Daily Old Testament: Nehemiah 4 and My Own Article on "Friends and Scripture" (Part 9)

Nehemiah 4 – Sanballat mocks the Jews saying, “What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore things? Will they sacrifice? Will they finish it in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish—and burned ones at that?” (4:2)

Sounds like a passage that might have inspired “will these bones live?” (Ezekiel 37)

Tobiah the Ammonite mocks the soundness of the stone wall, which at this point is up about half-way (4:6). The mocking turns to anger as the walls go up; they begin to plot against Jerusalem and “cause confusion in it” (4:8).

The strength of the builders is also beginning to wane—“The workers are getting tired, and there is so much rubble to be moved. We will never be able to build the wall by ourselves” (4:10).

Nehemiah stations people all along the open places in the wall and tries to encourage everyone. When the threat of attack is passed they go back to work. “From that day on, half of my servants worked on construction, and half held the spears, shields, bows, and body-armor; and the leaders posted themselves behind the whole house of Judah, who were building the wall” (4:16-17). They work with a sword strapped to their side. They worked from dawn to dark, never taking off their clothes. “[E]ach kept his weapon in his right hand” (4:23).

“Friends and Scripture”
Introduction: This article is one I wrote some years ago and it was eventually part of the book I wrote called Leadings: A Catholic’s Journey Through Quakerism. My plan here is just to include a few paragraphs of the chapter each day.

Part 9

Fox goes on in a very depressed state for a long time after this experience, mostly because he sees that he is a creature with a divided heart.  Like the people of Israel, he continues to have a thirst for the comforts and pleasures of the world.  The thirst for freedom, he discovers, is not unequivocal:

“I found that there were two thirsts in me, the one after the creatures, to have gotten help and strength there, and the other after the Lord the creator and his Son Jesus Christ.  And I saw all the world could do me no good.  If I had had a king’s diet, palace, and attendance, all would have been as nothing, for nothing gave me comfort but the Lord by his power.  And I saw professors [professing Christians], priests, and people were whole and at ease in that condition which was my misery, and they loved that which I would have been rid of.  But the Lord did stay my desires upon himself from whom my help came, and my care was cast upon him alone.  Therefore, all wait patiently upon the Lord, whatsoever condition you be in; wait in the grace and truth that comes by Jesus; for if ye so do, there is a promise to you, and the Lord God will fulfill it in you” (Fox’s Journal 12-13).

The journey through the wilderness looks to our worldly mind as if it should be short and direct, but in truth it is long and often circuitous.  It is not a journey of miles, but of mileposts that are spiritual.  We must just go on in childlike trust, seeking God’s presence in the most personal way.  It requires great patience to endure the testing and purging process, which constitutes the work of the law.  The law of Moses which Christians tend to dismiss as unimportant in the ministration of Christ, Fox sees as essential to the progress of the soul.  He does not see it as outward law but as a pure spiritual fire that burns up all that is contrary to God’s will.  The painful inner discernment Fox feels throughout this ministration is the work of the law in him, a law that must be passed through to get to the ministration of the prophets and of Christ:

“The pure and perfect law of God is over the flesh to keep it and its works, which are not perfect, under, by the perfect law; and the law of God that is perfect answers the perfect principle of God in every one . . .None knows the giver of this law but by the spirit of God, neither can any truly read it or hear its voice but by the spirit of God” (Fox’s Journal 15).

Daily Old Testament: Ezra 9-10 and My Own Article on "Friends and Scripture" (Part 7)

Ezra 9 – Ezra, continuing his first person account, which was begun in chapter 8, says that officials approached him to tell him that the people of the land have not held themselves separate from the pagan people—the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzies, Jebusties, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians and Amorites. They “have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and for their sons” (9:2). Ezra says, “When I heard this, I tore my garment and my mantel, and pulled hair from my head and beard, and sat appalled” (9:3). Others tremble with him.

