Sermon 77
Sermon by John Metcalfe at Wonersh on 18th March 2007.
Whats he
Point of the OT? - Writings
As
we sit, let’s pray… "Lord, we ask you to open our hearts to your Word, and
your Word to our hearts. Amen"
Good evening. So … talk #4 in our quick review of the Old
Testament. James introduced us to this
series and to this diagram just 5 weeks ago.
It shows the 39 books of the Old Testament split into 5 groups. In the 2nd talk Ian introduced us
to the 5 books of the Law – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy
– that start at creation and end with the people of
Last week Colin covered the 12 books
from Joshua to Nehemiah, which tell us of the history of the Jewish people from
when they went into exile until they returned to the Promised Land. Next week Margot is returning from exile to
tell us about the Major Prophets, and after Easter Brenda will complete the
series with the Minor Prophets. Tonight
we’re covering the OT Writings.
It was astute of Colin to give this
talk to me, as it focuses on Wisdom and Poetry.
You might not know that I’m a renowned poet – my first recorded ode was
written at age 15 and was presented to my girlfriend of the day, and it went
something like this: “Roses are red, Violets are blue, If God made
me, Then who made you?” How long do
you think that relationship lasted?
Actually, we’re still together, and Sue still has that verse in her
autograph book – right next to the Beatles!
Tonight I want to look briefly at 6 books. The “Wisdom
Books” are Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Job, although many other books
contain passages that we call ‘wisdom material’’. And the books of poetry and songs are Psalms,
the Song of Solomon and Lamentations.
Wisdom
One of the most characteristic elements of wisdom
writing is the proverb, and they crop up in just about every book of the
Bible. Indeed, some psalms are usually
classified as ‘wisdom psalms’ because of their content and style (e.g. Ps. 37, 49, 73, 112).
In looking at the Old Testament, I
guess we’re trying to place the books in some sort of chronological order, and
most of the wisdom books belong to the post-exilic period. But some of them, especially Proverbs,
contain collections which are very much older, and the roots of wisdom go way
back into the very earliest period of
Folk-wisdom was eventually joined by
another more sophisticated strand – the wisdom of the intelligentsia and the
court. Much of this was generated by the
professional ‘wise men’, the educated
classes, although it no doubt also originated in the folk-wisdom. The typical professional wise man was a government official – in countries where education
is rare, the government has always been the chief employer of educated talent,
and this is still true in such countries today.
The great courts of
Like any other trade or profession,
part of their job was to train and educate their eventual successors, and some
of the biblical wisdom literature was probably produced to educate these apprentice wise men. Much of it certainly envisages an audience of
such young apprentices, and much of
it would be particularly appropriate to people whose careers would be spent at
court – how to behave in the presence of the king is a theme which appears
quite often.
Joseph is a good example of a ‘wise man’. He’s a courtier, and specifically an
administrator. But his skills weren’t
just those of management, and his wisdom wasn’t limited to the common sense
variety, though he did have this in abundance.
There’s a supernatural dimension to it – he receives some of his wisdom
through dreams and visions, and he has the skill of interpreting other people’s
dreams. Clearly such skills weren’t
unique, and may have been typical, as the pharaoh seems to expect his wise men
to interpret his dreams, as with King Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 2).
Traditionally, the biblical character
most closely associated with wisdom isn’t Joseph, but Solomon, possibly because
he was the first king of
In some respects, Solomon’s wisdom was
a kind of quick-wittedness, as in the case of the two prostitutes who both laid
claim to the same baby (1 Kings 3: 16-28). This sort of
cleverness made him admired throughout the region – in 1 Kings 4: 33 we read
that he knew all about plants ‘from the
cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop (moss) that
grows out of walls. He also taught about
animals and birds, reptiles and fish.
Men of all nations came to listen to Solomon’s wisdom’. But his wisdom was especially demonstrated in
his proverbs – 1 Kings 4: 32 tells us that ‘He
spoke three thousand proverbs; and his songs numbered a thousand and five’.
Proverbs
So what about the book of Proverbs? Most of this book consists of long lists of
proverbs – usually brief and sometimes witty.
Typical examples might be: “Better
to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife”
(Prov. 25:24); “An honest
answer is like a kiss on the lips” (Prov.
24:26); or “Finish your outdoor work and get your fields ready; after that, build
your house” (Prov. 24:27).
The book is ascribed to Solomon, and
whilst some of the proverbs may indeed go back to him, some were originally
Egyptian sayings. Ii seems that some of
the contents are of somewhat questionable worth and one wonders why they were
included. They admonish the reader time
after time to pursue righteousness and to abstain from wickedness and
evil. And we find that avoidance of evil
involves the careful choice of companions (13:20,
21:24f, 24:1f), especially female
companions. But the author isn’t
insensitive to the virtues of a good woman, as we heard in our reading. He’s in favour of marriage and recognises the
accompanying difficulties, but he identifies the real threats as being outside
marriage, especially warning young men against the wicked woman, the strange
woman, the harlot and the adulteress.
