Category Archives: Old Testament

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Polarized thinking: your friend is my enemy

“It is to one’s honor to avoid strife,

but every fool is quick to quarrel” (Proverbs 20:3, NIV)

While on some issues there may be just two sides (e.g., Luke 9:50), people often hold a range of views on different subjects, so classifying everyone in terms of their view on a single issue doesn’t always work.

On a popular level, though, we often think in binary terms, often “us” versus “them.” It’s the easiest way to think, since it can go with the flow and not have to juggle multiple issues or questions.

Thus in the church and in society, conversations can quickly become polarized. My country (the U.S.) has a two-party system, so many people gravitate toward one party’s platform or the other, rather than thinking issue by issue. In a two-party system with winner-take-all, this approach may well be politically effective. Ideally, however, those with biblically- and socially-informed ethics should not simply buy a party line on every point without prior consideration. They may want to help shape their party’s platform for greater justice and/or bring reasonable arguments to the public forum (whichever party or person dominates). They can find common ground on various issues with people with whom they may disagree on other issues, showing mutual respect and kindness.

That’s not quite what society looks like right now, but it’s something that we as Christians can model. The temptation when slammed is to slam someone back, but Jesus teaches, “if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also … Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt 5:39, 44, NRSV) Paul apparently knew and certainly endorsed Jesus’s teaching: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse” (Rom 12:14, NASB); “Never pay back evil for evil to anyone” (Rom 12:17, NASB). And Jesus modeled this: “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps … When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats” (1 Pet 2:21, 23, NIV).

In places where Christians suffer persecution and have to stick together, they may be surprised to learn that in places with too much leisure on their hands even the church can become polarized. On the internet today one finds those who regard as theological enemies those who don’t check all the right boxes. They may, for example, regard with suspicion all charismatics, those who affirm women in ministry, those who believe the universe is billions of years old, and the like. Others have different, and sometimes opposite checklists. For someone who feels marginalized for one of these issues, that may become for them the dividing issue, and unless they resist the pressure to think in binary terms, they may struggle not to regard as enemies those who marginalized them. It feels much harder to stay in the conversation once you are deemed the “enemy.” Yet the way of Jesus is always the best way for us his followers, and humbling ourselves before one another, and thus before the sovereign Lord (1 Pet 5:5-6), becomes a spiritual discipline.

Similarly, there was a time when I thought that theological conservatives affirmed Jesus’s bodily resurrection, the reality of miracles, and that Moses wrote Deuteronomy and Paul wrote Ephesians. I assumed that liberals were those who denied such matters. When I studied with scholars who denied those authorship claims yet affirmed Jesus’s resurrection and the reality of miracles, my binary mental chart required adjustment.

We should avoid foolish arguments, and normally we should be gentle even with those who oppose the gospel:

“But refuse foolish and ignorant questionings, knowing that they generate strife. The Lord’s servant must not quarrel, but be gentle towards all, able to teach, patient, in gentleness correcting those who oppose him: perhaps God may give them repentance leading to a full knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim 2:23-25, WEB)

Unless we belong to a church that sees itself as the only true church and way of salvation, we recognize that we have brothers and sisters in Christ with some different beliefs in some different Christian movements. The ideal of agreeing on every point will surely be achieved when our faith becomes sight and we see the Lord face to face, but in the meantime, unity in Christ should take precedence over our differences.

We can disagree, but on ordinary issues it should not be in a hostile, polarized way. Unless Christ alone is the defining issue, we will have far more than two sides to choose among, for there are far more than two issues being debated. Obviously allegiance to Christ has additional implications, but we need to think those through clearly. And when another believer assaults us verbally for something we believe, in ordinary situations it seems best to seek to “deescalate” the anger (cf. Prov 15:1). Who knows: a conversation with give and take might actually get somewhere.

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Romance in the Song of Solomon

Lest anyone suppose that the Bible is opposed to romance, we have in the Bible not only some romantic narratives and counsel but a love song. Granted, Song of Solomon is not the way we would probably write a love song today. Generally, we would not praise the desirability of our beloved by saying, “You look like a horse.” But once we get the idea of romance, we can learn to communicate in the romantic language of our culture (and maybe love languages of our spouse). (If you’re single but think you might someday marry, treasure up this idea for later.)

