Welcome back to the Fourth Wave Podcast. This episode was originally intended to be a part of our next episode. But after thinking about it for a bit, I thought it would actually be more useful to separate the episodes. Our previous episodes have looked at government as seen through each specific portion of the Bible. The next episode is going to take all of that and try to synthesize the narrative.

But before we look at the whole of the Bible, I thought it would be important to understand one of the issues which so frequently prevents us from seeing the truths in the Bible more clearly, and oftentimes misinterpreting things. Now that problem as I see it is that we have a savior complex when it comes to the Bible, or a hero complex might be a better way to put it. And what I mean by that is that while we often do recognize the uniqueness of the Bible and its willingness to identify the flaws in various characters, we usually believe that those flaws preceded salvation and had no part in the salvation process itself or post salvation. Now I know that probably sounds a bit confusing, so let me make that clear through a number of examples. So other than Samson, Gideon might be the most recognizable judge in the Bible.

In the minds of most, and in my mind until only a few years ago, Gideon's story was the typical turnaround story. He was a fearful and weak guy. He tested God over and over in his unbelief, but then he finally submitted to God and had enough faith to take 300 warriors against an army of a 100,000 and all without weapons in hand. Go Gideon, right? What a hero.

Brave, masculine man. However, when you read the rest of the story, which few of us ever really do, you see that Gideon ended his life in idolatry, erecting the same false gods of his father which we see him tear down at the beginning of the story. Now don't hear me wrong, I'm not discounting Gideon's faith that he had in the middle of his story. I'm simply pointing out that his story wasn't an upward trajectory towards goodness. It was rather an arc between two evils with a brilliant pinnacle of faith in the middle.

We can't read everything that Gideon did after his initial transformation as good, yet that's what we often do. We consider Gideon a good example despite the fact that he regressed. Let's look at another example, King David. Now, David actually received God's approval right off the bat, and he was declared a man after God's own heart. For most, means that David's kingship must be pretty amazing.

Of course, we do know that, you know, the whole Bathsheba thing happened, is a little bit hard to brush under the rug. But other than the adultery and the murder, David remained a man after God's own heart. Right? I hear it all the time. Now, please don't forget here, as almost everyone does, that when we do brush the the adultery and murder thing under the rug, that we we also forget and and I think maybe somewhat purposefully or irresponsibly try to make David look a little bit better, but we we don't mention that he didn't just murder Uriah, which is what everybody always thinks, but he sacrificed a whole unit, whole group of guys that he sent with Uriah and murdered them all to ensure that Uriah himself, the husband of Bathsheba died.

Yet David in our minds remains a man after God's own heart. I mean, didn't God call him that? And we invoke that terrible expression all the time in regard to David despite its invocation occurring prior to David's kingship and any of that gross stuff that we see. Then we take David's rule and we boil all the evil down that he did into one egregious but relatively trivial sin when you compare it to the other things that David did. I mean, David took many wives which the law clearly told kings not to do.

It wasn't just Bathsheba. And one of those wives was Abigail, the former wife of a man that David wanted to kill, and he praised God when the man did die because Nabal was rude to David one time. But polygamy and near murder and hatred and a murderous heart aren't big deals, right? What about the time David numbered his army, of which can be seen as another direct violation of the law for kings given in Deuteronomy? That seems like the least evil of all the things David did.

I mean, that's not that big of a deal to count your army. Yet for that sin, 70,000 people died in judgment. And that makes the murder of Uriah and his unit pale in comparison. Now, let's not forget David's dysfunctional family. Now, I'm not picking on David here for screwing up as a father.

All parents mess up and mess up pretty good, myself included. But David knew that one of his sons, Amnon, raped one of his daughters, Tamar, and he didn't do anything about it. Now, don't know if that was because Amnon was his first born son or if he wanted to just cover it up. I I don't know his motivations. But he allowed his daughter to be raped without consequence.

Because of David's seeming indifference, Absalom, Tamar's brother and David's son, rebelled against his father. And in the insurrection, many died and Israel was thrown into turmoil. But you know what? It's all making sense to me now. Now, I understand why a lot of us evangelicals think that David was a man after God's own heart at this point.

It explains how the leadership in our churches which are silent about sexual abuse and the abuse of women can keep on in their silence. They're men after God's own heart too, in the same vein as David. Being a man after God's own heart means being masculine, wielding, controlling, and maintaining power. And nobody was better at that than David. Yes, David got his throne back and David killed his 10 thousands.

