Top 12 of CiHD: #12

For a summary of what I’m hoping to accomplish in this blog series (the first week of every month of 2018), I recommend reviewing my explanation here.

As we begin our look at the Top 12 Blog Posts of Covered in His Dust, we’re going to begin as any good countdown does — at the bottom! Let’s start with my twelfth-most-viewed blog post. It happens to be “The Redemption Cycle,” a post I published on December 26, 2013. It discusses the big ideas undergirding the book of Judges, and I contest the idea that the cycle represented there should be described as a “sin cycle.” You can read the post here.

In this series, as we look at each post, I want to ask three questions: why, what, and what else? Why do I think this post got so many views; why were others drawn to this post? What do I hope people found when they got here; what do I hope they heard? Finally, what else have I learned about this; what else would I say about these ideas?

WHY THIS POST?

To be honest, one of the things you are going to get every time we do this is a very cynical and objective look at why people hit this post. The truth of the matter is that most of these page views are coming from web searches from people’s favorite search engines. Chances are good that many of these views came from people who were doing an image search for “cycle in Judges” and happened to click on the image that is linked to my blog.

In a similar fashion, I think many page views came from a Google search that had to do with “cycle” and “book of Judges.” As people were looking more into this idea, they were looking for additional material. Particularly on Google searches, my Google-based blog host is one of the first hits, and away we go. So let’s work with this idea: the people who ran across my blog were studying the book of Judges and the idea that there is an ongoing cycle within the literature.

WHAT DO I HOPE THEY FOUND?

I hope they found an idea that challenged the assumptions they were being handed from other sources. By saying this, I’m not suggesting that I hope they heard the right answer in a debate against what they had been taught. I simply mean to say that I hope they encountered an even bigger idea and that it made them think critically about the implications of the theology that serves as the foundation to our biblical interpretation — let alone our doctrine.

When I was handed a worldview that focused on the sinfulness and depravity of man, I found myself stuck in a theology that wasn’t compelling and didn’t inspire me to take up the mission and partner with God. Instead, I found a lot of despair and hopelessness for humanity. The idea that God simply “puts up with us” and with a roll of His eyes He forgives us — yet again — was portrayed quite clearly.

There are many things I can applaud in what I was taught. The fact that Bible teachers were able to show me a literary tool being employed in Judges was fantastic. At that stage of my learning, I hadn’t been exposed to many literary tools; but being handed such a clear and noticeable example launched the beginning of a very critical journey in learning the skills necessary to examine the Text. It was all of the doctrinal assumption that I hope people found critiqued when they got here.

WHAT ELSE WOULD I SAY?

This post really expresses things quite thoroughly and I can’t think of much I would add. I would say I have learned how much scholarship (progressive textual critics, in large part) sees the book of Judges as a parallel record of history to the book of Joshua. What they mean when they say such things is that a redactor later pulled these two stories together and made them read sequentially, but they probably preexisted as different takes on the same period of history. On the one hand, you have the book of Joshua, which tells the story of obedience (for the most part) and God’s help in absolute conquest. However, another historical perspective tells the story of disobedience and God’s incredible patience. These serve as two sides of the historical narrative. For some of us, this may be a bridge too far, but I have been learning much about these theories and find them informative in my ability to think critically about the Text and wrestle with authorial intent.

I would also be remiss to exit this post without recommending Make Your Mark, a book written by a fellow teacher and friend of mine, Brad Gray. While the book focuses on the story of Samson, I find its contents to be helpful as I wrestle with the implications of the stories found in the book of Judges.

CHURCH HISTORY: AD 1000 thru AD 1300

NB: For readers who missed it, I suggest going back to review my setup to this section on church history to know about my disclaimers. For the graphics used in this post, the timelines are not to scale, and the dates represented are not intended to be exact. They are meant to be visual aids for understanding the larger conversation.

We left our last discussion with the world of Christendom having been rocked to its core. With the departure of the Eastern Church, the danger is that it would raise a whole new sense of papal rejection. If folks can just tell the pope no, then what does that mean?

Well, as the saying goes, nothing brings a people together like a common enemy.

To be fair, I’m not going to wade into the spicy conversation surrounding the Crusades and present myself as a historian or expert. I know talking about this period of history can be incredibly charged emotionally — as it should be. I know some historical reconstructionists have attempted to put a “positive spin” on the Crusades and what the intentions were behind them. I will be attempting no such explanation. For me, this chapter of Christian history is dark and marked with all sorts of problems, which most of us have simply kept out of sight and out of mind.

I remember the chapter in Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller where he spoke about his experience at the reverse confessional. He talked about how they set up a confessional booth at Reed College and — instead of receiving confessions from others — they offered confessions on behalf of their faith, both current and historic. I have not stopped hearing the kickback from readers or thinkers who say, “But why would I/they apologize for something that happened centuries ago?” This question shows our blatant disconnection from our faith and where it comes from. This disconnection stops us from being able to think critically about how we could ever get to that place. And a dark history disowned by the descendants of it will be bound to repeat itself. Some would say we are on the verge of such an era right now.

