Bible – Page 26

On Building Spiritual Muscle, Part 1

January 13, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

What’s the most important question in the world?

I think my fellow Christians would agree with me that it’s the question of where you’re going to spend eternity. If there’s life after death, and if that life is eternal, and if there are different possibilities for the nature of that life, then it’s hard to imagine any question more important than that one.

Life and death. Heaven and hell. It doesn’t get any more consequential than that.

As the Philippian jailer put it so clearly and succinctly all those years ago, “What must I do to be saved?” (Ac 16.30).

And interestingly, according to the Scripture, the answer is remarkably simple and direct. As Paul replied to the jailer, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Ac 16.31).

God has been kind to make the answer to such a consequential question so simple.

Over the years, quite a few Christians have behaved as though The Most Important Question is the only important question.

I said the prayer. I got my ticket out of hell. It’s all good.

Now. What do I want to be when I grow up? Whom do I want to marry? Where do I want to live?

But the Scripture doesn’t see conversion as merely a ticket to ride. Conversion is a commencement—it’s the start of something really, really big, a whole lot of which takes place before you get anywhere near heaven.

I’ve written on some of that before.

Conversion begins a lifetime of being changed, through the work of the Spirit of God, to be more and more like Christ—to the degree that we can be like someone who is God as well as man. It’s a life in which everything—everything—is being morphed, refreshed, improved, renovated (2Co 3.18).

For many Christians it comes down to trying to be good now. Trying to get better, to turn over a new leaf. And, like new year’s resolutions, it gets old and tired, and we end up not making much progress. I’ve known people who said, “I’ve tried the Christianity thing. Didn’t work for me. Wish it had, but it didn’t.”

But it’s not about trying to do better. It’s not just a New Life’s Resolution. It’s a sure, certain work, by the omnipotent and faithful Spirit of God, to conform you to the image of Christ.

Which brings me to what I often call The Second Most Important Question in the World:

How do I achieve reliable, steady spiritual growth?

Or, as I’ve titled this series,

How do I build spiritual muscle?

I suppose many Christians would reply, “You just pray for it.”

I’d like to suggest that that’s not really the right answer. I’m all for praying—in fact, we’ll get to that topic later in the series—but I’d suggest that that’s not the answer that the Bible gives to this question.

Yes, the Bible does say that if we lack wisdom, we should just ask for it (Jam 1.5). And the Scripture makes much of God’s generous willingness to pour out his blessings on us, if we’ll only ask (e.g. Lk 6.38). Prayer is certainly part of the answer. But it’s not the whole answer.

Perhaps an illustration will help.

Suppose I want serious abs. Ripped abs. A washboard. (Come to think of it, how do you know I don’t already have them? ?)

And so I pray: “Dear Lord, please give me abs.”

And I lie on the couch, watching TV and eating half-gallons of ice cream straight from the carton.

Six-pack?

Nope. Not outside of well-insulated cooler, anyway.

Doesn’t work that way. God could answer that prayer miraculously, of course. But he won’t, and not just because we don’t have “enough faith.”

There’s a way to get abs.

Now let me ask the application question.

If the Bible has told us how to build spiritual muscle—if it’s given us the exercises, so to speak—and we don’t do the exercises, do you think God’s going to give us spiritual muscle miraculously?

Sure, in the end our spiritual growth is a miracle. But I’d suggest that God has placed some of the responsibility for sanctification on us.

And for what it’s worth, the theology books, both Calvinist and Arminian, agree with me. Sanctification is a synergistic work between the Spirit of God and the believer.

So. How do we build spiritual muscle? What are the exercises?

Join me for the next few posts, and we’ll work through the biblical data.

 Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

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On Mary

December 23, 2019 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

As my Christmas post this year, I’d like to share some thoughts about Mary.

The first thing I notice about her, which may surprise some people, is how ordinary she is. Like you and me, she has difficulty understanding and even accepting God’s plan. Like any other woman, she’s puzzled by Gabriel’s announcement that she is to have a son (Lk 1.34). I’m not criticizing her; my point is that her response is completely understandable—completely ordinary. At the visit to the Temple for the baby’s circumcision, she’s surprised by Simeon’s exalted blessing over the child (Lk 2.33). When Jesus is 12, she questions his respect for her and Joseph, drawing a mild rebuke (Lk 2.48-49). At the wedding where Jesus will perform his first recorded miracle, she appears to have priorities that her son needs to correct (Jn 2.3-4). And in the most surprising episode of all, Mark, writing under Peter’s direction, seems to suggest that Mary and her other sons thought Jesus was mentally unbalanced (Mk 3.21, 31)—something consistent with John’s direct statement that during his earthly ministry, Jesus’ brothers did not believe on him (Jn 7.5).

