David’s Hushed Beginnings

Is David’s origin to be questioned?

My Old Testament reading had come back around to 1 Samuel, to the point where God tells Samuel to go anoint another person to be king in place of Saul. Of course, many of us are familiar with the basic account of David, when he got called up in front of Samuel and God says, “This is the one, anoint him!”

A number of subtle points to note here, if not hooked up with a few other tidbits we find, would be overlooked completely; valuable points to grab from looking more closely at some questions raised by David’s history, and a conclusion that might be shocking to some. In fact, I personally wondered a long time about David’s youth and upbringing.

Let’s set the stage

After mourning over Saul, Samuel is told by God to fill his horn with oil and go to Bethlehem of Judah “to Jesse the Bethlehemite: for I have provided me a king among his sons.” (1 Sam. 16:1) God told Samuel specifically it would be one of Jesse’s sons. Now, when Jesse is told to come to Samuel's sacrifice, he is specifically told to bring his sons to that sacrifice. “And he sanctified Jesse and his sons, and called them to the sacrifice.”

But, as you may well know, Samuel went through the lineup of Jesse’s sons at first and the LORD told him, “it’s not any one of these.” And so Samuel asked Jesse, “Are these all your children?”
You would think that after all the trouble of preparing for a formal sacrificial gathering and meal, Jesse would not inadvertently overlook any of his sons. Especially since the word of what Samuel had done with Agag had gotten around (verse 4). Jesse seemingly goes, “Uh... oh! There is one more... uh, the youngest. He’s in the backyard with the sheep.”

Now Jesse was a land owner, and apparently of not just a small amount of land. You may recall he was the grandson of Ruth and Boaz. Boaz owned lots of land and had lots of servants handling his harvests.

So, Jesse, you would suppose, had plenty of servants to go and deal with things such as sheep and harvests as well. Why was David taken out of the family circle to go be with the sheep?

David and his brothers

Let’s look at a further incident. David is sent down to the Israelite troops camping out opposite of the Philistines to see his brothers. Because of Goliath’s taunting, David asks what the Israelite army is doing about it, and his brother turns on him. “Eliab’s anger was kindled against David, and he said, Why camest thou down hither? and with whom hast thou left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know thy pride, and the naughtiness of thine heart; for thou art come down that thou mightest see the battle.”

That seems rather uncalled for. What made Eliab react so angrily at David, and accuse him of a wicked heart? (and belittle the work of his shepherding!) Was he just jealous of David having been anointed rather than himself? Could it be something had been in Eliab's opposition to David perhaps longer than that?

Let’s take a look at a familiar Psalm, number 23, about “the LORD is my shepherd.” The fifth verse says, “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.” Now, when was David anointed with oil? When he was anointed by Samuel is the only recorded incident. A sacrifice was usually accompanied by a meal in honor of God, thus the table. Tell me, who were the enemies David is speaking of? Could they have been David’s own brothers? Why would they be considered his enemies?

Here’s another verse; Psalm 27:10: “When my father and my mother have abandoned me, the LORD will take care of me.” Why did David feel they abandoned him?

So, here’s what I see so far: Jesse shuts David out to the servitude task of taking care of the sheep, and initially doesn’t include—or acknowledge—him among his sons; his brothers treat him as an enemy, rather than a beloved brother.

What do you think is going on here, simple sibling rivalry?

Now, it may be a long shot, but I am thinking that if you can tie together a loosely connected string of facts by the fewest explanations, you may have a reasonable solution to the questions they raise.

Other Family Members of David

David did have some sisters. They are mentioned many times in 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 Chronicles. Their names were Abigail and Zeruiah. And guess what? They were daughters of someone named Nahash. Now one concordance I have says this was their mother, and this would be a natural conclusion, assuming Jesse was their father. The text doesn’t say that, however.

Now I don’t know about you, but I think it would be an awful name for a girl, the darling of some mother and father, to be named Nahash. At least, not for a Hebrew name. That word means snake. Would you want to be called a snake? Especially when you keep in mind what happened in Eden. Would that make you endearing to others, particularly a potential husband? I would be willing to contend whether that is even a female name.