        

At the evening sacrifice, he kneels down, throwing his arms up to pray: “O my God, I am too ashamed and embarrassed to lift my face to you, my God, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens. From the days of our ancestors to this day we have been deep in guilt, and for our iniquities, we, our kings, and our priests have been handed over to the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, to plundering, and to utter shame, as is now the case. But now for a brief moment favor has been shown by the Lord or God, who has left us a remnant, and given us a stake in his holy place, in order that he may brighten our eyes and grant us a little sustenance in our slavery. For we are slaves; yet our God has not forsaken us in our slavery, but has extended to us his steadfast love before the kings of Persia, to give us new life to set up the house of our God, to repair its ruins, and to give us a wall in Judea and Jerusalem” (9:6-8).

In return they have forsaken the Lord’s commandments. The land is polluted with the abominations these pagan people have engaged in. “O Lord, God of Israel, you are just, but we have escaped as a remnant, as is now the case. Here we are before you in our guilt, though no one can face you because of this” (9:15). The Jerusalem Bible note says intermarriage was not forbidden in ancient Israel, but Deuteronomy forbids it to combat idolatry—having witnessed the problems brought on by such marriages as Ahab’s. The threat of pollution and dissolution was great after the return because most of the returnees were men.

Ezra 10 – The people are moved by Ezra’s sermon. Shecaniah, one of the men addresses Ezra: “We have broken faith with our God and have married foreign women from the people of the land, but even now there is hope for Israel in spite of this. So now let us make a covenant with our God to send away all these wives and their children, according to the counsel for my lord and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God; and let is be done according to the law” (10:2-3). They all rise and swear to do this.

Ezra spends the night in continuing fasting, “mourning the faithlessness of the exiles” (10:6).

They make a proclamation throughout Judah and Jerusalem to all that they should assemble on penalty of losing all their property and being banned from the community. All the people of Judah and Benjamin gather in the open square, “trembling because of this matter and because of the heavy rain” (10:9). Ezra gets up and asks them to make confession, to separate themselves from the “people of the land and from the foreign wives.” They all agree, but they make a plan to pursue it over a period of time. A committee goes through all the men who were found to have foreign wives. The ones who were priests or Levites are listed; the others are also listed through to the end of the chapter. All the wives are sent away with their children.

“Friends and Scripture”

Introduction: This article is one I wrote some years ago and it was eventually part of the book I wrote called Leadings: A Catholic’s Journey Through Quakerism. My plan here is just to include a few paragraphs of the chapter each day.

Part 7

The “ministration of Moses” is what the soul enters into next.  It is the time of crying out to God, of being led out of the “world” (i.e. Egypt, the flesh, bondage, death) and into a wilderness where we learn to discern what must be left behind and what must be clung to.  In this ministration, we also come to see our transgressions through what Fox calls “the pure law of God,” a law which he believed was written on the heart because Christ had brought that new covenant into being. This law is not to be done away with but clung to and obeyed; the time of trial and judgment under it must be endured. 

In Fox’s story, the ministration of Moses begins when he heads out to look for some wiser, more knowledgeable Christian who can help him discover why he is caught in the dilemma of not being able to possess what he professes. As he enters this ministration he is brought into a greater sense of clarity concerning the things God loves and the things He condemns. 

The earliest stages of this ministration might well have been called the ministration of Abraham, for it is really an Abraham-like break from the past that he must first pass through to enter the wilderness God has in mind for him. Like Abraham, Fox is called away from his “ancestral home,” called to “[leave] all the religions and worships and teachers [of the world] behind. . .and follow . . .the Lord” (Fox’s Letters 411). Fox clearly sees what he is leaving behind as the traditional (mistaken) ways his ancestors have practiced Christianity. 

