When I was a young child, I would have climbing the walls the past couple weeks WAITING for Christmas to arrive! I do remember once thinking in July that we had gotten over the hump in the long WAIT for Christmas. Then, shortly after Thanksgiving the actual Christmas decorations would start going up. In our house a tree never showed up until about December 15 – 10 days being about the max for keeping a fresh cut tree looking good. Although mom had a box of actual store-bought Christmas tree decorations, we kids loved to string pop corn and paste bright colored construction paper chains together until almost no actual foliage could be seen. Stockings would be hung, somewhere in that last week mom always arranged a telephone call from ‘Santa’. A box of oranges (the only time of year we had oranges) and a dish of vanilla crème drops showed up (always managing to make their mysterious appearance when I wasn’t looking!). All these little markers and progressions finally led to laying awake in bed on Christmas Eve, having set out the milk and cookies and determined to stay awake until….zzzzz.
Then the big day arrived. Well, things have changed. These days I feel like the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas Day passes far too quickly. There are so many things to do and so little time to do them that the season is over before I have much got to enjoy it. But there are high lights, markers and progressions: Singing the old Christmas Carols and the new songs the contemporary praise band learns, the Christmas play (the youth of the congregation really knocked our socks off this year – helpful hint: put your socks back on before leaving the church building – Ohio December evenings are cold. The personal Bible studies that inform and build the sermons for the Christmas season. All these things have nothing to do with the glitter and color that so thrilled my childhood days. And the mysteries of Santa have been squeezed aside by a much deeper and more profound mystery – the incarnation of Jesus Christ. The few weeks at our disposal are inadequate for considering such things and suddenly, it is January. The secret lies in the realization that the blessings of the incarnation are not limited to a season. The big event came – as the Bible says – in the fullness of time: that is, following millennia of preparations that involved whole peoples, cultures, languages, nations, societies, and more. The markers and progressions that led to the Christmas event took in the whole phenomenon of Hebrew prophecy, the entire panoply of Eastern monarchs, the rise and fall of powers, earthly and heavenly, the ministries of men and angels and LOTS MORE. Nor is it only the relative past of all those years BC. The blessings of the incarnation have spanned all the years, languages, peoples and powers since as we mark off the steps along the way to the next phase of God’s REALLY BIG PLAN – in the fullness of time. Suddenly, hanging a stocking seems somewhat trivial and the taste of those crème drops fades. I am not anti-presents, trees, decorations, etc. – I do believe glitter is immoral and ought to be illegal, but only because it is impossible to contain. But the Christmas season is already short enough and we do have to be careful of distractions from the actual point. I hope you have a blessed Christmas in every possible sense.
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I am not much of a gambler myself. As kids my siblings and I would take a jar in which the family saved pennies until the jar was full, divvy up the coins and play poker until someone had cleaned everyone else out – then all the pennies went back in the jar. At some point the jar would get full and whosever turn it was would get an infusion to their savings account. Gambling is easy when it costs you nothing. But that isn’t usually the case. As an older teen I helped my grandparents a lot on their perspective farms. On one occasion my paternal grandfather and I finished up his haying for the year. We had just filled the last two wagons in the field and grandpa was certain it would not all fit in the remaining space in the barn loft. I said I though I could get it all in. He said he doubted it. I said ‘Wanna bet’. He asked ‘Bet what?’ ‘A root beer!’ I replied. Grandpa and I both had a thing for root beer. Mason’s was our favorite! Grandpa took the bet. We pulled the wagons to the barn and he ran the bales up the elevator while I scrambled, climbed and toted to arrange them in the loft. On the way from grandpa’s farm to ours we stopped at Campbell’s grocery where I bought two root beers. Then we finished the journey and put the last thirty some bales in our barn. Before giving up I had been hanging out grandpa’s loft window, clutching the track for the sliding window cover with one hand, hooking bales from the elevator with the other and swinging them into the rapidly vanishing available space. Too late I had considered the decades worth of scrawls on the loft wall where grandpa had counted, each and every year, the number of bales he put in that loft. Never bet against the man with certain knowledge!
