How to be Well Versed

For Bible lovers, our hearts are warmed to be reminded to “Be still and know that I am God” or that “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13 NKJV).

But sometimes taking a verse out of context can put us in a bit of a pickle. Does “all things” include me being an NBA All-Star even though I am vertically, age, and athletically challenged? The context of Philippians 4 (rejoicing, unity in Christ, being gentle, not worrying, being content in Christ) matters. Those are all the kinds of things Paul has in mind that Christ can strengthen him to do–not finding athletic, financial, relational, or artistic success.

The biblical authors didn’t write expecting that their sentences would be taken in isolation. They intended readers to understand how each part fit in the whole. But we often take verses out of context—sometimes to prove a point, sometimes for comfort or reassurance. Why do we do this?

One reason might be the introduction of verse divisions about 500 years ago. This made it easier for those writing or speaking about the Bible to be precise about where to find a particular quotation. A good thing. But over the centuries it has given the impression that each verse stands alone from its context. This can make it look like each verse is its own bullet point.

In fact, when the King James Version was originally typeset and published, each verse began its own paragraph. And that is still the way it is printed!

Verse divisions were not part of the original manuscripts of the Bible books. And certainly each verse was not its own paragraph. Paul’s letters, for example, were written in ancient Greek without paragraphs or any punctuation—not even with spaces between words!

Punctuation in Greek and other languages slowly developed over the next thousand years to make reading easier and the text clearer. And punctuation is still changing.

Is it okay to hang “The Lord is my shepherd” on my wall. Of course. But let it be a reminder of the whole of Psalm 23, and how it fits in the middle of Book 1 of the Psalms (1-41), and of the whole book of Psalms in which we find it, and how the Psalms fits in the Bible.

Ink-Stained Dreamers

As a lover of books and a lover of history, I found Adam Smyth’s The Book-Makers a delight. By zeroing in on a dozen and a half practitioners of the trade, Smyth gives us both a happy overview and fascinating stories of these often quirky individuals. My full review appears in the January-February 2025 edition of Christianity Today, which can also be found online. Here are a couple parts of the review that the editors left on the cutting room floor.

The chapter on an early bookbinder, William Wildgoose (yes, that really was his name) begins and ends with the tale of a wayward volume that was first housed in the famous Bodleian Library in Oxford, only to return unexpectedly three centuries later. In 1905 a young man comes in wanting advice on rebinding his ancient book. When the sub-librarian and assistant librarian inspect it closely—and then more closely!—they discover that this was once in the Bodleian’s collection, sold off as new printings became available. The book has been remarkably preserved through generations. And like someone who found a priceless pearl in a field, the Bodleian raises an enormous sum now equivalent to $300,000 to buy it back. The volume? Shakespeare’s First Folio, bound by William Wildgoose in 1623.

While zines go back a hundred years, Smyth features examples of the last few decades. The creators of these periodicals intentionally positioned them outside mainstream publishing in content and production values, often being photocopied and stapled. They knew that online existed, but they were committed to the tangibility, the physicality of their publications. They believed it provided a more multi-sensual experience that is not diluted by the digital.

Perhaps the author chose to highlight them for this very reason, as Smyth’s volume is in many ways a celebration of the physical book in all its dimensions.

A Beautiful, Heartbreaking Book

In A Matter of Death and Life, Irv and Marilyn Yolam offer a beautiful, heartbreaking book. In alternating chapters this husband and wife of 65 years write about Marilyn’s final months of fighting cancer. In the last half Irv alone tells his story.

Because this is very much a memoir, they give little advice on how to cope with death and sorrow. They simply relate their own experiences and reflections. For that reason, I find this much easier to read than many books on the topic. I can enter into their story, remembering my own, and grieve with them. 

Irv, being a career therapist, brings a unique double perspective as both one who suffers and one who walks alongside others. Not surprisingly, he honestly tells how hard it is sometimes to follow his own counsel. His reflections on sex, memory and its loss, and facing our own death during grief are also worthwhile.

During the course of all this, he reads some of the books he has published and finds his own past case studies illuminating. I was especially struck by “Irene” who refused to accept counsel from someone like him who had not (at that time) suffered loss. Though the two continue to meet, they hit something of a stalemate. In retrospect Irv now believes his own grieving would make him a better therapist with her even if his counsel wouldn’t change.