Mary appears to respond to her unique situation pretty much as we would. It’s all pretty confusing; there’s a lot she doesn’t appear to understand.

There’s no evidence in the Scripture that Mary herself is immaculately conceived, or that she was perpetually a virgin—as though sex isn’t something really holy people do (Heb 13.4)—or that she is sinless. Yes, she is said to be “full of grace” (Lk 1.28), a statement that has given rise to the idea of a “treasury of merit” into which she and other “saints” have deposited (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1477); but the same Greek expression (charitoo) is used of all believers over in Eph 1.6. We’re all “full of grace,” by God’s grace.

So she’s ordinary, like us.

But.

In her confusion and wonder, she trusts God and consequently pleases him.

When told she’s going to have a child out of wedlock without having done anything wrong, she agrees to the arrangement (Lk 1.38). She knew there would be significant negative social consequences for this; virgin births were no more common in her day than they are in ours. Nobody would believe her. Indeed, 30 or more years later Jesus’ enemies threw his “illegitimacy” back in his face (Jn 8.41).

She treasured Jesus’ words even in confrontational situations (Lk 2.51). After her son’s mild rebuke at the wedding in Cana, she instructed the servants to hear and obey him (Jn 2.5).

She was a woman of grace and dignified accession to the will of God.

And where did that come from?

We don’t know anything about Mary’s childhood or upbringing, but we can see evidences of it in her speech. When we carefully study her most famous statement, the “Magnificat” (Lk 1.46-55), we find an apparently extemporaneous speech astonishingly filled with Scripture: she quotes
or alludes to about 19 different verses in 5 different Old Testament books from all 3 of the sections of the Hebrew canon—Genesis and Deuteronomy from the Law, Isaiah from the Prophets, and Samuel and Psalms from the Writings. This in spite of the fact that it was common for Jewish girls in that day to be illiterate, and even if she could read, she certainly did not own copies of the Scrolls, which were prohibitively expensive. Most likely she listened at synagogue—from the women’s section—and committed those passages to memory, deeply meditating on them to the point where she could weave them—artfully—into an extemporaneous expression of gratitude to God in the midst of deep social embarrassment.

With all of our education and all of our copies of the Scripture, few of us today could do something even remotely similar.

Mary kept things in her heart (Lk 2.19, 51). She treasured the words and works of God.

What a rebuke she is to our shallow and reactionary thinking.

What a model for all of us to follow.

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Believing Prayer

December 19, 2019 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

The prophet Isaiah is receiving visions from God that open to him the long corridor of future time.

The message is mixed.

The first 39 chapters of the book contain a lot of really bad news. The current bogeyman on the world stage, Assyria, is going to be replaced by another equally bad one, Babylon. And Babylon is going to be the hammer that brings judgment to Judah for its persistence in the very sins that have already brought God’s judgment on Israel through Assyria—

idolatry
mindless ritualism in worship
social injustice

And there’s no doubt that this judgment will come.

But starting with chapter 40, the tone and message change dramatically. Words of comfort. Promises of restoration and blessing. A Messiah. A Servant of Yahweh.

Near the end of the book there’s a passage that seems to get odder the longer you think about it.

¹For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent,
And for Jerusalem’s sake I will not keep quiet,
Until her righteousness goes forth like brightness,
And her salvation like a torch that is burning.
²The nations will see your righteousness,
And all kings your glory;
And you will be called by a new name
Which the mouth of the Lord will designate.
³You will also be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord,
And a royal diadem in the hand of your God (Is 62.1-3).

There’s the promise of blessing, which will surely come to undeserving Jerusalem. But the part that really catches my eye is the first verse. This blessing, this restoration is so critically important to God that he will not stop talking about it. He will not rest until he brings it to pass.

That sets us up for an even more remarkable statement a bit farther down the passage:

⁶On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen;
All day and all night they will never keep silent.
You who remind the Lord, take no rest for yourselves;
⁷And give Him no rest until He establishes
And makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth.

God orders his people to hold him to his promise—to badger him, to nag him, to hector him—to “give him no rest” until the promise is fulfilled. And the exclamation point on all this is that he himself has appointed those “watchmen” with the specific task of hectoring him.

God’s really, really serious about keeping his promises.

You’re probably thinking about the implications of this principle for our prayer life, and you’re right to do so; Jesus himself endorses that application.

In Luke 18 Jesus tells a parable about an unjust judge who doesn’t care about the people or the cases they bring before him. But there’s this woman who just won’t quit bothering him about her case. Eventually he rules justly, not because he cares for justice, but because he’s sick and tired of the woman’s hectoring. As he puts it, “by continually coming she will wear me out” (Lk 18.5)—literally, “give me a black eye.” No mas, he says.

