Pray Boldly | SL 2.11 (Sept 2021)
In this newsletter
- Pray Boldly
- Work & Ministry Update
- Something Beautiful: Songs for Standing Strong
- The King and the Beast: Understanding Daniel 4
- Pray With Us
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“The Agony in the Garden” by William Blake (c. 1799-1800). Tempera on iron. Image from Tate Britain.
Pray Boldly
I truly hope this email finds you all well. I took August off, as has become my custom. In some ways the beginning of fall should mark the start of a more “normal” year—but nothing feels normal. This meme pretty much captures the mood.
At church about two weeks ago, we prayed through Psalm 44 corporately in solidarity with the believers in Afghanistan. It’s a bracing experience to pray this Psalm. The sentiments are raw, the theology unsettling, and the requests are bold. But there is strength like bedrock here. How could we pray warm and fuzzy things in the light of the terror, death, and despair that many are facing?
4 You are my King, O God;
ordain salvation for Jacob!
5 Through you we push down our foes;
through your name we tread down those who rise up against us.
6 For not in my bow do I trust,
nor can my sword save me.
7 But you have saved us from our foes
and have put to shame those who hate us.
8 In God we have boasted continually,
and we will give thanks to your name forever.9 But you have rejected us and disgraced us
and have not gone out with our armies.
10 You have made us turn back from the foe,
and those who hate us have gotten spoil.
11 You have made us like sheep for slaughter
and have scattered us among the nations.
12 You have sold your people for a trifle,
demanding no high price for them.
13 You have made us the taunt of our neighbors,
the derision and scorn of those around us.22 Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.
No doubt from God’s perspective everything makes sense and the love and justice of all of it is impeccable. True as that may be, it is a theological platitude. From our perspective things seem upside down, confused, and dark. This is why we pray, according to God’s words and character and not just according to what seems right to us. The psalmists are always asking God to remember his own covenant love and justice. The psalmists are always praying that God would save the righteous, protect the weak, and destroy the wicked. They pray for God to show up when it seems like the wicked are winning the day. In short, they are praying for God to be God in the world amidst all this sin and evil.
23 Awake! Why are you sleeping, O Lord?
Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever!
24 Why do you hide your face?
Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?
25 For our soul is bowed down to the dust;
our belly clings to the ground.
26 Rise up; come to our help!
Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love!
As Christians we confess that we see God’s salvation afoot most clearly in Christ and that he desires all people to be saved… but how that might work out is in his hands. Therefore, we trust not in what we can see but in who we know Him to be. As Paul writes in Romans 8:
31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The presence of these Psalms authorizes us to pray them in chorus with Christ. Our prayers are likewise with all of you as COVID continues to rage in the US. Be wise as serpents and gentle as doves. Trust God, we love you all.
“David Delivered Out of Many Waters” (Psalm 18) by William Blake (c. 1805). Ink and watercolour on paper. Image from Tate Britain.
You are Training Pastors to be Faithful to Scripture & Strengthening the Global Church
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I’ve started planning, ordering textbooks, and looking at tickets for the course on the Exegesis of Proverbs that I’ll be teaching in November 3–10 for MDiv students at GraceLife Seminary in Monrovia, Liberia with Training Leaders Int’l. Please continue to pray for smooth logistics and open airways so this teaching can come off.
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Departing straight from Liberia, I’ll fly to Colorado to teach a week-long course on the Pentateuch for the students at William Tennent School of Theology from November 15–19. Same prayers as above.
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My good friend, Jacques Boulet, has been steadily translating articles from this newsletter into French for the Gospel Coalition’s Quebecois site. So far Jacques’s got five articles up. I love that material I’ve written here can potentially benefit Christians in a totally different context.
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Doing more writing and presenting of academic papers related to the dissertation this Fall. Presented a paper on Daniel 4 and Proverbs 30 for the European Association of Biblical Studies on August 3. It was well received, always encouraging. I’m also scheduled to present a paper on Isaiah 13–14 and Proverbs 30 in San Antonio in November.
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Over the next six weeks, I’m writing the fifth and final main chapter of my dissertation. This is where I’ll offer my own interpretation of Proverbs 30, having already dealt with the text and translation, history of interpretation, and a slew of background/literary/hermeneutical issues, etc… The land is cleared, the foundation is laid, its time to frame the house.
Thank you. Your prayers and support empower everything we do.
