Category Archives: Bible & Theology

Did the boy get to enjoy his own donation of loaves and fishes?

After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. And a large crowd was following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick. Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little.” One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?” Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number (John 6:1-10 ESV).

This story is recognizably sacramental in every telling of it in the four gospels. Passover is mentioned. The people are divided in fifties as they were after the Exodus. Jesus action of taking the bread, blessing, and breaking are similar to the description of how Jesus act at his last supper.

And, to point out he obvious, the Lord did not only feed adults. “And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.” (Matthew 14.21). Likewise, at the first Passover, everyone who needed food was invited to eat, every mouth with no exception made for children.

Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb (Exodus 12:3-4 ESV).

Some people have even claimed that one had to learn and recite certain lessons in order to be allowed to partake in Passover. But the Bible teaches exactly the opposite, children were supposed to partake in Passover in order to learn the important lessons:

And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the LORD’s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.’” And the people bowed their heads and worshiped (Exodus 12:26-27; ESV)

Paul writes: ”

The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Consider the people of Israel: are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar? (1 Corinthians 10:16-18 ESV)

And were children excluded from that altar? No.

“You shall count seven weeks. Begin to count the seven weeks from the time the sickle is first put to the standing grain. Then you shall keep the Feast of Weeks to the LORD your God with the tribute of a freewill offering from your hand, which you shall give as the LORD your God blesses you. And you shall rejoice before the LORD your God, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite who is within your towns, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are among you, at the place that the LORD your God will choose, to make his name dwell there. You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt; and you shall be careful to observe these statutes.
“You shall keep the Feast of Booths seven days, when you have gathered in the produce from your threshing floor and your winepress. You shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your towns. For seven days you shall keep the feast to the LORD your God at the place that the LORD will choose, because the LORD your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogether joyful (Deuteronomy 16:9-15 ESV).

Nowhere in Scripture does the Bible give us an age limit. One can infer that children would not eat solid food before they were ready to eat solid food. But the idea that there is some mental development test simply isn’t found anywhere in the Bible. 1 Corinthians 12 doesn’t make any such rule, but on the contrary, warns people who have the power to do so to not prevent other Christians from full participation.

When we partake in the Lord’s supper, we too are being gathered to Jesus and nourished by him. We are being cared for and protected by our king.

Our baptized children are loved by Jesus. He accepts their token gifts into his offering plate (and we don’t have to fear because this story applies to mature self-conscious betrayal, not childish wondering). When they are able to mimic, they too recite the Lord’s Prayer which is a prayer for Jesus’ disciples–because they are his disciples. And he himself feeds them food and drink.

They are supposed to grow up knowing this. They are supposed to know that, even though they are young, Jesus not only wants to feed them, but is willing to accept their gifts and use them in his kingdom.

1 way the 10 commandments are Gospel

Leave a reply

People know that the Gospel promises forgiveness for sins. They know that sins are violations of God’s will. So they naturally look for ways to describe God’s will that was violated and distinguish it from God’s will that people find forgiveness for these violations through Jesus and what he did.

One such attempt is popularly known as “law and gospel.”

However, while this rough distinction works in limited contexts (sort of like Jesus saying the mustard seed is the smallest seed), it falls apart if one treats that shorthand as if it were a precise or scientific description.

For example, the Ten Commandments are often treated as “law” and thus contrasted with “Gospel.” But consider the Fifth command:

“Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you” (Deuteronomy 5:16; ESV).

So children are supposed to honor their parents. And when they fall short of this command, their only comfort is that Jesus has provided them forgiveness.

But where are children supposed to learn about Jesus and this forgiveness?

It is not hard to find the answer. Parents are supposed to teach their children the Gospel.

“Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules—that the LORD your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, that you may fear the LORD your God, you and your son and your son’s son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates (Deuteronomy 6:1-9; ESV).

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4; ESV).

So when fathers bring up their children “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord,” the Fifth Commandment tells children to learn the Gospel from their parents and believe it!

My son, do not forget my teaching,
but let your heart keep my commandments,
for length of days and years of life
and peace they will add to you.
Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you;
bind them around your neck;
write them on the tablet of your heart.
So you will find favor and good success
in the sight of God and man.
Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths (Proverbs 3:1-6; ESV).

So, just like the First Commandment, the Fifth Commandment actually mandates faith in Jesus Christ and reliance on the grace of God in Him.

7 things wrong with trying to fix education to restore the American Dream

Leave a reply

Listening to NPR on the way to work a few days ago, I heard yet another flawed story on education. A young guy made it out of the South Bronx and is now working on a higher level education degree in Ivy League Successville. But the fact that he is so rare might be evidence of a widespread problem rather than proof that “the American Dream” is alive.

