Why Aggies, Ron?

After my previous posting, Aggies cross the Brazos, a few of you might be wondering what was on my mind. As usual, I had more than one reason for what I wrote, a couple of which might be obvious:

1. I was exercising my sense of humor.
2. I was having a little fun with Nathan.

I hope that no one was offended by my word play, because I assure you that my love for the Word is profound. But I had a couple of other motives for the post which might not be as obvious at first.

3. I wanted to demonstrate to some of you who were not as familiar with blogging what you could do with a blog. Sometimes a posting can't contain everything, so we can refer (with links) to other sites that have the information.

4. I hoped to show some of you who aren't as familiar with the Internet how much you could find out on it in one hour. A couple of the traditions in the posting I knew from a visit I had with Nathan at College Station a year ago. But the rest I found out by doing searches on Google, one of the best search engines (an Internet research librarian that moves at the speed of light) out there. I honestly did all of the research in less than one hour, and then wrote the story in about as much time.

5. I wanted to show us all the challenge that language and symbols in the biblical text present to every reader. The story about the Aggies deliberately shifts the language, metaphors, and the story connections so as to make it less recognizable to those who do not understand the traditions of Texas A&M. The concept of "Twelfth Man", though it originated at A&M, has now become nearly universally well known in sports. But other words such as "maroon out" have a very specific meaning in the A&M context that are meaningless elsewhere. When we look at the biblical text, we need to be alert for those words, and how those words keep occurring (or stop occurring).

Sometimes words that appear to be innocent, like "march to the Brazos", appear to be merely a description of action. But to an Aggie, and especially to one from the Corps of Cadets, this has a very specific meaning. The biblical text is full of these as well. When the text refers to the "two men who had spied out the land", it not only referred to the two who had met Rahab, but is deliberately echoing the brave and similar endeavors of Joshua and Caleb nearly 40 years earlier.

Every book in the Bible is inspired. As God inspired the human writers of each book, he had them speak his thoughts in their own voice and in their own words. Just look at the places where Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John choose to tell the stories using different words (where Mark says "kingdom of God", Matthew more frequently says "kingdom of heaven"). If we can understand why these words were chosen, we understand the story at a totally different level.

When they wrote, they made every word count. In our time paper is cheap, and the Internet allows writing to not even waste that consumable resource. But in ancient times, writing was expensive. Every word used was necessary to tell the story. What's an example from Joshua?

Let's pick the example of Rahab. At the end of the story of Jericho's fall, the text simply says, "But Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, with her family and all who belonged to her, because she hid the men Joshua had sent as spies to Jericho-and she lives among the Israelites to this day." Josh 6:25 (NIV) But buried in the text a little bit earlier is the comment, "They brought out her entire family and put them in a place outside the camp of Israel." Josh 6:23 (NIV) Why outside? I'm not going to answer that question for you, but I'll give you a hint: look for the word "outside" in some of the earlier books in the OT. This will show you the significance of one little word.

But there is the importance of making connections as well. How does Rahab connect with the rest of the salvation story? If you don't know, study it out; I assure you that you will find her connection to be significant.

You might ask, "Ron, are you trying to teach us how to read?" No, obviously you already know how to do that. What I am trying to do, though, is to help train you to read closely. This will allow you to find a richness in the Bible that will refresh your love and regard for it. God bless you all as you live in the story that continues from his Word.