In the episode of the After Class podcast link to above, the theologians who do the podcast continue their discussion of politics and the Bible. Among other things, they talk about how Israel rejected God by wanting a king like all the other nations.
I have read that story many times, but the import of it didn’t hit me until a number of years ago. It must have been 2016-17 when the following words God spoken to the prophet, Samuel, settled into my heart and have continued to hang over me ever since. The people of Israel demanded a king, and Samuel warned them about what they were requesting. Then God said to Samuel:
“Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king.”
1 Samuel 8:7
God gave them a king even though they were rejecting God as their king by their very request. This is a sobering thought, because Paul tells us in Romans 1 that God gives us over to our delusions if we persist in them.
The fact that God gave them the king they requested was not a blessing and it was not what God desired for them. The fact that God used Israeli kingship to establish David and his line, out of which the Messiah would eventually come, is beside the point. God is able to work all things together for the good, but that doesn’t mean that all things are good.
In case there is any doubt in anyone’s mind about these things, God spoke again through the prophet, Hosea, many years later to drive the point home:
“Where is your king, that he may save you? … [I]n my anger I gave you a king, and in my wrath I took him away“
Hosea 13:10-11
I dare say these words haunt the American church presently. We have put our faith in politics, and in doing so I firmly believe that we have rejected God.
I could easily rail on conservative Christians who have championed and defended Donald Trump as if he could do no wrong. But I could just as easily critique Christians who have rallied in opposition to Donald Trump. We have taken positions on the front lines of a cultural war of political ideologies – on both sides – to our own detriment and the detriment of the global and timeless purposes of God.
Not that we might frustrate God in achieving His purposes any more than the people of Israel did in rejecting God to want a king. God works despite us, perhaps, more often than he works through us. Meanwhile, our distraction and exhaustion with politics keeps us from being salt and light in the world that Jesus meant us be.
The United States of America is not Israel, the covenant people of God. The modern nation of Israel is not the covenant people of God either. Israel, the nation-state that exists today, is a secular nation. The Temple is not the center of Israeli religious life. The modern nation state of Israel is not governed by the law of Moses. It is not a continuation of the covenant relationship that was established under the law of Moses.
Modern Christians have even less provenance than Jewish people to support the notion that a modern nation can replace or continue the former covenant relation established by God through Moses. As Paul says, the law was only a shadow. It was only a tutor.
Jesus is the reality, and He is the fulfillment of the covenant relationship God made with Abraham who did not put stakes down into the promised land. Abraham lived in tents as a sojourner, waiting for the city the architect and maker of which is God. He was still waiting for it when He died, as were all the men and women of faith commended to us in Hebrews 11.
Jesus dispels the notion that infiltrating or overtaking and establishing a nation state on earth is a proper purpose for his followers. Jesus introduced a kingdom that is not of the world. He could have, but he did not, model Christian involvement in secular governmental authority.
God does establish secular nations and authorities under powers and principalities that He allows (and uses) to create order in the world. Though God uses them, the powers and the principalities are not all aligned with God. In fact, they are opposed to Him, and they will all crumble and be no more when Jesus takes the throne as the rightful king when God remakes the world into a new heaven and earth.
The only thing that will remain, then, is the kingdom of God. Nowhere does the Bible suggest or Jesus teach that we should usher in God’s kingdom in through secular political means. As a matter of fact, it’s just the opposite.
In reading Blaise Pascal’s, Pensées, I’m reminded of something I’ve thought about but never really tried to write down, so I will try.
Many people feel that Christianity is unnecessarily harsh in its doctrine of sin. People feel that the notion of sin produces an unhealthy negativity toward the self, perhaps a self-loathing. It can also be used in judgmental and self-righteously harsh ways as people condemn and judge others for their sin.
It seems that people either turn the negativity inward, or project it outward, or both. This is a common criticism of Christianity and the doctrine of sin. When we embrace the doctrine of sin and try to understand it from a biblical perspective, the truth is far more positive than we might suspect at first blush.
For one thing, the idea of sin is a great equalizer. When the Bible says that all have sinned and fallen short, it is mitigating one of the chief ways people feel badly about themselves, which is in comparison to others. The idea that all humans have sinned the negativity trap that comes from comparing ourselves to other people.
