Did God Order Genocide?

After a recent sermon, I received this question: We often tune into the Greenlake church service since our family attend there. I have a question about last Sabbaths sermon, if you don't mind. I thought I picked up that you do not think the God ordained mass killings in the Old Testament were ordered by God. Did I hear that right? If so how do you come to that conclusion? I appreciate any help you can give me on that.

It is a profound question. Here is my answer.

On one hand, the Bible clearly states God ordered the genocide.

Jericho and everything in it must be completely destroyed as an offering to the LORD. Only Rahab the prostitute and the others in her house will be spared, for she protected our spies. Joshua 6:17 NLT

And the LORD said unto Joshua, Fear not, neither be thou dismayed: take all the people of war with thee, and arise, go up to Ai: see, I have given into thy hand the king of Ai, and his people, and his city, and his land: And thou shalt do to Ai and her king as thou didst unto Jericho and her king: only the spoil thereof, and the cattle thereof, shall ye take for a prey unto yourselves: lay thee an ambush for the city behind it. Joshua 8:1-2 KJV

A “plain reading” of these Bible passages leaves us with a simple answer to the question, “Did God order the genocidal acts of Israel?” Yes. But, I counter, there are a number of other passages which Adventists (and many other Christians) “explain” in ways that avoid the plain meaning.

God hardened Pharoah's heart. Exodus 9:12

And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah. 2 Samuel 24:1

Now therefore, behold, the LORD hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the LORD hath spoken evil concerning thee. 1 Kings 22:23

If we take the plain reading of the Bible in the above texts, God is an active participant in evil. So Advnetists (and others) have reinterpreted these texts in various ways to avoid saying that God actually did the very thing the Bible says God did. Since these statements are in the same historical context as the passages that say God ordered the genocide, I see no reason not to employ the same methods of interpretation. Which means we acknowledge the text says “God did it” or “God said it” but actually God did not do it or say it.

Some argue that moral revulsion to genocide is a purely modern thing, that if we had been back there in history, we would have had no problem with God ordering genocide. But the Bible itself includes strong protests against the notion of divinely-ordered or divinely-caused genocide. When God announced genocide against Sodom, Abraham protested such an act would be wrong for someone who had the title “Judge of All the Earth.” God bent to Abraham's protest and agreed the presence of even ten good people will be sufficient to prevent the divine blast. When the angels could not find ten good people, they evacuated the four “good” people, thus validating Abraham's fundamental instinct of objection to the slaughter of the innocent and guilty together—which is one of the inescapable effects of genocide.

When God explicitly ordered Moses to step aside and allow God to perpetrate genocide on Israel in the aftermath of the Golden Calf incident, Mosed refuses to step aside. And God backed down. Moses was  right and God was wrong. Or God as portrayed in the plain reading of the story. Usually this story is reinterpreted this way: God did not literally intend to annihilate Israel. Instead, God's words to Moses dramatized the evil the people had done and prepared the way for Moses to act as a savior, thus prefiguring the work of Jesus. I like this interpretation, but we must acknowledge it is a departure from the plain reading of the text. According to the text, God announces genocide and Moses adamantly protests and blocks the divine plan.

When we consider the genocide against the Canaanites, we note the divine pronouncement of doom was so well known the Canaanite peoples themselves knew of the decree. One group of Canaanites, the Gibeonites, tricked the Israelites into signing a mutual non-aggression treaty because of their familiarity with the divine order of genocide. Even though the divine decree was utterly clear, Joshua faced down his entire army when they insisted on obeying God and wiping out the Gibeonites. Joshua deliberately, forcefully opposed the divine verdict of doom. Curiously, when decades later, King Saul decided to do what Joshua had refused to do, God sided not with King Saul but with the Gibeonites. (See Joshua 9 and 10 and 2 Samuel 21.)

So when we say that genocide is immoral and unworthy of God, we are standing with Abraham, Moses and Joshua. Our opposition to genocide is not a modern invention. It is rooted in the most profound human sense of justice and righteousness.

Given the examples of Abraham, Moses, and Joshua, our own rejection of the idea that God really, truly ordered the annihilation of entire populations is on solid biblical grounds. We are insisting that the entirety of the Bible be brought into the discussion.

I argue that the opposition of these men to the command of God is the ancient writers' way of challenging the deeply-embedded conviction of their people that God condoned genocide. It seems to me there are at least a couple of plausible interpretations of the texts: Either God ordered genocide, then changed his mind when confronted by people more merciful than he was or God never actually intended to the genocide in the first place.

I prefer the second interpretation. I don't think God ever commanded genocide against the Canaanites.

Some people, explaining why the Canaanites needed to be annihilated, say that it was because the Canaanites were so debauched that they had to be eradicated to prevent the moral collapse of all humanity. There are problems with this idea.

First, and most important, when we come to the writings of the prophets we find them repeatedly challenging the notion that the Jewish people were superior to their neighbors.