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) is probably best remembered for what has come to be called ‘Pascal’s Wager’. It was actually a minor portion of his thinking and not published until after his death. If you really want to warp your mind study Pascal’s Triangle! But the wager. A brief summation goes like this. *God is or is not. Reason cannot decide between the two alternatives. (if an infinite God exists He is outside the system of cause and effect and beyond the limits of our reason.) *A game is being played. (You exist and must conduct your life by a series of choices.) *You must wager. It is not optional. (Everyone decides for themselves whether God exists or not or, at the very least, whether the decision is important to them.) *If you wager that God is and win – you gain all and lose nothing – or at the very least any small losses of present material and pleasure are miniscule compared to the eternal bliss you have gained - if you win the wager. *If you wager that God is not and lose – you lose all and again, any gains in present material and pleasure you may have enjoyed are miniscule compared to the eternal bliss forfeited – if you lost the wager. *If you wager that God is and lose - you actually lost nothing – endless extinction is the same whichever way you bet and, Pascal observed, believers seem to be as happy – if not happier – in the course of their lives. *If you wager that God is not and win – if it can be demonstrated that believers are as happy, if not happier than non-believers in the course of their lives – what, exactly did you win? Whatever anyone thinks of the wager, by describing it Pascal is counted as the father of both game theory and decision theory – both consequential to our modern lives! But, as to the wager itself. Most skeptics deride the theory as the very weakest possible proof of the existence of God – which is kind of like looking at an apple and saying it’s the worst shaped banana you’ve ever seen. Pascal was not trying to prove the existence of God. He was trying to describe the situation in which humans, lacking proof of God, find themselves. Criticizing the wager on the basis of something it is not is what as known as attacking a straw man. From the perspective of a committed believer, I have only ever seen two objections to the wager.
Once, long ago, my father found himself laid off from work for the Christmas Season. In those days and in our neck of the woods at least, working class families did most of their Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve. Online shopping wasn’t even a dream yet! Dad would get a Christmas bonus and get off early on Christmas Eve. As soon as he got home – he and mom were off to shop. The department stores in the County Seat (My upbringing was considerably more rural than most people are used to and unless we kids wanted rough cut lumber from the local family owned sawmill under the tree and bologna sandwiches from one of the few local mom & pop groceries in our stockings – the County seat was it.) stayed open late on Christmas Eve for just such shoppers. Well, on the Christmas Eve in question, the stores were open and Dad had plenty of time but there was not only no Christmas bonus, there was no regular paycheck either. In addition to our parent’s shopping, we kids were usually given a few dollars to put with whatever small amount we had been able to hold on to so we could buy something for each other. None of that was on the menu. Jumping ahead, we kids always received $7 cash @ on Christmas day - $5 from one set of grandparents and a $2 bill from the other. As usual, when it rains it pours and the well pump quit the day after Christmas. Dad needed our Christmas money to buy a new one and spent the immediate post-holiday season seven feet under ground and hip deep in cold water installing it. But – that was afterwards. Dad was always pretty good with his hands and spent some of his presently copious spare time out in the unheated garage with the table saw, drills, and C-clamps manufacturing gifts. Mom spent as much time at the sewing machine, rapidly depleting her hoard of cloth and for just once in my experience, nearly emptying the button can (an old candy tin in which she kept buttons rescued from clothing we wore out). We kids caught the spirit and went to work. I painted my older sister’s room. My middle sister crocheted little tie thingies for us boys to put on the top buttons of our dress shirts. And so it went. All said and done, dad went back to work and there followed lots of Christmases where the gifts represented more money. I remember here and there over those years receiving a Secret Sam (look it up), a Johnny Eagle set (look it up), a Timex watch and a chromatic harmonica. But none of those gifts I remember and certainly none of the ones I have long since forgotten, had the same impact as the year we gave the work of our hands. Sure, I suppose we had to due to unfortunate circumstances. I can only say in retrospect that I am glad those circumstances arose. For myself, even my $7 (more money then than now) that went into the new pump, felt like just one more contribution. I felt closer to my family that year and closer to God as well. I pass this on for what it’s worth. Merry Christmas.
