1IN THE THIRD year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. 2And the Lord delivered Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, along with some of the articles from the temple of God. These he carried off to the temple of his god in Babylonia and put in the treasure house of his god.
3Then the king ordered Ashpenaz, chief of his court officials, to bring in some of the Israelites from the royal family and the nobility—4young men without any physical defect, handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of learning, well informed, quick to understand, and qualified to serve in the king’s palace. He was to teach them the language and literature of the Babylonians. 5The king assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the king’s table. They were to be trained for three years, and after that they were to enter the king’s service.
6Among these were some from Judah: Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. 7The chief official gave them new names: to Daniel, the name Belteshazzar; to Hananiah, Shadrach; to Mishael, Meshach; and to Azariah, Abednego.
8But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way. 9Now God had caused the official to show favor and sympathy to Daniel, 10but the official told Daniel, “I am afraid of my lord the king, who has assigned your food and drink. Why should he see you looking worse than the other young men your age? The king would then have my head because of you.”
11Daniel then said to the guard whom the chief official had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, 12“Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. 13Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see.” 14So he agreed to this and tested them for ten days.
15At the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food. 16So the guard took away their choice food and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables instead.
17To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning. And Daniel could understand visions and dreams of all kinds.
18At the end of the time set by the king to bring them in, the chief official presented them to Nebuchadnezzar. 19The king talked with them, and he found none equal to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah; so they entered the king’s service. 20In every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king questioned them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom.
21And Daniel remained there until the first year of King Cyrus.
Original Meaning
THE FIRST CHAPTER of the book of Daniel is a distinct unit. It begins and ends with a chronological marker that identifies the beginning and end of Daniel’s career (“the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim” [v. 1] and “the first year of King Cyrus” [v. 21]). In terms of our dating system, this places Daniel’s career from 605 to 539 B.C.1
Daniel 1 provides an introduction for the whole book, plunging us quickly into the action and introducing the main characters of the book. It also illustrates the overarching theme of the book: In spite of present appearances, God is in control. In keeping with the court narratives in chapters 1–6, the first chapter narrates an episode from the experience of Daniel and his three friends that models another important lesson: Though in exile, God gives his people the ability to prosper as well as to be faithful. This chapter, and the book as a whole, must have served as a tremendous encouragement to the faith of those devout exiles who felt as if their whole world had come crashing down on their heads.
This first chapter has the following outline: (1) Jehoiakim delivered into Nebuchadnezzar’s hand (1:1–2); (2) training for service (1:3–7); (3) avoiding defilement (1:8–16); (4) success given to Daniel and his friends (1:17–20); and (5) the extent of Daniel’s ministry (1:21).
Jehoiakim Delivered into Nebuchadnezzar’s Hand (1:1–2)
THE NARRATOR IMMERSES us immediately into the action. Nebuchadnezzar2 has moved against Jerusalem. As Fewell has pointed out, our story begins at the end of another story.3 The forces that brought Nebuchadnezzar (or at least his army) to Jerusalem during the reign of Jehoiakim are hinted at elsewhere (cf. 2 Chron. 36:5–74); here we are simply informed that he moved against Jerusalem, resulting in the deportation of the heroes of our book.
Before recounting the events that led up to Daniel 1:1, we must acknowledge the fact that many scholars (those who argue that Daniel 1 is written much later than the sixth century B.C.) believe that Daniel 1:1–2 is a confused historical memory,5 based on the author’s misreading of 2 Chronicles 36:6–7 in connection with 2 Kings 24:1. On this basis, Hartman and DiLella deny that Nebuchadnezzar attacked Jerusalem in 605 B.C., the date implied by our text. In addition, they argue that Nebuchadnezzar did not even become king of Babylon until the next year.6 A surface reading of Jeremiah 25:1 (“the word came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, which was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon”) seems to imply that Nebuchadnezzar did not even become king until Jehoiakim’s fourth year. These scholars also point out that the Babylonian Chronicle, our main native source of information for this time period, does not mention Nebuchadnezzar’s siege of Jerusalem.
There are at least two possible harmonizations that permit us to accept Daniel 1:1–2 as an accurate historical memory. First, Daniel 1:1 may well refer to Nebuchadnezzar as king in an anticipatory sense. After all, it is soon after Daniel’s report of a siege of Jerusalem that Nabopolassar’s death would bring Nebuchadnezzar to the throne. No one doubts, based on Babylonian records themselves, Nebuchadnezzar’s presence as crown prince and field commander of the Babylonian army in their wars against Egypt in the area of Syria-Palestine in the years before 605 B.C.
We can also harmonize the data by reminding ourselves, at the instigation of the well-known Assyriologist D. J. Wiseman, that there were two systems of dating current in the ancient Near Eastern world, both of which can be found in the Old Testament.7 The above passages may be harmonized by assuming that Jeremiah utilized the Judaean method of chronological reckoning, which counts the first year of a king’s reign as the first year, and that Daniel used the Babylonian system, which counts the first year as an “accession year.” Hasel helpfully diagrammed the results:8
Chronology of Kings in Jeremiah and Daniel | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Accession-year method |
Accession year |
1st year |
2nd year |
3rd year |
Daniel 1:1 |
Non-accession-year method |
1st year |
2nd year |
3rd year |
4th year |
Jeremiah 25:1, 9; 46:2 |
It is true that the Babylonian Chronicle provides ambiguous evidence in the argument for and against a Babylonian assault against Jerusalem in the period 605/604 B.C. Wiseman in 1965 argued that the Babylonian Chronicle fails to mention the siege of Jerusalem because it is preoccupied with “the major defeat of the Egyptians,” but he goes on to say that “a successful incursion into Judah by the Babylonian army group which returned from the Egyptian border could be included in the claim that at that time Nebuchadnezzar conquered ‘all Hatti.’”9
However, in 198510 he agreed with Grayson11 that the relevant line of the Chronicles (BM 21946, 8) should be read as referring to Hamath and not Hatti. J. J. Collins, then, took this as decisive evidence that the Daniel account is not accurate; there was no deportation of any size this early.12 However, he fails to report, as Wiseman goes on to say, that the next section of the Chronicle does report activity in the area of Hatti. Wiseman further reminds us that the phrase used in Daniel 1:1 does not necessarily mean that a formal military siege was laid against Jerusalem; it could mean no more, he says, than to “show hostility.” Thus, Wiseman demonstrates how the biblical reference to the third year of Jehoiakim “could be a justifiable dating if this covered the twelve months ending in 604 B.C.,”13 which view he indeed holds.
