Divine Discontent | Sunday, October 1, 2023

There was also a lot for the tribe of Manasseh, for he was the firstborn of Joseph... But Zelophehad the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, had no sons, but only daughters. And these are the names of his daughters: Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. And they came near before Eleazar the priest, before Joshua the son of Nun, and before the rulers, saying, "The Lord commanded Moses to give us an inheritance among our brothers." Therefore, according to the commandment of the Lord, he gave them an inheritance among their father's brothers... (Joshua 17:1–6)

A 3,400-year-old text quietly defies the charge that the Bible oppresses—and reveals a God who wants His people to seize the fullness of what He has given.

A Worldview That Targets the Bible

A bit of grace this morning—Andrea and I and our two oldest went to Coldplay at the Rose Bowl last night, and my "no parking" Uber plan left us waiting ninety minutes in demand pricing. I didn't get home till 2:30.

As part of my seminary coursework, I'm reading for a class on contemporary issues in ethics. These issues affect our lives in a huge way—questions about when life begins, death and euthanasia, human rights, sexuality, gender identity, religious liberty, the relationship between church and state, free speech, and social justice. These are the big issues confronting us in 2023.

One book for the class is The Genesis of Gender by Abigail Favale. She entered her undergraduate studies in August 2001 as an evangelical Christian, raised in a Bible-teaching church. Four years later she graduated—from a private Christian school—in her own words "a progressive postmodern feminist." She went on to a master's and PhD in gender studies and taught those very things. In the last decade she has had a reconversion and come back to faith as a Catholic Christian, and this book focuses on the issues of gender and sexuality.

For many people right of center, or who attend church and profess Christ, these issues seem ridiculous, and there's a part of that I understand. But if you are in Gen Z or a younger Millennial, these are issues you're confronted with constantly.

"There Is No Creator, So We Create Ourselves"

Favale writes: "According to the gender paradigm, there is no Creator, and so we are free to create ourselves." The body is an object with no intrinsic meaning. "We do not receive meaning from God, or our bodies, or the world. We impose meaning upon it. What we take to be 'real' is merely a linguistic construct... To be free is to transgress limits continually, to unfetter the will... because truth is just a story we tell ourselves. All self-told stories are true."

Does that sound familiar? In this worldview there is no ultimate truth and no ultimate meaning. Reality is whatever you believe it to be according to "your truth," and nothing should ever limit you. It's interesting—they say there is no objective truth, but then say this is true, which is self-defeating. Yet this is the worldview that pervades America in the 2020s, and it is the antithesis to the biblical, Christian worldview.

This is what's called a totalizing ideology. It takes over everything within a culture and affects society in deeply subversive ways that shake its foundations. And it is important to recognize that this ideology sees the Bible, the Christian worldview, and those who hold it as Public Enemy Number One. Favale describes her own former view: "I had come to see Christianity as something like a dark cathedral... rightly dismantled because of patriarchal transgressions... I was a Christian in name only. In belief I was agnostic, in practice I was an atheist."

The Bible Blamed, the Bible Vindicated

In this worldview, the Bible is the problem. The Bible is said to be the reason women are subjugated, the reason certain lifestyles are seen as immoral, the reason for gender binaries and oppression. If we can just unchain ourselves from the Bible, the promise goes, we will be free—and not only free, but happy.

We live in a culture that highly values the pursuit of happiness. But strip away "endowed by their Creator," and the logic becomes: whatever makes me happy is good, and this keeps me from happiness, so I just need to be unmoored from it. That's the pervasive mindset on every university in America today. After the first service, a friend finishing his teaching degree at Cal State told me gender studies is a required course in the College of Education.

And it isn't only secular universities—nearly all the private Christian universities teach the same thing. It's everywhere in pop culture, right down to our youngest. Years ago I was driving my daughters, then about six and four, to school as they sang "Let It Go" from Frozen: "It's time to see what I can do, to test the limits and break through. No right, no wrong, no rules for me—I'm free." It's in The Little Mermaid—"I want more." It's in Beauty and the Beast—"There must be more than this provincial life." It's in Mulan—"I cannot hide who I am, I have to be me." This philosophy is the air we breathe, often invisible until we start to see its consequences—because ideas have consequences.

Where Did This Come From?

But is the Bible really the problem? Passages like Joshua 17 say otherwise. A couple of weeks ago we saw Caleb's daughter Achsah petition her father for a blessing, and he granted it—something utterly out of place for the culture of 2,000 years before Christ, and even for the Middle East today.

Earlier this year I was in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, in a stunning, nearly empty mall. The only women I saw were covered head to toe in burkas, walking five to ten feet behind their husbands. That's the culture. What we find in this text is strikingly different—so different you should ask where it came from. And the answer Scripture gives is divine revelation. At Sinai—in that very land—the word came down, revealing something entirely other.

The Daughters of Zelophehad

The land of Israel is being divided among the twelve tribes. A census in Numbers determined each tribe's size, and the largest, Judah, drew its lot first. Then came Joseph, divided into Ephraim and Manasseh. Now we reach Manasseh.

