Year: 2011

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Bible

The Book of Job

A few weeks ago, I mused that the Song of Solomon (Song of Songs) might be best understood as a screenplay of sorts.  Reading and meditating on it as such gave me new insights and a deeper appreciation of this often-overlooked book.

It seems that the book of Job is not dissimilar in this regard.  It, too, could have been an early version of today’s screenplay.

In the book of Job, there are eight characters:

  • Job, the protagonist
  • God, Job’s protector and overseer
  • Satan, Job’s antagonist
  • Job’s unsupportive wife, a bit part, albeit a painful one
  • Job’s three “friends:” Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, (with friends like these, who needs enemies?)
  • Job’s fourth friend, the initially quiet and then verbose, Elihu.

The book of Job opens with a prologue (chapters 1 and 2) that establishes the setting of the story and concludes with an epilogue (chapter 42) that provides for a satisfying ending.  In betwixt is all dialogue between Job and his four increasingly critical friends.

Aside from a brief ending summation by Job in the epilogue, the last oration is from God.  It is fitting that God has the final word — and that Job listens.

A lifelong student of the Bible, Peter DeHaan, PhD, wrote the 1,000-page website ABibleADay.com to encourage people to explore the Bible. His main blog and many books urge Christians to push past the status quo and reconsider how they practice their faith in every area of their lives.

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Bible

Influencing Future Generations

Despite King David’s many failings, God refers to him as “a man after my own heart.”

A few generations prior, Ruth makes a bold statement of commitment to her mother-in-law and by extension to the God that mom serves.  Ruth declares,

“Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay.  Your people will be my people and your God my God.  Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried.  May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”

Oh, by the way, Ruth is King David’s great grandmother”

Is there a connection?  I think so.

Ruth’s sold out, over-the-top commitment to both mom and mom’s God is likely passed on to son Obed, grandson Jesse, and great grandson David.  Whether or not great grandmother Ruth is still alive to see David, we do not know.  But her influence is evident.

What are we passing on to our children, our grandchildren, and our great grandchildren?  Will our actions today influence successive generations?  I hope so.

[See Acts 13:22 and Ruth 1:16-17.]

A lifelong student of the Bible, Peter DeHaan, PhD, wrote the 1,000-page website ABibleADay.com to encourage people to explore the Bible. His main blog and many books urge Christians to push past the status quo and reconsider how they practice their faith in every area of their lives.

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Bible

Gender Equality

Many people criticize the Bible — and those who follow it — for making women subservient to men.  This is not a conclusion I reach when I read the Bible.  I see the Bible — and those who truly follow it — as elevating the plight of women to the place they were created to be: equal to men.

Consider Genesis 3:16 where God says to Eve that Adam will rule over her.

This is not God’s created order or a command; this is an outcome.

Adam and Eve disregard God’s way and decide to do things their way.  As a result, they can no longer stay in the idyllic paradise he made for them; they have to leave.  Because of their actions, life would be different.  One of the changes is that men would attempt to elevate themselves over women.

This was not God’s intent, but rather the result of human action.

In the beginning — in the first two chapters of the Bible — man and women are implicitly equal.  That is how God creates them to be.  Then man and women get greedy and want more; they mess up the order God intended.

Their actions change God’s balance and one of the outcomes is gender inequality and strife.  It isn’t what God wanted, but it is what human beings got when they did things their way.

]See Genesis 3:1-19.]

A lifelong student of the Bible, Peter DeHaan, PhD, wrote the 1,000-page website ABibleADay.com to encourage people to explore the Bible. His main blog and many books urge Christians to push past the status quo and reconsider how they practice their faith in every area of their lives.

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Bible

Blessed are the Meek

Do you aspire to be meek?  Not likely.  Who would?

When I think of meek, I think of spineless, compliant, and easily imposed upon.

While that is a correct understanding of what it is to be meek, it is also the secondary definition for the word.

The first definition for meek is patient, humble, gentle, and long-suffering.

