Category Archives: The Bible + Culture

The Bible, a Book with Edge

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Back in the 1990s, I was involved in the launch of a new publication, and I attended a workshop in New York to be sure we were crossing our t’s and dotting our i’s. One of our teachers explained that we would need to decide first off if we were going to publish a magazine with “edge” (such as The Nation or National Review), or one that avoided provocative opinions on hot issues (such as Saturday Evening Post or Martha Stewart Living).

Of course, most publications offer mixed fare, but it’s useful to distinguish those which strive always to be amiable to the exclusion of conscious affronts to the general reader’s sensitivities, and those quite willing to sacrifice gentility (though not civility, one hopes) in the cause of truth.

We decided we would not shrink from applying edge to our pages, and it occurred to us that our reference point, the Bible was a book with considerable edge. While Scripture is full of comforting and gracious passages—regarding the Lord’s shepherding in Psalm 23; regarding the rest promised for those who labor and are “heavy laden” (Matthew 11:28); regarding “living water” in John 4; regarding the glories of heaven in Revelation 22—it also has great cutting power.

Indeed, the Bible speaks of itself in these terms. Hebrews 4:12 says that “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” And, as Jesus said in Matthew 10:34, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

In his memoir, Thirty-Nine Years of Short-Term Memory Loss, former Saturday Night Live regular, Tom Davis of Franken and Davis, chronicled a life of prodigious drug consumption. Not surprisingly, he befriended drug guru Timothy Leary. He recounted their times together, including a phone conversation where Leary asked him what books he was reading. When Davis said he was trying to read the Bible from cover to cover, Leary exclaimed, “Oh no—there goes another one.”

Davis urged him to relax: “You don’t have to worry about me. Maybe you’ll feel better if I read you something really good that I just found in it.” With Leary’s okay, he pressed on, reading 1 Timothy 1:9-11 in the old King James. It declared that the law was “not made for the righteous man.” Rather, it was made for “the ungodly and for the sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers. For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons . . .”

Laughing, Leary exclaimed, “Whoa! That was wonderful! Thank you for that.”[1] Being two very laid-back fellows, they rolled their eyes at the “over the top” language, but they had to recognize that this was a book that didn’t fool around. It had edge. (And one suspects there was a touch of nervousness in their laughter.)

Though modern translations speak of the “sexually immoral” rather than the “whoremongers,” and the expression “slave traders” is less weird to the modern ear than “menstealers,” there’s no diluting the force of those verses. In fact, the newer versions can be more provocative, as when “them that defile themselves with mankind” are shown to be “men who practice homosexuality.”

The message to the church should be plain. While the Bible is a boundless source of blessing and encouragement, it is also a book whose words can sting and divide, and efforts to disguise this truth should embarrass those who presume to be ministers of the Word.

 

[1] Tom Davis, Thirty-Nine Years of Short-Term Memory Loss (New York: Grove, 2009), 189-191.



Why Is the Biblical Definition of Marriage Important?

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31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.  Ephesians 5:31-32 (ESV)

“Your love is your own possession,” wrote Christian martyr Dietriech Bonhoeffer to a young couple from his prison cell in 1943. “But marriage is more than something personal—it is a status, an office. Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will to rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, and not merely your love for each other, that joins you together in the sight of God and man. . . . It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.”[i] What a stark contrast to the contemporary, sentimentalized view of marriage!

One of God’s purposes for marriage is to illustrate the relationship of Christ and the Church. Just as in the old covenant, Israel was Yahweh’s bride (e.g., Jeremiah 2; Ezekiel 16; Hosea 1-2), so in the new covenant, the Church is Christ’s bride (Ephesians 5:22-33; Revelation 19:6-9). This divine marriage encompasses all of time, from eternity past to eternity future. It is not as if Paul is casting around for an illustration of what it means to live a godly married life and thinks of Christ and the Church. Quite the reverse: marriage is the illustration. Christ and the Church are the ultimate reality.

