The Bible’s cautionary tales

“Tell of God’s love with songs of joy: Psalm 107:22”

The cautionary tale is one of the oldest devices in storytelling. It plays a significant role in showcasing appropriate behavior and warning against the bad things that happen when people don’t follow the rules. A child wanders into a strange house, makes a mess, and has a close encounter with a family of bears. Two pigs cut corners when they build their homes and may (or may not) get eaten by a wolf.

However graphic the consequence, the message sent by the cautionary tale is usually pretty straightforward: Do you see what happens when people don’t do what they’re supposed to do? Don’t be like those people.

The Bible is jam-packed with stories that could serve as cautionary tales. In the Book of Numbers, the Israelites keep complaining against God, and God infests their camp with venomous snakes. In Ephesians, a life lived separately from Christ is at the mercy of our drives and impulses. You can interpret them in the same cautionary vein: If you aren’t prepared to take a good look at the evil of your deeds, you will remain in darkness.

The author of Psalm 107 gives us another example. After giving thanks for God’s goodness and mercy, the psalmist speaks a word of caution. “Some [people] were fools and took rebellious paths; through their sins, they were afflicted.” These people were in such bad shape that they were unable to eat, and they languished. They “drew near to death’s door.”

Thankfully, says the psalmist, there is cause for hope. God delivered the people who were near death. The reader is invited to find reason for personal hope: God won’t forget you or abandon you to your fate, even when your actions seem to have taken you to places too deep or dark escape

All of that is true, but it’s tempting to paint this scene with a simplistic brush. Is is easy to look at Psalm 107 and say, “Don’t be foolish! Don’t be rebellious! God could afflict you for your sins!” It would be very easy to turn this psalm into a simple proverb: Don’t be afraid to take a hard look at yourself. Trust in God.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to take object lessons from scripture. People absolutely should be aware of the consequences of sin. We should absolutely trust in God.

But the Bible goes beyond mere moralizing. In the Gospel According to John, Jesus explains that God loves the world so much that God sent Jesus to save the whole world. According to Romans, we have been saved by God’s grace, through faith.

As a Lutheran, I believe that, through God’s gift of grace, God has set us free to love the people around us, and to tell everyone the good news about God come near in the person of Jesus Christ, who lived, died, and rose again.

The psalmist suggests that we do these things with shouts of joy.