Medicine Hat Joe

Week 52  Case 1 Ephesus

John started by telling the people in the Ephesian church: I know all the things you do. I’m pretty sure he meant all the good things they did. Because he went on to list some:
You’ve worked hard
Endured adversity with patience
Didn’t tolerate evil people (a good kind of intolerance)
You scrutinized and tested false prophets who came into the church
You suffered with patience (and you didn’t give up)
John also said: you hated the deeds of the immoral Nicolaitans (an unclear but clearly good quality)
So this seemed like a lot of affirmation (I don’t think any of the other churches will get as many plus-qualities).
But having said all these positive things John added: but I have this complaint against you. You don’t love the Lord or each other as you did at first. Look how far you have fallen from your first love.
It’s hard to weigh the pros and cons one-against-the-other. Six pretty solid qualities. Virtues. Good things. But at the same time the people had lost some of their love for the Lord. Lost love for each other.
Look how far you have fallen. How far was far? Well it was getting to be far enough that the Lord told them if you don’t turn back I will come and remove your lampstand from its place.
Far enough to be on the verge of getting disowned.

Note: Revelation 2:1-7. Quotes from Revelation 2:2 4-5 6 (NLT)

Week 52  Revelation 2-3

I was pretty sure the seven churches named in Revelation 2 & 3 were in seven real geographic locations but checked a bible map anyway (not everything in Revelation is always as it seems to be and I didn’t want to get lulled into thinking that City A was an actual real-life city but then find out later that City A was only a stand-in name for what was maybe City B or maybe Non-City B or maybe something else completely. So I checked.)
The map I looked at in my bible had Paul’s three missionary journeys highlighted in orange & magenta & yellow. A title also said “The Seven Churches of Asia” with the churches located in bold red type. The seven were scrunched together in western Turkey – all within maybe a 100-mile radius of each other (I put a one-dollar Canadian coin on the map and it covered all seven cities).
I’m interested in the seven churches for a couple of reasons but mostly for one personal reason: I go to church. And even though I usually don’t think about it from time-to-time I wonder how my church is doing.
So I figure it’s worth thinking about the Seven Churches and about John’s assessments of their Strengths & Weaknesses. Plus any Recommendations he has for them.
Then I can think about my church and see whether there’s any potential points of application.
I’d be crazy to think my church is perfect. And crazy not to listen to any possibly useful advice.

Week 51  2 Peter 2

Peter is talking about false teachers. He says they are daring & self-willed & they do not tremble when they revile angelic majesties. The note in the margin says that ‘majesties’ literally means ‘glories’ (so…angelic glories). When I’ve read this sentence in the past I figured that these false teachers had insulted Good Angels.
I look at another version: these people are proud and arrogant, daring even to scoff at the glorious ones. ‘Glorious ones’ sounds quite a bit like Good Angels to me. But then there’s a footnote that says: “The glorious ones are probably evil angels”. That caught my attention. Are these false teachers mocking out Good Angels or Bad Angels?
I check another version (looking for hints). But all it says is that these men are not afraid to slander celestial beings.
Each of the three versions goes on in the next verse to say that even angels (Good Angels?) don’t accuse or disrespect these Angelic Majesties / Glorious Ones / Celestial Beings (Bad Angels?)
So I’m wondering what’s going on. The idea seems to be that Good Angels don’t abuse Bad Angels. So if they don’t then how do False Teachers get away with doing it?
All I’m left with are two questions: Why don’t Good Angels revile Bad Ones? And why do people who are obviously Bad revile Bad Angels (since you’d think they were both on the same page)?

Note: quotes from 2 Peter 2:10 (NASB NLT NIV) & see 2:11

Week 50  Hebrews 11

The chapter is about faith. Faith – says the writer – is the evidence of things we cannot yet see. As definitions go it seems a little vague. But I keep reading and soon see examples of People Who Had Faith. Then this: all these faithful ones died without receiving what God had promised them, but they saw it all from a distance…They agreed that they were no more than foreigners and nomads here on earth…They were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland.
So this adds a couple of points of clarification:
a) these people-of-faith were Citizens of This World
b) they didn’t place a whole lot of value to their World Citizenship
c) in fact they had a strong sense of the second-ratedness of This World. They had another world in mind. One they’d only seen from a distance. A better place.
I draw a rectangle on a sheet of yellow paper – the Material World. I put a stick figure inside that box – Guy #1. He’s a Pure Material Guy and he’s right at home in Material World. He likes it there.
A draw a second stick-man. Guy #2 is a resident of Material World too but he’s a dissatisfied nomad. A nominal resident only. He’s looking for a better place. A heavenly country. (So I have to draw a second box – the place where Guy #2 is headed.)
It looks like dissatisfaction and detachment are elements of faith.