As surely as I live, says the Sovereign LORD, Sodom and her daughters were never as wicked as you and your daughters. Sodom's sins were pride, gluttony, and laziness, while the poor and needy suffered outside her door. She was proud and committed detestable sins, so I wiped her out, as you have seen. "Even Samaria did not commit half your sins. You have done far more detestable things than your sisters ever did. They seem righteous compared to you. Shame on you! Your sins are so terrible that you make your sisters seem righteous, even virtuous. "But someday I will restore the fortunes of Sodom and Samaria, and I will restore you, too. Then you will be truly ashamed of everything you have done, for your sins make them feel good in comparison. Yes, your sisters, Sodom and Samaria, and all their people will be restored, and at that time you also will be restored. Ezekiel 16

A second point I would make is that if the purpose of the genocide was to eradicate the risk of spiritual contamination of Israel, that purpose utterly failed. The genocide was actually rather very limited. Only a few cities were annihilated but large swaths of the land were left in the control of the Canaanites. For example, Jerusalem remained in Canaanite hands until the time of David. (See the book of Joshua for details.) And through their early years, Israel was a raunchy, violent society. (See the book of Judges.)

I take as my principle text for understanding God, the three stories in Luke 15. In this chapter there is no hint of punishment or damnation. Instead, the first two stories end with all gathered in, one hundred sheep in the fold, ten coins back on the necklace. The last story ends with the Father's declaration to the older son, the one who is most persistently alienated from the generous heart of the Father: Son, all that I have is yours. Not will be, could be, or might be. But is.

This Father never ordered or condoned genocide. He never will.

Countermanding the Words of God

Four Treasures of Adventism

A lecture series for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists

Lecture Four: Law

Sabbath afternoon, April 6, 2013

Text: Genesis 18:25

One of the truly distinctive elements of Adventist theology is its elevation of law. According to Adventist theology, the personal, idiosyncratic will of God is not the last word. Rather, we view God himself as subject to the grand principles of law.

You've seen the bumper sticker, “God said it. I believe it. That settles it.” It's a nice slogan expressing confidence in God, but in some Bible stories God's words are not necessarily the last word. Sometimes when people argue with God, the people win the argument because there is a law that God himself has to obey.

Example One: Genesis 18

God told Abraham he was going to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah because of their wickedness. God did not ask Abraham for his opinion. God did not invite Abraham to critique the destruction plan. God simply announced his intentions, “his will.” Instead of bowing and saying, “You are God. You must be correct,” Abraham challenged God, accusing him of injustice.

“Suppose you find fifty righteous people living there in the city—will you still sweep it away and not spare it for their sakes? Surely you wouldn't do such a thing, destroying the righteous along with the wicked. Why, you would be treating the righteous and the wicked exactly the same! Surely you wouldn't do that! Should not the Judge of all the earth do what is right?” Genesis 18:24-25.

Clearly, here, Abraham is referencing a standard, a law or principle, something outside the person of God himself. Abraham emphatically does not approach this conversation with God as a sycophantic courtier. He is not the president's lawyer inventing legal justification for drone strikes or “enhanced interrogation.”

Abraham confronts God. “Whoa! Wait just a minute. You can't just willy-nilly obliterate a whole town. Just because there happen to be bad people there, that does not allow you to disregard the innocent as 'collateral damage.' You have to do what is right.” Abraham is not naïve. He acknowledges that as supreme judge God has the power to do whatever he wants. But having the power to do something does not automatically confer the right to do it. In Abraham's mind God's indisputable power does not confer indisputable authority.

Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right!

God did not rebuke Abraham for impudence. God agreed with him. God even allowed Abraham to set the conditions that had to be met if the cities were going to be destroyed. When it turned out that the cities failed to meet even Abraham's conditions for preservation—at least ten righteous inhabitants—God honored Abraham's scruples by sending angels to evacuate Abraham's four relatives before the fire fell. (Genesis 18, 19)

To summarize: God announced his intention in unmistakably clear language. Abraham judged God's declared intention to be a violation of some universal law. When Abraham challenged God, God did not tell him to shut up, God bent to meet the demands of Abraham's conscience.

Example Two: Moses' Rebellion, Exodus 32

The people of Israel were camped at Mt. Sinai. Moses was up on the mountain communing with God. After Moses had been on the mountain for weeks, the people began to fret. They worried that Moses was dead. They needed a god to lead them. So Aaron made a golden calf and the people began dancing around this idol in worship. God informs Moses of this problem and then gives Moses a direct order,

Now leave me alone so my fierce anger can blaze against them, and I will destroy them. Then I will make you, Moses, into a great nation. Exodus 32:10

There was no hint of diffidence or ambiguity in God's command. Moses understood it perfectly. But instead of obeying and getting out of the way, Moses questioned God's judgment. “God, I don't think you really want to do that. If you do it, you'll be sorry.” Later, Moses upped his protest. To paraphrase, Moses said to God, “Over my dead body! I will not step aside. To kill them, you're going to have to go through me.”

God bends. He does not destroy the people en masse.

Abraham's argument against God's proposed action was: That's not right!

Moses' argument was: That's not wise. Then, I will not acquiesce.

In both instances, the human challengers are validated. Their opposition to God's words is celebrated as acts of righteousness.

Example Three, The Gibeonites, Joshua 9

The people of Israel invaded Palestine. Following God's instructions they annihilated Jericho. Every man, woman, child and animal—except Rahab and everyone she manages to squeeze into her Hotel Rwanda. It was a brutal, savage extermination, ordered by God according to the narrative in the Bible.

Next, the Israelites destroyed Ai. But this time they didn't kill the animals, just the people.

The Book of Joshua reports that when tribal groups throughout Palestine heard about Israel's success against these two cities, they formed a league to fight the Israelites. Everybody joined except for the Gibeonites. The Gibeonites sent a delegation to ask for a peace treaty with the Israelites.