Now there was one other person named Nahash mentioned in the bible, and surprise! he is contemporary in the time of Samuel and David. He was an Ammonite king. What Nahash meant in the Ammonite tongue, I have no idea. In his first mention, he attacks a city on the outskirts of Israel, and Saul comes to rescue it from him. So there was no friendship between Ammon and Israel.

However, when we see him mentioned in relation to David, it says he showed favor to David. Why should he do that?

In fact, read it in its context of 2 Sam. 10, and it is revealing.

Hanun, the son of Nahash, becomes king of Ammon and David sends a delegation of goodwill to him, saying, “I will show kindness to Hanun just as his father showed kindness to me.” (vs 2) However,  Hanun and his advisors eyed this with suspicion, and shamed his ambassadors.

Hanun's advisors didn't think David wanted to honor his father, but “to search the city, to spy it out, and to overthrow it.” OK. Why did they think that? I mean, back then, if a king wanted to conquer a country, he made that pretty plain up front.

Is it possible something in particular about David made them suspicious?  What if by some relationship to Nahash, he had some claim,  albeit remote, to the Ammonite throne?
“TJ,” you say, “You're going out on a limb!” And perhaps a real thin one!

Jewish tradition

Know it or not, there is substantial tradition in Jewish midrash that David had an illegitimate birth. Some teaching even proposes David’s mother's name, and other circumstances otherwise not given us in the biblical record. And how the rabbis of the midrash were able to get those details beyond the biblical texts is beyond me.

Still, their acknowledgement, however hushed, of such a possibility is significant to match up with the biblical clues.

A verse in proper perspective?

Does this verse sound familiar? “Behold,  I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.” Psalm 51:5.

Now, when we hear or read this verse, we have a culturally imposed meaning in our heads, because we usually only hear it during a sermon about our fallen nature, that David was declaring we are all naturally sinful.

However,  we need to be careful about taking a personal confession and turning it into a universal principle; turning a me into a we.

Really look at what David is actually, literally saying. He is saying he was conceived and brought to birth sinfully. Now, if he is being conceived, who is doing the sinning? He says his mother sinned. Now, in context, David implies that had an influence on his wicked behavior he confessed. But the verse needs to have an originally intended meaning for David, and I think it was deeply personal, rather than broadly theological.

So, it looks like these many points have a connection for David’s beginnings.

Conclusions

I’m thinking of two points to take from this possible view of David’s life.

One, consider that David was also called a man after God’s own heart. (1 Samuel 13:14) From his youth, David never ceased seeking a pure and intimate relationship with God.

So, no matter what your beginning was like, where you came from, you can still be close and real with God. Keep this in your heart: God still wants to be with you, and for you to be close to him.

Secondly, after David was anointed by Samuel,  he is called the son of Jesse. (1 Samuel 17:12) In light of the possibility he was illegitimate, this is significant.  Perhaps it means that David was fully accepted into Jesse’s family. Through Samuel’s annointing, it was a rebuke to Jesse that he held back on that acceptance for so many years.

If you have a mixed family, or you are adopted, it is God’s purpose that each of you know and feel a full acceptance into your family by every member. Family goes beyond just the natural family in God’s eyes.

On Searching Hearts and Anthropomorphisms

An Anthropomorphism Claimed

During one Wednesday evening prayer time our pastor mentioned a comment on some statement or verse (I do not recall what exactly) that it was an anthropomorphism regarding God’s knowing or searching hearts. Was he implying by his comment is that we should not take it as faithfully as it was stated in the verse? What he was getting at I was not sure.

I didn’t say anything because I was trying to process that statement. I find myself questioning the extent of what is an anthropomorphism or how far we take the scriptural descriptions of God’s activities and self-disclosures to man as such. I think this is important because we as evangelicals aim to take the bible at face value, that is, that what the text appears to say is what it should mean, once we take the context and cultural environs into consideration.

An Anthropomorphism Identified

First of all, it is apparent that God reveals himself to man through the bible using all sorts of literary methods; he uses metaphor, simile, parable, illustration, hyperbole, and anthropomorphism, as well as others. All of these, I hope you would agree, he used to convey the reality of what he is like to those with whom he desires a relationship, in a way they can understand and be accurate and as close to reality as possible.

