Posted by Helen on: 11.17.2006 /
In comment #17 on Class #6: Was Jesus’ Life Perfect? Meg wrote:
I realised, standing there thinking of what to say, I don’t really KNOW where I stand in relation to Christianity. I see god in the brilliant autumn trees, and stretch out my hands and express my heart to jesus, as i walk in the cold rain, and get excited in brian mclaren’s hell book to realise that maybe god is kind and not going to send my loved ones to hell, and maybe i can give god a second chance now, in the light of this realisation…
Comment by: Helen
1Meg, this was so beautiful I had to repost it :)
I don’t know if this will help you - maybe it will: this is how I think about God these days.
1) If I were God, how would I treat people?
2) God (since he is God) must be kinder than me.
So - for example, if I were God and created the brilliant autumn trees, and I watched people out enjoying them, would I:
1) Get really annoyed at all the people who don’t give me credit for making them?
2) Or would I just be happy to see them enjoying them?
For me the answer is 2).
When I realized this a few years ago, I stopped this little ritual I had of trying to go around thanking God in my head all the time for good things. Like brilliant autumn trees. (And feeling guilty if I forgot to do it)
I decided - God is very aware when these things bring me joy on the inside. And that’s probably good enough for him, since it would be good enough for me if I were God.
So - my enjoyment of these things is my thank you to God - I don’t need to add formulaic “thank you” words onto that. And for me, it feels so much better that way. So much freer. So much more natural. So much less ‘in my head’.
Comment by: NCxian
2So - my enjoyment of these things is my thank you to God
I agree, Helen.
Comment by: D.G.
3That is awesome Helen! All too often I think we as human beings allow guilt to take over our lives and we feel like we should be doing something or feeling something…instead of just living in the now. God lives beyond time (before, now, and in the coming up) But I think it is the now that he enjoys the most…. I beg Christians all the time to realize that sometimes the best think in the world is to just enjoy living…as Erwin McManus’s daughter puts it, “love to live, and live to love!” Take care!
Comment by: Julie Marie
4Meg,
I realy like your thoughts.
Helen,
Thanks for reposting this. With all the flurry of activity on this and other blogs I missed Meg’s gem.
Comment by: Helen
5Julie Marie - I didn’t want anyone to miss Meg’s comment. I’m glad it helped you find it!
Comment by: Helen
6Thanks D.G. and NCxian.
Comment by: JG
7Meg & Helen,
Thanks for this. May I just seek to take these thoughts one stage further?
Helen, if you were God and saw people enjoying these trees but then saw:
1 Other people cutting the trees down to use as fuel for fires without realising this would lead to soil erosion that ultimately would turn the area into desert - and all the other environmental consequences;
2 Others climbing the trees but with the result of falling and injurying themselves;
3 Others leaving their empty beer cans etc etc round the foot of the trees marring the scene
etc etc.
How would you feel? And what would you do about it? Would you:
1 Just let them get on with it and remain detached and uncaring? Or
2 Bolt the gates and not let anyone in so it remains unspoilt?
3 Only let in those that respect the area even if these means families are split up and only some can get in?
4 Let everyone in but so control their behaviour that no one cause any harm to themselves or others but with the result they are little more than robots controlled by you?
etc etc
I find it hard to believe in a detached God who isn’t bothered whether we relate to him or not. Such a God strikes me as a mean, selfish, uncaring God and I would ask him, if you aren’t bothered about relating to us or about what happens to us, why did you create us at all?
This makes things more difficult for me because if I believe in a God that is involved in the world, I have to grapple with issues such as “Why does God allow suffering” etc etc.
Comment by: JG
8To add clarity, I don’t believe God would do any of the four things I suggested. But those examples show the difficulty - what is the right thing to do?
Comment by: Helen
9JG, I think you just demonstrated exactly why on the whole, I don’t think about God at all. Because it’s so hard - one question leads to another and another and for me there was no end - I just went around in mental circles forever.
So I decided to not think about God and instead to think about how to make the most of my life. Because that has to be what God would like to see me do.
See, when I start with “What would God do?” I go in those circles forever. So I don’t do that anymore.
Instead, I simply think “God has to be kinder than me so he understands where I’m at and that I am doing my best”. See, that works - it doesn’t send me around in mental circles forever with questions that never get answered.
I’m sure lots of Christians would say that’s the coward’s way out.
But I think I get more done this way than if I keep thinking about things I can never resolve.
People who ask me the same old questions about God (this is a general comment about people, not an indirect way of referring to you, JG) just don’t get this. They think it’s simple - they ask, I answer. But it’s not simple because I don’t have the answers.
Ummm…not sure I answered your questions but if I didn’t, maybe I explained why I can’t.
Comment by: JG
10Helen,
Many thanks for this - Fully accept and support your position.
When typing comment 7, I attempted to answer the questions I posed as I have plenty of thoughts on this and then felt this may not be so relevant or helpful to others. So pressed the delete button.
I have many of thoughts and ideas but certainly not the answers. I have simply come to the place where at least for me, it is not an issue. I simply accept there is an answer ie that God does care, he understands the issues far better than I do and is working out a solution that takes on board all these concerns and issues. I think that is where faith kicks in. And that can come across just as much as a coward’s way out (ie ducking the difficult issues) but just like you, I don’t believe it is. I am well aware of the issues, I do think about them but I don’t get wound up over them, I just trust.
This is why I feel so strongly about Christians behaving in an unloving way - it doesn’t help people trust God, quite the opposite.
With human relationships, we might ask ourselves, why does this person (eg wife, husband, child, parent, friend) like/love me? If they really knew all my faults, failings etc, would they still like/love me? How can they still like/love me despite the way I have let them down etc etc?
