Non-complementary relationships are a bad thing

In contrast to the loving and supporting wife I described Samson's mother as, Samson himself didn't fair so well in love.

His first bride he chose from among the Philistines, a people group that was oppressing the Israelites at the time. She betrayed him shortly after their marriage, prompting him to go on a murdering spree. Her father, figuring Samson was too angry with her to forgive her, gave her away to "the friend who had attended [Samson] at his wedding" (Judges 14:20). This prompted Samson to go on an arson spree. Which prompted the Philistines, angry at Samson, to burn his wife and her father. Which prompted another murderous outrage from Samson. Sheesh.

After dallying with prostitutes, Samson meets the infamous Delilah. Delilah — working as an agent of the Philistine rulers — tries repeatedly to get Samson to reveal to her the secret of his great strength. And he repeatedly makes a fool of her by feeding her false answers to that question. But the Scriptures record that Delilah keeps pressing. I think Judges 16:15-16 pretty much sums up their whole relationship:

Then she said to him, "How can you say, 'I love you,' when you won't confide in me? This is the third time you have made a fool of me and haven't told me the secret of your great strength." With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was tired to death.

Given the relationship his own parents had, how in the world did Samson manage to go so wrong when choosing partners?

Complementary relationships are no bad thing

I found this bit from Judges 13:21-23 humorous today. The parents of the yet-unborn Samson are just realizing that lately they've been conversing with an angel of God.

When the angel of the Lord did not show himself again to Manoah and his wife, Manoah realized that it was the angel of the Lord. "We are doomed to die!" he said to his wife. "We have seen God!" But his wife answered, "If the Lord had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and grain offering from our hands, nor shown us all these things or now told us this."

The Pilato translation into modern language:

The next time the angel of the Lord came to visit Manoah and his wife, Manoah recognized him as angelic and began to freak out. "Omigosh! It's all over for us -- we've seen God!" But his wife maintained her ability to be rational and calmly replied, "Chill out, Sweetheart. If God was going to zap us, he wouldn't have wasted so much time and energy on us."

Thank you, God, for spouses who can normalize our occasional bouts of irrationality.

Q4H: Was the Holocaust a punishment from God?

Today's Bible reading covered Deuteronomy 28-30. It was a hard read, both in terms of the subject matter and the somewhat dry and repetitive writing style. It basically boils down to about 100 verses of God telling the nation of Israel through His servant, Moses, that if they are obedient, things will go well for them; if they aren't, life will be hell. The imagery is so intense, the warning from God so strong, and the foretold methods of discipline so harsh, that I found myself thinking about the Holocaust. Was the Holocaust -- in which millions and millions of Jews were tortured and killed -- a judgment from God of the sort that is foretold in these verses?

Israel's history is filled with repeated cycles of, as my pastor recently put it, "sin, suffering, supplication, and salvation." In and out of slavery, conquered by one nation after the other, the history of the Old Testament tells the tale of a nation that can't keep its eyes on its God, and an extremely jealous God who acts harshly against His chosen people not to "pay them back", but to "bring them back" to Him. But is the Holocaust too harsh even for God?

I Googled around a bit trying to find out what others thought about this question. One of the top hits was an article that claims if this was punishment, it's an unjust one that doesn't fit the crime (or perhaps any crime imaginable). It also points to things like the original Egyptian enslavement which doesn't appear to be a punishment for any particular thing, either. Sometimes, God just does what God does because He's God, and we can't possibly understand His purposes. The article wraps up with:

In our individual lives and in our view of history, we have a choice concerning how we wish to relate to G‑d. We can see Him as that Big Meany in the Sky and interpret accordingly. Or we can see a deep relationship happening between Man and G‑d — something we cannot always fathom, but believe in with unalterable faith. Torah gives you that freedom. In which world do you want to live?

My good friend Karl let me borrow a book some time ago entitled Who Wrote the Bible?, which (like many such scholarly books) points to multiple authors of the Pentateuch whose writings were later woven together and attributed to Moses. One of the most memorable things the author notes, though, is that if you separate the various contributing texts from one another, and read them individually, you no longer see this dichotomy in God's nature of being both compassionate and judgmental. One text will consistently describe the compassionate Abba Father God; another takes the "Big Meany in the Sky" approach. But clearly they all are talking about the very same God.

So I wonder, too, how much of what we attribute to God's nature comes exactly from what we want Him to be? How many Christians desperately need to believe in a loving God that won't zap them with lightning when they fail, thereby relaxing the standards they feel compelled to live up to? How many atheists desperately need to believe that the God of the Jews is cruel and unjust and therefore can't reasonably be God at all, thereby saving themselves the trouble of living up to His standards at all? Isn't the whole problem with our understanding of — and relationship with — God the fact that those things naturally have to occur on our terms and with our language, the weaker of the two communication protocols?

