Ep 263: The Torah, the Old Testament, and Christian Politics with Dru Johnson

In this episode I talk once again with Old Testament scholar Dru Johnson, who recently hosted a conference about Christianity and politics entitled “Bible First”. I ask him a wide range of questions about the political themes and consequences of the Torah and Old Testament. We explore the relationship between creation and human agency in Genesis 1-11, the patriarchal narratives and their role as shepherds of Israel, the Law as God’s covenantal contract with Israel, how Deuteronomy defines the unique role of Israel’s king, the failure of Israel and their king to keep covenant, particularly with Israel’s desire to have a king like the nations around them in 1 Samuel 8, God’s promise to David in 2 Samuel 7 that one of his descendants will establish an eternal kingdom, how the prophets deal with Israel’s failures and future hope, and how this relates to the kingship of Jesus in the New Testament. This is a wide-ranging and engaging conversation which reframes our perspective on the Old Testament and its impact on Christian political theology. 

Media Referenced:

Dru’s Website: https://drujohnson.com/

X: @Dru_Johnson

Biblical Law Episode: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ep-239-understanding-biblical-law-with-dru-johnson/

Genesis 3 Episode: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ep-232-genesis-35-and-the-problem-of-power/

1 Samuel 8 Episode: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/1-samuel-8-biblical-critique-of-monarchy/

The Protestant Libertarian Podcast is a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute and a part of the Christians For Liberty Network. The Libertarian Christian Institute can be found at www.libertarianchristians.com.

Questions, comments, suggestions? Please reach out to me at theprotestantlibertarian@gmail.com.  You can also follow the podcast on Twitter: @prolibertypod, and YouTube, @ProLibertyPod, where you will get shorts and other exclusive video content. For more about the show, you can go to theprotestantlibertarianpodcast.com. If you like the show and want to support it, you can! Go to libertarianchristians.com, where you can donate to LCI and buy The Protestant Libertarian Podcast Merch! Also, please consider giving me a star rating and leaving me a review, it really helps expand the show’s profile! Thanks!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This is the Protestant Libertarian Podcast, a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute and part of the Christians for Liberty Network. I really hope that you guys enjoy today's show. All right, welcome to another episode of the Protestant Libertarian Podcast. My guest today is once again the great Dr. Drew Johnson. Dr. Johnson is Templeton Senior Research Fellow and Director of the Abrahamic Theistic Origins Project at Wycliffe Hall, visiting professor at Hope College, director of the Center for Hebraic Thought, host of the Biblical Mind Podcast, and co-host of the OnScript Podcast. So you obviously stay very busy. He recently hosted a conference on the Bible and politics and offered some reflections on how the Old Testament, particularly the Torah, can help Christians think more clearly about the relationship between Christian theology and politics. We will be discussing this on the show today. Dr. Johnson, welcome back to the Protestant Libertarian Podcast. Good to be back. So talk to us about the Bible first conference on politics. Why did you pick that subject and why now?

SPEAKER_02 1:03

Yeah, um, we so this is the Center for Hebraic Thought, Mike Tolliver, who is our executive director. We wanted to start with the American Bible Society, we wanted to start kind of a Bible first conference series where we went through various topics. Um and we were, you know, kicking around all the different topics you could run through scripture on. And then we said, well, you know, politics seems to like need some work amongst Christians these days. So we said, okay, we'll do that. And we, you know, got a few speakers lined up uh and it worked out well. It uh the name of the conference is Bible First, which is a very wonky, you know, we thought about much more elegant and subversive and you know, Latin names and all that kind of stuff. But uh we ended up uh just basically saying, look, we we want this conference to be whatever we say, we want people to start with their view of what's going on in scripture, and then they can put anything they want in conversation with that. We we were more and less successful in that, depending on speaking, right? Uh so we were very clear with that. Some were able to do that more easily than others. Uh, and I can talk about some good examples of that uh if you want. But that was basically the goal is to like get people thinking about the political philosophy uh of scripture itself and how that might shape our thinking. Our um, our question for the conference is the Bible and uh and politics go well together, but how, right? So um, so force like not even pretending like these have nothing to do with each other.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Yeah, no, and I I completely agree with that. And that's something that I have been very adamant about for a long time. Like going back to my days in Bible college, when I started to read political philosophy and political theology for the first time, one of the things that I was dissatisfied with with a lot of Christian commentary on politics, is that they start with the theologians. You start with like Augustine or Aquinas or Martin Luther or whatever, and then you work back to the Bible from that. And that seems to be almost kind of like the universal starting point. So I love that you titled your conference Bible first, because again, you know, as Bible-believing people, that should be our starting point. So I just want you to talk about that. When Christians are thinking about political and economic structures as well, why should the Bible and not necessarily the tradition of theology be our starting point?

SPEAKER_02 3:18

Um well, A, I think, you know, the scripture is here to instruct us on all things. Um and uh so that one seems easy. I think the difficult part is it's hard to eke out for a lot of people what exactly scripture is doing with politics, what it's doing with kings, what it's doing with uh slavery and all kinds of other things that have been a problem in American politics. Um, but I I so I think that's where we need the most help is discerning what actually are the structural elements to the to the thinking of the biblical authors versus, you know, like when I say there's no incarceration in the Bible, sometimes people will say, Oh, well, well, Paul was in jail. And I'll say, Well, yeah, they mention incarceration, but it's neutral, like it's a neutral comment. He was in jail, he wasn't in jail for a good reason, but there was no comment on whether you should have jails or not, like whether that was a right or wrong thing. So, um, so I think that's where we need uh the help. And I think that uh following biblical teaching in our political thinking and how how we think the, you know, we're in this world weird world called a democratic republic where in some ways we get to make what we get ruled by, uh, not really, but kind of. Yeah. Um, and so in some senses, we have a little bit higher of a calling than Paul did, even. I was just rereading through Acts this morning for a class, and you realize he just defers to the Roman political system every at every turn. I mean, for good and for ill. Like, you know, he's like, Hey, I'm a Roman citizen, you can't beat me without cause, right? Um, but he really cut does kind of have this deferential like these are the powers and principalities of our day. Uh, and we just kind of have to, you know, deal with that, versus the American system where we are making the powers and principalities. So in some ways, we have a higher obligation to think more carefully.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Yeah, I agree with that. And this brings us to another problem that you you kind of addressed in the answer to the last question, whereas the Bible doesn't directly address our modern political condition. And this is something that I think a lot of people struggle with because we want there to be a straight line from the biblical text to the modern world. But we have 2,000 years of history that separate us from now and the New Testament. And even then, it's like the Enlightenment just kind of like what you're saying before, precipitated this massive shift in Western thought where now you have this, you know, at least nominally, this ideal of democratic government, government by the people and for the people, that they just did not share in the ancient world. So we have to be careful how we draw that out. So I want you to talk about that. You know, the Bible can't really address these modern questions head-on. So kind of talk about that historical dynamic. But then along with that, like as, you know, Bible-believing people, we do affirm that the Bible can give us guidance and direction. So, what's the best way for it to point us to the answers to these modern questions that we have?