But the wonderful thing is they do. We may not understand why they do - we just receive it, accept it and trust it. We don’t tie ourselves up in knots trying to understand it intellectually.
For me, that gives some indication of how I see relationship with God.
Relationships are not easy. That is why I fully agree with you that people who think issues regarding God are simple are very wide of the mark.
From all you have shared, I feel very comfortable that you have the right approach. I would feel very happy encouraging anyone struggling over issues with their faith to read what you have shared - I wished this had been available as a resource for some of the people I’ve been involved with in the past, wrestling over these sort of issues.
Comment by: JG
11Really looking forward to that preview facility - I am a hopeless typist! I only see all the mistakes after I have posted.
Comment by: Helen
12Thanks JG. It’s so opposite of how I used to approach my faith. I used to try to work everything out. I never would have guessed I’d find myself deliberately not thinking about the things I used to try so hard to understand, one day. But…life is not predictable, is it? ;-)
About preview: we might be able to try out a preview feature on Monday, JG. I hope so and I hope it works!
Comment by: meg
13Hi! I am most heartened, reading your comments. Thanks. I just tried to read the bible, and it makes me so angry! I read the story of the Isrealites escaping through the Red Sea and having a party on the other side when ‘God showed his glory’ by drowning all the Egyptians. Then in Revelation I read about this beautiful place where people were being healed and death and pain and mourning were gone … except for the naughty people in the lake of fire.
I so much want to believe God is kind, as Helen and Brian McLaren and the autumn trees describe him. I wish he hadn’t let this horrible, infuriating bible be writ!
Comment by: Helen
14meg, here’s what I think about the Bible. It’s a book that tells me what other people believe about God.
Other people have lots of reasons for what they believe. Other people aren’t always right.
Why should the guys who wrote the Bible be more right about God than Brian McLaren? Oh, I know - because some other guys say the Bible is God’s Word. Well, maybe they are wrong!
Meg, you have the right to make up your own mind about all these things.
Comment by: JG
15Helen, I respect your position but there are weaknesses with this approach.
The same argument could be used for saying why should those who wrote the Bible be more right about God than [select a name at random - say] David Icke.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Icke
Maybe we are wrong and David Icke is right.
Maybe the 9/11 terrorists are right and God is delighted with their heroic actions.
As I said before, the Bible is clear about the importance of love and humility. Should we really be hasty in ditching the Bible just because there are things in it we don’t understand or because others have misused it?
Abuse happens when there is a lack of accountability. When leaders feel free to do what they like. The Bible, when properly used, calls leaders to account.
Comment by: Helen
16But JG aren’t there are also weaknesses with “The Bible is the Word of God” - such as, that could be wrong?
Comment by: JG
17Helen,
Yes indeed! I strongly dislike scripture being quoted at non Christians in an accusing or condemning manner.
I fully respect the right of people not to accept the authority of the Bible.
I think the point I’m mainly making is whilst I think I understand many of the problems people have with the Bible I think many of them result from misunderstandings - often or usually caused by “Christians” misuse of the Bible - particularly quoting verses out of context and failing to give proper emphasis to principles such as love.
I believe every verse, passage etc has to be read in the context of the whole Bible. So I understand and sympathise with Meg’s difficulty but believe these can be resolved when these passages are understood in the context of the whole Bible. NB the whole Bible - I don’t support the idea of leaving out the difficult bits.
Understanding the whole Bible takes more than a lifetime - so I struggle with people who tend to be dogmatic over their individual interpretation. And I apologise for the times when I fail in this regard - I try not to.
Comment by: Helen
18JG wrote:
I respect your belief.
With all due respect, what you say makes sense to me if the Bible is one book and the Word of God.
If it isn’t then there really is no need to consider things in the context of the ‘whole Bible’ and there’s no reason why the ‘difficult bits’ can’t be left out.
The early church got to choose what belongs in the Bible.
The New Testament authors got to pull verses egregiously out of context when they wrote their letters. Take a look sometime at what they did. I don’t believe we could get away with what they did with Old Testament verses. But they’re excused because of Christians doctrines about them being inspired by the Holy Spirit and what they wrote being the very Word of God. We cannot say “wow, they sure took THAT out of context!” But if you look you will see that they often did.
Why can’t we be like the early church and decide which books we think really belong in our collection of writings which tell us useful things about God? I can tell you right now, revelation is gone already out of mine. No way would that diatribe get in my collection.
And why can’t we be like the New Testament authors and say “I like this half-verse, but I don’t like the rest of the chapter. So I’ll pull this half-verse to substantiate what I believe.”
Comment by: JG
19Helen, I entirely agree with you but would go one stage further. If it isn’t then should we be giving much attention at all to stuff written 2,000 years or mor ago?
I see no difference between inspiration in writing and inspiration in preserving what was written and in collecting it together to form the Bible.
The point I was seeking to address was how could God inspire some of the stuff that was written? The “I can’t believe God could inspire passages eg about mass slaughter therefore I reject the Bible altogether” approach.
All I’m saying is that I believe when the Bible is read as a whole, with each verse and passage read in the context of the whole, many of these problems disappear - and much false teaching becomes apparent.
It still leaves us with the question of whether it is the word of God or not but it makes it easier to believe it could be.
If you know someone to be kind who comes out with something that puzzles you, you don’t immediately assume he/she isn’t kind after all. You would interpret what they said in the light of your knowledge that they are kind. I think I do this with the Bible. There is so much in the Bible about the kindness of God that I am clear in my mind that God is kind. There is so much about the importance of be loving that I am clear that God does not ask us to act in an unloving way.
Comment by: JG
20I need to clarify something. I think there is no problem with someone saying I really struggle to understand this passage, this book (eg Revelation) and deciding not to spend time trying to understand it but concentrating on other parts of the Bible instead. I think that is a very sensible approach. We are not all called to be Biblical scholars!