But I won’t try to present myself as an expert — only as a learner, a student of history, and a fellow thinker.

It’s my belief that in our desperate need to unify Christendom, we seized an opportunity that arose at just the right time. Shortly after the East-West Schism, the Islamic movement was making its way to capture Palestine. While there is no way I am going to give you a history of the Islamic faith here, it would be helpful to know that as Mohammed was doing the work of canonizing his teaching and creation of the Qur’an was underway, there were three dominant worldviews at play within Islam. There was what we might have called a progressive movement — which wanted to live peaceably with everyone. There was a moderate movement that saw itself as the correct faith, and others as largely apostate, but did not seek to convert them by force. There was also a radical branch of the faith bent on violent overthrow of the pagan idolaters.

If this sounds familiar, that’s because it is. We studied Judaism of the second temple period and its different sects. We have seen the same movements grow and disappear within Christian history, as well. (I cannot move on without recommending Battle for God by Karen Armstrong, a wonderful look at the history of the three faiths and the rise of radical fundamentalism in each.)

I find this helpful because most people choose which groups they want to represent their own faith story. While Christians would (typically) never define themselves by the fringe, radical edges of fundamentalism, we consistently do the opposite to the “other” in the conversation. I would say the movement of Islam toward capturing Palestine did not represent the Islamic faith as a whole (not even close). It did have a lot of traction at this point in history, though, and it did provide a perfect opportunity for the Church in the west to find a common enemy and use it as a scapegoat to bring unity to a struggling kingdom.

This is my unauthoritative (and probably oversimplified) opinion on this point of history. I am no expert in the Crusades, so I will not try to explain my way through it. Let’s just say that these few centuries were an absolute mess, and the mess seemed to galvanize an unfortunate unity in Christendom.

But before we move on to the next chapter of history, it would be worth pointing out that not everyone is out fighting in the Crusades.

They never are. We let the poor, the uneducated, and the commoners do that work for us.

Simultaneously, as the Crusades are being fought, we witness the rise of “scholasticism” and an ever-widening gap between those who have and those who have not. This is a gap we are well acquainted with today; we often talk about the gap between the wealthiest 1% and the rest of the world. In the Middle Ages, this gap was driven more by education and academic privilege. While the middle and bottom classes were fighting in the Crusades, the cream of the crop was being taught and educated at a level we simply hadn’t seen before. With the rise of science and the accomplishments it brought, a university system that we still understand and rely on today began to take shape. Apprentices were taught not only how to read and write (which was an incredible advantage, by the way!), but they were also instructed in the blossoming fields of mathematics, science, theology, and the arts — most of which was driven by the Greek philosophers of the Hellenistic era.

One of the most revered names in Church history is often that of Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas, without a doubt, changed the face of Christian history by bringing into a logical order the many fields of education. Aquinas showed how the world of mathematics and science could blend with the world of philosophy and theology, and the western world would never be the same. The way we understand our education system today is largely shaped by the perspective brought to us through the work of Thomas Aquinas. Many would call him the father of logic and reason.

I’ll resist my desire to be critical until we conclude our study of history, but I’m hoping my western-minded readers will notice that somewhere around a millennia before this, we lost some things that were absolutely crucial to the health of the Church. While I realize we are all still enamored with the pillars of Hellenism today, I hope we learned enough to critically examine just how lost we are 1,000 years after the Judaic movement of Jesus. But I digress.

Or do I? We shall see.

REVELATION: The Fall of the Dragon

As we get closer and closer to the climactic conclusion of the vision of Revelation, we can feel the heat of the ensuing confrontation. We know the beast and the dragon must ultimately be confronted and dealt with. For this, we need to pick up in the last paragraph to the nineteenth chapter.

Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to wage war against the rider on the horse and his army. But the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who had performed the signs on its behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped its image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur. The rest were killed with the sword coming out of the mouth of the rider on the horse, and all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh.

And so we find ourselves at that great and final confrontation, which seems to be over as quickly as it begins. Once God decides to act and deliver creation from the order of death and darkness, it’s over. There is no waiting. God’s deliverance is here and the process of renewal commences unhindered. We are told kings of the earth come to fight against the victorious Rider who is called Faithful and True. All the caesars and kings, governors and commanders, emperors and pharaohs line up for battle, but they are too late. The beast is captured, along with the false prophets who performed the signs (more allusions to Exodus, perhaps?), and they were thrown into the lake of burning sulfur.

What I think most of us miss is that this has all happened before in the Book of Daniel. Because of our Christian theology and its relentless focus on the last day of judgment, I think we read these passages and immediately start thinking of people — souls being cast into eternal torment. But what should be clear by now is that we are talking about images of empire and the false imperial narrative holding the world hostage. That John calls us directly to Daniel 7:11 for this image should reinforce the point. Daniel, a book written about the injustice of empire, had already used this apocalyptic image to make the same point. John simply reemploys this mechanic to do so again.

