Fallen Into Knowledge

So, I’m done, Easter is here, we leave the introspection of Lent and enter the joyousness of Easter: Christ is Risen.
I would be lying if I didn’t feel some relief to be finished with my Lenten activity. Don’t get me wrong, reading the text and pondering it is both something I value and enjoy: its the schedule. Because I set for myself a schedule I was not free - as I usually am - to read according to my inclinations. I think, though, that such rigor is actually helpful for me: the structure helped me both accomplish the reading and to focus it. A habit I would like to maintain.
At the beginning, when I wrote my first post on Genesis, I had not planned on blogging through the Bible. I did so because I knew that I could not not finish if I (even implicitly) thought people were coming along on the reading with me. So, thank you for holding me accountable, whoever you are.

I think that I learned more from being constrained to read, from the experience of giving up a significant chunk of time (as if it was mine to begin with!) every day than I did from the text. That sounds horrible, I know, and it might be different if this were my first reading through the Bible. A couple of things stand out, however:

1. I need to sit down and study Ezekiel and Jeremiah. I am really not at all familiar with these major books.

2. I need to spend some time working on understanding Apocalyptic literature: I feel paralyzed by these books. The main problem is that the I find reading strategies I was surrounded by growing up unsatisfactory, yet I don’t have the foggiest with what I might replace them.

3. Balaam shows up everywhere in scripture - his chunk of Numbers is not forgotten by the other biblical authors. I want to study how he functions as a symbol of disobedience in the Bible.

Well, here it is, Holy Saturday: an appropriate time to read the Apocalypse of John. I still haven’t the faintest idea what it means. As I wait for Easter, I am encouraged by the promise that God will right all wrongs, that the Resurrection is the vindication of a life sacrificed to Him. As we watch through this dark night, on the cusp of Easter morning, we can act in the Hope of the promise, that however dark, Morning will come.

These are, easily, the shortest books in the Bible, and they are the two I would most like to know some background about: But we don’t get any: only 2 John offers proper names, and even these don’t help much. So these two, seemingly the most occasional letters (I would rather not use paper and ink, instead I hope to come to you and talk with you face to face), force us, by our lack of “background info,” back into the text itself. In truth, the vast majority of the biblical books are like this: even if we have a general idea about the history, the author is not identified, or is (s)he inclined to give us any context for the book. We are left with only the text.
Which isn’t a bad thing, after all, it is the text that functions as scripture for us, not the “background.” While it is certainly important, for instance, that Christ actually died and rose again, our understanding of those events are to be shaped by the scriptural accounts.

Someday I would like to preach on the book of Jude, partly because I have never even heard reference to Jude in church before. The sermon would be about the ways in which speech can fracture communities (slander, bombastic speech, flattering, grumbling) or, alternatively, bring healing.

So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you accordingto the wisdom given him, speaking of this as he does in his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand …

This always makes me chuckle. Even Peter thought that Paul was tough going.

One of first times I preached I was assigned a passage out of 1 Peter - specifically 1 Peter 3:8-22. I was all of 19 years old (if that), and I knew then that I didn’t really have much to say about suffering. I hadn’t experienced any, and I really didn’t know why we might seek it out. Suffice it to say, the sermon wasn’t any good.
I still haven’t experienced any real suffering, at least not the kind that we read about in the news (or hear about on the radio). But I am beginning to understand why we might seek it out. Today is good Friday, and I just got back from the Pearl Church’s service. We walked through the crucifixion narrative - as it were, with Christ.

For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for evil.

If the world were not filled with evil, no one would suffer because of the good they had done. But, in this world, evil is the norm, not the exception. Therefore we enter into it, with Christ, for the purposes of bringing healing and redemption. When we enter into the world as Christ did, we must expect to share also in his suffering.

But rejoice insofar as you are sharing in God’s sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed.

Our suffering with Christ always also brings with it the expectation of Resurrection. Tonight we remember the crucifixion, and we look forward to Easter.

Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for the last days. Listen! The wages of the labourers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened you hearts in a day of slaughter. You have murdered and condemned the righteous one, who does not resist you.

The above passage first struck me hard in high school: it was then that I first thought that perhaps we Americans should be identified as the rich person, as our riches are largely provided at the expense of the rest of the world. Time and education has only served to solidify that idea. At this point, this passage scares me. I am no longer concerned for the nation, but I think that God’s anger must be kindled against the american church because we too have participated (and encouraged, in many cases) in this plundering.

A couple thoughts that surfaced on this reading:

1: “and their rust will be evidence against you” We have an abundance, more than we need and use. Metals tend (at least in these parts) to rust with neglect - for the lack of use.
2: “you have condemned and murdered the righteous one, who does not resist you” The Righteous One (singular) refers to God’s messiah in the Old Testament, and pervasively. Because of this, I think this must be an (relatively) oblique reference to Christ. If that’s so, then we must draw some interesting conclusions;
A. the oppressed in this passage is identified with Jesus - in a way that the wealthy are not.
B. The wealthy are placed in the role of the Priests and Pharisees who had Jesus Crucified; as in, “you wealthy whose wealth is acquired at the expense of others, you are just like those who had the Christ killed.” Ouch.

Observations:

1. The book of Hebrews depends heavily on the Old Testament to make its argument. It is arguing from the Old Testament.
1a. We cannot assume that our audience is similarly familiar with the Old Testament.
2a. We must respect the authors movement in arguing. We cannot preach through Hebrews while ignoring the indebtedness on the Old Testament.

2. The author frequently offers “applications” in the midst of the argument

3. Hebrews describes, in a sense, the mechanics of Christ’s work as embedded in Israel’s story. In that sense we can use Hebrews to (re-) build theology for the church from the ground up, as it were.

4. Everything in Hebrews relates back to Jesus either as the high Priest who accomplished the task, or to His death on a cross.

Key ideas: Made Perfect, Rest, High Priest, Mediator, Faith

{If you downloaded the schedule for this lenten reading, be aware that I forgot to include Philemon and the Peters in the schedule (as well as Esther, but we’re well past that now) and so in order to include them I am fiddling with the schedule from now until Saturday}

In light of the previous post, the rhetorical moves that Paul makes in the book of Philemon are very interesting. Some of them are obvious (I say nothing about your owing me even your own self), and some less so. A less obvious move:

Paul lays the characters in the Philemon - Onesimus saga over the roles in the story of the Cross, so that Philemon - rhetorically speaking - occupies Christ’s role. As such, Philemon has the opportunity to redeem Onesimus as he himself had been redeemed.

For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, despicable, hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.

by means of several allusions to Deuteronomy in this passage - on is highlighted, but there are more - Paul draws parallels between the Exodus and our experience of leaving the “world” to join together with Christ. Paul does this - that is, draws parallels between the exodus and the church by means of allusions to the Pentateuch - consistently in Titus.