Confessions 3 -- Then I read the verses before the prophecies

Number 3 in my new series, Confessions of a Bible Know-It-All: 25 Ways I Changed My Mind.

1. I am not the "you" of the Bible. 
2. Try reading the verse before your favorite verse.
_______________________________
Confession #3: Then I read the verses before the prophecies 
1. My parents gave me a Thompson Chain Reference King James Bible when I graduated from high school. Aside from the Bible itself, my favorite page was a chart in the back that told the key Old Testament prophecies that were fulfilled in Jesus.

You have probably heard the argument: "It's impossible that all these predictions could be fulfilled in the same person by coincidence." It's an argument used to defend the inspiration of Scripture, the existence of God, and the divine identity of Jesus. Now I believe all those things. But I also feel like I was set up for a bit of an unnecessary crisis because of those arguments. 

It's not the Bible's fault. It's a casualty of that "first naivete" I mentioned in the last chapter.

2. The first hint of this came in a college class. The professor showed us Matthew 2:15: Jesus went down to Egypt as a child "that it might be fulfilled that which was spoken by the prophet, 'Out of Egypt I called my Son.'" 

Now, I had that chart in the back of my Bible. But I had never actually gone back to those passages to read the verses that came before and after them. I had just assumed they were straightforward predictions. I expected that, if I went back to Hosea 11:1, I would find something like, "When the Messiah comes, he will go down to Egypt, and then he will return so I can say that out of Egypt I called my son." Or something like that.

Then the professor had us go back to Hosea 11. It wasn't what I expected. It wasn't a prediction at all. And it certainly wasn't about the Messiah. Here's what the verse and the one after it say: "When Israel was a boy, I loved him, and from Egypt I called my son. The more they called to them, the more they went from their face. They sacrificed to Ba'als, and to idols they offered incense."

That was a surprise. The verse is about the Exodus -- in the past -- not about the Messiah in the future. And Jesus certainly didn't sacrifice to Ba'al or offer incense to idols. Clearly, the verse in context was not about Jesus at all.

This was a puzzle! I smiled at the time -- being the Bible know-it-all I was. I'll figure this out.

Except I didn't -- at least not in terms that fit the chart in the back of my Thompson Chain Reference Bible.

3. After my first year of seminary, this seeming discrepancy began to wear on me. In fact, as I was learning to read verses in the light of what came before and after them, I was finding more and more of a difference between how the New Testament used these verses and what they seemed to mean in their original books. It seemed like Matthew was reading Hosea incorrectly, and I didn't believe the Bible could have errors.

Spoiler alert: I don't think Matthew was in error. I think my expectations were in error. I expected these to be prediction-fulfillments. And it turned out they were instances of the New Testament authors reading the Old Testament in a "spiritual" or more-than-literal way. In other words, they were reading verses or segments of verses somewhat like I grew up reading memory verses. 

Let me explain. In the last chapter, I mentioned that, once words are uttered, they become distanced from the meanings their authors intended. [1] We can see meanings in emails, text messages, conversations that weren't what the writer or speaker intended. Relationships regularly get into conflict over these sorts of misinterpretations.

Growing up, my family expected the Holy Spirit to speak to us in the words of the Bible. Many American Christians read the Bible this way, expecting to hear a word from the Lord -- to get zapped by the Spirit while reading. We didn't think about the fact that we weren't reading the Bible in context for what it actually had meant. This unreflective reading is what we might call a "first naivete."

Ancient Jewish interpretation of the Bible often read its words in a similar way. Something about the biblical text triggered a truth in the reader's mind. In some ancient examples, they read the words of the prophets in relation to their current situation, much like Bible prophecy teachers still do today. [2]

Some Bible scholars of the early 1900s called this seeing a "fuller sense" in the text (sensus plenior in Latin). Even though Hosea 11:1 wasn't a prediction about Jesus, there is a parallel between Jesus and Moses in Matthew. Moses led Israel out of bondage in Egypt. Jesus leads us out of the bondage of our sin. You can see where, while Hosea 11:1 wasn't originally about the Messiah, there is a rough parallel.