And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. He threw him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be set free for a short time.

John then describes an angel descending from heaven, with the keys to tehom — Hebrew for “the abyss.” This is a call back to the beginning of the story of Genesis. We are told in the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, that darkness was over tehom; and out of that primordial chaos, God spoke order into being. This angel descends with the keys to that primordial chaos where it all began. The dragon, “the Satan” in the Hebrew mind, is seized and thrown into that tehom so the nations might see things as they truly are.

Many get hung up on the phrase that Satan “must be set free for a short time.” But we usually miss that John is continuing to run right down the narrative of Daniel for his apocalyptic purposes. When the Text speaks of the Abyss being “sealed up” over him — having just referenced the book of Daniel — everyone would have realized it is the same phrase used when Daniel is thrown into the lion’s den so that (as the Book of Daniel puts it) “the purpose might not be changed concerning Daniel.” God is shutting up Satan in the Abyss in order to accomplish His purposes.

I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years.

Ah, yes — the famous “millennial reign” passage. I hope we notice how obscure this reference is for all the hoopla made over it. We argue about pre-millennial, post-millennial, or a-millennial and draw entire eschatological theologies about this lone passage. It seems a bit overdone and out of place by now, I hope. At this point in our journey, numbers should make us think more like an easterner and less like a mathematician. This thousand-year reign is the Jewish equivalent of talking about an era or epoch of time. This is a Jewish way of saying, “There will be an era where the Kingdom of God is seen clearly for what it is.” It’s an apocalyptic message of hope, that all of this struggle isn’t in vain.

And this is reinforced by John’s statement above, which happens to be the point of that paragraph; this is usually missed as we argue about the millennial reign of Christ. You see, John wants everybody to know that all of those who have given their lives notto worship the beast and take his mark — all of those who gave their lives to live rightly — they get to reign with Christ. This is all a continual reference to Daniel (see Daniel 7:9).

Jewish belief in the first century, built upon their understanding of the vision of Daniel, was that those who died unjustly for walking the paths of righteousness would be honored in “the resurrection.” As the Jews looked forward to the “age to come” — or olam haba, as we’ve studied before — they pictured a world where everything was made right and justice ultimately prevailed. Jewish apocryphal works spoke about the righteous ones who died for righteousness being raised in the resurrection to reign with God and help Him restore the world. This happens to be where John goes next in the paragraph above as he references a first resurrection and a second death, which is often confusing to us, and I’ve witnessed some incredible theological gymnastics performed in order to make these references make sense in our eschatology.

When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—and to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore. They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God’s people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them. And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

John is not naive to the fact that the future lying ahead of us will be hard and filled with toil. He mentions that when Satan is “released” from his Abyss, he will mount one last effort to overthrow the true King, assembling all of the nations and Gog and Magog (more references from the Tanakh) for that great and final battle in the Valley of Jezreel — the battle of Armageddon. All of this will be far too little, far too late for Satan, as the beast, the dragon, and the picture of empire is done away with — forever.

It would be worth reminding ourselves that if we read these things too literally, we completely miss the point John is making, and we might turn his apocalyptic vision of encouragement into a crystal ball of future happenings. This is John’s message: It looks like empire is winning. It will not. You must overcome, because in the end, the dragon and the beast are defeated. Even when he mounts his last gasping attempt, God’s kingdom emerges victorious.

Or in Jesus’s words from the gospels, “ You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, … do not believe it.” Just go about the business of bringing God’s kingdom — God’s shalom — crashing into earth. To try to figure out how all of these images fit into current events is a gigantic adventure in missing the inspired point of Revelation.

Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.

John closes with even more references to Daniel. The idea of the Book of Life is not a Christian idea; the book of Daniel spoke of the sefer chayyim long before the New Testament did. In fact, Jews believe the “Book of Life” is recited every Yom Kippur as God justifies the righteous each year. Again, John’s larger point here is that everything is being made right, not one name is forgotten, and everything is being put in its appropriate place.

And in case we were waffling on what the “second death” and “first resurrection” were, John tells us at the closing of chapter twenty. The “first death” is the obvious one that all of us will experience. The “second death” is the final destruction of evil and the Devil once and for all. The “second death” is the final victory of the Order of Life. In the same way, the “first resurrection” is the apocalyptic belief that the righteous will be given their opportunity to reign in the world to come. The “second resurrection” is the final victory that ushers in such a world for all of eternity.

Pictures and images.

Pictures and images.

Are the pictures true? Sure.

Do we know how these would look in a literal application? Not at all.

What is John’s point? Hope. John’s point is hope. John’s point is that God wins.

Really?!

