I'm very pleased to see you all here. I'm very glad to see you indeed. I'm going to be talking today on essentially how to read some of our Bible. We're going to be looking at narratives, how we read narratives. So some of the pointers that we can take so that we don't go down too many blind alleys, et cetera, so we can really hear what it is that the scripture is saying when it comes to narratives. Next week is going to be the second part of a two-header, and we're going to look at law. Don't panic, just come. And you know, if it gets too much next week, just wave at me and we'll do something else. But the plan is that tonight we'll look at narratives, which accounts for over half of the Bible. So that's a pretty good showing really for one evening, I think. And next week is possibly the hardest bit of the Bible, but very much my pet subject, which is the law. Okay, so we're gonna be looking at these genre because Although I believe the Bible to be scripture, God-breathed, it uses all of the techniques, all of the wonderful skills of man in the creation of the book. The poetic material is some of the best poetic material ever written. A book like Lamentations is spectacular and is arguably the best thing that has ever been written. Admittedly, in Hebrew. The English is not bad either. I'll give you... Some of the stories are some of the best-known and best-loved stories. And the law has gone to affect many legal systems in the Western world. You know, these are incredible things and with incredible value. What I'm amazed about is how God is willing and able to use the best of us. I find that a real heartwarming and encouraging thing. And the Bible is a remarkable piece of literature, and it needs to be treated with respect. And we treat it with respect when we look at it the way it's supposed to be looked at. So we look at a narrative, with all the skills of a narrative. We look at a law as a law and not the other way around. It's easy enough kind of concept because if I was to write a love letter in the form of a shopping list, my wife would be somewhat disappointed and I may have that letter returned to me. Equally, if my shopping list was like a love letter, I might return with all the wrong items. We have genre for a reason. It's like trying to hammer a nail into the wall with some measuring scales. Yeah, we've all been there. You know, we won't have the right tool for the job. You know, you don't put jam in a sandwich using a screwdriver. Ideally. Just trust me on that one. You know, you don't do that. And equally, when we're looking at the Bible, it's actually really helpful to know what tools we should be employing when we're reading. Now it goes without saying that the first thing you do before you even open the book is pray, because you want the author to help you understand it. But he wants you to read it with him. He wants you to hear what he is saying in that book. And we're going to do a little bit today on just opening our ears a little better to what it is that he's saying. But of course, before we do that, we should pray. Gracious heavenly Father, I thank you that you have revealed yourself, that you have allowed us to grasp a little of you in the reading of this beautiful and wonderful text. I pray even, Father, that you'd help us treat it with respect and treat it the way it should be treated, Lord. Help us to read it the way it should be read. Give us the wisdom, oh Lord, to hear what it is that you are saying in these wonderful words, I pray. In Jesus' name, amen. So we're learning to hear the stories. Now, how many of you, just for kind of a show of hands, how many of you are uncomfortable if I say to you that some of the Bible is a story? You can be honest. We're amongst friends. No one. I mean, I'm kind of stuck here because by your faces, there's a few of you. You're clearly uncomfortable, like you're sitting on a cactus or something. And the others are like, oh, it's fine. But there's no hands. OK, I'm going to assume. OK, yes, we have one. Any advance on one? We've got one in the room, at the back of the room there, going for one. Two. Good. Yeah. Is that like a reference to Jonah? Yeah, that's a good example. Yes, Jonah. Yeah, when they're together and they're free. Yes. Jonah is a brilliant one because it's actually written in a format which is the equivalent to a cartoon for us, like a comic book. Everything is big. Everything is immediate. There are no names in the book other than Jonah. And everything is larger than life. And it's told in the most vivid and wonderful way, in the most striking language, in order for you to see the love of God for Jonah. You would think I was going to say Nineveh, I know. When Jonah says no to God and is walking away and is sailing away, God could have just said, all right, I'll do someone else. He doesn't give up on Jonah. He keeps on coming to him and actually helping him along the way. Even after Nineveh, the book doesn't finish, because he's still sitting there in a huff. And God could have gone, fine, you've done what I needed. He doesn't. He goes back to Jonah, reaches out to Jonah. Beautiful. But if I say that it is a story, A lot of us can become a little bit uncomfortable. Now, if I said it is just a story, how many of us would be a little bit more uncomfortable? Okay, a wider array of hands, yes. Because obviously, a story is like a genre, a narrative. I know narrative and story are slightly different, but for tonight's purposes, we'll just use them synonymously. It's a style of writing, whereas just a story would imply what? What does that imply? Good, it's made up, there's no truth in it. Or if there is truth, it's like an a-truth, an ephemeral kind of truth, as it were, but not real, not tangible. It's not like when you get to glory, you'll be able to meet a real Jonah. It's just made up, if you see what I mean. Now, whenever I use story, I do not ever mean to give the impression that I mean the made-up, just a story. I mean It is written in one of the greatest genres known to man. And woman, if you wish. It is an incredible genre, because this genre, more than any other, goes straight into your head. And yes, that hurt. But it goes straight in there. You know, you remember a story. And if I just tell you a list of things, it's highly unlikely you're going to remember it. If I tell you in the form of a story, you're more likely to remember. They're memorable. They're vivid. They break through lots of our barriers that we can normally erect because they're a story. They just get to us before we've even known it. They can reach us on an emotional level. And it teaches us things. But it teaches us the right things when we read it the right way, when we read it as a story. When we read it like a law, when we read it like something else, we can very often get the wrong end of the stick. And the important thing to remember about the narratives in the Bible is that the narratives in the Bible are not about some heroes that we're supposed to copy or some laws that we're supposed to obey. The stories of the Bible all come together with one message, and it's the message of someone who loves and who has lost and who will go to any lengths to rescue the one he loves. It is all about God and man and redemption. It's a beautiful love story and they all come together, little pieces all together to make that one big story. Let me continue. So, we get to