An ending with surprises

A simple prayer

A long time ago, in a land before children, I had an organised devotional time. Before reading the Bible I used to pray this simple prayer: “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.” (Psalm 119:18) Maybe you’ve prayed something like that? Certainly many others before me have uttered that prayer. I always felt confident that God would answer me in the affirmative - these were His own words after all!  It reminds me very much of the prayer Carson prays at the end of his chapter. And if God’s is the condensed version, Carson’s is the expanded, and it beautifully concludes our book for the month.

Carson prays that we would not make the reading of God’s word an intellectual activity only. We do indeed want to understand what the scriptures are saying. We want to have eyes opened to see remarkable things. But not so that we can merely marvel - so “that we may draw near in confidence to Christ Jesus, our beloved king, our priest, made for us everything that we need, such that we find full confidence in him.”(p.174)

The purpose of Carson’s Bible study then, is to be moved closer to Christ, not to have bigger brains. But the marvelling is still an important step. Reading the text of the Bible with a curiosity that is alive to surprises is a key strategy that Carson employs. And where there were gaps in my own Bible knowledge coming to this psalm I felt buoyed and excited to fill them. Carson has a strong determination to mine the text for all its worth. He is a giant in the field of Biblical scholarship, having written book after book after book, so it is exciting to go on a journey into this psalm with such a prodigious Biblical explorer.

A Strategy for digging deep into the Psalm

Carson takes us to Psalm 110, and it is the second of three times in the Bible where the mysterious figure of Melchizedek pops up. (He is mentioned first in Genesis 14 and quite a bit in the New Testament book of Hebrews.)

Like James MacDonald’s preaching on Psalm 25 in chapter 4, Carson employs a similar methodology for handling a piece of ancient poetry: First he asks, Who wrote the Psalm? And second, What does it say? So far a pretty standard approach, but the answers are far from simple. Rather than this being a dry exercise Carson throws quite a few surprises in there, not least his thoughts on how the author did it.

Carson’s textual and referential analysis of the Psalm is divided into oracles (or statements) and commentary. This drilling down helps us get closer to understanding how it could possibly be that thousands of years before Christ, King David could pen a Psalm that begins with the words,

“The Lord says to my lord:

“Sit at my right hand,

until I make your enemies

a footstool for your feet.”

You can’t help but wonder, “Who is David’s God, “The Lord” (Yahweh), talking to?” Whoever it is, the King, David, highest office holder of the land, refers to him as, “my lord”. My curiosity was piqued. Carson then lays out the different modes by which David could have been inspired to write this, (pp.155-157) and it is some of the most exciting stuff in the book. What is so compelling about Carson’s treatment of this mystery is his own deep and detailed intimacy with the Bible. Where there are clues, he digs deep. And he manages to find things we may not ever have noticed.

In search of surprises

I stayed up past midnight reading about how Carson had changed his mind as to how David had actually come to write Psalm 110. That it was not a divine dictatorship style of inspiration in which David holds the pen and God provides the words, like for example, it appears to be in the book of Daniel. Though that is certainly part of it, Carson cannot reconcile that idea with the many heartfelt psalms that spring straight out of David’s personal experience. (For example, Psalm 23.) Carson reasons that David’s mind must have been connected to what he wrote as that is the way his other Psalms have flowed out of him.

Carson gives a convincing argument to show us that David may have found ‘the lord’ that Yahweh is speaking to, from his quiet times, and brings us to Deuteronomy 17:18-20 in which the Kings are instructed to make a personal copy of the law. This involved writing the first five books of the Bible out for themselves. Carson points out that there were no shortcuts available. (Like for instance taking snaps on your smartphone! Or getting someone else to do it for you.) They were instructed to write the whole thing out long hand and take devotional from it all their days. Now we know that many Kings did not do this, but David, in his best moments, was a good King, he is described in the Bible as a man after God’s own heart. (1 Samuel 13:14) He clearly wrote Psalm 23 out of the richness of his own experience as a shepherd and not as a divine scribe, with no human heart and soul involved (p.156), so Carson’s argument holds some weight. David was educated. He was deeply thoughtful. He was a man of prayer. He could write! What an exciting surprise! What a shining glimpse into the spiritual life of David!

