Hebrews: It's Not How You Start--It's How You Finish by Dr. Kathy Stewart - REVIEW

I have since I began my career, an ongoing interest in the book of Hebrews. It was the first book from which I would memorize chapters, and was among the first books which I taught. Thus, I was intrigued at being able to review this book and to see what it said. As I began reading, thoughts familiar and similar greeted me and I found this welcome. An intellectual approach with logical thought and pursuit, the book does a good job of presenting its subject and summarizing the contents of the biblical book. Dr. Stewart has done her research. The simplicity of the book seems to struggle with its presentation though. It is thorough and keeps to the point of the book of Hebrews, yet, I found myself wanting more from this work. I was disappointed that Dr. Stewart didn't delve further into the thoughts that she presents. If you are looking for a type of “study guide” to the book of Hebrews, then I heartily recommend it. It would also be a good book for small group discussion forums. However, if you are looking for something to increase your in depth knowledge of the book, you will find pieces of it here but likely will want to pursue it in another book.

Jesus and the Politics of the Era

Jesus in the Politics of His Day (by John Frye)

Apr 25, 2014 @ 5:16 By Scot McKnight 9 Comments

“The gospel tradition is full of conflict.  Often the conflict is violent.  All three synoptic Gospels begin and end with conflict, the most prominent being the crucifixion of Jesus by the Romans, followed by his vindication in the resurrection.  … Far from avoiding or transcending such conflicts, however, Jesus himself enters into them and even exacerbates or escalates them” (Richard A. Horsley, Jesus and the Spiral of Violence: Popular Jewish Resistance in Roman Palestine, page 156).

Against the popular myth that Jesus as the Good Shepherd wandered around Galilee, Samaria and Judea with a Breck Girl hairdo and a laid-back, peaceful, agrarian demeanor, Horsley, who has paid scholarly attention to the violent socio-politico-religious environment of the “holy land” during the time of Jesus, paints a far more turbulent picture.  Horsley compellingly presents a Jesus living in, facing, and standing against the terrorist realities of his day.  Jesus, in a sense, woke up every day to the sound of bombings, not to soft musical favorites all the time, all day long.

When the angels sang about “peace on earth” at Jesus’ birth, they did not see a gentle Bethlehem stable with soft snow on the ground and bright stars twinkling.  They saw blood running in the streets of Jerusalem.  Heaven was aware of the hate-driven plots of many Jews to retaliate against the inhumane oppression of Rome.  Not too long after Jesus was born, the blood of infants flowed in the streets of Bethlehem as Herod viciously sought to kill the new rival “king.”  John the Baptist was capriciously beheaded.  Jewish dissidents were crucified by the hundreds yearly.  Assassinations of Roman soldiers and Jewish compromisers with Rome by Jewish sicarii during the Jewish great feasts in Jerusalem were common and expected.

Reading our own culture’s “separation of church and state” into the Gospels is a serious interpretive error.  Every religious thing Jesus did and said was highly politically-charged with resistance to the Jewish abandonment of their hope in and purpose for God.  Rome cautiously tolerated Israel’s quirky theocratic ways, but Jesus did not.  Jesus’ assault on the Temple was equivalent to protesting the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.  Jesus as the Shepherd walked in the valley of the shadow of death every day of his life.  Green pastures and still waters were a national memory and a desperate hope, not a daily option.

In the midst of all this, the Essenes chose a cottage village by the lake (escapism).  The zealots chose the bloody sword.  The Herodians and Sadducees chose traitorous compromise “with the powers that be.”  The Pharisees narcotized themselves on endless religious minutiae.  Rome chose intimidating military power.  Wading neck deep into it all, Jesus chose self-giving love.

The love of God in Jesus Christ is the greatest threat to terrorists and escapists and compromisers and religious nitpickers and imperial power brokers.  God’s love was their only hope; our only hope; my only hope.

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http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2014/04/25/jesus-in-the-politics-of-his-day-by-john-frye/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PatheosJesusCreed+%28Blog+-+Jesus+Creed%29

YOU ARE TRUSTED!

"...you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."

