Category Archives: Old Testament

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Creation as God’s lavish love—Genesis 1

In its ordered, schematic way, Genesis 1 sketches God’s power, his creativity, his brilliant design, and his loving and careful delight in what he has created. His power is easily evident. God simply speaks, and the variety of things spring into being, generally from less to more complex. Moreover, God then gives his creation a degree of independence to act and propagate on its own rather than waiting for him to create each new creature.

Most people in the ancient Middle East and Mediterranean worlds believed in a sort of primeval chaos. Here, however, God establishes the world’s orderly design, commanding each form of life to reproduce according to its kind. God organized creation so that birds bring forth birds and cattle bring forth cattle; he provided genetically for continuity in forms of life. (Genesis was not written to address modern scientific interests; the point here is God’s order from one generation to the next, not resistance to change over aeons of time. Both continuity and change may belong to the potencies God invested in life forms, although God certainly has the power to direct the processes.)

The passage emphasizes God’s great benevolence. God supplied waters for fish to live in, and air and land for other creatures to dwell in. Genesis further shows that the very celestial lights worshiped by pagans are simply part of God’s gift to regulate life on earth (Gen 1:14-18). All these things were good, God recognized, but he wasn’t finished. The pinnacle of his good creation was people. As sun and moon governed night, God formed humanity to govern earth for him. In many of the previous cases God simply commanded earth or water to bring forth life forms; in this instance, by contrast, he himself lovingly fashioned us directly.

God not only formed us in a special way, but he fashioned us in his own image, to be like him. Scholars sometimes point out that kings established images of themselves widely as symbols of their rule. While this analogy may play a role here, Genesis itself reveals an even deeper message. What does it mean to be in someone’s likeness and image? In this section a Genesis, a father has a son in his likeness and image (Gen 5:3). When God made us in his image, he was saying that he desired us to be, and loved us as, his own sons and daughters. Even after the fall, God valued humans as those made in his image (Gen 9:6). Nothing that humans could make, imitating anything in creation, could fill this role (Deut 4:16), but God granted us to be in his image. God’s act of creating us was an act of love, an invitation to intimate fellowship with himself.

As benevolently as he had made everything before people, God now finished his creative work with lavish generosity. He wanted the creatures most like their creator to govern the rest of his world for him, stewards with access to everything. God gave them and other animals access to all the plants for their food. With each of his previous creations, God had concluded that it was good; with the creation of people, however, he declared that he had made the world very good. When we read Genesis 1, we can celebrate with the great artist and his beautiful, interdependent design. Every week when we rest from our work we are invited to remember God’s gift in creation and how he rested afterward (Exod 31:17).

Genesis 1 reveals how lavishly God blessed us. Like the different but theologically complementary perspective in Genesis 2, this account (Gen 1:1—2:4, from “the beginning to the “completion” in 2:1) helps set the stage for the tragic vision of Gen 3: our failure as humans to be recognize his benevolence and be grateful. We squandered our gracious God’s gifts and ruined them, ruining ourselves in the process. Even so, this kind God showed his care for humanity (3:21) and continued to deal with us (4:4, 15). Thus begins the saga of redemption, the story that carries throughout the Bible. We people keep messing up, yet God keeps pursuing us, relentlessly seeking those who will embrace his way.

The days of creation are a schematic device to remind us that God took his time to lovingly craft a world teeming with life that could run largely on its own, with just some human supervision to tend it for its good. This passage explains the abundant provision God has given us in this world, his masterpiece. Some pagan stories of creation at the time explained creation as the result of unintentional, violent interactions among deities, but Genesis is clear that one God lovingly designed the world in an exquisite, orderly way. Genesis 1 introduces this God of love, who furnished such an orderly world and crowned us the pinnacle of his creation. Humans, who ruined paradise, are still invited as heirs in the Lord’s new creation.

That’s the theological climax of this post. I turn briefly anticlimactically to a different point: those who turn Genesis 1 into a science debate about the age of creation miss the real theological issue here. (My younger brother Chris, a scientist and committed Christian, often rightly laments how many good scientists get turned off to the Bible by some Christians’ prosaic articulation of it.) The passage itself uses yom, the Hebrew word usually translated “day,” three different ways (e.g., Gen 1:5, 8, 18; 2:4), yet some want to force the term to bear the weight of literal twenty-four hour days.

Unlike my brother, I lack the qualifications that should make anyone care what I think about the scientific questions. I can, however, speak plainly to the biblical questions, and there I find that much of today’s approach to Genesis 1 misunderstands the genre that would’ve seemed obvious to the most ancient hearers. It substitutes for it instead questions that would not have concerned or even been intelligible to the first audience. (For my thoughts on Genesis 1—3 and what it is not meant to tell us about modern scientific questions, see the latter part of http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-s-keener/is-young-earth-creationism-biblical_b_1578004.html—if you aren’t afraid to engage a perspective probably very different from what you’ve heard before on a popular level!)

Genesis is not interested in our curiosity about the age of the earth; if we want to discover that, God has provided other means for that. Its interest is more immediately practical for faith: its interest is in inspiring us to awe of the awesome, ingenious, artistic creator who designed creation and history. Humanity was once ungrateful and squandered his gifts. Now that we have experienced both good and evil, we do not start in innocence but are invited to make an informed choice to honor him. Let us praise God for his lavish love and magnificent creativity, and fill the role as his agents that he has graciously granted us.

