Obedience is a tough sell today. How can it not be when the backdrop is one of “the sons of disobedience” as Paul calls them at Ephesians 2:2? In such a climate, even the Bible is reframed as though it were the Declaration of Independence. From there arises a horror of any religious human counsel that would direct people on what to do.
Nonetheless, Ephesians is clear on the need for “shepherds” and “teachers” among Christians. It is clear on the reason for them. (4:11-13) Faith cannot be just “Jesus and me.”
“And he gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelizers, some as shepherds and teachers, with a view to the readjustment of the holy ones, for ministerial work, to build up the body of the Christ.” (4:11)
The apostle Paul calls them “gifts in men.” How long are they necessary? The passage continues: “until we all attain to the oneness of the faith and of the accurate knowledge of the Son of God, to being a full-grown man, attaining the measure of stature that belongs to the fullness of the Christ.” (4:11-13)
That hasn’t happened yet. It will, once obedience humankind is perfected under Christ’s reign. But it hasn’t happened yet.
It is hard to imagine anything more Christ-dishonoring than “the name of God being blasphemed among the nations.” Yet, this routinely happens in the absence of “shepherds” and “teachers.” Says Romans:
“You, the one preaching, “Do not steal,” do you steal? You, the one saying, “Do not commit adultery,” do you commit adultery? You, the one abhorring idols, do you rob temples? You who take pride in law, do you dishonor God by your transgressing of the Law? For “the name of God is being blasphemed among the nations because of you,” just as it is written.” (Romans 2:21-24) Conduct matters if the goal is not to blaspheme God.
The last thing a Christian should want is for “the truth to be spoken of abusively.” (2 Peter 2:2) Yet, falling prey to “brazen conduct” ensures that will happen.
Also, Paul’s letter to Titus, observes that some “publicly declare that they know God, but they disown him by their works, because they are detestable and disobedient and not approved for good work of any sort.” (Titus 1:12) What can be worse than people publicly declaring they know God but disowning him by their works? That is what unbelievers see, rather than the self-contained feel-good society such ”Christians” have constructed for themselves.
So it was that evangelical author Ron Sider examined his own people and was aghast at their disobedient lifestyle. He found it not worse than that of nonbelievers, but not any better either….and he was mortified. It drove him to his knees, even though, like Daniel praying for his fellow Jews, he was not personally culpable. Then, as any repentant person should do, he sought ways to make it right. He came up with several fixes, apparently without realizing that Jehovah’s Witnesses have successfully implemented these fixes for years.
First, says Mr. Sider in his 2005 book, ‘The Scandal of the Evangelcal Conscience: : Why are Christians Living Just Like the Rest of the World?’ the Western world’s “obsession with independence must end, to be replaced with recognition that Christians are a community belonging to, and having responsibility for, each other. Paul goes so far as to say Christians ought to be slaves to one another. Galatians 5:13 literally reads “be slaves to each other,” yet most popular translations, Mr. Sider notes, dilute the verse to a more independence-savoring “serve one another in love.”
Many churches today trumpet that they are “independent Bible believing,” yet the very notion is “heretical,” says Mr. Sider. To be part of the body of Christ, a church must align itself with a larger structure to give “guidance, supervision, direction, and accountability.”
Jehovah’s Witnesses have exactly such a structure in their governing body. Malcontents rail against such organization as “mind control.”
Second, Mr. Sider suggests, any congregation with over fifty members ought to arrange its people into small groups, where oversight and encouragement can more effectively be offered.
They’re called service groups. Since as long as anyone can remember, perhaps from their outset, Witness congregations have made use of such small groups.
Make it harder to join, is a third suggestion. Evangelical Conscience points to early Anabaptists and Wesleyans, as if no modern examples existed. These groups took their time in admitting new members, ensuring that their conduct as well as words lined up with Christ’s teachings. They did not just settle for the silly and surface “confess the Lord and be saved.” Jehovah’s Witnesses are well known for requiring an extensive period of Bible study and dry run as a prerequisite to baptism..
Lastly, “parachurch” organizations, groups like Youth for Christ that transcend the larger church structure, have, by definition, no accountability to anybody. “Many of the worst, most disgraceful actions that embarrass and discredit the evangelical world come from this radical autonomy,” says Evangelical Conscience. Somehow such groups have to be brought into tow, though the author admits that he has no clue as to how to accomplish this.
