Episode 166: The Study Series 12—The Speaker, Audience and Context of Verses

If you have ever sent me a question asking me about such and such, I will almost always ask you for the book, chapter and verse. Not because I don’t know my Bible, but because I respect it enough not to lean on the Holy Spirit to teach me something out of context. Who a section of Scripture is addressed to is just important as who the speaker is, what situation is being addressed, the genre type, and what the historical reality is. When we don’t know these things, we can turn the Bible into a cherry-picker’s idea of paradise where anything can mean whatever we want it to mean.

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Hi, I am Tyler Dawn Rosenquist and welcome to Character in Context, where I usually teach the historical and ancient sociological context of Scripture with an eye to developing the character of the Messiah. But not right now, right now I am doing a series about how to not waste your time with bad study practices, bad resources, and just the general confusion that I faced when I started studying the Bible and was trying to figure out what to do and whose books I should read. Bottom line, I read a lot of nonsense and spent a ton of money on it. I am going to give you some basics on how to avoid a lot of the pitfalls, save money, maximize your time and effort, and get the most out of what you are doing. Master book list can be found here and I will add to it as needed.

Something that happens to me (and every Bible teacher, I imagine) is that people will describe a verse to me and ask me what it means. Now sometimes I will have a decent idea about what verse they are talking about and other times I am pretty sure that they are combining a couple verses into one or citing one of those verses that you see repeated verbatim or almost verbatim in a number of different settings. Regardless of the situation, I ask them to find the verse for me and to give me the chapter and verse so that I can (hopefully) give them some insight on what it means or at least what my take on it is based on the context. If I get really lucky, it will be in a section of Scripture that I have taught because that means I have read lots and lots of books about it by various scholars and theologians. If I am clueless about it—like Ezekiel’s wheels, I will just admit ignorance and try to point them to someone who likely has a better answer than I do or to a scholar whom I respect who has written a book or three on it. But when I am personally studying out a verse, I start from the shallow end of the pool before diving into the deep end.

The first thing that I make sure I know when I am given book, chapter, and verse is the time period and location in which the book was written or written about. Esther, for example, takes place in the fifth century BCE, under the dominion of the Medo-Persian Empire, situated within the citadel of Susa—none of it takes place in Israel and no one in the book has ever even been to Israel. The laws of the Land are Persian and not from Torah, but like ancient Israel, the culture is focused on honor/shame dynamics and people identify as parts of a larger clan, community, and nationality and not at all as individuals. Some characters are Jews and others are not. And so who is talking is just as important to the context of any verse as who the audience is. Is there a timeline? Is there a crisis? Who are the major players in terms of people and nations and controversies?  Those are the kinds of questions we ask when the book is in narrative, or story, form.

What about the Psalms and various songs of the Bible? We have to ask entirely different questions. Do we know who the Psalm in question is attributed to and what time period i.e.. post-Exodus as in the case of the songs of Moses and Miriam, the time of the Judges as in the case of Deborah, or the various psalms that could be from David, Asaph, or the people of the exile. Is it a song of triumph, or a lament, or an enthronement psalm, (aka coronation psalm), is it one of the psalms the Levites would sing daily at the Temple, or the pilgrims would sing on their way up to Jerusalem, or one penned specifically for a festival? And there are many prayers in the Bible—who spoke them and why? What specific situation were they geared toward? Does it represent a prayer that can be used universally or does it only mean something within a very specific situation?

Wisdom literature has to be read entirely differently than any of the above because it speaks of extremes and what should be true, speaking in absolutes that they and we know are unreasonable. Yes, the son of a righteous man should never be begging for bread but we also know that it is indeed the case in regions of terrible warfare and persecution and it is during those times when the righteous are the most likely to suffer. Check out Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning (affiliate link). He talks about his time in the Concentration Camps and how it was the most righteous who died because they would give away their bread and who would volunteer to work in place of the sick and who wouldn’t hide in the back or in the middle of the group when dangerous work assignments were being given. The prosperity Gospel doesn’t work very well when you are truly self-sacrificing. Wisdom literature is about extremes and it teaches concepts designed to impart general wisdom—what should happen when everything goes as it should. How about parables and allegories? They are teaching stories designed to get people thinking outside of the box. And apocalypses, the literature of the oppressed, telling them that God wins in the end through clever uses of well-known cultural and biblical symbols.