Song of Songs communicates in the romance language of its day. That language included depictions of what was considered a romantic setting: the fertility of spring (apples, the voice of the turtledove, etc.) They didn’t think of candlelight dinners; different cultures (and families, and individuals) have different ways of expressing romance.

One time at a Bible study I read from an ancient Egyptian love song and asked the attendees from what book I was reading. They concluded that I was surely reading from the Song of Solomon. That’s because both songs used very similar sorts of romantic language.

That’s even true when comparing one’s beloved to a horse. Some scholars contend that “a mare among Pharaoh’s chariots” (Song 1:9) relates to an ancient battle practice of releasing a mare among enemy stallions, to distract them in battle. At the very least, Egypt was known for its excellent horses. Pharaoh’s mares were the best and the most beautiful.

Obviously we miss the point if we think too prosaically. If you try to draw literally what either partner looked like, you end up with a monstrosity, but the images work wonderfully figuratively. Describing a neck like a tower of ivory or eyes like pools of Heshbon were just graphic ways of praising the beauty and desirability of the features of one who is loved. The lily of the valley and the fairest of ten thousand (which our songs today apply to Jesus as the most desirable of all) were poetic ways of affirming the desirability of the partner.

With the point of such images in mind (you can get the point without understanding all the details), try reading the lines to each other, the husband’s lines to the wife and vice versa, looking at each other’s desirable features. One warning: if you’re just engaged, don’t try this just yet, or at least not for very long. The song is great for getting a couple turned on.

Of course, the song can teach us other matters as well. The song may depict times of misunderstanding and strife between the couple (5:2-6), which does happen sometimes in a marriage (e.g., Gen 16:5; 30:1-2). Appropriate marital passion burns like a fire (Song 8:6). The song has value for marital counseling and the like.

And then there are tidbits here and there that may bless some individuals in their personal relationships with their spouses. For me, since my wife is black, I have special appreciation for Song 1:6, where the bride is said to be black. (Even if in this bride’s case it specifies that she has been in the sun a lot, it means that she started with a fairly dark complexion. By contrast, if I stay in the sun a lot, my skin turns red and peels off!)

Through history, many allegorized this song and applied it to believers’ relationship with Christ. (Keep in mind that some of those doing this allegorizing were celibate clergy. I’m glad they were able to put the song to good use.) And of course Scripture does tell us that we are Christ’s bride (2 Cor 11:2; Eph 5:31-32; Rev 19:7-8), developing imagery for God and his people already in the Old Testament. So I do not have a problem with praising our Lord’s beauty and desirability most of all. We do, however, need to be careful in how we envision it, since the Song sometimes goes beyond mere praise of attractiveness to figurative depictions of intercourse. It describes the beloved’s breasts; coming into the garden and enjoying the fruits probably connotes intercourse; and so forth. Some apply “his banner over me is love” to the posting of the bloody cloth that proclaims the bride’s virginity after successful first intercourse.

In any case, while one can use it devotionally if one does so with wisdom, those of us who are married should not neglect its original purpose. We should enjoy one another’s beauty, and become accustomed to seeing our spouse as the most beautiful—the standard by which we define beauty. This is not the language of scientific objectivity, but the language of deep subjective commitment. (Perhaps, in more scientific language, we get neurochemically addicted to the welcome sight of our spouse, thinking about the spouse in ways that nourish neurochemical enjoyment.) Granted, we might consider that difficult today than in ancient Israel; today we are inundated with media images that define standards of beauty for our culture, images that imprint too readily in our minds. Still, Solomon was no Christian monogamist: he had many wives (not everything in the song transfers readily to Christians today!) so his depiction of this bride’s beauty is not based on lack of acquaintance with the other gender!

The greatest beauty, of course, is of the heart, what is beautiful in God’s sight (1 Pet 3:4), not the mere beauty of external ornaments, plastic surgery, or what we see on the surface. Scripture praises this other side in Proverbs 31:30: “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised” (NRSV). Whatever our spouse’s attractiveness, we can focus on that, rekindling the desires that may have first brought us together. In the case of arranged marriages, of course, the couple may grow on each other over time.

