When God Speaks, Things Happen: How Speech Act Theory Transforms Biblical Understanding w/ Professor Steve Mann

Johnny Ova: It's that time again to dig in. I am your host, Pastor Johnny Ova, and today I have the privilege of having on Professor Steve Mann. Thank you so much, Steve, for joining us and giving us your time.

Prof. Steven Mann: It's good to be with you.

Johnny Ova: I'm excited to jump into our topic today. It's an interesting mix, because when we read the Scriptures we see God's word and "God said," and what you specialize in, which I'll let you introduce to the audience, I'd never thought about from this angle before. I know this is going to be a blessing to everybody who listens. To start, introduce yourself a little. How did you grow up? Did you grow up in a Christian home? Is this something you always wanted to do?

Prof. Steven Mann: My name is Steve Mann. I did grow up in a Christian home. I grew up a church kid going to Rose Drive Friends Church in Yorba Linda, California, so I'm a Southern California guy, and I had a great upbringing in church. I loved it. I'm kind of a nerd, so I love being in the classroom and learning, and I went to Azusa Pacific University as a college student. I wanted to be a band director, actually. I love music and play a bunch of instruments. But about halfway through, I got a call to youth ministry, and in my case it was an actual voicemail message. I sometimes have to explain to my students what an answering machine is. I had this random message from someone at Diamond Bar Friends Church, kind of a sister church to mine, saying, hey, if you want to be the youth pastor, we're going to need to see a résumé. I thought, I didn't ask to be a youth pastor. I have no plans to be a youth pastor.

Prof. Steven Mann: So I was going to call back and politely decline, and then I made the mistake of praying about it and realized maybe I'd given God all the great reasons why I shouldn't be a youth pastor. After that I said, okay, I'll put my name in the hat and see. I was a youth pastor for seven years and loved it. I changed my career trajectory, got my MDiv, and during that time fell in love with the Old Testament. Then I went on to pursue my PhD at Fuller Theological Seminary, and now I actually teach at Azusa Pacific University. So it's come full circle, and I'm still involved at Rose Drive. I absolutely love it.

Johnny Ova: Everything comes full circle. What was your main instrument, or your favorite?

Prof. Steven Mann: Electric bass and trombone. My favorite was probably violin, but I wasn't as good at violin as the others.

Johnny Ova: Wow, you've got a wide range.

Prof. Steven Mann: Like I said, I was going to be a band director, but I like how things turned out.

Johnny Ova: That's great. So let's get into this. What first drew you to focus on divine speech as a biblical theme? Was there a moment you realized something's happening here that's more than just words being said?

Prof. Steven Mann: I do think it was my experience in youth ministry that made my ears perk up when I was exposed to speech act theory. It was the practical aspect of reading the Bible. Since I was a church kid, I felt like I knew the New Testament really well and had a lot of good answers, so I was going to give my youth group all the answers I had. Then I thought, let's start going through the Old Testament. We found books like Job that ask all these great questions and resist easy answers, and that was really interesting to me. I found the Old Testament would bring up fascinating conversations with my students. As I explored that, I had Dr. John Hartley at APU talk about speech act theory, and then in my PhD studies Dr. John Goldingay brought up speech act theory and the practical, performative nature of God's words. I was hooked. I did my dissertation on it, and my first and second books on it. That's kind of my thing right now. I just love Scripture, and I love exploring not just what it means, which is fine, but what it does.

Johnny Ova: Most Christians are familiar with the idea that God speaks. God talks to us. You pray, God answers back. But you've taken it a step further by applying speech act theory. Can you walk us through what it is in simple terms, and how it changes the way we actually read Scripture?

Prof. Steven Mann: I'll try. You tell me if this makes sense. Speech act theory is a philosophy of language, so it isn't inherently a biblical hermeneutic by itself. It's a broad philosophy of language credited to J.L. Austin, who gave a series of lectures at Harvard in 1955. He was very interested in exploring not just what speech means and how it describes the world. He said, wait, some speech actually impacts the world. You're not just describing things all the time. Sometimes you say something, and by saying it you've done something. Sadly, he passed away shortly after the lecture series, but some folks compiled his notes and published them in 1962 under a great title, How to Do Things with Words. It's a wonderful little book, more a collection of lectures. Basically, speech act theory asks what this speech does. It doesn't stop with what it means.