It helped me to picture David, in colour, living and breathing and reading the law, coming one day to Genesis 14, as Carson imagines, reading and meditating on this mysterious figure, Melchizedek, a type of Christ (as Hebrews 7:3 confirms) humbling himself before God, praying, writing out of the burning in his heart that God had put there. He looks forward to the time of the Messiah. He writes Psalm 110. These are tantalising glimpses that flesh out for me in more realness than I have ever seen before what this man of God may have actually been like. And they make me excited to keep reading the Psalms!

This kind of noticing, this rich mining of vast amounts of information for kernels of gold is super encouragement for anyone who needs help to continue pursuing daily Bible reading. This is what brought David closer to God. His own personal reading of the first five books of our Bible. His dependence on God through prayer, through all his mistakes. His own meditating on the mysterious figure of Melchizedek. This is what revealed Jesus to him. From the law! Well might he come to write (and Christians ever after pray), “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.” (Psalm 119:18)

As we close the book

As we come to the end of our series of book reviews on The Scriptures Testify About Me I think it would be hard to read this book and feel only an increase in intellectual understanding of the Bible. Many of the stories are so personal, and so heartfelt, both those from the Old Testament and the ones the preachers share from their own lives. But there is always a danger that we may sit on the surface of the text rather than dive in and let it, by God’s spirit, change us, shape us and mould us to be more like him. So, if you haven’t started reading this marvellous little book, get a copy and dive in, this is a worthwhile and faith enriching experience!

Sketches to Fill In

Ruth

I can’t tell you how lovely it’s been to review this book over the spring holidays. You can picture me sitting on an old cotton quilt on the beach, my kids happily playing in the distance with their Dad and Granny. And I’m not feeling guilty about staying put here on the sand with a book in my hands. Rather unusually, my reading’s been imbued with an importance and a purpose it wouldn’t ordinarily have. Of course, reading a book like this is always important and purposeful and I hope this little sketch of me on the beach might inspire you to carve out a time for yourself to sit and read a few chapters of this golden book.

If big stories overwhelm you, chapter 3 is a great place to begin. Alistair Begg has been charged with the task of illuminating the story of Ruth for us, and I love his simple recommendation that, “Tiny stories are hugely appealing in our time.” (p.58) Our ever-present bombardment from facebook, blogs, the accumulation of so much stuff in our lives, makes it all too easy to feel information indigestion. There is a quiet pleasure in a short story.

Before Begg gets started on Ruth he helpfully lists the assumptions he’s making about the Old Testament before unpacking the story. These are neatly encapsulated by borrowing B.B. Warfield’s analogy (from Warfield’s Biblical Doctrines) that likens the Old Testament to “a richly furnished but dimly lit room; the contents become clear only when the light is turned on in the person and work of Jesus.” (p.58) If we stay with Warfield’s picture and walk around that room, Begg presents his own sketches of Ruth, with the work of Jesus the torch in his hand.

Begg has a background in drawing and this chapter is rich with visual allusions. Begg uses drawing both as a metaphor and as a helpful way of structuring his account of what happens in the book of Ruth. With bold clear strokes, he dashes off “three charcoal sketches” (p.59) with the intention that the reader fill out the rest of the picture on their own. It’s a lovely way to structure a reading of a book like Ruth. A brief story, that is also action-packed. A tale about gleaning.  A tale that crumb-drops its way, down through a historical genealogy, all the way to a man called Jesus.