In either case, biblical marriage is based on firm commitment. Others may have attractive features and praiseworthy attributes, but those are irrelevant to the marriage. Within the firm commitment that protects against betrayal, intimacy flourishes and we are free to explore one another’s beauty. Sharing oneself at the most intimate makes one vulnerable to the deepest hurts in another’s words, but also to the greatest affirmations. Let’s learn what we can from the Song of Solomon and kindle more deeply the flame of romance in our marriages.

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Exaltation from the Lord

Exaltation comes from the Lord (Ps 75:6-7). We should always keep it in perspective. By the world’s standards, you can be king of Israel, but you’re still king of a puny kingdom that is a miniscule proportion of the world’s population. More importantly, before the living God, any of us is but dust and ashes. Also, whether one is a king of Israel like David or an apostle like Paul, there are many enemies.

But if we think of exaltation relative to where we started, it is important to keep this feature in mind. God exalts the humble; he raises up the lowly. There may be those who climb to the top with vicious competition; that’s a rough way to try to live (and ultimately die). But blessed are those who humble themselves, serving where they are called, and letting God exalt as he wills. Blessed are those who, when exalted far beyond what they learned to expect through their earlier times of testing, recognize the Hand that has done this.

Blessed are those who recognize that, in the end, the Lord alone will be exalted (Isa 2:11, 17), and the honor will be his for what he has done for us. Pride leads to humiliation and ultimately destruction (Prov 11:2; 16:18; 29:23), but the fear of the Lord is wisdom (Prov 1:7; 9:10; 15:33; 19:23; 22:4). God preserves those who trust in him rather than human opinion (Prov 29:25). May we seek praise not from others but from the Lord (Rom 2:7, 10, 29).

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God’s precious Word—Ps 119:82, 86-88

There are many reasons to treasure words from God. Just in a few verses of Psalm 119, we can get a sample.

  • God’s Word (in context) brings comfort (Psalm 119:82)
  • God’s commandments are faithful, a Hebrew idea related to truth and trustworthiness, in contrast to the lies brought against God’s servant (119:86)
  • We must hold to God’s precepts despite opposition (119:87)
  • In addition to why we treasure God’s Word, we pray for God to revive us so that we may continue to obey what God has said (119:88).

We could elaborate on each of these points, and praying through the entire psalm supplies yet further motivation. In brief, this psalm reminds us why God’s Word is so important to us, and why we honor the God who gave it by observing it.

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Sinful Leaders: Why do some people with powerful gifts live sinful lives?

We hear about lots of (happily not most) ministers falling. This is not surprising, because ministers are human, and the Bible tells us that humans know how to sin. But sometimes we are particularly surprised because someone seems particularly gifted or “anointed” by God; God is using them in people’s lives, and then we discover that they have been living in serious, secret sin the entire time.

Jesus did not say, “You’ll know prophets by their gifts.” He says, “You’ll know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:20). Some false prophets (Matthew 7:15) even convince themselves that they prophesy and do miracles in Christ’s name, but if they live lives of disobedience, they are not in a relationship with Christ (Matthew 7:21-23).

Then there are those who start well but don’t finish well. God called Samson, and the Spirit empowered Samson. But Samson was playing around with sin. In Judges 16, even though he has just been sleeping with a prostitute, the Spirit of God still empowers him and gets him out of the situation. As the chapter progresses, God’s Spirit is still working in him while he is sleeping with Delilah. But eventually, his sin catches up with him. God is merciful, but he won’t be mocked. Samson “loses his anointing,” though he did not lose it as quickly as some of us might have expected. Ultimately, Samson does end up finishing well, but finishing much earlier than he would have finished he not wallowed in sin (Judges 16:28-31)

Then there are those who manifest the power of the Spirit not because they are people of the Spirit but because the Spirit is strong in that place. In 1 Samuel 16:13-14, the Spirit of the Lord departs from Saul and rests on David, and an evil spirit from the Lord (or a spirit of judgment) rests on Saul. In 1 Samuel 18:10, Saul is even prophesying by this harmful spirit. But in 1 Samuel 19:20-24, he sends messengers to kill David. Overwhelmed by the Spirit of God, these messengers fall down and start prophesying. When the first messengers fail, he sends more, and the same thing happens. After two such failed attempts to kill David, Saul goes to kill David himself. Yet he too falls down and starts prophesying by God’s Spirit, while David escapes.