Furthermore, while marriage is a creation ordinance (Ephesians 5:31, quoting Genesis 2:24), the relationship of Christ and the Church is prior to creation. We were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4); and this is the mystery now revealed in the gospel. While human marriage is merely lifelong (Mark 12:25), the marriage of Christ and the Church will last for all eternity.

Just as marriage is public (“a man shall leave his father and mother”), intimate (“the two shall become one flesh”), exclusive, and lifelong (“[he shall] hold fast to his wife”), Christ’s relationship with the Church is public, intimate, exclusive, and lasting. The Lord Jesus is a faithful husband. His commitment to His bride is seen in that He laid down His life for her in order that she might belong to Him (Ephesians 5:25-27). He did this even while she was an idolatrous sinner. His promise is that He will lose none of those the Father gives Him (John 6:39). His commitment to His bride sustains His love for her, even when she sometimes strays.

By taking a bold stand for lifelong, monogamous, heterosexual marriage, Christians can speak against an overly sentimentalized view of marriage that pervades the culture. And by committing themselves to marriage as a covenantal institution, Christians reflect the commitment of Christ to His Church and, thereby, proclaim the gospel in their very unions—making marriage a blessed tool of evangelism.

 

[i] Gary A. Anderson, “A Marriage in Full,” First Things (May 2008): http://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/04/003-a-marriage-in-full-3 (accessed April 29, 2013).



Da Jesus Book

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Jesus told His disciples that they would be His “witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). And this wasn’t just a matter of geography. Pentecost, in Jerusalem alone, required a host of languages. And that was just the start, for linguistic missionaries have now translated the gospel into thousands of languages, with thousands to go.

And so it’s proceeded, from one new language group to the next, whether Slavic (e.g., Russian, Czech, and Bulgarian), Germanic (e.g., Norwegian, English, and Icelandic), or Italic (e.g., Portuguese, French, and Romanian). In English, Jesus’ father appears as “Joseph,” in Spanish as “Jose,” in Finnish “Joosefin,” and in Italian, “Giuseppe.” But it’s the same man.

Then there are the different translations within particular languages. For instance, in English, the King James Version says, in Luke 2, that Mary was Joseph’s “espoused wife, being great with child”; the New Living speaks of her as  “his fiancée, who was now obviously pregnant”; and the Contemporary English has her “engaged to Joseph,” “soon going to have a baby.” Some versions are quite literal, essentially word for word (e.g., the New American Standard); others use “dynamic equivalence” (e.g., the New International); still others are “paraphrases” (e.g., the Living). All of these partake of standard English.

But there are also colloquial versions, such as Clarence Jordan’s Cotton Patch Gospel, written in the late 60s and early 70s on a racially integrated farm in south Georgia. Meant to communicate the Word to rural, unlettered Southerners, it features Jesus’ baptism in the Chattahoochee River, calls Peter “Rock,” and uses “Atlanta” for Jerusalem. Here’s a sample from John 6:41-44:

Then the church people raised a stink because he said, “I myself am the ‘loaf’ that came down from on high.” They said, “Why, isn’t this old Joe’s boy? Don’t we ourselves know his mama and daddy? How come he now claims that ‘I have come down from on high’?” Jesus replied, “Y’all quit your bellyaching. Nobody can go with me unless the Father, who sent me, attracts him. And I’ll make him new in the final hour.”[1]

We also have the Bible in “pidgin” tongues, simplified forms of communication, which enable loose, commercial communication between differing language groups. An example is Da Jesus Book, a New Testament from Hawaii,[2] which renders the same passage in John as follows:

Dass why da Jewish guys wen start fo grumble bout him, cuz he wen say, “I jalike da bread dat can make da peopo live. I wen come down from da sky.” Dey tell each odda, “Eh, dis guy, he Jesus, yeah? He Joseph’s boy! We know his fadda an mudda, yeah? So how come he say now, ‘I wen come down from da sky’?” Jesus tell dem, “Eh! Stop grumbling to each odda! My Fadda wen send me hea. No mo nobody can come by me, if my Fadda no bring um. An I goin make dem guys come back alive from mahke wen da world goin pau.

