There is a very easy trap to fall into when reading Scripture. I am personally guilty and have to on occasion chide myself. I judge the ethics and behavior of Old Testament characters as if they were Christians. They were not. Often I have heard people say people in the Bible had more than one wife. How come? The how come is a different time, a different place and a different culture. As a Christian living in a different time and place we follow Paul’s standard recommended in I Timothy 3 and of course there is the law of our land.
I have struggled with David. David wrote the majority of the glorious Psalms indicating his deep love for God. And yet he was a liar, a thief, a conman and a murderer. Even on his death bed one of the last things he did was to order a murder. I so want him to be a Christian. He was not.
We are so inculturated into a Christian environment we forget how revolutionary Jesus was. In the Sermon on the Mount, one of the greatest moral guides in all literature, Jesus said, “You have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.” To this day we still find this difficult.
Bible stories cannot be properly understood if we fail to consider the historic context. The next time you sit down and read the Book of Judges remember the characters involved were mostly illiterate, simple folk. Their actions are not models for us.
Written by Roger Bothwell on August 2, 2017
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