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Post by stephen on Apr 4, 2024 22:27:04 GMT
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Post by calsplan on Apr 1, 2024 18:44:12 GMT
When do we get thge new models
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Post by stephen on Mar 28, 2024 23:12:37 GMT
We are told that shortly before his death on the Cross Jesus cried aloud, quoting the first line of Psalm 22; “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mark ch15 v34).
Taken in isolation, this looks like a cry of despair. Indeed David C.K. Watson, in his evangelistic book “My God is Real”, asserts that Jesus did indeed experience a loss of contact with his Father, for the first time in his life, because he was overwhelmed by the burden of “the sin of the world”, which he was now taking on. I remember that argument well, because that page was a key factor in my own conversion to the Christian faith, one night in May 1972. The impact of that concept won me over (intellectually, rather than emotionally).
However, there’s also a lot to be said for not taking that cry in isolation. Another angle worth considering is that quoting the first line of the psalm was a shorthand way of quoting the whole psalm, and the whole psalm should be taken into account as an expression of his meaning.
Psalm 22 can be divided into sections in which “I need God’s help” alternates with “God must help me, God will help me, God has helped me”.
Vv1-2 “I need God’s help.” The speaker cries to God day and night, but finds no rest because God does not respond.
Vv3-5 Yet God ought to help because he has helped Israel in the past. This may be one of the many psalms in which the troubled “I” is actually Israel, speaking as a community, making a corporate appeal in times of national danger. “Our fathers” trusted him and were not disappointed, because he saved them. That is why he remains “holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel”.
Vv6-8 But the speaker’s life is currently in a very depressed state. “I am a worm and no man.” “All who see me mock at me.” They say “He committed his cause to the Lord; let him [the Lord] deliver him.” In fact that is exactly what “they” say in Matthew; “He trusts in God; let God deliver him now” (Matthew ch27 v43). And the gospel narratives describe other forms of mockery around the Cross.
Vv9-10 On the other hand, again, the speaker has been committed to the Lord all his life, from the time of his birth.
Vv11-18 The speaker describes the trouble that is surrounding him, when there is apparently nobody near to help.
He is surrounded by a menacing herd of “bulls of Bashan”. Bashan is a region north-east of the Sea of Galilee. High elevation, presumably good pasture land, and therefore famous as a cattle area. The bulls would be well-fed and strong. The imperious high-born wives of Israel are called “cows of Bashan” in Amos ch4 v1.
Alternatively, he is surrounded by a pack of wild dogs. All dogs are comparatively wild in this culture, which is why the word is an insult. Or, dropping the metaphors, “a company of evildoers”.
“I am poured out like water”. All the strength and energy has gone out of him. “All my bones are out of joint… my tongue cleaves to my jaws”. This could be a literal description of the experience of crucifixion, in which the actual cause of death is slow strangulation caused by the posture in which the victim is suspended. “Thou dost lay me in the dust of death”. “I can count all my bones.” In the psalm, this is probably meant to portray the effects of starvation during a period of famine. No flesh left. “They divide my garments among them, and for my raiment they cast lots.” This is echoed in the gospel narratives and actually quoted in John ch19 v24.
Vv19-21 On the dual basis of his need to be helped and his right to be helped, the speaker makes his appeal for the protection of his life.
We are told that Jesus “made prayers and supplications… to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard for his godly fear” (Hebrews ch5 v7). Someone might ask “How was he heard and saved, since he died on the Cross?” The answer is that his faith was preserved unto the point of death, and he was raised from the dead. He passed through death and came out on the other side.
That is the promise of “salvation” made for us regarding the tribulation. There is no guarantee whatever that God’s faithful people will escape suffering or even death in the tribulation, but their faith will be preserved and they will be raised from the dead. That is what “coming out of the tribulation” means (Revelation ch7 v14). It means passing through the tribulation and coming out the other side, like canoeing through the rapids instead of by-passing them.
Vv22-31 All this is leading up to the triumphant message that God will be praised. Christ has been raised from the dead.
The speaker will praise him and urges others to praise him, because he has heard the cries of appeal. This will go out to “the ends of the earth”, because the Lord has dominion over all the nations. All the proud men of the earth will bow down. This is not just for the present but will continue into the future. “Men shall tell of the Lord to the coming generation, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn.”
“Why hast thou forsaken me” is not a cry of despair. It is the heading and prelude of a triumphant message about the resurrection of the dead and the proclamation of the gospel.