What was the original language? Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek? What cultural influences do we have to take a look at—Egyptian, Canaanite, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek (Hellenistic), or Roman? How have concepts and the language changed from one part of the Bible to another? Are they under their own rulership, or slaves, or in exile, or under foreign rule at home? Is the writing attributed to a prophet, a king, a judge, a patriarch, a historian, a priest, or an apostle? Was the original audience Hebrew or Gentile or a mixture of both? Do we know the city, and the history of the city, and the time period, and what their laws were? Is there archaeology to help us understand what is being expressed? And you might think, “Geez Louise, all I asked is what ‘His word never comes back void’ means”! And all that might seem impossible to be able to balance all that information out, but the truth is that once you have studied for a long time, all that info is kinda either tucked into your brain somewhere or you at least know where to find it without much trouble. I am not saying that you always need all of that for everything, but when you are wondering about the meaning of a confusing verse, it all really helps a lot. All that being said, no one needs to be a rocket scientist to understand that one of Paul’s most common messages in the epistles/private or public letters is, “Stop acting like jerks, you’re making Jesus look bad.”

And of course, despite BibleGateway (which I use a lot) giving you one verse before and one verse after as “verse in context” that really doesn’t cut it. Most memory verses, in my experience, don’t mean what they seem to mean outside of their context. Let’s look at some really abused verses, just for fun, because this is a pet peeve of mine:

“Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged. For you will be judged by the same standard with which you judge others, and you will be measured by the same measure you use. Why do you look at the splinter in your brother’s eye but don’t notice the beam of wood in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the splinter out of your eye,’ and look, there’s a beam of wood in your own eye? Hypocrite! First take the beam of wood out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to take the splinter out of your brother’s eye.” (Matt 7:1-5 CSB)

Now, I started with a softball verse—the speaker is Yeshua/Jesus. The audience is all of the people who followed Him in the wilderness and were present for the Sermon on the Mount. They were Jews living in the Galilee, an agrarian culture north of Judea and the city of Jerusalem and out of reach of the Temple hierarchy. They were under the rule of Herod Antipas, one of the sons of Herod the Great, a puppet ruler under the thumb of Rome. I could go on but the truth is that none of that is really all that useful for this particular verse, “Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged.” Remember last week when we talked about how to and not to use a Concordance? Well, today we are going to look up the word judge and see what it looks like in Greek. Okay wow, I stopped my counting at twelve different root words for different kinds of judging and judgement. And these words can mean anything from condemnation to simple discernment of the difference between good and evil. The form of judging in this verse refers to actual condemnation, making a final sort of judgment. What this is most certainly not doing is telling us that we aren’t to discern between what is good and what is evil. You can’t condemn a child molester to eternal damnation but you can absolutely condemn the crime. Only Yahweh can condemn, the rest of us are just either guessing or indulging in wishful thinking. We do not have any idea who is beyond salvation or redemption. We just don’t. We aren’t judges and so we don’t get to condemn. Evil acts we can condemn, absolutely—to which the rest of the context of this section of Scripture attests. How can we remove the log from our own eye if we cannot discern between good and evil in our own lives, and how can we then help a brother or sister with the spec in their own eye, again, if we cannot make a judgment between what is righteousness and what is transgression? So, we are absolutely required to discern and grow in discernment (and this isn’t some magical spiritual gift where everything we are offended by is something to condemn as evil but comes from wisdom that we gain through experience and time and tempered by love and mercy) but we are put firmly in our place as to the penalty for encroaching upon the right of God to judge mankind—namely, our own condemnation.

Let’s look at Jeremiah 10 because people ignore context on this a lot. The last one was about language but this one is about all types of context, so it is a lot more fun. Not only do we have to know related passages of Scripture written about the same exact time period, but we have to know about extra-biblical Babylonian literature and how idolatry did and didn’t work among Israel’s ancient Near Eastern neighbors. Without that, we are pretty much doomed to haul the first four verses into the 21st century when they belong back in the 6th century BCE.

“Do not learn the way of the nations or be terrified by signs in the heavens, although the nations are terrified by them, for the customs of the peoples are worthless. Someone cuts down a tree from the forest; it is worked by the hands of a craftsman with a chisel. He decorates it with silver and gold. It is fastened with hammer and nails, so it won’t totter.”

