Hadassah

Stanza 1: Hadassah

Long ago, there lived a girl.
Her beauty, like the finest pearl
Drew every eye throughout the land—
Men oft dreamed to gain her hand.
Her beauty like a tool she used;
Not afraid to subject, abuse, confuse—
So long as she wore the wreath of fame
And that Susa would sing her name.
“This glory is my own,” she thought,
“And could not with rare jewels be bought.”
And so, the city fawned and cowered
At her look of regal power.
She thought her state the strongest tower…
But it was, in fact, a fragile flower.

Hadassah’s gift was not her own—
Not for the vice of her fleshly desire,
Not a treat to be bought for hire.
Yes, her Jewish heritage she’d spurned,
Yes, for all a-godly she’d yearned,
Yet not beyond God’s power to turn
And create out of her an urn
Fit for his throne. [OR: ‘For honorable use’]
So watch, as God works both His good and hers,
Observe how He remakes the one who has erred
Into a trophy who ensures
That His covenant to His people forever endures.

Stanza 2: To the King

Here, in the midst of all her bliss,
Hadassah’s life took an unforeseen twist.
Vashti, in the face of command, shakes a fist.
And as such a decision inevitably brings,
She bore the wrath of an egotistical king.
This vacancy left an opening
That forced Xerxes to decide
Who was now worthy to stand by his side.
To the city he announced this desire:
(though merely a trick to slake Passion’s fire)
“Bring the fairest women! Let no family conspire
To withhold from me
Any with whom I might choose to be.
With each, for one night I’ll lay.
Whoever pleases me most will stay
And become Queen over all my estate.
This is the decree of Xerxes the Great.”
So here she is, with pagan women trodding,
Though not with joyless gate of one plodding
Without other recourse.

No, this was her course—
All for which she dreamed would now come to pass!
The nation’s glory would be hers at long last!
Looking to gain the world she forfeits her soul,
For God won’t be bought with a sacrifice not whole
And complete.
One which falls down at His feet
Enraptured—in unparalleled ecstasy.
Rebelliously, Hadassah tramps to the bed of a false majesty.
With her pleasures the contest she easily wins
And in doing so grossly sins
And breaks God’s decree:
“Worship none but Me.”
She deserves condemnation—
Hell—not salvation.
Yet in love God brings proud queens to their knees
And makes of wretches lovers of authentic Glory.
Here, when all seems good and bright,
When life seems to radiate with light,
In kindness God sends the darkest of nights
By showering fear through a terrible plight.

Stanza 3: Haman

Haman, a political prodigy,
Sits next to the king…and a model of carnality.
No friendship too dear
That he wouldn’t, in a flash, run a spear
Through the side
Of any who assaulted his pride.
Only one passion matched his love for self—
Not his family, his position, or his pelf—
But a deep, insane, suffused
Hatred for the Jews.
Agag, his esteemed ancestor,
Had been declared by God a transgressor
And thus worthy of death.
So, in obedience, Samuel took his breath
With violent hacks from a sword.

Now, Haman despised the Lord
And resolved that he would not fail
To slay His people—all those from Israel.
With his standing before the king secured,
He approached the throne with a demure,
Seemingly noble plea
To annihilate ‘a group’ plotting mutiny.
So, with the angry stroke of a pen
Xerxes decreed that ten thousand men
Be set against this [alleged] insurrection
And against any who proffered the enemies protection.

Stanza 4: Repentance and Salvation

Hadassah’s imaginations now lay in dust shattered;
All her hopes mercilessly scattered
By the winds of adversity.
“Why now…why this calamity?”
In torn robe and ash she falls in misery;
Frightfully alone; she weeps bitterly.
But, then, slowly, she begins to remember—
And then stokes the faint embers
Of a long forgotten truth
Till it blazed within as an eternal proof
Of covenant love and saving grace
That only through God’s power takes place.

The truth was this…

Long ago there came from Gath
A man of Philistia who poured wrath
On all the land of Zion.
His strength was like that of a lion,
And the seething hate he conveyed
Before the eyes of all betrayed
His real master—the Dweller of Hell.
His voice cast on Israel a spell
From which it seemed she might never wake.
His confidence made the Israelites quake
And long for the sort of bravery
It would take to set God’s people free.

