Anxiety-Driven Theology: pt 4

The book of Judges is one of the most brilliant and provocative pieces of ancient literature we have. It is a brutal theological mirror, showing what happens when God’s people become addicted to the very powers they were called to resist.

Old Testament scholar Daniel Block describes the central theme of Judges as the “Canaanization of Israel.”

That phrase will always punch me in the gut when I read or write it.

God called Israel to be a holy people in the land, a living witness to the surrounding nations of what life under YHWH could look like. But by the end of Judges, you can hardly tell Israel and the nations apart. Israel does not expand the worship of YHWH into Canaan as much as Canaan expands its violence and idolatry into Israel.

This is the fourth blog in a series exploring the Old Testament’s critique of idolatry, anxiety, and imperial power. In the first three blogs, I argued that Israel’s problem was never just external oppression, and that Egypt and Babylon represent more than hostile nations; they represent rival visions of security, provision, worship, and identity. Israel is repeatedly delivered from Empire while still craving the comforts Empire provides.

The story begins with Jacob’s family settling in Egypt during famine. What starts as temporary refuge slowly becomes assimilation. Israel adopts Egypt’s gods, embraces on Egypt’s systems and structures, and eventually finds itself enslaved by the very system that once preserved it.

Then YHWH sends Moses to lead Israel out.

But deliverance does not undo their imperial desires. In the wilderness, Israel repeatedly longs for Egypt’s food, Egypt’s predictability, and Egypt’s visible security. Then, at Sinai, while Moses is on the mountain, the people panic. Anxiety drives them back into familiar worship. They gather gold, construct a calf, and dress Egypt’s image in YHWH’s name.

That is anxiety-driven theology.

Israel is called to bear the image of YHWH, but under pressure, they mirror the image of the powers that formed them.

Judges shows what happens when that pattern is no longer a moment at Sinai, but a way of life in the land. In Judges, Israel no longer craves for Egypt from the wilderness; Israel becomes Egypt inside the land. The golden calf was a crisis, and in Judges, that crisis becomes culture. The book starts with deliverers who rescue Israel from outsiders. It ends with Israelites acting like outsiders toward one another.

Let’s dive in. 

First things first: the opening chapters of Judges function like a prologue. The book is not meant to be read as a flat chronology of Israel’s early years in the land. It is theological storytelling. It is history preached through blood, irony, satire, and tragedy.

Judges 1-2 gives us the overview. Judges 3 begins to show us the pattern in motion.

Israel worships the Baals and the Asherahs, assimilating into the pagan ecosystem of the land. They are then given over to a king named Cushan-rishathaim, whose name lands almost like a caricature: “Cushan of double wickedness.” He is not just a foreign king; he is a literary embodiment of the kind of human power Judges warns us about.

Judges is not simply telling us, “Israel needed better politicians.” It is exposing the danger of pagan kingship itself: domination baptized as strength, violence dressed up as security, power claiming divine authorization for itself. Scripture is not allergic to leadership, but it is deeply suspicious of the kind of royal power that turns human beings into tools and calls it “peace.”

YHWH responds by raising up Othniel, who is connected to Caleb, one of the last of the Joshua generation's golden age. The Spirit of YHWH comes upon him; he judges Israel, goes to war, and delivers the people. Cushan-rishathaim, the “doubly wicked” king, falls before the Spirit-empowered deliverer.

It is almost too clean.

The wicked king faces the faithful judge, and the faithful judge wins.

Othniel is the closest Judges gives us to a straightforward hero. He represents the clean version of the pattern: Israel rebels, oppression follows, Israel cries out, YHWH raises a deliverer, and the land has rest.

That clean version does not last.

Many people describe the book of Judges as Israel’s “cycle of sin.” Judges is not a cycle, though. It is a spiral.

A cycle returns you to where you started. A spiral takes you lower every time.

