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/)