In our 138th episode of the Enter the Bible podcast, hosts Kathryn Schifferdecker and Katie Langston explore a listener's question regarding the biblical practice of anointing with blood and its potential connection to current events, specifically an assassination attempt on Donald Trump. 

They delve into the practice's scriptural context, discussing its origins in the ordination of priests and the significance of blood in ancient rituals. The conversation highlights the dangers of misinterpreting scripture to fit contemporary narratives, emphasizing the importance of understanding the Bible in context. The hosts also reflect on the nature of faith in uncertain times and the responsibility of discerning leadership based on the fruits of their actions.

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Watch this episode on YouTube at https://youtu.be/ZFawg2uquj4.

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Kathryn Schifferdecker: Welcome to the Enter the Bible podcast, where you can get answers or at least reflections on everything you wanted to know about the Bible but were afraid to ask. I'm Kathryn Schifferdecker and I'm.

Katie Langston: Katie Langston, and today on the podcast, it's Just the Two of us, which is kind of which is kind of fun. Um, yeah. We had a couple of folks that we had initially thought about, uh, coming on who were unable to make it. So it's just us. Hopefully we'll be able to, uh, to answer the question. Well, um, because it is kind of a challenging question that we have today. Uh, this comes from a it comes from a listener, um, who asks this question. And again, if you, listener or viewer on YouTube would like to submit your own questions, you can do so by going to enter the bible.org and clicking on the little ask a Ask a Question button. Fill in the form. We try to get to as many of these as we can. The question is, where in scripture does it mention that anointing the ear with blood is a practice instituted by God? And now, Kathryn, when we first saw this question, I think we were both kind of like, what's this about?

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Katie Langston: And then as we looked, it just seemed.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: A very, uh. Yeah, a very detailed and esoteric question.

Katie Langston: Yeah, yeah. Like super specific. Right. Um, but as we looked into it more, we kind of realized that most likely this was a question related to current some current events. Um, uh, we're recording this in October of 2024 and, um, a couple of months prior, uh, there was, uh, the first, which is a terrible thing to have to say, but the first assassination attempt on Donald Trump, where his ear was grazed by a bullet and there was blood on the ear, and it seems like, um, this question is, um, fueled by things that we've seen on the internet since as we've kind of been doing research into this question, uh, where people, um, are claiming, you know, that that this is, uh, possibly fulfillment of a prophecy or that in the Bible, anointing the ear with blood is something that is instituted by God. And this is therefore supposed to show something or, you know, we're supposed to interpret that somehow in light of that event. So, um, it's kind of a, Uh, you know, like, sort of sum it up, was Trump's assassination attempt a fulfillment of biblical prophecy? It's kind of how, um, how we're interpreting that question, which is a really interesting question. Okay, so so what do you think Kathryn was, um, was Trump's assassination attempt a fulfillment of biblical prophecy?