Though I give the book a warm recommendation, I did find two things a bit concerning. First, a couple times Irv says most of his clients moved to a healthier place after a year, maybe two. Second, he comments that those who had a good marriage are often able to move forward more quickly than those who have not. I just hope that readers who don’t fit these patterns will realize they are his generalizations. Not everyone experiences grief in these ways. And there may be nothing wrong with those who don’t.

This warm, honest, insightful book movingly intertwines two stories of facing our own death and grieving the death of a loved one.

Your Super Strange Bible

Of all the odd things in the Bible, Numbers 5 has got to rank way up there near the top. Do you remember reading about a strange test for deciding if your wife is unfaithful? I didn’t until my son asked me about it after hearing a podcast.

In verse 11-31 we are told that if a man is jealous and angry because he suspects his wife has been unfaithful, he’s supposed to go to the priest who will give his wife water mixed with dust from the floor of the tabernacle. If she gets sick from drinking it, she’s guilty. If she doesn’t, she’s innocent.

Wait? What? Seriously? This sounds like Salem Witch Trial stuff to determine if someone is in league with the devil. “Did you feel a chill when their shadow crossed you?” I mean, really?

OK. Super strange . . . but I think there is a way to understand it that makes at least a little sense.

First, in other Ancient Middle Eastern cultures (and possibly Israel too before Moses), the husband would have had the right to immediately divorce his wife, kill her, or have her killed just on the basis of his feelings that she was unfaithful—with absolutely no evidence or testimony required. He didn’t have to consult anyone. Sadly we sometimes still hear of such honor killings in the Middle East. Remarkably, this whole Numbers 5 procedure hits the pause button on those unchecked impulses and takes it out of the husband’s hands.

Second, as Wendy Alsup reminds us, with “trials by ordeal” in other cultures, the accused person is usually found guilty and dies. In the case of Numbers 5, just putting dust from the floor in drinking water is not likely to make anyone die or even get sick. After all, especially in that peasant culture, they’ve been eating and breathing dust their whole lives.

So yes, it is odd to us, and while it seems (is?) very patriarchal (e.g., why isn’t another man accused of adultery along with the wife?), on the whole it protects a woman from rash, unjust, and violent actions by her husband. So while this isn’t anything we’d do today, it shows the direction of how God wants us to deal with each other (by moving from the reckless and harsh customs of surrounding cultures to being merciful and protective). And this trajectory finds its fulfillment in Christ.

Again, it’s so odd that you may not find this totally satisfying. Yet we see how God’s redemptive direction (pointing away from the values of culture, then to Old Testament principles, and then to Christ) plays out similarly when it comes to slavery and women. That is, even though what the Old Testament says about slavery and women is troubling to us, it moderates the severe practices common in that day.* This ethos is then more completely realized in Christ and in the New Testament, showing us the direction we should be headed today.

It points toward mercy. It points toward grace. It points toward compassion.

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Image by Myriams-Fotos from Pixabay

*See William Webb, Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2001).

Why the Christmas Story Bothered Me

The following is adapted from a December 2014 post in AndyUnedited.

The Christmas story always bothered me.

It never made sense. No, I’m not talking about the virgin birth. Not the angels singing to shepherds. Not the star in the sky. Not the wise men.

No, it was the part about there being no room in the inn. It never made sense. Middle Eastern hospitality is legendary. Strangers, travelers, those in need—you can count on the deeply ingrained culture of showing generosity and graciousness to those who need a meal or a warm bed.

They would never, ever turn away a pregnant woman—especially a woman who was a relative visiting her ancestral home in Bethlehem. Many close and distant relatives would have been living or visiting nearby to care for her. Turn her away? Send her to a barn? Never. It wouldn’t happen.

Then what did happen? In Luke 2:7, the Greek word traditionally translated as “inn” is better rendered as “guest room,” which is how the NIV puts it. Middle Eastern peasant homes were one large room though sometimes a guest room or “mother-in-law room” was attached. But since the guest room was already occupied, the owners of the house did the only sensible thing—they vacated the main house and gave it over to Mary and Joseph’s use.

The couple would not be alone either. When it came time for the baby to be born, Joseph would wait outside while women in the community would come and assist Mary. Luke didn’t mention the community because his readers would have known that without having to be told.

Then what in the world was a manger (a feed box for animals that Luke mentions) doing inside the house?

