Category Archives: Bible

A lesson on evangelism from the Gadarene demoniac

18 Friday Sep 2015

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Mark 5:1-20 tells the story of Jesus casting a legion of demons out of an untamable man in the region of Gerasa/Gadara (parallel accounts are found in Matthew 8:28-34 and Luke 8:27-39). Jesus evidently took this man, and the demons which controlled him, by surprise when he crossed the Sea of Galilee in a boat and landed right where this man was to be found. This man lived in a graveyard, refused to wear clothes, and would break chains and fetters whenever soldiers attempted to take him into custody. Seeing the man’s plight, and wishing to demonstrate His power over Satan, Jesus commanded the demons to leave him. The demons made the man run to Jesus and beg Him for mercy, since they did not want to be sent to the abyss (a temporary place of confinement for certain demons before the final judgment; cf. Rev 9:1-11). Jesus responded by asking the demon for his name. This may have been because Jesus wanted to know who He was dealing with before deciding whether to grant the request not to be sent to the abyss.

The demons’ response to Jesus’ inquiry about their name was shocking: “My name is Legion, for we are many” (Mark 5:9). A fully manned Roman legion contained 6,000 soldiers, so this man was possessed by thousands of demons. The demons saw a herd of about 2,000 pigs feeding on a nearby hill, and they requested that Jesus allow them to go into the pigs, rather than the abyss, after leaving the demoniac. Jesus granted their request—not out of any compassion for the demons, but in order to show people how many demons were in the man, and to prove that they had gone out. In addition, pigs were not to be kept under the Mosaic Law, so there was nothing unjust about allowing a herd of pigs to be ruined. As soon as Jesus spoke the word, the demons left the man and went into the pigs, and they did what Satan always seeks to do—they destroyed their lives, causing the pigs to run furiously into the Sea of Galilee and drown.

The herdsman, fearing that they would be blamed for the loss of the pigs, immediately went to the Gentile city of Gadara and other surrounding regions to tell people what happened, so witnesses could verify their story. Unwittingly, these herdsmen were doing pre-evangelism. Many people went to see the sight for themselves. They were amazed by what had happened, as they saw the notorious demoniac clothed and in his right mind. However, their reaction was not to repent of their sins and to trust Jesus as their Lord and Savior. The Gadarenes were people who loved their sin and hated God. They did not want their pigs and demons removed. They therefore begged Jesus to leave their territory. Apparently Jesus honored their wish, and never returned to that region.

There was one more matter to be dealt with, however, before Jesus got back into the boat and departed for Jewish Galilee: what would be the fate of the man who had been cleansed of the demons? He himself earnestly desired to stay with Jesus, knowing that Jesus had saved him an otherwise completely hopeless and unremediable condition. But Jesus had other plans. One problem was this man’s race—he was a Gentile, whereas Jesus had been sent to the nation of Israel (cf. Matt 10:5-6; 15:24). No one with the time and space limitations of a man, not even Jesus, can do everything; we need to focus on the ministry that we are called to accomplish, even if that means neglecting other pressing needs that we might well be able to meet. Yet Jesus still had compassion on Gentiles, and He saw in this man a natural evangelist to the people who had just rejected Him. This man was one of them; he could find a natural acceptance among them that Jesus could not. He also had a personality and background which made him unafraid to speak boldly in public.

And so it was that Jesus gave the command to the cured demoniac to go evangelize his home territory, which was the Gentile region of Decapolis: “Go to your house, to your friends, and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He had mercy on you” (Mark 5:19). The man did as he was told: “He went his way, and began to publish in the Decapolis what great things Jesus had done for him” (Mark 5:20; note the implication that Jesus is Lord). Mark tells us that all who heard this man’s preaching “marveled”; whether they believed in Jesus or not, they at least heard and understood the message about Him.

Jesus’ instructions to the demoniac contain a lesson for us on evangelism. This man was a brand new convert, saved out of a horrendous past. In fact, rough backgrounds do not get any rougher than this man’s background—he was extremely lewd, violent, obsessed with death, defiant of all authority, and possessed by thousands of demons. As a Gentile from a Gentile city, he was probably raised as a pagan, with little or no knowledge of the Bible or theology. He had not been trained in effective methods of evangelism. He only knew one thing: he knew what Jesus did for him. So Jesus told him, “Go home and tell your friends and family what I did for you.” He did, and they were amazed. This guy was a hopeless case! Now he is well! What happened? He said, “Jesus saved me.” See, you don’t have to be an expert in evangelism or apologetics to share the gospel. You just need to be saved. If you are saved, then you can tell people what Jesus did for you. It is that simple.

Evangelism is not as complicated as we make it out to be. Jesus did not tell this man, “You need some training before you can start evangelizing.” He did not say, “You need some time to make sure that you don’t go back to your old habits.” He said, “Go and tell the people you know what the Lord has done for you.” This is something that any genuine Christian can do. Evangelism is more than just asking strangers a clever lead-in question, quoting Bible verses from memory, and presenting a multi-step plan. The simplest way to evangelize is to just tell people what God has done for us, and specifically how He transformed our life by saving us from our sin and from Satan’s oppression. If people want God to do for them what He has done for us, it will be easy to explain to them how they can be saved; if not, we are still doing evangelism. Let’s stop scaring people away from evangelism by demanding they follow a professional method and use the extroverted, confrontational techniques of a professional evangelist. Telling the people we interact with about the things Jesus has done for us is something that even a new Christian can do, and simply talking about God and church is another thing that any Christian can do.

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Lessons about compromise from the book of Daniel

05 Saturday Sep 2015

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Following the legal redefinition of marriage by the United States Supreme Court, other legal cases have quickly arisen in which the religious liberty of Christians to refuse to accept homosexual “marriage” has been challenged. It is certain that many more religious liberty cases will be brought to the courts in the months and years ahead, as the culture and government of the United States becomes increasingly antichristian and anti-Bible. The book of Daniel is especially timely in this milieu, since it describes how a young Jewish man named Daniel and three Jewish friends of his maintained their devotion to God after being taken by force from Jerusalem to the pagan city of Babylon and impressed into a pagan king’s service.

