Daily Old Testament: Micah 5 and My Own Article on "Continuing Revelation" (Part 4)

Micah 5 – The terrible weakness and frailty of Israel’s earthly kings is compared to the coming strength of the messianic ruler “[Y]ou, (Bethlehem) Ephrathah, the least of the clans . . .out of you will be born for me the one who is to rule over Israel. . .” (5:2). “The people of Israel will be abandoned to their enemies until the woman in labor gives birth” (5:3). Then the time will come when a new ruler of Israel will come and lead his fellow countrymen “with the Lord’s strength, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God” (5:4). He will lead his flock from exile back to the own land.

The remnant “left in Israel will take their place among the nations. They will be like a lion among the animals of the forest, . . . [and] the people of Israel will stand up to their foes, and all their enemies will be wiped out” (5:9). The Lord says He will tear down their walls, put an end to witchcraft, destroy idols and sacred pillars, “so you will never again worship the world of your own hands” (5:13). The Lord will pour out his vengeance on “all the nations that refuse to obey me” (5:15).

From Leadings: A Catholic’s Journey Through Quakerism -

“Continuing Revelation”

Part 4

Still, there were some outward guideposts or principles you could employ in discernment. These were never written in the form of rules (heaven forbid!); they simply developed over time. One was insisting on the unchanging nature of God’s truth. Just as the promises of Christ are utterly constant, so the “spirit of Christ, by which we are guided, is not changeable, so as once to command us from a thing as evil and again to move unto it” (Fox, Journal, 399).  This principle was associated with Friends’ articulation of their peace testimony, but it was equally applicable to all the truths they saw as flowing from God.

The Spirit of Christ they had “come into” was the same Spirit that had “given forth” the Scriptures, so it stood to reason that Scripture could be used to test the consistency of one’s personal leading to the witness of Christ contained there. The fruits of your profession should be fruits of the Spirit—“love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Gal. 5:22)—not the fruits of the “fleshly”, unredeemed nature—“fornication, impurity . . .idolatry   strife, jealousy, anger . . . and things like these” (Gal. 5:19-21). If there was a clear statement of principle set forth there, you could not easily set yourself in opposition to it. Friends denied that this amounted to “setting up” Scripture as an outward authority, but the effect was much the same. If Scripture clearly testified to something and you felt led to a path that was inconsistent with it, or if the fruits of what you believed promised to be bad or destructive, you were likely to be judged out of unity with the Truth.

Yet there are difficulties in this way of looking at things. The Scriptures, if viewed as a matter of words only, contain inconsistent admonitions. On the question of slavery, for example, there are words that seem to sanction or accept slavery as a part of civilized life, which believers may participate in—such as Paul’s advice to slaves to “obey [their] early masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ . . .” (Eph. 6:5). Yet Friends challenged the definitiveness of Paul’s words in several ways—by examining closely the “fruits” of slavery in both slave-owner and slave and finding them universally corrupting and destructive, and second, by arguing that the whole tenor and development of the biblical “story” that God’s Spirit had given forth helped us to see that man was not to be viewed or used as chattel.

Christ was the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow as far as Friends were concerned. Another way of applying the test of consistency was to ask if the Christ you were listening to and obeying inwardly was the same Christ that the Scriptures had revealed, or if he had changed to suit the times you lived in. This standard was beautifully articulated by James Nayler:

“Now seeing he has appeared who is from everlasting and changes not, here is an everlasting trial for you all . . . whether you profess him from the letter or the light; come try [test] whether Christ is in you. Measure your life and weigh your profession with that which cannot deceive you, which has stood and will stand forever, for he is sealed of the father.

First, see if your Christ be the same that was from everlasting to everlasting, or is he changed according to the times: . . . Does he whom you obey as your leader lead you out to war against this world and all the pride and glory, fashions and customs, love and pleasures and whatever else is not of God therein? Does he justify any life now but what he justified in the prophets and apostles and saints of old?” (Nayler, Early Quaker Writings, 109-110).