Israel does not simply fall, repent, and bounce back. Israel becomes progressively more conformed to the nations around them. Each rescue is followed by deeper compromise. Each deliverer is a little more complicated. Each victory carries more shadows. The people are not just repeating sin; they are being discipled by it.

Let’s look at Ehud.

Israel does evil again, and YHWH strengthens Eglon, king of Moab, against them. Even his name carries satire. Eglon means something like “little calf” or “calf-like,” which is fitting because the story paints him as a bloated ox-king headed for slaughter. Judges wants you to feel the mockery. This is imperial power with a full belly, sitting behind locked doors, fed by Israel’s tribute.

This time, YHWH raises up a much stranger deliverer.

Ehud is from the tribe of Benjamin, which means “son of the right hand.” But Ehud is left-handed. The irony is dripping. He is a left-handed man from the right-handed tribe. From the beginning, something about him is off, inverted, maybe even unsettling.

And unlike Othniel, the Spirit of YHWH is never said to come upon Ehud.

YHWH isn’t absent from the story. He raises Ehud up (3:15). But the narrator wants us to notice the change in tone. Othniel embodies Spirit-empowered deliverance. Ehud embodies secrecy, deception, hiddenness, and political assassination.

He gains access to Eglon by leading the tribute offerings, the payment of Israel’s subjugation. Then he returns with a private “message from God,” conceals a double-edged dagger on his right thigh, and drives it into the belly of Moab’s calf-like king.

The scene is darkly comic, violent, and grotesque. It is deliverance, yes, but not clean deliverance.

Already, Israel’s salvation is starting to come through methods that feel uncomfortably close to the world of its enemies. The good guys are not quite as clean as they were in Othniel’s story. The tools of rescue are beginning to look like the tools of empire: secrecy, manipulation, assassination, and blood behind locked doors.

The story celebrates Moab’s defeat and Israel’s freedom. But Judges is brilliant because it lets the victory feel both satisfying and unsettling.

Othniel gives us the golden ideal. Ehud gives us a complicated darkness. By the time we get to Gideon, that darkness gets really disturbing.

Gideon is riddled with anxiety, and by the end of his narrative, anxiety hasn’t just weakened him; it has formed him.

We first meet him threshing wheat in a winepress, hiding from Midian (Jud. 6:11). His brothers have been killed by Zebah and Zalmunna, and Gideon is the surviving son carrying fear, grief, and buried vengance. He is, quite literally, a kinsman redeemer (8:18-21).

YHWH repeatedly calls Gideon into courage (6:12–18, 22–24, 36–40; 7:9–11), but Gideon is a long way from Caleb, Othniel, and faithful obedience. At first, we think we are watching a timid warrior learn to trust God.

Gideon’s narrative is so much more unsettling than that.

Gideon is not simply afraid of Midian. He is becoming Midian. The man called to deliver Israel from pagan power begins to imitate that power.

After capturing Zebah and Zalmunna, Gideon asks, 

“What kind of men did you kill at Tabor?” They answer, “They were like you. Each resembled the son of a king.” Gideon replies, “They were my brothers, the sons of my mother!” (8:18–19).

Wow. What a line! The Midianite kings recognize kingly features in Gideon’s family. Remember, In Judges, kings represent pagan hunger for domination, security, and self-exalting power. Here, the kings of Midian look at Gideon and his brothers and see a familiar face.

Gideon may be fighting Midian, but Midian is staring back through him.

The motif intensifies when Gideon turns his violence inward. The elders of Succoth refuse to feed his exhausted men while he pursues the Midianite kings. They're cowards, sure, but Gideon’s response is brutal. Imperial even. After the victory, he returns, takes thorns and briars from the wilderness, and tears into the elders’ flesh. Then he destroys the tower of Penuel and kills the men nearby (8:13–17).

Does this sound like the justice of YHWH? Or like the savagery of the nations Israel was called to resist?

The hand YHWH used to break Midian turns around and crushes Israelite towns.

By the end of the story, Israel asks Gideon to “rule over us” (8:22)—language the narrator has not used of any judge before him. The people are anxious, and anxiety always looks for a throne.