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Well, the short answer is no, in my opinion. In my opinion, no. Obviously, uh, there are those, I'm sure, who would disagree with me. And, you know, we might get some comments about that, but let's let's look at Scripture, right. This is enter the Bible. Scripture is our focus. So let's look at these passages that this you know that that this listener is asking about. Uh, and there's uh, there are three pertinent passages. Um, so I'll just go over them briefly. Exodus 29, verses 19 through 21, but particularly verse 20. These are instructions to Moses from God for, uh, how to ordain Aaron as the chief priest. Aaron, of course, being Moses's brother. How to ordain Aaron and his sons as priests. This is during the. This is the time at Mount Sinai, right? They've come out of slavery in Egypt. They're out at Mount Sinai. And God is giving instructions to Moses, including the Ten Commandments, of course, uh, giving further instructions for building the tabernacle, which is that mobile sanctuary. Right. Kind of the mobile temple. Uh, and in the midst of those instructions for building the tabernacle, God also gives instructions for ordaining Aaron and his sons as priests. So in Exodus 29, God says, you shall take the other ram. So they've slaughtered one ram as a sacrificial ram. The other ram is the ram of ordination. You shall take the other ram, and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on the head of the ram, and you shall slaughter the ram, and take some of its blood, and put it on the lobe of Aaron's right ear, and on the lobes of the right ears of his sons, and on the thumbs of their right hands, and on the big toes of their right feet, and dash the rest of the blood against all sides of the altar. Then you shall take some of the blood that is on the altar, and some of the anointing oil, and sprinkle it on Aaron and his vestments, and on his sons and his son's vestments with him. Then he and his vestments shall be holy, as well as his sons and his son's vestments with them. Let me just mention the other two passages, and then we'll talk about the details here. So those are the instructions for ordaining Aaron and his two sons as priests in Leviticus eight. Then we get the story of the actual ordination. So the the tabernacle has been built by the end of Exodus and and then Leviticus is uh, is full of uh commands and, and, and instructions about, uh, sacrifices. So the first several chapters of Leviticus are about the various kinds of sacrifices, whole burnt offerings and grain offerings and well-being offerings. And then in Leviticus eight through ten is the ordination, the description of the ordination ceremony. And so in Leviticus 8:23 and 24, it talks about, um, you know, how they ordained. So he brought forward the second round, the ram of ordination. Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the head of the ram, and it was slaughtered. Moses took some of its blood and put it on the lobe of Aaron's right ear, and on the thumb of his right hand, and on the big toe of his right foot. And then he does the same with Aaron's two sons the third time this comes up is just a few chapters later in Leviticus 1414, and this chapter is primarily about the cleansing of a leper. So a leprosy, of course, a kind of general name for various skin diseases in ancient Israel, after a leper is cleansed, after he's made whole, he comes to the priest to offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving and a sacrifice for sin. And then the the blood of that sacrifice is put on the ear of the person being cleansed. So those are the those are the passages that talk about blood on the right ear. And of course, uh, Trump's right ear was the one that got, um, yeah, shot or grazed by the bullet and there was blood on his right ear. But here's the thing. It this first of all, this isn't prophecy, right? It's it's ritual instructions. And secondly, it has nothing to do with politics. It's about the ordination of priests. We don't do this anymore. Right. We don't. We don't slaughter an animal when a when a pastor or priest is ordained. We don't put blood on the ear, but that's where it comes from. And I'll just say a word about blood and then let's.

Katie Langston: Yeah, yeah.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Why we can.

Katie Langston: Keep. Why so much blood in general? Because that's kind of gross, right? Yeah.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Well, so this is again, maybe this gets a little too esoteric, but blood in, in ancient Israel and and in the New Testament as well. Blood is understood as the, the life force of either a human being or an animal, both human beings and animals. Blood is the essence. It is the essence of real life. It is like.

Katie Langston: In real life that is a we need it or we would not be alive. So yes, exactly right.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Which is why it's important to donate blood to. For people who need. Need blood. Uh, and so, uh, throughout the Old Testament, but particularly in, in Genesis and in Leviticus, Exodus and Leviticus, there are prohibitions on eating blood. Right? So, so when you sacrifice, Leviticus is very concerned with life, which seems like an odd thing to say about a book that talks so much about sacrificing animals. But, uh, but Leviticus is really concerned with the with life, both the life of human beings and the life of animals. And when you slaughter an animal either to eat it or to sacrifice it on the altar, um, even for many sacrifices, you can eat either the priest or the person offering the sacrifice, or both can eat some of the sacrifice. But no one is allowed to eat blood, because blood is the life of the animal. And it is, and it is offered back to the God who gave that animal life in the first place, right? So when you when you slaughter an animal, even, even strictly, just to eat the meat, you never eat the blood. You offer the blood back to the God who gave that animal life in the first place. That's why I say Leviticus is really concerned with with life. And if you're slaughtering a wild animal whose blood can't be offered on the altar, then you pour out the blood on the ground again as a way of honoring the life of that animal and honoring the God who gave that animal life. So in this instance, the blood is a it's a way of atoning for the sin of Aaron and his sons, or showing, you know, that, that their sin is forgiven. And it's a way of, of of of showing that they've been set aside for this purpose of ordination, of being priests. Yeah.

