R.P. Nettelhorst's Blog, page 128

Hear Her Roar

Proverbs 31 is a popular passage, which describes a strong and powerful woman. The author argues that a strong and powerful woman is worth a lot. The book of Proverbs is a composite work, written by more than one person. The author of Proverbs 31 is identified as King Lemuel. Nothing is known about this individual beyond his mention here; he appears nowhere else in the Bible or in history. He relates words his mother taught him, including a description of what to look for in a woman. Traditionally, she is described as “virtuous” or “noble” in most English translations. Oddly, the Hebrew word so being translated is rendered “virtuous” only when it is being used to describe women. Otherwise, the word gets translated as “powerful” or even “army.” Perhaps most translators, being male, find the concept of a powerful woman disturbing? And yet, the passage goes on to describe a woman who takes charge of her life and those around her, doing what she can to see to the welfare of her family, from purchasing land to conducting business and trade. We’re told that her husband is respected in the affairs of state and business because of her abilities. Lemuel’s mother tells him that in finding a woman, intelligence and productivity, together with the fear of Yahweh is much better than a charmer with a good figure, since beauty is fleeting: character, in other words, is what counts and it is what endures.

Getting Comfortable

Paul tells his readers that another characteristic of love is that “love doesn’t boast.” (1 Corinthians 4) Love is not boastful because you suddenly lack pride, but because you don’t feel the need to boast. Boasting is a consequence of feeling inadequate, of not feeling accepted by the one you love. If you truly love, you don’t feel a need to put on airs. During a new relationship, one tries to impress the new guy or gal, especially during the “in love” phase. You don’t need to impress, nor do you feel a need to impress, those you love. It is those you don’t know, who are new to you, that you feel a need to impress, or those that you are unsure of, like your boss or coworkers or acquaintances.

The more the insecurity, the more the need to start listing one’s accomplishments and attributes, or flaunting them. When one is comfortable, one doesn’t need to show off. That’s why the husband doesn’t feel the need to put on fancy clothes and cologne and suck in his gut when he is with his wife of thirty years.

Love is comfortable.

Gehazi

I went to a small Christian liberal arts college–many years ago. We were required to attend chapel three times a week and I actually came to enjoy them; the chapels would be conducted by various professors and they would speak on any number of topics, ranging from Bible to history to science. The Old Testament professor, Dr. Richard Patterson, gave a message on 2 Kings 4:12-5:27, 8:1-5; he told the story of Gehazi, and he began by mentioning that most people had never heard of him, let alone heard a sermon on him. Certainly as an eighteen year old, I had not heard anyone ever tell his story, though I did have a vague sense that I’d at least seen the name. Ever since, I’ve been fond of Gehazi’s story”

The prophet Elijah had gone up to heaven in a chariot of fire, and his servant Elisha had taken his place as the prophet of Israel. Elisha had then picked a man to serve him as his servant. That man was Gehazi. One day Naaman, the commander of the army of Aram arrived and asked to be cured of his leprosy. Elisha cured him, but refused Naaman’s offer of payment and sent him on his way. Gehazi, thought Elisha was making a mistake, and decided that if his master wouldn’t make a profit, then he would. Chasing after Naaman, he made up a story: “My master sent me to say,’Two young men from the company of the prophets have just come to me from the hill country of Ephraim. Please give them a talent of silver and two sets of clothing.’”

Naaman believed Gehazi and was happy to pay up. In fact, he offered him more than he had asked: he got two talents of silver in addition to the two sets of clothing, and then Naaman supplied two of his servants to carry all the stuff back to Gehazi’s house. Gehazi hid his bounty, and sent the servants away.

But when he returned to Elisha, Elisha asked him, “Where have you been, Gehazi?”

Gehazi’s response was another lie: “Your servant didn’t go anywhere”

Elisha knew better and told him his penalty: “Was not my spirit with you when the man got down from his chariot to meet you? Is this the time to take money, or to accept clothes, olive groves, vineyards, flocks, herds, or menservants and maidservants? Naaman’s leprosy will cling to you and to your descendants forever.”

Then Gehazi went from Elisha’s presence covered with leprosy.

In the New Testament, Jesus asks, “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36) People will do horrible things on account of greed; in Gehazi’s case it cost him far more than he gained.

