Good Question

Did the other biblical authors understand the Genesis creation account literally?

A reader of this blog recently submitted several questions after re-reading my book Paradigms on Pilgrimage: Creationism, Paleontology, and Biblical Interpretation, which I co-authored with Dr. Stephen J. Godfrey, curator of paleontology at the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons, Maryland. The book argues that the Genesis creation account should be understood as literally intended and accurate from an observational perspective, meaning that there is no inherent conflict between believing this account and believing that more complex life forms have developed from simpler ones in a process that has extended over a long period of time. I will answer this reader’s questions in a series of posts, starting with this one. The full text of the book is available online at this link.

Q. I recently reread your book Paradigms on Pilgrimage and I can safely say that it is by far the best book I have read on the Creation/Evolution controversy. (And that’s saying a lot, because I’ve probably read upwards of thirty.) I’ve come to the conclusion that the position you advocate is the most reasonable and cogent and makes the most sense in light of the big picture.

I still have some questions, however. First, what are we to make of how other biblical authors understood Genesis? Creationists often argue that they viewed Genesis as literal truth, which would make these supposedly inspired authors wrong if evolution were a valid theory, unless they were affirming Genesis from a purely observational perspective. In the case of Jesus in particular, what’s important for me to resolve is to what degree he gave up his omniscience while he was a man. If he was still fully omniscient, then in affirming the Genesis account of origins he would have been affirming something he knew was empirically wrong.

Thanks very much for your kind words about our book. I’m glad it has been helpful to you.

In answer to your first question, as we show in the book, the other biblical authors express the same observational cosmology that’s in the Genesis creation account. For example, just as Genesis depicts God as creating the sky as a “vault” (literally a “spread-out” object), so Psalm 104 speaks of God “stretching out the heavens like a tent” and Isaiah says that God “stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent.” And just as Genesis says that God made the seas by saying “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place,” so Psalm 33 says, in speaking of creation, “He gathers the waters of the sea into a heap; he puts the deep into storehouses.”

Perhaps it is not too surprising or unsettling to hear other biblical authors speak like this, if we accept that the Bible is written from an observational perspective. Its human authors are simply describing how things appear to them. But we might expect that Jesus would have spoken from a different, objective perspective (that is, not that of an earth-bound observer) if he really was God and so was omniscient.

However, what we find is that Jesus also describes the created world from the same observational perspective as the other biblical authors. He says in the Sermon on the Mount, for example, that God “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” This is the same perspective expressed by Job when he says that God “speaks to the sun and it does not shine,” explaining days when the sun does not appear in the sky not just from an observational perspective but also from the standpoint that God actively commands weather phenomenon. (Jesus is not speaking in poetry or metaphor here.) And Jesus also appealed to the way things were “from the beginning,” quoting directly from the Genesis account of the creation of man and woman, when he answered a question about divorce.

So it seems reasonable to conclude that Jesus had the same earth-bound perspective as the other biblical authors. If that was indeed the case, then he couldn’t have been omniscient in his incarnation. Is that a problem?

Not really. As I explained in response to a recent comment on this post, “Christians believe that when Jesus, the Son of God, came to earth, he ’emptied’ himself of certain divine attributes, the ones known as ‘non-communicable’ (in other words, the ones that humans cannot share), which include omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. Jesus fulfilled his mission on earth by complete obedience to God, rather than by drawing on powers not available to other humans.” It may take us a while to wrap our minds around the idea that we today might understand natural phenomena and natural history better than Jesus did when he was on earth, but those seem to be the implications of the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation.

What order would you put the books of the Bible in?

You walk in to your adult group at church and the leader gives you a collection of paper strips with the names of the books of the Bible written on them. “What order would you put these in?” the leader asks.

A friend of mine actually did this in the group he leads, and he got some interesting responses.

One person said immediately, “Well, THE order, of course!” For that person, custom and use had already fixed the books of the Bible in THE order, and there could be no deviation.

But others felt freed by the exercise to think about some possible alternatives. One person put books like John and James first and the “hard stuff” last. Why? They said they were thinking about people who were new to the Bible; they wanted to make it more accessible to them. Another person put the books in chronological order so a reader would progress sequentially through time when going through the Bible. And someone else tried to put books together that spoke to the same audience, so readers could see how they addressed similar situations and concerns.