Propelled by distress but also by faith in God’s promises, Fox roams the countryside looking for someone to help him. There is a great sense of the darkness that threatens him everywhere within and without.  He thirsts for the reality of God’s presence, but he also struggles with the thirst he has for human comforts and human answers -- just as the people of God thirsted as they wandered forty years in the desert.  Like them he too still believes that some human power might save him, but human beings disappoint every time.  The entire essence of the ministration of Moses is to bring the seeker “off the world” and off of the world’s wisdom and strength to rely wholly upon the Lord, to learn the law God has inscribed on the heart and to learn what can stand in His presence and what must be left behind.

Daily Old Testament: Ezra 7-8 and My Own Article on "Friends and Scripture" (Part 6)

Ezra 7 – The reign of Artaxerxes begins around 464. This is the period during which Ezra makes his appearance. He is the son of Seraiah—Azariah—Hilkiah—Shallum—Zadok—Ahitub—Amariah—Azariah—Meraioth—Zerahiah—Uzzi—Bukki—Abishua—Phinehas—Eleazar—Aaron.

He arrives from Babylon around the 7^th year of Artaxerxes’ reign. He “had set his heart to study the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach the statutes and ordinances in Israel” (7:10). The document authorizing Ezra’s mission also permits any other priests, Levites, singers, doorkeepers, or other servants of the Temple to go with him and to take money, food, and other necessities. Freewill offerings from others they may take, and no one is permitted to levy a toll or other tribute on them. “Whatever is commanded by the God of heaven, let it be done with zeal for the house of the God of heaven, or wrath will come upon the realm of the king and his heirs” (7:23).

The chapter ends with this nice passage. “Praise the Lord, the God of our ancestors, who put such a thing as this into the heart of the king to glorify the house of the Lord in Jerusalem, and who extended to me steadfast love before the king and his counselors and before all the kings mighty officers” (7:28). A Jerusalem Bible note says Ezra as a scribe was probably “a kind of minister for Jewish affairs at the Persian court. But because Ezra was such a scribe, when they are transplanted back to Jerusalem, the term comes to mean one who reads, translates, and expounds the Law to God’s people. Ezra is the father of these scribes. The edict alluded to here meant that the Jewish communities were to be governed on the basis of the Law.

Ezra 8 - So a second migration from Babylonia goes forward with Ezra. The names of those heads of families who accompany him are listed. He makes sure they have at least one descendant of the Levites with them—Sherebiah—but he has family too.

When all are assembled at the river Ahava, they fast in supplication for a safe journey. He says “I was ashamed to ask the king for a band of soldiers and cavalry to protect us . . .since we had told the king that the hand of our God is gracious to all who seek him. . .” (8:22). He turns the precious gold an silver offered to them for the house of God to the leading priests, and tells them to guard it until it can be turned over to the chief priests and Levites and heads of families in Jerusalem.

They leave on the 12^th day of the 1^st month and with God’s help come through ambushes on the way. They get to Jerusalem and stay three days before turning over the valuables to Meremoth, son of Uriah and others. The returnees offer burnt offerings to God, and they deliver the kings’ commissions to the king’s satraps and to the governors of the province.

“Friends and Scripture”

Introduction: This article is one I wrote some years ago and it was eventually part of the book I wrote called Leadings: A Catholic’s Journey Through Quakerism. My plan here is just to include a few paragraphs of the chapter each day.

Part 6

But even this description of Quaker “biblical vision” does not exhaust what Friends did with scripture.  Fox saw the scripture story as inexhaustibly revelatory of God’s work in human life.  A similar but more detailed approach to the scripture’s narrative line involved breaking it down into “ministrations” or stages of God’s redeeming love. 

He believed that he himself had passed through a process of redemption substantially the same as what had happened in the history recorded in scripture, and he told the story of his own life in terms of these ministrations. The saga as Fox saw it was a passage through four or five “ministrations”: the “ministration of condemnation;” the “ministration of Moses;” the “ministration of the prophets” which culminated in the “ministration of John the Baptist;” and the last ministration—the ministration of Christ’s immediate presence and power.   He does not actually call this last a “ministration,” but it is clear that he saw Christ’s ministration in the new covenant as the substance and culmination of all the preceding ministrations.

