A Mouthpiece from the LORD

Now we’re ready to get back into the narrative. You may remember that we were discussing the two differing perspectives found in the records of Samuel/Kings and Chronicles (you may want to refresh your memory by going back here and here). I made some hefty claims as to what I believe the competing agendas (“competing” may be too harsh, but I chose it intentionally here) might be within the larger “God-breathed” (inspired) story.

I suggested that one view of God’s narrative puts the focus on our obedience. We see stories that hinge upon some great moral failure of the leadership, bad decisions leading to momentum shifts, and whole periods of history defined by the idolatry of God’s people. I also mentioned that this was the predominant view that I was given as a youth, a Bible college student, and a young pastor. But what I also suggested was that the Chronicler, writing his record much later in history, with the benefit of hindsight and the perspective that came with it, was encouraging us not to miss the story that lies behind the story — the real fundamental reason for Israel’s collapse:

The lust for empire. The forgetfulness of God’s great project to bless all nations through them.

This is a major claim to make and so as we resume our walk through God’s story and the history of His people, we want to make sure we are examining the story to find out if there are any other clues as to what the agenda of the story might be. And this is the perfect place to begin such an inquiry into the story because we find ourselves on the brink of the prophets.

This would be a great place to remind ourselves of a point that we have made in passing when referring to prophets: In a biblical sense, the term “prophet” has very little to do with “future predicting” and everything to do with being a messenger for God. We often have been given the idea that a prophet is like a Godly “fortune teller” who speaks of future things to be fulfilled; this is problematic on multiple levels, not the least of them being the belief’s inaccuracy. The prophets serve as God’s mouthpieces. God has a message for the people and the prophet is the mouthpiece that speaks the message. And the term “message” would speak of a present tense exchange of words and ideas for a present moment.

God had a message for the people of Israel for THAT DAY. He was primarily giving them a message for themselves; not a cryptic message for the future that left the readers clueless and waiting for some future people (like us!) to figure it out one day. That message had plenty of purpose for the people to whom it was sent. Any additional layers to these prophetic utterances are simply icing on the cake.

So, before we dive into Amos, let’s make sure that we draw up an outline for the historicity of the prophetic movement. What was going on when these prophets spoke to the people and who were the people they spoke to?

Just a couple quick points: When we talk about time-period, I am certainly not referring to when the prophet was written; there is far too much debate that swirls around about when these messages were heard/created/penned. What interests me is where the “voice” of the prophets is supposed to be “heard” by the reader; at what point in the story should I hear the voice of Hosea? Likewise, I am not concerned with the “who wrote this book?” conversation for the very same reasons. I will not be diving into those discussions. I do believe that the Scripture is God-breathed in the form that it was given and I can hear the voice of God speaking through the story in its many forms. This is my non-negotiable belief. Everything else is pretty fluid in my mind.

PRE-ASSYRIAN PROPHETS: These prophets are the first to show up on the scene to bring God’s message of repentance. Before the enemies begin knocking on the door of Israel and Judah, before the threat of Assyria is realized, prophets like Hosea and Amos appear bringing a message to the northern kingdom of Israel. Prophets like 1 Isaiah (I know that’s confusing, wait on an explanation) and Micah bring messages to Judah.

ASSYRIAN PROPHETS: Once Assyria begins the long, brutal process of conquest throughout the land, the prophets Jonah and Nahum will speak about God’s patience and forthcoming justice. Zephaniah and 2 Isaiah will begin preaching a message of repentance to Judah, where they warn them of the danger that awaits them if they fail to learn the lessons of their brothers to the north.

BABYLONIAN PROPHETS: After Judah’s failure to repent, God will use Babylon to cart His people back to their former days of slavery to remind them of where they come from. Prophets like Jeremiah, Lamentations, Habakkuk, Joel, and Obadiah will speak during these trying times as Babylon sweeps through the land like a locust plague.

EXILIC PROPHETS: Having now been destroyed, Israel/Judah sits in Babylonian captivity, their house left desolate, and begin to wonder if there’s any hope for the future. Prophets like Daniel and Ezekiel enter the scene, encouraging their hearers/readers to understand why they sit in captivity and casting apocalyptic visions of hope. The words of 3 Isaiah contain some of the most beautiful poetry of the ancient world, while Job uses drama to bring perspective into human suffering.

THE REMNANT: Finally, the Jews are allowed to come back home and rebuild. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah tell the story of how this rebuilding period began; prophets like Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi accompany their work, encouraging the people to walk in the ways of God and recapture the mission of God in the world.

