August 14

OT -- Nehemiah 7:61-9:21
In September, Joe B, our pastor is going to be teaching 9 different classes all about what he learned in Nehemiah doing his doctoral dissertation which he finished in May. I do not feel like I can comment on these scriptures without hearing his teaching first.
Don says this is a flat-out cop out. But the truth is, I am utterly disgusted with this section of the Bible. I find it reprehensible how discriminating those fools were and how they treated people who 'couldn't find their lineage'. We haven't gotten there yet, but we will this week, when we revisit ole Ezra's proclamation about the foreign wives and half-breed children.
For all you 70s children, here is a musical rendition of Cher's Half-Breed. That is probably what my problems are. Everything I read is colored by 70s bubble-gum music.
Yesterday, I was listening to a podcast on the Civil War and George McClellan's coup attempt and all I could think of was "Billy, don't be a Hero".


In all seriousness, this is a true problem that still resonates today. I have several girl friends whose parents insisted that they either a)not marry a Jewish boy or b)only marry Jewish boys. And the only particulars are that the religion is paramount.

In our NT scripture, Paul also speaks of this vs: 5 Don't we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord's brothers and Cephas (Peter).
The catch is 'believing wife'.
When I started dating, my dad gave me the lecture about only dating "middle-class, college educated, white, Protestant, Southern men". He thought (and still does) that anything else is asking for trouble. And IT does cause trouble when you have differences in those areas. Poor Don. He isn't Southern. Shouldn't have made the cut.
My problem with the OT and NT scriptures we are currently reading is that these are EXISTING relationships. I don't think it would be unusual for one person to come to Jesus and not the other spouse. Same is true for the Nehemiah folks. They thought that Jewish world was over. How were they to know that Nehemiah would so impress the king of Persia that he would allow him to come back and rebuild?

I have a rabbi friend who emailed me recently to remind me that my hero Rashi thought there was not one extra word in the Torah. He had assumed that that was probably true about my Christian scriptures for me but now slogging through Paul, he is not sure. While I laughed, it is a sore spot for me.
What do you do when you really, really disagree with the Bible?

If it was a little more than 2 centuries ago, I would have been a)burnt at the stake, minimum of branding as a heretic or b)cast out of my community. And that is the model that we have in Nehemiah. Just wait.

But once again, Scripture is there for me. Look at Psalm 33 vs. 20-22:
We wait in hope for the Lord;
He is our help and our shield.
In Him our hearts rejoice,
for we trust in His holy name.
May your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord,
even as we put our hope in you.

So, my work today is to keep 'slogging' through Nehemiah, knowing that the end of him is in sight with Esther, my favorite book in the Bible just around the corner.
Paul, not so much. I am afraid that we have him for quite a while. Hopefully, God will illuminate those scriptures for me so that I can quit jousting with a dead dude.