1 Pet.2:5

The past couple of Sundays, we have touched on not only the sacrifice that Jesus made for us, but the fact that He did it for us because when we follow Him He considers us precious. My mother long before she passed away, gave me her father's watch. It was precious to her and she in turn entrusted it to me for safe keeping and to treasure.  And, I have and do.   In turn, this got me to thinking about what God has entrusted to you and I.

God entrusted man with the keeping  the Garden in Genesis, He entrusted man with the Law in Old Testament Days. David says,   "I long for your salvation, O LORD, and your law is my delight." Psa 119:174. It was entrusted to the people for keeping and when it was not followed and was broken, the people suffered the consequences for abusing what God had entrusted as precious. For you and I today, we need to know that God has entrusted us with several things. 

1. God has entrusted us with the keeping of our souls. In Mt.12:35 Jesus teaches that it is from the heart that flow the issues of life.  James 1:14,15 warns us of abusing this privilege that God has given us. It is a serious thing to maintain our souls and many neglect matters of the spirit altogether. I have to examine my spirit daily (Rom.12) to make sure that it remains pure and cleanse it when it becomes impure (Mk.16:15,16; 1 Jn.1:9).
2. God has entrusted you and I with keeping His word.  I have to examine God's word regularly (Jn.5:39; 2 Tm.2:15, Jas.1:25) to see and know what God likes and doesn't like. Paul's statement to Timothy in 2 Tm.2:15 is to give every effort that I have to make sure that I keep myself approved of God and that I am the type of workman that God describes in His word. 
3. God has entrusted you and I as Christians with doing all that we can to encourage others who become Christians to more love and faithfulness (Heb.11:24).  He has entrusted you and I as Christians to encourage others who are not Christians to come to Christ so that they can change (Mt.11:28-30). We have been taught by history, by ecclesiastical "authorities," by tradition that the world is change so that it can come to us. This is not what Jesus teaches. Jesus teaches that we should invite the world to come be part of us so that the He can change them.   

Worry and the cares of the world can drown these. We worry about making a living, raising a family, and getting through a day - often to the neglect of our souls. We spend less time getting to know God and spending time with God and living in His word. Encouraging those in God's house becomes difficult because in spending less time around them because I am caught up in the world, I don't know them - can't encourage them, and they can't encourage me.  My time in encouraging others who want to become Christians becomes minimal because I have become entangled in the world, to the neglect of God and His family. This said, I'm not suggesting we become monastical and lose touch with the world altogether. But we MUST learn to balance the two, and give God's will the priority it deserves.

Worry is practical atheism, because it’s acting like you don’t have a Father in Heaven who loves you and who can be trusted, acting like you’re a spiritual orphan. Paul stated, "which is why I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me. (2 Tim 1:12)."

Are you guarding what God has entrusted to YOU? Are you being what God wants you to be? Fortunately, our salvation is based on Christ keeping his promise and taking care of what we’ve committed to Him - our souls. Maybe it is time you let go of what is holding you back and become what God is calling you to be. 

Jim

On Which Side of History are You?

Biblical Archaeological Review has been promoting a new book, "Partings: How Judaism and Christianity Became Two." Talked about in the book of Acts, it seems almost tragic that people that claim to worship the same God would take divergent paths. Yet, the history behind it and the motives can teach us a lot.  It is no secret, that Jesus and the Jewish religious authorities clashed. Even Flavius Josephus, the famous Jewish-Roman Historian records this in "Jewish Antiquities, 18.3.3 §63."  The first converts mentioned in the gospels and Acts are Jewish, yet, it is not long before the old familiar clash comes up in Acts 4 and once again threats arise. By Acts 6 not many years distant from Acts 2 (3-6 yrs max) physical hostility becomes prominent again, and by Acts 7 hatred and killing rear its ugly head again.  Needless to say, the hostility is escalating.  The beginning of Acts 8 already sees some believers fleeing the hostilities into the outer provinces, yet they are still cohesively meeting in the synagogues. While it seems that this is the norm for a while, in Acts 10 there seems to be the sense of a line that is crossed, when Peter teaches a gentile Roman Centurion and he gives his life to Christ. There are a number of things that happen at this point, Saul of Tarsus is converted, and a friction begins to fester within the believers in Jerusalem over Cornelius' conversion. In the meantime, James is killed by Herod Agrippa and Peter is arrested. In the meantime the spreading of the gospel has traveled and Paul and Barnabas returned to Antioch Pisidia where they encountered the former jealousy that Jesus encountered and that brought about Stephen's death. It is at this point in Acts 13:45,46, that the line seems to form and sever;  "But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began to contradict what was spoken by Paul, reviling him. And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying, "It was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you. Since you thrust it aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles."  There are Jewish believers and Gentile believers. While many Jewish believers still meet in the synagogues and together, the alienation of Gentile converts despite the decision made within the gathering in Jerusalem seems to form a wedge. 