Jehovah’s Witnesses do. They strongly discourage any such activity not under the oversight of the central governing body. You should hear critics rail about such “strong-arm” methods! But one can’t help feeling Mr. Sider would approve.
To be sure, Mr. Sider and Jehovah’s Witnesses are poles apart doctrinally, yet organizationally JWs are his dream come true – a peculiar irony, if ever there was one.
Q: If God really can bring an end to war so easily, then what is he waiting for? After all, the longer he delays, the more generations live and die in suffering.
Yes, they do, but it is reversible through the provision of resurrection. In time, former distresses will be forgotten, as though a bad dream.
One must not rush a trial. One must allow it to play out, distressing as it may be to those under the gun. For Witnesses, the question to be determined arose at the very beginning of human creation, with Adam rejecting God’s right to rule for his own. God could eliminate them and start again, but who’s to say the next pair won’t raise the same point? Better to let it play out.
The overall Bible tale is that, starting with this rebellion, God allows humans to make good on their claim of independence from him. He allows them to devise their own governments down through the ages, their own economies, justice, ethics, inventions—organize or disorganize any way they will. Only when the results become the absolute trainwreck that human rule is today does the question begin to be answered. Questions answered and precedent supplied, then God can forcibly bring about the rule by his Son.
It’s the theme of a book I wrote not too long ago, entitled “A Workman’s Theodicy: Why Bad Things Happen.” A theodicy is a theological term referring to the attempts to answer how a God of love would coexist with evil and suffering. It is among the oldest questions of time, and likely the most important:
This ‘Workman’s Theodicy’ is centered in free will. Is such a vital component of life or not? Free will does make a bad course possible, but it also makes a good course so much more meaningful. How meaningful is someone’s love if you know they have been programmed so that they cannot respond in any other way? The trial has to play out. The consequences of human independence from God must become manifest.
God has chosen not to be an enabler, allowing human rebellion but making sure nothing REALLY bad happens. Those who deal with harmful and/or addictive behaviors know that enabling is a dead end. Enablers allow, and even encourage, destructive behavior, charging someone else to prevent the mess that inevitably results. Such ones don’t actually hate what is bad. They just hate the symptoms of what is bad and want someone else to clean those up. There are critics of the Witnesses who complain about “manipulation” and “control,” but appear to want manipulation and control to be woven into the very fabric of life, so that humans never have to face the consequences of their destructive conduct.
There are no end of negative consequences from going independent of God. Were their wish to come true, that the really bad consequences of independence from God were wiped away, complaints would soon coalesce about the next worst things on the list—why doesn’t God prevent those, too? No. This is just recommending that God be an enabler. It is something he will not do, for our sakes as well as his own.
“A cat that sits on a hot stove will never sit on a hot stove again”—attributed to Mark Twain. “Nor will it set on a cold stove, because they all look hot.” That is the goal: to keep humans away from the “stove” of self-rule, cold that can so easily turn to hot, with all its inherent hobbling consequences.
A million years into everlasting life, when people have been unshackled from sin to be all that they can be, the intense suffering some underwent during a few of their 70 or 80 years will not be something they hold a grudge over. It is as that illustration goes that Witnesses sometimes use: parents will submit a child to a painful operation if they know that it is necessary to future happy and healthy life.
In a group, one Witness said. “I really like Brother Noumair’s talks. He’s a good speaker.” My friend waited . . . and waited . . . and waited . . .and then burst out laughing. She was waiting for a B part—an example, a qualification, a contrast. Nope. That was it, the complete comment. “*Everybody* likes Brother Noumair’s talks,” she told me. She had just assumed there would be a B part.
I thought of that exchange with regard to a short talk he gave recently about Job. “He’s a digger,” my wife says. I mean, the guy conducts the Gilead school, so of course they are going to select someone who has a gift for “digging.”
