Jeremiah 31:27-34

In case you haven't been reading along lately, the "house" of Israel is the Northern Kingdom and the "house" of Judah is the Southern Kingdom. The kingdom was not only divided, but it was about to be completely taken over. Jeremiah either saw this coming, or wrote this afterwards. All of Jeremiah is about the people being punished for not following God's word.

I want to address this "bring evil" phrase. It would be inconsistent with an all-loving God. Of course a lot of actions and commands from God are inconsistent, and of course they all have an explanation by some denomination or theologian. But this is a statement from God, saying he is evil, or at least that he watches over evil. It is not quite as clear as Isaiah 45, but still tough to explain that away. Well, actually you can, "evil" comes from the King James english, meaning, "terrible". Sometimes terrible things must be done for good reasons. So this could still mean "just" and "good" in the sense of it being necessary. At least by Biblical standards.

A more important phrase in this passage is, "I will make a new covenant". This is one that makes me believe it was written later, when prophets were trying to explain how the kingdom had failed and they were in exile and not the dominant and chosen people. This passage is about a reversal, from tearing down to planting. It seems to be speaking to a generation beyond those that did all the things that made God mad, resulting in the 1st Temple being destroyed. Now he is saying He will make it easier this time around by writing the law on their hearts.

This is how religions evolve. Many religions have not survived a devastating defeat like the Babylonian exile. The people of the 7th century BC were able to bring their culture with them, and a few of them were smart enough to update it, reboot it, and shift from promises of milk and honey to a more personal relationship. A relationship that anyone could claim to have, because it is in their heart.

Genesis 32:22-31

This is one of the stranger passages in the Bible. Jacob, grandson of Abraham, wrestles with God, or maybe an angel of God. It's obviously an important story and an important character since he gets renamed Israel, that becomes the name of the Kingdom, and he fathers 12 sons who become the founders of the 12 tribes. I see this as myth, but you can view it however you like. The word Israel means "striving with God", but I don't hear that used much. I sometimes hear the New Age term "co-creating", but not so much lately. The idea being, the universe is being brought into existence each moment, and we are partners in that.

Bart Ehrman discusses how this problem of wrestling with God is dealt with throughout the Bible in his book "God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question." He examines the various solutions presented; the Dominant Classical Prophetic View of retributive justice, the wickedness of others, Satan, who will ultimately be defeated, then there's God's plan a.k.a. Instrumental Reasoning. All of these have versions, and all of them are people wrestling with promises made by earlier generations and how they have not worked out.

2 Timothy 3:14-4:5

This is the clearest statement in the Bible that the Bible is inerrant. The interpretation the linked reading gives is "inspired", some Bibles say "God breathed". A friend of mine spent a whole chapter on this interpretation in his book "The Ultimate Heresy: The Doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy", it's a bit disorganized, but one of the more comprehensive books on the topic that I've found. My problems with the claim are; it is completely circular reasoning, the authorship is considered a forgery, and the Bible had not been assembled yet so what "book" or "books" is it referring to?

I'm more concerned about the language that follows. Claiming something comes from God at least leaves you with the problem of convincing me God exists, or that your God is better than some other. But in 4:3 we are told the doctrine is sound. You now have to interrupt and point out that they just made that claim without backing it up. This starts into an argument, rather than a discussion about what is good or not good, which is what the Bible is supposed to be about. I don't know how you "accumulate" teachers, maybe he was predicting the internet with its unscientific websites and YouTube documentaries. You have to be using bad reasoning in the first place to select your teachers poorly. This may be what is meant, but it doesn't address the problem of what good reasoning is.

Verse 4:4 is a statement of what every religion fears. It knows that past civilizations and some existing cultures have their mythologies. They have superstitions based on made-up stories from their ancestors. No one wants to be viewed like that. Sadly, if they did view themselves like that, they might find the freedom to really interpret their own stories and find value in them, and also open themselves to the world of stories from others and the value that is found there.

Luke 18:1-8

This parable is similar to the Friend at Midnight, where on a simple reading it appears this is someone being persistent in their prayers, and being rewarded for it. But that interpretation is the type that has led to a distorted view of the Bible over the centuries. For that interpretation, the judge is representing God, and that poses many problems, not the least of which the judge does not have respect for people.

The passage starts off saying it's a parable. That's convenient, since often you need to figure that out, for example when a passage starts off with Jesus saying, "it is as if", or something like that. Another part of figuring out what a parable means requires figuring out where it starts, what was its source, and what the author added to it. I'll leave most of that to the scholars, and you can follow up on it if you look this one up since, like the Friend at Midnight, this one is included in William R. Herzog's Parables as Subversive Speech. Some of that is available in Google books, but it cuts off right before the conclusion.

If you read my sermon helper this year in Proper week 12, about the Friend at Midnight, you'll notice the repeated theme of persistent prayer. It's unlikely an author would repeat that theme and mean something different each time. Also, something very "Lukan", we see some reinterpreting of the apocalypse. The disciples are under increasing pressure politically and the message is changing from an end of times to a coming of justice. Verses 6-8 might be the Luke author adding something to the original parable.

So who are the characters here? Herzog says they are exactly who the parable says they are, a corrupt judge and a widow. What you don't see, but you would know if you lived in this time, is that "widow" is synomynous with one of the most vulnerable people in the community. To even get before a judge, she must be recently widowed and still have control of whatever possesions her husband left her. She probably does not have any male relatives to protect her. Young people today have even less awareness of how difficult this would be, but I saw this kind of vulnerability just 50 years ago. Not to the degree the woman in this story is experiencing it, but a woman handling her own affairs is still unheard of in much of the world.

There is also this "opponent". If you know about 1st century Palestine, and you are told the judge is corrupt, you know that the opponent is likely the one giving the bribe to get a chunk of the widow's estate. The negotiations for that deal have been going on outside of public view. The widow now comes to court and appeals to justice. She does not appeal to the judge's good nature, nor does she denounce him. Her strategy is to give him the option to adhere to the standards of the community, that is now watching, or to stick with the new standards of the elite, that the community is aware of even though they don't always see the backroom deals happening. The judge knows they would see the result of that deal, and they would draw the correct conclusion.

When corrupt standards like that are developing, they depend on cooperation from the oppressed. They depend on people not putting up fights out of respect for authority. They use shame and ask for civility when they are the ones acting most uncivil and should be the ones feeling shame. The widow exposes this by being persistent and working within the system, although pushing its limits.