There’s nothing improper about doing an exercise like this. Book order was actually quite fluid for the first three quarters of the Bible’s history. “THE order” that we know today only appeared around 1500 with the advent of printing. Before that, a variety of orders were used, in pursuit of different literary, historical and liturgical goals. So there’s nothing that says various orders can’t still be used today.

The non-traditional order of the biblical books in The Books of the Bible, it should be specified, is not intended to create a new fixed order, another version of “THE order” to replace the conventional one. Rather, that order was chosen because it served the goals of the edition, which were to encourage the reading of whole books with an appreciation for their historical and literary contexts. But other orders could legitimately serve other goals, such as the ones just described.

How about you? What order would you put the books of the Bible in?

A “periodic table” of the books of the Bible created by Tim Challies. Note that if you go from top to bottom and read straight across from left to right, rather than reading down the left column and then down the right column, you get a non-traditional order that helps you appreciate books of similar literary genres in both testaments.

Did Jephthah really sacrifice his daughter?

Q. Did Jephthah really sacrifice his daughter? Or is the other point of view correct that says that she lived her life as a virgin and in that sense was sacrificed?

George Elgar Hicks, “The Lament of Jephthah’s Daughter”

Unfortunately Jephthah most likely did sacrifice his daughter after he vowed to make a burnt offering of “whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph.” The author of Judges includes this story as one of several horrific examples of what happened in the days when “Israel had no king” and “everyone did as they saw fit.” These examples support the overall argument of the book, that the people need a king to help ensure that they will know God’s law and follow it. As I explain further in my study guide to Joshua, Judges, and Ruth:

* * * * *

It wasn’t unusual for an Israelite who was counting on the LORD to make a vow, as Jephthah does. This was a promise to acknowledge God publicly when he brought deliverance. Vows like this are described often in the Psalms, for example, in Psalm 66: “I will come to your temple with burnt offerings and fulfill my vows to you—vows my lips promised and my mouth spoke when I was in trouble.”

There would have been nothing wrong with Jepthah’s vow if he had only known the law. Moses allowed the Israelites to offer anyone or anything they wanted to the LORD in payment of a vow, but it specified that if they dedicated a human being, they had to “redeem” that person by offering the value of their labor instead. (These regulations are found at the end of the book of Leviticus.) Jephthah should have paid ten shekels of silver into the LORD’s treasury, rather than sacrificing his daughter as a burnt offering. But by now the Israelites were so used to Baal-worship, which included human sacrifices, that they were actually prepared to offer human sacrifices to the LORD–even though he had expressly forbidden them in the law. And so Jephthah’s daughter suffers a horrific fate.

* * * * *

After offering this explanation, I then make these further reflections on the story of Jephthah: “However, apart from his ignorance of the law and these tragic consequences, Jephthah is in other ways an exemplary judge. He continually acknowledges the LORD as the one who delivered Israel in the past and who should be trusted to do so again. The narrative says that the ‘Spirit of the LORD’ was on him, and that ‘the LORD gave [the Ammonites] into his hand.’ The book of Hebrews names him as a hero of the faith.”

In light of these observations, I ask these questions in the guide:

• Was Jephthah the best man he could have been, given his nation’s state of spiritual decline? Or could he have been better? If so, how?

• What consequences do you see in your own culture of an ignorance of God’s ways? What activities are accepted, perhaps without question, that God doesn’t want people to practice?

What would you say in response to these questions?

Do we in the West need to worry that Jesus said, “Woe to the rich”?

Q. In the “Sermon on the Plain” in Luke, Jesus says,
“Woe to you who are rich,
for you have already received your comfort.
Woe to you who are well fed now,
for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will mourn and weep.”
Do we in the West need to worry? I mean, we’re rich compared to a lot of the world, we’re well fed, we’re doing pretty ok, you know?

When we consider the full counsel of Scripture, I don’t think we are led to conclude that being wealthy, in and of itself, brings on God’s judgment. Many of the sayings in Proverbs, for example, teach that wealth is a sign of God’s blessing and a reward for living right, according to godly wisdom:

“The blessing of the LORD makes rich,
and he adds no sorrow with it.”

