Timothy & Countering The Culture (part 15)

Now, when one considers a daily distribution of food to widows, there is probably an idea of people going house to house, delivering meals to those that are shut-in and who are too old and frail to serve themselves.  Though this may have been part of what was occurring, it is best to keep oneself culturally and historically grounded, while also keeping the regular assembly around the meal table front and center. 

One must also bear in mind that, due to much shorter life expectancies, these widows could have been relatively young.  Though this study will later be dealing with this in greater detail, it is possible to get a glimpse of the treatment of widows in the letter to Timothy (thus causing the reference to widows in Acts to have an even greater bearing on a study of Timothy), when Timothy is instructed that “no widow is to be put on the list unless she is at least sixty years old” (1 Timothy 5:9a). 

As it relates to the physical capabilities of widows and to being sure that they are being viewed through an appropriate lens, Paul writes that there is a bit of a problem in widows “going around from house to house” (5:13a).  In response then, Paul’s directive is “I want younger women to marry, raise children, and manage a household, in order to give the adversary no opportunity to vilify us” (5:14).  More on this anon, but in that statement, widows are the “young women” and therefore the subject.  

So again, one must put the idea of the frail, sickly, shut-in widow, who can barely lift her head or feed herself (though there were certainly some of these attached to the church), out of mind and see these widows referenced here and in Acts as capable and perhaps vibrant members of the community, who are able to participate in the regular table gatherings of the church. 

That said, it is probable that it was at the coming together of the church around a common meal that these widows were being neglected in the distribution of food.  If so, this sounds terribly like the situation that Paul addresses in Corinth, where he writes “when you come together as a church I hear there are divisions among you, and in part I believe it…  Now when you come together at the same place, you are not really eating the Lord’s Supper.  For when it is time to eat, everyone proceeds with his own supper.  One is hungry and another becomes drunk.  Do you not have houses so that you can eat and drink?  Or are you trying to show contempt for the church of God by shaming those who have nothing?” (1 Corinthians 11:18,20-22a) 

It becomes clear that the honor-based arrangements around the meal tables to which Jesus was regularly invited, and which He regularly criticized, were alive and well and being used at the meal tables of the church in Jerusalem.  Widows, as would have been quite common owing to a lack of a living husband and therefore a lack of honor or even the ability to accrue honor (a wife’s honor was dependent on that of her husband), were being neglected---relegated to the positions in which they were served last.   

Naomi's Exile & Exodus (part 2)

It would appear that the plan had been for Naomi and her two daughters-in-law to return to the land of Judah.  To that end, it is reported that “as she and her two daughters-in-law began to leave the place where she had been living to return to the land of Judah” (Ruth 1:7).  This would indicate that all three were leaving their land of exile, and that all three were about to experience an exodus to the land of the covenant promise, with this being the case even though both Ruth and Orpah were Moabites and had not previously come from the region of Israel, and were not a part of the Creator God’s covenant people.  Of course, if one was to peruse the history of the Egyptian exodus, one would come to learn that there were non-Israelites that went out of Egypt with Israel, so this represents something of a re-playing of this as Naomi and the two women leave Moab. 

For some reason there is a change of heart on Naomi’s behalf as she “said to her two daughters-in-law ‘Listen to me!  Each of you should return to your mother’s home!  May the Lord show you the same kind of devotion that you have shown to your deceased husbands and to me!  May the Lord enable each of you to find security in the home of a new husband!’” (1:8-9a)  Clearly, making this statement was difficult for Naomi, as she then “kissed them goodbye and they wept loudly” (1:9b).  However, both were determined to return with Naomi, saying “No!  We will return with you to your people” (1:10). 

Naomi speaks again and this time is far more persistent, causing Orpah to accede to her wishes and demands as she kissed her goodbye, presumably returning to her mother’s home as directed.  However, as is known, “Ruth clung tightly to her” (1:14b).  Naomi protested Ruth’s actions, but upon her doing so, Ruth famously and stubbornly declared “Stop urging me to abandon you!  For wherever you go, I will go.  Wherever you live, I will live.  Your people will become my people, and your God will become my God” (1:16).  Ruth’s dogged determination to be a part of the exodus people won out and Naomi relented, so they returned together to Judah, and more specifically, to Bethlehem. 