4. Over time, I began to "change my mind" on how to see the way the New Testament read the Old Testament. The New Testament was not in error. It just used a different hermeneutic than the way I was learning to read the Bible in school. A hermeneutic is a way of interpreting something. 

In college and seminary, I was learning "inductive Bible study" or how to listen to the biblical text to let it tell me what it meant. That's also called exegesis, where you draw meaning out of the text. The biblical authors and I, growing up, often read the Bible "eisegetically." We read meanings into the text based on our traditions and theology. [3]

If your theology is good, it's not too bad to read the Bible this way. For one, the vast majority of Christians do and always have. We read the words using the Christian "dictionary" in our heads (as well as the dictionaries of the churches we go to). It's just not how to read the Bible if you want to know what it actually meant originally. 

As a side note, I had a Bible colleague who would tell students, "Matthew was inspired. He was allowed to read the Old Testament this way. You aren't." But, I think he has actually softened a little on this point over the years.

5. I end this chapter with a potentially shocking example. Isaiah 7:14. You probably know the verse because Matthew 1:23 reads it in relation to the virgin birth: "A virgin will become pregnant and will bear a son, and they will call his name Immanuel, which being interpreted is 'God is with us.'"

Again, I expected to go back to Isaiah 7:14 and find a prediction that the Messiah will be born of a virgin. As a memory verse, it can be read that way: "Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a young maiden has become pregnant, and she gave birth to a son. And she called his name Immanuel."

Hebrew tenses are not entirely about time, so the timing could be translated differently. However, the most natural way to take the verse is in relation to something that has already happened. Some modern translations have "virgin." Others have "young woman" (e.g., the RSV). At the time, I assumed these were the evil translations.

But who is this sign to? Eventually, I looked at the verses that came before and after 7:14. To be honest, there were names and places I didn't really know anything about. Who was Ahaz? Who was Rezin? Who was "Pekah the son of Remaliah"? Where was Syria? What was Ephraim?

Because I didn't know who and what these things were, it was easy to hear "blah blah blah" virgin birth "blah blah blah." And this was especially true in the King James Version, which printed each verse separately anyway.

6. So what is the context? 

This is the late 700s BC. The big threat to this region is Assyria, which will end up destroying the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 BC. Isaiah is a prophet in the southern kingdom of Judah.

The word from the Lord comes to the king of Judah, Ahaz, through the prophet Isaiah. Two kings from the north -- who will soon be obliterated -- are trying to force Ahaz to fight with them. From a human perspective, it makes some sense.

But Isaiah's word from God is not to do it. Ahaz doesn't want to listen. He makes up an excuse, something like, "I don't want to bother God."

But Isaiah insists. The Lord is going to give you a sign whether you want one or not. A young woman has become pregnant and given birth to a son. Verse 16 -- "before the boy knows how to refuse evil and choose the good, the land that you dread will be forsaken by the two kings."

Suffice it to say, I found this train of thought confusing when I was reading the verse in relation to the virgin birth. For one thing, Jesus' birth was 700 some years later. If this verse was a sign to King Ahaz, it wasn't a very good one. What good is a sign to you if it only happens 700 years after you're dead?

But, thought I, how could there have been another virgin birth in Isaiah's day?

Let me share the rest of the story. Virgins get pregnant all the time if they get pregnant the first time they have sex. Also, it isn't entirely clear that the Hebrew word 'almah here only refers to a virgin, although it's possible. So, it was possible that the verse referred to a perfectly natural birth originally.

Second, there are a couple young male children mentioned in these chapters of Isaiah. Isaiah has a son, for example, Maher-shalal-hash-baz (Isa. 8:3-4). Isaiah 8:4 sounds very much like the prophecy in Isaiah 7:16.

7. Get to the point, Ken. The point is that, in context, this was a prediction to King Ahaz. It was a prediction about a child who was born during his reign. That child was a sign to him. Before that child was old enough to tell the difference between good and evil, Ahaz's problem was taken care of.

This does not mean Matthew was in error, as I would have once thought. It means that Matthew was reading the verse in a fuller sense. He was reading the words in relation to Jesus in a "spiritual" way. And that's ok.

