Medicine Hat Joe

Week 21  Matthew 3

I have my doubts that John the Baptist invented baptism. It’s quite possible that it was a practice that evolved during the long gap between Malachi & Matthew. But whether or not John started baptism isn’t the point. The main thing is that John did baptize people. And Matthew spelled-out three things that were happening when John was baptizing:
When people were baptized they were confessing their sins
John added a second thing: I baptize you with water for repentance
And finally when people had repented & confessed & been baptized John give them follow-up instructions (what they should do going-forward): produce fruit in keeping with repentance.
So there were three elements to John’s preaching & baptizing:
• Confession (I take personal inventory. I take ownership of my sin)
• Repentance (I experience an internal & personal feeling of regret & sorrow)
• Producing good fruit (I take post-baptismal action-steps. Now that I’ve confessed-repented-&-been-baptized I begin to assess what I need to do differently). (In a cross-reference to Luke 3:10-14 John gives a couple of concrete examples of good fruit – life changes that his followers could start doing.)
One thing that gets my attention is that Jesus’ baptism was completely different from everyone else’s. He didn’t have to:
a) confess sin
b) repent of evil or
c) start changing his behaviour.
But in spite of those key differences he got baptized anyway.

Note: quotes from Matthew 3:6 11 8 (NIV)

Week 21  Matthew 3

Two of the religious subdepartments in first-century Judaism show up in chapter 3: the Pharisees & Sadducees.
I checked my word-book. Neither of them are mentioned in the OT. In the gospels the Pharisees are named less than 100-times (the Sadducees less than 10). So anyway the point is that right away I bump-up against a couple of names that I have no background information on. (I did jump forward to a cross-reference in Acts where Luke explains that the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, and that there are neither angels nor spirits, but the Pharisees believe all these things. Other than that it’s slim-pickings.)
When the Pharisees & Sadducees first appear in Matthew they’re curious about what John the Baptist is doing. In the bible version I’m reading it actually sounds like they came to John to be baptized. But other versions say they just came to watch. Either way – potential-participants or critical-observers – John’s view of both was that they were a brood of vipers (I think that a NT viper is similar to our southern-Alberta rattlesnake – and around here being called a rattlesnake wouldn’t normally be taken as a compliment).
So anyway I get a reminder as I start the NT that I’m in a bit of an informational quandary. Who are the Pharisees & Sadducees? Where did they came from? What did they think?
But one thing I know right away is that John had nothing good to say about them.

Note: quote from Acts 23:8 & Matthew 3:7 (NIV)

Week 20  Psalm 47

The bible that I usually read begins Psalm 47 this way:
Clap your hands, all you peoples
Shout to God with a voice of joy
For the Lord Most High is to be feared
A great King over all the earth.
For me the heavy phrase in the paragraph is that the Lord is to be feared.
When I think of fear I usually think scared. Terrified. Spooked. Filled with apprehension. Panicked. When I fear I’m Afraid. Which is something I don’t want to be. But in Psalm 47 fear is something I do want.
I check what a couple of other versions say. Several of them agree with mine and say feared. A couple of them say the Lord is awe-inspiring or awesome. Or fearsome. A couple say terrible.
I think what I’m running into is a word-meaning problem where the same word can mean two different things. Like bat & bat. Or bark & bark.
Fear definitely does mean scared or petrified. It also means things like reverence. Veneration. Esteem. Value. Respect.
I think the sons of Korah had the Revere / Reverence type of fear in mind since they started the psalm by saying the people could clap-their-hands and could shout-for-joy. What’s the reason for the applause? Because the Lord is the great king. So he’s definitely not to be monkied-around with. But his fearsome awesomeness is real benefit.

