Ungodly biblical principles.

Slavery is a biblical principle.

Seriously. It’s a well-established principle too. Abraham ben Terah had slaves. Ge 24.2 Many a bible will translate עֶבֶד/evéd as “servant” in order to downplay this, or because they figure ancient Hebrew slavery was entirely different from American chattel slavery, so the slaveholder/slave relationship was considerably far less like owner/cattle, and more like warden/ward. But not every slaveholder thought of it like warden/ward, and most definitely treated their slaves like cattle. Or their sexual property. Abraham’s son Ishmael was the son of Sarah’s slave. Five of Israel’s tribes were descended from children he begat with his wives’ slaves. (Oh by the way—polygamy is a biblical principle too.)

When the Egyptians made Israel’s descendants their slaves, the bible’s objection was they had been wrongly made slaves; not that slavery in itself was wrong. When slavery gets addressed in the Law of Moses, the LORD didn’t ban or forbid it; he put rules on it. Fr’instance slaves didn’t work on sabbath. Dt 5.14 Or if fellow Hebrews had to sell themselves into slavery, you were to treat them like employees, not slaves. Lv 25.39-43 The LORD mitigated slavery instead of outlawing it.

But because slavery’s a well-established biblical principle, the bible was regularly used throughout American history to support and defend the practice. Including its most evil excesses.

Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m absolutely not defending slavery. Certainly not saying we oughta bring it back. It’s illegal and needs to stay illegal; it needs to be banned in every country which still permits it, and slaveholders should be prosecuted as kidnappers, rapists, and murderers.

Today’s Christians largely agree with me; we recognize slavery is evil and wrong, and needs to be eradicated. But they also incorrectly think, because slavery is evil and wrong, it’s somehow not a biblical principle. Because they have some false ideas about what constitutes a biblical principle.

Y’see, when preachers talk about biblical principles, they insist all these principles are God-things. They’re God’s ideas. God’s expectations. God’s instructions. God’s commands—except they’re not actually commands, ’cause if they were commands God would’ve commanded them. But those who preach ’em, and those who believe in ’em, regularly treat them as functional commands.

So if slavery’s a legitimate biblical principle… that’d mean they have to obey it, don’t they? But slavery is evil and wrong. So, to their minds, it must not be a legitimate biblical principle. Scriptures must’ve been taken out of context, or misused, or they’re part of the old dispensation and we don’t follow those commands anymore. And this is why they’ll insist it’s not a biblical principle: Biblical principles must be followed, and they’re surely not gonna follow that one.

So here’s what they misunderstand about biblical principles:

1. Not every biblical principle is of God.
2. Not every biblical principle must be followed. (Especially the ones which aren’t of God!)

Slavery is a biblical principle because it’s in the bible, because the ancient Hebrews and other ancient peoples practiced it, because God had things to say about it (and often condemned its excesses), and because sometimes God and his prophets used its ideas to teach people about God. Israel was Egypt’s slave, and God purchased them. Dt 15.15 Jesus gave his life to ransom everyone 1Ti 2.6 from our slavery to sin. Ro 6.16 It’s a legit principle.

But does this mean we should practice it? Absolutely not: It’s not of God. He’s set us free, and we should likewise set all the slaves free. Liberty, which Jesus came to declare to God’s people, Lk 4.18 is the biblical principle we should practice.

Elijah hides with a Sidonian widow.

1 Kings 17.8-16.

Ancient Sidón was a Phœnician city-state on the Mediterranean coast, about 40km north of Tyre, another city-state the Sidonians originally founded. (Both cities are now part of Lebanon.) The Phœnicians were a seafaring Canaanite ethnic group, and 𐤑𐤃𐤍/tsidún in their language probably means “fishing village.” They were decidedly Baalists. The royal family usually served as head priests of Hadád and Asheráh, the weather and fertility gods. Ahab ben Omri, king of Ephraim (the northern tribes which the Deuteronomistic Historian calls “israel”) had married into this family: His wife was Jezebel bat Ethbaal, daughter of the king. They were setting up worship of the Baals in the very same way the Sidonians did, in Ephraim. In Israel.