There is an irony here however, which should not go unmentioned. Nayler was one of the most promising of Fox’s early followers. But only three years after writing these words, he himself faced severe censure (virtual rejection) by Fox and other Quaker leaders when he brought their movement into disrepute by engaging in a stupid display of “street theater”—permitting himself to be greeted entering a town in the manner in which Christ had been greeted on entering Jerusalem with palms and praises of a bevy of female followers. The municipal authorities responded by charging him with blasphemy, a charge that resulted in his being pilloried, whipped, his tongue bored through with a hot iron, a “B” for blasphemer being branded on his forehead, and three years imprisonment. He was eventually accepted back into the Society and his writing continued to be held in esteem. Nayler’s actions demonstrated the very difficulty we are exploring her.

Were you led into the same kind of lowliness Christ exemplified, or were you led into self-aggrandizement and pride, thinking you knew more than you really did? Did you seek to justify a way of life that was fundamentally different from the way of life the saints had always been called to live or to seek some liberty no follower of Christ would have sought? The standard was not changed—only the means by which we came into a knowledge of that standard.

Were you eager to serve others and to shed the love of God abroad, or were you led into actions that served your own interests?

“. . . be servants to the Truth and do not strive for mastery, but serve one another in Love, “Wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14). Take Christ for your example that I may hear of no strife among you” (Fox, Letters, 55).

Were you enamored of worldly fashions and honors, or did you turn your back on these things as Christ had? Infatuation with the world’s delights had to be put aside if one was to come into the life Christ offered, for that life lay on the other side of his cross.

Daily Old Testament: 2 Maccabees 12 and My Own Article on "Friends' Testimonies" (Part 10)

2 Maccabees 12 – While there is this new pact of peace made with the Jews, some governors – Timothy, Apollonius, Hieronymus, Demophon and Nicanor, still will not let them live in peace.

It isn’t long before there is another assault on the people - an unexpected drowning of people in Joppa. Judas takes revenge and then goes on to head off a similar assault on the Jews of Jamnia. Clearly, as he sees it the whole campaign embodies a recommitment of the Jews to their God. They believe in the resurrection of the body. Offerings for the dead are made so that they might be released from their sins. This is almost like the idea of a purgatory.

Judas and his men pursue all of the governors who refuse to join in the terms of peace. He is successful in all his battles and takes a terrible toll on his enemies towns. At Casphin, a city “inhabited by a crowd from many different nations” (12:13), he “made a slaughter without number, so much so that an adjoining pool, two stadia in width, was seen to flow with the blood of the slain” (12:16). These words are always hard to take in the scripture narrative; there must have been some innocent among the slaughtered.

Judas’ enemies are stricken with fear. He wreaks havoc on a number of populated cities. At Scythia, they learn that the inhabitants of the city have been kind to the Jews, so they do not assault them. At the end, the Jews return to Jerusalem for the “solemn days of the seven weeks were underway” (12:31). After Pentecost, the march against Gorgias, the leader of Idumea [or Jamnia]. After the battle, they find “some of the treasures of the idols that were near” (13:40) hidden amongst the remains. They see this as the reason for their success. It is confusing here. Clearly Gorgias is a Seleucid governor who was attacked for mistreating Jews under his authority, but the treasure found must have been associated with the Jews of the town – otherwise it is hard to understand why he would react as he does.

“So then, turning themselves to prayers, they petitioned him that the offense which had been done [by their compatriots??] would be delivered into oblivion. And truly, the very strong Judas exhorts the people to keep themselves without sin, since they had seen with their own eyes what and happened because of the sins of those who were struck down” (13:42). He send 12,000 drachmas of silver to Jerusalem to make a “sacrifice for the sins of the dead thinking well and religiously about the resurrection, for if he had not hoped that those who had fallen would be resurrected, it would have seemed superfluous and vain to pray for the dead” (13:43-44).

It is interesting to see the beginnings of a belief in the resurrection of the dead here so late in the narrative. I am not sure what I think when it comes to this. I tend to be somewhat analytical about things; I see the increasing faith in the “afterlife” and in the “resurrection of the dead” as ways of solving the problem of justice in this existential reality we must deal with. It is so clearly not something we can see solely within the parameters of the short lives we have.