Wisdom is more precious than rubies;
nothing you desire can compare with her.
Long life is in her right hand;
in her left hand are riches and honor.”

But we do need to have the proper attitude towards wealth. Paul writes to Timothy, “Teach those who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which is so unreliable. Their trust should be in God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment. Tell them to use their money to do good. They should be rich in good works and generous to those in need, always being ready to share with others.”

These are important warnings for us to hear in the West, where we get so many cultural messages that we can and should trust in wealth, and where we don’t always get this kind of encouragement to be generous and share.

I think the kind of wealth that brings judgment, according to the Bible, is wealth that has been acquired at the expense of others who have been reduced to destitution through oppression and exploitation. James, writing in the same wisdom tradition as Proverbs, warns about this:

“Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.”

The book of Proverbs itself, while it generally regards wealth as the result of hard work and poverty as the result of laziness, also recognizes the reality of oppression:
A poor person’s farm may produce much food,
but injustice sweeps it all away.

I think this is the kind of wealth Jesus is warning about in the Sermon on the Mount: wealth that has been acquired through injustice and oppression. And so there are some implications for those of us who live in the West.

First of all, we must pay others fairly and not exploit them. (For example, we shouldn’t underpay recent immigrants who don’t have the means to ensure that they’re compensated fairly for their work.)

But we also need to do what we can to support equitable economic relations globally. It must be admitted that we currently enjoy many unfair advantages in global trade. To do what we can to counteract this, we need to be aware of sourcing, make an effort to purchase fair trade products, boycott companies until their overseas workers are treated properly, and so forth. This means an investment in awareness and a commitment to action in response to what we learn.

Hopefully in this way we can become people who are “rich in good works and generous to those in need,” as the Bible encourages us to be, and we will not be the subjects of any of the woes that Jesus pronounces in the Sermon on the Mount.

Are we not supposed to even talk about immoral things?

Q. Paul says in Ephesians, “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light.” I’m confused. Does this mean we’re to mention/expose bad things, or not? Or is he saying both? Like, gossip is bad but whistle-blowing is sometimes necessary?

In this section of Ephesians, Paul is offering practical teaching about what it means to “put off the old self” and “put on the new self” as a follower of Jesus.

The specific part of this teaching that you’re asking about takes up the topic of how believers talk among themselves and what kinds of actions this talk inevitably leads to. Paul says that “sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving” (ESV).

One thing we see here is that “the ‘putting off’ of a destructive behavior is actually accomplished through the ‘putting on’ of a life-giving one that displaces it,” as I note in my study guide to Paul’s Prison Letters. “Filthiness” and “foolish talk” and “crude joking” are replaced by thanksgiving, “a positive appreciation for what is excellent and praiseworthy in any situation.”

But another thing we see is that immorality and impurity have two ways of getting a hold over us. This can happen if we glamorize them as the subjects of supposedly entertaining jokes or stories. But it can also happen if we give them an alluring cachet as secretive and exclusive practices that only the initiated are in on. In other words, we can give these things unwarranted power in our lives if we talk about them too much or in the wrong ways, or if we don’t talk about them enough, in a cautionary way.

Paul is saying, in other words, that in our conversations as followers of Jesus, we need to walk a fine line. We need to acknowledge and expose the “works of darkness” so that they cannot continue under the cloak of secrecy and draw in unsuspecting people by the allure of their supposed exclusivity. But we need to do this in a way that doesn’t sensationalize or glamorize these activities, or that will end up promoting them. Whistleblowing without gossiping, to use your terms.

This is why there seems to be a tension in Paul’s words here between speaking and not speaking about these “works of darkness.”

(Incidentally, I would translate the end of the statement you quoted in your question this way: “Everything exposed by the light becomes visible, because everything that is visible stands in the light.” The Greek says literally that it “is light,” but the meaning is that it “is lighted.”)

Why do some premillennialists give special status to the nation of Israel?

Q. I’d be thankful if you could expand a little on the following schools of belief: Premillennialism, Postmillennialism, and Amillennialism. Which one are you inclined to believe, and why? Also, why do some of the people who believe in Premillennialism tend to treat Jews with special significance and Israel as a separate state (and not as the whole body of believers) even today? Doesn’t this go against what Paul said in Galatians 3:28-29?