“Yahweh?” Again he scoffed, “Where is he?”
“Does he too, like you, fear me?
You are dogs, and He the flea!
For he seems not to hear your pleas
For deliverance and mercy!”
“Silence!” The crowd parts…there, a boy.
“I’m not amused by your ploys!”
Goliath foamed in white-hot craze.
“No tricks.” said David. “This is the stage
On which God will display his utter rage
And disdain for clods of dirt
Who impiously spurt
Their own praise
All of their pointless days.
This day He will lay you low…
To your Master you soon will go.”
In minutes, David had done as he said,
And the giant fell before him dead.
This is the truth:
Victory came not by a young boy’s couth
Or by arm or stone or sling…
But by the One who is everlasting.
What he has decreed always comes to pass.
He never reneges with the ‘alas!’
Of one who might have done better.
Nor is His will fettered
By the pleasures of another being.
He, alone, sits Sovereign over everything.

“Oh God where are you…” Hadassah starts.
“For so long now I’ve lived apart
From your embrace.
But please…don’t now hide from me your face.
I’ve sinned much and so deserve
From you a condemning word.
Don’t pay may what I’ve earned.
Oh Lord, now I’ve learned
That all but you is dust,
And that the height of folly is to trust
In things now seen.
Whether I live or die, hold this scene
Of hopelessness before my eyes,
That I might, like David, learn to prize
Alone Your worth and pleasure
Above all earthly treasures.

Now, could it be that behind this evil is Your hand?
That all these things work according to Your plan?”

[God replied:]

Where am I, you wonder?
I AM in the lighting and thunder
I AM in the drought and the rain,
I AM in the peace and the pain,
I AM on the land and in the seas,
I, Hadassah, do all that I please.
I spin around the sun the earth,
I aid in every creature’s birth,
I AM the God of joy and mirth,
I AM the King of want and dearth.
But where were you when the heavens were made?
Where were you when earth’s foundations were laid?
Where were you when I made the darkness and light?
Where were you when I determined what’s wrong and what’s right?
Where were you when I fashioned the flowers and trees?
Where were you when I created the earth’s gentle breeze?
Would you now give me counsel on how I should rule?
Am I the One who has played the fool?
Who gave to Xerxes his small throne?
And do you consider Haman’s reason his own?
Was it not I who gave him to think?
Was it not I who made the parchment, pen, the ink
Used to sign and now force you to the brink
(With your people) of becoming extinct?
I AM the One whom you forsook!
I AM the One from whom you took
Glory that was not meant for you.
I AM the One who has kindly brooded
Over you like a mother hen…
Yet you, in spite, refused my hand
And your own good sought
As if real ‘good’ could be wrought
Or found apart from Me.
Hadassah, I’ve made you to be
Mine! You are not your own
But owned by the One who sits on the Throne.
I, before your life, wrote your story.
Hadassah, I do all things for my own glory.
These words she had prayed to hear.
It was the kind of word which exploded fear
And turned all of her tears
Into an eternal hope.
No longer left to blindly grope
Alone for truth. God was It.
Yet His power was not a bridle and bit
Of oft feared oppression.
Oh no—He was the bringer of life and salvation.
“Gladly, I vow to submit,
And now give every bit
Of remaining strength to praise
The Sovereign One whose ways
And wonders are a mystery.
God give me now David’s bravery
That I might fight for your people’s liberty.”

Stanza 5: Conclusion

We know well this stories’ end.
Hadassah, without a summons enters in
To the king and wins
The neck of Haman and Jewish security.
But don’t be enamored by the victory.
We would be fools and remiss
If we were to blindly miss
The crucial point of this story,
Which is: ‘to God be the glory.’
The glory is his in death and in life
The glory is his when we are rife
With joy or drowned in strife.
It’s his when Pol Pot for sport kills
With a wide smile that chills
One to the bone.
It’s his when we pick up the phone
And hear that our boy was thrown
From a car and lies dead on the street.
It’s his when cancer pulls the white sheet
Of death over fathers and mothers,
And when fights and wars take our brothers.
Is his name only blessed when we are at rest?
Is it only when smiling that his ways are best?
God now sweetly asks, “will you trust and confess
My worth when enduring in every season?
You ask ‘what behind all things is the reason?’
MY GLORY!”