In spite of the difficulties, therefore, we understand Daniel 1:1–2 as an accurate memory and will now place it within the broader historical landscape as we can reconstruct it from other biblical texts as well as ancient Near Eastern texts, particularly the Babylonian Chronicle.14
In 609 B.C. King Nabopolassar, Nebuchadnezzar’s father, attacked Haran, and this signaled a period of time when Babylon’s efforts were directed toward Syria-Palestine with an eye focused on Egypt, who was an ally of the remnants of the Assyrians. Battles with Egyptian and Syrian armies continued in the next few years.
In 605 Nebuchadnezzar was now the head of the army in Syria. He defeated the Egyptians at Carchemish, a victory that opened the rest of Syria and Palestine to the Babylonian forces.15 The Babylonian Chronicle at this point mentions in a general way that Nebuchadnezzar found success in his incursions into Syria-Palestine, and it is here that we understand that he besieged Jerusalem and compelled Jehoiakim to become an unwilling vassal. Debate surrounds 2 Chronicles 36:4–8 as to whether Jehoiakim himself was temporarily deported to Babylon or whether he was only threatened with deportation. In either case, we agree with Dillard that this deportation should be “associated with the deportation of Daniel and his friends along with articles from the temple in Jehoiakim’s third year after Nebuchadnezzar defeated Neco at Carchemish” (cf. Jer. 46:2).16
The book of Daniel, of course, does not argue for the historical event; it narrates it. Indeed, even more, it intends to interpret the event for us. Human observation would lead to a very different understanding than that provided to us by the narrator of this book. On one level, it seems clear: Nebuchadnezzar, the leader of a powerful army, cowed Jerusalem, and, in a token of his dominance, took away some of the temple vessels and, as we will find out in the next section, a few of the noble youth. To the human eye, it appeared that Nebuchadnezzar had power; Judah did not.
The narrator rips away the curtain and informs his readers of the reality behind the appearance. He does so simply by saying that “the Lord delivered Jehoiakim king of Judah into his [Nebuchadnezzar’s] hand.” Nebuchadnezzar’s might, though considerable, was not the reason why Jerusalem fell under his influence; it was the result of the will and action of God himself. This subtle phrase introduces a major theme of the book, the conflict between overweening human power and the power of God. A major concern of the book is to reinforce the belief that the sovereignty of God far surpasses the power of even the most mighty of human rulers. This theme is supported here by the use of the word “Lord” (’adonai) rather than “LORD” (yhwh) to refer to God. The former emphasizes God’s ownership, his control.
It is a sign that Nebuchadnezzar’s victory over Jerusalem is only the occasion for the following story that the narrator does not here even hint at the reasons why God moved against his own people in this way. As we will see later, the prayer in Daniel 9 will show that Daniel himself agreed with other biblical authors (cf. the book of Kings) that the disaster took place because of the sin of the people. There he confesses on behalf of the people that they have rebelled against God and his commandments. But here again, Nebuchadnezzar’s success is reported as the occasion that brought Daniel and his three friends to the Babylonian court.
Even before telling us about the human booty, however, the narrator mentions that Nebuchadnezzar took “some of the articles from the temple of God” and placed them in the temple of his god in Babylonia.17 The specific identity of these “articles” is left unspecified.18 In Exodus, the word “article” (keli) is a general term used to designate smaller objects used to support the cultic worship in the tabernacle (Ex. 27:19; 30:27; 31:8). In the book of Kings, we occasionally hear of the “articles,” as when Asa dedicated certain gold and silver articles to temple service (1 Kings 15:15), or, in an interesting parallel to our story, when Jehoash, king of Israel, attacked Amaziah, king of Judah, robbed the temple of the “articles,” and carried them back to Samaria (2 Kings 14:14). 2 Chronicles 4:16 may give us an idea of the specific items included in the word keli when it lists “the pots, shovels, meat forks and all related articles.” Of course, in Daniel 5 we also learn that these articles included “goblets,” since Belshazzar seriously offends the Lord by using these for his banquet. Ezra 1:9–11 inventories the articles at the time of their return in consequence of Cyrus’s decree, though some of these may have come from later sacks of the temple.19
In particular, our present passage anticipates the story in Daniel 5. Once again, from a human perspective, the plundering of the temple of the Lord, even if at this time only “some of the articles” were taken and placed in the Babylonian temple, could be seen as a great victory not only over Israel, but also over Yahweh himself. This act reflects a common ancient Near Eastern practice. A victorious army plundered the temple of the vanquished nation and placed the symbols of the defeated god in their own temple. An analogy is the placement of the ark in the temple of Dagon after the Philistines defeated the Israelites in battle during the youth of Samuel (1 Sam. 4–5). To the Philistines it appeared that Dagon had soundly whipped Yahweh, but subsequent events quickly changed their minds. The reality of the situation will take much longer to develop in Babylon, but the next time we see these “articles” in the hands of drunken Babylonians will be on the eve of their destruction (see comments in Dan. 5).
Training for Service (1:3–7)
BEGINNING WITH VERSE 3, the narrative focus begins to narrow. Nebuchadnezzar orders Ashpenaz,20 one of his high officials, to begin the training process for the cream of the crop among the exiled youth.
We might well ask why Nebuchadnezzar would bother with the exiled youth. To answer this question we need to remember that at this time Nebuchadnezzar was trying to control Judah without actually taking it over. He has placed his puppet, Zedekiah, on the throne. His purpose with Daniel and the others was to train them in Babylonian ways for political and propaganda purposes. These members of the elite classes would become enamored with Babylonian ways and customs and either return to positions of influence at home or stay in Babylon in important positions, perhaps even serving as quasi-hostages. We can see analogies at other times in ancient Near Eastern history.21
Jon Berquist reminds us that Nebuchadnezzar’s policy was fueled by other pragmatic considerations as well. The expanding empire required an expanding bureaucracy, which could not be met by the expertise of the native population. So the elite of subdued nations were pressed into service in the interest of Babylonian empire building.22
We refer to Daniel, his three friends, and the others implied23 by the passage as members of the elite class of Judah for good reasons. In verse 3, for instance, they are referred to as “some … from the royal family and the nobility.” Rabbinic tradition associates this verse with Isaiah 39:7 and asserts that Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were descendants of King Hezekiah.24 Even if not direct descendants of the king, they are nobly born in Judah.
