The NXR Podcast - THEOLOGY APPLIED - What Christians Can Learn from Tom Bombadil of Lord of the Rings

00:00:00.000 Hi, this is Pastor Joel Webbin with Right Response Ministries, and you're listening to another episode of Theology Applied.

00:00:06.220 In this episode, I was privileged to have as a special guest, C.R. Wiley.

00:00:11.120 He's known for several books. One of the books that he's written is called The Household and the War for the Cosmos.

00:00:17.320 But he has an upcoming book, which is all about a peculiar character found in the Lord of the Rings called Tom Bombadil.

00:00:25.980 And so our conversation today is all things Tom Bombadil.

00:00:29.620 from a Christian perspective, seeing things that I know that I didn't see. I was surprised by them,

00:00:35.000 and I'm a big fan of Lord of the Rings. But I think it was very insightful, very interesting

00:00:39.860 looking at Tom Bombardil, and especially what Christians can take from Tom, lessons and

00:00:45.600 principles, and apply them in our lives and in our culture today. That said, if you would like 0.51

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00:01:40.620 All right, without further ado, here's our episode with C.R. Wiley on Tom Bombadil.

00:01:46.500 Applying God's Word to every aspect of life.

00:01:49.940 This is Theology Applied.

00:01:57.200 All right, welcome to another episode of Theology Applied.

00:02:00.040 As I've already mentioned, I am privileged to have C.R. Wiley as a guest.

00:02:04.500 Pastor Chris, would you go ahead and take a moment to introduce yourself to our listeners?

00:02:08.800 Yeah, Joel, thanks for having me on the show.

00:02:10.460 I'm a pastor in the PCA, and I'm serving a church in the Pacific Northwest,

00:02:17.420 just outside of Portland, Oregon.

00:02:19.460 on the Washington side of the Columbia River. But my roots are back in New England. I wasn't

00:02:26.600 born in New England, but I ministered there for about 35 years and lived and ministered in

00:02:32.480 Cambridge, Massachusetts, and then down in Cape Cod, and then in Connecticut. So I have a lot

00:02:38.340 of time in that part of the world. And I've got three kids, they're all grown, two of whom are

00:02:43.480 So my two boys are married and have, well, my oldest, his wife just had a baby.

00:02:51.980 And my second son, his wife is expecting, and she's due in March.

00:02:56.940 And then my daughter is a senior at Grove City College.

00:03:01.580 And so anyway, she's a bright girl, and prospects look good for her for her future.

00:03:09.560 And so I'm happy about that.

00:03:11.420 So I'm married.

00:03:12.340 I've been married to my wife for over 35 years, and anyway, it's a little bit about me.

00:03:18.880 I taught philosophy for about a decade at the college level, and I've been a real estate

00:03:25.360 investor.

00:03:26.240 I've been involved in commercial real estate investing since the early 90s and still own

00:03:32.500 properties back in New England, and I'm a writer.

00:03:35.860 I've written a few books.

00:03:37.180 I've written, I wrote a book called Man of the House, another book called Household in

00:03:41.120 the War for the Cosmos. And I've got a book coming out next month entitled In the House

00:03:46.420 of Tom Bombadil. And that brings us to our topic at hand. I've read The Household and the War for

00:03:53.420 the Cosmos. I thought it was great. And I like how you just reminded the reader bringing industry

00:03:59.180 back into the home, that it was detached from the home and bringing it back to the family's

00:04:04.360 mission and that they're all involved in that. So I thought that was really insightful. But Tom

00:04:08.840 bomb to do as soon as you told me that when we were you know doing our email correspondence and

00:04:13.000 kind of planning the episode and the topic um you said hey well i'm coming out with a book on tom

00:04:17.140 bomb to do and i just i i'm kind of a sucker for for that as i told you before we started recording

00:04:21.860 i love the lord of the rings which puts me in you know millions and millions of people who also love

00:04:26.720 lord of the rings and uh man tom bomb to do is just one of the most interesting characters so

00:04:31.300 let's go ahead and just start off with this who is tom bomb to do and maybe i don't know i don't

00:04:36.180 maybe it's better to ask the question, what is Tom Bombadil? And despite the fact that Peter

00:04:40.820 Jackson and his famous movies left him out, why would you say that Tom Bombadil is significant

00:04:46.920 enough of a character to write a whole book about? Well, I think he's significant because

00:04:54.600 Tolkien said he is. In some personal correspondence, he made the point of saying that

00:05:01.260 there was a point to keeping Bombadil in the book, and he wasn't willing to kind of divulge

00:05:08.920 what he was thinking, but he gives some hints in different places as, you know, to what he was up

00:05:14.260 to, and if you know anything about, you know, Tolkien's interests and his academic sort of,

00:05:23.240 you know, expertise as a philologist, there's all sorts of things that are going on,

00:05:30.100 not only with Bombadil, but with the Lord of Rings in general, that reflect these really important interests that Tolkien had.

00:05:40.540 And the interests that he had were shared by the other Inklings, including C.S. Lewis.

00:05:46.480 And with those other guys, you know, like Charles Williams and Lewis and Owen Barfield, the concerns that they had were really prescient.

00:05:57.360 They really saw, you know, sort of down the tunnel of time and saw the world that we live in today coming.

00:06:03.880 And so a lot of the things that they wrote were intended to address the crisis that they felt like was occurring right in the academy in their time.

00:06:13.760 And they felt like they were kind of like way down the road in terms of the crisis.

00:06:17.720 They thought they were near the end of the crisis in terms of things falling apart.

00:06:21.740 So they didn't think that they were at the beginning, but they felt like they still were in touch with things in the Western tradition that were sound, that were sane, and Western civilization was losing touch with those things.