Most Christians are familiar with the story in Daniel 3 of how three Jews—called by their Babylonian names of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—were thrown into a fiery furnace for their refusal to bow down to a giant idol. This idol was set up on a great plain before a huge crowd of people—probably the officials in King Nebuchadnezzar’s government—and the king demanded that everyone bow down to his idol or face death. To the pagans, there was no question that they would bow down to the image, rather than die. They had no religious loyalty that was greater than their concern for their own personal safety. But Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego stood tall and strong while all the others bowed their knees to the king’s idol. After these three Jews spurned an offer of pardon from the king if they would change their minds, the king ordered them thrown into a blazing hot furnace (probably a brick kiln). But God honored the commitment of these three young men and brought them out of the fire completely unharmed, to the king’s utter amazement. Nebuchadnezzar responded by acknowledging that the Jews worshipped the Most High God, and he promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in his government.

Many modern Christians may struggle to understand why Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did not bow down to the idol. Indeed, some other Jews might have obeyed the king’s command, since there were only three people present at that occasion who did not bow. Here are some of the rationalizations that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego could have considered:

  • They could have thought, “It is understood that this is not about changing religions; this is just a symbolic act of political loyalty toward the king. The Bible says we are to obey and respect the governing authorities.”
  • Or, “All that matters is what is in my heart. I can pray to Yahweh when I kneel, and not actually be worshipping Marduk at all.”
  • Or, “Marduk is just the name the Babylonians use to refer to the Supreme Being, whom we call Elohim. I can bow down to Marduk in recognition of the Babylonian attempt to give expression to ultimate reality, even though my understanding is more complete than theirs.”
  • Or, “That statue is just a piece of metal, and not an actual god. I would not actually be worshipping another god by getting on my knees in front of it.”
  • Or, “I didn’t have a choice! They forced me to do it!”

The human mind is superb at thinking of excuses and rationalizations, so you may be able to think of others. The problem with all of these rationalizations is that they represent compromise with the world’s demands for the sake of personal expediency, usually by reinterpreting an absolute statement in the Bible (Exod 20:4-6) through the hazy “postmodern” view of reality.

(Some might suggest that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego could have resigned their positions in the Babylonian government, since the demand to bow down before the idol in Daniel 3 was evidently a test of loyalty for government officials. However, this may not have been possible, since they were working as conscripts [Dan 1:1-7], not as voluntary employees.)

This is not the only example in the book of Daniel where Daniel and his friends demonstrated an absolute refusal to compromise. Daniel’s insistence in Daniel 1 that he would not eat the king’s meat or drink the king’s wine might seem strange to many today, especially since Daniel faced the death penalty for not complying. There are many people who supposedly know how the world works who would say that Daniel’s refusal was foolish, stupid, and petty. In fact, however, none of these people has achieved the greatness that Daniel achieved—a greatness which was achieved through a recognition of God’s sovereignty in the affairs of men, rather than seeing only natural processes at work. In fact, Daniel’s persistent adherence to the law of his God at any price was the entire key to his success in life and to his career in government service.

Many times in American evangelicalism we have seen preachers who seem very theologically sound and fervent when they are in their prime, but who become much less dogmatic in their later years. In Daniel 6, however, we find that when Daniel was a very old man he was still standing strong in his refusal to compromise. In that chapter, Daniel’s enemies in the Medo-Persian government tricked the king into signing a law which prohibited people from making requests to any God or man but the king for a thirty-day period. This law was likely presented as a test of loyalty to the king, although those who made the law were actually seeking to trick the king into deposing Daniel against his own will.

Once again, Daniel had a number of options available to him that might have seemed very palatable to a modern Christian. Daniel was not required by the new law to renounce God, or to pray to the king. Had he simply quit praying out loud, he would have been a law-abiding citizen. Even if he had continued to pray out loud, but had done so privately, he could not be charged with wrongdoing. He could have thought, “I am having such a great influence for God in this government, it does not make sense for me to lose it by insisting on praying in front of everybody.” But Daniel knew that he only had a great influence for God because he had a strong public testimony for God, and because he was a man of uncompromising character. Hence, Daniel refused to pray to God with his window shut. Daniel did not hide his faith or keep his mouth shut about his God when it might be offensive. He was an open servant of the God of heaven, and all the world knew it. The fact that Daniel’s enemies knew he was praying to his God suggests that he prayed out loud, and probably in the Aramaic language instead of his native Hebrew tongue. He may also have read his Bible out loud—not out of pretension, but as a testimony to the world. If Daniel had begun praying in secret as soon as the king banned all prayer to God, this would have communicated that God was not more valuable to him than his life. Thus, Daniel chose to pray publicly even when he knew it would result in a death sentence.

Most people in this world covet money, power, and prestige. But Daniel and his three friends demonstrated throughout their lives that, although they were given great honor and privilege, they were always willing to give it all up in a moment in order to avoid the slightest compromise of their principles. The only thing that really and truly mattered to Daniel was his God. The stories in the book of Daniel teach that God blesses a refusal to compromise, but they also set forth examples of absolute faithfulness—”we will obey God even if He does not deliver us.”

For a more detailed study of the book of Daniel, see my book Dr. Anderson’s Interpretive Guide to the Major Prophets (available here).

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3 John 2 and the Prosperity Gospel

10 Monday Aug 2015

Posted by in Bible, Theology

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Most contemporary Christians have heard of the prosperity gospel (a.k.a. the “health and wealth” gospel. Many popular “televangelists” are proponents of the prosperity gospel, which claims that if you give your life to Jesus, God has promised to make you financially wealthy and physically healthy. This is a message that people want to hear, so the popularity of prosperity theology is not surprising. Prosperity preachers strongly emphasize that Christians must give their money to that preacher’s ministry in order to experience God’s financial blessing. Most proponents of the prosperity gospel are associated with the Charismatic, Pentecostal, and/or Word of Faith movements.

Baptistic Christians, including myself, widely agree that the prosperity gospel turns the true gospel on its head, since the New Testament promises persecution and suffering for Christ in this life, with no promise of physical prosperity until after this life is over (Acts 14:22; Rom 8:18; Phil 3:10-11; 2 Tim 3:12; 1 Pet 4:13; 5:1). But rather than analyzing verses which contravene prosperity theology, in this article I would like to analyze the verse which was originally claimed as the exegetical basis for prosperity theology. This verse is one that is under the radar of most Christians, since it occurs in the shortest book of the New Testament, 3 John.