Ruling out the idea that the Holocaust was punishment because it was too extreme might work well for those who forget that God isn't required to adhere to our ideas of justice because He defines true justice. Insisting that all bad things happen as punishment for some shortcoming or sin works fantastically for those forget that God isn't required to adhere to our ideas of love because He is love. In the end, it seems we're all still left guessing, and trusting that the models of justice and love we have were given us because they reflect — as best as humanly possible — those facets of Almighty God.

The passage in Deuteronomy today leaves for me no doubt that these two vectors of God's nature should not be superficially limited by what fallen Man has to say about justice and love. To extents entirely unnatural, God fiercely judges:

You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left but few in number, because you did not obey the Lord your God. Just as it pleased the Lord to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess. Then the Lord will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. … There the Lord will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart. You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life. In the morning you will say, "If only it were evening!" and in the evening, "If only it were morning!" — because of the terror that will fill your hearts and the sights that your eyes will see.

...and God forgivingly loves:

When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come upon you and you take them to heart wherever the Lord your God disperses you among the nations, and when you and your children return to the Lord your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you. Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back. He will bring you to the land that belonged to your fathers, and you will take possession of it. He will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers.

Love, rubies, and leaky faucets

In Christian circles, you hear much about the "Proverbs 31 wife". Proverbs 31, the last chapter in that book, ends with a lengthy description of a "wife of noble character." The verse which begins this epilogue (Proverbs 31:10) sets the tone for and summarizes the twenty verses that follow:

A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies.

Now, my daily Bible reading schedule hasn't brought me to Proverbs 31 yet, so why does it appear that I'm skipping ahead? Because my reading has brought me through the first twenty-seven chapters of Proverbs, where we learn much in tightly packaged little metaphors about the wrong kind of wife.

After coming across the term "quarrelsome wife" for what felt like the hundredth time today, I wanted to review all such references I'd hit so far. As it turns out, there really aren't that many of them, but this brief collection is enough to get the point across:

A wife of noble character is her husband's crown, but a disgraceful wife is like decay in his bones. (Proverbs 12:4)

A foolish son is his father's ruin, and a quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping. (Proverbs 19:13)

Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife. (Proverbs 21:9, and again in Proverbs 25:24)

Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife. (Proverbs 21:19)

A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day; restraining her is like restraining the wind or grasping oil with the hand. (Proverbs 27:15-16)

Now, these verses will probably send feminists into a tizzy. But I post them here not because they sound like the type of grumbling that husbands do about their wives over beer and pizza (albeit, a little less eloquently). I post them here because I'm thankful for the wife God gave me, and just want to encourage other husbands to love their wives. Just love your wives. Check your love against one famous description of true love found in 1  Corinthians 13 — does it pass muster? Are you loving at full capacity?

I'm guilty of not loving my wife Amy at full capacity all the time. Sometimes I'm not patient, kind, unselfish, and so on; that's something I need to work on. Thankfully, after nearly ten years of marriage (April 25 will mark our first decade as husband and wife), Amy is still all of those things. She's a Proverbs 31 wife, and gracious enough to be mine. The only "constant dripping" I have to suffer through comes from the toilet tank in our master bathroom.

Subversion talk at Charlotte.PM this Wednesday

If you're in the Charlotte area and interested in an overview of Subversion plus the highlights of the upcoming 1.5 release thereof, consider attending the Charlotte Perl Mongers technical meeting this Wednesday, February 27th at 7pm in room IT4134 at CPCC, where I'll be giving just such a talk. And if time permits, we'll also get a demo of svk, another version control system build atop Subversion's core libraries — bonus! See the official meeting notice for details.

Q4H: How random is random?

The "little bit o' Proverbs" segment of today's reading covered Proverbs 16:22-33. Now, verse 33 in my Bible is squeezed into the top of a column, immediately above a drop-cap-style "17" (the next chapter). I almost didn't see it there, but I'm glad I did. The verse reads:

The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.

This was interesting to me because it seems to overlap so many things I've read about just in this past week or so.

In Sunday School, we've been looking at Jonah. Most folks know at least the rough details of Jonah's story. But I recalled one detail revealed in Jonah 1:7. Jonah is on a ship, running away from God's command for him to preach in Nineveh, and a violent storm comes up. The sailors are all freaking out, and — in truly superstitious fashion — decide to cast lots to see which person on board is to blame. Guess where the lots fall? To Jonah. What are the odds? The boat was big enough to have a deck that you could go below (because Jonah did) — how many hands were required to operate such a vessel?

Discussions around another topic with Amy have had us reading in the book of Acts as of late. There (in Acts 1:21-26), the eleven disciples (the original twelve minus Judas the Betrayer) decide to cast lots to see who would replace Judas in the lineup. The odds here are less interesting — there were only two contenders. (A dude named Matthias won.) Of interest to me was that until today, I had always thought, "What a stupid way to choose a ministry partner!" But if the Lord controls the lots, maybe it's not so stupid after all.