(Now, this is where people who abuse the context of these verses always cut off their quotes because, if they go any further, it becomes obvious that they are misrepresenting Scripture. But the context we have so far is to not learn the ways of the nations, which in Scripture is always concerning oppression, idolatry, and immorality, usually sexual. At this point, those who want to make it sound like Christmas Trees go back to the ancient world instead of a few hundred years stop quoting and just leave it there. But what is the context here? Jeremiah is a priest and a prophet who was the same age as King Josiah, and he was tasked with preaching repentance to the people of Judah, one last warning before they would be conquered and exiled east to Babylonia. They were committing all of the aforementioned sins and even carrying them out within the Temple precincts, as we learn in Ezekiel 8, another important chapter to be well acquainted with in interpreting these verses. They are also holding Judean debt slaves beyond the sixth year, in violation of Torah, and indulging in all kinds of sexual sins.)

“Like scarecrows in a cucumber patch, their idols cannot speak. They must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them for they can do no harm—and they cannot do any good.”

(Scarecrows are obviously referring to something that is shaped in humanoid form and when we see references to not being able to speak, walk, see, or hear, we need to be very familiar with Psalm 115:4-8 “Their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands. They have mouths but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see. They have ears but cannot hear, noses, but cannot smell. They have hands but cannot feel, feet, but cannot walk. They cannot make a sound with their throats. Those who make them are just like them, as are all who trust in them.” And this is a theme that pops up a lot with the deafness and blindness that has caused Israel to become dull and unable to hear Yahweh or His Messiah. These verses and concepts are a mockery of pagans treating idols as if they are any help at all, and serving them as though they are inhabited by the essences of real gods and goddesses. But what they are doing is useless because what they serve is useless. BTW, I can’t recommend Beale’s We Become What We Worship and Lints’ Identity and Idolatry (affiliate links) enough for learning this language and these concepts.)

Lord, there is no one like you. You are great; your name is great in power. Who should not fear you, King of the nations? It is what you deserve. For among all the wise people of the nations and among all their kingdoms, there is no one like you.

(Suddenly, Jeremiah begins to exalt Yahweh and contrast Him to the idols that have made the nations blind, mute, lame and deaf. This is very common to idol polemics—writings that mock idolatry through exaggeration and even misrepresentation. But Jeremiah proclaims that Yahweh and Yahweh alone is worthy of the worship and attention of even the nations.)

They are both stupid and foolish, instructed by worthless idols made of wood! Beaten silver is brought from Tarshish and gold from Uphaz. The work of a craftsman and of a goldsmith’s hands is clothed in blue and purple, all the work of skilled artisans. But the Lord is the true God; he is the living God and eternal King.

(Again, back to the Psalm 115 theme—being instructed by what is worthless has made them stupid and foolish. And in these verses, as well as in verses 1-5 of Jer 10, we go back to the instructions for the making of an idol for a city Temple, one of the big ones like Marduk. Not only do we see this process echoed in Isaiah 44, but also practically word for word in the Babylonian Erra Epic where Marduk commands a new idol built for himself out of sacred wood, in the hands of his favorite artisan, how gold and silver are hammered into thin plates and applied over the wood. Then it is dressed in royal garments as though it is a king. Jeremiah would have been familiar with this process because the elites of Jerusalem, where he lived and preached, were doing it.)

The earth quakes at his wrath, and the nations cannot endure his fury. You are to say this to them: “The gods that did not make the heavens and the earth will perish from the earth and from under these heavens.” He made the earth by his power, established the world by his wisdom, and spread out the heavens by his understanding. When he thunders, the waters in the heavens are in turmoil, and he causes the clouds to rise from the ends of the earth. He makes lightning for the rain and brings the wind from his storehouses. Everyone is stupid and ignorant. Every goldsmith is put to shame by his carved image, for his cast images are a lie; there is no breath in them. They are worthless, a work to be mocked. At the time of their punishment they will be destroyed. Jacob’s Portion is not like these because he is the one who formed all things. Israel is the tribe of his inheritance; the Lord of Armies is his name.” (Jer 10:2-16 CSB)

(And again, Yahweh is described as being supreme and the idols absolutely powerless. When it refers to the “gods that didn’t make the heavens and the earth”, he is stating the universal belief that the gods, instead of being outside the system and in control of it as creator like Yahweh, were absolutely every bit as subject to fate as humans were. The gods were at the mercy of the universe because they weren’t the makers. True, they had important jobs that would result in disaster if they weren’t done, but they were like railroad engineers—driving the train while having no control over the weather, or damage to the track, or a blockage to the rails. They could die. Yahweh cannot. He is not subject to fate because He is not at the mercy of the universe. Of course, that was the remarkable thing about His taking human form in the person of Yeshua, that He did largely submit Himself to all of the things that can harm and kill us.)