My latest book, ‘A Workman’s Theodicy: Why Bad Things Happen’ opens with a verse-by-verse discussion of Job. It takes up 30% of the book. For the most part, it departs from whatever the Witness organization has said. In fact, it has to. A review of the JW Library app reveals large swaths of Job untouched by Watchtower publications, and some of the verses that are touched just lead to some type of ‘Bible trivia,’ like what the “skin of your teeth” means. My book instead considers a wide range of commentators. Since some regard the Book of Job as the greatest literary work of all time, it is not hard to find commentators
I would have squeezed Noumair’s remarks in there, somehow, had the book not already been released. They are that unique. He highlights the confrontation between Jehovah and Satan that results in a permitted test on Job’s integrity. He reviews verses to show that every inch of the way, Jehovah is in complete control, as he reveals what is in the Devil’s heart and allows an issue to be settled. As soon as it is settled, “the gavel goes down” and Job’s state of captivity, which likely lasted less than a year, is reversed. The lesson? Confidence in God’s power, which in turn leads to confidence on the part of those who trust him. And the assurance that trials, once they are endured, come to an end.
‘A Workman’s Theodicy’ goes on to cover a wide range of theologians, some of whom have asserted things nearly unrecognizable to those of any traditional Bible community. Scholars widely regard Job as a product of two books fused together. The first two and the final chapter are part of a “fable.” The poetry in between represents the “theology” of maybe one, maybe multiple authors. (Opinions differ) “Is the intellectual appeal of this approach that by so dividing Job into two portions, you are in position to understand neither?” I explore the question.
The book also looks at the theology of a popular Jewish rabbi, Harold Kushner, who has written much on Job and the light it sheds on God’s coexistence with evil. Guided by modern critical techniques, he all but presents Satan as God’s hit man, assigned to do his dirty work. He does not sense any particular enmity between the two parties—they work as a team, in his view. He also resolves the question of evil by deciding that God is not all-powerful. He means well, but he is at time outmaneuvered by “Leviathan,” to whom he assigns a new meaning.
It is too bad I couldn’t have squeezed Noumair in the book. Maybe I will in case I revise it later. He would have made a fine addition. See: “We Can Endure Like Job,” a talk searchable at JW*org.
What is it with Pharaoh’s obstinacy as his land and people in it are being destroyed? It’s been the content of the mid-week meeting for two weeks running. Frogs, gadflies, boils, locusts, hail, darkness, etc. He just gets more stubborn! I mean, you can admire a guy for sticking to his guns, but there is also such a thing as taking a hint!
Maybe the way to look at this is when a city roots for its lousy football team. Not all teams are good. Some are lousy. And they have been that way for a long, long time. Yet, even as they play and get shellacked as usual, as they always get shellacked, there are true-blu fans who root for them! They will not throw in the towel!
Now, we know enough about ancient Egypt and the 10 plagues to know that it was a contest of the gods. People don’t matter when the reputation of the gods is at stake. Those ten plagues: water to blood, frogs, gnats, gadflies, plague, boils, hail, locusts, darkness—Egypt had a god for every one of those categories, charged to keep disaster at bay. The Hebrew God pummeled every one of them, play after play! Yet, Pharaoh is rooting for his team of losers!
‘What’s wrong with you? Do you have a screw loose?!’ the servants say to Pharaoh, but not too forcefully because he is Pharaoh, after all. (Exodus 10:7) He did and he didn’t. He was rooting for his team. Too bad for the people, but they didn’t count. Maybe it’s even their fault. Had they been cheering for their gods a little more, or serving them a little more dutifully, maybe those gods would not be having their butts kicked so decisively! Meanwhile, Pharaoh keeps himself relatively isolated from harm in his pharoah-castle. Sorry, but “critical thinking” was not a thing back then.
Is it today? We live in a time where people loudly proclaim their critical thinking skills, yet come to polar opposite conclusions on the facts laid before them. Surely, one can see Allan Guelzo’s concern that critical thinking may not only not improve his field of historical research, but may even make it worse, by “cloaking human bias in a veneer of science.” The trouble with critical thinking is that those who most openly espouse it frequently claim a monopoly on the stuff.
It was not until Pharaoh’s own quarterback was taken out that he relented. And even then, it was temporary. He reneged, whereas it would have been better for him had he not.
When the Israelites pulled out of Egypt, not so much as a dog barked: “But not even a dog will bark at the Israelites, at the men or their livestock, so that you may know that Jehovah can make a distinction between the Egyptians and the Israelites.” (11:7) They were all glad to see them go; Pharaoh having been the last holdout.