SPEAKER_02 6:04

Yeah, um, so at the Center for Hebrew, I thought we talk often about the deep structures of scripture. So the things that are repeated often that are clear from the Torah, from creation, from the Torah, uh, the instruction to Israel, as they did start a nation, that would be seemingly an important part, um, as God instructs them, okay, this is the kind of nation you should be, which very interestingly does not have like an executive leader in the way that we think about executive leadership, at least. Um, and I also want to point out that even within scripture, they have to figure out political philosophy from the Torah. So, for instance, I mean, you could go way earlier than this, but if you just go to the exile and the return, they are trying to figure out what their political philosophy should be. So it's, you know, they go into exile with kings capitulating to the local powers that be. They come back from exile, they don't have an appointed governor that, you know, uh Nehemiah comes back in just because he happens to be from the royal court of the of the uh Mesopotamians. Um, but they don't have a strong centralized government ideal, and they're and they're trying to work it out, and they're actually going back to the Torah and listening to it being read aloud, trying to figure out what they should be doing. And so we, you know, as much as we have a 2,000-year gap with the New Testament, even people within Scripture had a millennial uh, you know, or at least centuries of gaps uh with their own scriptures. And then, of course, the New Testament has centuries of gaps with their own scripture, you know. So when Jesus appeals to the law and the prophets as the guiding influence for everything that he thinks, um, he's talking about things that are centuries and centuries away from them at the at the closest. Um this is the task of the prophet, and I think it's part of our task as a church, is to recontextualize the clear instruction of scripture for our present day. And then the we can quibble over all the stuff, but let's just go for the real structural framework, you know, the girders, uh, and you know, we can mess about what kind of window treatments we want to put on our windows when we get there. But we're, I don't even think we're doing well on the deep structures.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Yeah, I would totally agree with that. And you know, again, I address the relationship between politics and Christian theology in the Bible on the show all the time, but it's mostly in relationship to the New Testament. Um, and so I'm really excited to talk to you because you're an Old Testament scholar, you have a different perspective on this than I do. And you also recently wrote a book on the Torah, uh Biblical understanding, biblical law. That was the last time you were on the show, and I'll put links to that in the show notes. And so, even going to, you know, a concept like like Torah itself, and I want to spend a significant amount of time today talking about, you know, the kind of like the politics of the Torah, what the Torah can tell us about politics, but there are a million assumptions built into modern Christian theology about what the Torah is and how it was designed to function. And we're going through with our small group right now, we have been reading through Sandra Richter's Epic of Eden. And I think she has kind of like this perfect analogy that when it comes to the Old Testament for Christians, it's like a dysfunctional closet, you know, where you have all these pieces of clothing that are strewn about, but they're not ordered in any way. And so people know plenty of stories from the Torah and from the Old Testament in general, but there's no coherent or overarching um framework for thinking about how they fit together. So I think before we start looking at the Torah and and kind of building up from there about what the Old Testament says about politics, maybe just briefly, and like I said, I'll I'll link the, I'll link the the episode that you were on last time in the show notes for people that want to go back and listen to that, but just kind of briefly talk to us what is the function of Torah? Like what was it, what was it intended to do?

SPEAKER_02 9:38

Yeah, I think uh the word Torah itself kind of gives gives it away, which and again, Torah is a title we've given it. So it's not, I mean, or I should say that's a title that's later attributed to it. Uh so we're really talking about the books of Moses, the first five books, which are interwoven narrative with poetry, with law, um, with all kinds of other things going on in there as well, but at least those three. And uh, so that's unusual in the ancient Near East. It's an unusual form of literature. You don't see that anywhere in the ancient uh world. Um and so you say, why are they combining those three uh forms of literature? Well, I think the over uh overarching impulse of Torah is to instruct Israel and Gentiles, anybody who comes into contact with Israel, about what kind of people they are to be. Uh, as an as we would say, a nation. Now, whether you want to argue that they're an om, which is uh like a uh a people group, or a goi, which is a nation, um, and you know, do they have statehood in mind when they talk about these things? Those are those are uh issues again that I think we could argue about once we get the structures down. Um, but at the end of the day, it is not about a bunch of people being given rules from on high, it in which if they follow them, then everything is fine. Uh it understands, like you said, the world is broken, uh, it is fundamentally ruptured, and this is a way in which God can be with his people physically, present with his people, uh, and his people can be a blessing to all the nations, all the families of the earth, Genesis 12, 15, and 17. Um, if if they become the right kind of people. And if they don't, then they become terrors on the earth, which is what they do become because they will not listen to God's instruction.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Yeah. Well, and and so let's go ahead and we'll start at the very beginning, right? So I want to go back to Genesis 1 through 11, the kind of the prologue to the Pentateuch, so to speak, you know, the backstory for Israel's history and Abraham's history in particular. Um, and obviously, from a Christian perspective, we have the creation and then we have the new creation in Revelation 21 through 22. So what whatever's going on in the earliest chapters of Genesis should frame the way that we understand our role as a part of God's created order and the nature of human beings and our kind of our purpose in this world. And that obviously touches on political issues. So talk to us about Genesis 1 through 11. What does that say about like the sovereignty of God, our role within his creation, all of these kind of political questions? What how how how can Genesis one through 11 inform those?

SPEAKER_02 12:14

Well, I think, you know, the image of God is male and female. That's all we get for the image of God. It's male and female. Uh, and then, but then he commissions them or blesses them, I should say, uh, to rule the earth, right? Have dominion and subdue it. And it's pretty strong verbs there. It's not, it's not like open-handed. It's kind of like you need to take, you need to take control of this, right? In some way. Um, and so if we think about before anything goes wrong, we don't even need to talk about a fall. Just nothing has gone wrong with these people yet. Uh, maybe the serpent something has gone wrong offstage we don't know about. Um, but uh what do we have? We have marriage, work, rest, sabbath rest, um, are all integral to what it means to be a human in the world. Um and and then this other one that sneaks on with the serpent is we realize, like, oh, there's an issue of authority here as well. Who has authority to guide um these humans? Because they they're going to be guided. So in Genesis 2, you see the man being guided by God. This is for me very fascinating, to see for himself who his proper mate is. Yeah. So God doesn't say, here she is. Uh, he actually walks him through an exercise where he sees for himself that this is his proper mate. Um, and then in Genesis three, you see the serpent guiding them to see for themselves what the knowledge of good and evil is, right? And then God comes in and he identifies the problem. Who told you? Right? He assumes they're listening to the wrong authority. So you have authority structures um already there where God is the authority and the man and the woman are supposed to be living, listening to him, but not in some kind of hierarchical, oppressive way, but in the same way that your parents would be a good authority for you because they love you and they're trying to do what's, you know, they're trying to guide you into the the good things of life, right? Um, but this kind of sets up all the elements that are going to get played out in the rest of the Torah. It's gonna get played out in the New Testament as well, is that uh God has authority to guide, but it's not like all controlling there either. He wants you to discover for yourself along the way. Um so you have both sides guiding and discovery. Um, and then my my friend Yoram Hazzoni makes an argument, which I'm not sure how strongly I believe it, but it's at least a good observation that we should heed. Is when you get to Cain and Abel, um you know, there's this question of where where does Abel get off raising sheep, right? Like that is not one of the jobs given in the Garden of Eden. Yeah. Um, and so he takes that to be a good thing that Cain, you know, that Cain is basically just doing the old family job, right, of working the land. He's a slave to the dirt. Uh, and that that Abel is actually the one who's entrepreneurial. And it's that entrepreneurial, independent shepherd spirit, this is Yorm Hazoni, um uh, that actually becomes the kind of the leader, the prototypical leader for the kinds of people Israel needs. So you think about your Abraham's, your Isaac, Jacob, your Moses, they're all shepherds, yeah, right, um, who are leaders. Uh, and even in Egypt, of course, the Egyptian pharaoh carries a shepherd's crook, you know, if you think about the crossed arms, one of those is a shepherd's crook because the pharaoh is uh a shepherd of uh Egypt as well. So um, so even there in the seminal stories, you're already getting deep into like the shaping of political philosophy. What are humans? How are they managed? How are they all self-managed, or do they need to be guided? Uh, and if they need to be guided, then how is proper authority credibly established uh and maintained, which I think are all things that we're struggling with massive. I mean, we always struggle with this, but it seems like right now that proper authority and credibility seem to be up in the air right now.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