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Post by stephen on Mar 27, 2024 23:42:14 GMT
David was coming to the end of his life and growing more feeble (1 Kings ch1). Obviously the issue of succession to the throne would have to be confronted. Once again, polygamy would be a major complicating factor. The later Ottoman empire illustrates the problem, showing how polygamy tends to produce too many possible candidates for the throne. Being born from different mothers reduces the sense of kinship among the sons and heightens the sense of rivalry. In fact the competition for the throne becomes an anxious necessity, if they know that the winner of the race is likely to kill his brothers afterwards. Thus there is no security in the status of “eldest son”. Even their father’s preference may be diverted to a son of his favourite wife. It will be helpful if the candidate is popular among the people, but he needs to find allies in the military leadership, the religious leadership, and the royal household. The household is important partly because those close to the monarch will be the first to know about his death, priceless information which they may be able to keep to themselves until they have perfected their own arrangements. At first glance, the obvious heir to David’s throne was Adonijah, the fourth of his Hebron sons and probably the eldest surviving son. “His father had never at any time displeased him by asking; Why have you done thus and so?” (v4) He was aware of David’s decline, and exalted himself, saying “I will be king”. He prepared for himself chariots and horsemen and fifty men to run before him. At the same time, there was also a “son of the favourite wife”. David had already sworn an oath to Bathsheba, that her son Solomon would reign after him. Unfortunately the child was still too young to be a plausible war-leader, which may be one of the reasons why the decision had not been announced publicly. I’m sure Adonijah would have guessed the secret, though. Adonijah had secured the support of two leading figures. Joab, as commander of the host, and Abiathar, as priest-custodian of the ark, might be seen as the heads of their respective “departments”. Yet this combination was not as strong as it looked. Adonijah’s party did not include Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, captain of the king’s bodyguard. Nor did it include the rest of David’s “mighty men”. Where, then, was Abishai, Joab’s elder brother, once “commander of the thirty”? Probably retired or dead, having been active since the very beginning of the reign. It’s likely that the “thirty” had disappeared altogether. Joab and Abishai together had controlled the court. Without Abishai, and in the absence of the host (which had not been called out for war), Joab was an old commander with immense prestige and no soldiers. There were also other religious leaders besides Abiathar. Zadok, head of the rival priestly line, remained loyal to David, as did Nathan the prophet. For that matter, there is no sign that Adonijah had been able to suborn anyone surrounding David, within the royal household. This was important, because his prospects would depend upon his timing. If he tried to claim the throne while David was still conscious and capable of making decisions, he would be crushed. If he waited for David’s death to be announced, the king’s chosen successor would be proclaimed at the same time. At the very least he needed a spy, to tell him how quickly the king’s life was ebbing away. The key factor in one of the most fateful days in David’s reign may have been that Adonijah made his move just a whisker too soon. Adonijah “crossed the Rubicon” by arranging a great sacrifice and feast at En-rogel, just outside Jerusalem. The two things go together, because the guests would be feasting on the sacrificed animals. He invited his brothers (apart from Solomon) and all the royal officials. Presumably the plan was that Abiathar the priest would rise from the table at some point and anoint Adonijah as king. His guests would acclaim him and swear allegiance. By this means, he would have taken over the kingdom. If nothing went wrong.
A feast planned on that scale could not be kept secret, so his purpose was transparent. While this was happening, Nathan the prophet was in the king’s palace, alerting Bathsheba to the state of crisis. They needed to warn David. Nathan shrewdly managed the affair by telling Bathsheba to make the first approach on her own. He would then follow, giving a second warning to reinforce the first. This would have more impact than a single message given jointly. Between them, they would sting David into action. In their separate audiences, Bathsheba and Nathan described what was happening across the valley and pleaded for action. “And now, my lord the king, the eyes of all Israel are upon you, to tell them who shall sit upon the throne of my lord the king after him. Otherwise it will come to pass, when my lord the king sleeps with his fathers, that I and my son Solomon will be counted offenders [and executed]” (vv20-21). After Nathan said his piece, David recalled Bathsheba to his presence and swore an oath to the Lord renewing his previous promise. Escorted by the king’s bodyguard (the Cherethites and Pelethites), Zadok, Nathan, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada took Solomon down to the spring of Gihon. Zadok collected the sacred horn of oil from the tent, which must have been close by, and anointed Solomon. Then they blew the trumpet and all the people joyfully acclaimed Solomon as king. The feasters at En-rogel could hear the trumpet and the clamour in the city, but did not know what it meant. It was Jonathan, son of Abiathar, who came in to report the bad news of Solomon’s elevation to the throne. At that moment, Adonijah knew that his two aces, Joab and Abiathar, had been trumped. The game was up. “Then all the guests of Adonijah trembled and rose and each went his own way.” Adonijah took refuge at the horns of the altar, inside the tent, but Solomon promised him his life, on condition of good behaviour. “So the kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon”
[P.S. This is an extract from the newly-published “Prophets, Priests and Politics”, a survey of Old Testament history through the eyes of the prophets.]
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Post by stephen on Mar 26, 2024 23:14:10 GMT
Mary (or rather Miriam, after the sister of Moses) has always been a popular name amongst the Jews. A number of women of that name are found in the New Testament.
The specific information about Mary Magdalen is very limited. We may guess that her surname is “place of origin”, probably deriving from Magdala, a fishing town on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. We know (Luke ch8 v2) that she was one of the women who accompanied Jesus in his travels along with his other disciples, and that seven demons had been driven out of her. We know from the Easter narratives that she was one of the small group of women who sought to attend Jesus after his burial, and we have the story of John ch20 about her encounter with him after his Resurrection.
However, a few other stories in the gospels have had an great effect on the way that she’s been perceived, even though they don’t mention her by name.
Matthew has an “anointing in Bethany” story (ch26 vv6-13). While he is eating at the house of Simon the leper, an unidentified woman pours oil on his head. The disciples complain that the ointment could have been sold to provide for the poor, but Jesus declares that she is preparing him for his burial. No other motive is suggested. The implication is that this is an acted-out prophecy.