When the emissaries arrived, Joshua interrogated them. “Who are you? Where do you come from?”

The ambassadors answered, “Your servants have come from a very distant country. Stories of your exploits have reached even as far as our country. We've heard about what your God did to the Egyptians. We've heard how he gave you victory over Sihon King of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan. Our elders, and in fact, all our people, commissioned us to come and offer ourselves as vassals. We're prepared to pay tribute. We just want to be on your side. We want to connect with the God who is able to do what your God does.”

Joshua was suspicious. “You do realize that God has forbidden us to make treaties with any one in this area, right? How do we know you live far enough away for us to even be able to talk about making a treaty?”

“Look at our bread,” the Gibeonites protested. “When we left home it was fresh out of the oven. See how dry and moldy it is now! These wine skins—when we filled them at home—they were brand new for the trip. Now see how cracked and weathered they are. Our sandals were new. Now, they're worn out.”

Joshua and his assistants peered at the moldy bread. They ran their hands over the rough, weathered skins. They could see the ratty clothes. No self-respecting ambassador would deliberately show up to make a treaty dressed like that. So, Joshua and the elders agreed to a treaty. Three days later the Israelites discovered they'd been fooled. The Gibeonites lived only three days away from the Israelite camp. The Israelites were outraged. They marched the three-days journey to the region of Gibeon and set up camp.

The soldiers were impatient. These people were Canaanites. It was extermination time. But Joshua refused. “We gave our word,” Joshua said. “And even when it comes to pagans, when we make a promise, we keep it. When we make a treaty, we honor it. When we sign a contract, it's binding.”

The entire army was outraged at Joshua's refusal to exterminate these worthless people. There was a threat of mutiny. But Joshua was adamant. “Yes, they are Canaanites. Yes, they fooled us. Yes, they are on God's extermination list. Yes, God forbade us to make a treaty with people like this. But, no, we are not going to break our word. A treaty is a treaty. An oath is an oath.”

The Gibeonites watched all this nervously, to put it mildly. If Jericho hadn't been able to withstand these people, the Gibeonites didn't have a chance. Their fate was in the hands of Joshua. If he blinked, they were dead.

Joshua summoned the Gibeonite leaders. He was not happy. “Why did you deceive us, saying you lived a long way away?

The Gibeonites answered, “Your servants had heard definite, detailed reports about the command your God gave you to wipe out all the inhabitants of the land. We've seen your God's power in Egypt and in the battles against Sihon, king of Hesbon, and Og, king of Bashon, and Jericho and Ai. We are helpless against you militarily. We did the only thing we could think of to save our lives. We are in your hands. Do to us whatever seems good and right.

So Joshua saved them. He imposed severe “tribute.” They were consigned in perpetuity to serve as temple slaves. But they were alive. Contrary to the explicit annihilation decree of God.

Note, God's command to wipe out the people of Canaan was so emphatic, so clear, so unmistakable, the pagan people themselves had memorized it. There was nothing fuzzy or ambiguous or uncertain in God's directions. God ordered the Israelites to exterminate these wicked people. Joshua countermanded the words of God. When his warriors urged him to implement God's command, Joshua refused. He over overruled his soldiers and God on the basis of a simple law: integrity.

There is a law that is higher than the “word of God.” There is a law that is higher than the idiosyncratic will of God.

A few generations later God demonstrated his approval of Joshua's integrity in protecting the Gibeonites. It's a macabre story: King Saul violated the treaty and tried to exterminate the Gibeonites in obedience to the historic words of God. During the reign of the next king, David, God sent a famine to punish Israel for Saul's massacres. To atone for the genocide, David executed seven of Saul's descendants. Whatever else we make of this story, it clearly endorses Joshua's adamant insistence on honoring a treaty, even though doing so meant Israel was acting directly contrary to the explicit command of God.

“Doing right is more important than obeying God.”

Of course, as believers, we would prefer to say this differently. We would say that doing right is the truest, purest interpretation of God's words. If obeying God's words leads someone to mistreat people, we would insist that the perpetrator has misunderstood God, that God's words didn't really mean what they thought they meant. But I put it the other way, because sometimes we are so sure we know what God meant by what he has said, that our conscience is anesthetized. When a parent spanks their child into unconsciousness because the child is being rebellious, the parent is not intending to do evil. The parent is simply being obedient to the Bible admonition, “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” When an Arkansas Republican last year proposed legislation that would allow parents to seek the death penalty for an incorrigible child, that legislator was simply attempting to be faithful to his understanding of the words of God recorded in the Bible.

Mature religion does not ask simply, “What did God say?” Rather it asks, “What is right?” Mature religion assumes the existence of a law that is so noble, so exalted, so universal God himself is not free to violate it. And we are not free to violate it even if it seems God's words require us to do so.

If something looks unfair, even if it appears to be the will of God, mature Christians will speak up. They will join with Abraham and protest. They may even join Moses and defy the plain statement of God. Sometimes, the right thing to do is to challenge God himself. This is the real life application of the Adventist notion of the supremacy of law.

In the Bible God explicitly approved and regulated slavery. Christians, beginning in the 1600s, started asking questions of fairness. This questioning is perhaps most beautifully modeled in the life of John Woolman who traveled up and down the east coast in the late 1700s bearing witness in favor of liberty for slaves.