Katie Langston: I will say it feels dangerous then to make a parallel like this about any political leader. Right. To try to say, well, you know, it's it's an ordination to a priestly office. And so what we're saying is that x or y, X, Y, or Z political leader has been ordained to a priestly office. Like as Christians, we would say that is Jesus, right? Jesus is the the last high priest. Jesus is the right, you know, is the, um, uh, is is our prophet, priest and king, right? And, and so to assign that kind of symbolic meaning to any human being, uh, I think is, is very possibly, like, idolatrous. Right? Like, that's very spiritually dangerous to do. Do you think that would be fair to say?

Kathryn Schifferdecker: I completely I completely agree with you. Yeah. I mean, speaking of any political figure, including Trump, as a kind of messianic figure or a priestly figure or whatever that is, that's idolatry, right? Like as you said. Very well, you know, Jesus is our prophet, priest and king. We we do not elevate any human being to that level, to the level. You know, we already have a messiah. Right? Right. The Messiah has come and is coming again. We don't elevate any human being to that status. And so, um, so yeah, I would certainly describe that as idolatry. I do want to add one other thing. And that's about these kinds of decisions that we have to make. Yeah. To go back to what we were saying earlier about, you know, not lifting up any human being as the Anointed one, as the Anointed One. And I'm talking not just about political leaders, but about religious leaders. You know, there's so many cases of religious leaders who, um, who fell off their pedestal because they were lifted up too high and, and, and thought of themselves too highly. Right. Did not remember humility. So, uh, when it comes to any leader, whether political or religious, I think Jesus reminds us that that we we need to judge people by their by the fruit that they, that they bear. So in Matthew seven, Jesus says, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus there. She will know them by their fruits. So whatever leader you're following, right? Political or religious or otherwise, what are the fruits of their, um, of their service, right? Or of their actions? Right? Is it are the fruits violence? Are they is it death? Is it, um, you know, uh, so fear. Yeah. Fear. Fear is it is it lying? Right. Yeah. Those kinds of fruits are not the fruits of the spirit, right? The fruits of the spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. So, yeah, uh, judge your potential leaders by their fruit, by the by the fruit of their actions, the fruit of their decisions. And I'd like to just note that, you know, we talked about these passages being in Leviticus. Leviticus has a lot of other things to say about About how we treat our neighbors. It's in Leviticus 1918 where we find the command love your neighbor as yourself. Right. That's that's one of one part of the greatest commandment that Jesus says in the gospels, love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind. From Deuteronomy six, love your neighbor as yourself from Leviticus 19 and a lesser known verse later on in Leviticus 19:33. When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native born. Love the foreigner as yourself, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. Now maybe I'm jerking texts out of verses out of context here too. But this, this doesn't just happen. This isn't just said in Leviticus. It said Oliver. Leviticus all over Exodus, all over Deuteronomy and numbers. We love our neighbors as ourselves. We love the most vulnerable among us as ourselves, including foreigners. So if you if you're if you're going to read Scripture, you know, read all of Scripture. I think I think the issue here is to see how when you when you wrench a verse or a few verses out of context, right, you can make the Bible say almost anything, right? I mean, for sure, if you're if you're reading, you know, one verse or 2 or 3 verses in isolation, if you're taking them, kind of tearing them out of context. Yeah. I mean, you can find all kinds of verses to say all kinds of obscure or strange things. So you have to let Scripture interpret Scripture. You have to read in context. You have to understand what the genre of, you know, of the, of the text is. This happens a lot, not not so much with Leviticus. That's the kind of odd thing here, because Leviticus isn't very often used as kind of foretelling the future. But you see that a lot with, for instance, the book of revelation, right? The book of Daniel, these kind of more, more apocalyptic texts.

Katie Langston: Symbolic, right?