In my last post I tried to lay out my understanding of the term ‘miracle’. You can go back and review all that. The long and short of it is that as I have come to understand the definition and purpose of miracles, almost all the miracles recorded in the Bible fall into three widely separated periods concentrated and Moses/Aaron and Joshua, Elijah and Elisha, and Jesus and the Apostles. That amounts to 150 years out of 5,000 years of recorded Biblical history - 10,000 or more years if you try to assign dates to pre-flood history. Sticking with the 5000 year figure, Almost all the recorded miracles of the Bible are packed into just 3% of the Biblical time line. That leaves 97% of the time in question to receive no more than 5% of all the recorded miracles of the Bible. And we’re not talking about that many miracles to start with.
How many miracles are recorded in the Bible? Well, the count varies depending on the definition used by the counter. One list I checked says 126. Another says 163. Another says 185. * Let’s go inclusive, round up and say 200. Proposing 200 recorded miracles, we’re talking about 190 of them happening in three waves comprising 150 years which leaves 10 to be spread out over the remaining 4850 years. If the distribution were even, it would amount to one miracle every 480 years or so – give or take a few months here and there. The point to understand is that miracles were always rare. And the few time periods in which miracles are more concentrated are also rare. And Jesus was plain on this – the majority of people fail to read the ‘sign’ portion of miracles correctly and get caught up only in the act of power itself – or what they perceive to be the miracle’s immediate practical uses. If I could just have a clay pot that was always full of olive oil no matter how much I took out – I could be rich! Thus, the performing of miracles mainly leads to the demand for – MORE MIRACLES – rather than to a stampede toward the truth God is trying to communicate. We’re that way. A miracle a day would only lead us to wonder why we couldn’t have an AM miracle and a PM miracle! All of this is not to say that no miracles happen today. It is to say we should expect them to be rare and SIGNIFICANT. God cares about the suffering of the sick and hungry. But most sick people will not be miraculously healed and we shouldn’t expect multiplications of fish and loaves every Tuesday. We (by which I mean mankind) could put an end to world hunger if we wanted to. We could do it using the wonderful creation God has put in our care and a little conscience. World hunger is not solved because we are sinful. The same for crime, injustice, poverty etc. These problems will not be solved until the world to come. And the rare and significant application of miracles is supposed to point us to that world! The expectation that miracles should be commonplace so as to solve the problems of this world is a fool’s game and we shouldn’t play it. When miracles are performed at all, especially in any time when miracles are concentrated, we should be first and foremost concerned to see what God is pointing us to. In the meantime, prayers will continue to be answered. Providence will continue to be showered upon us. Angelic ministries will not cease. History will be guided by the Almighty Hand and Everything God does will always be wonderful. But when we talk about miracles, let’s know what we’re talking about and if one occurs – let’s focus on where God wants to lead us through it. *If you’re interested, All the Miracles of the Bible from Herbert Lockyer’s unique ‘All’ commentary set is available online for as low as $5 used, $18 new. Many people ask questions like – Do miracles still happen? Others are quick to point at something in their experience and call it a miracle. I have had many conversations with many different folk about – miracles. And I always find such discussions to be un-helpful until we can make sure we are talking about the same thing. God’s providence and answered prayers are wonderful things but they are not necessarily miracles. At least I don’t think so. Also, direct actions of God like the creation of the world or scouring that same world with a great flood may or may not fall into the category of miraculous. I have often heard it claimed that every new baby is a miracle. I agree that life itself is inexplicable without God and that babies are extremely important – and very cool! But if all the workings of nature (beautiful to be sure, a testament to the handiwork of God for certain) are understood to be miracles, the usefulness of the term – or, as I understand it, of Biblical miracles themselves – disappears. For miracles to serve their purpose they must be distinguishable from the general order of things – no matter how wonderful the general order is. Miracles must stand out against the background, not disappear into it. When everything is a miracle, then nothing is.