Luke has his own anointing story (ch7 vv36-50), but the setting is in the middle of the Galilee mission. The most recent place-name mentioned is Nain. The women is identified as a sinner and she is weeping. Not just from repentance and a sense of guilt, let it be understood. She is weeping with gratitude, superimposed upon the repentance, because she already knows that her sins have been forgiven, though her faith. That is clear from the remarks of Jesus, who says the magnitude of her sin can be measured by the magnitude of her grateful love. She anoints his feet, in humility, instead of his head. Before the anointing she must dry the feet with her hair, because her tears are making them wet.
Luke also has the story (ch10 vv38-41) of the reception of Jesus at the home of the sisters Mary and Martha. The village is not named, but Jesus has already “set his face” (ch9 v51) for the eight-chapter journey towards Jerusalem. There is no suggestion that either of them is the woman in the anointing story.
We come now to the story of John ch12 vv1-8, which complicates matters greatly. In his version of events, the household of Mary and Martha is combined with the household of Lazarus in Bethany, who is their brother. The event that takes place that night is Matthew’s Bethany anointing, on the whole. That is, the woman who anoints him is identified as Mary. Judas is the disciple who complains about the waste. John’s version of the reply Jesus made is a little odd; “Let her keep it for my burial”. How can she keep it, when she has already used it? Perhaps the simplest answer is to refer it to her previous decision NOT to sell the oil. “It was right that she should keep it and not sell it, so that she could use it for this purpose today.” On that interpretation, John agrees with Matthew in treating the act as “anointing in advance”.
John complicates things further by adding detail from the anointing in Luke. The act is transferred from the head to the feet of Jesus, and Mary wipes them with her hair even though it is not necessary. She has not been weeping, so the feet are not wet. Nevertheless, there is no suggestion of the “repentance for sin” motive. He does not identify Mary of Bethany with the sinner. Nor does he identify Mary Magdalene with either of them.
No, church tradition, interpreting the New Testament, has been responsible for dragging the name of Mary Magdalene into these events. The quest for ways of harmonising the gospels would naturally lead to the assumption that all three anointing stories were the same story at heart, which would have the effect of identifying Mary of Bethany as a reformed sinner. Apparently it was Pope Gregory the Great who first identified Mary Magdalene as the sinful anointing woman and more specifically identified her sin as fornication. He depended heavily on the assumed connection between fornication and being possessed by demons, which doesn’t have direct Biblical backing. Perhaps also “keep it for my burial” encouraged the idea that Mary of Bethany must have been one of the women around the tomb.
I had it in my head that Mary Magdalene spent the Middle Ages as patron saint of prostitutes, but this role seems to have been informal rather than official. Certainly the Oxford English Dictionary defines “Magdalen” as “a reformed prostitute”. Her name was given to communities of nuns formed from reformed prostitutes and other institutions designed to shelter them. All because Pope Gregory decided to simplify the Biblical character list and give her name to somebody else.
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Post by stephen on Mar 24, 2024 16:56:18 GMT
According to many modern translations, the chief priests and scribes were anxious to arrest Jesus, but not “during the feast, lest there be a tumult of the people” (Mark ch14 v2, Matthew ch26 v5). The AV modifies it by adding a supplementary word; “on the feast day. These translations give the impression that they wanted to avoid action during a period of time. This in turn gives rise to the idea that they changed their minds when Judas showed them how the arrest could be made in the middle of this period.
However, I think this idea is a misunderstanding, based on a mistranslation.
The Greek expression translated as “during the feast” is EN TE HEORTE. But EN is the equivalent of the English “In” and has a wider range of meanings than “during”. That is why the AV translates “on” and is obliged to add “day” to make it more idiomatic in English speech. I’m going to suggest, though, that HEORTE is not a period of time but a location.
Let’s take a similar expression in modern English; “At the carnival”. The best-known carnival in the world is surely the Brazilian “Carnavale” (their spelling wanders further away from the Latin CARNI VALE, “farewell to flesh). The most recent Carnavale was held on February 9th-14th 2024. But can we say that something is happening “at the carnival” just because it is happening during that time period? Surely a man can’t truly say that he is “in the carnival” or “at the carnival” unless he’s out there on the streets. If he’s hiding out in a back street hotel room, then he’s evading the carnival, not being part of it. “At the carnival” is as much about location as it is about time.
So “not at the feast” could be understood as “not in the streets, in the middle of the crowds which have gathered for the feast”. And that’s exactly how Luke seems to take it. His paraphrase is that Judas offered them a chance to capture Jesus “in the absence of the multitude” (Luke ch22 v6). While in John, the chief priests and Pharisees are giving orders that “if anyone knew where [Jesus} was, he should let them know, so that they might arrest him” (John ch11v57). This too is about “away from the crowds”.
So Judas was, in fact, offering the authorities what they had wanted from the beginning, namely a way to arrest Jesus without interference, because it would be “not in the middle of the feast-crowds”.
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Post by stephen on Mar 23, 2024 14:46:14 GMT
“And Peter said to Jesus, ‘Lord, it is well that we are here; if you wish, I will make three booths here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah” (Matthew ch17 v4).
I was reminded of this episode recently by a wrong-headed interpretation of it found in Toynbee’s “Study of History”. I like Toynbee. I am carefully reading through this work for the fourth time. But his enthusiasm for his case sometimes moves him to build it upon inaccurate details, and this is one of them.