Jesus Much Greater

The heavens are the work of your hands.
You showed us God's glory when you became man.
Your throne is eternal. You are the king.
By your powerful word you sustain everything.

Jesus much greater than any angel.
Once slain for sinners. High priest forever.
Outside the city there crucified.
We must go to him, bear the reproach, cast off our pride, and give him our lives.

Our deepest longing is for your glory.
Give eyes of faith to see your city.
God let us not turn back in vain.
We want to know you're not ashamed.

Jesus much greater than any angel.
Once slain for sinners. High priest forever.
Outside the city there crucified.
We must go to him, bear the reproach, cast off our pride, and give him our lives.

Our hope in you will last forever.
Christ bled and died gave us a treasure.
To enter in that sacred place.
To see your glory and know your grace.

Jesus much greater than any angel.
Once slain for sinners. High priest forever.
Outside the city there crucified.
We must go to him, bear the reproach, cast off our pride, and give him our lives.

Aaron

Aaron, welcome to the blog. I hope you'll do better than Aaron Browning. You will be expected to write at least one 1,000 word essay by today, and another by tonight :).

The Impassibility of God

The gravity of the endeavor of systematic theology heightens considerably as the interpreter realizes that his or her digestion of the Scriptures “reveals not only who God is but also what we can expect from him and what he expects from us” (Feinberg). Tozer, then, is right to say that the most significant doctrine before the Church is always that of “God Himself” (I did learn something theologically significant from Intro. to Missions!). All that to say, we must ensure by careful study that our notions of God are as sharp, poignant, and direct as humanly possible. That brings me to the question of God’s impassibility.

Let me open with a passage which I stumbled upon while reading through Jeremiah the prophet. God says in response to Israel’s rebellion: “My anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain! Oh the walls of my heart! My heart is beating wildly; I cannot keep silent…” (Jeremiah 4:19). There are three ways to interpret this passage: 1) all literal…that is, the picture is meant to describe God’s actual nature and actual ontology; 2) partially literal…that is, the picture hyperbolistically represents God’s nature but metaphorically depicts God’s ontology; 3) all metaphorical…nothing in the description is literally true of God. I think the latter conclusion is, I think, preferable and probable. God, particularly in the Prophets, used graphic, vivid, offensive language to rouse his people from lethargy and move them once again towards covenantal faithfulness. I grant that to begin with this passage in arguing against passibility might, at the outset, appear to be a bit of a cheap shot (it’s not…which I hope to prove later) since Passibilists themselves would probably align with my interpretive conclusion. Now that the stage is set, I’ll move to my twofold plea.

1) The language which Evangelicalism now seems to embrace is at best confusing and at worst damaging—particularly during the reign of Open Theism/Process Theology. Bruce Ware, in an article entitled “An Evangelical Reformulation of the Doctrine of the Immutability of God” (it’s on the ischool website, if you’d like to read it and be angered), went so far as to assert that God is “relationally mutable.” Even Grudem says: “God responds differently to different situations.” I object to propositions like this. In this purely pragmatic criticism, I’m not even calling for Passibilists to jettison the position itself. But surely we can be more linguistically precise than Ware and Grudem have been seen to be.

2) Second, proponents of passibility are inconsistent within their own system. For example, Grudem, Erickson, Carson, and Feinberg all argue against impassibility, yet flee quickly to the very doctrine to escape language of God’s repentance (see Ware’s article for the extensive list). You need a better excuse than saying, like Ware, simply that the Impassibilists are ‘right on this point’. In such a system, determination between metaphorical/literal language is left to theological arbitrarity (‘This doesn’t fit with my philosophy…so I choose option a’ or ‘I choose b’). This double-move smacks of duplicity

I love C. S. Lewis on this point. In making his case for impassibility, he uses the idea of ‘God’s love’ powerfully. “The passion of love is something that happens to us, as ‘getting wet’ happens to a body: and God is exempt from that ‘passion’ in the same way that water is exempt from ‘getting wet’. He cannot be affected with love, because He is love.”