Prof. Steven Mann: One of Austin's students, John Searle, is who I latched onto after that. He says any language can do five things. It doesn't matter what language you're speaking, you're doing one or more of these five things. The first he calls assertives, where we try to describe the world. We can also use directives, where you direct someone to do something. You can use commissives, committing yourself to doing something. You can use expressives, which don't have to fit the world, only your feelings. Lastly, the one that really got Austin excited is declaratives, where if you speak it, it happens. It's like an umpire in a baseball game saying strike. If you're the person with the authority to make that call, that's a strike, even though the ball might be several balls off the plate. It's a ball? No, that's a strike. So those five, assertives, directives, commissives, expressives and declaratives, are what people do when they speak, and they can do more than one at a time.

Prof. Steven Mann: When we think about the Bible, you can explore the speeches as speech acts. I know we're going to focus on God's speech acts, and that's a great focus, but you can do it with all the characters and ask what they're doing. The most obvious declarative for God is Genesis 1: let there be light. God is creating. Let there be, and boom, it happens. The performative word is powerful. But God doesn't just give declaratives. God gives commissives, like the covenant with Abraham: I'm going to make you a great nation, someone through whom all the families of the earth are blessed. That's God committing God's own self to doing that. God certainly gives assertives. In my latest book I explored the story of Cain and Abel. When God tells Cain, your brother's blood is calling out to me from the ground, that's an assertive. God is describing the world. God issues expressives, like in Hosea 11, when God is really wrestling with how he can turn the northern kingdom over to Assyria: how can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? And of course God gives lots of directives, especially in the Torah and the prophets.

Johnny Ova: That's fascinating. Even with the baseball analogy, you can define what a strike is and describe what a strike is, but me in the stands saying that's a strike doesn't change anything in the game.

Prof. Steven Mann: Right. What you're doing is possibly issuing an expressive. In one of my articles I actually use that one word, strike, for all five acts. You've got the manager coming up to say strike, directing the pitcher to throw a strike. The pitcher could say strike, as in, got it, it's going to be a strike. But it's the umpire who calls it a strike. Then the announcer says that's a strike, and that's an assertive describing the world. And then there are the fans in the stands. I'm a long-suffering Angels fan. We actually won a game I went to last week, and then we lost horribly at the one I went to the next day. But that's baseball. You can do all five things with the same word.

Johnny Ova: So even though we're becoming friends, Steve, I guess we're archenemies, because I'm a Yankees fan. In the early 2000s we were definitely archenemies.

Prof. Steven Mann: Well, okay. Me personally, I'm really a Lakers fan first. If you said you were a Celtics fan, yes, we'd be mortal enemies, who could be friends, by the way. For baseball I'm more of a fan who enjoys the game. I think I'm supposed to hate the Yankees, because if you're not a Yankees fan everybody hates the Yankees, which is fine. I don't mind hating on the Yankees. But I enjoy Angels games, and I really bleed purple and gold for the Lakers. Julius Randle, amazing. I'm sorry you guys let him go. I'm sorry we let him go.

Johnny Ova: I'm definitely not a Celtics fan. I'm a Knicks fan. We've got our own struggles now. Too funny.

Prof. Steven Mann: There's one more thing I can share about speech act theory after that little pause, since we have to take this in bite-sized pieces. Something really helpful from my studies is that speech act theory recognizes two things going on with speech: an illocutionary act and a perlocutionary act. The illocutionary act is what you achieve in saying something. The perlocutionary act is the result you hope to achieve by saying it. The classic example is a waiter saying to you, the plate is hot. That's an illocutionary act, warning you about the plate so you can act accordingly, and its success depends entirely on the speaker's performance. The perlocutionary act is the goal, making sure the customer doesn't burn themselves, or maybe making sure the restaurant is covered if you sue. You're trying to affect their actions, and that's out of the speaker's hands. You can warn them, but they have to respond. So the perlocutionary act is more of a two-way street.

Prof. Steven Mann: We see that throughout Scripture, where God is trying to do something, like warning Cain to do well. God sees what's happening, but God doesn't force Cain how to act. God is trying to persuade Cain to act a certain way, and doesn't succeed. We could say it's because of free will and all that. But the perlocutionary act is only successful when the hearer responds in the desired way.

Johnny Ova: Interesting. You've got my brain going in a million directions during this podcast, because there are so many scriptural analogies that come to mind thinking about this.

Prof. Steven Mann: That's why it's such a great way to talk about Scripture. It opens up all of it, especially the narratives. We can talk about the prophets too, but it really opens up the narratives to ask not just what this means, but what's going on. What's everybody doing?