But the qualifications for admission go well beyond right of birth. The king specified physical as well as intellectual qualities. That they were to be “young men” (yeladim), though of imprecise age designation,25 makes it hard to believe that they were over twenty and may have been much younger.26
Furthermore, candidates for admission to the royal school were to have impeccable physical qualifications: “without any physical defect” as well as “handsome.” The latter quality is easy to understand, though the standards of masculine beauty were possibly different. We may get a clue of what those standards are when we look at the artwork of ancient Mesopotamia27 and note the well-muscled, full-bearded, luxuriantly curled hair of the warriors and kings. Or perhaps we are to picture Daniel and his friends more like the distinguished courtiers and advisors of the court.
It is the first trait (“without any physical defect”) that has drawn the most discussion. The Hebrew word here (muʾwm) is known from sacrificial texts, describing the appropriate type of animal that can be offered to God (Lev. 21:17, 18, 21; 22:20, etc.). But it is not unknown elsewhere as the description of the physical perfection of a human being (e.g., Absalom [2 Sam. 14:25]; the beloved [Song 4:4]).
These men are not just good-looking and well-born, but they already show intellectual aptitude. They are “showing aptitude for every kind of learning, well informed, quick to understand.” The verbs and nouns used in this description are familiar to those who have read Proverbs. Of course, in the mouth of Nebuchadnezzar the words do not carry the same ethical connotations as that book, but the narrator seems to be preparing us to recognize the four, especially Daniel, as a paradigm of the wise person.
In any case, the command of the king to his chief court official, Ashpenaz, was to train these young men in “the language and literature of the Babylonians.” They were to be immersed in the culture of their enemies.
Aramaic was the native language of the Chaldean tribe that was in power in Babylon at the time, and this northwest Semitic language was becoming the lingua franca of the Near East. Nonetheless, the native language of the Babylonians was Akkadian, a Semitic language like Hebrew, but with an extremely complex writing system. It was written in syllabic cuneiform, with the additional complexity that it often utilized the ancient language of the region, Sumerian, in its technical literature. It is likely that our text has Akkadian specifically in mind in terms of the special training that Daniel and his friends were about to receive. Through archaeological discovery and philological advances, we know something of the literature of the Babylonians.28 Today we have examples of historical writings, economic tablets, religious myths, heroic epics, love poetry, and more.
However, from later descriptions of Daniel’s wisdom, we should highlight the importance that mantic oracles play in the Babylonia of Daniel’s time. Daniel clearly would have been trained in the arts of divination through such means as interpreting unusual terrestrial and celestial phenomena, astrology, the examination of sheep livers, and so forth. Indeed, as the footnote to the NIV text points out, the Hebrew literally reads “the literature of the Chaldeans,” not “the Babylonians.” It is true that Chaldea, mentioned as the tribe in control of Babylonia, is another name for Babylon. However, it soon29 became a byword for “magician” or “diviner,” since the culture was so closely associated with this practice.
The art of divination, or reading omens, is well-attested in ancient Mesopotamia.30 According to William Farber, omens were the primary way by which the gods revealed their “will, intentions, or fateful decisions to people.”31 However, this type of divine revelation is different from what we know as biblical prophecy. Divination was a learned practice in that portended events were associated with certain signs (like symptoms of an illness), whether the shape of a liver, unusual births, the flight pattern of birds, the stars, or dreams.32 Diviners used reference books to tease out the significance of the sign. Omens could be solicited or unsolicited. In the case of dreams, they could be solicited by an incubation rite, where the subject induced sleep expectant of a significant dream. But the reference books only helped diviners interpret dreams that the subject narrated to them. They did not have the tools to discover the contents of a dream if the subject chose, for whatever reason, to withhold that information.
The bottom line is that the text is telling us that Daniel was educated in the ways of Babylon, which surely included these mantic arts. As we will see, he not only took the class, he graduated summa cum laude (Dan. 1:17, 20)!
Indeed, as we read closely in this section, we marvel at just how far Daniel and his friends are taken in the Babylonian acculturation program. In verses 6–7, we learn that their names were changed. On the surface, this may seem benign to those of us who live in a modern Western culture, where name and identity are only mildly associated. In the ancient Near East, however, the name, which often contained the name of the one’s deity, was integrally connected with a person’s identity. Thus, the Babylonians began the process of reeducation by giving their captives new names.
Daniel (“God is my judge”) becomes Belteshazzar (either “May [a god] protect his life” or “Lady [a goddess], protect the king”).33 Azariah (“Yah is my help”) becomes Abednego (probably a bastardized form of “servant of Nabu”). Hananiah (“Yah has been gracious”) and Mishael (“Who is what God is?”) becomes Shadrach and Meshach. The latter two Babylonian names are of debated etymology, though many34 see the former as a form of the name Marduk. Though we cannot be dogmatic on the details, it appears that in their attempt to give the Judean youths a new identity and allegiance, they bestowed names that associate them with Babylonian gods. The remarkable fact is that the Hebrew youths did not choose to fight this battle.
Conceivably, the transformation may have gone further. As J. Braverman has pointed out, early rabbinic and Christian commentary on these verses concluded that Daniel and his friends literally became eunuchs at this point.35 After all, many of those who worked closely with the Babylonian king were eunuchs, and Ashpenaz’s title has been understood to literally mean “chief of the eunuchs.”36 Jerome believed that Daniel and his friends here fulfilled Isaiah 39:7, “And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood who will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”
In the final analysis, we cannot be certain. Some have argued that their description as “without defect” precludes their castration.37 However, note that within the story the evaluation is made not by an Israelite priest but by a pagan king. To Nebuchadnezzar a eunuch in the service of the court is natural. Yet we must remember that native evidence indicates that not every male who served in the court was a eunuch. On this matter, we will have to suspend final judgment.
We have passed over the one matter in our passage that will dominate the rest of the chapter, the provision of food. During their three years of training, the king “assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the king’s table” (v. 5). Since this gift triggered a striking response from our four faithful Judeans, we will reserve discussion of the nature of this food until the next section.
Avoiding Defilement (1:8–16)
UP TO THIS point, Daniel and his three friends have provided no recorded resistance to their assimilation into Babylonian society and culture. They have received new names, submitted to a foreign educational curriculum, and perhaps even have had their gender erased. All of this makes their next move all the more startling. “Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine” (v. 8). What does Daniel hope to accomplish by his determined stand? Why has he chosen the area of his diet as the moral and theological line over which he refuses to step?
The question is not easy to answer with confidence. Of course, our first guess would be that Daniel is firm in his commitment to the dietary laws of the Old Testament, the laws of kashrut (Lev. 11; Deut. 12:23–26).38 After all, the verb “defile” (ga’al) denotes religious defilement.39 In other words, he wants to keep kosher. However, if Daniel’s intention was to keep kosher, then why did he refrain from wine? The Old Testament laws do not restrict any but the Nazirite from wine (Num. 6:1–4). Further, in their threats and warnings, the preexilic prophets implied that it was impossible, by definition, to keep kosher in the land of captivity (Hos. 9:3; Amos 7:17).