But what I am against is someone taking the bits of the Bible that suit them and leaving out the bits that don’t. I don’t think it is hard to understand the passages about loving one another so there is no excuse for ignoring those passages!
Comment by: Helen
21Thanks for explaining this, JG. This is so important in understanding why different people read the Bible and come to different conclusions about what it says about God.
I used to read it like you do. But I realized it was a lot of effort for me tomake fit everything fit “God is kind”. I started to be concerned that rather than taking each thing I read in the Bible at text value, I was ‘explaining away’ anything that didn’t fit my theory that “God is kind”. So, in effect, I was already ‘picking and choosing’ what to believe even though I thought what I was doing was believing everything the Bible said.
Is there actually a difference between “interpreting passage A in light of pasasge B” and “leaving out passage A”? Because if passage A is interpreted so it means the same as passage B, we don’t need passage A and aren’t we in effect leaving out anything different it says from passage B (since we have decided that passage B is the ‘clear’ one)?
I hope you can see what I’m saying because for me, noticing the similarity between
1)”passage A must be interpreted in light of passage B” and
2)”I believe what passage B says at face value and I am therefore deciding anything different passage A says must not mean what it says” and
3)”I pick and choose - I believe passage B but I ignore/leave out passage A”
was a huge revelation with huge ramifications about the way I view the Bible.
Comment by: Helen
22JG I would really like to hear how you understand the ’slaughter passages’ in view of “God is kind” - since ultimately, I have failed to be able to do that.
Comment by: JG
23Helen,
Thanks for your comments. One difficulty here is that I think comments need to be kept reasonably brief whereas here we are dealing with issues that can’t adequately be dealt with by way of brief comment or by long essays for that matter. But I don’t want to duck the issues either.
I highlighted kindness. But it is not just kindness on its own. There is justice as well. I believe kindness and justice go hand in hand.
If you met say the man that murdered the Amish children shortly before the massacre and knew what he was going to do - what would you do? What if you had implored him not to do it and given him every opportunity to turn away from his plan but all had failed. What if the only option was to stand aside and let him do it or to shoot him dead yourself? What would you do? Shooting him is not a kind thing to do. But letting him massacre children is even less kind.
I know this illustration probably causes more questions and problems than it answers. For example - why didn’t God stop him? Do we want a God that does intervene in that way and prevents us from doing anything that harms others? How far should God go? Stopping us only for murder or from anything that harms others?
Comment by: Helen
24Thanks JG. Yes, these are complex - that’s why I gave up trying to figure them out, in fact.
Comment by: JG
25Hence my comment 20 - I don’t think we all need to have these sort of issues fully figured out.
BUT - if these issues cause us a problem and cause us to doubt God’s kindness then we do need to address them or else switch off from God altogether.
We don’t need to have the answers. But if we understand the issues eg take on board that kindness and justice can go hand in hand then exactly how God achieves both knidness and justice need not be such an issue for us.
Another point about the Bible. I don’t think you can take the Bible and say “that is truth” as if truth can be captured in a book. I see it more as the Bible leading us into truth. It is part of the means not an end in itself.
Let me illustrate this. Take Mt Everest. What is the truth about Everest. You can see photos etc but you really need to be there to experience it. And you need to be there at different times to get the whole truth. Everest on a good day is very different to Everest in the midst of a storm. The Bible is like lots of photos of Everest, lots of accounts of people who have climbed Everest etc. No one photo, no one account is “THE truth” on its own. You need to put them altogether. And even when you have done that, you till need to interpret and know how much emphasis to give to different stories, different accounts. Everest is an experience not just an inanimate object.
If someone takes just one photo, one account from the book and claims that is THE truth about Everest I would say, well no, there is more to it than that.
Comment by: JG
26And of course, people that talk about Everest but have never been there themselves can only give second hand information about it.
In the same way, people who read the Bible but fail to put into practice what they are reading are like people who have never really experienced Everest.
Like reading a book about driving. A dry sterile exercise - until you are actually learning to drive.
Comment by: JG
27Sorry, third post in a row. For Everet you can susbtitute “the brilliant autumn trees” - no words and/or photos could fully capture Meg’s experience. They can only point the way. The truth is not in the words/photos but in what they are pointing to.
To experience that truth, you need to go there yourself.
Comment by: Dan
28Helen, on your trees question:
I definitely wouldn’t go for option 1 and yes I would go for option 2 but I don’t think this would be the whole story.
I would be happy that my trees were giving joy to people, but if the people enjoying the trees didn’t even know I existed, or weren’t interested, I think I’d be sad as well. If the people actually chose to acknowledge me once in a while - even say thanks - I think I’d be delighted!
I don’t think God wants to just watch us being happy at a distance - I think he wants to be involved - to have us include him in some way in that process. I’m not saying you’re not doing that, or that you should be formulaic about it, but I think God values and appreciates a heart which is grateful towards him and appreciates (as much as we’re able to) who he is and what he’s done. Sometimes I think, it even helps to verbalise it…
Comment by: Helen
29JG, for a concise example of my problems with the Bible, read this comment of mine (it’s over on the revolution conference blog so you might not have seen it)
Comment by: JG
30Helen, I fully agree with you that it is more complex than merely asking God to help us see people as he sees them.
There are different ways in which we can understand passages in the OT such as these and I don’t know which is the right approach or indeed if the answer is not something completely different that we haven’t even begun to think about. I think all I am sure about (for myself) that whatever the answer is, it is consistent with the twin principles of kindness and justice. And takes into account the Biblical idea that death is not the end so that someone dying isn’t the complete disaster that it is if death really is the end.
Comment by: Helen
31According to ‘Biblical Christianity’ this is true for believers; however, physical death IS a complete disaster if someone is headed for hell and all their opportunities to avoid it are over once they die.