our Bible. We open up our Bible. Now, there's two things I want you to remember. If you forget everything else tonight, it's entirely possible, but if you forget everything else tonight, please remember these two things. There are two rules you should always apply, no matter what genre, no matter what part of the Bible it is. The first one says, rightly divided. Now, as an example, a rather obvious example, I've taken Psalm 14, verse 1. And I have not rightly divided this. For it says in Psalm 14, verse one, there is no God. And in case you're thinking this is going to be the shortest Bible study in history, verse one says a little bit more than that. What does verse one actually say? Good. The fool in his heart says there is no God. Now that's a completely different statement. When it has not been rightly divided, you can make it say anything you want. And I have seen scripture used in some truly abysmal ways, justifying some truly abhorrent things, but not when it's rightly divided. And we're mistreating scripture when we don't let it say what it's trying to say. And that's just an obvious example. But we're going to come to this sort of thing later on this evening in a less obvious example. We've got to try and make sure that we read enough of the text for it to say what it's meaning to say. And sometimes that's not even like a whole chapter, because those chapters are added much later on to help us find the bits we want. Originally those chapters weren't there. And so very often the point that, you know, it might be maybe two chapters long or two and a half chapters long. And in narratives in particular, that's a bit tricky. It's a little bit easier in law because it is kind of broken down quite nicely. But in the stories, you have to try and read like the whole story to get the message, beginning, middle and end. I'll come back to that though. A second thing is to try and be balanced. As human beings, I will be honest and we can make mistakes. I can make mistakes. I will be brave enough to say that all of you can make mistakes. And that can happen when we read our Bible. So it's a good idea to be willing to listen to other people. I don't have any delusions of grandeur as to my reading of the Bible. I'm perfectly prone to make mistakes. All of the things I have done, qualifications, studies, etc., I view that as a head start in a race, which is only any good if you're running the right way. If you've got a head start but you're supposed to go that way, all of that's going to be a problem, if you see what I mean. So I'm perfectly content to listen and hear and try and continue to understand the texts. That's one thing. The second thing is we should never just read one verse as if it is isolated from everything else and put every kind of belief based on that one verse, particularly if there's other verses that seem to go against your understanding. If you find one verse completely contradicting another verse, That needs to be reconciled. You need to be thinking about that. You don't just say, well, I like this one and just go with it. Let me assure you that there will be a form of reconciliation if you think there is a problem between the two. It's more likely that we've made a mistake in our reading than there is a mistake in the text. So balance it out. Don't base everything on one verse. Try and think, what does the sweep of scripture actually say? That's two general rules, both of which we'll need tonight. Hopefully you'll remember these because later on you're not going to do very well on the questions if you don't remember these two rules. Okay. So, yes, they're quite important. So, as I said, half of the Bible is in the form of a narrative. So, what is, I've already kind of mentioned it briefly, but what would you say are the key benefits in stories, in communicating in story? What's the key benefits? Also, Tess, if you were listening earlier. Sticks in your head. Yeah, very good. Sticks in your head. Memorable. It grabs your attention. Yes, very much so. It really kind of grabs the attention much better than a dry law or something, yes. It makes it more real. Good. Makes it more real. Tangible almost. You can almost see it in front of your eyes when you read it. Yes, absolutely. You know, it has this kind of flow to it. You can almost, because you've got that kind of beginning, you'd almost know where it's going to go. And then if there's like a twist in it, you can go, oh, it's coming, and you know, it's brilliant. You know, we've got this beginning, setting us off, this middle, you know, maybe some sort of cliffhanger in the middle, and then an end. It's much easier to follow a story. What might be the downsides to a story? Good, that's a good one, yeah. There's an awful lot of the Bible stories that some of us might think, not that one again. Classically, one of the ones that people are most fed up with is a type of story, a parable, the Good Samaritan. That is one of the ones that people tend to be most switched off with, the Good Samaritan. Because they've heard it so many times. And there's a dangerous thing. When we think we know what it is, we kind of skip over and just read what we think is there. We don't actually read what's there. One way to help is to use different Bible translations. I don't know if it's the same with you, but I've got a particular translation stuck in my head, because it was the one that I had when I was a child growing up, and it was the one that was used in my home, and so all the verses I would quote will be in that version. And so it's quite refreshing then to read a different version which says it just slightly differently. And that kind of dissonance with what's inside my head actually helps me read what's there. It's just a simple, easy way of trying to avoid Oh, I was ruining the reading. Another way of doing it would be to read the text out loud. Now, that might seem slightly odd, I grant you, but you could also read it out loud to someone else. And it's funny, when you're reading out loud, you're reading in a very different way. Your intonation really matters. Those pauses really matter. You don't kind of just go straight through it. It's a different way of reading and so sometimes we can hear slightly better. So yes, that is a downside and hopefully some of these little things can sometimes help. Any other downsides to a story? Good. Yeah. So the context of the story, as it were. Because a lot of these stories, may I just say, all of these stories are set in a different time, place, culture, language, and there are actually quite a few things that are written down that assume that you know things, that quite often we don't. Take the whole of the New Testament, for example. It starts quoting all these bits of the Old Testament, and we're supposed to just know that it comes from the Old Testament. You know, look at the Beatitudes, you know, blessed are the meek. I know that you all know that comes from Psalm 37, but most people don't. And so they fail to grasp what it is that Jesus is saying. And so, yeah, there's a lot of assumptions sometimes made. And so there's no harm in trying to read about contexts and, you know, looking at these great books that can sometimes tell us just a little bit more to help. Any other downsides? Good, there's only one perspective. Absolutely right. Now, that is actually very important because these are not just stories which we've