Acts 5 brings us to one of the most disturbing stories in the account of Acts. It’s the story of Ananias and Sapphira and what appears to be a moment where God breaks out of character and loses His mind. I’ll admit that this story is disturbing to me, as well, and I feel as though it should be. (I would direct you back to some of the tension I felt in the story of the conquest; much of it is true here, too.)

And again, there are a few things that make me pause to be sure I’m stripping my assumptions out of my approach to the story. What does the Text say and what does it NOT say? For example, God’s voice is strangely silent in this story, while Peter does an awful lot of talking. While I’m not necessarily suggesting Peter is out of line or out of God’s will in his actions, it does seem strangely reminiscent of the story of Elijah and the chutzpah he demonstrates in his declaration that it won’t rain.

But such a suggestion may be a stretch, so let’s assume God is in fact behind the words of Peter’s condemnation. It would be wise of us to notice this isn’t the first time we’ve seen an action like this in the narrative of God.

Of course, it would also be wise to notice these stories are so out of character for God that it causes us to ask serious questions. This is not the default posture of God toward His people. When stories like these show up, they remind us it is by far the exception and not the rule. They also remind us God is not a character interested in fitting into any of our tight and tidy boxes we’ve created for Him.

I can count the stories that come to mind on one hand. I think of names like Nadab, Abihu, and Uzzah as examples. Let’s deal with a few of these. If this is not the default posture of God and such an exception to the rule, then why the exception? Hearing stories like these causes the reader to throw up their hands and cry, “Really?! Doesn’t that seem like a bit much?”

One of the first stories like this we run into is an odd story in the book of Leviticus (chapter 10) where two of Aaron’s sons try to offer “common” fire before the LORD. (This is the correct Hebrew translation; many translations of the Text will use “profane” here, and then translate the same Hebrew word as “common” only a few verses later.) Apparently the issue is Nadab and Abihu were not doing the work of discerning the “common” from the “holy” — the secular from the sacred. This is one of the first lessons God is trying to teach His brand new priests. Nadab and Abihu fail to take things seriously and God responds by setting a standard.

The entire mission of God will depend on His priests being able to teach the larger “kingdom of priests” (Israel) how to discern light from darkness in the world around them. If they fail to learn this lesson — if the story of God is corrupted before it even gets off the ground…

And that seems to be the crux of these stories. God’s reactions, which seem so out of character, come because these are critical moments in the history of His people. If the mission is lost before the first step is even taken, the result will not be the redemption of the world and restoration of mishpat, but continued disorder and chaos.

The next story is found in Numbers 15. After the story of the Golden Calf, the giving of the Law at Sinai, and the construction of the Tabernacle (which was a mobile reminder of the creation/Sabbath story), one of the first stories we are told is of a nameless character who refuses to observe the Sabbath. The community brings in the offender, not knowing how to handle the offense, and God hands down a judgment of capital punishment. Again, at a critical juncture for His people, God is serious about this Sabbath business. He’s setting a standard of holiness.

Again, later in the story, after the conquest of the city of Jericho, Achan and his family are stoned to death after refusing to follow the instructions of total dedication to the LORD. And again, the story comes at the beginning of a critical chapter in the history of God’s people.

In the book of Acts, I see the story of Ananias and Sapphira mirroring those stories in big ways.

As in the story of Nadab and Abihu, God just built a new Temple (the people of God).

As in the story of the Sabbath-breaker of Numbers 15, God just put the law in the hearts of His people in a Pentecost story that retold the story of Sinai.

As in the story of Achan, God is leading His people into a completely new kind of conquest.

And in come priests who don’t want to take it seriously. Here come people who aren’t going to tell the truth about the promises of God. They say they want to give it all to God, but they hide some of what’s rightfully His under their tents.

I guess I’m not really sure how to end this post. I have no eloquent line to make this all seem poetic.

But I do think we dabble in the mission of God. I think the curse of our brand of American Christianity is that we like to say one thing, while we do another. And I’m glad that in my life, I haven’t experienced the exception of the rule, because I certainly know I’m guilty of these offenses myself.

I want to realize God takes His mission to put the world back together very seriously. May God have the mercy to continue to teach us where we need to grow up and burn away the garbage in our hearts. May we be coachable students who have wide eyes, sitting on the edge of our chairs with attentive humility, ready to learn with a reverent awe for the work of God.

Far too often, I’ve been the slouching student in the back of the room staring at the clock.

Statement of Triumph

Matthew 21 opens with one of the records of the Triumphal Entry. We’re familiar with the images of the story and we often reenact different elements during our Palm Sunday celebrations. We know the picture of Jesus making his entrance on a donkey while people wave palm branches and shout “Hosanna!”

But a little historical context will go a long way. Jesus enters Jerusalem on the week of Passover (possibly even “Lamb Selection Day”); this week is significant because of the tension of Palestine in the Roman world. This particular region was always one of the tensest areas the Romans had to control. It was the home of the only group of people who refused to worship the emperor. This band of rebels was stubborn, stiff-necked, and naïve.