Drug Baby

In 1 Corinthians 13:4 the first thing that Paul says about love is that “Love is patient.” Paul had just been explaining to the Christian community in the Greek city of Corinth that there was nothing more important than love. After making that statement, he then gave a list describing what the symptoms of love were, so that you’d be able to recognize the beast when you saw it. The first clue that you’re dealing with love is when you notice patience, a word that sometimes is described as “long suffering.” It means being able to put up with something that given your druthers, you would try to avoid or change: the old joke being that those whom doctors treat are called patients because of all the time they spend in the waiting room.

I have three daughters, all adopted out of foster care. My youngest was born addicted to crack cocaine. Additionally, she had been prenatally exposed to methamphetamine, tobacco, and alcohol. When she arrived in our home, five days after she had been born, she was still going through withdrawal and suffered uncontrollable tremors. One possible consequence of that drug exposure is that she now suffers from severe attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: ADHD for short. When she was young, she regularly misbehaved and frequently got into things. She has trouble thinking ahead about the possible repercussions of any of her actions. If the mood strikes her, she does it. “I have scissors, the cat has hair. What can I do about that? Hmm.” So over the years she has required a lot more time and effort and work to raise and discipline.

But she is still alive. How come? Because we love her. And we are obviously “patient” with her. From the moment she came into our home, we sought out all the best therapy for her: we found all the developmental services that are offered. She had physical therapists, speech therapists, and went to special preschool, and special kindergarten, then repeated in regular kindergarten.

The point, of course, is that love is willing to stick with a person, to wait however long is necessary, to do whatever needs to be done in order to solve the problem, for however long it might take. Why is that? Because the person is the object of my affections, and because that person and his or her welfare is vital to me. This gives us some insight into God’s relationship with us.

Do you collect your paycheck at the end of every day of work? No, you get it at the end of the week, or the end of every two weeks, or maybe at the end of the month. Do you say “to heck with it” because you don’t get paid at the end of every day? No, you happily wait; you’re patient, because that paycheck is worth the wait, worth the process.

How long you are willing to wait for something, how much trouble you’re willing to put up with, is dependent upon how important it is to you.

What Matters to God

How important is freedom, anyhow? When God created Adam and Eve, he put them in a garden with abundant food, in pleasant conditions. But he gave them a rule: they could eat from every tree in that garden they wanted save one: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It was one of two trees that were unusual. The other tree was called the tree of life. There was no prohibition on eating the fruit from that tree.

But one day while Eve was wandering about the garden, she met the serpent, who asked her some questions. The first question was: “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?”

Eve set the serpent straight. “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

The serpent then decided to set Eve straight, “You will not surely die. God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Eve looked at the fruit, noticed that it was edible and pretty. More than that, it carried the promise of wisdom. So she took the fruit, ate it, and shared it with Adam, who also ate it.

The result was expulsion from the Garden of Eden, a series of curses on Adam and Eve, the worst being that they would be mortal and die. God set angels in place to make sure that Adam and Eve would not be able to get back to the garden; he did not want them to eat from the Tree of Life, because if they did, they would then live forever.

One of several lessons that is obvious from the story is that forcing humans to be good is not the most important thing for God. If it were, then why did he permit them to make a bad choice with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Why did he set up such a choice in the first place? Could it be that the right to choose—the right to be free—was more important to God than anything else? Apparently human freedom was worth the possibility of all the horrors of human history that grew out of that first poor choice. When people are free, they can make good choices, they can become anything they want—but equally, they can make bad choices and become something reprehensible.

But when one stops to think about which sort of society one would prefer to live in: a liberal western democracy or a totalitarian dictatorship—one can begin to understand why God made the choice he made: freedom is better than tyranny, even if tyranny is more orderly. Freedom is messy, but that’s better than any alternative.

* * *

Another of my books, this time a bit of Christian science fiction or satire, With a Rod of Iron: A Parable, is available for the Kindle. In this book, Jesus comes back, much to the surprise of the Israelis who were facing another war. The Palestinians who were attacking the Israelis were even more shocked when the sky opened up and Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a white horse. But the most shocked people of all were the Christians. In fact, many were so surprised by what happened that they decide it was a “strong delusion” and that the man who rode into Jerusalem was none other than the Antichrist himself.