“Friends’ Testimonies”

Part 10

Slavery

The question of racial equality did not really confront Friends until they began to travel to those parts of the world where slavery was practices. While Fox made it clear that Friends who were slave owners should exercise kindness and teach their slaves the gospel, he clung to the biblical letter here and did not see slavery as a fundamental offense against the gospel of Christ.

John Woolman, in eighteenth-century America, would be the one to lead Friends to the insight that any participation in the institution of slavery was inconsistent with Christian practice.

Modern Friends found early Friends’ testimonies about sex and race very meaningful, but not for the same reasons. Modern Friends’ testimony is based much more on the values and principles of the Enlightenment than on any principle early Friends articulated. The problem with that did not become entirely clear to me until some years later when I thought through some of the dilemmas modern feminism was causing us in the Society.

Daily Bible Reading: Sirach [Ecclesiasticus] 33 and Acts 16:1-18

Sirach 33 – On God’s Creative Will: “Like clay in the hands of the potter to mold as it pleases him, so are men in the hands of their Maker to reward as he judges right. Opposite evil stands good, opposite death, life; so too, opposite the devout man stands the sinner” (33:13-14).

On Avoiding Dependency: “Neither to son nor wife, brother nor friend, give power over yourself during your own lifetime. . . . As long as you live and there is breath in your body, do not yield power over yourself to anyone” (33:20).

On Slavery – harsh “wisdom” of a different era here, seemingly like the advice to parents on dealing with their children: “Work your servant hard, and you will know peace of mind; leave his hands idle, and he will start thinking of his freedom” (33:26).

If you have only one slave, “treat him as a brother since you need him as you need yourself. If you ill-treat him and he runs away, which way will you go to look for him?” (33:33)

Acts 16:1-18 – Paul and Silas head north through Syria and Cilicia to Derbe and Lystra. There they meet Timothy whose mother was a Jew and father a Greek. Paul wants him to travel with them. He has him circumcised to make him more acceptable to the Jews of the area. While Paul seriously believed that Gentiles did not need to be circumcised to become part of the Christian community, the son  of a Jewish woman was technically Jewish, so circumcision may have seemed more appropriate to him.

They go farther north and west through Phrygia to Mysia on the upper northwest corner of Asia Minor, but they stop before going into Bithynia (north of them on the Black Sea) – the “Spirit of Jesus would not allow them” (16:7).

They then turn south and go to Troas on the Aegean Sea where Paul has a vision in which a Macedonian appears to him and begs him to come across to them. They arrange passage in the belief that God has called them to go.

Note that here in verses 9 and 10, the “voice” of the narrator changes from third person (“they”) to first person (”we”); Luke must have joined Paul and Timothy. They go to Neapolis and Philippi, a Roman colony and principal city of the region. Jews in Philippi had no synagogue, so they worshipped near the river. They preach to the women there (16:14), one of whom – Lydia – is a leading woman of the area in the purple dye trade. She and her family converts and she invites Paul, Timothy and Silas to stay with them.

 

Daily Bible Reading: 1 Kings 8:22-66 and Ephesians 6

1 Kings 8:22-66 – In the presence of all the people, Solomon stands before the altar and prays. He raises his arms to God and asks that God will keep the covenant He has made. He says this: “But can you, O God, really live on earth? Not even all of heaven is large enough to hold you, so how can this Temple that I have built be large enough?” (8:27-30).

There is in this passage much of the same tension that must have come upon the Jewish followers of Christ when they considered the possibility that God had actually entered into human form.  The early and fundamental understanding that the God we worship is completely above the created world, that “He” is spirit and uncontainable in anything human hands can make—this is challenged by the desire David has to build a house for him, a location for him to dwell in on earth.  It is likewise challenged by the incarnation—but God knows our weakness as human beings; he is not slave to any idea we form of him, no matter how exalted that idea is; he comes to us and is present to us as we require.