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah. So we before we did this podcast, actually, we talked to our friend Craig Kester, who's a, who's an expert in the New Testament New Testament scholar, but particularly in the book of Revelation. And and he says, you know, it's important to look up passages, to consider the context of the passage, to consider the details of it. So, he says, wrenching a detail about blood on the ear out of context is not at all faithful to Scripture. And and it's, uh, yeah, it's showing. There's just not any correlation here, really, between the event that sadly happened, you know, a few months ago and, and and this passage in, in Scripture, um, the function of this ritual in its context has to do with ordination for sacrificial ministry, not for political office. So, uh, in.

Katie Langston: A, in a, in a, in a ritual system that doesn't exist anymore, it doesn't exist for the Jews. It doesn't exist for. No, for Christians. Um, because Christ has come and was the was the, you know, the atoning sacrifice for our sin. So, so it's it's just not it's just not relevant. Um, when you look at it in context.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Um, right. And it's not it's not the, you know, it wasn't Aaron's own blood. That's another detail that doesn't fit. Sure, sure, sure. It's, uh, it's the blood of the sacrificial goat. So I think the larger question really is to ask why this happens, right? Why people try to do this, try to kind of proof text or rent a verse out of context in order to, uh, in order to try to make it fit current events. And again, we see this a lot more when people talk about the book of revelation. I mean, there's been countless, countless people who try to predict, you know, when the world is going to end, when Christ is going to come back, or when the rapture will happen. That's a whole other topic, right? Yes.

Katie Langston: Which we do have an episode on. So go go back and listen to that if you're curious about the rapture. But yeah. Yeah.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Uh, so you know why why this impulse to do that? Especially when Jesus says in the gospels, no one knows the end except the father. Right. Uh, you can't you can't predict the end of the world. And I think the answer to why people wrench Scripture passages out of context is because they don't they? It's fear basically, right? Yeah. They they want to think that there's some grand plan in all its details for figuring out what's going to happen next. Right. They want some certainty about the future or about decisions that they have to make. I mean, voting for a candidate for president is a huge responsibility. Sure. And privilege. And so, you know, knowing with certainty you know, who God ordained for this office may provide some false comfort, but it's a decision that you make based on you. Right. Based on research that you do about policies and who you think is going to do the, you know, do the best job as president. Uh, and, you know, in terms of the book of revelation, people who want certainty about what the future will hold. Um, that's the impulse, I think.

Katie Langston: Yeah. Because it's a scary world, right? Like, I know I, I want certainty about things. I, I, you know, I, uh, I try to do my best to, to predict what's going to happen, um, in lots of areas of my life just because the, the, the idea or the reality that actually I can't control. Actually, it turns out, Kathryn, I can't control the cosmos. I have tried, I have tried if I just, you know, if I just worry about this enough. Exactly. If I, if I spend enough time ruminating about this, then somehow that's going to fix it. Um, you know that there is a certain. There's a certain, um, uh, point at which you just kind of have to give it to God. And, and I feel like most of our attempts to control outcomes or to reach some level of certainty about what's going to happen in the world or, um, or in our own lives or whatever. Um, I think I think sometimes we do our very, most harm, right? Like the ways in which we actually do the most harm to our neighbors and to our own souls is when we're trying to control things that we can't control and trying to have certainty about things that are inherently uncertain. Um, yeah. Yeah. And so there's a there's a, you know, there's a sense in, in which I think we are we just have to and this is so much easier said than done, but we just have to trust God to make something good out of whatever happens. Yeah. Um, yeah. And to acknowledge that, you know, as Christians, we're called to take up our cross like we're never guaranteed. Nowhere in Scripture does it say you're going to be protected from suffering. You're going to be protected from, you know, even horrible things like societal collapse or natural disasters, as we've seen or, you know, all, all kinds of terrifying, scary things, like if Scripture is any model, actually, that happens a lot. Bad things happen a lot. And the question is like, how do we live faithfully into that? And trying to control the outcome is like the, the, the last way, the worst way, I think to the least faithful way to try to respond in in some ways, I don't know. What do you think?