He is offering examples of Violent and Gentle reactions to the disintegrations of civilisations. He counts Peter initially as an example of the violent tendency, partly because of the ear-cutting incident at Gethsemane, and partly because of the declaration just quoted. He claims that Peter took the appearance of Elijah and Moses as the signal for a war of liberation, “proposing to build on the spot the nucleus of a camp of the kind that the Theudases and Judases of Galilee were wont to establish in the wilderness during the brief interval of grace before the Roman authorities received intelligence of their activities and sent out a flying column of troops to disperse them” (Volume V, p393, if you want to look it up).
Commentaries don’t always do better. One found on my bookshelves, ignoring the wording of the remark, suggests that Peter wanted to build shelters for the three disciples, being the ones who would need shelter, so that they could stay on the mountain longer. Most commentators discover an allusion to the annual Feast of Tabernacles, often called “Feast of Booths” in modern times. The RSV translation implies the same assumption.
But I suggest that Peter was not thinking of the annual feast at all, but of the original Tabernacle, the one established by Moses in order to meet with God. The word used by Peter (SKENE) is the same word used in Hebrews ch9 for the original Tabernacle.
I think he was remembering that the Tabernacle had been erected originally so that Moses could speak with God. Seeing Jesus, Moses and Elijah together, it occurred to him, in his understandably muddled state of mind, that they might need one each. Hence the proposal.
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Post by stephen on Jan 10, 2024 21:32:16 GMT
to be continued later
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Post by stephen on Dec 17, 2023 17:06:38 GMT
In the second chapter of Philippians, Paul urged his readers to be more like Christ and describes what in Christ they should be imitating. The result is that the passage covered by vv6-8 has become another important set-piece text on the Incarnation, with a wording that is challenged by sceptics.
In the first four verses, he tells them that they should be acting in humility rather than in selfishness or conceit. They should be acting in the interests of others rather than their own interests. And Christ Jesus is to be their model, so that tells us what Christ Jesus was doing.
Sceptics challenge the exact meaning of two words in v6, but the context in the following verses helps to explain them.
MORPHE This is the word being used when Paul says that Christ was “in the form” of God. So Colossians ch1 v 15 said that he was in the “image of God”, and both are understood to mean that he had God’s nature, the “fullness of God” mentioned in Colossians ch1 v19.
The alternative view is that he was only “in the form” of God. An imitation, not the real thing.
The answer is to look down to v7 and notice that he then took “the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men”. That is, human nature, the counterpart of divine nature.
Surely we have to assume that MORPHE, whatever it means, means the same in both verses. If it means “imitation”, then it means “imitation” in both cases. If it means “reality”, then it means “reality” in both cases. The question is, then, whether we believe that Jesus was truly human in v7. If the answer is “Yes”, as it should be, then MORPHE is talking about “true nature” in that verse, which means that MORPHE is talking about “true nature” in v6 as well. The combination means that Christ had the true nature of God and took on the true nature of humanity. Or, as John ch1 says, he “was God” and then “became flesh and dwelt among us”.
HARPAGMOS Christ Jesus refused to regard “equality with God” as one of these, whatever it is. The alternatives are understood to be “something to be clung on to and kept” or “something to be snatched at and grasped”. In other words, he either had or did not have equality with God.
A common argument in commentaries is that the second is more likely according to the rules of Greek grammar. But this kind of argument always begs the question of whether Paul was actually writing accurate Greek.
The problem with the second interpretation is that the passage is supposed to be about the self-sacrificial attitude of Christ. There is nothing self-sacrificial about refusing to grasp something which is not your property. That’s just a matter of duty. Being unselfish and self-sacrificial involves giving up something already in your possession, which takes us back to the first interpretation.
V7 supports this argument by giving us “he emptied himself”. You cannot empty yourself unless you have been filled with something first. “Emptied himself” has to be about giving something up. Christ Jesus did not think that equality with God was “something to be kept”, so he did not keep it.
But what does “equality with God” mean? On this present reading of the passage, I notice that the counterpart of “equality with God” is “the form of a servant”, so I now think that it’s about authority. In fact it looks like the equivalent of the statement in Hebrews that the Son “learned obedience” (Hebrews ch5 v8). As I have argued before, “learned obedience” does not mean that his previous status was disobedience. It means that his previous status was authority. Christ in his human form gave up his own divine authority, addressed people rather with the delegated authority given him by the Father, and served in humility as recommended at the beginning of the chapter.
And for exactly that reason, the Father gave the resurrected Christ full authority over mankind, giving him “the name that is above every name”. That is, “Lord”. He is Lord now, but currently unrecognised by the world. Only when he “returns” or “is revealed” (the New Testament puts it both ways) will it become true that “every knee in heaven and on earth and under the earth” will bow and every tongue recognise him as Lord.
It is appropriate to remember this at this time, observing the fact that being born on earth and occupying the body which had been prepared for him was his first act of obedience.
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Post by stephen on Dec 10, 2023 16:52:41 GMT
Colossians ch1 vv15-20
This passage is a classic set-piece statement on the divinity of Christ. When I was studying for the B.D., this was one of the set texts for an examination paper on that theme. The recommended reading included an entire thesis devoted to these verses alone.
Paul’s intention is to state the case clearly and decisively. For exactly that reason, it becomes a target for quibbling, as critics try to replace “what the writer meant by these sentences” with “what the individual words might be made to mean if we treat them with enough pedantry”. I no longer have the notes I made at the time, so I will just go through the passage and pick out the most important features.