The Bible explicitly prescribes death by stoning for Sabbath-breakers, adulterers, rebellious sons, homosexual unions, women unable to prove their virginity at their wedding, blasphemers, witches, and rape victims if the rape occurred within the city limits. Even fundamentalists who advocate capital punishment, reject it in connection with every one of these categories. (Except for the Arkansas Republican I mentioned earlier.)

So what is this “law” that is superior even to the words of God?

In the Bible, two criteria show up as effective arguments against the “words of God.” First, is some notion of justice or integrity. Once the treaty with the Gibeonites was signed, the binding obligation of honoring that treaty, of keeping a promise, took precedence over the explicit words of God ordering their destruction. Abraham's argument regarding Sodom was along the same lines: A real judge, a just judge, cannot ignore collateral harm to innocents in his punishment of the guilty.

The second criteria, one that shows up repeatedly is mercy. In each of the instances I mentioned—Abraham pleading for Sodom, Moses defending Israel, Joshua defending the Israelites—the plea for mercy trumps the verdict of condemnation.

Example Four, the Sidonian Woman, Matthew 25

When a pagan woman from the neighborhood of Sidon asked for Jesus' help, he first ignored her, then told her that helping her would take him away from his God-given mission. He compared her to a dog. She then argued that even dogs get crumbs. Finally, Jesus, capitulates. Even though he has said helping her was contrary to God's will, he goes ahead and helps her.

To make sure I am crystal clear, I'll say it again: Jesus told the woman that it was contrary to God's will for him to help her. His God-given mission was to Israelites. She was not an Israelite. She refused to accept his words. She understood his words. She simply rejected them as “the last word.” She insisted that he help her daughter, even though doing so would be a contradiction of his words.

Jesus agreed with her. Jesus took action which he had already pronounced as contrary to the directions he had received from God. In this instance, the woman is countermanding the explicit testimony of Jesus regarding the will of God! To dramatize his capitulation, Jesus says to the woman, “May it be for you as you wish.” Notice, that if we take the words of the Bible at face value, it is the will of the mother that is done, not the will of Jesus.

With these Bible stories as a background, it is easy for Adventists to justify our rejection of eternal torment. No human being could possibly do enough evil to deserve to be tormented for billions and billions of years. Even if they could somehow manage to earn such a horrific fate, mercy would compel God to modify it. God's people in heaven would join Abraham, Moses and the Sidonian woman in begging for mercy. They could not enjoy heaven knowing that someone, somewhere was being tortured at God's direction.

Beyond our rejection of eternal torment, Adventists also reject reject classic Christian soteriology which damns to hell (however long it is) all people who do not have an explicit faith in Jesus. We believe God is capable of saving people who live outside all the traditional (and beautiful and helpful) formulas. We reject the notion that all Buddhists and Hindus and people with severe mental disabilities are automatically excluded from salvation. (For an authoritative expression of the traditional narrow, exclusionary soteriology see Albert Mohler: We dare not retreat from all that the Bible says about hell. We must never confuse the Gospel, nor offer suggestions that there may be any way of salvation outside of conscious faith in Jesus Christ. (http://www.albertmohler.com/2011/03/16/we-have-seen-all-this-before-rob-bell-and-the-reemergence-of-liberal-theology/). Without conscious faith in Jesus Christ, there is no salvation. (http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/07/08/evangelicalisms-terminal-generation/)).

Yes, we know the words of John

"There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God's one and only Son. John 3:18

But it would be unfair to condemn people for not believing something they had no knowledge of. We privilege texts like Psalm 87 and 1 John 2:2 over the texts that describe salvation in very restrictive terms.

The story of the Gibeonites has obvious implications as we think about homosexuality and the church. The Gibeonites were explicitly condemned to annihilation by God. The extermination verdict was pronounced repeatedly. They knew themselves to be under the explicit condemnation of God. Still they were drawn to God. They had to trick their way into the community of God. The community of God did not want to receive them. When the community was forced by the integrity of Joshua to include the Gibeonites, the Gibeonites were received as second class citizens. But, they were, in fact, members of the people of God. They were under the protection of God. And their official role included serving the temple! When they were mistreated by Saul, God acted in judgment against Israel. In light of this story, how can we justify continuing to exclude homosexuals from our community?

Shall we continue to act like the soldiers of Israel using the words of God as a basis for destruction or will we join Joshua (a type of Jesus) in protecting those who seek sanctuary among us?

There is a higher law than the denunciations of Leviticus and Romans.

Adventists believe that law in its most fundamental form is not an arbitrary imposition of rules by God upon humans, rather law is a description of the habits of God, or in the language of Ellen White, “law is a transcript of the character of God.”

God is not right merely because he says so. God is right because there is an absolute congruence between what he requires and what he is/does. Our inescapable human sense of right and wrong is a reflection of God. God must do right. Not simply in the sense that if God does it, it is right, but in the sense of that God is held to the norms expressed in creation and expressed in our own best thoughts and sensibilities.

One stream of Christian theology argues that human questions about divine justice are simply irrelevant. If God calls something right, it is right just because God said so. God is the legal authority. There is no higher law. There is no criteria by which the Creator can be evaluated. This is the view of the Reformers. Martin Luther and John Calvin argued for the absolute sovereignty of God. Human questions about divine justice were silly or worse because God was beyond question.

Adventists, on the other hand, believe that human questions matter. Law may be a divine creation, but having created it, God himself is defined in part by law and will not violate it.