00:06:36.240 And so they were making arguments for in, obviously, their prose, you know, their nonfiction writing, but also in their fiction to address, you know, addressing those things.

00:06:48.560 Getting back to Tom, who is Tom? Well, there's been a lot of speculation about that, including Frodo asked the question, who is this guy? He asked Gallagher, I mean, Goldberry that. And, you know, he asked her that very question. Then he asked Tom himself directly, who are you, Master?

00:07:06.920 So Tolkien knew that we would wonder who this guy, you know, what this guy is and who he is.

00:07:13.820 And and Tolkien coy, you know, in a very coy way said, you know, sometimes authors are enigmatic on purpose.

00:07:22.200 And I was enigmatic about Bombadil. He actually said that in a personal letter.

00:07:27.720 So he had there's a point to Bombadil. He's purposefully enigmatic.

00:07:32.720 But I have some thoughts on what Tolkien was doing with Bombadil, and they have to do with his kind of theological, philological interests.

00:07:43.380 And those interests actually are very relevant for us because we live in a world where Tom Bombadil is kind of Tolkien's argument to postmodernism, to kind of the craziness that's going on with CRT, all that stuff.

00:08:00.220 so anyway yeah i i i could guess it where you're gonna go but i'll i'll leave it for when we get

00:08:07.320 there but uh one question that i had was this is tom bombadil is he i mean it seems as though he's

00:08:14.460 a creature you know he he says you know like almost like an adam type figure you know um not

00:08:19.720 the last adam being christ but you know the first adam that he's the eldest you know eldest is my

00:08:25.160 name, you know, and, and the sense of, I was here before, you know, the mountains and here before,

00:08:30.020 you know, this and here before that. Um, and so it's, it seems like he's first, um, but not eternal,

00:08:35.240 you know, not, not that he always was, but that he was a creature created, but first. And, and it

00:08:41.520 seems as though Gandalf kind of alludes to the fact that, um, if they didn't destroy the ring,

00:08:45.640 then Tom would probably in the same way that he was first, he would be last. Um, but that he would

00:08:50.440 fall, that even his power, you know, which seems to be kind of bound to the location where he is,

00:08:56.560 it doesn't seem like he could just go anywhere and contain that same measure of power. So he

00:09:01.900 seems bound to a certain place. And yet he seems not timeless, but a longevity of being first and

00:09:10.260 that he would be last to fall. So my question is, is that right? Is that a right sense? Is he a

00:09:15.600 creature, or is Tom Bombadil meant to be divine in some sense? I think you're right. I don't think

00:09:23.020 he's Iluvatar. In fact, Tolkien was very explicit that there is no incarnation in Lord of the Rings.

00:09:29.820 So there's no, you know, I think if we take Tolkien at his word, you know, we can't say that

00:09:37.240 he's the creator. Now, there's reason to think that maybe he could be, you know, when Goldberry

00:09:44.200 says he is that sounds very you know when when when when Frodo asked the question who is he and

00:09:50.860 she says he is he is as you as he seems uh that's that you know kind of brings to mind you know

00:09:57.180 obviously you know that episode in Exodus with Moses in the burning bush and I am you know so

00:10:02.960 but I I think that that uh is kind of a false trail I think you're right I think he's more of

00:10:08.900 an endemic figure kind of an unfallen creature and um one of the things that i think is uh if 1.00

00:10:17.480 when you get into the legendarium you know there are all there are all these loose ends that tolkien

00:10:21.740 is sort of tying up you know in his sort of notes and it's great that we have those notes published

00:10:28.580 now by his son christopher you know one of those uh books that contain some very fascinating

00:10:33.980 information is entitled Morgoth's Ring. It's kind of the history of Middle Earth. You know,

00:10:40.240 it's like the 10th volume. So it's like, you know, when I think about Tolkien, this guy

00:10:45.360 just like never threw anything away. I've written books and I throw away the notes. I throw away all

00:10:52.100 my scribbles. I throw away all the napkins I wrote. I don't know if this guy threw away anything.

00:10:58.160 And, you know, Christopher came in along and organized it and went through it and read it all

00:11:03.340 and compiled, you know, books with the stuff.

00:11:06.800 But one of the things that comes out in Morgoth's Ring

00:11:10.240 is that when Melkor, the original Dark Lord,

00:11:13.620 enters the world, if you remember from the Silmarillion,

00:11:16.540 there's this sort of unexplained sort of decline

00:11:21.860 in Melkor's personal kind of presence and power

00:11:27.020 that goes unexplained.

00:11:28.880 But in Morgoth's Ring, it's explained.

00:11:30.920 So in the beginning, Melkor is totally awesome, the most powerful of the Valar. Everybody is awed by him. But in the Silmarillion, you find him kind of holed up in his underground fortress, afraid to come out.

00:11:51.160 What happened? Well, according to Morgoth's ring, and what Tolkien tells us there is that

00:11:57.860 his power was diffused throughout the physical world, causing it to decay and die. And this is

00:12:08.160 what Tolkien refers to as Morgoth's ring. And there's this, you know, it's intended to sort

00:12:15.560 of draw a parallel between saran's ring where he you know invests his power in this little circle

00:12:23.260 of gold so that whoever picks it up is has access to his power obviously it corrupts the wearer

00:12:29.600 but you still have access to saran's power likewise uh you know melkor was far more powerful

00:12:38.380 than Saron. Saron was in awe of Melkor. And Melkor's power suffuses the entirety of Arda,

00:12:47.520 Middle Earth, and corrupts it, which is why we see the graying of the world, why the elves can 0.97

00:12:54.160 remember a time when things were brighter, more beautiful, more enduring, and they live with this 1.00

00:13:00.080 kind of nostalgia, this loss, a sense of loss. But, you know, when you go to Lothloraine, you know,

00:13:07.600 Of course, there we see Galadriel has a ring that allows her to preserve something for the past to stave off that corrupting, graying power. 0.92

00:13:18.880 But what we're told by Bombadil, when we're in the house of Tom Bombadil, where they're sitting at the table and, you know, during that rainy day where Tom is just regaling the hobbits with all these marvelous stories about all kinds of, you know, things. 0.97

00:13:35.240 He says, you know, I can remember not just when the first raindrop fell or when the first acorn was formed.

