… and God saw that it was good!
In my radio news days, I had a colleague who insisted that bureaucrats got a bad rap. Frank showed me the merits of a good filing system, and I … well, I still have trouble organizing a sock drawer that stays organized past the next laundry day.
God is a God of order. There are ten Commandments — one for each finger most of us have.* Those commandments are etched in stone tablets, and when Moses shattered the first pair in his rage, God provided him with another set of the Commandments on stone tablets. No need to work off memory.
His Word is not an “oral legend”, relying on minstrels, scops and spoken-word performance artists to pass along, with slight alterations from generation to generation. The prophets wrote down what they heard and saw in the Spirit. And the scribes — the bureaucrats — kept them, and archived them, even when one might have thought it wasn’t relevant.
That becomes extremely important when it comes time to remember what God said. Take, for example, the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the Temple of Solomon, after the Hebrews were allowed to go home from Babylon. The Jews’ enemies wrote to King Artaxerxes, king of Persia, claiming that the Jews were re-building the city in order to rebel against Persia and stop paying tax, tribute or custom (Ezra 4:13). Rehum, the commander, told Artaxerxes, basically, “you can look it up” and see what the Jews’ history was.
Which is what he did, and he wrote back to Rehum,
… a search has been made, and it was found that this city in former times has revolted against kings, and rebellion and sedition have been fostered in it. There have also been mighty kings over Jerusalem, who have ruled over all the region beyond the River; and tax, tribute and custom were paid to them.
— Ezra 4:19-20
So Artaxerxes slapped a “stop work” order on the project. But Artaxerxes died, Darius became king, and the Jews resumed work. When the enemies complained, Zerubbabel, the leader of the builders, wrote to Darius, saying King Cyrus, in his day, had given them permission.
Now it was the Jews’ turn to say, “You can look it up.”
Then King Darius issued a decree, and a search was made in the archives, where the treasures were stored in Babylon. And at Achmetha, in the palace that is in the province of Media, a scroll was found, and in it a record was written thus:
In the first year of King Cyrus, King Cyrus issued a decree concerning the house of God at Jerusalem. “Let the house be rebuilt, the place where they offered sacrifices; and let the foundations of it be firmly laid, its height sixty cubits and its width sixty cubits …
— Ezra 6:1-3
So the bureaucrats saved the day! Presumably, no one told them why Artaxerxes wanted information on the history of the Hebrews in the first place, because if they’d known it was to shut down work on the temple and the city, someone would probably have said, “Just a sec’ – King Cyrus gave them permission, and it’s for their God – the one and true God.”
That’s not the only time.
Then Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the scribe, “I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the Lord.” And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it.
So Shaphan the scribe went to the king [Josiah], bringing the king word, saying, “Your servants have gathered the money that was found in the house and have delivered it into the hand of those who do the work, who oversee the house of the Lord.”
Then Shaphan the scribe showed the king, saying, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a book.” And Shapan read it before the king.
Now it happened, when the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, that he tore his clothes.
Then the king commanded Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam the son of Shaphan, Achbor the son of Michaiah, Shaphan the scribe and Asaiah a servant of the king saying, “Go, inquire of the Lord for me, for the people and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that has been found; for great is the wrath of the Lord that is aroused against us, because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book, to do according to all that is written concerning us.”
— 2 Kings 22:8-14
And with that, Josiah got Judah back on track. Some bureaucrat, a scribe, had filed the Book of the Law generations before, and it took another scribe to find it — and a godly king to receive, read and repent.
The beginning of the book of Chronicles contains the genealogy of God’s people, stretching right back to Adam: meticulously compiled and recorded. Why? Because we already know many of those characters — or are about to meet them — and we need to know where they came from.
The beginning of Matthew’s Gospel spells out Jesus’ earthly lineage, and many of the names we recognize from the Old Testament accounts. When we refer back to those older accounts, we get a picture of Jesus’ character as the Son of Man.
So for God, order and records are vital. So are the people who know where papers are filed and how important they are. That’s especially so today, when we need to remember what’s in the Book of the Law, and be prepared to tear our clothes when we find out what It says.
Two Minutes for Cross-Checking! 