So yeah, one one of the, you know, one of the few times that I've attempted to tackle some of these issues in the Old Testament, I was I did an episode on Genesis 3, 5, which is essentially what human beings are trying to get out of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and that is the serpent promises them that they will be like God, which is in a in, I mean, I think in essence, kind of an attempt to usurp his power. Do you think there's anything that we can learn from that story, or am I just reading something into that? It's not there.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

Well, it's tricky because people often um read that as um autonomy, a quest for autonomy, um, which I can understand why at a quick reading you might think that. Um, but the serpent promises three things that you'll be like God, that your eyes will be opened, you'll be like God, knowing good and evil, and and you will not die in that day. Yeah. All three things are true. Uh he said he's you know, no lies detected, as they say, right? And and we know that they're true because the narrator uses the exact words of the serpents to then narrate what happens, right? Yeah. Uh as soon as they eat, and their eyes were opened, right? Just as the I mean, it's the exact same phrase that's used by the serpent. Yahweh Elohim later says, Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil in verse 21. Um, and God says very clearly, in the day that you eat of it, dying, you will die. It doubles the verbs there to intensify the meaning. And they didn't die in that day. And then you have to do things like, well, they died spiritually or something like that. Okay, fine. But it there's no obvious way in which the serpent was wrong. Um and so again, it it actually kind of questions God's credibility a little bit. Uh, and remember, the story opens up with the serpent was the most wise creature that uh Yahweh Elohim had ever created. And you know, and so you have to ask the question, is that true? Was the serpent the most wise creature? By the time you get to the end of the story, you're like, Yep, he wins. Uh, why is this creature? Like, um, but God's question is telling, right? Uh, who told you? He doesn't say, How did you figure it out? He says, Who told you? So the assumption there is that somebody is always guiding you into understanding uh your realities. Uh, I've lost your question now and trying to answer it.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

Oh no, just how how does Genesis 3-5 relate to the politics of Genesis 1 through 11? Yeah, if at all.

SPEAKER_02 18:19

Yeah, and I think the issue of autonomy um is an interesting one here because I always say, look, there's no real world in which if you're trying to gain autonomy, you entirely submit yourself to doing what somebody else says. Right, right. Uh, which is what the couple does here is they submit themselves to what the serpent says. They they do what he says, they see what he's promised. He is correct, but not in the way, clearly not in the way that they anticipated. Um, and we're not even sure it's it's very unclear what knowledge of good and evil is in this context. Um and then God comes in, and I mean, uh, and I I always ask people, you know, what is the problem here in Genesis 3 that if you could go back in time and stop them, right? Like if that were a possible thing, uh, where would you stop them? Um, you know, what and I'm getting at what what do you diagnose as the error? Like should she have never looked at the tree, should she have never grabbed it, should she have never eaten of it? He, right, should they have never run? You can pick up all these kinds of things. Interestingly, God uh assigns blame at exactly one spot in the story. Um, he says, Because you ate of the tree of which, or sorry, because you listened to the voice of your wife and ate of the tree which I told you. Uh, and those are in logical order. You listened and therefore ate. Yeah. Um and so again, it's uh, and of course, where was he when he was listening to the voice of his wife? He was standing right next to her uh while they were listening to the voice of the serpent. So it keeps coming back to like proper authority and credible, uh, credible authority. And that's what God is incensed about. It's like, why did you listen to this guy? Um, and if you're reading this for the very first time, which I remember the when I read this for the very first time as a new Christian, it is not clear how God is going to come out in this story. Yeah, right. Uh now I just say keep reading and it'll become very clear uh that God was actually the wise, trustworthy, loving one. And uh, but in the story itself, it it does not start off well. God does not start off looking great in this story. Um so uh I mean you get all kinds of uh entailments. Now the the question is, I guess, for political thought is how much authority guides uh and how much you can veer from authority. And you know, I I think of it like with children uh that you have to guide children to learn mathematically, like you have to guide them very I have a granddaughter in our house right now, and we're doing colors, she's 15 months old, and she's learning colors, and there's just a lot of practicing with red, blue, green, purple, etc. Uh, but after a while, she she figures out what's going on with colors, and then she's on her own, and she can like you know start making up color combinations all she wants. And so is there something like that in mind that God initially guides and then sets off? And I'm thinking about the project of Israel as a nation as well. Is that he's gonna kind of set them up and guide them and then kind of let them run? Or, you know, kind of a deistic, as it were, uh nation project, political philosophy, or is it that he's the constant contact with Israel as their political leader? Um, and I think those are the the two that should kind of be in mind.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

Yeah, and that does kind of run interestingly through the rest of the narratives in the Pentateuch, because you have, like you said before, Abraham called in Genesis chapter 12 to be a blessing to the nation. So obviously God's trying to do something vis a vis the whole world through Abraham, and all of the patriarchal figures are leaders. And then you take a look at someone like Joseph, who, you know, on my reading of the Joseph story, there's actually a lot of overlap conceptually between that and the book of Daniel, which is very political in a lot of ways. And Joseph ascends to the height, the heights of Egyptian power, but does so in a God honoring way. And then you have Moses, who is, I mean. Essentially the de facto leader of the people of God to the point where even you know, I was we've been reading through Exodus the last couple of weeks, and in you know, Exodus uh 32, the golden calf incident, God wants to wipe out all of Israel after that. And Moses says, Hey, don't do that because this is going to be a giant embarrassment for you. And God like changes his mind. Um, it's it's just it's which is a wild story on so many levels. So it's not the only time. Yeah. So and it's so just talk to us about like what do we get from the patriarch narratives, the other leaders in the Old Testament, like are the other leaders in the Pentateuch in particular. Like, how should this inform our thinking about all of these concepts?