The single, main room of such a house typically had two parts: a smaller ground floor level and a larger level raised a couple feet for cooking, eating, and sleeping. Peasants would bring their animals into the lower level of the house at night for two reasons—to keep the animals safe from thieves and to provide warmth for the family sleeping on the upper level when it was cold.

Cut into the floor of the upper level where it meets the lower level was (wait for it) a manger. A place for hay to feed the animals.*

Some years ago I was describing this to a friend, and her eyes got huge. “That’s the kind of house I grew up in!” Her family had been missionaries among peasants in Syria. You can still find such homes there today.

Yes, Jesus was not born in a palace, but neither was he born alone in a barn. He was born in a common home of the people, a home that was opened up to him through a delightful demonstration of hospitality. When we welcome into our lives both family and strangers, the needy and the self-assured, we are living the Christmas story.

For the Christmas story is not one of “no room in the inn.” Rather it is one of wondrous welcome and generosity.

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Image credit: Ambroz from Pixabay.

*See Kenneth E. Bailey, “The Story of Jesus Birth: Luke 2:1-20” in Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008), pp. 25-37.

The True Meaning of the Christmas Tree

As a child I loved everything about our Christmas tree. I loved picking it out with my father on a cold winter day. I loved bringing it into the home a few days before Christmas to let it warm up so the branches could thaw out. I loved the smell. I loved helping with the lights and then adding ornaments and perhaps tinsel and strings of popcorn.

You can imagine my disappointment when I was told that Christmas trees were an adaptation of a pagan custom. Likewise, you can imagine my delight when I read recently that the “pagan custom” story was in fact a myth. As Emily McGowan writes:

Though many in the modern period have sought to trace the Christmas tree back to pre-Christian paganism, historians now acknowledge this is a myth. Others have attempted to link it to legends about Saint Boniface or Martin Luther, but these stories have no basis in history either. Our best historians think the Christmas tree tradition developed in the medieval period. During that time most people couldn’t read or write, so plays were put on to teach biblical stories. One feature of such plays was a paradise tree representing the tree of knowledge (Genesis 2:9 ). In the play, the tree symbolized both the fallenness of humankind and the cross, the “tree” that brought us salvation. They decorated the paradise tree with apples for the fall and round pastry wafers for the Eucharist—the body of Christ that saves us. Interestingly, the Feast of Adam and Eve fell on December 24, so the public display of the paradise tree coincided with the day before the start of Christmas.*

The Bible Project podcast on trees confirms this. Trees in Scripture are not just interesting botanically as we encounter oak, cedar, juniper, and many other kinds. They are important as symbols of humanity and of our relationship with God.

Psalm 1 famously compares a righteous, flourishing human to a tree by water that abounds in fruit. The wood from trees elsewhere plays important roles in salvation. The ark that saved Noah and his family was made of wood. Sacrifices were often burned with wood.

So to bring a tree into our homes and celebrate it is no pagan holdover but a reminder of our salvation.

For as Emily McGowin reminds us, while humanity was banished from the garden so that we would be cut off from the tree of life, because of Christ we now have full and free access to the new tree of life—the cross.

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*Emily Hunter McGowin, Christmas (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2023), p. 74.

Image by 🌸♡💙♡🌸 Julita 🌸♡💙♡🌸 from Pixabay

The Other Christmas Story

We all love the Christmas story in Matthew’s gospel. Mary and Joseph are pledged to be married. An angel appears to her. When Joseph finds out she’s already pregnant, he decides to divorce her quietly. But an angel tells him no. Her son will be the savior. After Jesus is born in Bethlehem, the Magi bring their gifts. Joseph then takes his family to Egypt to avoid Herod’s threats (Matthew 1:18 –2:18).

What we seldom notice, however, is that there is another Christmas story in Matthew, another version of how Jesus was born to Mary and Joseph. This overlooked account is squeezed between a list of Jesus’ ancestors and the familiar story. Here it is:

And Jacob [was] the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah. (Matthew 1:16)

The first seventeen verse of Matthew contain a genealogy of Jesus, tracing his roots from Abraham to David, then through the exile in Babylon, culminating in Jesus. In verse 17 Matthew emphasizes these four touch points in Israel’s story.*

♦ The promises to Israel of land, of being a great nation, and of blessing all nations (Abraham)
♦ Israel’s royal history (David)
♦ Israel’s failure to keep the covenant (exile in Babylon)
♦ The culmination of Israel’s history (Jesus)

All the promises to Abraham and all the restoration Israel needs for her sins, Matthew is saying, are fulfilled in Jesus, Israel’s royal son of David.