Taking the words used along with the term ‘miracle’ in the Bible and just paying attention to the VERY basics of context will help us form a more useful definition. The two words most closely associated with the term ‘miracle’ in Scripture are ‘signs’ and ‘wonders’ There are other terms but these three will give us a baseline understanding. In and of itself, ‘Miracle’ indicates an act of great power. Good enough. But the specific application of power also creates a sense of ‘wonder’. Things formerly regarded as impossible may be possible after all! My previous comfortable world view may need expansion in light of this kind of act of power. In creating ‘wonder’ the specific application of power opens observers up to new possibilities. Now, add the concept of ‘sign’ to the mix. The act of great power and the ensuing sense of wonder are not generalized. They convey specific information, point at something, directing our attention to a truth beyond the miracle itself. The point of Jesus’ miracles was not just to be impressive or even that sick people need healed, hungry people need fed, and so forth. The miracles pointed beyond the utility of being able to multiply food (Obvious utility) or walk on water (Think of the short cuts!) The miracles were also signs pointing to the truth that Jesus was the son of God and the Messiah. Jesus carefully explained that if you read the information on the ‘sign’ of the feeding of the 5000 as ‘Line up here for a free meal!’ you had missed the point. A miracle then may be defined as an act or application of great power which creates a sense of wonder in the observers enabling them to perceive a truth beyond the miracle itself. Now let’s add another kink. ‘Miracles’ as far as I can tell by looking at the use of the term in Scripture, require a human miracle worker. Perhaps some of you can show me something I have missed in Scripture but I do not find the world ‘miracle’ except in instances involving a human ‘miracle worker’. I realize the power comes from God. The human miracle workers generally realized that as well. Moses did get into some trouble for blurring over that distinction a little bit. In all of these cases, one function of the miracle as a ‘sign’ was for observers to trust and follow the human miracle worker as one currently appointed by God. I add then to the definition – An act or application of great power, involving a human miracle worker, which creates a sense of wonder in the observers enabling them to perceive a truth beyond the miracle itself. By this definition God’s original act of creation is not a miracle and as far as I have been able to find, the Bible never applies the term ‘miracle’ to the creation described in the first two chapters of Genesis. In fact, every use of the term ‘miracle’ in the Old Testament Scriptures refers to the acts of power done through Moses/Joshua to liberate the Israelites from Egypt and get them to the land of promise. Which leads me to my next point. If we accept this definition of ‘miracles’ (and I am willing to be shown in Scripture why I should not) then almost all the miracles of the Bible happen in three concentrated waves through a very small handful of human miracle workers.
This concentrates almost all the miracles of the Bible into three widely separated fifty-year periods.
* Each of these time periods is closely associated with the formation of Scripture. Correlation is not causation I know. Just saying. *It is consistent with the repeated admonition for later generations of Israelites to remember the miracles God did to lead them out of Egypt. *It is consistent with the expectation of a prophet to come – a prophet like - or recapturing the glory of the days of – Moses/Elijah. I’ll leave it here for the moment with the promise to add more soon. But if anyone is worried I will tell you this much – I do not believe that NO miracles can happen today and if I am correct and the majority of miracles are concentrated into brief spans of time, that in no way indicates that God is doing nothing in between those time periods. Today is election day – so I won’t discuss the election. Rather, I will discuss something foundational to our nation. We live in constant danger of forgetting this crucial founding principle which sets the United States apart from other nations – all men are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, including but not limited to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Our government is neither the source nor the guarantor of these rights. In fact, as President Obama correctly observed – our constitution is something in the way of a charter of negative liberties – that is, it primarily defines the things government CANNOT do (to us) in such a free society where our rights descend from a higher source. Long before President Obama, Thomas Paine stressed the difference between government and society regarding society as a great blessing and government as, at best, a necessary evil that, over time, tends to become an intolerable evil. I always recall the tag line from Paine’s discussion – I tell you; the palaces of kings are built over the bowers of paradise!
Many struggle here with what seems an inherent contradiction. On the one hand we believe it necessary to maintain a wall of separation between church and state and forbid the establishment of an official state religion. But on the other hand, our founding principle is based on the notion that we are endowed with basic human rights by our creator. A few thoughts.