Give us someone strong. Give us someone scary. Give us someone who can beat violence with more violence. 

Bigger and badder starts to feel like salvation.

Gideon gives the right answer: “I will not rule over you… YHWH will rule over you” (8:23).

But then he does the same thing Abraham did when he was anxious. The same thing Jacob’s children did. The same thing Aaron and the Israelites did. They remake YHWH in the pagan image they can control.

He asks Israel for the gold earrings plundered from Midian and uses them to make an ephod (a priestly garment associated with Israel’s worship). He sets it up where his father’s Baal altar once stood before YHWH told Gideon to tear it down (6:25–32; 8:24–27).

The story begins with pagan worship in Gideon’s backyard and ends with Gideon building a new idol in the same spot.

The author of Judges is a genius. Gideon does not reject YHWH with his mouth. He dresses pagan worship in Israelite clothing. Literally. An ephod. The golden calf was made from deliverance gold; Gideon’s ephod is made from victory gold. In both stories, Israel takes God’s gifts, melts them down, and turns them into something they can manage. Something that looks like empire.

Just like Israel mirrored the golden calf, Gideon mirrors the kings of Midian.

Israel wanted YHWH to displace Pharaoh. Now they want Gideon to displace the Midianites. Both times, they want to keep the empire, just get rid of the leader who abuses them.

We may think we are fighting a holy war against evil while becoming the thing we claim to oppose. Anxiety does strange things to theology. When we’re afraid, we reach for whatever promises survival, then baptize it with Christianese so we don’t have to call it idolatry.

Think of the culture wars you have been told to wage.

Think of the “spiritual warfare” lurking behind everything you dislike.

Think of the “blessing of God” allegedly at stake if you do not secure your freedom, your economy, your tribe, your culture, your religious preference.

I’m not saying every political concern is fake or every cultural fear is foolish. I’m saying that fear is a terrible theologian. It hands you a sword, tells you to call it righteousness, and convinces you to swing it at your neighbor.

So ask yourself: am I being discipled by YHWH, or recruited by Midian? Am I building the kingdom of God, or have I dressing up and fighting for the systems that make me feel safe?

God is a God of Order

“God is not a God of confusion, but of peace.”

1 Corinthians 14:33 ESV

This verse is quoted often in Christian homes and churches, and for good reason. It’s a helpful reminder that God doesn’t orchestrate chaos for His people. A clear distinction that sets God’s people apart is the peace and order among the body of Christ, Christians. That word confusion in the greek is akatastasias, which can mean a disturbance, commotion, or disorder. That’s how Jesus used it in Luke 21:9 when describing the future outbreak of wars and mass deaths within the imminent Roman Empire. But the apostle Paul in quoting this verse is just finishing up an important series of teachings about how God does not sow discord among His people, and he uses this language to point back to a powerful belief that ancient Jews held for thousands of years before this writing—God is a God of order.

There is an important theme that runs throughout scripture where God and the forces of darkness are juxtaposed between order and chaos. In the Torah, the prophets, and New Testament epistles chaos is the result of sin and rebellion. Where there is chaos, evil is reigning and death is winning. Then God comes in to heal and restore, and He brings order. He brings purpose, unity, structure, and harmony. ORDER.

If we go back to the very beginning of everything, we see God introducing this truth to us within the fabric of creation. In Genesis 1:2, on the first day of creation, the author describes the earth God created as “formless and void”

( ṯō-hū wā-ḇō-hū ). People often get stuck thinking about the scientific implications of an amorphous earth with whirling gases and fire, but this misses the more important element being introduced here: God is preparing a place for human beings to inhabit where they can be in close relationship with Him, but as of right now, the land is uninhabitable. It is a land of chaos, where human life cannot survive. It is a wasteland, a desolate wilderness. God is preparing a place of beauty and flourishing, but that place is not yet ready. When God is finished, the land will be “good,” and not stuck in a “not yet” state. A powerful picture is being presented here that will illuminate further the need for God’s grace and power to transform empty wildernesses into beautiful lands ready for God’s people to inhabit. God will defeat chaos and bring order.

