It's been a few weeks since my last post and in the intervening time, I've reached the end of the Old Testament in my one year journey through the Bible. I've read about Daniel and Esther, the end of the Exile of God's people in Babylon, and the return and rebuilding of Jerusalem under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah.
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| I'm a bit partial to Ezra since my son carries his name. What's cool is that his best friend at school is named. . .you guessed it--Nehemiah |
I found I particularly enjoyed Nehemiah's first hand account of the work of rebuilding Jerusalem. The challenges, missteps and ultimate successes of the Jewish people as they begin again make for interesting reading. Nehemiah also contains probably my favorite list of Biblical participants. The Old Testament does this a lot--a long list hard-to-pronounce Hebrew names to indicated who did what, whose ancestors are who and so on. But Nehemiah Ch. 3 is different. It reads like a movie montage, with interesting little details about the builders and what specific parts of the Jerusalem wall they helped rebuild. We learn that the people of Tekoa who worked without their leaders because the leaders wouldn't work with the construction supervisors. We learn Shallum worked with his daughters to help rebuild his section of the wall and that Baruch didn't merely repair his section but "zealously repaired" it. We are told that some of the workers repaired parts of the wall right across from their homes. The whole chapter creates such a nice picture of people working together towards a common goal.
The final readings, in chronological order, are from Malachi, the last book in the Old Testament and the entire book of Joel. These readings end with a little bit of reprimand (Malachi 3:8-10 contains everyone's favorite tithe text: "Will man rob God and yet you have robbed me! Bring all the tithes etc". I half expected Malachi 3:11 to read "We give thee but thine own" since that song always follows that scripture in church!), a little bit of doom for the enemies of God's people, and a promise of restoration.
Looking back at the Old Testament as a whole, here are my takeaways:
What matters to God:
Good news for the "social justice" warriors and purveyors of the "social gospel." It's very clear from the Old Testament what matters to God and it is the treatment of the poor, the weak, and the marginalized. God is deeply angered by economic injustice, policies that enrich the rich at the expense of the poor. God hates the shedding of innocent blood (and no He doesn't really refer to unborn babies here, though I suppose you can make that reach if it suits you). God has a lot to say about humbling the proud and bringing down the mighty. To be honest, He almost sounds a bit socialist. I'm just saying. Read it for yourself, if you don't believe me.
While God does not like the neglect of his laws, He's not interested in ceremonial lip service. Showing up to worship while your heart is inclined to other gods doesn't work for Him. God really is not okay with worshiping other gods but what's interesting is that his condemnation of idol worship is often in the same breath that he calls out Israel for corruption and bloodshed. It's almost as if the the two are connected in His mind.
I was really surprised by how much the Sabbath comes up across the Old Testament. It's a lot more than I expected.
It's notable and sobering that what matters to God in the Old Testament and what seems to matter to much of His church today are inverted. Ironically, it sometimes seems that the more "Biblical" the Christian claims to be, the more out of sync they are with what matters to the God of the Old Testament. But hey, maybe that's what the "New Covenant" is for? My reading of the OT makes me more skeptical than ever of talk of "Biblical living" and following "Biblical principles" for modern life.
A Shift in Focus:
I notice the latter parts of the Old Testament shift from a focus on prophecies of doom to prophecies of hope and restoration. As Israel moves into and then out of Exile there are hints of a coming Messiah, glimmers of a future hope that is global in scale. There is still the occasional correction, and doom is still prophesied--but now it's not for God's people but for those who would destroy God's people.
The Skipped over Parts: Ezekiel's Temple
I was surprised by significant portions of Old Testament prophecy that seem to have been "skipped over" by my denomination. It came as a bit of a surprise, since I've been enculturated to believe that Adventists don't "skip" parts of the Bible. One of the big ones is Ezekiel's temple. This is a prophecy that begins in Ezekiel 40 and continues to the end of the book. It describes in minute detail a new temple that will be built, the division of the land of Israel in this new era, and includes some fascinating descriptions of a Prince in the new kingdom and a river of healing that will flow from the Temple. The reading itself can be mind-numbingly tedious in places. I actually found a video on YouTube that really helped me visualize the details that tended to get jumbled up in my mind. But what it describes is a temple that was never built. These plans were not what guided the rebuilding under Nehemiah and Ezra. This temple is massive, a structure that dwarfs anything that has ever been built around Jerusalem.