Even as I say this I realize that prisons and capital punishment certainly seem to qualify as depriving individuals of liberty or life or the pursuit of happiness – all of which are counted among those unalienable rights granted by the creator. And yet – the rationale for so depriving individuals of life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness is not the prerogative of the government but of the people. The people recognize that situations arise in which certain individuals, for whatever reasons, become threats to the everyone’s life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. A free society will not countenance my pursuing happiness by taking an ax to all my neighbors. This would be in complete disregard of the very idea of unalienable human rights. Whether my neighbors put a stop to the threat themselves or call on the services of the government – sacred rights are protected rather than denied by preventing me from taking the ax to my neighbors. The role of government is ONLY to carry out these terms of our social compact in as least violent and invasive way as possible. Problems arise when the government ceases to be the servant of the free society and sets out to become its master. Problems arise when the government begins to regard itself as the author and guarantor of our unalienable rights rather than as the servant of all we rights-bearers. So, it’s election day. Remember who we are and vote. After the last couple more technical posts I thought it was about time to try something lighter. I strongly dislike the taste of onions. In general, I have the culinary aptitude of a coyote. I will eat just about anything. But I really dislike onions. The dislike is strong enough in me that almost everyone who knows me at all knows this about me. I don’t like onion rings. I don’t like onion dip. I don’t like onion soup. I have never ordered a blooming onion at any steak house. When I eat at someone’s home and they serve up an onion laden dish, I quietly eat as small a portion as I can politely get by with and smile – though I’d rather be eating a bowl of dirt. I remember how it started. I can tell you I was no more than four years old and at my maternal grandmother’s house on a Sunday afternoon. The table was heavy laden with food of all sorts – always the case at Grandma’s – including a big veggie tray fresh from the garden. It included a stack of spring onions with trimmed greens still attached. It was those greens that got me. They were so bright and attractive they just had to be good! My little fingers closed around one and brought it straight to my mouth. Several coughing and gagging minutes later I knew the truth – I don’t like onions. Several times in my life I have tested the theory that my original experience was only a mismatched expectation thing – you know – you sip a glass of iced tea thinking it’s a glass of cola (usually because someone put iced tea in a two liter pop bottle) – it tastes terrible – for cola. Then you discover it’s iced tea. It tastes fine for iced tea. Maybe I was just expecting the onion to taste like – I don’t know – something else – and was offput by surprise. Or maybe I was a super-taster and age would wear down my tastebuds until I could tolerate onions better. After all, there are other foods I thought I didn’t like when I was a kid that I love now. My first experience with hot peppers (about age 15) was unpleasant. I love them now. Ditto horseradish. So I have tried – and tried. I recall a kabob with various veggies – and fruits and mushrooms - between little cubes of meat. There was a morsel of red onion. It looked so savory and appealing. A moment later I needed a piece of sandpaper for my tongue. And there’s the surprises when you aren’t consciously experimenting. I always speak very slowly and clearly to the waitress, the person at the counter or the drive through speaker – No Onions. Apparently, when I say ‘No’, some people hear ‘Only’ or ‘Extra’. On an open face dish at least you can send it back right away. On a sandwich – well, a slice of bread covers a multitude of sins and the next thing you know I need a piece of sandpaper. Not only is the taste of onion unpleasant at first blush – it STICKS WITH YOU! On one of our late-night Christmas Eve trips from N.E Ohio to my folks place in Central Indiana, I got surprised in just that way. BTW – drive through is worse because you are back on the interstate before you discover the sabotage! But I took a big bite and right away knew I was had. I tried to muscle through but ended by emptying my mouth into a napkin and tossing the sandwich back into the bag for later disposal. But I just kept tasting and smelling the onion. Neither the French fries nor the soft drink brought any cessation of the terrible essence of onion! A couple hundred smelly miles later, across the Indiana State line, making a bathroom stop, the mirror in the gas station restroom revealed that my exercise with the napkin had left a large sliver of onion plastered right across the bulb of my nose. I removed the offensive matter promptly and upon rejoining my family in the car said – You all knew and just weren’t going to tell me, right?! To this day they all insist they never noticed. What can you expect from a bunch of onion eaters?! I know – it’s difficult to imagine other people enjoying a taste you find disagreeable and the majority of the world enjoys the taste of onion. Well, you can all have my share!
In my last installment I considered the ways in which I think the book of Daniel confounds the idea that Biblical ‘prophecy’ describes what were already accomplished events with no actual insight into the future. For me, dating considerations for Daniel confirm the fact of futurist prophecy. I want to look next at the book of Zechariah as a means of understanding something about the nature of futurist prophecy.
