How Not to Take the Bible Literally

This post is not for new Christians or young believers.  So if you’re relatively new to the faith, I encourage you to click away right now.  Your time will be better spent reading the First Letter of John rather than reading my musings.  Grab your Bible.  Step away from the computer.  Move along, nothing to see here.

Cosmic Parx waits.

There we go.

This month’s topic is more meat than milk, which isn’t something palatable to those who are experiencing the glory, thrill, shock, and beauty of the Scriptures for the first time.  I would like to use this blog post to explain why you, my fellow Christian believer, do not really take the Bible literally.  Despite all our “God said it / I believe it / That settles it” bumper stickers, it’s critical we understand that we’re not to be literalists in the pure, unqualified sense of that word.  To explain why that’s so, I’ll use the words of Scripture itself.

FOUR REASONS I AM NOT A PURE LITERALIST

Reason 1: I know some Scriptures are metaphors and similes.

Let’s start with the easy stuff.  Among those parts of the Bible I know not to take literally are the parables of Jesus.  I know this not only because of all the similes Jesus employs (“The kingdom of heaven is LIKE …”), but also because of the in-depth interpretations He sometimes gave His disciples (e.g., in Luke 8:11-15 where He decodes the metaphors in the Parable of the Sower).

Some of you might remember the old Life of Brian movie, a slapstick British farce about Jesus’ neighbor Brian who is continuously mistaken for the Messiah throughout his life.  At one point, Brian flees Roman soldiers by blending in among dozens of Judean street preachers.  He launches into a parable and is immediately confronted by a pair of hyper-literalist Jews:

BRIAN: There was this man, and he had two servants.

   ARTHUR: What were they called?

BRIAN: What?

   ARTHUR: What were their names?

BRIAN: I don't know. And he gave them some talents.

   EDDIE: You don't know?!

BRIAN: Well, it doesn't matter!

   ARTHUR: He doesn't know what they were called!

BRIAN: Oh, they were called 'Simon' and 'Adrian'. Now--

   ARTHUR: Oh! You said you didn't know!

BRIAN: It really doesn't matter. The point is there were these two servants--

   ARTHUR: He's making it up as he goes along!

Parables dwell beyond literalism.  Many other parts of Scripture directly inform us that they are symbolic, including the Revelation, the visions of Daniel, and the dreams of Jacob’s son Joseph.  This information led an acquaintance of mine to declare, “I take the Bible’s literal parts literally and its symbolic parts symbolically!”  And that is a fine saying.  If only it were that simple.

Reason 2: I know some Scriptures are hyperbole.

Those who approach the Scriptures with the spirit of enmity are fond of pointing out that the Bible has Jesus telling us to hate our mothers and fathers and to cut off our hands and pluck out our eyes should they cause us to sin.  We defensively protest that those verses don’t mean what they literally say, and the attackers wryly assert, “I’m just telling you what the Bible says.”  And they are right.  They employ the error of  excessive literalism to joust with truth.

How to respond, since we’re the ones who say the Bible is “true”?  Let’s just consider one example, the cutting off of one’s hand when one sins.  Here’s a losing back-and-forth:

XTIAN: But there are other places in the Bible that say not to mutilate yourself!

   JOUSTER: Oh, the Bible has contradictions?

XTIAN: No!  But you use Scripture to interpret Scripture.

   JOUSTER: Really?  Where is that don’t mutilate rule?

XTIAN: Ah!  It’s right in Leviticus 19:28 and Deuteronomy 14:1.

   JOUSTER: Oh!  So those are Old Testament verses that overrule the New Testament one?

XTIAN: They don’t overrule, they help us interpret!

   JOUSTER: I see.  The Old Testament overrules the literal words of the New.

XTIAN: I didn’t say that, you did.

   JOUSTER: So you pick which verse is literal and which verse is figurative?

XTIAN: It’s common sense which verse is literal!

   JOUSTER: Then your common sense carries more authority than the literal words of Jesus?

Yes, ouch.  Never presume that you know the Scriptures better than those who enjoy arguing them with believers.  I guarantee you, the jousters will find the above exchange just as funny as the Life of Brian exchange.