Deuteronomy 32:9-10 plays on the same imagery,

But the Lord's portion is his people,
    Jacob his allotted heritage.

He found him in a desert land,
    and in the howling waste of the wilderness;
he encircled him, he cared for him,
    he kept him as the apple of his eye.

The wasteland of the wilderness is where Israel waits before they can enter the “good” land that God is going to give them as an inheritance. The land isn’t ready yet, and neither are God’s people for that matter, but God is doing what only the One True God can do—He’s transforming darkness and emptiness into beauty and fullness.

The prophet Jeremiah uses the same imagery when describing the desolation of Israel as it goes into captivity,

I looked on the earth, and behold, it was without form and void;
    and to the heavens, and they had no light.

Formlessness and the void are where the forces of sin and death are reigning, but God is up to something! God is bringing order and purpose to what was once chaotic and useless. God is bringing healing and rest to what was once broken and anxious. God is going to create a land of thriving where desolation and wilderness used to be the standard.

This theme is revealed in numerous other passages in the Old Testament.

Exodus 15 displays God’s triumph over evil when crashing waters destroy Egyptian soldiers (the author of Psalm 18 reflects on this).

Isaiah 17:12-14 pronounces a woe to those who rage like the raging sea.

Isaiah 27:1 shows God defeating Leviathan, the ancient near-east sea serpent who represents the depths of chaotic waters (and evil).

God is a God of order. He defeats chaos and brings everything into alignment with His good will.

This creation narrative has even more to consider. On the fourth day of creation, God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night” (1:14 ESV). The syntax of the original text reads more like, “Let the lights in the expanse be for separating…” Many scholars believe the creation account in Genesis 1:1, where God creates the “Heavens and the Earth” refers to the celestial planets, stars, moons, and suns, because of the use of the term “heavens” throughout the rest of the Old Testament implies these planets and stars. If this is the case, then God would not have recreated the lights in the heavens on the fourth day, but instead, He would have given them purpose and visibility from the earth’s vantage point for the sake of humanity, which He is soon to create. In other words, God took the celestial bodies of the universe and assigned them order and purpose by giving them cycles, seasons, and usefulness.

Two of the biggest struggles humans face in contemporary life are discovering our own usefulness and purpose in a vast world that seems to be just fine without us, and the ability to fulfill that purpose and give structure and parameters to it. The National Library of Medicine stated,

Life purpose was significantly associated with all-cause mortality… A growing body of literature suggests that having a strong sense of purpose in life improves physical and mental health and enhances overall quality of life.

Simply put, purpose comes from order, and order comes from God, and without order, we are swimming in chaotic territory where darkness and evil have the upper hand. No wonder lacking purpose leads to poor quality of life. God has been shouting this to us from the rooftops ever since Genesis!

Wherever you see a lack of order, question it. If it is in your own life, challenge it. The enemy would love to have little pools of chaos in your life. But God wants to bring order to that chaos. God wants to establish plans and seasons, purposes and boundaries, where He structures your heart, mind, and priorities.

Order defeats chaos. Light defeats darkness. God defeats evil.

This is why Paul so strongly implores the Corinthian church for 14 chapters about how they need to squash discordant attitudes and the in-fighting in their churches. Their lack of unity produced chaos, and that chaos is where devils and darkness have space to work on us.

When you sense disunity and friction among Christians, don’t shrug it off, and don’t make excuses for it. Do the hard work of pursuing unity, because unity is a byproduct of order, and the author of order is God Himself!

Meet Jesus at the Table

One of the greatest things I’ve come to appreciate about Luke’s gospel account is his masterful use of storytelling to establish truths instead of blanket factual statements. Luke creates scenes that carry theological implications, and a major recurring scene is that around dining, or being seated at a table.