In my first and second posts in response to this question, I’ve explained that the three terms premillennialsm, postmillennialism, and amillennialism refer to different beliefs about when Christ will return relative to the millennium (the thousand-year era of worldwide peace and justice described at the end of the book of Revelation) and by what means the kingdom of God might find its ultimate earthly expression in such an era.

Let me now answer the last part of your question and explain why some premillennialists believe that the nation of Israel has a special status within God’s unfolding plans for the culmination of human history.

As I’ve already noted, all three of these millennial views have been represented in just about every period of church history, and until relatively recently they all agreed, despite their other differences, that God’s plan for the Israelites was to draw them into the multinational community of Jesus’ followers that now constitutes the people of God on earth, according to the Christian understanding.

However, in the 1830s a man named John Nelson Darby developed a theological system, known as dispensationalism, that taught instead that the age of the church was a “parenthesis” between two periods, one past and one future, in which the Jews constituted the people of God on earth.

The starting point for Darby’s system was his doctrine of the “ruin of the church,” the belief that the earthly institution claiming to embody the community of Jesus’ followers had become so hopelessly corrupt that it was of no possible future use to God. Darby expected the few remaining true followers of Jesus to be “raptured” (taken to heaven) imminently, after which all of the promises God made to the Jews in the First Testament would be fulfilled for them literally on earth.

This meant, for our present purposes specifically, that Darby expected a Jewish millennium: Christ would return to earth to reign for a thousand years as the king of the Jews, who had once rejected him as their ruler but who would now accept him. This view differed from all previous millennial expectations, which were of a Christian millennium, in which Christ’s reign over the multinational community of his followers (already a present spiritual reality) would be extended over the whole world.

Dispensational premillennialists today follow Darby’s theological system generally, and that is why they accord special status to the modern nation-state of Israel: They believe it embodies a group that will soon become the people of God on earth once again. In this they differ distinctly from traditional premillennialists, who like postmillennialists and amillennialists have always expected a Christian millennium, in which the Jews are drawn into the multinational community of Jesus’ followers. My personal belief is that the New Testament supports this expectation.

You cited Paul’s statement in Galatians that in Christ “there is neither Jew nor Gentile . . . if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” It’s hard to imagine a clearer statement of the case. But there are others as well. Paul writes in Romans, “A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code.” And he tells the Philippians, “It is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh.”

Statements such as these make me confident that today the true “Israel of God,” which Paul speaks of later in Galatians, is made up of “all who follow this rule”: that “neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation.”

One important implication of this conclusion is that the modern nation-state of Israel shouldn’t be held only to a privileged, more lenient standard when it comes to human rights and foreign relations. That nation does not have a “free pass” from God to behave any way it wishes. It must adhere to international norms.

A poster promoting one of the “Left Behind” movies. The books and films in the series reflect a popularized apocalyptic version of Darby’s nineteenth-century dispensationalism whose expectations about the future are much more pessimistic than those of traditional forms of millennialism.

What’s the difference between premillennialism, postmillennialism, and amillennialism? (Part 2)

In the first part of my response to this question, I explained that these terms refer to varying beliefs about the timing of Christ’s Second Coming. Premillennialism is the belief that his return will be pre-millennial, that is, it will precede the millennium, the thousand-year era of worldwide peace and justice described at the end of the book of Revelation. Postmillennialism is the belief that Christ’s coming will be post-millennial, that is, it will follow this millennium. And amillennialism is the the belief that Christ’s coming will be without a millennium, that is, that there be no world-wide era of peace and justice at the end of history.

But I also explained that these expectations of when the millennium will occur reflect far more important beliefs within each system about how the millennium will occur–that is, about what, if anything, will create such an era.

Premillennialism is more accurately the belief that Christ’s return will be required to bring about the millennium, because nothing short of this will be sufficient. In this view, the kingdom of God is an eschatological reality that comes over against history.

Postmillennialism, by contrast, is the belief that Christ’s return will come as the culmination of the millennium, because it will have been brought about previously by inner-historical forces such as the progress of literacy, education, charity, etc.; the advancement of the influence of the gospel on culture; or similar things. In this view, the kingdom of God is a historical reality that comes within history.