V15. He is “the image of the invisible God”. The thought in Paul’s mind is that he is God made visible, the EIKON .Hebrews ch1 v3, making the same point, uses a word which commentators relate to the impression made by the mould used for stamping out coins. The point is that the copy echoes the original. Quibblers will try to turn it into “only a copy, not the real thing”, but that is amply refuted by v19.
“First-born of all creation”. This is explained by v17, “He is before all things”. That is, he precedes creation. He was “begotten of his Father” before created things came into existence. Therefore it is NOT legitimate to interpret the phrase as “The earliest born member of the category of created things”.
V16. “In him all things were created… all things were created through him and through him… in him all things hold together”. This provides a logical proof that the Son does not belong to the category “created things”. In fact the proof is identical with the more concise statement in John; “All things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made” (John ch1 v3). Think about it. If the Son is the channel through whom “ALL created things” were made, then the channel himself cannot possibly be one of the “all created things”. Because then he would have to come into existence before he came into existence so that he could be brought into existence through himself. Which would be absurd. These two statements clearly place the Son on the “Creator” side of the boundary between Creator and created things.
V18 “He is the head of the church”. We have been told that all things hold together in him, and he is holding the church together in a more specific way. Because “head” has become the standard label for the leader of an organisation, modern people are likely to lose sight of the “head and body” image. Later, in ch2 v19, he tries to combine the two concepts of “origin” and “leader”, by producing the slightly bizarre picture of a body growing outwards from the its head. That metaphor is enough to convince me that this letter really does come from Paul (which some people deny).
“First-born from the dead”. He is “the beginning” in one more sense, as being the first in his community to experience resurrection, besides being the source of the resurrection of the others. “That in everything he might be pre-eminent.”
V19 “For in him all the fullness of God [PLEROMA] was pleased to dwell.” Here is a clear and unmistakable statement that the Son is the incarnate version of God. It is hard to see how the point could be expressed more strongly. What is there beyond “fullness”? If you don’t think it has that meaning, what more could he possibly say that does have that meaning?
V20 We need to watch the pronouns carefully. “The fullness of God” is the subject of the sentence. The “fullness” was working through the Son in order to reconcile “all things” in heaven and earth to the Fullness., making peace between God and man by the blood of the Cross of Jesus.
The universalist will want to claim that “all things” must include the wicked. This does not follow at all, because we learn from the last chapters of Revelation that the wicked will finally be absent from “heaven and earth”. The reconciliation of “all things” is achieved by excluding them and reconciling the rest.
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Post by stephen on Dec 3, 2023 18:30:22 GMT
In Paul’s time, Colossae was a small town in Asia Minor, rather less important than Ephesus. Paul’s letter to the Colossians shares many themes with his letter to the Ephesians. The two letters would have been written under similar circumstances (the later stage of his life, when he was out of the region) and for similar reasons. So these description of what God has done for us will certainly overlap with the statements made in Ephesians.
In the second chapter, beginning with v8, Paul warns them not to be drawn astray by human tradition and the STOICHEIA of the universe. I will have to return to the question of what that much-disputed Greek word means. This warning is based upon the principle that we should be following Christ instead, because of what he has done for us.
What Christ has done for us is founded upon what Christ is, as explained in the first chapter. “In him, the whole fullness of God dwells bodily”, and he is the head of all rule and authority (vv8-9).
Therefore he has done for us all that is necessary to give us fullness of life. We have been circumcised, dedicated to God, in a spiritual sense. That is, we have “died together with Christ” on the Cross, and in that action our “body of flesh” has been cut off from us. Our baptism is the symbolic experience of dying together with him and being raised together with him. As a result, we are now alive in God, our sins having been forgiven (vv11-13).
There follow two classic images. The first is about what happened to the “bond” which made us into debt-slaves, which “stood against us with its legal demands” (v14). This stands for the legal code of Moses. God cancelled this by “nailing it to the Cross”. Whatever commentators may say about the inscription which Pilate had placed on the Cross, and about the way that legal documents were nailed in public places, the real point here is that Christ “took up” the bond and it was nailed to the Cross and “put to death” there in his person. This is the same point that is being made in Galatians, when Paul says that “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us” (Galatians ch3 v13). When Christ died, the legal claim of the law died with him. This verse ties in with or perhaps inspired the traditional assumption that Jesus was attached to the Cross by nails (a modern suggestion is that his arms would have been tied there).
The image of v15 is the Roman “triumph”. A victorious general would enter the city, followed by a long procession of his captives, for the gratification of the crowd. Here it is the “principalities and powers” who have been defeated.
Because of what he has done for us, we need to hold fast to Christ, who is the Head (v19) “from whom the whole body grows, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments”. This idea that the body grows outwards from the head is also found in Ephesians ch4 v16. This is one of the points that modern scholars will seize upon if they are trying to prove that one letter was “borrowing from” the other. I don’t think there’s much in it., though. Any teacher who frequently presents the same arguments will begin to repeat himself in his wording. I have been known to re-use my own sentences or whole paragraphs, on the principle that I found the best way of putting it the first time round, and anything that is worth using once is worth using twice.