What to say?

1. “The American Dream is a sales slogan designed to make people think that going into debt is ethical and responsible behavior. It is the mother of all entitlement mentalities.

2. Why do I never find people wringing their hands over all the young people stuck in small town America, who never go anywhere beyond cashiering at a nearby highway convenience store? Why do only people in N.Y., L.A., or Chicago get the attention?

3. What would happen if everyone did “get an education”? Suddenly an education would be worth a lot less and all the talking heads would start claiming that everyone needs a doctorate. Journalists and pundits would wring their hands over all the young kids from South Bronx who never get more than a Master’s Degree.

4. Education has been one way that some people have risen above mediocrity. By definition, not everyone can rise above mediocrity. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be mediocre. Education is not a path for everyone because it can’t be one.

5. What everyone can do, is strive to do their best. The standard of living can go up. Tomorrow’s mediocre can be better than yesterday’s. But there is no reason to believe that getting everyone “an education” will bring about this result.

6. It is a damaging delusion to believe that education is always or even mostly accomplished in an institutional setting. What gets touted as an “education” is really simply a certificate. And the value of the certificate is mostly due to the fact that, until they wake up, people treat it like a license.

7. The effort devoted to promoting education could be better spent encouraging people to do their best and better themselves, without worrying about whether this is or is not done in an academic setting.

The Gospel of Growing Up

Leave a reply

I wrote once that the basic message of the Bible is “Boy meets Girl.” But, for that to work, the virgin must mature into the bride and the boy must become a man.

That doesn’t seem to be happening in Christian churches in North America and, I believe, therefore in many many churches where children have used the Bible to replicate more perpetual children.

The 1940s also saw the birth of the “teenager.” Unlike the more diverse youth of previous eras, teenagers all went to high school and participated in a national youth culture increasingly dominated by the same music, movies, products, and cultural beliefs. Although it may seem that the teenagers of the 21st century bear little resemblance to those of the 1950s, crucial similarities remain in the structure of adolescent life and its relationship to the church. And one of the most important traits is the aversion to growing up.

via When Are We Going to Grow Up? The Juvenilization of American Christianity | Christianity Today.

Please read the article and consider the implications. Only a little googling will show there are plenty of secular unbelievers who are aghast at the rampant immaturity that has become the norm for people of all ages, especially men.

But the Bible directly addresses this issue. In fact, I suspect one of the reasons so many Christians find so much of the Bible to be mysterious or boring is because they don’t expect it to be concerned about maturation in history. And since the Bible is almost entirely about maturation in history, the result is the quest for a few texts that can be extracted in order to make the kind of sense that we expect to find in a Holy Book.

But it is all over the Bible, starting in Genesis. As I wrote in Desirable to make one wise:

The first time wisdom is mentioned in the Bible, it is used to describe what tempted Eve about the tree–that it was desirable to make her wise.

This seems to be the equivalent of gaining the knowledge of good and evil, having one’s eyes opened… and being like God.

At the end of Genesis 3 God seems to agree with these equivalences:

Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil…”

Adam and Eve are naked in the beginning of Genesis. Genesis ends with a man who, after repeatedly losing his robe of authority through injustice, gains authority over the whole world… precisely because he is wise.

This proposal pleased Pharaoh and all his servants. And Pharaoh said to his servants, “Can we find a man like this, in whom is the Spirit of God?” Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Since God has shown you all this, there is none so discerning and wise as you are. You shall be over my house, and all my people shall order themselves as you command. Only as regards the throne will I be greater than you.” And Pharaoh said to Joseph, “See, I have set you over all the land of Egypt.” Then Pharaoh took his signet ring from his hand and put it on Joseph’s hand, and clothed him in garments of fine linen and put a gold chain about his neck.

So one sign of immaturity is an impatience for the fruits of maturity, without going through actual maturation. Growing up takes time. Joseph was patient for it.

The other sign of immaturity is more direct: an aversion to the prospect of growing up.

And this is tied into the Gospel itself. For the work of Christ was to bring about (to quote from Arthur C. Clarke’s sci-fi attempt to promote a fake Eschatology) childhood’s end.

Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God (Galatians 3:23-4:7 ESV).

One might get confused by the promise of adoption — “sons” versus the concept of childhood. Here Paul equates becoming a son with inheriting the authority and rights of an adult heir. One is a son when one takes over the estate.