Matthew’s grand, sweeping overview before the intimate portrait of Mary and Joseph is like a movie that begins with the whole universe in view. Then the camera moves faster than the speed of light through billions of galaxies to pause momentarily on the Milky Way before finding our solar system, racing past Saturn and Jupiter to Earth, then the Middle East, and zeroing in on a room in a Palestinian hovel.

Yes, in those first 17 verses Matthew is saying, Jesus came to save us as individuals, but he also came to fulfill God’s entire plan for Israel and all creation through King Jesus.

We should notice at least one other important feature of Matthew’s list. Remarkably for a patriarchal culture, he lists four women—Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Mary. Why are they included? What they have in common is a clue.

To begin, the first three are gentiles. God promised to Abraham in Genesis 12 that Israel would be a blessing to all nations, a role it often forgot. Jesus’ own genealogy (yes, his genes) already showed how all those outside Israel were also included in the promise.

Second, while all four women had suspect sexual backgrounds, that is not Matthew’s emphasis. They are all honored for their fidelity to the line of the Messiah. Each of these women played a critical role when the line of promise was threatened.

Tamar rescued Judah’s line from ending (Genesis 38:1-30). Rahab protected Israel’s spies in Jericho, preserving Israel so it could enter the land God promised Abraham (Joshua 2:1-21). Ruth’s deceased husband was from the line of Judah; by her faithful tenacity, she found a new husband from that tribe and became the great grandmother of David (Ruth 1-4, especially 4:16-22). As Chris Bruno and others said,

These three Gentile women are not only the ancestors of the Messiah, but also point forward to him in their work of preserving God’s covenant line and rescuing his people from imminent destruction. In other words, they are themselves saviours of Israel. (p. 21)

The familiar Christmas story offers so much to love. Through Matthew’s other story of Christmas, we have even more.

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*Chris Bruno, Jared Compton, and Kevin McFadden, Biblical Theology According to the Apostles, NSBT (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2020), pp. 11-22.

Nativity image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Galaxy image by ENES KOÇ from Pixabay

A Flawed, Swaggering Book

I love big, bold books that offer a sweeping view of history. Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel is a stellar example. Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind is not.

Harari does cover (as promised) the last 70,000 years of human history from the first proto-homo sapiens to the possibilities of future human genetic and bionic engineering. Yet his swaggering, blustering style (while entertaining) blocks the light he might otherwise shed on a variety of important topics.

His overall structure has merit. He begins with what he calls the cognitive revolution of perhaps 40,000 years ago. Sapiens expanded their inventions, art, and language far beyond any other animal. This allowed for cooperation that made up for deficiencies in size, strength, and speed.

The next major shift was the agricultural revolution of about 12,000 years ago which allowed sapiens to shift from roving hunter-gatherers to settled farmers. Harari’s controversial view is a thoroughly negative take on what most see as the foundation of cities and civilizations. He claims it was a poor trade in nutrition, safety, happiness, and justice.

The third transformation is the scientific revolution of 500 years ago. While most civilizations were previously based on received knowledge from the past, science celebrated ignorance which could motivate the search for knowledge. Europeans became supremely curious about the world, went exploring, and promptly conquered those who were not interested in new ideas, new tools, new weapons, or new discoveries.

Many reviewers have noted his slapdash treatments. The Guardian points out, for example, that his interpretation of the 1827 battle of Navarino in the war for Greek independence is wildly distorted, as even Wikipedia will attest. Marcus Paul also says, “He gives the (imagined) example of a thirteenth-century peasant asking a priest about spiders and being rebuffed because such knowledge was not in the Bible. It’s hard to know where to begin in saying how wrong a concept this is.” Instead, monks, friars, and abbeys “were central to the learning of the universities.”

The biggest problem in the book is introduced early, in chapter 2. According to Harari, every idea is a fiction, a social construct—nations, corporations, gods, values. None exist except in our imaginations. Ok, but . . .

