Category: Solomon Says

Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor’s headquarters, and they gathered the whole battalion before him. And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they spit on him and took the reed and struck him on the head. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him.

Matthew 27:27–31 ESV

On one level, the crown of thorns was simply a torture device that served the additional purpose of humiliating Jesus. The soldiers wanted both to mock Jesus and to cause him pain. But the Gospels indicate that something more was going on. Pontius Pilate planned his inscription on the cross, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews” (John 19:19), to be nothing more than a humiliation of the Judeans before Rome. But the declaration on the cross in three languages was also a providential proclamation of the Gospel.

If you are tempted to think that Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes contain different views of wisdom, perhaps you should consider the epistle of James. I appeal to James several times in my book, Solomon Says, because James says a lot about wisdom.

A generic “Calvinist” reading of Deuteronomy is straightforward: At the time that Moses preached the text to Israel either many were unfaithful or following generations soon would be. This unfaithfulness can be best be understood as involving a large number of unregenerate Israelites. But Deuteronomy promises that God will one day cause Israel to be faithful, which probably means He will regenerate many of the Israelites at that time and in some number of subsequent generations.

This is from the out of print book The Law of the Covenant: An Exposition of Exodus 21-23 by James B. Jordan.

Hebrew law is public and addressed to all. Increasingly in our modern world, law has become a complicated, esoteric matter which can be understood only by lawyers. This is a trend away from Hebrew-Christian law, which is simple and public. In the ancient world, both cultic and judicial laws were often hidden from the people, but in Israel the law was to be read to everyone, every seven years (Deuteronomy 31:10-13). Moreover, since the law is addressed to everybody, not just to rulers and Priests (indeed, Israel was a “nation of priests”), ” everyone is held personally responsible for the observance of the law. This leads, in turn, to the concept of individual and joint responsibility. No longer is it the sole concern of the leader of the community ( e g, the king in Mesopotamia) to maintain justice and to protect the rights of his community. This responsibility is now shared by every member of the society…” [M. Shalom Paul, studies in the book of the Covenant in the light of cuneiform and Biblical Law. Supplements so Vetus Testamentum XVIII (Leiden: E. J. Brill), p. 38].

Because God’s law is publicly addressed to everyone, it has a strongly pedagogical (teaching) function. Thus… Israelite law differs from heathen law and that it has motivations included in it…

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This is the time of year for the diet, fitness, and financial industries to advertise for a new crop of customers. Most will use the “superstition” of New Year’s resolutions as a draw. But some will have too much integrity, and, while they will offer their services for 2021, they will make a point of conceding there is nothing magical about a New Year’s resolution.

I disagree. While I understand that people are trying to be honest and helpful when they deny the magic of resolutions, when they work it does indeed seem like magic.

Sin is a human behavior.

Maybe it would help us, if we have a general agenda to reduce our own sin, to think about what we know about general human behavior.

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When we practice behaviors they become easier. When a child learns to tie his shoe, he gets to the point that he doesn’t have to think about it. In fact, if you told someone, “I want you to really pay attention to how you tie your shoes,” the only observable result would be that they would do the task more slowly than usual. It is a step backwards. The normal way we do things is to start slow and make mistakes. As we develop our skill, we get faster and yet stop making as many mistakes.

Much controversy was occasioned in the debate over the proper confessions of the incarnation and the Trinity in the early centuries of the Church by Wisdom’s portrayal in Proverbs 8: “The LORD possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth…” (vv.22, 23). The Arians used this passage to ague that Jesus was merely a created being rather than eternally God with the Father and the Spirit.

But the puzzle would arise even without the question of the person of Jesus. Obviously, God was not foolish before he created the world. Wisdom is an attribute of God. So why would Solomon portray Wisdom as a first act of creation.