Anyway I like that you mentioned this because you’re absolutely right that if ‘death is not the end’, that has all sorts of ramifications. If it is then, for example, sacrificing oneself for someone else takes on a whole other significance - because it’s a choice to lose everything rather than a choice to go through some suffering now followed by eternal bliss. (For a believer)
Comment by: Karen
32Why is death a “complete disaster” minus the biblical idea of an afterlife? Could you envision death as a natural process, similar to birth?
I’m going to a funeral at Saddleback church - Rick Warren’s church - tomorrow, so the idea of death and afterlife is on my mind today.
Comment by: JG
33Karen - I agree with you. I don’t see death as a disaster whether or not there is anything after death and I like your way of expressing it.
And this should influence the way we view things.
Sorry to hear you are going to a funeral but hope it is a positive experience so far as it can be. Whether or not someone has faith, I feel funerals should be a positive celebration of the person’s life and a time for family and friends to come together rather than a mournful affair though obviously it is hard when you have lost someone particularly if circumstances of death have been difficult.
Would be interested in your thoughts on Rick Warren and Saddleback. Have heard many positive comments about his books but have never read them. Put off by the title - I don’t believe we should be driven. It is about being rather than doing and although doing is important it should flow out of our being rather than our doing determining who we are eg earning peoples’ approval.
Comment by: Karen
34Thanks, JG. It will be a sad experience, I’m sure. The person who died was in the mid-40s, a very sweet wife and mom of 2 who got struck down by ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) out of the blue and suffered for four years as her body slowly degenerated. :-(
It seems like one of the cruelest diseases, and there’s no medical understanding yet about why certain people get it or how to fight it.
I’ve never been to Saddleback before either. I’m curious to see the facilities - I just wish my visit didn’t coincide with such a difficult occasion.
Comment by: Helen
35JG I thought the purpose-driven life was boring. I think you’re way past anything it says since you already think about your faith and do your best to live it out. I posted something related to it on the ebay atheist blog here:
The reason driven life
Warning: I don’t think you’ll find much praise for TPDL in that discussion.
Comment by: JG
36Karen,
So sorry to hear this. Must be so hard for her husband and children.
Comment by: meg
37the leaves are almost all fallen off The Trees Where God Is. Wish by grabbing the last one i could be close to god. my condolences to karen and the family of your friend.
my brother stephen died of a heart condition when he was 2 and i was a senior in high school. he was a very dear little boy. imo, death being the end would be a disaster, because it would mean stephen didn’t exist any more and i would never see him again, and i want him to exist and relate to those who love him. robert legge, my minister from childhood, told me just after stephen died that it was possible to have sureness and peace of stephen’s ok-ness with jesus, just like i had sureness in my heart that jesus was real and there for me.
it’s strange - now i struggle so much wondering about jesus and whether he loves me and whether he’s real, yet i still have this sureness that stephen is ok, is wiht jesus, is safe.
call me sentimental if you like!
Comment by: Karen
38I understand, Meg. I’m just as sentimental as the next person - probably more so (I bawl at the silliest moments!)
We all want to believe that we’ll see loved ones again, and that although they’re not with us, they are somewhere in a happy place. It is what I believed for many years also. As they say, “If only wishing made it so.”
Comment by: Eliza
39Karen, I’m sorry to hear about your friend with ALS, and her family. And Meg, how sad to lose your dear little brother, and so young. *sniff*
Comment by: Eliza
40JG, you said:
Why and how are you sure that the answer to understanding sections of the OT like this, whatever that answer is, must be consistent with kindness and justice?
Why must that be so? (Must it??)
Isn’t it possible that the OT means what it seems to mean on the surface: the tale of a God who is jealous and who kills people and groups - or allows their killing - when they rival his chosen people, or when they don’t live up to his expectations? The tale of a God whose actions don’t in fact jibe with the modern concepts of kindness and justice? (At least, not without contorting those terms or saying we humans can’t possibly understand Him, or those concepts as they apply to Him.)
Comment by: benjamin ady
41Eliza,
Exactly! I was fascinated last year to have the privilege of attending a Jewish Purim service, where they read the old Testament book of Esther and celebrate the demise of the evil Haman and the victory of the Jews some 2500 years ago. It was fascinating to me to see that the Jews at this service, and apparently at every such service on that particular day in the year, had this amazing capacity for the idea of vengeance. One person read out the entire book of Esther, and every time he said Haman’s name, the entire congregation would shout and yell and make lots of noise to obliterate the mention of Haman, as if to obliterate his very memory. I think Jews, who take the old testament for their textbook, have a much better developed capacity for hatred and vengeance than your average Christians, who mostly take the new testament for their textbook. I dearly hope this isn’t coming aross as racist–I mean to be talking about religions, not races, and furthermore I think most Christians would be benefitted by getting further in touch with the ideas of hatred and vengeance–it’s almost as if Christians simply aren’t allowed to feel the emotions and think the thoughts around these ideas, even though (I think) sometimes they are totally appropriate. Plus, I think Christians *do* feel and think them even though they sort of aren’t officially allowed to, so they remain hidden and perhaps more dangerous for it.
Comment by: meg
42Yes! It’s so disabling, this idea that as christians, we mustn’t hate (injustice), we must forgive (and do nothing to stop) sexual abuse, we must be nice (and not address the horrible realities of life), we must be happy (and not think about people being tortured, children dying of fever and diarrhoea and disease when these things are all treatable…)
Comment by: Helen
43meg, I’m so sorry about your brother. :( I’m glad your questions about your own faith haven’t flowed over and caused you any concern about your brother.
Speaking for myself, it only makes sense to me to think that Jesus who said “Let the little children come to me” held his arms out to your little brother and welcomed him.
