God’s heart for the nations in all of scripture.

Do you ever read a story in the Bible and wonder “what in the world is God thinking, why would He do that?”

Many of us are so used to reading God’s Word a chapter or two at a time, analyzing what happens in that chapter and looking for clues to how it applies to our lives, that we struggle to conceive of it as a single, coherent narrative. In this series, we have been examining God’s goal for His creation, why He made it and why He interacts with it in the way that He does.

Today, I’m going to take a few examples from the Bible and look at them through the lens of the overall arc of the Scriptural narrative as a way of showing how this hermeneutical principle looks in practice.

Examine with me, if you will, the story of David and Goliath, told in I Samuel 17. Many of us were taught this story as children, seeing it as a tale of good vs. evil in which the good side overcomes great odds to win. We tend to see ourselves as David, the hero who, with God’s help, is able to defeat some serious obstacle to our own success and happiness and lives happily ever after.

However, seen in the light of a Scriptural narrative grounded in the plot of God having selected Israel to be a beacon of His glory, proclaiming to the surrounding nations the name of Jehovah as more powerful and worthy than any other deity, this story takes on a decidedly different meaning. God is the hero of this story, as He is the hero of every Biblical story, properly understood.

In fact, I would argue that what happens in the story of David and Goliath should be seen as God’s response to His name being denigrated before the very nations He had set Israel up to reach. As God will later say through the prophet Malachi “For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations.”

God does not orchestrate the events of this story so that the name of a shepherd boy will be proclaimed, He orchestrates them so that HIS name will be proclaimed! The issue is that the Philistines are not properly honoring Him as Lord, they are not worshiping Him in the way that they had been designed to worship Him. What is more, when David arrives at the scene of the battle, he sees that the Israelites, rather than trusting in Jehovah to defend them, are “fleeing from [Goliath], and are much afraid.” (v.24)

How is the God of Israel to be proclaimed as a unique and powerful deity, different from the petty idols worshiped by the Philistines, if God’s own people don’t even trust Him against one single opponent? David recognizes the importance of trusting God and standing up for His name, so that His glory might be proclaimed among the Philistines and other nations to whom the news might spread.

God, likewise concerned for His own glory, uses David to accomplish a miracle, and the shepherd boy defeats the giant. The crucial passage for understanding the story comes in v.44-47:

The Philistine said to David, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the field.” Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the LORD saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the LORD’s, and he will give you into our hand.”

Thus we see that when properly put in place as a part of the narrative God is weaving through the Old Testament, the crucial issue at stake in the fight between David and Goliath is not simply one shepherd boy overcoming a big obstacle, but the glory of the name of the God of Israel.

Other passages could be used to illustrate the same need to ground our hermeneutics in the metanarrative. In II Kings 5, God uses his servant Elisha to heal a Syrian general named Naaman of leprosy. Often this passage is taught so as to emphasize the faith component of his healing (he had to bathe in the Jordan River), which is certainly a part of the story.

However, examined in the light of the grander metanarrative, this story is particularly illustrative of Israel’s failure to live up to her calling as a holy nation, set apart from other nations to proclaim God’s glory. God engineers a situation where an unnamed Hebrew girl is taken into slavery, then brings her master Naaman to Israel to heal him in a situation where only God will get the glory. His plan is that, in stark contrast to the transactional nature of the relationship Naaman has seen between the Syrian gods and their followers, He will display His true power and freely-given blessing by healing this general, who will doubtless return and proclaim His glory to the Syrians and others.

However, in the second half of the story (vv.15-27), we see how the greed of Elisha’s servant Gehazi threatens God’s plan. After Naaman has been healed, he offers a gift to Elisha, expecting a quid-pro-quo transaction in the way he has seen in Syria. Instead, Elisha refuses, thus ensuring that God gets all the glory from the healing He has miraculously given. Naaman returns to Syria, doubtless to proclaim God’s name as God had intended.

But as he departs, Gehazi chases after him to claim a material reward in Elisha’s name (which Naaman gives gladly, as his “due payment” for the healing). Thus is God’s glory tarnished, with Naaman returning to Syria feeling like he paid a fair price for his healing and thus with his debt to Jehovah Rapha satisfied. Instead of proclaiming Him as a God who freely blesses, He will doubtless proclaim His name as a God who does what He is paid to do.

These two stories are only brief examples, but I hope that this illustrates the value of understanding God’s Word, every bit of it, in light of the greater Story that He is working throughout history, and that we are still a part of. God is still waiting for a world that is filled with a diverse community from every nation worshiping Him, just as He designed it.

How can we help your church be equipped to join God in His mission both locally and globally? Contact us and let us know.