Tag: Christopher Hays

Book Plunge: The Widening of God’s Mercy Conclusion

How does it all end? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I am unsure if this final part is one or both Hayses, so I will just say the Hayses. Again, we find the idea popping up of God changing His mind.

Because God sometimes changes his mind and his approaches to the world, faithfulness to God means sometimes doing the same. This book presents a biblical vision of God that differs from what many people assume about God and the Bible. As we have seen in case after case, the Bible doesn’t portray God as static; instead, it tells stories that portray God as a mysterious, dynamic, personal power who can and does change his mind and reveal new and surprising facets of his will. In

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 207). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

I plan on writing on the topic of the problem of God changing His mind, but the issue is that the Hayses took 2,000 years of Christian theology, threw it in the trash, then approached the text to see if they could find something to justify their positions. Hey! If God changed His mind, let’s just assume that He did it on this section too! One would hope that there was some new revelation or something. Maybe God has changed His mind on incest or pederasts or on murder. Maybe God now thinks greed is good or would really like us to bring back that slavery thing?

I mean, why not? All you need to do in the world of the Hayses is assert that this has happened and then it is done.

It may be difficult to get our minds around this idea, but if we take the biblical narratives seriously, we can’t avoid the conclusion that God regularly changes his mind, even when it means overriding previous judgments. To say it one more time, our vision is this: The biblical narratives throughout the Old Testament and the New trace a trajectory of mercy that leads us to welcome sexual minorities no longer as “strangers and aliens” but as “fellow citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God.” Full stop.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 209). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

The question is not if it is difficult to get our minds around. It is rather, “Is this true?” If you’re going to upend again all of Christian tradition with regard to the immutability of God, you’d better make a strong case. Everyone who holds to the classical position, like myself, knows all about the texts that the Hayses bring forward. Unfortunately, they don’t interact with anyone who holds to a different position.

Christians across time have found the Spirit-led freedom to set aside biblical laws and teachings that they deem unjust, irrelevant, or inconsistent with the broader divine will. It is not hard to see how the prohibition of same-sex relations could fall into the same category.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 214). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

Definitely. It’s not hard to see that. The question is “Should we do that?” The Hayses have not presented a case that we should.

For many, the evidence of experience outweighs the inertia of tradition and the force of a few biblical prooftexts on these questions. In the same way, we see LGBTQ Christians all around us who are already contributing their gifts and graces to the work of God in the world and in the church.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 215). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

And if you get to this position, anything goes. It is we who become the masters of Scripture. It submits to us. If our experience tells us one thing and the Scriptures another, so much the worse for the Scriptures.

For now, my next plan is to write on the idea that God cannot change His mind.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: The Widening of God’s Mercy Chapter 16

Who are the strong? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So let’s just jump right into it with a quote from this chapter.

The gospel is a word about mercy, all the way down. No one deserves mercy, but we all need it.8 And in the end—in some unfathomable way—God will show mercy to all.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 197). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

Possibly, but that doesn’t mean forgiveness. One could say being cut off from the blessed presence of God could be a mercy to those who do not repent of their sins. Is that what we would normally think of with mercy? Probably not. Is Hays embracing universalism here? Who knows?

Yet this is not even the biggest problem in this chapter.

Let’s see what he says about matters like Romans 14 and the strong and the weak. In these chapters, Hays says that the strong are the ones who realize their freedom and think the weak are tight and legalistic. Meanwhile, the weak think that they are the ones that are following God’s commandments.

(It will not escape careful readers of the present book that the first-century conflict between “the strong” and “the weak” has its haunting parallels in the conflicts that divide the church in our time, not least in conflicts over sexual practices.)

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (pp. 199-200). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

Ah yes. Way to put yourself on the side of the strong. Would Hays be so quick to do this if the side of the strong was saying, oh, that it’s okay to have sex with children? Now someone who is “weak” like myself would say that this violates the commandments of God. We cannot allow this.

What if we went back 150 years and found ourselves in Mormon Utah? Would the strong be those who allowed for polygamy and the weak are those who said “Scripture is clear that it is one man and one woman. I could just as easily draw parallels in these cases as Hays does here.

Maybe he doesn’t really mean that. Try to show some grace.

Well, sadly, he does.