This verse resonated with me because I’d been out in service with Ken that day and I finally found a car in front of the house that I must have tried a half-dozen times over the years, but never with anyone at home, junk spewed all over the yard as usual. Dogs were there, all right, securely behind the stolid barrier, and did they ever raise a ruckus! Big grey demon-like dogs, four of them, identical, as though the kind guarding mythological the gates of hell. ‘Let’s just stand here a moment,’ I said to Ken. ‘See if anyone shows.’ He did, but when he understood our purpose, he waved us away.
This has nothing to do with Pharaoh or the Egyptians, but they sure were surly dogs, of a breed I could not determine.
Through ingenuity, humans overcome their natural limitations against flight and deep-sea diving. They can fly and they can submerge. But no amount of ingenuity can equip them to overcome their inability to self-rule, “man dominating man to his injury.” All such efforts devolve into some permutation of “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.>” Such were the takeaways from Sunday’s talk on End of War. Many time’s I’ve compared inability to fly to inability to rule, but I’ve never extended it that the first can be overcome but not the second.
“Come and witness the activities of Jehovah, How he has done astonishing things on the earth. He is bringing an end to wars throughout the earth.” (Psalm 46:8-9) Pretty good trick if he can pull that one off.
The solution advanced in that talk—all Bible promises—on how God would do that is:
1: bringing an end to human governments, replacing them by the rule of his Son
2: raising humankind to a state of perfection
3: removing the influence of Satan, the one right now “misleading the entire inhabited earth.” (Revelation 12:9)
So it was in the ministry that I answered the Muslim man who, in good faith, watered down the solution to war to that of all people sincerely living the tenets of their faith. Yes, it’s a good thing when they do that, I agreed, but make no mistake: that will not be sufficient to overcome man’s inability to rule and their resulting proclivity to war.
This was the fellow from Bangladesh who had escaped war there as a child and still had nightmares about it. He’d been in America for decades and was “living the American dream,” he and all his siblings having attained PhD status. He, not me, was the one who brought up, all on his own, his prime concern that ending war was mankind’s greatest need, along with his fear that humans are regressing in that goal.
But even after a return call, I couldn’t shake his equally prime concern that I had come to “change his religion.” “Look, if I come 200 times and we agree each time, on the 201st time I will say ‘Do you want to change your religion?’ but it’s not going to happen until that time. In the meantime, it’s just conversation. Nothing to worry about.” Nope. Didn’t fly with this fellow.
The trouble is, there’s really not too many faiths that point to the above solution of war. Most water it down to God somehow blessing human efforts to end it through political means. Or, to this man’s hoped-for outcome that each person will start sincerely living the tenets of their faith. “When the broken-hearted people living in the world agree,” is how McCartney put it. Good luck on that goal.
Q: If God really can bring an end to war that easily, then what is he waiting for? After all, the longer he delays, the more generations live and die in suffering.
Yes, they do, but it is reversible through the provision of resurrection. In time, former distresses will be forgotten, as though a bad dream.
One must not rush a trial. One must allow it to play out, distressing as it may be to those under the gun. For Witnesses, the question to be determined arose at the very beginning of human creation, with Adam rejecting God’s right to rule for his own. God could flatten them and start again, but who’s to say the next pair won’t raise the same point? Better to let it play out.
The overall Bible tale is that, starting with this rebellion, God allows humans to make good on their claim of independence from him. He allows them to devise their own governments down through the ages, their own economies, justice, ethics, inventions—organize or disorganize any way they will. Only when the results become the absolute trainwreck that human rule is today does the question begin to be answered. Questions answered and precedent supplied, then God can forcibly bring about the rule by his Son.