Saul was no longer a man of God’s Spirit, but because he was in a setting that was full of God’s Spirit (because of Samuel and the prophets he was mentoring), the Spirit worked even through him. Sometimes people are gifted because others are praying. Gifts are not given to us in any case because of our virtue: then they would be earned rather than gifts. Gifts are given to us for Christ’s service, so we dare not boast in them. (Cf. 1 Corinthians 4:7: “What do you have that you didn’t receive [from God]? And if you received it [from God], why do you boast as if you didn’t receive it [from God]?”)

Do not assume that someone is walking with God simply because God seems to be using them. Do not be surprised when some people who seem anointed by God fall. (In some cases, it is partly the fault of followers who put God’s servants on a pedestal instead of supporting them in prayer as brothers and sisters in Christ.) Likewise, do not assume that someone whose ministry may not look big to you is less faithful. Indeed, we don’t know people’s hearts, where they’ve come from or what they’ve been through. Since we don’t know other people’s hearts, we can’t compare ourselves with them as better or worse. Thus Paul says, “I don’t even judge my own self. I don’t know of anything against me, but that doesn’t make me right. It’s the Lord who judges” (1 Corinthians 4:3b-4).

The Corinthians were trying to evaluate whether Paul or Apollos was a better Christian celebrity to follow. Paul warns them: don’t judge before the time (1 Corinthians 4:5). God alone knows the heart, and there will be many surprises on the day of judgment.

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What does revival look like? II: Returning to God’s Word—2 Kings 22:14-20. C: Judgment—and mercy

Huldah’s prophecy for Josiah included some bad news, not unlike bad news many other times in history.

When northern barbarians sacked Rome in A.D. 410, pagans insisted that the gods had judged Rome for turning to Christianity. The north African bishop Augustine had direct contact with many refugees fleeing Italy for Africa at that time, and wrote The City of God as a response. No, Rome did not fall because most of its residents turned to Christianity. Rome fell because its centuries of sins were piled as high as heaven, and because the Christianity of most Christians was too shallow to stay God’s just judgment against these sins.

In God’s purposes, God may delay judgments on some nations for the sake of helping believers in other nations, but if biblical principles apply, judgments are sure to come on sinful nations. Judgment was due for the innocent blood of Manasseh’s generation, which included burning newborn babies as sacrifices or good luck charms (2 Kgs 21:6; 23:10; cf. 16:3; 17:17, 31):

“Moreover, Manasseh also shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end—besides the sin that he had caused Judah to commit, so that they did evil in the eyes of the LORD”—2 Kgs 21:16 (NIV)

“The LORD sent against him bands of the Chaldeans, bands of the Arameans, bands of the Moabites, and bands of the Ammonites; he sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the LORD that he spoke by his servants the prophets. Surely this came upon Judah at the command of the LORD, to remove them out of his sight, for the sins of Manasseh, for all that he had committed, and also for the innocent blood that he had shed; for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the LORD was not willing to pardon.”—2 Kgs 24:2-4 (NRSV)

A bit of homiletical application for my fellow U.S. Christians (others will have to judge for their own settings): we are also polluted with innocent blood. For those of us who believe that life is sacred already in the womb, we as a nation bear the guilt for more than 50 million preborn lives since abortion’s legalization in 1973. Those who don’t see preborn babies as live human beings still ought to recognize massive innocent bloodshed. The civil war may have been judgment for some of the sin of the slave trade; between marches in Africa and the infamous Middle Passage across the Atlantic, some estimate the death of four to six million, not including those who died in slavery itself. Had the civil war purged the spirit of racism, we might suppose that the judgment due the United States stopped there, but anyone who knows anything about U.S. history (not least the Jim Crow era and thousands of lynchings after Reconstruction) knows that the spirit of racism continued to flourish. One thinks also of the slaughter of Native Americans—often women and children noncombatants. Air power reduces U.S. casualties in war but in some (especially urban) settings increases “collateral damage” (much as many have tried to prevent these). Etc.