Throughout this survey of biblical prophets, my encouragement is to listen for the underlying message of God’s narrative. If the prophets serve as God’s mouthpiece, it should be very beneficial to notice what God’s message is, straight from His own mouth. I can promise you two things: You will hear talk of idolatry (and adultery, for that matter) that will remind you of the story of Samuel and Kings. I can also promise you that you will hear talk of justice and loving your neighbor as yourself. As we continue to wrestle with these two perspectives, I invite you to listen for which message begins to become dominant and overpower the story that God is inviting us to trust.

Spring Break!

We'll be taking a two week break here at Covered in His Dust as I am away for the Spring Break.  We'll resume our series in April.  Stay tuned!

The Song of Sexuality

We have one more book to discuss before we turn our sights toward the prophets. We’ve been discussing the idea that throughout the period of history where Israel struggled with the cycle of redemption, God also provided them with tools. There are things that we need with us on the journey if we are to make it through this struggle well.

We’re going to need to sing, so we will need some songs.
We’re going to need some wisdom, so we’re given little nuggets of goodness.
We’re going to need purpose, so we’re invited into a discussion about what brings true meaning to life.

And we’re also going to need relationships. Enter the Song of Songs.

This always happens to be a great discussion. Song of Songs is a biblical piece of literature that is loaded with sexually-charged language. There have been many attempts to trivialize the language and make the book into a metaphor that expresses God’s relationship with His people. While my belief in this metaphor and my appreciation for the truth contained therein continues to grow (especially in light of our discussion about wedding imagery in the Torah), to try to ignore the obvious and blatant references to marital sexuality in the book does the body a great disservice. Let’s unpack what I mean by that.

There is a place to discuss and appreciate discussion about the beauty of sexuality within its appropriate context. My passion for this topic runs rampant as I believe the Church does not discuss this topic enough (not even remotely). The topic is viewed as “off limits” and is therefore an untouched oasis of misunderstanding. We have so much skewed understanding in the realm of Christian sexuality that I’m not sure we even know where to begin. Just over a year ago, I wrote an eight-part series on sexuality and all the ways we need to work on redeeming it — but God never gave me the green light to publish it, so it sits unpublished in my rough drafts folder.

To make a long rant at least a little shorter, I would say that we need to discuss healthy sexuality more within the Christian discussion, and Song of Songs proves it. Hand the book to any married couple who has been married for at least a few years and they will tell you that the book is a litany of sexual poetry. The descriptions that each of the lovers give to their beloved’s body (barring some cultural barriers) will make any reader blush. And it’s not hard to understand what the bride is talking about when she describes "opening the gate” and letting her lover into her “garden.” This is steamy stuff.

And I’m sure that some of you are feeling a little uneasy after reading those last two sentences — which is the problem.

It’s in the book, people; read it for yourself.

But we continue to act like we are not allowed to discuss sexuality. It’s craziness. There is a healthy, appropriate sexuality. Healthy sexuality is to be celebrated — as much as healthy eating, healthy psychology, and healthy spirituality. In fact, healthy sexuality is a part of healthy spirituality and psychology (and vice versa). We are holistic beings. Our sexuality is a part of our spirituality and identity. (For more on this, I would recommend Sex God by Rob Bell.)

But in an attempt to avoid a rant, I’m hoping to discuss the three different Hebrew expressions of love. I share these at every wedding I perform and have borrowed the material very liberally from the content of Rob Bell’s Nooma video entitled “Flame.”

The first expression of Hebrew love is the word reyach. The word expresses “neighborly” or “brotherly” love. It’s the kind of love you would express to your friend or would speak about in passing. In a romantic sense, reyach is the poetic infatuation that a person experiences as they begin a new relationship. They can’t stop thinking about the other person. It’s the place where the poetry and the electric emotion comes from.

There is also the kind of love expressed in ahava. This is the kind of love that will be there through the long-haul. It’s not a love based on fleeting emotions or feelings or poetry. It’s not a love with strings attached — it is unconditional. In a romantic sense, ahava is the love that is expressed in the wedding vows. It’s a love that says, “No matter what happens, no matter what life throws at us, I choose you.” Ahava is the moment that the person decides that he/she is not just infatuated with the other person, but wants to spend every waking moment with them.

But there is also the love that is called dowd. And dowd is the erotic, sexual love that is expressed in Song of Songs. The beloved calls out to her bridegroom and asks him to kiss her with the dowd of his mouth.