Beloved, I pray that in all things thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth. – 3 John 2

Back in 1947, Oral Roberts was a poor thirty-year-old pastor of a church in Enid, Oklahoma who was dissatisfied with his salary, and discontent with his poverty and namelessness. If we are to believe Oral and his wife Evelyn, it was reading this verse at random one day, and seeing it in an entirely new light from the midst of spiritual and emotional trauma, that marked the turning point in Oral Roberts’ ministry. (See David Edwin Harrel Jr., Oral Roberts: An American Life [Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1985], 65-66.) From here on out, Oral would preach that God wanted all Christians—himself included—to be financially prosperous and physically healthy. As Oral developed the prosperity gospel, it quickly displaced the genuine gospel message in his preaching and writing, to the point where the real gospel was completely silenced (if, indeed, Oral ever did preach the real gospel). Rather than preaching the message that genuine disciples of Jesus must renounce the things of this world and endure persecution, Oral preached that genuine Christians would be healthy and wealthy, and that people should come to Jesus in order to become physically prosperous. As Oral and his preaching became famous, many other preachers followed in Oral’s footsteps, and created the various forms of prosperity theology that exist today. The original claimed biblical basis for the prosperity gospel was 3 John 2. (For more on how this verse has been used in the charismatic movement, see Heather L. Landrus, “Hearing 3 John 2 in the Voices of History,” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 11.1 [2002]: 70-88; Mark E. Roberts, “A Hermeneutic of Charity: Response to Heather Landrus,” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 11.1 [2002]: 89-97.)

Third John 2 is seemingly as ordinary a verse as any in the Bible. Commentators widely recognize it as a stereotypical greeting for a letter of the period, though surely the greeting was a heartfelt prayer when uttered by the apostle John. John, who was facing great opposition from false teachers, wished peace and prosperity for faithful Gaius, to whom he addressed this letter. There is one specifically Christian element to the greeting, which is the address “Beloved.” But a standard feature of letters from the Koine period is the writer’s inclusion of a wish of good health for the addressee in the greeting (see Raymond E. Brown, The Epistles of John: Translated with Introduction, Notes, and Commentary, Anchor Bible, vol. 30 [New York: Doubleday, 1982], 788-90).

The most important exegetical feature of 3 John 2 to note with regard to the prosperity gospel is that John’s prayer for Gaius’ good health is just that—a prayer by a man, not a promise from God. The Bible repeatedly promises temporal suffering and persecution for following Jesus, with physical prosperity only promised in the life to come. We do not pray that persecution would befall us or other believers—in fact, we pray to be delivered from troubles—but we do expect that problems will come.

It is ironic, though not atypical, that such a common, ordinary verse as this one was misused to create a whole heterodox theological system which contravenes so much of the clear teaching of the New Testament. This single verse, lifted from its historical and biblical context, was assigned a novel and foreign meaning through the imagination of a young preacher who coveted fame and fortune. It is a lesson for all of us to handle the Word of God with great care, and to resist the common temptation to spiritualize a biblical text in order to give it the meaning that we desire to preach.

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Remarks on the Book of Proverbs

28 Tuesday Jul 2015

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The following introductory remarks on the book of Proverbs are from volume 3 of my Interpretive Guide to the Bible. April 2024 update: this book is now available in a new edition: English hard copy; English pdf; Spanish hard copy; Spanish pdf (Proverbs only).

Although the entire Bible is a book of wisdom, Proverbs is the one book of the Bible whose central subject is wisdom. “A variety of terms, wisdom, knowledge, understanding, discretion, subtlety, are indeed employed, to set forth under different aspects the nature of the instruction to be given; but the one comprehensive word which includes them all is Wisdom” (T. T. Perowne, The Proverbs: With Introduction and Notes [Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges; Cambridge: Cambridge, 1899], 9). The Hebrew word חָכְמָה (wisdom) has been defined in various ways by Christian commentators, but is not expressly defined in Scripture, except by the numerous parallel concepts which it encompasses, and by the things which characterize it. Wisdom encompasses many concepts and many applications to specific situations, which makes learning it a lifelong process; it involves one’s total way of thinking and worldview.

For Solomon, wisdom is inseparably linked to the practice of true religion and the worship of the living God. The stated theme of the book in the prologue is that the fear of Yahweh (i.e., the belief in and proper devotion to God) is the starting point of the quest for wisdom, and the condition which necessarily accompanies its acquisition (1:7). This same principle is reaffirmed in the exhortation to the son to obtain wisdom (2:5-6), in the final call of wisdom at the end of the address to the son (9:10), and at the end of the book’s capstone, as a summary of the worthy woman’s character (31:30). Solomon makes no apology for linking his religion so explicitly to his practical instruction, and in fact asserts that any attempt to describe wise principles apart from deep personal piety toward the living God would be the height of folly. Religious themes are profuse throughout the book of Proverbs. Solomon exhorts his hearers to weave true religion into the fabric of everyday life in order to be wise, righteous, and blessed. The name יהוה (Yahweh) occurs some eighty-seven times in the book, including multiple instances in most chapters. Yahweh must be the central reality in the wise man’s worldview. Many of the proverbs simply mention Yahweh’s relation to man, with the assumption that the reader knows Yahweh and believes His Word. An entire paragraph in the address to the son exhorts him to serve and honor Yahweh (3:1-12), as do many individual proverbs. The proof of wisdom’s worth is Yahweh’s use of wisdom from before historical time began to bring the world into being (8:22-31). In the capstone of the book, the great sage Agur opens his speech with a statement of his commitment to fidelity to God and His Word (30:1b-9). While it would not be possible to mention Yahweh explicitly in every single proverb, fear of God is specifically stated to be the key to wisdom, and various aspects of God’s relationship to man are spoken of frequently throughout the book. Solomon’s absolute refusal to acknowledge the possibility of wisdom apart from fidelity to the one true God sets his wisdom apart from all other so-called “wisdom” of the ancient world. It also explains why the wise men of this world do not regard Solomon’s writings as special, or even as worth reading—in spite of the fact that Solomon was the wisest man who ever lived (so 1 Kgs 3:12; 4:31; 10:23; 2 Chr 1:12). Since one cannot understand wisdom without an accurate knowledge of God and of His Word and a personal relationship with Him, the unsaved cannot recognize Solomon’s wisdom for what it is.

The “wisdom literature” of ancient pagan cultures, by contrast, is really not wise. Much of it is self-serving, telling you how to get what you want in life; it is superstitious; it is polytheistic; it often attributes the bad things in life to demons; it calls on the influence of magic; and it is involved with cultic sensuality. Likewise, the intellectualism of the twenty-first century world is not true wisdom, for it is clear that the more the world develops technology the more it uses this technology to push back the limits of depravity, so that man is now in the process of destroying himself through his own devices. The world is more broken, unstable, and confused than ever before, and yet it continues to insist that one must separate his Christian religious devotion from his studies in order to obtain objective truth—a philosophy which the book of Proverbs asserts is guaranteed to produce folly.