When Jesus arrived in the first century, he was not accepted by the religious establishment. He did not behave according to their expectations of the Messiah. He didn’t measure up. Even Jesus’ own disciples didn’t understand what was really going on. In fact, they didn’t fully comprehend what Jesus was all about until after Pentecost.

So why do we imagine that we will be any more clued in when he comes the second time? And will the religious establishment react any differently the second time around, if Jesus once again fails to perform according to their expectations?

The Prostitute Jesus Loved

In the world that Jesus had come to live in, women and men rarely spent time alone together. It was considered, as in modern Moslem culture, disreputable for a woman to spend time alone with a man to whom she was not in some way related. But Jesus tended to resist the constraints of his culture, and so when he found himself alone at a well with a woman, he simply struck up a conversation and asked her for a drink of water from the well.

Beyond the fact that she was a woman, there was one other strike against her from a Jewish perspective: she was a Samaritan, a member of an ethnic group that had been formed during the Babylonian captivity when the poorer Jews left behind in the land had intermarried with the foreigners transplanted to the region by the conquering Babylonians. According to the mainstream culture, Samaritans were vile sinners and heretical. Jews customarily went out of their way to avoid Samaritans.

Therefore, when Jesus talked to this young woman and asked for some water, her reaction was one of shock: “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” His behavior did not correspond to what she was used to.

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?”

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

“I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”

The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

Then Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am he.” (see John 4:1-43 for the whole story)

The implication in Jesus’ words that she had “had five husbands” was not that she had been married and divorced five times, but rather that she had slept with men who were married to other women and that the man she was currently involved with was committing adultery with her, too. She is rather shocked and tells Jesus that he is obviously a prophet—and then she changes the subject to theology, asking him about where the right place to worship might be. She’d rather argue over one of the points that had divided the Jews and Samaritans for centuries rather than talk about the train wreck her life was.

Jesus calmly answers her question, letting her know that while the Jews were correct in worshipping in Jerusalem, the time had come for a change when the place of worship really didn’t matter at all: the real worshippers of God worshiped him in their spirits and in truth.

She tells Jesus, in essence, “gee, that’s fascinating” with a roll of her eyes and then comments, almost off the cuff, “well, whatever; when the Messiah comes, he’ll explain all that stuff, eh?”

At which point Jesus tells her something that he didn’t often tell people point blank: “I’m the Messiah.”

But for her it was necessary, and with those words, everything suddenly clicked into place for her: she realized that he wasn’t yanking her chain, that in fact, she actually was in the presence of the long awaited Messiah. She quickly ran back to her village and told everyone she could find. The result was something of a revival: nearly the entire village accepted Jesus as the Christ. Jesus was consistently successful in reaching those that the religious establishment rejected, whether it was tax collectors, prostitutes, or in this case, Samaritans.

What Jesus was doing was not earning him respect among the leadership of his people. But he wasn’t particularly concerned about that. He was just a doctor, healing the sick.

* * *

My latest book, The Complaint of Jacob, is now available for the Kindle. The subject: if God loves me, then why is everything going wrong?

Is there some formula we can memorize that will get us through life in one piece, with ourselves and our families living productive and prosperous lives? Where is the abundant living we thought we were guaranteed? What are we missing? What key do we need to unlock the blessings of God and finally achieve the wonderful life we know God wants us to have?

A low point in Jacob’s life offers a clue. The one true love of his life was dead. Joseph, his favorite, the oldest son of his beloved, had been gone for twenty-five years. Now Simeon had been taken from him and a tyrant in Egypt was demanding the last link he had to his dead wife. Beside himself with grief, we find his reaction in Genesis 42:36:

Their father Jacob said to them, “You have deprived me of my children. Joseph is no more and Simeon is no more, and now you want to take Benjamin. Everything is against me!”

The circumstances of his life, from his perspective, from the perspective of his sons standing around him, made his complaint that everything was against him, fully reasonable and perfectly understandable.

And yet, for those of us reading the story, the fascinating thing about his words is that we know that they couldn’t be more wrong. Despite the fact that his words seemed so obviously, unassailably true to him, we the readers of this little episode know something that Jacob doesn’t: we know that Joseph is not only not dead, but he is second in command in Egypt, then the most powerful and most wealthy nation on the planet. We also know that there’s no way for poor Jacob to know any of that.

His perception, his perspective of reality, is incorrect.

So how does this apply to us? Perhaps our problem isn’t the hurricane of life; perhaps it is only a problem of perspective, like poor Jacob.

Many “self-help” books seem to argue that success in life, however one measures success, can be gained by a formula, whether that formula is a prayer, rooting out hidden sin, or following a list of good things to do. I suggest the Bible takes a different approach, an approach to life that such books, and many Christians, are missing.

The question is not, what can I do to change my circumstances? The question is rather, do I believe God? And what can that answer do about how I then understand my circumstances?

The Prodigal

Forgiveness and restoration don’t come easily. Jesus told stories to get his points across to those listening to him speak. The parable of the prodigal son is one such tale. The younger of two sons came to his father and demanded his inheritance up front. The father complied. The young man then went off to find his way in the world and wound up wasting all his money on wild living. Broke and hungry, he took up employment feeding hogs and found himself thinking their food looked appetizing.

Coming to himself at last, he told himself that his father’s servants lived better than this and so he resolved to return home and ask to become a servant in his father’s house, since he no longer deserved to be called his son.

His father saw him coming along the road and ran to meet him. The young man told his father, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” (Luke 15:21)

But the father told his servants, “Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” So they started to have a party.

Meanwhile, the older son had been out in his father’s field. When he came near the house, he heard the music and dancing and so asked one of the servants what was going on. Informed that his profligate younger brother had returned home and that the party was for him, he became furious and refused to join the party.

His father went out to talk to him and find out why he was so angry. The older brother told his father, “’Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!”

“My son,” the father said, “you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”

Jesus told this story when some of the religious leaders criticized him for being friendly with “sinners” and eating meals with them. He wanted them to understand that God’s attitude towards sinners was just a little different from theirs: rather than wanting to see the wicked punished, God wanted to see them transformed, just as a doctor seeks to cure the sick, not bury them.

Abraham Lincoln is quoted as saying that the best way to destroy your enemies is to turn them into your friends. Although it may be fun to watch bad guys get “what they deserve” in the movies, in reality, it is much better if the bad guy can be turned into a good guy. Pharisees tend to find that not emotionally satisfying, however.

Book Reviews The Rational Optimist, by Matt RidleyI hav...

Book Reviews

The Rational Optimist, by Matt Ridley

I have observed that not the man who hopes when others despair, but the man who despairs when others hope, is admired by a large class of persons as a sage.

–John Stuart Mill, Speech on ‘perfectibility’

One of the quotes that appears in the book, The Rational Optimist. Just finished reading it. Excellent book. What’s it about? This is the book’s description from Amazon:

Life is getting better—and at an accelerating rate. Food availability, income, and life span are up; disease, child mortality, and violence are down — all across the globe. Though the world is far from perfect, necessities and luxuries alike are getting cheaper; population growth is slowing; Africa is following Asia out of poverty; the Internet, the mobile phone, and container shipping are enriching people’s lives as never before. The pessimists who dominate public discourse insist that we will soon reach a turning point and things will start to get worse. But they have been saying this for two hundred years.

I very much recommend the book.

I’d also like to recommend the book Abundance by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler. Like Ridley’s book, it attacks the pessimists that seem to dominate most positions of leadership and influence in government and the news media. The book’s description from Amazon:

We will soon be able to meet and exceed the basic needs of every man, woman and child on the planet. Abundance for all is within our grasp. This bold, contrarian view, backed up by exhaustive research, introduces our near-term future, where exponentially growing technologies and three other powerful forces are conspiring to better the lives of billions. An antidote to pessimism by tech entrepreneur turned philanthropist, Peter H. Diamandis and award-winning science writer Steven Kotler.

Since the dawn of humanity, a privileged few have lived in stark contrast to the hardscrabble majority. Conventional wisdom says this gap cannot be closed. But it is closing—fast. The authors document how four forces—exponential technologies, the DIY innovator, the Technophilanthropist, and the Rising Billion—are conspiring to solve our biggest problems. Abundance establishes hard targets for change and lays out a strategic roadmap for governments, industry and entrepreneurs, giving us plenty of reason for optimism.

Examining human need by category—water, food, energy, healthcare, education, freedom—Diamandis and Kotler introduce dozens of innovators making great strides in each area: Larry Page, Steven Hawking, Dean Kamen, Daniel Kahneman, Elon Musk, Bill Joy, Stewart Brand, Jeff Skoll, Ray Kurzweil, Ratan Tata, Craig Venter, among many, many others.

What’s More Important?

The story of Jephtha in Judges 11 and 12 is very disturbing. Jephtha and his daughter demonstrate that sometimes following the rules is exactly the wrong thing to do. Jephtha became one of Israel’s leaders—traditionally translated as “judge”—and at the beginning of his first military campaign, he made a vow to Yahweh: if Yahweh gave him victory over the Ammonites, then the first thing to meet him when he came home, he would sacrifice as a burnt offering.

When he arrived home in victory, his only daughter came out to him dancing with joy. Aware of her father’s vow, she insisted that he fulfill it. But she did have a request:

“My father,” she replied, “you have given your word to the LORD. Do to me just as you promised, now that the LORD has avenged you of your enemies, the Ammonites. But grant me this one request,” she said. “Give me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends, because I will never marry.” (Judges 11:36-37)

So, she went away for two months, but then she came back and Jephtha sacrificed her as a burnt offering, fulfilling his promise to God.

The reader of the story should be shocked and appalled. If you’re not, you’re not paying attention and you’re missing the whole point. Jephthah should not have kept his vow. Better to ask forgiveness for breaking an oath, than for murder. Not all promises are worth keeping. Some shouldn’t have been made in the first place, and though it is technically a bad thing to go back on your word—keeping a promise is generally considered a positive character trait—there are times when breaking the vow is the better choice.

The story of Jephthah serves as an illustration of something Jesus said in the New Testament about the letter of the law versus the spirit of the law. Legalism, zero tolerance, “well, the law says” are the copouts of the stupid, vile, and thoughtless. It is the attitude of bureaucracy, which knows that no one ever gets in trouble for following the regulations, even if it leads to the opposite of what the whole point of the regulation might have been.

Bottom line: Jesus told us that the most important commandments were to love God, and to love people. He further stated that it was on these two commandments that all of the Bible hung(See Matthew 22:35-40; Romans 13:8-10; Colossians 3:14; Galatians 5:14). If your interpretation, if your conclusion, if “keeping the rules” violates the prime commandments, then guess what: your interpretation, your conclusion, is necessarily wrong.

Fools

The two verses of Proverbs 26:4-5 appear on the surface to be contradictory:

“Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself.

Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes.”

But a moment’s thought make’s their point obvious: “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” That is, no matter how you interact with a fool, you’re only going to get yourself into trouble. Another proverb tells us that “Better to meet a bear robbed of her cubs than a fool in his folly.” (Proverbs 17:12) These two verses therefore fit into that overall understanding of the nature of fools: when you see one coming, run away. Don’t have anything to do with them, because you’re bound to lose out.

After graduating from college, while I was working on my graduate degree at UCLA, I took up residence in a three bedroom house in Canyon Country that I shared with two other guys. One had been my roommate in college. The other was a new guy that we didn’t know so well when we offered him the room.

He had seemed nice enough when we first let him move in, but it wasn’t long before we realized that he had not exactly been blessed with wisdom. He repeatedly made odd choices in the things he purchased, and without fail fell victim over and over to scam artists. When the tropical fish that he’d paid five dollars for doubled in size, he insisted that it was now worth ten dollars, as if a tropical fish was some sort of an investment property. Worse, he was not always good about paying his share of the rent or utilities.

One day he approached me and asked me if I could teach him something to say in Hebrew. Apparently he wanted to impress people or something.

Being a bit devious, as well as annoyed with him in general, I rattled off a phrase. He dutifully tried to memorize it, and had me say it over and over again while he practiced until he could say it quite clearly. Satisfied, he went away happily muttering it to himself.

Unexpectedly, he never asked me what the phrase meant in English.

About three months later, after he’d been saying the phrase every chance he got to everyone he met, he sidled over to me one afternoon and finally asked me the obvious question: “Hey, what does that phrase mean?”

“Um,” I began slowly, “It means, ‘I am a stupid donkey.’”

He was quite angry, of course.

But my other roommate and I didn’t stop laughing for a long time.