I want to do another one, again in Jeremiah 51:45, Come out of her, my people! Run for your lives! Run from the fierce anger of the Lord.” It is echoed in Rev 18:4. The context of both of these sections of Scripture are often overlooked by those who wish to appropriate these verses to make the Babylon to be fled whatever it is they want it to be. But what did it mean to the original audience? Yahweh is speaking here through Jeremiah, giving a preemptive warning at that time to the people who have been exiled to Babylon. Jeremiah was left behind with the poor of the Land, and he has written a letter telling the exiles to be ready to leave when the time comes to judge Babylon and He makes a way for them to go home. And this is important because when Cyrus comes to judge Babylon, the Jews are permitted to return to Jerusalem but only a remnant returns. Why? Because Babylon is so very comfortable and safe and Jerusalem and Judah are neither. Plus, they are very far away. Somewhere between a two-to-three-month journey, and a dangerous journey due to wild animals and robbers. But Babylonian, Persian, Greek, and later Roman comfort is built through bloodshed, oppression, slavery, immorality of all sorts, and theft. Yahweh knew the temptation would be great, but He was commanding them to return to their inheritance to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple; to worship Him at the Temple He would be commanding Haggai and Zerubbabel to rebuild. In Rev 18, we see almost the exact same situation. Rome is to be judged, and those who have become rich in league with Rome are partners in the slavery, taxation, theft, oppression, and bloodshed that have made Rome “great.” Rome was the new Babylon not because of idolatry because the whole danged world was idolatrous, but because of how they came by their wealth and power—in ways parallel to Babylon. People in places like Laodicea had gotten wealthy because they were in bed with Rome, whereas the poor Galileans and Judeans were being trampled and robbed in order to feed the citizens or Rome—often at the expense of everyone else in the empire starving to death. This context is extremely specific.

And there are people who will claim it applies to churches in general for this or that reason and although it could be applied to any church hierarchy which abuses its members and gets rich while doing it—and the people being abused and those watching it happen should definitely get out of there, it can’t be used to tell everyone to leave every church. It is just not in keeping with the historical context. I have heard it used to try and get people to stop taking their meds, often with disastrous results, or out of the cities and into the boonies where they claim to be living off the grid but still have wifi. But refusing to ally ourselves with an oppressive system, the Beast system, isn’t the same thing as leaving the cities and abandoning the lost there, or refusing to minister to people in churches, or any number of other ways that people attempt to stretch this verse to suit their own agendas.

Context is important. If we can make Scripture mean whatever we want then it means nothing. Knowing the speaker and the audience and the history and the language is important. Knowing the politics and sociology and anthropology is important. Knowing what the archaeology reveals is important. And no, if you are simply using Scripture to become more radically loving and to press on to good fruit then you don’t really need any of that. But, if you want to be able to guard yourself against nonsense teachings and if you want to teach the Bible and be responsible with what you are saying it means without mangling it, it is important to study as much as you are able to and to be honest and humble about what you don’t know. Any of you who have ever asked me questions can attest to the fact that if I don’t know, I will admit it and I won’t try to pretend otherwise. We must be humble in how we approach and treat the text.




Character in Context–New weekly radio show/podcast

Things have been really busy for me over the past month as I have been preparing and pre-recording radio shows that are now airing on Hebrew Nation Radio online every Tuesday and Friday at 5pm PST/8pm EST. Each week, I cover a different area of Biblical historical/sociological context and relate it to something concrete in our walks today.

If you miss a broadcast, no worries, as I upload the episodes in podcast form every Friday evening HERE. Evidently, for those of you clever enough to figure it out, there is even an app to listen to it on a smartphone. Fortunately, I have teenagers to figure that stuff out for me. You can listen to them right there on the podbean page, on my youtube channel, or download them for later.




Question: How do you study Bible Context and how do I find good sources on my own?

bookGot asked this several times this week and since I hate rewriting the same things over and over again I figured it would be a worthy blog – and useful for my Context for Kids families who are wanting to know how to find answers for themselves.