Literalists among us must be willing to cede some interpretational ground to the use of hyperbole – exaggeration that hammers a point home without being literal.  There is a reason Paul recommends that Timothy study to show himself approved.  That’s said about the very Scriptures Timothy has known well since he was on his mother’s knee.  There’s more to understanding than literal absorption and rote memorization.

Reason 3: I know Paul sometimes prefers symbolic interpretations to literal histories

Hyper-literalism takes more of a beating from Paul in other parts of his letters.  There are areas where Paul encourages symbolic interpretations of Old Testament stories originally presented as literal and historical.  In Galatians 4:24, he treats the stories of the sons of Abraham as an out-and-out allegory.  In Ephesians 5:31-32, he takes no interest in the literal implications of the first man and first woman clinging to one another in monogamous relationship, and decodes the tale as “a great mystery, and I take it to mean Christ and the church ….”  In 1 Corinthians 10, he even allows us a peek at his interpretation style.  Commenting on the complete history of the Jews, he says that all events occurred “as a typikos, but they were written down for our instruction, upon whom the end of the ages has come” (v. 11).  Typikos or typoi – types, figures, symbols, and not, as the RSV mistranslates, "a warning.”  Paul vaults righteously from the literal histories to a symbolic application to Christian spiritual principles.  He says the stories are symbols.

Does this mean Paul didn’t think the texts were literal?  Certainly not.  But it means something even more thought-provoking: that Paul considered the literal far less important.  When it came to the Truth, the symbolic meaning significantly outweighed the disposable literal.  And that should give every mature student of the Bible a reason to pause.

Reason 4: I know some portions of Scripture directly say they are not inspired by God.

Paul does something that hyper-literalists wish he hadn’t.  (And I’m not just saying that.  I’ve heard hyper-literalists say, “I’ve sometimes prayed, Lord, why did you let Paul put that in the infallible Holy Bible?”)  In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul distinguishes between his own commands and those of the Lord, directly saying “The Lord says this and not I …” and then a little later, “I say this, not the Lord …”  He further says that if anyone wishes to argue about the Paul-only commands, that he knows of no other custom.  In other words, he states that customs and culture must be taken into account when weighing some of the things he says.

Furthermore, there are parts of Scripture that we know, and I mean know, come from non-inspired sources.  With great fanfare, the Epistle of Jude quotes from the “Assumption of Moses” and the “Book of Enoch,” two apocryphal texts found unworthy of placement in the Bible’s canon.  Does that make those pieces of apocrypha, rejected as the work of men, into the words of God, since they are now Scripture?  To believe so, we must imagine God looking at man’s creations and saying, “Hey, not bad, wish I’d said that, think I’ll use it.”

What are we to make of that, we who believe that all Scripture is inspired of God and useful for righteousness, as 2 Timothy 3 proclaims?  If we use the scripture-interprets-scripture principle, we have to conclude, “All Scripture is breathed by God … except the parts that aren’t …”  But is that even an option?  Are we thrown into an infinite loop, saying, "I believe these words are God's since they are in the Bible, and the words say that they are not God's, which I have to believe because all words in here are God's."

I hope you weren’t expecting a conclusion to this point.  I still have my pastor working on it.  But I suspect the answer may be found in the debunking of hyper-literalist practices.

WHAT IS MY POINT?

I have one and only one point here today.  Milk is nice for the unweaned babies, but the full discernment of those maturing in the Christian life calls for meat.

The Gospel and its resultant salvation are simple.  Growth in maturity and progress along the path of righteousness are not simple.  If you find yourself coming again and again back to the basics of faith and the foundation you’ve already laid – not as part of your witnessing to the unsaved, but as the nature of your own walk in Christ  –  then I invite you to move beyond the hyper-literalist simplicity of easy answers.

The writer of Hebrews urges us to move beyond first principles and to press on toward perfection (6:1).  That means there are steps beyond salvation.  And while it’s glorious to share discourse in our common salvation, Jude makes it clear (1:3) that there will be times we need to contend for the truth of our faith.  That’s part of growing in our perfection.

Let us grow.  God said it?  Yes, and he says so much more than we imagine.  I believe it?  Yes, and the continuous growth of my faith and knowledge is part of my Christian mission.  That settles it?  Perhaps.  Or, perhaps now we only see dimly, as if through a glass.