Much of Solomon’s wisdom was developed simply by careful reflection on things which he saw and experienced (cf. Prov 16:23; 24:30-34). One who thoughtfully analyzes everything that happens and learns from it will become wise over time, even with limited experiences, for it is possible, through keen observation, to garner momentous lessons from seemingly insignificant experiences. When Solomon saw the most ordinary things in life, he pondered them deeply, and they became metaphors and object lessons: “This is like that” (cf. Prov 11:22; 17:12; 19:13; 21:9, 19; 25:19; 26:17, etc.). Solomon did not have to see everything to learn about everything, nor did he need to read handbooks and manuals. When he saw ants in his courtyard, he learned a profound lesson about hard work (Prov 6:6-11), and a walk past an overgrown vineyard produced the same effect (Prov 24:30-34).

In Solomon’s case, one would suppose that his life experiences must have been very limited, and far removed from the hard realities of human existence. He was born and raised in a king’s palace, and simply inherited an empire that had been won for him by his father. Throughout his long and peaceful reign, he possessed more wealth and power than anyone else on earth. Yet his writings are firmly connected to reality, and are imbued with a strong sense of the hardships and injustices of life. If it were not for the biographical information recorded about the author, the reader of Proverbs might think the book was composed by a poor man who had suffered much in life. The vastness of Solomon’s understanding of life apparently grew out of his rather limited window on the world as prince and king. He was able to learn from every experience, and to extrapolate much concerning the ways of people and the nature of life. Solomon’s example proves that one ultimately does not have to experience or read everything to be wise, but only needs to reflect on the things he does see and experience. That said, broad and varied experiences are usually eye-openers, and wise men tend to be experience-gatherers.

So, do you want to be wise? Then carefully observe ordinary life and deeply ponder it, rather than living by event and instinct like everyone else. Of course, gaining wisdom is a lifelong process, and the one who properly seeks wisdom will become wiser and more mature as he grows older.

The proverbs express timeless, universal truth, and are as relevant today in the Western world as they were in ancient Israel. In a world where technological changes are continually rendering obsolete skills that were once highly valued, wisdom is a timeless skill that gives those who have it an advantage in all of life’s situations. The best way to train children for the unpredictable changes in our world is to teach them wisdom. The proverbs are practical truths, about the nuts and bolts of how to live life, and yet are philosophical at the same time. In a world in which knowledge has been replaced by technology, smart people are ridiculed as “geeks,” and the Bible is despised, the church needs more than ever to exalt wisdom.

The book of Proverbs eschews debate as a means of arriving at truth. The proverbs in the book do not so much argue for truth as present it and allow it to commend itself to the man who has a heart of wisdom.

Some of the proverbs are not prescriptive (Do this!), but observational (This is the way things are—cf. 10:15; 21:9; 27:8, 14). The intent of the observational (descriptive) proverbs is to move the reader to act in light of the observations noted, or just to improve the reader’s understanding of life. Many of the insights and observations are seemingly obvious ones, yet very often, if we do not read or hear the obvious, we do not think about it on our own, and ultimately we do not apply common sense in our daily decisions. A man who studies the Proverbs is likely to have the right sayings come to mind at critical moments as he goes about his daily business.

Many of the proverbs are statements of general regularities and not hard-and-fast rules, though some are. However, this is no different than commands and observations in the rest of Scripture. When Peter says, “Be subject to every human institution for the Lord’s sake” (1 Pet 2:13), it is understood that this is a generally applicable rule. It would be unnecessarily pedantic for Peter to write, “Be subject to every human institution for the Lord’s sake, except if the king tells you to worship an idol, in which case you have an obligation to obey God rather than man.” Common sense is needed when interpreting the Bible. There is no need to make the simple complex by introducing theories about genre, or by claiming that the exceptions negate the literal meaning of the text.

Proverbs is frequently quoted by the NT writers, “who considered it as a treasure of revealed morality, whence Christians were to derive their rules of conduct” (Thomas Hartwell Horne, An Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures [9th ed.; London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1846], 4:119). Thus, the whole of this book is applicable to believers today; it was not just for the dispensation of the Law. Proverbs does contain a theme of temporal reward for right living—if you live wisely, you will be blessed, whereas if you live foolishly, you will suffer for it—but so does the NT (cf. 1 Pet 3:10-17). There were exceptions both then and now (cf. Psalm 73), but in the end it is better for the righteous (cf. Eccl 8:12-13).

Proverbs is a vital book to understand, because without wisdom it is impossible to live a life that is pleasing to God or that is successful in the true sense of that term. Proverbs is a book that fathers ought to teach their sons from an early age to start them down the right path in life (cf. 4:1-9). It is a book that pastors should teach their congregations, and it is a book that laymen should study on their own. It is a book that ought to be a focus of academic study by Christian scholars who write to a specifically Christian audience with the aim of edifying the church (as opposed to those who write to a general academic audience, with an aim to participate in the mainstream academic discussion that is dominated by critical scholars). It is vital for the man of God to master the art of living. He must understand and apply common sense; he must learn how to handle the practical, ordinary issues of life. Many ministers and laymen alike have been ruined through a lack of practical wisdom.

It is ironic that the three books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs, which preserve the greatest words of wisdom from the wisest man who ever lived—words which were also inspired by God’s Holy Spirit—are not recognized by secular scholars as being special in any way. They think that the wisdom of these books is mostly borrowed from or similar to the wisdom of the surrounding pagan cultures, and that Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs were compiled or edited by Hebrew scribes long after the time of Solomon—whose very existence most deny. Even many conservative evangelical Bible scholars and pastors deny the basic message of Ecclesiastes, despite its special place as the summary statement and culmination of all of Solomon’s thought. The men who have the reputation for being the wisest in this age cannot recognize true wisdom when it is waved before their eyes, because it is a wisdom from above which is not understood by the natural man, nor apprehended by culturally-conditioned ways of thinking (cf. 1 Cor 2). The queen of Sheba came from the ends of the earth to hear this wisdom, whereas modern man, who has free access to it, has no appreciation for it. It is not unlikely, based on Matthew 12:42 and Luke 11:31, that the queen of Sheba will stand up at the final judgment and condemn those who have brushed aside Solomon’s wisdom.