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When you have to stand alone

“Wrap up your garment for action. Get up and tell them everything that I myself command you. Don’t be scared of them … Today I myself have established you like a fortified city, an iron pillar or a bronze wall against the entire land—against the kings of Judah, its leaders, its priests and the land’s people. They’ll fight you but won’t overpower you, for I myself am with you to keep you safe” (Jer 1:17-19)

Have you ever felt like you had only a few allies in sharing Christ with others, or in standing for something that is true? We hear a lot about “community” these days, and community is a wonderful blessing. But what happens when you are in a setting where most people disagree with your faith or ignore a clear message from God?

Jeremiah’s situation was worse than that. He was nearly alone in proclaiming God’s message. The other prophets of his day were encouraging the people that because God was their God he wouldn’t judge them. Jeremiah thus had to stand alone with the unpopular message of impending judgment, while all the other prophets told everyone what they wanted to hear. Jeremiah had to let God’s people know that they were breaking God’s covenant, and that God would judge them—though someday God promised a new covenant that they wouldn’t break. Jeremiah did have a few allies—Baruch the scribe, who wrote his prophecies, and a foreigner, Ebed-melech from Africa.

But he was mostly alone, and most people didn’t like him. He also couldn’t feel comfortable simply taking life easy like many around him. “Because your hand was on me, I had to keep to myself, for you filled me with your fury of judgment,” Jeremiah complained (Jer 15:17).

God had been patient with his people for a long time, but finally he was getting ready to discipline them. In fact, once they were exiled and had to learn to live in a pagan environment, they would learn to value the true God who was their only hope for the future. But why did Israel deserve punishment so much?

Scripture told them that they were supposed to love God wholly—and thus abstain from other gods (Deut 6:4-5). Because of this whole-hearted devotion to God, they were to meditate on his Word always. They were supposed to talk about his commands at home and when outside (a nice Hebrew way of saying, wherever they were), and when they lay down and when they got up (a nice Hebrew way of saying, all the time; 6:6-9). God warned them not to forget, when he blessed them in the land, that he had liberated them from slavery (6:10-12). But now his people had done just that—abandoning him, the source of flowing water, and digging broken water tanks for themselves that couldn’t even hold any water (Jer 2:13).

For the most part, only the priests and especially scribes were literate. Only they could teach God’s law to the people. Yet the literate people themselves neglected the law (Jer 5:4-5; cf. Isa 29:11-12), and the people followed their traditional customs without even realizing that they had forsaken the teaching of God’s Word. The entire nation had become corrupt (Jer 5:1-5), and someone needed to call the people back to the truths of Scripture.

This meant that history was at a very serious juncture. Israel was called to be a light to the nations (Isa 42:6); if they were blind (42:18-20), God’s light could be extinguished in the world. Jeremiah thus stood as a lone voice in a pivotal moment of history, like Noah or Abraham before him. Later, Jesus similarly called people prophetically to truth; in his day, the religious leaders knew the Bible but interpreted it through traditions that missed God’s heart (Mark 7:6-8, 13). In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus’s own disciples continually fail to understand his mission, appearing spiritually half-blind (8:17-18), even falling asleep just before his arrest. Jesus had to stand alone for the truth of his mission, while planting and nurturing the seeds of the future.

Paul was not quite so alone—he usually had a circle of colleagues who helped him—but sometimes Paul also had to go against others’ convictions to stand for the truth. That’s why Gentile Christians don’t have to be circumcised today! Near the time of his death, Paul laments that the Roman province of Asia, where he had expended his labors most successfully, had turned away from him (2 Tim 1:15), though even there some were not embarrassed by his arrest (1:16). Paul entrusts the future there especially to Timothy, who must pass the message on to others (2:1-2). In antiquity men often married in hopes of having a male heir. Timothy was the son that Paul had never had (1:2; 2:1); Paul said he had no one like him, totally devoted to Christ’s concerns (Phil 2:20-22).

Like Jeremiah, Paul never lived to see all the fruit of his labors. Yet his letters survived him as a source of renewal to the church ever since. Likewise, although even the remnant of Judah disobeyed God’s message and dragged Jeremiah with them to Egypt, the next generation recognized Jeremiah as a true prophet of the Lord. Generations after him recognized that God fulfilled his promises given through Jeremiah (2 Chron 36:22; Ezra 1:1; Dan 9:2). From Jeremiah’s day onward, Israel never again turned to physical idols.

When Jeremiah was young, Judah experienced revival. In the ancient world, peoples often preserved foundation documents in the masonry of temples, and that’s where workers found the neglected book of the law (2 Kgs 22:8). When King Josiah, now twenty-six years old, heard the law read by the court scribe, he didn’t make excuses for the people or try to explain away the message in light of how God’s people had long been living. He didn’t turn it into a daily devotional reading as if merely reading it fulfilled its purpose. No, he ripped his royal cloak in mourning, recognizing that God’s people were headed for certain judgment. Then he sent to the prophetess Huldah to hear God’s message for his generation (22:11-13). God blessed his moral reform and delayed judgment, but by this point Israel was too enmeshed in sin for judgment to be turned back permanently (22:15-20).

Josiah died young, and his successors were not committed enough to God to continue his devotion to God’s book. It fell to Jeremiah to summon his generation back from the brink of destruction. Though by the end of his life it looked like Jeremiah had failed, his message was vindicated and ultimately it prevailed; God’s word did not return empty. Eventually Jeremiah’s book even made it into the Bible; he was the only prophet of his time and place who told the truth.

Today we have Bibles but we often interpret them by how the rest of the church is living, instead of interpreting how people are living in light of the Bible. Will you stand firm to make a difference for God in your generation? Even if you have to stand virtually alone? You can succeed if you walk with God and know, as God told Jeremiah, “I’m with you to help you” (Jer 1:19).