The “strong” ones today are the liberated advocates of unconditional affirmation of same-sex unions; they are tempted to “despise” the “weak,” narrow-minded, rule-following conservatives who would impose limits on their freedom. And the “weak” ones today are the devout, strict followers of what they understand to be God’s law given in scripture; they are tempted to “pass judgment” on the sinful laxity of the “strong” who condone same-sex unions.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 203). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

So remember Christian, you are in his mind a narrow-minded rule-follower. To go back, what if I put in here people having sex with children or people practicing polygamy. What if I put in here people having sex outside of marriage? What if I put in here people watching pornography?

Or is it just the group that Richard Hays likes that gets a free pass?

And yet, if that is not enough.

Paul makes it clear that he himself is on the side of the “strong,” who believe no food is unclean (Rom 14:14, 15:1)

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 203). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

Now Hays is insisting that Paul would be on his side today. Well, considering this is the same Paul who wrote Romans 1, no. Paul would not back down on the moral commands of the Law for a moment.

Richard Hays has done passed on. For all we know, he might have met Paul by now.

I’m sure if so, it could be an interesting conversation.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: The Widening of God’s Mercy Chapter 10

Does acceptance equal mercy? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In looking through this chapter to see what I highlighted as worth discussing, I realized something unusual about Richard Hays’s chapters. He really doesn’t do much in the way of unique exegesis. Some of it is actually quite fine. He takes the passage about God wanting mercy and not sacrifice to emphasize God’s mercy on His people.

Okay. Nothing problematic about that.

The problem is that he never really does anything with that from the text itself. When he wants to move to the hobby horse he wishes of justifying LGBTQ behavior, then he steps outside of the text and goes to experience. After that, the experience then interprets the text.

Normally throughout history, experience has been the last ground of interpretation with a text. For Hays, it appears to be the trump card. It is what goes over everything.

Recently, I was reading some of Craig Carter’s book Interpreting Scripture With The Great Tradition and saw him critique another author taking a similar approach.

Fowl is talking about extending the meaning of that text in such a way that the spiritual sense would permit a positive moral evaluation of homosexual acts. This sets the spiritual sense in direct contradiction to the literal sense, so it clearly is a wrong exegetical move.

Carter, Craig A.. Interpreting Scripture with the Great Tradition (p. 21). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

So let’s look at what I had highlighted in Richard Hays’s chapter. Hays reads from Hosea:

How can I give you up, Ephraim? . . . My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. . . . for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath. (Hos 11:8–9) (Note carefully: This is a classic expression of God changing his mind, rescinding his earlier declaration of judgment and destruction.)

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 142). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

Yet how is this a change of mind? He does not say. Hays is doing what Carter warned against. What Richard Hays and his son have done in this book has been to say “Let’s take out all the doctrine of God in church history and throw it in the trash and then reinterpret all of Scripture in light of what we think it should say and see if it comes out differently.

Surprise, surprise! Not only does it come out differently, it also comes out exactly the way that they want it to!

So what about the original question? God does have mercy for sinners, including those in the LGBTQ community. That mercy means that they are sinners. Acceptance of sinners is fine, but that requires mercy takes place. God would be fully right in judging all sinners as deserving of death. In this, all Christians are no different from the LGBTQ community. We all deserve death and we all need forgiveness and mercy the same way.

Yet the Hayses are telling the LGBTQ community that God has changed His mind on them and apparently, only them. Interesting isn’t it? It’s always the group that’s in popular acceptance that the position needs to change on.

Yet mercy doesn’t come without repentance, which the Hayses are robbing the people of. That puts the Hayses in a dangerous position. Richard has passed on. Let us pray for Christopher.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: The Widening of God’s Mercy Chapter 8

Does Jesus offend? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

To be fair, with this first chapter of Richard Hays’s in this book, I think it’s important to agree that yes, Jesus is an offending figure to many. He was in His own time. Mr. Rogers doesn’t get crucified. Jesus was a problem to those around Him.

It’s a shame that this wasn’t thought of more as Richard Hays worked through this book. Jesus never sugar-coated or changed the gospel just to please people. I still remember the first time it was pointed out to me that when the rich young ruler walked away from Jesus after being told to sell everything, Jesus let Him walk away.

Yet despite this, we are being told that God has in fact changed His standards on an issue to go in a way that is less offensive to our culture. It’s awfully fascinating that the area Jesus wants to change us on is always our position on sex. We need to be more lenient there and let more things be allowed sexually.

If you have been wondering if all of this is about welcoming people, but still telling them to repent of sinful behavior, which would be just fine, then no. That is shown expressly to not be so.

