Go and do likewise

Old Testament Ethics for the People of God does a lot of things in its desire that we learn from all the Old Testament, not only the obviously applicable bits. While each take is solid and stimulating, it's not clear to me that each section's conclusions inform his working in the next, or even exactly how this might be possible. Still, it's a fine book.

One thing Wright advocates is the concept of 'paradigm' rather than 'principle'. He does acknowledge that “To use a paradigm you do have to look for and articulate the principles the paradigm embodies and then see how they can be reconcretized in some other context”.1 However, the problem with the 'principle' approach as Wright sees it is that “it can lead to the eventual discarding of the specific realities of the Old Testament text, the concrete, earthy history of Israel, the good, the bad and the ugly. Once you have a principle in your pocket, why keep the wrapping?”2 In contrast, when you're thinking 'paradigm', the original story matters – for it is the very example that you are seeking to reapply. And that is what the Bible is – not a handbook of rules and principles, but a collection of stories and literary genres. And making sure that we never divorce ourselves from all this particularity also prevents us from smoothing over all the “hard edges, all the jarring tensions and all the awkward corners of earthy reality”.3

Wright provides a few examples of people in the Bible using Scripture in a paradigmatic way4 – God graciousness to Israel in slavery as a call to be merciful to slaves (eg Dt 15:14-15), Nathan's parable about the sheep stealer to expose King David's wife-stealing sin (2 Sam 12:1-10), the parable of the Good Samaritan as a call to love any and all people as 'neighbour' (Lk 10:30-39), the fair provision of manna in the desert as a call to share (2 Cor 8:13-15), the provision for the working ox as a call to provide for ministers of the Gospel (1 Cor 9:8-12) - and, finally, Christians are called to imitate Christ, not in the details of his life, but in things such as love, humility, and suffering (Eph 5:2; Phil 2:5; 1 Pet 2:21).

Now this idea of paradigm could make some think that telling a story is all that is needed, that there is something coldly analytical and bludgeonly didactic about spelling out principles. But I would like to point out that, in all but one of the examples above, the teachers (Moses, Nathan, Jesus, Paul, Peter) tell the paradigmatic story and then spell out the principle. For example, “Give to him [the slave] as the Lord has blessed you. Remember you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you”, “Live a life of love just as Christ loved us and gave himself for us”, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus who . . . humbled himself . . .”, “If you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps”, “Our desire is . . . that there might be equality . . . . as it is written: 'He who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little'”, “For it is written in the Law of Moses: 'Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.' Is it about oxen that God is concerned? Surely he says this for us, doesn't he? . . . . If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you?” And while Nathan's parable doesn't explicitly spell out the principle, it goes to such great lengths to identify David as "the man" in the parable and to show that what he has done mirrors the parable's story, that he pretty much did. The only exception to this pattern is the parable of the Good Samaritan. Jesus concludes simply by saying “Go and do likewise”. So it is clearly okay to sometimes leave the principle implicit, perhaps when it is especially obvious - and yet this is not the usual pattern.

Tell Bible stories. Say what they mean for us. Tell people to go do that.

1 C J H Wright, Old Testament Ethics for the People of God (Nottingham: Inter-Varsity Press, 2004), 70.

2 Ibid, 70.

3 Ibid, 71.

4 Ibid, 71-73.