Amillennialism, for its part, is the belief that Christ’s return will take place without a millennium, since from this perspective God does not intend to bring about a worldwide era of peace and justice on earth. In this view, the kingdom of God is a spiritual reality that comes apart from history.

So which one is right? My conclusion, after years of research and reflection, is that they are all right. The kingdom of God is a complex entity that has historical, eschatological, and spiritual aspects. Each school of millennial thought is looking at one of these aspects.

I was interested to discover in my doctoral research that each view has had its proponents in each major era of church history. In fact, when one view comes to dominate, it’s not too long (within the grand sweep of history, at least) before the others reassert themselves in a counterbalancing way, often prompted by developments within the life of the church.

For example, the eschatological view dominated during the Roman persecutions, but the historical view largely displaced it when Constantine proclaimed himself a Christian emperor. Then when Rome fell to barbarian invasions, the spiritual view came to the fore, exemplified by Augustine’s great work The City of God. This cycle has repeated itself many times throughout church history.

This discussion of the various millennial beliefs has definite practical implications because their adherents tend to see in them “marching orders” for the church. Premillennialism, an eschatological understanding of the kingdom, tends to emphasize witness. Postmillennialism, a historical understanding of the kingdom, tends to emphasize service. And amillennialism, a spiritual understanding of the kingdom, tends to emphasize worship.

All three of these things, of course, are vital to the church’s health and influence. Whichever one we would most promote, we would do well to recognize and affirm the importance of the other emphases, and the valid insight into one aspect of the kingdom of God that underlies each one.

As for me personally, while I acknowledge the truth in each view, I find that the historical expression of the kingdom of God is the one we need to attend to most intentionally. I proclaim in full faith, “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ is coming again!” But I am clearly not in a position to accomplish anything that only his return can accomplish. And while I treasure the worship life of the church, its ministry of word and sacrament, I sometimes feel that the church would always carry on this life simply as an expression of its own being. But the historical side of things requires intentionality, to get out of ourselves and into the world to see where we can make a difference.

So if I had to choose one view to emphasize, it would be postmillennialism, to help all of us recognize that the kingdom of God does come, in one sense, within history, and that we can express our faith in what we believe Jesus wants to do when he returns by working for those same things now, even if ultimate success must await his Second Coming.

Along these lines, the particular version of postmillennialism that I find most attractive is what I have come to call “vocational postmillennialism.” This is the belief that as godly and sincere followers of Christ pursue their divine callings with integrity into a variety of fields of human endeavor, with God’s help they will rise to positions of influence that will allow them to shape the society and culture around them. This was Jonathan Edwards’ expectation of how the millennium would be brought about, and I think it is a wise and biblical expectation. (It is certainly less fraught with risk than relying on technology and science, or on an emperor such as Constantine or Charlemagne or on any modern nation, to bring about the kingdom of God on earth.)

In my final post in this series I’ll respond to the part of your question in which you ask why some premillennialists accord special status to the nation of Israel.

What’s the difference between premillennialism, postmillennialism, and amillennialism? (Part 1)

I really appreciate this question, because the Christian doctrine of the millennium was my main focus of investigation during my doctoral program. While I did my dissertation on Jonathan Edwards’ theology of history, I researched and wrote my comprehensive exams, by way of background and preparation, on the various millennial views as they have found expression in each era of church history. So I’m glad to have this opportunity to recall this research and explain in this series of posts what is meant by the terms premillennialism, postmillennialism, and amillennialism. (In the course of the series I’ll also answer your questions about my own personal beliefs and about why some premillennialists give special significance to Israel.)

In terms of their derivation, these terms refer to varying beliefs about the timing of Christ’s Second Coming. Specifically, they answer the question of when this will take place relative to the millennium, the thousand-year era of worldwide peace and justice described at the end of the book of Revelation.

Edward Hicks, The Peaceable Kingdom (1826), a depiction of the millennium coming through developments in history and culture. This view would be known as “postmillennial” today.

From the 1600s to the early 1900s, the prevailing view among Protestants in Britain and America who considered the Bible to be the inspired word of God was that Christ would return after the millennium. The expectation was that he would come back as king, but if the world had not yet been transformed according to his wishes, it was argued, he would have no kingdom to rule over, so the millennium had to come first. As the English Puritan theologian John Owen insisted in a 1652 sermon to the British parliament (which was then controlled by his fellow Puritans), “Antichrist not destroyed, the nations of the world generally wrapped up in idolatry . . . will the Lord Christ leave the world in this state, and set up his kingdom here on a molehill?”