Zelophehad "had no sons"—underline that. In that time and culture, inheritance passed only to sons; only men could hold property. So when the land is divided to the families of Manasseh, there's a problem: this man has only daughters—Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. They come before Eleazar, Joshua, and the rulers and say, "The Lord commanded Moses to give us an inheritance among our brothers." And so it was given.

We are told by the increasingly progressive intelligentsia that this is a Bronze Age, misogynistic, patriarchal text that causes the subjugation of women. But if that were true, this provision could not appear in a 3,400-year-old text. It is completely out of place historically and culturally—and yet here it is.

The backstory is in Numbers 27. The daughters came to Moses: "Why should the name of our father be removed from among his family because he had no son? Give us a possession among our father's brothers." That does not fit the culture of the time—Moses might have been expected to say, "Sorry, that's not how we do things." Instead, Moses did what he always did: he brought their case before the Lord.

And what does this supposedly misogynistic God of the Bible do? "The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 'The daughters of Zelophehad speak what is right.'" The Old Testament God you're told hated women declares that these women speak rightly, grants them an inheritance, and commands it written down for future generations.

The Bible and Objective Moral Ethics

Take careful note: "The daughters of Zelophehad speak what is right." If you are a postmodern naturalist who believes everything came to be by evolutionary process over billions of years with no God, you have no objective basis for what is right.

Understand what I am not saying. I am not saying an atheist cannot be a good person; many morally good people say "I don't know if there's a God." I'm not even saying they can't make an argument for goodness. I'm saying they have no rational basis for calling something right or wrong, because the leap from what is to what ought to be does not compute by the things of this world alone. A value system has to come from somewhere.

Sam Harris, the atheist in Malibu, has written books on morality and is highly moral. But when apologists ask what his moral system is based on, he answers "human well-being"—and that's not enough. A worldview requires an undergirding foundation. Several of you are contractors: what happens without a good foundation? Things collapse and crumble. Is that not what we're seeing in our culture?

A biblical value system built the culture we enjoy—a culture where you can park your car and trust the windows won't be smashed, or leave your garage open and trust your neighbor will close it. We all want to live in a culture like that, but there is no such culture without an objective moral foundation.

The atheist argues the Bible is oppressive and misogynistic, and in one sense I understand why—the Bible arose out of a time and place that was oppressive and misogynistic. But that should tell us something about the culture, not the Bible. Where did that misogyny come from? Not from the Bible, but from sin. The bigger question is: what has happened to the societies where the Bible has gone? The answer is inarguable—it has elevated the dignity and liberty of all peoples. That's classical liberalism: rule of law, personal property, the individual making decisions before God.

The Bible Defends the Defenseless

Subjugation and oppression are not the product of the Bible's influence; they are the result of sin in the world, and the Bible addresses sin through the redemptive power of God in Jesus. Do the research—read Alvin Schmidt's How Christianity Changed the World. The Bible, Old and New Testament, promotes and defends the defenseless: the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow.

Consider India before missionary William Carey brought the gospel. The standard practice for widows was sati: when a man died and his remains were burned, the wife was required to lay herself on the fire and die as well. Carey's gospel effectively did away with widow-burning, and even non-Christians in India today respect him for it. James writes, "Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world."

Point one: the Bible provides the best explanation for the genesis of objective moral ethics. It's not the only explanation people offer, but it is the best. When a friend wants to talk about right and wrong but doesn't believe the Bible, ask them: where does right and wrong come from? That's the question C. S. Lewis pressed in Mere Christianity, which began as wartime radio talks.

Righteousness Is Doing What God Declared Right

God said, "The daughters of Zelophehad speak what is right," and so Joshua gave them their father's inheritance. Point two: righteousness is putting into practice what God has declared to be right.

How do we know what God has declared right? First, conscience—everyone has one until it is seared as with a hot iron. C. S. Lewis observed that cultures throughout history share a basic, similar understanding of right and wrong. Where did that come from? Naturalists struggle with the hard problem of consciousness and conscience because you cannot move from facts to values. Beyond conscience, God has revealed right and wrong through Scripture, and beyond that, He has demonstrated it in the incarnate Jesus, who aligns perfectly with conscience and Scripture. And we do what is right by the enabling power of the Holy Spirit.

"We Want More": The Tribe of Ephraim

The second story challenging the secular reading comes later in the chapter. Recall that the tribes never fully possessed their inheritance: Judah could not drive out the inhabitants (15:63), Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanites (16:10), and Manasseh could not drive them out (17:12).

Then in verse 14 the children of Joseph come to Joshua: "Why have you given us only one lot and one share to inherit, since we are a great people?" Essentially, "We're a big tribe—we should get more. I want more." How like us! We get something and immediately want more, like going through a buffet line. We see it in our children before they can even speak. It's a hard lesson to learn the word my flesh doesn't like: contentment. My flesh likes indulgence.