When we speak of romantic relationships, we have to understand that God designed all three of those loves to work together simultaneously within a relationship. The struggle comes when we find one of those “loves” missing from the equation. In the college culture, it is very popular to engage in dowd after experiencing reyach and not have any ahava. It’s dysfunctional and destructive. Ancient biblical culture (if you remember our description of arranged marriages) started with ahava, moved onto dowd, and then hoped for reyach. If that wasn’t accomplished, it was dysfunctional and destructive. So many of our weddings in today’s culture are bathed in reyach; they have much music and poetry and beauty and emotion — all of which have their place. But we have downplayed ahava and then wondered why our marriages seem to be so shallow.

We tell our kids to pursue relationships, we celebrate their reyach, and we tell them to prepare their relationships for ahava. But then we tell them to abstain from dowd and wait and wait and wait to get married until later. Then we wonder why our children fall. All three loves are made to work together! The rabbi Paul spoke against this to the Corinthians, telling them that if their loins burned for one another, they were to get married. He told Timothy that those who tell people to abstain from marriage were engaging “teaching from demons.” This sexuality thing is serious stuff.

And Song of Songs reminds us that healthy, erotic sexuality — within the context of marriage — is beautiful, healthy, and to be celebrated. We would do well to take heed of this enlightening teaching of the wisdom literature.

The Search for Meaning

Another one of the tools we need to have in our bag when the journey is an arduous struggle is purpose.

Not only are we given songs to sing and nuggets of wisdom to help guide our way, but we also find that the narrative of God contains some ideas about meaning and purpose. I have to be able to know why I’m on this journey and exactly what I’m up to. Knowing these things is just another one of those tools that helps me hang on, walk the good path, and follow the ancient ways.

At our recent All-Staff Conference, Impact Campus Ministries watched a TED Talk by Simon Sinek about why certain organizations do so well. You can watch the presentation here.

Knowing the “why” is important. It not only keeps us tied to the straight and narrow, but it also inspires us to get up in the morning and be a part of God’s great project. In a lot of ways, knowing God’s “big story” is the whole reason I teach the classes I teach, serve in the world of campus ministry, and write these blogs. To understand the meta-narrative — God’s big story — is to have a huge head start on understanding meaning and purpose.

Ecclesiastes has long been known for it’s interesting approach to talking about meaning. On the surface, the book appears to be hauling off in never-ending pessimism, calling everything into question and then reigning down the verdict of “VANITY!” in every direction. I have often heard Bible teachers teach that the main thrust of Ecclesiastes is subversive; the author spends time showing how everything is meaningless and then inductively surprises the reader with his point: God gives meaning to everything.

I don’t think this take on Ecclesiastes is incorrect by any means. As is the case with almost all ancient Eastern writing, there are many different levels on which to read the Text. As the reader continues to study the intricacies of the Text, they notice clues and hints that pull them deeper and deeper into what the author is really trying to pull off. I believe there is much of this taking place in the book of Ecclesiastes and I think it is important because there is much debate that surrounds whether Solomon actually wrote the book, and even whether the beginning and ending of the book were added at some later time. (I’m not going to wade into that one here. Sorry.)

It’s my belief that this book is loaded with buried wisdom underneath all the talk of meaninglessness. I will use one example in order to make my point. At the beginning of chapter 7, we read the following words:

A good name is better than fine perfume,
    and the day of death better than the day of birth.
it is better to go to a house of mourning
    than to go to a house of feasting,
for death is the destiny of everyone;
    the living should take this to heart.

Seems a little heavy-handed, don’t you think? Is this really what we’re supposed to understand from the great Teacher here?

First we need to remember that the chapter breaks didn’t exist; so the reader needs to ignore that big number seven in their Bible. Being reminded of that, I would invite you to go and read the context surrounding chapter 7 (like Ecclesiastes 6–7 or so).

In the middle of this diatribe (and no, I haven’t necessarily found a chiasm — yet) the writer says “a good name is better than fine perfume.” This remark comes in the middle of the author trying to decide what will be left after he is gone.

What really matters in this life? What will have an eternal ring to it and ripple throughout the ages?

Try to look through the surface and hear the author’s wrestling match, not just be depressed by the pessimism.

A good name is better than fine perfume,
    and the day of death better than the day of birth.
it is better to go to a house of mourning
    than to go to a house of feasting,
for death is the destiny of everyone;
    the living should take this to heart.

There is much wisdom buried in there. Do you see it? I don’t often quote Charles Spurgeon, but I ran into this earlier this morning:  

“A good character is the best tombstone. … Carve your name on hearts, not marble.”
I hate to break it to Mr. Spurgeon, but the writer of Ecclesiastes beat him to the punch: “A good name is better than fine perfume, … it is better to go to a house of mourning than a house of feasting.”

