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Baker Publishing Group - E. Garland David , R. Garland Diana

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98 pages

English

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Most Christians believe that the Bible holds the answers to their questions about daily living, and that reading the Scriptures will show them good examples to follow for their own lives. Think for a moment and try to list a few examples of healthy families in the Bible who are ideals worth emulating. Having trouble? The families of the Bible were far from perfect, and not so different in that regard from our imperfect families today.In Flawed Families of the Bible, a New Testament scholar (David) and a professor of social work (Diana) take a real and close look at the actual families of the Bible. This honest book will inspire and encourage readers with its focus on the overarching theme of hope and grace for families, showing that it is in the "imperfect places" that we can catch a glimpse of grace. Perfect for pastors, counselors, and anyone in a flawed family.

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Philosophie et théologie

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Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	01 mars 2007
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781441201133
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0634€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Flawed Families of the Bible
Flawed Families of the Bible
How God s Grace Works through Imperfect Relationships
David E. Garland and Diana R. Garland
2007 by David E. Garland and Diana R. Garland
Published by Brazos Press a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.brazospress.com
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-for example, electronic, photocopy, recording-without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Garland, David E. Flawed families of the Bible : how God s grace works through imperfect relationships / David E. Garland and Diana R. Garland. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 10: 1-58743-155-6 (pbk.) ISBN 978-1-58743-155-5 (pbk.) 1. Family-Biblical teaching. 2. Bible O.T.-Biography. I. Garland, Diana S. Richmond, 1950- II. Title. BS1199.F32G37 2007 220.9 2-dc22
2006027979
Unless otherwise noted, all scripture is taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission.
Scripture marked NIV is taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION .NIV . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
Scripture marked NASB is taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE . Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission.
Scripture marked The Message is taken from T HE M ESSAGE . Copyright by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.
Scripture marked NKJV is taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture marked KJV is taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
Scripture marked TNIV is taken from HOLY BIBLE, TODAY S NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION . TNIV . Copyright 2001, 2005, by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
On the Way to Work, is taken from Between Angels by Stephen Dunn. Copyright 1989 by Stephen Dunn. Used by permission of W. W. Norton Company, Inc.
For Dorsie Richmond, in gratitude for a lifetime of unwavering love and support.
Acknowledgment
We are grateful to the Lilly Endowment, Inc., for generous financial support of the Congregational Resources Project. This book is one of several in the Families and Faith series published by that project.
Contents
Introduction
1. Sarah s and Hagar s Stories: Hope versus Hopelessness
2. Leah s Story: When Your Spouse Loves Another and You Feel Unloved and Left Out
3. Dinah s Story: The Horror of Rape and Living through Family Shame
4. Tamar s Story: Commitment to Family against All Odds
5. Michal s Story: With a Family Like This, Who Needs Enemies?
6. Bathsheba s Story: Surviving Abuse and Devastating Loss
7. The Stories of Jephthah s Daughter and David s Daughter Tamar: When Parents Fail
8. The Ethiopian Eunuch: God s Message of Good News
References Cited
Introduction
Most Christians believe that they can go to the Bible for guidance for living their daily family lives. A large portion of the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, consists of stories about families. In Numbers 21:14 there is a reference to the Book of the Wars of the Lord, but this book about battles apparently has been lost. What have been preserved are the stories about families. It is as if to say that stories of God working in battles are less important than the stories of God working in families. Even the battle stories that have been preserved, such as that of David and Goliath, are told in the context of the human relationships of families-in this case, the family of Saul and David and his brothers.
Many of the Bible s family stories, however, do not always seem edifying and often do not seem suitable for emulating. Many of the stories in scripture behind the genealogies of Jesus recorded in Matthew 1:1-17 and Luke 3:23-38 are steamy and violent, even by today s standards. The family tree of the Messiah reveals a family whose closets seem to be bursting with skeletons. Since their stories are told in the Bible, their closets are wide open for everyone to peer into. If this family history leads to the coming of Christ as the fulfillment of God s promises, then one might say that God writes with very crooked lines. In these and other stories of the lives of families, we discover weak, scarred, scared, struggling, failing people who have suffered and survived horrible ordeals, many of them self-inflicted. Yet God used them.