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| Check out the size of this temple compared to the others (and to a football field). It's literally too big to fit on the current Temple Mount |
What's further surprising is that other Christian denominations have a lot of thoughts on Ezekiel's temple. They haven't skipped over it (don't worry, there's other things they have skipped over too). This temple--when and where it will be built and what it's significance will be is a big part of other evangelical end-time scenarios. Here's one P.O.V. (according this guy Ezekiel's temple is "hotly debated" among Biblical scholars. Who knew?). As an Adventist I don't remember learning about this temple at all. I listened to a hour and fifteen minute YouTube sermon by an Adventist preacher that claimed to cover the entire book of Ezekiel. It was a good sermon. But Ezekiel 40-48 barely got a mention.
I'm not saying my church is right or wrong not to have given more attention to this incredible edifice in Ezekiel. I'm just noting it, mainly so that we can slow down a little bit with our perhaps arrogant assumption that we have cornered the market on a theology that takes into account the "whole Bible" and "not just the parts we like." At least for me, taking into account the "whole Bible" and not skipping any parts leaves me with more questions than answers. And I think that's a good thing.
The Out of Context and Culture Parts: "I hate divorce"
Now there's a passage that's caused a lot of grief, especially for women, over the centuries. It's ironic because taken in context, the Lord's hatred of divorce is about protecting women. Check it out-Malachi 2:13-16:
"13 Here is another thing you do. You cover the Lord’s altar with tears, weeping and groaning because he pays no attention to your offerings and doesn’t accept them with pleasure. 14 You cry out, “Why doesn’t the Lord accept my worship?” I’ll tell you why! Because the Lord witnessed the vows you and your wife made when you were young. But you have been unfaithful to her, though she remained your faithful partner, the wife of your marriage vows.
15 Didn’t the Lord make you one with your wife? In body and spirit you are his.[a] And what does he want? Godly children from your union. So guard your heart; remain loyal to the wife of your youth. 16 “For I hate divorce!”[b] says the Lord, the God of Israel. “To divorce your wife is to overwhelm her with cruelty,[c]” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. “So guard your heart; do not be unfaithful to your wife.”
What's clear in context is that what God hates is a specific kind of divorce. The kind where you cheat on your wife, divorce her, and move on to a "newer model." And yet this passage has been part of a doctrine that has taken a hard line against divorce of any kind, a doctrine that has often overwhelmed women, even more than men, with cruelty.
The Old Testament--indeed the Bible as whole--is full of stories that require an understanding of culture and context. Sometimes, that context and culture is evident as in this case; sometimes it's not. In the end, that reality should make us cautious about taking scripture passages from here and there and insisting they mean what we feel they should mean or what seems "obvious" and "plain" to us.
What's Missing:
It's notable that Satan gets barely a mention in the Old Testament after he shows up at beginning of our story. We see him in Job, and he gets the blame for inciting David to conduct the census in 1 Chronicles. There are the famous passages about the King of Tyre in Ezekiel that definitely hint at someone of a supernatural nature and Gabriel talks about being resisted by a powerful prince that prevented him from coming to Daniel sooner. But that's about it. He's not a major player. And while God has a lot to say about other gods, He doesn't seem to describe them as other real spiritual entities per se. He treats them as entirely made-up, completely powerless creations of the nations around Israel.
Also missing is virtually any reference to the afterlife. All God's punishments and warnings are entirely about what will happen to his wayward people in this life. There's no caution about the eternal cost of their wrongdoing.
I'm not saying that Satan and the afterlife aren't important or real. Just noting that their absence in this part of the Bible.
It's the Back Story:
The Old Testament for the Christian provides important context. But it's not the main event. All of the Old Testament is prelude to what our faith is all about: Jesus. Everything about the Old Testament, it's stories, it's commands, and most importantly it's picture of God are subordinate to the Word made flesh: Jesus Christ. The heart of our faith is a Person not a book. For those that would make the Bible the central element of our faith, well, there's a religion for that. It's a good religion, a wonderful faith. It's just not Christianity.
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