Does God regret decisions which at the outset he deemed ‘good’? Or, is God capable suffering through the enactment of his holy, unstained purpose? Emotional movement is, at its core, ontological variation. Stephen Charnock is right, then, to say: “If God’s essence be changed, he either increaseth or diminisheth.” Knowledge of God is derived analogously; yet an analogy never perfectly correlates with the object for which it stands. If ever this statement was true, then surely it must be so with the One who exceeds or transcends or extends infinitely beyond all cerebral categories. Rather than chafing at the metaphorical language, such a recognition should result in worship to the God who ‘bends backwards’ on behalf of mankind—not only in reducing himself to symbols cast on a page but also in confining himself to common imagery through which readers might come to know him.

A parody of canonicity

In my Old Testament Introduction class, we're talking a lot about canonicity at this point. I struggled with a lot of the data (see the Pannenberg library site for some of the data I'm talking about) because it seemed so subjective. The "human side" of canonicity was bothering me. What I've come to see is that, in the end, either the hand of God must be seen behind the most human of exercises, or we must say that God did not give us a canon. I believe the former.

That said, I set to thinking about the canon and realized I have thought of it in poor terms. I have thought about it like this: 1) Someone was inspired, 2) that person wrote down the revelation, 3) that document is the "autograph," 4) the people of God immediately accepted it as part of the canon, 5) people copied down that original autograph almost 100% accurately, and 6) when the last revelation was given to John in Revelation (or perhaps Jude), the canon was sealed and closed. I don't think that's quite accurate. But instead of giving a boring explanation, I decided that a parody may be more interesting.

A Parody of the Canonization Process

Some time ago, Houghton-Mifflin (not Dunder Mifflin) decided to publish a book of classic children’s stories. There were a few shoe-ins, like Humpty Dumpty, the Three Blind Mice, and Jack and the Beanstalk. But then there were others who were more on the fringe, like Jack and Jill. Some of those in charge of organizing the book didn’t think Jack and Jill should qualify to be in the book. It had an obscure message, and didn’t fit as well with the other stories. Some people accepted Jack and Jill, while others preferred to stick with only the classics. The main question in deciding which stories should get in was this: “Which stories do people generally accept as classic children’s stories?”

After deciding by vote which stories should make it, the committee went to actually put the stories in the book. But they ran into some trouble when they found some discrepancies in the telling of the stories. They arranged a committee to find the true, original telling of the story. With some of the newer stories, it wasn’t too hard. They could find writings and early copies of the stories, and so had a very good idea of what the original story actually was. It still wasn’t perfect, but it was pretty close to the original story. With some of the older stories, however, there was almost no record. As far as they could tell, the story began verbally, with one particularly gifted person making it up to tell to their children one night. The story got around, and soon other parents were telling it. Parents told it and told it until someone wrote it down and copied it. Some of these copies survived, but most of them did not. In the end, it was impossible to tell exactly what the story had originally been.

The committee threw a number of ideas around. They could take all the versions of a given story and combine them, or they could try their best to figure out where the story had changed and remove those parts, or they could just pick one of the versions and go with that. Some people on the committee were especially familiar with one version of the story, and so naturally favored that one. Others were purists and were determined to keep searching until the “original” form could be found. They wanted to search until every word could be validated. Others thought that as long as the story was basically the same as it had always been told, it was fine to publish. All this caused such a stir that some of the committee broke away and contacted Random House publishers to publish their own version of the children’s story book.

After the books had been published for awhile, people generally accepted one or the other for their homes. Children born into homes that used the book from Houghton-Mifflin usually grew up to use that book in their homes as well. Children born in homes that used the Random House book did the same. As more time passed, the versions of the stories contained in the books became the versions.

