Newsletter: Vol. 10. Iss. 1
September 2010
Bless the Baby Smashers?,
cont'd.
David Foreman and Bert Gary
We can avoid misusing the Scriptures by the very way we approach them in the first place. Yes, Scripture is good for training, doctrine, etc. But (and I'm sure some "fundies" will crucify me for this) Scripture is not the “end all” in knowing God. This is not my opinion. Jesus said it. “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” (John 5:39-40)
He has life, not the paper and ink. The purpose of the Scriptures is to point us to life in him. Scriptures invite us to draw near to him, and let him reveal himself to us personally. Let him reveal truth to us personally. Scriptures are for our aid and guidance in getting to him. To make Scriptures more than that, biblically speaking, is idolatry. The Bible isn’t God. It points us to him and leads us to life abundant in a close personal relationship with him.
I have come to trust that the Bible is divinely inspired by God. But there is a difference between divine inspiration and divine "dictation." It was, after all, God who completely trusted the imperfect human beings who wrote and collected the documents in our Bible. He created these people, endowed them with intelligence and talent and skill, and employed them by the power of his Holy Spirit to write those things which lead us to knowledge of God.
This is why I cannot label the Bible, as it is often labeled, as an “owner’s manual,” a “playbook,” a “rulebook,” or a “how to guide.” These smack to me of marketing gimmicks. I see the Bible as the inspired story of God’s love for his people, and his determination to have a relationship of utter union with them. We are invited by Scripture to abide in him, even as he abides in us.
So what about the baby smashing blessing? There are a few Scriptures about it (2 Kgs 8:12; Isa 13:16; Hos 13:16; Nah 3:10). Amazingly, thanks to eisegesis, hardcore doctrines have been established on less! We've seen great misuses with New Age fads, for example, like "prosperity teaching." We then judge the faith of others by how nice of a car they drive. And if we drive a clunker, we judge ourselves as faith-deficient. Let’s not let these abuses slide. Yes, the Bible is "good for doctrine," but this doesn't mean that we can skim, pluck something out, and twist it to fit our whims.
“Passing children through the fire” was the Ammonite’s practice of pagan child sacrifice to the calf-headed man-god named Molech (2 Kings 16:3; 2 Chronicles 28:3, 33:6; Jeremiah 7:31; 19:2-6), and this practice was prohibited by the Old Testament as idolatrous (not to mention abhorrent). Paralleling this pagan worship barbarism was the gruesome military practice employed by some of Israel’s enemies of dashing captured children on rocks, even opening up the wombs of captured pregnant women to accomplish this.
These practices were despised by the biblical writers. Yet in Psalm 137, baby smashing is given a painful twist. The psalmist bemoans Israel’s captivity in Babylon. There is weeping and unimaginable hardship. He calls his captors tormentors. He calls Babylon a devastator. With very honest, human frustration, the writer dreams of payback. He can’t help it. He expresses his desire in verse 9 that the tables might one day be turned on his captors. While Israelites usually avoided the barbarism of foreign powers, like baby smashing, he cries out a blessing on someone, anyone, who might one day smash Babylon’s babies on rocks. Let them one day feel our pain.
Context is everything in biblical exegesis, and in the Old Testament there is an intentional contrast between the atrocities of war and idolatrous child sacrifices of her neighbors, and the practices of Israel, the people chosen of God. Idolatry, of course, is when we worship something other than God. Today, too many Christians treat the Bible as an object of worship, almost as if it’s a fourth member of the Holy Trinity. But his Word (Jesus is the Word of God—John 1:1-4, 14; Rev 19:13) is a person who is alive, active, more powerful that a double-edged sword, and not confined to a book, not even the Holy Bible.
The Rev. Bert Gary is a faculty member of The Society for Biblical Studies. This article was published in Plain Truth Magazine under the title, "Does the Bible Really Say That?"
David Foreman is a licensed pastor and pastoral counselor.