established. These are actually stories for a believing community. They are, if you will, theological stories. They are stories with a purpose. And so a lot of the stuff that might have been interesting will sometimes be left out so that you can see the important bit. You know, there's some really great kings in the nations of Israel and Judah, and many of them only get a couple of verses. Even the great king Omri, who's politically one of the greatest kings of the region, I mean, an incredible king, he gets a couple of verses. Because theologically, he's not that important. It's Ahab, his son, who gets chapter after chapter after chapter. Because theologically, this is where Baal and Yahweh fight over the soul of the nation. So it's a theologically driven story. So it doesn't give you all the bits of information, it gives you the important bits of information so you can see what really matters. Yes? I think a story is the most effective way of communicating to everyone. So Drona can be really good for preschool, in-school and post-school, shall we say. The whole sweep of life. The way the story kind of works for everybody. The downside to a story, and for me this is one of the big ones, because this is one that I was always prone to, I suppose, that's maybe why I made it into a big one. Stories can sometimes distract you from the point. The story can be so good that you're swept along with the story, you're busy feeling for the characters and everything else, and sometimes we forget what the point of the story was. And we'll hopefully be looking at that in just a wee while. Now, stories have a purpose. I was talking about a theological purpose just a moment ago. All stories have a purpose. How many of you have heard of Red Riding Hood? Some of you are actually too ashamed to say you know Red Riding Hood. What's the purpose of Red Riding Hood? Why was it created? It is for children, yes, but it has a lesson. Yes, thank you, yes. It's about stranger danger and sharing personal information, which you shouldn't do. I mean, I could say that it's a warning about wolves dressed up in women's clothes. That's in the story. Granny, you know, the wolf in the bed, yeah. That's in the story, you know? And that would be me getting the wrong thing from the story. It's clearly not the point. But we do that with the Bible. The purpose of the story is about stranger danger, even in settings that you think that you are safe in, and giving out personal information. Actually, a lesson which is vital for children today in a digital age. And that purpose of that story is the whole reason it exists. It's not just there for entertainment, it has a purpose to teach you something. And every single one of the stories in the Bible is not just there for entertainment or just simply to recount what happened, it is there to teach you something. That's why it's there. That's why there's a whole lot of the stories that aren't there. There's an awful lot of things happened that just simply aren't recorded. And so they all have a great purpose. And I suppose the purpose of this evening is to try and identify those purposes and not be distracted by the beauty of the narrative all the time. So that brings me on to the craft of the narrative. Now, the basic elements of a narrative, we need a setting, we need some characters, and we need a plot. If you've got those three things working, you have a good story on your hands. The setting for us can sometimes be quite difficult to imagine, you know, because it's a very different setting than the one that we're in. But there's usually a fair amount of information at the beginning of each narrative to try and let you know where we are. And then we've got some characters, and in the Bible we've got some great characters, and we've got some dreadful characters. We haven't got any really kind of properly dull characters. Not many, anyway. And these characters really come to life in these stories. And of course, you need plot. And there's a whole range of different varieties of plot, but all within the great scheme of God rescuing mankind following rebellion. Okay, so they're almost like episodes in that metanarrative. Now, these are obviously important in hearing the story, but they're not the purpose of the story. So the story of Abraham isn't really about Abraham. It's about God, what he does in the life of Abraham. What I mean by that is we shouldn't be so distracted by Abraham as to fail to see what God is doing. We shouldn't be so distracted by the characters. that we fail to see the purpose behind it all. So what is it that is being done in the life of Abraham? What is it that he is learning? I often get sidetracked looking at the characters because they're so vivid, so real, sometimes so dreadful to look at. Sometimes you're not entirely sure who's a hero and who's a villain, if I'm entirely honest. Take King David. Is he a hero or is he a villain? Well, it depends on the verse. It depends on the chapter. See, they're real people. They're flawed. They're not like the fairy stories that we may have been brought up in. We have the good guys and the bad guys, or maybe some of the westerns you may have watched, where the guys in white are the good guys and the guys in black are the bad guys. It's not like that. They're real people with real flaws. And sometimes God tries to hammer out those flaws in them. I think Abraham's a really good example of that. They then become almost like a vehicle for teaching us something, which goes beyond them themselves. That's why it's there. Okay, so storytelling. Now, if I had to choose a story in the Bible to tell to children, if I was kind of a sensible kind of person, I'd probably choose something like Jonah, but being me, I'd probably choose Jail and Caesarea. That's an entirely honest. Now, for those of you who know the story of Jail and Caesarea, you may be slightly uncomfortable by this. It's in Judges 4. Let me just relay to you this story, and it's a really effective story. So here we go. Now, we've just had a great big battle between Sisera and the army of Israel, and Sisera's army loses, and this is what happens in verse 17 onwards. But Sisera fled away on foot all the way to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite. For there was peace between Jabin, the king of Hazor, and the house of Heber the Kenite. So she should be safe. And Jill came out to meet Caesar, and said to him, Turn aside, my lord, turn aside to me, don't be afraid. So he turned aside to her into the tent, and she covered him with a rug. And he said to her, Please give me a little water to drink, for I am thirsty. So she opened a skin of milk, and gave him a drink, and covered him. And he said to her, Stand at the opening of the tent, and if any man comes and asks you, Is anyone here, say no. But Jill, the wife of Heber, took a tent peg, and took a hammer in her hand. Indeed, then she went softly to him and she drove the peg into his temple until it went down into the ground while he was lying fast asleep from weariness. So he died. And behold, as Barak was pursuing Sisera at jail, went out to meet him, and said to him, Come, and I will show you the man whom you are seeking. So he went into her tent, and there lay Sisera dead, with a tent peg in his temple. Now you can't tell me that's not memorable. It just kind of gets past all of our baddies. It kind of sticks in there. You