Whatever hyper-literalism is, I know it is not Scriptural.

Marana Tha,

Cosmic Parx, who is YoYo Rez

PSALM FOR THE INTELLECTUAL

My friend Mike beat me to the punch and posted this on Facebook before I had a chance to post it here :)  Which is sweet, but here it is anyway.  A short one to make up for the last overly long one.

I wrote it as a counter to the disturbing trend of anti-intellectualism one finds among some Evangelical groups in the United States.  May the Lord bless their brains.

***

PSALM OF ONE BORN WITH A WONDERFUL MIND
composed for Marq Twine in 2010 by Yolanda

***

I am born with the mind You gave me,
Intellect,
Insight,
Discernment;
I am born with a love of questions,
Love of the answers revealed.

I am born with the mind You gave me,
A mind others may not understand
Or may distrust
Or may disdain
Or may even mock, to my face or to my back.

***

I hear the things they say, oh Lord:

“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,”
People feel free to tell me.
          (But would they tell the athlete to beware his muscle?)

“Don’t overthink things!”
People feel free to say.
          (But would they caution the artist not to over-imagine?)

“You’re off-putting, talking over our heads,”
People quickly warn.
          (But would they tell the singer she is too dauntingly melodic?)

“Nobody likes a smarty pants,”
People condescend.
          (But would they lament the actor who is perfectly in role?)

***

This I pray, with the mind You gave me,
This I say with the mind bestowed:

As the dancer worships you in body,
As the caregiver praises you with heart,
As the soldier serves you with his strength,
Here, oh Lord, am I, the intellectual –
And I, here upon this Earth, I love.
I love!
You, them, and myself.
I love!
With all my mind.
   With all my mind.
      With all this mind You gave me.

- Selah

The Mother of All Knowledge

RANDOM THOUGHTS ON SIN AND BRAINS

     I’m your kid sister.

     Well, okay, there’s a slight chance you’re younger than me, so that would make me your older sister.  Either way, we’re family, you and I.

     We have the same mom.

     Well … the same grandmom.

     Okay … the same [great-great + 150-or-so greats] grandmom.

     Whatever the numbers, I’m your kid sister.
     I'm reborn.  But the idea of “rebirth” doesn’t make a great deal of sense to us until first we consider what we need to be reborn from.

     And what we need to be reborn from has everything to do with our [great-great + 150-or-so greats] grandmother.

     Allow me to explain in the form of a story.

PART 1 of 4

     Once upon a time, there was only one Her.

     She was called Ishshah, and she was the woman who was born of no woman.  Her name simply means “the female,” because she was one of a kind, fashioned out of the side of another unique human ... the He, the only He, the DirtMan.
     DirtMan had the breath of The God in him, and no other animal on the face of the Earth had that.  This made DirtMan special, but it also made him alone among the living beings.  That’s why The God made Ishshah … because DirtMan had no companion worthy to stand by his side.

     Ishshah was worthy.  She was made from The God’s breath and from DirtMan’s flesh.  She was perfect.
     And she stayed worthy.  For a time.

* * *

     I interrupt this story for a message about knowledge.

     Me, Cosmic Parx, I love knowledge.  I crave it.  I seek it out, I hunt it down, I practically lust after it.  Put a Chocolate Cake in front of me, sitting next to a stack of Really Cool Knowledge, and I’d go for the knowledge first.

     And then I’d eat the cake, too, because, hey, who am I kidding?

     But first, I want the knowledge.

     Just like grandmom.

PART 2 of 4

     So Ishshah and her DirtMan lived in the most beautiful of areas on the face of the Earth.  There was one rule for living there – no eating from the Tree at the center of that massive, beautiful garden area.  It was a tree with specific knowledge in it, the knowledge of good and of evil and of the difference between the two.  Every animal lived in the garden land with Ishshah and Dirtman, and even the most ferocious was tamer than Lassie, because DirtMan had been put in charge of them all by The God.
     And the animals knew their place.
     Except for one.
     His name was Nachash.  You pronounced that CH in the middle like a rough H, like you’re clearing your throat, you know?  DirtMan probably gave Nachash that name because it imitated the hissing sound Nachash made when he spoke.  Yes, I said spoke.  A talking animal.  Why not?  DirtMan and Ishshah were talking animals, too, so don’t get so worked up about it.  Stay in the story, would you?
     One day Nachash decided to chat up the human female.  Test out her brains.  Check up on her wits.  I don’t know if he had tested her before.  I don’t know if he had tried to trip up DirtMan prior to this.  All I know about is this one day, the day Nachash held out a little something that the woman couldn’t resist.
     He offered her a taste of knowledge, a peek into the hidden things.