Johnny Ova: It really is. Let's zoom out a bit. When we say God speaks, what do we actually mean biblically? Is divine speech always verbal, audible? How should we frame this theology without limiting what it means?

Prof. Steven Mann: I love the idea of not limiting God's speech. For me, speech act theory helps me see that God doesn't speak only in declaratives or directives. We might expect God only to create through speech and tell us what to do. But God also gives assertives, describing the world as God sees it, and God gives commissives and expressives. So God's speech, in my view, helps us see that God is a person, not just a force like in Star Wars or an equation you have to figure out. God is really someone, and we can make that a capital S. Someone, not something. Sometimes my students get a little freaked out if I say God is a person. They say, God's not a human being. I say, no, I'm not saying that, but God is someone, not something.

Prof. Steven Mann: That also opens up conversations about humans and how our use of speech could be based on how God uses speech, since we're made in God's image. When Christians sometimes get uncomfortable with how human-like God appears in the Bible, I try to turn that around and say, don't worry about it, because we're made in God's image. God's not made in ours. So I think understanding speech acts helps us understand God better, and it helps us understand the other characters as well.

Johnny Ova: I definitely agree. Even on the base level, when I say things, sometimes nothing happens. When God says things, something is always happening, or he's describing events taking place. The way we say it in our church, not in as much detail as you explained, is that one of the biggest misunderstandings about the Bible is not seeing that there are descriptions and prescriptions, just two basic things. People have this idea of God dictating. Hosea is chilling, God rings him: Hosea, I need you to grab the feather, dip it in the ink, and write this down exactly as I tell you. With that you get some of the most insane stories, and that's where people get confused, thinking God wants you to do this. No, he's not telling us to do this. He's describing what's taking place. Look at David, a man after God's own heart. Many things David did should be commended. He was an honorable man of God. But having his friend killed so he could sleep with his wife was probably not a directive from God. So it's a description of what David did, versus a prescription of what God desires. At least that's the way we teach it.

Prof. Steven Mann: I could go so many places with both Hosea and David. I want to point out that with Hosea, we can say God tells him to write these things down, but what God actually tells Hosea is, go find a wife who's going to be unfaithful to you. I want you to have a dysfunctional marriage. So Hosea's life becomes a kind of acted message, telling Hosea, go find someone who will be unfaithful to you and marry her, because Israel is unfaithful to me and I want Israel to know how they've broken our covenant. To do that, God is like a good youth pastor. He knows people need object lessons to understand things. So Hosea's family becomes the prophetic message, the judgment against Israel. The perlocutionary act is conveying that message. But will they understand? Will they turn and repent? Spoiler alert: no.

Johnny Ova: I'm just grateful God didn't choose me to live out Hosea's life.

Prof. Steven Mann: John Goldingay, whom I mentioned earlier, one of my mentors and a friend, has said it's a terrible thing to be called to be a prophet. You don't want God to call you to be a prophet. It's a terrible life, or it certainly can be, because no one ever believes you. When things are going well, God sends a prophet to say things actually aren't going so well, and people ignore you or beat you up. When things are really tough, God sends the prophet with a word of encouragement, and people won't believe you either, because it's very hard to believe encouragement when you can't see it, so they beat you up. Basically, if you're a prophet, at best you get beaten up. Or ignored. Maybe that's better.

Johnny Ova: The desirable life of the prophets. When I think of the phrase "God said," I go right to Genesis 1, the obvious starting point. And God said, and it was. You see this back and forth: God says things and they happen. What do you think the original audience would have understood about the nature of divine speech in that passage?

Prof. Steven Mann: I think it shows that speech is performative, especially in the way of what Austin and Searle called declaratives. Of course, I'm not a time traveler, or at least you can't prove I'm not. But ancient audiences might have listened to that story and thought, wow, this God is super powerful, ultimate cosmic power, we might say. The words God speaks in the opening creation story demonstrate the power and identity of God. God speaks and it happens. As a side note, I've been playing with the idea that this might function similarly to Jesus' miracles in the New Testament, where Jesus can say not only your sins are forgiven but you're healed. Jesus speaks and it happens. The miracle stories show the power of Jesus, and God's creative word in Genesis 1 shows the power of God. That would be really important for an ancient audience who might be doubting it.

