Have You Not Read - S1:E10

Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of Scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the

Saints. I'm Dylan Hamilton and with me is Michael Durham, David Kassin, and Andrew Hudson.

Before we dig in to our topic, we humbly ask for you to rate, review, and share the podcast. Thank you.

Today, our first question for today comes from our list that we received through our website.

We thank you, by the way, to all listeners and all congregants or anybody who logs in and asks a question.

We greatly appreciate everything that you send our way. It not only allows us to serve you by answering the questions, but it piques our interest.

It piques a lot of our natural inclinations to go to the text, and it causes us to dive deep and really try to pull out context and exegete as we should be doing anytime we do come to the

Word. So our question for today is, I struggle with reading the Bible completely through because of stories like that of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38.

The main focus seems to be on their immorality. I understand and believe that Christ died for their immorality, for all sin.

I also believe that all of Scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.

Please help me understand why and how I should spend my time reading the stories of immorality and the depravity of man in the

Bible, specifically in the Old Testament. Michael, you want to start us off? Sure. There are a lot of challenging passages to be read in the

Old Testament. It often seems more distant to us as followers of Christ, as New Covenant saints.

So I really relate with this question as we look at passages such as Genesis 38.

Having taught through Genesis before, some of these passages, some of these stories, are difficult in and of themselves just to read aloud.

And of course it's important to remember that the Bible was written to be read aloud. It's a book originally to be read aloud by the servants of the

Lord to the people of God, to be heard by men, women, and children, as we see in the time of Nehemiah where the people stood for hours and had the

Word of God, the Law of God, the Torah, read to them. And so stories like this would be read publicly to the people, and all kinds of folks would be there, old, young, men, women, children.

So what good is Genesis 38 for the edification of the saints? How does it help believers?

How does it help us to follow Christ? We know by faith that it is profitable, but in what way?

That's a great question, a really good question. When we think about the story that occurs in Genesis 38, we should read in light of the larger story, first of all.

And who's the main character here? Judah, right?

Judah. And we're going to hear later on in Genesis, the father of Judah, Israel, also known as Jacob, prophesy over Judah that the

Messiah would come from his lineage. And Genesis 38 is about the lineage of Judah being in danger.

Will Judah have an heir? Now sometimes we may not relate as strongly to these issues as we should, but for a man or a woman to fail to have an heir was a great loss.

And in this case, since the Messiah is to come through Judah, it means everything. So that's one thing to keep in mind in reading

Genesis 38 as we go through the sordid details of what occurs, that this is ultimately about how the lineage of Messiah was in danger.

And although man is incredibly wicked, God in his sovereignty triumphs and does all that he desires and brings about good even when evil is done.

Which of course is also part of the theme in this section of Genesis where Joseph's brothers have sold him into slavery, and although they meant it for evil,

God meant it for good. So this is a smaller story with that larger concept.

It's echoing and affirming that concept already when we think about it in those terms. So when we we think about the story, we've got

Judah who tries to secure for himself a continuing lineage through his sons.

He's hoping for a grandson. We've got to ensure this family line continues.

And so he secures a bride for his eldest son.

But then we discover that Judah's firstborn is wicked and the

Lord kills him. Doesn't God know that Judah's the ancestor of Messiah?

What are you doing, God? And then Judah says, okay,

Ur didn't have an heir through this wife that I gave to my eldest,

Tamar. So Onan, he gives Tamar to Onan.

Okay, Onan, you provide my grandson to continue on my lineage.

And Onan is wicked as well and jealous and does not want to raise up an heir that will be named after his older dead brother.

So he purposefully does not copulate with Tamar.

And so God kills him too. Now we're down to the third son of Judah.

And you may relate to Judah's concern about having his next son die.

And so he does not give his third son Shelah to Tamar, although he promised he would.

And so the time comes for Judah to keep his promise. Tamar is still barren. She still has not had a child, not because she herself is barren, but because the husbands that she's been given did not please the

Lord. And now the husband she was promised is not being given to her. And for any woman to be barren, is to not have a child, is of great distress.

And Judah is acting wickedly here, having promised to give his son to Tamar.

He did not. His sons were wicked and they were killed. Then Tamar devises a wicked plan in which she seeks to secure an heir for herself through Judah.

She knows Judah's ways. She knows how he operates. And so she dresses up as a harlot and goes to an area she knows he's going to be.

And obviously she knows him to be somebody who is just fine consorting with harlots.

And so she sets it all up and she conceives by Judah. Harlots in this day, for their own protection, lest they be killed, veiled themselves.

And so there was no there was no knowledge of who this person was. In order to secure payment, she takes special items from Judah to secure those to secure that payment later.

When he does go back to try to make that payment to the harlot, he asks about the cult prostitute or the the cult harlot.

All these prostitution rings were made sacred and holy and acceptable by various worship practices.

And then he finds out there was no cult prostitute. He looks like an idiot. So he just decides not to even pursue this situation.