Unfortunately, some Christians have assumed from this parable that God is like the unjust judge—that he needs to be convinced to help us, that we have to beat him down and wear him out to extract his begrudging grace. But as my colleague Layton Talbert has wisely and reverently noted, this kind of thinking misses the whole point of the passage.

Jesus is not saying that the Father is like the unjust judge; to the contrary, his point is that the Father is not like the judge. This is an a fortiori argument, one from the weaker to the stronger: if even an unjust judge will do the right thing when asked—enough, and with enough force—how much more will your heavenly Father do the right thing when we ask him? If a judge will do this for someone he doesn’t even know or care about, how much more will our Father, who cares for us as his own children, do for us when we ask? (Lk 18.6-7).

God is the kind of person who listens to his children and responds to them generously. He even appoints people to nag him until he keeps his promises (Is 62.6-7), even though he’s completely focused on their good and doesn’t need to be reminded (Is 62.1).

Go ahead and ask.

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Christ. Alone.

December 12, 2019 by Dan Olinger 2 Comments

God has made us in his image (Gen 1.27).

Because of that, we’re compelled to know and worship him; we’re driven by our very nature to seek him.

Over the centuries, humans have sought God in lots of places—

In natural revelation, the works of God’s hands. He does reveal himself there, but we know the world is broken by sin (Rom 8.22) and is not designed to be worshiped (Ro 1.25). Pantheism and animism don’t bring us to God.
In good works, the salving of our conscience. Our conscience is indeed a gift of God, and when properly informed it’s a valuable tool, but like nature, our conscience is broken too, and it can’t reveal God to us in any way we can trust. Further, our good works cannot be compared to God’s complete perfection (Is 64.6).
In ourselves, which is where the predominant worldview today seeks meaning. Not surprisingly, since creatures are unworthy of worship, current secular philosophy denies that we are creatures—and in so doing dooms itself by beginning with a false premise.

Where, then, do we find God? As I’ve noted recently, we find him perfectly revealed in Christ (Heb 1.1-2). Norman Geisler notes that in Colossians 1, as in no other passage, are concentrated “many characteristics of Christ and His deity” (Bible Knowledge Commentary). It’s certainly worth our time to think through this rich passage.

Paul describes our ongoing relationship with God as beginning in knowledge (Col 1.9) that expresses itself in a worthy walk (Col 1.10), for which we are strengthened by the Spirit to endure the difficulties that come from walking worthily (Col 1.11). This climaxes in a heart of gratitude for what God has done in Christ (Col 1.12): he has qualified us (Col 1.12) and transferred us to the Son’s kingdom (Col 1.13). As Paul meditates on this work, his focus shines like a laser beam on Christ, whose work has brought our salvation. How pre-eminent is this One Who has taken interest in our helplessness!

Christ manifests himself as pre-eminent in several ways—

In the cross (Col 1.14). He becomes man because no other man can do what needs to be done for our rescue. He redeems us, liberating us from our abusive master (Col 1.14a) and the power of his grip on us, and he forgives us, liberating us from the guilt of our sin (Col 1.14b).

In creation (Col 1.15-17). He is “the firstborn over all creation” (Col 1.15)—I’ve written on that before—because he is the powerful creator (Col 1.16). And he faithfully upholds and directs all that he has created (Col 1.17)—that’s what we call providence. He made it all and runs it all. That’s pre-eminence.

In the church (Col. 1.18-23). He is the head of the body, the church (Col 1.18a) and the source of its life (Col 1.18b). In the end, he is the one who reconciles to God all who are in that body (Col 1.19-22a), upholding us through life’s journey until we dwell in his presence (Col 1.22b-23).

This one God-Man has done it all. He has created and directs the entire cosmos in which we live, move, and have our being; he has solved the infinite problem of our sin; and he enables and empowers us through our life of service to his purpose, finally reconciling us completely and eternally to the God from which we came.

We ought to live for him.

Who is He on yonder tree
Dies in grief and agony?
Who is He that from the grave
Comes to heal and help and save?
Who is He that from His throne
Rules through all the world alone?

’Tis the Lord! O wondrous story!
’Tis the Lord! the King of Glory!
At His feet we humbly fall;
Crown Him! Crown Him Lord of all!

– Benjamin Russell Hanby

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How God Speaks, Part 3

December 5, 2019 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

Part 1 | Part 2

In Part 1 we noted that in biblical times God spoke a lot—as Hebrews 1.1 puts it, in different times, in different ways, to different people. But the same passage also says that with the incarnation there’s come a change; now things are different, and radically different. Part 2 lays out my reasons for saying that.