So, having passed to the “adult” stage in history through the release provided by Jesus, now each believer and the church corporately is to appropriate this gift by personally growing up. Thus, from Ephesians 4:

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love (Ephesians 4:11-16 ESV).

Look at that description of children: tossed any which way by the waves and winds of human cleverness…. And think of advertising. Think of the news. Think of the current presidential race.

Divorce and the “OT” versus the “New”

Leave a reply

Supposedly, God only temporarily tolerated divorce, but then ended that tolerance after Jesus came. I do believe that it is possible for norms to change as humanity matures in Christ, but I don’t think the typical (i.e. John Murray’s) argument holds up. The argument derives from Deuteronomy 24.1-4:

When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house, and if she goes and becomes another man’s wife, and the latter man hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter man dies, who took her to be his wife, then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the LORD. And you shall not bring sin upon the land that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance.

The argument is that this law does not grant a right to divorce, but puts controls on a pre-existing practice. “When a man does x he is limited in what he can do next” is not the same as saying “A man may do x.”

OK, the grammar makes such an interpretation possible, but I still think the position is lacking.

First of all, lots of things were already followed and yet are still part of God’s law and included in the Mosaic legislation. The Sabbath was observed, circumcision was practiced, and some form of the Law of the Levirate was acknowledged as binding. We ought to consider that divorce was practiced in that same tradition.

Secondly, Deuteronomy 22.19 and 22.29 specify circumstances where a man can lose his right to divorce a wife. So if God had to tolerate divorce because the Israelites wouldn’t give it up, then how was he able to control them enough to prohibit divorce in some cases?

Third, we know the Law is a transcript of God’s character. The theory is that the actuall permission to divorce was not part of that Law. But how then does God himself follow this law?

Thus says the Lord:
“Where is your mother’s certificate of divorce,
with which I sent her away?
Or which of my creditors is it
to whom I have sold you?
Behold, for your iniquities you were sold,
and for your transgressions your mother was sent away (Isaiah 50.1).

If a man divorces his wife
and she goes from him
and becomes another man’s wife,
will he return to her?
Would not that land be greatly polluted?
You have played the whore with many lovers;
and would you return to me?
declares the Lord (Jeremiah 3.1).

So, how can something God actually does, and in so doing, appeals to the very law in question, not be a true part of the Law? This is no mere concession. And further, Isaiah and Jeremiah show that the sort of thing that is in view in the Law is actual adultery. Jesus was not adding anything to the Law or inventing anything new when he stated the “except for immorality” qualification (Matthew 19.9).

So what about the statement in Matthew 19.8?

He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.”

“Hardness of heart” began when Adam and Eve sinned. “Hardness of heart” is involved in all marital infidelity. Before they sinned, there was no provision for divorce because no one was going to be unfaithful.

Finally, one of the planks in the argument for the “concessive” view is that, normally, an unfaithful spouse was always executed. Thus, the divorce provisions have to be for some lesser reason. I won’t take up space here arguing the point, but I don’t think that is true. The death penalty was an option, but not mandatory for such cases. An injured spouse could extend mercy to the guilty but end the marriage.

Finally, I’ve been using quotation marks for “OT” and “NT,” because neither one exists.

God inducts us into his army in baptism

Leave a reply

THE OBLIGATION OF BAPTISM.

Moreover, God also separates us from all strange religions and peoples by the symbol of baptism, and consecrates us to himself as his property. We, therefore, confess our faith when we are baptized, and obligate ourselves to God for obedience, mortification of the flesh, and newness of life. Hence, we are enlisted in the holy military service of Christ that all our life long we should fight against the world, Satan, and our own flesh. Moreover, we are baptized into one body of the Church, that with all members of the Church we might beautifully concur in the one religion and in mutual services.

via THE SECOND HELVETIC CONFESSION.

What happens to your money whey you put it into the offering plate?

One possible answer: nothing; God already owns all things so that putting money in the plate is only an acknowledgement of God’s ownership, not in any way a transfer of ownership.

Another possible answer; a voluntary gift to God of things that he had no claim upon before they were given. This answer would mean that God had no property except what is voluntarily given to him in the offering.

But what about the tithe? When someone preaches, “the tithe belongs to God” are they saying that there is no need to “do anything” because God already owns your tithe?

No.

We all know that he is actually saying that Christians are obligated to give the tithe to God.

If we want to get analytical, we can talk about what is God’s “by right” and God’s “by possession.” God has a right to the tithe because he has claimed it as such. And when we put it in the offering plate, or right the check to the Church and drop it in the mail, we are transferring what is our by possession but God’s by right so that it becomes God’s by possession.