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Which day is the Sabbath?

Jesus says that the Sabbath was made for people’s benefit (Mark 2:27). Years ago an Adventist layman wrote in to our Ohio town’s local newspaper, arguing that the Bible never speaks of the Sabbath being changed to Sunday. As I read the letter, I had to admit that the author was correct. Shortly afterward in the newspaper a local pastor countered, “We’re not under the law; therefore the Sabbath is on Sunday.” If you think that the pastor’s argument makes sense, you are a more clever person than I.

Some years after that I was doing my PhD work when I read an article from Christianity Today about “The Case for Quiet Saturdays.” It argued that the particular day was less essential than that we kept a special day for rest. That got my attention, because, whether the proper day is Saturday, Sunday, or just any day, at the time I was working every day of the week.

Sabbath is important

As I tried to study the biblical text honestly, I could see that this was not just a matter of keeping laws designated for Israel; God actually modeled the Sabbath rest in creation (Gen 2:2-3). Whether we take that narrative literally or not, the principle of the Sabbath is there, and it apparently is an example for all people, not just those who are ethnically descended from Abraham.

Moreover, it seemed clear that in Scripture, keeping the Sabbath was a serious matter. The law mandated a death penalty for violating it (Exod 31:14-15; 35:2; Num 15:32-36). Although most of us would not endorse execution for all other capital offenses in Moses’s law today, normally we at least view them as sins—offenses such as murder, sorcery, blasphemy, and sexual relations outside of marriage. Likewise, observing the Sabbath is one of Ten Commandments (Exod 20:8-11). We take all the other Ten Commandments as universal; why exclude this one? In the Prophets, God promises to welcome Gentiles into his covenant, provided that we observe his sabbaths (Isa 56:6-7).

Many festivals in Israel commemorated various events; for example, Passover commemorates redemption, tabernacles dwelling in the wilderness, and first fruits celebrates the beginning of harvest. Depending on how we read Exod 20:11, possibly the Sabbath celebrates God’s action of creating the universe in which we live; in any case, it recalls his model of rest afterward, as already noted.

A particular day?

Is the Sabbath necessarily a particular day of the week? This question arouses greater controversy among Christians, and answers often reflect different Christian groups’ interpretive considerations. Churches that accept early Christian traditions beyond the New Testament, traditions from the second century or later, have traditionally said that the Sabbath day must be Sunday. Even those who disagree with them can still appreciate the conviction and devotion of someone like the runner Eric Liddell (“Chariots of Fire”), who kept that day for the Lord.

This tradition affects especially those churches ultimately influenced by the church in the Roman empire, which is the majority of churches today. Nevertheless, the Ethiopian church through its long history often observed both Sunday as the Lord’s Day and Saturday as the Sabbath. Some other African and Chinese indigenous churches, as well as Messianic Jewish believers and Adventists today, observe the Sabbath on the same day as in Scripture.

Those who regard second- and third-century traditions as normative will observe Sunday, but this need not be normative for churches that start only from Scripture. The instructions for the first day of the week in 1 Corinthians 16:2 are for individual members, not about a specified meeting day; the meeting on the first day of the week in Acts 20:7 is probably a Sunday evening gathering (see my Acts commentary for details), and is probably assembled simply because Paul is leaving town the next day.

Churches that insist on following New Testament practice may thus consider a Saturday Sabbath. In Acts, “Sabbath” continues to designate the seventh day (technically Friday sundown to Saturday sundown); although most instances refer to traditional Jewish practice there, there is certainly no indication that the day was changed. Personally, when I discovered the Sabbath principle, I began following it on Saturday, like my Jewish friends. I couldn’t observe the Sabbath on Sundays because, as an associate pastor in a Baptist church at the time, I had special responsibilities on that day. (I took the duties seriously enough that I skipped my doctoral graduation because it would have conflicted with our Sunday service. Although having one’s main worship service on one’s day of rest might be easier for most worshipers, it can be more difficult for some of us with significant ministry responsibilities!)

Others say that the principle applies to any day. Paul appears to approve of both those who honor one day above another and those who honor every day the same (Rom 14:5). Many Gentiles belonged to the Roman church (Rom 1:13; 11:13), and those who were employed by Gentiles, whether as slaves or free persons, could not choose when they would not work. At the same time, we should note what Paul says and what he does not say. Honoring “every day alike” would mean to keep all days sacred (cf. also the broader principle of Sabbath rest in Heb 4:9); those devoting our whole lives to God are not expected to limit worship to a single day. Paul does not, however, list the option of keeping no days sacred!

Keeping the Sabbath principle

Whatever the day, the way God designed our bodies, we need a day of rest. Living things need rest to rejuvenate; the law mandates this principle also for livestock and, by sabbatical years, for fields (Exod 20:10; 23:11-12; Lev 25:4; Deut 5:14). Our activity (or perhaps, non-activity!) of resting further communicates theology by what we do (or don’t do): we recognize our limitations as mortal humans. Observing a day of rest also requires us to trust God to make up for this day set aside in devotion to him. For ancient Israelite farmers to observe the Sabbath even during harvest (Exod 34:21) would demand faith in God.

If we do keep a Sabbath, we need to be careful not to treat this as a matter of spiritual superiority, looking down on other believers (Rom 14:5-6; Col 2:16). Paul repeatedly warns believers against division, rivalry, arrogance, and looking down on one another. Such attitudes defeat the purpose of depending on God, and are like doing our righteousness for other people’s approval instead of God’s (Matt 6:1). Jesus contested his contemporaries’ application of the Sabbath, so we recognize that today we should keep it in different ways than Jesus’s contemporaries (cf. Matt 11:28—12:8).