Note: quote from Psalm 47:1-2 (NASB)

 

Week 20  Matthew 2

Matthew’s story about the early life of Jesus ends with Joseph Mary & Jesus moving to the province of Galilee. The family went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene. In my bible when the writer quotes from the OT the quotation is indented and all the letters are in upper case. But what Matthew said came from the prophets – that he would be called a Nazarene – isn’t indented or in upper case. Which means that it isn’t a quote. So where’s it from? What’s-going-on?
One possibility is that Matthew was just blowing smoke – though I think that’s the least likely option.
Another is that Matthew had a definite OT prophecy in mind but he used his own (fairly different) words to express the same general idea. Paraphrasing is a possibility.
And I heard where some people figure that when Matthew said that Jesus was a Nazarene that his unstated implication (and his real point) was that since Nazareth had a notorious reputation it followed that Jesus grew up as one of it’s disrespected people. Hmmm…seems like quite a stretch.
Personally I don’t think the question can be resolved. I know that in this chapter Matthew directly quoted Micah & Hosea & Jeremiah. But no OT prophet said that Jesus was a Nazarene.
My takeaway? A prophecy can be tricky enough without making it untraceable.

Note: quote from Matthew 2:23 (NIV)

 

Week 20  Matthew 2

The astronomers who came looking for The King of the Jews never went back to tell king Herod where he was. And so Herod – murderously trying to cover-his-bases – ordered all the little boys in Bethlehem to be killed.
For the third time in the chapter Matthew quoted an OT prophet: then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: “a voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more”.
I double-checked Jeremiah and that’s almost exactly what he said. And whenever I read about Rachel weeping for her children in Jeremiah I mentally connect that verse to Matthew’s slaughter-of-the-innocents story.
I looked at Jeremiah’s whole chapter. One version adds the title “Restoration of Israel’. Another one: ‘Return from Exile Promised’. Sure enough I found about 20-verses in Jeremiah 31 referring to the idea of restoration – assurances of an optimistic future. It’s a relatively upbeat section saying that good things were in-store. And what about Rachel weeping for her children right there in the middle of the chapter? A logical OT-reader would likely figure that Rachel wept over her children’s exile…but (thankfully) that would soon be over.
In a million years I don’t think an OT-reader would discover Matthew’s bolt-out-of-the-blue take on Jeremiah. Some prophecies do some unmistakable future-casting – things I know to look out for. But others are alarmingly enigmatic & unexpected.

Note: quotes from Matthew 2:17 18 (NIV). And see Jeremiah 31:15

Week 20  Psalm 44

The OT has quite a few cause-&-effect-type pledges: if you do X then Y will happen. So for instance: ‘if you obey the Lord then you will be benefitted’. Good health & advantageous prospects & smooth-sailing are big expectations in the OT scheme. Good-time forecasts. If I satisfy the prerequisites then there’ll be some pretty decent payoffs. But by contrast the NT tends to push that idea onto the back-burner. Living-long and prospering is way down on the NT priority list.
Anyway one of the reasons the Choir Director wrote psalm 44 was because current events weren’t working according to formula. His conundrum was: ‘we’re being obedient…but we’re still suffering!’
That isn’t exactly one of the dilemmas the NT is concerned about. In the NT anguish & hurt & adversity are part of the mix. There’s a shortage of happiness-and-good-times? No surprise.
In psalm 44 the Choir Director listed 8-verses of bad happenings. Then he says this:
all this came upon us, though we had not forgotten you; we had not been false to your covenant. Our hearts had not turned back; our feet had not strayed from your path. But you crushed us and made us a haunt for jackals; you covered us over with deep darkness.
Psalm 44 is a bit of an anomaly in the OT. But it’s a pretty realistic summary for a NT reader. 44 is an OT psalm with a NT feel.

