“The early church didn’t say, ‘Look what the world is coming to!’ They said, ‘Look what has come into the world!’” -Carl F. Henry
Welcome to another edition of the Mueller Report!
For this holiday weekend, I want to share some meditations about studying the Bible and biblical theology.
In March I was able to read and discuss Michael Lawrence’s Biblical Theology with several men in my church. I first read this book years ago and I was blessed to have sat under Michael’s teaching when we were both at Capitol Hill Baptist Church. As I have taught and preached over the years, I have come to realize that I am a biblical theology (as opposed to a systematic theology) kind of guy.
Biblical theology considers the stories and patterns in the Bible, how everything fits together. Systematic theology explores particular categories or attributes of God methodically. Both are important, but I gravitate towards biblical theology. This means that when I teach or preach a text, I actually teach or preach several texts because the sermon passage is connected to many other parts of the Bible.
But regardless of whether you find yourself inclined more towards biblical or systematic theology, biblical literacy is important; having both a firm grasp of what is in the Bible and how it fits together. The Bible is like a massive jigsaw puzzle with thousands of pieces. We try to put the puzzle together in order to know God better and to fulfill the two greatest commandments of loving God and loving our neighbor.
One major problem we face is that initially all of the pieces are upside down. It is difficult to connect the proper pieces together if you can’t organize them by colors. You could do it by trial and error but it would be slow and sometimes you would force two pieces together that look like they fit, but are actually in different parts of the puzzle.
Biblical literacy, which comes through reading and studying the Bible, involves flipping those pieces over. Knowledge of the events, people, stories, verses, structure, and content of the Bible provides the color we need to group pieces of the puzzle together and ultimately to connect them. This is what Bible reading, study, and memorization do.
Taking this analogy even further, systematic theology is like the border of the puzzle. Orthodox Christian doctrines about God, man, salvation, and so on are like the corner and edge pieces. Anyone who has worked on a puzzle knows that putting the corners and edges together is much easier than putting the interior of the puzzle together. You also know that finishing the outside of the puzzle helps you see where things fit. Generally, people complete puzzles primarily by working from the outside in.
To paraphrase Mark Dever (and I am sure many others), when studying the Bible: “Work from what is clear to what is less clear.”
In March I co-taught a Sunday School class on the book of Ruth. I wrote up our lessons as a kind of study guide. I am struck by how many of the themes in Ruth are relevant for Good Friday and Easter. One obvious connection, of course, is that King David and King Jesus are descendants of Ruth and Boaz. But there are less obvious connections too.
Consider Ruth 4:11b:
“May the Lord make the woman, who is coming into your house, like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you act worthily in Ephrathah and be renowned in Bethlehem.”
This was probably a common figurative blessing offered before many marriages in this time and in this region. But this figurative blessing was fulfilled in a very real way by Christ who literally builds up Israel by “bringing many sons” to glory who were not of the nation of Israel. Christ ushers in the church as a spiritual Israel by grafting Gentiles into the vine of God’s people.
The word “renowned” can be roughly translated to: “get power/recognition by training worthy sons and daughters.” So the blessing is: “Through your marriage to Ruth, make thyself a well-established name by having worthy sons who will make your name renowned.” Which again is what God literally does through Christ in bringing men and women into his kingdom - who now act worthily and extend the Lord’s renown.
With respect to the idea of Israel/Christ being the vine into which gentiles can be grafted, it is no coincidence that the next part of the blessing in Ruth refers to “the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah.” Tamar was not part of the ethnic nation of Israel. Nor is Ruth. She is a Moabitess. Nor is Rahab for that matter. Here we have a repeated picture of God grafting in those who were not part of his chosen nation into his chosen nation.
This also means we can relate Ruth’s deep humility in this book to the Canaanite Woman’s humility in Matthew 15 and see Jesus’ reaction of love and blessing:
“21 And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.” 23 But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, “Send her away, for she is crying out after us.” 24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” 25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” 26 And he answered, “It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.” 27 She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table.” 28 Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly.”
Or consider Naomi’s story arc. She leaves Israel with her husband and her sons (disobeying God) and then marries her sons to Moabite women (again disobeying God), and after approximately ten years her husband and her sons have all died childless. Besides being a widow and mother-in-law to two other widows, the absence of children would have been extremely significant to Jewish readers. Childlessness was a hardship for Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Hannah (among others) that caused great bitterness and in each case was relieved by God himself granting them conception.
Naomi knows this and sees God’s hand at work in her situation. She sees her case as bitter and is likely bitter at God about it. Yet God cares for her by giving her Ruth who is called “better than seven sons.” And God cares for her through Ruth marrying the Kinsman-Redeemer Boaz (who is a type of the Christ who would redeem his people - his kinsman - from their slavery to sin) and having a son.
Although chapter 1 ends in bitterness and emptiness for Naomi as she feels the chastisement of the Lord, we see that Naomi was not ultimately cursed by God but rather was reconciled and restored instead.
What does all of this have to do with Good Friday and Easter? Christ is our kinsman-redeemer who paid the ultimate price, far more than the cost of redeeming land, to redeem us out of our slavery to sin and adopt us (graft us) into the family of God. This great act of redemption also wins a bride for Christ: the Church. We were bought with a price.
Our lives of slavery to sin were bitter (as was the Israelites’ slavery in Egypt), yet God provides for us as sojourners and aliens and poor and destitute. This is a critical part of the context of Ruth gleaning in Boaz’s field in chapter 2. There were many laws about gleaning in the Old Testament and they were connected directly to the fact that the Israelites themselves were strangers and aliens in the land and that they themselves had been poor and oppressed in Egypt.
We also have Jesus as the promised Son - the one who would be our redeemer. The one whose name would be renowned in Bethlehem. The one who would be a restorer of life.
So even the small and seemingly insignificant book of Ruth fills an important part of God’s puzzle and teaches us about His ways. In the book of Ruth, we see God’s abundant provision and generosity to Naomi. Jesus, through his life, death, and resurrection which we celebrate this weekend, brings the same provision and generosity, the abundant riches of eternal life with God.
Have a blessed Easter!