Magnificent David. He killed people not only from other nations but also from his own, and his actions led to the death of his own sons. He was not a man after God's own heart. For all the blood on his hands, God forbid David to build a temple. Now it seems like someone who had and maintained God's heart would have had God's emphatic approval for such a project.

I mean, wouldn't the very one God want to build a temple by the hands of a man who had his own heart? No. David, for all the good that he did and for the beauty of his repentant heart, which is truly beautiful, he was characterized by great, evil, wicked acts. Finally, wanna bring in the New Testament example here. And I don't think anybody fits this bill probably better than Peter.

Now, Peter was a man who vacillated between sanctification and failure. I suppose this would be a a good point for me to pause and say that my intention here isn't to demonize any of these individuals that we're discussing. You know, they portray the story of humanity, the ebbing and flowing of sin and imperfection in the lives of fallen humanity. You know, I may not be responsible for the deaths of 70,000 people like David was, but my life like his is marked with the waxing and waning of evil and good in my life. So please don't hear me saying through all of this that their stories are not my story because they are.

I only hope to show that our common impression of the Bible as a book semi flawed heroes who kind of get redeemed and then are all better isn't the one that the Bible intends to depict. So anyway, caveat aside there. Let's go back to Peter. Peter was the first one to declare that Jesus was the Messiah. But then, just moments later, Jesus called him Satan because he didn't want Peter didn't want Jesus to suffer.

Peter walked on water, but then he lost sight of Jesus and fell in. Peter said he'd stand by Jesus, but then he resorted to violence and denied Him. We all know that. Peter had his flaws, but they were pre resurrection flaws, right? But then God took that silly fool and He transformed him into a man who would die upside down on a cross.

And while the final chapter of of Peter's life is beautiful, don't get me wrong, there was more wretchedness in between. Paul declares that he had to go to confront Peter to his face about Peter's showing a favoritism to the Jews and his exclusion of the Gentiles whom Jesus loved. Jesus didn't take a flawed Peter and turn him into a post resurrection saint. Some of Peter's post resurrection actions as recorded in the Bible were still very sinful and very messed up. So what's my point here?

The point is that the Bible's telling of a story isn't a blanket affirmation of the events or characters depicted. Yet we often read Bible stories as if they work in a clear linear fashion. This is going to be an important concept to understand as you think about the Christian's relationship to government. It will be helpful for you not just to proof text the statist position in Romans 13, and it will help you as you listen to the next episode and seek to discern the overarching narrative of the Bible in relation to government. You're gonna need to understand this lens of what the Bible depicts and how it depicts it.

To give you eyes to see this kind of thing in relation to government, I want to close this episode by looking at the flawed story of Joseph. Now for me, and I think for most people, Joseph's story is one which fits the narrative that I've laid out in this episode, this hero narrative. Joseph was a spoiled brat when he was younger and he seemed arrogant as he revealed, reveled in the idea that his brothers will worship him one day. Then his brothers sell him into slavery and Joseph enters a life of hardship. In that time, Joseph is honorable in his resisting of sexual advances and is trusting in God through his imprisonment.

God blesses Joseph for his faithfulness and makes him the second most powerful ruler in Egypt. Joseph saves Egypt and the surrounding nations including his own family. And most beautifully of all, Joseph chooses forgiveness when he has the power to destroy. Now all of those good things in the Joseph story truly are good, and I'm not at all with taking away the righteousness that Joseph displayed. His wisdom and love and the forgiveness of his brothers is unmatched in beauty.

It truly is amazing, and I don't know that I could do the same. But notice that once Joseph seems to have a turnaround and and start thinking of others like, you know, not taking advantage of his position in Potiphar's house, from that point on, Joseph does no wrong in our eyes. The story's a 180 degree turnaround and our discernment dissipates. But with a lens for discerning evil amidst good and evil amidst our heroes and heroines, And with the narrative of government being antithetical to God, which we've laid out so far and which I'm gonna do again as an overview next episode, I wanna kinda show you what this lens can help us to to see that we wouldn't otherwise see. I want to highlight a section from the end of Genesis 41 and then a good portion of Genesis 47.

So let me just read those here. When the famine had spread over the whole country, Joseph opened all the storehouses and sold grain to the Egyptians for the famine was severe throughout Egypt. And all the world came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph because the famine was severe everywhere. There was no food, however, in the whole region because the famine was severe. Both Egypt and Canaan wasted away because of the famine.

Joseph collected all the money that was to be found in Egypt and Canaan in payment for the grain they were buying, and he brought it to Pharaoh's palace. When the money of the people of Egypt and Canaan was gone, all Egypt came to Joseph and said, give us food. Why should we die before your eyes? Our money is all gone. Then bring back your livestock, said Joseph.