Prof. Steven Mann: You probably know that a lot of biblical scholars think a good context for understanding Genesis 1 is the Babylonian exile or around then, when Babylon was this great superpower and the little Judahites thought they might have no chance. One of the greatest gods in the Babylonian mindset was Marduk, and they had a creation story celebrating Marduk called the Enuma Elish. I can give you a brief synopsis, because it really is strikingly different from Genesis 1. You've got a watery chaos monster named Tiamat wreaking havoc, and the gods are freaked out. This is the Message version of the Enuma Elish, so I'm giving you my spin on it. Tiamat is wreaking havoc, the gods need a champion, and Marduk is the biggest, baddest and strongest, so they ask him. He says, fine, I'll do it, but only if you make me king afterward. They say, sounds good, buddy.

Prof. Steven Mann: Marduk and Tiamat have this epic battle and Marduk wins. Not a very enlightened culture. Tiamat opens her mouth, Marduk shoots an arrow through her head and splits her in two. He throws one half of her watery body up into the sky, and that becomes the waters above the sky in this creation story, and throws the other half down to the earth, and that becomes the seas. Then Marduk knows he's going to have to contend with Tiamat's, let's call him boyfriend, Kingu. So Marduk goes and kills Kingu, and with Kingu's blood mixed with the dust he creates humans to do the dirty work of the gods. It's entertaining stuff.

Johnny Ova: It's a movie script.

Prof. Steven Mann: And Genesis 1 portrays God so differently. There's no struggle with Tiamat in Genesis. Although, and you might have heard this, at least in my circles Old Testament scholars love talking about it, there is a near reference to Tiamat in Genesis 1, and that's the word for the deep, the face of the deep. The Hebrew word for the deep is tehom, and if you turn tehom into a feminine noun it basically becomes Tiamat. So when the spirit of God, or the wind of God, since ruach can mean more than one thing, is hovering over the face of the deep, ancient audiences' ears would perk up. Wait, is there going to be a fight here? This is the deep. This is Tiamat. And there's no fight. There's no conflict. That shows how much more powerful this God is than Marduk, who is obviously very powerful, but he has to struggle with chaos. God orders chaos through speech.

Johnny Ova: Wow. Moving forward into covenant moments, like God's words to Abraham, Moses or Israel at Sinai: how do those moments show speech not just as command but as covenantal action?

Prof. Steven Mann: I love the way you framed that, and it makes me share with you and your viewers the most important thing I ever learned about covenant, which Walter Brueggemann said. Brueggemann said the clue to understanding covenant is that the strong agree to have their life shaped and largely determined by the character of the weak. Everybody thinks a covenant is a contract, and that's not completely wrong. There's an aspect of covenants where both parties come into agreement and have obligations, and there are actually different types of covenants in the Bible. It's not wrong to say it's like a contract. It's better to understand it as a relationship that can have contractual elements, with the relationship as the guiding idea. And Brueggemann says the clue to that relationship is that there's a stronger party who agrees to live on the terms of the weaker party.

Prof. Steven Mann: We see Paul do this in the New Testament, if I venture in there a little. I'm an Old Testament scholar, so don't believe me when I say anything about the New Testament. Paul is trying to get the churches to live as a covenant community, living in light of how the weaker parties might respond to how you use your freedom. Romans 14 or 15, somewhere in there: think about your actions and how they will affect the weaker members of your community. That's a covenantal way of doing life together. And certainly Jesus embodies covenant. In Philippians 2, though he is God, he doesn't consider equality with God something to be grasped, but humbles himself to the cross. That's covenantal living.

Prof. Steven Mann: All that to say, when you understand that aspect of covenant, it opens up all of God's interactions with Israel, especially in the Torah and the prophets, where God gives them directives. You might think God only gives directives about the very best things he wants them to do. Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor. Yes, God says that. God also says, when you get divorced, do it this way. Wait, what? Is divorce okay? God says, I don't want you to divorce. Jesus is pressed on this in Mark 10 by the Pharisees, who are trying to get him into trouble, and Jesus says Moses gave you that because of your hardness of heart. There are some things God gives directives about that are parts of the culture God doesn't actually endorse, but God is going to be involved with the things in life people will encounter.

Prof. Steven Mann: That opened up so much for me, not just in the Old Testament but in the New, when God gives instructions on things where I think, wait, God can't really endorse that. Peter says obey the emperor, and in the same way, wives submit to your husbands, and if you look above that it says slaves obey your masters. That's really confusing, and it has led to a lot of important conversations, more now than ever. What do we have in the Bible? Are these all directives setting up the kingdom of God on earth as God wants it? You can see God trying to get people to love each other, live sacrificially and follow Jesus, all of that. But you also see God in the New Testament working within a Greco-Roman world that assumes certain things, not fighting against them but working with them and maybe trying to transform them subtly.