Of course, if we go to the four Gospels looking for Jesus’s explicit teachings about homosexuality, we will look in vain; there’s not a word on this topic in the Gospels. But these foundational texts might offer us something else, perhaps something better: a collection of stories that teach us how to reframe ethical questions in light of God’s scandalously merciful character. As we revisit these well-known stories, I propose that we keep asking ourselves this question: How might the Gospel stories of Jesus’s convention-altering words and actions affect our thinking about norms for sexual relationships in our time?

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 125). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

Yes. Jesus never said anything about same-sex relationships. He didn’t need to. This wasn’t a big debate in ancient Israel. Divorce? Big debate. Same-sex relationships? Not a bit.

What would more likely need to be shown is anyone from ancient Israel who held to any sort of position like that of the Hayses. If anything, Jesus’s silence should show his agreement on the Torah. Also, when questioned about marriage, He explicitly brought up that God made them male and female. After that, the two were to be brought together. That part was never under question.

If the theme of this book was that we need to show God’s love to same-sex attracted people in that saying while they struggle, God still loves them in their struggle and is willing to help them as they struggle, then I would have no problem. Every Christian should agree with that and celebrate that. That is not what we got. We ultimately get a god we can’t trust who just makes it up as He goes along.

Next time, we’ll look more at what Richard Hays has to say.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: The Widening of God’s Mercy Chapter 7

What about the eunuchs? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Right now I’m reading a novel based on the book of Esther and the theme of being a eunuch shows up often. It’s quite painful to read about when I get to those parts and think about what they went through. Yet in Scripture, there are places where the eunuchs are promised blessing despite their condition.

So then Christopher says in this chapter:

If conservatives today find scriptural warrant for excluding sexual minorities, how much more did religious leaders in Isaiah’s time have warrant to exclude eunuchs? The prophet has no time for those traditions.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 106). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

Major differences here.

For one thing, eunuchs for the most part are not eunuchs by choice. They are made that way because of the desire of a king for his harem to be safe and also for no man to be sleeping with the women he has. Meanwhile, those in the LGBTQ camp are participating in a behavior by choice.

Second, if we are talking about sexual minorities, why not “widen God’s mercy” all the way? Imagine what you would think if the sexual minority listed here was not the LGBTQ crowd, but instead pederast. What is to stop the argument from working? Scripture? Psssh. If God changed His mind on LGBTQ relationships, then He could also change His mind on pederasts. (To be clear, a pederast is what I say for what most people call pedophiles. Pedophiles do not really love children. They abuse children.)

Let’s consider this in light of how this chapter and section of the book is ended.

The fresh encounter with a surprising God sets the trajectory for the reimaginings and revisions that take place in the New Testament—and continue into our times. It bears repeating: Scripture reflects that God’s grace and mercy towards the whole world was always broader than one might expect. It also says that God may change his mind and his approaches to the world to broaden it further. So, faithfulness to God means sometimes doing the same.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 114). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

Again, then why not pederasts?

So what do we have in the end? We have a book that thus far has decided to take about 2,000 years of Scripture on the nature of God and chuck it in the trash and then make statements that lead to a philosophical nightmare. We also do not have ANY interaction with the major texts used from the Old Testament by conservatives. If one wants to say that God changed His mind and those do not apply, then we have a free-for-all ultimately. God could change His mind on murder or rape or anything else.

It’s not a good position to be in.

Next time, we’ll look at what Richard Hays has to say about the New Testament.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Book Plunge: The Widening of God’s Mercy Chapter 6

Does God go too far? Let’s plunge into the Deeper  Waters and find out.

In this chapter, Christopher tells us about how God goes too far sometimes in His judgment. Surely, I’m exaggerating that. Right?

If only I was.

God destroys in wrath, but God also repeatedly repents of his wrath. God changes his mind about his methods and decisions. Sometimes this takes the form of realizing after the fact that punishment has gone too far.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 91). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

So we have then a story of a God who gets angry and then brings about destruction and then says “oopsie. I went too far that time.”

Excuse me. Why should I trust this god with anything? This doesn’t come across as the loving god that the Hayses want us to believe in. This comes across as a flippant god who will fly off on a whim and then want to say at the end, “Hey. A few lives lost. No harm done. Right?”

The idea that God does not foresee and control everything, and feels pity and regret even concerning his past judgments, is troubling for some theological views, but if we take the Bible seriously, it is hard to deny.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 92). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

It’s nice to know that Christopher has declared with one sentence that thousands of years of theologians and scholars didn’t take the Bible seriously. Where would we be without his magnificent wisdom to guide us? It would be bad enough to say that all of them were wrong. I am to believe that the church fathers, the medieval writers, and the reformers who held to classical doctrines didn’t take the Bible seriously?