It’s the theme of a book I wrote not too long ago, entitled “A Workman’s Theodicy: Why Bad Things Happen.” Probably you know that theodicy is a theological term referring to the attempts to answer how a God of love would coexist with evil and suffering. It is among the oldest questions of time, and likely the most important:
The Book of Ecclesiastes examines themes as the vicissitudes of life, that the swift do not always have the race, nor the strong the battle. This implies a certain “vanity” should one gloat too much over one’s accomplishments, as well as a certain “futility” brought on by the relative brevity of life. On a trip to the Pocono hills of Pennsylvania, I explored these themes in connection with some power players of long ago. It also appears in a book I wrote, Go Where Tom Goes. (billed as a travelogue for those who aren’t fussy):
Down where the widened street and its narrow companion end in two tees onto route 209, beyond is the train station, the tracks, the Lehigh River, the walkway, and another steep mountain. You are in the town of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. An odd name for a town, don’t you think? But when you consider the original name, Mauch Chunk, perhaps you will think Jim Thorpe an improvement. Mauch Chunk is the Lenni Lenape word for sleeping bear; a native American term that no one except the Lenni Lenape will understand. Jim Thorpe is a native American term that everyone will understand. Descendant of a chief of the Sac and Fox Nation, Thorpe attended the nearby Carlisle Indian Industrial School, where he mastered every sport he attempted: basketball, lacrosse, tennis, handball, bowling, swimming, hockey, boxing, and gymnastics. “Show them what an Indian can do,” his father charged him when he went off to represent the United States at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. There, he won so many metals in such a variety of events that Sweden’s King Gustav V gushed, “Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world!” “Thanks, King,” the unassuming man replied. For years thereafter, he played major league baseball and football concurrently. ABC’s Wide World of Sports, in 2001, named him the greatest athlete of the 20th century.
Just behind and well above that aforementioned train station, up the steep hill, is the 1860 home built for Asa Packer. It is an ornate, three-story mansion open for tours, so of course, Mrs. Harley and I took one. Asa Packer came from Connecticut (on foot) in 1833 and made his fortune, first as a canal boat operator, and then as the founder of the Lehigh railroad. The idea was to transport the area’s coal to the great cities on the East Coast. It made him the third wealthiest man in the country. From his front porch, peer over the inn to see the courthouse he built, where he served as a judge, the church he built where he served as a vestryman, and the sandstone buildings where he housed his employees. Today, those sandstone buildings contain eateries, studios, and trendy stores. At one time, nineteen of the country’s twenty-six millionaires maintained seasonal homes in Mauch Chunk. Asa Packer’s words are on display just in front of his house: “There is no distinction to which any young man may not aspire, and with energy, diligence, intelligence, and virtue, obtain.”
The Asa Packer mansion at Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania
Mrs. Harley and I didn’t stay in his town during our Poconos trip, however. We stayed twenty miles upstream in Stoddartsville, the town of a would-be industrialist to whom fortune was not so kind. Stoddartsville appears on the map but if you go there you will find only the foundations of a few 200-year-old buildings—and simple signs erected by the Stoddartsville Historical Society labeling what once stood on each foundation. And a graveyard whose worn tombstones reveal that several Stoddarts are buried there. And a few private residences were built on some of those ancient foundations. And a small rustic cabin overlooking the Lehigh—that is where we stayed.
John Stoddart was ambitious, too, just like Asa Packer. He also sought to harness the Lehigh, to ship grain downstream to Philadelphia, hoping to divert commerce from a neighboring system that sent it to Baltimore—this was to be a “win-lose” situation, not a “win-win,” with him the winner. He built a community straddling the Lehigh along the Wilkes-Barre Turnpike (which he controlled) with a grist mill, sawmill, and boat-building capacity. It flourished in the early 1800s, a bit before Packer’s time, but alas, Stoddart was too far upstream. The best he could do with his river was provide one-way traffic, utilizing a series of dams that held back waters until they reached flood stage, and then, releasing them all at once, his barges could ride the crest downstream to the next dam! Boats were constructed in Stoddartsville and dismantled at the destination; the timber sold along with the cargo. It was not cost-effective enough to compete with later two-way systems. John Stoddart eventually went bankrupt and his town faded from prominence. He spent the final thirty years of his life as a clerk in Philadelphia.
There is a third character, a Quaker businessman by the name of Josiah White, who touches on the fortunes of both Packer and Stoddart. To Packer, he brought success, but to Stoddart, ruin. Stoddart might have gone under in any case, but White sealed his fate. White’s endeavor was canal-building, and it was canal piloting that enabled Asa Packer to amass capital sufficient to build his railroad. Back in Mauch Chunk, just before the railroad station (which is now a tourist information center) lies a town square named after Josiah White. It was he who founded the town before Packer ever traipsed in from Connecticut.