can see this happening. This man's sound asleep, the woman coming in. If he wakes up or she's sneaking in, she's dead. Tempeg, hammer, sneaking up on the sleeping man. You can see it, you know? It's wonderful because it's a narrative, it's a story. Bang! sticks with us. Now, we often forget the purpose of these stories. We often forget it's part of a cycle of rebellion of the people of God and God having to rescue them. We also forget that this is part of a wider point of view within scripture on the value of women in an ancient Near Eastern context, where a woman will become the equivalent, I suppose, of a prime minister, a judge, the highest political office in the day. The attitudes towards women to have a right to education is unique until thousands of years later. The right of women to own property, the right of women to have self-determination in choosing who they marry. There's a whole range of things that are actually under the surface of this story, which kind of really breaks through the backdrop of mistreated women from Genesis onwards. And more mistreated women to come. It's a brilliant story, but we very often forget why it's there. So, it's a story. It needs to be read like that. It needs to be read with imagination. It needs to be read with a bit of verve, a bit of vigour. It allows us to see the action before our eyes. It allows it to stick in our heads. So it teaches us something. that can stay there as we meet later episodes. And we can hold on to these great themes like the role of women, the value of women in the Old Testament. Just a simple example of that. Last one. In the ancient Near East, and to some extent today, there was a stigma attached if you had a girl instead of a boy at the time of their birth. See, a boy was a reason for celebration. You have a man child, excellent. He can grow up and carry your name and you will be strong, et cetera, et cetera. And then if you had a girl, oh, what's the use in that? Now, the Hebrew people, they had sons, and their actual word for a girl is my female son. Sounds a bit ghastly, but bear with me. It means, you know, here's my son, here's my female son. They both have validity. They both have value. There is my masculine son and my feminine son, which is a very different connotation in Aberdeen, let me bear in mind. But it's trying to say that these two are both worth of celebration. It's a beautiful concept that we take thousands of years to even begin to grasp in the West. OK, I'll move on. I particularly like that story, and that's a pretty important theme, I think. So they help us grab these big themes more readily. And especially when we get lots of episodes, we can hold on to these great themes. And the theme of rescue by the hand of God and not by the hand of men is a key one in the story of Sisera, as well as the rest of the judges. Another thing, though, for me. Narratives can really inspire. I mean, look at this. So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and it seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her. Wow! What a verse! I mean, surely that's one of the best verses in the Old Testament. That is remarkable. You know, that's up there with Ezekiel, who is heart sick for his wife. It's beautiful. Stories allow a degree of passion and emotion that can connect with us in ways other bits of material just can't quite reach. That's beautiful. And whether it's the valour of some of the great warriors or the great love of Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel, these stories are moving and a verse like that offers us a challenge. See, we can be swept away by this romantic ideal of these two who love each other, et cetera. But actually, I think there's a challenge to us. The Bible does really well in spelling out love and the ideal within marriage. It also records an awful lot of times because we're broken people when that's not met. And it's always good to be challenged anew, to think, do I feel like that about somebody? If you're in a relationship and you don't feel like that, then you should be challenged. I still think that's a brilliant line. Okay, so narratives. Now, time for you to do some work. I think we're gonna do Genesis 34, one of the outstanding narratives in Genesis, one which really should impact us, maybe fill us a little bit with horror, shock, et cetera. Genesis 34 is the story of Dinah and the Shechemites. Now, I realize it sounds like a Motown band, Dinah and the Shechemites. But it's not, I assure you. It is something even worse. There is a story here which is one of the key stories which many people have advocated should be removed from the Bible. Although that would make a truly terrible and anemic Bible indeed. If you don't have a Bible, borrow the one beside you. Look over the shoulder of the people beside you, etc. I'm going to give you five minutes to look over it, turn to the person beside you, and you're going to talk about it, and you're going to ask yourself, what's the purpose of this narrative? Why is it there? So in other words, why should we keep it there? Okay, so five minutes over to you guys. Okay, so let me just do a quick recap then of the text. So what we have is Dinah, daughter of Leah and Jacob. She's out with the other woman when Prince Shechem of the city of Shechem, and yes, you read that right, he wants her, he sleeps with her. And whilst we don't know if it's consensual or not, it's kind of regardless in respect that she's perceived to be defiled and her brothers are livid. It is clear that Shechem loves her, and he wants to marry her. Indeed, Shechem offers Jacob anything he could want for her hand. So in verse 12, ask me for as great a bride price and gift as you will, and I will give whatever you say to me, only give me the young woman to be my wife. The brothers point out that she should not marry one who is uncircumcised, and so the whole city were to be circumcised as the bride price. Shechem immediately did what they asked and Dinah went to live in his house. After waiting for three days, once all the men of the city were rather euphemistically sore, they picked up their swords and killed every man in the city and then They took their flocks and their herds, their donkeys and whatever was in the city and in the field, all their wealth, all their children and all their wives, all that was in the houses, they captured and plundered. So, the possible misery of one woman has now become this incredible misery of the whole city. And how does the narrative end? What great judgment is placed on the brothers for doing such a thing? Well, in verse 30, the father, Jacob, says that they've now made him unpopular. It's not really a great ending. It's no real kind of proper note of judgment. There's nothing there to explain the theological ramifications of a chapter like this. So, what's its purpose? No, sakab, the Hebrew word is a word that can mean to lie down as in dead, it just means to lie down, it can lie down anything at all. Yes, but not necessarily here. I realise that some of our translations have the word violated, but it means in terms of their customs. So he was not allowed to do that kind of thing, it was a violation of the custom. Now, she may well have been, but that's been added to the text, that's not necessarily what the text is saying. Why... Sorry. I mean, we've got a Hebrew word behind this, violated, which all it means is to lie down