Christopher brings up Calvin, who apparently didn’t take the Bible seriously. Whether you are a full-fledged 5-point Calvinist or a total devotee of Arminius, most all would agree at least that love his doctrine or hate it, Calvin took the Bible seriously. So what did Calvin say?

Calvin goes on to explain that “the change of mind is to be taken figuratively,” like every instance in which God is described in human terms. These descriptions of God are “accommodated to our capacity so that we may understand it.”

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 95). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

Which is a reasonable idea and what has been held for thousands of years. Unfortunately, it is also one Christopher doesn’t interact with. I remember when I was going through this book at first that I shared a quote on Facebook and someone said that the Bible says God doesn’t change His mind. Being humorous, I said “Well, maybe God changed His mind on if He changes His mind.” I thought it was funny.

And yet what do I soon see in the book itself?

All this tends to undermine the relevance of these statements. But in light of what we know about the Bible as a whole, it may be better to admit that there are indeed contrasting perspectives in dialogue with each other in the Bible. So if the Bible as a whole is the word of God, then perhaps we should say that God changes his mind about whether he changes his mind.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 96). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

Just even thinking about this leads to nonsense. God changes His mind on if He changes His mind? Did He forget His past apparently and that He had changed His mind? Did He say “I don’t change my mind” and then say “Oh. I do change my mind here” and then say “Well, I have changed my mind and now state that I never change my mind.” Do you need a Tylenol yet?

In the end of this chapter then, Christopher has written about a god who he says shows mercy. Unfortunately, we cannot trust this mercy since he could change his mind for all we know. Maybe tomorrow he will change his mind and decide to thoroughly punish all people who claim he changed his mind and that also say he is LGBTQ friendly.

The Hayses are an example of what happens when you fail to take seriously the history of the text and the tradition it came out of.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Book Plunge: The Widening of God’s Mercy Chapter 5

Did God change His mind on war? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Christopher Hays says there is no better example of God changing His mind in the text than on looking at the way the Bible presents war.

So there’s a history here of war in Israel and then Christopher drops this on us:

Why would Isaiah have been concerned about a reaction against Cyrus? Perhaps because his anointing as king was a violation of the Mosaic law, which said: “you may indeed set over you a king whom the LORD your God will choose. One of your brothers you may set as king over you; you are not permitted to put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother” (Deut 17:15).10 That was the word of the Lord—but now the Lord has changed his mind.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 88). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

I must have missed that part when Cyrus sat on the throne of David in Jerusalem…

Largely, what is in this chapter is an emotional appeal. If God’s plan was for the salvation of these people, why would He go to war against them? Well for starters, He did. Second, God’s plan was for things to come in the fullness of time. That would include having to protect Israel from those who wished to destroy her as well.

At this, many will go to the New Testament, which Christopher does not do, which is fine since he is focusing on the Old Testament. I personally do not think the New Testament is meant to give us instructions on warfare and when it is right to go to war or not. Most of us will never be in that position. Here in America, only 45 different people have ever been president and had to make the decision to send us into war or not.

The New Testament is more written to the average every day person. We do not know what foreign policy advice Jesus or Paul or any of the apostles would have given to a king if need be. We do know what rank and file people were instructed to do, but even then, instructions to turn the other cheek were not given in response to life-threatening violence, but to personal insults, meaning to stop the cycle of retaliation.

Ultimately, something that needs to be pointed out is that if God could change His covenants like Christopher says He did with Cyrus, how could anyone trust Him for salvation? He made a covenant promise with Israel and then broke it on His own? Why should I not think He won’t do the same with me someday if God changes His mind? If God can change His mind on what marriage is, then maybe God will change His mind and say you can marry your minor cousin someday and hey, who could say otherwise?

Christopher’s god is one that I do not recognize. I am thankful the God of Scripture is not like that.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: The Widening of God’s Mercy Chapter 4

Was the Law not good? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Remember how last time I said it gets worse?

Prepare yourselves. Here it comes.

In the midst of this speech, God says that because of the people’s disobedience, “I gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not live. I defiled them through their very gifts, in their offering up all their firstborn, in order that I might horrify them, so that they might know that I am the LORD” (Ezek 20:25–26).

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 68). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

It has been my contention that for the Hayses to defend same-sex romantic relationships from the text, they will have to demean God and/or the text. This is a prime example. Christopher especially should know better. If he wants to say the law and statutes of God were not good, I think a guy named Paul would have something to say about that.