* * *

     Another interruption, if you’ll oblige me.

     It is a long-held tradition of men that the Nachash, the serpent, was Satan himself.  This is not a Biblical assertion.  Instead, it’s an interpretation based on many, many years of really cool artwork and loads of words from outside the Bible.  Yes, it’s true that the Book of Revelation, written thousands of years after Genesis, has a single line in it that shows the devil in a dragon form and calls him “the old serpent.”  But that’s far from convincing exegesis, considering that: 

1. the Nachash of our story is soon to be cursed to slither on the ground and eat dirt forever, but Satan has no such punishment; we later see Satan freely walking about the Court of the Heavenly Host in the Book of Job, legs intact;
   
2. many things and people are called “serpents” throughout the Hebrew scriptures, including Leviathan, violent men, wine, King Ahaz, invading armies of the north, and (most often) actual serpents.  The New Testament has its share of serpent comparisons, too – a bad gift for a child when he asks for a fish, the wisdom of disciples when they stay harmless as doves, the Pharisees at their worst, and (interestingly) Christ himself in the third chapter of John;
   
3. ergo, picking a single reference to a serpent out of hundreds in Scripture to match up the devil to the creature in Eden is, at best, an act of “eisegesis,” imposing one’s preexisting ideas onto a text … bad hermeneutics, very bad.

     As I mentioned, I really love knowledge.

PART 3 of 4

     The story of our [great-great + 150-or-so greats] grandmom does not end well.  Ishshah had options.  She could have eaten anything else.  Only one tree was forbidden, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Even the one beside it, the Tree of Life, had not been explicitly forbidden.  She could have checked in with DirtMan to get his advice.  She could have checked in with The God, who walked daily in their midst.

     But in that instant, she didn’t want Life.
     In that moment, she didn’t turn to man.
     In that hour, she ignored the God option.
     She chose to forget Who made her, for whom she was made, and all good things she already had.  She bought into the deceit of a lower animal, one over whom she and DirtMan had been given dominion.  She ignored the rule, and she chose her path.

     She really lusted after knowledge.

     DirtMan must have, too, because she had no trouble getting him to join in.

     And when The God walked back among them, they came to know more than they had expected.  They all knew punishment.  To the Nachash came the fruits of deceit: eternal enmity with mankind, the eating of dust, the loss of all reason.  To Ishshah came the fruits of untimely lust for knowledge: the sorrow of bearing sons, emptiness and longing after the man she’d been one with, and subjugation to the rule of a husband she had once been equal to.  And DirtMan, to him came the fruits of abandoning his dominion over all creatures, his entrapment to the wiles of those who should have answered to him: toil, thorns, thistles, sweat, and a return to the dirt from which he’d been made.

     The privileged life they’d lived – that all creation had lived – was gone.  Living on this world became … a different sort of living, not the life The God had offered.  And that living would be hard, with scant hope, and few moments of joy.

     That was our grandmother’s legacy.

     She was supposed to be the mother of the most privileged race in the universe.

     Now, those born from her would simply be The Lost.  DirtMan changed her name.  He called her Hawwa, “Mother of the Living.”

     Before their fall, it would have been a title of honor.

     Now, it was a bittersweet reminder of the fullness of living they’d lost.

* * *

     A final interruption:

     The word Hawwa (or Chavvah in more modernly pronounced Hebrew) mutated over time into the name “Eve.”  Words change, you see.  For example, the recent English slurred-words ginna gohtada used to be pronounced, “going to go to the” – as in “I’m ginna gohtada store now.”  The word Hawwa did that, too, becoming ‘Eua in the ancient Greek, then becoming Eva in the Latin, then becoming Eve in your English Bible.

