Treasures of Faith in the OT

[RubySera_Martin]

This comes from the thread on Liberal Christianity without Creation, Post 55. The title for this thread is taken from Dondi's suggestion (below) that "there is more to the OT than we think." Obviously, I am hoping Dondi or others of similar insight will have time to contribute. My bit is in this post below. I think perhaps it belongs in the Liberal Christianity section rather than the regular Christianity because we might not stick with traditional beliefs.

Fact of the matter is that I am not sure if I know what traditional beliefs are on the topic. I learned one thing in church and another in school. Both were taught by ordained Christian clergy, though of different denominations and vastly different levels of education. I have no idea what liberal Christians think.

Originally Posted by Ratanya

[M]any of the old testament scriptures, impact me negatively, unless I view them from a historical sense, rather than seeing them as divinely inspired.

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No, I didn't know this and would love to hear more of this subject.

I wish you could hear the OT people described like my OT teacher described them. They seemed like real people like us today and their view of God was similarly positive. God cared for them as a parent cares for his/her children. That is how they understood it.

If people want to hear more about this, maybe they could ask about specific cases. Maybe that would jog my memory or help Dondi to further explain. In the meantime, here are two books we used for the course that may be helpful:

Reading the Old Testament, by Lawrence Boadt.
Who Wrote the Bible, by Richard Elliott Friedman.

[Dondi]

Ok, just for example, I'll use the illustration my pastor used last Sunday, for starters. Mind you, you can glean all kinds of meaning from the same passage of scripture and in fact I have heard different sermons on the same passage.

I apologize in advance for this being so long.

"And the sons of the prophets said unto Elisha, Behold now, the place where we dwell with thee is too strait for us.
Let us go, we pray thee, unto Jordan, and take thence every man a beam, and let us make us a place there, where we may dwell. And he answered, Go ye.
And one said, Be content, I pray thee, and go with thy servants. And he answered, I will go.
So he went with them. And when they came to Jordan, they cut down wood.
But as one was felling a beam, the axe head fell into the water: and he cried, and said, Alas, master! for it was borrowed.
And the man of God said, Where fell it? And he shewed him the place. And he cut down a stick, and cast it in thither; and the iron did swim. Therefore said he, Take it up to thee. And he put out his hand, and took it." - II Kings 6:1-7


I'm going to relate this as my pastor explained it the best I can remember it:

"And the sons of the prophets said unto Elisha, Behold now, the place where we dwell with thee is too strait for us."

Elisha was, of course, the apprentice of Elijah the prophet, and was anointed with a double portion just before Elijah took to the skies in the chariot of fire (a whole different study, to be sure). By the way, it is interesting to note that Elisha performed exactly twice as many miracles as Elijah.

Now Elisha is the mentor to these students (sons of the prophets), but they were running out of classroom space ("the place is too strait for us") and needed to move to a bigger place (never be afraid to grow - another sermon).

"Let us go, we pray thee, unto Jordan, and take thence every man a beam, and let us make us a place there, where we may dwell. And he answered, Go ye.
And one said, Be content, I pray thee, and go with thy servants. And he answered, I will go."

Apparently, Elisha was going to just let the sons of the prophets go and build the new place by themselves, but they implored Elisha to go with them, so he relented.

So all the sons of the prophets took a beam of wood and they journeyed to the Jordon to build a bigger place.

"So he went with them. And when they came to Jordan, they cut down wood.
But as one was felling a beam, the axe head fell into the water: and he cried, and said, Alas, master! for it was borrowed."

So as they were chopping down wood by the Jordan. One of them lost their axe head. It flew off and landed in the water. Here we come to the crux of the message:

This son of a prophet was a hard worker and one was not compelled to stop until a job was completed. Now axe heads don't just fly off unless they have been worked loose from the axe handle first. So he must have known that the axe head was being loosed as he chopped. But rather than take the time to fix the axe, he just kept chopping away. Have you ever been in a situation that you had a tool that was on the verge of breaking, but kept using it anyway because you didn't want to waste time trying to fix it and wanted to get the job done and over already? Unfortunately, sometimes when we do that, we end up using up more time than if we fixed it in the first place (I'm so there).