Some evidence surfaced about 300 years after the books had been published that the story about Humpty Dumpty had been told a little wrong. An early copy of the story had been found in England that said “all the kings forces and all the king’s men couldn’t put humpty together again.” This made more sense than the old way of telling the story, because obviously horses can’t put eggs back together. Horses don’t even have fingers. Some scholars accepted this change to the story, but most people rejected it. “You can’t just change the story” they said. Other changes like this were later discovered, and some of them were actually included in late printings of the books.

One wonders what the original tellers of the stories would have thought if they could see what has become of their stories!

THE END

_____________________________________

Now, this is a long simile; don’t take it too far. It fails to represent the biblical books in a few ways: 1) children’s stories claim only a human author and not a divine author, 2) the stories are make believe, not historical, and 3) the stories are lighthearted, not serious. Beyond those things, I think this story represents the formation of the canon reasonably well.

We tend to think of the formation of the canon in such black and white categories. A given word in the canon is either white (inspired) or black (not inspired). A book is either white (canonical) or black (not canonical). 1 Macabees is either in or out. The book of Proverbs is either all in or all out (even though it’s a compilation). A story in the Bible is white (all true) or black (all false). I think that if we saw how the books were actually written and “canonized,” we would stop seeing such white and black categories. Grisanti’s article (see Pannenberg Library) does this for us, because he lets us see a little – just a little – into the writing/compiling process.

Weeping and Worship

Today as I mowed lawns like I do every day and listened to sermons like I usually do I listened to a sermon that when I first heard it opened up my eyes to an aspect of the gospel that I have never really considered too deeply. At that time it transformed my ignorant, shallow understanding of the gospel and continues to dominant my daily meditation on the gospel. It has to do with the curse motif of the atonement. Today as I listened to R. C. Sproul exegete the curse motif of the atonement from the scripture and meditated on the truth of Christ becoming a curse all I wanted to do was stop and bury my head into my hands and weep because of Christ's sacrifice on my undeserving, wretched behalf. (I am sure you can see it now, trimmer in hand doing edging and weeping but that was truth working in me not some emotional fix) After I finished listening to the sermon though my intense desire was one of wanting to just fall on my face and worship the one that is worthy of all of my praise, Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father. I strongly encourage you if you have never listened to this sermon to take the time out of your busy schedule with no distractions and just listen with heart, mind, and will wide open ready to obey. If you have heard it before I would encourage you to go back and listen to it again. Feel the weight of this truth. Feel the weight of this truth. FEEL THE WEIGHT OF THIS TRUTH. What is better than meditation on the cross and glory of our infinite Lord and Savior.

Here is the link... http://www.togetherforthegospel.org/08/media/
It will take you to the list of sermons from the T4G conference and then you can go down to Sproul's message "RC Sproul - The Curse Motif of the Atonement" and play it.

I write this because of my unwavering belief in Hebrews 3:12-14

A Duality of Answers

I am tired and have a lot to do, so I'll make this one a whew-shew, snappy one. But, though I need to be brief, I wanted to get something out about a concept that has been as important to me in sustaining my faith in Christ as any concept I have considered. And that is this: a duality of answers.

Thesis statement: As every religiously inclined worldview is by nature is a fused theological and anthropological entity, every worldview-level question answered from within that worldview has a duality of answers - one answer supernatural (theological) and one answer natural (anthropological).

Instead of belaboring the point, here are examples of worldview-level questions answered in a duality of answers:

Q: How were the books of the canon decided?

Theological answer:
The books of the canon were decided by God. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and all inspired Scripture is canonical. Therefore, God chose which books were canonical by choosing which books to inspire.

Anthropological answer:
The books of the canon were decided by men. All Scripture is recognized as inspired by God, and all Scripture declared to be inspired is canonical. Therefore, people chose which books were canonical by choosing which books were inspired.

Q: How do people come to be Christians?

Theological answer:
God causes people to become Christians by regenerating them by His Spirit. They are convinced by the gift of faith given to them. If God did not move to regenerate, no one would come to Him.