     Her name is mentioned only 4 times in all of Scripture.

     Despite that, she appears in more artwork than any other woman in history, except for the Virgin Mary.

PART 4 of 4

     Now we enter the story.
     I am your kid sister.

     Or maybe your older sister, I dunno.

     But I do know this: You and I, we are of the flesh of Hawwa, the Ishshah.  That was our first birth.

     This is the month of Christmas, commemorating a very different first birth ... the one that opened the door to our second birth, that amazing moment when the flesh of DirtMan again is filled with the breath of The God.  An internal resurrection.  An infilling by the Spirit Himself (who is, and not incidentally, the Spirit of all knowledge).

     If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you should ask yourself this question: Why was Christ born, if He'd only wind up dying?

     We need to consider that carefully.

     We need to ponder it prayerfully.

     I just told you a story about the day we died.  But the Gospels tell a fuller story.  They give you the biographical details of Christ's life, yes, but they reveal a secret as well.  They tell you the secret of that other Tree in the garden we lost, the Tree of Life, the one we didn’t eat from.

     That’s a bit of information … a bit of Knowledge … that you need to get before this season ends.

     And let’s face it: You really love knowledge, don’t you?

Marana Tha,

Cosmic Parx

A Woman's Role in the Church

A discussion of what the “role” of women is in Christian churches often immediately degenerates into a discussion of what women can’t do in churches.  Discussions affirming what we can do are immediately left behind for much more (apparently) interesting and (certainly) contentious issues.

To give myself a fresh perspective, I thought I’d take a look at the question in the affirmative – what role can a woman play in the church?

Not, “What are women banned from doing?”

Not, “What is a woman’s role in marriage?”

I want simply to provide a survey of what Jesus, Paul, and others in the New Testament accepted as proper and praiseworthy behaviors for a woman aiding the spread of the Gospel – a positive approach in a world of compelling negativity.

***

20 ROLES FOR WOMEN

Brought to you by Scripture

1) THE DAUGHTER

First and foremost, women can be among the followers of Jesus, as evidenced during his life and documented throughout the New Testament.  We might take that for granted.  But God grant that no daughter of Eve ever forget the eternal honor we have been gifted.  Being His child is Role One, and in comparison, no other role comes close.

2) THE WITNESS

Women can witness about Christ and his role as Messiah, sometimes bringing whole towns to belief in Him through their words (John 4:39).

3) THE PRAY-ER

Women can join together with men in prayer (Acts 1:14), and they may host such prayer gatherings in their own homes (Acts 12:12)

4) THE PURSE

Woman can be financial supports to ministry, as evidenced in Luke 8:3, where women are lauded for providing the monetary backing that Jesus’ ministry required.

5) THE MODEL

Older women can train younger ones in areas of womenly expertise (Titus 2:3-5)

6) THE DEACON

Women can be part of the diakonia, benefactors/deacons serving churches (Rom 16:1).

7) THE RISK-TAKER

Women can be co-workers who risk their lives for church leadership (Rom. 16:3).

8) THE PRISONER

Women can bear the honor of being imprisoned for the faith (Rom. 16:7).

9) THE TEAMMATE

Women can pair up in teams to work hard for the Gospel (Rom. 16:12).

10) THE SURROGATE

Women can be dear friends and surrogate mothers to church leaders (Rom 16:12-13).

11) THE GUARD

Women can be guards, along with men, against false teachers and false pastors [I like this one, as it’s currently one of my ministries in the Lord] (Rom. 16:17-19)

12) THE CORRECTOR

Women can be part of male-female “doctrinal correction & teaching teams” (for want of a better term) (Acts 18:24).

13) THE MERCHANT

Women can host traveling preachers in their own households (which they can afford because apparently they can also be well-off merchants) (Acts 16:13-15)

14) THE CONTENDER

Women can stand beside church leadership contending for the cause of the Gospel (Phil 4:2-3 … note, as well, that we see another two-woman evangelism team here).

15) THE CHURCH PROPHET

Women may pray and prophesy aloud (1 Cor. 11:5) under the influence of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:17-18).