Finally, I read much about the debate between Evolution and Intelligent Design theorists. Evolutionists essentially believe that all that is today is the result of random mutations of cells and sub-cell bits, plus this idea of natural selection (where the mutations that prove beneficial get to stick around through future generations, and those that don't … don't). Pure IDers don't necessarily have any beef with those processes, but also don't believe that they are alone enough to explain the vast degrees of change over the assumed period of time that the Evolutionists claim. IDers believe there is an intelligent agent in the mix somewhere, perhaps guiding the selection process or somesuch. But if random isn't truly random (as our verse in Proverbs could imply), maybe the selection really is natural, and the it's the mutations that carry the intelligence.

Unfortunately, if we extrapolate this fully, things start to feel wrong. Is gambling okay because God controls the outcome? (Or is it only okay if you're winning, because God is blessing you?) Should we flip coins to find marriage partners? Roll dice to decide whether to attend or skip school today?

Certainly we aren't called to demonstrate a lack of discernment. Take the decision about the new twelfth disciple, for example. Among the thousands of Christ-followers to choose from, only two were proposed. A great deal of filtering had occurred before the lots were cast. Both men were equally suited for the job, and the coin-toss approach was as good as any a way to pick one without hurting the other's feelings. Also, the Bible does reveal moral absolutes — you can be sure that if chance, luck, Fate, or whatever drives you is driving you against those grains, it ain't God casting the lots.

Use your head, and don't leave the game of life up to mere chance and guesswork. Unless, of course, you work for Hasbro.

Q4H: Unrestricted prayer power?

My wife Amy and I have had some interesting discussions as of late regarding certain beliefs held by some friends of ours about some of the more supernatural aspects of Christianity. I'll not go into all those things in this post, but one axiom, if you will, of those beliefs leaves me with some questions. The axiom is simply this: if you ask anything in Jesus' name, believing that you'll receive it, you'll get it. That's all there is to it.

The reading schedule that I and others are using to read through the Bible in its entirety this year employs the following pattern: weekdays take us sequentially through the Old Testament (minus Psalms) and with a sprinkle of Proverbs; Saturdays through the New Testament (with more Proverbs); and Sunday through Psalms. So today's reading had us in Matthew, and coincidentally covered two different instances of Jesus stating this very axiom. In Matthew 18:19-20, he says, "Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name, there I am with them." And then later in Matthew 21:22, Jesus tells his disciples (who are wondering how it was that he was able to cause a fig tree to instantly wither), "If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer." Presumably, it is on these promises that many stand when they seek to perform Jesus-like signs and wonders (faith healing, exorcism, etc.). And why not? As written, those are some serious promises! But as presented by our gospel authors, are they, in fact, complete and true? Shouldn't there be a clause in there that limits the promise to only those things that align with God's will? For some folks, no.

I recall a conversation I had about this with one of our friends who claimed this promise as-is without the "will of God" qualifier. And many folks do, believing that they can actually bend the will of God through prayer. I'm skeptical about such a seemingly wide open promise, though, and my skepticism actually began to turn into a bit of anger. I was compelled to ask why, if so many people believed exactly as she did — that anything asked for in Jesus' name would be granted to those that believe — no one had stepped up to organize a group prayer to end hunger and famine and war worldwide once and for all time. I mean, shame on anyone who lays claim to power of that magnitude and fails to use it to do good! Unfortunately I can't remember her response now. Perhaps her "out" was that the askers don't meet the faith requirement of the promise — that they don't really think these worldwide problems can end.

This actually runs right alongside some of the statements made recently by Michael Shermer — the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine — who was curious about the apparent limitations of miracles. In a recent debate with Dinesh D'Souza, and referring to soldiers returning from war today missing arms and legs, he asks (as you can see at about 5 minutes into this video clip), "Why does nobody pray for them to grow a new limb? Why can't God grow a new limb? A salamander can do it! Surely the creator of the universe can do it."

Again, maybe we just lack the faith to get it done. Or maybe God has decided that these days He'd prefer to do only the second class of miracles described by Dinesh later in the debate — using natural means, but driving them in ways they wouldn't naturally go themselves, to accomplish the supernatural. Or, given the staggering improbability that all the physical laws and forces and constants and such would turn out just right to support our Universe and our life in it, perhaps everything we know is just one giant miracle. Maybe those who need "to see it to believe it" are just out of luck, as the seeing requires belief.

Or maybe my friend has tunnel-vision, and is ignoring other Scriptures which indicate that there is a must-comply-with-God's-will clause. We read in I John 5:14-15 that "if we ask anything according to [God's] will, He hears us." The Lord's Prayer (or Model Prayer) even demonstrates humility to God's will with the phrase "[God's] will be done on earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10). Finally, we can examine Jesus' own prayer life. Could there be a more faith-filled, more believing, more humble, more likely-to-bend-God's-will person than Jesus Christ? And yet what was his prayer in his time of greatest need? Luke 22:42 records Jesus as praying just prior to his arrest and crucifixion, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."