Luke powerfully employs the image of dining at a table as a metaphor for redeeming mankind and bringing us into communion with God once again.

Jesus calls Levi, a sinner, to repentance at a table at his house (5:27-32).

He forgives the sinful woman while at a Pharisee’s dining table (7:36-50).

He satisfies more than 5000 individuals with a miraculous meal (9:10-17).

He heals a man with dropsy while at a table banquet (14:1-24).

He is known as one who “receives sinners and eats with them” (15:2).

He redeems Zacchaeus, a sinner, at his house at the table (19:1-10).

This realization reaches its culmination at the last supper. Jesus reclines at the table in a furnished upper room, where they all should have partaken in passover together. Instead Jesus chooses to personally abstain from eating the passover meal (22:16) and introduces the bread as his broken body and the cup poured out as his spilled blood to signify that he would suffer for their gain. Jesus would bring redemption to those sitting at the table with him, but it wouldn’t come from their passover lamb, it would cost significantly more. Historically, Jesus’ disciples would have had their own cups to drink from, so Jesus’ passing of his cup would have made a profound impression: Doing so was a symbol of entering into a communion relationship with someone through good times and bad.

Luke portrays the table as a place where human need meets divine grace. It is where the presence of Jesus transforms the sad remembrance of things past into the glorious promise of things to come.

A Scholar named Eduard Schweizer reminds us:

In contrast to all other religious communities of their time, the early Christians had no temple, no statues, no priests, no special cult; the only thing visible was a table with a meal around which they came together every week. It was the continuation of the table fellowship of Jesus, and especially of that meal on the last evening together. It was a definitive gift from God and a central manifestation of the truth the church brought to the world.

Human beings are broken beings, but they no longer feel their brokenness when seated at the table with Jesus. Forgiveness, acceptance, and mercy for sinners is displayed across the fellowship table with Jesus. The table is where communion with God happens. At the table we remember what God has done at the Exodus, what He does for us now through the work of the cross, and what He will do for us at the marriage supper of the lamb as we have communion with him eternally after being raised with him.

This is one of many reasons why Paul had to correct the abuses of communion among the Corinthian church (1 Cor. 11:17-34). Meal gatherings were still suffering from theatrical showcases of wealth and social status. Superiority and class distinctions overshadowed the significance of how Christ actually destroyed those barriers by making everyone equal when they sat at his table: All people are now only defined as sinners saved by his sacrifice once they sit at his table.

The table has historically been a metaphor for intimacy and communion with others, and Jesus invites us to sit at his table. Reflect on these thoughts the next time you’re sitting at a table. Remember how beautiful God’s acceptance is because of the mercy He poured out so you could always have a seat at His table.

God’s Promises in Unlikely Places

Admit it. There are sections of the Bible that you dread reading because the immediate value of the scripture passage is not apparent, so you glaze over it, or skip it altogether. Genealogies and levitical laws are the most common of these passages. We know they exist for a reason, but do I want to be that person who figures out what that reason is? I’ll let some bible scholar do that and appreciate John 3:16 over here.

Well, I’d like to highlight one of these passages for you and share something amazing from it. You know all those gross chapters in the Book of Leviticus where God writes commands that deal with animal blood, food laws, and women waiting outside the camp after childbirth?

There are incredible promises for your future in those chapters.

What?! Crazy right? But watch this.

In Leviticus Chapter 12, after a woman gives birth to a child, she shall “not touch any consecrated thing nor enter the sanctuary until the days of her purification are over.” (12:4) Passages like this can be difficult to read because we’re all subject to evolutionary social morality. This just sounds cruel.

But an important thing to understand about “purification” in the Old Testament is that it is not dealing with vague spiritual taboos from thousands of years ago. It deals specifically with worship. If a person is “unclean,” they are removed from God’s holy presence, and they cannot do what they were created to do, worship and enjoy God’s intimate presence, until they are somehow made clean again.

This isn’t just about blood and rituals. Stick with me here.