(It only makes sense that he would do that for anyone of any age who, on seeing him, saw someone they wanted to hang out with. But that’s just my opinion)
Comment by: JG
44Eliza, many thanks for your comments. I fully accept your question.
If someone said, “I want to see God as kind and just therefore I will interpret the OT in that way” then IMO that would be the wrong approach. That is no different to just getting the Bible to say whatever you want it to say. I am not advocating that approach at all.
Rather, what I am saying is that as I read the Bible, I see these principles of kindness and justice appearing again and again. I see these as twin principles, that althought potentially contradictory, are in fact like two sides of the same coin. I see understanding these two principles and the tension between them as the key or one of the keys to understanding the OT and indeed the Bible as a whole. Some people see the OT as all about the justice of God and the NT as all about the kindness and mercy of God. I see both principles throught the BIble so don’t make the same distinction between OT and NT.
Picking up Benjamin and Meg’s points, I completely agree that concentrating merely on the kindness of God is insufficient. Justice is just as important as kindness. There are two sides of the same coin, you can’t have one without the other. When we see things in the BIble which relate to God’s justice we need to see them in the light of God’s kindness. When we see things relating to kindness we need to see them alongside God’s justice.
Let me give some examples that I find helpful.
1) Sodom and Gormorrah. Abraham intercedes with God who agrees that even if there are just 10 righteous people in the city, he will spare it.
2) In the fall of Jericho, Rahab and her family are spared. Not only are they spared but Rahab (a prostitute) appears in the royal lineage - an ancestor not only of David, Solomon and the kings of Judah but of Jesus as well.
3) In the book of Ruth, there is an account of how a non Israelite left widowed ended up marrying Boaz. Again Ruth appears in the royal lineage as an ancestor of David, Solomon, the kings of Judah and Jesus as well.
4) Ahab was one of the worst kings but when he responded to Elijah’s rebuke and showed contrition, God had mercy on him.
If the Bible was inspired by the writers not by God then why do the Israelites give such a critical account of themselves. When you read the OT I think it becomes clear that God did not think highly of the Israelites. And why do they give such a “warts and all” account of their great leaders such as Moses, Elijah and David. For example David’s adultery, murder of Bathsheeba’s husband etc is all there recorded for posterity. Why would human beings record such things? Why would they record non Israelities in the royal lineage such as Rahab, a prostitute? If the writer was anti Israel, why would he refer to them as God’s chosen people? I understand the difficulties with concepts of divine inspiration but I believe there are just as many difficulties if we take the Bible to be human inspired.
I’m not saying it is all easy and self apparent, not at all. I am merely saying there is another way of looking at this.
Comment by: JG
45Meg,
I fully agree. One of the things I like in the OT is how people “rage” at God eg in some of the Psalms and some of the books of prophecy.
They don’t accept things as they are. They tell God how they feel, they question him and say, how can this be right?
Another reason why I like the OT and find it uplifting, affirming and encouraging.
And I see this as something that is encouraged in the Bible, not frowned upon.
I strongly dislike the tendency amonst some Christians and churches to impose “niceness” - you can be as mean and dishonest as you like but the unforgiveable sin is to raise your voice or to be upset.
I thing there is a world of difference between “niceness” and “kindness” for example niceness means never embracing dirt, difficulty, not responding when someone tells you you’ve upset them etc etc. Kindness means getting stuck in, touching lepers, being seen with those the world despises etc.
Comment by: Helen
46JG wrote:
JG I respect what you’re saying.
But in practice, surely this is what everyone does who believes the Bible teaches one consistent message:
Once they think they have figured out what that message is, they take any part of the Bible that at face value disagrees with the one message, and ‘interpret it’ in a way so it fits the one message.
So - I don’t think it’s possible to avoid making the Bible say what you want it to say, even though I respect that your intention is not to do that, if you have the belief that it teaches one consistent message.
I think it’s impossible to have that belief and not have what you believe be ‘the one consistent message’ rather than ‘the Bible’.
And if you ever don’t take a passage at face value, that introduces the possibility that your ‘one message’ is not quite what the Bible teaches. (Because maybe you were supposed to take that particular passage at face value, instead of the one you based your ‘one message’ on, which at face value conflicts with it)
Do you see what I’m saying?
Comment by: JG
47Helen,
I fully accept what you are saying in terms of the difficulties we face in interpretating the Bible and I disagree with anyone who seeks to be dogmatic about what any particular verse or passage means.
I don’t agree with the “one consitent message” approach. Rather I see the Bible as like a set of tools to help us get to the truth rather than “freeze dried” truth that is just there to be understood.
Different people and different situations help us to gain new insights into what the Bible does mean.
We need to be open minded rather than closed minded.
Comment by: Helen
48JG, the churches and Bible studies I was in really pushed the ‘one consistent message’ POV. Or so it seemed to me. So that’s what I’m familiar with. I respect you saying that’s not quite how you view the Bible.
Comment by: Eliza
49JG, I guess each story can be read (interpreted) more than one way, & more than one take-home message gleaned, depending on the reader. In the examples you gave, I see unjust slaughter rather than justice and/or kindness:
…Right, but He doesn’t spare the city, does He? There’s not alot of detail to suggest there was a thorough search for 6 more righteous people (besides Lot and his family) - there may have been people who weren’t in the crowd, for example women and children, who might have “counted”, but instead were burned in the sulfur and flames.
Yes, but everyone else in Jericho is slaughtered:
Joshua 6:21 (NIV) Then they devoted all in the city to destruction, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys, with the edge of the sword.
And this is obviously thought to be a laudable act, because:
Joshua 6:27 (NIV) So the LORD was with Joshua, and his fame was in all the land.