Why is this important? It is important because it helps us to understand better the character that the Lord wishes us to have toward others and because it shows us what unloving, uncaring, selfish behavior, hatred and evil cause. It put Jesus on a cross, beheaded James, imprisoned Peter and lead to the persecution and deaths of many Christians. It happened then, and it can happen now. It also shows us, what will happen throughout history, even to modern time, when man does not love or follow the God he proclaims to love.  It shows us in panoramic history of the warning that Jesus himself gave, " And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. (Mt.24:12)." It shows the fulfillment of Paul's words, a former persecutor of Christians who had lived this path and changed, "God's Spirit clearly says that in the last days many people will turn from their faith. They will be fooled by evil spirits and by teachings that come from demons. They will also be fooled by the false claims of liars whose consciences have lost all feeling. (1 Tim.4:1,2)."  

This then is an important question, on which side of history and scripture am I? You have zeal for God? Fantastic! But, is your zeal helping to build God's house or tear it down? Do your words speak of grace? or do they spew forth hatred, dissension, jealousy and death? 

Jim

Isaiah via Ferrell Jenkins

Sealed documents were common in Bible times. Isaiah had already used this figure in chapter 8:16. Here the same illustration is used to show that because of Israel’s blindness of heart, no one was able (or willing) to accept and understand the will of God (see 6:9-10).

And the vision of all this has become to you like the words of a book that is sealed. When men give it to one who can read, saying, “Read this,” he says, “I cannot, for it is sealed.” And when they give the book to one who cannot read, saying, “Read this,” he says, “I cannot read.”(Isaish 29:11-12 ESV)

The photo below was taken in the archaeological museum in Gaziantep, Turkey. It shows a rolled up document with three strings held by clay seals. It appears that the document is modern with three ancient seals, but it illustrates what Isaiah is writing about.

The illiterate man says, “I cannot read.” The man who is literate says, “I cannot, for it is sealed.” The illiterate man does not try to find someone who can read, and the literate man does not find someone with authority to break the seal. Blindness, darkness, and spiritual insensitivity prevent either man from finding out what is in the document. No wonder Jesus cited Isaiah’s statement to explain why he used parables (Matthew 13:13-15).

A sealed document displayed in the Gaziantep Museum. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament (Walton, Matthews & Chavalas) has this explanatory note about sealed documents in Bible times.

Official documents were written on scrolls of papyrus or vellum and then, when stored or dispatched by messenger, were rolled up and sealed with string and an affixed seal (see 1 Kings 21:8; Jer 32:10–11). The seal, either a ring or signet, was impressed into either wax or a lump of clay known as a bulla (Job 38:14). Archaeologists have found many of these clay bullae with the names of Israelite officials.

I am aware of one ancient document with as many as seven seals. It is the Wadi ed-Daliyeh Aramaic papyrus document dating to the 4th century B.C. The seals are currently displayed in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. This document provides an illustration for Revelation 5 and 6.


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Why Do We Have a Bible? via BAR Magazine

Why Do We Have a Bible?

Emory University’s Jacob L. Wright examines the Bible as “road map to a brighter future”

Jacob L. Wright   •  03/31/2014

A new phenomenon is changing the face of education, making first-rate courses from the world’s best universities available to all, wherever they live. The phenomenon is often subsumed under the umbrella term “Massive Open Online Course” (MOOC). Emory University professor Jacob L. Wright will be teaching the free seven-week Coursera course “The Bible’s Prehistory, Purpose, and Political Future” beginning May 26. More information is provided at the bottom of this page.
 

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Discovered in the caves above Qumran, the Dead Sea Scrolls have provided scholars with important information about the Bible in the first century. How was the Bible formed, and why did a text from a defeated people blossom into the Bible?

