Author: admin

Week 43  Acts 2

I just finished reading the gospels in consecutive order. That’s been 179-pages of the life of Jesus. Now here in this long sermon Peter basically compresses those 89 chapters into ~25-verses.
I wondered if Peter’s synopsis could be boiled down even more and when I got rid of a few things I came up with this more-condensed version:
Listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know.
This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.
But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.
Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.
Abbreviated versions are usually good for two reasons. First is that they’re abbreviated. And secondly – if they’re any good in their selection criteria – they pick the most important ideas to highlight.
Peter gives public addresses again in chapters three four & five and these ideas keep showing up: A) Christ was from God. B) you assassinated him. C) God raised him from the dead. Key ideas. Repeater ideas. Ideas worth remembering.

Note: quote from Acts 2:22-24 36 (NIV)

Week 42  Acts 1

When the Lord left the earth there were eleven disciples who watched him go and Luke lists them in chapter one: Peter John James Andrew Philip Thomas Bartholomew Matthew James (Alphaeus’ son) Simon (the Zealot) Judas (James’ son).
I knew that some of the gospels listed the disciples and so I checked them for comparison. There’s a couple of differences among the four lists.
Two of the writers call Peter Peter and two call him Simon
Two just call John John but two add family connections (James’ brother & Zebedee’s son)
Two add that James was Zebedee’s son
Two say that Andrew was Peter’s brother
All four just name Philip Thomas Bartholomew & Matthew. No differences & no add-ons
All four say that the other James was Alphaeus’ son and that the other Simon was the Zealot
Two identify the other Judas as the son of James and two call him Thaddeus.
So some writers call a person by one name and not another. Some point out family connections or make the point that there were two Simons’ & two Judas’.
There’s only a couple of minor differences or variations in the lists. No disagreement.
Well…there is one big difference. Acts’ list only has eleven names. Luke seems to be making the point: ‘we started with twelve but one defected’. The twelfth man – Judas Iscariot – had to be replaced. And most of chapter one tells that story.

Note: the lists are in Acts 1:13 Matthew 10:2-4 Mark 3:16-19 & Luke 6:14-16

Week 42  John 8

I’d been thinking about The Word being Light so right away I noticed when Jesus said I am the light of the world.
Whatever-all they took that to mean the religious leaders didn’t like it and told him: you are making those claims about yourself! (which was true). And they went on to say: such testimony is not valid (which wasn’t necessarily true). Since when was it not permissible to say something about yourself? Let’s say for instance that a guy tells me “I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro”. Maybe he did or maybe he didn’t. But I’m not going to tell him it can’t possibly be true because he told me about it himself.
I think the problem for the Lord’s opponents was that they really had no solid basis for knowing whether the Lord was or wasn’t the Light of the World. Even if it was an extravagant claim that couldn’t be the reason to deny it.
That’s why the Lord’s reply made pretty good sense: even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid, for I know where I came from and where I am going…You have no idea where I came from or where I am going. You judge by human standards.
No disrespect to human standards – I think they’re a big help and can get me a far piece. But the question is can they take me as far as I need to go?

Note: quotes from John 8:12-15 (NLT NIV)

Week 42  John 1

A couple of days ago I was thinking about the person John called The Word. John said that in him was life. It didn’t make any sense to me to think that in The Word was life meant that “The Word was alive”. It more likely meant something like “The Word Embodied Life”. Or “The Word was the Origin and Source of Life”. A different version said: life itself was in him. Which I think sounds about right.
So anyway when John said that life itself was in him (i.e. in The Word) he added and this life gives light to everyone. When I read that it sounded like the light flooded everything and everyone. John the Baptist said that the true light gives light to everyone. It sounded like the light illuminated everyone…like flipping a switch.
But John says not quite: although the world was made through him, the world didn’t recognize him when he came.
The Word’s light was available everywhere to everyone. But it was a bit like ultra-violet light – definitely there on the spectrum but not always easily detectable.
John’s gospel seems interested in that question: the light is shining…but who’s seeing it? Some of the characters do: Nicodemus. The Samaritan Woman. The Nobleman. The Blind Man. Eleven Disciples.
But about the others John says: the light from heaven came into the world, but they loved darkness more than the light.

Note: quotes from John 1:4 9 10 3:19 (NLT)

Week 42  John 1

John has been laying down several pieces of data about the (mysterious) Word…and is leaving it up to the reader to jigsaw them together.
He’d already said that The Word was God. And yesterday he said The Word was Life.
It’d be simpler if he said The Word was alive. That would be normal life. Living. Eating breathing sleeping working recreating exercising talking and like that. A fusion of the different things we do that guarantee we’re not dead.
But with John life isn’t just eating-sleeping-breathing. He makes that pretty clear by using the phrase “eternal life” quite a few times.
And John also quoted the Lord saying things like:
You refuse to come to me to have life and
I am come that they may have life.
The Lord was talking to living people so verses like those are ludicrous if he was referring to normal breathing-and-eating life. But they’re not as ridiculous if the same word is used about two different things. Which is what it seems John’s doing. So reading his gospel I’ve been on the look-out for which ‘life’ he’s referring to: a) eternal life or b) non-eternal life.
My sense is that in John non-eternal life – eating breathing sleeping working recreating exercising talking and like that – is roughly equivalent to a state of living deadness. Dead except for being biologically alive. Which is a different domain altogether from Eternal Life.