SPEAKER_02 22:35

Yeah, Abraham is later called a prophet uh as well. And so I think you know, one one suggestion, there's nothing exactly like Hebrew prophets in the ancient Near East. So they're like a they're their own particular category, but one of the attributes that some people have said is is crucial for a prophet is they have to talk God off the cliff, right? Um, is they have to basically intercede for Israel on behalf of Israel to God. Yeah. Uh, and you see that even with Jesus, right? Um, I mean, this is the claim of the the writer of Hebrews, is that he's in the eternal space, constantly interceding on our behalf. Um, so the the roles that you see emerging are interesting. One is Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are just uh Bedouin chieftains, if you could, I mean, not exactly, but that's essentially how they're functioning. Which means they're, you know, uh their women, the their wives are also like uh leading as well, right? So um I know we like to think of patriarchy, but uh I think there's been really good analysis and argument now that says this is not patriarchy and in any kind of flat way, that there's there's clearly, you know, I always say, like, if you think Genesis is patriarchal, then you just explain to me why the women are constantly telling all these patriarchs do, and they're listening to them. And they're like the women are actually, and and not always for good, actually rarely for good in Genesis, uh, they're driving the narrative because they're telling the men what to do, and the men listen, quote, listen to their voice. I think it's actually a call back to Genesis three because you listen to the voice of your wife. Um, and so yeah, so there's something more uh more hetero heteroarchical. I think that's the name um Cynthia Schaefer-Eliott gives it, is there's mixed power relations going on here because these are family businesses, family, you know, entities, states. We don't want to call them states at this point, but there's clear leadership. Uh, there is social imbued power given to the male, the head male, but the women are actually calling the shots. And Genesis does not seem to portray that system very well. Like they they kind of see this as a little bit chaotic. Uh, that would be my overall, these are all my opinions, right? Um, when you get to Moses, God instantiates Moses very clearly through credible processes, right? So Moses, you know, finally says, but they won't listen to my voice, literally. Chapter 4, verse 1 of Exodus. Behold, they the people will not listen to my voice. What is that in your hand? Then he gives them those three empirical signs that he is to perform that I I think actually convince Moses first, because he's the one who needs convincing. And then he takes them to Aaron and shows him, and then he and Aaron take him to the elders of Israel and show them, and then he and Aaron, the elders of Israel, take them to the people of Israel and show them the signs, and then they bow down and worship God, saying, God has seen seen our plight, right? And then they get next next sentence, and they go before Pharaoh and say, Let my people go, right? Um, and and then we kind of know somewhat how it goes from there. So you have this very clear establishing of Moses who is rejecting the ideas of God several times, or at least objecting to them. Um and it seems important that God doesn't just say, Here's your new leader, strike of lightning, but there's like the sequence of making him credible to the people of Israel for the thing that he's getting ready to ask them for. We'll see the same thing when we get to 1 Samuel and the appointment of the first king. It's very important in that moment that the prophet himself does not say this is the next king, but he actually shows the people that God is deciding who the king is. And this is why Solomon becomes such a problem, because Solomon was actually not appointed as a king correctly. He's a he's a fraudulent messianic king. Um and so there's something about like the people need to know this is the person that God wants them to lead them. And then you would think it would be because the person might be wonky or go off the rails or be a bad leader, but it turns out the people are the bad people, you know, right people are the bad sheeple. Uh, and uh so uh it's actually that person who's going to protect them mostly from God, who's done with them at points for their obstinence and stiff-necked neckedness. And um, yeah. So uh that to me seems uh again, looking at the present political environment, and I grew up in a world where the, you know, we always bragged about peaceful transitions of power, but the the issue of peaceful transition of power is that there is a very credible public, open, available system that we all trust, right? Right. Um okay, I'll stop there and see what you think.

SPEAKER_01 27:20

Yeah, no, I I think I think that's really good. And of course, there is a Deuteronomy 17 uh in the Pentateuch, which talks about the rightful king of Israel. If like like when God's people capitulate and ask for a king like the other nations, here are the parameters with within which that king is going to operate. But I before we get to that passage, which I do think is really relevant to this question, I do want to ask you about the nature of kind of like the law and the covenant that God makes with Israel in general, because it seems to me, and this is something that we were talking about with our small group yesterday in Sandra Richter's book, about this, you know, the suzerain vassal treaty and how the covenant or the contract that God makes with his people is that of the ancient Near Eastern treaty, where God is king and the people and he has certain obligations to his people, but in response, the people have to be obedient to him. And this really does, at least from my vantage point, seem to come out in Deuteronomy 27 through 32, which is kind of like I think you can tell me if I'm wrong on this, but from my perspective, that seems like the climax of the Pentateuch. It's this great choice. Like, I will protect you, I will send you into the land, you will be a light to the nations. But if you're not obedient to the law, then I will withhold my protection from you, and all of these curses will befall you. Um, and within that framework, we have these instructions for a king. So I do want to ask you about, like, you know, the suzerain vassal model of the law. Like, does do you agree, I guess, with Richter on that point? Um, and is that a kind of a credible way to look at the obligations that Israel has? And then how does the Deuteronomy 17 model of a kingship fit into that?

