Faith and History: A Devotional

Gentle and wise, these meditations serve as a trusted guide through key scriptures and their legacies. This volume has brought together brilliant authors to dig deep into texts and pull out hidden gems and spiritual insights which will nourish our souls and minds. If you ever wanted your smartest friend to lead you in spiritual reflection, this is it.

—Kate Bowler, bestselling author of Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I’ve Loved

These brilliant meditations on Scripture testify to the power of historical reflection for supporting the vital work of calling Christian believers to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God. They instruct, chasten, unsettle, and console. Authored by some of today’s most thoughtful Christian historians, this collection masterfully displays the integration of keen and learned historical insight with genuine, warm-hearted devotion to Jesus.

—Jay Green, Professor of History, Covenant College

I truly enjoyed these daily devotional readings. Each of these impressively thoughtful historians reflects on an example from their studies that illustrates a biblical principle. This is a particularly fine volume for anyone who appreciates history or is considering why Christians should study history.

—George Marsden, author of The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship

Faith and History

A Devotional

Christopher Gehrz and Beth Allison Barr

editors

© 2020 by 1845 Books, an imprint of Baylor University Press

Waco, Texas 76798

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of Baylor University Press.

Unless otherwise stated, Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Cover and book design by Kasey McBeath

The prayer for Ruth 2 is copyright © 2002, Augsburg Fortress, Thematic Prayer for 23rd Sunday after Pentecost, Year B, from the Revised Common Lectionary. Used by permission.

The prayer for Joel 2:28-32 is copyright © 2002, Augsburg Fortress, Intercessory Prayer for Pentecost, Year C, from the Revised Common Lectionary. Used by permission.

The prayer for Amos 5:10-15 is copyright © 2018, Moody Publishers; John Perkins, One Blood: Parting Words to the Church on Race and Love. Used by permission.

The Joy of Humility has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: NEH CARES. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this book do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Barr, Beth Allison, editor. | Gehrz, Christopher, 1975- editor.

Title: Faith and history : a devotional / Beth Allison Barr and Christopher

Gehrz, editors.

Description: Waco : 1845 Books, 2020. | Summary: Christian historians offer reflections on various historical events and figures in light of passages from Scripture, encouraging lay engagement with the past through the lens of religious devotion –Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020020762 (print) | LCCN 2020020763 (ebook) | ISBN 9781481313469 (paperback) | ISBN 9781481313490 (pdf) | ISBN 9781481313476 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Devotional literature. | Church history--Miscellanea.

Classification: LCC BV4801 .F35 2020 (print) | LCC BV4801 (ebook) | DDC 242--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020020762

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020020763

The support of the Conference on Faith and History (CFH) board and members made this devotional possible.

We are so thankful.