The “ministration of condemnation” was the stage we were in when the real truth of our spiritual condition in the fall was opened to us inwardly; it is a condition of spiritual death and darkness.  Though it is a painful vision, it is the first opening of Christ’s light in the mind and heart of the seeker.  It can be distinguished from despair by the fact that it is always accompanied in some measure by a sense of God’s loving presence and power to overcome the death one is caught up in.  Fox enters this first ministration when he sees that people “do not possess what they profess;” indeed even he does not. (Fox’s Journal 4).

The problem is deeper than hypocrisy. The problem is that people are alienated from the very power that can help them live by the standards they admire, that can bring them into possession of the things they profess. In this ministration, Fox sees the gulf that separates him from God and wants to bridge it, but he is alienated from the life of Christ within him that is the only power that can bridge that gap and has not yet discovered that Christ.  He knows about the Christ of scripture and he knows about the Christ of church doctrine and teaching, but he does not yet know that it is Christ in him that is opening his condition to him or leading him.

Daily Old Testament: Ezra 6 and My Own Article on "Friends and Scripture" (Part 5)

Ezra 6 – The records are searched and the proclamation is found wherein Cyrus told the Jews to go back and rebuild their temple. Tattenai and the others are instructed to leave the alone, and in fact to assist them by paying the costs of the rebuilding “in full and without delay, from the royal revenue” (6:8).

If “anyone alters this edict, a beam shall be pulled out of the house of the perpetrator, who then shall be impaled on it. The house shall be made a dunghill” (6:11). It is done as the Emperor directed. The temple is finished on the third day of the month of Adar in the 6^th year of Darius’ reign (516? Jerusalem Bible note says April 1, 515). The people, priests and Levites celebrate the dedication; they offer a hundred bulls, 200 rams, 400 lambs and 12 male goats as a sin offering (according to the number of tribes). 

The priests and Levites are organized again, and Passover is celebrated. “With joy they celebrated the festival of unleavened bread seven days; for the Lord had made them joyful, and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria to them, so that he aided them in the work on the house of God, the God of Israel” (6:22). It is this Temple that will be remodeled by Herod the Great. It is in use for 585 years and is finally destroyed by Titus in 70 AD.

“Friends and Scripture”

Introduction: This article is one I wrote some years ago and it was eventually part of the book I wrote called Leadings: A Catholic’s Journey Through Quakerism. My plan here is just to include a few paragraphs of the chapter each day.

Part 5

As we did what Abraham did, we too would find the redemptive part of their story unfolding within us—not in every outward detail but in substantially the same way.  So you will find early Friends seeing themselves as “spiritual Jews” being rescued from bondage and led to freedom.

. . .in his infinite love and tender pity and compassion [He looked] down upon us, whilst in the land of Egypt, and house of bondage spiritually, and [did] send forth his light and truth, to give us a sense inwardly of the deplorable states of our souls in the separation from, and depravation of the enjoyments of the Lord, which sense and sight begat in us living breathings and a holy cry after the knowledge of him we saw ourselves ignorant of . . . (Charles Marshall, Early Quaker Writings, 32)

You will find Friends seeing themselves as dead spiritually being brought out of graves like Lazarus or Christ himself.

“Wait to see the law set up within . . .and the rebellious nature yoked [earthquakes and thunder].  Wait in patience for the judgment, and let the Lord’s work have its perfect operation in you; and so as you turn to him who has smitten and wounded you; he will bind up and heal.  And give up all to the great slaughter of the Lord, to the Cross. . .And as the earth comes to be plowed up, the seed which is sown comes up; and, the rocks broken, the water gushes out.  You so will see that some promises will arise in you to the Seed which is coming up out of the grave, and so the love of God will appear in you, and you will be stayed, and see hope in the midst of calamity . . .And as you come to be redeemed from under the bondage of sin, and come above the bonds of death, and the pure principle lives in you, there will be a delight in you to do the will of the father, who has redeemed you from sin and its law to righteousness and its law. (Francis Howgill, Early Quaker Writings, 177)

This was what they meant when they said you had to enter into the Spirit that gave the scriptures forth—to “see” the same work being carried forth in your own life.