We have noted that Sabbath remains valuable for our health. For those who cannot devote every day directly to God’s work, it is also important to set aside at least a day to focus attention on him and renew our spiritual purpose for the rest of the week. Although pure legalism is counterproductive, I confess that I have to discipline myself somewhat rigidly to observe the Sabbath. That’s because I become so engrossed in my work that I wouldn’t take a break if I didn’t have to. That is, I wouldn’t stop until my body made me stop; by that point we in fact lose more productivity in the long run!

When I realized that the Sabbath principle really was biblical, I was initially unhappy about it. I was working on my PhD and thought I was too busy—even though I am far busier now than I was back then. At that time, the stress of nonstop work was building up, week after week. Recognizing the principle to be biblical, however, I realized that I needed to obey it and I began observing Sabbath.

What I immediately discovered was that it was like a circuit breaker. Granted, stopping my work Friday evening felt like breaking me in a different way—I felt like I was putting the brakes on suddenly. But before the Sabbath was over, I had been able to fully relax, and the stress of the past week dissipated. This way I never carried a week’s work-related stress for more than a week, and it couldn’t accumulate. Hopefully my seventeen books so far (one of them roughly four thousand pages long) illustrates that God enabled me to be productive nonetheless, whether you think that’s because, or in spite of, taking a Sabbath.

I do have to admit that I did eventually learn that we need more than just a day of rest. (Even though there’s no biblical requirement for how many hours a person should sleep a night, lack of sleep does catch up to one!) Also, in the early days I sometimes tested the limits to see what could be subsumed under the category of rest. (Writing this some weeks before April 15, I can tell you that doing some of one’s income tax on that day is not a restful activity.) For myself, I lay aside all my book and article writing on the Sabbath; while I am happy to talk about the Bible on any day, I don’t perform my official faculty responsibilities on that day. This discipline helps me not to fixate on my writing and teaching as if there is nothing else in life, like Jack the proverbially dull boy (presumably a less interesting Jack than the one who fell down and broke his crown).

Nevertheless, besides normal prayer and spending time with my family, I do try to catch up on some emails to friends during the Sabbath, as well as reading some of my mail, and so forth. An Orthodox Jewish scholar friend laughs that I keep Shabbat like a Reform Jew (though he graciously welcomed me to spend Shabbat the Orthodox way with his family; that was a particularly enjoyable Sabbath for me).

Not everyone will draw the boundaries in exactly the same places. What is helpful for all of us to realize, however, is that God built us with limits. Observing those created limits by celebrating Sabbath helps us function the way that God designed us. A restaurant chain used to say, “You deserve a break today.” Whether we deserve it or not, God made the Sabbath for people (Mark 2:27)—for our good. It’s a wonderful way to renew your joy and strength.

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The four twins of Genesis

Sometimes stories in the Bible seem strange to us—both in terms of content and in terms of why they are included. The second set of twins in Genesis seems to fit that description.

Genesis 38:27-30 explains that Tamar gave birth to twin sons for Judah. One, Zerah, extended one hand from the womb, but then pulled it back; his brother, Perez, came out first. Because Perez came out first, despite Zerah apparently having started to be born first, the former was named “Perez.” His name means “breaking out,” because he had broken through ahead of his brother.

Such a birth was highly unusual (although one need only read the ancient gynecological work of Soranus to discover a range of differing positions in which babies were reported to sometimes come out). In such circumstances, people might view the unusual yet safe birth as portending Perez’s future greatness.

Nevertheless, Genesis—and the rest of the Pentateuch—never again mentions Perez except in genealogies mentioning his descendants. Why does Genesis “waste” space narrating this unusual birth instead of elaborating more on other characters that the narrative develops more fully?

Although Perez does not appear again in any significant way in Genesis, twins do. Earlier in Genesis (Genesis 25:24-26), Perez’s grandfather Jacob had emerged right after Esau, clutching Esau’s heel—another very unusual birth. Jacob ultimately surpassed Esau, receiving his birthright and his blessing (two similar-sounding Hebrew words that together offer a nice play on words). Thus when Genesis’s first hearers came to the story of Perez’s birth, they would remember the birth of Jacob who also ultimately bested his twin brother (although a bit later in life).

Genesis thus seems to hint at a future significance for Perez. What might that be? When Jacob blesses his children, he promises rulership to the descendants of Judah (Genesis 49:10), even though the preceding narratives might have expected that promise to go to one of the sons of Joseph instead (Joseph does get the double portion that normally went to the firstborn). Centuries later, however, descendants of Judah’s son Perez celebrated his special birth and prayed for Ruth’s descendants to be like Tamar’s descendants through Perez (Ruth 4:12). The grandson of Ruth’s son Obed was King David (Ruth 3:21-22), and Perez turned out to be part of the royal line of Jesus (Matthew 1:3; on this, see also Jesus’s genealogy; Jesus’s genealogy in Matthew).

Sometimes we see God working in what appear to be relatively personal matters, but these may prove even more consequential in his sight. God has a plan that stands through history, and he is worthy of our trust.

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Did God love the Egyptians?

Some almost indispensable parts of the Moses-movie tradition are unlikely: for example, most Pharaohs had scores of children, so it’s highly unlikely that Moses and the next Pharaoh grew up together as close brothers or rivals. (Admittedly, a more accurate depiction on this point wouldn’t work as well for cinematic depiction.) Still, each Moses movie offers some valuable contributions: for example, the Moses of Ben Kingsley and of Dougray Scott depicted Moses’s self-doubt emphasized in Scripture; the Prince of Egypt cartoon for children actually may capture God’s heart the best.

