Those Who Seek Wisdom

Our Duty: Week 1

Almost exactly 12 years ago I was on the first of two trips to San Diego, California that would irrevocably alter the course of my life. It’s a difficult summer and season to look back on and yet to understand any part of me, and for me to understand any part of God or God’s work in my life, it’s the most important one. This isn’t that story but the context of that summer and season does help explain how an otherwise insignificant event sticks in my memory.

At a summer youth conference, our youth pastor handed out a sheet with the same verse from several translations in hopes that we could find a translation that made the Bible interesting to us. This experience was particularly transformative for a boy in our group who grew up Catholic. He didn’t know that there were different translations of the Bible. When he asked our pastor what translation his Bible was, the pastor made a note and a comment that they needed to get him a “correct” Bible. Although I knew about different translations of the Bible, I did not realize a Bible could be correct or otherwise. As it turned out, some Bibles had extra books (or, as others would argue, some Bibles were missing books).

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For as often as we cite the simplicity of the Bible in civic centers and chambers of congress, the Bible is actually incredibly complex and elusive. Some traditions are exceptionally literal about the Bible, while other traditions consider each book differently, and some traditions underplay the role of scripture or hold it sacred to only particular people within the church. Some traditions lean heavily into the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts, while others use an array of modern translations, and still others use a single modern translation, decrying all others as blasphemous. Some traditions include books like Tobit, Letter of Jeremiah, and 1-4 Maccabees.

Our summer series this year is on one of these “extra” books of the Bible referred to by some traditions as the Apocrypha. If you are Catholic or Orthodox, you are welcome here and, in your case, this summer series is just on a simple book of the regular Bible. But if you’re not, you are owed a little bit of extra background on what these extra books are and why it’s okay (in my opinion) to be having this conversation.

The scholars who wrote the books of the Bible had a much wider collection of scriptures and religious texts than we do, and these books and their philosophy, guided by the Spirit, formed the canon of scripture we have today. For example, The Book of Jasher is a book referenced in Joshua, 2 Samuel, and 2 Timothy. The Book of Enoch has influenced many theological conceptions of suffering, evil, and hell.

Apocryphal books, which in many traditions are included in the Bible as a sort of transitional space between testaments, are not seen as canonically part of the Bible (which is a fancy way of saying they aren’t part of the formal Bible) but viewed as helpful or wise literature. If you’re completely unfamiliar with the Apocrypha (or with deuterocanonical books as they’re also known), it may be helpful to think of these as a Max Lucado, Timothy Keller, or Lysa TerKeurst book: wise, applicable, and informative, possibly even spirit-led, but regarded much differently from Genesis or Mark.

However you read the book I’ll refer to as Sirach (but is also called Ecclesiasticus or Wisdom of Jesus Son of Sirach), as holy scripture, scripture-adjacent, or really old timey Lucado, there’s a place for you in this series. I trust that God is capable of meeting you where you’re at in the tradition that God makes the most sense to you in. For transparency, I’ll tell you that I read Sirach as an Apocryphal book, something between testaments that’s special but not quite sacred. However, in the spirit of my nomadic tradition, I hold loosely to any position of intertradition conflict.

Intro to Sirach

Ben Sira, also known as Yeshua (Jesus) Ben Sirach, wrote Sirach roughly around or just shortly after 200 B.C.E. It was excluded from the Jewish canon, possibly due to the delayed time it was written or possibly due to it being authored by a man who was not a prophet. Like Christians, however, some Jewish sects do include Sirach as part of their scriptures. Sirach is a wisdom book, similar to Psalms or Proverbs in that the book does not tell a consistent or linear story, but rather offers readers insights on how to live a wise, virtuous, and lawful life. Given the turbulent nature of Jewish life at this time, the Book also offers insights on how to respond, indirectly, to threats in pursuit of God.

Activities to Expand your Experience:

Pray and invite God to speak to you over the next 7 weeks. Ask for a calm and receptive spirit to internalize the message God has for you.
Read: We will be in Chapter 2, but you may find it useful to read through the Prologue (written by Sira’s grandson) and Chapter 1 to get a feel for the style of Sirach before we dive deep into Chapter 2.
Reflect on a difficult season in your life. In what ways was God faithful through that season? In what ways are you still longing for fulfillment? Sirach 2 will ask us to consider our duty towards God; it may be helpful to have at the forefront of your mind examples of how God has been dutiful towards you.

Notes:

Sources for this post include The Harper Collins Study Bible and Wikipedia articles (x) (x) (x) (x) (x).

Bryce Van Vleet is the #1 selling author of Tired Pages and Before We All Die Let’s Have One Last Chat by the Fireside. He also hosts the podcast Death in Dakota and sells poetry art here. You can support him by clicking through blog posts or donating (scroll to the bottom of the page).

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