Churches today have a huge number of programs for helping people with their marriages, with their finances, with addictions, and with any other problems they may be facing in life. Yet no church that I know of has a program to encourage its people to pursue wisdom. There are no “wisdom retreats,” “wisdom seminars,” or “wisdom fellowships.” Pastors do not passionately call their congregations to make the search for wisdom the great priority of their lives, nor do they preach sermon series in which they work desperately to convince their people that wisdom is the most precious thing in life, the foremost thing they should be directing their time and energy to pursuing. Youth pastors do not challenge teenage boys to embark on the quest for wisdom in order to be successful and responsible adults. Yet it is a direct result of the depreciation of wisdom that there are so many other problems in the church, and that all of the programs that have been developed by the church have failed to mitigate these problems. If people understood the value of wisdom, they would give all that they had for it, yet wisdom is for the most part wholly neglected. People pursue money, relationships, and status instead. In fact, many of the church’s popular programs are essentially designed to make life manageable while continuing to live by event and instinct, without embarking on a great quest for wisdom. It is my prayer that the church will make its priorities the priorities of the book of Proverbs.

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Biblical acrostics

02 Tuesday Jun 2015

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An acrostic is a composition in which the initial letters of each line or unit, when taken together, spell something meaningful. An alphabetic acrostic starts with the first letter of the alphabet, and each successive line begins with each successive letter, until the alphabet is finished. The Bible contains a number of alphabetic acrostics.

Acrostics only occur in the Hebrew sections of the Bible, not in Greek or Aramaic, since almost all biblical poetry is in Hebrew. There are twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet, so every alphabetic acrostic will have twenty-two parts. (No distinction is made between the letters śîn and šîn in the acrostics, both of which were written as ש.)

Biblical acrostics were made for poetic beauty and ease of memorization. In Bible times, manuscripts were scarce because they had to be copied by hand; a memory device such as an acrostic was welcomed. The alphabetic acrostic also gave the poet a definite structure within which to organize his thoughts. Of course, the full beauty of an acrostic is lost in any translation, but it is still useful to note this structure, and to look at it in Hebrew if possible.

The most challenging thing about composing an alphabetic acrostic is finding appropriate words for letters which occur infrequently. Just imagine—if Psalm 119 were written in English, there would have to be eight verses beginning with X, and eight with Z. In Hebrew, wāw and ṭêṯ are about as uncommon at the beginning of a word as our X and Z, respectively. The most difficult letter of a Hebrew acrostic by far is wāw. There are only eleven biblical Hebrew words that begin with wāw, and ten of these are very rare words or names, several of which may be textual errors. Fortunately for acrostic-makers, the eleventh word is the most common word in the whole Bible, the conjunction ו (and, that, but). In every acrostic in the Bible, all the wāw verses begin with the conjunction ו, including eight verses in a row in Psalm 119. Psalms 25 and 34 both skip this difficult letter.

The most famous acrostic in the Bible is Psalm 119. This Psalm is termed a repeating stanzaic acrostic because it is arranged in twenty-two stanzas, each of which has eight lines that begin with a single letter of the Hebrew alphabet. These twenty-two stanzas are usually marked in English Bibles by the letters that the lines in each stanza begin with. Like some other acrostic psalms, it is the acrostic which gives structure to Psalm 119, which otherwise follows a theme rather than an outline. As the Psalmist composed this acrostic, I imagine he might have thought, “What observation on my walk with God can I express in a sentence that begins with this letter?” “How can I pick up on the thought of the previous verse with another word of this letter?” For the most part, there is considerable variation in the initial words for each acrostic letter. This not only adds to the poetic beauty of the acrostic, but also creates a nice mixture of thought, ensuring that a variety of spiritual truths are expressed.

Another famous acrostic in the Bible is Proverbs 31:10-31, the description of the virtuous wife. While this is a well-known passage, most people are not aware that its twenty-two verses begin with the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

One of the most interesting acrostics in the Bible is the book of Lamentations, which is composed entirely in acrostic form. In both ch. 1 and ch. 2, there are twenty-two strophes of three lines each; the initial letters of the strophes together form the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. In ch. 3, there are again twenty-two three-line strophes which stand for the twenty-two letters, but this time each line of each strophe begins with the same letter (a repeating stanzaic acrostic). In ch. 4, the pattern shifts to twenty-two two-line strophes, where again only the first line of each strophe begins with the letter in the acrostic. Chapter 5 has twenty-two lines, but no formal acrostic—perhaps to symbolize the chaos and disorder in Jerusalem. It is interesting that in chs. 2–4, pe precedes ‘ayin, a known variation of the more usual alphabetic order.

Psalms 9 and 10 together form an unusual broken acrostic, in which almost every other line begins with a consecutive letter of the Hebrew alphabet, but with some irregularities. Psalm 10 skips out of the acrostic in vv. 3-11 (the description of the wicked man) before rejoining it for the final four letters. Still, enough of the letters are present to consider the acrostic as legitimate, and not a mere coincidence or scholarly contrivance. These two Psalms are closely linked; they were probably composed together, with the tenth Psalm written to complement the ninth.

Psalms 111 and 112 are unique in that each colon, or subdivision of a line, begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Even though these Psalms are only ten verses each in our English Bibles, they contain twenty-two cola each, plus a heading.

Psalms 25 and 34 are also acrostic in form, with each line beginning with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet; however, the letter wāw is skipped in both of these psalms. Although some ancient versions and modern scholars try to insert a wāw line in Psalm 25, an analysis of these psalms shows that the wāw line was intentionally skipped to form a double acrostic. Skipping the wāw creates an odd number of letters in the alphabet (twenty-one), which puts lāmeḏ exactly in the middle. Psalms 25 and 34 both add a pe line after tāw (at the end), to keep the number of lines at twenty-two. When this additional pe is taken together with the first and middle letters of the acrostic (’ālep̄ and lāmeḏ), the letters spell ’ālep̄, the first letter of the alphabet. Most likely, wāw was the letter chosen to be omitted because there is only one word beginning with wāw that could be used in an acrostic. Attempts to “correct” the “omission” of the wāw line actually ruin the poetic structure of these psalms. Psalm 25 also has the peculiar trait of having two rêš lines (rather than qôp̄ – rêš). Many reasons for this have been suggested, but it is possibly because David felt that there was no appropriate way to form a qôp̄ line.

Another acrostic psalm is Psalm 37, in which every other line begins with a consecutive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The acrostic in this psalm is unusual in that a particle precedes the word beginning with the acrostic letter in the lines for the ‘ayin and tāw.

