for sure if it had been chipped before it fell.  It was still usable as far as the regulars were concerned.

The slave nodded.  “I faithfully relayed your message, sir.  I’m afraid my master saw the free advertising as too valuable to pass up.”

“I told him what they did to Elymas!”

The slave somehow nodded and shrugged at the same time.

Benbacchus spat on the dirt floor.  Anger with a tinge of fear crawled through his gut as he began digging out his change purse.  He’d better settle up his tab now.  The money would be gone soon enough.  “You don’t have to tell me what happened,” he grumbled.  “I can guess.  Jesus was right.  Such men need to be driven off the face of the ground.”

He remembered vividly how he first became aware of the danger in his hero days…

Continue reading →

Jesus is greater than Moses, but Moses is not opposed to Jesus

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For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

The above quotation is John 1.17 and comes from the New King James Version of the Bible. It is quite similar to the original translation in the old King James Version.

It is also entirely misleading.

The word “but” is an addition to the text. John’s Gospel does not oppose the Law of Moses with the grace and truth of Jesus Christ. The New American Standard Bible is more accurate on this point:

For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.

Is there an implied contrast between “Law” and “grace and truth” in this verse? Quite certainly there is. John is describing the difference between Moses and Jesus. Moses was the giver of the Law; Jesus was the mediator of grace and truth (i.e. he did not “give” them as Moses did but they were somehow manifested “through” him).

However, the nature of this contrast is not that of complete opposites. It is not the same as the difference between condemnation and vindication, for example, nor as the difference between guilt and forgiveness. On the contrary the difference between Law and grace and truth is the different between good and best.

To see this, let’s look at the broader context:

And the Word became flesh, and tabernacled among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness of Him, and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is become before me, for He existed before me.’” For of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him (John 1.14-18; NASB with margin readings).

From verse 15 through 17 John gives us several different sorts of relationships between Jesus and John the Baptist and Jesus and Moses. A diagram might help us understand what John is saying:

John bore witness of Him, and cried out, saying,

A. For of His fullness we have all received,

A. and grace

B. for grace [or “in place of grace”].

B. For the Law was given through Moses;

A. grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.

John the Baptist comes as the last and greatest of the prophets in the line of Moses, but Jesus surpasses Moses and thus must surpass John. In John’s Gospel, this transition is summed up in verse 17b as “grace for grace” or “grace instead of grace.” Perhaps “grace in place of grace” would be clearer.

What John is teaching is that God was fundamentally gracious and loving in giving the Law through Moses but that Jesus manifests more grace and truth than what was in the Law. We have received greater grace through Jesus. Moses was good, but Jesus was better!

John is saying even more in this preface to his Gospel. Verse 14 has an allusion to an incident in the life of Moses. John writes “And the Word became flesh, and tabernacled among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Then Moses said, “I pray you, show me [literally: “cause me to behold”] Your glory!” And He said, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the LORD before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.” But He said, “You cannot see my face, for no man can see me and live!” Then the LORD said, “Behold, there is a place by Me, and you shall stand there on the rock; and it will come about, while My glory is passing by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by. Then I will take my hand away and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”…And the LORD descended in the cloud and stood there with him as he called upon the name of the LORD. Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth… (Exodus 33.17-23, 34.5-7).

That last verse (34.7) could easily and accurately be translated from the original Hebrew as “…full of grace and truth.” John is saying in no uncertain terms that it was Jesus who met Moses on Mount Sinai. Moses gave the law because Jesus gave it to him first. It is no accident that John used the word for dwelling that the common Greek translation of the Old Testament in the first century used to describe God’s presence in the Tabernacle (v. 14). The Angel of the LORD who led Israel out of Egypt was Jesus before his incarnation.

Moses and Jesus are not enemies but friends. Their revelations of God are different because Jesus’ gives us greater grace.

To go back to Moses would be an unthinkable affront to God who has given us something better. Paul wrote the entire letter of Galatians to make sure people understood that simple point. But to portray Moses’ revelation as the antithesis of what Jesus revealed is also an unthinkable affront.

It is no accident, that John’s Gospel, having given us this prologue in favor of Moses also records Jesus’ accusation against the Jewish leaders:

Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words? (John 5.45-47)

The Law of Moses and the grace and truth of Jesus are not contradictory, but in a continuum.