After being jolted out of my first naivete into reading these verses more in context, I eventually reached a "second naivete." I can accept that Matthew was inspired to read Isaiah the way he was. AND, I can accept that Isaiah was inspired to give the prophecy to Ahaz too with the verse's original meaning.

After all, it actually happened in the late 700s BC.

[1] The philosopher Paul Ricoeur called this dynamic, the "autonomous text" in Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning.

[2] For example, the Habakkuk commentary (1QpHab) among the Dead Sea Scrolls reads the words of Habakkuk in relation to the rise of Roman rule and influence in the region.

[3] Although they would likely deny it, there's a school of hermeneutics called "theological interpretation" that arguably does this. It tries to have its cake and eat it too, claiming to read the Bible in context while instead reading it in the light of its theology. Both readings are valid, but they are different interpretations.

Notes Along the Way -- Asbury 1.4: Evidence and Reason

Here's the previous bread crumb.

1. I hit a small crisis of faith at the end of my first year at Asbury. I was learning to read the text of the Bible in context. It felt very familiar because it was basically the application of the scientific method to interpretation. Given the literary and historical evidence, what is the most likely meaning of the text?

I have taught this method for the last thirty years at IWU and elsewhere. David Smith now travels around teaching it from church to church. People who love the Bible usually love it because it so obviously does its best to listen to the Bible and let it say what it says.

For me, it came with a problem. The more I listened to the text, the more it unraveled the biblical interpretations of my childhood. Indeed, the more it called into question some of the core assumptions I had about the Bible.

2. What day is the Sabbath? It’s clearly Saturday in the Old and New Testaments. I heard an ingenious interpretation once of the idiom, “the first of sabbaths” in Mark 16:2 and Matthew 28:1. The phase basically means the first day of the week. But one of the professors at Frankfort Bible College suggested it meant that these verses were declaring that Sunday—the first day of the week—was now the Sabbath. In other words, that Sunday after the resurrection was the “first of sabbaths” for Christians, switching the Sabbath day from Saturday to Sunday.

Ingenious!

Many of my former students will know that when I call something “ingenious” like this, it is a backhanded compliment. I’m really complimenting a person’s ability to take their intellect and use it to wiggle out of a clear interpretation of the text.

That was the challenge I faced at the end of my first year at Asbury. Would I approach the text with the goal of making it say what my tradition wanted it to say? Or would I go with the most likely conclusion? Would I “cook the books”? Or would I go with the evidence? That sounds easy until you get into some of the choices.

3. As I’ve mentioned, a key issue for me was the way the New Testament interpreted the Old Testament. It didn’t seem to follow the rules of inductive Bible study. The New Testament didn’t seem to interpret the Old Testament in context. The evidence seemed to say clearly to me, “The New Testament read the Old Testament in a spiritual, more-than-literal way.” At least that’s how I would later put it.

Isaiah 7:14 was not originally a prediction about a virgin birth 700 years later. In context, it was a sign to King Ahaz in the 700s BC about a child who would be born as a sign that Judah would survive the Assyrian threat. If it were only about the virgin birth, it wasn’t a very good sign to the very person to whom Isaiah was giving it. In that case, a sign for him would come 700 years after he was dead.

I found this dynamic repeatedly. Applying the rules of inductive method to the text often yielded straightforward results... that were different from the way the New Testament read the verses. This created a bit of a problem for me in my early days at Asbury.

4. Take Psalm 110:1: “Yahweh says to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’” This psalm was likely about the king of Judah. The psalmist was referring to Yahweh—the LORD in all caps—telling the king (the “lord”) that he would win in battle against his enemies. No problem.

My problem was that this is not the way the New Testament reads the psalm. Indeed, this verse might have been the central passage to help the earliest Christians interpret the resurrection. They took this verse to mean that God had enthroned Jesus as Lord after he rose from the dead (e.g., Acts 2:34-35). Indeed, in Mark 12:35-37, Jesus himself uses this verse to befuddle his debaters.