16) THE HOME PROPHET

Women may prophesy even in the presence of church leadership, should they stop by for a missionary journey or two (Acts 21:9)

17) THE OWNER

They can own the building where the church meets (Colossians 4:15).

18) THE SUMMONER

They can send out delegations from their home churches to summon apostles to bring discipline from afar (1 Cor. 1:11).

19) THE AMBASSADOR

They can head up missionary journeys to established churches and deliver original manuscripts of the Scriptures to people there (okay, so this won’t happen a lot, but it’s pretty cool that Phoebe was used in that way to get the Book of Romans to the church … Rom 16:1-2).

20) THE ELECT

Women can be the “elect ladies” over children of God, and receive epistles directly from apostles -- addressed to the woman, meant for them to share (2 John)

SUMMARY

I compiled that list in my morning Bible time, and it is certainly not a complete collection of the roles a woman of God can play in the church.

As God's adopted daughter, I can do many, many things – host churches in my home, prophesy in services, pray aloud in an orderly manner, deliver Scripture, pair up with men or other women to work for the Gospel, correct brothers doctrinally,  defend against false teachers, support ministries financially from my own funds, serve in the diakonia, summon church leaders to deliver discipline, be imprisoned for my faith.

          With Scripture empowering me to do all that, I have little to say to those who want to go on and on about what women can’t do in a church.  I’ll simply smile at those obsessed with such a topic.

          And then I’ll be sure not to invite them to preach at the church that meets in my house.

Marana tha,

Cosmic

Dear Lord: Thanks for Nothing

We are a world of whiners.

Please note: I didn’t say we just recently became a world of whiners.  In fact, I’m pretty sure we’ve inhabited Whiney World ever since Cain turned all mortally mopey after his second-rate offering was rejected by the Lord.

But I pay special heed to this age’s Poor-Pity-Me factor because (a) I live in this age, and (b) I’m in the U.S., where mega-church Health & Wealthism is seeping its way into the Body of Christ.  Health & Wealthism leads to a sense of entitlement, which in turn leads to an odd, whiney relationship with other human beings, as well as with our Father in Heaven.  Christians begin to reflect a culture of victimhood that smacks of the flesh and the world.

In the U.S., November is the month we set aside to celebrate Thanksgiving.  It commemorates, ironically, the first major harvest meal shared among the Plymouth Puritans and the heathen Wampanoag Indians.  Why do I say “ironically”?  Because these days, Thanksgiving marks the start of High Whining Season among some American Christians – complaints about stores that dare to say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas; frothing accusations that schools are giving “winter break” instead of “time off for Jesus’ birthday”;  claims of “persecution” when secular government refuses to use taxpayer money to set up Christmas trees, those eternal symbols of Christ’s birth, as clearly mentioned absolutely nowhere in the Bible.

“What if,” I ask myself this year, “I really give thanks in a Biblical way?  What if I thank God for things that would stun the whiners and arch the eyebrows of Health & Wealthers?  What if I overcome my own selfishness, my own self-centeredness, even my own self-esteem, to thank the Lord for all things, good and bad?”

***

I thank You, Lord, for nothing …

   For refusing to act when I begged You to heal me,

   Since now I see the gift my handicap really is.

I thank You, Lord, for nothing …

   For allowing me to stay in poverty after I graduated college,

   Since that time made me grow, not in a job, but in You.

I thank you, Lord, for nothing …

    For not responding to my lists of wants,

    Instead, refining my understanding of my needs.

I thank You, Lord, for nothing …

    For allowing times of suffering to continue,

    And thus teaching me perseverance I had never known.

I thank You, Lord, for nothing …

    For allowing hardships I caused to remain in my life,

    so that I might learn to thank You in all situations.

I thank You, Lord.  For everything.

***

Some may ask, How is a prayer like that in any way Biblical?

I answer:

• because it gives thanks to God in all things, in all circumstances, which is God’s will for me (Thess. 5:18)
• because it is an act of rejoicing in the midst of my suffering, not despite my suffering, which is what Paul commands (Rom. 5:3)
• because I rejoice that I suffer like Christ and even participate, in some way, in His suffering on the cross (Col. 1:24)
• because I give thanks when reaping the punishment for my own behaviors, glorifying God even from the belly of the fish I deserved to be swallowed by (Jonah 2:10)
• because riches aren’t good for me; daily bread is all I need (Prov. 30:8)
• because I give thanks even if I am unjustly thrown into chains and beaten and starved and harmed by enemies (Acts 16:25) … real persecution, not the pathetic protests of those who writhe oppressed under the weight of the words “Happy Holidays.”