with. Now, that's used for David and Beersheba, which is clearly not a good thing. It's used in other contexts to be a good thing, a happy occasion, Isaac, Rebecca. It's used to describe someone going to sleep with their fathers. meaning dead, there's a whole range in the word. I appreciate that the English word says violated in some translations, but not most. That may be what happened, but the point is that nearly all the books on this will focus on that. And that's almost not the point of the whole piece. Something bad has happened. However bad isn't quite the purpose of the narrative. The narrative is trying to tell us something bigger than the misery of this one person, or possible misery, we don't know. Yeah, certainly hundreds, maybe in the low thousands. A very minimum of about 500 people, we'd estimate. In the first instance, come to the Hebrew classes on Mondays. Second, where that is answered. What the NIV has done there, it has taken one of the options. It's not necessarily what it meant, but the NIV has decided to try and give over the sheer horror of the brothers' response. Now, the brothers' response may be horror because, in terms of custom, they shouldn't have slept together anyway, no matter who wanted what. You see what I mean? But that doesn't carry the same impact in today's society. two people sitting together, doesn't have the same impact as it did. And so they've chosen to go with the most shocking of all of them, to give over the sense of the verse. The NRV does that a lot, it gives over the sense of the verse, not necessarily word for word. what's going on, which is why it's chosen as the Church Bible, because it's the one that you would read out aloud, it's the one that gives a kind of a sense meaning. If you're going to do biblical study, you probably wouldn't use the NIV, you would probably use Hebrew and Greek, and then after that, a word-for-word translation type book. That's my short answer. That's also why you should use more than one translation, again. Okay, we're still kind of struggling a bit as to why this is kept in the book. I mean, it's a horrible chapter. Good answer, yes. God is going to judge. Now, it would appear that God doesn't do anything at this moment. You know, we just go on to the next chapter and nothing's really happened. But may I suggest that we remind ourselves that this is a narrative. And do you remember at one point I said you need to read the beginning, the middle, and the end of the narrative to get the full meaning? Okay, no one remembered that. Okay, it's quite an important point. How many of you ever read or watch Hercule Poirot? Come on, admit it. Come on. Yeah, the little Belgian detective. Okay, how many of you ever watched any sort of crime program where you're waiting to find out who did it at the end? Columbo. Right. I know, I surprise even myself sometimes. Now, what we've got, though, is we've got a form of story, crime thriller, whereby we're given a problem at the beginning, usually a murder, because that catches our attention. And then we go on this twisting journey all the way to the conclusion. Now, very often, if you come to conclusion as to who did it, before the end, chances are you're not going to get it right. We all play this game. So I play this game with Hercule Poirot. It's on the television. I'm not allowed to play it with my wife anymore. She's banned me. But what we do is we sit there and we try and guess who did it, how they did it, and why they did it before the credits. That's the bit at the beginning. So if you decide to just switch it off before getting to the end where Hercule comes out and says, I'm the genius, and tells you who did it, surprising everybody in the room, We can very often end up with the wrong answer. We very often think it's the wrong person. We need to wait till the end, the conclusion, before we see the point, the person, the motive. All of the bits come together by the end. That's how a narrative works. This is a narrative. This is what we call the Jacob narrative. The Jacob narrative finishes in chapter 49 and 50. So if I fast forward us to chapter 49, verse 5, we have a rather interesting verse, which makes absolutely no sense if we don't have this chapter included. And can someone read out for me that verse, please? Thank you. Now, context to this. This is Jacob at the very end of his life. He is giving out the blessing. This is of seismic importance. It is pretty much the entire thrust of the book from the beginning of the book, from the fall, from the moment that Eve, life, is promised that one is going to come. And we get this great thing, and we get to Abraham, and Abraham's sons, there's gonna be one, there's gonna be the son of promise that's gonna come. And so Isaac comes along, but ha ha, they don't know there's a real son of promise to come, ultimately leading us to Jesus Christ. And he goes down the family tree. And we get to Jacob, and all the brothers are there, and all they want is to be the son of promise, to be in the line that later on we're gonna see the Messiah come out of. And they're all there around the deathbed. And they all want to be the son of promise. It is the reason they are alive. It means everything to them. Now, Reuben, firstborn, he's already disqualified. Some pretty horrible stuff he's already done. So we're left with son number two and son number three to fight it out. Shechem and Levi. Who's going to get it? Who's going to be the son of promise? And the answer is neither. because of their penchant for bloodshed, because of the events in Shechem. Because of the events in Shechem, they will be denied the one thing that they've always wanted, the one thing that they have lived their entire lives for, that is to be the son of promise. They don't even get to inherit the land, which is the second half of the promise. All the other brothers, even if they're not the son of promise, are going to get a strip of land that'll be their own in Israel. Levi will have to serve his brother forever. Like it's partially redeemed to become the priesthood, but they still never inherit the land. Simeon, he's dispersed into the land of Judah and effectively disappears as we see in Joshua 19 verse nine. This is the most soul-crushing end that these brothers could imagine. This is the worst judgement that they could possibly have envisaged, and it comes back to what they did in Shechem. God judges. But it's a narrative, so you wait till the end to see what God's going to do. You see how ineffective the father is, but you see what God does by the end of the narrative. So I'm going to read to the end of the narratives to get where we're going. Because if you don't, if you just stopped at that chapter, it would appear that, well, maybe this kind of behavior is OK. If there's no one saying it's not a good thing, then maybe it was the right thing to do. That chapter has been used to defend genocide in certain parts of the world. What does that mean? Mass, mass murder of an entire ethnic group. Well, there are some parts of Africa, for example, that we've actually seen this text being used in churches to promote the annihilation of another race of people. It's usually on a village basis, but yes. Now, if we don't read the narratives properly, we can get it wrong, and sometimes we can get it very, very, very wrong. That's why it's important to read them properly. And the narrative does not end in