If Daniel was not motivated by the dietary laws of the Old Testament, then perhaps he was concerned about the religious overtones of the food from the king’s table. In a marvelously written chapter synthesizing material from various Akkadian texts, A. Leo Oppenheim informs us about the “care and feeding of the gods.”40 We learn here that sumptuous food would be offered to the gods, and, after their having time to enjoy the repast, whatever was left would be brought to the king’s table. No Mesopotamian king is ever recorded as going hungry.
Perhaps Daniel would have been troubled by eating food that was first offered to idols, so that we can here locate his determination to avoid the food. However, Daniel does not avoid all the food of the palace. He does eat the vegetables, and we have no reason to think that these were not offered to the gods along with the meat and drink.
Baldwin and Fewell41 separately argue that the motivation was more political than theological. Of course, in the ancient world these two spheres were not completely separate. In any case, these scholars point to the use of the Hebrew word patbag (translated “food” in v. 8; cf. also 11:26 as well as the idiom “to eat at the king’s table” in 1 Sam. 20:30–34; 2 Sam. 9:9–13; 19:27–29) to argue that to eat food from the king’s provision was an acceptance of his covenant/treaty overlordship. By refusing the food, Daniel refuses the relationship. But again, this view falters by virtue of the fact that Daniel did not make a public display of rejecting all the king’s food. Indeed, he accepted the vegetables. On the human level, he and the three friends physically survived because the king sent food from which they selectively ate the vegetables.
Rather than these doubtful reasons, we believe that the motivation lies more closely connected to the story. Daniel and his three friends are in a process of education and preparation for service. Their minds as well as their bodies are being fed by the Babylonian court. If they prosper, then to whom should they attribute their development and success? The Babylonians. However, by refusing to eat the food of the king, they know it is not the king who is responsible for the fact that “they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food” (1:15). Their robust appearance, usually attained by a rich fare of meats and wine, is miraculously achieved through a diet of vegetables. Only God could have done it.42
The diet of vegetables was a temporary regimen, as we learn from later texts that imply that Daniel at least enjoyed rich foods later in life.43 Its purpose was to keep the four pious Judeans from believing that their physical appearance (and by consequence, perhaps, their intellectual gifts) were the gift of the Babylonian culture.
Another point, vitally important for later application, is often missed in the discussion. The diet was private, not public. As the four stood before Nebuchadnezzar and were pronounced the best in the class, the king could take pride in the products of his largesse. Only the Judean youths knew the truth.44
After all, observe how they achieved their goal of a substitute diet. They made no public proclamation of their intentions. They staged no food strikes. Daniel quietly approached the chief official and asked him for permission not to partake. The chief official did not agree with them and refused to participate in their plan, but he did not reject them brusquely or violently. He could presumably have caused some trouble for the four, but the text informs us that “God had caused the official to show favor and sympathy to Daniel” (v. 9). Behind this English translation we see the same verb that we encountered in v. 2, “God gave.” While the Babylonians thought they were in control of the world and local scene, the Hebrew narrative makes it clear again that the true God is the One who orchestrates events for the good of his people.
True, the chief official declines the ruse. Daniel does not panic; he does not grow angry. He simply chooses another strategy to accomplish his goal. We see here the beginnings of a theme that will develop throughout the narratives concerning Daniel. He is the incarnation of a wise man—a man who knows how to navigate life. He knows the right action for the right situation; he knows the right word to effect a godly result.
In this case, Daniel turns to the guard whom the chief official put in charge of their diet (v. 11). He proposes this time a brief ten-day test: “Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink [and not the rich fare of the king]. Then [after ten days] compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food” (vv. 12–13). Perhaps motivated in part by the fact that he could partake of the rich fare while providing the vegetables for the four Judeans, the guard agrees; the test works; and the four eat vegetables to the glory of God for three years.
Success Given to Daniel and His Friends (1:17–20)
FOR THE THIRD time in the chapter, we read that God gave something to someone. In 1:2, he gave Jehoiakim and Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar. In 1:9, God gave the chief official sympathy toward Daniel and his friends. Now (v. 17) we read that God gave the four Judeans “knowledge and understanding.” Of course, Nebuchadnezzar and those involved in their education would take credit for their brilliance, but Daniel and the others would know to whom the credit was due. This section anticipates the next chapter, where the plot revolves around God’s granting wisdom to Daniel through revelation (cf. 2:22). After all, they had grown physically robust not because of their Babylonian diet but because of the grace of God, that is, in spite of their diet of vegetables. The effect of the theme of “God’s giving” throughout the chapter is to press home who is really in control of the events of Daniel’s life, not to speak of fate of the people of God in general.
For now, however, the divine origin of Daniel’s success is understood only in private by the four. Nonetheless, the effect is there for all to see. Just by talking with them, Nebuchadnezzar recognizes that Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (note the narrator’s use of the Hebrew names) are far better45 than the professional “magicians and enchanters” of Babylon. However, the narrative has let the readers, both ancient and modern, look in on what was going on behind the scene. Thus, we might say that Daniel and his friends’ actions are intended not only for themselves but as an example to all of us (see Contemporary Significance).
Commentators through the centuries have been troubled by the description of Daniel’s wisdom and especially this comparison to Babylonian wisdom. In the words of Calvin,
we must hold that Daniel had not been seduced to implicate himself completely in those impostures of Satan, for, as we shall soon see, he abstained from the royal food and drink. My opinion is, therefore, that whatever the king may have commanded, Daniel was content with the pure and genuine science of natural things.46
After all, the Bible makes clear that the superiority of Israelite wisdom to Babylonian mantic wisdom is not a matter of degree, it is a matter of kind. Babylonian wise men are not so much incompetent as “false.” They claim to receive their wisdom from gods whom the Israelites recognize as nonexistent—or worse, from the dark side (Deut. 18:14: “The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the LORD your God has not permitted you to do so”; cf. Isa. 47).
It is too facile to say that Daniel had nothing to do with this kind of wisdom. While it is true that the four are first characterized by the kind of wisdom associated with the book of Proverbs (“knowledge and understanding”), Daniel himself is associated with a kind of mantic wisdom (“Daniel could understand visions and dreams of all kinds,” v. 17). Indeed, we will see that God uses Daniel’s specialized knowledge as an instrument for the revelation he gives him later in the book.
