Holy Hormones Bible Study: Teaching — If your book isn’t a buzz, it’s not the Bible.
ILLEGITIMATE SKELETONS IN MESSIAH’S FAMILY CLOSET
Interpreting outrageous narratives in the Bible.
Brace yourself! It is the detail which makes me a boring person that brings the Bible alive for me.
One of those outrageous narratives is the tacky incident of Judah and his daughter-in-law, Tamar, covered in Genesis 38. In it the Patriarch, the blood line from which the Messiah will be born, makes a commercial transaction with a woman of negotiable virtue who happens to be his daughter-in-law. The result is twin boys, Perez and Zerah. Not only does the Holy Spirit declare her to be righteous through the mouth of Judah but both the ‘guilty parties’ appear in the Genealogy of Christ, and Tamar is the first of only five women in the list.
How does one deal with uncomfortable texts like this? Just recently, comments on this incident were used by a rabid non-believer when assessing the uselessness of Christianity.
It is written in 1 Corinthians 2:14–16 that the natural mind does not receive the Things of God, so a far more important opinion to keep in mind is God’s. It is written in Isaiah 55:8–9:-
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.
Correct perspective
We all carry our own baggage of understanding to the table. A humorous, but profound, statement in leadership training, the Rufus E. Miles Law, is, “Where you stand depends on where you sit.” We all make decisions on the information we have. Proverbs 18:13 warns against shame when answering a matter without having all the information, and Apostle Paul speaks about the “whole council of God,” in Acts 20:27.
Being aware that Hebrews see Prophecy in the patterns of events happening progressively throughout the Bible, and being aware of what God said, should provide a realistic perspective for assessing the Judah/Tamar incident.
What God said
Perez was obviously illegitimate. In a ‘job lot’ of Instructions (misnomer, ‘laws’ ) the Lord says, in Deuteronomy 23:2, “One of illegitimate birth shall not enter the assembly of the Lord; even to the tenth generation none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the Lord.” Examining the Genealogy in Matthew 1 shows that David is the tenth generation (with his brothers) after Judah. The nine generations before him were second-rate Israelites. Even though there were war heroes and pillars of society included in them, they were religious outcasts. David and his brothers was the first generation after Judah allowed to enter the Assembly.
It is well known that God regarded David as being a man after His own heart. So much so, that David is a model for Christ in the coming Millennium. The Lord will sit on the THRONE OF DAVID, which is different to the Throne of Israel. One Name for the Messiah in Judaism is The Son of David. Jesus was called Son of David several times.
Jesus publicly called illegitimate
John Chapter 8 is a chapter full of savage conflict between the Religious Elite and Jesus. It finishes with them trying to stone Him. During that fight they publicly declare Him to be illegitimate in John 8:41.
[Side Note: The Messianic Psalm 69 gives a brief glimpse into the formative years of the Lord.]
The Gospel in the Tanakh
Probing the illegitimate link it is possible to decipher the Church Age (between 1st and 2nd comings of Christ) in those outcast generations by holding the OT and NT in parallel for comparison.
(I retain the use of the word, “Bastard,” because it is not a naughty word but a valid technical term which has only relatively recently been chosen by Genteel Society as etiquette to separate them from common folk. Not PLU, “People Like Us.)
One would hope that you can see the message. When Jesus says, “The volume of the Book is written of me,” He speaks Truth.
But there is more
There is a website which gives the meaning of the names in Luke’s Genealogy from Adam to Jesus. (www.bible-codes.org/Names-Bible-Prophecy-Code.htm) The late American Bible teacher, Chuck Missler, often presented a short story he had been shown made up of the first ten names, shown here.
Bringing it all together, “Man (is) appointed mortal sorrow; (but) the Blessed God shall come down teaching (that) His death shall bring (the) despairing rest,” results in a précis of the Gospel in the Hebrew Torah.
But there’s even more
Being shown the depth of the Wisdom of God is not a gift given only to the glitterati. It can happen to you or me.
The narrative contained within the time of Jesus’s banishment from the assembly.
Bringing it all together, “One who praises Yehovah — breaks open a way — (into) an area surrounded by a wall — of great height. O’ my people of the Prince, — a prophet — clothed — with strength, — who serves (the Lord), — is here — Out of love!” If I can do it, so can anyone.
You can do this
If you will yourself to catch the Fire, you can go on an adventure with the Holy Spirit Himself. The best Bible study hint I ever had was from Veritas College International, “Finish your own study before you consult the Commentaries.” It does you not much good if you keep on regurgitating another’s without gleaning yourself. When you consult a “Commentator you trust,” on what evidence do you base that trust? God has promised, “To those who have, I will give more. To those who have not, I will take away.” This applies to knowledge of Himself. He will give some Revelation. Depending on what you do with that, determines whether He will give you more.
So now you have this information . . . ?
This short post is not intended to explain the episode of Judah and Tamar, but to show that there is more to the Written Word of the Living Word of God than, initially, meets the eye. Perhaps you will be inspired to dig deeper and, perhaps, learn that God has a Redemption Plan that is different to what you think.
The forgoing evidence has not been presented to convince any reader but to allow a personal decision to be made. There is much more to know about this subject. Perhaps you’ll pay another visit, sometime.
All Glory to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