An aside: I’ve preached at a few burial services and used Abraham’s burial of Sarah as a text. I’m convinced that something similar is going on in a Christian burial service. We have (or we should have) always trusted God to take care of our loved ones. But at death, in burial, we officially and definitively entrust our loved ones to God. Yes we trusted God before, but that trust was in how he would use us, in many cases, and our own anxieties and agonies, to help care for them. In burial we confess we are done with all that. They are place directly in God’s hands. They are now his not ours any longer.

So with the tithe, we know it and all the other ninety percent of what we have belongs to God. But we also know he makes a special claim on the tithe and, when we give the tithe, a real transfer takes place.

I’ve noticed some people, in the name of the Protestant heritage, try to get around the language of the Westminster Confession and claim that it isn’t really saying that baptism admits the person baptized into the visible Church. I find this claim highly implausible by itself. But if we take the background of the Second Helvetic Confession, it becomes even more so.

Notice that the Confession plainly focuses on the actual water ritual. It is “by the symbol” that we are consecrated to God as his property, enlisted in his military service, and baptized into one body, the Church.

And, as with the offering in the plate, this doesn’t mean that God had no claim on us before baptized (as covenant children in the womb of believers as yet unbaptized). Likewise, while the offering is objective, if someone throws a fake dollar bill in the offering plate, God does not own it in the same sense he takes ownership of the legitimate tithes and offerings, even though (or rather, because) the action is objectively meaningful and effective.

Luther’s rejection of the obligation to travel back in time to track sins

Leave a reply

As for the article of Hus that “it is not necessary for salvation to believe the Roman Church superior to all others” I do not care whether this comes from Wyclif or from Hus. I know that innumerable Greeks have been saved though they never heard this article. It is not in the power of the Roman pontiff or of the Inquisition to construct new articles of faith. No believing Christian can be coerced beyond holy writ.

via From Luther to Leithart » Mark Horne.

Thus Luther rejected Eck’s proposition and thus he defended the Gospel. Believers are right with God because they are believer regardless of what they believe about the Pope even if it were true. Luther had a jus humanum view of the papacy (as did many other medieval Christians; the idea that everyone accepted the supremacy of the Pope in the way modern Catholics demand it is an example of the victors–over a sect–writing the history). So he himself, at the time he argued with Eck, actually accepted the office of the Papacy. He still didn’t think it could be necessary for salvation.

But he also never bothered to address the question as to who was at fault in “The Great Schism.” Since he was a Western Christian, Luther probably took it for granted that the Eastern Christians should have stayed in union with Rome. But whether or not that is the case, in his response to Eck, he doesn’t think it was worth mentioning. It doesn’t matter. Believers are justified. Period. Full stop. They have zero obligation to engage in a historical study to make sure there is no “sin of schism” in their ecclesiastical “lineage.”

And likewise today, whether or not the Ecclesiastical splits of the Protestant Reformation were justified is a logically unrelated question to whether or not Protestant Churches are real churches or whether Protestant Christians are real Christians.

Protestants who pretend that all stands are falls on whether or not the Ecclesiastical divisions were justified are sliding away from the doctrine of justification by faith and sliding into a doctrine of ecclesiastical successionism.

From Luther to Leithart

Leave a reply

I haven’t had time to blog in awhile and tonight is no exception. I’m supposed to be working on a fundraising letter. But this entry from Peter, while being excellent and obvious in its own right, also demands to be compared to the great Reformer Martin Luther in his public debate with Eck. First, here’s Peter:

I agree with the standard Protestant objections to Catholicism and Orthodoxy: Certain Catholic teachings and practices obscure the free grace of God in Jesus Christ; prayers through Mary and the saints are not encouraged or permitted by Scripture, and they distract from the one Mediator, Jesus; I do not accept the Papal claims of Vatican I; I believe iconodules violate the second commandment by engaging in liturgical idolatry; venerating the Host is also liturgical idolatry; in both Catholicism and Orthodoxy, tradition muzzles the word of God. I’m encouraged by many of the developments in Catholicism before and since Vatican II, but Vatican II created issues of its own (cf. the treatment of Islam in Lumen Gentium).

I agree with those objections, but those are not the primary driving reasons that keep me Protestant. I have strong objections to some brands of Protestantism, after all. My Protestantism – better, reformed catholicity – is not fundamentally anti-. It’s pro-, pro-church, pro-ecumenism, pro-unity, pro-One Body of the One Lord. It’s not that I’m too anti-Catholic to be Catholic. I’m too catholic to be Catholic.

