Category: Thinking Things Through
Posted by Jay at 12:55 pm
It’s been several years since I read The Lord of the Rings trilogy, but for some reason I was thinking about it while mowing the yard last week. I was trying to ascertain the meaning of his ending (if there is one) in which the hobbits head home and have to free the place from oppression and restore its natural beauty.
It suddenly struck me that perhaps Tolkien was reflecting on his own experiences and thoughts about his homeland in light of World War I. Is the entire trilogy a warning that there’s no point in bleeding and dying to win a global war if you surrender your homeland to the same sorts of evils in the name of progress?
Posted by Jay at 9:35 pm
In my post Samson and Goliath, I said:
Goliath himself understood (sort of) that the God of Israel was treating him as a joke. “Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?” (see 1 Samuel 17:43 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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) he asks rhetorically… only it turns out it wasn’t merely rhetorical, it was actually worth pondering, because the answer was a resounding “Yes!” This too parallels Samson, when the 30 companions answer his riddle with rhetorical uestions that were actually the heart of the matter (see Judges 14 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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). “What is stronger than a lion?” they ask. Well, duh! Samson is… he just ripped one limb from limb.
I’ve been thinking about this interesting aspect of Philistine questions (that they seem to have a knack to ask profound questions that cut to the heart of the matter without realizing it and thinking they are merely making some rhetorical flourish), and I suddenly realized there as an another dimension to Goliath’s question.
Turning to Matthew 15:21-28 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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, we have the following story:
And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.” But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, “Send her away, for she is crying out after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” And he answered, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly.
In Jesus’ interaction with the Canaanite woman, the Canaanites were dogs, and it turns out there is a kind of dog that shames the sheep with her faith and pleases the master! The Philistines were not true Canaanites, but had settled in Canaan and seem to substitute for the Canaanites in opposition to Israel at the time of Goliath. By asking whether he was a dog, Goliath was not only hinting that he was the punch line in God’s joke on the Philistines, he was also hinting at the path of humility and faith open to the Canaanites (and the Philistines). The table laid out for God’s people had plenty of scraps if they would simply hunger for true food.
Posted by Jay at 2:03 pm
Manoah’s wife, the mother of Samson, is never named (see Judges 13 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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primarily). Why? She is the center of the story. Even when Manoah prays and God hears him, the answer is to send the angel to his wife when he is not with her.
Please post insightful comments… I need this itch scratched.
July 13 update:
Madeleine asks some very pertinent questions in the comments, as well as raising some good points. I thought I would respond here to her question regarding the source of my curiousity, because my answer should have been part of the original post.
In the first part of Hebrews 7 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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, the author makes a theological point about Jesus based on the fact that Melchizedek doesn’t have any geneological information in the text of Genesis 14 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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. Why? Because any character of Melchizedek’s stature would have received a “son of” in the literature of Genesis unless the author purposefully excluded it. In other words, the exclusion of words from Genesis 14 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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undergirds a significant theological point in the New Testament.
Now Samson’s mother falls into two patterns (at least two, I should say) seen in the Bible: she has a barren womb that gives birth to a baby; and she gives birth to a permanent Nazerite. All the other women that follow these patterns (that I can think of) are named: Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Hannah, Elizabeth, Mary, and others.
So I am tentatively assuming that the author of Judges intentionally left out her name (i.e. he knew her name and purposefully did not use it), and that he did this in spite of the norm. And if he purposefully left out her name, I’m curious as to his purpose.
Posted by Jay at 3:06 pm
I just wrapped up three weeks of teaching adult Sunday School on Samson, so I’ve been thinking about his interactions with the Philistines quite a bit (see Judges 13-16 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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to brush up on the stories). If you line up Samson’s time line with Samuel, it looks like Samson took down the Philistine temple, along with all five lords of the Philistines, a bit prior to battle of Mizpah when the 40 years of Philistine rule over the Israelites (see Judges 13:1 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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) was ended.
Samson was a strong man and a terror to the Philistines. As they said of him once he was captured and blinded, “Our god has given our enemy into our hand, the ravager of our country, who has killed many of us.” After Mizpah, the Philistines show up a couple times with Saul and Jonathan before we quickly arrive at Goliath in 1 Samuel 17 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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.