By the middle of the 1800s, however, another view had developed, that Christ’s return would actually be required to bring about the millennium, and so it had to take place before. This view was articulated in David Brown’s 1858 book Christ’s Second Coming: Will It Be Premillennial? This is where the term “premillennial” originated. The term “postmillennial” was coined in response, to describe the view that had formerly dominated eschatological thought so completely that it didn’t need a separate name.

So in terms of derivation, premillennialism is the belief that Christ’s coming will be pre-millennial, that is, it will precede the millennium. Postmillennialism is the belief that Christ’s coming will be post-millennial, that is, it will follow the millennium. And amillennialism, for its part, is the the belief that Christ’s coming will be without a millennium, that is, that there be no world-wide era of peace and justice at the end of history. (This view interprets the description of the millennium at the end of Revelation symbolically.)

But these expectations of when (if at all) the millennium will occur relative to the return of Christ are really only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to these systems of thought. Far more important are their beliefs about how the millennium will occur–indeed, about what the millennium will be. (We’ve already had a hint of this in the explanation that premillennialism arose from a belief that Christ’s return would be required to bring about the millennium.) I’ll explore this aspect of these systems, which is really their much more important dynamic, in my next post.

Does the Bible support the Christian Right?

Q. It troubles me a great deal that in American culture some Christians have labeled themselves as the “Christian Right” and aligned themselves with certain political groups. We all know now why Christ was crucified, but at the time he was persecuted because he didn’t overturn the government as the populace expected him too. I am not trying to be judgmental about these groups, but doesn’t their well publicized agenda turn non-Christians off about being open to becoming followers of Jesus if they don’t agree with their politics? I don’t see the Bible supporting one political opinion over another. Our job seems to be clear: to love our Lord our God with all of our being and love our neighbor as ourself. Am I missing something?

This question gets into a vast subject that has complex and interrelated political, sociological, historical, and theological dimensions, which I can’t even begin to address here. For the purposes of this blog, however, let me share a few reflections on what I think are the biblical dimensions of this question.

One thing we discover in the Bible is that government and politics are included in the comprehensive range of cultural endeavors that God wants faithful people to become involved in. Biblical figures such as Joseph, Daniel, Esther, and Nehemiah provide models for us by the way they exerted a godly influence from the important government positions they held. Paul writes in Romans that the governing authorities have been “established by God” and that rulers are “God’s servants.” So the Bible does not support the view that followers of Jesus should stay away from government and politics as if these things were inherently worldly and contaminating–although those who do participate must always be careful to maintain complete honesty and integrity.

On the other hand, we also discover from the Bible that no one political position or agenda fully expresses God’s wishes for a given culture. One of the best illustrations of this is the way Jesus chose his twelve disciples from across the full political spectrum of his day. Matthew was a tax collector who had collaborated with the Romans occupation of Judea; Simon the Zealot belong to a party that advocated violent resistance to Rome. Jesus called both of them, and everyone in between, to join him in a kingdom that was “not of this world,” but which was nevertheless destined to transform the world so that it would once again conform to God’s original intentions in creation.

The outworking of the kingdom of God in a specific culture can take place along many different paths. The Bible itself illustrates how various answers can legitimately be given, in keeping with godly principles, to cultural questions. Could Jews intermarry with non-Jews? Some biblical books say definitely not, others suggest that in certain cases the answer might be yes. Could Jewish followers of Jesus eat with Gentile followers? The New Testament records that some early church leaders sincerely felt they shouldn’t, while others felt they could. How should Jesus’ followers relate to Rome? As noted above, Paul explained that the Roman authorities were “God’s servants.” But at other cultural moments captured in the New Testament, Rome was an enemy to all believers, portrayed as riding on the beast from the Abyss and “drunk with the blood of God’s holy people.”