On what basis, then, does he later claim that the slaughter of billions of domesticated animals since the advent of industrial agriculture may be the greatest crime in history? According to his own way of thinking, crimes (notions of justice) must also be fictions. After all, we (including Harari) only make up such rules. They don’t actually exist. But we use them to punish people, justify conquest, or write books claiming we are the ones who can offer an objective, dispassionate view when everyone else is wallowing in subjectivity.

Harari’s problem is that by his reckoning neither the subjective (which he denigrates) nor the objective (a perspective he subjectively values) exist since both are ideas. His own assumptions undo his many, overconfident historical, scientific, and moral judgments. All his self-assured pronouncements about religion, politics, and ethics must themselves be fictions. They become just as imaginary as his own supposed objectivity.

Sapiens has value. But it is so difficult separating the wheat from the chaff that it’s probably not worth the time.

A Classic Adventure Tale

I almost never read a book more than once. Yet I thoroughly enjoyed my fifth journey through Watership Down with my neighborhood book club. As I mentioned earlier, this classic adventure tale of friendship, loyalty, perseverance, and courage is so compelling you forget it is a 400-page book about rabbits!

Some of my favorite aspects of the book include:

♦ The wonderful cast of diverse characters we grow to love—the big, gruff, good-hearted Bigwig; the often-misunderstood Fiver; the raucous and faithful Kehar; the encouraging storyteller Dandelion; the clever Blackberry; the “court jester” Bluebell; the young and earnest Pipkin; and more—all of whose gifts are bound together by the wounded leader Hazel.

♦ Hazel’s courage and generosity of spirit seen especially when he goes alone to their archenemy Woundwort, not just to offer a truce but a visionary, constructive way forward that would benefit all.

♦ The beautiful arc of the plot from early crisis to major climax to final resolution. (Even the very first and the last sentences are parallel!)

♦ How the main storyline is paralleled throughout by stories of rabbit lore and mythology—with the two finally intersecting so touchingly on the last page.

♦ Favorite Moment: Bigwig’s dramatic announcement to his enemies that he is not his warren’s chief rabbit, leading them to imagine that some other larger, even more fearsome leader must be nearby.

♦ Favorite Line: When Woundwort fails to defeat Bigwig and then tries to bribe him, Bigwig tells him, “Silflay hraka”! (p. 448)

What did you love about the book?

The Bible on Its Own Terms

Some use the Bible as a grab bag of advice. Just pluck its timeless truths at will from the page and paste them on to our lives. Though there is much wisdom in the Scriptures, we are misguided to approach the Bible as a handbook or a user’s manual for life. Why? Because that’s not how it was originally written.

That may seem rather obvious for Biblical narratives where the point of a story may not be transparent. But it can even be true of a book like Proverbs, which seems on the surface to be just that—a collection of unconnected bits of practical instruction.

Consider these back-to-back verses in which we are told we should not answer a fool and that we should answer a fool. Here they are:

Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
or you yourself will be just like him.
Answer a fool according to his folly,
or he will be wise in his own eyes. (Proverbs 26:4-5)

What the heck is going on? Can’t the writer make up his mind?

It’s similar when it comes to money. We are told on the one hand to be very determined to work hard and avoid poverty (Proverbs 6:9-11; 10:4) and on the other hand to make sure we don’t trust in money (Proverbs 11:28; 23:4). So which is it—don’t focus on money or focus a lot on money?

Proverbs falls into an ancient genre called wisdom literature. Such writings offer insights for successful living—but in that genre such insights are not presented as hard-and-fast rules. They are often true, generally true, but not always true. They can’t be because they can’t anticipate every single possible situation.

Wisdom literature wants to get us to think. It encourages us to mediate long and hard on its sometimes opposing principles, under the guidance of the Spirit. The purpose of such meditation is to discern how to apply them in the particular situation we are in.

When confronting a fool, one size does not fit all. When dealing with money, sometimes we need to be conscientious earn it and sometimes be free to give it away. Which is it? It depends. Maybe it’s both. We can discern which approach to take with input from our community and from the Spirit. That’s the point of wisdom literature—to encourage us to depend on God, to fear the Lord.

In an age of intense relativism, of so many uncertainties in life, we yearn for assurance, for someone to tell us with absolute authority that one way is totally right and that another way is totally wrong. But the writers of the Bible knew that life is complex. God expects us to deal with gray areas as people who will grow in maturity and in wise decision making that will ultimately reflect his character.

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Image of Till Eulenspiegel (Mölln) by Wälz from Pixabay