Ironically, Josiah White’s canal ventures owe a lot to John Stoddart’s initial support. In the early days of the Lehigh Navigation Company, White tried in vain to raise money from comfortable, conservative, downstream Philadelphia merchants. They were loath to part with it. White realized he needed the backing of one man, John Stoddart, who (per White’s memoirs)
“was then a leading man among the Mound characters, being esteemed Luckey [sic] and to never mis’d in his Speculations, carried a strong influence with his actions, he being of an open and accessible habit, gave us frequent opportunities with him, & his large Estates at the head of our Navigation, authorized our beseaging [sic] him, which we did frequently.”
Sure enough, as soon as word got out that Stoddart had invested $5000.00 (with the stipulation that the navigation system begin in Stoddartsville) everyone jumped on board, and the entire hoped-for sum of $100,000 was raised in 24 hours! White began building two-way locks on the Lehigh, but that summer (1819) was unusually dry, and the river proved too shallow for transport. The following winter, ice damaged the locks to the point that White replaced them with the aforementioned one-way bear-trap locks—the locks in no way resembled bear traps, but White’s workmen named them such to dispose of pesky, “Whatcha building?” passerby—the economics of which ultimately sealed John Stoddart’s doom, not to mention, destroying the fishing upon which various Native Americans and missionaries depended.
Roaming the Pennsylvania hills where these long-dead men once maneuvered, it is hard to escape the feeling that had you switched them, put Stoddart where Packer was and vice versa, the results would have been the same. Both were subject to time and unforeseen circumstances, which might have easily gone the other way. If the Lehigh had behaved that first year of Stoddart’s transport system, or if Packer, who went way out on a limb financially building his railroad, had been subject to a clobbering winter or two, it might be Stoddart’s name that is remembered instead of Packer’s—that is, as much as any person is remembered. For, successful as he was, I knew nothing about Packer before stumbling upon his hometown. Did you? Even though he was the third richest man in the country. Doesn’t matter. We all end up in the grave, where the memory of us quickly fades.
For whatever reason, I vividly remember Brother Benner, the District Overseer, playing devil’s advocate with his own argument, an argument drawn from Ecclesiastes about the brevity of life, and its consequent “futility.” Build as you may, you are not around to reap too much benefit from your work. In Ecclesiastes, Solomon reflects upon “all that I had worked so hard for under the sun because I must leave it behind for the man coming after me. And who knows whether he will be wise or foolish? Yet he will take control over all the things I spent great effort and wisdom to acquire under the sun.” (2:18-19)
This nearly happened in the case of Packer’s enormous wealth after the untimely deaths of his sons. Business associates threatened to squander it all, so Asa’s daughter Mary maneuvered to gain control of the family fortune. To that end, she had to marry, since unmarried women from that era were never left the estate. The fact that Mary had nursed both parents through their deaths did not matter. She married some obliging business fellow, secured the fortune, and the marriage ended soon thereafter. Was that the plan from the start? At any rate, as we toured the Packer mansion, the guide pointed to a prominently displayed plaque of Saint Fabiola, the patron saint of divorced women. (No, I didn’t know there was such a saint, either.)
Anyhow, back to Benner, he was discussing verse eleven of chapter 1, a recurring theme of Ecclesiastes: No one remembers people of former times; Nor will anyone remember those who come later; Nor will they be remembered by those who come still later. We, who were initially created to live forever on earth, are now subject to that sad reality. He spoke of how someone might attempt to counter the verse, for example, pointing to some musician or other: “Yes, so-and-so may have died,” people would gush, “but his music lives on and on.” “Give me a break!” Benner responded. “Who was the most famous singer in George Washington’s day?” Exactly.
Same thing with Mauch Chunk. Who were the other eighteen millionaires who made their home there? Or, for that matter, what about Jim Thorpe, the town’s later namesake? What became of him after his athletic days? (Alas, for all his fame, he fell upon very hard times.) You will remember imperfectly a few of the generation before you and perhaps even a handful of the generation before that, but everyone else is, at best, a name in a statistics book, like Packer or Stoddart. Some won. Some lost. But you don’t know anything about them.
The brevity of our life is what defines it. You do not get too many shots. There is a built-in frustration since every door we open represents several we have closed. Pathways take time to trod. The more ambitious the pathway, the longer it will take, and the fewer you will tread. Each pathway we go down represents a multitude we do not go down. And yet, we want to go down them all. Is this what Solomon meant about life being “calamity?” Today’s age of specialization makes the calamity even more pronounced. Increase your wisdom or wealth, as Solomon did, and you increase the pathways you can pursue. But, alas, you increase your perception of the many more you will not pursue before the clock runs out.