Just as we understand God's love through a variety of earthy metaphors—father, mother, shepherd, dog owner, husband, hen—so we understand God's justice through human metaphors. If a putative action or judgment of God strikes us as unfair, especially when our sense of injustice remains after thoughtful consideration and respectful conversation and study, then it is right that we begin to question whether the putative judgment is, indeed, God's last word. Perhaps what we thought was God's last word was rather a provisional word, a word that was right for a particular situation, but subject to correction and perfection in the movement of God across time.

Teachers

Sermon for North Hill Adventist Fellowship

Sabbath, October 6, 2012

This is preliminary draft, subject to copy editing and substantive change.

How to Understand the Bible – Part 3. “Teachers”

As for Philip, an angel of the Lord said to him, "Go south down the desert road that runs from Jerusalem to Gaza." So he started out, and he met the treasurer of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under the Kandake, the queen of Ethiopia. The eunuch had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and he was now returning. Seated in his carriage, he was reading aloud from the book of the prophet Isaiah. The Holy Spirit said to Philip, "Go over and walk along beside the carriage." Philip ran over and heard the man reading from the prophet Isaiah. Philip asked, "Do you understand what you are reading?" The man replied, "How can I, unless someone instructs me?"

And he urged Philip to come up into the carriage and sit with him. The passage of Scripture he had been reading was this: "He was led like a sheep to the slaughter. And as a lamb is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth. He was humiliated and received no justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth." The eunuch asked Philip, "Tell me, was the prophet talking about himself or someone else?" So beginning with this same Scripture, Philip told him the Good News about Jesus. As they rode along, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, "Look! There's some water! Why can't I be baptized?" He ordered the carriage to stop, and they went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away. The eunuch never saw him again but went on his way rejoicing. Meanwhile, Philip found himself farther north at the town of Azotus. He preached the Good News there and in every town along the way until he came to Caesarea. Acts 8:26-40

About 2000 years ago a Christian named Philip became a celebrity in the city of Samaria. He had come to Samaria because back in Jerusalem the authorities were imprisoning Christians and even killing some of them. Christians scattered all over the Mediterranean world. Philip wound up in Samaria, a non-Jewish city a few days travel north of Jerusalem.

There, he began preaching about Jesus. People were fascinated. Crowds gathered. The more he preached, the bigger the crowds. And, just like the Jesus he preached about, in addition to preaching Philip healed people and cast out demons. Eventually the entire city was talking about this preacher Philip. Thousands got baptized—both men and women, Luke makes a point of saying. (Christianity did not have separate religious practices for men and women as the Jewish religion did. e.g. circumcision.)

The apostles back in Jerusalem heard what was going on and sent Peter and John to check things out. When they arrived they conducted a special prayer service and prayed for the people to receive the Holy Spirit. And it happened.

After a little while Peter and John headed back to Jerusalem. Then something utterly unexpected happened. Philip left town. An angel appeared to him and told him to head back to Jerusalem and then to keep going south out of Jerusalem on the road toward the Sinai desert. Philip followed orders.

Somewhere south of Jerusalem Philip heard a carriage coming along behind him, also headed south. The Holy Spirit told Philip, “Go walk next to the carriage.” Philip did so.

He heard the rich man in the carriage reading. (In those days, when people read, they did not read to themselves the way we do. They read out loud. So Philip heard the man reading from the prophet Isaiah. Philip asked him, “Do you understand what you're reading?”

“How can I?” the man answered. “I have no one to teach me.”

“I could help you with that.”

So the man invited Philip up into the carriage and they moved on south reading and talking as the miles crawled by.

Who was this man? He was the treasurer of Ethiopia, a very powerful man in the administration of Kandake, the queen of Ethiopia. He had been in Jerusalem to worship and was headed back home.

Obviously he was a worshiper of the true God. He may or may not have been officially a member of a synagogue. But he had been to the temple in Jerusalem to worship. He was not “casually” interested in Judaism.

He was reading when Philip joined him. This tells us several things. Obviously he was educated. More than that, he cared deeply about the Bible. People did not have pocket Bibles. Scrolls of the Bible were very, very expensive. Perhaps he had bought this scroll in Jerusalem. For sure, he was serious about studying the Bible. Because he was rich and educated, he had his own copy of the Bible (or at least part of it.)

Still, when Philip asked, “Do you understand it?” he said, “How can I without someone to teach me?”

This is the third in a series on how to understand the Bible. (The technical term used by theologians is hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is the theory of how to correctly interpret the Bible.)

In the first sermon I listed a number of steps or processes for correctly understanding the Bible. Rule Number One was (and is and always will be) READ THE BOOK.

Last week, we talked about a special approach to understanding the Bible, and that is to see it as the “Jesus Book.” Everything in the Bible, the people, the sacrifices, the religious and civic structures set up by God in the OT, everything is connected to Jesus.

This week I'm going to talk about the role of teachers.

The Bible offers some challenging perspectives on the role of teachers.

The eunuch asked Philip, “How can I understand if I have no one to teach me?”

God sent Philip to supply the eunuch's need. A central theme in the stories of the NT is the role of the church as a source of teachers. Paul was converted through the direct intervention of God. But after three days in blindness, God sent a teacher, Ananias to both restore Paul's physical vision and to begin his training in Christianity.

Later in his life, Paul tried to minimize the role of his human teachers.