Note: quotes from John 5:40 10:10 (NIV)

Week 42  John 1

Yesterday I was looking at how John described The Word.
He said that The Word was in the beginning with God.
He also said that The Word was God.
John doesn’t act as though he just said something that’s basically inconsistent. And my take on John is that in normal conversation he wouldn’t say something like: “I got a chance to visit with Pontius Pilate. And I am Pontius Pilate.” John knew he couldn’t be with someone and also be that person. Things don’t work like that. But in the specific case of The Word how things don’t work is the way they do work.
Anyway John adds a couple of more ideas about The Word.
Through him all things were made. So The Word is the creator of all things. Genesis says that God made everything. Now John says The Word made everything. But John already said that The Word was God. So if God made everything and The Word was God then The Word made everything.
In him was life, and that life was the light of men & women. I check a word book. John used the word “life” about 47 times. One tip-off that he’s sometimes using the word in a more-than-physical-life way is that he adds the word “eternal” to “life” about 17 times. So when John says that in him was life I keep in mind that he might not just mean he-was-alive.

Note: quotes from John 1:3 4 (NIV)

Week 41  John 1

Genesis & John both start with the words “In the beginning”.
They’re good starting points if I need information about way-way-way-back-when. But they’re not necessarily simple starters.
John says in the beginning was the Word…
I have no idea why John decided to use this phrase the Word but the first thing that comes to my mind is the question: what is the Word? The Word doesn’t seem very helpful or descriptive.
Anyway John says several things about the Word:
In the beginning was the Word – so I know the Word was a Primary…Aboriginal (but so far the Word is just a thing…an entity or maybe an object or substance).
The Word was with God – so the Word was alongside God…accompanying God & right there with him.
The Word was God. Okay…at this point I have to retract my previous idea about the Word being just a floating abstraction. John identifies the Word as actually being God. The Word = God. John’s in the beginning was the Word is about equal to Genesis’ in the beginning God.
He was with God in the beginning. Okay…at this point I retract (again) my idea about the Word being an impersonal abstraction. The Word is a he…so not impersonal and not abstract.
I’m still not sure why John used the head-scratcher expression the Word in the first place. But I have to admit that he starts to fill-in some of the blanks right away.

Note: quotes from Genesis 1:1 John 1 2 (NIV)

Week 41  John

I finished reading John’s gospel yesterday.
If I had to rank the four gospels using a Reading Complexity Scale I’d place them – from least to most complex – in this order: Mark Matthew Luke John.
It’s a personal list. There’s probably a couple of dozen possible permutations and if I asked a hundred bible readers I’d likely get every single combination. But complexity-scaling aside all of the gospels end up being collections of both manageables and unmanageables. Running into both is part of a bible reader’s week.
When I read something that’s manageable I feel pretty good and can move ahead to the next thing. If I run into something I can’t handle I have to slow down and think for a bit. Slowing down and thinking doesn’t guarantee that an unmanageable will get metamorphized into a manageable. In the end I’ll maybe have to accept that some things are unmanageable.
Unmanageability isn’t necessarily a permanent situation and I a) prefer things to be more-or-less manageable and b) try to work toward getting them into a manageable state. I tend to think and hope that eventually I’ll corral my unmanagables – even though being in a state of unmanageability has a pretty permanent feel to it.
And I guess that realistically I have to admit that in the end I either a) will end up understanding and resolving a lot of unmanageables or else b) I won’t…and some unmanagables will fossilize into rock-hard solidity.

Week 39  Luke 22

Near the very end of his life the Lord was talking to his disciples about his betrayal and he said: for I, the Son of Man, must die since it is part of God’s plan. But how terrible it will be for my betrayer.
Another version says: the Son of Man will go as it is decreed, but woe to that man who betrays him.
Another: the Son of Man is going as it has been determined; but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed.
God’s plan was that the Son of Man would die. That’s pretty clear. The death of the Lord was part of God’s plan. Planned. Decreed. Determined. Sounds pretty solid & decisive & absolute.
But then in the second part of the verse Judas the Betrayer slides into the decision-making recipe. The Lord would die because it was planned and decreed and determined. And the Lord would die because he was betrayed by his friend. You’d think that a divine determination would devalue Judas’ hare-brained personal scheme to the point where it had no value or meaning. But that’s not how it would work.
The Lord died because his death was determined to happen.
And he died because Judas had his own deadly plan and took his own initiative to make it happen.
Both-And.

Note: quotes from Luke 22:21 NLT NIV NASB. End-of-month reading report: the year is 75% finished and reading is 85% complete.

 

Week 39  Luke 21

People were oohing-and-aahing over the beautiful temple in Jerusalem and the Lord surprised them by saying it would be smashed to pieces. So they asked two questions:
a) when will these things happen? and
b) what will be the sign that they are about to take place?
They wanted some kind of rough estimate about the timing of the event and they wondered if there’d be any pre-destruction tip-offs.
The Lord could have at least ball-parked question a) with something like: “within about 60 years”. But he didn’t. His focus was on question b). About things that would happen first.
I reread the chapter and counted 16 pre-event indicators that would occur before the temple fell. (A lot of them don’t seem all that illuminating – although I’ll admit that verse-20 sounds pretty definitive).
But that aside the bigger concern for me is that the Lord seems to move seamlessly from the topic of the destruction of the temple (which is how the conversation started) to his own return to earth (at that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory sounds a lot like the Lord’s return).
How these two future events got tied together is a good question. But the bigger question for me (as I hurry to finish Luke by tomorrow) is: ‘how am I supposed to start unknotting them?’

Note: quotes from Luke 21:7 27 (NIV). A quick fact-check: the temple was demolished in 70 AD.