Hello. Late-night thoughts here.

Why are there so many stories in the Old Testament? It’s chock-full of tales. This is God’s word to man- can’t we just cut out the fluff and get to the important bits? One possible approach to one possible explanation occurs to me, mediated by Leithart filtered through the Wagner and Beethoven I’ve been listening to all evening.

All music has this quality of repetition to it. In most songs there will be a section of music which repeats several times, and while sometimes there is development from iteration to iteration in the form of a crescendo or the addition of instruments or underlying strains, sometimes the sections just repeats. And repeats. And repeats again. And then, just as the listener becomes aware that he is waiting for something to happen, the cycle breaks and a new section begins. It builds tension. It builds anticipation. Often these sections end on a leading tone, causing that sleeping musician’s ear in all of us to long for the resolution brought about by a tonic or dominant note or chord.

God doesn’t just want your mind, and so his book isn’t a list of propositions. He doesn’t just want your obedience, and so his book isn’t just a list of commands. God wants your worship, and so his book is all about the majesty of his Son, the Deliverer of Israel who appears at the end of the song to put away sin for all time. Something happens to a person when they read the unfinished story that is the Old Testament, and hear the broken deliverer theme over and over and over again. We were created listening for the resolution to come in Christ. Thank the Lord, the sweet strains of that resolution have come, and it’s a catchy tune.

-Daniel