Medicine Hat Joe

Week 37  Matthew 7

About halfway through chapter seven the Lord makes a short parable-like comment: enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
So there are four main things to be thinking about in this ‘traveller’s advisory’:
1. There are two different gates. One is big & wide and is pretty easily accessible. The other is narrow. It’s kind of restrictive & harder to find & maybe less get-at-able.
2. These two different portals lead to two different roads. One is a wide multi-lane thoroughfare that I get too once I’m through the big gate. By contrast once I get through the small gate what I have is more like a secondary road.
3. Probably a key difference is that the two roads go to different destinations. The Big Gate & Big Road eventually lead me to Destruction. The Small Gate & Small Road lead to Life.
4. Finally there’s a general report about traffic & road usage. Many people go through the Big Gate & travel the Big Road. But only a few even find the Small Gate & Small Road. So there’s quite a bit less traffic on it.
So two gates & two roads & two destinations. And the popular choice of the majority is for one and not the other.

Note: quote from Matthew 7:13-14 (NIV)

 

Week 37  Matthew 6

The Lord says: don’t worry about everyday life. I wonder what that could mean.
a) It could be that I aim to absolutely & entirely disconnect myself from everyday life. If I did that perfectly I guess I’d likely be dead.
b) As an alternative I could disconnect myself quite-a-bit from everyday life. Hard to say what non-everyday-living would look like. Maybe I’d rent a place. Use public transit. Restrict my diet. Only have a couple of changes of clothes. Give to charities. People have done that. Might be a good strategy.
c) Another approach would be for me to focus on the ‘worry’ part of the equation. This worry-reduction plan looks not-so-much like rejecting everyday life and more like living my everyday life but avoiding  the bruising & psychically-crushing weight of worry that’s often just a normal part of everyday life.
Personally I think the worrying-part – part c) – is what the Lord is driving-at. It’s a big concern. But then my (huge) follow-up question is:  how-in-the-world do I not worry? Being told not to worry is basically useless advice if I don’t know how not to.
But when I get to the end the Lord says your heavenly Father will give you all you need if you a) live for him and b) make the Kingdom of God your primary concern.  This is good to know. It’s not all I need to know. But it’s a positive start.

Note: quote from Matthew 6:25 31-32 (slightly modified) (NLT)

Week 37  Matthew 5

The last two-thirds of the chapter are the Lord talking about the OT law. He wasn’t prepared to just dump it. But he was pretty intent on fine-tuning the Jewish people’s understanding about it. (What this is saying is that if the Lord figured he had to describe to genuine OT specialists what the OT law was really about then he figured that they just didn’t get it.)
It occurred to me today that I likely read the OT in exactly the way that 1st century Jewish people did. In other words: the law means to slavishly obey the rules. But that’s reading it wrong.
The OT law wasn’t written by Moses to be obeyed in a strict & rigid & straight-jacketed sort of way. On the one hand there was a strict & rigid & straight-jacketed element to it. But it was more than straight-jacketed rigidity.
I can’t murder someone or have sexual intercourse with anyone I want or steal or lie because that’s against the law. But the Lord is saying that not doing those things doesn’t solve my instinctive & latent preference to do them. First Level Obedience is not doing. Second Level Obedience is altering my preference for doing them.
But that’s not the point for me right now. The point is that I think I likely tend to read the OT exactly the way 1st century Jewish people did. And that – according to Jesus – is an inadequate & misinformed way to go at the law.

Week 37  Matthew 3

John is called The Baptist because he baptized people.
I was wondering if baptism was a brand new development or if it was an already-known practice.
It’s possible that baptism was one of the things that had developed in the long years between Malachi & Matthew (I do know that a lot of things start showing up – almost like out of thin-air – as soon as I start reading the NT).
Anyway I remember that the books of Moses have instructions & regulations about ceremonial washing. That’s a bit different from John’s baptism – in the NT John actually took people into the Jordan River (where they were maybe submerged in the water).
I checked a word book to find where the OT mentioned baptism. I found baptism & Baptist & baptize & baptized are used in Matthew (never in the OT). Baptizes is used once in John. Baptizing in Matthew 28. None of the words are used in the OT. And I don’t really think the idea is either.
That leaves me with two choices: a) baptism started to be practiced in the long interval between Malachi & Matthew or b) John the Baptist invented baptism as a brand new thing.
Personally I like b) (it’s pretty nice to think of John as the Founder & Originator of Baptism). But I don’t think that I legitimately can because it’s possible that baptism somehow evolved during The Big Silence between the OT & NT – and that I just don’t know about it.

