Sermon on Habakkuk 1:12-17

I've cleaned up the audio from this sermon, which I preached a few weeks ago. The results are here. Sorry it's not great quality, but it's better than it was. short link.

More Wordle Images

I've spent a bit of time today tinkering with Wordle, as previously featured here. Here are some of the results - all were created using Wordle, all use the ESV.

The Pentateuch:

The "historical books" (Western classification rather than Hebrew one):

Wisdom literature:

Prophets (Western classification):

And here's the whole Old Testament:

Monotheism and Monolatrism

In my last post, I wrote quite a bit of dull academic stuff about monotheism in ancient Israel and in modern academic theology. This post should hopefully be more relevant and interesting.

What the Old Testament often teaches isn't monotheism – the belief that only one god actually exists. What the Bible tends to teach instead is monolatrism. A few definitions will help:

Monotheism: - the belief that only one god exists
Henotheism: - worshipping only one god without denying the existence of other gods
Monolatrism: - the belief that there is only one god who is worth worshipping.

I think monolatrism is actually quite a sensible approach. If you're standing next to the temple of Baal, it's quite hard to persuade people that Baal doesn't really exist. Finding proof that something doesn't exist is usually very hard outside mathematics. What the prophets argued was that Baal was useless and wasn't worth worshipping. He couldn't save people, he couldn't call down fire on sacrifices, he wasn't worth worshipping.

Today, the idols are often different. There aren't many people who worship statues of Baal around. But there are plenty of people who worship football teams, or money, or success, or pleasure. And what we are to show them isn't that their gods don't exist, but that they aren't worth worshipping – it isn't worth giving your life to a football team or to money or to pleasure. But it is worth giving your life to God.

It actually makes far more sense to teach monolatrism than monotheism when you're speaking to people who don't agree with you. So it isn't surprising that that's what the prophets did in the Old Testament. And, contrary to a lot of modern theologians, it doesn't show that they're on a journey from polytheism to monotheism.

Sermon on Isaiah 51-52

As some of you will know, the father of a close friend of mine drowned in a tragic accident on Saturday. Today I was meant to preach on Isaiah 51:1-52:12 to a congregation who know my friend. Here's the result.

Or download it from here.

Jesus and Amos 8

I was preaching on Amos 8 the other day. At first sight, it's a really dark and bleak passage, with lots of judgement and not much else. What really struck me, although this doesn't appear heavily in any of the commentaries I looked at, is that the chapter is all about Jesus. Here's the big judgement section from Amos 8.

The LORD has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: "I will never forget anything they have done.

"Will not the land tremble for this,
and all who live in it mourn?
The whole land will rise like the Nile;
it will be stirred up and then sink
like the river of Egypt.

"In that day," declares the Sovereign LORD,
"I will make the sun go down at noon
and darken the earth in broad daylight.

I will turn your religious feasts into mourning
and all your singing into weeping.
I will make all of you wear sackcloth
and shave your heads.
I will make that time like mourning for an only son
and the end of it like a bitter day.

"The days are coming," declares the Sovereign LORD,
"when I will send a famine through the land—
not a famine of food or a thirst for water,
but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD.

Men will stagger from sea to sea
and wander from north to east,
searching for the word of the LORD,
but they will not find it.

"In that day
"the lovely young women and strong young men
will faint because of thirst.
They who swear by the shame of Samaria,
or say, 'As surely as your god lives, O Dan,'
or, 'As surely as the god of Beersheba lives'—
they will fall,
never to rise again."

Amos 8:8-14, NIV

Several things strike me. On a minor theology note, for example, according to most liberal scholars this is one of the earliest written passages in the entire Bible, but it still has a lot of features of the apocalyptic prophecy which isn't meant to be invented for another few hundred years...

But more importantly, here are the main features of God's judgement in the passage:

• Earth shaking
• Sky going dark at midday
• Religious feasts turned into mourning for an only son
• Famine of hearing the words of the Lord
• Strong young people fainting because of thirst

All of those happened when Jesus was on the cross. Jesus truly is the one who bears God's judgement for us.

Understanding the Old Testament

A Christian understanding of the OT should begin with what God revealed to the Apostles and what they model for us: the centrality of the death and resurrection of Christ for OT interpretation... The reality of the crucified and risen Christ is both the goal and font of Christian biblical interpretation.
Peter Enns, Apostolic Hermeneutics

God and Free Market Capitalism

There seems to be an assumption in many Christian circles, especially in the US, that God would be a free-market capitalist. (In the UK, people assume that God would be some kind of moderate socialist. Both seem to be completely wrong.) Here's a bit of Amos 8...

