by erika haveman
One thing I’d been realizing is that I’ve made a lot of assumptions since starting this series. The biggest assumption, or presupposition, I’ve made is that the Old Testament is to be studied and read as a historical narrative. I’m typically a huge proponent of over communication, so I’m going to take a moment and do just that because it will help (hopefully) put A LOT of the OT into perspective for you.
I came under the realization of my own presuppositions when realizing that the authors of these narrative books I’m blogging about had presuppositions that the original readers of their books would have naturally and obviously understood. We are not the original readers of any of the books in the Bible. These books weren’t written with us in mind. Can we learn from them? Yes, of course. But the Biblical narrative of the Old Testament is first and foremost a historical narrative telling God’s story of redeeming His people. It is not a bunch of allegories or illustrative moral stories about right and wrong. We want the OT to be these things – because it’s easier for us to understand – but it’s not. The original readers of the OT books would have understood all of what the author was saying, they would have known the names in the stories, and they would have understood the messages of encouragement, challenge, rebuke, or hope that the books were offering. Our job is to try and get into the mindset of that original reader and from there we can properly learn from what was said. We have to read out of the OT as opposed to into it (meaning we lay aside our agendas). Keeping that in mind, we jump into 1 Samuel and something much more specific this week.
Scholars across the board would agree that you can read whatever you want INTO a piece of text, but this doesn’t make the text true whatsoever. As Gordon Fee and Doug Stuart suggest, “If you take things out of context enough, you can make almost any part of Scripture say anything you want it to.”*
If we want David and Jonathan to be homosexuals, we will do whatever we can to prove that was the case. We could say because Jonathan “loved David as his own soul” (1 Sam. 18:1) and because Jonathan “delighted much in David” (1 Sam. 19:1) and because they “kissed one another and wept with one another” (1 Sam. 20:41) they clearly had a love stronger than just friends. That must mean that God approves of homosexual relationships because these men had a relationship that was clearly very honest and real. We have our point we want to prove, and we can cut out context to prove that. But chopping away the context of the book and forgetting the author’s presuppositions doesn’t prove our point at all. All it does is justify a fallacy – and nobody wants to do that.**
When the author was writing about David and Jonathan’s relationship the author had the presupposition in mind that homosexuality was not allowed by God’s people (Lev. 18:22, 29, 20:13). This is something of which the original readers would have been aware. Therefore the author had no need to clarify that the covenant relationship (1 Sam. 18:3-5) between Jonathan and David was anything more than friends. (Head ups: This covenant relationship will be important to remember for next week when we study 2 Samuel).
Tell me, do you have a platonic friend who you’d die for? That you love so much you’d do anything for? You might call them your “bae”. (Did I use that right? I never know. I’m not so hip with the kids). But many of us could attest to loving friends so deeply and never once having that platonic love turn into anything sexual. Why should the relationship between Jonathan and David be anything like that? God made it clear that same-sex relations were an abomination (which I realize is a strong word) in which His people were not to engage. The author of 1 Samuel understood this. The original readers of 1 Samuel understood this.
So where does this bring us on the same-sex relationship issue? Well honestly, it brings us to a stand still if you are hoping I’m going to say that you are free to love and engage sexually with whoever you like. If this was the case then we’d all readily argue a positive case for all the other sexual laws from the OT (eg. sleeping with your neighbour while married, having sexual relations with animals). You might say, “well, obviously those things are wrong!” I would ask you, what makes them, “so obviously wrong?”
When it comes to the Scriptures and often such delicate issues surrouding human sexuality we want to be able to prove the thing that sits the best with us and the norm of our present culture. We want the thing that makes us feel good to be right. We hope after all hopes that God wouldn’t have “made me this way just to deny me good things!”
We weren’t made to receive good things.
We were made to be used by God.
What is the higher calling?
What is it?
Please hear the grace in my words.
If you’re out there and you wrestle inwardly or if you express outwardly innate homosexual desires I won’t tell you what you feel isn’t real. I won’t dare suggest that you are not a part of God’s family. I would never be so bold as to kick you out of a church I’m attending. But I will dare to ask you: do you live for good things or do you live to be used by God? Sometimes being used by God means we deny the suggested good things of this earth for the greater things of heaven. If you want to know how to live like this, I suggest you read what I had to say about Ruth and her incredible story.
So why recount the story of Jonathan and David at all? Why is it in the Bible? Well that is a great question, and if you tune in next week to what I have to say about 2 Samuel, I will offer you a very logical and historically reasonable answer to that question.
*Taken from “How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth,” by Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart.
**The fallacy in this case being that Jonathan and David were engaged in a homosexual relationship.
the rambling missionary 