that chapter. It continues. And then we get the full picture. We see that God is not happy. He is not advocating this sort of behavior at all. But again, a memorable narrative, one that kind of sticks in the mind. Probably have nightmares between jail and this one. Probably won't sleep too well tonight. But I thought I'd throw in some more. So let me ask you a question. Does the Bible promote polygamy, having more than one wife? It's okay, take a minute, just think about that one, because you might be a bit torn in this one. It shouldn't, but I think it might. Okay, we've got a don't think so at the back. Just feel free to take a moment on this one. You might think it's a trick question or something. Yeah, so this Jacob, He loves Rachel. He marries a woman called Leah, who's nicknamed in writings later as Leah the Unloved. Awful, awful description. She's Leah the Unloved, who is, the Bible says she's quite unattractive and has bad eyesight. Some kind early translator wrote, she has nice eyes. Yeah, faulty eyes. She got bad eyesight before there were opticians. And so she's got bad eyesight, she's unattractive, she's completely unloved by her husband. She is a woeful figure. And what's really beautiful in the Bible is that although no one else loves her, God does. And remember this whole son of promise thing? He gives it to her, firstborn, Judah. Not because Judah's any good, he's a rotter, but because of her, Leah the unloved. And there'll be another woman, Tamar, who's equally an oppressed and mistreated woman, and it'll be through her lying, and God is seen to be on the side of these women. It's a beautiful thing. It is a key theme from Genesis onwards about God being on the side of those who are unloved and unwanted. Yeah, I'll stop there. But it is quite a key theme. But if you look at these examples, you've got Jacob. He's in a polygamous relationship. Abraham. David. Solomon. Yeah. In actual fact, it's quite difficult to think of some who weren't. Apart from Isaac, he's brilliant. So if all these great men in the Bible had all of these wives, surely the Bible supports polygamy. Thank you, I'm mightily relieved that somebody said, hang on a minute, no, I don't think so. Because there's a few people going, oh, OK then, yeah, all right. Well, that's good, because I've got a list. I was getting a bit worried there. Thank you. Is Solomon told not to have many wives? He is, indeed. And then when he does the opposite, we have some of the saddest verses in the Bible. Solomon turns away from God in his old age. His heart is turned away from the Lord, his God, because of his wives. Let me put it this way. In these narratives, these men do have many wives. And it always goes wrong. It always ends badly. Take this example. The 12 sons are busy fighting for their father's affection, because there's one of the mothers who's loved, and the other three mothers are not. And you've got 12 sons who battle it out to have some affection and love from their father. It ends up with one of them being sold off to Ishmaelites, taken to Egypt, and presented to his father as if dead. It's a terrible family dynamic that we have here. Abraham, the difficulties with Ishmael, Hagar, that's not a happy family either. You look at every single example of these. David, there's a cracker, with Absalom and Solomon and all the rest. It's a disaster every single time. Now that is the narrative, and you're supposed to read the narrative and think, okay, I get it. I can see what's going on. Probably not a good idea, you know? And that's within the backdrop of God actually at the very beginning spelling out what he thought. And then following that up. So for example, the greatest of all the patriarchs when it comes to this is Isaac. Isaac and Rebekah. Isaac is deeply, deeply devoted to Rebekah. Let me just give you one example why. Rebekah can't have children, not uncommon, it would appear, for the matriarchs, I guess. He is the only man in the Bible to pray on behalf of his wife who cannot have children. It's always the wives that are praying. It's Samuel's mother or any of the others. It's always the mum that is busy praying. He's the only example of a father who prays for his wife in this way. Second thing, he's incredibly rich, and he stays with her for 13 years without children, without marrying anyone else. In a context where people were polygamous, in a context where he did just actually add wives to have more children, because that was the purpose of women anyway. But Isaac stays devoted to that one woman regardless, for over a decade. He doesn't marry anyone else. He doesn't look anywhere else. He is devoted to her. In the context of all the other patriarchs, it stands out. It's beautiful. We've got books like Song of Solomon, which really describe the difference between using sex as a tool of power and policy as opposed to love. We've got wonderful examples of individuals in love, these two people. And so you have all that context. You've also got the law, which kind of spells it out pretty bluntly. But even aside from that, you've got all these wonderful examples compared to all of these bad examples. And we're supposed to have the ability to recognise what we're being told. We're credited with being able to read that and think, well, I don't want to end like that. I want to be like that. That's how a narrative works. It doesn't always spell it out for you. It just simply tells you. And you should see the purpose behind it. Does that make sense? Okay. So the next time anyone ever says, well, you know, the Bible promotes polygamy, you go, ah-ha-ha! Actually, I think you'll find that is not the case. Okay, so let me do a quick summary before we then go to our final example Keeping with the theme tonight, it's not a happy one But they stick in your mind, these ones, you know? But I'll leave you with a cracker Many of the stories are misunderstood because we don't read all of it, we don't try and read the purpose. Sometimes we can add bits to the stories in our minds. I suppose that is a downside to narratives. I remember reading in one place that the purpose of Jail and Cicero is to warn you about the sneaky nature of women. That is not the purpose, let me just reiterate that, but it's interesting how some commentators will add a little element to the purpose of the story. Dinah, as I said, the story of Dinah, some have suggested that this allows effectively the annihilation of those who are ethnically different. And, of course, with regard to polygamy, there are some who would say that the Bible suggests that it is okay. None of these are true. But I suppose these can be the downsides to narratives, because if we don't read them like narratives, sometimes we miss the point. Okay, so what are the points? Well, I've got my key points. They're all listed in your handout. KP, if you're thinking of crisps or nuts, that shows what generation you are from. Okay, that's quite a few eyes looking, yeah, not a very nice way at me now, so I'll look down. So, KP1 to 10, obviously, is the first three. So what are the key points? Why do we have narratives? What should we remember when we come to narratives? I've listed 10 things to help us. So number one, to record the events in an interesting and memorable way, because stories work for both adults and children. They involve us emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. Two, it brings the