There is a remarkable similarity between the middle chapters of Leviticus and the beginning of Genesis, where God creates all things. In the creation account, Adam and Eve are in the garden, spending intimate time in worship with God (Genesis 1-2). As soon as they sin, they are removed from the garden (Gen 3:6-7; 23-24) and thus removed from God’s presence, and cannot worship Him intimately. There is remarkable similarity in the wording of these passages. When we are “unclean,” we are unable to be with God in true worship, until something makes us clean again. Adam and Eve could not worship God in the garden, and Israel cannot worship God in His tabernacle. Both must be made clean again. Both locations, the garden, and the tabernacle symbolize God’s presence with humans, and in both places, God rejects human presence due to uncleanliness. The goal of creation in Genesis 1 and 2 is the worship of God. The goal of the laws in Leviticus 11 and 12 is the worship of God as well.

In Genesis 1 and 2, God creates animals, birds, sea creatures, creeping creatures, and then humanity. In Leviticus 11 and 12, God deals with sacrifices and food preparation concerning animals, then birds, then sea creatures, then rituals regarding humanity.

The Levitical Laws are revealed in the same manner the Creation Account in Genesis is revealed. Why?

Because the same blessings God granted us in creation He promises to restore to us in covenant!

This passage is intentionally written to show God’s promise to restore humanity in relationship with Him through cleansing. The author of these books wrote this because God always planned to make us clean again and allow us to worship Him like we were destined to from the beginning! Just as God purposefully created a beautiful world where we could spend time with Him, so He purposefully crafts a covenant where we can be restored to Him through purification.

So here we are in Leviticus, talking about bloody childbirth (literally) and how it causes one to be unclean. But the word for childbirth in Leviticus 12:2 in Hebrew is “seed,” and it’s the same word used in Genesis 3:15, where God promises to put enmity between the serpent and future human children. In other words, God promises to eventually overcome evil through the “seed” of humanity, which will trample upon the head of the serpent. God’s promise to fix what is broken will come through human pregnancy, which will one day result in the purification of all mankind, restoring their intimate dwelling with God. It is from this same promise that God purifies the entire world through a human, Jesus Christ, through blood sacrifice on the cross, making us, the unclean, clean again, and able to enter into the presence of God unashamed and free to worship Him, just as we were designed to do from the beginning of creation.

The similarities continue in Leviticus when God commands cleansing laws concerning skin issues and diseases (Leviticus 13-14). God also covers the shame of Adam and Eve after their sinful fall using animal hides (literally skins in Hebrew; Genesis 3:21). I won’t go further into those passages, but look them up for yourself and recognize the parallels between Genesis’s early chapters and Leviticus.

The bottom line is that God’s promise to restore you and keep you in close relationship with Him is firmly rooted throughout the Bible. Hold fast to them. Cling to them. Don’t let anyone try to remove them from your heart.

This small, simple passage about ritual purification regarding childbirth is a promise that echoes throughout all of eternity that God will make us, the rebellious, unclean, sinful wretches that we are, purified and able to enter into His presence once again.

Don’t rush through these chapters in the Bible. They may seem odd and out of place in our contemporary context, but there are powerful promises in them that reveal the hope of a good God who redeems His beloved creation, you and me.

Sexual Immorality, the Human Body, and Community Holiness.

Paul’s first address to the church in Corinth articulates a unique theology of the human body and its purposes in God’s inaugurated kingdom on earth. In examining 1st Corinthians 6:12-20,  Paul addresses boundaries and abuses of freedom in the Christian life (6:12-13), God’s purpose for the human body in Christ (VS 14-20), the sinful practice of sexual immorality against both the body and the Lord (VS 14-18), and communal holiness for the collective church as Christ’s body (15-20). This paper will endeavor to explain and support the position that Paul’s theology of the human body, explicitly expressed and supported in this passage, was unique in Paul’s day and is coherent and consistent within greater Pauline literature. It will begin by addressing the wider issue at stake in Paul’s entire letter to the Corinthians.