In 2 Kings 10, alot of people are slaughtered, including 70 princes, 42 members of Ahaziah’s family, and all the ministers of Baal.
Then everyone dear to Ahab is killed:
2 Kings 10:11 So Jehu killed everyone in Jezreel who remained of the house of Ahab, as well as all his chief men, his close friends and his priests, leaving him no survivor. …
10:17 When Jehu came to Samaria, he killed all who were left there of Ahab’s family; he destroyed them, according to the word of the LORD spoken to Elijah. …
God’s mercy as described here - slaughtering everyone except Ahab, all of his family and everyone dear to him - that doesn’t seem all that merciful, imo. And it also doesn’t seem just, because looks what happens to the guy who carried out all this killing-of-Ahab’s-family:
2 Kings 10:30 The LORD said to Jehu, “Because you have done well in accomplishing what is right in my eyes and have done to the house of Ahab all I had in mind to do, your descendants will sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation.” 31 Yet Jehu was not careful to keep the law of the LORD, the God of Israel, with all his heart. He did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam, which he had caused Israel to commit.
I keep hearing that I (we) shouldn’t use our modern ideals of justice to judge these ancient stories, but do they have to fall so very, very far from that which we would now consider right, just, and good?
Comment by: JG
50Eliza,
Many thanks for your comments. I never said this was easy! And I certainly don’t have all the answers, I can only suggest thoughts and ideas I have found helpful.
I certainly think there is a danger in trying to import 21st century values into text written 1,000s of years ago (the thing you say you keep hearing - sorry). This isn’t to say that the text is out of date and irrelevant. Rather it is to say we need to take it as it is and ask in what way is this relevant to us today. What is it teaching us about God’s character and the nature of people? It certainly isn’t IMO saying it is alright for us to go out and massacre other communities, nations etc!
One answer I often hear but don’t find entirely satisfactory is that in the OT we have an incomplete revelation of God. That only in the NT is the revelation complete - in Jesus. This doesn’t satisfy me because this seems to weaken the idea of the Bible being the inspired word of God. There may well be something in this because the character of the human writer comes through as well.
I think it is relevant that at this time it was (I believe) common place for battles and massacres such as these to be carried out. In what way were God’s people different? I believe there are plenty of examples of God’s mercy, of these things happening as a last resort not on a capricious whim. So for example in Genesis 15:16 God talks of giving the land to Abraham’s descendants in the future, not now because “the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”
Take Genesis 21:8-21. Why would God be concerned about Hagar and her son Ishmael particularly when Ishmael, as I understand is considered to be the ancestor of those peoples who are now Muslim. Genesis 25:19 “…and they lived in hostility towards all their brothers.”
If this was merely a human inspired text, why would God’s care for Hagar be recorded? What purpose would this serve? If it is was recorded, would it not be scrubbed out when they regarded Ishmael’s descendants as their enemy? It makes no sense.
Look at Hosea 11 (first book after Daniel). This talks about how Israel went away from God and the consequences of this. Of God’s love for his people - verses 3-4. The consequences v5-6. Here I believe we see God’s justice. But then v8-9 we see God’s mercy. This passage I believe illustrates the dilemma between justice and mercy/kindness. It indicates to me a God who must be just but who longs to be merciful, who has no desire to punish.
I fully appreciate that these are not complete answers and may well appear wholly unsatisfactory but all I hope to achieve is that it is a little more complex than merely seeing God as a bloodthirsty tyrant who suuports the Israelites and encourages them to slaughter all their enemies. I don’t think a fair reading of the OT supports such a view.
Another example. In the midst of the law, we find provisions about not reaping to the edges of fields - Leviticus 19:9. We see this in action in the story of Ruth - chapter 2.
There are many references to the importance of caring for widows and the fatherless eg Exodus 22: 22, Deut 10:18, Psalm 146:9, and Isaiah 1:17.
When I read the OT, I don’t ignore the passages which appear to be about massacre and slaughter. I don’t fully understand it all. But in the midst of it all I find many references to God’s kindness, his mercy, his justice etc etc. It is not reading things into the text - they are already there.
How usual is it to find references to kindness and mercy such as these in writings of the same time as the Bible?
One last thing, Isaiah 40:22 refers to the circle of the earth. Now others may well be able to explain this from the original language and show I am talking nonsense, that this is just a quirk, dleiberate or otherwise of translation with the benefit of 20th century knowledge but “circle of the earth” suggests to me a globe not a flat earth. If this does reflect the original then I find it interesting that the BIble is suggesting a round earth long before any human mind conceive d such a thing.
Comment by: Helen
51JG wrote:
But JG, this verse still implies “I will get you the land by wiping out the Amorites.” I suppose it was helpful to that current generation of Amorites that God was going to wait. However, ultimately he was going to, and did, wipe them all out.
The OT does support a God who wipes out whole races ‘because of their sin’ - men, women and children.
JG, parents who kill their children have only one defense that helps reduce their sentence: insanity. Saying “Oh but I am kind!” doesn’t make any difference to the judge and jury, does it?
So, with all due respect, while I don’t deny the references to kindness, people who don’t consider themselves to have a relationship, who read about God wiping races out, will not be convinced that God is kind just because the Bible claims God says he is kind.
Comment by: JG
52Helen,
Thanks for your response. This is just a short comment picking up one aspect of this.
It is very hard for us to relate to events 1,000s of years ago or to form views on what may or may not have been appropriate at the time.
It is kindness AND justice - not just kindness on its own.
Looking at a 20th century situation, was it right to drop bombs on Japan in 1945 - or on Dresden. Many innocent people lost their lives. But would more innocent lives have been lost if the bombs hadn’t been dropped? I don’t know. But perhaps this gives us some insight when trying to understand the OT.
Comment by: Dan
53I have a lot of problems making sense of the Old Testament for basically the same reasons as Helen I think.