Note: quote from Psalm 44:17-19 (NIV)

Week 19  Matthew 2

Matthew says: …and so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son”. Matthew was talking about Joseph Mary & Jesus returning home from Egypt and he says that trip fulfilled what Hosea had said. I flipped back to Hosea 11: when Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son (quite a few versions say fulfilled. Others say things like the Lord’s promise came true or that the trip gave full meaning to what Hosea said).
I scanned through Hosea’s chapter 11. On the surface his out-of-Egypt verse doesn’t sound like a prophecy at all – it sounds like a reference back to The Exodus in Exodus 1-15.
Personally I think that Hosea was talking about Israel escaping from Pharaoh.
I think that if I got 100 people to read Hosea 11:1 then at least 99 of them would say: “this refers back to The Exodus”.
I think Matthew would admit Hosea was referring to the Exodus story. But according to Matthew Hosea was also referred to JM&J leaving Egypt. (It’s possible that Hosea knew there was a hidden message. But it’s possible he didn’t either.)
I think a normal OT reader wouldn’t see a prophecy there in Hosea.
So Matthew suddenly extracting a surprise meaning from Hosea isn’t the kind of prophecy I like. I prefer the Micah forecast in Matthew 2:6. Micah says that Event A will happen. And then it does happen.

Note: Matthew 2:15 Hosea 11:1 (NIV CEV ERV)

 

Week 19  Matthew 2

A delegation of astronomers / astrologists came to Jerusalem in search of the baby Jesus. When they arrived they asked king Herod: where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? (they obviously had some knowledge about the OT and had made a connection between their astronomical observations and the Jewish scriptures).
Herod also knew something about OT prophecy because he asked the priests where the Messiah was to be born. The Answer: Bethlehem. The priests knew the specific geographic location because Micah had said: you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.
Micah’s prophecy was pretty definitive. And it was testable. The Messiah (the Christ) – Israel’s heroic ruler – would be born in Bethlehem.
Micah’s prophecy is the kind that I like: Event A – an actual & specific & observable event – will happen at some future time. So what I have to do is wait around to see if Event A actually happens.
Not everything that Micah said was a future forecast (for example he told people: to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God). But the thing about the Messiah being born in Bethlehem was an unqualified Event A prediction.

Note: quotes from Matthew 2:2 4 6 Micah 6:8 (NIV)

Week 18  Matthew 1

Last spring I was in a Philippians bible study group and by about the third week we landed on a pretty interesting paragraph where Paul described what had been going on behind-the-scenes when Jesus came to earth. Paul said Jesus:
though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
So starting in on Matthew I know that even though I’ve turned-the-page on the Old Testament (starting fresh on the New) Philippians is my reminder that I’m actually coming in at midstory. A reader naturally assumes that Jesus began his life there in Matthew when his mom discovered she was pregnant. But according to Paul there was a whole pre-Matthew-1 story of Jesus – a time when he already existed in the form of God.
Prior to Matthew 1 Jesus had never been physically conceived & had not had a human body & could not die. But all that changed. Jesus now could – and would – experience all of those things. So that’s a big part of the novelty of the New Testament. The mostly unknown God who was up-there (out-there) has been alchemized into a human being who is down-here (in-here).

Note: quotes from Philippians 2:5-8 (ESV) & 2:2 (NASB)

Week 18 Proverbs 22

One who is generous will be blessed, because he gives some of his food to the poor.
In my bible’s margin there’s a sidenote about the word generous. It says: Lit. has a good eye. The Abbreviation List says that Lit. is the shortform for a literal translation. Which means that generous should actually say has a good eye. It means that if I had a Hebrew bible (and if I could read it) it would say the person has a good eye would be blessed. That’s what Solomon actually said.
I know that even though Solomon used the phrase that a person with a good eye will be blessed that can’t be what he literally meant. If he did then a guy who had cataracts or macular degeneration or glaucoma wouldn’t ever be blessed.
I checked some other versions. More than a dozen used Solomon’s expression a good eye (or something similar). But quite a few exchanged the good eye phrase for words like generous or kindly.
So anyway it’s a reminder that the bible I’m using doesn’t necessarily give me the exact words that Solomon wrote. Which is okay since I don’t figure the translators are intentionally trying to pull-the-wool-over-my-eyes. But on balance I think I prefer a translated text that toes-the-line. One that says what the writer actually said. And that means it’s telling me it’ll be me that has to cope with figures of speech.

Note: quote from Proverbs 22:9 (NASB)