Even with that perspective, meekness is not a trait that many in our world today desire.

Consider, however, that Moses, the great leader of ancient Israel, was characterized as being meek.  Even more so, Jesus himself claimed to be meek.  Plus, Paul taught that we should all be meek.

Given that Moses and Jesus were meek, and Paul taught it, perhaps we need to give this trait some serious consideration.

After all, Jesus promised that the meek will inherit the earth.

[See Numbers 12:3, Matthew 11:29, Colossians 3:12, and Matthew 5:5.]

A lifelong student of the Bible, Peter DeHaan, PhD, wrote the 1,000-page website ABibleADay.com to encourage people to explore the Bible. His main blog and many books urge Christians to push past the status quo and reconsider how they practice their faith in every area of their lives.

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Bible

An Army of Angels

The young girl gazes out into the desert; something is coming towards her.  It is Solomon, her lover, traveling by carriage. 

He is accompanied by a protective band of weapon wielding warriors, tested and poised for whatever threat awaits them.  With Solomon — and his army — she will be protected.

In a spiritual sense, this is how it is with God and us.  He is coming towards us; with him, we will be protected.  (That doesn’t mean there won’t be risks as we journey with him, because there will.)  

We will also be afforded a band of warriors, ready to battle on our behalf.  In the spiritual realm, this is an army of angels.

Centuries later, Jesus tells Satan, “Don’t you know that I could ask my Father, and right away he would send me more than twelve armies of angels?”

While we might not see angels, we have good reason to believe that they are nearby, ready to protect us from both physical threats and spiritual foes.

Our God, who loves us, will make sure we are protected.

[See Song of Solomon 3:6-8 and Matthew 26:53.]

A lifelong student of the Bible, Peter DeHaan, PhD, wrote the 1,000-page website ABibleADay.com to encourage people to explore the Bible. His main blog and many books urge Christians to push past the status quo and reconsider how they practice their faith in every area of their lives.

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Bible

Where Are You?

In the Song of Songs, the girl reveals something personal.  She is self-conscious about the dark tones of her skin (from spending too much time in the sun, she says).  She doesn’t want others to stare.

Yet the friends in this story want to do just that.  They admire her uniqueness and ask to gaze upon her.  This is ironic; the exact thing that makes her uncomfortable, others admire.

More significantly, is that her lover desires to do the same.  He says, “Show me your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely.” His love for her is revealed through his desire.

While this human love story between a man and a woman is wonderful and inviting, the underlying analogy is of the love story between God and us.  By extension, God wants to look at us; he wants to hear our voice!

If this seems strange, know that there is precedent.

You may recall that after Adam and Eve hid from God, that God sought them out, calling “Where are you?” (Though their location was not a mystery to God; he merely wanted them to come to him on their own accord — as he does of us.)

I hear the same call to us today.

[Read the passages referenced above.]

A lifelong student of the Bible, Peter DeHaan, PhD, wrote the 1,000-page website ABibleADay.com to encourage people to explore the Bible. His main blog and many books urge Christians to push past the status quo and reconsider how they practice their faith in every area of their lives.

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Bible

Pursuing God Can be Risky

I have heard some claim that if you follow Jesus, all your problems will be solved and life will become an idyllic and blissful existence.

While I suppose that could be the case, I don’t reach that conclusion when I read my Bible.

In one of the more obscure passages, this is shown figuratively in The Song of Songs.

Twice, overcome in desperation to be with her lover (the king), the girl makes an ill-advised nighttime foray into the dark to find him.  Both times, she encounters watchmen. 

The first occurs without incident, but the second time she is mistreated by them.  The degree of abuse is unclear, but it could be understood as severe.

Just as she is willing to risk much to be with the king she loves, so to do God’s followers take risks to be with the King they love.

And if we truly love him, no risk is too great.

A lifelong student of the Bible, Peter DeHaan, PhD, wrote the 1,000-page website ABibleADay.com to encourage people to explore the Bible. His main blog and many books urge Christians to push past the status quo and reconsider how they practice their faith in every area of their lives.