The description of Daniel here and his actions later remind us of Joseph, who played a similar role in the court of the Egyptian pharaoh. God blessed him as well with the ability to interpret dreams in a style that even this pagan monarch could recognize. And who can forget the association the narrative makes between Joseph and his divination cup (Gen. 44:5)? God can utilize even the forms of pagan wisdom for his purposes.47 As Goldingay points out, “there is no positive theology of pagan or secular learning here, but rather the assurance that it can be triumphed over.”48 The chapters that follow will show Daniel and his friends triumphing again and again over the false wisdom of the Babylonians, both through courtly wisdom (Dan. 3 and 6) and through mantic wisdom (chs. 2, 4, and 5 [not to speak of the second half of the book]).49
The Extent of Daniel’s Ministry (1:21)
CHAPTER 1, AS we have seen, introduces the whole book of Daniel. Daniel is the wise man who, through God’s grace, can navigate life’s difficulties in the present and peer into the future. It is, therefore, fitting that we get an anticipation of the extent of his work. But the note comes with a difficulty. While the verse situates his life and career in the period between his arrival in Babylon until the first year of Cyrus, the Persian who defeated the Babylonians, Daniel 10:1 locates the concluding vision in the third year of Cyrus.
There are various ways to harmonize 1:21 and 10:1,50 but we should not miss the intention of the verse to identify Daniel as the prophet of the Exile. He spans the entire period, and, as J. Goldingay puts it, thus “outlasts” his conquerors.51 This message provides both encouragement and hope to those alienated from their land with the message that success without compromise was possible even in the midst of captivity.
Bridging Contexts
IN THE INTRODUCTION to the chapter, we have already identified the overall theme of this chapter: In spite of present appearances, God is in control. Though the story focuses on the surface level on the actions of the human characters, the chapter primarily intends to teach us about God. He is all-powerful; in a word, he is sovereign. Powerful human figures like Nebuchadnezzar wield tremendous influence and, on one level, control the lives of many people, including Daniel. However, the opening chapter asserts a theme that runs throughout the book as a whole: Real power has a heavenly origin. People like Nebuchadnezzar simply serve his deeper, at times mysterious, purposes.
God’s sovereignty displayed subtly but clearly here and elsewhere in the book has as an intended effect to comfort his people. From their limited human perspective, they think they are simply pawns in the hands of hostile forces. Daniel 1 circumvents that false but understandable perception by pointing them to the reality of divine sovereignty.
The teaching on divine sovereignty is the most important lesson of the chapter, but can we go further and learn from Daniel’s example of godly behavior in the midst of a hostile environment? Or are his actions so limited to a particular historical occasion that it is illegitimate to transfer anything to our lives today? We have already addressed this issue in a broad way in the introduction to the book, but this is an important place to add a few comments, since we do intend to derive lessons for our lives so many years later from the life of Daniel.
Genre identification and proper interpretation. Genre identification is crucial for proper interpretation and application. We need to know what we are reading in order to understand properly the text’s message and claims (if any) on our lives.
On the surface, Daniel’s opening chapters appear to inform us about the past. We hear about events that shaped the fate of a whole nation when Babylon exerted its power over Judah and exiled a number of its elite class. We get an account of the first few years of certain members of that elite class as they live in the Babylonian court. We often call such reminiscences of the past “history”—a blanket term to be sure, but one that we understand and that fits with the contents of Daniel 1. Many scholars would call our label simplistic and reductionistic, and they would be correct, but we will save our nuancing for later.
Many teachers and preachers of the historical sections of the Bible make a fundamental error at this point. In their appropriate desire to make these texts touch the lives of those to whom they are speaking, they go immediately to moral teaching of the passage as they understand it. In a moment we will see this is legitimate, though filled with pitfalls. However, we must point out that the primary purpose for these texts is not to teach us how to behave, but rather to point us to God. Daniel is first and foremost a revelation of God. Now, God does not reveal himself to us in the abstract but rather in relationship to his people and through his actions in history. From the very first verses we see that this book is not essentially about Daniel, but rather about God. It is a revelation of who he is and how he acts for our redemption.52
Nonetheless, neither should we ignore the didactic function of the text.53 Several important questions arise as we consider this function. (1) We must address an issue that many Bible writers ask: How can history be normative? In other words, isn’t history unique? God may be working in a special way during Daniel’s time, but we should not uncritically read about his actions and apply them to ourselves by saying, “Go and act like Daniel!” History is a report of past events, not a blueprint for our behavior. We can marvel at God’s great acts, but we cannot presume that they have any direct relationship with us today.
As we will see throughout the first six chapters of Daniel, there is much truth to this principle. We cannot assume that God acts the same way today as he did at the time of Daniel. Nor can we simply use Daniel as a model of our behavior without asking important questions of continuity or discontinuity. Yet it is equally incorrect to say that we should never use historical narrative from the Old Testament as a guide to our faith and practice today. There is a moral force to these stories of Daniel in captivity that we ignore to our great impoverishment. After all, it is in reference to stories like this one54 that Paul stated “these things occurred as examples” (1 Cor. 10:6).
We cannot reduce any Old Testament story to a simple historical report about the past; indeed Old Testament narrative as a whole seems to have a didactic shaping.55 That is, they incarnate principles that intend to shape the lives of those who hear these stories.
And what appears to be true of Old Testament narrative in general is pointedly true for Daniel 1–6. Indeed, its didactic function, along with the Joseph story and Esther, have been underlined by scholars who have gone so far as to classify these prose sections as wisdom literature.56 Wisdom literature proper (e.g., the book of Proverbs) informs its readers of the proper way to navigate life. Just as Joseph in Genesis 39 illustrates how a young man in a compromising situation should act in a way that pleases God, so Daniel and his three friends give insight and guidance to God’s people as they confront oppression and the temptations of a godless life. If it is wisdom literature—and this may be doubted,57 it guides by showing proper behavior as opposed to describing it in the manner of a proverb.
Indeed, there is no better way to learn than by a good story. We can be inspired, encouraged, and emboldened by a story like Daniel’s triumph over an impossible situation to live out our own faith with courage. After all, we are not only readers of stories; we live story.58
Think about it. When you tell a new friend about yourself, you tell them a story. You have a beginning, a middle, and an end (which is ongoing until your death and someone else tells the story of your life). In other words, you have a plot. Your life is peopled with characters: your parents, friends, supporters, enemies. If you are a Christian, you will give the account of your conversion and your life with Christ. Thus, it is almost impossible for us as story-bearers not to compare our story with the ones we hear, like the story of Daniel.