Those who do not believe that any of the above examples might count as the shedding of innocent blood still need to reckon with an estimated 17,284 cases of murder and non-negligent manslaughter in 2017 alone (which has varied in recent decades from a high of 24,700 in 1991 to a low of 14,164 in 2014). Very few of these would have been government-sanctioned actions, but they do reflect a culture of violence. In 2010, over 10,000 people died and over 300,000 were injured from drunk driving. Etc. However you slice it, our nation is stained with innocent blood.

Are there many nations much worse, especially in current government-sanctioned violence? Of course. And entire movements such as ISIS and Boko Haram, which have killed indiscriminantly and often even targeted those who bear Christ’s name surely will face judgment. But as mentioned earlier, we don’t have the right to judge ourselves charitably by simply comparing ourselves with others. We live in a nation with a heritage of knowing biblical morality. So it seems that if the biblical pattern holds in this case (though even throughout the Bible there are variables known only to God), our nation stands under divine judgment.

But Huldah also had some good news for the king. Yes, judgment was coming. But because Josiah responded in a radical way to the Book—because he took it seriously—the judgment would not come in his generation. Josiah’s generation would be short-lived (sadly, he died young), and he was not able to turn the following generation fully from the legacy of past idolatry and good-luck bloodshed. But Josiah did make a difference for his generation.

One person who takes the Bible seriously and lives according to the message one finds there can make a big difference. Granted, none of us is a king who can dictate a top-down moral reformation, so this model of national revival is not so easy to imitate. (If I do have any royal readers in some other countries, though, you can apply some of these passages much more directly than some of the rest of us.) But we are also a partly bottom-up culture, and there are believers also among some of our cultural elites.

We can have an influence by showing how much better God’s design for living is—by living that way ourselves, and sharing with those willing to hear us. “This is how everyone will know that you’re My disciples,” Jesus said: “if you love one another: (John 13:34-35). “And I’ve given them the glory You’ve given Me, so they may be one, just as We are one: I being in them, and You in Me, so that they may be brought to full unity—so the world may know that You sent Me, and that You have loved them just as You have loved Me” (17:22-23). Three thousand were converted through Peter’s sermon at Pentecost (Acts 2:41), but Jesus’s movement in Jerusalem grew daily (2:47) as outsiders witnessed Christians sharing meals, prayer and apostolic teaching from house to house, and even possessions (2:42-47).

When a British preacher told D. L. Moody, “the world has yet to see what God will do with a man fully consecrated to him,” it changed Moody’s life. When a friend of a friend of German immigrant George Mueller began living completely by dependence on God, it so touched Mueller that he decided to begin the same adventure. Over the course of his life in Britain, he and his associates cared for over 10,000 orphans, and provided education for more than 120,000. Mueller was moved by compassion for the orphans, and also to show the world that God’s Word was really true, and could really be lived by in their own time. The friend of a friend had a huge impact on Mueller, who impacted Christians around the world, including Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission, with a living, active faith in God in the present life.

You as a reader may be just one person. But like Josiah, God can use you in your sphere of influence. What will it look like, if you are fully consecrated to God? If you take God’s Word seriously? The world may have yet to see.

(For the first installment of Part II, see http://www.craigkeener.org/what-does-revival-look-like-ii-returning-to-gods-word-2-kings-2210-20-a-setting-the-stage/)

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What does revival look like? II: Returning to God’s Word—2 Kings 22:10-20. B: Finding the Book: Josiah’s Revival

It is said that Smith Wigglesworth, an early Pentecostal leader, grew disillusioned with the Pentecostal revival toward the end. He affirmed that God had poured out the Spirit, but lamented that the movement was not more grounded in the Bible. (Wigglesworth read only the Bible, so I need to make a caveat here: most of my many books are to help readers understand the Bible. I’m not against other books, including those that are not Bible study tools. But if you’ve got only so much reading time, the focus should be the Bible.) He longed for an end-time revival, and was looking for a revival that would bring together Word and Spirit.

As we noted in the previous post, God’s people had forgotten the law. Most people could not read, and during Manasseh’s long reign, priestly scribes had stopped public readings of the Bible. But because Josiah is serious about serving the Lord, and had orally heard stories about the past, he had priests restoring the temple. Some ancient temples had foundation documents deposited in their masonry, and in the process of repairing the temple’s priestly sanctuary, the priests uncovered the law. Hilkiah the high priest rightly recognized this as a special treasure, and handed it over to Shaphan the royal scribe. Reading from it, Shaphan realized how important it was. Along with his report to the king about the temple finances, therefore, he read the book to King Josiah.