Hear this, you who trample the needy
and do away with the poor of the land,
saying,
"When will the New Moon be over
that we may sell grain,
and the Sabbath be ended
that we may market wheat?"—
skimping the measure,
boosting the price
and cheating with dishonest scales,
buying the poor with silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals,
selling even the sweepings with the wheat.

The LORD has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: "I will never forget anything they have done.

Amos 8:4-7, NIV

Isn't it interesting that Amos condemns in the same breath practices we would agree are immoral, like cheating with dishonest scales, and practices we would assume are perfectly legitimate, like boosting the price and looking forwards for opportunities to make more money?

Of course, I'm fairly sure that God wouldn't go down the statist redistributive route either - it quite clearly encourages laziness.

The sort of economic model God seems to be encouraging here is one driven by the priority of worship and rest (New Moons, Sabbaths) as well as hard work, and one driven more by love and concern for others (especially the poor) than by desire for profit and growth of the economy.

Roy Clements - When God's Patience Runs Out

This is a book of sermons preached on Amos in 1984. Some of the application now therefore seems very dated, and there's one or two technical details about his handling of Amos I disagree with, but it's certainly well worth a read and good for getting across some of the force of what Amos was saying and for thinking about how to apply it to today.

Why are there so few of this type of book around. Why, for example, can't I find one on Hosea, or Joel, or Obadiah, or Micah?

Anyway, here's a thought-provoking quote:

For if God cannot in any sense be angry with people, what do we mean when we say he is being patient with them? If God is not subject to real and intense provocation by human sin, then all those Bible words such as long-suffering and mercy, even grace, become emptied of all meaning.

(Here's my link to commentaries I recommend. Any listed before the / are ones I find helpful to use devotionally, like this one...)

1 Samuel 7 - Faithful Prophetic Leadership

This is a summary of a sermon I did on 1 Samuel 7. I didn't record it, and don't have a precise transcript.

Introduction

1 Samuel 4:10-11

So the Philistines fought, and the Israelites were defeated and every man fled to his tent. The slaughter was very great; Israel lost thirty thousand foot soldiers. The ark of God was captured, and Eli's two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, died.

1 Samuel 7:13

Throughout Samuel's lifetime, the hand of the LORD was against the Philistines. The towns from Ekron to Gath that the Philistines had captured from Israel were restored to her, and Israel delivered the neighboring territory from the power of the Philistines. And there was peace between Israel and the Amorites.

What a different three chapters and twenty years makes. In 1 Samuel 4, Israel are being destroyed by the Philistines. In 1 Samuel 7, the Philistines are the ones being destroyed and Israel are taking all their land back. In 1 Samuel 4, God is glorifying his name, but he does it in spite of Israel. In 1 Samuel 7, everything is the way it should be. What makes the difference?

Faithful Prophetic Leadership.

1 Samuel 7 is also the integration point for the whole of 1 Samuel so far. In 1 Samuel 1-3, we've got the story of Samuel, his birth and his call to be a prophet. In 1 Samuel 4-6, we've got the story of how God was glorifying his name even though his people were being destroyed. And here, in 1 Samuel 7, we see how the two fit together. God's prophetic leader transforms the fate of God's people.

I'm going to draw out three characteristics of faithful prophetic leadership.

Faithful Prophetic Leaders Call People to Repentance

We see this in verses 2-6. In verse 3, Samuel says

If you are returning to the LORD with all your hearts, then rid yourselves of the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths and commit yourselves to the LORD and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.

So do we, as leaders, call people to repentance? Do we call them away from their idolatry and to God? Do we point out what their idols are, and tell them to reject them?

Idols of image - wanting people to think we are beautiful, or sound, or passionate, or honest, or sexy, or clever. Would we rather our children were rich, successful, well-educated and happy than that they were faithfully following Jesus on a rubbish tip in Brazil? Faithful prophetic leaders call people to repentance.

Faithful Prophetic Leaders Pray for their People

We see this in verses 5-11. Samuel prays for the people. The people see they need it - verse 8. And it is because Samuel prays for the people that God rescues them - verse 9.