00:13:43.060 I can remember a time before the coming of the Dark Lord.

00:13:46.920 So he remembers it. In other words, he he he he is alive.

00:13:52.740 And there's something about him that I think was not corrupted.

00:13:57.800 He's not been tinctured or experienced the kind of corrupting influence of Melkor.

00:14:05.680 So there's something about him that's original.

00:14:08.480 That's my thought.

00:14:09.820 So I think you're right.

00:14:10.520 I think he's a creature.

00:14:11.740 I think he's an unfallen Adam figure.

00:14:15.140 Okay.

00:14:15.960 Like an Adam if he never fell.

00:14:18.280 Interesting enough.

00:14:19.620 So different than Adam in the sense that Tom Bombadil would not be like a federal head of Middle Earth because Middle Earth was able to fall without him.

00:14:27.180 whereas if adam never fell you know the earth would have never been you know adam didn't just

00:14:31.240 represent his wife and all his posterity but cursed is the ground because of you you know he's

00:14:35.740 this he represents all of creation and so all of creation is cursed by his willful rebellion and

00:14:41.360 so you're saying it's almost the reverse of that similar to adam the first made but um and adam who

00:14:46.600 who did not become corrupt himself but also i was a steward maybe of of the grounds and the earth but

00:14:54.980 but not not representative of them to where where they could be tarnished and corrupted

00:15:00.380 apart from his will do you here's my question do you think do you think that that there's a sense

00:15:07.100 in which maybe tom bomb didn't personally engage in evil himself in such a way to to be fallen

00:15:12.620 but but do you do you think that middle earth in some sense was able to be corrupted by melkor

00:15:18.000 because of an abdication of of tom like like should he have stewarded more a larger like did

00:15:25.500 he have more responsibility that he somehow failed to keep because there's this forgetfulness that

00:15:30.200 gandalf talks like if we left the ring with tom he'd he'd forget he even had it you know yeah

00:15:34.760 what do you think about that yeah that's a that's a worthwhile i think subject to reflect that i

00:15:39.580 have not spent any time thinking about that particular matter but i think that's worth

00:15:43.500 thinking about um you know obviously he's you know there with uh goldberry but they're childless

00:15:51.080 you know they're um and they uh i think you know my my sense is that lewis and tolkien and a number

00:16:01.560 of other uh orthodox uh thinkers in the history of the west have been challenged by the by the

00:16:09.460 the question or at least the proposal isn't the fall necessary for human beings to grow in wisdom

00:16:18.220 so that's that's the the problem theologically kind of anthropologically and lewis famously

00:16:28.380 responded with his book perilandra which is the you know rejoinder no if the fall wasn't necessary

00:16:36.240 In other words, you can't bring, you know, it's not as though evil was necessary to bring about good.

00:16:44.260 Good is powerful enough to bring something good out of evil, but evil is not necessary for something good to be realized.

00:16:53.520 So that's the challenge.

00:16:54.880 So Paralandra is, you know, here we have with Paralandra, you know, Ransom, this figure from the earth, a philologist who was modeled on Tolkien.

00:17:04.000 We know that Lewis tells us that. And so he goes to Venus and there he meets an unfallen woman and an unfallen man. And there is a kind of, you could say, naivete there, but it's not as though they lack wisdom.

00:17:20.180 They have an ability, these characters have an ability to learn quick and to exercise wisdom and to still retain their righteous status.

00:17:32.740 But I think that Bombadil may be Tolkien's way of addressing the problem.

00:17:40.540 So when you look at Tom, he's wise and he's powerful and he's good.

00:17:48.500 But in a very, I think, curious way, he's also innocent.

00:17:52.560 Wouldn't you agree?

00:17:53.680 I mean, yeah, he's not.

00:17:56.420 And I think that's revealed, you know, really profoundly with that moment where in that moment where he commands Frodo and he does command.

00:18:05.140 He says, show me the ring.

00:18:06.820 Show me the precious ring.

00:18:08.200 It's almost it's kind of like tongue in cheek.

00:18:10.000 You know, he's making fun of Gollum.

00:18:11.620 You know, show me the precious ring.

00:18:13.580 right so and then frodo just immediately takes it out and hands it to him i mean even frodo's

00:18:19.500 surprised that he's doing it right and then frodo's been so reluctant to to let anybody have it and

00:18:24.900 it makes me think real quick it just makes me think the innocent factor it makes me think of

00:18:28.500 what what is the verse that the apostle says um innocent in evil like they were called to be wise

00:18:34.960 as christians but there is a sense of which when it comes to those things which are wicked and evil

00:18:39.900 there should be a befuddledness about like that we're not well versed in evil we're naive almost

00:18:47.400 like that so we're not foolish we're commanded to be wise we're commanded to be discerning we're

00:18:53.260 commanded to be on guard all those kinds of things but there is something to be said for

00:18:57.660 a lack of experience with evil that produces a childlike innocence but not a childish foolishness

00:19:08.680 Yeah, I think that's exactly right, Joel. I think, you know, you've probably come across this. I've come across it many times in my life where there's this sort of contempt that sinful people have for innocent people because they think, oh, you are just so sort of inexperienced and naive.