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Bible

Familiar Phrases in an Unfamiliar Place

The Song of Songs (Song of Solomon) is a part of the Bible that is not often read.  Even so, three phrases jump out as being very familiar.

The first is “rose of Sharon.”  It is a beautiful and valued flower.  However, according to some translators, this eloquent phrasing should more correctly be rendered as “crocus.”  That just doesn’t carry the same punch.

Immediately following that is another flower reference, “lily of the valley.”  Lily of the valley is also a pretty flower, usually pure white and most delicate in appearance.

What is unclear is if these images refer to the king (implying God) or to his beloved (implying us).

The third phrase is “his banner over me is love.”  This harkens to I song I remember singing as a child.  Aside from this phrase and a vague recollection of the tune, I can recall no other words to the song, but I think this is what we sang (and there are even hand motions to accompany it!)

Interestingly, all three phrases only occur once in the Bible, in the Song of Songs.

A lifelong student of the Bible, Peter DeHaan, PhD, wrote the 1,000-page website ABibleADay.com to encourage people to explore the Bible. His main blog and many books urge Christians to push past the status quo and reconsider how they practice their faith in every area of their lives.

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Bible

A Biblical Screenplay

Song of Songs is commonly categorized as wisdom literature in the Bible.  With the possible exception of Job, it is not like the other wisdom books, nor like any other book in the Bible. 

It is easy to imagine Song of Songs as being the lines to a play that King Solomon wrote to both entertain and teach his people.  As such, Song of Songs may be more akin to a modern-day screenplay than anything else.

There are three characters in this play, the beloved (the girl), the lover (the king), and the friends (think of them as the “chorus”). 

Headings, indicating the three parts, are inserted in some versions to reflect the pronouns used in the original Hebrew text, though some of the delineations between speakers are not absolute.

The book can be read straight through as a narrative or the various speakers (lover, beloved, and friends) can be pulled out read individually to gain a better understanding of each character.  In doing so,

  • the lover mostly upholds and celebrates her beauty,
  • the beloved mostly talks about her deep yearning for him and desire to be with him, and
  • the words of the “friends” often provide a transition or information for the play.

In reading the words of the lover (the king), we can gain insight into God’s love for us and how he views us.

In focusing on the words of the beloved (the girl), we get a glimpse of what our response to God should rightly be.

Reading the Song of Songs with this perspective, gives me much to consider.

A lifelong student of the Bible, Peter DeHaan, PhD, wrote the 1,000-page website ABibleADay.com to encourage people to explore the Bible. His main blog and many books urge Christians to push past the status quo and reconsider how they practice their faith in every area of their lives.

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Bible

The Song of Songs

After my prior post about the number one hit that used the Bible for lyrics, you may think that it is the “song of songs.”  Not so.  There is another.  You may have heard the book in the Bible, Song of Solomon. 

It is sometimes called the “Song of Songs”  (A more comprehensive title might be “Solomon’s Song of Songs.”)

Song of Songs can be thought of as a “biblical erotica,” albeit a PG 13 version.  It is a bit explicit and somewhat suggestive, but in a literary way.

Song of Songs is a tale a passionate love affair between the king and his lover.  The king is Solomon and his lover is foreign royalty (she is described has a “Shulammite” and a “prince’s daughter).

However, in addition to this real life drama, Song of Songs is also points to a passionate spiritual love affair between God and his people.  (In the New Testament, this love affair is even more specific, being between Jesus and the church, who is his spiritual bride.)

As such, Song of Songs can be read and appreciated on two levels: a personal love story between two people and a spiritual saga of God’s desire for his people (us) and the way he longs for us to respond.

A lifelong student of the Bible, Peter DeHaan, PhD, wrote the 1,000-page website ABibleADay.com to encourage people to explore the Bible. His main blog and many books urge Christians to push past the status quo and reconsider how they practice their faith in every area of their lives.