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Yeah, I think you're right. There are certainly passages in Scripture that that promise. I think of Psalm 91. Right. He will bear you up so that you don't dash your foot against a stone. Right. He'll give your angel his angels charge over you. And yet, if we and yes, we, we believe in God's faithfulness. We believe that that God is faithful, that God does watch over us. And yet, if we take the life of Israel and the life of the church and the life of Jesus and the disciples as any witness. You're right. There's there's no kind of wall that protects us from everything that might harm us. What we are, we. So we aren't promised a safe life. We're not promised protection from from all harm. What we are promised is that God is there with us, beside us, suffering with us, and and bringing us through whatever suffering happens to us or to the world to bring us through that to to life, to new life. Right. And so we walk as the as the hymn goes. We walk by faith and not by sight. Right. Uh, I think about Hebrews chapter 11. Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. And then Hebrews 11 goes through all these heroes of the faith Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, you know, David, uh, Gideon, all of these people who like us, uh, had terrible things happen to them or don't know what the future holds completely, but know that God holds the future, right? And that who trusts that God will bring them through whatever happens to them? Uh, to, uh, to life. Uh, and that God has built a city for us, right? That that God. will bring us through again, whatever happens to life. You might put it this way. It's like. It's like we're in a play. I'm taking this from other theologians. We're in a three act play, say, and the scripture is the first act. Right? And so we read that to know, to know the story and to get to know God, who is the main player, the main character in this story and the author of the story and the playwright and the director. We're living in the second act, right? And so we look back to how the people in Scripture lived, how they lived by faith and not by sight, so that we might know how we should live as well. And the third act has already been written. It hasn't happened yet, but we know the end of the story, right? We know the end of the story. We know that God brings all things to new creation, including us, including us and our bodies and those we love. And so we know the end of the story. We know that God is faithful and in the meantime. But but we don't know the details in between. Right? Right. And our decisions are part of those details. Right. What we do matters for what comes next. God. God takes up our work and and brings it to fruition. So that so that what we do now, the decisions we make now matter into God's future. Um, at the at the end of that wonderful, wonderful passage, first Corinthians 15 that talks about the resurrection. Uh, Paul says, you know, um, I'm going to read it so that I don't misquote it. Uh, Paul says the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. You know, death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? But thanks be to God, who gives us, gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. That's a that's a word of hope in the midst of uncertainty, in the midst of, you know, not not knowing what's coming next. We work for what we know is right. We work for what we know. God wills, and we trust that in the Lord that labor is not in vain, and that God will bring us and the world into God's new creation, will transform us and the world into into new creations. So we walk by faith and not by sight. Yeah. Yeah.

Katie Langston: That is a word of wisdom for all of us as we're heading in this. This episode is is set to be released about a week, I think, before the presidential election and all the other local elections. And so, um, yeah, just praying for your discernment as you make your decision and head to the head to the polls. It is a it is a gift, um, to be able to, to to do that. Not many, you know, nations or societies in the history of the world have allowed the people to make these decisions. So that's something to cherish.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: And we also, whoever is elected, right, locally or nationally, uh, or statewide, we pray for our leaders. We're called to pray for our leaders, uh, that for for wisdom, for patience, for, um, yeah. For God's guidance for all of our leaders, whoever is elected.

Katie Langston: Well, thank you. That was, uh, that was, uh, that was a fun one. Um, thank you to the listener who submitted that question. And thank you to those of you who have tuned in today, whether you're watching us on YouTube or you're listening in your favorite podcast app, there are more places to go to explore the Bible and enter the Bible.org. Um, while you're there, you can take courses, watch videos, see more podcasts like this one, and get all kinds of information about every book in the Bible. Um, of course, uh, one of the best ways to sort of help us spread the word about this podcast is to rate and review us, um, on your favorite podcast app or YouTube. And of course, the highest compliment you can pay us is to share the podcast with a friend. Until next time.