Josiah really wanted to serve God, but, like many in our generation, he did not understand all that God required of him. But he was doing what he could (repairing God’s neglected house), and in this process the law came to light. (In 2 Chronicles, much of Josiah’s moral reformation is already underway, but 2 Kings emphasizes the extent to which much of this reformation depended on returning to God’s Word.)

When he heard the book of the law, he heard for the first time the fulness of what God required. He did not do with the Bible what some of us do (and have been able to do only in recent centuries, when literacy and printing have made possible private reading of the Bible). He did not congratulate himself on how long he spent on his devotions, listening to the book.

Nor did he say, “Wow, I’m glad I’m walking with God. Too bad for all these other people who aren’t paying attention to the book.” Nor did he say, “Okay, this is useful for tomorrow’s sermon, and then we can move on to some more timely subject likely to hold everybody’s interest.” He didn’t even say, I’m too young. After all, he was only eight when he became king (2 Kgs 22:1), and was just 26 now (2 Kgs 22:3).

He responded in a radical way to the book. He recognized that this was not just an antique of interest for his people’s heritage. It was not just something to be read but not taken seriously. It was God’s message, and it promised judgment to any generation that disobeyed it. Granted, they were doing much better now than in the days of his grandfather Manasseh or his father Amon. But the law showed that judgment for the sins of those prior generations had continued to build. He recognized that, according to God, his nation was at a crisis point, and in grief over corporate sin he tore his expensive royal robes (22:11). Finding the book was good news. But for the state of their nation, the book contained bad news.

Josiah didn’t do what we sometimes do with God’s Word today. He didn’t say, well, it can’t be that bad. Look, even the priests don’t seem that bothered. This must all be an exaggeration. Too often we shrug off radical teachings of Scripture (such as Jesus calling us to forsake all and follow him) by consoling ourselves that we’re surrounded by good Christians who don’t take it that way.

Well, who’s to say that all these good Christians are right? Maybe they’re doing the same thing we are. Maybe Jesus does want us to abandon everything to follow him. In most cases that will not mean giving up our jobs or becoming homeless (in Acts, only specific messengers of the kingdom do this), but it does mean that we should devote everything we are and have to Christ’s honor. You can serve Christ in most jobs (including flipping greasy hamburgers—so nobody misunderstands what I said in the previous post), if your lifestyle there helps your fellow workers to desire Christ and if your wages serve good purposes. But what does Christ’s Lordship say about our “leisure” time—the movies we watch, the things we read? Are there better ways to spend our time and resources for God’s kingdom than the way we spend them? Scripture invites us to evaluate our resources in light of eternity, to make the most difference we can for Christ.

Josiah heard what Scripture said. He had an idea what it meant for his generation. But he needed the voice of the Spirit to guide his application for his generation, and so he sent to the prophetess Huldah (22:14-20). She was the most prominent prophetic figure at this time (Jeremiah was still quite young). Thus Josiah sent to her for the word of the Lord just like, a century before, Hezekiah had sent to Isaiah (2 Kgs 19:2). Huldah gave Josiah’s messengers the bad news straight: the book meant what it said, and religion was not what “everybody” was saying.

Much public religion in North America is driven by shortcuts, sound bites, and even marketing hype (“God directly revealed this to somebody much more spiritual than you or your pastor!”) But the Spirit bears witness to the Word, just as the Spirit-inspired Word summons us to heed the Spirit. We have a privilege ordinary Israelites in Josiah’s day didn’t: we have Scripture available for ourselves (indeed, much more Scripture than yet existed in his day). If his generation could be liable for neglecting the whole counsel of God, how much more can we?

Next time: more about judgment—and mercy.

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What does revival look like? II. Returning to God’s Word—2 Kings 22:10-20. A. Setting the stage

Walking into certain Christian bookstores (or scanning certain YouTube videos) can sometimes be a traumatizing experience for a Bible scholar. It might be something like a nutritionist or cardiologist stepping into a greasy burger joint reeking with the odor of fries, or a respiratory therapist walking into the smoking area of an airport, or … well, you get the picture.