The only other complete acrostic in the Bible is Psalm 145, in which each verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. There is no nûn verse in the Masoretic Text of this psalm (nûn is skipped between v. 13 and v. 14), but this is in keeping with the variation in form that is found in the other biblical acrostics.

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The greatest missionary report in the history of the church

19 Sunday Apr 2015

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Most of us who have spent a significant portion of our lives in an evangelical, Bible-believing church are used to hearing missionary reports. According to the usual pattern of things, local churches give monthly financial support to many missionaries, and each missionary is expected to return to his supporting churches every four years or so to give a report of what he has done while serving as a missionary. Often these reports include an impassioned call for people in the sending church to become missionaries themselves. Many missionaries say that they were originally inspired to do missionary work through the testimony of a missionary who spoke at their church.

Many modern missionaries have delivered extraordinary reports of God’s work through them in foreign lands, and have motivated new generations of missionaries. But for the most impactful missionary report ever told, we must turn to chapter 15 of the book of Acts. The events in that chapter occurred just after the apostle Paul, together with Barnabas, returned from their first great missionary journey, which was to Cyprus and Galatia. That first journey, of course, was not prompted by the inspiring report of another missionary—it was made in response to the direct call of Paul and Barnabas by the Holy Spirit during a church meeting in Antioch (Acts 13:1-3).

When Paul and Barnabas returned from their successful missionary journey, they first gave a report of their mission work to the church at Antioch, which had commissioned them (Acts 14:26-28). But trouble quickly arose, when Christians with a background in rabbinic Judaism came to Antioch and began to argue that the Gentiles who had believed through the work of Paul and Barnabas had to be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses (Acts 15:1). Paul and Barnabas were unable to convince these “Judaizers” otherwise (Acts 15:2).

While schism in the church is, in itself, a bad thing, this particular quarrel resulted in something very positive, for it led the church at Antioch to send Paul and Barnabas to meet with the apostles and elders at Jerusalem (Acts 15:2-3). There at Jerusalem, a church council was called to resolve the theological dispute (Acts 15:4-6). One positive result of this council was the promulgation of an official statement by the church on the issue of salvation by grace through faith, apart from the works of the Law (Acts 15:22-29). But the detailed report given by Paul and Barnabas to the other apostles of the mass conversion of Gentiles through their Spirit-empowered ministry (Acts 15:12) had another very significant result.

When Paul and Barnabas arrived in Jerusalem early in AD 49, they found the original group of Twelve apostles (minus James the brother of John, who had been murdered) still living in Jerusalem, ministering to the Jewish church that was there (Acts 15:6; cf. Acts 8:1). Peter had had a temporary ministry in some coastal towns in Palestine, but had returned to Jerusalem. The apostles basically had not moved at all from the place where the church had originally begun. They knew that Jesus had commanded them to take the gospel to the farthest parts of the earth (Acts 1:8), but in the sixteen years since Jesus’ resurrection their missionary efforts had not advanced beyond Jerusalem.

It is evident from church history, as well as from circumstantial evidence in the New Testament, that, shortly after Paul and Barnabas left Jerusalem, the other apostles followed Paul’s lead and scattered from Palestine to take the good news about Jesus Christ to the whole world, some traveling as far as Ethiopia (Matthew) and India (Thomas). It seems that it suddenly occurred to the apostles that it was indeed possible for a Gentile church to exist apart from Jewish support. Paul’s stories of the rejection of the gospel by the Jews and the acceptance of the gospel by the Gentiles must have made the other apostles decide that the time had come for them to give up on their efforts to reform institutional Judaism through a mass conversion of the Jews, and to instead focus on building up the church as a transnational entity. They were also stirred up and impassioned by the missionary report given by Paul and Barnabas, and they determined to go forth and do the same sort of work themselves.

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Thomas, the greatest missionary of the Twelve

12 Sunday Apr 2015

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This is the time of year when many Christians in the United States travel to the Mediterranean for a tour of the lands of the Bible. One popular type of tour is a “footsteps of the apostle Paul” tour which aims to visit the places where Paul preached in the book of Acts. These tours typically stop at sites in Turkey, Greece, and Italy.

One tour that I have never heard offered is a “footsteps of the apostle Thomas” tour. Although Thomas’ travels are not recorded in the New Testament, Thomas is known to church historians as the most celebrated missionary of the original group of Twelve apostles. Few tourists, if any, would have the stomach to retrace the apostle Thomas’ footsteps from Jerusalem, through Syria, Iraq, and Iran, down the southwestern (Malabar) coast of India, and up the southeastern (Coromandel) coast of India, all the way to the city of Chennai (Madras), where Thomas was stoned to death for preaching the risen Christ. The places where Thomas traveled, preaching the gospel, are dangerous, foreign, and spiritually dark today, but so were they when Thomas originally traveled to them.

To an outside observer, Thomas might seem like the most unlikely of all the apostles to become a great missionary. Thomas began his apostolic career as a skeptic, a pessimist, and a doubter. He almost seemed hesitant as a follower of Jesus. In John 11:16, as Jesus set out for Bethany to raise Lazarus from the dead, Thomas made a comment that showed that he was predisposed to belief in the worst possible outcome, unless it could be absolutely proven otherwise. In that verse, John translates Thomas’ name (an Aramaic word) into Greek as “Twin” (Greek Didymus, like the English word dittography), which shows that he was so undistinguished among the Twelve that he was not even called by his real name. One Eastern church tradition remembers Thomas as “Judas Thomas”; since there were two other Judases among the Twelve, the disciples evidently decided to call one of the three by his nickname.

The best known vignette of Thomas in the Bible is in John 20, which occurs after Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. Although Jesus appeared to women at the tomb and to the majority of the disciples, Thomas was for some reason absent when Jesus made His appearances on that first Easter Sunday. In spite of the testimony of the other ten apostles, the women who were at the tomb, and the two disciples who were walking to Emmaus, Thomas famously pronounced himself unconvinced of Jesus’ resurrection. In John 20:24-25, Thomas insisted that he would not believe unless he could not only see Jesus, but could also physically put his finger into the nail prints in Jesus’ hands and put his hand into the mark of the spear on Jesus’ side. Everything about Thomas changed when Jesus appeared to him some eight days later and gave him just the opportunity he had asked for to verify absolutely that He had indeed risen from the dead (John 20:26-27), leading Thomas to confess on the spot that Jesus is Lord and God (John 20:28).