Anthropological answer:
People cause people to become Christians by convincing them through various means. They are convinced by a few particularly common influences: 1) Their family is Christian, and they want to get along with their family, 2) a powerful preacher makes them feel guilty and tells them they must be saved to avoid hell and know God, 3) an emotional or rational argument convinces them that Christianity is true. If no one talked or wrote about God, no one would come to Him.

Q: How do we know that God even exists?

Theological answer:
God has made Himself plain by planting in the hearts of people an innate knowledge of Him, and by planting humankind in a universe that declares His orderliness, goodness, power, and, thus, His existence.

Anthropological answer:
Humans invent various gods in order to fill an emotional desire for greater meaning, and to explain the order, goodness, and powerful things they see in the universe around them.

Q: Why does inanimate nature act the way it does?

Theological answer:
God moves in all things according to His plan. Nature responds to His command, and nothing that occurs in inanimate nature occurs apart from His divine decree. Snow falls when God tells it to; drought strikes at His word; earthquakes destroy at His slightest gesture; rain pours on His queue.

Anthropological answer:
Inanimate nature moves according to basic natural laws, and nothing occurs apart from those natural laws. Snow falls when atmospheric temperatures fall below 32 degrees Fahrenheit around precipitation and wind; drought strikes when winds shift in a manner as to direct moisture-heavy air away from a certain region; earthquakes happen because of shifting tectonic plates, which move according to various predictable laws; rain falls as a result of moisture-heavy air cooling, which slows the water molecules, makes them precipitate into drops, and thus causes them to become too heavy and they fall to earth.

Q: Why does God seem sometime to answer prayer and other times not?

Theological answer:
God chooses the outcome to every situation. If He gives you what you ask for, then He has decreed that you should have it, has moved you to pray for it, and has given it to you in His time. If you pray for a parking spot and then find one, God gave it to you. If He does not give you what you ask for, then He has decreed that you should not have it, has moved you to pray for it, but has chosen not to give it to you.

Anthropological answer:
Chance or man chooses the outcome to every situation. If you pray and get what you prayed for, then you either made the prayer come true yourself, or fate did. If you pray for a parking spot and then find one, you should thank your efforts and coincidence. If you prayed for rain and it rains, fate gave you rain. If you pray for success at a job and fail, your efforts and bad luck determined your failure.

Q: Where did we come from?

Theological answer:
God made us.

Anthropological answer:
Evolution made us.

Q: How is morality determined?

Theological answer:
God has determined an unequivocal morality, and has revealed it to us chiefly through His word. Every action, thought, or even intention is either right or wrong in God's eyes. Morality is objective.

Anthropological answer:
Culture has determined an equivocal morality, and imposes it on itself. Every action, thought, or even intention is weighed in relation to a given culture's accepted norms. Things considered wrong at one time may later come to be considered right. Morality is subjective.

Q: What is the purpose of life?

Theological answer:
To glorify God.

Anthropological answer:
To help this universe. This means acts of charity to one another, love, equality, good government, consideration for the environment, advances in technology, care for animal
species (especially endangered ones), and exploration of the universe beyond our world.


And I'm sure you can think of another dozen. If my thesis is correct, then any worldview-level questions answered from a religiously inclined worldview have both a theological answer and an anthropological answer. "Theological" and "anthropological" could be replaced (I think) with the terms "supranatural" and "natural." Typically, persons see these two answer sets as incompatibly opposed to one another, but I disagree. A religiously inclined worldview ought not reject the naturalistic realities in the world any more than an irreligiously inclined worldview ought to reject the supranaturalistic realities in the world.

The challenge is not in deciding which set of answers is true. They are both true. The challenge is in combining them correctly. Error in our decisions on these questions comes not from believing
the wrong answer; error in our decisions on these questions comes from believing or disbelieving one answer too strongly to the exclusion of the other.

I say that this concept has helped sustain my faith so much because it has kept me from having to choose one fact over another. When we must quarantine a fact we believe in because we believe another fact over against it, we are left in a dangerously self-manipulated condition.

So help me here. Do you agree or disagree with my thesis? Amend it. What are some worldview-level questions that may not fit my model? Which of the answers above to you agree
or disagree most strongly with? Does this all sound as unbelievably postmodern to you as it does me?

DB