Bible Scandals

Every human community (nations, churches, religions, schools, and so on) treasures certain stories, values, and morals which are deeply rooted within.  These values and morals may be formally written down or else they are unwritten but understood by most if not all of the members of the group.

As important as they are, most members of every society stray from those rules in private, and occasionally one will stray and get caught publicly either by plan or by accident.  When those people are caught straying in public, the result is what could be called a scandal.  A scandal exposes the one caught to be the center of shame, public ridicule, and disgrace.

Because the Bible was written about real people in the context of a community it has its share of scandals.  Some of those scandals were more scandalous to their own culture than to us.  Likewise there are some things in our own cultures that would not seem so bad in theirs.  The following is a list of the five scandals common to both our culture and theirs that I found in the Bible.

NUMBER FIVE - TAMAR SEDUCES HER FATHER-IN-LAW (GENESIS 38)

Several women in the Bible took chances by risking their reputations in order to obtain something of greater value in their community.  Tamar was one of the best of them for taking that kind of risk.

When her husband died, her brother-in-law was supposed to have sex with her so she could give birth to a son which would help her standing within the community and continue her dead husband's name in the same community.  Having a son and continuing one's name within the community were highly regarded values within Tamar's community; so when after her husband died, her brother-in-law refused to give her children, and her father-in-law failed to let her have sex with the third brother-in-law; so she took a chance with her reputation to get the child she wanted.  She literally sacrificed her good reputation in order to obtain a more important value within the community.

Tamar posed as a prostitute in order to have sex with her father-in-law and thus obtain what was most important within the community - a son to carry on her dead husband's name and to promote her reputation within her community.

By posing as a prostitute, Tamar's father-in-law had the right to have her executed, and that is exactly what he demanded - until he understood that Tamar sacrificed her reputation to obtain a more important value.

NUMBER FOUR - ONAN SPILLS HIS SEED ON THE GROUND (GENESIS 38)

When I first heard Genesis 38 in a sermon, an traveling evangelist was using the story to preach against the evils of masturbation.  Onan was supposed to fulfill a community requirement by having sex with his sister-in-law Tamar, but Onan was not concerned about his brother's wife or his brother, so when he had his moment with her, rather than following through with what he committed to, he spilled his sperm on the ground.

Because he was so callous toward his brother and brother's wife, God killed him.  God killed him, not because he was masturbating, but because he purposely failed to do his community duty.  His story became a lesson to future generations about the importance and warnings involved in fulfilling community duties.

NUMBER THREE - FATHERS AND SONS HAVE SEX WITH THE SAME TEMPLE PROSTITUTES  LYING ON TOP OF GARMENTS TAKEN BY PLEDGE (AMOS 2:7)

The prophet Amos was appalled at the behavior of people around him.  He saw creditors take all that was valuable from those who could not pay their bills (in that day people who could not pay their debts lost their clothes, their houses, and those worse off would lose their children, then their wives, and last of all they would be sold into slavery to pay off their creditors).

The creditors were business men who had money and could afford to lend out at money to those who were in need.  Today if you don't pay your bills, your car or house will be taken by the banks; in those days the clothes off your back were taken before your children, you and your wife / husband would be taken.  The prophet Amos saw creditors use the cloaks they took from those who owed money, and carefully lay them on the ground in some shrine built to honor another god so the debtors could have sex with the sacred prostitutes who worked at the shrine.

While the higher class of society accepted this picture as normal, Amos spoke for God and for the poor, calling it scandalous.

NUMBER TWO - SAMSON AND DELILAH (JUDGES 16)

One would expect that a child miraculously born after the proclamation of an angel would turn out to be a dedicated man of God; but this is not the case with Samson.  Samson was a miracle baby who grew up without much common sense.  He had no real friends around him that we know of, and his own people were probably more annoyed than impressed by his behavior.

Samson was part of a small group of Hebrews who was a Nazirite, which meant that he could not touch dead bodies, shave his hair, drink wine, or eat grapes.  The Nazirites made a vow to avoid such things and live for God.  Samson was a Nazirite from the day he was born and his parents made the vow for him.

The Bible paints a clear picture that Samson cared very little for his Nazirite vow.  He took honey from the carcass of a lion, he partied with and felt more comfortable with the Philistines than with his own people (it is not stated, but he could have been drinking wine with his friends), and he told a woman that his long hair which had never been cut gave him supernatural strength.

He didn't tell just any woman his secret; he told Delilah who was a Philistine.  Delilah - who gave Samson every signal possible that she would ruin him if he let her know.  Delilah was the Philistine's tool to find the secret behind Samson's strength; and with his secret discovered, the Philistines cut Samson's hair, took out his eyes, and put him into slavery.

Samson turned his back on his own nation by ignoring them in attempts to befriend the Philistines and his Philistine girlfriends; and that became his downfall.  Samson's parents warned him of going out with women who were not of his people, but Samson ignored them because even though no one knew it at the time, his desire for foreign women"was from the LORD, who was seeking an occasion to confront the Philistines; for at that time they were ruling over Israel  (Judges 14:4)."

NUMBER ONE - ANANIAS AND SAPPHIRA (ACTS 5:1-14)

For a short period of time the early church tried to live as directed by the teachings of Jesus (as they understood it).  Many sold all they had and gave to the Apostles for distribution and the Apostles distributed to the community as people had need.  As a result the church had all things in common.

Barnabas was a rather wealthy man who owned land, sold it, gave the money to the Apostles for distribution, and through this act of giving, and for whatever other reasons not mentioned, he won a high position among the inner circle of leadership of the early church which was centered in Jerusalem at the time.

Ananias and Sapphira saw this and decided together that they would likewise sell land and give it to the Apostles for distribution.  But Ananias and Sapphira decided to keep back some of the money for their own distribution to themselves - which was not a bad idea in and of itself.  Their problem was that they wanted the Apostles and the other Christians to think they were giving all their money to the community.  They didn't want anyone to know that they were keeping back some for themselves.  For that deception, they died while people looked on.

Their story in Acts 5 concludes with these words:  No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people.  Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number (Acts 5:13-14).


Many would think the lesson of this story is that one should not try to deceive the church leadership.  But the lesson the early church received was not about lying as much as it was about holding back from the attempt to get into the inner circles of the Apostles.  In Acts 5:13-14 we read that while Christians were growing in number, no one dared to join "them."  "Them" does not refer to the Christians, but rather "them" refers to the Apostles' inner circle.  After Ananias and Sapphira failed to reach the inner circles of leadership through deceptionr, no one else dared to try in any way to enter the inner circle.

Barnabas sold land, gave to the disciples, and for whatever other reasons he joined the Apostles in leading the church.  He did not plan to become a co-leader, but it happened.   Seeing his success, Ananias and Sapphira concluded that they could likewise join the inner circles of leadership by copying Barnabas; but their plan backfired.  Just as Miriam and Aaron tried to be equal with Moses and were punished by God for doing so, the early church saw the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira as a warning to avoid attempts to become equal with the Apostles.