Dan Olinger

"If the Bible is true, then none of our fears are legitimate, none of our frustrations are permanent, and none of our opposition is significant."

Dan Olinger

 

Retired Bible Professor,

Bob Jones University

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On Frustration, Part 2

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Part 1

In my previous post I noted that the Bible says, to the surprise of many, that life is frustrating—and it means it.

And that raises a question: why is it frustrating? And what’s the answer—how do we handle the frustration?

As I noted last time, a good many Christians are surprised that Ecclesiastes means what it says—that all is vanity (emptiness) and vexation of spirit, or chasing the wind (frustrating).

But if you’ll think about it, my surprised Christian friend, you’ll realize that there was no reason to be surprised at all.

The Bible tells a story—one story, a true story, that explains everything we know and a lot of things we don’t.

It begins with God, all-powerful, all-wise, relational (“let us …”) and loving, creating a perfect universe, with little to no apparent effort but with great care and attention to detail, and placing in that world two humans, who we are told are in his image. And he offers them a relationship with himself.

But they reject that priceless offer and go their own way, bringing ruin not only to their souls but to their bodies, and indeed to all the created order.

So here we are, in the image of God, and in a world that we broke. What would someone in the image of God think about that?

The first thing we’re told about God is that he is a creator. He can envision things that don’t yet exist, and he can bring them into being. And we find that we can do the same thing—oh, not ex nihilo, of course, but artists envision products and bring them into existence all the time. And all of us—even the non-artists—can envision the way things ought to be, and we can recognize all the ways they’re broken. Nothing works as it should. Not relationships, families, communities, nations. Not even the DMV.

Now what do you think would be the expected response of someone in the image of God to all that brokenness?

So why are we surprised that life is frustrating—or that the Scripture, revealed to us by the God of truth, would come right out and say so?

Of course it’s frustrating.

But the Scripture doesn’t end with Genesis 3. The story of Scripture is the story of God graciously, patiently, and sovereignly fixing what we broke, including us ourselves. He’s taking a long time to do that—not because he needs a lot of time to fix the colossal mess we’ve created (he made the whole universe in six days, you know), but because sovereign people never have to be in hurry. If you see someone who’s in a hurry, you’re seeing someone whose life is out of control at that moment. God never experiences that. So he’s not in a hurry.

And in time, his time, his good and perfect time, he will make all things new, and that new heaven and earth will last forever, infinitely longer than this little bubble we call our earthly lives.

Let me illustrate.

Suppose someone with more money than brains decides that the school where I teach really needs a fleet of Ferraris for its Public Safety Department. So he buys us half a dozen.

Do you know what the speed limit is on our campus?

20 mph.

In front of the Child Development Center, 10 mph.

Now, how do you suppose the Ferraris feel about the prospect of going 20 mph for the next hundred thousand miles?

Ferraris weren’t made to go 20 mph. They were made to go 220 mph. They’re going to be really frustrated at good old BJU.

And here’s the point.

You’re a Ferrari. Not because you’re all that—this isn’t at all about your self-esteem—but because you’re in the image of God, who is all that.

Right now you’re in a 20-mph world. And it’s frustrating. It’s supposed to be.

You’re not made for this world. You’re made for the next.

And one day, in time, his time, his good and perfect time, your Creator is going to take you out onto a highway that was made for speed, and he’s going to give you the throttle and “see what this baby can do.”

And in that day you’ll go really, really fast, and you’ll bring a delighted smile to his face.

So how do you handle frustration?

You take it as a gift from a gracious God, a reminder that you are made not for this world, but for an unbroken one—one that will last for all time and beyond.

That’s going to be just awesome.

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On Frustration, Part 1

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There’s a refrain in the Bible that puzzles, even troubles some people.

Not me. I like it a lot.

It’s in Ecclesiastes.

It occurs first in chapter 1, where Solomon writes, “All is vanity and vexation of spirit” (Eccl 1.14). It occurs again in the same chapter (Eccl 1.17), 4 times in chapter 2, 3 times in chapter 4, and once in chapter 6, for a total of 10 times in the book.

If God says something 10 times, I guess he really, really means it, huh?

“Vanity,” as you probably know, means “emptiness,” “worthlessness,” “meaninglessness.” And “vexation of spirit,” well, I guess we all know what that means, don’t we?