Of course, exacting biblical scholars are not so keen on these idiomatic versions, but they play a role in spreading the word to “the end of the earth.” (That’s why Wycliffe translators spent 20 years developing a Belize Kriol version of Di Nyoo Testiment, released in March 2013.)[3] The same God who made sure the first-century listeners heard Peter at Pentecost is leading translators to pass along his words today to people groups he could not imagine in his day. Thus, they can understand Peter’s warning at Pentecost in Acts 2:40, as “Let god take you outa da bad kine stuff dat da odda peopo stay doing now” (Hawaii Pidgin) and “Save yourselves from this goofed-up society” (Cotton Patch).[4] Amen! Or, as the native Hawaiians put it, “Dass it!”

 

[1] Clarence Jordan’s Cotton Patch Gospel: The Complete Collection. (Macon, Georgia: Smyth & Helwys, 2012).

[2] Da Jesus Book: Hawaii Pidgin New Testament (Orlando: Wycliffe Bible Translators, 2000).

[3] “Holy Bible’s New Testament Launched in Belize Kriol,” http://www.ambergristoday.com/content/stories/2013/march/08/holy-bible-new-testament-launched-belize-kriol (accessed April 24, 2013).

[4] Acts is rendered “Jesus Guys Wat Dey Wen Do” in Hawaii Pidgin, and “Happenings” in the Cotton Patch version.



The Bible and Today’s Contraceptive Culture

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27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Genesis 1:27-28 (ESV)

Procreation is at great risk today; yet God favors procreation. He told Adam and Eve, and by extension, men and women of all eras, to go beyond mere replacement of themselves to the multiplication of progeny. Although the Bible does not specify the optimum number of children per family, this would suggest, statistically speaking, that the average number of children per family would be more than two.

Parents and their offspring are to bring their God-given reason, conscience, and skill to bear on making the most of creation—stewardly dominion. The task continues from generation to generation. Since humans are mortal and since neither virtue nor culture is inherited, both mankind and civilization are always a generation or two away from extinction.

With a contrasting, rebellious spirit, modern society is an increasingly “contraceptive culture.” More and more couples postpone childbirth for the sake of career, affluence, or convenience. Birth control pills are the “drug of choice,” but the “morning-after pill” is increasingly popular. If the array of contraceptive options fails the anti-natal couple, abortion beckons. (Over 50 million abortions have been performed in the United States since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.)

Paul praises singleness for the sake of ministerial focus (1 Corinthians 7:1, 7), but he does not make it the norm. Marriage is more typical, and within it, children are cherished. As the psalmist puts it, “Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward” (Psalm 127:3).

Parenting is no sideshow to God’s great work in history; it is integral to His purposes. After the flood, God repeated the “procreation mandate” to Noah (Genesis 9:1). Three chapters later, He promised Abraham, “I will make of you a great nation” (Genesis 12:2). That nation continues to grow today as Christian couples bring forth children and win them to the Lord.

Population hysterics have persuaded some that the earth is already full, but there is vast room to spare. If all six billion people on the planet were comfortably seated together, a square yard per person, hence over three million per square mile, they could fit into the state of Delaware (2,000 sq. miles). And whatever the general populace of the world may be, no one could argue that there are too many Christian homes, where children are conceived and raised in the fear of the Lord.

God’s plans are always good, and society is now reaping the whirlwind for rejecting them. According to the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, couples who delay childbirth suffer a greater risk of infertility. Furthermore, researchers at Ohio State University have concluded that women who postpone pregnancy are more likely to face high blood pressure and diabetes after age 50. And in Europe and Japan, where the average couple has fewer than two children, the social cost is high; relatively few young people are caring for the many aged citizens, and employers must lure foreign workers to fill their payrolls.