Paul says that anyone who has sinned in one way has transgressed the entire law. Thus, it makes no difference whether one person may be more or less sinful than another person. We are all in the same boat. To think that I am better than or worse than someone else by comparison is to misunderstand the doctrine of sin.
The great poet of the 18th century, Alexander Pope, says in more poetic language, “To err is human.” We all know this intuitively. If we are honest, we see our faults and our failures in ourselves that other people do not even see. This self-awareness can and does produce feelings of negativity even if we do not subscribe to the Ten Commandments or Christian morality.
The entire quotation from Alexander Pope is: “To hear is human, to forgive is divine.” When we struggle with our own failures and faults, we can find ourselves in an endless feedback loop of negativity. The answer to that vicious cycle is the idea of divine forgiveness. This is what the Bible teaches us.
The doctrine of sin also eliminates a primary way people are cruel to each other – by establishing comparisons that render certain people less than. This is the outward manifestation of negativity that flows from the reality that human beings are error-prone. Whether it’s the Ten Commandments, a cultural or societal standard, or a self-imposed standard, we all fall short. When we turn that negativity outward, we focus on the errors of other people; we judge them; and we become self-righteous if we think we are better than them.
The doctrine of sin levels this playing field also. I once heard the analogy of people escaping a natural disaster in California by taking to the sea. The best swimmers might outdistance the lesser swimmers, and the worst swimmers among us might perish quickly in the ocean waters. Not even the best of swimmers, however, are capable of swimming the entire ocean to reach the shores of China.
The doctrine of sin is similar to this analogy in the sense that the best of people still fall short. As Paul stated, the doctrine of sin is a losing proposition for us: it is all or nothing – if we have failed to keep only one part, we have transgressed the entire law because we are still sinners. It doesn’t matter how far any individual swimmer makes it out into the Pacific Ocean. Every swimmer will fall short of making it to the opposite shore.
When we understand that our position relative to each other makes no difference, we are not apt to judge others or to feel superior. The Bible eliminates all of that if we take it seriously, because all have sinned and fallen short so that there is no reason for boasting merely merely because some people sin more or less in one way or another.
In this sense an accurate understanding of the biblical doctrine of sin, is the great equalizer. If we truly understand a biblical view of it, the reality of sin puts us all on the same level. It equalizes all people in relation to each other and in relation to God. We are all in the same position relative to each other and relative to God.
The biblical solution for sin, of course, is God’s grace/forgiveness. The solution for sin is not doing better, but in receiving God’s grace and forgiveness and in willingness to extend that grace and forgiveness to others. As Paul also says, “If we are forgiven by grace, where is the boasting?” Sin and grace eliminate boasting and mitigate against pride, which is the root of all sin according to great thinkers of old.
As I read through the Bible this year, the phrase, “the high places,” caught my attention because it is used as a kind of litmus test and descriptor of the kings of Israel and Judah in Kings and Chronicles. Like a worn-out refrain, and a tired old drumbeat, king after king in Israel and Judah is identified for failing to remove the high places. Only Hezekiah removed them and only Josiah destroyed them completely.
In case you have not read Kings or Chronicles lately, each king is judged by whether he did what was right in the sight of the Lord and removed the high places. The phrase “the high places were not removed” functions like a spiritual diagnostic in Kings. Even of the kings who were not wholly evil, only two (2) of them did something about the high places that were scattered throughout the region.
I have glossed over the phrase every year that I have read through Kings and Chronicles until now. When I recognized I wasn’t exactly sure what the high places were, I took some time to lay my assumptions aside and look into it. What I found is interesting and surprisingly relevant for us today.
What Were the High Places?
The Hebrew word translated “high places” is bamot. These were worship sites, usually located on hills or mountain tops, on ridges, or sometimes even on raised platforms in cities. A typical high place might include a stone altar for sacrifices, standing stones (masseboth), wooden poles associated with goddess worship (Asherah poles), incense altars, or occasionally a sacred tree or grove.
Ancient Near Eastern people believed that worshiping on elevated places brought them closer to heaven. Thus, “high places” became a term synonymous with worship. I wonder, as I write this, whether our phrase for good worship or a good spiritual experience – a mountaintop experience – comes from the idea of “high places” (knowingly or unknowingly).