The twentieth century Paul Ricoeur had a concept that has since been helpful to me in interpretation. He spoke of a “first naïveté” when you don’t even realize that your interpretation isn’t reading in context. [1] Then you undergo some cognitive dissonance, and you realize your first interpretation was "incorrect." You gain some “critical distance” in your understanding. You move from a pre-modern to a modern understanding.

But then, he spoke of a “second naïveté,” when you realize that you can re-adopt your initial interpretation—not as what the text originally meant but as a more-than-literal reading. The text itself is not bound by its original meaning, so it is not wrong to read it differently. And you can do so with eyes wide open rather than without knowing you are doing it.

Another example is the way Acts 2:27 interprets Psalm 16. In Acts, Peter takes Psalm 16:10 in relation to Jesus staying in the grave. “You will not leave me in Sheol.” Read in its original context, the psalmist was likely saying that Yahweh would not let him die. God would not abandon him to the grave but would save him from his enemies.

But you could argue that Acts 2 was reading the verse in a “fuller sense,” a sensus plenior, as we mentioned in the previous chapter. On the Day of Pentecost, Peter hears the words in relation to Jesus—God would not leave Jesus in the realm of the dead after he died. Acts 2 takes the verse as a prophecy of resurrection.

5. Key in both of these interpretations is the assumption that David was the author of these psalms. The headings of the psalms call them psalms of David. But these headings were added when the psalms were collected—not when they were written. David didn’t title his own psalms, “A Psalm of David.” The editor of the psalms did. And if Psalm 137 is any indication, the final collection took place over 500 years after David.

For this reason, evangelicals have often not seen the headings of the psalms as necessarily inspired. There is a strong impulse of tradition to accept them, and perhaps most evangelicals do. But I was trained to think they could be viewed with an objective eye. [2]

Take Psalm 51. The tradition is that this is David repenting for his sins in relation to Bathsheba. It is a very strong preaching tradition and well known across the church. But, inductively, you get to verse 18—“Build the walls of Jerusalem.” Weren’t the walls of Jerusalem already built at the time of David? Yes, they were.

So, it raises the question. Might this verse actually fit the time after the Jews returned from Babylon when the walls of Jerusalem needed to be rebuilt? The psalm can indeed be read in this way. That is probably the consensus of most Old Testament scholars.

Of course, you will tick off a lot of people—including a lot of pastors—if you suggest such a thing. The traditional reading of the psalm is so strong, so often preached, that it is practically dogma. This is indeed a dynamic I have observed often. Our traditions about the Bible are usually far more important to us than the Bible itself. We get VERY upset when they are undermined by scholars, even if the text itself is compelling.

(I have often felt like a great “party pooper” as a teacher, so much so that I have often—more frequently than I would like to admit it—pulled my punches. As a “feeling” personality in Myers-Briggs, leaving my students feeling good about their faith was more important to me than giving them “the cold hard facts.” Contrast the "thinking" Bud Bence who often provoked faith crises in his teaching. :-) )

6. To be fair, there are plenty of places where the New Testament itself reasons under the assumption that David wrote most of the psalms. This was the tradition and assumption of the day. So we get into the question of the difference between the point of biblical statements and any cultural framework those points may come in. What is in the envelope of revelation, and what is actually being revealed?

This is scary stuff, and it was once very scary to me. I could see where these lines of thinking were going, and it was very unsettling. At one point my mother thought I was rebellious for seeming to always pick the opposite side than the one she lobbied for. But I did not experience myself that way. I experience myself as being drug "kicking and screaming" by the evidence and reason. 

I often turn to 2 Corinthians 12:2 as an example of revelation coming within the ancient assumptions of the biblical world. Paul talks about being taken up into the third sky or third heaven. We have examples of Jewish cosmology from the time (e.g., the Testament of Levi) that picture the heavens as layers of sky with God in the third sky—the highest heaven.

So, what is the "envelope" that revelation comes in here, and what is the revelation itself? The point of Paul’s comment is that he was taken into the very presence of God. I would argue that the picture of the universe here is the envelope. The way the heavens are structured is not Paul’s point. It is the way he expresses the point within his ancient worldview. 