Actually, it can mean a couple of things. So far I’ve been quoting the KJV, whose phrasing is well familiar to us all. Perhaps you’ve noticed that most of the modern versions state it quite differently—

  • “chasing after the wind” (NIV)
  • “grasping for the wind” (NKJV)
  • “pursuit of the wind” (HCSB)
  • “striving after wind” (ESV, NASB)
  • “trying to catch the wind” (GWN)

Several different ways of saying essentially the same thing.

You may know that in both Hebrew (OT) and Greek (NT), the word for “spirit” is the same as the word for “wind” or “breath.” Hence the two distinct ideas in these translations. Is Solomon saying that life is vexing to the spirit, or that it’s like chasing the wind?

As is often the case in Scripture, when a passage is genuinely ambiguous, the difference turns out to be not much. Trying to catch the wind is vexing to the spirit, isn’t it? There was even a popular song more than 50 years ago comparing the frustration of unrequited love to trying to catch the wind. We know the feeling.

So Solomon says that life is like that. It’s vexing. It’s constantly just outside our grasp.

In other words, it’s frustrating.

Some people are really troubled that the Bible would say a thing like that. Sounds pretty negative. Almost nihilistic.

That can’t be true, can it?

Over the years some Bible interpreters have suggested that Ecclesiastes must not be inspired—at least, not in the way the rest of the Bible is. God wouldn’t say something this negative.

Maybe Ecclesiastes is just God’s (accurate) record of man’s (inaccurate) thinking “under the sun.” Yeah, that’s it.

I beg to differ.

There’s nothing in the text of Ecclesiastes that gives us the idea that we’re not supposed to take it seriously.

In fact, it starts pretty much exactly like Proverbs, and nobody says that Proverbs is just Solomon’s nihilistic ramblings.

  • Ecclesiastes 1:1—“The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.”
  • Proverbs 1.1—“The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel.”

And the conclusion of Ecclesiastes—“Fear God, and keep his commandments” (Eccl 12.13)—is eminently biblical.

So why are we questioning the applicability of Ecclesiastes? Because it has hard verses in it?

What kind of a nutty hermeneutic is that?

So I think Ecclesiastes is just as much the word of God as Proverbs, or John, or Romans. Yes, that means that there are difficult interpretational questions in it. So be it.

So.

God says that my life, and your life, is really frustrating.

That’s not a hard verse. We already know it’s true. Frankly, it’s nice to hear God himself say it.

Life’s not frustrating for God, of course; he’s sovereign and omnipotent, and his will is always done.

But it’s frustrating for us.

Yes, it is.

Next time, we’ll talk about why it’s frustrating, and what we ought to do about it.

Part 2

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On Sexual Assault, Due Process, and Supreme Court Confirmations

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There’s no sense in my jumping into the Kavanaugh battle with a personal opinion; there are bazillions of those already, and I have no experience that gives me any special insight into legal issues.

But I do find something waaay back in the writings of Moses that may give us a little something to think about.

The legal difficulty of sexual assault is that it typically doesn’t happen in the city square, with lots of witnesses. The nature of sex as a private function means that abuses of the sexual function, like its legitimate uses, tend to happen in private. And in private, there are just two witnesses. If the sex is abusive, then the two witnesses are the perpetrator and the victim.

He said, she said.

That’s how it almost always is.

In biblical times it was the same way, of course. I note that in those days, unlike today, rape was a capital offense. I’ve heard it argued that today it shouldn’t get the death penalty because if the rapist knows that, he’ll just go ahead and kill the victim, since that would eliminate a witness without increasing his penalty. I recognize the logic, but I still would prefer to see the death penalty for rape, particularly in a day when DNA testing can make the identity of the perpetrator absolutely certain.

But back to my point. In biblical times, rape got the death penalty. But here’s the thing: elsewhere the biblical law restricted the death penalty to cases where you had at least two or three witnesses (Num 35.30; Dt 17.6).

Contradiction, no? Rape gets the death penalty, but there are never enough witnesses to actually get it carried out. The woman loses, every time.

Patriarchy.

Ah, not so fast.

There’s a special provision for allegations of sexual assault. In the midst of some broad-ranging regulations in Deuteronomy 22 (help an animal stuck in a ditch [4]; don’t kill a bird sitting on a clutch of eggs [6]; build your house so that visitors are safe [8]), there’s a point about sexual assault.