Even in the midst of real, life-threatening persecution, thanks and praise are the only valid responses from a heart born in, grown by, and sustained through the Lord.

All right, all right, I admit that thanking God for good things isn’t a bad idea either.  Thank You for my new car, thank You for my good friends, thank You that I’m in a righteous church that clings to Your Word, thank You that I have been saved by Your Son.  Each and every one of those is a laudable act of gratitude.

But I leave you with this thought.

No one in Scripture is ever warned of the dangers of giving thanks to God during suffering and trials.

The only warning about giving thanks that I’ve found in Scripture targets those with lots of health and plenty of wealth.  Thanksgiving for good things.

 “Thank you, God,” a man once said, “that I don’t blackmail other people.  That I don’t break rules.  That I don’t sleep around.  That I’ve got money to tithe and enough food to turn down during times of fasting.  Thanks that I don’t have it as materially or as spiritually bad as that other guy, right over there, the poor, sorry loser.  Maybe he should learn to name it and claim it, you know, Lord?”

See Luke 18 for a better telling of that tale.

And remember to praise and thank Him, especially in the storms.

Marana tha,

Cosmic

A Wife Who Knows Her Place

I’ve been thinking lately about conservative values and conservative roles for godly women who want to live a married life aligned with the Scriptures.  I know you’ve heard the same complaints that I have about women’s changing roles in modern culture.  Who is this “woman” of the 21^st century?  Can you still call her a woman?  What happened to ideals she aspired toward in the golden days of the 1950s?

I wasn’t born in the 1950s.  Neither was my mother, who escaped that decade by a couple years.  Still, Planet Earth Noobie that I am, I would like to paint a portrait for you.  A portrait of a woman, one who might intimidate you.  One you might not like much.  She’s one hundred percent 21^st century:

You know the type.  She’s unflinching, she’s pretty tough.  Dresses great.  You check her out, guys, but you can tell right away, she’s not accessible at the level of paycheck you’re pulling in.

But that doesn’t matter, because she’s taken.

She’s one of those high-powered working mothers, the sort who claims she can balance a life at the office and a full life as a mother at home.  She brings in as much money as her husband, maybe even more.  She’s equally comfortable talking about high-level business transactions as she is about get-your-hands-dirty mothering practices.  One second she’s discussing vendor management skills and international procurement strategies; the next she’s knitting sweaters for the baby.  She’s out of town all day performing a site assessment for expansion efforts of the manufacturing business she oversees ... but she’s up late at night, finishing the bills, since she handles much of the family finances.

She treats her family like royalty, and she treats her office staff like a second family.  She’s a manager, but she’s hands-on, willing to do all the daily tasks her staff does.  She runs that office.  She runs that house.  Check out her husband … Doesn’t he even care that she’s making herself look like the breadwinner?  He even brags about it at some of those Boards of Trustees he sits on.  He tells them all about the 501(c)(3) not-for-profit entity she spun off to handle corporate charitable outreach and community payback.  He’s proud of her extra money and how she doles it out to grubbing strangers!

It grates you just to see her.  You can tell she works out, she’s pretty buff – when on Earth does she find time for that?  And she just won't stop … those sweaters she knits the children, and those fashionable bed clothes, quilts, throws, and covers she does as her mommy hobby … she’s talking about starting an online business to sell some of those and earn money straight from the household, too!

Above all, she just won’t shut up about how much she loves God.

Confused?  Did you think I was going to be writing about some uber-feminist atheist?  Or did you know that I was going to tell you that this lady, described above, is the true conservative woman, the real product of the golden age?

No, she's not a 1950’s conservative.  We're talking way more conservative than that, back as far as the 900s B.C.  Because the woman I described above is the Proverbs 31 wife, simply recast in modern language, but with all the same roles, essentially.  And this 21st century woman – this focused, nonstop, business-running, household-organizing lady – is far more Scriptural than our modern fantasies of the stay-at-home dinner party hostess of black & white television days gone by.

