Tim Keller has published 24 single-volume books, classified in two categories. The first is by topics for Christian life, and the second is by the books in the Bible. The Prodigal God, Prayer, Reason for God, Making Sense of God, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, Counterfeit gods, Generous Justice all belong to the first category, while Galatians for You, Romans for You, King’s Cross in the New Testament, and The Songs of Jesus, God’s Wisdom for Navigating Life, and Judges for You in the Old Testament belong to the latter category. By ratio, topical books outnumber commentary books on the Bible by 2 to 1. So my question is this: why Judges, of all the Old Testament books? I believe that there are by and large three reasons—doctrinal, strategic, and cultural, all of which come down to idolatry.
Doctrinally speaking, Keller chose to read Judges closely because Judges deals with the issue of idolatry, standing at the center of his doctrine of sin. In his books Counterfeit gods and Every Good Endeavor, Keller repeatedly explains that his doctrine of sin is based on the doctrine of idolatry. Because of this, Keller has often been the target of conservative Presbyterian pastors and theologians, who confute Keller, saying that the rule-breaking nature of sin should be more pronounced than idolatry when it comes to the doctrine. In the book Engaging with Keller, a sole book on critically examining Keller’s theology, Ian Campbell launches harsh criticism against Keller’s doctrine of idolatry precisely because of the aforementioned reason. For all the critiques thrown so far, there still is ample evidence in the Bible that the essence of sin boils down to idolatry, which Keller puts forth throughout his book. “Regardless of their excuses, we should remember that the essence of their and our sin is idolatry” (209). (For more on this, see Raymond Ortlund Jr.’s God’s Unfaithful Wife and Richard Lints’s Identity and Idolatry.
Strategically speaking, Keller concentrated on Judges because the idolatry in Israel has something of a family resemblance to that of contemporary Western Christians, especially those living in the urban areas. Keller quotes Daniel Block, a renowned Old Testament scholar, on this.
“No other books in the Old Testament reflects the contemporary church as well as this book (Judges). This book is a wake-up call to the contemporary church starved to death in pursuit of her own selfish interests. Instead of serving Jesus Christ as her only Lord, congregations and leaders do things in their own way” (Daniel Block, Book of Judges, quoted in Keller, 328)
Continuing on, Keller delivers his case for the family resemblance between contemporary church and Israel. “Western Christians would not be easily tempted by divine statues promising prosperity. However, if a Christian lives in a city where business activities are not just business activities, but the means through which people build their identities around, then she can still hold on to the doctrinal beliefs and practices ethical living, while worshipping both YHWH and career and money simultaneously” (56).
Culturally speaking, Keller wrote a book on Judges because of the urgent need for Christians to engage cultural criticism. We tend to take cultural criticism for sheer intellectual activity which has nothing to do with practical life concerns, but Keller says that cultural criticism is an absolute must in order for Christians to live out their faith fully, which Judges has a substantial message for, according to Keller.
That is to say, whatever culture we belong to, there is always idol(s), and cultural criticism is nothing but the task of discerning such idols. In other words, all cultures provide their own respective cultural ideals, and the gospel we confess to believe urges us to engage such cultural ideal more critically so that we may worship God and God only. Let me give you an example.
Business CEOs culture suggests making profits as its cultural ideal (which is why there are so many CEOs being suicidal in case that they fail to do so. Keller’s Counterfeit gods brings up a couple of such fortunate cases.) Korean male culture takes masculine strength for being unemotional, encapsulated in the military culture. Additionally, agricultural culture suggests a good harvest as its cultural ideal (which is why those in this culture tend to project their desires for a large yield. Thus, when people in such culture suffer famine and drought, they tend to point fingers to their king for it, which is common in the Old Testament.)
For this reason, Keller roundly emphasizes the importance of discerning idols. “How do we know that Christ is the functional Lord in all the spheres of our lives? First, we need to identify and locate all the false gods in our cultures… Second, we need to reexamine all our lives as honestly as we can, including our families, possessions, ambitions, and time, asking the following two questions.
- Am I willing to accept God’s Word in this area, no matter what God says?
