The Bethlehem Story
“If Bethlehem shelters refugees, then so must we. If Bethlehem welcomes strangers, so must we. If Bethlehem weeps at injustice, and takes a stand against empire, so must we. What we see in Bethlehem’s story, we apply to our own stories. We enter into Bethlehem’s story with as much cultural and geographical colour and flavour as we can muster in order to feel the crises, taste the dust, hear the lambs bleating on the hillside. And there we find the Christ-child, son of David, the Good Shepherd, Lion of Judah, Bread of Life, Lamb of God, fulfilling all the recurring themes, taking his inevitable place as rightful king.”
So reads a section of the back cover, summarising the introduction of Andy McCullough’s book, The Bethlehem Story. McCullough is teaching pastor at Reading Family Church and, in this book, has come up with a simple and yet genius idea for a book: to engage in a Biblical Theology of a place, that place being Bethlehem. Alongside this dominant focus throughout he seeks to combine three other perspectives to help us understand Bethlehem: The Bible as a Middle Eastern book, which is important anyway but acutely so when dealing with a place; insights from contemporary Palestinians from Bethlehem, voices that can often be missed or marginalised; and what this means for mission. The book chapters then run from the death of Rachel, “Bethlehem ever the place of tears, was founded on the death of the Beloved. Bethlehem’s first landmark was a grave. Its first mention in Scripture is in a minor key. Bitter tears lubricate the hinge of history” to the coming of the promised Messiah, Jesus himself.
There is much to commend in this book, with so many insights, lightbulb moments, and sentences of beauty. Each reader will be struck by different things but I was particularly struck by the dynamics surrounding Benjamin and Judah within Israel’s history. These range from Judah’s protection of Benjamin when the brothers were in Egypt meeting Joseph, to the tensions throughout the Old Testament, particularly at the end of Judges and into 1 and 2 Samuel with Saul, the people-chosen king from Benjamin and David, the God-anointed king from Bethlehem, Judah. Each chapter contains nuggets to find and different readers will be drawn to different people in those chapters. In fact, one way some may find it helpful to approach this book would be as a “studied devotional”, one chapter at a time, to make the most of the insights and reflections each chapter brings.
Over the past ten to fifteen years, evangelicalism has tended to have a focus on the big cities and seeking to influence culture and have a seat at the table. That may or may not be right, and different eras and situations call for different strategies, but there is something refreshing about a book that puts the focus on the margins, the periphery and reminds us that God most often works in the places others consider insignificant. In other words, if the church seems too focused on the Jerusalem’s of this world, this book is a helpful corrective to get our sights back on the Bethlehem’s.
I think McCullough sometimes over reaches in his analysis and conclusions. When discussing the sin of Sodom, for instance, he goes to Ezekiel 16:49 to argue that Sodom was destroyed for the sin of “anti-hospitality.” Obviously, Ezekiel does say that and so it is true, but I do not think it is an either/or situation. Ezekiel is addressing a particular audience at his time and so draws out a key lesson for them, but that does not mean the planned gang rape of the men visiting Lot was not a reason also for their destruction, or a symptom of anti-hospitality. Also, Jude focused on the sexual immorality and perversion rather than anti-hospitality so I don’t think it’s anti-hospitality rather than sexual perversion, but either both or one feeding off the other. There is also the occasional over-reach such as saying, “Jesus…received no hospitality.” Again, from John’s Prologue this is an important theological point which needs to be made, but there are also numerous examples of Jesus receiving hospitality in the Gospels – Zacchaeus, the Bethany family and the rich women who allowed Jesus to minister. That said, these instances are few and far between and are easily eclipsed by the insights McCullough, or those he quotes, bring to bear on the text. The insight around Goliath being stoned to death for blasphemy, for instance, is so rich, and yet so obvious, that I do not know how I failed to make that connection before.
This book will benefit Bible teachers, preachers and those who love to go deeper into the Scriptures and will find this work a rich mine of biblical material. For those particularly interested in Bethlehem, biblically and today, this book would be a great place to start. It also helps us remember that mission is on the margins, Gods works in and through the unexpected places and, in McCullough’s words, “God’s self-contextualisation in Christ has a context. And that context is Bethlehem.” The bread of life born in the house of bread.
Footnotes
Biblical theology can be a notoriously tricky category to define but, for the purpose of this review, McCullough’s definition will suffice, “Biblical Theology is the discipline that explores this unity, often taking a series of themes and tracking their unfolding until they arrive at their fulfilment in the person of Jesus Christ”