Week 37  Matthew 2

Starting to read the NT I get a reminder of the big information gap between Malachi & Matthew.
In Matthew 2 foreign astrologers arrive in Jerusalem and ask King Herod: where is the newborn king of the Jews?
Herod had no idea. But he’d heard rumours about a mysterious hero called The Messiah that Jewish people talked about. Herod called in Jewish religious specialists: where did the prophets say the Messiah would be born?’ (he didn’t ask where is the newborn king of the Jews?)
The religious leaders quoted Micah (even though Micah said nothing about The Messiah): out of you (Bethlehem Ephrathah) will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel. 
That’s because over the centuries the reputation  of Micah’s ruler-over-Israel had been elaborated. He’d been enlarged & transformed into a figure that Jewish people called The Messiah. Herod had heard about the mysterious and – for him – worrisome Messiah and he knew enough to ask where he’d be born. (The religious teachers didn’t correct Herod…didn’t say “oh, Micah didn’t say anything about a Messiah! He just said ruler-over-Israel”. Because over the years Micah’s ruler-over-Israel had evolved into Matthew’s Messiah.)
Anyway…Point #1 is that during the silent years between the OT & NT Micah’s Ruler had been pretty dramatically transformed & enlarged & renamed. He’d become the NT’s Messiah.
And Point #2 is a reminder about how much I’m in-the-dark about several centuries worth of changes that went on in the ancient Near East.

Note: quotes from Matthew 2:2-3 (NLT))

Week 35  Ecclesiastes 10

A little folly outweighs wisdom.
It’s something to keep in mind: Stupid is heavier than Smart. A little idiocy outweighs a whole lot of wisdom – which is troubling if it’s true (unless I’m a wickedly-dangerous or morally-defective idiot and I prefer & promote & endorse crass or dangerous or evil or corrosively moronic action. If that’s what I’m after then I have a definite advantage).
Foolishness carries more weight than Wisdom. As far as I know there’s no lab that has a Foolish-Wisdom Scale. But if one did I could put a small volume of Foolish on one pan and a big chunk of Wisdom on the other and Foolishness would tip the beam down. Pound-for-Pound Wisdom can’t complete.
In the regular run of things this is surprising. I’d have thought that Foolishness & Wisdom would be in roughly the same weight category. That way when I look at the two I’d have to think about which to choose.
But Solomon seems to be saying ‘No No No! It’s not difficult at all because Foolish action is way more attractive than Wisdom’.
That might be because it’s preferable. Being a fool is more compelling. Forceful. Fulfilling. Desirable. Self-promotional. Publicly acceptable.
Before I bother taking my first look at a Foolish-Wisdom Scale I’ve maybe already decided what my pre-test preference is. Maybe I just prefer Foolishness. Maybe I even see a sort of wisdom in being in a fool.

Note: quote from Ecclesiastes 10:1 (NIV)

Week 35  Ecclesiastes 1

Ecclesiastes begins: vanity of vanities, all is vanity.
I checked a few other versions to see if they used a word other than vanity. I was surprised. Six versions used the same phrase: vanity of vanities, all is vanity. But a couple said something different:
Pointless! Utterly meaningless! Nothing matters!
Everything is so meaningless…It is all a waste of time!
Absolute futility. Everything is futile
Smoke, nothing but smoke…There’s nothing to anything—it’s all smoke
Futility of futilities! All is futility
Meaningless! Everything is meaningless.
So the alternate words to Everything-is-Vanity are:
Everything is meaningless
Everything is a waste of time
Everything is futile
Everything is smoke.
[The Amplified Bible added a couple of word pictures:
Everything is a wisp of smoke
Everything is a vapour that vanishes
Everything is merely chasing the wind.]
Ecclesiastes reduces everything to a very low-value level. It doesn’t say that everything is nothing. There’s still something to everything (a very small something). But nothing carries too much weight.
To me Solomon conveys the idea that if I draw a big circle around everything then what I’ll have is a huge collection of all kinds of negligible things. Everything is lightweight.
There are comparative weight differences – some things lighter and some heavier. But even the heavyweight things are lighter than drifting smoke. Vanity.