It was not meant to be so and it will not be so one day in the future. Humans, created to live forever but now relegated to a few scores of years, are yet to have the opportunity for everlasting life. And all these characters of the past, not to mention our own family members, are they to be among the “righteous and the unrighteous” who come out of the memorial tombs, per Acts 24:15 and John 5:28? It is the Bible’s hope. It intrigued me from the beginning. It still does, though one must stoke the hope occasionally so that static from this present system of things does not drown it out. As Jesus said: “When the Son of man arrives, will he really find the faith on the earth?”
“There are many capable women, But you—you surpass them all,” says the appreciative man to his wife. (Proverbs 31:29)
Can the same be said of proverb writers and Agur?
Just as Proverbs’ long series of one-liners nears ‘Been There – Done That’ status, the Bible book takes an abrupt turn and introduces Agur, who tops them all.
Like this one: “There is a generation that is pure in its own eyes but has not been washed from its own excrement.” (30:12)
Whoa! “Every other man serves up the best proverbs first and then when guests are intoxicated, the inferior. But you have saved the best till last!” said the director of the marriage feast.
Did Agur have any particular generation in mind that thought it was pure though it was steeped in its own excrement? Whatever it is, it is must be characterized by his next verse: “There is a generation whose eyes are so haughty and whose eyes look so arrogantly!” (13) Depend upon it. If you are haughty, you will be oblivious to your own excrement; it is that ugly of a quality.
Wishing to avoid this wretched fate, Agur says: “Give me neither poverty nor riches. . . . So that I do not become satisfied and deny you and say, “Who is Jehovah?” Nor let me become poor and steal and dishonor the name of my God.” (30:8-9) Plainly, one hopes to avoid poverty, for obvious reasons, but riches poses its own dangers. Namely, they are that one may become too big for one’s pants and carry on irrespective of God. From this group arises the people who deride religion as a crutch of which they have no need. They don’t?
The analogy is correct—religion is a crutch—but the premise is wrong. The premise that more aptly fits is that of the wretch dragging himself through the filth on his belly, too proud, too stupid, or too manipulated to realize that a crutch would be useful. In his day, American President Ronald Reagan was arguably the most influential person on earth. Ten years later, in the throes of Alzheimer’s, he didn’t know who he was. Will anyone maintain that they need no crutch in the face of a pathetic reality as that?
Even the phrase “human rights” is a little dubious. If they are really “rights,” ought you not be able to do something about it when they are violated? Instead, not infrequently, they are violated with impunity. Even our own bodies do not respect our human rights, crapping out on us just when we need them the most. The expression “golden rule” is preferable: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” It encases all that is noble of human rights, while discarding all that is pretentious.
At first glance, the Watchtower Study for Sunday seemed it be something of a yawner. Jacob’s deathbed prophesy to the last eight of his twelve sons (the first four were last week), and for most he didn’t have much to say. At least it was blessings, the Watchtower conductor observed, and not ‘You kids are driving me crazy! You’ll be the death of me. In fact, you were!’
But, again, once you mix in the published text with fifty or sixty comments from the congregation, it turns around. What threatens to be dull becomes engrossing. The thing about the meetings, one newcomer told me long ago, is that you can prepare for them. It was a no-brainer to me, but he was contrasting it with his previous church experience, in which you cannot.
With Gad, someone observed in paragraph 8 that it didn’t go according to plan. The Israelites were all supposed to cross the Jordan and settle west, but Gad wanted to stay on the east, which he did. He didn’t beg off, though. The tribe did cross to aid in conquering the promised land, but when the conquest was complete, they crossed back. This means there’s hope for guys like me, I figure, who does not do everything the conventional way—such as spending inordinate time online—but also fully ‘fights’ in the conventional way of door-to-door and regular meeting attendance. I mean, let your unconventionality extend to forsaking meetings and you become like the ember removed from the center that goes out; it goes out, not as a punishment from men, but as a law of physics. Hebrews says (10:24-25) that you’re not supposed to do that.