Here’s the question I would ask to any Protestant considering a move: What are you saying about your past Christian experience by moving to Rome or Constantinople? Are you willing to start going to a Eucharistic table where your Protestant friends are no longer welcome? How is that different from Peter’s withdrawal from table fellowship with Gentiles? Are you willing to say that every faithful saint you have known is living a sub-Christian existence because they are not in churches that claim apostolic succession, no matter how fruitful their lives have been in faith, hope, and love? For myself, I would have to agree that my ordination is invalid, and that I have never presided over an actual Eucharist. To become Catholic, I would have to begin regarding my Protestant brothers as ambiguously situated “separated brothers,” rather than full brothers in the divine Brother, Jesus. To become Orthodox, I would likely have to go through the whole process of initiation again, as if I were never baptized. And what is that saying about all my Protestant brothers who have been “inadequately” baptized? Why should I distance myself from other Christians like that? I’m too catholic to do that.

via Peter J. Leithart » Blog Archive » Too catholic to be Catholic.

Please go read the whole post (I speak to the one or two of you who has not done this already).

As for the article of Hus that “it is not necessary for salvation to believe the Roman Church superior to all others” I do not care whether this comes from Wyclif or from Hus. I know that innumerable Greeks have been saved though they never heard this article. It is not in the power of the Roman pontiff or of the Inquisition to construct new articles of faith. No believing Christian can be coerced beyond holy writ.

(Roland Baintan, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther [Nashville: Abingdon Press] p. 89).

The Reformation recovered the Gospel and, in so doing, recovered true Catholicism.

From Proverbs to Ecclesiastes and the book(s) of wisdom

Leave a reply

We know that Ezra is supposed to follow Chronicles because the last statement in the last chapter of Chronicles is repeated and elaborated in the first chapter of Ezra.

So how does Proverbs end and Ecclesiastes begin?

Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vapor,
but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.
Give her of the fruit of her hands,
and let her works praise her in the gates.

The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
Vapor of vapors, says the Preacher,
vapor of vapors! All is vapor.

I’ve never thought about the order or wisdom books in our English Bibles before. But it looks to me like Proverbs is supposed to be followed by Ecclesiastes. The Proverbs 31 man (not woman) leads to further thought and meditation.

(The Proverbs 31 man is the man who knows what to look for in a woman because he remembers what his mother told him. The Proverbs 31 woman can be derived from the text, but that is not the point. This is King Lemuel’s mother giving her son advice on a wife. Read it for yourself.)

I can’t help wondering if Canticles builds on Ecclesiastes. It certainly seems to extol love as the highest good. Which would fit well with the advice of Ecclesiastes, such as:

Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do.

Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head.

Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.

And what about Psalms? If the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, then wouldn’t Psalms naturally come before Proverbs? Could this be how Solomon himself was prepared to be a wise man?

And then Job could be an introduction to both Psalms and Proverbs, the story of a wise king vindicated from his enemies–subject matter for both Psalms and Proverbs.

One book of wisdom in five movements?

Our fathers ate sour grapes so there is no need to repent or think we can avoid judgment

Leave a reply

From Ezekiel 8:

And he brought me to the entrance of the court, and when I looked, behold, there was a hole in the wall. Then he said to me, “Son of man, dig in the wall.” So I dug in the wall, and behold, there was an entrance. And he said to me, “Go in, and see the vile abominations that they are committing here.” So I went in and saw. And there, engraved on the wall all around, was every form of creeping things and loathsome beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel. And before them stood seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel, with Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan standing among them. Each had his censer in his hand, and the smoke of the cloud of incense went up. Then he said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in his room of pictures? For they say, ‘The LORD does not see us, the LORD has forsaken the land.’”

Interesting reasoning. God was judging Israel for generations of idolatry. From this fact, the present generation had reasoned that there was every reason to continue practicing idolatry. God was judging the land. There was no point in repenting. Their best hope lay in the other gods who had gotten them in trouble in the first place.

It is like saying, “The previous generation gave us burdensome debt so we must now spend more than we have.”

It is this concrete situation that God refutes in Ezekiel 18:

The word of the LORD came to me: “What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge’? As I live, declares the Lord GOD, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel….

Please read the whole chapter.

This is not a treatise on personal responsibility designed to correct a chapter in a systematic theology textbook. The Israelites have decided it will no good to repent. Generations of sin and injustice are bring down judgment on their heads. They didn’t start the fire.

But even if there must be consequences, there is still time to alter the specifics of those consequences. God assures them they can repent and live or wallow in sin and die. It is not over yet; and pretending that it is too late is just a rationalization for more wickedness.