In May of 2020, the same month I bicycled completely alone down the middle of a Kalakaua Avenue emptied by covid, I ordered a book from Eighth Day Books: A Commentary on 1-2 Kings by Peter Leithart. I was a 4-month old deacon and looking to use quarantine to sharpen myself for ministry. Well, three years later, I’ve finally finished the book. I promise that I read dozens of other books in that span, but this one uncharacteristically came on and off the shelf with irregularity.
I’d like to write about it for a few reasons. First, Fr. Mark has asked me to do a blog post for many years now, and I try to do what my priest tells me to do. Second, the book was purchased with discretionary fund money, so it ought to encourage the church that bought it. Third, I’m not preaching this summer, so I felt the need to do some theological work of a small kind. (As a side note, I’m grateful not to be preaching, as I’ve got enough ministry to fill my days otherwise. I struggle with many vanities, but the vanity of the pulpit is not a stumbling block for me, thanks be to God). Finally, it was a moving and stirring experience reading this book, and I’d like to recapture some of that for our parish.
First and Second Kings have always been a bit of a weak point in my understanding of the Old Testament. It was always difficult for me to see the moral instruction or take-away from a book about a bunch of nasty kings and idolaters. In a juvenile way, I understood the main message of the book as “Don’t worship idols,” which is indeed true, but a shallow reading.
Enter Peter Leithart, who visited our island last October, and who reads the Bible with a sense of narratival wholeness and Christo-centricity (I think I just made that word up). I heartily recommend anything he’s written if you want to deepen your faith and your understanding of what God is doing in Scripture. Among the many points Leithart makes in the book, there are two that I’d like to rehash here briefly for your edification.
A. 1-2 Kings reiterates that the things we hope will save us never actually save us.
Through the post-Davidic monarchy, Israel puts her trust in four things, three of them seemingly good. The obvious “bad” object of hope is idols - a theme so common it needs not repeated. Worship the Lord your God alone is the first commandment for a reason: every other commandment is a transgression of it, and every other sin stems from it. Idol worship is death. To paraphrase Leithart, the worship of wood and stone idols is a worship of dead things, so it brings death. Little children, keep yourselves from idols.
The other three things that Israel trusts in are seemingly good things: kings, the Temple, and Torah. After David’s conquest and Solomon’s splendor, it is a natural thing to trust in a good king to preserve your land. But we see how rare a good king really is. There are repetitions of roughly 6 bad kings to 1 good king (238), and even the good kings end their lives in ignominy and idolatry and conspiracy. The message is clear: kings cannot save you.
The Temple, likewise, is a dead hope. Though the living God may dwell there, the building itself and its location in Jerusalem is not enough to save Judah from idolatry and “turning away” from Yahweh. Having a building, doing the right liturgy, and maintaining custom is never enough to turn God’s wrath. Let us be warned.
Torah itself is even a dead hope. I’ll be careful here, but the gist is that even reading the Law publicly (as Josiah did), is not enough to save you. Having the truth, knowing it, and even speaking it aloud is not salvific. The Pharisees found this out the hard way when Jesus rose from the dead.
In seeing these failed hopes: kings, Temple, and Torah, Leithart makes the point that we are forced to look to Christ for salvation. Israel has experienced the failure of these institutions, and only in Christ can they be realized and made able to save. Christ is the perfect king and his kingdom is not of this world. Christ’s body is the new Temple, torn down and raised up three days later. And He is the Word made flesh, the consummation of Torah, doing only what the Father commands.
B. 1-2 Kings is a playbook for Remnant and Renewal among the people of God
The two most important figures in 1-2 Kings are Elijah and Elisha the prophets. Leithart claims that these men represent Yahweh - their names mean “Yahweh is my God” and “Yahweh is my Salvation,” respectively. They are two of very few characters in the 1-2 Kings that don’t succumb to the traps of dead hope listed above. In the midst of a crumbling empire, Yahweh uses His prophets to maintain a remnant and spark faith renewal among Israel.
Elijah represents the “remnant” of the Yahwists. He finds the faithful prophets hidden in caves, he mentors still-faithful Elisha, and he sustains what is left of true worship after the nation abandons God. Then, Elisha sparks renewal. He takes what Elijah has started and builds on it. He does twice as many miracles, he interacts positively with kings and armies, and he models a way forward out of idol-culture and into Yahweh-culture. And this is but one instance of this cycle among several in the Bible. The sons of Jacob are a remnant when they go hungry to Egypt, and Joseph renews them. After the Sinai wandering, Joshua and Caleb are a remnant who lead to a renewal of the land in Canaan. The Judges are all remnants who spark national renewal. Daniel and the Three Youths are a tiny remnant that renew the Jews in Babylon. I’m not doing it justice here, but Leithart’s framework of Remnant-Renewal is deep and thoughtful.
What I want to posit is that the Remnant-Renewal framework is a helpful way to think about our (All Saints Honolulu) place in Hawai’i Christendom today. Where culture has left the faith and secularized, we are a remnant of Yahweh-culture. Where many churches have fallen to either liberal heresy or anemic pop-marketing shticks, we are among a remnant of faithful worship. I don’t mean to propose that All Saints is the only faithful church today. We have so many steadfast brothers and sisters across denominations in our city, but that number is shrinking over time. We need pastors like Elijah to continually call us back to God’s Word and remind us of the power of the cross.
And I think (I pray!) that we are on the verge of renewal in both the church and broader culture. In church history, it’s always when things are difficult and dark for a small remnant that true growth begins to blossom. Just ask St. Antony, St. Benedict, St. Thomas Becket, St. Bernard, Martin Luther, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, among thousands of others.
So, Lord keep us from idols, even ones that seem hopeful. And may Christ be with His remnant, and may we see a renewal of the Holy Spirit in our world today.
+Deacon Dawson