Prof. Steven Mann: If you understand that God is in a covenant relationship, willing to meet people where they are and give them directives where they are, then you can ask, is this something God is doing that reflects God's best? To answer that, Jesus looked to the beginning. On wives submitting to husbands: in Genesis 1, humanity is created male and female in God's image. If you want to see God's intention, God didn't create any humans to submit to other humans. That's what Christians would call a result of the fall in Genesis 3. Then you keep reading Genesis, and the place is a mess, and God is interacting with people, adjusting, talking and walking with them where they're at. That's how God works. So we shouldn't take everything God says to mean, this is God's very best for you. We need some discernment. What is God doing? is a wonderful question to ask, as opposed to just, what does this mean, does this mean I have to do this? Maybe. But what is God doing here? And look, God is doing something different over here. So speech act theory helps me understand not only what the characters are doing in the narratives, but also what God is doing in all these different directives in different situations, in both the Old and New Testaments.

Johnny Ova: I love the language you put to this. It has me going through different stories in my head. At a high level, what we teach is the redemptive arc of Scripture: the fall of Adam and Eve, sin, and then the Old Testament as a redemptive arc toward "it is finished" in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. There are things God breathes on, as we say, that aren't ideal, but they're better than yesterday, and he's breathing on them to get them closer to the heart and nature of God. I love the language you use about God working in the culture and coming down to meet you where you're at, because we preach that all the time.

Prof. Steven Mann: That's good. It fits with Jesus so well.

Johnny Ova: 100 percent. Sometimes I feel like we make God so unattainable that people push away from him. They think, I can never be that, so I don't want it. If we could bridge that gap a little better. That leads to my next question, about blessing. When God blesses someone in the Old Testament, is that speech also performative? Does something actually change?

Prof. Steven Mann: That's good. The answer is yes. Blessings and curses in the ancient Near Eastern setting were both considered very powerful speech acts. Even in Genesis 1, where God blessed them and said, be fruitful and multiply, there's a way to understand those as declaratives, where by saying it God enables it to happen. With speech act theory, it's not as if everything suddenly becomes clear. You also have to ask, if be fruitful and multiply is a directive, and the blessing is separate and enables it, then they have to do something. But you could also understand be fruitful and multiply as itself a blessing. To be honest, I'm not sure which it is. Ask me on a different day and I might change my mind. That sometimes happens with this approach. But the concept is very clear: by issuing a blessing, if you're the person with the authority to give it, the blessing is effective.

Prof. Steven Mann: That's why it matters when Isaac blesses Jacob and Esau, the famous twins who don't get along very well. Jacob is a trickster, and he tricks his father Isaac into giving him the blessing of the firstborn. That's Genesis 27 or somewhere in there. Don't quote me. Maybe we can edit that out in post. It's somewhere in there, trust me. Isaac gives the blessing that should go to Esau to Jacob, and Jacob leaves. Esau shows up and says, where's my blessing? Isaac says, I already gave it away. It's already happened. Then Isaac gives another blessing to Esau, and that one is good too. But that idea of speech in this ancient culture fits so well with speech act theory, because once you've given that blessing away, you can't just take it back. There's no convention for taking it back.

Prof. Steven Mann: It's similar with curses. That's why in the book of Numbers, or as the Hebrew title has it, In the Wilderness, which is a much better title than the book of Numbers. Who wants to read something called the book of Numbers? I do, but I'm weird. The Hebrew is Bamidbar, In the Wilderness. In that story, Balaam is hired to curse Israel, and that leads to the story of the talking donkey and God stopping him, because the curse was considered something that would really harm Israel. The utterance itself could, for example, keep them from having children. Balaam was really good at cursing, so he's hired to do it, and he says, I can't curse, because God has told me I can't. So blessings and curses may be the best examples of declaratives in the Bible, besides God saying, let there be light.

Johnny Ova: Speaking of declaring, we've been talking a lot about God speaking, and I know everybody's been waiting for this question. I just know my audience. Now it's us speaking on behalf of God. The prophetic books of the Old Testament are full of phrases like, the word of the Lord came to me, and the Lord said. It's funny, all my questions are now, categorize this for me. Are these just messages, or are they events in themselves? What do you see happening when a prophet speaks on God's behalf?