I received my message from no human source, and no one taught me. Instead, I received it by direct revelation from Jesus Christ. Galatians 1:12

Of course, Paul had been instructed in Christianity by Christian teachers: the very people he was arresting and prosecuting in Jerusalem. He had listened to teachers so convinced of their beliefs they were willing to testify to them in the face of imminent death. Then when Jesus confronted him on the Damascus Road, he compelled the arrogant Pharisee to receive healing and welcome from the very teachers he had been prosecuting.

Then when Paul entered his new Christian ministry what kind of ministry was it? Primarily a teaching ministry. In Acts 18, Luke describes Paul's work in the city of Corinth:

One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision and told him, "Don't be afraid! Speak out! Don't be silent! For I am with you, and no one will attack and harm you, for many people in this city belong to me." So Paul stayed there for the next year and a half, teaching the word of God. Acts 18

The people Paul was teaching had access to the OT scriptures. They didn't need Paul to give them the Bible. As for knowledge of the life and teachings of Jesus, Paul was himself a learner. He was dependent on the reports of eye witnesses. Still he had a large role as a teacher. He helped the people of Corinth to see Jesus in the OT. He helped them learn to read the OT as the Jesus Book.

Just as was the case of the Ethiopian eunuch, it was not enough to have the book, they needed the teacher.

How do we understand the Bible? We read it. And we rely on teachers. There are things we will never see in the Bible unless someone helps us see it. The book is not enough.

Richard Davidson, a well-known professor at the Seminary at Andrews University has written a long article about how to correctly interpret the Bible. He begins by stating that Adventists, like other Protestants, believe in the Bible and the Bible Only. He then explains what this means. And part of his explanation is “. . . the Bible alone is sufficient in clarity so that no external source is required to rightly interpret it.”

Davidson's paper can be found here: http://biblicalresearch.gc.adventist.org/documents/interp%20scripture%20davidson.pdf.

But Davidson is wrong. The Bible alone is NOT sufficient. We need teachers. Always have. Always will until we are in the New Earth.

A couple of examples. First from Davidson's own world: Davidson is a strong advocate of the Adventist doctrine that teaches the judgment began in 1844. No one in the last 100 years has ever found that doctrine in the Bible without the help of an Adventist teacher. Of all the billions of people who have read the Bible, not one single person has come even close to guessing the interpretation of Daniel 8:14 that our church teaches. This doctrine requires sources other than the Bible.

If the church is going to retain this doctrine it must maintain an unbroken chain of Adventist teachers. A single generation without those teachers and the doctrine will become extinct. Permanently.

Another example of the danger of attempting to read the Bible without any help. William Miller thought he would study the Bible without teachers. He eventually figured out the approximate date of the Second Coming. Then some of his followers, using his methods, came up with the exact date. October 22, 1844. How did that work out? Thousands of people experienced bitter, devastating disappointment. Over a hundred and fifty years later we are still trying to escape the temptation to figure out “times and seasons” related to the end of the world, distracting us from the real work of spiritual life.

If William Miller had allowed the teaching ministry of classic Christianity to shine some light on his Bible study, he would have realized that Christians have experimented with doomsday scenarios periodically through history. They all follow the same trajectory. And they all end in ignominy.

One of the roles of teachers is helping to protect us from foolishness that comes from our own blind spots.

Walter Vieth is someone in present day Adventism that is repeating William Miller's mistake. He thinks he sees what almost no other theologian or Bible scholar can see. He has misled thousands, perhaps tens of thousands. His presentations feel “true” but they don't stand the test of solid scholarship. Why? Because he himself is operating so far outside his areas of expertise.

For instance he did a series of lectures on Bible manuscripts. He got his facts wrong. More importantly, he got his tone wrong. He suggested to people that they were in danger of being deceived if they read the wrong translation of the Bible. He was wrong. More tragically, he sowed suspicion and distrust between church members.

Based on the teachings and example of Jesus and the teachings and example of Paul, we would expect teachers to play an important role in helping us to rightly understand the Bible.

Having said this, it's important to note a balancing perspective.

And the people of Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, and they listened eagerly to Paul's message. They searched the Scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth. Acts 17:11

Just because a teacher, even one as prestigious as Paul, says something, that does not make it so. A teacher points us to understandings in the Bible. A teacher can help us see connections we would not otherwise see. But teachers are also susceptible to error. Teachers make mistakes.

Fact check. Even when learning from the most honorable and brilliant teacher.

I remember a Bible teacher adamantly insisting that the sun was the center of the Milky Way galaxy. He was the teacher. He was still wrong. Another teacher told us he had figured out the precise hour of Christ's return. He was wrong.

When evangelists tell you about the rising crime rate in the United States, they are wrong. Violent crime has been decreasing for more than ten years.

When prophecy buffs tell you they have discovered some new secret that sets dates in connection with the end of time, you don't even have to consider their evidence. They are wrong. It's like when you receive an envelope with no return address. You don't need to open it to figure out whether it's important or not. It's not. By definition. No one yet has sent you or me a million dollars in a letter without a return address. And they aren't likely to.

Fact check your teachers.

The Ethiopian eunuch had a good religious life. He had a vital connection with God and a sweet hunger for more. He read the Bible to feed that hunger. And God responded by sending him a teacher to open a whole new vista: Philip taught the eunuch to see Jesus—the fulfillment of a thousand-year-long wait—as the definitive revelation of the person and purpose of God.

If you are cultivating your spiritual life and if you desire more, if you are seeking a deeper relationship with God, God will put teachers in your life as well. Welcome them. Honor them. Fact check them.