Then Samuel took a suckling lamb and offered it up as a whole burnt offering to the LORD. He cried out to the LORD on Israel's behalf, and the LORD answered him.

What expectations do we have of God? Do we pray for our people? God in his grace often chooses to wait until the leaders turn to him in prayer before pouring out his blessing. God says that the prayers of a righteous man are powerful and effective - not because there is anything magical about them, but because God loves to answer prayer. So do we pray for those we have responsibility for?

Faithful prophetic leaders pray for their people.

Faithful Prophetic Leaders call God's People to a Remembrance of God's Blessings

Verse 12

Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, "Thus far has the LORD helped us."

Do we do that? When God blesses us as individuals or as a congregation, do we set up a reminder of what God has done for us. Do we remember "Thus far has the LORD helped us"? What that would look like would be different in different settings, but it matters that we remember.

Every time an Israelite walked past that stone, they'd remember "Thus far has the LORD blessed us", and they'd be more likely to trust God for the future, because they'd know he'd blessed them in the past.

So do we call people to a remembrance of God's blessings?

The Perfect Prophetic Leader

Of course, the perfect prophetic leader is Jesus.

He is the one who calls us to repentance, to turn away from our idols and to him.

If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
Mark 8:34

He is the one who perfectly prays for us - he is at the Father's right hand and is also interceding for us. Hebrews 7:25 says that Jesus always lives to intercede for us. Jesus perfectly prays for us.

And Jesus is the one who perfectly calls us to a remembrance of God's blessings, by his Spirit living in us and by giving us Communion as a way of remembering and participating in his death for us, so that as we receive we can say "Thus far has the LORD helped us."

Amen.

The Sceptic's Dream

I was listening to Daniel 2 yesterday, and was reminded of how much I like it, particularly what we see of the character of Nebuchadnezzar.

He's the King of Babylon - the most powerful kingdom in the known world. And more than that, he's not taken in by all the superstition and "smart guys" in the royal court, though he's not quite modern either. So when he has a dream, he thinks it has a meaning and is worried about it. But he knows that if the court astrologers and so on aren't just faking it, they'll be able to tell him what the dream was as well as the meaning.

Then the king answered, "I am certain that you are trying to gain time, because you realize that this is what I have firmly decided: If you do not tell me the dream, there is just one penalty for you. You have conspired to tell me misleading and wicked things, hoping the situation will change. So then, tell me the dream, and I will know that you can interpret it for me."

The astrologers answered the king, "There is not a man on earth who can do what the king asks! No king, however great and mighty, has ever asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or astrologer. What the king asks is too difficult. No one can reveal it to the king except the gods, and they do not live among men."

This made the king so angry and furious that he ordered the execution of all the wise men of Babylon.

Daniel 2:8-12, NIV

Now I'm not saying I'd want to work for Nebuchadnezzar - his labour relations policy had a lot to be desired and he had some issues with pride, but I've got a lot of sympathy with him here. The astrologers and wise guys claimed to have access to some form of knowledge from beyond the universe. Neb calls their bluff, and wins.

It's interesting also that the astrologers, despite all their claims (and the Babylonians arguably invented Western astrology and astronomy), are still functional atheists when it comes to checkable claims. They genuinely don't think that gods reveal things to people, or that gods live among men, which makes one wonder precisely how they claimed their astrology and so on worked. Ask Russell Grant, or whoever the astrologers of today are, what the biggest news story of 2008 will be, and if they get it wrong, they're obviously bogus. They won't know any better than anyone else.

Anyway, Daniel shows up and says this:

Daniel replied, "No wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. He has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in days to come. Your dream and the visions that passed through your mind as you lay on your bed are these...

Daniel 2:27-28, NIV

And the story ends like this:

The king said to Daniel, "Surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, for you were able to reveal this mystery."

Daniel 2:47, NIV

One of the big concerns of the prophets is attacking idolatry. Daniel does it in an unusual way - he presents a series of stories which serve as contests between God and the various gods worshipped in Babylon, the most powerful nation in the known world. Here he shows that the gods the astrologers and wise guys claimed to follow are precisely zero use when it comes to testable stuff, but that God can reveal mysteries.

And that seems to chime in with a lot of sceptics' views. The Babylonian religion looks like it is actually completely ineffective. Yes, there are clever guys involved, giving their own wisdom. But there is no access to transcendent truth or revelation in a way that goes beyond what normal people have. And the astrologers and so on know it when it comes to the crunch. There's a chance they're even just going along with it to keep themselves in business.