The First Reference to a High Place
The first explicit mention of a “high place” is in 1 Samuel 9. When Saul goes looking for his father’s lost donkeys and is told to seek out the prophet, Samuel, who was planning to meet the people “at the high place” for a sacrifice. They were waiting for Samuel to get there to bless the sacrifice before they ate. Saul meets Samuel on his way to the high place, and Samuel instructed Saul to go on ahead of him, to wait for him, and to eat with him. (1 Samuel 9:12–14, 19).
This first mention of a high place is interesting because it seems to carry no negative connotation. Samuel had a good reputation as a prophet who did what was right in the Lord’s eyes, and the sacrifice they enjoyed at the high place seems to have been acceptable.
Older Worship Practice
Although the term “high place” is first used in 1st Samuel, worship on high places by some of the most iconic people of God goes back much earlier. For example: Noah builds an altar after leaving the ark; Abraham builds altars at Shechem, Bethel, and Mt. Moriah; Jacob worships at Bethel, and Moses meets God and receives the Law on Mt. Sinai.
The pattern of mountaintop worship and encounter with God is repeated and prominent. Just as noticeable, perhaps, is the absence of a negative comment about these practices. They seem to have occurred in ways that advanced relationship and covenant between God and key figures in the Old Testament. The pattern seems to have been acceptable to God, and those older mountaintop places of worship are not called “high places” (bamot).
A Change in the Worship of God
The early encounters of people with God were organic and free-flowing, but that way of relating to God changed with Moses and the Exodus. Although, Moses met with God on the top of Mt. Sinai, God changed the way people would relate to Him and worship Him going forward.
After Moses provided the blueprints from God, the Tent of Meeting (Tabernacle) was constructed to provide a place for the the Ark of the Covenant, for offering sacrifices to God, and for Moses to meet with God. The presence of God came to reside among the people over the Tent of Meeting with a visceral demonstration of fire by night and cloud by day.
Moses was instructed to consecrate the Levites, alone, to care for the Tabernacle and Ark of the Covenant, to carry, assemble, and to tear down the structures when they moved, and to conduct all of the ritual sacrifices that were very carefully prescribed.
Anyone who dared to approach God, offer sacrifices, or worship in a way that was not prescribed incurred the consequence of that transgression. No one but a Levite (and Moses) could enter the Tent of Meeting or offer sacrifices, and the Levites had to follow the the detailed instructions prescribed by God or pay the price.
The Problem with High Places
When Israel entered the Promised Land of Canaan, hilltop shrines devoted to gods like Baal and Asherah were scattered throughout the area. At that time, God specifically commanded Israel to destroy the high places (bamot), saying, “You must not worship the Lord your God in their way.” Instead, the people were instructed to “seek the place the Lord your God will choose from among all your tribes to put his Name there for his dwelling.” (Deuteronomy 12:1-7).
They were warned, “You are not to do as we do here today, everyone doing as they see fit, since you have not yet reached the resting place and the inheritance the Lord your God is giving you.” (Deut. 12:8-9) Yet, all they had was the mobile Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant, and they moved around until the Temple was built by Solomon. They were not always even in the same location.
The Transitionary Period
It was during this time frame that Samuel met Saul at “the high place.” Other people also offered sacrificed on high places during this period, despite the instruction from Moses. For instance, Joshua builds an altar on Mount Ebel after the conquest of Ai and offered sacrifices as Moses instructed them to do after crossing the Jordan into the Promised Land. (Deuteronomy 27; Joshua 8:30–35)
Sometime later, the tribes that took the land east of the Jordan built an altar. Joshua and the western tribes prepared to go to war with their brothers, assuming that it was an unauthorized rival worship location. They relented when eastern tribes explained it was not an altar for performing sacrifices; it was a ceremonial altar meant to be a witness that they belong to Israel. (Joshua 22)
God specifically instructed Gideon to build an altar to the LORD and offer sacrifices on it after tearing down an altar his family constructed for Baal. (Judges 6) Samson’s parents built an altar and offered sacrifices in thanks to God that seems to have been acceptable, because the Angel of the LORD ascends in the flame. (Judges 13)
Samuel repeatedly participated in offering sacrifices away from the Tabernacle at Mizpah (1 Samuel 7), Bethlehem (1 Samuel 16), the high place at Ramah (1 Samuel 9) during the period when the priesthood centered at Shiloh had collapsed and the Ark and Tabernacle were no longer together. David also built several altars during this time, including an altar on the threshing floor of Araunah (2 Samuel 24) where Solomon would later build the Temple.