He's even involved one of his friends to try to help him out with this situation. So he's trying to maintain his dignity even while he has done wickedness.

Tamar herself has tried to maintain her dignity even though she's done wickedness. But your sin will find you out.

I mean it's going to come out into the open and and lo and behold it does. It becomes obvious that Tamar is with child and the only reason that she's with child is that she has committed fornication.

She is a child by harlotry. And so immediately Judah is all aflame about this and he is ready to burn her and kill her for her wickedness.

And so we see here the common temptation among men to to flare up and lash out at those who have committed the same sins that they have.

They find the very same wickedness in others to be doubly reprehensible. And she out maneuvers

Judah by presenting the signet and the cord and the staff the special items from Judah that she had taken from him those months before and says these belong to the father and he is fully exposed in front of everyone that he was the one who also committed fornication.

And at this point he says she has been more righteous than I because I did not give to her she to my son he says in verse 26.

And he never knew her again. So she does conceive and she has twins and the giving of birth was brutal and costly.

It's likely that she did not survive. That doesn't say that one way or the other but the nature of the description of what happened is fairly gruesome.

So there was indeed heirs born to Judah but what a tangled mess this is.

Aren't we supposed to read stories and find little lessons in there and and apply them?

Little daily helps to get through the stress of a work day and difficult relationships with our co -workers and so on.

What in the world does this awful story about sexual wickedness, how does this help us?

Do you think it pops up in a lot of devotionals? What does this mean to you? Yeah March 3rd.

Do you think it's read before the congregation in most churches? Is that part of the liturgy cycle?

I mean the only time it'd be read aloud before the congregation is if the congregation has been reading through books of the

Bible but they would just not because it was focused on that day as well you know the fifth

Sunday of May is always set apart for cult prostitute day. I mean it's it's not it's obviously not.

That's the month of June. Not that way. Wow. Wow. That was quick.

Just so you know for Pride Month we've got all sorts of passages in the Bible we could read. Very relevant.

When I was in Kuwait I went to a study on Genesis with a rabbi.

He was a great guy. I mean he was he was really funny. I mean if you want to have a quintessential Jewish rabbi he was about 5 '5", balding, and hilarious.

I mean just we loved it when he when he would come he was just a nice guy to kind of have around. But I remember vividly he loved having the

Christian officers in there and talk through Genesis and his hermeneutic.

I didn't know this at the time because I can't spell hermeneutic at the time. It was he basically he said that all right guys what we're reading is a collection of stories that kind of teach us how to live.

And if that's your hermeneutic because we were going through you know Cain and Abel going through other other things that's not a good example.

This is not a collection of stories to teach you how to live. This is a narrative of real people who did real things and not everything is an example to follow.

This is just what happened. So people will go through and say well you know I read in the Bible that you know if you make a pledge and even if it means you know killing your daughter you know

I read that in the Bible that we should you know you do that that was one of the one of the kings of is like no not everything in the Bible is an example for you to follow.

What would Jephthah do? Yeah. So it was interesting your hermeneutic of how you view a story like this should it will dictate how you apply it.

So the way Michael how you just read it was this is a story. This is what happened.

God was still in control but it was they meant it for evil. These were evil acts but the plans of God are not thwarted.

Right so it's a complete mess. You can't read through here and say very immature hermeneutic where if it's in the

Bible it's there as a model for us to follow. And so some of those first questions come why is this in here if it's not a model for me to follow.

Tamar was called righteous so you should be more like Tamar. Yeah deal deal shrewdly with the Judas in your life.

Yeah. There'd be all sorts of horrible things here and then so obviously this is not a story of moralism.

You could just run it simply as like look how look how to avoid why you should avoid sexual immorality.

If you don't then it'll come out and you'll be embarrassed and shamed. Bad things will happen. Well that's true.

It's very true. It's proverbial. You read about that in all sorts of proverbs but the the story here is so intricate and it is detailed about the disaster that unfolds.

But you could take a moralism approach to it but you're going to be you're going to be left lacking because what parts of it do you not follow and what parts do you follow and then that becomes subjective.

So that's not going to work well. You could take the allegorical approach. You know do you have any

Tamars in your life? You know do you have any Judas in your life? And those kinds of things you could allegorize that.

A wonderful brother in Christ down at the the abolition day rally got up and told the story of Uzzah and the ark and how he put his hand out to stop the ark from falling, why the ark was on the cart in the first place, the background of the

Philistines and so on and he was he was moving through that explanation and then he completely made it an allegory about the abolition movement today.

And he to be fair he'd probably say well I was just using it as an analogy cool okay that's fine but very sincerely he's trying to find a way to make use of the story and his conclusion about why we should abolish abortion

I'm in total agreement with but that's that's not ultimately the right way to use that story.

So you could allegorize this but that's not really what it's about. So I think that you have to you have to read this in the context of course is what they meant for wicked evil

God means for good and and understanding this story mandates that you know how the story turns out later.