Note: quotes from Hebrews 11:1 13-16 (NLT)

Week 50  Hebrews 9

One of the Big Points in Hebrews is this: the OT sacrificial system had its limitations. Sure…what it offered was good. It was way better than nothing. But its ceiling was pretty low.
And Hebrews describes the New Improved System:
Christ has now become the High Priest over all.
He has entered the greater, more perfect Tabernacle in heaven, which is not part of this created world.
With his own blood he entered the Most Holy Place once for all time and secured our redemption forever.
So there’s been a transition:
OT High Priest > NT Christ
OT animal sacrifices > NT Christ’s sacrificial execution
OT Holy Place (on earth) > NT Holy Place (in heaven)
Christ offered himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins. He is the one who mediates a new covenant between God and people.
Christ died to set people free from the penalty of the sins they had committed under that first covenant.
Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our consciences from sinful deeds so that we can worship the living God.
The High Priests. The Holy Place. The cycles of sacrifices. They were all anticipatory material forms. Placeholders. Temporary agents. Waiting for the Primary High Priest to make the once-for-all sacrifice in the supra-material Temple.
The OTs human priests and real sacrifices at the visible tabernacle were dramatizing the extra-real Christ dying.

Note: quoted selections from Hebrews 9:11-15 (NLT)

Week 50  Hebrews 9

If someone asked: “where can I find a synopsis of the last sixteen chapters of Exodus?” then Hebrews 9 would be a good answer:
That first covenant between God and Israel had regulations for worship and a place of worship:
There were two rooms in that Tabernacle. In the first room were a lampstand, a table, and sacred loaves of bread on the table. This room was called the Holy Place.
Then there was a curtain, and behind the curtain was the second room called the Most Holy Place. In that room were a gold incense altar and a wooden chest called the Ark of the Covenant, which was covered with gold on all sides.
Inside the Ark were a gold jar containing manna, Aaron’s staff that sprouted leaves, and the stone tablets of the covenant.
Above the Ark were the cherubim of divine glory, whose wings stretched out over the Ark’s cover, the place of atonement.
When Moses had completed that big project it was the ultimate & most radical & most solidly-conclusive material way that the Lord could demonstrate: I’m here with you.
So that’s what makes Hebrews’ next comment a surprise:
that old system deals only with food and drink and various ceremonies — physical regulations that were in effect only until a better system could be established.
It was pretty elaborate & comprehensive & adequate then. Now? “Not so much” says the writer of Hebrews.

Note: quotes from Hebrews 9:1-5 10 (slightly paraphrased and reformatted) (NLT)

Week 50  Hebrews 1

A guy sits down to read the gospel stories of Jesus and he’ll most likely figure the Lord was a pretty great guy. Even if he didn’t think the gospel stories were true the chances are he’d be impressed by the Jesus of the gospels.
Jesus in the gospels did so many unlikely things (walking on water & healing sick people) and was so personally attractive (he had huge crowds of admirers) that it’s hard to read the gospels without thinking: what an unbelievable & extraordinary person!
But it looks like the writer of Hebrews wasn’t sure the gospels had made it absolutely crystal clear how great Jesus was. So he started right in by listing unusual things about Jesus not highlighted in the gospels (well…maybe  with the exception of John). He said that:
God promised everything to the Son as an inheritance
Through the Son he made the universe
The Son reflects God’s glory
The Son represents God exactly
The Son sustains the universe by his command
The Son sat down at the right hand of God
It’s almost like Hebrews figured a person might not get an accurate top-to-bottom impression of Jesus from reading just the gospels.
It’s almost like Hebrew’s writer thought Jesus needed to be put in an elevator:
“In the gospels you get to see him on the lower floors…fair enough.
But now I want to make sure you see him in the executive suite.”