SPEAKER_02 28:47

Yeah, I mean, it's hard not to see the some kind of a treaty formula there. I think, you know, the Hittite treaty formula that I think Deuteronomy is often compared to is great because now we know, you know, because we dug up a ditch and somebody hit some tablets and now we now we know, right? Uh for a long time nobody knew this, though, that the hey, this actually looks like a treaty. I think it's important um two things. One, at least, is that it's incredible that God uses, and this is this would be true with Abraham in Genesis 15 as well. He uses culturally relevant treaty formulas. Like I always say in class, you know, if God were to make the same treaty with us today, what would what would he do to show that he's serious about these these promises that he's making and the responsibilities we have on our behalf? And you know, I think we get closest to like a mortgage signing, you know, which again, so instead of uh, you know, instead of a lot of the sacrifices, it would be bring me some paper and a pen and get me a notary kind of a thing, you know. Yeah. So covenants are not biblical devices. I mean, the word berit is just treaty, uh, and they're there are things floating around in the culture that God appropriates, kind of kind of like circumcision. It's not, you know, circumcision is not unique only to the Hebrews, it was used very rarely, but it was it existed. But it's appropriated and given this new meaning and this new context. So within that, and I and something I haven't mentioned that you you mentioned there that we should just state out loud, is from creation onwards, anybody in the ancient Near East would think of uh Yahweh, the God of Israel, as a king. He's yeah, clearly being portrayed as the king of Israel. By the time you get to 1 Samuel when they appoint a king, this comes out loud, or even in judges uh when with Gideon when they try to appoint Gideon as a king, he says, No, no, no, Yahweh is our king, right? So they they have this kingship structure where the king is wise, loving, and just um, and just in both ways, to protect those who are vulnerable and to punish those who uh commit wickedness. And um, and they and he he um he guesses very well, or predicts or whatever thing is going on with God's knowledge, he just knows they are going to eventually want to be like the people in the land around them. And so it's not like, hey, when the time comes, you know, when time comes to its fullness, and now you get the king that you've always deserved. Um, it's like in the days to come, if you want a king, okay, you can have one, but here are the rules. And it also you get priests and judges in there as well. So it's not just the king. Yeah, you get a cohort of leaders who are going to make uh decisions. And then once they get to the king, anybody who is hearing that in context would have probably been very disappointed with the description of the king because I always say it's it's a defanged king. It's like telling someone to go out as a police officer into a hostile city and saying, But give me your badge, give me your gun, give me your handguffs, your stunt, stunt, give me all that. Don't go, don't take that out. Now go out and police with just a belt on, right? Um, and it's the same thing with a king here. They take away, um they take away and they give, right? So uh Deuteronomy takes away any ability to make politically arranged marriages, any ability to develop a standing army, any ability to develop a treasury which would be used to buy off protection from uh from the hostile forces around them, which we later see them doing in the book of Kings. Um, which that would have been typical politics of the day. Like, how do you secure yourself in this tumultuous area? You marry in uh the daughters of the kings around you, so they Solomon, yeah. Yeah, so they don't want to destroy you because their kids are your grandkids are there, right? Um so pr presumably, and so God says, No, no, you can't do any of that. Uh, which again, at that point, people would go, like, well, I don't want to be what what can I do as a king, right? I have no, I have no like normal levers of power here. Uh, and then it says instead, you need to handwrite a copy of the Torah, the instruction given to Israel, and keep it and practice it all the days of your life, right? And so it's it really is this kind of like everything that you think is powerful is not powerful actuality. It's the same story we're gonna get in the new, we're gonna get it in Samuels, we'll get it again in the prophets and then the new testament. Everything that you think are the powers and principalities that run, you know, you you think it's the wizard of Oz sitting back there pulling the levers. It is not. Um, the this is not how the world uh works, and instead, you actually just need to trust me and and know that I'm wise, loving, and just and I've got you here, and we're gonna do this thing that seems completely unbelievable, which is spread the goodness and righteousness and justice of God out from Israel into the rest of the world. Um, they do not, right? Yeah, you get glimpses of that, um, but they keep on looking around them and seeing that they get nervous and then they just start pulling every normal lever that they see around them, including ba'al worship, which is it's just a normal lever lever to get rain so that your crops grow so that you don't starve, right? Right. Um and that seems to be, I think, you know, I think it's basically where all what all of us would do if we're in that situation. Um, you we get nervous, things aren't looking the way we thought they were gonna look, and we don't trust God as much as our ancestors said that they would. And so we just pull a lever and pray for the best.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

Yeah. And uh again, I think that there is within the Pentateuch itself this idea that like Israel, like kind of as you alluded to, like, Israel's gonna fail. Like they're not going to live up to the standards that God has set for them. Um, and of course, like with Deuteronomy 17, the other passage that we have to compare this to going outside of the Pentateuch and moving into the wider Old Testament is 1 Samuel 8, as you alluded to a minute ago, where Israel deliberately asked for a king. And it's an interesting conversation because Samuel seems to frame it as a rejection of God as king over Israel, and then says, Well, all of these things that you don't want to have, like conscription and really high taxes and treaties with foreign nations, like, oh, all these things are going to happen no matter what you do. Um, and so just just talk to us about that. You know, in the context of the Pentateuch uh and the Torah and Deuteronomy 17, what's going on in in 1 Samuel 8?

SPEAKER_02 35:03

Yeah, it's it's a crazy passage because he again he he goes, Okay, I'll give you a king, but he's going and it and he's clearly describing David and and Solomon. Interestingly, he's not describing Saul, but he's describing the next two kings, right? One uh one worse than the one that came before them. Um and he and he and he, you know, if you follow the verbs out, it's like he's going to give and and take. Uh he's gonna or sorry, he's gonna take from you and give to his whatever he's doing, his horsemen, his house, his secretaries, his uh his servants. It's all taken from the people. Um it's an interesting view. I mean, if you think politically, it's just a leader who is harvesting organs from uh from the people. Um and the the most fascinating thing about that passage is at the end of that description, uh, when he says, and you know, your king whom you chose for yourself is going to oppress you, and then when you cry out to God, like he's not gonna listen, right? Yeah um, and they say, Yes, we want that king. I mean, it's really meant to highlight the stupidity of the mob here. Um I think what's important though is that that happens in the context of 1 Samuel 2, which is the political philosophy of the book of Samuels. Um, and possibly, you know, a restatement of the political philosophy of the entire Bible. It certainly uh becomes the political philosophy that Mary echoes uh and that Jesus follows as well. And it's it's uh it's hidden in poetry, which in Hebrew means that it's a strong assertion or an argument about the nature of reality. Uh for us, we see poetry and we're like, uh, you know, they're just saying something, you know, decoratively, uh, which is I don't think is true at all. But Hannah there just breaks out in poetry after, you know, she's been given the son uh Samuel, and she talks about the bows of the mighty are broken, you know, the ones who have food are going to be searching for bread, the ones who have children are going to be forlorn. Um, he tears down the mighty, he raises up the weak. Um, these are all things you could have picked up from the Torah, right? That God is always looking to protect those who are vulnerable, and vulnerable, vulnerable, any of us can be vulnerable at any given time. So it's not just a class of people like, oh, the homeless people. It is um you and I can can be wealthy today or fine, and then next year can be vulnerable. Somebody can accuse us of crime, we become vulnerable. Um and so she says, no, no, these are the gods that you know, God makes rich, he makes poor, he he raises up, he brings down to Sheol, which is an intimation of resurrection there. Uh, he's anointed his uh his anointed one, his Mashiach, his Messiah. Uh, that's the one who's he's gonna stand up. And so she goes, she's basically looking around in the topography topography saying, You guys think this is how power works in the world. But no, no, no, it's actually Yahweh who's in charge. And then David goes out, the first instance of David, he goes out and he almost echoes her words, right? Like, God doesn't fight with swords and javelins and spears, it's not the normal levers of war that he pulls, right? And interestingly, then he, you know, then he cut his head off with a sword, right? Which is how he killed him. Um, so uh, so I always say uh in Samuel, people are kind of judged according to Hannah's poem. As much as they understand what she's talking about and live into it, as we would say today, they are rated good. And David starts out that way and then turns bad. He, you know, the second poem uh of Samuel's is in happens to be in 2 Samuels 1, where David cries about Saul and Jonathan dying and says, Oh, how the mighty have fallen, how the mighty warriors of Israel have fallen. He's crying because the normal levers of power have died, right? And you're like, something's wrong with David at this point. He doesn't get he's he's left Hannah's theology and entered some like standard world of theology, which is signals to trouble. And then 2 Samuel is a it's a lot of trouble.