The region was one of the hardest to govern because of this headache for the Romans. You might remember Herod giving this region to his son Archelaus who didn’t last but for a breath as ruler of the region. The ruler would have to be tough, a bulldog who knew how to collect the necessary taxes and maintain peace. Immediately after the failure of Archelaus as ruler, the Romans sent in their own guy. History knows him as Pontius Pilate. 

Now Pilate did not live in Jerusalem; Israel’s “holy city” would not be the place for a dignified Roman ruler. No, Pilate made his home in Caesarea, the immaculate city of Herod the Great, built to honor the emperor. However, the week of Passover was incredibly tense. More than a million Jews would gather in the city to celebrate a feast that remembered their deliverance from the world’s greatest superpower. The last thing Rome wanted was to let this band of rebels get all riled up after a four-glasses-of-wine party and start a revolt. 

And so every year, Pilate would head south from Caesarea to Joppa and then east to Jerusalem, entering the city from the west. He would travel with great pomp and a show of force. Soldiers, trumpeters, banners, heralds, pronouncements — and Pilate riding on a white stallion that symbolizes military conquest. You could have heard him coming from miles away. The message he wanted to send to the Jews was clear: “Don’t even think about it. Keep everything under control or Rome will crush you.”

And Pilate would stay at Herod’s palace in Jerusalem until the festivities died down.

Meanwhile, on the same week (possibly even the same day), a humble Jewish rabbi rides into Jerusalem from the east with his ragtag bunch of reject disciples.

This is the picture of two kingdoms about to collide.

Pilate on his stallion; Jesus on his donkey.

Pilate with his solders; Jesus with his talmidim.

Pilate instilling fear; Jesus pronouncing favor.

Pilate and his chaos; Jesus with his order.

Pilate with his Empire; Jesus with his Shalom.

This ultimate showdown does not go unnoticed by the Jewish people gathered there on the east side of Jerusalem. The moment Jesus jumps on a donkey, each one of them recognizes the clear connection to Zechariah, a discussion we had last year.

And so the people grab palm branches (see the account in John) and begin waving them. Why palm fronds? Because the prophecy of Zechariah ends with the vision of all nations celebrating Sukkot in Jerusalem — and Sukkot is where you wave your palm fronds. 

And they begin shouting “Hosanna!” which is Hebrew for “Lord, save us!” Why do they shout this? Because the great hymn that you sing at Sukkot is Psalm 118:

     LORD, save us!
         LORD, grant us success!

     Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD.
         From the house of the LORD we bless you.
     The LORD is God,
         and he has made his light shine on us.
     With boughs in hand, join in the festal procession
         up to the horns of the altar.

     You are my God, and I will praise you;
         you are my God, and I will exalt you.

     Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
         his love endures forever.

Because of these passages, the palm frond had become the symbol of the Zealot party and of political revolution. According to Roman history, shaking a palm frond in public was a crucifiable offense.

The people are calling out for a revolution. They see the statement Jesus is making about kingship and they are ready for their king! They give him their support and their praise.

And Jesus cries.

We know from the other accounts that Jesus will look over Jerusalem and he will cry, saying, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem! If only you knew what would bring you peace.”

They had forgotten part of the prophecy in Zechariah:

     Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!

         Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!

     See, your king comes to you,

         righteous and victorious,

     lowly and riding on a donkey,

         on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

     I will take away the chariots from Ephraim

         and the warhorses from Jerusalem,

         and the battle bow will be broken.

     He will proclaim peace to the nations.

         His rule will extend from sea to sea

         and from the River to the ends of the earth.

And I’ve always been amazed that every year, we hand our children palm fronds and have them reenact the very scene that made our Savior weep.

But this isn’t what actually haunts me. I’m sure Jesus is able to see the statement we are making with our hearts as we sing the words “Hosanna!” in spite of ourselves. I think he accepts the worship we are offering.

What haunts me is the question of which kingdom I really want.

I say I want the Kingdom of God, but I’m not sure I’m willing to pay the price. I say I love forgiveness, but there are far too many days where I find myself on the side of the road, clutching a palm frond and shouting for a revolution that comes with my kind of power and my kind of might. 

And I think we need to ask some questions, because I think our political agendas and methods would make Jesus weep. I think our thirst for power, influence, and a particular kind of security would cause Jesus to lament over our cities and our country. I think far too much of our American culture has us standing at the west side of Jerusalem, not the east.

What’s interesting is that in two of the accounts, we are told there are two donkeys, which is interesting because Jesus only rides one. And while this might be an effort to make the account line up with the prophecy of Zechariah, Jewish literature and teaching will often employ this tool as they tell stories. You may remember that Matthew has two demon-possessed men in the Decapolis; he also has two blind men receiving their healing. The rabbis tell us that a teacher will often insert an additional character into the story as a way of inviting you into a moment of decision.