In the past week I have come in contact with two cases where absolute lies were passed off by lazy “historians” and people in the media that should have been immediately checked. Here is what I posted yesterday on facebook – and hence the reason for writing this today. Quotation from A History of US, Book 5 by Joy Hakim

A few days ago I shared about how the “curse of the Pharaohs” became common knowledge as one person made a claim which got repeated and then repeated again. I had no idea that this also happened to a great hero Joseph Cinque (Sengbe Pieh), but we read this as we were studying the Amistad slave ship revolt in school this morning (and of course, I verified it).

“You will read in some books that Cinque returned to Africa and became a slave trader himself. That is not true. And yet that story has been written many times. Why? Because an author who learned the story of the Amistad and Joseph Cinque decided to write a novel about it. A novelist CAN WRITE ANYTHING THAT MAKES A GOOD STORY. He decided it would give the story an ironic twist to have Cinque become a slaver himself. A historian read the novel, THOUGHT IT WAS TRUE, and retold the story in a history book. (History books, of course, should always be true.) Then ANOTHER historian QUOTED the first historian, and then ANOTHER, and then ANOTHER. And that is how made-up stories sometimes come to be history.”

If you want to know how easy it is for an author to make unsubstantiated claims and how hard it is to disprove something that there is no evidence for check out this article on the attempt to find out the truth about the Cinque allegations and how people still insist on believing the lie http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/caribbean/amistad-cinque.pdf

About nine months ago I asked a local homeschooled high school student, who always aces the State tests, “If you were assigned a report, how would you research it?” He gave exactly the answer that I expected.

“Google and wikipedia.”

He was shocked when I told him that more often than not, that was a recipe for disaster. Why? Because anyone can have a webpage and frankly, anyone can edit or create a wikipedia page. All you have to do is make claims and you can even choose to or not to cite sources, but you don’t have to accurately reflect those sources and the sources don’t even have to be legitimate. Unless someone comes along who is fact checking, errors and myths can go unchallenged. Here is a quote from wikipedia which is “allowed to be imperfect”

“Don’t be afraid to edit – anyone can edit almost every page, and we are encouraged to be bold! Find something that can be improved and make it better—for example, spelling, grammar, rewriting for readability, adding content, or removing non-constructive edits. If you wish to add new facts, please try to provide references so they may be verified, or suggest them on the article’s discussion page. Changes to controversial topics and Wikipedia’s main pages should usually be discussed first. Contributing to Wikipedia will provide you with resources on all the basics needed to use, comment on, and contribute to Wikipedia.

Remember – you can’t break Wikipedia; all edits can be reversed, fixed or improved later. Wikipedia is allowed to be imperfect. So go ahead, edit an article and help make Wikipedia the best information source on the Internet!”

I’ve had people tell me that Wikipedia is properly vetted – this proves otherwise. This is not to say it is always wrong, but we should not put too much faith in its reliability. I’ve had folks claim that a book cited in a Wikipedia article says one thing – then I read it and it says the opposite. Of course, when they cut and pasted the reference straight out of Wikipedia complete with ISBN # in the exact same order, I knew they hadn’t actually read it – but I digress. It was a great book though, so it turned out for the best.

As for Google – type in something ridiculous, and someone has probably already “proven” it, complete with Bible references and quotes from Abraham Lincoln.  You can prove absolutely anything using Google and that’s because both the sane and the insane have equal access to producing websites, the educated and the uneducated, the saint and the con-man, the wise and the gullible.

Can Google be used to study? Yes. Find out the experts in your field of study and do a search for them and you might get lucky and find a free online paper, or a website, but most people in this life who work hard and study put the information into books and legitimate scholarly articles. They didn’t receive their information for free and they won’t give it out for free. I actually bought over 120 books last year and fortunately my book sales covered the expense – that means I wrote books to buy other people’s books so that I can write more books lol. In studying, I learned who the legitimate scholars are and who some of the pretenders are. (Hint: the popular people are often the pretenders because the real story is generally boring unless you are a total nerd, which I of course am)

The key is going with the established experts in the given area of study, not necessarily with the celebrities, and not necessarily the people you agree about everything with. People wanting to read casually about mythology like Joseph Campbell, but true experts roll their eyes at him because he is not credible upon deeper study. I also make sure I am dealing with an objective source by seeing how their findings line up with people from different backgrounds.  Believe it or not, I have found integrity and good scholarship (as well as a lack or integrity and bad scholarship) from Catholics, Protestants, Mormons, Jews, Muslims and Atheists! Good scholarship is marked by providing source material and not just by making wild claims, no matter how many people are making the same claims. When we are talking about archaeology and Bible context, the proof is either there or it isn’t and we teach what has been unearthed – and a lot of material has been unearthed over the last 150 years.