SPEAKER_01 39:07

Yeah. Well, and that's something that I've seen in a lot of the Old Testament surveys that I've read is that they characterize, you know, Joshua and Judges, I guess, would fit in here as well. But first and 2 Samuel and 1st and 2nd Kings is Deuteronomistic history because the people of Israel and the kings are all judged by the standards of the law. And with without that kind of background knowledge, it's easy going back to that analogy of the dysfunctional closet to just think these are a bunch of kind of unconnected stories. But there is that logic that runs through all of these texts. And of course, the other one that looms extremely large over the rest of the Old Testament and that hangs over all of the New Testament as well is 2 Samuel 7, where God promises David that one of his descendants will establish an eternal kingship. And you see this come up again, like in like it, it's a it's a very pervasive theme in the Psalms, like you know, Psalm 2, Psalm 110, uh 72, 89, all of that. And then you see this again and again and again crop up in the prophets, like over and over, that when God rescues Israel, a part of that restoration will be through the restoration of the Davidic monarchy. But David is also presented kind of kind of unequivocally in 2 Samuel as a failure. Uh so yeah, right. So simultaneously a horrible person and promised. So, what do we do with 2 Samuel 7? The actual description of David's kingship. Because, like, and again, I could be, I could be totally wrong about this, but the only thing that David seems to do right is not worship other gods. Like, but like he gets everything else wrong. But I guess, you know, grading on a scale, that's better than that's better than Saul and Solomon. Um, but like why does God make that promise to David? Why then does Samuel go on to portray David as being a failure? And then why do does the rest of the Old Testament pick up on this promise for an eternal kingship of David's house?

SPEAKER_02 40:47

Yeah, um, I mean, I I think we've seen this before, by the way. So David is not the first person. If you look at, if you're looking for parallels, Abraham is the only other covenant, the treaty uh in the in the Hebrew scriptures where God makes a treaty with a person, and and person in continuity of that person's genetic line, as we would say today. Um and it also happens that God keeps making this treaty and reifying this treaty with Abraham while he does very sleazy things as well, right? Um, he does some noble things, but he also like pimps his wife out two times and and teaches his son to, because this his son does the exact same thing, prostitutes his wife out uh when he becomes fearful. And so we we get that kind of while Abraham is misbehaving. I mean, the the the irony and the dark comedy going on with coming out of Genesis 15, where you get these promises, and then next sentence, he listens to the voice of his wife and has sex with Hagar, because again, normal levers of genetic relationship. So he's just going to what's what seems normal, even though he's been promised something extraordinary here. Um, so we are we should be prepared for David from the Pentateuch. We've seen this be now. David is way worse, uh, doing way worse things. Take Bathsheba out of the picture entirely, and David is a pretty horrible human being even then. Yeah, uh, people often don't read the end of uh or they don't consider what's going on at the end of um first Samuel. David is committing genocidal raids just so he can't get caught um and lying about it while he's a mercenary for the the Philistines. And you can polish that turd however you want, but the text seems to be showing that uh David is duplicitous and is doing some pretty horrible stuff. Um so I think you get a very strong message. To me, this is kind of like Daniel, uh, which I think at the beginning of every election cycle, we should just read Daniel because you get into the visions, and it's like very clear. Things will empires will rise, empires will fall. Um, but God is very, very clearly in charge throughout. That's the through line. Um, and that this is headed somewhere, that this is not for naught. Um and so I think with David, you you see this, and I mean again, you get in the David doesn't die in the book of Samuels, which is interesting, right? He's uh you get his death narrative in 1 Kings 1, and he's eat he's still horrible on his deathbed, he's ordering assassinations, right? Um, for people that he promised, you know, he's like playing tricks with his promises. Um and so I think we get this kind of through line that it's actually David, like Abraham, like Israel itself, uh, will fail continuously, but there's actually this promise that God is keeping is actually more important than the particulars of the people and whether they uh fail or not. Obviously, um I think it sets us up also as Christians, you know, it's it's impossible to miss the fact that Jesus is a flawless leader unless you know, you know, unless you think he's a little too Snarky, or uh you think he's got personality issues. But uh apart from that, um Jesus, you know, I don't get so excited about the kind of like Jesus fulfills all the prophecies and like keeping a list of prophecies and ticking them off, you know. I'm not even sure what to make of a lot of those things. Um, certainly some of them are correct, some of them may be stretched, uh, but he certainly fulfills the sense of the kind of leadership we have been waiting for. Um, and you keep waiting for the yeah, but where, you know, when's he gonna turn bad or do something wrong or uh annihilate everybody or something? Um, and you never get it. And and he again, what does he do? He he mimics, he lives out um Hannah's poetry. Uh and what Paul later says in 2 Corinthians 12, right, is that power is made perfect in e in weakness, this idea that the lowly are gonna be raised up. Um, and this kind of strong assertion that in leadership it's okay to go to be low. It's okay to be weak. It's okay, like that's not where actual power, political power is at.

SPEAKER_01 45:07

Um, which then makes sense of the first few centuries of the Christian, the way as I do kind of want to talk about that as a really in and I for the when I read through the prophets for the first time, uh it was, I think, maybe the end of my freshman or the beginning of my sophomore year of college, I realized that the prophets are kind of the fulcrum uh for the entire Bible because I think that they look back to the covenant that God made with Israel and the history of Israel, but then also look forward to the restoration that finds its fulfillment in the New Testament. And one of the things that you'll immediately notice about the prophets is that the prophets are themselves inherently political. Like they talk about, as you said, the rise and fall of nations. They talk about Israel being faithful to the covenant with God, they talk about the restoration of the Davidic monarchy. You know, you have Jeremiah very famously talking about how the people are going to have to have a circumcised heart in Jeremiah 31. So the prophets have a lot to say about this. And in a lot of ways, if you want to get the entire scope of the old or the entire scope of the Bible going in both directions, like you have to work through the prophets. So, like as an Old Testament scholar, what what do you make of the the prophetic role for our Christian understanding of politics and political engagement, especially considering that they not unanimously, because this isn't true in all of the prophets, but the majority of the prophets look forward to that day when the the you know the king will return, so to speak. And and you know, I had John Walton on the show uh maybe two years ago talking about his book on prophecy. And one of the things that he said is that, you know, we kind of have this myopic understanding of prophecy that is just about predicting the future, and that's not really true at all either. And so the writers of the New Testament kind of pick up on what the prophets were saying in some very unique and innovative ways. They believe that the prophets, that the prophecies were fulfilled, but not necessarily in the way that we would expect them to in the modern world. So, with all those dynamics going on, what what do you make of the role of the prophets in this conversation?

