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: 2 Chronicles 36 and My Own Article on Friends and Scripture (Part 1)

2 Chronicles 36 – Jehoahaz, son of Josiah, is made king. He is 23 and reigns only three months. The king of Egypt deposes him and imposes a tribute on the land. He makes Jehoahaz’s  brother Eliakim king and changes his name to Jehoiakim. Jehoahaz is taken to Egypt.

Jehoiakim reigns eleven years and does what is evil. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon comes against him, binds Jehoiakim in bronze chains and takes him to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar also takes some of the treasures of the Temple too.

Jehoiachin, Jehoiachim’s son, takes his father’s place when he is only eight years old and he reigns only ten days. He does what was evil too (at age 8??).

In the spring, King Nebuchadnezzar sends to have him brought to Babylon too. His older brother Zedekiah (36:22) is made king. He reigns 11 years but also does what is evil. He “refused to humble himself when the prophet Jeremiah spoke to him directly from the Lord” (36:12). He also rebels against Nebuchadnezzar “even though he had taken an oath of loyalty in God’s name. Zedekiah was a hard and stubborn man, refusing to turn to the Lord, the God of Israel” (36:13).

The leading priests and people also are unfaithful. “The Lord, the God of their ancestors, repeatedly sent his prophets to warn them, for he had compassion on his people and his Temple. But the people mocked these messengers of God and despised their words. They scoffed at the prophets until the Lord’s anger could no longer be restrained and nothing could be dome” (36:15-16).

The Lord brings the king of the Chaldeans against them. He kills their youths in the sanctuary and has no compassion on anyone. All the Temple treasures are taken. They burn the house of God down, break down the walls of the city and burn all the palaces. “The few who survived were taken as exiles to Babylon, and they became servants to the king and his sons until the kingdom of Persia came to power” (36:20).

“So the message of the Lord spoken through Jeremiah was fulfilled. The land finally enjoyed its Sabbath rest, lying desolate until the seventy years were fulfilled, just as the prophet had said” (36:21).

It is King Cyrus of Persia who will rebuild the Temple. Jeremiah’s prophesy is again fulfilled when King Cyrus when he permits the Lord’s people to return to Jerusalem.

“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 1

When modern liberal Friends talk about the how the scriptures are not the “Word of God” but only the words, they do so, I think, with an eye to justifying the space they believe Quakers put between themselves and scripture, to distinguishing themselves from those benighted Christians who take a more literal or authoritative view of scripture or those who believe that the scripture is an essential element in the learning of truth.  The space they believe early Friends put between themselves and scripture justifies the even greater space they have put between themselves and the Bible, a space they believe is healthy because of the limitations they see in it—its “primitive,” warlike aspects, its historical unreliability, its cultural baggage (the exclusivity of its claims and the patriarchal elements that feminists find so irritating) and its authority in other Christian denominations that Friends find hard to take.

But the view that early Friends put any kind of distance between themselves and scripture is simply not true.  Early Friends questioned the prevailing approaches to scripture mainly to get people to erase the distance they put between themselves and scripture by seeing it too outwardly, by setting it up as an artifact rather than as something to be entered into and viewed from within.  One of the most moving and profound parts of the testimony and writings of early Friends is the way they internalized what they read in scripture, the way they entered into the spirit of it and saw the world in its terms.

I think this is something I always knew about 17^th century Friends, but I could never find “outward” words in Friends’ writings that were clear enough to keep other Friends from insisting that Quakers had always viewed the book as less authoritative than other Christians of their day had seen it.  Their statements about it being the words, not the Word of God; their (or at least Fox’s) insistence that he had come to his inward revelation without “the help of man” and without the help of “the letter” by which he meant the letter of scripture (Journal 34) all seemed to justify the claim modern Friends made that Quakers did not view the scriptures as central.  But when I read the testimonies of early Friends or read their pamphlets or catechism or debates with others, the one thing I could not understand was why they always couched their ideas in scripture quotations.  And if they did not think the scriptures were authoritative, why were they seemingly the most literal of Christians in refusing to take oaths, in refusing to use any term that was not biblical, or in making sure that people understood that they believed Jesus’s teachings on simplicity and non-violence were normative for Christians, not merely ideals he set.