Skipper--You said:
"If your truths are eternal, then why do you quote some
old jewish king seeking "divine" right to destroy his earthly
enemies? Isn't it time to discard this kind of thinking?"
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The Hebrew social and cultural mores are only the wrapping paper
for Gods' eternal truths. The symbolic language hides the gems
of truth from those who are blind in the eyes of their spiritual
understanding.
There is an analogy in the natural world that might shed light
on this concept. When learning a foreign language, it is relatively
easy to master direct equivalents such as man, dog, house etc.
It is far more difficult to master the metaphors and similies
in a language. To become really proficient in a language, we
need to immerse ourselves into the spirit of the society or culture.
How do we unwrap the eternal truths contained in this ancient
Hebrew cultural wrapping paper? Our natural common sense experience
would tell us to immerse ourselves in the language and culture of the
ancient Hebrews. This natural tendencey is the number one stumbling
block of the men of the mind. It leads to an intellectual understanding
of the Word of God with an accompanying blindness of the eternal
and spiritual truths.
If not by mastering the ancient Hebrew culture, how, then, do we
arrive at these hidden gems of eternal truth?
The pursuit of intellectual knowledge gives us a certain exhuberance
and intellectual "enlightenment" but no substantive change or reality.
Intellectual enlightenment permits us to learn all about the wrapping
paper but reveals nothing about the true contents.
The true contents of Gods' Word can only be found and understood
by a Spiritual enlightenment. This Spiritual enlightenment can only
come through the Grace of God through our Faith in Jesus Christ.
You may ask, why is this so? It is so simple because God has ordained
it to be so. Again, the reality of the content is hidden from the eyes
of those without Faith in Jesus.
Skipper, there was a time when the reality was hidden from my eyes.
I read the Scrpitures diligently as an intellectual exercise. I could
graps the historical and cultural contents but the substance--the spiritual
gems-- were hidden from my blind heart.
When the eyes of my heart were opened, it was an amazing experience
to find these hidden treasures that had been so near and yet infinitely
far.
God, in His infinite Wisdom, has hidden these things from those
who consider themselves wise in their own eyes and has revealed them
to the humble and meek--those who are truly wise.
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