Finally, Solomon offered sacrifices at the high place of Gibeon. In Solomon’s case the text seems to excuse the practice by stating, “[T]here was no house built for the name of the Lord.” (1 Kings 3) This seems to suggest that it was a transitional time.
Not a Hard and Fast Rule
Though God had told them to “seek the place the Lord your God will choose from among all your tribes to put his Name there for his dwelling,” it didn’t seem to be a hard and fast rule after they entered the Promised Land the Temple was built.
Perhaps, this is because the issue wasn’t locational, but a matter of the heart. With “high places” for pagan worship scattered throughout the land, it was too tempting for God’s people to mix worship of Yahweh with pagan practices or outright idolatry.
After the Temple was built in Jerusalem, continuing to worship at local high places was usually viewed as disobedience to God’s command. That is why the books of Kings repeatedly evaluate rulers with statements like: “Nevertheless, the high places were not removed.” Even kings who were otherwise faithful often failed this test. Once the Temple was dedicated, the transitional period ended. From then on, the high places became symbols of covenant unfaithfulness.
The clearest passage on this theme is Deuteronomy 12, which does not merely forbid worshiping other gods on the high places—it forbids Israel from worshiping the LORD wherever they choose. They were to worship only at the place God chooses.
Notice the contrast:
First, Israel is commanded to destroy the Canaanite places of worship: “You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations… served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree.” (Deut. 12:2)
Then comes the key command: “You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way.” (Deut. 12:4)
We are to approach God on His terms: “But you shall seek the place that the LORD your God will choose… there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices…” (Deut. 12:5–14)
This theme is repeated. Deuteronomy 16:21–22 forbids setting up sacred poles or standing stones alongside the LORD’s altar, practices commonly associated with high places. Deuteronomy 17:3–9 requires sacrifices to be brought to the tabernacle rather than offered wherever people wish. Deuteronomy 17:9–11 condemns Israel because they “built for themselves high places… and there they burned incense on all the high places.”
The point is not merely, “Don’t worship idols.” It is, “Don’t worship the LORD according to the pattern of the nations or at places you choose yourself.” In other words: the people can only worship and honor God properly on God’s terms – not on their own terms. God is God, and we are not.
The Spirit of the Law
This is the interesting part. Before the temple was built, there were periods when Israel lacked a single permanent sanctuary. During the days of Samuel and even early in the reign of Solomon, sacrifices at places like Gibeon were tolerated because that was where the tabernacle and bronze altar were located (1 Kings 3:2–4). The author of Kings even explains:, “The people were sacrificing at the high places because no house had yet been built for the name of the LORD.”
Once the Temple in Jerusalem was established as the place God had chosen, however, continuing to worship at local high places became an act of disobedience. That is why the historian repeatedly criticizes otherwise good kings by saying, “The high places were not removed.”
Deuteronomy is teaching that true worship is defined not by human sincerity or convenience, but by God’s initiative. The temptation of the high places was to approach God on one’s own terms—at a place of one’s own choosing, often borrowing from the belief systems and practices of the surrounding culture.
The prophets continually call Israel back to worship that is shaped by God’s word rather than by human preference. This theme reaches its fulfillment in the New Testament, where worship is no longer centered on a geographic sanctuary but on Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, who becomes the true meeting “place” between God and humanity (see John 2:19–21 and 4:21–24).
The story about Naaman, the Aramean general, always seemed odd to me. It didn’t really attract my attention other than to pique my curiosity a bit, until I focused on Luke 4, describing how Jesus announced his public ministry in his hometown synagogue.
Because Jesus referenced the healing of Naaman in the context of announcing his own purpose, the story takes on new significance. The story is not just an oddity. It should command our attention for the purpose for which Jesus referenced it – related to his earthly ministry. (Luke 4:16-30)
I have written about Jesus mentioning the healing of the pagan general in Luke 4 many times since 2020 when I first became intrigued with it. The mere mention of the healing in connection with the ministry of Jesus is intriguing. The intrigue is bolstered by the reaction of his hometown synagogue – they tried to march him out to a cliff and throw him to his death! (vv.28-30)
Until recently, I had spent much time reading the story itself. The fact that Naaman was an Aramean (Syrian) general, that Jesus made a peculiar point of saying Elisha could have gone to any one in Israel with leprosy and healed them, but he healed the foreign general, seemed to stand on its own. In New Testament theology, we would say that Jesus was tipping God’s hand about salvation for the Gentiles.