In the story of the two blind men and demoniacs, you are being invited into the story. If you were the other demoniac, what would you do?

There are two donkeys in the Triumphal Entry.

Jesus rides into Jerusalem, not to conquer, but to die. He rides in to bring true peace that might last for an eternity, not a political peace that will last only for now. He rides in to restore relationships and reconcile all things, not to establish a country club.

As you watch Jesus tearfully ride to his death, you see him glance over his shoulder at the riderless donkey and you are faced with a question: Which kingdom do you really want?

He invites you to ride with him into a Kingdom that is built on different values.

You’ve Heard It Said…

After Jesus says that He is not here to abolish the law, but to fulfill it, He goes on to do that very thing. In true rabbinic style, Jesus goes about the art of interpreting Torah. One of the striking refrains that stands out in this section of the Sermon of the Mount is Jesus’s statement, “You’ve heard it said… but I say unto you…”

This is a common rabbinical statement made by a teacher who carries authority. The teacher is announcing to his listeners that they are about to hear a new interpretation of the same texts they are familiar with. This, however, is not a job for just any rabbi. Later in rabbinical history, we know that there were certain rules and stipulations about who could interpret the law and how they could do it. This wasn’t a job for any reader of the Text.

While this may come as a blasphemous idea to Protestant ears, not just anyone was allowed to do the work of interpretation. Interpretation was (and still is) tricky business. In order to reinterpret the Text, a teacher had to have s’micha, which is the Hebrew word for “authority.” If a rabbi did not have s’micha then he was not allowed to offer a new interpretation. A rabbi received s’micha by having two other rabbis with s’micha commission him with it. While this is a later rabbinic practice, it is easy to find this cultural understanding in the gospels.

Listen to the words of Matthew that immediately follow the Sermon on the Mount:

When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.

Jesus taught as one having s’micha and not just as a regular teacher. That’s gutsy; the people caught that this Jesus guy had some chutzpah.
But it does beg the question: Did Jesus have s’micha?

The reader could point to Jesus’s baptism. The words of John the Baptist (a person who has s’micha, at least in the eyes of the people) blesses Him and tells the crowd that Jesus is greater than he is, followed by the voice of the LORD coming from heaven announcing God’s pleasure on Jesus as His son. That’s a convincing s’micha commissioning if you ask me.

Nevertheless, Jesus certainly teaches with s’micha. A rabbi would offer a prologue to his new interpretation by offering these words: “You’ve heard it said ____________, but I say unto you ____________.” It was a rabbi’s way of saying, you are familiar with this teaching, but I’m here to give you a better understanding. Again, this is not something that any rabbi is allowed to do; rabbis are bound in their interpretation to the teachings that have come before them. But a rabbi with authority can chart new paths.

Like we’ve pointed out previously, Jesus is trying to make the case that he is not here teaching something outside of Torah. Instead, He claims to be here showing the world how they were always supposed to be reading it. According to the rabbinical claims of Jesus as a teacher, His teaching of Torah is what God was really after when the law was given at Sinai. This is important because it shows God is not here to change game plans — He is not here to do away with the Jews or take their “place” away — He is here to throw the blinds open on what has always been true. Jesus is here to clean up our understanding.
It’s actually a more profound wrestling match than we might realize. I find that most of us give the teachings of Jesus a treatment that relegates it as a great “thought to consider,” but hardly authoritative. I think most of my readers will claim that statement is far too harsh, but practically speaking, I think you will find it to be true. Jesus’s teachings are far too rabbinic and confusing — at times too “mystical” — for our western preferences. Take, for instance, the way we interact with the teachings/letters of the apostle Paul. We are far quicker to accept the teachings of Paul at face-value than we are the teachings of Jesus. This is a grave error and one that has led to massive misinterpretations of the Text (let alone horrific, destructive teachings throughout church history). As Brian McLaren says, “Christians have accepted Jesus as their savior, but Paul as their Lord.”

Those are merely some thoughts to chew on.

One must be confronted with the authority of Jesus in the gospel accounts. Everything that the follower of Jesus interprets in the Bible has to be seen through the lens of Jesus. When Jesus says that the right way to interpret the Text is through love God and love others, then you are now forced to read your Bible through that lens (as a follower of Rabbi Jesus). You do not get to disagree. For some readers who thought my treatment of the conquest and the Book of Joshua was too far-reaching, they must consider that whatever our interpretation of the book is, it must be aligned with Jesus’s yoke of love God and love others. Jesus said all the Law and the Prophets are interpreted through that lens — period. As a follower of Jesus, I have no other option.

I work under the s’micha of Jesus.

The Crossroads of the Earth

So now that we’ve wrestled with the story of the conquest and sat in the uneasiness, maybe it’s time to start asking some questions about this little piece of ground in the Middle East. Why all this fuss over what seems like such an insignificant chunk of real estate? To this very day, the region of Palestine and Israel continues to be one of the hottest pieces of earth on the planet.