00:19:25.900 you're an easy mark you need to kind of wise up and the only way you can possibly wise up is by

00:19:31.960 doing a little bit of you know wicked you know and participating in some wickedness and that's

00:19:38.280 the only way you can become wise that's the that that's the temptation of the serpent you know this

00:19:43.900 if you if you do what's wrong you will become wise tom tom is wise without that without that he's

00:19:51.660 And so he can take the ring. The ring has zero power over him. He puts it on. He makes fun of it. He puts it up to his eye, kind of, I think, making fun of Saran in his eye. You know, he's kind of looking through it.

00:20:03.960 Oh, yeah. And then he puts it on his little finger.

00:20:07.000 I think that's that's important because, you know, when Tolkien describes the giving of the ring to Tommy, we're told that he that is placed in his big brown skinned hand, you know, and that he puts it on his little finger.

00:20:23.380 This awesome and powerful ring that Gandalf is afraid to touch.

00:20:30.320 Galadriel is afraid to touch.

00:20:33.560 And Tom just puts it on his ring and laughs.

00:20:36.380 And he doesn't disappear.

00:20:38.700 That's right.

00:20:39.320 He doesn't disappear, but he makes the ring disappear.

00:20:42.040 And remember, Frodo was shocked because it's like your uncle at the dinner table making a coin disappear.

00:20:48.240 You know, he's just like laughing at you.

00:20:49.880 And then, you know, he pulls it out of your ear.

00:20:51.900 you know it's he you know tom kind of does that he hands it back to frodo with a smile and says

00:20:56.520 there you go and then frodo if you remember he's kind of put off by by this uh flippant treatment

00:21:03.200 of the ring and so he decides he's going to see if it's the right ring he puts it on his finger

00:21:07.240 and the hobbits can't see him anymore and so he tries to sneak away and then tom just looks at

00:21:12.060 him says come on back here you know yeah you know you know sit back down frodo take that ring off

00:21:18.120 can see her. So, you know, and then, and then Gallagher, I mean, Goldberry, I keep trying,

00:21:25.040 I keep wanting to call her Gallagher, but Goldberry, and as she says that Tom is the master

00:21:29.960 and that no one has ever caught Tom. And so what we see here is that Tom can't be caught

00:21:37.680 even by the, by the ring of power. That's pretty cool. Makes me a man. I wish that,

00:21:46.140 I wish they would do a series on Tom Bombadil.

00:21:48.540 Oh, I'll ask you this real quick.

00:21:49.760 So I think Amazon, I've heard that Amazon is going to be doing a Lord of the Rings type series.

00:21:55.080 Have you heard anything about this?

00:21:56.680 I have.

00:21:59.480 I'm nervous because I love, man, I'm such a sucker for fantasy.

00:22:04.420 So it's probably my favorite genre.

00:22:05.560 So all the time, my friends, like some fantasy movie will come out that's like B movie.

00:22:10.400 We all know it's B.

00:22:11.300 and for me it's like for me it's a b movie in the genre of of fantasy and dragons and magic and

00:22:19.040 those kind of i'm like i'll take what i can get there's just not not enough movies to go around

00:22:23.460 and so i'm excited on one hand but on the other i'm just like man it's gonna probably have 0.56

00:22:27.640 gay agendas and it's gonna you know like what do you think well i think you're right i i don't 0.55

00:22:33.260 trust it i i i remember when the first peter jackson film came out like was that 2001 i mean 0.79

00:22:40.720 fell into the ring. I was tremendously excited like everybody was to see it. I walked out halfway

00:22:48.680 through it. No way, really? I was in the theater. I just got up and walked out. And I said, that's

00:22:54.620 it. And I didn't see any of the others. I just was completely put off. What put you off? Well,

00:23:01.420 there were a couple things. I mean, he was clear that kind of his angle of vision, even then,

00:23:09.940 was to somehow make Tolkien palatable to certain, I guess, political and cultural trends. 0.95

00:23:18.440 So, you know, Arwen goes from being, you know, a really important figure to this gal who can sneak

00:23:25.840 up on Aragorn in the woods and he's not, you know, able to know she's, you know, sneaking up on.

00:23:31.580 This is a guy that even Legolas, you know, is impressed by in terms of his woodcraft.

00:23:39.940 You know, he's one of the great, he's one of the great figures in the world. I mean, he's, you know, he's the king of men. He's what really, you know, the original three houses of men, you know, in the Silmarillion, he's a personification of those first men who, you know, even the elves were impressed by.

00:24:00.680 but i mean he's he's kind of uh you know outwitted by this gal and i that put me off a little bit

00:24:07.960 but then that when they were in the mines of moria and they had this scene with the uh orcs

00:24:13.920 kind of climbing up a column as if they were like insects or something i just said i was like

00:24:20.520 i just i just kind of just said that's it i'm out and i left now i'm not i'm not the sort of

00:24:28.440 person that goes around you know putting down the films or trying to talk other people out of liking

00:24:33.560 them or anything but i just to me i just didn't want to to have because the lord of the rings

00:24:38.660 had such an important influence on me there's a significant significance influenced me i didn't

00:24:43.140 want to be tinctured if you know what i mean or yeah corrupted or polluted and so i just said i'm

00:24:48.200 gonna i'm just going to enjoy the books and yeah i walked i get that i get that i for me i was so

00:24:55.820 young at the time that i i didn't have enough knowledge from the books i i'm pretty sure i had

00:25:01.600 read the hobbit because i went to grade school like everyone else you know so i read the hobbit

00:25:06.620 because i'm pretty sure it was assigned and i loved it i mean it was yeah wonderful and um but

00:25:11.520 i hadn't read the lord of the rings and um and you know so i was familiar with like goblins in the

00:25:17.220 hobbit and you know there there are a little bit of orcs but um but i just wasn't that familiar so

00:25:22.280 And when I went and watched the movies, not having read the books at the time, you know, everything that I was watching, I was like, whoa, I didn't notice any contradiction, you know, so sure.