Understandably, for magnificent scale and special effects the new Exodus: Gods and Kings is unmatched. Nevertheless, the biblically literate will have more than quibbles with some details of the newest film’s plot. With regard to some of these details, the biblical narrative is more coherent than (and in these cases might have received better reviews than) that of the movie.

In any case, my post here is not intended as a movie review. (Personally, though I don’t have time or resources to go to many movies, I felt this new movie was well worth what I paid to see it. But that doesn’t reduce my unhappiness regarding some key theological issues.) I bring up the movie because its depiction of the God of the Hebrews is what provoked the question on which I comment briefly here.

Did God love the Egyptians when he struck Egypt with plagues? In the larger biblical narrative, the answer is obviously yes. The prophet Isaiah later prophesies about judgments on Egypt (Isa 19:1-17, 22; akin to judgments he also prophesies against Israel); as a result, Egyptians will turn to God and they will become part of God’s people alongside Israel (19:18-25). In the law of Moses, Israelites are forbidden to despise Egyptians, because Israel’s ancestors found refuge in Egypt (Deut 23:7).

Within the Pentateuch itself, under the Pharaoh of Joseph’s day, Israel experienced great hospitality and Egypt received great blessings. The Exodus narrative suggests that Egypt’s plagues at that time reversed the effects of the very sort of prosperity with which God blessed them in the time of Joseph. The reason the plagues assaulted the Egyptians was not because they were Egyptians; God at other times blessed Egypt. Indeed, ancient Egyptians themselves recognized that fertility was a blessing of the gods—it was simply that they sought the wrong gods (see further comment below).

We needn’t digress to the rest of the Bible, however, to understand why God dealt so harshly with Egypt in the Book of Exodus. A generation earlier, in the same book, Egyptians drowned Israel’s babies in the Nile. God’s judgments clearly evoke that event, leaving no doubt that the plagues address this injustice. Pharaoh drowned babies in the Nile; the first plague thus turns the Nile to blood (with apologies to the movie, no crocodiles are specified). Pharaoh drowned babies in the Nile; the last plague is thus the death of some of Egypt’s children, including Pharaoh’s. Pharaoh drowned babies in the Nile; God thus drowns Pharaoh’s army in the sea.

Moreover, Egypt had enslaved and exploited Israel, and Egypt’s current prosperity partly rested on that exploitation. As Moses said in the Prince of Egypt children’s movie, “No empire should be built on the backs of slaves.” (Compare slave trade as the climax of the list of Babylon’s imports in Rev 18:13; in that case, God pronounces judgment at least partly on Rome, in an era when Egypt was one of Rome’s most exploited provinces.)

I confess that I always wince at the narratives of Egypt’s sufferings; as a modern Western reader, or even a Christian reader from the standpoint of the New Testament, I feel badly for the individual Egyptians who suffered because of Pharaoh’s choices. It was much easier for hearers in ancient Israel and among their contemporaries to think in corporate terms than it is for most of us today. Having said that, however, the Egyptians as a whole shared the false ideology that stood behind Pharaoh’s resistance: most believed that their many gods, including Pharaoh himself, were more powerful than the pathetic single god of the enslaved Hebrews.

Understood in this context, God’s judgments on Egypt were visible reflections of a spiritual battle; God was discrediting false gods to turn people from empty objects of worship to truth and life. When describing the purpose of the plagues, God specifies that his plagues are at least partly directed against “the gods of Egypt” (Exod 12:12; cf. Num 33:4).

God cares not only that Israel trusts him, but also what all peoples think about him. God reports that he raised up (or spared) this particular Pharaoh for his own purposes: to reveal God’s power (through the plagues) so God’s name would be recounted “in all the earth” (Exod 9:16)—among all peoples. Pharaoh is sometimes described as hardening his heart (Exod 8:15, 32; 9:34), so Pharaoh cannot complain if, even after divine activity became most conspicuous, God handed him over to further hardness. God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, especially during mercy, when the judgments relented (Exod 9:12; 10:20, 27; 11:10; 14:8). God hardened Pharaoh so God could reveal divine power (Exod 7:3; 10:1; 14:17), and so the Egyptians would know that he was God (14:4).

God’s purpose in hardening Pharaoh was that he could give further signs and further convince Egypt. Mere liberation could have been achieved in an earlier response to the plagues, but God wants not only liberation but also recognition of his identity. A conspicuously repeated phrase throughout the plague narratives highlights God’s ultimate purpose: “that the Egyptians may know that I am the LORD” (Exod 7:5, 17; 8:10, 22; 9:14, 29). God performed these dramatic signs also that Israel might know that he was God (Exod 6:7; 10:2; cf. 16:12; Num 16:28). Even the Philistine priests later understand this principle in 1 Sam 6:5-6 (cf. 4:8).

From the Christian perspective, the greatest blessing is to know the living God, and thus have eternal life (John 17:3) God alone can fill our deepest need (Jer 2:13; Hos 13:9; John 4:14). In that light, afflictions that get our attention can be for our good (or for the good of hardships’ survivors; cf. Ps 119:67, 71, 75); they are invitations to seek and find the true God.

Did God love the Egyptians? Yes. He was seeking to gain the attention of Egypt for the one true God. In this era, Israel was becoming a primary vehicle of God’s revelation, despite Israel’s many failures throughout its history (not least in their worship of the golden calf soon after the plagues). God had warned that those who cursed his people would be cursed just as those who blessed them would be blessed (Gen 12:3; 27:29; Num 24:10), a principle that another Pharaoh learned as early as Gen 12:17. But God always intended his work in Israel to become a blessing to all the peoples of the earth (Gen 12:3; 18:18; 22:18; 26:4; 28:14).