In Matthew 27:9-10 the matter of Judas returning the 30 pieces of silver for which he betrayed Jesus and the priest’s use of the funds – purchasing the potters field as a burial ground for the poor, indigent, and misplaced because ‘blood money’ cannot be put into the temple treasury – is regarded as a fulfillment of prophecy. Thus regarded, Zechariah made the prophecy about 520 BC and it was fulfilled about 550 years later. The Apostle Matthew definitely had a futurist understanding of prophecy. One cautionary/explanatory note. Matthew cites the prophet Jeremiah when he is clearly quoting the prophet Zechariah. Many find this extremely problematic. For myself, even if I thought Matthew mis-credited the passage, it would not destroy the authority of Scripture. But – for what it’s worth – almost no one in the First Century had copies of any portion of Scripture – absolutely no one had what you and I would call a complete Old Testament. Many Jews regarded all the prophets, Isaiah through Malachi, as one source and referred to it as the book of Jeremiah. This would not suit us but it suited them. At any rate – the passage in question is Zechariah 11:12-13. The point I’d like to make is that the least of the matter is the amount of money mentioned in both passages or the use of the word ‘potter’ in both passages. If that were the extent of the similarities – it could be regarded as simply coincidental and, certainly, if we limit ourselves to the two verses Matthew cited, in verses 12-13 – Zechariah does not say anything that could be read as having the Messiah directly in mind. But – when you read the whole 11th chapter of Zechariah and understand the situation the prophet was dealing with and then add another element to come a bit later in the chapter, the whole thing seems SUPER prophetic. The more so if you place chapter 11 in the larger context of Zechariah’s ministry. For instance, take a moment to read Zechariah 3:8-10 to understand that people and events in the ministry of Zechariah – while involved in problems of their own, current to their time – also represented more important figures to come at a time when God would deal with iniquity in a final way. So, let me describe a scenario – a time at which God’s people were under the care of bad shepherds who sell out the flock for money, power, - the usual kinds of things people sell out for. The context helps us understand these bad shepherds to be the elders, scribes, and priests – the very ones who should be good shepherds for Israel – but aren’t. Into this sad situation, God sends a prophet. The prophetic message of God’s servant lays bare the bad shepherding of the elders, scribes, and priests and shows the prophet willing to exercise better shepherding. But the people reject the servant/prophet’s message, plea and offer. The prophet then says – ‘Well, pay me what you think my ministry is worth.’ Said pay amounts to 30 pieces of silver (a month’s wage for a working man). But rather than lining the prophet’s (or anyone else’s) pockets, the money is tossed to the potter. A warning is given to the flock – now doubly doomed to slaughter – that God will raise up a REALLY bad shepherd for them. That shepherd turns out to be Rome. The REALLY bad shepherd arrives on cue. OK – you tell me – did I just describe the ministry of Zechariah or of Jesus? In fact, the same description fits both perfectly. Rome gobbled up Israel while it was gobbling up the rest of that part of the world and the prophecy of Zechariah was vindicated. But wait! There’s more. Rome came and afflicted Jerusalem after the rejection of Zechariah. But Rome came and made an extra affliction of Jerusalem after the rejection of Jesus – AD 70. And still there’s more! Chapter 11 is not the end of the prophecy of Zechariah. Skipping over chapter 12 for a moment, but continuing to describe the events flowing out of the prophecy, we come to this in 13:1 – In that day a fountain will be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for impurity. And there’s – you guessed it - MORE! In considering the bad shepherding done by the elders, scribes, and priests (read also Pharisees, scribes and Sadducees), the rejection of the REALLY GOOD SHEPHERD and the ministrations of the REALLY BAD SHEPHERD consequently raised up by God, after all the boiling, burning, smiting and bewilderment, we find this in 12:10, I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on ME whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for HIM (note the opposition of personal pronouns!) as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn. You see, it isn’t just that Zechariah mentioned 30 pieces of silver and a potter. For the real prophetic word of the prophet Zechariah to be fulfilled requires so much more than a questionable real estate deal conducted by priests with money returned by a remorseful Judas. For what it’s worth – the prophecy of Zechariah DID have to do with people and events of the time. Zechariah had a ministry and he meant to conduct it and there were consequences for the people to whom the prophet was sent should they reject his ministry. Yes, it was about rebuilding the temple and yes, it was about the faults of those who should have been the shepherds of Israel at the time. But it was about the future doings of many nations as well as the present failings of one nation – Israel. And