Note: quotes from Hebrews 1:2-3 (NLT)

Week 50  Ephesians

My question for the last week has been: is Ephesians a Unified Letter?
I felt pretty confident that chapters 1-3 were unified around the idea that a) God had a long-term plan that was focused almost exclusively on Jewish people but that b) the plan then had been expanded to include non-Jewish people. Ephesians 1-2-3 was mostly about the Union of Jewish & Non-Jewish people.
So then on to chapters 4 & 5. There were 52-verses  that described how I should be living my life once I believe in the Lord. I detected Cohesion in that section too:
First, Paul said explicit things about the connection of Jewish & non-Jewish people:
always keep yourselves united in the Spirit
bind yourselves together with peace
we are all one body
unity in our faith and knowledge
the whole body is fitted together perfectly
the whole body is healthy and growing.
Then secondly Paul mapped out action-steps that sounded (to me) like they were union-promoters. Here’s what I mean: in the 52-verse section I counted up all the action-steps. I found 47 things Paul was telling people in Ephesus to do.  I think his logic is that if the Ephesian believers were following the Lord by doing these 47 Coordinated Action Steps then – nine times out of ten – the result would be ethnic connection in church.
I think I can make a case for Paul writing a Unified Letter from Ephesians 1:1 – 5:20. But unfortunately that’s about as far as I can go before things break down.

Note: quotes from Ephesians 4:3 4 13 16 (NLT)

Week 49  Ephesians 4-6

Since finishing both halves of Ephesians – chapters 1-3 and 4-6 – I’ve been testing whether there was any way that the two cohered. Whether they could be seen as a unified & whole piece of writing.
My quick reflex answer is “no”. To me the opening chapters consistently looked like a lot of Religious Theoreticals. But the last half of the letter were more rubber-meets-the-road Religious Rules & Advice. The first half demanded a lot of mental focus and thinking power. The second not so much. The second  was simpler. More straight-ahead. More understandable. And mostly doing-things.
On the surface they look different. Like one side of a two-sided coin. I think one argument for calling Ephesians unified & coherent is because there’s lots of things that are just like that. They look one way on one side but different on the other. For instance gaming is fun and entertaining and absorbing and straightforward. But someone (a smart someone) did a lot of hard work writing the program.
Another thing I need to remember is that Paul seemed to do this kind of thing a lot. I did a quick scan of Paul’s letters and I saw that he was constantly mixing theory-practice. Reading Paul’s letters I’m pretty much guaranteed to get what I think he figured was a fusion of related content: intricate thought-provokers alongside of clear-as-day actionables.
So Paul’s Ephesian letter maybe isn’t exactly unified. On the other hand I wonder if maybe in one way it is.

Week 49  Ephesians 4-6

I have two conclusions about Ephesians 1-3.
Conclusion #1 is that Paul did have one Big Idea in these chapters (it was that Non-Jewish People would not be Outsiders any more).
Conclusion #2 is that I think Paul stayed pretty much on topic for those three chapters.
But things are looking quite a bit different in chapters 4-5-6. I would title Ephesians 4-6: Advice About How I Should Live My Life.
The first half of that section (51 verses) lists Things to Do & Things to Avoid and each of those things are subdivided into either Specific Directives or General Principles.
By Specific Directives I mean things like this:
be patient with each other
stop stealing
get rid of all anger, harsh words, and slander.
I found about 30 of those explicit rules.
General Principles aren’t so definite:
lead a life worthy of your calling
follow God’s example in everything you do
be careful how you live.
There are eight or ten of those guidelines.
(Then there’s another whole 22-verse section about how relationships in a social hierarchy are supposed to work. Lots of people think hierarchies are dinosaurian but my bigger concern is: where is Paul going with this? Does it relate?)
The long-and-short is that things are breaking-up on me now. My Prime Directive was to see a) if Paul had One Big Idea and b) if he stuck with it. Right now it looks likes the answers are: a) likely and b) doubtful.

Note: quotes from Ephesians 4:2 28 31 & 4:1 5:1 15 (NLT)