Christians believe that we have a fuller revelation of God today, offering to all peoples access to God. For us, the climax of Israel’s story comes in Jesus, the fullest revelation of God’s purpose. (It’s no surprise that Egypt was one of the earliest areas massively converted to Christian faith in the movement’s first few centuries.) In Jesus, God demonstrates his love for all the world. Jesus bore the curse to bring blessing to anyone who blesses him, from any of the peoples of the earth. God loved not only Israel, and not only Egyptians, but God loved the world: he proved it in giving his Son for all of us (John 3:16; Rom 5:6).

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Jesus’s Mission—Luke 4:18-19

Jesus declares that one of several aspects of his mission is to preach good news to the poor. In so doing, he echoes Isaiah’s theme of good news about restoration and the deliverance of God’s people.

On the day of Pentecost, Peter applies Joel’s prophecy to the church’s mission: God’s Spirit empowers us to speak for God like the prophets of old (Acts 2:17-18). In the context of Jesus’ words in the previous chapter (Acts 1:8), the most important element of this mission involves testifying of Christ to all peoples.

But while evangelism is central to our mission, the parallel with an earlier scene in Luke’s work suggests that we should not neglect another prophetic theme that is also part of Spirit-empowered mission. As Joel’s prophecy provides the text for the church’s inaugural message in Acts, a prophecy of Isaiah provides the text for Jesus’ inaugural message in the Gospel of Luke.

Luke 4:16-30 recounts the opening scene of Jesus’ public ministry in Luke’s Gospel. The placement of this scene at this point in Luke highlights the important role that it fills in Luke’s Gospel. Luke elsewhere usually follows the same sequence as Mark, where Luke includes the same events that Mark does, even though no one expected ancient biographies to follow chronological sequence. On this occasion, however, Luke provides a scene not only more detailed than Mark’s parallel but earlier than in its place in Mark. Luke’s scene prefigures some key elements in Jesus’ ministry.

Here Jesus applies the words of Isaiah 61 to his own ministry: the Spirit anointed him to bring liberation to those in need. First, his mission was to proclaim good news to the poor. Throughout Jesus’ ministry in the Gospel of Luke, he indeed emphasizes God’s care for the poor (Luke 6:20; 16:22) and the responsibility of others to care for them (12:33; 14:13; 18:22). (Sometimes he even miraculously provides food for hungry crowds.)

Jesus also came to free captives and liberate the oppressed; while Jesus did not literally break people out of prisons (perhaps to John the Baptist’s chagrin), Jesus certainly freed those who were oppressed by the devil (Luke 13:12-14; Acts 10:38). Likewise, in line with Isaiah’s prophecy, Jesus came to heal the blind, like the blind man by the Jericho road (Luke 18:35). Indeed, he later healed Saul of both physical and moral blindness (Acts 9:18; 26:18).

The announcing of good news in Isaiah 61, which Jesus quotes, harks back to a theme that appears earlier in Isaiah (see for example Isaiah 40:9; 41:27; 52:7). In these passages, God comforts suffering Israel with a promise of restoration. Israel will be taken captive, enslaved and impoverished, but God will liberate and bless his people. This is a good news about peace for God’s people, a message that God is ready to demonstrate his reign, or kingdom (Isaiah 52:7). By Jesus’s day, many Jewish people had settled again in their land, but they still longed for God to redeem, restore, and exalt Israel. Jesus, in his person, not only preaches that good news but embodies it, for he is the savior of the world.

When Jesus announces this part of his mission, his home town initially responds pleasantly (Luke 4:22). But then Jesus begins to apply Isaiah’s prophecy beyond the oppressed of Israel. Jesus warns that, like earlier prophets, he will face unbelief at home (Luke 4:24). Elijah, for example, had been sent to a widow in the land of Phoenicia—from the same region as the hated Jezebel (4:26). Elisha had not healed the lepers of Israel, but only the foreign general Naaman (4:27). (After 2 Kings 5 spoke of Naaman, 2 Kings 7 spoke of uncured lepers in Israel’s capital, Samaria. In Luke 17, Jesus heals a Samaritan leper along with Jewish ones, even though Samaritans in his own day were often hostile to his people.)

Once Jesus challenges his people’s nationalism, they are no longer pleased with his words, but in fact wish to kill him (Luke 4:28-29). They have suffered enough from the Gentiles, and do not want to hear about God’s concern for outsiders. This opening scene prefigures Jesus’ mission in the Gospel: to reach the outsiders, even at the expense of incurring the enmity of the “insiders.” This activity paves the way for the church’s (often reluctant) mission to non-Jews in the Book of Acts. Thus in Acts, for example, it is Jesus’s own followers who need to be reminded to welcome outsiders (Acts 11:1-3).

Jesus’s message in the Nazareth synagogue in Luke 4 offers a stark warning for us today. The Spirit has empowered us to cross cultural and other barriers with Jesus’s message, a message of concern for people, a message of justice, liberation, and salvation. To do so effectively, however, we must be ready to go beyond the assumptions of our own nation or culture, to side with whatever God declares in his word. Jesus wants to bring his followers into unity with one another, beyond all our ethnic, nationalistic or other prejudices. May we continue to carry on the mission of bringing the good news about God’s kingdom and caring for people’s needs.

For further details, see Craig’s IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, now in its second, revised edition (2014).

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God uses weak people—Exodus 6:10-30

Have you ever wondered if God could use someone like you? People in the Bible often wondered that also.