action to the forefront by depicting real life events which can be more easily related to. We can actually imagine ourselves in there either as an observer or a partaker in the story. It ties big themes together with all these wee tiny stories. The narrative served to challenge and rebuke us by using the successes and failures of the people in the past. When I look at some of these characters in the Bible, I recognise that all too often I'm no better than any of them. We should also try and remember not to be too enthralled with the story and misdemeanour, as indeed I was with Dinah and the Shechemites. When I first read it, I got it hopelessly wrong. I was 10, bear in mind, but I got it hopelessly wrong because I was so enthralled with the story, I got a bit carried away. And I thought that this was a brilliant story. I thought it was a stroke of genius. Think about it. You've got these two brothers. They're bent on revenge. They're massively outnumbered, with an enemy behind city walls, better equipped, better trained. You need an advantage. So they come up with this plan, and whilst the men are unable to defend themselves, they kill them all. I thought it was brilliant. I mean, that is tactically pretty good. Do you see how getting enthralled with the story sometimes leads you down the wrong path? As I said, I was 10. But that was my initial reaction to the story. I got captured by the story. The story is a vehicle to teach us something. So we should not try and be too enthralled with the story that we miss the meaning. We should also, of course, try and read the narrative to the end. I mean, the meaning is not often stated in a narrative. Sometimes it's quite subtly there, and you get it by reading the whole piece. Narratives reveal the nature of the characters in a very vivid manner, and this means that we see the bad as well as the good. We've got to remember that. A lot of the stories record what actually happens, so we don't have a nice, Perfect book. We have all of the real things that happen to these men. Warts and all version because it's real. We need a book like that to make a real difference. But what's also quite mind-blowing for me is that God is one of the characters in these stories. And by being one of the characters in these stories, acting in these stories, speaking in these stories, it reveals something about him. We get to understand something of God because of these stories. So when God is on the side of Leah the unloved, that says something about him, what he thinks is important. When he comes to Hagar and says, don't worry, I'll look after you. It says something about the nature of God. We see who he is. Narratives show us characters. They show us who they are. And God is revealed by what he says and what he does in these narratives. So when he comes to Abraham, and he makes these big promises about having a child, and then having children, and then having many children, and about possessing the land, Abraham doesn't know this God. And how can he be trusted? And we see this journey of God being revealed to us, the reader, and to Abraham as someone who keeps his word. And we see him keeping his word, and Isaac is born, et cetera, et cetera. And we see the character and nature of God being revealed to us in the stories. What a precious thing that is. We see him in what he does. We see him in what he says. A narrative does not need to explain all the complexities of life. It can simply show what happened, the consequences of the actions, and the nature of the characters involved. And as such, it can tell us all about life and all of its complexities without having to explain them or sanitize them. So there are lots of questions surrounding the story of the one we just looked at, dying in the Shechemites. And sometimes the story will not try and attempt to answer all of the questions. It will try and attempt to answer maybe one of them at best. And it can be very brutal. It can show you life in its horrible way, but then show you where God is in amongst it all. And of course, number nine, we can read too much into the story. The story is teaching us something. But it is theological and not just a historical document. It is trying to teach us something. Number 10, you can also read too little into a narrative. You can go too far the other way. These can become myths or allegories, and we fail to grasp that these happen to real people. So that's like the 10 key points, as much as I could do. So whenever you ever come to a narrative in the Bible, these should help us try and see what's going on. Now, I'm going to give you one chance to apply these 10, or maybe one or two of them, to another example, to our final example of the evening. Just an easy one, just a small one, just to practice these 10 points. Sodom and Gomorrah. Chapters 18 and 19 of Genesis, relatively well-known piece. Here's the questions. Where do we find out about Sodom and Gomorrah? Okay, that might seem like a trick question, but it's not. Two, what is the purpose of the story? See, many of us could probably tell us, what happened? Why is it there? And what lessons do we derive from it? What do we take from that story out that door in about 20 minutes time? And so five minutes or so, over to you. In order to finish on time, which I'm sure probably matters to you. Okay, so I'm going to ask you for the answers. I'm waiting to be enlightened. So, where do we find out about Sodom and Gomorrah? Genesis, good. It's not a trick question but there is a little bit more to it. Now obviously the key context is Genesis 18 to 19 as I said, however it's also talked about in Isaiah, particularly chapter 1 and chapter 3. It's talked about in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Jude in the New Testament but I'm not going to focus on that one just now. It's my penchant for the Old Testament, what can I say? I'll come back to that one. As well as the Genesis text. Now that's actually very important because there is commentary about Sodom and Gomorrah elsewhere. So there is more information in the Old Testament than just here in Genesis. So we're going to come to that extra information in just a wee while because you can still get everything you need from Genesis. So what is the purpose of this story? The grace of God. What else? Sovereignty. Sovereignty of God, yes. Judgment. Judgment, yes. Because there's an element of justice, but also God being seen to be just, which is part of the reason why he's involving Abraham in the whole discussion. God can just do it, but he's wanting to show his nature to Abraham and is involving him in the process. So there's the justice of God, which is part of it. Okay. And what lessons do we derive from this? Before we go out that door, what do we take from these chapters? Other than a sense of fear. What do we take with us? Yeah, yeah, and actually that's very important in the context of this story, yes. Lot gets laughed at by his sons-in-law in this story when he tries to warn them of the impending doom that's about to envelop them. Mockery is to be expected as a response very often. What else do we take with us from this story? Yes. I mean, this is really quite breathtaking that God, the creator of heaven and earth, would bring a human being into such a clear and deep relationship. It is breathtaking. It's quite remarkable. We haven't... really seen anything quite like that. I mean, Noah to some