We see the same thing in Philippians 2 when he speaks of every knee bowing before Christ—above the earth, on the earth, under the earth. Here is another ancient picture of the universe that is not the point. The point is that everything in the universe will acknowledge Jesus as Lord.

You are seeing the origins of my “incarnational” sense of hermeneutics. God meets us where we are and takes us from there. I concluded that this is how revelation worked with the authors of Scripture. God revealed truths to them from within their own ancient cultural frameworks, and he took them from there. This approach allowed me to let the text be the text while preserving Christian orthodoxy.

7. You can also see in my reflections here my attempt to process an inductive reading of the Bible over the years with the concerns of my evangelical community in mind. How can I affirm the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture and yet let the text speak for itself? 

To be frank, I have come to strongly dislike this question. What God thinks is what is true--not what a particular theological community insists must be true. I know that, at its best, the evangelical community is trying to guard the faith. But from a different point of view, it can be seen as resisting an honest search for truth, which is what God actually thinks. 

At the time, I didn’t find anyone to guide me through these questions. I’ve often wished I could go back in time to help myself at various points. There were those no doubt who could give me answers that didn’t ring true to the text. They tended to create more doubt in me than peace. There were probably those somewhat hidden voices who could have led me away from my faith community.

For me, the question was whether God wanted me to use my mind or not. Does God want me to be irrational as an act of obedience? Or is God a God of truth? Did God want me to exercise blind faith and reject what seemed to me to be the straightforward meanings of the text? Was it a test?

In the end, I decided that God was a God of truth. I decided that “all truth is God’s truth.” That doesn’t necessarily mean that all truths are obvious. Indeed, it is rational to decide, in a particular instance, to go against the evidence in one’s conclusion. The key, it seemed to me, was to be honest about it.

So many evangelical thinkers to me seemed to “cook the books.” They pretended to be following the evidence when in fact their (sometimes hidden) presuppositions were really steering the ship. They acted like the evidence demanded a verdict, but they were skewing the evidence in the direction they wanted it to go.

As I was heading into my second year at Asbury, I determined that I would let the most likely conclusion be my guiding star. Rather than use my intellect to see if it was possible to make the text say what my tradition wanted it to say, I would try to go with the most probable interpretations. I would become a scientist of the text and the truth, believing that God is truth and that the truth is what God believes—not what my tradition wants him to believe.

I have since come up with a twisted parable to illustrate the coherence between God and an evidentiary/logical approach to truth. Let’s say someone could sit down and prove to God that he did not exist. He is so aligned with the truth, he would say, “Fair enough,” and disappear.

Of course, this is a ridiculous thought experiment. But it is meant to show the complete alignment of God with rational and evidentiary truth. I know that is a controversial thought and some would no doubt argue that it places reason and evidence above God.

I disagree. The problem is not with God. It is with me. It is with me as a knower. God is not nervous about his own existence. The problem is my egocentric predicament, a concept I learned in Dr. Bross’ philosophy class at Central Wesleyan College. I am stuck inside my head. The world exists, but I see it “through a glass darkly” (1 Cor. 13:12, KJV).

I suppose that decision set me on a path of some deconstruction. Traditions were now open to critique. Everything was open to critique. Over the years, I have certainly not been the smartest of scholars. But I would like to think that I am one of the most honest of scholars. And that has perhaps made me seem smarter than I actually am at times. Because--at least in my heart of hearts--I try to let the chips fall where they may.

[1] Especially in his work, The Symbolism of Evil (Yale University, 1967).

[2] We will get into this sticky wicket more in a later chapter. What do we do with the fact that the New Testament authors seem to assume traditional authorship of the Old Testament books?

Docherty 2: Previous Scholarship

This weekend I'm trying to speed read Susan Docherty's book on the use of the OT in Hebrews. About two chapters to skim today.

Introduction

1. Chapter 2 is the predicable history of research chapter. We expect this chapter of any dissertation to conclude something like, "After looking at what everyone else has done, I conclude that my research project needs to be done." In that sense, this was an easy chapter to skim and mostly skip. However, it does provide a nice overview of some classic commentaries and works on Hebrews.