So in our own day, we should be careful not to identify a single political movement or agenda with God’s purposes for our nation. There are at least some things in every party or movement’s agenda that do reflect the ideals of the kingdom of God, and other things that don’t. All followers of Jesus should be “fully convinced in their own minds” about what political principles to endorse and support, but at the same time they should be gracious and generous towards other followers of Jesus who are involved in politics but who are coming from a different perspective. Each should give the other credit for having good motives and for having thought through the biblical basis of their beliefs. Ideally Jesus’ followers should be able to model how to work together for the common good across ideological differences–something that is badly needed in our society today!

I believe it is true that the media publicity afforded to some figures on the “Christian Right” has created the impression in some minds that to be a follower of Jesus (or at least to be accepted as one), a person must hold certain political views. I hope all believers will make every effort to correct this false impression. (This can probably be done most effectively by those who agree politically with the Christian Right. Blow the minds of your Christian friends who are political liberals by affirming their genuine faith and thanking them for their sincere desire to make a difference in our world according to their understanding of the implications of biblical principles!)

To conclude, I agree that our mandate from Jesus is to love the Lord our God with all of our being and to love our neighbors as ourselves. How that works out politically will be complicated and it will require lots of good will and cooperation among followers of Jesus who see things differently, but who are all equally sincere and equally committed to the coming of the kingdom of God.

Didn’t Paul quote from the Old Testament by chapter number?

Q. In the book of Acts, when Paul was speaking to the people of Pisidian Antioch, he introduced one of his Scripture quotations by saying, “As it is written in the second Psalm . . .” Isn’t this evidence within the canonical Scriptures of referencing by chapter number, and can’t we take it as support for doing that today?

Paul, of course, could not have been using the system of chapter numbering that we know today, since it was only added many centuries after he lived, in AD 1200. Rather, he was simply referring to one of the psalms by describing where it came in the traditional ordering. In addition, the numbers of the psalms, unlike the chapter numbers in most other places in the Bible, serve to identify distinct compositions rather than to break them up. So this is not exactly a case of quoting by chapter number as is done today.

Still, this is an important question, because here Paul is not citing Scripture by context and content, the way he does in Romans when he speaks of “the passage about Elijah–how he appealed to God against Israel” (referring to the contest on Mount Carmel), or the way Jesus does when he refers to “the Book of Moses, in the account of the burning bush.” Paul doesn’t even identify the psalm by its first line, as was customarily done. This seems to be definite biblical evidence for an apostle referencing by number, rather than by context and content. So what’s going on here?

Actually, when understood in light of the broader manuscript tradition of the book of Acts, this citation by Paul provides canonical support not for referencing by chapter number, but for recognizing chapter numbers as a late and fluid addition to the text of Scripture.

While most ancient codices of Acts read “as it is written in the second psalm,” Codex Bezae, representing the Western textual tradition, reads, “as it is written in first psalm.” This reading has significant patristic support. P45, an important third-century papyrus, reads simply, “as it is written in the psalms.” The editorial committee for the United Bible Societies Greek New Testament was so uncertain about the original reading here that they ranked the reading that appears in the text, “the second psalm,” a {D}, expressing their greatest degree of uncertainty.

Bruce Metzger writes in his Textual Commentary on the New Testament that “the variety of positions at which the numeral (whether prōtō or deuterō) is introduced makes both numerals suspect.” This would suggest that P45 has the correct reading, “as it is written in the psalms.”

But Metzger then notes that if this is the original reading, “One has the difficulty of explaining why, in this passage alone in the New Testament, almost all scribes thought it necessary to introduce the quotation by using a numeral.” Hence the uncertainty about the original reading in Acts. We don’t know whether the numeral is original, we don’t know which numeral is correct (“first” or “second”) if it was original, and we don’t know why a numeral was introduced if it wasn’t original.

But we can at least explain the uncertainty about which psalm the quotation comes from. There’s a well-attested tradition in which the second psalm as we know it today is treated as part of the first psalm. That’s why some of the manuscripts that do have a numeral say “first” rather than “second.”

This tradition of combining the two psalms doesn’t stand up very well to a literary analysis, which clearly identifies Psalm 1 as a wisdom psalm and Psalm 2 as a coronation psalm. (See my study guide to the Psalms for an explanation of these types and many others.) But this tradition, as reflected in the textual variation in this passage in Acts, does illustrate that chapter numbers are a late and fluid addition to the canonical text of Scripture. All the more reason not to rely on them today, whatever Paul might actually have said to the people when he was in Pisidian Antioch.