00:25:33.580 Yeah.

00:25:33.740 But that makes sense.

00:25:36.340 All right.

00:25:36.860 So let's let's maybe shift gears a little bit now.

00:25:40.560 And just so what is the relevance for Christians?

00:25:43.540 What's something that Christians, I mean, I feel like we've already addressed some of it, but what are some of the things that Tom Bombadil has to say for Christians?

00:25:52.720 And Tolkien, as you mentioned earlier, you said, you know, he was putting his finger almost prophetically on some of the things, you know, that he was seeing down the corridor of time and some of the cultural problems that we're experiencing.

00:26:05.080 What are some of those things and what can we learn?

00:26:07.380 Yeah, I think one of those things is a old problem and that's the way we understand dominion.

00:26:14.260 So if you think about The Lord of the Rings, The Lord of the Rings is a book about domination, which we see with Sauron, and we see, you know, an aspiring dominator in Saruman.

00:26:29.380 He wants to dominate.

00:26:30.940 So we have those figures.

00:26:34.240 And then we have on the other side, you know, some other very noble characters, obviously Gandalf and Aragorn and Galadriel.

00:26:40.840 and they use power in a way that uh is i mean praiseworthy but i think in terms of a pure type

00:26:49.220 bombadil presents us with a pure type of what dominion looks like without domination

00:26:55.520 so you know what you have there i mean he may be the most powerful creature in middle earth

00:27:01.480 i mean when you think about it you know first we had the episode with old man willow and then we

00:27:07.260 have the episode with the barrel white the episode with the barrel white is now what's one thing fun

00:27:11.940 thing to think about first episode or first uh point or first deliverance is at a tree think

00:27:19.600 about that second deliverance is at a tomb think about that so the tree in the sepulcher it makes

00:27:26.860 me you know pilgrim's progress yeah yeah yeah so we see in the second uh deliverance uh kind of a

00:27:33.280 resurrection scene. So, there they are in the tomb, and, you know, Bombadil comes to the rescue.

00:27:40.540 We're told that the stones are rolled away. Literally, you know, you hear stones rolling

00:27:45.940 away, and then Tom's head appears with the sun rising in the east behind him. Now, all of that

00:27:51.800 stuff is just so profoundly, you know, last days, you know, kind of stuff, and then what does he do?

00:27:58.400 he he casts the barrel white into the outer darkness so with just a word he so he says you

00:28:06.040 know go and then in the course you know in the in this in the statement we're in in the condemnation

00:28:13.380 or the you know the the judgment that he renders he talks about until the world is mended so there

00:28:19.640 we have an allusion to an eschaton so there are all these things going on in that in that scene

00:28:25.640 that remind us of, you know, resurrection morning and the last, you know, the last resurrection,

00:28:30.500 the final resurrection, all that stuff's going on. So, you know, am I saying that he is a Christ

00:28:36.000 figure? Well, he's a type, you know, I'm not saying that he's like Aslan or something, but,

00:28:40.720 but he, you know, he's, he's like a type, like we see in the Old Testament. And, and, you know,

00:28:46.380 with all these things, he's demonstrating what, what true dominion looks like. He frees the

00:28:53.360 hobbits twice. He has communion with the hobbits. One of the things that comes through with regard 0.51

00:29:01.300 to, so I think that if you take and you put Saruman and Bombadil alongside each other,

00:29:07.100 there's almost a perfect kind of inversion of types. Saruman wants power, and he's willing

00:29:18.400 to break things to get it. There's that scene where Gandalf is in Orthanc. He's been captured

00:29:26.020 by Saruman. And Saruman says, I am the Saruman, the ringmaker, Saruman, the wise, Saruman of many

00:29:32.480 colors. And then Gandalf says, I like white better. And then Saruman says, well, white's

00:29:41.740 good for a start. You can dye the white cloth. You can overwrite the white page. You can break

00:29:47.120 the white light and then Gandalf says well if you break something to know it you have departed from

00:29:54.840 the path of wisdom something to that effect so you've got two contrasting visions of wisdom

00:30:00.680 one wisdom personified by Saruman which is I think I think that that particular episode with the

00:30:08.980 with the robe and the white light and all that kind of that's a very subtle allusion to Newton's

00:30:14.780 You know, experiments with optics and the whole sort of like, well, sort of the aspiration to, you know, to acquire knowledge for the sake of power.

00:30:29.060 So, you know, you break things so that you can isolate power.

00:30:32.580 So, you know, Bacon, you know, Francis Bacon, and with the idea that knowledge is power.

00:30:37.920 So you've got that quest for power, power in the raw, power that's been distilled from the natural ends toward which it's been directed by the creator.

00:30:49.660 And then you have another kind of wisdom personified by Gandalf, which is the wisdom that seeks, and I think even more profoundly personified by Bombadil, the wisdom that seeks to understand the ends for which various creatures have been made and is, you know, interested in communing with those.

00:31:12.580 Yes. So Saruman, there's this sort of snippet of dialogue between, you know, Mary and Pippin and Treebeard, and Treebeard is describing his interactions with Saruman.

00:31:28.160 And he says there came a point in time where Saruman was like a wall with windows that were shuttered from the inside.