Hence the prophet Elijah of Tishbe told Ahab the rain would stop till he said so. Then he hid in a wadi till it went dry; then God sent him, of all places… to Sidón.

1 Kings 17.8-9 KWL

8The LORD’s word

comes to Elijahᴾ to say,

9“Stand up.

Go to Sarepta, to Sidón, and stay there.

Look, I ordered a woman there, a widow,

to provide for you.”¹

Sarepta (Phœnician 𐤑𐤓𐤐𐤕/Tsaríptu, “refinery”—of metal or dye; Hebrew צָֽרְפַת/Tsarfát, KJV “Zarephath,” in present-day Lebanon) was another coastal city-state 13km south of Sidon, just near Ephraim’s border, and at that point in history was Sidonian territory. Had a big shrine to Asheráh. Being on the coast meant it’d never run out of water; or food, if you know how to fish. But the drought would still affect wheat and barley farming, so bread would be harder to come by.

It’s kind of a clever place to hide, actually. Elijah was a prophet of YHWH, but because Sidon was decidedly Baalist, your average fool would presume Elijah was far too “holy” and “devout” to live among such pagans. As if he wasn’t already used to all the pagans in Ephraim.

The LORD’s word (i.e. Jesus before his incarnation) told Elijah he’d ordered this Sidonian woman to provide for him. So she wasn’t pagan; she heard God. People have a tendency to believe everyone in a particular people-group or country are monolithically of the same religion, or hold the same worldview, or have the same politics, or are otherwise uniformly alike. And even if their king or dictator or despot demands they all conform to his standards, you know that’s not how humans work. There are always holdouts. This woman was one of them. Let everyone else follow the Baals; she and her house followed the LORD.

Which really came in handy because she was destitute. Thankfully the LORD sent her a prophet who knew how to pray for miracles.

Christian leadership and age discrimination.

Arguably Timothy of Lystra first met Paul of Tarsus when he was a teenager. That’d make him old enough to come along with the apostles on their travels, but young enough for Paul to think of him as a son. Pp 2.22 When Timothy became the leader of a church in Ephesus in the 60s of the Christian era, Paul would’ve been in his 50s and Timothy in his 30s—certainly old enough to lead, but certainly not the oldest guy in that church. Quite possibly not even the one who’d been Christian longest, since Paul had evangelized Ephesus years before he ever met up with Timothy.

In any case being in your thirties meant it was necessary for Paul to make this comment in his first letter to Timothy:

1 Timothy 4.12 NKJV

Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity.

Because people will look down on your youth.

I know from experience. When I was in my 30s, I was asked to run our church’s pre-service bible study. Our head pastor felt I was up to it. Others not so much, ’cause they wanted to run it. Yep, all the participants were older than me. But I had three advantages over them:

1. Our pastor did after all ask me to lead the group.
2. I had become Christian in my childhood. The rest became Christians as adults. So set our physical ages aside: I’d been Christian about 10 years longer than most. There was only one fella who’d become Christian in 1975, same as me. Of course you can be spiritually mature at any age… but when you get so worked up over something as minor as the youngster leading the bible study, y’ain’t showing any such maturity.
3. Trust me: When you’re leading a bible study, it helps when you can actually do bible study. I’d been to seminary, so I knew how. The others knew how to do bad word studies, and quote popular Christian authors. For all the good that does.

Admittedly, I didn’t let their hangup bother me any. I figured if it bothered them badly enough, they’d quit the group. They didn’t, and stuck with me for a year and a half. So no, don’t get the idea I was wringing my hands over their disapproval, and constantly meditating upon 1 Timothy 4.12 to keep my spirits up. My spirits were fine. Studying to prepare the lessons was teaching me all sorts of useful stuff. Hopefully teaching them this stuff too.