Daily Old Testament: Ezra 4 and My Own Article on "Friends and Scripture" (Part 4)

Ezra 5 – The prophets Haggai and Zechariah are in Judah and Jerusalem during this time. Tattenai, governor of the province west of the Euphrates (“Beyond the River”), came and asked them who gave them permission to rebuild the Temple and the names of the men working on it.

They send a letter to Darius telling him all that the workers told them—of the original building, of how because of their people’s unfaithfulness, they suffered its destruction and exile, but that Cyrus gave them permission to rebuild it in the first year of his reign. The upshot of the letter is to request that officials search the records of King Cyrus and see if what they say is correct.

“Friends and Scripture”

Introduction: This article is one I wrote some years ago and it was eventually part of the book I wrote called Leadings: A Catholic’s Journey Through Quakerism. My plan here is just to include a few paragraphs of the chapter each day. 

Part 4

Early Friends did this [examine the scriptures with a sharp eye to the truths they illuminated regarding their own spiritual conditions], and they did it in beautifully creative ways.  I think, for example, of William Penn’s wonderful comparison of the overcrowded inn in Bethlehem with the state of the average person’s soul.  We are all like that inn, crowded with worldly guests, having no room for Christ to be born in us. Or Fox’s use of the Baptist’s proclamation (Matt 3:3) and its reference to Isaiah 40:4 as a description of our readiness to have Christ enter into our lives:

“And I saw the mountains burning up and the rubbish and the rough and crooked ways and places made smooth and plain that the Lord might come into his tabernacle.  These things are to be found in man’s heart.  But to speak of these things being within seemed strange to the rough and crooked and mountainous ones” (Fox’s Journal 16).

But while examples of this kind of biblical allusion are very common in Friends’ writing, what Friends ultimately came to see and describe was something far more profound.  They ultimately came to see that the whole story recapitulated itself in the spiritual lives of people who opened themselves to Christ and became joined to His life by faith. 

I think it is special about Friends that they saw “types” and “figures” not only of Christ’s narrative; most of the early Church fathers saw this – the fulfillment of all Old Testament characters and sayings. But Friends saw scripture filled with “types” and “figures” of everyone’s spiritual life.

But faith for Friends meant far more than simply assenting to prescribed formulas of doctrine or profession.  Faith meant the daily hearing and obeying of God’s living Word both in their personal depths and in the community of those gathered in His name.  If one came to a faith like this, one’s spiritual journey would actually parallel the story scripture told—or at least its key events.  The story was not Adam’s alone or the Jews’ alone.  It was the common spiritual heritage of all men and women.  We were the ones cast out of God’s presence, the ones who envied and killed our brothers, who wandered the world in alienation from God and strangers to one another.  We were the ones God called to come away from that fallen ancestral “state”, the ones called to claim God’s promise of salvation.  We too had to respond to God’s call; we too had to abandon our ancestral homes (the purely outward dimension of “tradition”) and learn to rely on the voice of God addressed to us.

Daily Old Testament: Ezra 2-3 and My Own Article on "Friends and Scripture" (Part 3)

Ezra 3 – After seven months, Jeshua, head of the priests, and Zerrubabel, set out to build the altar of the God of Israel and to offer burnt offerings on it. They do it fearful of the response of the neighboring people (3:3).

They kept the Festival of Booths [or Shelters - Sukkot] and other offerings prescribed by the Law. They gave money to the masons and carpenters to work on the foundations, food and drink to Sidonians and Tyrians for the cedar they brought in ships. The second year after arriving, they “made a beginning” (3:8). Levites oversee the work, and Jeshua and certain other families “took charge of the workers in the house of God” (3:9).

        

Praise is offered up when the foundation is complete. “But many of the priests and Levites and heads of families, old people who had seen the first house on its foundations, wept with a loud voice when they saw this house, thought many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping, for the people shouted so loudly that the sound was heard far away” (3:12).