23 “If there is a betrothed virgin, and a man meets her in the city and lies with her, 24 then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbor’s wife. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

 25 “But if in the open country a man meets a young woman who is betrothed, and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die. 26 But you shall do nothing to the young woman; she has committed no offense punishable by death. For this case is like that of a man attacking and murdering his neighbor, 27 because he met her in the open country, and though the betrothed young woman cried for help there was no one to rescue her.

Interesting.

If the attack happens near other possible witnesses, then we assume that in a nonconsensual encounter the woman would protest in ways that those nearby would hear. If she says later that it was rape, then she is judged to be lying since she didn’t scream during the assault.

Women lie sometimes too. Even about things as serious as rape. We have to take that into account.

But if the event occurs away from possible witnesses, the woman gets the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she did call for help, and there was nobody to hear her.

Now, a woman having a consensual sexual encounter in the woods might lie too. She could decide later that it was a mistake, and she could decide to get the poor guy in beaucoup trouble. That could happen.

But here, she gets the benefit of the doubt. As the only witness. In a charge that bears the death penalty.

It’s not a perfect world. God knows that. And he indicates that he expects us to do the best we can in these difficult decisions. We need to remember that women lie just as certainly as men do, for all kinds of reasons. And we also need to remember that sometimes we need to give a woman in a difficult spot the benefit of the doubt.

When do we do which? That’s a really tough call; as someone who served on a jury for a case of child sexual assault, I know exactly how difficult it is.

But if you support Kavanaugh simply because you’re a Republican, or you oppose him simply because you’re a Democrat, then you’re in no position to be heard in such a critical decision.

Which, I guess, disqualifies pretty much everybody this time around.

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On Reading Job (the Book, not the Occupation), Part 2

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Part 1

While the question of Job’s historicity affects the way we read the book, there’s another matter that affects us far more significantly.

I’ve noticed that many Christians treat Job as though it were Proverbs. They’ll find a verse that says something they like, and they’ll post it as though it applies to us, even without context.

  • “Man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward” (Job 5.7).
  • “Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know?” (Job 11.7-8).
  • “The light of the wicked shall be put out” (Job 18.5).
  • “Is it any pleasure to the Almighty, that thou art righteous?” (Job 22.3).
  • “The spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life” (Job 33.4).
  • “How forceful are upright words!” (Job 6.25).
  • “Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble” (Job 14.1).
  • “I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me” (Job 19.25-27).
  • “He knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold” (Job 23.10).
  • “He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing” (Job 26.7).
  • “Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding” (Job 28.28).

These are powerful words that have been precious to generations of Christians. And I’m not saying they shouldn’t be. But there’s a pitfall here that we should be wise enough to avoid.

The quotations in the first section above are from the mouths of Job’s 3 friends. The second section is from Elihu, the young bystander. And the third section is from Job himself.

Now, what do we know about these 5 men? For starters, we know that all of them—all of them—were wrong about some things. God is much harder on Job’s friends than on Job himself (Job 42.7), but with his first words at the end of the book he makes it clear that Job too has problems with his thinking:

“Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?” (Job 38.2).

The word this here is singular, and the previous verse indicates that God is speaking specifically to Job. He, too, is “without knowledge.” And the extended argument that follows, all the way through Job 40.2, is directed specifically at Job.

Job responds by condemning himself (Job 40.3-5). And God’s response is not to try to soften the blow; he doubles down, so to speak, at considerable length (Job 40.6-41.34), leading Job to repeat his words of repentance (Job 42.1-6).

But before it’s over, God pays him a remarkable compliment: Job, he says, “has spoken of me the thing that is right” (Job 42.7). And then he says it again (Job 42.8). Job, he says, “I will accept” (Job 42.8).

And the rest of the story, which we know well, shows God pouring his blessings out on Job.

So there’s a lot to appreciate in and learn from the man Job, but when we read his words, and especially the words of his 3 friends and Eliphaz, we can’t take them as authoritatively true; they’re not Proverbs. Oh, they may well be true, but we don’t know that without confirming them from elsewhere in Scripture. Eliphaz certainly gives us good advice when he says, “If you return to the Almighty you will be built up; … then you will delight yourself in the Almighty and lift up your face to God. You will make your prayer to him, and he will hear you” (Job 22.23-27). But his words are not true in relation to Job’s specific situation—Job’s troubles weren’t the result of his being distant from God—though they’re often true of us. We know that not because Eliphaz said them, or simply because the statement appears in the biblical book of Job, but because it is confirmed by countless other passages of Scripture, whose contexts indicate that they, unlike these, are authoritative.