Start with some legitimate names in contextual research – John H Walton is easily the most readable, really no contest. Look at who he works with and whose work he cites in his studies – they will be legitimate. Get a copy of Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, as well as his IVP Bible Background Commentary on the Old Testament, as well as his Illustrated Zondervan Commentaries, and The Lost World of Genesis One. Certain names will keep popping up as sources. Learn the differences between scholarly books like his, and commentary like my King, Kingdom, Citizen – a book that is properly documented but I am not an actual expert even though I seriously study the experts. I wouldn’t tell anyone to write a report citing me, but citing my sources, definitely. Get as close as you can to primary source material.

Read what a number of people say about a subject before jumping to conclusions – after all, the first thing we hear sounds reasonable until it is rebutted.

Pro 18:17 The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him. 

Even a good scholar can be wrong on a point, we all have our blind spots – the more scholars you get together, of differing backgrounds, the less likely it is that they will have the same blind spot. If an Atheist, a Muslim, a Protestant and a Jew can all agree on a piece of Ancient Near Eastern context, then chances are excellent that you have yourself a very objective piece of information. However, if your only source is a bunch of people with a narrow agenda who quote each other, back away quietly before they try to convert you – no matter how many people follow their youtube videos (especially if they do that scary thing with obscuring their voice – that’s just creepy!).

JSTOR.org is a great starting place for looking at scholarly articles and you can register and have 3 free articles in your bookshelf at a time, checked out for three weeks before you can get a new one to replace it. You can’t print them out, but it’s worth it to check it out before you pay money for the privilege of being able to download it. Even scholars have to eat, after all.

Start small. I started with listening to teachings, but then I decided to actually test drive the information. Rico Cortes was my first context teacher, and then Ryan White and then Joe Good. If I listen to a teaching and I want to know it and not just decide to believe  it, I buy the books they recommend and then I read others as well. As I have grown in this, however, I am knowing who to take seriously on certain subjects and who not to waste my money on. And just because I take an expert seriously doesn’t mean I automatically accept what they are saying – there has to be supporting evidence and not just claims.

Parents of my context kids – be studying with your kids, if they are interested, but I wouldn’t let them study alone. Bible context is not always G or even PG-rated – especially Egyptian mythology, dang, ANY mythology. Please, please do not hesitate if you have a specific interest, to ask me who the real deals are doing the good research.

Getting back to the books is time consuming and expensive, but required for real studying. Watching a video isn’t studying, it simply gives us something to agree or disagree with, but it is very valuable to get us started and to alert us to new areas of study. It’s also good to hear someone else’s take on it, someone who actually speaks English (unlike most of these ANE scholars, sheesh, who write “ivory tower intellectual” instead of “normal people language”). I sometimes disagree with my teachers because we will see the facts in a different light, but we are seeing the same facts, not just making them up.

Once I have a topic, I will find a book on it – usually I get a recommendation. Sometimes I will even contact an author as ask who they recommend in their field and they are often surprisingly quick to answer. That book will have references, and if they are papers in journals, I can oftentimes find them online and read them myself to make sure the author is being honest about what is there. Sometimes a book will lead to another book and especially on topics like Honor and Shame where it led to six books, plus a bunch of articles. When I studied it out, I felt like I could finally teach about it with  integrity – not just asking you to believe something that I had chosen to believe.

References alone do not mean legitimacy – I can reference a book I have never even cracked open and tell you it says something, when I have cherry picked or twisted the information. There are some very popular books out there that have done just that, and then they get quoted, and someone quotes the book that quoted them and then you have a Cinque situation,  only now it’s believers doing it, and the subject matter touches on God.

Just one last thing – If you ask a teacher for proof of what they just taught and they respond with “google it” or “If you give a man a fish you will feed him for a day but if you teach a man to fish he will never be hungry again” or “it’s just obvious to everyone,” then it’s time to realize they aren’t teaching but regurgitating. Feel free to disregard what they are saying. Most people have not verified what they are saying and have no wish to because information limits us – kinda like it does with a defense attorney who actually knows his client is guilty. Information limits what we can and cannot pass off as truth, so a lot of folks avoid it – thing is, they never make it sound like they haven’t actually studied.