00:31:35.760 he was only interested in knowledge that he could use to get what he wanted but he was not interested

00:31:42.040 in communing with anyone he never told tree bird says this i told him many things he wouldn't know

00:31:47.460 if he if i hadn't told him but he never told me a single thing he wanted he was he was hoarding

00:31:53.860 knowledge because he wanted knowledge for the sake of power whereas tom you know he sits down

00:31:58.600 at the table tells the you know the hobbits all kinds of stuff right about you know the hearts

00:32:04.660 of trees and the waves of badgers and just all these different things, you know, good things and

00:32:08.980 bad things. So he knows about the bad things, but he's, he knows them as an observer, not as a

00:32:15.120 participant. And so, you know, I contrast those two visions of wisdom. And I think Tom is very

00:32:24.220 much in the spirit of the, you know, the wisdom that Gandalf is talking about when he talks about

00:32:28.980 departing from the way of wisdom, if we break something. And, you know, you know, that Saruman

00:32:32.680 was trying to break Gandalf in Orthanc he was going to torture him and if he had ever gotten

00:32:38.840 a hold of Merry and Pippin you know that he would have tortured them to get what he wanted to know

00:32:43.660 so um breaking breaking things down were you saying with like the it sounded like you were

00:32:50.440 saying for a moment like the illustration of light like refraction like like almost like a prism when

00:32:55.740 when white light goes through and it refracts into all the different colors and that Saruman

00:33:00.800 was making a reference to the white but but like broken down into many the you know the one of many

00:33:09.840 colors kind of is that what you were saying it makes me so it makes me think of like today just

00:33:14.660 one tangible example you're putting your finger on the larger principle the general principle which

00:33:19.240 is very helpful but just one you know case example what i think of you know there's one group of

00:33:27.060 people in our culture today that look at babies in the womb and think that they can be physically

00:33:33.020 literally broken down like parts like a computer and used for power to to fix this to do that you

00:33:41.800 know like right now i'm sure you're aware you know you know i thank god and his his mercy you know

00:33:47.340 whatever whatever it takes but you know fauci you know finally under fire because you know you can

00:33:52.120 you can take the, the, the scalps of babies from their mother's womb and, um, and infuse them 0.97

00:34:00.960 on the top of rats and Americans don't care. Uh, but you better not mess with puppies, right?

00:34:06.540 So that's, so Fauci is, so Fauci is under fire right now because he went, he went too far. He

00:34:11.860 messed with puppies. Um, but my, but my point is to say that like with the fetal cell line and all

00:34:16.620 these different things, and you know, a lot of us are becoming aware of things that have gone on

00:34:20.580 for a long time but but the public didn't know about you know the fetal cell line and this and

00:34:24.340 that and and um you know i just think of babies it's just one you're you're looking at the

00:34:29.740 principle and you're absolutely right i'm just thinking i'm trying to make a practical example

00:34:33.200 and i think of that principle of of um the you know because god has given us dominion over over

00:34:39.800 over everything that you know and um but there's a way of using what god has given he's given us

00:34:45.060 the plants you know and then and then we have kind of this this you know covenant 2.0 a common

00:34:50.060 grace covenant and the way that i see it in my covenant theology with with noah that um it's it's

00:34:54.480 really just a re-establishing of the cultural mandate uh but now as the orcs would say meat

00:34:58.920 is on the menu you know and uh and god gives the animals you know to mankind and and introduces you

00:35:04.580 know and not just the fruit um and so all these things are given to us for our enjoyment um but

00:35:10.060 there's a way of seeing um the resources that god has made the creatures of this world right

00:35:15.020 the Psalms say he has compassion on all he has made. There's a sense of like God loves butterflies.

00:35:20.880 He loves rabbits. He loves, you know, not just people. Certainly he loves man in a particular

00:35:27.100 way as his image bears, but God has compassion on all he has made, all these creatures, and he's

00:35:31.640 given us dominion over them. And there is a sense in which we exercise that dominion in some cases

00:35:37.000 with animals to eat. And we kill them, we take their life, we eat them. But even I think of, 0.98

00:35:42.420 you know the old testament and you know you shall not boil a baby goat in its mother's milk why

00:35:46.980 because the metaphor the mother's milk is meant to only be a source of nourishment and life not

00:35:52.960 a source of destruction and there's so there's a proper order and a proper purpose and an end

00:35:58.280 to all that god has made and sometimes that means killing something and eating it but to break

00:36:03.320 things apart especially human beings created in the image of god and the most precious and

00:36:08.880 vulnerable among us in their mother's womb to break them apart and infuse them with rats and

00:36:13.240 to do that like and and i just i think of that as kind of like a like saruman would would be

00:36:17.740 on team fauci i just thought oh yeah well you remember remember uh there's in the course of

00:36:23.800 the story in the two towers in particular there's this uh this uh kind of hint that orcs uh have

00:36:31.360 been uh crossbred with humans and that's why saruman's orcs are not afraid of of being you

00:36:38.240 know fighting in the daylight that whereas that's right yeah i forgot about that yeah yeah so there

00:36:42.940 are all these different things and and and tree bear says that would be black evil if if that's

00:36:48.100 what he's done but i think you're right i think i think when we think about uh bombadil he wants

00:36:54.440 to commune with the hobbits he wants to spend time with them he wants to free them um so that

00:36:59.960 he can enjoy company with them there's this there's this moment with tree beard where you know

00:37:04.260 Mary and Pippin are there. And one of the hobbits asks, do you mind if we ask you what you intend

00:37:09.260 to do with us? And Treebeard says, if you, if you buy that, you mean what I intend to do to you?