2. First she goes through major commentaries with a view to how they analyze Hebrews' use of the OT and how they engage the Greek text of the OT. Delizsch, Westcott, Moffatt, Windisch, Spicq, F. F. Bruce, Michel, Attridge, Lane, Ellingworth, deSilva, and Koester.

Then she goes through "theological and structural studies" of Hebrews. This begins with a claim that is not really defended. "It seems improbable that a valuable study of it [Hebrews] can be undertaken which does not engage seriously with the author's use of scripture" (51).

I'm rolling this section over in my head. Is she assuming that Hebrews' use of Scripture must play a role in its literary structure? Certainly some have proposed that, but it seems far from self-evident. And on that macro-level, I'm not sure it would play into her focal task. We shall see.

She then looks at Lehne, Nairne, Isaacs, Vanhoye, D'Angelo, Swetnam, I did not read this section although I know these names. Several of them are mentioned in my dissertation too. I'm not sure how this section contributes to her task.

3. The last section of the chapter gets down to business. This one is material to the project. "Studies of the Interpretation of the Old Testament in Hebrews." She looks at Caird, Markus Barth, Anthony Hanson, Kenneth Thomas, Friedrich Schröger, Cecil McCullough, Dale Leschert, Stephen Motyer, and George Guthrie.

I was struck in this chapter with the age of the sources. This dissertation was submitted in 2007 but its engagement with scholarship barely reaches into the 2000s.

One of the most important debates to surface in this section is whether Hebrews 1) feels free to intentionally alter the LXX text in front of the author (Kenneth Thomas), 2) sticks pretty closely to the Vorlage at hand (Cecil McCullough), or 3) perhaps chooses the exemplar before him that best fits his purposes (this could be her position).

A key feature of this debate, in my opinion, are the theological biases of the interpreter. For example, it is very difficult for some interpreters to handle anything but biblical authors who are as concerned to stick with the precise text and historical/contextual interpretation as they are. As someone from the holiness tradition, this is not a beef of mine and so I have long believed I am in a better position to be objective about such things than some others. You'll thus forgive me for completely ignoring the work of Dale Leschert.

4. She draws four trends from Guthrie's 2003 review important in concluding the chapter. First, more appreciation is needed for the complexity of the textual state of the Septuagint. Second, she believes the OT citations in Hebrews are the key to the structure of the letter. Third, more study needs to be done on the exegetical techniques used by Hebrews, and finally, the hermeneutical axioms of the author need to be identified.

NT Use of the OT

I'm making a couple new PowerPoint slides on the NT's use of the OT.  Here's a draft:

1. The NT drew on the OT for its sense of the story in which the early Christians were located.

• From Genesis, Paul takes Adam and Abraham.
• Other elements of the common Jewish story (exodus, kingship of David, exile)

2. The NT drew much of the eschatological context of Jesus' and John the Baptist's ministry from Isaiah.

• return from exile passages (Isaiah 40, 52-53, 61)

3. The NT read many Psalms and parts of Isaiah in relation to Jesus as Christ.

• Parts of Jesus life and ministry (Matthew's pesher, Mark's passion)

4. Early Christian prophets may have heard instructions through pesher interpretations

• e.g., Agabus and the famine, 1 Corinthians 14 

5. Paul's arguments over the inclusion of the Gentiles seemed to play out in Genesis.

• debates over the interpretations of certain passages (e.g., his Sarah and Hagar allegory)

6. Arguments over the function of the Law (from circumcision to tabernacle)

7. Passages like Daniel 11 played in expectations of the future.

• abomination that causes desolation

8. Some awareness of Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha

• Sirach, Wisdom, Enoch

Types of Interpretation

• some (especially Matthew) is a kind of "pesher" interpretation, where a text from one context comes to have a hidden prophetic meaning relating to the time of the NT
• some allegory
• some transferred placement of words on to Jesus' lips
• we can use the word typology as a descriptive term if we recognize that this was not a category in use at the time

Did you know? (Psalm 45 and the King's Wedding)

... that Psalm 45 calls the king of Judah "God" in the middle of a psalm celebrating his wedding?