First Sketch

In picture one, Begg shows three women on the road to somewhere, crying and desperate and shows how Ruth couldn’t be persuaded to return home (like Orpah does). Begg sites this as her conversion (p.61): Ruth turns her back on her old life and embraces Naomi and Naomi’s God. And Begg pulls back the golden curtain in that richly furnished room and reveals:

“God was reaching into Ruth’s life across the barriers of race, and her picture was painted in the great scene in Revelation: persons “from every tribe and language and people and nation.” (Rev 5:9) Those people are worshipping King Jesus, who descended from this woman, Ruth.” (p.62)

Second Sketch

In the second picture Begg draws Boaz. Ruth comes home after a day in the fields gleaning for food and says to Naomi, “The name of the man I worked for today is Boaz.” (Ruth 2:19) Ruth finds favour with a kinsman redeemer – a relative of Naomi’s, someone who “has the right to intervene in the circumstances of Naomi and Ruth.” (p.64) And he saves them, quite wonderfully, by marrying Ruth. There are many echoes to our own kinsman redeemer in Christ.

Third Sketch

In the third picture a son is born, (Ruth 4:16) and, in light of all the tragedy and hardship Naomi has survived, Begg imagines “quite a baby shower at the birth of this son!” (p.64) The tale ends with a family tree. And little do the women know how prophetic their prayer for Naomi’s grandson, that his name be renowned in all Israel, is going to be. (Ruth: 4:14)

Filling it in

Through these three brief sketches Begg gives this Old Testament story a shape that is easy to cling to. He sprinkles a little colour and grit on the characters to show they are ordinary and real, like us. But best of all, he presents it the way it was always intended: as a jewel on a dark velvet cloth (p.55), a personal story of rescue and redemption, of real love that echoes our own Christ to come and links all the way to him in the Ruth and Boaz family tree.

This is a truly shining story in the Old Testament: understandable, digestible, with a great storyline that is captivating and satisfying. And, as tiny stories go, deep indeed. In his concluding remarks Begg quotes philosophy professors, Dreyfus and Kelly, from their book In All Things Shining, a book about classic western texts, where the authors observe, “That when you search for shining moments, you must be aware that they do not cohere or combine to make any sense at all.” That existential statement is refuted by Begg in his reading of Ruth. “In Jesus all things hold together.” (p.65) It makes me think of the first four verses of the gospel of John, “In the beginning was the Word…All things were made through him…In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” He’s the golden thread running through the Old Testament. Standing at the Father’s side as the world was made through him. He sustains it. He pulls it all together in the New Testament, and he will return to reconcile all things to himself. Those shining moments in Ruth mean something.

Final sketch

I’m not a visual artist but I can still think in pictures: I can see the tragedy of the three women on the road, all alone, the dust and the pain and the hunger and the weariness. A decision has to be made, one parts ways. But there’s a glimmer of hope! One is sticking with the other!  But they will struggle to survive. Then the excitement of meeting a man named Boaz, a man with kind eyes and a kind heart. Who turns out to be Naomi’s relative. A kinsman redeemer. And there’s hope in Ruth’s eyes and sparks with this new man and the romance blossoms and he steps in and saves them, and marries Ruth. There’s a wedding and a new son is born and Naomi’s face is beaming and her friends are all praying for her. Lives have completely changed. Hearts are overflowing with happiness and thanksgiving to God. History is in the making too. This baby is part of a special family tree.

By getting our brains to work at filling in more of the detail by going back and reading Ruth, Begg reminds us that these are ordinary people and that God is doing extraordinary things through their lives.

Begg takes inspiration for his charcoal sketches from an old art teacher who, when he would ask for help, would take a pencil out and put a few lines here and there to get him started. But he wouldn’t do it for him, and Begg had to fill in the rest (p59.). What a good metaphor this is. Not just for the book of Ruth. But for how we as Christians, how any thinking person, ought to go about reading and understanding the life-changing story of the Bible. It is a life’s work seeing and preaching Jesus in the Old Testament. Books like this get us started. But it is up to us, by God’s grace, to fill in the rest.