Some people find that sad. How great would it be to hear Isaiah preach, or David sing, or Moses thunder! And how much greater would it be to hear the Son himself teach, and see him heal, and watch him work! And wouldn’t it be great if God spoke to us, directly, in our heads? Isn’t it sad that we can’t do any of these things today? Don’t we feel a little bit … well, deprived?

No, we’re not deprived, regardless of how we feel. How do I know that? Because it isn’t in God’s character to deprive his people. He sometimes chastens us (Heb 12.6), but he doesn’t hold back from us anything we need (Php 4.19), or anything good (Ps 84.11). Jesus told his disciples that it was better for them that he go away (Jn 16.7). The same book that tells us about this change in the way God speaks also has as its primary point the great superiority of the New Way over the Old.

We may not feel like it’s better not to have prophets among us, but it is.

What’s better about it?

Let’s begin by making the obvious point. God still speaks to us today, but he does so in very specific ways. He speaks through his created works (Ps 19.1; Rom 1.20), but that medium is tainted by sin (Rom 8.22) and therefore unreliable as revelation. He spoke fully and perfectly by revealing himself in the person of his Son, as Hebrews 1.2 says. And as the Son told his disciples, after he left them he would send the Spirit, who would do certain things in and through them—most specifically, he would “bring all things to [their] remembrance” (Jn 14.26) and “guide [them] into all truth” (Jn 16.13). When did he do that? When they wrote the New Testament, completing the Scriptures.

So how does he speak authoritatively today? In the written Word, which is the Spirit-given record of the living Word, the incarnation, “the express image of [God’s] person” (Heb 1.3), “the image of the invisible God” (Col 1.15), the one “in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Col 2.9). And that’s much better than the old way.

How?

Let me suggest three ways; I’m confident there are more.

The Word is objective. It’s written down, for all the world to see. The words are on the page; there’s a permanent record. It’s not a fleeting impression in your mind. There’s no question of whether it’s from God or just the product of your own imagination. It’s there.

The Word is firsthand. The Spirit of God directly guided the biblical authors so that they wrote what he intended (2P 1.21), down to the letter (Mt 5.18). We don’t have to depend on somebody else’s account of a dream he had once.

The Word can’t be faked. About that guy and his dream—how do you know if God really told him that? How do you know he’s not a crook? These days we have a pretty lousy record of discerning the spirits of preachers. Elmer Gantry is not entirely fiction, is he? We’re really good at being duped, because our flesh wants us to be. Jesus calls us sheep for a reason, no?

Back in the late 1970s I went to a healing service in Greenville featuring Ernest Angley. I decided to see what would happen if I asked to be healed. I got there about 10 minutes before show time and headed for the front row on the left side, from where I knew he called up the people he was going to heal. About 10 rows from the front an usher stopped me and asked if he could help. I told him I wanted to be healed. He told me that if God told Brother Angley to heal me, he’d call me out of the crowd regardless of where I was sitting. And he told me to go sit further back.

Which I did, about the middle of the house. And over the next 10 minutes I saw people trickle out, one by one, from behind the curtain and take their seats in the front row on the left. Those were the people he healed.

I don’t really need to tell you what was going on there, do I?

The written Word, my friends. The New Covenant. It’s better. It’s all we need.

Hear it.

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How God Speaks, Part 2

December 2, 2019 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1

A slight change of plans.

In Part 1 of this series, I said that in Part 2 I’d write about how God speaks today, and how the current way is better than the old way. But in the meantime I’ve gotten some really good questions from a friend, and I’d like to insert a longer-than-usual post here to respond to them.

My friend had three questions—

“Is it possible that the contrast [described in Heb 1.1-2] is not exclusive, but the change is that God didn’t speak through his son in the past (though some would posit he did through Christophanies), and now he has?”
Or could “the focus of the change could have been on salvation–previously presented by prophets and the law, later presented by the incarnation and work of Jesus”?
“Also, what about the many passages predicting prophecy, dreams, and visions as an outpouring of the Holy Spirit? I’m curious how you account for God speaking in those? (Acts 2:33, 10:45; Rom. 5:5)”

Good questions, all.

I’ll observe that this takes us to a full-scale discussion of the disagreement between continuationists and cessationists, which I can’t possibly address sufficiently in a blog post or two. But I hope to lay down the seeds of my thought process enough that they can sprout in your mind if you’d like to seek a harvest in the topic.