One person who wondered that was Moses. He wondered on multiple occasions; here we focus on one such context in which Exodus recounts his wondering. Most preachers do not preach from genealogies; most individual genealogies were probably not designed for preaching anyway. But one must ask why God suddenly interrupts the story of Moses with a genealogy in Exodus 6:14-25. God commands Moses to tell Pharaoh to release his people, but Moses protests that his own people have not heeded him, so how would Pharaoh listen to him (6:10-13)? After the genealogy, the narrative repeats the point: God commands Moses to confront Pharaoh, and Moses protests that Pharaoh will not listen to him.

What is the point of interrupting this narrative with a genealogy? The genealogy itself lists three tribes, the three oldest tribes, which sages who remembered the story might have called out until getting to Moses’ tribe. But the fact that the genealogy occurs at this point in the narrative may tell us more than just that someone decided to recite the genealogy in order until they reached Moses’s ancestors.

The list reminds us that Moses was descended from Levi, and related to Reuben and Simeon. Reuben slept with his father’s concubine; Simeon and Levi massacred all the men in Shechem. By placing the genealogy here, Exodus may be commenting on why Moses was so uncomfortable with confronting Pharaoh. If he was descended from such people as Levi, Reuben and Simeon, is it any wonder that Moses would have problems?

With the exception of Jesus, all the people God chose in the Bible were people with weaknesses rather than those who might think they “deserved” to be called. God chose broken people whose triumphs would bring glory to him rather than to themselves. If you trust God with your life, he can use your life to bring him honor also.

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Who really speaks for God?—1 Thessalonians 5:21

Paul closes his first letter to the Thessalonians with a series of exhortations. Paul no doubt designed these exhortations particularly for the believers in Thessalonica, but they relevant for us today also. (Ancient writers sometimes listed a series of exhortations; in this case, Paul is adding some concise advice after finishing the main part of his letter.) I will focus especially on Paul’s exhortations concerning prophecy, in their wider ancient Christian context, but many of these principles also apply when we evaluate teachings.

Paul’s exhortations in 1 Thessalonians 5:12-22

Paul’s closing exhortations include supporting and heeding God’s workers among them (5:12-13a), remaining in unity (5:13b), giving each member of the body what they need (admonition, encouragement, or help, 5:14) and being patient and kind with everyone (5:14b-15).

Paul then lists a trio of exhortations related to a worshipful heart: always rejoice, continue in prayer, and give thanks in every situation (5:16-18). Such an approach to life demonstrates faith in God who guides our lives. Of course, these are general summaries, not meaning that a person is never sad. Elsewhere Paul does value grieving with those who grieve (Rom 12:15) and himself grieves whenever he thinks of the fallen state of his people (Rom 9:2-3). He feared for a friend’s safety (2 Cor 7:5) and was deeply concerned for the churches (2 Cor 11:28-29; 1 Thess 3:5). Nevertheless, joy is characteristic of life in the Spirit (Gal 5:22) and of much worship (e.g., Ps 9:2; 27:6; 32:11; 33:3).

Then Paul turns to what might be another trio of exhortations, the third of which might raise two related issues. We must not “quench” the Spirit (1 Thess 5:19); we must not despise prophecies (5:20); we must evaluate them (5:21), embracing what is good and rejecting what is evil (5:21-22).

The verb that Paul uses to warn against “quenching” the Spirit originally (and usually still) referred to putting out a fire. This suggests to us that the Spirit sometimes moves God’s people in astonishingly dramatic ways; even more clearly, it warns us that our resistance can hinder the Spirit’s work. We can do this in ways such as preferring our old patterns of doing things to what God is now doing, or by deliberate disobedience.

Discerning prophecies (1 Thess 5:20-22)

The next exhortation likely suggests one of the Spirit’s key ways of working: “Do not despise prophecies” (5:20). As we see in 1 Corinthians 14 and in light of the Old Testament, God moved some of those listening to him to deliver his message to others. Whereas this may have sometimes been practiced in small groups of prophets in the Old Testament (e.g., 1 Sam 10:5-6, 10), God had now poured out the prophetic Spirit so widely starting at Pentecost (Acts 2:17-18) that such prophecy was widespread among the early churches (compare 1 Cor 14:1, 5, 26-31).

The verb translated “despise” implies contemptuously looking down on something as being too insignificant, or beneath one’s dignity, to consider. The Old Testament and Jewish tradition often associated the Spirit with prophetic inspiration, so “quenching the Spirit” (1 Thess 5:19) may be expressed here especially by demeaning prophecy (5:20). Probably the Thessalonian Christians were not the only ones tempted to ignore prophecies; Paul warns the Corinthian Christians to zealously seek to prophesy, as well as not to forbid tongues (1 Cor 14:39). (See further http://wp.me/p1MUNd-l9.)

Nevertheless, not all prophecies or messages supposedly from God really were (cf. 2 Thess 2:2). Moreover, we may hear something from God yet fallibly misunderstand and/or miscommunicate it: we know and prophesy only in part (1 Cor 13:9; cf. 2 Kgs 2:3, 5, 15-16; Matt 11:3; Acts 21:4).

One must therefore “test all things” (1 Thess 5:21). Paul elsewhere speaks of evaluating everything, so we may discern God’s will (Rom 12:2; Phil 1:9-10); he urges us to evaluate especially ourselves (1 Cor 11:28; 2 Cor 13:5; Gal 6:4). He also exhorts prophets in local congregations to corporately evaluate the prophecies they have given (1 Cor 14:29), and may speak of a special gift of such discernment (12:10).