But as Paul stated elsewhere in his pastoral letters, the main qualification for Christian leadership is good character. They gotta be trustworthy people. Hence his advice to Timothy: Become an example in word, lifestyle, love, faith, and purity. Be a solid Christian. Be of good character. If you’ve got that, age won’t matter to anybody but people who lack good character.

Yeah, I know. Lots of Christians lack good character. That’s why young people aren’t often put in charge of things. Either they themselves lack character, or they have plenty but the other leaders don’t.

“If you don’t listen to God, there are consequences.”

In last week’s prayer article, “Signs it’s God’s voice,” I brought up a pastor who wrote a list of ways we can tell God is talking to us. I took issue with them because they imply we can determine it’s God without properly confirming it. With confirmation they can be useful, but without confirmation they’re just ways we psyche ourselves into thinking it’s God when it may not be. At all.

There were two other items in his list which I didn’t yet bring up. That’s because they’re not really “signs it’s God’s voice”—they’re warnings. He wanted his readers to know if we don’t listen to God, there will be consequences.

And no, he wasn’t talking about natural consequences—that when God’s warns us away from something, but we’re not listening and go there anyway, bad stuff will happen, and God was trying to prevent that. Or when God tells us of an opportunity, but we’re not listening and miss it, and that’s wasted potential.

Nope; really he was talking about curses. If we don’t listen to God, he will punish us. He didn’t phrase it that way, and probably never would. But that’s exactly what he meant: God will hurt us if we won’t listen.

It’s a messed-up way of thinking, but he’s not the only pastor I’ve heard this from. Lots of Christians imagine God as a harsh Father, not a benevolent Father. A father who’s more like the harsh parents they grew up with, and they’re projecting that upon him instead of studying what Jesus has to say about him. So when they read the Old Testament passages about consequences for the Hebrews’ sins, they imagine God’s actively smiting them, instead of passively stepping back and letting nature and their enemies have at ’em. They proclaim, not a God who corrects his children, but a God who beats them and calls it “discipline.” Jesus teaches no such thing, so let’s be rid of this false idea.

God doesn’t need to add to the consequences of not listening to him. It’s gonna harm us aplenty when we don’t! I already mentioned missed opportunities, and you have no idea how many opportunities present themselves in our lives. And God knows about all of them. And so can we, if we’re listening and are obedient. And we’ll miss nearly all of them when we aren’t.

That alone should get us to pay attention. You know those Christians who appear to have tons of good luck, good fortune, and blessings coming their way? True, some of them are exaggerating, and some of them are big fat liars. But some of them are totally telling the truth: They’ll do anything God tells them, and they’re listening for it. So God’s pointing them towards every opportunity around them. He knows they’ll make the most of it, and bless him, and help him grow his kingdom. You can do that too, y’know.

John the baptist’s parents. Who were prophets.

Too many Christians claim the four centuries between the prophet Malachi, and the prophet John the baptist, were silent years, in which God turned off the miracles and stopped talking to Israel through prophets. That’s why there are no books of the bible between the days of Malachi and John: Nothing to record!

Thing is, the New Testament itself contradicts this idea. Jesus’s adoptive father Joseph had prophetic dreams. When Joseph took Jesus to temple for his dedication, they ran into two prophets—known prophets, who’d been prophesying there for years. Jesus’s mom prophesied. And John’s parents prophesied.

That’s right. John was the son of prophets.

People who grew up hearing and believing this “silent years” bushwa, can look right at the New Testament, read this for themselves in the gospels, and still think John’s parents weren’t prophets. That this was just a one-time-only freak occurrence. A sign God had turned the miracles back on, just for Jesus and the ancient Christians, soon to be turned back off once the New Testament was written and done. God, they imagine, is stingy with the miracles like that.

But really it makes no sense for John to have not been raised by prophets. (And for our Lord to have not been raised by prophets either.) If you’re meant to raise your kid to hear and serve the LORD, shouldn’t you yourself hear and serve the LORD? Shouldn’t you be able to hear and serve the LORD?—whether specially empowered to do it, as some believe; or whether you’re able to tap into every human’s innate ability to hear God, as most Christians believe?