"This little sliver"

YOUTH

When I first got my hands on this book I was excited to see some well-known authors: Don Carson, Tim Keller - I love Tim Keller! But my favourite writing in the book is here. ‘Youth’ by Matt Chandler is my favourite chapter.

There’s a realness here that I can relate to. It’s edgy. Maybe it’s because at 33, I’m still pretty young. But it’s much more than that. I felt an instant connection with the author describing all the young peoples’ funerals he had officiated at. The memory of fare welling my 19 year-old brother will always be fresh. It will always have a rawness. I know. I’ve lived it. Death is awful. But a life cut short is worse still.

Matt (I’m going to call him Matt) reflects on the year he preached through the book of Ecclesiastes, and hones in on Ecclesiastes 11:9-12:8. It is an extraordinary piece of writing. In one poetic sweep it sums up the essence of life, the brevity of it, the swiftness with which we can move from youth, our newness, in all the health and energy and enjoyment of that time to the final phase, not the third age (the long awaited retirement Western society gears us up to look forward to), but the fourth age, a phase where about the years we will say “I have no pleasure in them”. (Ecc 12:1)  Until “the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the Spirit returns to God who gave it.” (Ecc 12:7)

The imagery is beautiful and shocking: the silver cord snaps, the golden bowl breaks, the pitcher shatters at the fountain. These solid, reliable things, these things we thought we could count on, they breakdown too. But don’t miss the point. Matt wants us to get underneath what is being said here. It is not a hopeless message.

The point, which Matt zeroes in on, and the author of Ecclesiastes builds and builds to, is that we will be judged. It says it right there in the passage: Enjoy your youth. “But know that for all these things, God will bring you into judgement.” (Ecc 11:9) There’s no escaping that. Our job is to remember our creator. But Matt works hard to help us get underneath what that means. In revealing so much about his own personal struggles: with cancer, and encounters with those in his congregation who have suffered and lost people they loved, to untimely deaths. He does a fine job of peeling back the layers, and of encouraging us to get underneath this passage. Underneath our sufferings and struggles, underneath our rejoicing too. And, “to give credit where credit is due”.  (p.109)

As Matt says, “I am under no illusion that any of us is guaranteed to see thirty years­-much less sixty, or seventy, or eighty. This time we have, this little sliver, really is a gift from God.” (p.104.)

I think that all the time. Every time my husband makes a funny joke I know my brother would appreciate and build on and make ten times funnier. Every time I see a smile in one of my kids that looks a bit like him. Or when I see myself in the mirror with a worried look, a family look that we as siblings all share. His life was cut short, right at the beginning of his young adulthood, at the special and enjoyable time talked about right here in this passage. Why did God do this? I have no idea. I know that he works all things for the good of those who love him. (Romans 8:28) And I know, with certainty, that my brother is with Jesus now and knows a closeness to Him far better than anything I have experienced so far. I know this because Jesus promises the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43) My little brother is in paradise. He is where I am headed. I need to remember where he is and where I am going and to joyfully remember my creator in the days of my youth.

If you feel like the Bible doesn’t have anything new to say to you in your pain and suffering please pick up this book and read this chapter! Read page 106 where Matt talks about how he didn’t respond perfectly to the news he had cancer. How stricken he felt walking in to the homes of bereaved parishioners. He talks with so much realness and pain about how tough it was. But he also shares how because of living through those experiences, reading Ecclesiastes is deeper and richer for him now, he feels it. Matt wants us to rejoice fully in all that God has done for us in Christ, to avoid shallow rejoicing, in things that can be taken from us. And to get underneath where these good things come from in the first place! His hope at the end of the chapter is that we would be a person unshaken, no matter when sickness or death or disaster come knocking. That in Christ we would stand firm and rejoice.  This chapter is a good encouragement to feel our feelings and then to be quick to respond rightly to God.