Prof. Steven Mann: Just as you can describe the world, direct, commit and declare, I think the prophets can do all of that. They can say something and in effect make it happen. Which prophet is it? Not Elijah. Maybe Elisha, who says, if I'm a man of God, let fire come down and burn up the commander of the army coming to get him, and it comes down right then. That's a declarative right there. But a lot of the time the prophets are messengers delivering God's message to the people for God's own purposes. Jonah is such a great example. God directs Jonah to go to Nineveh, the great city, and pronounce judgment against it. That's the illocutionary act, the directive. Jonah does the opposite. He goes the other direction. The perlocutionary act fails. God doesn't give up. By the way, that's another part of the good news of the Old Testament. God doesn't give up.

Prof. Steven Mann: Jonah does eventually go. I'm glossing over that great episode with the great fish and the less famous episode of his prayer in the belly of the fish. He eventually goes to Nineveh and pronounces judgment on it. If it's a declarative, they're in big trouble. They're already in big trouble, but he says, forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown. It turns out it's a divine directive to get the people to repent. They interpret it as, oh my gosh, is there anything we can do? Maybe we'll repent, and perhaps God will see and won't bring this judgment on us. They try it, and sure enough, when God sees that they repent of their ways, it says God relents. The word is naham, which many translations render as have a change of mind. So God doesn't destroy Nineveh.

Prof. Steven Mann: Then Jonah says, I knew you weren't going to destroy Nineveh. That's why I didn't want to go in the first place. Jonah knew what God was up to. He knows that when God issues judgment speeches, and you can't always assume you're getting a second chance, you can't just ignore it. There's the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, and I remember you did a podcast on that. God can bring punishment, absolutely. But God doesn't want to, and God loves giving second chances. Jonah knows that about God, but he doesn't want his enemies, the Assyrians, to get God's grace, so he doesn't want to give them the judgment speech. So it can be a declarative. Sometimes it is. But more often, especially in the Old Testament books that carry a prophet's name, these are directives for the people of God to repent, and even the judgments are there so they can repent and God doesn't actually have to bring those destructions on them.

Johnny Ova: The Jonah story is similar to Amos. I know you touched on this, but when God speaks to people like Jonah or Amos and they push back, does resistance, the human response, reshape the effect of the speech act, in your opinion?

Prof. Steven Mann: I would say yes. And I can prove it. Let me pull up a passage that often gets brought up along with Jonah. You think I'm going to say Nahum, but I'm not. I'm going to say Jeremiah 18. I'll read it in the NRSVue, the updated edition of the New Revised Standard Version. Jeremiah 18, starting at verse 1: "The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: Come, go down to the potter's house, and there I will let you hear my words. So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel. The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him." So again, God knows people need object lessons.

Prof. Steven Mann: "Then the word of the Lord came to me: Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done, says the Lord? Just like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, but if that nation concerning which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it. Now, therefore, say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says the Lord: Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you, from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings." And their response in verse 12: "But they say, It is no use! We will follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of our evil will."

Prof. Steven Mann: That's really normal for how people respond to prophets, with Jonah being one of the few exceptions, where the people don't even need an object lesson or a lengthy poem like we see in Amos. I love Amos so much. I'm resisting going into an entire talk about Amos. It may be my favorite book of the Bible besides Job. But here, the people of Nineveh, the enemies of Israel, immediately know what to do and repent, while the people of God have a very hard time repenting. Then God has to adjust how he acts with them, which again is good news. God doesn't give up. There's that wonderful moment in Ezekiel where God says, you haven't repented, but I'm going to bring good because of my good name. You're damaging my reputation. Don't think I'm doing this out of love for you. I'm doing it out of my own self-respect. God has to continually adjust to people. But the way to respond to punishment is absolutely repentance.

Prof. Steven Mann: One time a student in the back of the class raised his hand after I said something like this and said, okay, let's say I'm in hell. Can I ask God for salvation if I'm in hell? We were snickering around the classroom: that's what makes it hell, buddy. But I said, it doesn't hurt. What have you got to lose? If God is someone you know likes giving second chances, you lose nothing by asking. That's where the Ninevite king's idea comes in: who knows? God might give us a second chance. That "who knows" really intrigued me in the story of David during Absalom's revolt. David is fleeing Jerusalem, and this character Shimei is throwing rocks at David and saying nasty things about him. Abishai says, do you want me to go kill this guy? David says, no, don't. God has told him to say that. Who knows? God might bring me good instead of this cursing today.