“Elohim Creating Adam” by William Blake (c. 1795–1805). Colour print, ink and watercolour on paper. Image from Tate Britain.
Yo-Yo Ma: Songs for Standing Strong
Here’s some music I’m finding encouraging at the moment.
Have you been tracking the Dave Ghrol and Nandi Bushell drum battles during the pandemic? It’s pretty cute and more than a little impressive. On August 26th, the Foo Fighters made Nandi’s dreams come true by inviting her onstage to close their set by playing “Everlong.” She crushes it. It’s phenomenal.
I often return to this video of The Band playing “The Weight” with The Staple Singers from the film The Last Waltz (1978). It’s just too good.
What might be even better is that at 70+ years old Mavis Staples is still performing this song and making it fresh:
Daniel Lanois, arguably the greatest producer of his generation, is a phenomenal recording artist in his own right. Now, in his late 60s, he may have made the best video game soundtrack ever. The Red Dead Redemption II soundtrack is truly a phenomenal album in its own right. Here’s Lanois and company performing a mashup from the album at the Game Awards. It’s a killer performance—the climax is majestic.
Recently, though, I’ve been listening to two new albums. Yasmin Williams has released the best new virtuoso finger-style guitar album I can remember. This is really bright, uplifting stuff.
Finally, my old favorites, The Wallflowers, have released their first new album in a decade. At this point The Wallflowers are clearly just Jacob Dylan’s working name. The beauty of this album is its simplicity and lack of pretense. The sound is classic LA roots rock and Jacob is just doing what he loves and what he’s good at. Really solid and refreshing.
“Nebuchadnezzar” by William Blake (c. 1795–1805). Colour print, ink and watercolour on paper. Image from Tate Britain.
The King & the Beast: Understanding Daniel 4
This study of Daniel 4 is derived from something I wrote for my dissertation. I’m working it up into an article for The Gospel Coalition’s “Read the Bible” campaign. I really appreciated the feedback I got last time on my Proverbs 30 piece—again, send me any comments, notes, or questions you might have. It’s a true help.
Daniel 4 stands out in the Old Testament for at least two reasons. It is the only text that is narrated in the first person by a pagan king, in this case Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. It is also the only text where a human being appears to be turned into an animal as in the classical trope of metamorphosis (think of the Pleasure Island scene in Pinocchio where the boys transform into jackasses, or the many tales from Roman poet Ovid where the gods morph humans into creatures that represent their fatal flaws). Here’s how the text narrates Nebuchadnezzar’s fate:
Dan 4:33
… the word was fulfilled against Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from among men and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles’ feathers, and his nails were like birds’ claws.
Is this the stuff of fairy tales? It is hard to read this and not picture something like The Beast from the now classic Disney film. In the past, scholars looking for a plausible historical background even suggested a diagnosis of clinical lycanthropy as an explanation. What happened to Nebuchadnezzar and what does it mean?
If we attend closely to the details of the text, we’ll see that this is neither a fairy tale nor a description of psychosis, but a theological account of how God humbled the most powerful man in the world.
Nebuchadnezzar and the Animal Mind
Daniel 4 opens with Nebuchadnezzar at his leisure in his palace when he receives a symbolic dream. In the dream, the king appears as a giant tree which reaches to heaven and provides food and shelter to all the birds of the sky and beasts of the field. But then a decree comes down from heaven that the tree must be cut down (Dan 4:13–17). In the ancient Near East, the king was often represented as a cosmic tree connected to the gods and flanked by or dominating beasts (e.g., Ezek 17:23–24 & 31:4–7, 9). The animals in the dream are the subjects that the king is provisioning and protecting. From one perspective, then, the image of the tree is a strong, benevolent image of proper kingship. But this tree has a hubris problem—in its power, grandeur, and leisure it has forgotten God (Dan 4:30). “Chopping down the tree” is a symbolic description of the King’s punishment which is described in plain language in v. 16: “Let his mind be changed from a man’s, and let a beast’s mind be given to him.” Since the problem is in Nebuchadnezzar’s mind, he needs a new one.
In the realization of Nebuchadnezzar’s punishment, his body is like a canvas on which this profound change is illustrated. He lives exposed and subsists on vegetation like an ox, and his body goes unkempt until his appearance becomes avian. No consistent comparison, however, is developed to an ox or a raptor or any other kind of animal, rather Nebuchadnezzar becomes animalistic. His outward appearance is affected, but only in ways that any person’s would be if they had an animal mind and lived for years out of doors like a beast. The external change that we see reflects the quality of the internal change that we can’t.