extent, and kind of like a one event. But Abraham just seems to get deeper and deeper and deeper into a relationship with God, and eventually becomes a man of faith. It's a spectacular thing that God would do this, you know, that he'd allow us access. Okay, let me go back a little bit. What is the purpose of the story? Well, part of the purpose of the story is to reveal the nature of God. That is an incredible aspect of it, revealing who He is, so the elements of justice and grace and everything else. But it also shows what God reacts to. This is a spectacular event. And it's very interesting to notice the motivation behind it, because that tells you about the very nature of God. what makes them tick. This is why it's such a breathtaking piece. It's not just breathtaking because of the miraculous, it's breathtaking because we get a glimpse as to who God is. And we really get that very much in this chapter. Now, what was it that really made God angry? Sin, yeah, anything in particular? Good guess, because let's be honest, in the Old Testament, there's only really two options that makes God really angry, and idolatry is one of them. But this is actually the other one in this instance. It's a good one, but not quite. What's the one other thing that God seems to really lose the rag over? Idolatry? More idolatry. No. Yes, injustice. These are the two reasons that both Judah and Israel go into exile. Israel never comes back. Judah actually gets relatively sorted out and never goes back to idolatry ever again and is brought back. For example, the Book of Amos rather helpfully kind of highlights these sorts of things. Injustice, oppression of the poor and the marginalized, takes up a huge section of the law, takes up a huge amount of the narratives, and consistently God is on the side of the oppressed. What has that got to do with Sodom and Gomorrah? Some of you may be asking with a raised eyebrow, and yes, you know who you are. Now, let me just take you to verse 21 in chapter 18. In verse 21, chapter 18, it says that there was an outcry from the people regarding the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah. In Hebrew, it says, there is a great shrieking. implying a sense of agony to God. Sometimes we try and pretend that maybe the sin itself has a voice that has come before God. We're talking about real people shrieking out to God for his mercy to deliver them from Sodom and Gomorrah. Just to emphasize that point, it's repeated in chapter 19, verse 13, where the outcry is very great. So it's not a small amount. This is a widespread and huge in volume shriek to God for his deliverance. That's why it's also helpful to have a hold of those other verses to look at the chapter again. In Isaiah chapter 1 we have seven verses about Sodom and Gomorrah called Hypocrites and the Land of Injustice. No reference to anything else but those two things. And then later on we have a rather important phrase, which I'll come to in a moment, which is that they have no shame in their sin, which is unbelievably important here. Jeremiah talks about adultery and lies, Ezekiel again emphasises injustice. It's quite clear that with regard to the rest of the biblical text, the Old Testament and the prophets, they are focused on injustice, primarily because they're fighting against injustice in their own environment, and they're saying, like Sodom and Gomorrah, so they're equating the two things, injustice, Sodom and Gomorrah, and the people that they're talking to. Oppression and injustice are the two things which are actually there in the text. I know the caricature is usually that it's homosexuality that God really hates. It'll be at the very top of the pile as the worst sin ever because, you know, they may have just had one of those marches too many and God just wiped them out. That's the caricature of this text. That's not what it says. It's the oppression and injustice that seems to be the snapping point, if that makes sense. That's the bit that seems to go too far. Now, why? It's not the amount of injustice and it's not even the amount of cries that are doing it. It's going back to, again, Isaiah 3-9 and the narrative of Genesis when it says they have no shame in their sin. So, when they are rebuked, when they are challenged in their behaviour by Abram or by Lot, They reject it. When God performs a miracle in their midst, so for when the men surround the house, God intervenes and they all go blind. You know what? Not one man repents. Not one of them says, I shouldn't be doing this. They just go home. It's an incredible thing. A miracle is done in their presence, no difference. There is no shame in their sin. And what you have is you have these two big problems. You have people acting in a manner that God will not abide, and a group of people screaming out for deliverance to God. And there is no hint of repentance. And what's really interesting is there's this lack of hope. as it were, for Sodom and Gomorrah. There's a lack of hope in the future. This brings me to the strange conversation between Abraham and God, when Abraham, and the effectiveness of prayer comes into this, but when Abraham discusses with God and says, okay, 40 people, okay, I'll be 30 people, I'll be 20 people, and he stops at 10! 10 people, if there are 10 people! The beautiful thing about those 10 people is that they provide hope. If you have 10 righteous people in a city, Tomorrow there might be 20. The day after there might be 40. And you don't even have 10. You've got no one. Even Lot's not counted as righteous here in this text. There is no hope for these people. So you have all these elements coming together. This incredible sin, these poor people crying out to God for deliverance, and he's kind of in trouble if he does and if he doesn't. And then God coming to Abraham and saying, I am just, I am fair, watch. And God gives this further opportunity to the people. He performs a miracle for these people. He gets Lot to warn some of these people, and they reject him. This is ultimately what is lying behind purpose. The purpose of the story is to reveal the nature of God as someone who is just, someone who can actually be quite scary for those who are unrighteous. And it also tells us the kind of people that we should be, because it says what God will not stand for. And of course, we have many other texts talking about his people and how we should be afterwards. So I better conclude out of time as I am. What lessons do we derive from this before you go out the door? Well, primarily, please don't oppress anyone. Please don't be unjust. And if you have any power whatsoever in the workplace, in whatever context you have, you have the opportunity to be unjust or to oppress. There's a myriad of ways in which we can do it. and God's people can't, mustn't, because the very nature of God revolts against it. That's one of the purposes that I'll leave you with then, one of the lessons to leave you. If I had another hour, we would continue, but sadly, I don't, so I'm afraid we are concluding. And so just before you leave, let me pray for you. Gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for helping us to learn a little bit more, ultimately to learn a little bit more about you. And I pray, Heavenly Father, that we would live lives that reflect you, that live lives that would be a blessing to the people around us and not a curse. In Jesus' wonderful name, amen.