00:37:14.940 Nothing, but we can do some, we can do some things together. Right. That, that kind of thing. And

00:37:20.900 all of the powerful characters, Elrod, you know, Gandalf, Aragorn, Galadriel, they all honor the

00:37:29.260 choices of the hobbits these little creatures um you know Pippin wants to go on the journey with

00:37:35.860 everybody you know back at Rivendellan and Elrod just kind of throws up his hands he said all right

00:37:41.460 all right you you know I I don't think he should go I think he should go back to the shire but

00:37:47.340 anyway whatever so you know that doesn't mean that good characters can't you know be strong

00:37:54.680 and sort of act I mean you think about what Bombadil does in both of those episodes where

00:37:59.900 he saves the hobbits he puts the tree in its place you know old man willow and he and he puts

00:38:05.760 he puts the bear weight in its place he's he's able to act decisively and powerfully for the good

00:38:13.760 of the hobbits because these other creatures were trying to use them for wicked ends so

00:38:20.600 So I think that that that's that's huge. And I also think, you know, one of the things that, you know, we're dealing with in our society today is the problem of language, you know, postmodern literary theory has completely, you know, divorced language from the things that it refers to.

00:38:39.300 and so not everything is interpretation all the way down it's just you know uh expression of your

00:38:45.460 own personal preferences or will to power that's that's all language is it's like a tool to get

00:38:51.300 what you want from other other people and from the world and that's why everybody's on on the

00:38:56.000 defense you know everybody's defensive because they're so we get microaggressions and all this

00:39:00.600 kind of stuff ever you know it's not as though our our language binds us together it's actually

00:39:06.700 the thing that we use to exploit each other that's that's all post-modern literary theory can

00:39:12.780 can say about language whereas you know in Lord of the Rings you know you've got a whole different

00:39:19.680 approach to sort of thinking about language with Treebeard if you remember he says that you know

00:39:24.560 it takes a really long time to say anything in Entish because every word is the history of that

00:39:30.120 thing you know so it's actually describing the thing that's its own history but with with tom

00:39:36.540 this is where the singing comes in so uh there's a very i think uh you know large role that singing

00:39:44.440 plays in you know middle earth you know there are all these songs throughout you know the hobbit

00:39:50.440 and lord of the rings and similar but the first song is what it's the song of creation in the

00:39:58.220 Sumerillion so the creation itself is a kind of living song it's the kind of the expression of

00:40:05.980 the song of the the Valar and you know when we when we see Tom with his his nonsense songs

00:40:15.160 it's always kind of this he's got this lyrical quality even when he's just talking you can kind

00:40:21.140 of see the cadence or feel the cadence in his speech right and he delivers the hobbits with

00:40:26.560 songs and i think that what that's you know you know intended to say to us is that uh tom knows

00:40:34.960 the language of creation and that he can actually call back call things back to their purposes and

00:40:42.220 to their natures so that means that he exercises dominion in a pretty significant way as a regent

00:40:50.360 as a steward of the creation that has been brought into being

00:40:56.520 that he's just simply sort of caring for

00:41:00.500 and making sure is being what it was intended to be.

00:41:06.100 That makes a lot of sense.

00:41:07.380 It seems as though the only tragedy with Tom,

00:41:10.200 and maybe this isn't his fault,

00:41:11.620 I'm going to pose it as a question here in just a moment

00:41:13.720 because maybe it's part of the way that he's composited

00:41:17.520 and his particular nature and just biologically being incapable of it.

00:41:21.640 I don't know. I'm assuming that you'll know the answer.

00:41:24.440 But assuming that he can procreate, it seems like the only failure of Tom,

00:41:29.300 it seems like he's exercising perfect dominion and he himself unfallen.

00:41:34.860 It's just too small.

00:41:36.380 It seems like the only failure is that he isn't fruitful and multiplying.

00:41:42.200 He's lending towards the fruitfulness of anything and everything and anyone else,

00:41:46.380 you know but but that him and uh goldberry are are childless um can you speak to that

00:41:52.100 yeah i i think that every kind of uh image you know falls short of what we'd like it to to to

00:42:00.060 be and i think that he serves a particular purpose in the story uh you know let's you know even at

00:42:06.260 the council of elrod there was this question maybe we should just give him the ring and he

00:42:11.020 can take care of it you know i've thought well maybe they could just give him the ring and say

00:42:14.920 hey, would you mind just taking it to Mordor and throwing it in Mount Doom for us? Because

00:42:18.880 if anyone could do it, you could.

00:42:23.480 And couldn't he call one of the eagles, you know, or 20 of them? It's like, let's get this done.

00:42:28.920 That's right. But that's not what happens. And in our world, that's not what happens too,

00:42:34.040 because it makes a better story for the hobbits to take the job. And in a way, it makes for a 0.79

00:42:39.720 better story for you and me to do things that we've been, you know, given to do. But

00:42:44.920 I also think, though, that Tom is a kind of picture of the end of the world because, yes, he's kind of an endemic figure, but he's also kind of a figure that shows you what rest looks like.

00:42:59.760 So, you know, when the daring do is done and the wickedness has been finally defeated and death is no more, what do we do?

00:43:10.980 You know, are we just like a bunch of high school jocks that just sit around and talk about the good old days when we scored the touchdown or this kind of thing?

00:43:21.040 Or do we really enjoy the blessedness of, you know, the good things that we can enjoy in God?

00:43:32.480 And that's kind of what we see with Tom.

00:43:34.140 I mean, he's just always in a good mood.