those present failings of Israel in 520 BC were only a smoky mirror image of their future failings in AD 30. Zechariah himself was a hazy image of Christ – as was the high priest, Joshua, in chapter 3, the bad shepherds of the people learned nothing in half a millennium and Rome served God’s disciplinary purposes both times. And still, there was a bigger game afoot: redemption, a fountain for the cleansing of sins and the ultimate vindication of the REALLY GOOD SHEPHERD. This is what I mean when I say the Bible is a uniquely layered book and that prophecy is more than we realize. Or, we could settle for what could be argued to be a simple coincidental mention of a certain amount of money and a potter. But that would be a shame. Does the Bible actually forecast the future? The answers are surprisingly varied among Christians. ‘Preterists’ say ‘no’ – that Biblical ‘prophecies’ refer to events that had already happened or were in the process of happening at the time the prophecy was made. There are varying levels of preterism – partial and full being the best catch all descriptions. The opposite of preterism is ‘futurism’ – that Biblical prophecies refer to events still in the future at the time the prophecy was made. A full preterist rendering of the book of revelation (and other New Testament apocalyptic material) will insist that it all relates to AD 70 and the destruction of Jerusalem by Rome. A futurist reading will insist that most of what is described in New Testament apocalyptic passages still waits to be fulfilled. If you recall a previous blog of mine, you know that I think both things are true in a sense. Historicism (of which there are also varying degrees) sees the same material as a description of ongoing historical processes – the beast is a description of the Satan inspired actions of earthly governments – active at the time – still active now and ramping up for one last rampage to come.
The fact is – the Bible is a uniquely layered book. Certainly, the prophets were dealing with the unjust behavior of kings, nations, and the citizens of Israel AT THE TIME. And yet – they, at least on the face of it, forecasted the Babylonian Captivity to come as a result of present behaviors persisting into the future. Even Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus were mentioned by name – presumably before either man was born. Presumably? Enter another area of Biblical scholarship – Historical/Textual Criticism. Each book of the Bible as we have it is a compilation of multiple authors strung out over time and in addition to the major authors, there are no end to scribal additions, addendums, and editorial notes that, either purposely or accidentally in the process of generations of copying by hand, became part of the text. In this view, the book of Genesis has at least four major authors spread out over the centuries and the book of Isaiah at least three. If this view is true, then obviously material concerning the Babylonian Captivity, including the names of the major pagan kings, are to be viewed as later additions to the older prophetic works. Just to make my own position clear, HOGWASH! If this makes me a simpleton, so be it. But let us consider something about the aforementioned ‘beast’ – a feature of both Old and New Testament Apocalyptic. In the Old Testament, the main source of material concerning ‘the beast’ is found in the visions of Daniel. (Don’t even ask me how many authors Daniel is supposed to have had!) The first time the idea crops up, the ‘beast’ terminology is not used. In chapter two, Daniel interprets Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of a gigantic statue as representing a series of four earthly kingdoms and some climactic event (a stone cut from the mountain but not by human hands rolling into and smashing the whole statue in the days of the fourth kingdom) It is nearly impossible NOT to understand the four kingdoms as Babylon, the Medo/Persians, the Greeks (Alexander the Great) and Rome – the big thing that God is going to do with the stone not cut by human hands then, happening in the days of Rome’s rule. The material is revisited and expanded upon in Daniel’s own vision of the beasts and the interpretation of that vision in chapters seven and eight. To this must be added Daniel’s extremely precise and accurate recitation of (presumably) future events in chapter eleven. If the Historical Critical view is to be held concerning Daniel then the bulk of this information must have been added much later than the ministry of Daniel. After all, we can hardly expect a man 500+ years BC to know the succession of kingdoms and events that will lead to the advent of Christ. That would be – humanly impossible. Exactly! So, here’s the thing, Copies of Daniel (from small fragments to nearly whole manuscripts) were found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The physical inscription of these copies date from as recent as 60 AD to as early as 125 B.C. Analysis of the vocabulary and grammar of the older copies indicates a scribe in 125 BC reproducing much older copies – probably with Hebrew originals – indicating MUCH older copies. If this is not clear – whoever copied the book of Daniel in 125 BC used letter forms, spellings, etc. not from his own time – evidence of copying something that came from an earlier era. And the specifics of that earlier Aramaic version of Daniel suggest that it was translated from an even earlier Hebrew version. But even if we only back up to 125 BC – the date of the copying of the oldest DSS Manuscript of Daniel – we are half a century before Rome Seizes the quarreling fragments of Alexander’s Empire AND – over the nearly 200 years of hand copying we have, despite the superficial differences in the structure of the letters and the spelling of words – no material is added. It’s all there as far back as we can go – at least 125 BC with solid evidence of much earlier iterations. If the Hebrew original is correctly inferred, we are essentially back to the time of Daniel himself. So, I ask again – does the Bible actually forecast the future? Unless everyone screams ‘NO!’ I will write a second installment on prophecy soon. I like covered bridges. Why? They are picturesque. They evoke memories from my childhood – when there were more of them. Almost all the covered bridges we used to cross Morgan County, Indiana creeks on are gone. Counties like Park County, Indiana and Ashtabula County, Ohio that maintain several covered bridges have made a tourist industry of them. I suppose, otherwise, the anachronistic structures would be too expensive and limited to keep. Limited – because the old ones are narrow one car at a time structures and the one car needs to go fairly slow while crossing too! Expensive because the old covered bridges are primarily wooden structures and thus require constant maintenance. Which – on the one hand, is funny because the point of the covered bridges in the first place was reducing maintenance! Unless the deck of a bridge is arched and domed, water will pool on it when it rains and it will decay. A less expensive proposition than arching and doming was to put an A frame roof over the bridge deck. The roof would shed the water. Since we hadn’t (and still haven’t) figured out how to get that roof to float in space (Still rooting for anti-gravity, in which case we won’t need bridges at all!) the roof required walls, the whole supported by the deck, i.e. ‘covered bridge’. The walls could be constructed with arches and connecting rods or wooden lattices that would increase the strength of the deck even as the roof protected it from the elements. The bridge deck lasted much longer and the maintenance on the roof was considerably easier and cheaper than the maintenance on the unprotected deck would have been. Win/win!
Then bridges began to be constructed of steel, concrete and asphalt. Not only are these materials more resistant to water damage, they made it comparatively easy to build arch and dome into the deck so it sheds water all on its own. No roof means no need for walls – at most a couple of concrete or steel guard rails to prevent any unfortunate from driving off the side on a dark icy night. As the new materials made stronger bridges, bridges could also be wider for two-way traffic and able to bear higher speed traffic. Better bridges and no need to maintain all that wood! Which is why I was leery as my wife and I recently began the tour of Ashtabula County’s covered bridges. The first three we saw were frauds. One, billed as the shortest covered bridge in Ohio, is a foot bridge over a ditch I could still, at 63, jump across. Another, billed as the longest covered bridge in Ohio, is built on a state highway and is actually a thoroughly modern bridge to which a totally un-necessary, entirely decorative ‘cover’ structure has been added. A third, somewhere between the longest and shortest, is the same – a modern bridge with covered bridge themed décor. Fortunately, after that, the remaining dozen plus covered bridges were actual one lane, low speed, wood deck, integrated strength increasing wall architecture, honest to goodness covered bridges. We thoroughly enjoyed the tour despite my initial misgivings. Perhaps I am a purist. But if I take the lid off a butter churn I don’t want to find a hidden mini-fridge full of plastic tubs of Blue Bonnet or Land O Lakes! I get why we have moved on from butter churns, covered bridges and other items featured in my childhood. You don’t need to humor me with pretenses! Well, maybe in just one instance. When one favorite bridge from my youth disappeared they knocked down the embankments that raised the bridge above flood levels and set a culvert in the resultant sump. A culvert! That’s not trading poetry for prose – it’s trading poetry for animal sounds! Now that I’ve got that out of my system – Materials, construction techniques and efficiency aside – the purpose of the bridges remains the same – to give you a way across the gap and over the flood – to get you and yours safely where they could not go otherwise. Much has changed for the modern church. Some of it I completely understand. Modern technology makes it possible to reach more people more easily and efficiently. Never mind the internet! I miss some of the period related aspects of the church of my childhood but I understand why we moved on. No need to humor ourselves with pretenses. Still, the functions of the church remain exactly the same. For one, there’s a gap between the world and the Kingdom. It’s a perilous gap. A bridge is needed. |
AuthorPastor and Author Terry Bailey, Senior Pastor of Indian Run Christian Church Archives
December 2022
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