Posts Tagged: Ishtar

“A MOST DESIRABLE GOD”

On December 14, 2018 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer


I was just reading a book that I am requiring my students to read for Old Testament Theology.  I had already read enough of it to know that it was an excellent book.  In a section talking about the LORD as a gracious God who rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt, I was suddenly ambushed by the following sentence: “Now the gracious offer has meaning.  YHWH, who promises this people to be their God, and in so doing in some sense links himself with their fortunes and misfortunes, is a most desirable deity.”[1]

A most desirable deity—yes!  In spite of all the strange things that I do not understand in the Old and New Testaments, despite all the yukkiness and downright evil that is part of the church’s legacy, despite my own yukkiness and downright evil, the LORD God is a most desirable deity.

This is in stark contrast to a lot of the gods and goddesses of the ancient Near East.  They were a difficult bunch to live with, even among themselves.  About the best that a worshiper of Ishtar could hope for was to be left alone.  She was the goddess of love and of war.  It was sometimes easier to be at war with her, than it was to be loved by Ishtar.  Ask Gilgamesh about that, if you doubt me.

The same God who rescued Israel from Egypt has rescued me from me.  Because, you see, I was quite literally my own worst enemy.  Bondage to yourself is the worst bondage of all.  Slavery to yourself causes you to the slave-driver, the lash, the lasher, and the lashee. 

But into my self-appointed slavery, a most desirable deity has intervened.  I wish that I could embody his intense desirability much more than I do.  I wish that I could tell you what a Savior God is, and also what a friend God is.  I wish that I could convey to you how much fun it is to be a Christian.

I can’t.  I think that these posts are my attempt to do that.  But of course, God is so much more desirable than I can convey, with our without words.

However, the only way to find out how desirable God is would be for you to live with him for a long while.

When I started dating the girl who is now my new bride, I thought she was pretty nice (and also, nicely pretty).  I thought I loved her.  And I did, at least in some measure.  But after forty-five years of marriage, I can tell you that she is most desirable wife and friend, so much more than I could ever have suspected.

Same with God.

[1] Elmer A. Martens, God’s Design: A Focus on Old Testament Theology, fourth edition (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2015), 73.

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