00:43:35.600 you know he's in in in goldberry and him are just their home they've got this beautiful harmony

00:43:41.160 and uh there are a couple of things that helped me to kind of uh associate tom with the end one

00:43:49.840 was what i said earlier about the bear white but the other is the dream that frodo has in tom's

00:43:56.080 house so if you remember frodo has this dream and in the dream he has there's this like curtain

00:44:02.320 of rain that parts and he sees a sunrise and he sees a land in the distance across the across

00:44:11.380 some water and then at the very end of the lord of the rings when frodo is at the gray havens and

00:44:17.500 is now on the ship and is sailing into the west we're told for the last time something about

00:44:23.380 bombadil when frodo sees the the curtain of rain and it parts and he sees the undying lands

00:44:30.480 he remembers that he dreamed about it in bombadil's house that's the dream actually foresaw or

00:44:37.600 foretold what he was going to experience when he went into the uttermost west so when we think

00:44:44.620 about eternal rest you know the eternal sabbath i think bombadil in a way is a kind of picture

00:44:50.980 of that sabbath rest yeah it's good it makes me think of a pilgrim's progress that it's like so

00:44:59.260 So Tom Bombardier, it's almost like a stopping place on the way.

00:45:02.860 It's not there, but it's a place from which you can get a glimpse of the ultimate end.

00:45:09.000 It makes me think of the delectable hills, the shepherds.

00:45:12.040 It's like from here, the weary pilgrims are able to be nourished,

00:45:15.860 and the shepherds nourish and teach and relinquish their wisdom upon the weary pilgrims.

00:45:25.180 They rest, there's safety, there's security, and they're not there yet.

00:45:28.900 they're going to have to ultimately leave Tom Bombadil's house.

00:45:32.100 They're going to have to leave the delectable mountains and the shepherds.

00:45:34.920 But from that place, there's a strategic vantage point

00:45:38.040 where you can see the eternal Sabbath rest.

00:45:41.420 And it makes me just think of the church, the Lord's Day.

00:45:45.360 Spurgeon says, the sweetest place I know, the sweetest place on earth,

00:45:48.820 despite all of its faults.

00:45:50.440 Calvin, wherever the word is rightly preached and the sacrament rightly ministered,

00:45:53.940 there a church of God exists despite its many faults.

00:45:56.700 And when we gather together on the Lord's day, Christ is uniquely present with us in the sacrament, present with the Lord's Supper, and present also in authority for binding and loosing and the keys of the kingdom and all these things.

00:46:09.920 And the Lord even is pleased to condescend and inhabit the very praises of his people, which I think has a corporate nature.

00:46:16.780 And so I think of Tom Bombadil's house kind of likened to the delectable mountains with Pilgrim's Progress.

00:46:23.460 And for our purposes here in this life for the Christian, I think of the Sabbath day, the Lord's day, the first day of the week.

00:46:32.060 And even that makes me think that Tom Bombadil being kind of further towards the beginning of their journey.

00:46:38.240 They weren't even halfway there.

00:46:39.840 it's almost it almost has that kind of first day of the week kind of symbol you know that uh it's

00:46:45.280 not it's not the midway point which would seem to make logical sense but rather as the puritan said

00:46:50.160 it's the it's the first day of the week because it's the marketplace for the soul it's the place

00:46:54.380 where we gather all these goods you know right and i know there's a lot of symbolism with that

00:46:59.420 rivendell would be another maybe oh yeah yeah yeah i have a friend named rachel fulton brown

00:47:04.540 and she teaches at the uh university of chicago and uh we were talking about this very thing and

00:47:11.420 she does a lot of you know thinking and writing about tolkien she's a medievalist

00:47:15.460 so uh her her thought is very much along the lines what you just uh you know expressed or

00:47:21.940 laid out and uh her thought was that this this was a kind of catechesis you know at the very

00:47:27.720 beginning almost kind of a baptism with particularly with that rain day you know uh

00:47:33.260 kind of preparing to set out, uh, as I do kind of on this pilgrim trek. Yeah, definitely.

00:47:39.340 That's cool. That's really cool. All right. Well, any final words?

00:47:43.920 Well, I, I, I don't really, I mean, um, apart from the, from the fact that the book will be out,

00:47:49.800 uh, in November and if folks would like to read it, uh, that'd be great.

00:47:53.500 Where can people buy it?

00:47:55.340 Well, it'll be, you know, available in all the online stores, you know, that people buy things

00:48:00.380 at, but if they want to go directly to the publisher, it's Canon press. Okay. You can say

00:48:06.120 it, Chris, Amazon. I know, I know it hurts. It's available on Amazon, but it is. Yeah. You can

00:48:13.020 actually, you can actually pre-order it on Amazon right now. It's, it's actually up. They don't have

00:48:17.940 the cover of image there, but you can pre-order it. Okay. So available on Amazon, all the other

00:48:23.920 places and but Canon press would be the source. And so any of our listeners who aren't familiar

00:48:29.380 canon press is uh in moscow idaho doug wilson is uh the publishing company that he started

00:48:34.780 lots of great material um will also be available on the canon app for anybody who gets the canon

00:48:40.240 app i think so i think so uh i'm going to be actually uh talking to some folks there being

00:48:46.940 interviewed about this very thing uh in a couple days and i'll be up there in moscow to do some

00:48:53.160 video stuff related to the book but uh so i'm pretty sure there'll be a bunch of stuff there on

00:48:58.960 And I don't know what the plan is with regard to an audio book or something, but I suppose that there will be one, and either I'll be the reader or somebody else that they use regularly will do it.

00:49:11.340 Great. Okay. Well, thank you, Pastor Chris. I appreciate you coming on the show.

00:49:15.380 Well, thank you very much. It's been great to be with you, Joel.

00:49:18.440 As a special thank you for your gift of any amount, we'll be happy to send you a free digital book from our store.

00:49:23.820 To access this offer, visit

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The NXR Podcast - November 03, 2021

THEOLOGY APPLIED - What Christians Can Learn from Tom Bombadil of Lord of the Rings

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