puzzles
and anti-heroes
happy monday, friends! i’ve been mulling over some things while puzzling lately. let me know if any of the quotes stick with you too.
a podcast
I really really liked this episode with Tim Mackie & team on how we can shift our mindset by approaching the Bible as a cross-cultural experience:
We come to Genesis with our own questions and our own modern scientific worldview. But the Bible is addressing ancient concerns and ancient conceptions of creation. There were lots of gods. In the Babylonian epic, there was a battle of Marduk and Tiamat, the goddess of the deep water. Marduk splits her in half. Other epics told of how lower gods complained about the work the upper gods made them do, so they created humans to be slaves. Genesis is saying: that’s not what happened at creation. There is one God who is sovereign over all. There was chaotic water—it was not a threat, but an opportunity. Humans are not created to be slaves, but in God’s image to rule over God’s creation with him. This is ancient literature that is illuminating specific things to ancient culture.
When I travel to a new country for the first time, I will go with a spirit of humility and curiosity. I’m going to assume that I don’t know what’s happening. I’m going to work really hard. and I’m going to need a guide to help me navigate. As a reader of the Bible, whenever I get to a spot where there’s a puzzle—a moral puzzle because it sounds immoral to me, or a literary puzzle, I’ve learn that 9 times out of 10, there’s something behind the text culturally that I don’t know about.
When I came across the text in Matthew that says “when your eye is unhealthy, your whole body is unhealthy, and when your eye is healthy, your whole body is healthy.” Is this about what I watch on TV? About having bad vision? No, this is an ancient metaphor, a figure of speech that meant a healthy eye is a generous person, and an unhealthy eye was a stingy person. That these are two ways of seeing the world: scarcity mindset vs. abundance mindset.
When reading the Bible, we don’t have to come to complete understanding right away. We can sit with things for a while. There are many resources accessible that we can look into. But let’s reset our default response to puzzles. We need to be taught to think when I open the bible, with passport in hand, I’m going to another culture. If we had a generous mindset, we’d think: if there is something I see that I don’t understand, if people are talking or behaving in a way that puzzles me, I as a generous traveller would default to: there’s something I’m missing. As opposed to: what barbarians! And assuming that all behavior in another culture should be filtered through my framework. Just that small default shift can help us.
This language of puzzles works well because the Bible is meditation literature. The bible is not necessarily trying to be clear. At some level, it’s designed to get you to stop and think and puzzle. Learning to embrace this aspect of Scripture, has brought peace as I read the Bible, knowing it requires a humility and curiosity.
a book
I’m reading through Genesis out loud. Two takeaways thus far.
I’ve been meditating on how ABUNDANT God is. This is his character—generous. He created everything out of sheer delight. Everything is extra. Cherries on top. He is never stingy. His natural posture is to give and to give happily 🥹
If you ever think your family is dysfunctional, read this book lols.
an article
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about God’s faithfulness. And our lack thereof. I liked how Carmen Joy Imes writes how we might have missed the point of the anti-hero hall of fame in the book of Hebrews:
I began to realize that most of those listed in Hebrews 11 were not exactly heroic, to put it mildly. Some of them were certifiable schmucks. If Hebrews 11 was a list of heroes, I would expect to see the Hebrew midwives make the cut, or at least Deborah, Joshua, Caleb, Hannah, Elijah, Josiah, and Daniel. These Old Testament saints are truly worth emulating—yet none of them make the list.
Perhaps the people in Hebrews 11 are like those in the long lines at Disneyland waiting to ride roller coasters. Their willingness to wait over an hour for a three-minute ride is not a badge of honor. It simply illustrates that they trust the Imagineers who designed the ride to provide a fun and safe experience. And when people stumble off the ride, wide-eyed and slightly out of breath, we don’t clap them on the back and congratulate them for a tremendous achievement—we ask them what the ride was like. The ride is what’s impressive, not the riders.
In other words, these figures aren’t heroes—they’re beneficiaries of God’s grace by faith.
By this matrix, any one of us could be a candidate for inclusion in Hebrews 11. The point is not who we are but who we trust. Ultimately, Hebrews doesn’t tell us to imitate Abraham, Sarah, Samson, or Jephthah, but to stick with Jesus and trust his promise that he will return. And believing that changes everything.
TLDR: the christian life is a rollercoaster🎢 we aren’t the heroes, Jesus is. phew!
be well, friends! smol nephew has now acquired the hand-eye coordination needed to drink from a spillable cup without spilling! the little things in life hehe.
love,
reb