The axe head represents God's strength and God's proper means of accomplishing a task. That strength and means is given to us by God, it is not our own (the axe was borrowed), it given to us. This poor fellow, when he lost the axe head, probably kept chopping with the axe handle because he didn't want to appear a slacker, even when the axe head was loosening, and as a result, he lost the axe head. Isn't that they way it is sometimes when we try and do the work of the Lord with our own strength? We keep trying to cut down trees with the axe handle, but we just end up exhausting ourselves and get nowhere. We are trying to do things our own way, by our own strength.

You ever notice that when serving the Lord, sometimes you are in the place where you can perform the work effortlessly, because you are relying on His strength. You are in that right relationship with God in your prayer life, in your study of the Word, in fellowship with other Christians, and in sharing of your faith. But sometimes we lose our axe head. And the sad fact is that we already know that it was loose. So we need to go back to where we believe we lost it. In Revelation 2:2-5, Jesus speaks to the church at Ephesus on this matter:

"I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars:
And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted.
Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent."

Without the light of God in our lives, all our efforts are in vain. We must go back to our first love. We must get that axe head back. Like the car keys we always misplace, we must go back to the place we last saw it.

"And the man of God said, Where fell it? And he shewed him the place. And he cut down a stick, and cast it in thither; and the iron did swim. Therefore said he, Take it up to thee. And he put out his hand, and took it."

The man of God here is, of course Elisha. A pastor's job is to help restore the members of his flock. To guide and pray and help restore the axe head. A man of God who is filled with the Spirit of God can lead others to that same Spirit in restoration. The double portion granted to Elisha from Elijah was not meant to be horded, but rather shared and distributed to those in need. Ihe man of God is appointed from God to share in the strength of God so that he can tend the flock. And that is in turn shared among the members. When we allow God to be our strength, we will see supernatural things happen in our lives and can give God the glory for His goodness. We have the strength and love to help restore others to a right spirit with God.

So hence is but one example of how OT scriptures can have application in our own lives. I find myself amazed when the Word is preache like that because i know I had been intrigued by this story of the floating axe. But I never considered what rich application such story can have in our lives.

[RubySera_Martin]

Thanks, Dondi. I suspect you reproduced your pastor's sermon quite accurately. Somehow it does not speak to my soul at all but I am glad if it does to yours.

I'm groping around in the dim recesses of my memory for that "green bough" piece I got from my course in the OT. I am no longer sure if it was an actual green bough like the blossoming bough of Aaron when his leadership was challenged. Or if I just rejoiced because I got a feeling of "green" or life from the way the teacher explained some social or religious situation.

She had a way of making the OT with its people come alive as warm living breathing humans living in a specific geographical, cultural, and historical context. I could feel what it must have been like being one of the women or girls in the camp not knowing if the enemy would "get us" or if our men would be able to out-maneover them. I could feel the trust in a merciful God for protection, for warning against becoming lax, the inspiration that God does indeed take care of us, his chosen people, the apple of his eye.

Actually, all of this came somewhat naturally for me because of having been raised in a community with a distinct boundary and culture separate from mainstream society. No questions asked, we knew we were God's chosen people, and that we could trust God to always take good care of us because we were, after all, the apple of God's eye.

The stretch for me was to see life and spiritual nurturance in the OT law and damning prophets. Basically what I conclude is that the stuff that got written down and preserved is the disciplinarian stuff. It has to be seen in its proper context. Most times we don't really have that context so all we see is a wrathful judging God.

If we read between the lines we see people planting, tending, and harvesting vineyards, fields, and olive orchards, and raising families. They eat honey comb, butter, bread, and milk in addition to veggies and fruits of various kinds. A sign not to worry about a threat from an enemy was the passage in Isaiah or one of the prophets which talks about a pregnant young woman. The prophet said the enemy would be gone and forgotten before the child ate honeycomb. Not sure if I have the wording correct but you probably recognize the passage.

What I got out of that was this: In a footnote, it said this was peacetime food. And I realized why. Time and careful tending is required to produce and harvest that kind of food. Thus, I began to see the significance of things like certain foods and a child of a certain age. In another passage (or maybe it's the same one) the prophet says by the time the child can say Mamma or Daddy the enemy will be gone and forgotten. We all know that a child has to reach a certain age before it can digest certain foods or say certain words. It is also very comforting to realize that common things like food and babies are still what they were way back then.

[Abogado del Diablo]

Anyone ever listened to Michael Card's "The Ancient Faith" trilogy? If not, I recommend it as it contains many beautiful meditations on Old Testament faith.

[neosnoia]

I really enjoyed Rabbi Harold Kushner's book "To Life!" (although it does have some anti-Christian polemic).