But there is a real God, who does have the power to reveal mysteries, and to act, and to save his people.

Webb - Healing

Hezekiah recovered as the Lord said he would. It is rather surprising, however, after the astonishing nature of the sign, to be told that recovery itself was accomplished by something as mundane as the preparation and application of a poultice! But if we are surprised, it is because of a defect in our own theology rather than anything incongruous in the text. For there is no disjunction in Scripture between miraculous and natural healing, as though God were involved in one and not the other. He is as much Lord of the soothing poultice as he is of the moving shadow, and perhaps our eyes would be more open and our hearts more thankful if only we could grasp this simple and sane biblical truth more firmly.

Barry Webb, The Message of Isaiah (comments on Isaiah 38

God's Anger

In church this morning, the preacher pointed us to a wonderful section in Micah, which seems very relevant to the whole Penal Substitutionary Atonement debate. Part of the issue there is that a lot of people have difficulty seeing that God gets angry with our sin. Seems that they're not alone...

"Do not prophesy", their prophets say. "Do not prophesy about these things; disgrace will not overtake us."

Should it be said, O house of Jacob: "Is the Spirit of the LORD angry? Does he do such things?"

Do not my words do good to him whose ways are upright?

...

Get up, go away! For this is not your resting place, because it is defiled, it is ruined, beyond all remedy.

If a liar and deceiver comes and says,'I will prophesy for you plenty of wine and beer,' he would be just the prophet for this people!

Micah 2:6-7, 10-11, NIV

Hymns in Amos?

I've been reading Amos quite a bit over the last few days. One of the many interesting things about Amos is the way that sometimes he just breaks off from what he was saying and inserts a random bit about God that doesn't necessarily make good grammatical sense.

There's various theories for why it happens - some people think that a later editor just bunged in chunks of a hymn, which is actually a rubbish theory because we've got lots of evidence that if there were later editors, they were pretty skilled, and it doesn't explain why they bunged it there. And if they could explain why those bits of hymn or whatever were put there, there's then no reason why Amos couldn't have done it himself.

Another theory is that Amos is using the idea of divine titularies - sometimes in some other documents from that sort of area and time, there's an interjected bit just reminding people who is speaking - kind of like in the middle of a complex sentence vaguely about the king it would say "the King of Assyria, the one who conquered nations and crushed peoples" or something like that. That's a better idea, because it actually gives a reason why this might have happened.

Another one is linked to it. Sometimes when I'm talking about a topic close to one I'm excited about, I'll just interject a random bit of enthusing into the other stuff I'm saying. I think there may well be some of that going on too. It's about reminding the readers of who God is, which helps them get the surrounding stuff in the correct light. And maybe they used bits of a hymn or something to do that, and maybe they didn't.

I think we should do that more when talking about God...

Anyhow, here are the bits in question:

For behold, he who forms the mountains and creates the wind,
and declares to man what is his thought,
who makes the morning darkness,
and treads on the heights of the earth—
the LORD, the God of hosts, is his name!
Amos 4:13, ESV

He who made the Pleiades and Orion,
and turns deep darkness into the morning
and darkens the day into night,
who calls for the waters of the sea
and pours them out on the surface of the earth,
the LORD is his name; who makes destruction flash forth against the strong,
so that destruction comes upon the fortress.
Amos 5:8-9, ESV

The Lord GOD of hosts,he who touches the earth and it melts,
and all who dwell in it mourn,
and all of it rises like the Nile,
and sinks again, like the Nile of Egypt;
who builds his upper chambers in the heavens
and founds his vault upon the earth;
who calls for the waters of the sea
and pours them out upon the surface of the earth—
the LORD is his name.
Amos 9:5-6, ESV

Quote - Prophets

In their own day, the prophets were headline makers and pacesetters in the national news, so if we find their ways tedious, unclear, less than exciting, the fault does not lie with them.
Alec Motyer, quoted by Greg Haslam in Preach the Word

History of Jeremiah

I'm still on camp, but here's a response to something I read a few days ago...

The book of Jeremiah in the Old Testament has some very interesting features, some of which are also very unusual. One of them is to do with the idea of early editions.

Pretty much everyone agrees that some of the material in Jeremiah dates back to the 500s BC. I think all of it does, and I think the arguments against it are pretty flimsy. Pretty much everyone also agrees that the book was written in Hebrew.