When they did return, Naomi uses the language of exile and exodus, but seemingly in reverse, as she says “I left here full, but the Lord has caused me to return empty-handed” (1:21a).  It is possible that her bitterness (thus, the name change to Mara, or “bitter”) here had overwhelmed her, as she adds that “the Lord has opposed me, and the Sovereign One has caused me to suffer” (1:21b).  Apparently, she has forgotten that she left with her husband and children in a time of famine, and at a time at which it can be presumed that Israel was in subjugation.  It is possible that she saw their departure to Moab as an exodus, and had begun to think of Moab as home, rather than as a place of exile.  This might very well be the reason why she was so insistent that Orpah and Ruth stay in Moab, which in her own mind had become a place of fullness. 

Based on Ruth’s response to Naomi’s land and Naomi’s God, it seems reasonable to believe that Naomi attempted to paint a not-so-flattering picture of that land and of the Lord of that land, with tales of famine and oppression and death and judgment, in an attempt to convince Orpah and Ruth of the futility of going with her and the benefits of staying there in Moab.  Correspondingly, if her departure was an exodus, then she is now viewing her return home to Bethlehem in Judah as exile.  

A Tradition Of Wells (part 6)

This study now departs from Genesis and moves on to Exodus, which is the event (so much more than just the title of the book) that gives definitive shape to Israel’s self-consciousness.  Indeed, it can even be said that the understanding of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as revealed in Genesis, is shaped by the self-revelation of that same God as the God of Israel’s exodus.  This means that the God that reveals Himself as One Who works and intervenes on behalf of His people and His creation, doing so from the beginning of the Genesis narrative, is now also to be understood through the lens of the God that liberated Israel from Egypt, provided them with a covenant charge, with guidance as to how to live up to their covenant responsibilities, and guided them to their promised land. 

This holds especially true if Moses is indeed the primary author/compiler/compose of the Torah, thus making it impossible to separate the notion of exodus (rescue, deliverance, redemption, restoration, etc…) from thoughts about the Creator God of Israel.  Indeed, thinking along such lines allows us to view Genesis one and two as a divine rescue, much like Israel was divinely rescued from their Egyptian bondage. 

With such thoughts reverberating in a reader’s mind during a conscientious approach to the broad Scriptural narrative, one should be thoroughly unsurprised to see Moses, after fleeing Egypt in the wake of his murder of an Egyptian that had been mis-treating an Israelite, settling in the land of Midian and doing so by a “certain well” (Exodus 2:15b).  That level of surprise continues in its restraint when reading that “a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and began to draw water and fill the troughs in order to water their father’s flock.  When some shepherds came and drove them away, Moses came up and defended them and then watered their flock” (Exodus 2:16-17). 

In this, Moses becomes very much like Jacob, watering the flock for one who will eventually come to be his wife.  As was seen with Rebekah and Rachel, there was a rush to return home so that these girls might share their story with their father (2:18-19).  In response, Moses is summoned to the home of the priest.  He “agreed to stay with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage” (2:21). 

With this third patriarchal (in the broadest sense) instance of a wife being found at a well, it shall be noted with great interest that part of Jesus’ conversation at the well with the Samaritan woman---the portion that convinces her of His status as a prophet, centers upon the subject of marriage.  It is almost as if to say that the woman, who actually lacks a husband though it is said that she has had several, has come to the well, and through this encounter with the one that can truly provide water (as did Jacob and Moses), she found herself a true and lasting husband.    

Upsetting The Lord (part 1 of 2)

The life of David most certainly has positives and negatives.  The low-light for King David comes when he had sent out Joab and the army to do battle with and ultimately defeat the Ammonites.  It is then that David enters in to his adulterous affair with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, who was one of David’s trusted servants and soldiers.  The story is familiar, so it needs only a brief recapitulation before we examine it in relation to our overall project so as to connect it with exile and exodus and the all-encompassing faithfulness of God. 