Context is a really big deal. We all benefit when we pay attention to it.

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On Reading Job (the Book, not the Occupation), Part 1

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Not long ago I posted some thoughts on reading Leviticus and Numbers, so I suppose by this post I’m continuing an informal, as-circumstances-warrant kind of series.

Job is an unusual book. For starters, most Christians have known the story since Sunday school, but hardly any of them know much about most of the book. They know the narrative of the first 2 chapters and the last chapter, and they know generally about God’s speech to Job that is the climax of the book in chapters 38-41, but pretty much all the rest of it—the extended conversation among Job, his three friends, and a young observer named Elihu—are essentially “flyover country.” If you asked most lifelong readers of the Bible to summarize the speeches of Eliphaz as distinguished from those of Zophar, not only could they not do it, but they might not even recognize the names. We’ve missed a lot.

I’d like to comment about a couple of issues connected with reading and understanding the book better.

First is the question of genre. Is it history or fiction? Since we read literature differently depending on its genre, the question matters.

The first thing we notice is that the story seems to stand apart from the historical metanarrative that makes up the rest of Scripture. No one knows where the “land of Uz” (Job 1.1) is; though the place name is mentioned in connection with the Philistines (Jer 25.20) and with Edom (Lam 4.21), no one is even sure that the latter two are the same location as the one mentioned in Job. The word does appear as a personal name in the Israelite genealogies (Gen 10.23; 36.28; 1Chr 1.17, 42), but there’s nothing in all of that information that lets us put Job anywhere certain.

There’s also no reference in the book to any of the patriarchs; the long conversation makes no reference to Noah or Abraham or Moses or David or anybody else that sounds familiar. There’s no unambiguous reference to the Law (Job 22.22?), or to God’s Word in the written sense (cf Job 6.10; 23.12; 42.7).

Job is mentioned by other biblical writers (Ezek 14.14, 20; James 5.11 [Gen 46.13 probably names a different person]). Ezekiel mentions him alongside Noah and Daniel (though there’s an interpretational argument over whether the Daniel here is the same as in the biblical book), both of whom I take to be historical characters, and that to imply that Job is as well.

James alludes to him in a way that implies he’s talking about the character in the book of Job. Does this prove that the story is true? Well, Jesus told fiction stories to teach moral lessons—we call them parables—but they don’t use personal names. (I don’t think his story of Lazarus and the rich man is a parable.) OT writers, including Job himself, refer to a fictional character named Rahab (Job 9.13; Ps 87.4; 89.10; Isa 51.9), common in ancient Near Eastern mythology (and not the prostitute from Jericho). So it’s not impossible that James is using a fictional character to teach a moral lesson.

Some scholars argue that the extended poetic conversation is not likely to have happened extemporaneously—who talks like that, anyway? But we should note that while you and I don’t typically make up poetry on the fly, the poetry of that culture was different in ways that might make poetry extempore possible. Most significantly, their poetry doesn’t have rhyme or meter, which is much of what makes poetry hard for us. They “rhyme” concepts rather than words (e.g. Ps 1.5-6; Ps 24.1-2). And further, there’s no reason to think that the characters in Job couldn’t have taken a few minutes to sketch out their thoughts before they spoke, even perhaps taking notes (in the dirt? on a clay tablet?) while another was speaking, debate-style.

So while the situation is mildly muddy, I’m inclined to think that the events in the book really happened. This means that Satan really appears in God’s presence and that God converses with him. It also means that ancient peoples were a lot smarter than the stereotypical cavemen. Your homework is to think about what other differences the historicity of the book makes.

Next time we’ll look at something else you need to keep in mind as you read the book.

Part 2

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On Reading Numbers (the Book, not the Digits)

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Well, you got through Leviticus, and you found that it’s got a real devotional punch if you pay attention to the big ideas. And now you’re in Numbers. Funny name. Lots of repetition. And details. And, well, numbers.

What’s with that?

When Numbers begins, Israel is still at Sinai, where they’ve been for the year since leaving Egypt. They’ve received the Law (that’s the last part of Exodus, and all of Leviticus), and they’re preparing to continue to Canaan. When Numbers ends, the people of Israel are at the Jordan River, ready to enter the land (Dt 1.1). For those of you keeping score, that means that the entire 40 years of wilderness wandering takes place in Numbers.