So, to be brief, I find the options in the first and second questions above insufficient with regard to all the major disciplines of theology—

Exegetical Theology
- I note that all the major English versions follow the KJV in rendering the main verb here as a perfect tense, “God has spoken,” implying completed action in the past. I also note, however, that the Greek tense is not perfect, but aorist—and the Greek bodies among us know that the aorist usually has little to no temporal significance in Koine; it’s the default tense, the tense you use when you’re not emphasizing tense. Yet all the major English versions render it as perfect. Why is that? I suspect that like me they see the strongly constrastive structure of the passage and conclude that the contrast is between speaking partially through mediators and speaking completely and directly in the divine Son.
- I also note that larger context (the book of Hebrews) is all about the qualitative difference between the Old Covenant and the New—because Jesus is superior as to his person (Heb 1-4) and his work (Heb 5-10). This is all-encompassing and should not be restricted to just a part of God’s plan or providential activity.
Biblical Theology
- The Bible tells many stories, but through them it is telling just one Big Story, or metanarrative—and that story is about Christ as the perfect and complete revelation of the Father. I’ve written on that before, how the Old Testament purposely creates in us a longing for the very offices that Christ perfectly fills—one of which is Prophet.
- Hebrews 1.1-2 is the climax of that larger story—Christ, in permanently uniting the divine nature and the human nature in a single person, unites his people with God. So John tells us that the Son is the “Word” (logos) (Jn 1.1) who perfectly “exegetes” the Father (Jn 1.18). We should not seek to minimize this climax by making it anything less than the center of the story.
Systematic Theology:
- I’ve gotten a little ahead of myself in the previous paragraphs, noting the “person” and “natures” and “work” of the divine Son. Those terms more properly belong to systematic theology.
- And what does Christology tell us? That Christ is perfect and complete in every way, and that he thereby perfectly reveals the Father. I ask, what part of God’s revelation of himself in Christ may we find insufficient? What remains to be said? I’m not trying to sound like the fabled head of the US Patent Office who allegedly suggested in 1889 that the office should be shut down because everything had already been invented. We’re not talking about human inventors here; we’re talking about the Son, one of whose offices is to reveal the Father perfectly. I’d suggest that there are Christological implications of continuationism, at least in the form promoted by most Pentecostals and Charismatics.
Historical Theology
- I think it’s noteworthy that until the 20^th century, every orthodox church leader that I’m aware of agreed that the Canon was closed because special revelation had ceased. The gift of prophecy, and the concomitant gifts of tongues and interpretation of tongues, disappeared from the practice of the church except in a few cases, which were unanimously accompanied by doctrinal deviancies (Montanism, Paulicianism) that rendered those particular practices suspect even to modern continuationists.
Practical Theology
- It’s no secret that the last few decades have seen continuationism move from Pentecostal and Charismatic groups to what we might call mainstream conservative evangelicalism. But that change has come with its own set of inconsistencies. Both John Piper and Wayne Grudem, for example, have had to argue that the very nature of prophecy has changed since biblical times and that modern “prophets” can be mistaken. I would argue that what Grudem has done is to find a modern phenomenon that isn’t prophecy, redefine prophecy so as to call the modern phenomenon prophecy, and then claim that the gift of prophecy therefore continues.

Which brings me to my friend’s third question.

What about Joel’s prediction, cited by Peter at Pentecost, that “in the last days” God would “pour out” his Spirit, and there would be a renewed outbreak of prophesying? I suspect that this passage has played a significant part in the continuationist thinking of Piper, Grudem, and their fellow travelers.

As I’ve noted before, I understand Scripture to say that God does not intend our interpretations of prophetic material to be reliable until the prophecy has been fulfilled, so I don’t think anybody—cessationist or continuationist—can be dogmatic on this point.
Some interpreters (e.g. E. J. Young) think that Joel’s entire prophecy was fulfilled at Pentecost, and others would say it was fulfilled at or before the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. I don’t find those approaches convincing, especially in light of Joel 2.30-31 // Ac 2.19-21.
So I hold out the possibility that in the runup to the Second Coming, there will be a new outpouring of the prophetic gift.
But as a pretribulationist, I also (tentatively) understand the Bible to teach that the church will have been removed by the time those gifts appear. Maybe I’m wrong about that.

In the meantime, we all should agree that the Scripture is the overriding authority, and that all of our mental impressions must be subordinated to it. We all should further agree that the Scripture we have is sufficient to direct and inform our relationship with God and our service for him in the days he’s given us. And if that is the case, then the expression “the Lord told me” should mean precisely nothing to the hearer.

Tip o’ the hat to my friend, whose insightful questions prompted all this.

Next time, we’ll consider some ramifications.

Part 3

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How God Speaks, Part 1

November 25, 2019 by Dan Olinger 2 Comments

We’ve all heard people say that God “told them” something.

Most of the time, they’re wrong.

I’m not saying that God can’t interact with our thought processes or, as some folks say, “lay [something] on my heart.” The Spirit who indwells us interacts with us all the time, convicting, teaching, directing, influencing our thinking and our actions.

But that’s very different from saying that God speaks to you, in your head.

I’d like to spend a post or two examining why I hit the off switch when someone tells me that God spoke to him.