Then put what you've learned into practice. Live out what you've been taught. That's the ultimate purpose of teachers.

The Jesus Book

Sermon for North Hill Adventist Fellowship

Sabbath, September 29, 2012

How to Interpret the Bible, Part 2

Perhaps you missed it but The Hindu, the major English language newspaper in southern India, reported this week on a celebration to mark the 200^th anniversary of the translation of the gospels into Malayalam. One of the dignitaries noted that Christianity had existed in the region for 2000 years but had spoken the language of the people for only 200.

The translation was the work of a scholar and priest named Philipose Ramban. Ever since Christianity had come to India—according to tradition, brought by the the apostle Thomas—the Christian church in southern India used the ancient language of Syriac in their worship.

It would be like us using Greek as our language of worship. The only way you could understand what was said in church or what was written in the Bible was to go to seminary and learn Greek. Even then, most people would never have more than a superficial “head knowledge” of the most important words of our religion because Greek is not integrated into our lives. We don't think in Greek. We don't dream in Greek. We don't visit in Greek.

The believers in south India were devout. They loved God. They prayed. They loved their neighbors. But there was a vast chasm between the heart of their spiritual life and the language of the Bible and public worship.

Then Philipose Ramban set to work and translated the Syriac gospels into the ordinary language of Malayalam. His “Gospels” was published by Curier Press in Bombay in 1811. The translation caused a scandal. The church in that region of India actually split with one faction beginning to use Malayalam in their worship services. The other faction rejected this vulgarization of worship. They insisted that true worship could only be conducted in Syriac, the language of St. Thomas.

This story highlights one of the central commitments of the Christian religion: to make God's word available in the language of ordinary people.

From the earliest years of Christianity, the church has prized the written words of the New Testament.

From wikipedia: “Parts of the New Testament have been preserved in more . . . [than] 5,800 complete or fragmented Greek manuscripts, 10,000 Latin manuscripts and 9,300 manuscripts in various other ancient languages including Syriac, Slavic, Gothic, Ethiopic, Coptic and Armenian. The dates of these manuscripts range from c. 125 (the John Ryland's manuscript, P52; oldest copy of John fragments) to the introduction of printing in Germany in the 15th century. The vast majority of these manuscripts date after the 10th century.” (I quote wikipedia here not as “an authority” but as a convenient summary of widely accepted fact.)

The church does not imagine that there is some magic in the specific words themselves. Within a hundred years of the time the New Testament was written, people were already translating it into other languages so people could hear the ideas and stories of Jesus in their own tongue. “Possessing the Word of God” was not the goal. Rather “hearing the Word of God.” And hearing meant understanding. For that to happen the Word had to be in the words ordinary people used in the ordinary affairs of life.

Why were the Christians in south India using a Syriac Bible for more than a thousand years? Because they were the descendants of Christians who migrated from Syria in the 300s. They brought with them their language and their Bibles—which were, naturally, in Syriac. Then as the language changed, they failed to keep their Bibles up to date.

It's just like what happened in English after the King James Version was produced. The translators used the language of ordinary people. Four hundred years later, that language had become antiquated. The very language that had helped people connect with God had become a barrier to understanding God. Fortunately, we now have modern translations and the Bible again speaks our language.

In most of the world where people revere the Quran, the people cannot read the Quran. Translations are not respected. The only “authentic Quran” is in Arabic. Since most Muslims don't speak Arabic, their “Bible” is an unreadable book. No wonder they are susceptible to manipulation by clerics.

It's important that we who revere the Bible don't fall into the trap of shouting our respect for a book that we don't really know. And we can only know it by reading it.

So we have the Bible in our language. Still the question rises: How do we understand it? How do we rightly interpret it? Today's sermon is part 2 in a series addressing that question.

Let's begin with on of the most famous passages in the Bible that talks about how to interpret what we read:

Then Jesus said to them, "You foolish people! You find it so hard to believe all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures. Wasn't it clearly predicted that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his glory?" Then Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. Luke 24:25-27

This conversation occurred on the third day since Jesus was crucified. Two men were hiking from Jerusalem to the little town of Emmaus about seven miles away. As they were walking, they were joined by a stranger. He asked what it is they were talking about. They answered, “What? Are you the only person in Palestine who doesn't know what's happened this weekend? You haven't heard how our rulers arrested and crucified Jesus of Nazareth? He was a prophet who did powerful miracles, and he was a mighty teacher in the eyes of God and all the people. We hoped he was the promised Messiah. Some of our women claim he has been resurrected from the dead.”

At this point, Jesus interrupted them,

“You foolish people! Do you really find it so hard to believe all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures? Wasn't it clearly predicted that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his glory?”

Then Jesus teaches them how to interpret the Bible. He begins with Moses and runs all through the Old Testament showing them how the ancient prophets had predicted the very events they were lamenting.

This becomes a central feature of Christian teaching. Jesus' live, ministry, death and resurrection happened JUST AS THE PROPHETS PREDICTED. Christians came to interpret the entire Bible as the Book of Jesus.

In the very first Christian sermon, recorded in Acts 2, Peter makes repeated references to Old Testament passages in support of his argument that Jesus is the Messiah and that his death and resurrection were in God's plan.

Peter's second sermon again cites OT passages in support of his claims about Jesus.