We might simply check the theological box and move on, but I think there is a deeper message here.
If we put ourselves in the shoes of those first-century Jews hearing the story, it takes on new significance. They and their ancestors had been God’s people for roughly 2000 years since Abraham and 1500 years since Moses. Their outrage at the suggestion of Jesus that he might bypass God’s people and go to the Gentiles is understandable.
Scripture is rich and the story itself is worth examining in more detail. It appears in 2 Kings 5. The details of the story add more nuance in the context of Luke 4 that has application for us today. It deepens and expands the significance of Jesus mentioning it in his home town synagogue when he announced his public ministry.
The contrast between the ministries of Elijah and Elisha provides insight that carries into the coming of the Messiah, the ministry of Jesus, and the New Covenant. The contrast between Elijah and Elisha is a contrast between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. It is a contrast between an emphasis on the judgment of God and an emphasis on the grace of God and salvation.
In my ignorance, Elijah previously stood out more to me than Elisha, even though Elisha famously asked for and received a double portion of the spirit Elijah had. The spirit of Elijah passes to Elisha as seen in the miracles each of them performs. Scholars often highlight the fourteen miracles performed by Elisha versus the seven miracles performed by Elijah as an example of the double portion, but the differences between Elijah and Elisha go much deeper than that.
The character of the miracles is different. This is something I might not have noticed but for a focus on the details in the story of Elijah over the last few years. Those details led me to see some lessons from the story of Elijah that do not stand out at first blush.
Elijah was an oppositional prophet. He was the antagonist to Ahab and Jezebel. He challenged the prophets of Baal and smoked them in a fiery display of God’s power over the impotent idol (Baal) that Ahab and Jezebel worshipped.
Elijah had all the prophets of Baal slaughtered, but Jezebel was not impressed. She called for Elijah’s head, and he fled in fear. He sulked in self-absorbed pity. He complained to God that he was the only one who was faithful, and he seemed to come close to finding fault even with God for the anti-climactic outcome.
When God tried to show Elijah that God was not in great displays of power like wind, fire, and earthquake, Elijah seemed incapable or unwilling to acknowledge what God was saying. Twice God asked why Elijah ran away to Mount Sinai. Twice Elijah gave God the exact same answer.
Elijah protested to God that he had been zealous, and he insisted that he, alone, was faithful to God in all of Israel…. But clearly, he was not alone. Multiple times the text tells us that Obadiah was faithful; he saved 100 prophets from Jezebel’s decree of capital punishment; and God found 7000 people left who had not bowed to Baal.
Elijah seemed not just disappointed, but upset (with God?) that judgment had not rained down on Ahab and Jezebel and all of Israel. It wasn’t that judgment didn’t loom over their heads; it was that God controls the timing – not Elijah.
God told Elijah to go back and anoint Hazael king of Aram and Jehu king of Israel and to pass his mantle to Elisha. Elijah passed the mantle to Elisha but he never followed through with the other instructions God gave him.
Elijah continued in ministry even after he passed his mantle to Elisha, but he seems to take a back seat to other prophets, and he did not change his attitude. God told him to meet the messengers of the King of Israel to deliver a message. After they delivered the message to the king, the king sent them back to summon Elijah, but he smoked them by calling down fire. The king sent another envoy of messengers, and Elijah smoked them with fire also – killing 50 people at a time.
Though God told Elijah to confront the king’s messengers with his own message, the text is conspicuously silent about Elijah calling down fire on the envoys who came to summon him. The King sent a third group of messengers to summon Elijah, and this time God told him to go with them.
Now that I have spent some time meditating on the stories of the two prophets, Elijah stands out for his brashness, but Elisha stands out as the prophet who is more true to who God is. He is the one whose ministry is more characteristic of God, and his ministry stands out in the way way it bridges the narrative arc of Scripture between Old Covenant and New Covenant, from a focus on Abraham’s descendants to all the nations, from the Law of Moses to the Law of grace, love and Christ.
Elisha signals the change from the old covenant to the new covenant. Elisha points the the direction that the arc and sweep of Scripture will take us. Elisha is the link in this point in the narrative to God’s ultimate plans and purposes in the world.