- Am I willing to accept whatever God send me to this particular sphere in my life? (56-57)
For Keller, cultural criticism should always lead to repentance. Repentance ought never to mean simply returning from wrongful behavior or moral violations. At the same time, repentance is not a cost-benefit analysis, between the benefits of sinning and costs of not sinning.
Rather, repentance is turning from sin because of the gospel message. The gospel message exhorts its hearers to examine themselves carefully and critically. Thus, repentance is not just being sad about the consequences of sin, but about the motivation that lead us to sin. In general, sin gives pleasure and benefit that sinner seems to enjoy shortly, and the sinner stops sinning only when the cost of sinning trumps over the benefit of it. However, repentance derived from the gospel stirs sadness for hurting God.
Moreover, just as the gospel message never leads its hearers to self-condemnation or regret, so is the repentance coming from the gospel. This is because “true repentance focuses on the loss of the Lord rather than the loss of something in us. Repentance helps us to accept what has happened and let them pass. Because God has forgiven us and we have not lost God, the consequences of this world seems rather petty. “I should have gone through something much harsher than what had happened to me. True punishment my Lord Jesus endured, and it will not happen to me” (112-113).
“Now the Israelites neither groan nor resist their ‘predators,’ for they have succumbed to the values, conventions, and idols of the Philistine culture. As with Samson, the Israelites longed for union with Philistines, which might be more likely to be a means of upward mobility. The Israelites no longer had their own culture based on worshipping YHWH” (232).
Keller seems to be reminded of the contemporary church’s cultural subjugation to secular culture as he takes pains in explaining Israel’s cultural subjugation to the Philistine. Cultural subjugation is, for contemporary Christians, the only kind of subjugation, given that it becomes almost impossible for them to experience military or political subjugation. Thus Keller is calling for discernment of idols, especially through reading Judges. (Nonetheless, Keller is not just antithetical to secular culture. Keller’s overall perspective on culture is more irenic than hostile. See his Center Church, especially part 2 on City, for more on this.)
At any rate, the risky thing about the Christians’ cultural subjugation is that they are being stripped of their powers for discerning idols. As I already mentioned in my review on Counterfeit gods, Keller acknowledges that contemporary secular culture has a variety of idols such as career, romance, family, etc, and he urges all Christians to be critical of them. Keller’s understanding of the consequences of idol worship is as follows: if you fail them (idols), they will never forgive you; if you get them, they will never satisfy you. Take career and work as your functional savior which supplies you with the meaning of life. If you ‘worship’ career and when you fail your career, then you will be devastated, as we see so many suicidal CEOs; if you succeed in career, then you will find out that you will never be satisfied with your success. One after another successful projects, you will be left with unexplainable emptiness, which you will try to do other things to gratify. This is a vicious circle which you will never be able to get out of unless you stop worshipping it.
The same thing happened for the Israelites, but the surprising thing about God is that even when they did not repent of their deed truly, God still sends out Judges ‘preveniently’, and this is why Keller contends that God’s grace abounds even in Judges.
“Does Israel repent? Not at all! In Judges 6:11, they never show any sign of burning their idols, nor anything resembling to it… Even when they were not truly repentant, God assigns God’s Judges with a task of saving them. “Even when we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). God works actively even before God’s people never has any intention of returning to God. What would we do if we see those who hurt us not showing any sign of apologizing to us? God is much more gracious than we are” (116-117).
In other words, Jesus Christ is flawless in comparison to any other human saviors, whose death resulted from the wrongful lives of others. Unlike the idols in Judges, and unlike the secular idols, Jesus never sacrificed his followers, but sacrificed himself in order to give us ultimate joy and pleasure of living with God.
While Keller is not the first one to read the Old Testament like this, that is, Christocentrically, his reading is still unique in that he connects his Christocentric reading to Christian formation, which I call a principle of mimetic Christian formation. I will have more chance to delve into what I mean by this later.
One shortcoming is that Keller treats some of the volatile topics in the book relatively shortly, such as the issues over holy war and etc. Also, given the priesthood of all believers, Keller’s equating the Old Testament priests to pastors, when he discusses Deborah’s female Judgeship. It is indeed understandable that his denomination prohibits the ordination of women ministers, yet Keller’s logic for buttressing this particular tenet of his denomination seems too groundless. Still, the book itself is highly recommendable, especially for those reading Judges for the first time. Thank you.