No. What is going on here is God is saying “You don’t want to live by my laws and statutes? Deal. Enjoy Babylon. See how you like their laws!”

And yet, it gets worse.

The implication probably isn’t immediately clear to those who don’t live by the Mosaic law, but God’s comment refers clearly to Exod 22:29b–30: “The firstborn of your sons you shall give to me. You shall do the same with your oxen and with your sheep: seven days it shall remain with its mother; on the eighth day you shall give it to me.” And how did they give oxen and sheep to God? By blood sacrifice—as Exodus 22:31 makes clear with its reference to eating meat.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 69). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

The problem is, Christopher didn’t tell you all of what Exodus 22:29 said. If he had, you would have seen right through this.

“Do not hold back offerings from your granaries or your vats.

“You must give me the firstborn of your sons.

This is about an offering of service more than anything else. It is certainly not human sacrifice! Even if we were unsure, it is best to read the text in a way of charity and the Israelites detested human sacrifice.

If the text has to be made to say this to justify what Christopher wants it to justify, then the mainstream reading is on good grounds.

He even takes this over to the story of Abraham and Isaac saying God doesn’t want human sacrifice, but wants people willing to sacrifice their children. Never mind the real historical context that this is seeing if Abraham trusts that Isaac will be the one who will fulfill the promise made.

The propagation of these Deuteronomic laws is generally associated with the reign of Josiah in the late seventh century BCE, which was also the time of the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah goes farther than the other texts; in one of the book’s divine speeches, God similarly recounts “all the evil of the people of Israel and the people of Judah that they did to provoke me to anger” (Jer 32:32), including, “They built the high places of Baal in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to offer up their sons and daughters to Molech, though I did not command them, nor did it enter my mind that they should do this abomination, causing Judah to sin” (32:35). He doesn’t simply forbid the practice; he denies that God ever commanded it. This is irreconcilable with Ezekiel 20:25, which says God did command it.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 72). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

Look at that paragraph very carefully.

According to Christopher Hays, in the Old Testament, God commanded human sacrifice.

And what does Christopher draw from this in the end?

The harmful effects of social pressures on LGBTQ youth can be measured in various ways, but one of the most stark, tragic, and comparable is their rate of suicides and suicide attempts. A recent study endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association reported that 20.1 percent of sexual minority teens reported attempting suicide in 2017—3.8 times the rate of heterosexual teens.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 74). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

If these people are willing to kill themselves like this, there is something deeper going on. He is really just engaging in emotional blackmail here and saying “If you do not affirm them the way they want to be affirmed, then they will kill themselves and it will be on your head.”

No. No, it isn’t.

If anything, I think what Christopher is doing is the unloving thing. He is enabling them in a path of destruction that will result not just in a temporary death, but an eternal one.

If he is also wrong on this, he will have to give an account before God, the one who he says commanded human sacrifice and gave laws to His people that were not good, why he did what he did.

My stance is made. I will stick with what Jews and Christians have always said about what the Bible says about LGBTQ relationships. He who marries the spirit of the age is destined to be a widow.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: The Widening of God’s Mercy Chapter 3

Has justice widened? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

This chapter starts with the story of the daughters of Zelophehad in Numbers. They say their father did not participate in a rebellion against YHWH, but he had no sons. Why should his inheritance disappear? Moses takes their case to the Lord who agrees with the daughters, although later they are restricted in who they can marry to make sure they don’t take another tribe’s portion, which they accept.

It’s an interesting and a simple story. So what’s the big deal? Why is it in this chapter?

Hays presents it as a change in the attitude of God. Why? We are not told. All readers of Numbers will know is that this wasn’t included in the Law and it was a unique situation. On those cases, Moses would go to God for that one.

Apparently, this is supposed to be an opening to show God changing His mind allegedly on other issues.

Hays says that 1 Samuel 15 is another example and claims that Samuel misrepresents God by saying God doesn’t change His mind. Am I misrepresenting Hays? If only I was.

Humans, however, really like to put God in a box. We have already seen how Samuel, in his frustration at the failure of the king he anointed, misrepresents God by saying that God does not change his mind.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 62). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

So apparently, this is a part of Scripture where we are not presented with accurate information about God. This despite a prophet saying a clear prophecy that did indeed come true. It looks like to defend LGBTQ relationships from Scripture, you have to lower God.

Even looking at the case of Saul, it doesn’t argue what Hays claims. Had Saul been faithful, he would have had a lasting kingdom. Did God choose Saul knowing Saul would fall? Yes. God didn’t change His mind. Because the covenant was not argued, Saul was rejected. This didn’t surprise God at all.