I will sell you food in exchange for your livestock since your money is gone. So they brought their livestock to Joseph and he gave them food in exchange for their horses, their sheep, their goats, their cattle, and donkeys. And he brought them through that year with food in exchange for all their livestock. When that year was over, they came to him the following year and said, we cannot hide from our Lord the fact that since our money is gone and our livestock belongs to you, there's nothing left for our Lord except our bodies and our land. Why should we perish before your eyes?

We and our land as well. Buy us and our land in exchange for food, and we with our land will be in bondage to Pharaoh. Give us seeds so that we may live and not die, and that the land may not become desolate. So Joseph bought all the land in Egypt for Pharaoh. The Egyptians, one and all, sold their fields because the famine was too severe for them.

The land became Pharaoh's and Joseph reduced the people to servitude from one end of Egypt to the other. However, he did not buy the land of the priests because they received regular allotment from Pharaoh and had food enough from the allotment Pharaoh gave them. That is why they did not sell their land. Joseph said to the people, now that I have bought you and your land today for Pharaoh, here is seed for you so you can plant the ground. But when the crops come in, give a fifth of it to Pharaoh.

The other four fifths you may keep as seed for the fields and as food for yourselves and your households and your children. You have saved our lives, they said. May we find favor in the eyes of our Lord. We will be in bondage to Pharaoh. So Joseph established it as law concerning land in Egypt, still enforced today, that a fifth of the produce belongs to Pharaoh.

It was only the land of the priests that did not become Pharaohs. Now the Israelites settled in Egypt in the region of Goshen. They acquired property there and were fruitful and increased greatly in number. Alright, so let's think about that passage, and I would I would recommend that you go and read it again. Again, the end of chapter 41 and then a bunch of 47, I think starting from the middle.

So think about this. In the seven years prior to the famine, which which we didn't read about, but Joseph took one fifth, he took 20 of all the food in the land and stored it for the future. When the famine came, Joseph sold the food that he had taken from the people, he sold that food back to them, their own food. When their money was gone paying for their own food that Joseph had taken, he took their livestock. When their livestock was gone, he took their land.

And when their land was gone, he reduced them to servitude, to bondage. Slavery, can we call it that? Now, Joseph vastly expanded and strengthened the Egyptian empire, and he did it by what I would consider to be the exploitation of vulnerable people in a vulnerable situation. Now, sure, if it hadn't been for Joseph, they wouldn't have stored up food. In that sense, Joseph did indeed save lives.

But on the other end of the famine, the people came out not helped by their government, but without anything, and in perpetual taxation and bondage for buying back their own stuff. Now, I could be wrong, but I don't think that's a good thing. Joseph was the face of empire. In fact, he may be responsible for setting up Israel's bondage down the Road. He gave or at least advanced the power of the state of Egypt significantly, and he potentially created the animosity that we see in Exodus.

Think about the end of Genesis 47. The Egyptians had lost all their land and were in bondage, while Israel and the land of Goshen acquired property and greatly multiplied. They acquired property at the expense of the Egyptians. Now, it's not hard to imagine that somewhere down the line, a new pharaoh looked at the disparity and said, hey, why should my people be enslaved while the Hebrews prosper and multiply greatly? They're gonna be stronger than us soon.

Now, I of course don't know all the implications of of what Joseph did and if that indeed is what led to a future pharaoh enslaving the Israelites. I don't know. But you know, I don't think the point of the Bible story is to give us that historical account at all. However, I do think that this particular part of Joseph's story should be read with a very critical eye given all that we know about the flawed heroes of the Bible and the negative view that the Bible tends to have of government and empire. I mean, depicts Joseph, the one who was enslaved, enslaving people.

And he did that through government. And with the power that he gave government, that government became an empire that then enslaved Joseph's people. So whether or not you think that the implications of what Joseph did led to Israel's enslavement, surely you can see that Joseph's actions were exploitative. And even if you can't see that, surely you can see that in these Bible stories so often, we tend to read things in such a way through a very narrow lens without really evaluating all that's going on. So hopefully at least queued you in to include you into that that sort of narrative and that sort of lens, so that as you read individual texts like let's say Romans 13 or you go back to the story of Gideon or something again.

I I hope that you're able to kind of read things more critically and open your mind. In the next episode, this is gonna be very important to be able to do. So I hope this episode gives you a different lens through specific stories, and I hope you'll come back for the next episode. That's all for now. So peace, and because I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean it.

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