Changing gears – a new direction for The Ancient Bridge

childrenAs much as we like to stay in the same place forever, sometimes God places us into a certain mode of operation for a time in order to train us for what we are really meant to do. Those of you who know me, know that I never planned on writing any of my three published books and that every book that was ‘my idea’ never could get beyond the first chapter so generally I sit around studying whatever tickles my fancy, waiting impatiently, and then one day He tells me what my next assignment is.

Ten years ago I got a long term ‘heads up’ in the form of a very vivid dream.

I was in an upper room, sitting at a round table in front of a projector screen. On the table in front of me was a sheet of music and playing on the projector was a documentary about a middle aged couple with 100 children, none of them biological. As I sat there in admiration, I realized that I was watching a video of myself and my husband.

Well, I woke up freaked out, convinced that Mark and I were going to adopt/foster 98 more children. I cannot convey the absolute horror that produced in me. I loved my own kids but pretty much hated everyone else’s. I informed God that if this was the plan He was going to have to fundamentally change who I am from the inside out. Four years ago when we moved to Lakeville, MN – our house just happened to sit next to a home based daycare.

There’s something about children who rarely see their parents that is incredibly endearing – I found that a child values the people who don’t have to spend time with them, but do so anyway. They can tell the difference. As I worked renovating the backyard, they would ask questions and I would answer. Answer time became silly story time, or sometimes I would sing to them. I couldn’t walk out my back door without hearing, “Tyler, will you tell us a story?” They had two stories they wanted to hear, the scary-silly “dark-dark” story and the story about the cute little (various animal) named (one of the day care kids) who really wanted to be a (ridiculous food item) and ended up getting eaten by a T-Rex after quizzing every other animal at the zoo about how to accomplish their goal. I learned that it wasn’t the story that they really loved, but the time and effort spent on their behalf to genuinely engage with them. With some of the really little guys, my name was one of their first words.

We moved away in March. I miss those little stinkers – especially now way out in the country with no neighbors and no kid voices, my own kids being hairy, deep voiced and oftentimes smelly teenage boys.

Anyway, two years ago a dear friend in Ghana named Cassyama – a mighty Christian woman of God – was praying for me and had a vision. She told me she saw me surrounded by “so many children.” I told her about my dream eight years before. She suggested I get into children’s ministry.

What? Me? No way! Yuck – no one respects children’s ministry! Visions of crayons and glitter danced in my head, and my eyelid twitched nervously. My very first ‘ministry’ position was as a Sunday school teacher to Middle Schoolers – not only was I just a brand new believer but I wasn’t even a parent – I was not equipped. They didn’t care – they needed a more mature version of day care and they handed me the little felt dudes and put me to work. It was a disaster. I can assure you it was NOT better than nothing, it was FAR FAR worse.

Anyway, I then wrote and published The Bridge – my outreach to the Christians I had so brutally and arrogantly (and ignorantly) burned my bridges with years before. Then I wrote and published King, Kingdom Citizen in response to the growing divide between Jews and former Gentiles within the Messianic movement. I was getting ready to write a book called Eternal: Our God, His Temple and the Aaronic Priesthood when I got waylaid. I even had majorly respected teachers lined up and willing to help me out with it. But then I got different marching orders – to write a children’s curriculum book on honor and shame culture in the Bible.

Writing a textbook was different than anything else I had ever done – it was harder. When you teach adults you can make leaps and ask them to make the jump with you, but with kids you have to take them step by step, not leaving things out. Teaching children requires a more compassionate pace – and it also means not always being able to teach everything you know, but limiting yourself to what they need and what will help them become critical thinkers, someday able to interpret Scripture themselves. So I wrote the ten week curriculum and published it about ten weeks ago and got my first review this week from a man who has a PhD in Biblical Geography, a University Professor – five stars. Wow, that was unexpected.