As always, to evaluate this claim we have to go to the Scripture—which is replete with cases of God speaking to people.

God speaks all the time—

He speaks throughout the biblical timeline, from the very First Day—“Let there be light!” (Gen 1.3) to the very end of the very last biblical book to be written, 60 or more years after the death of Christ—“Surely I am coming soon!” (Rev 22.20).
He speaks on all sorts of occasions—
- Both formal (in his throne room, Is 6.8) and informal (while Gideon was threshing wheat, Judg 6.14)
- Both happy (the baptism of Jesus, Mt 3.17) and unhappy (Elijah in the wilderness, 1K 19.9)
- Both to encourage (to Paul in prison, Ac 18.10) and to condemn (to the king of Babylon, Isa 14.4-23)
He speaks in all different sorts of ways—
- In one-on-one conversations
  - With Adam (Gen 2.16-17)
  - With Noah (Gen 6.13ff)
  - With Abram, in the door of his tent (Gen 18.20ff)
- To people who are sleeping, in their dreams
  - To Jacob, of the staircase (Gen 28.12ff)
  - To Joseph, of his brothers bowing down to him (Gen 37.5ff)
  - To Pharaoh, of the coming famine (Gen 41.1ff)
  - To Nebuchadnezzar, of the coming kingdoms (Dan 2.1ff)
  - To Joseph the carpenter, of Mary’s pregnancy (Mt 1.20)
- To people who are awake, in visions
  - To Abram, concerning his offspring (Gen 15.1)
  - To the boy Samuel, concerning the death of Eli (1S 3.1-15)
  - To Nathan the prophet, about David’s future son (2S 7.4-17)
  - To Ezekiel, about the judgment and restoration of Judah (Ezk 1.1)
  - To Paul, about heaven (2Co 12.1ff)
- In an audible voice
  - A loud one, from Sinai, to the people of Israel (Ex 19.16-20)
  - A normal one, to Hagar, when she ran away from Sarai (Gen 16.11-13)
  - A quiet one, to Elijah, alone in the wilderness (1K 19.12)
- Through representations of his presence
  - A burning bush (Ex 3.1ff)
  - A pillar of fire (Ex 13.21)
  - A glory cloud—which may have been the same as the pillar of fire (Ex 40.34)
  - Urim and Thummim—whatever they were (Ex 28.30)
  - A whirlwind (Job 38.1ff)
  - An asterism (Mt 2.2)
He speaks to all different sorts of people—
- Prophets, throughout both Testaments
- Wise men, such as Solomon, as in Proverbs
- Rulers, such as Nebuchadnezzar, as noted above
- Ordinary people
  - A little boy sleeping in the Tabernacle (1S 3.2ff)
  - A peasant woman in a nondescript village (Lk 1.26ff)
  - A shepherd on the west side of the desert (Ex 3.1ff)
- And even a donkey! (Num 22.23ff)

So why am I suspicious of people who claim that he has spoken to them today?

Because the same Bible that tells us of all these past revelatory acts of God has also told us that things have changed:

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, ²but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son (Heb 1.1-2).

The writer of Hebrews, whoever she was ( :-) ), first notes what I’ve delineated extensively above: that God has spoken in many times, in many ways, through many different people.

But, the author says, things are different now.

Now God has spoken through his Son.

This passage is structured as a contrast: God’s revelation used to happen a certain way, but it doesn’t happen that way anymore. Today, God has spoken in Christ.

In Part 2, we’ll talk about how we’re supposed to hear today what he has spoken, and I’m going to try to convince you that the new way is better than the old way—by a lot.

See you then.

Part 2 | Part 3

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On Reading Jonah, Part 4

November 21, 2019 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Last time we began our consideration of whether the Jonah story is fiction or non-fiction. We noted that the inspiration of Scripture doesn’t necessarily rule out the possibility that it’s fiction. And then we concluded, tentatively, that the evidence we’ve considered so far leans us toward non-fiction, but we have yet to consider a category of evidence that the story might be historical fiction, a fictional story made up about an actual historical character.

How do we know that historical fiction is, after, all, fiction?

Two possible ways: because the author tells us he’s fictionalized it, or because it contains things that we know didn’t happen.

The author of the book of Jonah gives us no hint that he’s fictionalizing.

Critics, then, note the unbelievable things in the story—as I listed them last time—as evidence that it’s fictionalized.

There’s no reliable record of anyone ever being swallowed by a whale, let alone surviving. (That James Bartley story is pretty suspect.)