Contents

Introduction — Christopher Gehrz and Beth Allison Barr

Old Testament

Genesis 1–2

Christopher Gehrz

Genesis 16

Amy L. Poppinga

Exodus 1:15-22

Lisa Weaver-Swartz

Exodus 28:31-43

Elesha Coffman

Leviticus 19:9-13

Janine Giordano Drake

Leviticus 19:33-34

Lisa Clark Diller

Joshua 4

Darin D. Lenz

Ruth 2

Brenda Thompson Schoolfield

1 Kings 3:1-12

Joel Carpenter

Nehemiah 6:1-15

Andrea L. Turpin

Psalm 90

Shirley A. Mullen

Psalm 90

Mark A. Noll

Psalm 120

Shivraj K. Mahendra

Psalm 137

Trisha Posey

Proverbs 31

Nadya Williams

Ecclesiastes 9:7-10

Jonathan Den Hartog

Isaiah 25:1-9

Mary R. S. Bracy

Jeremiah 1:4-10

Verónica A. Gutiérrez

Joel 2:28-32

Brenda Thompson Schoolfield

Amos 5:10-15

David McFarland

Amos 5:18-24

Karen J. Johnson

New Testament

Matthew 5:1-6

Jay R. Case

Matthew 5:7-12

Jared S. Burkholder

Matthew 5:13-16

Heath W. Carter

Matthew 14:22-33

Rick Ostrander

Matthew 15:21-28

Beth Allison Barr

Matthew 24:1-14

Margaret Bendroth

Mark 10:17-31

Jemar Tisby

Luke 1:68-79

Christopher Gehrz

Luke 2:1-20

Wendy Wong Schirmer

Luke 14:25-32

Kristin Kobes Du Mez

Luke 22:24-38

Daniel K. Williams

John 1:1-18

David R. Swartz

Acts 4

Timothy L. Wood

Acts 17:16-34

Sean A. Scott

Romans 8:26-39

Beth Allison Barr

1 Corinthians 1:18-31

Amy Collier Artman

1 Corinthians

Rick Kennedy

2 Corinthians 1:1-11

K. Scott Culpepper

2 Corinthians 12:1-10

Dyron B. Daughrity

Galatians 4:1-7

Rick Kennedy

Colossians 1:15-23

Timothy L. Wood

1 Thessalonians 5:12-24

John G. Turner

Hebrews 12:1-3

Grant Wacker

1 Peter 1:3-9

John Fea

1 Peter 2:1-10

Douglas A. Sweeney

Revelation

Jay R. Case

Further Resources

Contributors

Introduction

Christopher Gehrz and Beth Allison Barr

A fifteenth-century manuscript tells of a woman who cried out to God for help. Her name was Margery Kempe, and she had just been threatened with burning as a heretic. She was all alone and quaking dreadfully, as chapter 13 of her first book reads. So she did what we would do, what probably you would do, too: Then she prayed in her heart to our Lord, thinking to herself in this way: ‘I came to this place, Lord, for love of you. Blessed Lord help me and have mercy on me.’

Suddenly, two men appear out of nowhere. They stand beside her and escort her away from the angry crowds. They take her safely home.

We can imagine Margery breathing a sigh of relief, whispering a prayer of gratitude. God whispered back, assuring Margery that his merciful eyes are ever watching her. God heard Margery Kempe, a fifteenth-century woman. He heard her faithful prayer, he answered her, and her life was saved.

Knowing this story about Margery Kempe—a story of God’s faithfulness to a Christian woman over five hundred years ago—is one of the unexpected advantages of being a historian. Stories like Margery’s fill the past, overflowing into our research and touching our modern lives. Margery Kempe prayed as Christians have always prayed, because we believe God hears. Despite the centuries separating us from Margery’s medieval world, isn’t it comforting to know that the same God who heard Margery listens to us today?

As historians, we find the prayers and stories of faithful believers from the past encouraging, sobering, meaningful, and instructive. They remind us how shared our human experience is. In this book you’ll meet not just Margery Kempe but George Herbert, Frederick Douglass, Madeline Southard, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Billy Graham, Kathryn Kuhlman, and other people from the past who have cried out to God with the same fear, anger, joy, and gratitude that we bring to God today.

As much as the people of the past are like us, they’re also unlike us. For the past is a foreign country, where our sisters and brothers in Christ believed and worshipped differently than us as part of societies, cultures, economies, and political systems different from ours. Because they challenge us to see our faith from a different perspective, the stories of Christians from different times and places—as far from us and from each other as fifth-century Ireland and nineteenth-century Burma—are also instructive, meaningful, and encouraging.

And yes, sobering. As you read this book, you’ll hear the stories of refugees fleeing religious persecution, civil rights activists struggling against white supremacy, and the traumatized survivors of civil war and genocide. As we study those pasts and listen to those prayers, we learn to walk more humbly, love more fully, and act more justly in our own time.

In many and various ways, the past illuminates our present—and the same is true for our faith. Truly we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses that we can run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith (Heb. 12:1-2).

So we invite you to join the Christian historians who contributed to this devotional, as we journey together through the biblical and historical past, reading God’s word in light of the experiences of those made in God’s image. For each scriptural passage—each station along our way—we’ll share a reflection drawn from our work as historians, suggest questions for individual reflection or small group discussion, recommend resources for further historical study, and close with a short prayer.