I also began my youtube channel, Context for Kids – you can find the link on my sidebar. I am doing short weekly teachings, starting this year with the first five books of the Bible – no doctrine, just context. Like my book, the videos aren’t for kids – they are for families. I am not a substitute teacher – I think that if the kids learn something then the parents should know it too. My book and videos are designed to get families learning and talking as a unit – to be mini-scholarly communities and not scholarly individuals. I read all those horrid scholarly books and articles and translate them into what I affectionately call ‘normal speak.’ I teach kids the exact same things that I teach adults – well, mostly. This week’s Torah portion was tough since half of it involved sex of some kind so I played it safe. My poor kids are never spared the details but I respect differences in approach and the ages involved. Not everyone is teaching 14 year olds.

I’ll be honest – I enjoy writing for adults but I don’t really enjoy teaching them. What I enjoy is putting concepts down on paper in as clear language as possible, but presenting those concepts to adults who are often very critical and wanting the Bible to be plainly understandable as it is – well, it can be pretty hazardous work. Some people are hostile to the thought that Bible people were entirely different than we are today. Adults are invested with agendas and sometimes with legends and many read only so that they can react negatively – but kids aren’t like that. Kids are still able to learn new and wonderful things without being offended by them – they aren’t invested with so much tradition that they can’t see clearly yet, the way we are. What I want to do is not to teach kids doctrine – that is a parental responsibility and privilege. I am a teacher of history and character – I believe that when kids get a glimpse of another way of life, the way of life that existed in Bible times, that no one will be able to tell them that the Bible is just a book of fairy tales. They are going to see the Bible for what it is, a history book that reveals God’s character, and His redemptive plan through His Son Yeshua (Jesus).

I believe, that in learning the Ancient Near Eastern historical and First Century context of scripture, that all believers in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and His Messiah can find common ground. We parents see the obstacles facing our kids, we see the terrible character of believers in our real and online lives, we see the needless wars being fought between people who genuinely all want to honor our God but disagree about what that looks like. I think that we can be united around a desire to equip our children to BELIEVE the Bible is true, and to UNDERSTAND in context why Yeshua (Jesus) is the Messiah. The world is going to pelt our kids with loaded questions that quoted Bible verses won’t be enough to answer. University professors, and even many believing professors, will tell them that the Bible wasn’t written when it says it was or by who it says it was written by. We need to stop that before it happens. Believe me – I used to specialize in asking those types of questions, and now I answer them.

Right now I am transitioning TAB towards children’s ministry. I  have nine different curriculum books in my brain and another one on developing Biblical character through the proverbs. I am trying to figure out a way to gather a group of parents together online, in a place where doctrine and agenda are outlawed and we all work together to better educate our kids on the provable context of the Bible. I firmly believe in the Biblical principle of throwing the divisive brothers and sisters out in the name of a healthy and respectful learning atmosphere. I have said it many times – I believe that this generation coming up is THE generation. They’re different, and we have the opportunity to undo some of the divisiveness that has characterized the Body of Believers for too long. We may not be able to unite around this or that doctrine, but we can unite as parents who see a desperate need for our kids to be able to prove that the Bible is our history, and our future. You may not agree with my doctrine and I may not agree with yours – but I don’t teach mine and I won’t question you about yours, I only teach context and character through archaeology and the written Word.

I don’t want children’s ministry to be an afterthought – I want to teach them grown up context at kid speed. They deserve to be our priority because their spiritual lives are most certainly going to be harder than ours. There are people out there trying to do great kids ministry, but too many are struggling because they aren’t considered to be the ‘real’ teachers (in my case it was actually tragically accurate) – the glory and investment goes to the adults, but that just doesn’t make sense to me. I am 46 years old and I don’t need to be equipped as badly as someone who is a kid right now. I think we need to re-examine what we have been doing and what it is we value. Kids ministry can be fun, but it has to accomplish the goal of equipping our kids or it is nothing more than daycare. I am taking a break while I get this figured out – video teaching might be late this week. I don’t want to rush in but I don’t want to delay either.

I have a few grown up “meme” blogs that I am working on in various states of being finished, but other people are beginning to research this and speak out so I feel the need for me to do it is lessening. I don’t know what all this is going to look like yet, but I guess I am eager to find out.

 




Context for Kids Youtube channel

bereshith2015Well, big dummy that I am – I started my kids channel without mentioning it on my blog.

Here is the link – I am teaching the same context that I teach adults at an age appropriate level and with age appropriate content.

Next year we will go beyond the first five books and into the “adventure” books of Joshua, Judges and Samuel or maybe into the gospels – still debating it.