Last fall I was selected to teach one of Coursera’s first course offerings on religion—and its very first on the Hebrew Bible as a whole. Entitled “The Bible’s Prehistory, Purpose, and Political Future,” the course will expose students, whether they’re beginners or experts, to an abundance of new research on the history of Israel and on the formation of the Bible. But this is no typical introductory course. My objective is not simply to present various theories for the origins of Israel and the Bible, beginning with Genesis and continuing through various parts of the canon. Instead, my lectures focus on the most basic—and I think most important—question that students often ask, yet instructors rarely address: Why?

Why do we have a Bible from ancient Israel and Judah? Could something like it have existed among the Philistines, the Moabites, the Assyrians, the Babylonians or the Persians? If so, why haven’t they been transmitted throughout the ages and been translated into thousands of languages, as the Hebrew Scriptures have been? And why would such a sophisticated corpus of literature as the Bible have its origins in a remote region of the world (the southern Levantine hill country), rather than at the centers of ancient civilization (Mesopotamia and Egypt)? After all, these civilization centers boasted technological supremacy and military superiority. They were the ones who invented writing and easily conquered the population that produced the Bible. Finally, why has the Bible had such a huge impact on world history, shaping the identities of a very wide array of societies across the globe?

The course takes on this paramount question of the Bible’s raison d’être: its why and wherefore. The first two weeks of the class treat the history and archaeology of ancient Israel, and the subsequent weeks examine how the Biblical authors tell their history and interpret their past.
 

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In the free eBook Exploring Genesis: The Bible’s Ancient Traditions in Context, discover the cultural contexts for many of Israel’s latest traditions. Explore Mesopotamian creation myths, Joseph’s relationship with Egyptian temple practices and three different takes on the location of Ur of the Chaldeans, the birthplace of Abraham.
 

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I’m not going to reveal the way I answer the why-question. In order to find out how I think about it, you’ll have to enroll in the course. But I will give you a clue as to where I’m headed. (And two follow-up pieces exclusively on Bible History Daily will offer you a glimpse of some of the course’s content.)

The Bible emerged in response to disaster and devastation. If it were not for cataclysmic loss—if the kingdoms of Israel and Judah had continued to flourish—there would be no Bible. I’m not claiming that many of the Bible’s sources did not already exist long before the Babylonians razed Jerusalem to the ground. But there is a significant gap between the original contours of these sources and the shape they are given by the Biblical authors.

According to the Book of Daniel, Babylonian king Belshazzar ordered the gold and silver vessels from the Temple to be brought to his famous feast, where Daniel interpreted the writing on the wall. The authors of the Hebrew Bible fashioned an elaborate and enduring monument to this conquest. Picture: National Gallery, London.

With its walls razed to the ground by Babylon’s armies, Jerusalem joined a long line of ancient vanquished cities—from Ur and Nineveh and Persepolis to Babylon itself. While some recovered from the destruction, others did not. But none responded to political catastrophe by fashioning the kind of elaborate and enduring monument to their own downfall that we find in the Bible. Most conquered populations viewed their subjugation as a source of shame. They consigned it to oblivion, opting instead to extol the golden ages of the past. The Biblical authors in contrast reacted to loss by composing extensive writings that acknowledge collective failure, reflect deeply upon its causes and discover thereby a ground for collective hope.

For subjugated populations, the destructive force of armies posed the most fundamental question: Who are we? In response to this question, the Biblical architects of Israel’s national identity did not look to their kings to define their destiny. Instead, they gathered the fragments of their diverse pasts and wove from them a single narrative that told the story of one nation. The resulting tapestry we know as the Hebrew Bible.
 

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The DVD Bible Stories: How Narratives Work and What They Reveal is a fascinating look at some of the most famous stories of the Hebrew Bible. Professor Ziony Zevit’s engaging lectures examine the art of storytelling and will have you reading the Exodus, the Ten Commandments, the Book of Ruth and so much more in a whole new way.
 

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Defeat may have destroyed a state, but thanks to the vision of the Biblical authors, it recreated a people. The Biblical project is truly remarkable. Nowhere else in the ancient world do we witness such an elaborate effort first to portray the history of one’s own defeat and then to use this history as a means of envisioning a new political order. This course takes students through the bold moves, as well as the intricate steps, with which the Bible achieves its goals.