The Bible encourages and celebrates procreation in godly families. Surely the burden of proof falls upon Christian couples who avoid parenting. And just as surely, blessings fall upon those who embrace and support parenting.



Marriage and Women in the Pagan World of Bible Times

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Neaira lived in ancient Athens, about three hundred years before the birth of Christ. She was purchased as a child to be raised a hetaira, or high-class prostitute. For a while, Neaira “served” two unmarried men until it was time for them to settle down. Eventually, she bought her freedom and even married. However, she could not leave her dark days behind. Her greedy husband forced her into prostitution once more.1 As a little girl who deserved the loving protection of a father, Neaira found herself instead groomed to be a sexual servant. Then, as a wife, she found herself forced into other men’s beds. Neaira’s situation was not particularly unique. Prostitution was common in ancient Greece.2 This dark region desperately needed light.

Ancient Greece is just one of the societies that provides the context for the biblical world. Others include the ancient Near East, Rome, and, of course, ancient Israel, with moral (and immoral) influence passing freely, back and forth across their borders.3 But the Bible teaches that God’s people are to take their cues not from the surrounding culture but from His holy Word. Several historical examples drive this point home:

  • According to one Assyrian contract, a husband and wife could divorce by making a simple financial payment. 4 Consider this a very ancient version of the “easy-divorce.”
  • In Babylon, a husband’s commitment literally depended upon a woman’s health. In the event she was too ill to have sexual relations with her husband, Babylonian law permitted the husband to marry another—legalized polygamy. 5
  • In Mesopotamia, a husband could divorce his wife for donating family property to an outsider. Even worse, he could shame her in the process by “literally stripping the woman naked and driving her from the house.” 6
  • In the Roman world, men, both before they married and in their later years of life, were all but expected to have a concubine—a female companion to whom the man had no legal obligation.7  A man might choose to marry his concubine or treat her as a sexual plaything to be discarded at a moment’s notice.
  • Then there was the lasciviousness of ancient Greece, where it was not considered adultery for a married man to have relations with a hetaira, like Neaira, at a social event. Some husbands did not even bother to hide their liaisons with servant girls—such was the perversion of the culture. 8  

The New Testament repudiated these prevailing practices. Jesus upheld the Father’s intention of the one-flesh union as the ultimate standard, declaring divorce and remarriage to be adultery in Mark 10. Paul inspired men to be the “the husband of one wife” (1 Timothy 3:2), implying all married men are to be devoted to their spouses only. Peter called husbands to “honor . . . the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life” (1 Peter 3:7). As Greek and Roman men reveled in promiscuousness, leaving woman after broken woman behind in their wake, it is Paul who taught the Church the hard word that the sexually immoral will not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-10) and who pointed the tempted away from lust and toward God’s ideal—marriage between a man and a woman (1 Corinthians 7:2). No doubt, this would have been music to Neaira’s ears. Notice, it is the Christian Scriptures that demand commitment, that foster fidelity, that insist women can be valued as co-heirs of the Gospel, and that encourage sex in its proper context, marriage.

The next time Christianity is charged as a repressive, unenlightened, and backward religion, the critic should reconsider how repressive, unenlightened, and backward the world would be today, without the Christian defense of marriage.

Footnotes
——————————————————————————–

1 See S. M. Baugh, “Marriage and Family in Ancient Greek Society,” in Marriage and Family in the Biblical World, ed. Ken M. Campbell (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 105-107 and Allison Glazebrook, “The Bad Girls of Athens: The Image and Function of Hetairai in Judicial Oratory,” in Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World, eds. Christopher A. Faraone and Laura K. McClure (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006), 125-126.
2 Allison Glazebrook, Ibid., 130.
3 Ken M. Campbell, “Preface,” in Marriage and Family, xv.
4 Peter Coleman, Christian Attitudes to Marriage: From Ancient Times to the Third Millennium (London: SCM Press, 2004), 9. For example, the Assyrian couple, Laqipum and Hatala, agreed to the following stipulations in the nineteenth century BC:

Laqipum may not marry another woman, but in the city he may marry a hierodule [temple prostitute]. If within two years Hatala does not provide him with offspring, she herself will purchase a slave-woman. After she will have produced a child by him, he may dispose of her by sale. Should Laqipum choose to divorce Hatala he must pay her five minas of silver and should she choose to divorce him, she must pay him five minas of silver.