Even more frequent are the warnings against laziness and respect for
discipline. Let’s move on.
Ecclesiastes
and Job
Most of the Old Testament books give us
the impression that their writers have never really considered the possibility
that God might not exist, which is something that we all have to face. The writer of Ecclesiastes never actually
doubts God’s existence, but he certainly queries the usefulness of belief in God and the practice of religion. Ecclesiastes says that things go on – there’s
no progress and there is no grand design – a bit like being on a
tread-wheel. At a stroke, he devalues
the whole prophetic tradition and dismisses the whole notion that God reveals
himself through his mighty works.
He even doubts the value of wisdom, but
wisdom seems to be preferable to folly.
The wise man and the fool meet the same fate, but righteousness seems to
be preferable to wickedness, even though there is no guarantee that
righteousness will be rewarded.
Ecclesiastes is determined not to be depressed – things may seem futile,
but we might as well get on with life.
He doesn’t offer us any answers, but he doesn’t even take his own doubts
too seriously – he ends by reminding us that though he’s taken the trouble to
write a book about his doubts, writing books is also a futile activity, and
reading them is a great bore (Ecc. 12:12)!
The book of Job is an altogether more
serious piece of work. Job, too, has his
doubts, but he does care intensely about the answers to them. Job faces the question: “How can I go on
believing in God?” … the poor guy is suffering, and his wife offers him no
support, merely advising him to curse God and die. His friends come to visit him and offer him
platitudes which only make his sufferings worse – doesn’t it all sound so
familiar? Job insists that he shouldn’t
be suffering in this way – there’s no justice – he demands to see God himself
to argue his case, and in the end God answers Job and Job is satisfied. The book ends with the restoration of Job’s
prosperity.
Poetry
& Songs
Let’s think briefly about the books of
poetry and songs …
Book
of Psalms
What do you do when you want to bring
the extremes of life to God in prayer?
What do you say to express unspeakable joy or sorrow? Where do you turn when you simply don’t have the
words? Jesus and the authors of the New
Testament turned to the Psalms. The book
of Psalms is the greatest collection of prayers ever written. It was Jesus’ prayer book.
A nice, happy, thankful Psalm can set
us up nicely for the trials of life. But
what happens when the Psalm is not quite so uplifting? Suppose one day you read Ps. 135 – verse 3
says, “Praise the Lord, for the Lord is
good, sing praise to the Lord.” And
on it goes that way, praising God and his powers – it’s a wonderfully uplifting
and thankful poem, which sets you up nicely for the day. But then you come to Ps. 137, which begins, “By the rivers of
The book of Psalms isn’t
straightforward – you have to understand the type of literature that it is, and
it’s best described as someone’s spiritual journal. Emotions run high – the mountain top and
valley depth experiences of life aren’t flattened out. Think of Jesus riding into
Jesus is so immersed in the Psalms that
they spring out of his very being when all else fails him. The book of Psalms is a messy book; it
encapsulates the very best and worst sides of life. It’s not that straightforward, but don’t we
have good days followed by bad days, followed by tragic days. The Psalms reflect our very own souls if we
peer into them closely enough.
Most of the psalms are difficult to
date. Psalm 137, with is reference to “the waters of
But let’s move on to two short books
that are often overlooked:
Song
of Songs (page 678 in the pew bibles)
This is a collection of lyrical poems
or songs, originally intended to be sung to music on suitable occasions. The second verse gives a hint of the subject
matter: “Let him kiss me with the kisses
of his mouth! For your love is more
delightful than wine!” These songs
are love poems, and they describe heterosexual, erotic and passionate
relationships – I left this to the end so that you didn’t spend the talk
reading this book! The songs celebrate
love between unmarried, seemingly young, female and male lovers, and the
predominant speaking voice is female – nothing new there! There aren’t any direct references to
religious, ethical or national values, and God isn’t mentioned. Solomon is mentioned, but most modern
scholars believe that this book was written very much later than his time.
Lamentations (page 822, in between Jeremiah and Ezekiel)
This book is well-named – it consists
of a series of complaints about a disaster which has struck the city of
The book expresses many questions about
the recent disaster and its meaning. The
Jews thought that the temple was inviolable and they couldn’t understand how
this disaster could have happened.
So … a very quick review of these 6
books. With the exception of the book of
Psalms, these tend to get overlooked in our study of the Bible. That’s a pity, because they represent a
significant part of Jewish liturgical practice and help us to understand the
background to our Christian beliefs.
As James told us in the first talk in
this series: “The New is in the Old concealed. The Old is in the New revealed.”
Let’s close with a prayer: “Loving
Lord, inspire us with your Spirit as we read your word, to find in it the
glorious gospel of your dealings with mankind, and your Son the Word made flesh
for us and our salvation. Amen.”