The earliest copies or bits of copies we have of Jeremiah are from the Dead Sea Scrolls (stored in about 70AD, written down before then). Just for reference, that's a lot lot earlier than any of the copies we have of classic Greek literature of the same sort of period. But at that stage, there seem to be two separate editions of Jeremiah – a shorter one and a longer one. When the Jewish scribes translated the Old Testament into Greek in about 100BC, they translated the shorter version of Jeremiah. The one that is printed in most Bibles is the longer one. The longer version doesn't seem to have bits in that the shorter version doesn't – it's just more long-winded, especially with titles for God. It's also structured in a more complicated way.

Most “critical” scholars seem to suggest that this means the book of Jeremiah developed slowly, with different people editing and compiling it, and that the process was still going on at the time of Jesus. They suggest that the shorter version is the older one, and that people added to it – for example the longer titles for God and so on, as a result of more complex liturgy.

I'd like to suggest an alternative.

In the modern world, we see two difference processes happening with books changing over time. We see people improving on and lengthening books – second editions and so on. But we also see people shortening long-winded books to create abridged versions which might fit better into a sensible-sized paperback.

In general, lengthening books results in extra chapters being inserted, and some bits not changed at all. But abridging books tends to result in long-winded bits being shortened and maybe the structure changing to make it simpler.

My suggestion is that what seems to have happened with Jeremiah fits the idea of abridging better than the idea of lengthening. So I argue that the longer version is the original, and the shorter version is the later abridged version – maybe it fit better onto a single big scroll or something. The longer version is, after all, the longest book in the Bible.

The problem with all attempts to reconstruct the history of literature when editions aren't dated and all you have is fragments and copies of earlier scrolls is that it isn't easy to tell the difference between the two ideas. It is amazing therefore that so many “critical” scholars hold onto their own pet theories so fiercely. My theory of an original compiled by one or two people (e.g. Jeremiah and his secretary Baruch), then later abridged because some people thought the original was a bit long-winded makes at least as much sense as the various critical theories, and has the advantage that it fits with the traditional view of the book as by Jeremiah. So I'll stick with it for the time being.

Ezekiel - Chris Wright

This is one of the best titles in the Bible Speaks Today series of commentaries. It's certainly the best I've read on the Old Testament.

Commentaries in the BST series generally read like moderately academic sermons, but the standard of them is somewhat variable. At best (like Stott on Acts, Romans and Ephesians or indeed Wright on Ezekiel), they are pertinent, challenging, clear and really help to understand the text better. But quite a few of them are just long-winded and obtuse ways of saying obvious stuff in a way that isn't especially challenging.

Wright doesn't cover all of Ezekiel in the same depth, probably due to the contraints of space. He provides some excellent chapters on some sections of Ezekiel, especially towards the beginning of the book, whereas other chapters and sections get much lighter treatment.

I found the book very helpful devotionally, and would be fine using it for a basic reference work on Ezekiel as a whole and on the chapters he covers in more depth. But if I need to do a longer series on Ezekiel, I guess I'd end up getting Block's massive 2 volume commentary in the NICOT series, which Wright has clearly used extensively (though doesn't always agree with), or maybe Zimmerli's Hermeneia commentary, which Wright also references frequetly.

Isaiah 26

Here are some striking verses I was reading this morning.

The path of the righteous is level;
you make level the way of the righteous.
In the path of your judgments,
O LORD, we wait for you;
your name and remembrance
are the desire of our soul.
My soul yearns for you in the night;
my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.

For when your judgments are in the earth,
the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
If favour is shown to the wicked,
he does not learn righteousness;
in the land of uprightness he deals corruptly
and does not see the majesty of the LORD.
Isaiah 26:7-10, ESV

A few quick thoughts:

The path of the righteous is level, but it is also in the path of God's judgements. And though it is level, it is also the path of waiting for God's salvation, even though the waiting might be painful.

God's judgement is needed so that people learn righteousness. It doesn't happen otherwise - we are wicked, and so need the judgements to teach us.

The purpose is so that we see the majesty of the LORD. And that majesty will be glorious.

He will swallow up death forever;
and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces,
and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth,
for the LORD has spoken.
It will be said on that day,
"Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us.
This is the LORD; we have waited for him;
let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation."
Isaiah 25:8-9, ESV