There are passages of Scripture that on the surface do seem to indicate a change of mind. After reviewing this book, since it is an important topic, I do plan on writing on that one and showing why I think it’s anthropomorphic language. It’s meant to describe God to us in ways we can understand.

But getting back to Zelophehad….

The story of Zelophehad’s daughters suggests that the diversity and disagreements within the biblical laws are not an accident or an embarrassing error caught by pesky scholars. This story shows God himself taking part in reinterpreting and outright revising existing practices. In the Bible, God seems less troubled by change than his spokesmen are.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 64). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

So apparently God was ignorant when He gave the Law and hadn’t considered all the ramifications. At points like this, I don’t know what God the Hayses are presenting. He sure isn’t any that I recognize as the supreme being of YHWH revealed in Christ.

Later he says about the daughters that

The passage continues with a midrash on the women and their extraordinary faith: “They said, ‘God’s mercy is not like that of flesh and blood. The latter’s mercy is for the males more than for the females, but He who spoke and the world came into being is not that way. His mercy is for males and females.’” Paul seems also to have understood this when he wrote, “there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28), but clearly he still had to make the case in his time. In our time, new groups are asking for God’s mercy and asking to be accepted.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 67). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

Yet even within the Pauline corpus, there is a distinction between male and female. What is Paul talking about in that passage? He’s talking about that when it comes to salvation, there is no distinction. All are saved the same way and all are in Christ the same way.

Are others asking for God’s mercy? Yes. They can also get it, but they must repent. The problem is Hays is saying they don’t need to repent. He has left out that Zelophehad’s daughters are asking on behalf of a man who died for his own sins and did not participate in a rebellion against God.

Alas, it gets even worse.

Next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: The Widening of God’s Mercy Chapter 2

Did God second guess Himself? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I was expecting that in a book such as this one, to defend same-sex intercourse, I would come across some interesting ways of interpreting texts like Leviticus and other passages. I figured Genesis 1 and 2 would be interpreted in ways that didn’t rely on a male-female relationship. Unfortunately, I was wrong in all of that. Early on in chapter two, I got this and I was stunned as I read it.

Yet we see here the emergence of a God who is already changing his mind in response to the reality of the world he has created, and especially to humankind. The first indications of this are very subtle, and are easily overlooked; they seem to fall into unspoken seams in the story. In Genesis 2:17, God warns the humans: “You shall not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”1 Of course, they go on to do just that. And yet, they do not die on that day.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 46). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

Hays is not a philosopher. He does not understand the ramifications of what it means to say God changes His mind. This means that in some sense, God is limited. By what? God somehow gains new knowledge. From where? How can God be the God of all truth if all truth is not known?

Not only that, but this is on matters of morality. Did God decide that it would be wrong for Him to kill Adam and Eve on that day? If so, then there is a moral standard outside of God that God has to follow. God is not ultimate. God’s goodness is subservient to something outside of Himself. Hays isn’t really arguing about God. He’s arguing about Superman. God is just a really big man.

Still, the passage needs to be addressed. I contend that they did die that day, in that they fail away from everlasting life from being in covenant with God. I do not think man and woman were created immortal because they needed the tree of life to survive. They could have lived forever had they ate of it, but that was blocked off from them.

Yet it was at this point, I had hoped that this would be a one-off thing on the part of Christopher. I hoped I would not see this language often. As I went through the book, I saw that I hoped in vain.

Not only that, it gets worse. Hear what Christopher says when describing the flood.

After the auspicious start to creation, things have not worked out the way they were supposed to. The whole thing has been a mistake.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 49). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

God made a mistake?

If these are the lengths you have to go to to defend LGBTQ behavior from a Christian standpoint, then the case should be rock-solid that Scripture cannot be used to defend it. In order to justify man in this case, you have to lower God. That is what is consistently done in this book. God is lowered while the creation is exalted.

In describing the story of Hagar, he says:

The second theme is God’s propensity to relent from punishment, to show mercy even at the cost of changing his mind and bending his principles of justice.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 56). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

God bends principles of justice?

If you are part of the LGBTQ community, the Hayses have not done you any favors here. They have shown how much they have to change God for their argument to work. I can only wonder if this is something that Christopher just noticed in his work when he wants to justify LGBTQ lifestyles that he somehow missed all these years.

Something is being widened here, but it isn’t God’s mercy.

And yet this is just the start.

I wish I could tell you it will get better, but no. It will not.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)