For some of us, the Sunday school lessons printed in the quarterlies of our childhood began with the one-sentence central truth of the lesson, which was always printed just below the title and Bible passages for that day. But the actual biblical narratives do not begin or end with a central truth. Instead, they invite us to wonder and explore, even to struggle with the story before us and seek its meaning as it intersects with our own life story. The Book of Proverbs captures many of the truths that can be learned from these stories and expresses them in pithy warnings:
Under three things the earth trembles; under four it cannot bear up: . . . an unloved woman when she gets a husband, and a maid when she succeeds her mistress. (Prov. 30:21, 23)
Foolish children are a grief to their father and bitterness to her who bore them. (Prov. 17:25)
So is he who sleeps with his neighbor s wife; no one who touches her will go unpunished. (Prov. 6:29)
Discipline your children, and they will give you rest; they will give delight to your heart. (Prov. 29:17)
The stories of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar, David and Bathsheba, Jacob and his sons, and David and his sons Amnon and Absalom illustrate these truths, and they communicate things that cannot be communicated by proverbs. Their stories hold much more power than the preceding proverbs do, because they invite us into the complexities and depths of life as we experience it. We can see our own conflicts and problems and may even find comfort in seeing ourselves in the company of these ancient family members of Jesus. If we think our lives are a mess, look at what they went through! And God never abandoned them. God s grace somehow managed to work through all of their imperfections. Perhaps we can lean, then, on the promise that God s grace will never leave us , and even trust that God is working through our struggles.
The stories in the Bible pack a punch, but many Christians do not know them. Some Christians were not raised with Sunday school memory verses and didn t have those quarterlies to study each week. If they pick up the Bible to read it and delve past how many cubits measure what and the lists of names with all the begats, they discover that much of it is perplexing and hard to understand. Why did God ask Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac? Why would God cherish an adulterer and murderer like David? Why did God not intervene more directly and more often to set these people straight? As the Ethiopian eunuch said, How can I [understand], unless someone guides me? (Acts 8:31). How do these stories about family woes tie into our contemporary world?
The stories of families in the Bible are raw and uncensored, bitter reminders of how awful family life can become. Though the ancient families of the Bible lived in a distant time, in a far-off place, with social customs and rules that sometimes mystify us, when we peel back the surface differences, we discover that people and their family problems seem not to have changed much at all. Once we begin to understand them, their stories and experiences may seem to mirror our own lives. We can see reflections of ourselves in their messy and troubled escapades.
These stories are vital to our understanding of God, our faith, ourselves, and our world. Bible stories portray real fleshand-blood human beings struggling with their past history and with their fallibilities and sinfulness. They battle for their present survival and a future for themselves and for their children and their children s children. The twists and turns of relationships and the brokenness of being fallen humans are all there in these stories. Yet it is in those broken places that we catch glimpses of God s grace and healing, of God silently reaching in to touch the wound, and often, of fragile and broken people stepping up to do what is right.
That is the overarching theme of this book-a theme of hope and grace for families. Richard Rohr tells a story of Navajo rug weaving (1995, 18). These beautifully handcrafted rugs are perfectly structured, except for a corner on each rug where an obvious flaw can be found. An inquiry about why all the rugs have an out-of-place thread was met with the reply, This is where the spirit moves in and out. Our families and the families in ancient Israel are flawed by dismemberment, physical and emotional violence, infidelity, petty jealousies, and mean-spiritedness. They are far from perfect. Yet it is exactly in those flawed places that the Spirit of God moves and where we can catch a glimpse of grace.
A lovely sculpture by Sheila Oettinger is found in a park in Normal, Illinois: a husband and wife embrace and look lovingly into each other s eyes while their toddler son lies between them in his mother s lap, looking up trustingly at his parents, as his older sister, lying on her mother s leg, looks dreamingly into the distance. It is entitled, The Normal Family. It is the norm only in our imaginations. It certainly does not capture the biblical families that we will discuss. Rather, it illust