John’s parents are the priest Zacharias and his wife Elisabeth. Both are Levites, ’cause only Levites could be priests. Zacharias was a descendant of Abijah, Lk 1.5 and Elisabeth a descendant of Aaron ben Amram, Lk 1.5 the first head priest. They lived in the hill country of Judea, Lk 1.39 which likely means they’re from the Aaronite city of Hebron, Js 20.7, 21.13 one of the 48 cities Levites possessed instead of tribal land.

And in Luke, we see God speak through the both of them.

“Biblical principles” and extrapolating new commands.

In my early 20s I went to a conference presented by youth pastor turned lifestyle guru Bill Gothard. He didn’t speak at it himself, in person; we watched videos projected on a very large screen. Gothard’s organization, the Institute in Basic Life Principles (formerly Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts, formerly Campus Teams) goes round the United States to teach young people “basic biblical principles” meant to keep them on the straight and narrow.

Bill Gothard. Wikipedia

Gothard ran it till 2014, when he stepped down ’cause he was accused of grooming young women who worked for him. He suffered a heart attack in June, and is reportedly in a coma. Meanwhile the Texas Supreme Court ruled a lawsuit against IBLP over its teachings, which the plaintiffs say encourages sexual assault, may continue.

Gothard is hugely popular among Fundamentalists, who promote him ’cause his teachings are right in line with conservative Christian culture. He doesn’t just teach people to memorize bible verses, pray, and go to church. He claims the bible says we should obey our parents no matter what. And women should obey their husbands no matter what. And everyone should revere the authorities over them. Plus rock music is of the devil, public schools are hopelessly corrupt (so homeschool your kids!), Christians need to dress not just modestly but conservatively, Christians should have loads of kids, and Christians should never borrow money.

In this article I’m gonna pick on Gothard a lot. But he’s far from the only guru who does this. Financial gurus like Dave Ramsey claim they also get their ideas from the bible. Leadership gurus like John Maxwell say much the same thing. Political activists on both the Christian Right and Left claim the basis of all their thinking comes from bible. Hey, if you’re an Evangelical, our ideas should be grounded in bible, right? (And even if we’re not Evangelical.)

Because Gothard taught debt is pretty much the same as sin, I actually left my Fundamentalist church. They wanted to take out a loan so they could hire two pastors. It was a bad idea for lots of reasons, but my outrage came from believing Gothard. When the congregation voted for the idea, I concluded, “Well they’re not following God,” shook the dust off my feet, and started going to my sister’s church.

Where in the bible are we commanded to never borrow? Well we’re not. In fact we’re commanded to treat people fairly and graciously when they borrow from us, Ex 22.25, Lv 25.37, Dt 15.8, 24.10, Lk 6.35 which indicates God is okay with them borrowing… which means he’s likewise okay with us borrowing, under many circumstances. Can’t quite pay the rent this month? If you can pay it back with your next paycheck, borrow. People in bible times did it; people today do it.

So how’d Gothard convince me it’s not acceptable? He claims it’s a biblical principle, an idea which isn’t explicitly stated in the bible, but supposedly it’s implicit. It’s there if you dig for it. There’s no command which says “Thou shalt not borrow.” But the accumulated proverbs discouraging us from borrowing, means the bible actually does teach this. We just gotta dig up those proverbs.

Not one of the “biblical principles” of Christian gurus are actual biblical commands. ’Cause if they were, the gurus could quote them! “Thus saith the LORD”—same as they do when they point out the LORD forbids murder, theft, and adultery. There’s no one bible verse to back up their teachings. But, the gurus state, there are tons of proof texts which suggest the authors of the bible implicitly believed these principles. And maybe we should believe these principles.

Two major problems here.

First, these gurus aren’t historical scholars. They have no idea what the underlying principles of ancient peoples were. I do, ’cause I majored in biblical history; I was trained to be an historian, and historians learn and teach this stuff. Crack open a history book sometime. You’ll learn tons.