Since the great tree is a symbol for the king, this punishment represents a move down the hierarchy of the created order from universal provider and protector to become one of those that is in need of provision and protection, a lowly beast (Ps 8:5–7). The two aspects of Nebuchadnezzar’s animal life that are highlighted in v. 33 are precisely those that the dream credited the tree with providing in v. 12. Just as the birds and beasts found shade and sustenance under the great tree, Nebuchadnezzar himself becomes like bird and beast, eating the portion of an animal with his body exposed.
But the text doesn’t dwell here; it transitions quickly from the description of Nebuchadnezzar’s animal sojourn to his restoration in v. 34. Three things happen almost simultaneously: Nebuchadnezzar “lifts his eyes to heaven,” his reason returns, and he “blesses the Most High.” Scripture associates the gesture of lifting the eyes with acknowledging God in moments of profound revelation (Gen 22:13; Josh 5:13; Isa 40:26; 51:6; Pss 121:1; 123:1). Significantly, it is a wordless gesture—a form of humility that an animal could accomplish. Although animals rank below humanity in the created order, their instinctual knowledge of God is often described as truer than humanity’s sin-darkened thoughts (Isa 1:2–3; Jer 8:7; Job 12:7–12). Nebuchadnezzar’s experience of living as a beast changes his perspective toward the divine. Indeed, this was God’s plan for his transformation all along (4:17; 25b).
Humbling the King
Nebuchadnezzar wasn’t transformed into an animal nor was he clinically insane. His sojourn as a beast is not a fairy tale, but the fairy tales are tapping into an aspect of the truth that we find in Scripture. In the classic story, the arrogant prince is transformed into The Beast until he learns to love selflessly. His external appearance is made to match his character until his character changes. Nebuchadnezzar likewise endured a supernatural punishment for a theological purpose. His mind was made like the mind of an animal so that he would learn to humble himself before God.
Nebuchadnezzar’s narrative suggests that we ought to search our hearts for hubris lest we become like a beast (See Dan 4:30, what things are you likely to boast about?). But at a more profound level it reveals the character of God who restores us to our right mind when we become beastly by humbling the proud (Dan 4:37).
Ironically, in order for Nebuchadnezzar to gain a proper perspective on himself in light of God, he had to descend to live among the beasts. This new perspective is forced on Nebuchadnezzar as a punishment—because he won’t humble himself, he is forcibly humbled. Because his mind bends toward hubris, it is taken away from him. But there is a grace here. The animal mind that God gives him changes his perspective and he is restored to a right relationship with God (Dan 4:34–35).
In stark contrast to Nebuchadnezzar’s arrogance, God humbles us through humility. The LORD himself is the great King, the God above all Gods. But Paul tells us that Christ Jesus, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Phil 2:6–7). This move from very God to humble human is not unlike Nebuchadnezzar’s descent from great king to lowly beast. But in contrast to the King of Babylon, King Jesus willingly descends the created order to become like those that he cares for. Jesus Christ took on a human mind to redeem man. God does not command what he has not accomplished.
When we see the character of God shining in his humility, it humbles us and leads us to praise. Jesus’s humility is a prelude to his ultimate and total exaltation (Phil 2:9–11). Nebuchadnezzar’s humility is likewise the prelude to praising Christ:
Dan 4:37
Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, for all his works are right and his ways are just; and those who walk in pride he is able to humble.
As Paul urges, “Have this mind among yourselves” (Phil 2:5).
LORD, we praise you because you humbled yourself to save us when we were proud. Teach us to have the mind of Christ. When we are proud, humble us and lead us back to praise for the sake of your glory.
“Christ Appearing to the Apostles after the Resurrection” by William Blake (c. 1795). Print, ink, watercolour and varnish on paper. Image from Tate Britain.
Pray With Us
- Pray the Psalms for the sake of the world.
- Pray for my upcoming teaching and travel, that it would come off despite everything and be a real boon and blessing to the students both in Liberia and in the US.
- Pray for me as I continue to work on my dissertation. My prayer is to finish a draft of chapter 5 before I travel.
- Pray for Meghan and our little girls. Meghan is exhausted with caring for Janie (who doesn’t sleep that well) and keeping up with the other girls all day.