JG - thanks for pointing out that it’s not all violence and destruction! One of the things I do like about the O.T. is that there’s a lot of love and mercy and common sense in there as well!
For me though, the New Testament doesn’t really make sense without the Old Testament. The Old Testament is the backdrop to Jesus’ ministry - it creates the context in which he lived, taught and died and his entire role and identity only really properly makes sense within this context.
So I can’t just abandon the Old Testament, and I can’t see any obvious way of just removing the bits I don’t like without seriously undermining the integrity of the whole. I suppose I could create my own canon by just picking the books I was happy with but I’m not sure I’d be left with much and I’d certainly lose a lot of what seems to me to be very important stuff! So this leaves me in a bit of a quandry!
It’s a quandry I have to live with for the time being - unless anyone else has any helpful suggestions?
Comment by: Helen
54JG, I see what you are saying. My concern is that some Christians are very dismissive and invalidating towards people who read about - genocide - in the OT and say “Ewwww…” I think that’s a valid response and it really bothers me when I see Christians evidently not even able to acknowledge that it is. I’m not saying you’re one of them. I’m just saying I have run into them.
Comment by: benjamin ady
55Just thinking about Karen’s comment … it seems to me that, to believe or not believe anything takes similar risk, leap, assumption, faith! know what i mean? for someone to believe in an excellent, amazing party for everyone after we die, or a hideous torture for some, or that we just end, or that little angels and devils come and poke us, or whatever … to ‘believe’ any of these things seems to me to be a step of faith - what do y’all think?
Comment by: JG
56Helen, I know just what you mean - I have run into them as well and I react to them in the same way as you do. There are real issues here and there are no easy answers.
Stephen Gaukroger has written a commentary on Joshua (”Battle Ground”) and includes a chapter on the difficulties discussed here. He asks: Why all the violence? He says: “The dilemma is that God seems to be telling Joshua to butcher all these men, women and children. Over the years I have grappled with this issue. Is the God of Joshua the same God who is revealed in Jesus in the NT”
He doesn’t give clear answers to this dilemma but mentions “six principles of interpretation” I will attempt to briefly summarise these points.
1) The OT is on the dark side of the cross. Clarity of revelation after the cross.
2) Interpret the unclear in the light of the clear not vice versa.
3) Bible is true but we need to try and understand what it means.
4) In the Bible there are different kinds of literature. If it says the trees clapped their hands we are not meant to take this literally!
5) Human understanding of God develops.
6) Don’t import 20th century values - there are plenty of things wrong with our culture, we shouldn’t assume that we have it all right and that previous generations got it all wrong.
He then goes on to talk about the nature of the Canaanite culture that “God” told Joshua to sweep away including child sacrifice (eg throwing children alive into hot furnances), sexual and physical abuse of women, children having bones broken to appease their God’s etc. Where SG gets this information I’m not sure but I have no reason to disbelieve him.
SG doesn’t say this but it is possible that death at the hands of the Israelites was far more merciful than life within Canaanite society - particularly if there is life after death. We shouldn’t assume that all women and children killed by the Israelites were “condemned to hell” - even if that is how some people think.
Comment by: dh
57Well the Bible says “It is appointed unto man once to dieandafter this the judgement.” It appears to me that there are no further chances in the afterlife. Also, Jesus doesn’t condemn us to hell we condemn ourselves by choosing to reject Christ, “If you deny Me I will deny you before My Father in heaven.” Even Jesus says in relation to people questioning Jesus about God’s judgement by saying “…they are condemned already.” The fact is although we are created in the image of God wearen’t God and by sin are “…short of the Glory of God.” The fact is we should be happy that we are even alive because we all deserve to die by our sin. Only when we accept Christ as Savior and Lord and Believe that Jesus has risen from the dead and repent from our sin can we receive what Christ made available to all at the death and resurrection of Jesus. The fact is the OT was to show that those who reject with a hard heart, who God knows will never accept the one true God deserve death and that thecall to the world was to Believe in the One True God. Heck, Ninevah escaped the OT wrath by Believing in the One True God so to say that all of thejudgement from God is “bad” is a presumption we shouldn’t make on God because ALL of God’s judgements are just, pure and Holy. Do we understand this fully? no But by Faith we know that God is at all times that. God doesn’t allow bad except for when He tests us. The bad in the super majority sense is there because WE by our sin or by living in a sinful world the badthings happen. Another reason is for those who are Believers to Believe. I know many a person who accepted Christ at a funeral of a Believer. The Believer dying was that bad? yes but in a sense it wasgood in that the Believer is in heaven and more people entered the Kingdom from the situation. When one looks at the bigger picture rather than a particular bad incident you realize that our understanding of bad and good is flawed. If one understands this then one won’t need to question these things about God. I love what Isaiah said “Woe is me for I am a man of unclean lips.” When we see our deeds as being good and have them overshadow our true nature of being short of the Glory of God the need to question these things diminishes.
Comment by: JG
58Benjamin - I agree. I think for me, although I do believe there is something after death, it is all pretty unclear and even if it is true, we are still to make the most of life here and now.
So in one sense - make the most of life today and regard anything tomorrow and beyond as a bonus. But if it all goes wrong today, tomorrow (ie both Thursday 23 Nov and in a wider sense the future both here on earth and anything after death) is a new day and a fresh start.
Comment by: dh
59Well it doesn’t have to “go wrong tomorrow” if we accept Christ as our Savior and Believe with our heart, soul and mind that God hasrisen from the dead. I don’tsee how it isn’t clear when the Bible makes it clear. Could it be that it isn’t clear because we choose not to accept the reality of what is said in God’s Word? Not being harsh but To me a good God doesn’t allow sin in heaven or those who don’t want to be there to be there. I see ALL of life this one and the afterlife as one big eternity “eternal life” and that one can be eternally alive by accepting Christ or one can be eternally dead by choosing to reject Christ. To me this isn’t bad but good.
