How Readest Thou?
This is a fundamental question in Christianity and revolves around whether or not you believe the Bible is an instruction manual, telling us how to conduct our lives in every detail. For example, some Christians believe that because Jacob had four wives, David had multiple wives, and Solomon had 300 wives, that the Bible is giving us instruction that polygamy is Gods ideal in marriage. Other examples of taking the Bible as a literal instruction manual are: snake handling, speaking in tongues, use of force, intermediation by priests, and burning or stoning dissenters. Jesus comment about divorce is very instructive here: Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning, it was not so (Matthew 19:8). The story of Zelophehads daughters tells us that God has not prescribed every detail for every age, generation, or culture. Even though God had given explicit rules and regulations to Israel on seemingly every aspect of life and often spoken about how to treat the marginalized and powerless, Moses and the elders somehow could not generalize the inheritance laws to women when the circumstances called for it. They did not understand they should apply the basic principles of the law of love to make a reasoned response to the requests and concerns of Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. Instead, the elders relied upon God through Moses to tell them what they should do. The fact that the five women are even named illustrates the importance of this story and the importance of using the basic principle of love to come to an equitable and charitable decision. It appears that from the very beginning of the Jewish nation the principles of love, mercy, and doing what is right got lost in the minds and practices of the Israelites. Because of the multitude of specific rules given, they thought that if God had not implicitly commanded them to avoid specific behaviors the behavior was allowed. On the other hand, since God had not defined work in the fourth commandment, they started to define what and how much of a given activity was allowed before being considered work. Much of the Bible is actually a collection of stories about how people lived their lives, giving us examples, non-examples, and principles upon which we can know how to make decisions and conduct our lives. Some look at the story of Samson as an example of how we should treat our enemies. Others see a self-centered man who relied upon his own strength, never calling his brethren to join the battle and ending up asking God for revenge on his enemies. I suspect Samsons life story and his impact on Israels history would have been much different if he had been able to lead men by example. Even though he is listed in Hebrews 11, that fact says more about how God works to reclaim every human on this planet. In many ways, Samsons life is a warning about how not to conduct your life, a lesson that the Palestinians and Israelis of today should take to heart. is fundamental even to the question of womens ordination. If there is no marriage or giving in marriage in heaven, what will the hierarchical structure of control look like?Selah! The ridiculous nature of these questions points to the fact that all these laws were emergency measures to meet the contingencies of growing a society of slaves into Gods representatives on earth. actually points to a persons worldview of the Bible. Because we have differing fundamental worldviews of the Bible within Christianity and the Adventist church, the question of womens ordination can never be resolved biblically. This problem was highlighted when the Theology of Ordination Study Committee brought back three official recommendations. Imagine, the so-called theological experts can take the same Bible and the same texts and arrive at entirely opposed conclusions. This is the question that creates a division within theological issuesthose of supreme importfrom those that are trivial, non-essential, and that should be avoided. Dennis Hollingsead works in the Office of Development at Andrews University. Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash  We invite you to join our community through conversation by commenting below. We ask that you engage in courteous and respectful discourse. You can view our full commenting policy by clicking here.