When we tell the story of our lives truthfully, we are recounting actual events and actual people. Nonetheless, we give it meaning and purpose from the vantage point of the present. We may now see how God had a purpose in a relationship that confused us in the past; we may see patterns in our life that we did not recognize earlier. These purposes and the situation in which we are speaking will cause us to select certain high points in our life, emphasize some more than others, and interpret them all. Our stories can be both true and shaped.
The same is true of biblical history; the accounts are true, yet shaped. They have a grander purpose than mere historical recollection, but this does not denigrate their essential historical accuracy.59 The Daniel account is shaped so that our stories may come into contact with Daniel’s story with the result that we may be changed by it.
(2) How are we changed by the story of Daniel 1? Before answering that question directly, we must acknowledge that, though these “things occurred as examples” for us (1 Cor. 10:6), there are also elements of discontinuity we must take into account, both here and in the chapters to follow. While affirming a didactic element to these chapters, we must also acknowledge that Old Testament stories do more than give us examples. They are more than just individual stories that teach us how to behave; they are part of a greater story, the story of God’s redemption of his people. They are a part, to use a term common among theologians, of the history of redemption. The story of Daniel is a window on the Exile, an important event in redemptive history.
God had formed a special relationship with the descendants of Abraham and had given the patriarch a promise (Gen. 12:2–3):
I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.
God later followed through on these promises. For instance, later in history Abraham’s descendants had indeed become a nation, and at the time of the Exodus Moses constituted them as such. But these promises, freely given, also entailed a response of gratitude, perhaps most concretely expressed through the law later spelled out in the Ten Commandments and the case law that flowed from them. That law was accompanied by blessings and curses for obedience and disobedience. Among those curses for disobedience were some that warned of a cataclysmic judgment that could come on the people of God. Typical of these is Deuteronomy 28:64–68.
Then the LORD will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart. You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life. In the morning you will say, “If only it were evening!” and in the evening, “If only it were morning!”—because of the terror that will fill your hearts and the sights that your eyes will see. The LORD will send you back in ships to Egypt on a journey I said you should never make again. There you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.
The prophets of the period just before the Exile warned the people of Judah that such a cataclysm threatened them because of their disregard for their relationship with God as manifest in their disobedience to the law. The author of Lamentations understood the destruction of Jerusalem as the fulfillment of this and other curses. Daniel’s personal exile was an anticipation of the national catastrophe.
In other words, the story of Daniel informs the reader that Nebuchadnezzar’s intrusion into Judah was not a historical accident. God gave Jehoiakim into that pagan king’s hands, after all. But without denying that the Exile was indeed an experience of God’s judgment, Daniel 1 also reveals that God had not abandoned his people altogether. He was not only with the faithful in exile, but as with Joseph in the Egyptian prison, God was blessing them, allowing them to succeed in what might be considered nearly impossible situations.
Continuity and discontinuity. As we will see more clearly later, Daniel 1 anticipates a theme that flows from the promise to Abraham. We begin to see what becomes explicit in the next chapter: Abraham’s descendants will be a blessing to the nations.
When reading the Old Testament as history of redemption, we must be careful to read it first from the vantage point of the time of its composition. If we do not, we will easily distort its message. However, for those who read from the stance of Christian faith we must continue, because we have more of the story. Jesus himself instructed his disciples that the Old Testament had a future dimension that pointed toward himself (Luke 24:25–27, 44–49). Not that every verse or even every chapter of the Old Testament has a specific anticipation of Christ, but we must read the Old Testament, including the stories about Daniel, with an eye to the fulfillment of redemptive history in Christ.
As we read the account of Daniel in the Babylonian and, later, the Persian courts, we must acknowledge another important element of discontinuity with our moment in redemptive history. Daniel and his friends lived their lives of faith at a time when God’s people were defined as an ethnic group and a distinct political entity. In a word, God’s people were a nation, admittedly at the time of Daniel a nation without independent existence, but a nation nonetheless. After Christ, God’s people can no longer be so identified. God’s people today are the church. A much less tangible entity than a nation, the church spans ethnic, political, and national boundaries.
Unfortunately, this distinction is often lost today, especially in America, where some still think it is possible to speak of an essentially Christian nation founded on (Judeo-) Christian principles. This point is crucial for our understanding of Daniel and Daniel 1 in particular, where a fundamental issue is the relationship between faith and culture. Daniel teaches us that the struggle is not to make the culture Christian, but how a Christian can live in a hostile culture.
As we read the story of Daniel from the perspective of the New Testament and ask how we as Christians can learn from the example of Daniel, we will see how these elements of discontinuity work themselves out in such concrete instances as Daniel’s bold decision not to eat the food provided by the king. Even though we have concluded that the core issue is not keeping kosher, we can learn from Acts 10 and 15, as well as 1 Corinthians 8 (cf. v. 8 “… food does not bring us near to God, we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do”) that preoccupation with a distinctive diet is a characteristic of the Old Testament people of God, not the New. However, the principle of continuity will drive us to ask ourselves where God is calling on us to make a stand of faith in the midst of our constantly changing culture, a prospect frightening as well as exciting.
Contemporary Significance
DANIEL 1 THRUSTS us into an issue of contemporary significance that continues into the following chapters. For that reason, though this essay will be self-contained, we will not give an exhaustive discussion here. The reader interested in the insight that the book as a whole throws on the question of the relationship between faith and culture will have to read the commentary on the following chapters as well. Here, however, we will lay the groundwork and will refer in later chapters to the discussion found here.
God is in control. God reveals himself in the midst of the action of Daniel 1. We have seen that while on the level of human observation Nebuchadnezzar’s military prowess wins the day, the Bible takes us behind the scene and shows us that God is in control. God is sovereign and he is also immanent in the world. He directs the world by his providence. This is true not only on the battlefield, but also in Daniel’s classroom in the royal court. God also is the one who distributes wisdom, choosing to endow Daniel and the three friends with a special measure of it to further his purposes in history.
Relationship between faith and culture. But how does Daniel 1 address us in our everyday life? In answer, it is striking how the contemporary church finds itself in a situation similar to Daniel’s. We too live in a strange land. We have seen how Daniel was taken from the shadow of the temple and forced to live in a land that worshiped idols. Babylonia under Nebuchadnezzar ultimately went further, tore down that temple in 587 B.C., and destroyed Daniel’s homeland. Daniel (and the other exiles) enjoyed some measure of freedom and reputation in the land of his captivity, but he still lived in a culture that was hostile toward everything he held dear in his heart. The dichotomy between his belief and the belief of those in power is evident in this first chapter and will intensify throughout the book.