SPEAKER_02 46:59

Yeah, well, I like the way you put it, that kind of looking backward, looking forward. That's how I I place them as a T in history, you know, one arm stretch to the past. Most of the time they're talking about the past, um, which I think should be instructive as well. Most of the time, they are carefully diagnosing like exactly what went wrong. Like what did you what have you guys done? And they keep on you know, reviewing it. They're like a you know, uh a bad mother-in-law that just keeps on telling you what you did wrong, right? Keeps on going back to it. But I think that's really instructive um that we that we are careful to analyze. I mean, you you know, the the solution can only be as good as the the diagnosis, right? Uh, or the prognosis can only be as good as the diagnosis. And I think um that speaking prophetically today means really like A, avoiding what I see as kind of ubiquitous in our culture is single cause diagnoses, right? Like it's just vaccines are the problem. Name your whatever you think is the problem. Vaccines are the are the you know the actual problem that created them. Uh, or if we just had this, or if we just had that, if we hadn't done this in 1989, then none of this would have happened. Right. Um and uh like I always use the the falling rate of crime. We're we're at a like a hundred-year homicide low in America, uh, like the lowest it's ever been, uh, you know, within our grandparents and great-grandparents' generations. Um and there's this huge problem in criminal uh criminology, like they can't figure out exactly what why the crime rate from the 1990s is pretty easy. There's all the crack epidemic, and but why it just kept going down and kept going down and kept going down, and people all are always trying to throw in, well, it's like, oh, well, that's when they switched to this one kind of faucet, you know, at Home Depot, and then everybody started drinking. Um, and you wouldn't, you know, and a lot of them say things like, it's probably a complicated collection of things that happen. And if we want to, you know, fan into flame the lower crime stuff, we need to think about constellations of things and what what are good in those, what can we do that are good in those, and what are bad that we need to avoid. And I think that's why, you know, if you think about the Pentateuch being so long, like uh and why it's so reiterative, um, there's probably oral reasons for that, you know, because it's being listened to. But also it's just trying to give you a super soaking in the kinds of things that can go wrong and how you need to be careful and to develop your imagination. I think we've talked about this before. This like really clearly developing your imagination to see how things can go wrong, which has to be done from when I was in IT, we call them post-mortems. When something went, when something big broke, I was in networking. So when something crashed, you would spend the whole next day in a giant meeting doing a post-mortem trying to figure out what went wrong so that it doesn't happen again. Um, so I think that kind of seeking simple solutions, seeking simple political answers, like if we just had a sheriff who had these powers, then everything would be fine, right? Um, and also being okay with a stable level of brokenness as well, which I think that's something we can learn from the Torah, and certainly we can learn it from Jesus and the disciples, is uh we have all these utopian eschatologies that are for Christians, I would say are sinful, right? So when I see Christian organizations, I actually saw this recently that said putting an end to world poverty. Right. It's really hard to make sense of the Torah that says the poor you will always have with you. And Jesus quoting the Torah, which hate is the poor you will always have with you, if you think you're gonna put an end, that tells me you have not correctly diagnosed the problem, that you actually are misunderstanding what the problem of poverty is to some extent. Um and so I think those utopian views in saying, okay, what is the level of messiness that we would consider politically successful? That not everybody's gonna get their way, that some people are gonna be harmed by any use of coercive power, like that's just it's gonna be the way it is. Like, if you have to arrest people, someone's gonna get their wrist sprained. Like it's just gonna happen, right? So, what are the levels that we actually think are fair and amenable? And and you know, moving away from kind of no child left behind kind of solutions, which I think everybody, including the people who created no child left behind, now agree was not a good idea.

SPEAKER_01 51:21

Yeah, as a public school teacher, I can 100% certifiably say that that is that was a huge mistake, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:27

Yeah. Uh the what do they call them? Um noble truisms that just uh that actually are just naive truisms at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 51:35

Yeah. No, I I I really appreciate that. And I really just have, and I know we've been all over, I know I sent you questions beforehand, and we haven't like I've been kind of all over the place, but this has been really, really uh informative. I think I have two questions left for you. Uh, and one of those is kind of thinking about how the New Testament appropriates all of this imagery from the Old Testament. And we have, you know, I believe marking priority. And so the first line of the first written gospel is the gospel of Jesus Christ, son of David, right? So you have that appeal built into the Jesus tradition that Jesus is is explicitly connected to David. And when Matthew and like, like, you know, one of Matthew's and Luke's redactional strategies is to take that insight and to kind of build upon that. But then you also have Jesus being portrayed as somewhat of a second Moses, a prophetic figure in Matthew. And I'm definitely a fan of the, you know, the kind of Swisserian tradition of understanding Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet. So that connects to all of these ideas as well. But it does seem to me, if you look at like the way that Paul formulates the gospel in his letters, it's about Jesus as the Messiah, and he really believes that through his death, resurrection. And I think this is something that a lot of Christians don't pay enough attention to in our theology, it's the ascension, because the ascension is a, I think the if there is a royal Christology in the New Testament, it has to be predicated upon the ascension of Jesus. And we get that in Revelation 4 and 5 and Ephesians 1, and uh I guess Philippians 2 is another good example of that. And so there are kind of, there's kind of in Acts. So there's all of this going on where they deliberately portray Jesus as the king, and they seem to portray him as the objective king of the world right now, that it's not something that we can push off to the future, but at least for the church, as Paul says in Ephesians 1, Christ is the head of the church, he is the true king by virtue of his death, resurrection, and ascension. Um, and this is all in fulfillment of the scriptures, as Paul says in his formulation of the gospel. So as Christians, what do we, what do we do with all of that? Because I mean, there there is so much going on there, and it's all predicated on all of these Old Testament notions that we've been talking about for the last hour. Like, how do we handle the New Testament affirmation of Jesus as King? And to what extent should we interpret that through the Old Testament? How should that impact our political theology? I know I threw a ton at you at right there, but these are kind of all swirling around my head as I'm thinking about these Old Testament themes.

SPEAKER_02 53:43

Yeah, and I appreciate the point on the ascension. You know, there are two boss kingly images in the gospels, and that is when Jesus comes down on two donkeys, seemingly in Matthew. He rides both of them simultaneously. It's unclear exactly what's going on, but that is a very boss king act, which is why everybody cries out Hosanna to the son of David, right? They they recognize immediately, oh, he's he's a king, right? Um I know some people think that means he's humble and like, you know, I don't know, low uh low status. I don't know. It's weird how people interpret that. Um and then when he ascends, right? That's that's the other point where he ascends and rest, which is both kind of a creator move and a kingly move, uh, among other things. So I think the buttons here's going back to Moses, right? And I and again, I you know, I worked on Mark in my dissertation, and it's really hard to miss that Jesus is really being portrayed as a prophet, the prophet greater than Moses or Elijah. Um, and I I think the reason for that is so that you will listen to what he says, and that when you look at what he does and says, you realize, like, oh, he's more than a prophet. Uh, he's this other thing, this Messiah, uh, this messianic king. I think it's why it's important that we have Solomon's um false, fraudulent anointing in the in the uh not the hinoam, the Gihon, um, is because you get to see what an uh incredible, uh dubious, I should say, uh Messiah Messianic king looks like, and then the results of that speak for themselves. Um and you get to see in the gospels, uh the other, you know, if you ask the question, okay, a king has to be chosen by God, um and they have to be, and and the only image we have of that is they're anointed privately by a prophet. So a prophet, God reveals to the prophet this is the guy. Yeah, and then they uh pour some kind of a liquid on them, and it's privately, and then later they're revealed as a public. That happens with Saul, happens with David, happens with Solomon, but Solomon is fraudulent because it's David who picks them, but David's being connived on his deathbed by Bathsheba and the prophet Nathan. When does Jesus ever have a prophet pour liquid over him, right? When does he get Messiah? Uh, and the baptism becomes uh the scene of messianic. So, like the the the equivalent of our inauguration, of course, it would be privately, um, is in the baptism of John, where God reveals to the, you know, God raises up a prophet, reveals to him who the guy is. In John's gospel, he says, I didn't even know it was him. I I came out here baptizing to figure out who it was, and then behold the Lamb of God who brings uh uh takes away the sins of the world. Um and I I've mapped out in a you know in a in a article like the nine points of continuity between Saul's messianic Saul, David, Solomon, and the baptism. Um but that to say the good the good news of the Gospel of Mark, if we just take it there, is very systematically and very clearly showing Jesus' credibility, right? So when he pulls aside his disciples and says, To you has been given the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but for everybody else outside, they're gonna have eyes but not see. At the end of that pericope, you get um them on a boat, Jesus calming the storm, and they say, Who is this that even the winds and the seas listen to him? Um and so you're really seeing this kind of like the king who God intends cannot be an earthly numbskull.