We pray that the journey will comfort, challenge, and strengthen you just as it has comforted, challenged, and strengthened us.

The Old Testament

The Stewardship of the Past

Genesis 1–2

Christopher Gehrz

The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.

(Gen. 2:15)

God, whose farm is all creation, take the gratitude we give. I love the sentiment of John Arlott’s hymn, which has become part of worship at our church. Not just our tithes and other monetary offerings, but all our crops of your creation . . . are our prayer. Arlott’s allusions to agriculture never fail to make me think of the second creation account in Genesis, where God commissions Adam to till . . . and keep the Garden of Eden.

That’s a story that probably made immediate sense to my grandparents and their Swedish immigrant ancestors; they all spent their lives tilling and keeping the rich soil of midwestern farmland. Unfortunately, I’m not even a good gardener. If I don’t wait too long to plant seeds, I start too early. If I don’t water plants too little, I soak them too much.

But if tending physical space doesn’t come easily to me, perhaps I do better at caring for another dimension of Creation: time.

Christians tend to think of creation care in terms of air and water, flora and fauna, but Genesis 1 starts with the division of morning from evening and continues day after day for a week. And we’re told later in Scripture that nothing in all creation can separate us from the Creator’s love: neither space (nor height, nor depth) nor time (things present, nor things to come) (Rom. 8:38-39).

So how do we till and keep time? A Creator who rested on the seventh day of Creation certainly means his people to steward their personal time wisely—such as not acting as if every hour of every day is meant for production or consumption. But it’s not just the right use of things present and things to come that’s our concern. I think we’re also meant to be good stewards of things past.

That is easiest to understand if history is your profession, like the professors, teachers, archivists, and other contributors to this devotional. But all of us can be good stewards of the past. If God has not only made everything suitable for its time but put a sense of past and future into [our] minds (Eccl. 3:11), then all of us have the innate ability to till and keep the past by remembering it.

Of course, that’s easier said than done. In the book of Deuteronomy, God repeatedly directs his people to remember or not forget. We need similar reminders, for memory erodes as quickly as soil. Even if our remembering powers were no less limited than the rest of our mortal minds and bodies, we might not want to recall pasts that are awkward, embarrassing, complicated, or traumatic. (In Deuteronomy the Israelites mostly need to be reminded to remember that they were slaves.) So we need to commit to practices that prompt us to think back over the past.

That might mean keeping and reviewing artifacts that take us back in time at a mere glance, listen, or touch: photos, recordings, keepsakes. It might mean fixing certain times of the year—holidays, anniversaries—as temporal speed bumps that force us to slow down and look back at where we’ve been. It might mean being intentional about having conversations with those who are older than us, to let them transfer their memories to succeeding generations. Remember the days of old, consider the years long past; ask your father, and he will inform you; your elders, and they will tell you, Moses recited before his death (Deut. 32:7).

But just as importantly, we must preserve the past in a way that is inclusive, not exclusive. Unfortunately this is as hard for Christian communities as it is for any other group of people. For example, congregations can be tempted to erect fences around their histories—to tell stories about themselves to themselves, keeping others at a distance. But the healthiest churches will recognize that the past they work hard to preserve is much like the land God promised to the people of Israel: a land on which you had not labored, and towns that you had not built, and you live in them (Josh. 24:13).

History is not property to be protected, but a trust to be shared—as we invite each other into the pasts we’ve tilled and kept.

Reflection and Discussion

1. When do you struggle most to remember the days of old, consider the years long past?

2. What do you already do to tend and keep memories of the past? Do those practices make it easier or harder for you to share your stories with others?

Further Study

One of my favorite theological reflections on time, history, and memory is Why Study the Past? The Quest for the Historical Church by Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury.

Prayer

O God, you make grass and plants to grow, that we may bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden our hearts. Help us also to till and keep your