Thomas, once the greatest skeptic among the Twelve, became the most celebrated missionary of the group after having been persuaded beyond all doubt of the fact of the resurrection. After leaving Palestine, Thomas first preached the gospel in Syria, then left Roman territory to preach the gospel in the Parthian Empire (modern Iraq and Iran). Determined to press the gospel to the ends of the earth, Thomas proceeded to sail to the Malabar Coast of southwestern India, planting churches which remain to the present day. After establishing these churches, Thomas continued on around the southern tip of India, and was preaching the gospel in Hindu cities along India’s eastern coast until he was at last stoned to death near the city of Chennai (Madras). A monument remains to this day on a hill outside Chennai to mark the site of Thomas’ martyrdom, some 5,027 km (3,124 miles) from Jerusalem. The only explanation for Thomas’ unstoppable zeal and unshakeable faith after his skeptical start is an experience just like that described in the twentieth chapter of the Gospel of John.

Thomas’ missionary efforts are a great testimony to the fact of the resurrection of Jesus, of which Thomas was a witness. But Thomas’ work is also a great challenge to the church, and a censure of the church. Why was there not one person in the second generation of Christians who was as driven as Thomas to take the gospel to the ends of the earth? Surely the entire world would have been evangelized in a hundred years with only a dozen Thomases in each generation. Why is it not until the 18th and 19th centuries that we finally read of Christians leaving Europe to take the gospel to unknown lands and unreached peoples? Although today there are indeed Christian missionaries and churches throughout the world (though not nearly enough), the church today all too often seems sluggish and halfhearted. If we really do believe that God raised Jesus Christ from the dead, this truth should stimulate in us the same kind of all-out, lifelong dedication to the work of the Lord that that it stimulated in the apostle Thomas.

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Is death inevitable?

22 Sunday Mar 2015

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There is an old saying that two things in life are inevitable: death and taxes. This is said tongue-in-cheek, since of course not everyone in the world pays taxes—Kuwait, for example, is a tax-free country—but nearly everyone in the world pays taxes. Taxes seem like an inevitability, though circumstances are conceivable in which they are not (for example, if one is destitute). Death, however, does appear to be inevitable. Even with all of our scientific and technological advances, no one in modern history has lived past the age of 122, and most people in the world’s most developed countries are dead before they reach the age of 80. Further, there is, from the human point of view, the possibility that anyone who is now alive could die at any time. The Bible teaches that death was not part of God’s original plan for the human race. Death entered the world as a direct consequence of sin (Gen 2:17). The human race was placed under a sentence of death as punishment for the sin of Adam, who was the forefather of the human race. Romans 5:12 states, Through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin. It may be surprising, then, to know that the Bible does not teach that everyone will die. The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ, as the second Adam, has conquered death, and has overcome the power of death by rising from the dead (Rom 5:17; 1 Cor 15:21-22). The Bible teaches in 1 Corinthians 15:52-53 that not everyone will die, although all men will have their mortal bodies changed. Specifically, when Jesus will take those who have believed on Him during the Church Age to heaven, living Christians will simply have their bodies changed, rather than raised from the dead (cf. 1 Thess 4:13-18). It seems, as well, that believers who are alive at the end of the thousand-year reign of Christ (the millennium) will also have their bodies changed before the final judgment, rather than dying and being raised from the dead (see Revelation 20). One could also note the famous Old Testament story of Elijah being taken to heaven alive in a whirlwind, rather than dying (2 Kgs 2:1-12). However, Elijah evidently will return to the earth during the tribulation period, and will be killed at the midpoint of this period (cf. Mal 4:5; Matt 17:11; Rev 11:1-13). But there is another great man of God in the Old Testament who was also taken to heaven without dying, specifically so that he would not see death (according to Hebrews 11:5). This was Enoch, the father of Methuselah (Gen 5:21-24). Enoch was taken to heaven a mere 57 years after the first man, Adam, succumbed to the sentence of death. Although Adam’s lifespan of 930 years seems extraordinary by today’s standards, in fact the death of Adam must have dealt a terrible blow to the human psyche. Because Adam lived so long, perhaps some were holding out hope that he would never die, that the curse would not come to pass, and that men could, possibly, just keep on living indefinitely. After Adam’s death, hope seemed to end; the futility of life had sunk in like a hard reality—when suddenly the principle of death was violated in Enoch’s case. The translation of Enoch so short a time after the death of Adam showed that death was not the final sentence for the human race. Death will not prevail in the end, by God’s grace. Easter Sunday is now only two weeks away. What does the “translation” of someone who lived so long ago as Enoch mean to us today? Here is the question from a different angle: what would it mean to you if you found out that one of your own ancient ancestors had never died, but was still alive? In fact, everyone in the world today is descended from Noah, and Enoch was Noah’s great-grandfather. The story of Enoch ought to be a great encouragement to every one of us, because Enoch was an ancestor of every one of us. That means that every one of us has in Enoch an ancestor who did not die! Christian, take heart! Let no one tell you despairingly that everyone who has ever lived has died. Yet if we can draw hope from the fact that one of our ancestors did not die and will never die, how much more hope can we take from the fact that Enoch’s endless life was made possible by the fact of Christ’s (then-anticipated, now-fulfilled) conquest of death through His resurrection from the dead? Whether we live or die, those of us who have believed in Jesus will someday live with Him forever in glorified, immortal bodies.

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What is the Bible about?

15 Sunday Mar 2015

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I recently published a revised edition of volume 1 of my Interpretive Guide to the Bible, in which I added a short introduction that deals with “big picture” questions. One of these is the subject of the Bible, which answers the question, “What is the Bible about?”

A popular response to this question by an older generation of Bible expositors was “Jesus Christ.” In fact, this seems to be affirmed in Article 1 of the doctrinal statement of Dallas Theological Seminary, which includes the following sentence: We believe that all the Scriptures center about the Lord Jesus Christ in His person and work in His first and second coming, and hence that no portion, even of the Old Testament, is properly read or understood until it leads to Him. Some Bible teachers have gone so far as to say that the main point of every book of the Bible, and even of every chapter of the Bible, is to reveal Christ (the Christo-centric hermeneutic). This then forces them to allegorize the text in order to find how Christ is revealed in, for example, the life of Joseph or the Song of Songs.