I see it in our new Weimaraner, Ella—with three toys and three dogs, she'll gather all three for herself, running around with two in her mouth, pacing and crying over the third. It's hardwired into us to want more, yet we need to learn contentment. Paul says, "I have learned, in whatever state I am, to be content," and then, "I can do all things through Him who gives me strength." That famous verse is in the context of contentment—because contentment is hard, and we need the strengthening power of Christ to be content.

Divine Discontent

Why doesn't God simply remove that desire? I think He sometimes allows discontent to remain because part of it is something He actually wants us to have. A certain amount of discontent can drive us forward to lay hold of what God actually wants for us. The tribes never fully took the possession God gave them; He wanted them to want more—to seize what He really had for them.

This is dangerous and must be held in balance. If discontent takes over, we become malcontents—murmuring complainers, as Israel did, as I do, as Ella does. First Timothy 6 says, "Godliness with contentment is great gain." So there must be a right ratio: discontent that drives us, but never allowed to curdle into complaining.

Watch Joshua's response. Ephraim says, "We want more." Joshua answers: "If you are a great people, then go up to the forest country and clear a place for yourself... since the mountains of Ephraim are too confined" (v. 15). Here's a phrase to carry this week: divine discontent. Point three: divine discontent drives the disciple to pursue greater exploits and possess the fullness of their possession.

More—Without the Fight

Ephraim presses: "The mountain country is not enough for us. We still need more... and all the Canaanites... have chariots of iron" (v. 16). We want more—and we don't want to work for it or fight for it. We want the easy way: to wake up and discover a long-lost wealthy uncle has left us an empire. We dream of it. Some of you are playing the lottery; I'd recommend you don't. You even do the calculus: "If I won, I'd surely tithe." No, you won't. We've all seen the studies—most lottery winners end up worse off than before. Easily won gains are easily lost. Rarely do we care for what is simply handed to us the way we care for what we fight for.

And yet I'm still not sure wanting more is so bad. When the disciples asked Jesus what they must do to be great in His kingdom, He didn't chastise them. He said: humble yourself, take the lower seat. That's different from what you hear in 21st-century America. Ephraim assumed that because Joshua was of their own tribe, he'd just give them more. Instead he said, "There's the land—go take it."

Divine discontent can motivate positive action, but when paired with laziness and apathy it festers into resentment, envy, and dysfunction. Point four: discontent turns men into malcontents when they're too lazy to advance courageously. There is so much more God has for us, but American Christianity has fallen into the notion that if we just sit in enough Bible studies, one day we'll wake up with spiritual power. No—God says, "I've set before you a whole land. Go in and take it." He's given you all the power you need by Christ's indwelling Spirit, but it will require work: being part of the body, serving, giving, using your gifts—for which you will one day give an account.

Get in the Game

When our oldest son started baseball, he was upset he wasn't getting hits. "You can't get a hit if you don't swing." But he feared striking out. "Yes, you'll strike out—but you'll also get some hits." He started swinging, started striking out—and then started hitting. (Then we discovered he runs slowly to first base; there's always something.) You won't get a hit if you don't swing. If you want more, you have to go lay hold of it. God allows discontent to remain to motivate us to press on, "that we may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has laid hold of us." "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid... for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go."

So Joshua says (vv. 17–18): "You are a great people and have great power... the mountain country shall be yours... you shall cut it down... you shall drive out the Canaanites, though they have chariots of iron and are strong." Go take it; God will be with you.

What Happened a Century Later

What did they do? A hundred years later the Canaanites were ruling over them with nine hundred chariots of iron (read Judges 4). The tribes had never taken the land. So God raised up Deborah, who told Barak to go fight the Canaanites. He said, "I won't go unless you go with me." She replied, "I'll go, but the glory will go to a woman."

God went before Barak and his ten thousand and destroyed the Canaanite army. Their commander, Sisera, leapt from his iron chariot and fled, passing the tent of an ordinary Jewish housewife named Jael. He demanded she hide him; she took him in, gave him curdled milk, and he fell asleep. Then Jael took a tent peg and a hammer and drove it through his temple into the ground—the earliest Krav Maga. "The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him"—even Jael, Deborah, or the daughters of Zelophehad.

Possess Your Inheritance

Point five: the people of God have an ethical responsibility to advance and possess the fullness of their inheritance. Would to God that we would press in and possess the fullness of ours. We live in a time not unlike the days of the judges, when everyone did what was right in his own eyes, all truth was relative—your truth and their truth—and there was no king in Israel. We need God to move within His church, but we also need the church to move courageously, or we will be subdued by the Canaanites. God help us.

Closing Prayer

Father God, I thank You for Your word. It is challenging—help us to consider these things, to weigh them. God, speak to us and teach us, we pray. Would You pour out Your Spirit upon Your church and give us boldness by Your Spirit to act courageously according to what is right and good as revealed in the Scriptures. We praise You. It's in Jesus' name we pray, and all those agreed said amen.