5 Victor H. Matthews, “Marriage and the Family in the Ancient Near East,” in Marriage and the Family, 15.
6 Ibid., 25.
7 Susan Treggiari, “Marriage and Family in Roman Society,” in Marriage and Family, 169-171.
8 Baugh, “Marriage and Family in Ancient Greek Society,” in Marriage and Family, 116-117.



Marriage from Genesis to Revelation

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A group of homosexual activists recently published what they called the “Queen James Bible”—an edition of Scripture with eight verses edited in order to prevent “homophobic interpretations.” The implication is that if these eight verses are tweaked, the Bible doesn’t have anything to say condemning homosexuality or limiting marriage to the covenant union of one man and one woman for life. The editors of the Queen James Bible were terribly wrong, for from Genesis to Revelation Scripture teaches that marriage between a man and a woman is God’s standard and it condemns supposed alternatives. Of course, every book does not contain an explicit command against homosexuality, and some mentions of marriage and family assume the traditional structure rather than commending it explicitly. But through precepts, examples, analogies, and prohibitions the Bible makes it clear that God loves marriage and hates all affronts to this covenant union.

Genesis records the creation of marriage in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:18-25). Exodus gives the commandment not to commit adultery (Exodus 20:14). Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 clearly condemn homosexuality. (These verses are not merely prohibitions against having homosexual relations with male prostitutes in Molech’s temple, as the Queen James Bible asserts.) Numbers 5:11-31 exalts marital faithfulness by imposing stiff penalties on a woman who breaks her marriage vows. Deuteronomy 5:18 repeats the command against adultery in its recounting of the Ten Commandments.

In Joshua, Caleb’s offer of his daughter’s hand in marriage as a reward for conquering a Canaanite city clearly suggests that marriage is a blessing (Joshua 15:16-17). Judges contains a graphic example of Israel’s violating the Lord’s standards of sexual purity and depicts such behavior as wickedness (Judges 19:22-30). Ruth contains the famous love story between Ruth and Boaz. In 1 & 2 Samuel David’s marriage to Abigail pictures a woman of character and a brave man uniting in a covenant bond (1 Samuel 25:1-43). Solomon’s violation of God’s standards for marriage in 1 & 2 Kings led to division of his kingdom (1 Kings 11:1-13). The first nine chapters of 1 & 2 Chronicles are a genealogy showing that God propagated the line of His chosen people through heterosexual marriage and childbearing. In Ezra Israel wept and repented of breaking God’s command regarding whom to marry (chapters 9-10). Nehemiah confronted, cursed, and beat those who broke God’s commandments on marriage (Nehemiah 13:23-25). In Esther even a pagan king recognizes the blessings of marriage to a godly woman.

Job pictures the protagonist’s wife beside him through trial (Job 2:9-10). Psalm 51 records David’s brokenness after taking sex outside marriage, while Psalm 45 celebrates a royal wedding. Proverbs is filled with warnings against adultery (e.g., Proverbs 7:1-27) and tells a man to delight in the wife of his youth (5:18). Ecclesiastes admonishes a man to enjoy life with his wife (Ecclesiastes 12:9). Song of Solomon is an entire book glorifying heterosexual marriage.

Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, and Ezekiel all use the image of a woman breaking her marriage covenant to depict the wickedness of Israel’s covenant breaking with God (Isaiah 1:21; Jeremiah 2:1-37; Lamentations 1:2; Ezekiel 16:1-63). Daniel 5:1-30 pictures God’s judgment on a hedonistic king as he throws a drunken party with his wives and concubines. Hosea illustrates the sinfulness and shame of a wife who breaks the marriage covenant with her husband (chapters 1-3). Joel 2:8 references the sadness of a betrothed virgin whose husband dies before she can experience the joy of marriage consummation. Amos 2:7-8 condemns deviations from marriage in ritual prostitution and incest. Obadiah, Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah announce God’s judgment against the Assyrians and Babylonians—kingdoms whose sin involved sexualized religions that perverted God’s design for marriage. Micah 1:7 likens Israel’s spiritual infidelity to the physical immorality of a prostitute. In Haggai 2:5 God vows to keep promises He made to Israel hundreds of years earlier. Of course, the preservation of His people to see such fulfillment was made possible by their procreation through heterosexual marriage. Zechariah personifies wickedness as a woman, possibly representing Israel’s sin of marrying foreign wives or their idolatrous worship of perverse female deities (Zechariah 5:5-8). Malachi 2:14-15 references God’s plan instituted at creation for a man and woman to enter a covenant relationship producing godly offspring.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke all depict Jesus speaking against divorce and exalting the lifelong nature of marriage between a man a woman (Matthew 5:27-32; Mark 10:1-12; Luke 16:18). In John, Jesus performs His first miracle at a wedding feast (John 2:1-11). Acts shows Aquila and Priscilla as an example of a husband and wife working together to advance the gospel (Acts 18:24-28). Romans 1:26-27 condemns those who depart from God’s plan for marriage and engage in homosexual acts—a passage edited in the Queen James. First Corinthians condemns sex outside marriage and commands it within marriage (1 Corinthians 7:1-40). In 2 Corinthians 12:21 Paul expressed fear that the Corinthians had not repented of sexual sin.

Galatians 5:19-21 includes among the sinful “works of the flesh” sexual immorality, sensuality, and orgies. Perhaps the Bible’s most famous passage praising marriage is Ephesians 5:22-33. In Philippians Paul uses the metaphor of a family to describe the warmth of his relationship with Timothy (Philippians 2:21). Colossians 3:18-19 gives instructions for the relationship between husbands and wives. First Thessalonians commands believers to abstain from sexual immorality and control their bodies (1 Thessalonians 4:3-5). As former pagans, the Thessalonians’ temptation toward pagan sexual sins likely was strong. So Paul’s admonition in 2 Thessalonians to live worthy of their Christian calling (2 Thessalonians 1:11) surely included fidelity to the marriage covenant. First Timothy lists being “the husband of one wife” among the qualifications for both elders and deacons (1 Timothy 3:2, 12). Another mention of Aquila and Priscilla in 2 Timothy 4:19 suggests they were still faithful to one another years after their initial appearance in Acts. Titus 1:6 repeats that an elder must be “the husband of one wife.” In Philemon commentators think Apphia, mentioned in verse 2, may have been Philemon’s wife.

Hebrews 13:4 commands, “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled.” James 2:11 repeats God’s command not to commit adultery. First Peter gives further instructions for husbands and wives (1 Peter 3:1-7). Second Peter 2:6 mentions God’s judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah (from which we get the word “sodomy”) as an example of what the Lord will do to the wicked. First John uses the roles in a traditional family to reference various groups in the church, a warm greeting that reflects John’s positive opinion of the family (1 John 2:12-14). John again uses family imagery in 2 John—a lady and her children—to address either a church figuratively or an individual (verse 1). Third John employs warm family language again to describe John’s relationship with the believers (verse 4). Jude also mentions Sodom and Gomorrah’s judgment, this time with an explicit mention of their homosexual sins (verse 7). Finally, Revelation compares the joyful consummation of God’s relationship with His people to a wedding (Revelation 19:9; 21:9).

To change the Bible’s teaching on marriage, a person has to do a lot more than edit eight verses.