Compassionate Brother (part 9)

After Jacob has broached the subject of departing from Laban’s household and service and received the initial response from his wives, those wives continued on to say “He not only sold us, but completely wasted the money paid for us!” (Genesis 31:15b).  Reinforcing the idea of their father’s diminished standing (and honor), they add “Surely all the wealth that God snatched away from our father,” as they echo the words of Jacob (that were an echo of the words of Laban’s sons), “belongs to us and to our children.  So now do everything God has told you” (31:16). 

Here, Jacob, realizes his plight and comes to himself, while his wives have confirmed his thinking.  In response, “Jacob immediately put his children and his wives on the camels.  He took away all the livestock he had acquired in Paddan Aram and all his moveable property that he had accumulated.  Then he set out toward the land of his Canaan to return to his father Isaac” (31:17-18).  One problem still loomed large, which was how he was going to deal with his aggrieved brother.  Undeniably, if he had shamed his uncle Laban, then he had also shamed his brother through his deceptive act.  Indeed, if he had shamed his brother, had he not also shamed his father and his entire family, for was he not guilty of defrauding his father as well?  This appears to be a larger problem than it has traditionally been presumed to be.      

As one begins to examine Jacob’s return trek to Canaan, bearing in mind the dishonoring of both his father and brother that took place many years earlier (he will have to deal with this, and of course it is on his mind), one must also bear in mind that Genesis and Exodus (and the whole of the first five books of the Bible as presented) constitute a continuous narrative.  Just as it is impossible for to understand Jesus apart from some level of comprehension of second Temple Judaism, it is impossible to understand what is going on in Exodus apart from an understanding of Genesis. 

At the same time, the reader of Scripture is in the position, along with those that would have heard or read the Genesis and Exodus narratives together as the story of how Israel came to be a people, of allowing Exodus to inform a more thorough understanding of Genesis.  Learning to take in the entire narrative in a way that will dictate the way that the entirety of the narrative is consumed will allow for a more complete comprehension of the movement of Scripture, and subsequently an improved comprehension (and service of) the Creator God that is therein revealed.

Why make mention of this here?  It is because of what can be found in association with the story of Jacob’s departure from Laban.  In verse nineteen of the thirty-first chapter, it is reported that “While Laban had gone to shear his sheep, Rachel stole the household idols that belonged to her father” (31:19).  The passage then turns immediately back to Jacob, saying “He left with all he owned” (31:21a).  This is an interesting interlude, as it has already been reported Jacob had gathered up all of his property and had “set out toward the land of Canaan to return to his father Isaac” (31:18b).  So, with the inclusion of the story about the stealing of the household idols---a story that will play out in short order, though it does not seem to have much ultimate bearing on the story going forward, one has to wonder why it is mentioned. 

On the surface, together with the fact that “Jacob also deceived Laban by not telling him that he was leaving” (31:20), it provides the pretense for what comes next, when the story records that “Three days later Laban discovered Jacob had left.  So he took his relatives with him and pursued Jacob for seven days” (31:22-23a).  When Laban catches up with Jacob, he protests this treatment by Jacob (remembering the conflict and contest of honor and shame) and concludes his protest with “Yet why did you steal my gods?” (31:30b).  Obviously, all of this serves a greater purpose.  How would this story be heard by a post-exodus Israel?  Naturally, they would hear their own exodus story in the tale of Jacob’s departure from Canaan, his time spent in labor, his departure from Laban to return to his homeland, the taking of the household gods, and Laban’s pursuit. 

Justified By Faithfulness (part 3)

In turn, the people of the Creator God would point to their covenant-making-and-keeping God as the source of all blessing, bringing Him glory through reflecting His glory into the world, and causing all peoples and all of creation to desire the blessings of His covenant as well.  It would be communicated and understood that these blessings could be had by submitting to the requirements of the covenant and thereby joining with the covenant people.  This submission to and adherence to the requirements of covenant would confer a positive covenant status.  Therefore, a person would be justified.  That person would be looked upon, by the Creator God, as being righteous.  That person would have received his or her justification.  

What were the additional requirements that were put upon the Creator God’s covenant people in association with the law that was delivered to them with a charge to keep?  The requirements are summed up quite nicely and succinctly in the twenty-sixth chapter of Leviticus.  There the covenant God says, “You must not make for yourselves idols, so you must not set up for yourselves a carved image or a pillar, and you must not place a sculpted stone in your land to bow down before it, for I am the Lord your God.  You must keep My Sabbaths and reverence My sanctuary.  I am the Lord” (26:1-2). 

So to break it down to basics, and realizing that the requirements of the law were expected to be kept (and probably could be met), the covenant people of the Creator God (reiterating here) are instructed to avoid idolatry, to keep the Sabbaths (feasts/set times), and to reverence His sanctuary (tabernacle and temple).  Following that, for the remainder of the same chapter, their God outlines curses and blessings to be experienced for either obedience or disobedience to these basic principles.  This can be observed again in the later chapters of Deuteronomy.  This repetition is far more extensive, though it comes without a repetition of the three fundamental issues that prefaced the Levitical presentation.  There, the Creator God simply speaks of following His commandments that He had delivered to those that had been charged to carry out His will in and for the world.             