Having evaluated messages, we should embrace what is good and reject what is evil (5:21-22). These final warnings may apply specifically to prophecy. But even if these last two warnings are more general rather than referring specifically to prophecy, in this context the principle would certainly apply to prophecy also.

Often in the Old Testament, senior prophets such as Samuel or Elijah and Elisha mentored groups of younger prophets, helping them grow in discernment (cf. 1 Sam 19:20; 2 Kgs 4:38; 6:1-3). Here, however, Paul addresses a congregation of believers that is only several years old; the “safety net” for prophecy in this case thus involves not the discernment of senior prophets but rather a sort of peer review. Here those most sensitive to the Spirit’s voice listen together for God’s leading (1 Cor 14:29). The corporate hearing of all the churches was also valuable (1 Cor 14:36). Paul could function in the senior prophet role himself (14:37-38), but was not with them to supervise everything, and sometimes these young believers needed correction. Today we still need to practice discernment about whatever message claims to be from God, whether it is with prophecies or teachings.

Discerning prophets in Scripture

First John, concerned about false teachers who have left the community of believers, warns that believers must “test” the spirits to discern false prophets (1 John 4:1). Whereas Paul’s instructions to churches required evaluating genuine believers’ prophecies, this passage addresses full-fledged false prophets from the spirit of “antichrist” (4:1-6). First John offers various means of discernment, both doctrinal (Jesus is the Christ, 2:22-23; Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, 4:2-3; Jesus is God’s Son, 4:15; fidelity to the apostolic witness to Jesus, 4:5-6) and moral (continued fellowship with God’s people, 2:19; keeping his commandments [2:3-6], especially by loving other believers, 2:9-11; 3:10; 4:7-8, 20). Articulating the right view about Christ and faithfully loving one another are both signs of being true followers of Christ; wrong views about Christ, or failure to truly love one’s fellow believers, are signs of a false prophet.

Of course, John was addressing a specific situation. We also read of false prophets who deliberately make up falsehoods to exploit God’s people financially or sexually (2 Pet 2:1-3). Others prophesy in Jesus’s name, apparently believing in what they are doing (Matt 7:22), but are damned because they do not bear the good fruit of obedience to Jesus’s teachings (7:16-23). A person can even prophesy genuinely by the Spirit and yet not be a godly person, simply moved because the Spirit is strong in the ministry setting where they find themselves (1 Sam 19:20-24). What matters most before God—and how we will know who is from God—is not a person’s gifts but his or her fruit.

A very early Christian document that is not in the New Testament gives even more detailed advice. Chapter 11 of the Didache urges Christians to initially welcome visiting apostles and prophets. If, however, an alleged apostle or prophet does not live by the Lord’s ways, for example by seeking for money or gifts for oneself, that person is a false prophet.

Ultimately, in distinguishing a true message from God from a false one (or at least one distorted by human misinterpretation), any given message must be evaluated by a larger context of what God has said. God’s word did not start with any of us nor come to us alone (1 Cor 14:36). God will not contradict what he has already spoken, so everything may be safely tested by Scripture. Further, as noted above, others who listen to God should also be able to recognize whether something is truly from God or not.

Discerning messages today

Because not everyone understands Scripture the same way, careful interpretation is important (see e.g., http://www.craigkeener.org/why-it-is-important-to-study-the-bible-in-context/; “The Bible in its Context” free at http://www.craigkeener.org/free-resources/).

A difficulty sometimes harder to resolve by “objective” means is how we recognize who else is truly listening to the Spirit to help evaluate messages. In settings where falsehood has become widespread, the true prophetic voice may be in the minority whereas those who all speak the same message may be false prophets (1 Kgs 22:6-25; Jer 5:13, 31; 14:13-15; 20:6; 23:9-31; 26:7-8, 11, 16; 27:9, 14-18; 28; 29:8, 31; 32:32; 37:19; Ezek 13:2-9). Nevertheless, even here the true prophetic voice stands in continuity with earlier prophetic voices (Jer 7:25; 25:4; 26:5; 28:8; 29:19; 35:15).

Even though some regarded prophecies of judgment against God’s people as blasphemous (Jer 26:11), the burden of proof rested with those who told people what they wanted to hear (28:8-9). “Prophets” can get popular telling people what they want to hear, such as that judgment is not coming (Jer 6:13-14; 8:10-11; 14:13-16; Ezek 13:16; Mic 3:5), or that God does not mind their sexual behavior or popular idolatry (Jude 4; Rev 2:14, 20).

To give an example, a few decades ago prosperity teacher Charles Capps declared that judgment would not come on America, since it had 100 million Christians who spoke in tongues. During the same period, Pentecostal preacher David Wilkerson was warning that judgment was coming on the United States. Which one was more accurately hearing what the Spirit was saying?

Certainly we know what people in the United States want to hear and want they do not want to hear, whether it comes from the political right or the political left. People were incensed when Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson, from the political right, pronounced judgment on the United States for sexual sin; people were no less incensed when Jeremiah Wright, President Obama’s former pastor, pronounced judgment on this country for exploiting others. One reason for the public outcry in both cases was that the speakers apparently pronounced judgment after the fact (even if they had also been doing it beforehand); another may have been that it was felt insensitive to the many innocent people who suffered when the tragic events came.

Nevertheless, it also seems clear that it is easier to become popular by preaching what satisfies people’s “itching ears” (2 Tim 4:3). Is it possible that preachers who promote extravagance, or preach a god who does not care about injustice, or promise that believers will not suffer, and so forth, gain followers by satisfying what people want to hear? Is it possible that God’s heart is grieved, as in Jeremiah’s day, by the proliferation of false messages in his name?