The whole David and Goliath story now seems to me to be a giant joke on the Philistines by God based on the setup of Samson… that it is a “laugh at your calamity” (see Proverbs 1:26 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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) sort of moment. Think of it. For 20 years Samson had devastated the Philistines, and the men of Philistia could not stand against him. He was an Israelite strong man, and the Philistines had to seek help from a third party to deal with him. Now the Philistines bring forward their “Samson”, a strong man of outstanding proportion, and what happens? In his first encounter with the Israelites, a little shepherd boy kills him with a toy! What could have been more humiliating? Perhaps if a little Israelite girl had kicked him between the legs…
Goliath himself understood (sort of) that the God of Israel was treating him as a joke. “Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?” (see 1 Samuel 17:43 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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) he asks rhetorically… only it turns out it wasn’t merely rhetorical, it was actually worth pondering, because the answer was a resounding “Yes!” This too parallels Samson, when the 30 companions answer his riddle with rhetoricl questions that were actually the heart of the matter (see Judges 14 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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). “What is stronger than a lion?” they ask. Well, duh! Samson is… he just ripped one limb from limb.
God’s enemies are not merely defeated, they are mocked. Perhaps this theme is lurking behind Colossians 2:15 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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, when Christ does not merely defeat his enemies, he puts them to open shame.
Posted by Tricia at 6:35 pm
In this world, one should never be truly shocked when they meet with impolite treatment in a store. Unfortunately, it happens quite alot. The fact that customer service usually carries a qualification, whether fast or slow, good or bad, for instance, betrays the fact that not all customer service is in fact, GOOD customer service, despite its definition, which is given as:
“assistance and other resources that a company provides to the people who buy or use its products or services”.
Despite plenty of poor customer service experiences, my most recent tops the list as the one in which I felt most personally slighted, and so I will share it with you…but first let me say…those of you who read this site will be able to attest to the notion that I don’t generally view our blog as a forum for airing frustrations and grievances. However, what I am about to share with you has a humorous side to it that hopefully will entertain you, as well as allow me to vent (just a little!).
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Jay at 4:42 pm
My Aunt Diane, the younger sister of my mother Ruth, passed away on February 13. My grandfather, Diane’s father, wrote a tribute to his daughter shortly before she died. I’ve posted a PDF version here, Remembering, with the text following. I am so thankful that God is faithful to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands.
REMEMBERING
A small child about eight months of age hung over her father’s forearm like a half-filled bag of grain, legs and feet hanging down on one side and arms, hands and head on the other. As a pair of motherly looking ladies passed, one of them whispered, “Doesn’t he know how to carry a baby?” Yes, he knew. He also knew from some experience that this was definitely the position of choice for this particular child, perhaps an early indication of her propensity for “thinking outside the box.” The child was Ruby Diane Renich, the third daughter of John and Eileen Renich. She and her father were returning from their regular twice-weekly visit to the therapy and rehabilitation department of the Los Angeles (California) County’s public health service. A recent bout with polio had crippled the child’s left arm, leaving it almost useless. The therapy brought no improvement, but as the child grew she learned to adapt to her limitation and compensate for it in many ways. At this time her mother was a patient in a rehabilitation hospital some thirty miles away seeking recovery from the ravages of a much more severe attack of polio. The mother’s life had been spared, we firmly believe, in answer to the earnest prayers of many Christian friends.
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Posted by Tricia at 2:19 pm
One of my favorite songs to sing this time of year is “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear”(full text in link). Though I didn’t particularly enjoy this hymn as a child, over the years I have come to appreciate it more than any Christmas song I know, and I love the lyrics for they are rich with meaning, and spin a beautiful picture of what Christmas and really all of life is about. While I am not gifted with the art of painting pictures with my words, the gentleman who wrote this hymn certainly was. What incredible poetry is contained in this song. My favorite verse is the 3rd, I think traditionally. Here are the words:
“And ye, beneath life’s crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow,
Look now! for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing.
O rest beside the weary road,
And hear the angels sing!”