The Jews were a simple agricultural people, in general without a high degree of learning, so as simple a way of conveying himself to them was what he was aiming for. I don’t think that means God doesn’t reveal much or a profound degree of truth. By no means. The truth God conveyed is simple in its approach, but still chock full of inexhaustible depth. It’s kind of a paradox. But what I think this implies is that God’s method was honest, as direct as possible and candid; and meant to be grasped without a lot of double-thinking. Like, “God said this, but he really meant this.”
“Well, why didn’t he just say what he meant?”

Obvious as anthropomorphisms would be such as “the arm of the Lord,” “upon eagles wings,” and so forth. These are things explaining and describing the way God acted, needing an image that we could relate to. However, is not the image God describes nonetheless accurate to the nature of his activity?

An Anthropomorphism Analyzed?

What about such things as “I was crushed by their adulterous heart which has departed from Me,” (Ezek. 6:9) or “I am sorry that I have made them?” (Gen. 6:7) How are we to think of these and others; as direct statements honestly revealing God’s heart; or as some kind of anthropomorphic accommodation to man’s limited mind, where in reality God is not close to this reaction?

Take where God says “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,’ says the LORD. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And my thoughts than your thoughts.’” (Isa 55:8-9) I take notice God says “higher” rather than “other” or “alien.” I think God means his level of thinking and acting (of course in holiness and so forth) is way above us, but not to say it is distinctly different in process or nature. After all, as we are fond of saying, man is made in God’s image. That must mean there is a basis upon which we can relate to God and he to us.

I am thinking that any kind of anthropomorphism is not God relating to us something totally different than he is, but that any anthropomorphism is bringing the intensity of his actions and reactions down to our level. In other words, for example, God’s feelings of hurt by man’s sin is infinitely more intense than we could ever comprehend, so it is toned down when he communicates it to us, so it can then “fit” into our mind’s eye.

An Anthropomorphism Searched?

Throughout the scriptures it says of God that he “searches all hearts and understands all the intent of the thoughts.” (1 Chron. 28:9) Indeed, “I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways.” (Jer. 17:10) And, “I am He who searches the minds and hearts.” (Rev 2:23) I take note it never lays emphasis that God simply knows the heart of man by some kind of intuition, but that he knows because he searches the heart of man. In fact he does so continually, as Job complained of, saying “Will you leave me alone one minute so I can swallow?” (Job 7:19) Now I could not explain in a short space any kind of philosophy as to how or why this is so, but doesn’t the scripture say so consistently? And why would we say this is only an anthropomorphism? And if it is, then what does God actually do? It is simply describing the activity of God, what he does.

The scripture is rife with statements declaring that God searches out the thoughts and mind and heart of people. If this does not reflect reality, then how should we understand it? Here’s how I make it out, and please excuse me if I go out on a limb and even sound heretical; I simply aim to be candid about this.

God is distinct from his creation. This ought to be an agreed upon declaration. Otherwise we need to say we may be pantheists, if we say the creation is part of God or some such idea. Even though the truth of God’s omnipresence is accepted, he is still different from his creation; it is outside of his existence. So, then, how can he know it? Not in the same way he knows himself, by simply looking into his own mind, by intuition, essentially. He must need to examine it as something outside  himself, much as we need to examine any object outside of ourselves, to gather information about its current characteristics and state of nature. So it does not bother me to assume that God may constantly actually be “taking readings” of all his creation over every possible millisecond.

And I don’t think that is an anthropomorphism; it simply describes God’s real activity.

Hell Investigation part 1

I recorded this simple, and, I know, boring, walk through Matthew investigating Jesus’ own words about the future state of those who do not repent and put their faith in Jesus Christ. If you endure through listening to it, feel free to comment on it.

God bless!

Corroboration on Eternal Punishment

I have begun a project to read through as much of the Early Church Fathers as I can, and who knows how long this may take, along with everything else I try to keep up on. The reason for this is to see what teachings are prominent in the Fathers up through Augustine, who, from what I understand from many other sources, was the great innovator of doctrine.

So far I am currently on Justin Martyr, who is mid to late 2nd century, during some of the Roman persecutions of Christians, and apparently the Jews still persecuted Christians where they were able at that time.

Currently, if you are not aware, there is a great upswelling of debate within evangelical Christianity in the West on several topics, some of which are absolute foreknowledge, eternal security, and the age old Universalism, which is where people teach that Hell, if, they say, there actually is one, is not eternal. As far as I am concerned, all you need to do is revive the arguments that Charles Finney gave in answer to the Universalists of his day to adequately dispatch their claims.