The contributor for this month has blogged a tiny bit about the experience of losing her brother at 19. If you would like to read more click here.

Introducing 'The Scriptures Testify About Me. Jesus and the Gospel in The Old Testament' Edited by D.A. Carson

I have a confession to make. I love Christian conferences.  I love the crowds. I love the singing. And I love the talks.

The book that we’ll be reading together this month is a collection of the big talks given at The Gospel Coalition national conference in Chicago in April 2011. The speakers are all American bar one. And they are all, without exception, gifted preachers of God’s word.

This is a book worth reading slowly. Each chapter contains one talk. And if you have the time to take them in, over a few days or a week, the effect on how you come to view the Bible, all of it, may change. Chapter by chapter I felt it blow apart the way many view the Old Testament and in doing so made often neglected stories shine with deep glimpses of Christ.

Who is this book for?

The sermons are aimed at ministers but this is definitely not just a book for preachers. This is a book for anyone who has ever wondered how Jesus fits with the huge stories that are the Old Testament. For anyone who has never seen the gospel in there.  For anyone wondering what you do with the small and intimate stories, with the heart-rending poetry. For anyone thinking the Old Testament just seems so strange and different. So, for everyone!

I found this book did two remarkable things for me: First, it gave me a fuller picture of Christ. And second, it generated excitement to read the Old Testament for myself. Eight different voices take a turn at shining the torch at different spots in the Old Testament and finding Jesus there. They are able to do this well because each author writes from the viewpoint of a coherent over-arching story running right through the Bible: one that begins and ends with Jesus. I have been taught this Biblical metanarrative before, but I am less familiar with how it can be used to dig deep into smaller passages of the Bible like this book does. And for that I’m thankful.

A case for the gospel of Christ in the Old Testament

Whilst this is a collection of discrete essays, the first chapter is meant to be read first and provides a helpful overview of what is at issue if Christ is not preached with clarity from the Old Testament.

It is a popular misconception that the Old Testament is a separate and strange book that just doesn’t fit with the gospel of the New Testament. And this is the issue that Mohler Jr., the author of chapter 1, gets straight into. He does this by looking at the church landscape in America, with many ex-Christian or “Christian’ish” but not Biblically reformed and asks, why?  He makes a case that a large part of this is due to poor teaching of the Bible and in some cases total avoidance of teaching the Old Testament properly. He highlights how most Sunday school programs teach the Old Testament as a collection of moral fables “do this; do not do that” rather than as an overarching story with modern day Christians in mind!

Of course, as Mohler Jr. points out, the problem of the gospel not being preached properly and the hearers not listening is not just a modern problem, it is very old indeed.  And it is one which Jesus encountered first hand. Mohler Jr. goes on to expound the importance of preaching and hearing the gospel as the keys to eternal life and looks at how Jesus himself does this in John’s gospel, setting out his case like an attorney, with four key witnesses that support his claim that he truly is the Son of God.

What is brilliant about going through these proofs is how key the Old Testament is to Jesus’ own argument, something we can be prone to forget. And ultimately, how this testimony indicts those that choose not to receive it.

Burning hearts

The opening chapter concludes with a quote from Luke 24 that aptly summarises the importance of a book like this: As Jesus walks along the road to Emmaus with his unseeing disciples, (they don’t recognise him yet), “Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interprets for them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” (v27) The disciples describe the very feeling we as Christians often feel when the Bible is taught to us and truths resonate deeply within us but have not yet found their settling place, “Did not our hearts burn within us?” (v32)

I pray that we would have that experience as the lights are turned on and we see Jesus revealed in the pages of the Old Testament through the sermons in this book.

About our contributor:

Katie is married to Andrew and they have three lovely children. Together, they serve at their local Anglican church in Sydney’s inner west, a short walking distance from their house. Katie is an occasional writer, singer and baker. Looking after the kids full time is by far the best job she has ever had.