Then there was Benjamin (paragraph 17), the tribe of the 700 men who “could sling a stone to within a hairbreadth and would not miss.” These are the guys you want when you are choosing up sides for dodgeball. It is also the case that when people have special abilities, they can begin to think themselves special and not subject to the norms that guide everyone else. (Sometimes I imagine I see people like this online.) Yet, the Benjaminites were loyal throughout to the cause. Even when their guy got ousted as the first king, they supported the arrangement that saw the prize going to another tribe.
All twelve sons covered within a two-week period. And no, it was not me who observed that, whereas Reuben lost some privileges that ordinarily would have come his way, he at least got a sandwich named for him. And “gadfly” has nothing to do with Gad. It derives much later as a stinging insect that torments bigger animals. Socrates described himself as a gadfly stinging the ‘animal’ that was Athens, challenging the norms then prevailing.
Huh! Twelve instances of ‘stupid’ in the Bible. As much as I have been through it, as many times as I have heard different ones cited, I never knew they were all in one place.
The congregation has come around to Proverbs 26 for its weekly Bible reading. Proverbs 26–where all the ‘stupids’ are! One after another! Will I cite one for my own comment? If so, which one?
Some of them are real beauts. Such as 8: “Like tying a stone to a sling, So is giving glory to someone stupid.” I mean, you want that stone to fly when you whirl it up with a sling and let go. You think David would have taken out Goliath had the thing been tied there?
Bear in mind there is a moral component to ‘stupid’ as the Bible uses the term. It’s not just IQ.
The ‘stupids’ are immediately followed by a collection of 5 ‘lazys.’ Again, some are beauts: “A door keeps turning on its hinges, And the lazy one on his bed.” (vs 14) And I can still recall the circuit overseer who loved 15. He quoted it again and again: “The lazy one buries his hand in the banquet bowl, But he is too tired to bring it back to his mouth.” Can’t quite get it back there, even if it means starvation.
Then there is a long collection of unnamed stupids or lazys—usually stupids. Such as the busybody: “Like someone grabbing hold of a dog’s ears Is the one passing by who becomes furious about a quarrel that is not his.” Don’t think cocker spaniel. Think pit bull. Isn’t it nice when people mind their own business?
They’re all pithy thought-gems. Seems like they would fit here.
Keepers from Proverbs 27
The congregation is going through Proverbs 27 right now.
This one is a beaut. It just is:
“Even if you pound a fool with a pestle Like crushed grain in a mortar, His foolishness will not leave him.” (27:22)
Ha! Mash him and dash him, crush and smush, mix and reafix, run him over with a steamroller. Doesn’t matter what you do—that foolishness will not be separated from him.
This one is a worthy runner-up:
“When someone blesses his fellow man with a loud voice early in the morning, It will be counted as a curse to him.” (27:14)
People should be banned who are too chipper—you know, that character who shouts “GOOD MORNING!!” when you are not even sure that it is morning, and if so, how you feel about it.
I think the principle can be extended to those who think adding an exclamation mark will impart excitement to a text that is not otherwise that way.
Sometimes I call upon people in a door-to-door ministry to observe something to the effect that ‘The world is crazy. We are people who think the Bible helps; in that it uncovers a) why it is crazy, b) what hope lies in the future, and c) how best to live in the meantime.’ People are not always sure that ‘the Bible helps,’ but nobody disputes that the world is crazy. Instantly, you have common ground. I mean, what is anyone going to say—that it’s not?
Couple that with an offer to “Read a scripture, you tell me what you think, and I am gone” and your approach is complete. Head-and-shoulders I recommend this approach before all others. The householder immediately knows what you want and how long it will take. Not long, unless he or she chooses to make it that way. Few things are more clunky than trying to draw a person into conversation who doesn’t want to be drawn. This approach averts all that. If the person declines my offer of scripture, I say a pleasantry or two and I am gone. Occasionally, the pleasantry itself opens up conversation along different lines.
We Witnesses call on people without appointment, something virtually unheard of in the Western world. Nobody has to give us any time at all, and yet many do. I am always gracious over it. To someone who it was quite obvious that the timing was wrong—they were entertaining company—I conceded as much. At her request, I went through the above about the crazy world, and again at the offer to do a scripture, said it might not be the best time. She agreed it was not, and as I made to go, said “Thank you for being respectful of my time.”
Give it a few weeks. When I’m in the area again, I’ll stop in. The company will have gone home. We’ll see what happens. The Bible is a good thing, worth sharing.