How about the repentance of Nineveh? Well, in fact, that’s not much of a stretch. The passage doesn’t say that they became monotheistic, only that they were afraid of a foreigner’s tribal god and tried to appease him. That sort of thing happened all the time in the ancient world, where syncretistic religion was common. Douglas Stuart notes, “From Assyrian omen texts, we know of four circumstances that could move a people, and its king, to fasting and mourning: invasion by an enemy; a total solar eclipse; famine and a major outbreak of disease; and a major flood. We know that enemy nations, such as Urartu, had beaten the Assyrians in a number of military encounters in the time of Ashurdan III and that a major earthquake occurred in the reign of one of the kings with the name Ashurdan—but not for certain Ashurdan III. Moreover, on June 15, 763 bc in the tenth year of Ashurdan III, there was a total solar eclipse over Assyria” (New Bible Commentary on Jonah).

And what about the plant? Some plants do grow rapidly—we Southerners know all about kudzu—and in a very hot, dry wind (Jon 4.8), shriveling could happen in a hurry. Not outside the realm of possibility, but not common either.

But experienced Christians know what’s going on under the surface here.

The real issue isn’t the fish or the plant or the worm or the wind.

The real issue is that some people just reject the supernatural out of hand. Ax heads don’t float. You can’t feed 5000 people with 5 buns and 2 small fish. And people don’t rise from the dead.

And, in their mind, that’s that.

So Jonah never happened.

Well, I’ll grant you that I’ve never seen a miracle and that I’m pretty suspicious when other people claim that they have. It’s safe to say that they’re exceedingly rare.

In fact, even in biblical times, and even if you take the miracle claims at face value, they’re still pretty rare. With just 2 or 3 exceptions, all the recorded biblical miracles occurred in just 3 relatively brief periods of time:

The active careers of Moses and Joshua (80
years)
The active careers of Elijah and Elisha (80
years)
The earthly lifetime of Jesus and for a few
years following (maybe 60 years)

That’s maybe 200 or 250 years out of 6000 years of earth’s history—assuming you’re a young-earth creationist, and a fan of Ussher’s dating at that. Right at 4.2% of history at the most, and if you hold to billions of years (I don’t), that 4.2% shrinks to practically zero.

But how “scientific” is it to say that they don’t happen at all? How “scientific” is a universal negative? How often have universal negatives been debunked?

I long ago decided that rationalism simply didn’t have a strong enough record to merit my faith. I see strong evidence that the Bible is not of ordinary human origin, and I’ve seen it vindicated any number of times, and so I freely confess that I’m inclined to believe it. So the events in Jonah aren’t an obstacle to me.

I think it happened.

Note: For a clear and concise discussion of the alleged fictional nature of Jonah, see Billy K. Smith and Frank S. Page, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, New American Commentary Series (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1995), pp. 209-19, “Genre and Purpose.”

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On Reading Jonah, Part 3

November 18, 2019 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

The question that’s been asked about Jonah more than any other is a simple and straightforward one—

Did any of this ever happen, or not?

Is it fiction, or is it non-fiction?

Critics point out all kinds of allegedly laughable events in the story—

A man survived inside a fish for 72 hours (Jon
1.17).
The entire city of Nineveh, under the urging of
its king, repented of their notorious and culturally ingrained cruelty and
worshipped the true God of Israel (Jon 3.5-9).
A plant grew large and shriveled up on 2
consecutive days (Jon 4.6-8).

What nonsense, they say.

Well.

Let’s back waaaaay up and consider the question as carefully as we can in a blog post or two.

For starters, we should consider whether or not the question is important. Does it matter whether the story ever actually happened?

We know that the Bible contains fiction, from a fable recounted by an Israelite king (2K 14.9) to a story about a prodigal son told by Jesus himself (Lk 15.11-32). Supporters of historicity note that Jesus referred to the “fish story” (Mt 12.39-41), but we also know that literary allusion is a perfectly legitimate rhetorical device—so in theory Jesus could refer to the story of Jonah as a metaphor for his own death and resurrection without necessarily viewing it as a historical event. But I note that Jesus spoke of the men of Nineveh, who repented, condemning Jesus’ hearers because they (the men of Nineveh) had repented at the preaching of Jonah (Mt 12.41)—and that really wouldn’t make any sense if the Jonah event wasn’t actually historical.

We also know that there’s a genre we call “historical fiction,” in which stories are made up about real historical characters (e.g. Barabbas or Daniel) that are fictionalized. So the fact that Jonah is described elsewhere in the Bible as a historical figure (2K 14.25) doesn’t render it impossible in theory that the book of Jonah is a fictionalized account. As I’ve noted in my thoughts on the story of Job, sometimes you can’t answer this kind of question with absolute confidence.

But.

Having said that, I note that Jonah is independently verified in the biblical text as a historical character, and Jesus does use his experience with the fish as a figure of his own death and resurrection, and (for what it’s worth) the rabbinical traditions never seem to have entertained the idea that the story was fiction, so barring substantive evidence that it’s fiction, we ought to assume that it really happened.