It is more interesting to compare this image with the other Ephesians image, of Christ as the corner-stone from whom the whole building grows (Ephesians ch2 vv20-21). Both images are expressing the same personal relationship, and they are both slightly incongruous, for different reasons. It is appropriate that a building should start from a corner stone, but we don’t expect that building to be growing organically. On the other hand, it is appropriate that a body should grow organically, but we don’t expect the head of the body to be the starting-point. It’s hard to find a metaphor that gets both points right, but I suppose they cover both aspects between them.
He is the substance, human tradition is the shadow. As far as I can tell, Paul is talking mainly about Jewish tradition. In v16, he encourages the Colossians not to allow people to judge them on questions relating to food or drink, or religious festivals or new moon celebrations or sabbaths, which would all come from the laws of Moses. Similarly the regulations which have no genuine value in checking the indulgence of the flesh (v23), such as “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch”, could also be derived from the laws of Moses.
In v18, he warns them off the kind of spiritual guide who insists on worship of angels and takes his stand on visions, “puffed up without reasons by his sensuous mind”. Many modern scholars are eager to find signs of “early Gnosticism”, but I think this too is derived from the Jewish culture of the time. There are indications in the New Testament that contemporary Jews were emphasising the status of angels. They were trying to show respect for their God by distancing themselves from him, denying the possibility of direct contact, and introducing intermediaries. I still think, incidentally, that this was the side-effect of their experience of the Persian empire, when their human ruler was a distant and unapproachable figure. So Stephen testifies to a belief that the laws of Moses had come to them “delivered by angels” (Acts ch7 v51). He gives this as a reason why they should have kept it, but Paul quotes the same point as a reason why the laws of Moses were inferior to something received directly (Galatians ch3 vv19-20). The first two chapters of Hebrews go to great lengths to explain how the Son is superior to the angels. This may have been necessary the authority of the angels was supposed to support the authority of the laws of Moses, Though the more conservative Jude (vv8-9) thinks that the devaluing of angels can be carried too far.
But there is also the much-debated claim (v20) that we have died to the STOICHEIA of the world. The “rudiments”, as the AV calls them. The same word appears in Galatians (ch4, v3&v8), which is a letter urging resistance to the Judaizers, and I’m convinced that this is the same argument.
The word originally applied to the letters of the alphabet, as ranked in rows. A secondary meaning was the basic “elements” of the material world, as Greek physical science understood them. The RSV freely translates “elementary spirits of the universe”, which implies a claim that regulations were being imposed by secondary powers. This comes from the modern fashion of looking for signs of “early Gnosticism”. But I think we need to think of these regulations as “elementary” in the educational sense, referring to the laws of Moses in contrast with the better understanding of God’s will offered through Christ. In that case, the claim that we have “died to” these elemental things in Christ is only repeating the claim of Galatians ch2 v19, that we have “died to” the law.
The reference to “philosophy” in v8 may suggest that some speculative thinking is involved, but I don’t think this speculation has moved very far from its Jewish roots.
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Post by stephen on Nov 26, 2023 17:05:53 GMT
In Paul’s time, Colossae was a small town in Asia Minor, rather less important than Ephesus. Paul’s letter to the Colossians shares many themes with his letter to the Ephesians. The two letters would have been written under similar circumstances (the later stage of his life, when he was out of the region) and for similar reasons. So this description of what God has done for us (beginning at ch1 v12) will certainly overlap with the statements made in Ephesians.
He has qualified us to share in “the inheritance of the saints”, which is “in the light”. We are the saints, so the “inheritance” is what we have been promised. Previously we were in the dominion of darkness (the state of sin), but “being in the light” means that we are now in the kingdom of his Son. All this is another way of saying that we have received forgiveness of sin.
The following discourse on the status of the Son (vv15-20) is an important set-piece passage which I will reserve for another occasion.
How has this transfer been achieved? When we were in the dominion of darkness, we were “estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds” (v21). Now that we are in the light, the Son is in a position to present us as “holy and blameless and irreproachable” before his Father. This is because he has reconciled us to God through the death of his own fleshly body (v22).
There is one condition, which is that the Colossians “continue in the faith”, taking their stand on the promise contained in the gospel which they have been taught (v23). This leads Paul on to talk about his own ministry of presenting this gospel to the world. It was a responsibility given him by God, to make know the “mystery” hidden from ages. That is, the secret of salvation through the death of Christ on the Cross, and also the availability of salvation to the Gentiles. The mystery can be summed up as “Christ IN YOU, the hope of glory” (v27). Paul’s work is the double task of warning and teaching, in order to be able to “present every man mature in Christ”.
At the beginning of this discussion of his ministry, Paul makes a an obscure statement about his sufferings; “I rejoice in my afflictions for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is the church” (v24). Those who don’t want to understand Paul make very heavy weather of this verse.
I think it comes down to the community of suffering between Christ and his followers. Jesus forewarned them in the gospels that he would suffer death at the hands of his enemies. He also forewarned them that the same hostility would work against themselves; “If anyone serves me he must follow me” (John ch12 v20), and more explicitly “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you” (John ch15 v20). So the church shares in the sufferings of Christ. Conversely, Christ shares in the sufferings of the church; “Why do you persecute me?” (Acts ch9 v4). So ALL the sufferings of the church are included in the wider definition of “the sufferings of Christ”.
As one of the servants of Christ suffering persecution, Paul is part of that overall total of “sufferings of the church” and therefore part of the overall total of “sufferings of Christ”. If one person in a city goes missing, the population of that city will be incomplete. Similarly, if the sufferings of Paul were not happening, the overall suffering of the church, and therefore the wider suffering of Christ would be “less complete” to that extent. I suggest that this is what Paul means when he says that he “completes what is lacking”. He is a necessary and integral part of the total, and accepts his fate on those terms.