Instead of saying that she was way out of your paycheck league, I probably should have said that her price was far beyond rubies (Prov. 31:10).  And instead of telling you she manages overseas procurement operations, I might have simply compared her to “merchant ships, bringing food from afar” (v. 14).  But before I go any further, I think I’ll have you pause and take a read through the section of Proverbs 31 I’m referencing.  Keep my 21^st century woman in mind as you read this selection, and see if you can uncover where her attributes match those of the Proverbs 31 wife:

 ¹⁰ A wife of noble character who can find?

   She is worth far more than rubies.

¹¹ Her husband has full confidence in her

   and lacks nothing of value.

¹² She brings him good, not harm,

   all the days of her life.

¹³ She selects wool and flax

   and works with eager hands.

¹⁴ She is like the merchant ships,

   bringing her food from afar.

¹⁵ She gets up while it is still night;

   she provides food for her family

   and portions for her female servants.

¹⁶ She considers a field and buys it;

   out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.

¹⁷ She sets about her work vigorously;

   her arms are strong for her tasks.

¹⁸ She sees that her trading is profitable,

   and her lamp does not go out at night.

¹⁹ In her hand she holds the distaff

   and grasps the spindle with her fingers.

²⁰ She opens her arms to the poor

   and extends her hands to the needy.

²¹ When it snows, she has no fear for her household;

   for all of them are clothed in scarlet.

²² She makes coverings for her bed;

   she is clothed in fine linen and purple.

²³ Her husband is respected at the city gate,

   where he takes his seat among the elders of the land.

²⁴ She makes linen garments and sells them,

   and supplies the merchants with sashes.

²⁵ She is clothed with strength and dignity;

   she can laugh at the days to come.

²⁶ She speaks with wisdom,

   and faithful instruction is on her tongue.

²⁷ She watches over the affairs of her household

   and does not eat the bread of idleness.

²⁸ Her children arise and call her blessed;

   her husband also, and he praises her:

²⁹ “Many women do noble things,

   but you surpass them all.”

³⁰ Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;

   but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.

³¹ Honor her for all that her hands have done,

   and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

Now that you’ve reread the passage with my 21^st century woman in mind, I ask you … is this June Cleaver or Mrs. Brady Bunch?  No.  This Proverbs 31 woman is nowhere near as diminutive or demure as the mythological 50's woman.  She is, rather, exactly the kind of woman that many so-called “conservative” males rant and rave about in the U.S. Bible Belt these days.  She has her own money that she’s earning (v. 16b), negotiates both with vendors and merchants who sell the goods she produces (v. 21), and she’s a powerful capitalist who’s in it for the profit (v. 18).  She makes major land purchase decisions and oversees the profit-generating operations of the new land (v. 16a), and none of this …. none of it … feels threatening to her husband.  The Proverbs 31 husband is 100% behind her efforts (v. 11); he even brags about them to the other elders he hangs out with at the gates … doing, I dunno, whatever it is elders do at those gates of theirs, while BusinessMom manages the full range of affairs that keep the household and her disparate businesses in operation (v. 27).

Both her home and her business transactions are her passion.  Guiding all of that is her deepest passion of all … her awestruck love and fear of the Lord, who gave her these heart-fulfilling responsibilities and the strength and drive to achieve for her family, the most precious worldly good she’ll ever know.

***

Closing thought: A male acquaintance once told me that he would be “interested” in me, but only if he were sure I would be a “Proverbs 31 kind of wife.”  I was pretty sure he had June Cleaver on his mind, based on my past experience with him.  Rather than answering in my usual quippy style (“What’s your name again?” would have been a good comeback), I instead said: “Ten staff.”

“Huh?” he wittily rejoined.

“Ten staff.  Proverbs 31:15 says I would get to have serving girls living in the household with me.  I was just saying that a staff of ten of them would be a good start.  Can you afford that for your Proverbs 31 wife?”

He chuckled, and shuffled, and wandered away.

Okay, I was pushing, I know.  But why wouldn’t he want to hire me a staff of ten?

For all he knows, my price is well above rubies.

Marana tha,

Cosmic