Make your life about something that matters. Make a difference in the life of other people. If you have the chance to go and sit with those in mourning or go to a great party — go to the house of mourning. When this life is over and people share at your funeral, they will not remember the parties. They will remember how you laid your life down to help put the world back together.

Is this just a book about depressing pessimism? Or is it a book about what really matters — about what really lives on after you’re gone?

We all need a reason to get out of bed in the morning. And perhaps the last book of the Bible you’d ever expect to find the answer is the very place where that kind of purpose and meaning is buried.

A good name is better than fine perfume,
    and the day of death better than the day of birth.
it is better to go to a house of mourning
    than to go to a house of feasting,
for death is the destiny of everyone;
    the living should take this to heart.

Wise Sayings that are Generally True

The next book that is found in this section of “Wisdom Literature” is the book of proverbial wisdom itself — Proverbs. While very few people would claim that Solomon is responsible for writing all of these nuggets of wisdom, most tradition (and some scholarship) credits King Solomon for compiling the 31-chapter work you and I know as Proverbs.

There’s not a huge, long blog post awaiting itself here; the Proverbs tend to be pretty straightforward and speak for themselves. That’s why many people gravitate towards them — they appreciate their simplicity, as do I. There are a few points that need to be made before we move on past this book, however.

First of all, the Proverbs are not comprehensive in their wisdom. What I mean by that is that there is very often an exception to the proverb. The proverb is not “hard and fast, black and white” — but as we’ve already looked at, this is true to life, anyway. The proverbs would have to be very limited in their scope. But this is exactly what the proverb is about. I teach our students to remember that proverbs are “wise sayings that are generally true.” You don’t go making doctrinal statements based out of the book of Proverbs.

A good example of this would be Proverbs 20:21.

An inheritance quickly gained at the beginning,
    will not be blessed at the end.

While this proverb makes a great and wise point, there would certainly be cases where this would not have to be true. I certainly do not mean to take away from the wisdom or the depth of the Proverbs; to the contrary, the wisdom of the Proverbs is incredibly, well, wise. They are profound, concise, and straightforward. And while they may not be all-encompassing for every situation at every time, their gutsy wisdom continues to stand the test of time. This is the wisdom and function of Proverbs.




Second, there are some great sections in Proverbs. One of the great themes is the dance between the two women of Proverbs (chapters 1–9). The Proverbs contrasts wisdom and temptation as two women. The ancient rabbis of the more mystical traditions have always seen “Lady Wisdom” as synonymous with Torah. They teach that Wisdom/Torah was there at the creation of the world and has eternally existed with God. If we don’t get too hung up on semantics here, we might see great parallels between this teaching and the opening paragraphs of the gospel of John. Another great theme of Proverbs is the famous final chapter, which contains the section on “the wife of noble character.” One of the greatest chapters I have read on the subject can be found in The Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans.

Finally, there are some very, very useful themes that surface in a reading of Proverbs. One of the assignments I still remember from Bible college was having to take highlighters to the book of Proverbs to identify different themes that arose. I found great wisdom that has stayed with me to this day.

There was wisdom about wealth and riches:

Lazy hands make for poverty,
    but diligent hands bring wealth.
Proverbs 10:4

A kindhearted woman gains honor,
    but ruthless men gain only wealth.
Proverbs 11:16

There was also wisdom about family:

A wife of noble character is her husband’s crown,
    but a disgraceful wife is like decay in his bones.
Proverbs 12:4

Whoever fears the Lord has a secure fortress,
    and for their children it will be a refuge.
Proverbs 14:26

These themes continued to appear over and over again, each new nugget of wisdom expanding on the next. But one of the most influential themes of the Proverbs for me was the wisdom about speech:

Sin is not ended by multiplying words,
    but the prudent hold their tongues.
Proverbs 10:19

The words of the wicked lie in wait for blood,
    but the speech of the upright rescues them.
Proverbs 12:6

The one who has knowledge uses words with restraint,
    and whoever has understanding is even-tempered.
Proverbs 17:27

In short, the Proverbs taught me this principle: When in doubt, shut up. This idea was recently reinforced by a friend of mine, Chris McNaught, who wrote a book titled Less Is More Than Enough. Through his own life lessons and observations, McNaught has found this wisdom to be shown wise time and time again.

You see, if we’re going to make it through the cycle and the struggle that is the path of righteousness, we are going to need some tools. If we are going to trust the story, we’re going to need to mine some nuggets out of the hills of experience.

We’re going to need wisdom.