He is certainly not suggesting that the suffering on the Cross would have failed to achieve our salvation without Paul’s additional contribution.
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Post by stephen on Nov 19, 2023 17:00:43 GMT
Paul teaches that the community of believers in Christ is a single body. We are held together in “the unity of the Spirit” (Ephesians ch4 v3). That is, the Spirit is the common factor, the common thread, which links all of us together.
Vv4-6 focus on the word “one”. The fact that there is only one body, held together by the one Spirit, follows on from the fact that we all have the one hope, one faith, and one baptism, which in turns follows on from the fact that we have one Lord, one God and Father of us all.
However, there are differences in the gifts we have been given. He quotes Psalm 68 as saying “When he ascended… he gave gifts to men.” The New Testament application of this verse is that when Jesus returned to his Father he was able to send us the Holy Spirit (John ch16 v7), and the “gifts” which he has for us come through the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians ch1 v7).
V11 is a list of gifts in approximate order of importance for the promotion of the gospel. Apostles, evangelists, prophets, pastors, teachers. Just as the list of God’s “appointments” in 1 Corinthians ch12 v28 begins with the “speaking” functions, namely apostles, prophets, and teachers. Just as the list of “gifts of the Spirit” in 1 Corinthians ch12 v7 begins with “speaking” functions like wisdom and knowledge. As if the most important thing we can do for God is to help people to understand his gospel word.
On the distinction between pastors and teachers. As I see it, the task of a teacher is to explain what God’s word wants to say to us, the task of a pastor is to apply that to groups and individuals. I have seen the dogma that “pastors-and-teachers” ought to be treated as a single office, apparently based on the punctuation of the verse. But the punctuation is not in the original text, and the punctuation rule in question belongs to modern English.
Although we can discern different types of activity in the service of God, we ought not to give these types the status of legal categories. Paul himself had to act as evangelist and pastor in order to be an apostle. Nothing prevents God from enabling the same man to work as pastor and teacher, but that doesn’t mean that he’s always going to do it. That applies in my own case, because there are many people who will avow that I am a teacher, and many others, from congregations that I have known, who will deny that I could be a pastor. I work better with books than with people.
The ultimate purpose of equipping us with these gifts is to “build up the body of Christ”, which is achieved when all of us attain “the unity of faith” (v12).
But this is only possible when EACH of us has been built up, individually. We need, one by one, to attain “knowledge of the Son of God” and “mature manhood” in matters of faith, so that misleading teaching will no longer lead us astray.
The passage ends (vv15-16) with a complicated metaphor about “growing”, which threatens to confuse our minds in a very Pauline way. The starting-point is that we as individuals are to grow INTO Christ. The fact that we believers are “IN Christ” is one of the running themes of Paul’s teaching, especially in Galatians. But Christ is the head of the body, and this body is growing outwards FROM that head. The connection between the two statements is that the body grows as and to the extent that individuals attach themselves to Christ.
This growth process works best when we are building each other up through the ministry of the gifts. That is what is meant by the promise that growth occurs when each part [of the body] is working properly, so that the body is “joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied.”
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The Love theme in Ephesians
Ephesians is held together by the theme of God’s love towards us and our consequent love towards each other.
It begins with ch1 5-6. God destined us “in love” to be his sons through Jesus Christ, this being his grace bestowed upon us “in the Beloved One”.
Ch1 v15, he praises their love “toward all the saints”.
Ch2 v4. God acted “out of the great love with which he loved us”
In ch3 vv14-19, Paul prays that Christ might dwell in their hearts through faith, so that they will be “rooted and grounded in love”. They will then be able to know “the love of Christ” (i.e. the love which Christ bears for us), which otherwise surpasses knowledge.
I once did a separate thread {LINK} on the reason why the love of Christ is given four dimensions, viz. length, breath, height and depth. To cut a long story short, it is because we are standing bang in the middle of it, unable to see any outer limits, rather than objectively measuring it from outside.
In consequence, we4 ought to be “forbearing one another in love” (ch4 v2). We are to be “speaking the truth in love” (ch4 v15), so that the body “upbuilds itself in love (ch4 v16).
We are “to walk in love as Christ loved us” (ch5 v1).
This applies particularly to the relation between husband and wife. Husband need to love their wives as self-sacrificially as Christ loves the church (ch5 v25). Indeed, they should love their wives as much as they love their own bodies, which again is what Christ is doing when he loves the church (vv28-9).
He concludes by wishing “peace to the brethren and love with faith”, and “Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love undying” (ch6 vv23-4).
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Post by stephen on Nov 12, 2023 17:03:39 GMT
When Paul was writing Galatians and 2 Corinthians, he was still fighting for the right of Gentile Christians to be recognised as faithful believers without being circumcised. When he is writing Ephesians, that appears not to be an active issue, perhaps because he has already won the battle for the minds of the Gentile Christians. In any case, he is no longer close enough to the scene to be involved in active battles. So he contents himself with reassuring the Gentiles of Ephesus (apparently the whole of the church of Ephesus) that they have made the right decision.