Prof. Steven Mann: That really intrigued me, because as a church kid I never said, who knows, God might do X, Y, Z. I said, I know what God will do, let me tell you, it's in Romans. That intrigued me so much that it guided my dissertation, this idea of, maybe God will. We see it with David, with the king of Nineveh, and it's probably an element when Moses intercedes for the people during the golden calf incident. You don't know whether God will give you a second chance, but it doesn't hurt to ask him to.

Johnny Ova: It's funny you mention the enemies. Nineveh turns, and most of the time God's own people don't. And even in that story, as you went over, Jonah is the one who flees. The prophet runs in the opposite direction, and when he finally gets there, it all turns around. So I'm going to ask you to do something you admitted at the beginning you're uncomfortable with, but I disagree with you. I think you're just being humble. I'm going to ask you to dip your toe into the New Testament with me for a second. You might have heard of a character named Jesus Christ, Son of God.

Prof. Steven Mann: All right, I'll see what I can do. It's new, I haven't gotten around to it. I have heard of that guy. I'm a fan. I follow that guy. On Insta.

Johnny Ova: In life. In John's Gospel, Jesus is described as the Word made flesh. How do you see the Old Testament's theology of speech pointing us toward this idea?

Prof. Steven Mann: It's great. The writers of the New Testament know that Jesus is the Messiah, and they want to show how Jesus fits with their Scriptures. That's something I usually say, and I'm surprised I didn't say it earlier: I study the Old Testament, or as the New Testament calls it, Scripture. The New Testament doesn't call it the Old Testament. It calls it Scripture, the sacred writings. The opening of the Gospel of John is doing a kind of midrash, a reflection on Genesis 1 and Proverbs 8. Proverbs 8 is a speech by Lady Wisdom. Proverbs is all about wisdom, and wisdom is personified in the poem as a wise woman. You can follow either Lady Wisdom or Lady Folly in Proverbs. In Proverbs 8, Lady Wisdom talks about being with God at the beginning, God creating through wisdom, working alongside God. So the writer of John's Gospel combines Genesis 1 and Proverbs 8 to talk about Jesus, using those two powerful portrayals, God's powerful word and wisdom, to show that the identity of Jesus is bound up with the God of Scripture.

Johnny Ova: Would you say Jesus embodies divine speech in a new way, or is it a continuation of the same speech we see in Genesis, the prophets and texts like that?

Prof. Steven Mann: That's a great question. Let me find it, I've got my Bible up here. That reminds me of the opening of Hebrews: "Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word." Wow, this is perfect for our conversation. So the writer of Hebrews gives you a both-and. Jesus is something different, but not different in goal or substance so much as this: God spoke in these ways in the Old Testament through the prophets, and now we have Jesus speaking for us in the New Testament, in this new covenant.

Prof. Steven Mann: I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that after the "by faith" section of Hebrews, chapter 11, with Abel, Moses and all of them, near the end, and I can't find it, it talks about Jesus as the mediator of the new covenant. But then there's a warning there. You shouldn't think that all the things God said to Israel don't matter, because our God is a consuming fire. I hadn't prepared to talk about that with you, so I can't quite find it. Anyway, the idea is that Jesus fits so well with what God has been doing. But it's not that Jesus is there in the Old Testament the way those ancient audiences perceived it. It's only once you know who Jesus is that you can look back and see that Jesus is actually all over the place. You start from Jesus. That's why, when readers and believing communities don't buy it and say, I don't see how Jesus fits there, because this is what it meant to the ancient audience, well, if you don't share the starting point of Jesus, you're not necessarily going to be excited about how Jesus fits there. It starts with faith in Jesus.

Prof. Steven Mann: Maybe the best place to go is Matthew 5:17 and 18, where Jesus says, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets." Sidebar: we totally don't believe Jesus here. Christian history shows we totally think Jesus came to abolish the law and the prophets. Great, now that Jesus has come, we don't have to pay any attention to the Old Testament. But Jesus said, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished." So Jesus connects himself to the law and the prophets, all those directives. The word fulfill in Greek, and I know Hebrew a lot better than Greek, but this is a fun thing I do know, is pleroo. It's an everyday word that means fill up, or fit with.