Note: I compared the New King James. English Standard. New Catholic Bible. RSV. World English. Young’s Literal. The Message. Easy-to-Read. Complete Jewish Bible. Holman Christian Standard. NASB. NIV.

Week 34  Zechariah 5

Zechariah has eight visionary experiences. Vision #5 is a flying scroll. It’s dimensions are 30’ x 15’ – so it’s a big scroll. It’s up in the air and it doesn’t seem to be falling. It must have an internal propulsion drive – it stays afloat and its mobile – going out over the entire land.
The scroll is imprinted with a written message – two messages actually. One on each side. Both curses:
Side #1 says those who steal will be banished from the land
Side #2 says those who swear falsely will be banished from the land (the next verse says false swearing specifically means to swear falsely by the Lord’s name (which I think is roughly equivalent to lying)).
Anyway there are two groups of people:
Group #1: thieves (Side #1 of the flying scroll will be delivered to their houses)
Group #2: liars (Side #2 of the flying scroll will be delivered to their houses)
Every person who is either a thief or a liar will get this specially delivered scroll (people who are both thieves & liars will likely get two deliveries).
There might be other scrolls to cover a range of other evils but these are the only ones mentioned here.
Theft and lying seem like penny ante offenses. Hardly worth the bother. But here in Zechariah they get personalized and pretty serious attention.

Note: quotes from Zechariah 5:3 (NLT)

Week 34  Habakkuk 2

This vision is for a future time…If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently…It will not be delayed.
I can’t say for sure but my suspicion is that there are more people who think that the Lord’s timing is slightly skewed than there are people who think his timing is exactly on schedule.
I think about drawing two timelines (the lifespan lines of two guys). Short Guy’s line is roughly 70-years. Long Guy’s line is – let’s just make it – a billion years. (I decide not to draw the lines. If they were to scale I’d need a page about 10,000 kilometres long.)
There’s no doubt that Short Guy & Long Guy will have different approaches & attitudes to time & to getting things done. Short Guy’s got 70 years – which is independently long but comparatively short when contrasted with a billion. So for instance Short Guy isn’t going to wait a hundred years to finish school or get a job or get married or travel to Tahiti. With Long Guy it’s quite a bit different – flying across the Pacific in 2524 might be perfect timing for him.
Mentally & emotionally Short Guy would likely be impatient with Long Guy. Think he’s lackadaisical. Apathetic. Not on-the-ball. Indifferent. Too easy-going. Listless.
Short Guy would always be a hurry-up mode compared to Long Guy. So when he reads that the plan will not be delayed he’s thinking maybe one-to-five years.
But on Long Guy’s calendar? Maybe a thousand.

Note: quote from Habakkuk 2:3 (NLT)

Week 34  Habakkuk 1

The books begins: this is the message that the prophet Habakkuk received from the Lord in a vision.
Since I assumed that all the prophets were prophets I wondered why that phrase was used – the prophet Habakkuk.
I decided to do a quick survey of the introductions to the Short Prophets to see whether the others followed the pattern – “the prophet _________”.
In the process I found a couple of other things:
Three of the books say the message came in a vision: Amos Obadiah & Habakkuk
Hosea Joel Jonah & Zechariah identify the prophets’ father
Half of them name the king at the time: Hosea Amos Micah Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah (which is a useful tip for telling the date)
Micah & Nahum say where they came from
Four say who the message was for: Obadiah > Edom. Jonah > Nineveh. Micah > Samaria & Jerusalem. Malachi > Israel
I think only Amos is identified by his regular job – shepherd
I just found one thing repeated in all twelve books: the Lord gave them their message. So the source was important.
Anyway – the question I started with was who-were-called-prophets? The answer: Haggai Zechariah & Malachi (along with Habakkuk).
The rest were prophets too but for some reason weren’t called prophets up front.

Note: quote from Habakkuk 1:1 (NLT). This was a hurry-up exercise so if I missed a couple of things I’m blaming the hurry.