The saga, and conversation continues…
Imagine if you came upon the video of your early childhood and you see your parents’ interaction with you at a playground. There would be countless things they would say to you. Some would be commands, some would be encouraging (hopefullyJ), plus many things. Now, imagine if your parents saw that same video and said, “Those were good days, we want to go
back to them. Okay, starting today, no more crossing the street without holding our hands. You will need to move back home so we can make sure you are always dressed warmly before you go outside and that we have had a chance to talk to the parents of all your friends before you go to see them. And members of the opposite sex? Absolutely NOT!†(Okay as a parent of three kids that are between 10 and 13, that one might be okay.)
That would be insane wouldn’t it? Why? Because your parents no longer love you? They don’t care about your life or your safety or whether you have your gloves on a cold day? Of course not. They don’t do those things anymore, because they have launched you into life and now you are able to internalize the heart of what they taught you and apply it in your own life. The intent wasn’t that you would stay in the infant toddler phase, but that you would grow up.
Hmmm… that will lead us very nicely into the next layer of this whole thing….
Still with me?
Peace, Jim
This is a part of a discussion called Sticky Issues. Â In this particular topic thread we are talking about what to do with some of the more odd commands in the Old Testament. Â The last post that this builds off of is here.
One of the key descriptors God uses for himself is that of father. He seems to see himself as our Father, our Dad. He calls us his children. When he discusses the idea of our being reconnected to him, he uses the term adoption.  He could have used any terms he wanted, he chose those.  He sees us as family.  It is by far the most common descriptor set he utilizes when he is describing his relationship to us.
So, let’s turn that thought over a bit and see if it is helpful.
As our Father, he looks at us both as individuals and as a holistic group. It isn’t that he cannot handle just giving us the individual treatment, as if he didn’t have the processing power to be up to the task, the RAM. It would seem that he actually looks at us differently than we look at ourselves, as much more interconnected with one another than we, as post-Enlightenment Westerners would.
So, as our Father, let’s consider the situation that God was in. Just to start, let’s consider how things were going for the Jewish people starting in the period starting in Exodus.  It is the second book of the bible.  The Hebrew people had been in captivity for at least a couple hundred years. After some very wild and miraculous interactions with the Egyptian leadership, they find themselves free. (If you would like to discuss the plagues, let me know.  That is a whole other conversation in itself.)  They would have likely known nothing about being a free people and likely just as little about the God that freed them. The false gods the Egyptians followed would have likely been much more understood. So, if God sees himself as a parent and sees his children as not knowing how to interact with their environment or himself as their parent, he would likely do what most parents would do in that situation.
He would parent his children.
The best parenting stage that would seem to describe where the Hebrews were in terms of being able to operate in their
environment as it was, would likely be that of the toddler stage. This isn’t an implication of the Hebrews’ intelligence, as the toddler stage isn’t indicative of intelligence in kids. Just awareness of the world they are in and how it works. Among other things, it is a the stage where danger isn’t understood. Simply put, many toddlers do not know the difference between the shiny mirror they have seen on playmats and the shiny edge of a knife. They see shiny and think fun.
The response of a parent to a child in that stage isn’t terribly nuanced. There is a lot of “no touch†when they get near things that are dangerous and big smiles when they do the right thing.  Messages  are very obvious. You don’t expect an infant to grasp subtle details, even their toys have bright, high contrasting colors. During this stage, the parent isn’t just protecting the child from themselves, they are helping to set up neuronal connections within their child’s brain that help them to understand what is going on. This isn’t a stage that you would expect a child to stay in. In fact, if they do, it is a signal that something abnormal is going on. It is just that, a stage.
Again, during this stage there isn’t much nuance. The world is ordered in very specific ways. We never cross the street without holding mommy’s hand. You don’t ever take candy from a stranger without asking daddy first. You are showing them how the world works in a manner they can understand. You are showing them what is good and what is bad. What is safe and what is not.  Of course, none of this means you don’t want them to explore their world.  It is essential that they do.  It is more an issue of how they explore it.
It is interesting that it is during this “toddler†stage of the Hebrews’ experience with God where the really wild stuff happened. Water was pushed out of the way. They followed a pillar of smoke during the day, and a pillar of fire when God wanted them to move at night. Not super nuanced, eh? The question of “where is God leading me?†was a simple one. Just look for the pillar. Food is miraculously provided and if you don’t handle it the way that God said to, it became unusable for the rest of the day.