The echoes here of the man of the of the brother who didn't want to father a child not in his name you find that later in Ruth when the line of lineage of Christ is in peril again and there was a man an unnamed man who wasn't willing to to father a child for somebody else but Boaz was you know there's an echo of that story and there's how many times do we see in the in the history of Christ and the genealogy of Christ names that bring to mind great horrific acts of wickedness and evil horrible things that happened and yet ultimately we see the triumph of what

God brings about. You know even this sad thing where Judah says she's been more righteous than I what a horrible this is the moralism argument this is the moralism argument a relativistic moralism and it's sad that this is this is all that Judah has left to say about the matter it's a mess that's that's the conclusion what a mess.

Yeah I don't think he was saying that she was righteous but he's saying that what I was doing is really bad and he was indicting himself oh sure and at least saying look she had a point and I should have fulfilled my vow to her and I should have done what was right and I did not he was he was not calling her righteous right but he was more righteous than I so all you're left with is just subjective relativism yeah you also have the theme in the text about twins and then the older and then the younger reversing all of a sudden all of these all of these are clues in this story a genuine story that connect with other passages in the scripture and honestly making sense of this story you need to know the other stories now this of course is not the only passage in the bible that is full of really uncomfortable subject matter so and each one has its own context each one has its own real this is a real historical story but there's a purpose that god has for it in the scriptures how do we handle maybe as parents with children or how do we handle like in the context of a sunday school class or discipleship or reading things aloud in the church service how do we handle passages like this what are we to think of it how do we proceed you haven't lived until you've had family devotions through first and second samuel and you've had your 13 year old read about a dowry of 104 skins it's uncomfortable very uncomfortable but she read it was there a q a i i i got quizzical looks yeah you know i i did start off you know with the not everything is an example to to follow i'm not going to ask the uh the man that you marry to you know bring me that and then secretly expect 200 because this is what david did what about you gentlemen i mean these uncomfortable uncomfortable passages um but we read them because god has written them down for us is there age appropriate because i would not have been able to really answer that my four -year -old had read that but my teenager yeah i think you could probably start with a cornerstone of not being apologetic for what is written there sure that's good at the very basis engaging with it for frank honest let's talk about it yeah i i completely agree with that the way i would probably posit that is it's time to import your hermeneutic like your children are there for you to disciple and this is what the bible says and this is what we're taking from it in this house this is how we're this is how we view this and we're not going to i i would say we're not going to shy away with it shy away from it at all like you said unapologetic because it's actually as much of a challenge for you as a parent as it is for them to read it and it's even more of a challenge for them if they're not given the answer from you and they have to go get it somewhere else and you don't want them getting it from somewhere else i think this type of thinking needs to be applied consistently though too because um and i'm guilty of this myself where i i will apply this to the bible but other stories that they may be consuming elsewhere i should have the same type of consistency and how i apply them letting them first consume age -appropriate things outside of the bible i think the bible it's all for them outside of the bible needs to be age -appropriate but as well i better not be letting them see things that are not their age appropriate outside of the bible but guarding them from stuff within the bible that'd be the worst way to approach that yeah yeah that's the exact worst way to push it but that happens all the time you know like we're going to shield little johnny and his siblings from judah and tamar but we're going to give him all the disney that they want no like no there's there are things that are far worse in disney than what you get in judah and tamar and the context from which judah and tamar come from like what is the end of the story what is the locus of the story um in the greater context for judah and tamar and it's christ outside of the bible what's this what's the center and the locus for the the mythos of the world or the mythos of disney and it's it's all death itself it's like the self the exaltation and the gratification of the self so like proverbs 5 7 9 genesis 38 genesis 19 all kinds of parts of ezekiel when you're reading these things the sexual wickedness is not glorified glamorized sugar -coated showing you a high without the crash that's what you get when in the paganized culture around us they they glamorize sin the devil is the father of of lies and they keep on they keep on broadcasting all of his lies about sin and it's everywhere you can't you cannot keep your your children from it eventually it's it's going to come through and it's going to be glamorized in a pagan way but when you read about those very same things in scripture it is shown for the shameful wicked devastating thing that it is it's leaning into that uncomfortability right like instead of leaning into the comfortability that the world gives you you should be leaning into how uncomfortable this actually does make you developing in the fear of god a healthy sense of shame which is something that others are trying to completely remove from sexual immorality is a sense of shame it's called pride month not shame month right and why why would they feel the need to call it pride or pride month because they're trying to sear the conscience that god has placed within them that naturally exudes shame because of the wickedness that goes on but when we read passages like this shame is evident and it's hard for us to read it even to read it aloud even to read it to our family members even to stand together and read the word of god together in church when these things come up but that is actually a healthy thing that in the fear of the lord we would sense the shame of it all and this is a i wouldn't call it safe right because it has an impact on us right it it does burst some bubbles it does it does hit us so i don't think it's safe to read these passages but it is good that we read these passages yeah we don't want to be risk -averse christians exactly yeah that was that was aslan you know yeah he's not a tame line you know he's he's not safe he's not safe but he's good but he's good and and of course c .s