He addresses them as Gentiles “in the flesh”. He says they are “called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision” (ch3 v11). He qualifies these labels because he believes they have become meaningless; “For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation” (Galatians ch6 v15).
He says they used to be alienated from Israel, “strangers to the covenants of promise”, which meant that they were separated from God, from Christ, and from hope.
But they have now been “brought near”, and this has happened “in Christ Jesus”. To be exact, it has happened “through the blood of Christ”, which is shorthand for the fact that Christ has died (v13). He has made peace between the two hostile factions of Jew and Gentile by uniting them. There used to be a dividing wall, in the form of the “law of commandments and ordinances” established by Moses. This wall has now been broken down.
Christ broke down the wall by abolishing the law of Moses “in his flesh” (v15). The concept is that he notionally carried it with him in his body to the Cross, so that it died on the Cross when he died himself. This is another version of what Paul says in Galatians ch3, that Christ redeemed us from “the curse of the law” by taking that curse upon himself. It also clarifies the statement in Colossians that the bond which stood against us was “nailed to the Cross” (Colossians ch2 v14). Obviously this interpretation assumes that the body of Jesus was itself “nailed” there.
Having broken down the wall of hostility between the two peoples, Jew and Gentile, he has united them. And it is still important that he has united them “in himself”, within his own body. Because that means he can carry both groups into the presence of God, reconciling them with God, and he can carry them as one body instead of two (v16).
Thus he has preached peace (i.e. reconciliation with God) to those who were “near” (that is, the Jews) and also to those were “far” (that is, the Gentiles). And as a result both groups have access through one Spirit to the Father.
So the Gentiles are no longer “strangers and sojourners” but fellow-citizens and members of the same household.
Developing the “building” image. The foundation layer of the building is composed of the apostles and prophets, with Christ as the corner-stone. From this corner-stone, the building grows organically, like a living body, and becomes a temple for the Lord (which is what Paul declares it to be in 1 Corinthians ch3 v16). The whole community is the place where the Spirit dwells, and that’s what makes it a temple. The Ephesians are individual bricks in that structure.
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Post by stephen on Nov 5, 2023 17:02:26 GMT
Believers need to know what God has done for us in Christ. That is why Paul asks that “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him” (that is, of Christ, Ephesians ch1 v17).
The eyes of our hearts need to be enlightened, so that we may know; 1 The hope to which he has called us. There is nothing tentative or uncertain about Biblical “hope”. It is faith, directed towards the future. 2 The riches of the inheritance which he is giving to the saints as a whole, and therefore to us who belong to the saints. 3 The immeasurable greatness of his power “in us who believe”, which matches the power with which he worked through Christ and accomplished great things (vv18-19).
Paul spells out what God accomplished “in Christ”. He raised him from the dead. He made him sit at God’s right hand “in the heavenly places”. This is a place of authority, far above any other kind of authority, human or spiritual., either in this age (AION) or in the age to come in the future. Consequently, God “put all things under his feet”. He has made Christ “head” over all things.
This is for the benefit of the church. The church is to be understood as his body ( a later chapter develops the connection between “head” and “body”). This body is “the fullness of him who fills all things in all things” (v23).
That last phrase is a concise way of combining what Paul has just said about the two relationships of Christ. On the one hand, he “fills” the church. He is present wherever the church is present. It is an extension of himself. On the other hand, he “fills” the entire universe with his authority. How much do this acts of “filling” coincide? Surely in the New Jerusalem, when the world has been cleansed of everything that is unclean (Revelation ch21) they will amount to the same thing.
But we’ve already been told, as above, that “the immeasurable greatness of his power in us” matches up to the level of “his great might which he accomplished in Christ.” Whatever he did for Christ, he has also done for us.
In the first place, we were dead through our sins (ch2 vv1-3), so Christ died on the cross and shared in our condition. But just as he raised Christ from the dead, so he raised us from the dead “together with him.” Again, just as he made Christ sit in the heavenly places, so he made us sit “together with him” in the heavenly places “in Christ Jesus”. These are not events of the future. We HAVE BEEN raised from the dead, and we ARE sitting in the heavenly places.
We need to appreciate that point in order to understand other New Testament passages. For example, Jesus says of the “little ones” who believe in him “Their angels always behold the face of my father who is in heaven” (Matthew ch18 v10). This would hardly be news if he was talking about “guardian angels” being sent to the believers, but in fact he is talking about their representatives, the “angels” which have been sent by the believers themselves. The point is that there is already something of ourselves permanently in God’s presence. We are seated in the heavenly places.
Again, there is a grand “sealing” of a crowd of God’s people in Revelation ch7, and immediately there is to be seen a great multitude standing before the throne and before the Lamb (Revelation ch7 v9). The coincidence of timing is an important clue that these are not two separate groups of people. Rather the first group have been “sealed with the promised Spirit” (Ephesians ch1 v13), and are then immediately raised up to take their seat in the heavenly places (Ephesians ch2 v6), even while they live on earth.
Indeed that is how the Lord may be reigning “with the saints” even while normal life continues upon the earth, in a lordship which already exists but has not yet been “revealed”.
Then there is the reminder which we might expect from Paul, that we have been saved through God’s grace and by our faith, not by our works. There is a place for our good works, but they [/i]follow on from[/i] our faith, as even James teaches (“I by my works will show you my faith”, James ch2 v18). God has “prepared them beforehand, that we should walk in them” (ch2 vv9-10).
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