But God was fulfilling what all the prophets had foretold about the Messiah—that he must suffer these things. . . . For he must remain in heaven until the time for the final restoration of all things, as God promised long ago through his holy prophets. Moses said, 'The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from among your own people. Listen carefully to everything he tells you.' [Peter is quoting Deut 18:15.]. Then Moses said, 'Anyone who will not listen to that Prophet will be completely cut off from God's people.' [Here Peter quotes Deut 18:19 and Lev 23:29]. "

[Peter concludes,] “Starting with Samuel, every prophet spoke about what is happening today.” Acts 3:18-24

When Peter was invited to the house of Cornelius, the devout Roman centurion, Peter preached,

“[Jesus] is the one all the prophets testified about, saying that everyone who believes in him will have their sins forgiven through his name." Acts 10:43.

Sometimes when you read the ancient Christian writers, you'll find yourself wondering, how did they figure that out? Does that passage really predict Jesus?

Over the next centuries as Christian preachers kept thinking about the whole Bible as the “Jesus Book,” they came to see Jesus everywhere in the Old Testament.

In Genesis 3, God says to Snake, “And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel." (Gen. 3:15). An uninitiated reader might think this is simply a fairy tale about the origin of the common human antipathy to snakes. But Christian interpreters saw it as a picture of the work of Jesus. Jesus would be wounded (dreadfully, fatally) by the devil. But Jesus fatal wound would be healed. He would rise from the grave and ultimately crush the forces of evil.

Christians learned to see the mission of Jesus in the work of the priests in the ancient Jewish temple.

David, the King of the Jews, modeled the honor and sovereignty of Jesus the King of kings, Lord of the nations.

The prophets—the spokespersons for God—came to be seen as small-scale models of the grand work of the Messiah who would be the supreme Word of God.

Every story became a springboard for sermons about the ministry of Jesus. When the Jewish people invaded the land of Canaan and sacked the city of Jericho, they were under orders to kill every person and even all the animals. They were to obliterate the place. But they saved one person, a prostitute named Rahab. And they saved all the people who were with Rahab in her house. Why? Because when Jewish spies were casing the city prior to the invasion, Rahab hid them from the police. The spies promised her: Since you saved us, we'll save you. And they kept their word.

It's a messy story. Christian preachers turned it into a metaphor for the work of Christ. Humans, all the residents of planet earth were doomed, destined for destruction. But the human, Jesus Christ, had earned salvation by his righteous life. When the world is destroyed, Jesus' house—that is the church—will be spared. And everyone in the house with him will be saved.

Your first thought, reading the story of Rahab would probably not be to think of the ministry of Jesus. You might not think of this even on your third or fourth reading of the story. But if you were a Christian theologian reading the story for the 20^th or 30^th time and you have been trained to think of the book you are reading—the Bible—as the Jesus Book, then maybe you'll see it.

If you spend enough time in the Jesus community, thinking constantly about Jesus, asking constantly as you read the Bible, “what is this passage telling me about Jesus, you, too, will begin seeing Jesus everywhere.

Another story: Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22.

God speaks to Abraham and orders him to take his beloved son Isaac to a distant mountain and offer his son there as a sacrifice. It's a horrible story. We recoil reading it. How could God ask such a thing? How could any decent father obey such a command. But how did ancient Christians read the story?

They saw Abraham as playing the role of God the Father. He had a beloved Son. He sacrificed his son. Because we understand the angst of Abraham in this story, we understand the angst of God the Father in sending Jesus to earth.

In the real story, at the last minute an angel cancels the order to sacrifice Isaac. Abraham then spots a ram caught in the bushes and offers the ram as a sacrifice instead of his son Isaac. Christians then understood us as “Isaac” under an order of execution. Jesus becomes the ram who takes our place. He dies that we might live.

Another story: The suffering servant of Isaiah 53.

My servant grew up in the LORD's presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows [fn] that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed.

If you read Isaiah looking for obvious clues that this passage is about the Messiah, you'll be disappointed. But if you are a Christian reading Isaiah as part of the Jesus Book, you'll immediately see the reality of Jesus portrayed in the pathos of these words.

There is no end to this: Jesus is the shepherd of Psalm 23, the lamb of the sacrificial system. He is the king (David) and the king's son (Solomon). Elijah and Elisha prefigure John the Baptist and Jesus. Jesus is everywhere . . . when you learn to look.

This kind of approach to interpreting the Bible anchored Christian reverence for Jesus. It became the foundation of the church's belief that Jesus was not only Wonderful, Counselor, Healer. He was also the Everlasting Father, the Almighty God. Jesus was seen as the grand climax of God's plan and God's action through the ages.

Secondly, reading the Bible as “the Jesus Book” led to a “progressive” understanding of God. The fury and harsh sometimes evinced by God in the OT are seen as less authentic revelations of what God is really like. The view of God in the OT came to be regarded as preparatory, provisional. Jesus was the final word, the authoritative interpretation of God and of all words about God.

Understanding the Bible as the Jesus Book invites readers to shift their attention from the literal stories to spiritual applications. The snake in the garden is not a snake, it is a representation of the Evil One. The animal skins that God offers Adam and Eve after their sin and before their expulsion from the garden are not merely fur coats, they are symbols of God's continuing protection even as they wander from the garden under a curse.

This approach to interpreting the Bible can be frustrating to our modern rationalistic minds. It lends itself to worship and music and devotion. It is nearly useless in rational defenses of doctrine or arguments about “truth.”

The point of the Bible is to connect us to the Living Jesus, the one who died and rose again and who promised—I am with you always, even to the end.