It must be said that, in each instance, the covenant that is set forth by the Creator God is based upon a belief in that God, in His power to perform, and in His faithfulness to carry out these covenants.  This belief, naturally, is set within a trust in that God.  Adam is presented as one that did not believe.  He is shown to be one that was faithless in regards to the first covenant.  With the Scriptural record as it is, one is left only to wonder at Adam’s response to the second covenant.  However, as Adam would begin to experience the corruption of his physical body as it moved towards the inevitable and promised death, along with the labor and toil with which he had to deal throughout his life because of the curse that was said to be placed upon the ground, it can be imagined that he was moved to a position of trusting belief in the God of covenants. 

Noah, in contrast to Adam, is said to have been righteous, somehow believing in the word of the Creator God before the promised flood would come, so it is reasonable to presume that he believed his God and took Him at His word, with this being especially so after the promise had come to pass.  It is said that Abraham believed God, and that this was counted for him as “righteousness” or “justification.”  As it would ultimately be the case for Israel and renewed Israel post-Christ, it was his belief that brought Abraham into a positive covenant standing, as this was the mark of the Creator God’s covenant with Him (though circumcision would be added).  This can basically be said to be true of Isaac and Jacob as well. 

Jerusalem & The Justification Of Gentiles (part 2 of 2)

After Peter spoke, “The whole group kept quiet and listened to Barnabas and Paul while they explained all the miraculous signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them” (15:12).  So here we have the repetitive theme of the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, and therefore confirmation of Gentile justification (covenant inclusion) as indicated by the reporting of miraculous signs and wonders.  Consequently we find that, “After they stopped speaking, James replied, ‘Brothers, listen to me.  Simeon has explained how God first concerned Himself to select from among the Gentiles a people for His name” (15:13-14) and “Therefore I conclude that we should not cause extra difficulty for those among the Gentiles who are turning to God” (15:19). 

With this James stands in solidarity with Paul.  All that is necessary for Gentiles is that they believe the Gospel and so participate in the covenant in equal standing with those who are members of Israel (as indicated by their own covenant markers).  This belief in the Gospel corresponds with the story of Abraham, so all is well.  Unfortunately, he could not leave well-enough alone.  Apparently, the idea of Gentile inclusiveness apart from some form of outward covenant marker was untenable to James and the others in Jerusalem.

Part of Paul’s indictment of Peter in the letter to the Galatians makes mention of James, as it was “Until certain people came from James, he had been eating with the Gentiles” (2:12).  Luke softens this in Acts to “some men came down from Judea” (15:1a).  When we consider that the issue of table fellowship was prominent in Antioch, there is little wonder that James adds “we should write them a letter telling them to abstain from things defiled by idols and from sexual immorality and from what has been strangled and from blood” (15:20).  We should take notice that all of this has to do with food.  We know this because the issue at Antioch sprang from the withdrawal of Jewish believers from table fellowship, with circumcision as a natural follow-on issue, though it was secondary. 

There are not three separate issues here, with two having to do with moral behavior and one having to do with food.  Thinking along such lines pulls us away from the appropriate context and the issues at hand amongst the believers.  The table was where the believing congregation gathered, and because the meal table was of paramount importance for the shaping of societies and communities in the day in which the church first came into existence, so also the church’s meal table was of paramount importance.  We must understand that.  Once we comprehend the community-shaping-and-identifying power of the meal in the Greco-Roman world, we can comfortably come to terms with Paul’s being quite exercised at the way that it being misused in Corinth, and why it is foundational for Paul’s challenge to Peter in Galatians, which sets him off on the path of writing about the nature of justification in that letter.

James is not suggesting that they “abstain from things defiled by idols” and to “abstain from sexual immorality” out of a concern that the believers be circumspect about the moral and spiritual condition of those with whom they are dining.  If that was the case, the addition of “abstain from what has been strangled and from blood” would seem wholly out of place.  Instead, we must hear this as a single directive, all of it having to do with food and the meal table.  James apparently does want the Jews and Gentiles to be able to share the same table (the divisions and problems at Antioch began at the meal table), so these particular directives are what will allow the Jewish believers to join the Gentile believers at the same table.  James wants the Gentile believers to abstain from food that has been defiled by idols, food that has been defiled by sexual immorality, food that has been defiled by strangling, and food that is defiled by the presence of the blood.  If they do this, then they will be able to join the Jewish believers (the true people of the covenant?) at their meal table.  Failing this, in his estimation, table division should not continue.

Paul, and apparently Peter before the men arrived from James arrived in Antioch, did not find it necessary to hold out such restrictions.  For Paul, and apparently Peter (the Cornelius story of the tenth chapter of Acts playing a role in this), the only thing that mattered was the belief in Jesus as Lord, with that functioning as the basis for open table fellowship between Jew and Gentile.  Paul would not insist that Jewish Christ-believers eat food that they would consider to be defiled, but he would insist that such food not be the basis for the failure for all to come together at the same table, or be the justification for separate meal tables in the church.  At the same, as evidenced by what James wants to write, there does appear to be unanimous agreement that if the meal table was divided, so too would the church be divided.  Hierarchies and divisions would develop and be exacerbated, and this would ultimately be destructive to the church and deleterious to the message of the Gospel.  James wants to put the onus on the Gentiles, insisting that they conform to Jewish custom in this matter.  Paul, on the other hand, wants love to rule the day.