The efforts of the Biblical authors were not in vain. The “people of the book” they conceived has endured for more than two-and-a-half tumultuous millennia. But the impact of these creative labors extends far beyond the community for whom it was written. Either directly or indirectly, the Bible informs the way many populations of the world today imagine themselves as peoples. Thus we as Americans, despite significant social and ethnic diversity, have long claimed to be one united nation, and our self-understanding borrows explicitly from the legacy that the Biblical authors inherited from ancient Israel.

In keeping with its hope-filled perspective, the Bible lays out a road map to a brighter future in which corporate concerns and the common good determine daily practices and public policies: transparency and open access to information; division of powers; written law codes; environmental sustainability; universal education; justice for the orphan, widow and alien; protection of the one from the many; long life rather than heroic martyrdom; and many other enduring “covenantal” values that grow out of a sense of fraternity and a consciousness of being one people. Many of these moral principles have been deeply absorbed into our identities. In my course I reveal how they were decisively shaped by societal collapse. If I am right, they demand our renewed attention in this time of global instability and great uncertainty about our future.
 

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The Bible’s Prehistory, Purpose, and Political Future

A new phenomenon is changing the public face of university education, making first-rate courses from the world’s best universities available to all, wherever they live. The phenomenon is often subsumed under the umbrella term “Massive Open Online Course” (MOOC). One of the leaders in the new realm of MOOC courses is Coursera, which reaches millions of students of all ages across the globe. Last fall Dr. Jacob Wright was selected to teach for Coursera one of its first courses on religion—and its very first on the Hebrew Bible as a whole. Titled “The Bible’s Prehistory, Purpose, and Political Future,” the course is offered through the prestigious Emory University, which is world-renowned for its graduate programs in Biblical Studies (the largest in the USA).

This new course on the Bible is free, and enrollment is open to everyone. Beginning May 26, it runs for seven weeks—a fitting duration for a course on the Bible. You can take it for credit and a diploma, or you can just watch the lectures at leisure and take the quizzes for fun, without anyone knowing how well you did—or didn’t do.

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Jacob L. Wright is associate professor of Hebrew Bible at the Candler School of Theology of Emory University. He is author of Rebuilding Identity: The Nehemiah Memoir and Its Earliest Readers (De Gruyter) and two related works on the Bible’s most celebrated ruler: King David’s Reign Revisited (Aldina/Apple iBooks) and David, King of Israel, and Caleb in Biblical Memory (Cambridge University Press). He is currently at work on an exciting new book on the Bible to be published by Simon & Schuster—Atria.

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Book Review: Take This Cup By Bodie and Brock Thoene

Take This Cup 

By Bodie and Brock Thoene

This is a fanciful book. When I chose it, I was in the mood to be taken away from the present world and its issues to another place. This book has succeeded in doing that, transporting the reader back to the time of Christ, where a little boy becomes an inadvertent cupbearer to Jesus the Messiah.  It is a fantasy that brings in a lot of symbolism from the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple following the Babylonian Captivity, a faction from the point of Joseph of Arimathea and visions looking to the time of Jesus.  I heartily recommend the book of you do reading with young children, or have young readers in your house. Not only does it acquaint them with history and time, but it takes them into the customs of the people of the day.  If you are homeschooling, then you could find it good for supplementary historical reference reading. If you read to your small children or grandchildren, then it is a good "story telling" kind of book, that can make for good family-devotional time.

This said, in negatives I was disappointed from a personal standpoint in that the book was not what I thought it was going to be. I was looking for something deep, almost fantasy and it wound up being simplistic from that point of view. However this is not the book's fault but my own. While intriguing I found it hard to follow because of the almost over simplistic approaches. This is not the point of view from which the book is written, thus, not the book's fault.  From a child's point of view, it is perfectly logical.

So, my recommendation on this book is get it. Especially if you are reading to your kids or if you have kids that read. I do not thing you or they will be disappointed. However, if you are intellectual or are looking for something deep, fantasy, etc. this book probably isn't for you. But - don't spoil it for others!

Jim