I may exaggerate somewhat: usually even some of the lighter fare (such as many encouraging testimonies) is spiritually healthy. But it can’t substitute for the Bible or what helps us understand the Bible, even if it makes a nice dessert topping. Regarding the Bible, the most knowledgeable voices are not always the best communicators, and even they do not always have the best marketers. In keeping with U.S. culture, the religious market, like other markets, is driven by consumer appetites whetted by good marketing.

Bibles sell well, but difficulties in understanding parts of the Bible mean that even in a land saturated with Bibles, many people do not read them much, or read isolated verses apart from the context that helps explain their purpose. (We have instant foods and other shortcuts; we sometimes treat the Bible in the same way.) Meanwhile, in some less information-glutted parts of the world, people are desperate for Bibles in their language, just like in some parts of the world, people would be desperate to eat much of the food that many North Americans throw away.

Jesus taught that the first commandment is to recognize that there is just one true God, and so to love him with our whole being (Mark 12:29-30, citing Deut 6:4-5). That passage goes on to speak of keeping God’s words in our heart and reciting them for successive generations (Deut 6:6-7). (Most people could not read, so they had to learn and recite.) God’s law should be what they talk about at home and when they’re not at home (i.e., wherever they are), when they lie down and when they rise (a nice Hebrew way of saying, all the time; 6:7). They should surround themselves with reminders of God’s law everywhere (6:8-9). When God blesses his people with material prosperity, they should take heed not to forget him (6:10-15), but should continue to keep his commandments (6:17).

But Israel did forget God’s law. Many still claimed to follow their national God, but they no longer tested things from Scripture. Many of the priests and scribes who were supposed to instruct them tried to be more progressive and incorporate religious traditions from surrounding, polytheistic cultures. More commonly, the people who lacked teaching simply adopted traditions from such cultures without recognizing what was forbidden. They worshiped on high places, and worse yet used deity-images, and dedicated some of their babies as bloody sacrifices to obtain divine favors.

Such behavior prevailed through royal example through most of the reign of Manasseh, who reigned for over half a century. Manasseh experienced a latter-day change of heart (2 Chron 33:12-16), but pagan practice was now too deeply entrenched among his people to change their practices (33:17). After all, most of them had grown up with this state of affairs. His son Amon carried on this line of behavior for two years. When Manasseh’s eight-year-old grandson Josiah came to the throne, he followed a different path, probably encouraged in it by tutors put in place by the aged and repentant Manasseh before his death. But what could Josiah do? After all, he was righteous as best as he knew, but he did not have other standards to go by. Scripture had been suppressed or forgotten; certainly it was no longer center stage.

Throughout the ancient Near East, collections of laws were promulgated and then often forgotten. But foundation documents were often preserved in temples. To honor the Lord, Josiah orders the high priest to begin repairing the Lord’s house (2 Kgs 22:3-7), and what happens next sets a revolution in place. Christians in parts of Western Europe experienced something similar when Erasmus made available the New Testament in Greek: in a time when scholars were interested in going back to the classical sources and people were tired of corruption in the church, more leaders realized that the church’s foundation documents—Scripture—taught something different than many of the customs that had grown up since then. This discovery sparked the Protestant Reformation, as well as reform within much of the rest of the Western Church.

In Medieval Western Europe, most people could not read and many priests had inadequate knowledge of Scripture. Today we can read, but the book of the law has been lost in much of Western Christendom because of skepticism, difficulty understanding different literary genres, or most often simple negligence. Some simply defend adamantly their denominational traditions without searching Scripture for themselves; others depend on various other filters (their pastors, radio preachers, etc.) for their access to biblical truth. Some of these sources are trustworthy and valuable, but how can one evaluate which is which? Teaching is necessary, but devotional materials (including my blog posts) cannot be a substitute for direct engagement with God’s word itself, where (as for anyone with a Bible or internet access) that is available.

What happened when the book of the law was discovered in the temple? That’s the story that’s the heart of this lesson. It is the subject of the next lesson. (See also part I: http://www.craigkeener.org/what-does-revival-look-like-part-i-the-spirit-speaks/; http://www.craigkeener.org/what-does-revival-look-like-the-spirit-speaks-application/)