But just like the toddler stage in parenting, they were absorbing an incredible amount about God. He would protect them, he would guide them, he was aware of them; both individually and as a nation. He both wanted and could communicate with them and it was important that they listen. He had expectations for them and he was doing things on his end as well. This was a real, two-way relationship between themselves and God.  He had made promises to them several hundred years earlier, and he was keeping up his end.
So… How do I look at the scriptures that clearly state I should do something that I don’t do, or that I
shouldn’t do something that I am?
I think this is a great jumping off point for a larger discussion about the specifics of how we approach some of the commands of the Old Testament.
If you recall from the last topic of whether we can/should take the scriptures literally, the first issue that must be worked through deals with who the information was first intended for and what they would have understood it to mean. Every culture is rich in nuance and shading, shared experiences and history that they automatically draw on when communicating. That sharedness obviously effects both what we say and how we hear what others say.
This, in many ways, is part of what can make understanding some of the Old Testament a bit harder than simply reading what is on the page and then doing it. A.J. Jacobs, in his book The Year of Living Biblically, attempted to sidestep this process. In his very interesting book, he stated his goal was, “to live the ultimate biblical life. To follow every single rule in the Bible – as literally as possible.â€
What makes for a very interesting read does not always make for a solid understanding of what the scriptures are actually calling upon us to do. Please hear this, I am neither saying that we shouldn’t try to follow what the Old Testament teaches, nor that it is impossible to arrive at what it is saying. It isn’t even always difficult. I am simply saying that in some of the more tricky passages, a larger understanding to the environment surrounding the text is helpful. David Barr, the author of The New Testament Story says it like this…
“…there are three obstacles that stand in the way of correctly interpreting the biblical writings: We speak a different language, we live approximately two millennia later, and we bring different expectations to the text.â€
So, what might be some of the issues that God was looking at when he guided the writer of the Pentateuch to originally give these commands to the Jews, and then to later have them be written down for us? Just so we are clear, here are some of those tricky commands that we don’t always know what to do with…
10 “But all creatures in the seas or streams that do not have fins and scales–whether among all the swarming things or among all the other living creatures in the water–you are to detest. 11 And since you are to detest them, you must not eat their meat and you must detest their carcasses. 12 Anything living in the water that does not have fins and scales is to be detestable to you.†Lev 11.10-12 NIV
‘Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed. ” ‘Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material.†Lev 19.19 NIV
“Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard.” Lev 19:27
And then, one of my favorites, Deut 14.21… “Do not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.â€
So, these are just some of them. What do we make of this? I personally love our local Cajun restaurant’s jambalaya, complete with boiled crayfish on the top. We have even taken our new members out for that very jambalaya because we are so awesome. Those are certainly out, aren’t they?
The first question we should ask, perhaps after “What the ….?!â€Â is, “What is God trying to do here?â€
I think it is important to look at that question. What is God trying to do? And maybe another question would help it out a bit, that one would be, who is God trying to be?
Stay tuned… more in a couple of days…
Peace, Jim
So, I hear this question very quickly after I get the first one.
To remind everyone, the first one is “You don’t really take the bible literally do you?†After we walk through that issue, the next one is “What about all the weird commands in the Old Testament? Usually the ones that are brought up are the ones that deal with us being commanded to not eat shellfish and not to get tattoos. Occasionally the one about not cutting our sideburns comes up as well.
I am usually asked if I have read those and what I do with them.
Yes I have. Â 🙂 Â And the questions are very good and fair ones.
So, I thought it might be good to take them next. They get at more than just what do we think about tattoos and Bluefin crab, they get at how we read the very scriptures we take to be from God to us. Do we just think the lines we agree with are from God? If all of them are, how do we excuse not following the ones we don’t? How do we decide what to follow and what to not?
These questions get to the very heart of how we read the scriptures and how we allow those scriptures to shape us.
So, the questions I think that deal with this one are…
1) How do I look at the scriptures that clearly state I should do something that I don’t do, or that I shouldn’t do something that I am?
2) Why do I think God the Holy Spirit would guide the writers to write something can seem so archaic and unnecessary?
3) Jesus said that he didn’t come to defy the Law, but rather to fulfill it. Â And then he proceeded to give one of his most famous teachings about the new way he was calling us to see the Law. Â What is up with that?
4) So.. .what’s the deal? Â Shellfish or not? Â Can I get the sick eye tattoo this guy is sporting if I think I can pull it off or would it be morally wrong to do so? Â Polyester? Â I mean, beyond the obvious offenses of that stuff…
Any other ideas? Â Any missing pieces to this line of thought? Â Lemme know, lemme know…
Peace, Jim