Most of the arguments out there also will revolve on the meaning of the words for eternal in the Greek New Testament and so forth. But the most proposed reason that Hell is said not to be eternal is because an eternity for so short a time (the average of 80 years) of sinning seems so unjust and unloving for such a God of infinite love to give any sinner.

(By the way, there is just as much discussion over the annihilation of the unrepentant rather than any kind of suffering at all. I may give my thoughts on that in another blog post down the road.)

I don’t have time to go over the whole ground and I am not the Greek expert to handle the language issues (although, if eternal life is eternal, then why isn’t eternal punishment eternal?).

But I will just spell out the following thoughts.

• If Jesus died to take away our sins and open the way for eternal life through faith in him, why go through all that suffering when all you have to do is let every sinner go through Hell until their debt to heavenly society is paid? What is it worth, and what is the real value God puts on the happiness of those who will live holy?
• If the unrepentant are sent to Hell for their, say, billion or so years of suffering, then they get to come out for the rest of eternity, what is the means by which they will become repentant? How many murderers and rapists come out of prison reformed by the endurance of their time?
• If we as Christians repent of our sins, submit to God in faith to love and serve him by Jesus Christ, and we are saved by grace, what is the basis on which the unrepentant who, supposedly, get let out of Hell, get to come into Heaven? Wouldn’t that be salvation by justice? Is there any mention of that in the Bible?
• What will be the attitude of a sinner coming out of Hell after his time, and being let into Heaven on account of him having served his time? I would hate to think he would be like many  getting out of prison, saying, “I’ve done my time, I deserve to get into Heaven now.”

Anyway, I just wanted to point out here, that as far as my meager reading of the early Fathers so far, I find all agreeing and mentioning it very frequently that the unrepentant will be in eternal fire just as the righteous will be in eternal life.

Here’s one quote from Justin Martyr:

And we have learned that those only are deified (in Justin’s mind, I think that means brought to live with God) who have lived near to God in holiness and virtue; and we believe that those who live wickedly and do not repent are punished in everlasting fire.  First Apology, Chapter 21.

Now, of course, Justin also insists it is through faith in Christ Jesus that one lives holy. So I wonder how that speaks to unconditional eternal security (you know, once saved, always saved, which idea is only just over a hundred fifty years old, and a perversion of the Calvinist doctrine of Perseverance of the Saints—another issue down the road, perhaps).

But the consistent teaching of the early church (and the Bible, I posit) is the eternal nature of the future of the unrepentant who die in their sins. Just make sure that is one thing you don’t do.

The Father and the Son Distinguished

As briefly as I can, I will put this one out there (what blogs were originally all about, right?).

This verse has been coming to my mind over the last few days, and coming back. I think it is one of the verses that can speak to the issue of Jesus Only or the Modalist view of God, that says there is only one person in God, and the three designations, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are just manifestations of the one God. I found this teaching close to home where I live, where one of the children's pastors in a very large growing church is teaching this to the children as part of their baptism catechism.

Modalism (the view of United Pentecostals and others) lays great emphasis on the unity of God, but really overlooks the distinctions of the persons of the Godhead, representing the Scriptures as showing God simply manifesting himself to man in three different modes; insisting that God exists as one single solitary person. Modalists try to say that the view of the Trinity is really a polytheistic view, and Trinitarians cannot escape the charge of having three gods.

The concept of the Trinity historically has been the best explanation that Christianity has been able to give for the Scriptural truths that there is only one God, but that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are spoken of as distinct “persons” from one another, and yet are attributed the titles and attributes of Deity.

This verse I refer to is John 1:18. In the NIV (New International Version) I own, it says: “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.” OK, I see this as kind of weak in translation, which is why a newer version of the NIV has it a little differently. But note in here the distinction between the Father and the Son. The Son is at the Father’s side, which means he’s separate from the Father as a personality in existence.

A closer translation is the NKJV (New King James Version) which reads, “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.” Here, we have the phrase “in the bosom of the Father,” which seems to indicate very close intimacy. Still, a Jesus Only person may point out the use of “in” the bosom of the Father. Isn’t that like emanating from within the Father, i.e., the same origin?