Ezra 4 – When the enemies of Judah and Benjamin (Samaritans?) hear that the temple is being rebuilt, they reproach Zerrubbabel for not asking them to help. They claim to be worshippers of Yahweh too, but their offer is rejected. Then the landed people, “people of the land” [Samaritan settlers] discouraged the people of Judah from their efforts. So things are frustrated until the coming of Darius in 522, it says.

Then it goes on to say that in the reign of Artaxerxes (much later from 464-423), some of the adversaries of the returnees wrote to the Emperor, complaining that they were “rebuilding that rebellious and wicked city; they are finishing the walls and repairing the foundations” (4:12). The petitioners encourage the Emperor to recheck the court records to see that this is a rebellious people, not one that should be encouraged to rebuild. The Emperor responds ordering them to cease the rebuilding. When Rehum and Shimshai (Governor of Samaria, center of Persian government for the region, and his Secretary) get this message, they go to Jerusalem and “by force and power made them cease” (4:23). The work is discontinued until the second year of the reign of Darius (4:24).A Jerusalem Bible note says the delay in rebuilding occurs between 538 and 522 or through the reign of Cambyses, not Artaxerxes. Haggai blames the delay on their indifference. The Chronicler blames their opponents.

“Friends and Scripture”

Introduction: This article is one I wrote some years ago and it was eventually part of the book I wrote called Leadings: A Catholic’s Journey Through Quakerism. My plan here is just to include a few paragraphs of the chapter each day. 

Part 3

Now Fox would never have described the words of scripture in this way [analyzing the words and meanings of the scripture narrative as a way of “opening” some inward reality – kind of the way the “Life of Pi” describes].  The concepts were just not part of his intellectual life in the 17^th century.  But I am convinced that the fundamental experience of coming into those familiar words was the same in his life and in mine.  So what I want to explore here is what early Friends did with respect to the scriptures—not what did they say, but how did they use them to encourage others to “enter into” the words.

One of the most revealing passages from Fox’s journal on the scriptures goes into great depth on the problem as Fox saw it. People approached scripture, according to Fox, “without a right sense of them, and without duly applying them to their own states (Fox’s Journal 31).

. . .I saw the state of those, both priests and people, who in reading the Scriptures, cry out much against Cain, Esau, and Judas, and other wicked men of former times, mentioned in the Holy Scriptures; but do not see the nature of Cain, of Esau, of Judas, and those others, in themselves.  And these said it was they, they, they, that were the bad people; putting it off from themselves: but when some of these came, with the light and spirit of Truth, to see into themselves, then they came to say, “I, I, I, it is I myself that have been the Ishmael, and the Esau”, etc.  For then they came to see the nature of wild Ishmael in themselves, the nature of Cain, of Esau, of Korah, of Balaam and of the son of perdition in themselves, sitting above all that is called God in them (Fox’s Journal 30).

The characters of scripture were not merely historical personages, people comfortably distant from us in time and place.  They were exemplars of every kind of spiritual condition and nature that one might have to contend with—inwardly or outwardly. Those who envied and persecuted the godly were people who dwelled in the nature of Cain; those who chose earthly goods over the heavenly promises of God were in the nature of the earthly Esau. Those who rebelled against God were in the nature of Korah, and those who traded in God’s wisdom for material gain had the nature of Balaam.  On the other hand, those who received the living Word of God in their hearts and responded to it were in the nature of Abraham; those who saw into the pure law of God were in the nature of Moses and those who were able to see into the types and shadows had the nature of the prophets.  This did not mean for Fox that the historical Moses or Korah or Cain were imaginary.  It simply meant that they were more than just human and historical; they represented spiritual realities we all encounter either in ourselves or in others.  So we should approach the characters and events of the scriptures with an eye to “types” and “figures” they represented, the truths they illuminated and the insights they gave us into our own spiritual conditions.