In the ancient biblical world, it’s important to realize that the nation of Israel geographically sits in what was called the “crossroads of the earth.” With the exception of the ancient Orient, the major world civilizations (Egypt, Chaldea/Babylonia, Persia, Assyria, the Hittites, etc.) all sat around the piece of ground that we would refer to as biblical Israel. What this meant was that all global commerce and cultural interaction happened by traveling through that small chunk of land. The major highway for their day, known as the “via maris,” travelled right through their land. Whoever controlled the crossroads of the earth heavily influenced world trade.

So was God’s desire to bless His people with incredible wealth and power?

Not exactly.

When we remember the beginnings of this story, we remember a covenant between God and a man named Abram. We remember God’s words that He would bless Abram and Abram would be a blessing. God said that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through Abram and his descendants.

We hope at this point in the story that we haven’t forgotten God’s great project: to restore peace and wholeness to the earth and brings all things back together.

God is trying to put the world back together.

And God found a partner.

And how is God going to bless all nations?

By putting His partners at the crossroads of the earth.

One of the ways that we understand this concept is by understanding geography — not just the larger geography of where Israel sits in relation to the other nations, but the geography of the land of Israel itself. To look at the nation of Israel is to see five zones that run north/south through the land. Starting at the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, we would see what’s called the Coastal Plain; pretty self-explanatory, the coastal plain was the region where all the pagans live. While the Israelites were desert people, the pagans, like the Philistines, for example, were often sea-faring people of the port cities. The region sitting to the immediate east would be called the Shephelah. This word shares a root with the word that means “to bow” and refers to the land that comes off of the Judah Mountains and bows down to meet the coastal plain — it’s the in-between. Then, to the east, lies the Judah Mountains, where God’s people settled. You rarely settled in the valleys, because of the high value on farmland. You would live in the mountain region. Then came the Judea Wilderness, the barren wasteland to the east of the mountains. And finally, the Jordan River ran through what is called the Rift Valley.

The entire story of God’s project in the world is seen through the eyes of shephelah.

Shephelah is where God’s people meet the broken world. Will God’s people go into the shephelah? Will they bring shalom to the chaos? Or will they settle in the mountains, seeking to lives lives of luxury?

The rabbis have a statement they use: How is your shephelah?

It’s a way of them asking, “How are you doing in partnering with God in His great work to restore the world?”

Because God has supposedly found some partners.

And He’s trained and shaped them in the desert.

But now He’s brought them into the Promised Land.

And the great question is whether or not they’re going to go down into the shephelah or settle in the mountains. The question is whether they are going to settle down and build a tower or build altars and pitch tents.

Because God is up to something in the world. And it’s going to be difficult to convince His partners that there’s still work to be done.

And it’s really not that old of a story is it? Because I still have a shephelah today, don’t I? And the call of the mountains is as strong as ever.

But it’s not easy to live in the shephelah. In fact, it’s quite dangerous and messy down there with the Philistines.

And this leaves us with a tension…

The Hardest Story in the Bible (for me)

All right. It’s time.

It’s time for a long post about the conquest of Canaan that I REALLY don’t want to write. I think it’s safe to say that with every true student/teacher of the Bible, there are problems in the story that make us uneasy. We may reason them away with trite explanations, we may choose to ignore them, or we might deny their existence altogether, but they are there. There have been some famous religious leaders throughout the centuries that have made comments about what books of the canon they wish were removed. Some have complained about Jude. Others, Revelation. Martin Luther thought James should be done away with. Well, if I could choose one of the 66 books to throw out, I’d get rid of Joshua in a heartbeat.

But I can’t. So here we go.

I hope that it goes without saying that I have a problem with the mass killing of entire people groups. I find the story of the conquest to be inconsistent with the character of God and what He’s been asking His people to do. And that creates a problem for me. So, I need to say that before I begin this post, I’m just going to be throwing out lots and lots of observations. Some I like; some I do not. I won’t be drawing conclusions in this post, merely peeling the conversation open. This is because I think the problem needs to be recognized. This isn’t trite; it isn’t easily resolved or ignored.

But I won’t be offering answers today — my apologies, I’m not that good. Some others have offered great thoughts for the conversation. Greg Boyd spoke on the conquest here and I thought he made some great observations. My buddy Aaron Couch posted this not too long ago, linking to some interesting studies.

And there are other thoughts, ranging from the liberal textual critics to the biblical literalists.

Some have suggested that the conquest never really happened. That the book of Joshua is a dramatic narrative-based allegory about how the people of God came into the land they possess throughout the story. To support their theory, they point out that there has yet to be found a piece of archaeological evidence of the conquest (at least, evidence that has been evaluated and validated by the scholastic, archaeological community). This is very odd, as a historian would expect to have found proof of these many battles that are explained in the book of Joshua. They also point out that the language of conquest in the ancient eastern world is always incredibly hyperbolic, exaggerated, and rarely true. Is the book of Joshua borrowing this genre of “historical record” to tell us a larger story?