So what’s with the numbers? What’s that all about?

Oh, this is really good. Really good.

The book begins, as you might expect, with numbers: a census. God directs Moses to count all the men in the Israelite army (Num 1.2-3). Moses obeys, and we’re told that Israel’s army numbers just over 600,000 (Num 1.46).

Hold that thought.

Now Israel prepares to travel from Sinai, what we might call Constitution City, to their permanent home, promised by God to Abraham all those centuries ago. If there are 600,000 soldiers, then you probably have about 2 million people in all, and moving that many people around is going to require some organization. So God describes the organization of the camp (Num 2); the jobs of the Levites in breaking down, carrying, and setting up the Tabernacle (Num 3-4); and the dedication of the Tabernacle to active service (Num 7-9).

Now we’re ready to move. Off we go.

The Israelites decamp and head for Canaan (Num 10-12), arriving at Kadesh-Barnea, near Canaan’s southern border, where God instructs them to investigate the land they’re about to enter (Num 13). What they see makes them afraid, and they refuse the land God has assured them is theirs (Num 14). God sends them on a 40-year hiatus, where the fearful adults will all die, leaving their “vulnerable” children to take the land by force (Num 14.28-35).

Yikes. That’s a turn of events.

And the rest of the book describes the torturous turns of those 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. Someone has estimated that for those 40 years, about 85 people died every day, on average, until all the adults were gone. That’s 40 years of daily grief, reminding Israel of the perils of faithlessness.

God is killing them all. Will he eradicate them? Or will he keep his promise to Abraham, 400 years ago, that they would occupy the land (Gen 17.8)?

Well, that’s where the numbers come in.

In chapter 26, Israel has arrived at the plains of Moab, just across the Jordan River from Jericho and the rest of The Land. All the older generation is gone now, and the current generation can see the land ahead of them. Will they be able to take it?

God answers their question with a second census. Count all the soldiers, he says. They do.

How many soldiers are there? 600,000 (Num 26.51). Just as many as there were before.

In judgment, God remembers mercy. He destroys the faithless generation, but he sees to it that four decades later, the army is just as large as it was before, despite their less-than-ideal living and breeding conditions.

The promise is still good. The land is still theirs. God’s judgment has not disabled the promise.

The numbers have spoken.

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On Reading Leviticus: Grace in the Details, Part 2

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Last time we noted that the details in Leviticus remind us that the Law is impossible to keep; we’re going to need help. This time we’ll note another principle the Law teaches us, and where to go from here.

The Law Doesn’t Work

The Bible sometimes seems to be ambivalent about the Law. Paul criticizes the Law in Galatians and Romans—“the very commandment that promised life proved to be death for me” (Rom 7.10)—but in the midst of that he says that “the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good” (Rom 7.12). David sings that “the Law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul” (Ps 19.7), but God himself says through the prophet Ezekiel, “I gave them statutes that were not good and rules by which they could not have life” (Ezek 20.25).

Well then. Which is it?

One thing you notice about all those sacrifices in Leviticus is that they don’t seem to work—not really. Every fall there’s a big Day of Atonement (Lev 16), when the high priest goes through special preparation and then, alone, disappears behind the veil of the Tabernacle / Temple. There he sprinkles blood before the very presence of God himself, who declares that he resides in the space between the cherubim on the “mercy seat,” the solid-gold cover of the ark (Isa 37.16). And in doing that, he cleanses the Temple from the sins of the whole nation (Lev 16.16, 19).

But next fall, the high priest is going to have to do it all over again. The old sacrifice will have worn off. It didn’t work. Oh, it achieved cleansing for a time, but in the final analysis it didn’t take care of the problem it’s addressing. The problem is still there.

Every morning the priest goes to the altar and offers the morning sacrifice, for the sins of the people (Ex 29.38ff). By late afternoon it’s worn off, and we need an evening sacrifice to take care of the continuing failures of the day. It didn’t work.

Every time you sin, you go to Jerusalem and offer another sin offering. But when you sin the next time, you have to do it again. It didn’t solve your problem. It didn’t work.

The Law would be great, if only it worked.

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a priest who could offer one sacrifice for sins forever?

The Law Is Good. Really.