Let’s look at a more literal translation: “God no one hath ever seen; the only begotten Son, who is on the bosom of the Father—he did declare.” YLT98 (Young’s Literal Translation) Notice that literally, the Greek doesn't place the Son inside the Father, but on him. The Son is in the most intimate embrace of the Father, and that’s about as close as he can get without being the Father. Get that?

No where does the Scripture say that the Son is the Father, or vice versa, in any sense. I think a solid meditation on Romans 8 can show the distinctions between the persons of the Godhead as well.

Five Minutes with a Bible Study App

I just want to let you know how easy it is to do a simple bible study while you are at your computer, or even on your smartphone. All the while, like me, you can be listening to Stryper on Spotify or something similar.

Here goes. First of all, what brings this up is a discussion with someone about what the phrase “the Word of God” might mean, for it would seem that somewhere out there in the mass of bible teaching, there are some who teach it as distinctively one thing. This is a reminder that we need to make sure we check everything out in the Word, er, I mean, the bible. 

I mean, we surely can, and should, listen to our Sunday morning teachers, but we are still told by Jesus and the Apostles in the New Testament to check out what we are taught against the written Word (there I go again!).

So that’s what I decided to do a few nights ago. It only took me about five minutes. How? A simple search using one of the free Bible reference and study applications available from the internet. Some are downloads, some are online sites. Either way, most allow you to search for words and phrases. This takes even less time than looking up verses in a concordance, such as Young’s or Strong’s, which are still great resources though.

So I used one of the apps simply called Bible Study App by Olive Tree. Another I use sometimes is Online Bible by Cross Country Software. Both would work just fine for my phrase search.

So when I opened Bible Study App, I then chose Edit > Find and entered with quotes “word of God” to see what would come up. Simple enough. Then what did I have to do? Simply scroll down the list of results and read each one in its context, which BSA gave enough of. Then I just had to do some thinking about each one and see what the overall usage of that phrase might disclose. 

You could do this for yourself and check the same facts out that I think I figured out. Here’s what I concluded:

• The term “word of God” refers in general to any kind of revealed truth or revelation from God, whether it is by the word of a prophet, directly spoken by God to man, a written source (Torah, other OT writings, Pauline letters), or a direct revelation of God to us by his Son, Jesus Christ.

• The phrase was commonly used throughout the New Testament (especially by Luke) and referred both to the written scriptures, and revelation from God through the teaching of the New Testament Apostles, prophets and teachers. This would make sense, since the completion of the New Testament writings had not been accomplished yet.

• It says that Jesus himself spoke and taught the word of God to the crowds who came to hear him. So if the only thing you can call the word of God is Jesus, then Jesus was speaking himself to the crowd, which seems rather absurd.

• Jesus said that the seed in his first parable is the word of God. So it means something other than Jesus himself. It is also spoken of by Jesus as something we hear and do.
• In one place Jesus equates the word of God with the Scriptures (John 10:35).

• The word of God is our main offensive weapon in spiritual warfare, coupled with prayer (Eph. 6:17).

• Jesus is called the Word of God. But you can see it is not an exclusive phrase only applied to Jesus. However, as one of his names it declares something special about his place and ministry to the world. I’ll get back to that in a minute.

• Similar phrases found in context would be “the word of the Lord,” “your word (O Lord),” and so forth. Psalm 119 is rife with those in reference to God’s written word in the focus of its writer.

In conclusion, I think the words of Jesus in his priestly prayer, “your word is truth” is very fitting. When the bible refers to the word of God, it in general means any truth revealed by God, or in other words, divine revelation. As a bible-believing christian, I would say the only reliable and complete revelation we have given to us to stand on, that can be verified and referred to by anyone, is the scriptures, containing the Old and New Testaments. This for centuries, in fact since the New Testament times and before by the Jews, was called the Word of God, because of the belief that it is truly divine revelation.

The final thing to conclude: Jesus is called the Word of God as one of his titles because as the incarnate Son of God, he is the fullest revelation of God given to us. While he walked on earth, he, as it is described by John, exhibited the character and nature of the Father to those who followed him.

I feel pretty confidently about my conclusions. Not because I have such great brains (hardly). Only because this five minute look at some scriptures, being fairly easy to get a good search of phrases from a bible study computer application, makes this kind of information accessible.