SPEAKER_03 57:25

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 57:26

As if Israel needed that lesson uh reinforced, and and their current quote unquote Jewish kings, you know, Idamean slash Jewish kings were not working out well for them either, because they were just cowtowering to the Romans, but who wouldn't in those days? So um I think if we're to think political philosophy today as Christians, we have to also say the the actual political rule of the universe cannot be done by a woman or man, a numbskull here on earth. Like that. So the best, so again, this is kind of that utopian ratcheting down our expectations. So, what is the best we can get in a broken world where everything's messed up? Um, and this is where I think the paper I sent you, I turned to what is clear in the Torah, the prophets, Jesus, uh, and beyond is all guidance, what we call legal guidance today, um, has to be concerned with the vulnerable, right? Like that's the number one concern is you need to become these kinds of people, and becoming this kind of people means you're constantly scanning the horizon for people in uh injust, vulnerable situations that need to be taken care of. Current law in America does that sometimes, yeah. At best sometimes. At worst, it prioritizes individual freedoms, right? In order to overwrite, you know, where freedoms don't impede somebody else's freedoms, but that's not the same thing as saying, like, hey, if somebody's vulnerable. Now we we have all kinds of policies and protocols and uh laws that are often trying to in some way achieve this, but it's not the focus, right? So if even if you look at our founding documents, right? Even the code of Hammurabi says the goal is to protect the weak and righteousness, right? Our founding documents have nothing like that. It's right, it's all about equality of human beings, and obviously, equality understood at that point does not mean all human beings, right? Certain human beings with certain land possessions. Yeah. Um so I think even the if you talk about the American religion of political thinking, uh, where they kind of mix God and country together in these interesting ways, freedom, God, and country, there's already uh a toxic mix that has to be kind of strained out in order to see what can be good about what's going on there as well. And I think that you see this in the writing of the Founding Fathers as well. They're very aware of this. Uh, and so they'll talk about freedoms with responsibilities always paired together, right? It's not freedom qua freedom uh to do whatever you want. But if you think about the average American who owns a piece of land, I live out in West Michigan now, and so there you'll run into people that think like this is my land, I can do whatever the hell I want. Right. Yeah, that is not American, not in the traditional sense. Um, so I think that's a lot of the re-jiggering that needs to come in our minds, and it it just takes a lot of time to kind of think through what does justice look like in these situations. Again, you need a healthy imagination that's fueled by the Torah and the prophets and the teaching of Jesus. Um, and I I think we, and I I know you'll agree with this, is every time we constrain Jesus's teaching to spiritual and moral teaching, we have lost the battle on what God is trying to do with us, the Israel of God. Um, so that's probably the number thing, one thing we can do is quit uh relegating Jesus to a spiritual teacher and the goal of having a good spiritual life, yeah. Who who cares at the end of the day? Like that's just a that's just a different form of like I can do whatever the hell I want with me and my body, right? Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:04

No, I I I think that's perfect. And really that answered the second question that I wanted to ask, which was just what you think Christians ought to be doing with this. But I do think that these conversations are a lot more complicated than we have traditionally made them out to be. And I think that there are a lot of people, and it doesn't really matter where you fall in the political uh spectrum. I even think that, I mean, there are a ton of libertarians that I would I would completely um impugn guilt in exactly this area for where they're just like, oh, well, we can easily go to the Bible and all of my political priors are conveniently proven by a selective reading of a handful of text. Anyone can do that. All right, but that's a really good way to say it. Yeah, but that doesn't make it biblical, right? And and again, it doesn't matter if you happen to share my political philosophy if you are deliberately misreading the Bible in order to try to justify your political priors, then that's not really what Christians are supposed to be doing.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:53

Yeah, absolutely. Not everybody will agree with that. That was the point of our Bible first, is just like let the Bible speak, and then you can put, you know, I think I said in my opening talk, uh, let's let's hear from the biblical authors, and then you can talk about Augustine or, you know, Luther all you want. Right. Uh, because I know that's all that makes you actually happy. Right. I will say, um, Miroslav Wolf, uh, who was our final speaker on the first day, he came out and A, really did a Bible first talk, like 100% from scripture, even if you agreed or didn't agree with how he's using scripture. He was very clear laying it out in scripture. And B, he just he just first words out of his mouth is I love the name of this conference, Bible First. I wish theology was Bible first. I wish we actually, you know, think Bible first. So there was some good sentiment in the air. And again, various people were able to engage scripture with more depth or not. Um, but it let us know, like, on whole, amongst good Christian academics, this is still a task to get them to thinking through scripture first and fairly, and not, as you say, not finding all their intellectual priors. Uh, just happen to be baked in there by Lego bricking. You know, the Bible is just a bunch of Lego bricks, and you can build whatever you want out of it, right? So, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:07

No, I I I love that. Well, this has been this has been an awesome conversation today. Again, I think I'm gonna be distracted for the rest of the day thinking about all of this. Um, just really important conversation, and I appreciate your time coming on the show and talking about this. You are involved in a lot. Um, and hopefully, you know, I'm looking forward to the work that you're gonna do on this this particular issue in the future. Um, but for people that want to find your work, where can they go to to find you, follow you, all of that good stuff?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:31

Oh, um I I I'm I have a webpage, DrewJohnson.com. Okay. D-R-U, because that's the weird way in which I spell my name. But um outside of that, I'm just on all the socials, um, usually posting pictures of my granddaughter and and articles that I think my colleagues should read.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:49

So yes, I love it. I love it. Well, Dr. Drew Johnson, thank you so much for coming back on the show.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:54

My pleasure. Thanks, Alex.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:57

Thank you for listening to another episode of the Protestant Libertarian Podcast. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at theprotestantlibertarian at gmail.com. You can also find me on Twitter. You can follow me at the handle at Pro Liberty Pod. Again, that is at Pro Liberty Pod. And you can also visit me at the Protestant Libertarian Podcast.com. At the Protestant Libertarian Podcast.com, you can also support the Christians for Liberty Network and the Libertarian Christian Institute. Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode, and we will see you next Tuesday.