What kind of evidence would that be? I think there are two kinds that we could consider.

The first is evidence that it conforms to some common fictional genre that was used at the time it might have been written—sometime between, say, around 789 BC, when Jereboam II began to reign (2K 14.25), and around 200 BC, when we know the book of Jonah was in the Septuagint. (That’s being very generous.)

Critics have suggested that it might be an allegory—but this document doesn’t seem to have the characteristics of an allegory. Whom do the various characters represent? Where are the multiple levels of meaning? Where is the object personification?

Another possibility is that it’s fable. But again, it doesn’t read like fable. For starters, it’s too long and complex. And the whale doesn’t talk, nor does the gourd or the worm.

Well, then, maybe it’s a parable. The moral lesson is there, all right. But it’s still too complicated, and the levels of meaning don’t seem to be there.

You know what it sounds like? It sounds like a narrative about an actual historical character. Our inclination to this point is to consider it non-fiction.

But I noted above that there are two kinds of evidence that a historical narrative is fictionalized. We need to consider the other type. We’ll get into that next time.

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On Reading Jonah, Part 2

November 13, 2019 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1

Last time we looked at the recurring theme of “greatness” in this brief biblical book. This time I’d like to notice a couple more literary features.

Have you noticed the parallel structure?

In chapter 1, unbelieving Gentiles (the sailors), fearing the wrath of Jonah’s God, seek deliverance by responding to the prophet’s word—and throwing Jonah into the sea, with prayers that God would accept the obedience they offer.
In chapter 2, Jonah prays to God, praising him for his deliverance.

In chapter 3, unbelieving Gentiles (the Ninevites), fearing the wrath of Jonah’s God, seek deliverance by responding to the prophet’s word—and repenting of their sin, with hope that God would accept the obedience they offer.
In chapter 4, Jonah prays to God, raging at him for his deliverance.

Two episodes, in exact parallel.

And here’s the odd thing—while the unbelieving Gentiles are moving in the right direction, the allegedly believing prophet is moving in the opposite direction—against what he already clearly knows.

In chapter 1, Jonah seeks to “flee from the presence of the Lord” (Jon 1.3, 10) despite the fact that he knows that the Lord “made the sea and the dry land” (Jon 1.9), and despite the fact that he knows God can and will send a great storm in response to his disobedience.

In chapter 4, Jonah knows that the Lord’s nature is to show mercy to those who repent (Jon 4.2), yet he hardens his heart against the Lord’s will.

The irony is strong in this one.

Something else to notice—in the previous post I referred to Jonah as “the character for whom the book is named.” That may have struck you as awkward. Why not call him “the hero,” or “the main character,” or, to use the more academic term, “the protagonist”?

Simple. Because he is none of those things. He not the main character; as I noted last time, he’s a foil. There I said that he’s a foil for the other prophets; in many ways the book of Jonah is a study in contrasts with all the other prophetic writings. But here I’ll note that within the book itself, he’s a foil as well—a foil for the true main character.

And who is that?

It’s not the fish.

And, perhaps contrary to our expectations, it’s not the king of Nineveh, as positive a character as he is. (And if you know anything about the Assyrians, you’re as surprised as I am that I just called an Assyrian king a “positive character.”)

Who’s the main character? Who’s the protagonist?

It’s God.

He the one doing all the things—

Calling the prophet and specifying his message
Sending a great storm—and calming it when the sailors obey the words of the prophet
Appointing a great fish—and graciously delivering the disobedient prophet, through regurgitation, when he prays
Responding with grace to the repentance of a deeply evil people by reversing his earlier pronouncement of judgment—even taking pity on the Assyrian cattle (Jon 4.11).

The book itself doesn’t note this, but we know from later history that this repentance was short-lived. It wasn’t long before the Assyrians were at it again, perpetrating cruelty and violence all across the region, crushing any who opposed them, extorting the wealth of their neighbors, being in general just the big bully of the known world.

And a bit more than a century later, God sent another prophet—Nahum—with a similar message of doom for Nineveh, and this threat would certainly be carried out; by the end of the century—605 BC, to be precise—near a town called Carchemish on what is now the Turkish-Syrian border, the Babylonian armies crushed the Assyrians, who in their desperation had even sought help from the Egyptians. And just like that, Assyria was history.

As I say, God knew all that, from the beginning of time.

But when Nineveh repented, ever so briefly and ever so imperfectly, God forgave them. And spared them.

That’s the kind of person he is.

You know, you are of much more worth than an Assyrian cow. Even though you can’t repent worth a nickel, God will forgive you, too.

That’s the kind of person he is.

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