David does not go out to battle, but rather, stays back in Jerusalem.  There, he sees Bathsheba and determines that he must have her for himself, at least temporarily.  He summons her to him during her period of ovulation (of which she is well aware), they engage in intimate activity, she returns home, she finds that she is pregnant, and she sends words of such to David.  So as to cover up his regrettable actions, and perhaps also to spare Bathsheba from the shame of accusations of harlotry, David summons her husband home from the battle, so that he and his wife might engage in the activity in which married couples generally engage after long periods of separation from each other.  Naturally, this would then be able to account for her pregnancy.  As we know, Uriah, strangely enough (though he does offer up what appear to be legitimate and honorable reasons) did not act as David expected, even after David’s repeated attempts to get him to do so.  At this point, David feels as if he has no choice but to make arrangements to have Uriah killed in battle, which is precisely what occurs. 

After Bathsheba goes through a requisite period of grieving for her husband “David had her brought to his palace.  She became his wife and she bore him a son” (2 Samuel 11:27b).  Now, even though we are informed that Uriah had “not gone down to his house” (11:10b), and that, rather, “in the evening he went out to sleep on his bed with the servants of his lord” (11:13b), we could posit the possibility of a relative disbelief amongst anybody that knew that he had returned to Jerusalem, that he did not engage in any type of sexual relations with his wife.  After all, his house was near David’s residence.  Furthermore, the fact that his wife was pregnant would have been clear evidence to a relatively disengaged and disinterested observer that he had in fact visited her.  So when he is killed, Bathsheba now gains sympathy from the surrounding community, rather than scorn and shame.  David, by taking the pregnant widow of a deceased warrior into his royal harem, is viewed by the people as something of a savior for Bathsheba and her child, as well as being the king who desires to honor the fallen dead.  The epithet to this marriage, however, is that “what David had done had upset the Lord” (11:27c). 

Such an interesting statement.  David “had upset the Lord.”  What was it that upset the Lord?  As we glance through the Biblical record, what do we find in David’s behavior that would have upset the Lord?  Was it not going out to battle?  Lust?  Adultery?  Betrayal?  Pre-mediated murder?  As the story is presented, we have quite the list from which to choose.  Beyond the surface of the text, there is, quite possibly, pride and hubris on the part of David, as he may very well have enjoyed a bit of basking in the adulation of his people, through taking in the pregnant widow and offering to raise the son of his servant as the son of the king.  So what upset the Lord?  Naturally, it was all of those things.  More importantly though, it was what all of those things represented, which was oppression and injustice. 

When the prophet Nathan comes to David, he tells him a story of a rich man and a poor man.  The rich man had a great many flocks and herds, while the poor man had only a single lamb, for which he provided a tender and loving care.  Nathan goes on to tell David a story of oppression, in which the rich man, in need of food to provide hospitality to a visitor, takes the one and only lamb of the poor man, and provides it as food to his guest.  David, as he had been in the case of the abusive treatment of his men at the hands of the king of Ammon, is rightly indignant.  He expresses outrage at this act of oppression and exclaims “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this deserves to die!” (12:5)  David referred to the actions of the rich man in the story as a “cold-hearted crime” (12:6).  Nathan responds to this correct and insightful declaration by the king by informing him that “You are that man!” (12:7b). 

Following this assertion, Nathan recounts God’s faithful actions towards David, beginning with his being chosen as king (evocative of Israel’s being chosen by God), and his rescue from Saul (evocative of Israel’s rescue from Egypt).  To that, Nathan adds talk of David being given his master’s house and wives and the “house of Israel and Judah” (12:8).  This is not at all dissimilar to what the Lord had done for Israel as a whole, bringing them into the promised land, with fields that they did not plant, and houses that they did not build.  What’s more, says Nathan, as we are clearly now ensconced in a mindful polemic against Israel for which David is a proxy (though he is most assuredly guilty), “And if all that somehow seems insignificant, I would have given you so much more as well!  Why have you shown contempt for the word of the Lord by doing evil in My sight?” (12:8b-9a)  Yes, this is what God effectively asks of Israel, as this is the story of Israel, as they waver between exile and exodus, inexplicably choosing exile and its curses over exodus and its blessings on a regular basis.  This story is now being embodied by David, which is appropriate, as the king of Israel does stand as the representative for the people.  David is choosing the path of exile.  Though he is embodying the larger story of Israel, he is also embodying Egypt, the oppressor of God’s people.  Though we are dealing with a specific instance related to a specific individual, we are being reminded of the grand framework and plan of God.