It is better to develop the subject of the Bible from a study of the biblical text itself, rather than developing the subject through a seemingly arbitrary theological assertion, and then trying to find a way to read the Bible to fit one’s theology. It is also best to view the Bible as a whole when developing a statement of its subject, since the main subject of a book may not be the main subject of every paragraph or every section of the book. A biography of Abraham Lincoln, for example, could include a chapter on Lincoln’s wife or a chapter on social conditions in the antebellum South. Such chapters, in which Abraham Lincoln would not be the main subject, would not destroy the subject-unity of the book; they would simply function to give background information that is necessary to more fully understand and elucidate the overall subject of the book, to which the book would always return.

As a career Bible scholar who has read through the Bible more than twenty times, I have no hesitation when identifying the subject of the Bible. Clearly the subject of the Bible is God. The Bible is a book about God, about who He is and what He does. Since the Bible was written to man, in order to reveal God to man, it has much to say about God’s dealings with men and His plan for the human race. Since God exists in trinity, the Bible reveals God as triune, and contains a considerable description of each member of the holy Trinity. It especially has much to say about God the Son (Jesus), since He bridges the gap between God and man by becoming incarnate, and He is the perfect revelation of the Father. Persons and nations who occupy a central place in God’s historical dealings with men also receive much attention in the Bible—positively, the nation of Israel, the patriarchs, the prophets, the apostles, and other men of God; negatively, Satan, the antichrist, great world empires, and other notable opponents of God’s people. Theological (rather than historical) issues are a greater focus in the New Testament than in the Old. In the New Testament the church arises as a non-national people of God, the Holy Spirit is sent to indwell every believer in Jesus, and the theological mysteries of salvation and last things are more fully revealed.

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Will Iran destroy Israel? Will Israel destroy Iran?

06 Friday Mar 2015

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Iran’s nuclear program has been in the news for a long time, most recently because of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before Congress. It is an open secret that Iran has been trying to develop nuclear weapons for more than a decade, with some help from North Korea and Russia. Negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program have continued almost for the entire Obama presidency. At first, the goal of the negotiations was to end Iran’s nuclear program. However, Iran seems unwilling to end their nuclear program, since the Islamic rulers of Iran need nuclear weapons to realize their political ambitions of conquest. If Iran’s nuclear program was solely for generating electricity, the Iranians would have ended it many years ago or agreed to allow inspections in accordance with international law, since economic sanctions have done great damage to the Iranian economy. By the same token, it has become evident that President Obama will not even consider destroying Iran’s nuclear program with a crippling airstrike. Mr. Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have therefore been trying to get the Iranians to agree to something that will limit Iran’s nuclear program in some way.

The rulers of Iran, who are not Arabs, belong to a sect of Islam that is considered a heterodox fringe or cult by the majority Sunni sect of Islam, although probably the worst Islamist groups today are actually composed of radical Sunnis (ISIS, al-Qaida, and affiliated groups). The Iranian form of Islam has a strange apocalyptic eschatology revolving around the supposed coming of the “twelfth imam” and some sort of world conquest or world war. Some people think that Iran’s religious rulers might use nuclear weapons in order to bring about the events that they believe will be associated with the coming of the twelfth imam.

The Iranian regime hates the state of Israel, and has said again and again that they are committed to destroying Israel. Iran is an active supporter of the anti-Israel terrorist group Hezbollah, and in the past Iran has been a strong supporter of Hamas. It comes as no surprise, then, that Israel is working hard to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. But I personally doubt that Israel would be the first target of a nuclear Iran. Iran knows that Israel has a powerful military and nuclear missiles, and Iran knows that Israel would use its nuclear weapons against Iran if necessary. Iran’s archrival in the Middle East is Saudi Arabia, and neither the Saudis nor their Gulf allies have nuclear weapons. The Saudis and their allies are therefore very concerned about a nuclear Iran.

There is a lot of uncertainty about the Iranian nuclear issue. For one thing, no one outside of Iran knows for sure exactly how developed Iran’s nuclear program is, and it is possible that Iran already has a nuclear bomb. The Iranians have a history of hiding as much of their activity as possible, and they would not be the first country to have developed nuclear weapons well before Western intelligence agencies discovered them. The increasingly polarized rivalry between Vladimir Putin and the West could also result in Russia taking a much larger role in supporting Iran and its Shiite allies (primarily Bashar Assad and Hezbollah). Perhaps Mr. Putin will provide more direct support to Iran’s nuclear program in order to gain a powerful ally against the United States and Europe.

But while we can speculate about what may or may not happen vis-à-vis Iran’s nuclear program, there is no need for Bible-believing Christians to be in suspense regarding the outcome of events in the Middle East. Ezekiel 38–39 describes prophetically a great invasion of the Middle East by Russia and its allies at the end of the present age (3½ years before the return of Jesus Christ to the earth). Curiously, it describes Israel as “the land that is restored from the sword, whose inhabitants were gathered out of many peoples to the mountains of Israel” (Ezek 38:8). It further calls Israel “the land of unwalled villages . . . those who are at rest, who dwell securely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates” (Ezek 38:11). In other words, Ezekiel 38 portrays Israel as so completely and totally at peace with its neighbors that it has actually disarmed and torn down all of its security walls and fences. Ezekiel 38:13 also seems to portray Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states as unarmed. (Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq are not mentioned, while Jordan is said in Daniel 11:41 to successfully resist end-time invasions.) Incredible as it may seem, the Bible portrays the peoples of the Middle East as living in complete peace and harmony, without violence, in a future day! That is not to say that the violence that now exists in the Middle East will not continue or worsen for a while, but it will not last. Further, Israel will not be destroyed by Iran (nor will, it appears the Gulf states); the nation of Israel will remain in its land and prosper until the final few years of world history, when the antichrist will invade the Middle East and will launch a fierce pogrom to attempt to exterminate the Jewish people.

Iran, for its part, is evidently not going away, either. Iran (Persia) is listed in Ezekiel 38:5 as an ally of Russia when Russia invades the Middle East at the end of history. The Bible does not say whether there will be some sort of previous military conflict between Iran and Israel, but it does indicate that Iran will continue to exist, and also that Iran will be brought firmly within the Russian orbit. (For a more detailed description of Ezekiel’s prophecies, see the analysis of Ezekiel 34–39 in volume 4 of my Interpretive Guide to the Bible.)

I am not saying that Christians, or American politicians, should not be concerned about Iran’s nuclear program, or that Christians should not pray for Israel’s protection. But the Bible gives us assurance that Israel will indeed survive the present conflict, and that peace will come to the Middle East.

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