Christians today should understand that we too live in a “toxic” culture, that is, a culture that stands at odds with our faith.60 The god of modern culture is not the God of the Bible, but is ultimately the self. This strange god demands worship that creates values different than those of Christianity. Since the individual is at the heart of the worship of secular culture, personal gratification and self-realization are prized over any sense of the other person, any sense of community, whether that community is the family, the church, the city, the nation, or the global community.
This picture, of course, is a simplification and generalization. The world does not divide neatly into Christian and secular. Especially in this day of growing spirituality, the non-Christian world is varied. Those of us who live in big cities daily rub shoulders not only with thoroughgoing atheists and agnostics, but also with Muslims, people of Jewish faith, and those who practice a vague sort of spirituality that they refuse to put into traditional categories.
For a variety of reasons, however, the public face of our culture is predominantly secular. Since, in the United States at least, our founders thought it in the best interest of religion to keep government separate, God has become at best a buzzword in public policy and law. Moreover, because of the virtual withdrawal of Christians from the media, such things as movies, television, mainstream music, and journalism reflect the mood and opinions of those who bracket or reject God.
The lines are not always clear, but most thoughtful Christians recognize a difference between their beliefs and values and those esteemed by the culture at large. Indeed, many Christians have a sense of oppression and even hostility as they live their lives in the public square. The term culture war has recently been coined to describe the clash of values between people of faith and those who define what is right and wrong without reference to a higher being, more specifically the God of the Bible. In an insightful and provocative description of this conflict, James Davison Hunter of the University of Virginia has delineated the five fronts along which this war is waged: the family, education, popular media, law, and electoral politics.61
To highlight just one specific issue among many, note contrasting attitudes toward homosexuality. Many today believe that homosexuality is a legitimate alternative lifestyle, to be respected and treated like heterosexuality. Philadelphia, the city in which I lived until recently, has just recognized the gay partners of city employees by granting them spousal benefits. On the other side of the culture war, the place where Christians often find themselves, are those who are not ready to acknowledge homosexuality as simply an alternative to heterosexuality. In opposing what they see as a trend of “secular” culture, they believe that they protect the institution of the family, at least as traditionally defined.
The tensions are deep and more complex than I am able to describe here. Nonetheless, only the most insensitive could miss that there is a profound sense of division in our society, and Christians often find themselves out of sync with the bulk of culture.
Let me be clear at this point. I am not making a simple identification between the Christian church, or even the more narrowly defined evangelical Christian church, and the agenda of the religious right, even though the culture war in large part is defined, legitimately, as a struggle between the religious right and the rest of society. But no matter what their political orientation, whether conservative or liberal, Christians will find themselves at odds with the values and beliefs of the broader culture just by virtue of their ultimate allegiance to a God who is bigger than themselves.
What can the book of Daniel contribute to our own struggle and sense of identity in a modern secular world? Not only does it reflect a similar tension between God’s people and the “world” (to use the language of Paul), it gives us insight into how we should interact with the world—and it does this in a surprising way, in part by undermining many of our current attitudes and practices. As we will see, the book does not simply give us a pattern of behavior as much as opens our eyes to multiple strategies for cultural engagement.
Many Christians today advocate only one stance toward culture: resistance. Ask a fairly knowledgeable passerby how the evangelical Christian church interacts with culture, and they will respond with one word: “coercion.” The culture war often takes on the mantle of a holy war as Christians mobilize their forces to resist the encroachment of secularization against the family and society in schools, government, and media.
That picture cannot be blamed simply on the selective portrayal of the media, showing Christians participating in picket lines, blockades, and boycotts, with cameras focusing on faces shaking with rage screaming at those who are destroying God, country, and family. These reports may be sensationalized, but they are nonetheless in essence accurate. Most of these efforts at coercion target legislation, working through the democratic system, but with dangerously increasing frequency the coercion takes on the frightening dimensions of violence: abortion clinics in Atlanta bombed; a doctor shot in the back in Pensacola. Would that these were always the act of fringe Christians groups, but that would be a lie.62
This is a picture of the Christian interacting with the broader society through resistance—sometimes using the tools of the democratic system, sometimes going outside of the rules. Many, including myself, would argue that this is the predominant paradigm practiced by the evangelical Christian community today. But it is not the only one by which Christian interaction with culture can be described.
In a classic study, H. Richard Niebuhr described five different patterns,63 and the pattern I have just described fits into the category he calls “Christ Against Culture.” Culture and Christianity are two different, hostile approaches to the world. As with any assault, the church has a choice of two alternatives: fight or flight.64 Since the evangelical church has grown in recent years, it has often chosen to flex its muscles, but some Christians have nonetheless chosen withdrawal, fitting into a second paradigm of Niebuhr. This latter may be illustrated on an individual level by Frank, a friend of mine, who threw his television out a window when he caught a look at a music video his children were watching one night, and, in the extreme, by the approach of the Amish, who eschew much modern technology as represented by their use of horse-and-buggy rather than automobile. The wilderness areas of many of our Western states are populated by people whose faith has led them to leave the evil influences of our cities and towns.
Perhaps on the extreme opposite end of the spectrum are those Christians who embrace culture—“The Christ of Culture.” This is not the route taken by the vast majority of evangelical Christians, but it is the conscious or unconscious strategy of many others. Niebuhr himself pointed to advocates of the social gospel in the earlier part of our century, and Yancey cites modern advocates of liberation theology, who understand their Bibles through the lens of Marxist political thought. It would be wrong to label such people as mere sycophants of culture. They are rather selective in their understanding of what the Bible teaches in terms of love, toleration of others, and the value of biblical justice. Many perhaps fall into this pattern because they are afraid to be different or maybe they just want to fit in.
Another of Niebuhr’s categories is “Christ and Culture in Paradox.” In this model church and society have separate, but legitimate spheres. We obey Christ in the church and the political leaders in our public, community life. After all, didn’t Paul state as much in Romans 13:1–7? He begins by exhorting his readers to “obey the government” and continues by telling us to “pay your taxes.” This advice seems reasonable until we realize that church and society often put opposing demands in front of us. Luther was Niebuhr’s prime example of this approach, and the logic of his thought led to Christians who collaborated in the atrocities of Hitler during World War II. While the example of Christian Nazis is often taken as the end of the discussion since it is such a reprehensible recollection, we still have to deal with Paul’s words in Romans. He does tell us to obey the government after all.