Prof. Steven Mann: It's the word used when Mary anoints Jesus' feet in John 12 and the fragrance fills the house. That's pleroo. And when there are baskets full of fish and bread after Jesus feeds everybody in Matthew, it uses pleroo to say there are so many baskets full. So pleroo is a filling out of something that came before it. Jesus says, don't think I've come to abolish the law and the prophets. I've come to fit perfectly with it. So Jesus identifies with all of these directives, all of them, by the way, not just the ones we think of as messianic prophecies, even the divorce ones. Jesus wants to be a part of your life. Back to that directive on divorce: I find it's actually really good news for a lot of people that God is willing to walk with you through your divorce. God instructs Israel on how to do it in Deuteronomy 24, and it ends with the woman getting a certificate of divorce so she can start her life again. So God is trying, like you said, to be redemptive and work with people, and I think that's so beautiful, and Jesus fits with that.

Johnny Ova: Definitely. Professor Steve, this has been awesome. I have one more question for our audience, at least for this episode, but I have to get you back on, because I've got a million and a half more questions on the top of my head.

Prof. Steven Mann: We could go for hours, I have no doubt. We live on opposite coasts, but if we sat down over coffee, I think we'd have a fantastic time.

Johnny Ova: I agree. I've thoroughly enjoyed this, and what you've been teaching is eye-opening. It brings even more depth to Scripture. What an awesome blessing. Here's my closing question. For someone listening today who is rethinking the way they view God's voice in Scripture, like I'm doing right now, going through all these stories in my head, what's one passage, story or idea you'd recommend they return to and read again with the fresh eyes we talked about today?

Prof. Steven Mann: Wow. One story. The one that jumps out immediately is Jonah, probably because I've been working on the book of Jonah. It's such a memorable story that everyone seems to know. It almost transcends the Bible. I think we're invited to put ourselves in Jonah's shoes. We are Jonah. We know so much about God, but where's our heart? Are we listening to God? I still play electric bass here and there, and I was playing bass for the worship team at a friend's church right out of the pandemic, when everyone was following protocols, masked up and uncomfortable. A visiting pastor preached on Jonah, on the end of chapter 4, where it says Jonah was so angry that God had spared Nineveh. He said, folks, why are we so angry? Because God asks Jonah, why are you angry? I had never heard Jonah preached like that before.

Prof. Steven Mann: It seems so fitting, because a lot of Christians come across as angry, at least that's the perception. Why is that? We need to listen to what God said to Jonah. Jonah is very happy that God is full of grace for him and those like him. He doesn't want God's grace given to his enemies. So maybe that's a story we could hold onto today. But it's difficult. Nobody wants to think of themselves as Jonah. He's not a very likable character. Now you're going to get me preaching, because we're not very likable either sometimes. And then, big picture, speech act theory is about moving from meaning to action. The Bible's not trying to merely tell you what to believe. Doctrine is important, don't get me wrong. Beliefs are important. But it's not merely trying to inform us. It's trying to transform our thinking and our lives.

Johnny Ova: Powerful stuff. Professor Steve, thanks so much. I'm going to link all of your books that I could find in the description, so anybody who wants to support you can.

Prof. Steven Mann: There are only two books right now, and a bunch of devotional studies and a handful of articles. I could send you a list if you like.

Johnny Ova: If you can, that would be great. I want to let the audience know where they can support you and learn more. Before we go, is there any way people can connect with you? Are you on social media? Do you have anything coming up you want to let everybody know about?

Prof. Steven Mann: I tend to just lurk on social media, to be honest, and doom scroll a bit. I'm a professor at APU and chair of the seminary, and they've got me busy, let me tell you. I am thinking about another book, and to be honest, it's thanks to you asking me specifically about God's speech acts. My other books have dealt with the speech acts of all the characters, story by story. But I'm interested in stepping back and thinking specifically about God's directives and God's commissives, maybe chapter by chapter. Please, nobody steal my idea. Check back with me in a couple of years. There might be another book to talk about.

Johnny Ova: I want to be the prophet encouraging you to do that, not like Jonah, because that sounds like a great idea for a book. Just don't run from it, okay?

Prof. Steven Mann: Okay, I'll try not to. The trick is finding time for it. As for connecting with me, good luck. I'm not very tech savvy in that regard. But it's been a delight to be with you, and I've really enjoyed our conversation.

Johnny Ova: Professor Steve, thanks so much again. Guys, check out all of Steve Mann's work that we have linked in the descriptions of this episode. Be sure to like, share and subscribe, and turn those notifications on so you catch every new episode. Steve, thank you again for your time today. It was so awesome and so appreciated.

Prof. Steven Mann: My pleasure. Thank you so much.