These are words that all creation can relate to. And they often bring tears to my eyes when I hear them sung. I love the reality of the sense of toil and burden that we often feel in this life and the reminder of God’s love song above our “babel”. And then the hope that is sung in the later part of the verse about “glad and golden hours”. The admonition to rest and remember the angels’ words is a great reminder to us all this Christmas Season. As they sang,
“Peace on the earth, good will to men,
From Heaven’s all gracious King.”
Whatever your toil this season (and we all have our own!), may the truth of these words ring anew in your hearts and among your family and loved ones. May we all recall the message of Christmas that was sung in Bethlehem so long ago. Merry Christmas to you all.
Posted by Jay at 9:48 pm
I recently had the opportunity to speak to a group at church on Psalm 115 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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. As an interesting aside, the invitation came about three days prior to the car crash, and I was specifically asked to focus on verses 9 to 11 and the idea of God as our shield. My preparation was greatly disrupted in one sense, yet in a way I was far better prepared than I could have achieved through mere study.
Anyway, while doing the actual talk I noticed a feature of the text that I had previously missed. Here’s a brief outline of sorts I had drawn up.
A Psalm 115:1-3 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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— God’s glory challenged/answered
B Psalm 115:4-8 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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— idolaters like idols (inert, unfruitful)
C Psalm 115:9-11 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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— Trust in the Lord (he is your shield)
B’ Psalm 115:12-16 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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— God blesses, all is fruitful
A’ Psalm 115:17-18 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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— those who praise the Lord, those who don’t
So who are the dead that don’t praise the Lord (Psalm 115:17 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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)? I’d originally thought this referred to those who had actually died, fitting in with some of the general statements earlier in the Old Testament prior to a more specific doctrine of life after death and resurrection becoming normative.
But that seems to miss the point of the psalm. Who challenges God’s glory at the start of the psalm? Idolaters. And how does the psalm describe idolaters? As dead people. If you read Psalm 115:5-7 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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as a riddle to someone, they would probably think you were talking about a corpse, and Psalm 115:8 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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declares that idolaters become like their corpse-idols.
Such a reading firms up the chiastic structure and helps us read verses 12-16 in their proper context: as an answer to the lifelessness/fruitlessness of idol worshippers. What a great summary of creation and redemption! All creation is created for life, for fruitfulness, for people. Think of Genesis 1 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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and the creation mandate. And this purpose is found in redemption, through the trust of God and the scorning of idols. God is life, and in him we have our life.
This approach to Psalm 115 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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also seems to lend some nice detail to Jesus’ call to those who have ears to hear, tieing in with Isaiah 6 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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.
September 11th, 2004
Huh??
Posted by Tricia at 3:36 pm
Some of us in the Horne household LOVE Cream of Wheat (enriched Farina for those of you who are familiar with the other stuff) for breakfast. Especially Abigail and I. As I was putting the box away earlier, I noticed the following slogan on its side:
“So SMOOTH, So CREAMY, So GOOD to hold on to”
Does anyone else besides me think this an odd sort of statement to make in reference to Cream of Wheat?
Posted by Jay at 4:32 pm
In an earlier entry, I offered some provisional thoughts regarding the Lord’s Prayer and its parallels with redemptive history. Now, I believe Jesus’ prayer is rich in references to the Lord’s work throughout history, but I was specifically intrigued by the somewhat chronological correlation of the first three clauses of the prayer. It went something like this:
Our Father: Israel called out of slavery and identified as God’s son (Exodus 4:22-23 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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)
Kingdom Come: The tabernacle built according to the heavenly pattern that God should dwell among His people. Think too of John 1 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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in which Jesus is described as tabernacling among us. Whoever has seen the son has seen the Father. That sort of thing. Puts a heavy incarnational emphasis on this aspect of the prayer.
Daily Bread: The giving of manna and basic provision (i.e. their clothes did not wear out).
Here are some provisional thoughts on how this pattern might continue.
Forgive Us: I am more and more inclined to think Leviticus forms the parallel with its introduction of the sacrificial system and the associated atonement.
Deliver Us: Here I see a broad parallel with the book of Numbers and its repetitive cycle of testing, judgment, and deliverance.