Have you ever tried to use a slot-head screwdriver with a Phillips-head screw? You try to get the job done one-eighth of a turn at a time, and the screwdriver keeps slipping out of the slot that it wasn’t designed to fit, and you tear up the screw head so much that you’re never going to be able to get it in or out, and you throw the screwdriver across the room in disgust. “Stupid screwdriver!”

No, not stupid screwdriver. Unwise tool user. A slot-head screwdriver isn’t designed to drive a Phillips-head screw. That’s not what it’s for. Don’t blame the screwdriver.

God designed the Law for a purpose. If God is God, then the Law accomplishes that purpose perfectly. If you’re frustrated with it, then maybe you’re trying to use it to do something it was never designed to do.

Why would God make a Law that’s impossible to keep? Why would he make one that keeps driving us back to the same altar, day after day, year after year?

Because the Law isn’t designed for us to keep. It’s designed to show us that we can’t keep it (Rom 3.20). It’s designed to drive us to God for mercy. And it’s designed to showcase the remarkable way he’s chosen to show that mercy.

The only way to avoid the frustration of living on the road to Jerusalem is to live in such a way that you never need to go there to offer a sacrifice for your own sin. Because we can’t do that, God himself, in mercy, steps into a human body and keeps the Law perfectly in precisely the ways we have not. He dies to become the perfect sacrifice, effective for all time, for all sin, for all who believe (Heb 10.12). And then he comes to us, broken by the Law—that’s what it was for—and invites us to receive the benefit of his atoning sacrifice and the righteousness that he has lived out for us (2Co 5.21).

The Law has done exactly what he designed it to do. It has broken us, frustrated us, and in our frustration it has driven us to the Christ (Gal 3.24).

Perfect.

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On Reading Leviticus: Grace in the Details, Part 1

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If you’re following a plan to read through your Bible in 2018, chances are you’re in Leviticus or have just finished it. Maybe it was a hard slog for you. All those sacrifices, all those procedures, all those animal parts. When do we start learning about the Gospel? About Jesus?

Let me encourage you to take a closer look—or perhaps to sit back in your chair and think about the implications of what you’ve been reading. Let me suggest a couple of life-changing principles that spring from what you’ve just read.

The Law Is Impossible

Let’s take a high flyover view of the Law for a moment.

God says that the penalty for sin is death (Rom 6.23). Specifically, he told the Jews that payment for sin required shedding of blood (Lev 17.11). But then he said, graciously, that you could offer the death of an animal in the place of yourself. That’s a huge relief, and it’s a glorious grace.

But here’s the thing. You can’t just go out in back of the house and kill a lamb. No, you have to offer the lamb to God. And in OT times, that means you have to take the lamb to where God is—in the place where he has placed his name (Lev 17.4, 9; Dt 12.5ff). During the wilderness wanderings, that meant wending your way through thousands of tents to the center of camp, where the Tabernacle was illuminated by the pillar of cloud, the sign of God’s presence. During the period of the judges it meant going to the Tabernacle’s more-or-less permanent location at Gilgal or Shiloh or Bethel or Nob or Gibeon or, finally, Jerusalem. And under Solomon and the divided monarchy, it meant going to the Temple in Jerusalem.

During the Babylonian Captivity, when there was no Temple—that was the greatest tragedy of the exile—there could be no sacrifices. But when Judah returned to the Land, the Second Temple, again on the Jerusalem site, served as the location until the Romans destroyed it shortly after Christ’s earthly ministry.

So. You live in Dan, in Galilee, and you sin. You have to offer a sacrifice. You saddle up and head for Jerusalem. It takes two days—longer if it’s after the Assyrian action of 722 BC and you’re too bigoted to go through Samaria. On arrival, you purchase a lamb at the Temple—that’s a lot easier than bringing one from home—and present it at the top of the steps, where you lay your hands on its head, symbolizing the transfer of your sin, and the priest takes it to the altar, where he executes it according to those instructions in Leviticus.

Done. Forgiven. Time to go home.

Saddle up and head north. You get home in two days.

The trip has taken at least 4 days. When’s the last time you went four days without sinning?

Houston, we have a problem.

You’d better move to Jerusalem, my friend, because if you don’t, you’re going to spend your entire pitiable life on the road.

It’s impossible.

You can’t do this, even if you’re a detail person. Especially if you’re a detail person.

You’re going to need help.

Next time we’ll look at a second life-changing principle, and at the solution to which both of these principles point.

Keep reading Leviticus. It’s a book about love.

Part 2

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash