Justin Taylor's Blog, page 44

Why I Would Like to See a Moratorium on Using the Word ‘Literal’ When It Comes to Biblical Interpretation

I am not a fan of linguistic legalism, and I recognize the need for terminological shortcuts, but I am an advocate for clarity, and the use of an ambiguous term like literal can create confusion. It’s a single term with multiple meanings and connotations—which is true of many words—but the problem is that many assume it means only one thing. Some use it to mean the plain or natural sense of a word. Others use it to mean non-figurative. A lot of people treat it as the “actual” meaning of a term. Still others see the word as bound up with historicity. And of course the word is often used as a shorthand for the etymology of a word, or even a wooden translation. And this is just getting us started.

A moratorium on the word, therefore, would yield greater understanding and clarity, and less talking past one another.

Since I have no real authority to call for an actual moratorium (and it has little chance to be enacted), my alternative proposal is that when someone asks you if you take the Bible “literally” or a passage “literally,” you ask what they mean by the word and then proceed to answer in accordance with the definition they provide.

In order to show that the word literal and its usage has multiple meanings, shades of nuance, and varying connotations, consider this analysis from Vern Poythress. In it, he identifies at least five different uses of the term.

1. First-Thought Meaning (Determining the Meaning of the Words in Isolation)

First, one could say that the literal meaning of a word is the meaning that native speakers are most likely to think of when they are asked about the word in isolation (that is, apart from any context in a particular sentence or discourse).

This I have . . .  called “first-thought” meaning. Thus the first-thought meaning of “battle” is “a fight, a combat.” The first-thought meaning is often the most common meaning; it is sometimes, but not always, more “physical” or “concrete” in character than other possible dictionary meanings, some of which might be labeled “figurative.” For example the first-thought meaning of “burn” is “to consume in fire.” It is more “physical” and “concrete” than the metaphorical use of “burn” for burning anger. The first-thought meaning, or literal meaning in this sense, is opposite to any and all figurative meanings.

We have said that the first-thought meaning is the meaning for words in isolation. But what if the words form a sentence? We can imagine proceeding to interpret a whole sentence or a whole paragraph by mechanically assigning to each word its first-thought meaning. This would often be artificial or even absurd. It would be an interpretation that did not take into account the influence of context on the determination of which sense or senses of a word are actually activated. We might call such an interpretation “first-thought interpretation.”

2. Flat Interpretation (Taking It Literally If at All Possible)

Next, we could imagine reading passages as organic wholes, but reading them in the most prosaic way possible. We would allow ourselves to recognize obvious figures of speech, but nothing beyond the most obvious. We would ignore the possibility of poetic overtones, irony, wordplay, or the possibly figurative or allusive character of whole sections of material. At least we would ignore such things whenever they were not perfectly obvious. Let us call this “flat interpretation.” It is literal if possible.

3. Grammatical-Historical Interpretation (Discerning the Meaning of the Original Author)

In this type one reads passages as organic wholes and tries to understand what each passage expresses against the background of the original human author and the original situation. One asks what understanding and inferences would be justified or warranted at the time the passage was written. This interpretation aims to express the meanings that human authors express. Also it is willing to recognize fine-grained allusions and open-ended language. It endeavors to recognize when authors leave a degree of ambiguity and vagueness about how far their allusions extend. Let us call this “grammatical-historical interpretation.”

If the author is a very unimaginative or prosaic sort of person, or if the passage is part of a genre of writing that is thoroughly prosaic, the grammatical-historical interpretation of the passage coincides with the flat interpretation. But in other cases flat interpretation and grammatical-historical interpretation will not always coincide. If the author is trying to be more imaginative, then it is an allowable part of grammatical-historical interpretation for us to search for allusions, wordplays, and other indirect ways of communicating, even when such things are not so obvious that no one misses them.

4. Plain Interpretation (Reading It As If It Was Written Directly to Us)

“Plain interpretation,” let us say, is interpretation of a text by interpreters against the context of the interpreters’ tacit knowledge of their own worldview and historical situation. It minimizes the role of the original historical and cultural context.

Grammatical-historical interpretation differs from plain interpretation precisely over the question of the primary historical and cultural context for interpretation.

Plain interpretation reads everything as if it were written directly to oneself, in one’s own time and culture.

Grammatical-historical interpretation reads everything as if it were written in the time and culture of the original author.

Of course when we happen to be interpreting modern literature written in our own culture or subculture, the two are the same.

5. Literal in the Technical Sense (The Opposite of Figurative)

Of course the word “literal” could still be used to describe individual words that are being used in a nonfigurative sense.

For instance the word “vineyard” literally means a field growing grapes. In Isaiah 27:2 it is used nonliterally, figuratively, as a designation for Israel. By contrast, in Genesis 9:20 the word is used literally (nonfiguratively). In these instances the word “literal” is the opposite of “figurative.” But since any extended passage might or might not contain figures of speech, the word “literal” would no longer be used to describe a global method or approach to interpretation.

You can read the whole article here.

The bottom line: “literal” is an ambiguous word, and in many contexts it should either be avoided or defined in order to facilitate clarity in communicating meaning.

Why I Would Like to See a Moratorium on Using the Word “Literal” When It Comes to Biblical Interpretation

I am not a fan of linguistic legalism, and I recognize the need for terminological shortcuts, but I am an advocate for clarity, and the use of an ambiguous term like literal can create confusion. It’s a single term with multiple meanings and connotations—which is true of many words—but the problem is that many assume it means only one thing. Some use it to mean the plain or natural sense of a word. Others use it to mean non-figurative. A lot of people treat it as the “actual” meaning of a term. Still others see the word as bound up with historicity. And of course the word is often used as a shorthand for the etymology of a word. And this is just getting us started.

A moratorium on the word, therefore, would yield greater understanding and clarity, and less talking past one another.

Since I have no real authority to call for an actual moratorium (and it has little chance to be enacted), my alternative proposal is that when someone asks you if you take the Bible “literally” or a passage “literally,” you ask what they mean by the word and then proceed to answer in accordance with the definition they provide.

In order to show that the word literal and its usage has multiple meanings, shades of nuance, and varying connotations, consider this analysis from Vern Poythress. In it, he identifies at least five different uses of the term.

1. First-Thought Meaning (Determining the Meaning of the Words in Isolation)

First, one could say that the literal meaning of a word is the meaning that native speakers are most likely to think of when they are asked about the word in isolation (that is, apart from any context in a particular sentence or discourse).

This I have . . .  called “first-thought” meaning. Thus the first-thought meaning of “battle” is “a fight, a combat.” The first-thought meaning is often the most common meaning; it is sometimes, but not always, more “physical” or “concrete” in character than other possible dictionary meanings, some of which might be labeled “figurative.” For example the first-thought meaning of “burn” is “to consume in fire.” It is more “physical” and “concrete” than the metaphorical use of “burn” for burning anger. The first-thought meaning, or literal meaning in this sense, is opposite to any and all figurative meanings.

We have said that the first-thought meaning is the meaning for words in isolation. But what if the words form a sentence? We can imagine proceeding to interpret a whole sentence or a whole paragraph by mechanically assigning to each word its first-thought meaning. This would often be artificial or even absurd. It would be an interpretation that did not take into account the influence of context on the determination of which sense or senses of a word are actually activated. We might call such an interpretation “first-thought interpretation.”

2. Flat Interpretation (Taking It Literally If at All Possible)

Next, we could imagine reading passages as organic wholes, but reading them in the most prosaic way possible. We would allow ourselves to recognize obvious figures of speech, but nothing beyond the most obvious. We would ignore the possibility of poetic overtones, irony, wordplay, or the possibly figurative or allusive character of whole sections of material. At least we would ignore such things whenever they were not perfectly obvious. Let us call this “flat interpretation.” It is literal if possible.’

3. Grammatical-Historical Interpretation (Discerning the Meaning of the Original Author)

In this type one reads passages as organic wholes and tries to understand what each passage expresses against the background of the original human author and the original situation. One asks what understanding and inferences would be justified or warranted at the time the passage was written. This interpretation aims to express the meanings that human authors express. Also it is willing to recognize fine-grained allusions and open-ended language. It endeavors to recognize when authors leave a degree of ambiguity and vagueness about how far their allusions extend. Let us call this “grammatical-historical interpretation.”

If the author is a very unimaginative or prosaic sort of person, or if the passage is part of a genre of writing that is thoroughly prosaic, the grammatical-historical interpretation of the passage coincides with the flat interpretation. But in other cases flat interpretation and grammatical-historical interpretation will not always coincide. If the author is trying to be more imaginative, then it is an allowable part of grammatical-historical interpretation for us to search for allusions, wordplays, and other indirect ways of communicating, even when such things are not so obvious that no one misses them.

4. Plain Interpretation (Reading It As If It Was Written Directly to Us)

“Plain interpretation,” let us say, is interpretation of a text by interpreters against the context of the interpreters’ tacit knowledge of their own worldview and historical situation. It minimizes the role of the original historical and cultural context.

Grammatical-historical interpretation differs from plain interpretation precisely over the question of the primary historical and cultural context for interpretation.

Plain interpretation reads everything as if it were written directly to oneself, in one’s own time and culture.

Grammatical-historical interpretation reads everything as if it were written in the time and culture of the original author.

Of course when we happen to be interpreting modern literature written in our own culture or subculture, the two are the same.

5. Literal in the Technical Sense (The Opposite of Figurative)

Of course the word “literal” could still be used to describe individual words that are being used in a nonfigurative sense.

For instance the word “vineyard” literally means a field growing grapes. In Isaiah 27:2 it is used nonliterally, figuratively, as a designation for Israel. By contrast, in Genesis 9:20 the word is used literally (nonfiguratively). In these instances the word “literal” is the opposite of “figurative.” But since any extended passage might or might not contain figures of speech, the word “literal” would no longer be used to describe a global method or approach to interpretation.

You can read the whole article here.

The bottom line: literal is an ambiguous word, and in many contexts it should either be avoided or defined in order to facilitate clarity in communicating meaning.

Why Christians Should Read the Short Stories of Langston Hughes

A guest post from John Mark Reynolds, President of The Saint Constantine School and editor of The Great Books Reader.

Langston Hughes (1902-1967) is the greatest American literary talent: poet, essayist, short-story author, and novelist.

Joseph Smith sells more books, but lacks his artistry.

Mark Twain is more frequently read, but he was no poet.

James Fennimore Cooper is one long series of adjectives.

Moby Dick is a great book, but Melville is not as consistently readable as Hughes.

A collection of short stories, The Ways of White Folks is an excellent introduction to his work.

Hughes writes of how some white folks deal with the humanity of black people in their midst. Attitudes range from the Carraways, “benevolent” racists who are into the ways of black folks, to the story of plantation owner Colonel Thomas Norwood who cannot acknowledge his love for his black common-law wife or their children. The end of that story is one of the most heartbreaking an American can read.

If racism and race-based slavery was America’s original sin, Hughes demonstrates that racism and the legacy of slavery were alive and killing us in the middle of the last century. Conservative Christians know that history matters, ideas have consequences, and the wages of continued sin keep being death.

And while Hughes’s African-American characters may be harmed by the ways of (some) white folk, white folk do not govern the real lives of black folk. Mrs. Ellsworth may patronize her protégé Oceola, but Oceola lives her own life and creates her own art.

Hughes’s black folks are forced to deal with the white majority, and there is no easy triumph or “lessons” learned. Hughes presents characters that are human: white folk and black folk. All humans inherit bad and good ideas and all humans have the capacity to create, but no human can ever simply be an object of hate or even of pity. The young Arnie will not remain a “poor little black fellow,” but grows up to become a man.

The short stories are not hopeful in themselves, mostly ending bleakly, but there is hope in characters themselves. The racist is a man when he is a racist: a bad man. The African-American is no less a man when he succumbs to racial stereotypes, as some of Hughes’s characters do to survive, but he is an oppressed man. For Hughes, humanity—sheer cussed humanness—is always breaking out and defying the lies of the racialist.

Langston Hughes promotes the existence, not just the possibility, of African-American culture for itself. In his stories, the jazz and the renaissance of art in the big cities is not something for white folk to consume, but the creation of a people group, because they are a people group.

Black folk exist for black folk.

Hughes’s poetry, and his short stories, are full of allusions to Christianity. In his own life, Langston Hughes rejected Christianity and considered secular solutions—a few (like the Soviet Union) monstrously evil. Hughes’s imagination, however, remained haunted by Christian images and ideas. If he died without Jesus—and who can be sure of such things?—Hughes always had the story of Jesus in his mind and heart.

Christians failed Langston Hughes, even if Christ did not, but Hughes never lost faith in people, especially his people. I think, perhaps, he saw the image of God so plainly there that even his non-theism ended up God-haunted.

Perhaps.

Hughes is, however, great enough that he cannot be pigeonholed or dismissed by such as I am. Hughes must be read, considered, and allowed to stand as a great author always to be considered and as a man who has a great deal to teach us.

What Does It Mean to Be a Judge? The Answer of Supreme Court Nominee Neil Gorsuch

President Donald Trump announced tonight that he will nominate Honorable Neil M. Gorsuch (a 49-year-old judge in the Tenth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals) as a Justice on the Supreme Court, replacing the recently deceased Justice Antonin Scalia (1936-2016).

On April 7, 2016, Gorsuch delivered the 2016 Sumner Carnary Memorial Lecture at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, entitled “Of Lions and Bears, Judges and Legislators, and the Legacy of Justice Scalia.” It was later published in the  Case Western Reserve Law Review 66, no. 4 (2016): 905-20.

The lecture, as the title suggests, considers the legacy of Justice Scalia, whom he says, “was a lion of the law: docile in private life but a ferocious fighter when at work, with a roar that could echo for miles.”

Even though “Volumes rightly will be written about [Scalia’s contributions to American law, on the bench and off,” Gorsuch believes that perhaps the great project of his career was to remind us of the differences between judges and legislators.

To remind us that legislators may appeal to their own moral convictions and to claims about social utility to reshape the law as they think it should be in the future.

But that judges should do none of these things in a democratic society. That judges should instead strive (if humanly and so imperfectly) to apply the law as it is, focusing backward, not forward, and looking to text, structure, and history to decide what a reasonable reader at the time of the events in question would have understood the law to be—not to decide cases based on their own moral convictions or the policy consequences they believe might serve society best.

As Justice Scalia put it, “[i]f you’re going to be a good and faithful judge, you have to resign yourself to the fact that you’re not always going to like the conclusions you reach. If you like them all the time, you’re probably doing something wrong.”

Gorsuch writes:

It seems to me an assiduous focus on text, structure, and history is essential to the proper exercise of the judicial function. That, yes, judges should be in the business of declaring what the law is using the traditional tools of interpretation, rather than pronouncing the law as they might wish it to be in light of their own political views, always with an eye on the outcome, and engaged perhaps in some Benthamite calculation of pleasures and pains along the way.

Though the critics are loud and the temptations to join them may be many, mark me down too as a believer that the traditional account of the judicial role Justice Scalia defended will endure.

He offers three reasons for holding to this traditional view.

1. The Constitution

Judges, after all, must do more than merely consider it. They take an oath to uphold it. So any theory of judging (in this country at least) must be measured against that foundational duty. Yet it seems to me those who would have judges behave like legislators, imposing their moral convictions and utility calculi on others, face an uphill battle when it comes to reconciling their judicial philosophy with our founding document.

2. The separation of legislative and judicial powers

To the founders, the legislative and judicial powers were distinct by nature and their separation was among the most important liberty-protecting devices of the constitutional design, an independent right of the people essential to the preservation of all other rights later enumerated in the Constitution and its amendments. . . . [R]ecognizing, defending, and yes policing, the legislative-judicial divide is critical to preserving other constitutional values like due process, equal protection, and the guarantee of a republican form of government.

3. The lack of a viable alternative.

Consider a story Justice Scalia loved to tell. Imagine two men walking in the woods who happen upon an angry bear. They start running for their lives. But the bear is quickly gaining on them. One man yells to the other, “We’ll never be able to outrun this bear!” The other replies calmly, “I don’t have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you.” As Justice Scalia explained, just because the traditional view of judging may not yield a single right answer in all hard cases doesn’t mean we should or must abandon it. The real question is whether the critics can offer anything better. About that, I have my doubts.

He closes his lecture by explaining to his listeners that this traditional account of law and judging not only makes the most sense to him intellectually, but also fits with his own lived experience in the law.

My days and years in our shared professional trenches have taught me that the law bears its own distinctive structure, language, coherence, and integrity. When I was a lawyer and my young daughter asked me what lawyers do, the best I could come up with was to say that lawyers help people solve their problems. As simple as it is, I still think that’s about right. Lawyers take on their clients’ problems as their own; they worry and lose sleep over them; they struggle mightily to solve them. They do so with a respect for and in light of the law as it is, seeking to make judgments about the future based on a set of reasonably stable existing rules. That is not politics by another name: that is the ancient and honorable practice of law.

Now as I judge I see too that donning a black robe means something—and not just that I can hide the coffee stains on my shirts. We wear robes—honest, unadorned, black polyester robes that we (yes) are expected to buy for ourselves at the local uniform supply store—as a reminder of what’s expected of us when we go about our business: what Burke called the “cold neutrality of an impartial judge.”

Throughout my decade on the bench, I have watched my colleagues strive day in and day out to do just as Socrates said we should—to hear courteously, answer wisely, consider soberly, and decide impartially.

Men and women who do not thrust themselves into the limelight but who tend patiently and usually quite obscurely to the great promise of our legal system—the promise that all litigants, rich or poor, mighty or meek, will receive equal protection under the law and due process for their grievances.

Judges who assiduously seek to avoid the temptation to secure results they prefer.

And who do, in fact, regularly issue judgments with which they disagree as a matter of policy—all because they think that’s what the law fairly demands.

Justice Scalia’s defense of this traditional understanding of our professional calling is a legacy every person in this room has now inherited.

The entire piece, patiently reasoned and carefully expressed, is worth a read.

You can watch a video version of the original address here (starting around the 12:00 mark).

“The Single Most Illuminating Three Sentences I Have Ever Read about Our Civilization”

C. S. Lewis:

There is something which unites magic and applied science [=technology] while separating both from the “wisdom” of earlier ages.

For the wise men of old

the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and

the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue.

For magic and applied science alike

the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men;

the solution is a technique.

Philosopher Peter Kreeft calls this “the single most illuminating three sentences I have ever read about our civilization.” He writes:

Technology is more like magic than like science.

If you are surprised at this statement, you do not understand the essence of technology. Heidegger does: it is the fulfillment of the Nietzschean “will to power” as the new summum bonum, greatest good, or meaning and end of life.

To see this point, imagine an experiment. Children are often given boxes to sort things in, and the observer can tell much about the children’s minds by how they classify things. For instance, if a child is told to put a baseball, a basketball, a baseball bat, and a basketball net into two boxes, the “structuralist” or “static child will put the two balls in one box and the two other items, which are not spheres, in the other box; the “functionalist” child will put the baseball and the bat in one box, and the basketball and its hoop in the other.

Now suppose you are asked to classify four things—

religion,
science,
magic, and
technology

—and put them into two categories. Nearly everyone would classify science and technology together, and religion and magic together. There is a point to this classification: science and technology are limited to the empirically verifiable and the scientific method; religion and magic are not.

But there is a deeper classification, and Lewis uses it. Science and religion both aim at conforming the mind to objective truth, objective reality (science conforms our mind to the nature of the universe, and religion conforms our mind to the mind of God and our will to the will of God).

Magic and technology, on the other hand, try to conform objective reality to the human will. That is why they both arose at the same time—not the Middle Ages but the Renaissance, not the Age of God but the Age of Man. Both are Faustian, Promethean. The difference is, of course, that technology works while magic doesn’t (usually). But their end, their goal, the purpose behind them, the human values and desires and state of soul that set them in motion, are the same.

Sources:

C. S. Lewis,  The Abolition of Man  (reprint: New York: HarperOne, 2001), p. 77; my emphasis.
Peter Kreeft, C. S. Lewis for the Third Millennium: Six Essays on the Abolition of Man (Ignatius, 2011).

Augustine for the 21st Century

If you need convincing that Augustine should be the patron saint of the 21st century, watch this lecture by James K.A. Smith.

This talk was delivered at Wheaton College on August 31, 2016, co-sponsored by the Center for Applied Christian Ethics and the Philosophy Department.

In this particular talk, the focus is on Augustine’s Confessions. To go deeper, see these four talks on the Confessions that he delivered at Laity Lodge.

To hear Professor Smith on the relevance of Augustine’s City of God for today, listen to this lecture he gave at Fuller Theological Seminary.

Scientifically, When Does Human Life Begin?

Three distinguished and brilliant professors:

Patrick Lee, the McAleer Professor of Bioethics at Franciscan University of Steubenville (author of Abortion and Unborn Human Life)
Christopher O. Tollefsen, College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Carolina,
Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University (co-author with Tollefsen of  Embryo: A Defense of Human Life )

have responded to the idea that there is no scientific consensus regarding the beginning of human life.

They point out that “there have been countless scientific monographs and scholarly articles—in embryology, developmental biology, and genetics—explicitly affirming that a human being at the earliest stage of development comes to be at fertilization.”

They cite three among many possible examples:

“Human life begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.” “A zygote is the beginning of a new human being (i.e., an embryo).”

—Keith L. Moore, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 7th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2003. pp. 16, 2.

“Fertilization is the process by which male and female haploid gametes (sperm and egg) unite to produce a genetically distinct individual.”

—Signorelli et al., Kinases, phosphatases and proteases during sperm capacitation, CELL TISSUE RES. 349(3):765 (Mar. 20, 2012)

“Although life is a continuous process, fertilization (which, incidentally, is not a ‘moment’) is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is formed when the chromosomes of the male and female pronuclei blend in the oocyte.”

—Ronan O’Rahilly and Fabiola Mueller, Human Embryology and Teratology, 3rd edition. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2000, p. 8). [emphasis added]

They write that any other examples could be cited, some of which may be found here.

Lee, Tollefsen, and George write:

That is the authority of science. On request, we can cite dozens more examples. The authorities all agree because the underlying science is clear.

At fertilization a sperm (a male sex cell) unites with an oocyte (a female sex cell), each of them ceases to be, and a new entity is generated.

This new entity, initially a single totipotent cell, then divides into two cells, then (asynchronously) three, then four, eight and so on, enclosed all the while by a membrane inherited from the oocyte (the zona pellucida).

Together, these cells and membrane function as parts of a whole that regularly and predictably develops itself to the more mature stages of a complex human body.

From the zygote stage onward

this new organism is distinct, for it grows in its own direction;

it is human—obviously, given the genetic structure found in the nuclei of its cells;

and it is a whole human organism—as opposed to what is functionally a part of a larger whole, such as a cell, tissue, or organ—since this organism has all of the internal resources and active disposition needed to develop itself (himself or herself) to the mature stage of a human organism.

Given its genetic constitution and epigenetic structure, all this organism needs to develop to the mature stage is what human beings at any stage need, namely, a suitable environment, nutrition, and the absence of injury or disease. So it is a whole human organism—a new human individual—at the earliest stage of his or her development.

This is why it is correct to say that the developing human embryo is not “a potential human being” (whatever that might mean) but a human being with potential—the potential to develop himself or herself (sex is established from the beginning in the human) through the fetal, infant, child, and adolescent stages and into adulthood with his or her identity intact.

You can read the whole thing here.

To see a unique presentation on the development of the human body in the womb, from conception to birth, see this fascinating TED presentation from Alexander Tsiaras, chief of scientific visualization in the department of medicine at Yale University, who uses micro-magnetic resonance imaging to visualize this process:

4 Things to Remember When Thinking about the Curses in the Psalms

From Jack Collins’s “Introduction to the Psalms” in the ESV Study Bible:

Many psalms call on God for help as the faithful are threatened with harm from enemies (often called “the wicked”—frequently the unfaithful who persecute the godly, and sometimes Gentile oppressors). In a number of places, the requested help is that God would punish these enemies. Christians, with the teaching and example of Jesus (in passages like Matt. 5:38-48; Luke 23:34; 1 Pet. 2:19-23; cf. Acts 7:6), may wonder what to make of such curses: How can it possibly be right for God’s people to pray in this way?

Many have supposed that this is an area in which the ethics of the NT improve upon and supersede the OT.

Others suggest that these only apply to the church’s warfare with its ultimate enemy, Satan, and his demons.

Neither of these is fully satisfying, both because the NT authors portray themselves as heirs of OT ethics (cf. Matt. 22:34-40) and because the NT has some curses of its own (e.g., 1 Cor. 16:22; Gal. 1:8-9; Rev. 6:9-10), even finding instruction in some of the Psalms’ curses (e.g., Acts 1:20 and Rom. 11:9-10, using Psalms 69 and 109).

Each of the psalm passages must be taken on its own, and the notes address these questions (e.g., see notes on 5:10; 35:4-8; 58:6-9; 59:11-17; 69:22-28; 109:6-20; and the note on Psalm 137, which contains the most striking curse of all). At the same time, some general principles will help in understanding these passages.

First, one must be clear that the people being cursed are not enemies over trivial matters; they are people who hate the faithful precisely for their faith; they mock God and use ruthless and deceitful means to suppress the godly (cf. 5:4-6, 9-10; 10:15; 42:3; 94:2-7).

Second, it is worth remembering that these curses are in poetic form and can employ extravagant and vigorous expressions. (The exact fulfillment is left to God.)

Third, these curses are expressions of moral indignation, not of personal vengeance. For someone who knows God, it is unbearably wrong that those who persecute the faithful and turn people away from God should get away with it, and even seem to prosper. Zion is the city of God, the focus of his affection (cf. Psalms 48; 122); it is unthinkable that God could tolerate cruel men taking delight in destroying it. These psalms are prayers for God to vindicate himself, displaying his righteousness for all the world to see (cf. 10:17-18). Further, these are prayers that God will do what he said he will do: 35:5 looks back to 1:4, and even 137:9 has Isaiah 13:16 as its backdrop. Most of these prayers assume that the persecutors will not repent; however, in one place (Ps. 83:17), the prayer actually looks to the punishment as leading to their conversion.

Fourth, the OT ethical system forbids personal revenge (e.g., Lev. 19:17-18; Prov. 24:17; 25:21-22), a prohibition that the NT inherits (cf. Rom. 12:19-21).