Thine Is the Kingdom: The entrance into the land fits here, starting at the end of Numbers and carrying forward into Joshua. Of course, as we learn in Judges and I Samuel, the Israelites ultimately reject God as their king. But their very rejection implies the starting point was in fact the establishment of God’s as king in their midst.
Posted by Jay at 10:43 pm
In Jesus’ baptism by John, the Spirit descends on Jesus as a dove (Matthew 3:13-17 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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). Why a dove?
In the past, I’ve correlated the description of Jesus’ baptism with the description of Noah’s ark (Genesis 7-8 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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), with the rough picture being the Spirit hovering over the waters (which also ties into Genesis 1 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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). These are instances of a new creation theme, and the apostle Peter confirms the theme in the Noah account (2 Peter 3:5-7 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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).
Today, as I was reading the account of the baptism, it suddenly hit me that the dove fit perfectly and confirmed the correlation between the Noah story and Jesus baptism, putting Jesus in the place of the new heavens and new earth. As the waters receded, Noah sent out a raven, and it returned. Then he sent out a dove, and it returned. He sent the dove again, and it brought back an olive leaf. He sent the dove out a third time, and it did not return. One can picture the new earth breaking through the water and the dove alighting on it.
Jesus “went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him.” The dove found purchase, for the waters had receded from the new creation.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (2 Corinthians 5:17 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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)
Posted by Jay at 6:16 pm
I’ve been teaching an adult Sunday School class on the vocation/identity of Jesus and the implications for the church using the Lord’s Prayer as an outline. This morning, as I was reviewing the previous week (”thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven”), I suddenly noticed a pattern that proved very helpful in summarizing the previous week.
The basic premise is that the initial clauses of the prayer line up well with Israel’s history and therefore point all the more strongly to Christ’s fulfillment of Israel’s vocation. I haven’t worked it all out, but here are some initial thoughts.
When Israel is first called as a nation, God calls them as His son (Exodus 4:22-23 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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)… i.e. He is their Father. This is the first reference to the fatherhood of God in redemptive history. The Israelites go into the wilderness, where Moses goes up the mountain and receives the heavenly pattern for the tabernacle (Hebrews 8:5 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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). This tabernacle becomes the dwelling place of God. The Israelites then wind up in the wilderness for some time, during which time they are sustained by the bread of heaven, manna (Deuteronomy 8:3 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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).
In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus calls on God as Father, pointing toward his church as the people of the true exodus, the sons of God. At this point it gets interesting, because he immediately prays that “thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven”. This strikes me as a parallel to the pattern of the tabernacle, and gives the entire clause an interesting flavor. Specifically, it moves us toward an incarnational understanding of God’s kingdom being brought to bear on the earth.
Jesus “tabernacled” among us and revealed the Father to us (John 1 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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). He was the ultimate heavenly pattern, revealing the Father (and His will) perfectly. As we pray the Lord’s prayer and call on God as Father, we yearn to see His kingdom brought to bear here on earth. But this is not a desire apart from us, his Church. Called by Christ, in the power of the Spirit, the bringing of the Kingdom to bear on the world is the bringing of us to bear on the world… or more accurately we should say it is the bringing of Jesus to bear through us in the power of the Spirit.
Next up then is the prayer for bread, once again paralleling Israel’s history. Here we find Jesus is the true manna, the Bread of Life. Just as the Church resonates with the Father/Son theme and the Heavenly Pattern transforming the earth, so too we have bread to seek. We see this in all areas of our lives, and certainly the Sermon on the Mount leaps to mind when we juxtapose thoughts of daily needs and the kingdom of God (Matthew 6:33 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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). But I believe the redemptive-historical parallel between manna and Jesus the Bread of Life also points us very directly toward the Lord’s Supper. Though the Lord’s Prayer doesn’t explicit point to the Supper, and I wouldn’t want to limit its application to Communion, the association is not unwarranted. This very connect-the-dots sort of movement through redemptive history is seen in 1 Corinthians 10 [+/-]ERROR: You have exceeded your quota of 500 requests per day.
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.
Now, I’ve only gotten this far… does the pattern continue? We have drawn parallels between Israel, Jesus, and the Church for the first three clauses of the prayer (Father, Kingdom on Earth, Daily Bread). Do the parallels continue through the remainder of the prayer?
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