It’s also interesting to note what God does and doesn’t say. Oftentimes, when our English Bibles translate “destroy,” the word in the Hebrew is often “consecrate.” Now, destruction is often a way of consecration, but one could argue that God was leaving room for grace, that He wasn’t commanding mass genocide. This explanation works in many cases, but not in all of them.

It’s also worth noting that God is constantly meeting people on their own terms. It is true that this ancient biblical world spoke the language of war. It was one of the few ways that countries made statements about their gods. Our God consistently meets people where they are at, uses the language of their day, and speaks His better truth into their lives. Was the conquest a part of that?

These are possibilities that intrigue me. This year, I began a deep study of the book that bothered me so much. At this moment, I’m only halfway through, and I haven’t found any answers to my toughest questions, but I have made some observations:

There are an awful lot of stories where God is pretty quiet. Joshua does an awful lot of planning, strategizing, and pep-talking, but God really doesn’t say much. I find this to be interesting. We always assume that Joshua is acting with the authority of God, yet I’m noticing how often the Text does not connect those dots. I think these instances are up for grabs — what’s truly going on here?

Joshua seems to be acting very much like the pagan commanders of the world around him. He impales the bodies of the conquered on poles for all to see. This has long been a move of war, victory, and conquest for pagan nations. This action is never commanded nor condoned by God.

At the very same time, Joshua is quite different than the pagan kings around him. He doesn’t mock or chide inappropriately. He disposes of the bodies by nightfall (unheard of in their world). While it seems hard to comprehend, Joshua is one of the “softest” conquerers the land of Canaan has ever seen. Consider the story of the Gibeonites and their deception (chapter 9). They trick the Israelites into forming a military treaty with their people. This kind of ancient agreement is called a Suzerain-vassal covenant. It is where the lesser party (Gibeonites) serve the greater party (Israel) and in return they receive the military protection of the Suzerain. The problem is that this isn’t a covenant between two equal parties; the lesser party holds no rights in the agreement. Therefore, a vassal never enters an agreement through deception. The Suzerain always proposes the treaty because of what they will gain from the relationship (taxes, resources, servants, etc.). Once any other king learned of deception on the part of the vassal, they would be destroyed. Yet, Joshua and the elders do not. Are we seeing “a different kind of conquest”?

In the midst of the stories of conquest, the greater stories — the ones that rise to the top — are stories of people being saved and redeemed. The story of Rahab reminds many of the story of Passover. I have often thought of the destruction of Sodom, where God agreed to spare a city for ten righteous people, as I read the story of Rahab. However, there were not ten, and only Lot and his family are saved. Is it possible that Rahab and her family were the only ones righteous in Jericho? The story of the Gibeonites is again a story of escaping destruction. It seems as if the author wants to highlight the stories of salvation, not destruction.

And, I always have to remind myself of what was taking place in the land of Canaan. In all of the forms of pagan Amorite worship, in whichever country we examine, we find horrific, inhumane abuses taking place — not only at the present time, but over the course of centuries — in the land of Canaan. Amorite worship, without exception, involved child sacrifice and shrine prostitution.

We always want to be upset about a God that wouldn’t hear the cry of the Canaanites while they were being destroyed.

But don’t you think that God heard every cry from every child offered to the fires of their gods?

Don’t you think God heard the cries of the wives as their husbands went off to the shrine prostitutes for the second time this week, the tenth time this month?

How long does God let this happen before He acts? How much patience from God is enough? Or too much? How many babies are too many? 10? 100? 1000?

We’ve found ancient Canaanite “baby graveyards” with tens of thousands of infant corpses.

Listen to what God told Abraham back in Genesis 15:

In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.

Their sin hadn’t reached its full measure?

You mean to tell me that God had been patient and waited for over 500 years of this garbage?

You see, it’s interesting how we never think that God’s doing His job right. When we read the story from one perspective, we’re mad that God doesn’t do something sooner. When we read it from the other, we’re upset that He does something about it and wants it to be over, completely — now.

One of the things I’m trying to learn from the conquest is that I’m glad I’m not God. Because I wouldn’t do His job well. I wouldn’t know when to show grace and patience and when to call in the armies of heaven (and earth) to stop the madness.

But I’m glad that I’ve had the books of Moses to read up to this point.
I’m glad that I’ve been impressed with God’s character over and over again.
I’m pretty confident that God is love.

So I’m going to let Him do His job and I’m going to wrestle with the killings done in His name.
And I’m going to trust that He works through us and partners with us.
And sometimes, in our really dark days of conquest, He works in spite of us.

I’m still trying to learn how to trust the story.
And I wonder if Joshua was, too.