Thus, when the NT writers employ these curses or formulate their own (as above), they are following the OT guidelines. Any prayer for the Lord to hasten his coming must mean disaster for the impenitent (2 Thess. 1:5-10). Yet Christians must keep as their deepest desire, even for those who mean harm to the church, that others would come to trust in Christ and love his people (cf. Luke 23:34; Rom. 9:1-3; 10:1; 1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Pet. 3:9). Hence, when they pray for God to protect his people against their persecutors, they should be explicit about asking God to lead such people to repentance.

With these things in mind, then, it is still possible that the faithful today might sing or read aloud even these sections of the Psalms, if it takes place in a service of worship, under wise leadership, for the good of the whole people of God.

Bonhoeffer on Why God Does Not Fill the Emptiness When a Loved One Dies

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, writing from his prison cell to Renate and Eberhard Bethge on Christmas Eve, 1943, fifteen months before his own death by execution:

There is nothing that can replace the absence of someone dear to us, and one should not even attempt to do so. One must simply hold out and endure it.

At first that sounds very hard, but at the same time it is also a great comfort. For to the extent the emptiness truly remains unfilled one remains connected to the other person through it.

It is wrong to say that God fills the emptiness. God in no way fills it but much more leaves it precisely unfilled and thus helps us preserve—even in pain—the authentic relationship.

Further more, the more beautiful and full the remembrances, the more difficult the separation.

But gratitude transforms the torment of memory into silent joy. One bears what was lovely in the past not as a thorn but as a precious gift deep within, a hidden treasure of which one can always be certain.

—Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, vol. 8, Letters and Papers from Prison (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009), letter no. 89, page 238.

The Real Reason Porno Shops Don’t Have Windows

From John Piper’s message Do You See the Glory of God in the Sun?

Do you know why there are no windows on adult bookstores? Or do you know why there are no windows on certain kinds of nightclubs in the city?

I suppose your answer would be, “Well, because they don’t want people looking in and getting a free sight.”

That’s not the only reason.

You know why? Because they don’t want people looking out at the sky.

You know why? The sky is the enemy of lust.

And I just ask you—you think back on your struggles. The sky is a great power against lust.

Pure, lovely, wholesome, beautiful, powerful, large-hearted things cannot abide the soul of a sexual fantasy at the same time.

I remember as I struggled with these things in my teenaged years and in my college years—I knew how I could fight most effectively in those days. And I’ve developed other strategies over the years that have proved very effective. And one way of fighting was simply to get out of the dark places, get out of the lonely rooms, get out of the boxed-in places, get out of the places where it’s just small me and my mind and what I can do with it, and get out where I am just surrounded by color and beauty and bigness and loveliness.

And I know that when I used to sit in my front yard at 122 Bradley Boulevard with a notepad in my hand a pen and trying to write a poem—at that moment my heart and my body were light years away from the sexual fantasizing I was tempted by again and again in the late-night, quiet, secluded, in-house moments.

There’s something about bigness, there’s something about beauty, that helps battle against the puny, small, cruddy use of the mind to fantasize about sexual things.

And then turn it around: it works this way too. We know from experience that if we give way to sexual fantasies and yield to lusts and dwelling on unwholesome things, our capacities for seeing the sky are cut in half. And then cut in half again. And then cut in half again—until you’re just a little worm on the ground as your language and your mind is nothing but smut. It can happen to anybody!

And so I just commend to you: don’t let that happen. Battle lust—among all the other weapons that you’re given in Scripture—battle it with the upward glance of the magnificent blue and the thunder and the lightning and the sunrises and the sunsets and the glory of God. And say to yourself, “If I give way in this hour to that kind of thinking, I won’t enjoy this, I won’t have a large heart, I won’t have a capacious mind, I won’t be a noble person—I’ll just be an old gutter person.” Preach to yourself like that! And then give yourself over to the ministry of the sky. And let it help you free from lust.