Part 1: Getting a Sense of the Context
Verse 1 announces that the psalm is about the king, which--duh--anyone hearing it when it was written would have immediately understood to be about the guy that was their king.

Verse 10 addresses a woman, who is told to forget her father's house.  Verse 11 tells us the king thinks she's hot.  In verse 13 we find out she is a princess, and in verse 14 she is led to the king, with many maidens following her.  Then verse 16 tells us the king is going to have some children who will become successful princes.

No question what the most likely interpretation of this psalm in its historical context is.  The king's getting married, and this is a wedding psalm.  To think that an audience at the time this was written would think anything different is to be an incompetent exegete, incompetent at inductive Bible study.

Part 2: The King as god
So now we take this clear context and go back to verses 6-7.  "Your throne, O God, endures forever..."  Following the train of thought from the beginning of the psalm to this point, the king is clearly addressed as "god," following standard practice of the Ancient Near East considering kings as representatives of the gods, as divine sons (cf. 2 Sam. 7:14, which is about Solomon in context).  Indeed, verse 7 goes on to distinguish the king as god from God as the king's God.  The king is thus only god in a somewhat derivative and somewhat figurative sense.

Part 3: Christ as God
Hebrews 1:8-9 then, as the NT regularly does, read these verses with a "fuller sense" and redirects them in relation to Christ, who of course is God for Hebrews in a greater sense than the king is god in Psalm 45.

Did you know?

Does God directly cause suffering...

I've noticed that some bloggers, like some preachers, have a tendency to "preach from the same passage" over and over.  I know I have.  There are some topics I'm tired of because I've mentioned them over and over--and I'm sure you are even moreso. I have had a couple of instances these last few weeks, however, that give examples of old topics, namely, that the OT read in context is not yet Christian.

One such occasion had to do with the possibility that a certain external person at some point might teach a course in a non-religion context at IWU on suffering and disability. This person uses a book by John Piper for her theology piece: Suffering and the Sovereignty of God.  I have advocated for the Arminian position also being represented if the course ever materializes.

Our position is that God may sometimes cause suffering directly, but that God's normal mode of operation is to allow humans to act freely and, I would say, to allow the creation to follow through its normal course of cause and effect.  As humans act freely and as the creation plays out cause and effect, suffering happens.  God allows it, signs off on it.  Yes, he's sovereign.

But the whole Purpose Driven Life, "what is God trying to tell me by causing me to get a pimple," is narcissistic clap-trap.  Yes, you can probably learn something valuable from breaking your arm, maybe even getting a pimple.  But God doesn't micro-manage his creation.  Grow up, baby head, and take some responsibility for your own actions.

The potential visitor on suffering was quite willing to include the Arminian perspective and apparently already did, but without a real sense of how to justify it.  Three passages were offered with a sense that they were pretty clear to her: Exodus 4:11, Psalm 94:9, and Isaiah 45:7.  Does not God directly decide to make people blind?

My response was that one cannot explain the differences between certain OT passages and other biblical passages unless one supposes a development in understanding on topics like this.  I mentioned James 1:13 which says God does not tempt people, while the OT clearly says that he has led people to evil on various occasions (e.g., 2 Sam. 24:1; 1 Sam. 18:10).  The only way to find unity between these two passages is to conclude that these OT passages do not understand God as fully as the NT does.

My standard example of such development is to compare 2 Sam. 24:1 with 1 Chronicles 21:1.  In the first, God incites David to take a census.  1 Chronicles says it was Satan who incited him.  What we see unfolding in the history of ideas is a distancing of God from the direct causation of evil.  In the NT, we have Satan and demons who, in addition to human flesh and desire, tempt and do evil. In the earlier parts of the OT, God is given credit for the whole sha-bang.

A contextual reading of the OT is thus not yet Christian unless it is read in the light of the NT and a mature Christian understanding as it unfolded in the first few centuries of Christianity.  A Christian reading of the OT will filter its application through the NT and not directly apply it.