What gurus know—and all they care to know—is they have a principle they wanna teach, and think they can prove it with biblical proof texts. Some of these texts are quoted in their proper historical context, but far more often, not. They’re interpreted as if they weren’t written by ancient Hebrews and Christians, but by 19th-century Americans. (Yes I know it’s the 21st century, but most Fundamentalists are stuck in a 19th century mindset; hence all the patriarchy and sexism.)

Which brings us to the other major problem: Does God approve of these biblical principles? Or was he actively trying to do away with them?—and these gurus are selectively choosing to ignore how God wants them gone?

See, patriarchy and sexism are in the bible. They were part of ancient Hebrew and Judean culture; they’re part of the worldview of ancient western Asia. So was polygamy, polytheism, racism, and slavery. They come up a bunch, because peoples’ biases will come up from time to time in the bible. And because they’re cultural principles found in the bible, this makes them—no surprise—biblical principles.

But God was trying to mitigage them in the ancient culture. They’re not God-ideas. Never have been. Just because they’re in the bible, it does not mean the Holy Spirit endorses them. They’re fleshly.

Like the bad advice of Job’s friends, it’s okay for us to be aware these attitudes exist. But we’re meant to use our heads, and reject these principles as ungodly. Not distill them and teach them as if they’re biblical commands, and in so doing, lead Christians astray.

Elijah hides in a wadi.

1 Kings 17.2-7.

After Elijah of Tishbe told King Ahab ben Omri the rain would stop until he said otherwise, I’ve no doubt he was tempted to stick around and see how Ahab reacted once his declaration came true—when there was no rain till he said otherwise.

But God told him otherwise. And you Christians will recall the דְבַר - יְהוָ֖ה/davár-YHWH, “the LORD’s word,” is actually Jesus, so feel free to read him into this story. The LORD’s word wisely tells Elijah it’s time to go.

1 Kings 17.2-7 KWL

2The LORD’s word

comes to Elijahᴾ to say,

3“Walk away from this.

Turn yourself¹ to the east.

Go be hidden in the Kheríth wadi,

which is at the face of the Jordan.

4Be there. Drink from the wadi.

I ordered the ravens to provide for you¹ there.”

5Elijah walked away;

he did as the LORD’s word said.

He walked, and sat down in the Kheríth wadi,

which is at the face of the Jordan.

6The ravens took him bread and meat in the morning,

and bread and meat in the evening.

He drank from the wadi.

7It happened in the end of days

the wadi became dry

for there wasn’t rain in the land.

I should point out the word for raven, עֹרֵב/orév, is spelled exactly the same as עֲרָב/aráv, “Arab.” The niqqúd, the vowel marks around the letters, are different; but the niqqúd were invented in the 700s CE, 12 centuries after the Deuteronomistic Historian wrote Kings. For all we know the Arabs who lived east of the Jordan, not ravens, fed Elijah.

Which is way better than ravens! Ravens would’ve had to steal the bread, ’cause you know they don’t make it; and as carrion birds I’d be mighty concerned about where they got the meat. Carrion meat is ritually unclean Dt 14.21 and for that matter so are ravens. Lv 11.15 I won’t even bring up all the raven saliva.

Whereas if Arabs brought Elijah his food, it would’ve been properly cooked. And if these are people the LORD talked to, and had a relationship with, the food would’ve been ritually clean. Way more sanitary; way better food than the sort of table scraps even the most well-meaning of ravens might bring you.

If you’re thinking, “Hey, you’re taking all the supernatural out of the story,” no I’m not. These Arabs heard from God! That ain’t nothing. And God actually got Arabs and Israelis to get along for once. Isn’t that actually more supernatural than birds feeding Elijah?

But okay, if you insist on interpreting the passage in the traditional way, with birds feeding Elijah, why not. Either way, Elijah got fed. And had water to drink till the wadi dried up.