           

Solomon asks God to judge “your servants, condemning the guilty by bringing their conduct on their own head, and vindicating the righteous by rewarding them according the their righteousness” (8:32). When your people are defeated by enemies and “turn again to you, confess your name, pray and plead with you in this house, then hear in heaven, forgive the sin of your people Israel, and bring them again to the land that you gave to their ancestors” (8:34). When there is drought, and they turn to you, hear them and forgive, “teach them the good way in which they should walk; and grant rain on your land. . .” (8:36). If there is famine, “whatever plea there is from any individual or from all your people Israel, all knowing the afflictions of their own hearts so that they stretch out their hands toward this house; then hear in heaven your dwelling place, forgive, act, and render to all whose hearts you know—acceding to all their ways, for only you know what is in every human heart—so that they may fear you all the days that they live in the land that you gave to our ancestors” (8:38-40). And when a foreigner comes and prays toward the house, then hear them too “so that all the people of the earth may know your name and hear you. . .” (8:43).

           

“Let your eyes be open to the plea of your servant, and to the plea of your people Israel, listening to them whenever they call to you.  For you have separated them from among all the people of the earth, to be your heritage. . .” (8:52-53).

           

Solomon finishes and turns to bless his people.  He says also, “Blessed be the Lord, who has given rest to his people Israel according to all that he promised; not one word has failed of all his good promises, which he spoke through his servant Moses” (8:56). Therefore, “devote yourselves completely to the Lord our God, walking in his statutes and keeping his commandments, . . .” (8:61). It says 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep were offered as sacrifices that day, to dedicate the Temple—they even used an altar in the middle of the court since the bronze altar was too small.  For seven days they hold a celebration. 

Ephesians 6 - Paul continues with words of advice to govern the interrelationships of people in families and extended households.  The tacit approval of slavery here has certainly caused at least as much discomfort among modern Christians as the passages about husbands and wives.  But with slavery everywhere illegal and in total disrepute, we can relegate the issue as Paul’s handling of a situation we no longer have to worry about.  But men and women are still marrying, still wrangling over issues of authority and dignity, so Paul’s words here persist in presenting difficulties. Some who would like to see the words of Paul on wifely submission rejected as of the same cultural and historical vintage as those on slavery.  But I am not so sure.

I think the question of God’s handling of the slavery question continues to be very interesting and challenging.  In this chapter Paul urges slaves to be obedient to their masters and serve them in all sincerity.  He also urges the masters to stop bullying and acting as if they were masters because the underlying reality for masters and slaves as for husbands and wives is that when we are speaking about our behavior as Christians, questions of our worldly status should become irrelevant. The fact is, Paul had to find some way to blend the social realities of his day—the existence of slavery and male dominance in family relations—with the spiritual truths he was trying to make available to people. How was one to be a Christian and a wife or husband or slave?  The solution Paul found was to urge that every social relationship be seen in the light of the new reality of being part of the body of Christ.  How would Christ be a wife?  How would Christ be a husband?  How would Christ be a child or a slave?  He would be these things in precisely the same way that he would be God or Messiah or King—by submitting, by serving, by loving unto death.  The main reality is the fact that Christ has poured himself out for all of us, male and female, slave and free.  Whatever kind of society or culture we have, God does not disdain to bring us his salvation.  Throughout scripture, God makes it known that not all social contrivances are good.  He warns the Israelites against adoption of a monarchical form of government, yet he grants it when it is desired. There are indications in both old and new testaments that God was sensitive to the justice issues involved with cruelty in slavery, yet He nowhere makes culture a matter of relevance to the issue of salvation.  One can be redeemed and be a slave.  One can be redeemed and be a slave-holder.  One can be patriarchal or not be.  These are not salvation issues.  This is not to say that they are matters of no importance to God, but God it would seem allows a great latitude in the social structures we set up for ourselves.  What is important is how love can be made to prevail in any given outward situation.  This is not to say that God is completely indifferent.  I think there are structures which are not “in his will” and these structures are inherently destructive, degenerative of moral development or simply not God’s intention for us, but these things play out in history over the long haul.  The major struggle, as Paul says, is not with human powers, not “with flesh and blood” but “with the principalities, with the powers.”  Directing our attention to the real issues will help us loosen our willful hold on the false enemies and allow God to establish his peace in our lives.