Then there is the view most frequently associated with Calvin and his intellectual descendants, the transformation of culture. Working from within culture, Christians operate as agents of positive change. Here we must comment that Niebuhr’s five categories are rarely found in pure form. There is often a thin line of separation between them. Yancey offers Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) as an example of this fifth way. Cromwell was the leader of the largely Puritan Civil War against King Charles I of England. Indeed, Cromwell did transform culture from the inside. Though he was tolerant to some other religions (Quakers, for instance), the strongly Calvinist Cromwell could also be vehemently anti-Catholic and was known to deface the statuary of churches and cathedrals, considering them idolatrous.65 Transformation can sometimes pass over into coercion.
We do not present the above categories with the intent to argue that one model is the biblical model. We offer them as a background on which to compare contemporary Christian strategies with Daniel’s actions.
In the Original Meaning section, we observed how Daniel takes a stand and places himself against his culture. But what occasioned surprise was the extent to which he exposed himself to the pagan thinking and culture that surrounded him. Moreover, we are shocked by the great effort he took to keep his distinctiveness quiet. Daniel was no Origen, the third-century theologian, who as a young man desired to throw himself in front of the emperor’s chariot and proclaim Christ so he could achieve the glory of a martyr’s death. Neither was Daniel a Jerome, who fled to a monastery to avoid worldly pollution or, when feeling the unwanted arousal of sexual stimulation, would throw himself into a thorny bush.
Daniel endured much cultural assimilation, yet he knew where it was appropriate for him to draw the line of distinction. The text implies that Daniel acted in a right manner for his situation. The narrative applauds his growth in wisdom. Not only that, but as we will see in the following chapters, Daniel also had wonderful opportunities to make even bolder statements of his faith.
Once again, Daniel is not given to us as a model of the one biblical way for the believer to interact with his or her culture. Rather, when viewed in the light of the rest of Scripture, Daniel imparts the liberating, yet frightening news that there are multiple ways to be a believer in an unbelieving world. Much depends on the person and his or her specific cultural situation.
Christ and our relationship with the world. After all, what is Christ’s teaching on how faith acts in the world? This is a topic that deserves book-length treatment, but I would like to bring to mind two key aspects of his teaching. Jesus calls us to be “in the world, but not of it” (cf. John 17:16), but also to be as “shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves” (Matt. 10:16).
(1) Jesus spoke a paradox when he taught that though we are “in the world” (John 17:11, 15), we are, like him, not “of it” (17:14, 16). Indeed, Jesus is the one who has sent us into the world (17:18) with the purpose that the world “may believe that you have sent me” (17:21). To use another biblical image of our involvement with the present world, we are “resident aliens” (cf. Phil. 3:20).
But notice the leeway provided in Jesus’ statement. It is a general principle that can be lived out in a variety of ways. What does it mean, to take a concrete example, in the area of the education of our children? All of us who have had children have struggled with the decision of how best to educate them. Schools have a huge impact on the development of our children’s thinking and life direction, and there are many who will tell you that there is one, and only one, correct answer to that question. Some will say that a Christian school is the only proper choice. We want our children not only to avoid the thinking of secular humanism found in the public school system, but also to construct a positive, biblically centered understanding of the world.
Others, some because of the lack of a Christian school option and others because they believe even the Christian schools have imbibed the spirit of the age, advocate home-schooling. Occasionally a brave soul will even suggest that the public school, with all of its potential pitfalls, is the only way to go to prevent the “ghettoization” of the church, and prepare our children for “life in the real world.”
Looking at this question in the light of Christ’s admonition to be “in the world, but not of it” and with an eye on Daniel’s success in a truly pagan educational environment does not allow us to answer this question with dogmatism. There is no single answer to this question for all people of faith at every stage of a child’s development. Too much depends on the child, the school system, the parents, the church, and so much more. We can be “in the world, but not of it” in the local public school, the Christian school, or the home school.
How many of us wish that the answer was simple and clear-cut, not only in this issue but in all the issues of faith and culture that bombard us daily. What movies and television shows are appropriate for me to watch? What magazines can I read? What music can I listen to? How protective of my children should I be?
Some may feel that we are advocating a kind of relativism here and in this way have imbibed the spirit of the day ourselves. We must be quick to say that there are some areas where our stand against culture should be clear and unequivocal in the light of biblical teaching. Though our culture permits it, it is not right to choose to have an abortion to avoid the embarrassment or the annoyance of an unwanted pregnancy. Though our culture permits it, it is not right to have an active sexual lifestyle outside of the institution of marriage. Though our culture permits it, it is not right to engage in homosexual acts of intimacy. But even here there are questions, not about our own behavior, but about our reactions to the behavior of others. What is the appropriate Christian response to the legalization of abortion? To the legitimization of homosexual relationships?
Once again we hear from Christians who say there is only one possible biblical response. Some advocate coercion through legislation or even violence as the only proper response. A note of urgency is heard from some of the leaders of the church that it is of the utmost necessity not only to refrain from sinful activity ourselves but make sure that no one in our country sins either. They point to the Old Testament and the law’s demand on Israel, as a political entity, to be morally pure.
It is at this point that we need to remind ourselves that no modern nation, whether America, England, Korea, or whatever, is in a situation like Israel (see Bridging Contexts section). America is not a Christian nation; there is no such thing as a Christian nation. America is more like Babylon in Daniel’s day or Rome in Jesus’ day than Israel. We need to listen to the wise words of Martin Lloyd-Jones, who had the following insightful words for those who wanted to legislate Christian morality:
The New Testament is never interested in conduct and behaviour in itself. I can go further and say that the New Testament does not make an appeal for good behaviour to anyone but to Christian people. The New Testament is not interested, as such, in morality of the world. It tells us quite plainly that you can expect nothing from the world but sin, and that in its fallen condition it is incapable of anything else. In Titus 3:3 Paul tells us that we were all once like that: “for we ourselves were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.…” Thus there is nothing, according to the New Testament, that is so fatuous and so utterly futile, as to turn to such people and appeal to them to live the Christian life.… The truth is that it only has one message for people like that—the message of repentance.66
Lloyd-Jones gives us the healthy reminder that God is not interested in lives of external conformity to his will, but hearts that lead to thankful obedience.
(2) But this does not mean we withdraw from a dangerous and hostile world. In Matthew 10:16 Jesus calls his disciples “sheep” and the rest of the world “wolves,” but he demands courage from his sheep to take the risk to live among the wolves. In the process, he gives them a strategy, using two more animal metaphors: “Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.” We are to be innocent and shrewd as we live out the issues of faith in our culture. And does this not describe Daniel perfectly? Daniel certainly was innocent. He mounted no angry assault on his captors; rather, he acted quite civilly.67 He was virtually serpent-like in his crafty strategy to remain faithful in a land antithetical to his deeply held faith. As the story continues, we will observe that Daniel not only remained faithful but exercised significant influence on the godless world around him.68