Comment by: JG
60dh - I do believe in life after death and I do believe what the Bible says - but I am not clear on what it means in practice. I simply trust!
Comment by: meg
61jg, i like your comment 45. thanks!
i like the way in all your comments you honour the bible, wanting to work out what it means, but also honour its mystery, complexity, curiousness, etc.
dh, i’m in the middle of brian mclaren’s hell book (yes, i found it! phew! don’t have to read the bible… :) ) and according to brian, jesus’ hell talk was not about what happens when we die, and whether we’ve accepted jesus, but about the challenging nitty gritty of our day to day lives.
this simplicity and clarity you attribute to the bible isn’t actually there! i’m amazed, as i read this book (it’s entitled ‘the last word and the word after that’) how much my assumptions about christianity are modern-evangelical-culture rather than responses to the bible as a whole, or even to more-than-just-our-favourite-memory-verses …
Comment by: Helen
62JG, I like comment 45 too.
Comment by: Helen
63meg, I don’t find the Bible to be clear either!
For many years I tried to believe it was. I learned how to squish all it says into a box called ‘Conservative Evangelical Systematic Theology’.
I tried to ignore that it didn’t really fit. I sat on the lid of the box to keep it shut - because if I didn’t it would have sprung open! ;)
One day I decided, hey, why am I doing this? If it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t fit. And it’s not my problem - I don’t have to sit on this lid forever!
Comment by: JG
64Helen,
Thanks for your comments.
I think people who do “sit on the lid” really miss out. It is far better to acknowledge the difficulty and (so far as possible) wrestle with the issue rather than make do with something very superficial. Even if the issue can’t be fully resolved, it is at least possible to gain a deeper understanding.
For me, the issues raised on this thread have not been resolved in my own mind but on the basis of what I do understand, they do not trouble me. I don’t fully understand electricity but I feel sufficiently confident to use it, to connect plugs to the socket and switch my appliances on. I expect them to work when I do connect them. I wouldn’t have confidence to attempt anything too ambitious like a rewiring of my house because I wouldn’t know what I was doing. BUt ordinary use is fine. I’m not worried that I will set my house on fire if I use electricity. I’m confident it is safe.
In the same way, there is plenty I don’t understand about the Bible. But in the ordinary everyday way of things, I feel happy to use it and rely on it.
I think it is a question of what we use it for. I don’t believe it is a text book on HOW the world was created. It is not a history book that we can use to understand what happened historically in the past - I do believe it to be accurate but its purpose is not as a history book and I don’t think you need to accept it as being historically accurate in order to use it for its intended purpose.
I do believe it is very accurate in its portrayal of human nature - which does not change over the years. So for example, after Elijah has this amazing encounter with the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18 he slips into serious depression and says to God, “Take my life, I am no better than my ancestors.” I believe this to be so true to life. We are in some ways at our most vulnerable after a “high” and even great leaders can be prone to self doubt and depression. And I love the way that God gently restores him.
There are many ways in which I have found the Bible is an accurate “mirror” we can gaze into to find better understanding of ourselves and the world around us. But this only works effectively if we can take the Bible as it really is and not the interpretation that has been forced on us by others. I believe it is the latter which causes people to reject the Bible altogether and I fully sympathise with people like yourself and with your reasons for doing so. I suppose I am simply seeking to open up a different path - don’t go back down that old one which proved to be so unhelpful but be open to the possibility there is a different path - and only begin to go down it if and when you are ready.
Lastly such a path does not need to be the path I’ve gone down. I believe God speaks to different people in different ways through the Bible and that is why it is so helpful hearing how different people interpret things in the Bible. I’ve been amazed how some speakers have managed to open up new lines of thinking for me out of passages which I feel I am throughly familiar with.
Comment by: Helen
65JG wrote:
Hi JG,
What I’ve found is that it doesn’t trouble me not to pray, not to read the Bible and if I do think about the Bible, to refer to parts I like and ignore the rest.
The thing is, I have no reason to go down it and I can’t imagine ever having one again.
Comment by: JG
66Helen, noted! Going back to your comment 21:
I think there is another option. If we take passage A on its own it either makes no sense to us or we take it as having a particular meaning.
But when we read passage B and use that to help us understand passage A then passage A takes on a whole new meaning. That meaning is not the same as passage B. Passage B may merely provide the key to unlocking passage A.
I’m tired so can’t provide a good, simple illustration of this. But take say the story of Rahab. Joshua 2 and 6:22-25. We can take this story on its own, but I think it acquires greater significance when read in the light of Matthew 1:5. In the genealogy of Jesus, it says “Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab.”
And it was Boaz who married Ruth as also stated in verse 5.
So Rahab was a prostitute from Jericho and Ruth was a Moabitess. Neither of them were Israelites. And yet their place in the genealogy of Jesus is specifically highlighted.
So passage B opens opens up and expands our understanding of passage A. It doesn’t mean we forget about passage A and just concentrate on passage B.
I want to discover these new meanings and understandings. I want wrong pre conceived ideas and wrong teachings I’ve inherited or developed blown away.
Comment by: Helen
67Thanks JG. I guess I was thinking more of when passage A and passage B on the face of it didn’t seem to agree. But if we believe the Bible is consistent then we have to force them to agree somehow.
I don’t see any apparent disagreement in the two passages you mentioned. One merely provides more information about the other. It may be surprising information but I don’t see it as apparently conflicting information.
I agree with you in wanting my wrong ideas challenged and fixed.
But I don’t currently have the type of belief about the Bible which makes it the judge of my ideas rather than the other way around.