Medicine Hat Joe

Week 35 Matthew

Reading-through is a solitary exercise. I do it alone. But at the same time it’s a together-aloneness because lots of other people have read the bible. The apostles read the OT. Saint Augustine and Martin Luther and Catherine of Siena read the bible. Millions of people have.
Matthew four is a kind of unwelcome reminder to me that even though the bible-readers’ fraternity I belong to includes the Lord it also includes the devil. In the story of the temptation of Christ the devil tried tempting the Lord three times.
What I see first is that the Lord was very familiar with the bible because in each of the temptations he quoted OT passages to answer the devil.
What I see second is that the devil knew the bible too because he quoted a passage from Psalm 91.
There’s some general conclusions I come to:
a) good people read the bible;
b) evil people read the bible;
c) reading the bible doesn’t mean I’m a good guy;
d) there’s legitimate ways to use the bible;
e) there’s illegitimate ways to use the bible;
f) if I haven’t read the bible for myself I might get buffaloed by someone who has;
g) quoting what the bible says isn’t necessarily saying what the bible means.
But I think my big take-away is that the devil reads & knows the bible and (it looks like) he might be prepared to use it against me.

Week 35 Matthew

A group of astronomer-astrologers appeared in King Herod’s court and asked: where is the newborn king of the Jews? We have seen his star as it arose, and we have come to worship him. That wasn’t good news and the king was: deeply disturbed by their question. Herod called in top Jewish religious specialists and asked them only one geographic question: where did the prophets say the Messiah would be born?
They told him that the prophetic forecast said: O Bethlehem of Judah, you are not just a lowly village in Judah, for a ruler will come from you who will be the shepherd for my people Israel. So the Messiah had to be born in Bethlehem.
I paged back to the Micah cross-reference: but you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, are only a small village in Judah. Yet a ruler of Israel will come from you, one whose origins are from the distant past…
I checked a map in the back of my bible to see how many cities were in Israel in Micah’s time. I counted about 55 west of the Jordan River. I think that’s a low estimate so if Micah was just picking a name out-of-a-hat then he had no better than a 1-in-55 probability of getting it right. His percentage chance would be low. Bethlehem was a longshot.
I’m impressed that Micah got it right. A Messiah born in Jezreel wouldn’t be the Messiah.

Note: quotes from Matthew 2:2, 3, 4, 6 & Micah 5:2 (NLT)

Week 35 Matthew

When I start reading a new book I figure there’ll be new stuff to learn.
A good example is in chapter two where King Herod calls in: all the chief priests and scribes of the people. Scribes? I check another version and instead of chief priests and scribes it says: the leading priests and teachers of religious law. So…scribes are teachers of religious law.
I check a word book and see this is the first time in the NT that scribes are mentioned (but they’re not a brand new species that suddenly emerged in Matthew – scribes are mentioned in Kings & Chronicles and in Ezra & Nehemiah. Ezra actually was a scribe).
So anyway that explains why Herod called them in – they were religious specialists. They were bible readers-and-studiers and they knew the answer to Herod’s question. I’ve still got the word book open on my lap and see that Matthew referred to scribes 21 times. I take four minutes to scan those verses. It looks to me like Matthew only says either value-neutral or else negative things about scribes (even a positive-sounding thing turns sour when the Lord says: the teachers of religious law…are the official interpreters of the Scriptures. So practice and obey whatever they say to you, but don’t follow their example).
Scribes were OT-readers, a professional society of religious & legal specialists & bible teachers. But they were still on the outside-looking-in.

Note: quotes from Matthew 2:4 (NASB & NLT) & 23:2-3 (NLT)

Week 35 Matthew

I know that generational lists are important in the OT. So I’m not surprised the NT starts with a generational list: this is a record of the ancestors of Jesus the Messiah, a descendant of King David and Abraham.
Matthew’s List of Kings includes David Solomon Rehoboam Abijah Asa Jehoshaphat Jehoram Uzziah Jotham Ahaz Hezekiah Manasseh Amos Josiah & Jehoiachin.
I go back to 2 Chronicles to check that list. It’s not as big a job as you’d think since Chronicles is only interested in the Southern Kingdom. What’s harder to figure out is why 2 Chronicles has three more kings than Matthew – between Matthew’s Jehoram and Uzziah the chronicler adds Ahaziah Joash & Amaziah.
There’s no real question about who’s correct. It’s definitely Chronicles. But there is a question about why Matthew missed those three names. It don’t figure it was because of ignorance – last year on August 21 I calculated that he quoted the OT 1.8 times per chapter. Matthew knew his OT.
And I don’t think he was being deceptive – why lie about a fact that could easily be checked by a ten year-old?
But why he missed/skipped the names I don’t know. In verse-17 it looks like he wanted three balanced & equal fourteen-generation groups. Maybe the literary equilibrium warranted the historical error. Maybe it was a first-century convention that reader’s accepted. I don’t know.
What I do know is that my reading challenges aren’t over.

Note: Quote from Matthew 1:1 (NLT)

Week 35 Matthew

In my bible there’s one unnumbered page between the end of the OT (page #1334) and the beginning of the NT (page #1).
I don’t have exact figures but I’m guessing quite a few people skip the first 1334 pages and start reading NT page #1 since the OT is old – which could mean a) old-fashioned b) irrelevant c) more-or-less useless and like that. So why bother?
On the one hand I tend to think there’s some OT content that’s not currently-applicable. On the other there’s OT material that seems pretty okay.
For example this winter I read Psalm 15. It’s a list of characteristics of people who are eligible to approach the Lord. They’re people who:
lead blameless lives
do what is right
speak the truth from sincere hearts
refuse to slander others
refuse to harm their neighbors
refuse to speak evil of their friends
despise persistent sinners
honor the faithful followers of the Lord
keep their promises even when it hurts
do not charge interest on the money they lend
do not accept bribes to testify against the innocent
I read through the list again today and it didn’t sound old-fashioned or irrelevant or more-or-less useless to me. They all seemed pretty okay.
Let’s say I had a multiple-choice question:
a) the OT & NT are totally different
b) the OT & NT have similarities-and-differences
c) the OT is no different from the NT…
I’d choose b).

Note: quotes from Psalm 15:2-5 (NLT)

Week 35 Ecclesiastes

A couple of days ago I checked how often the Preacher used the word Vanity – I counted nineteen (vanity is used twenty-six times in the OT).
Today I looked up the word Wisdom and saw he mentioned it about twenty-seven times.
Thinking about the two words my instinct is to turn them into opposites – VANITY vs. WISDOM. I write VANITY on one side of a page then draw a thick black line down the centre and write WISDOM on the other. Opponents.
But the thing is I’m not certain the Preacher is saying that. I think on his page he’s writing VANITY on the left side and on the right side writing NON-VANITY (or some heading like that). Those are the real opposites.
That leaves me with the question: where does WISDOM go? Well…I think it lands on the left side – under VANITY (if all-is-vanity means all then wisdom is part of the VANITY WORLD).
I’m not too jacked-up making wisdom a subset of vanity but I finished Ecclesiastes today so I have to move on. But for now I’m assuming that VANITY WORLD’s vanities are organized in a hierarchy set (meaning that wisdom – even if it is the highest vanity – still has room for improvement).

Note: one other thing I think is correct: the Preacher thinks there’s a different wisdom that is unique to the Lord.
End-of-month reading report: I finished the OT today. 1334 pages out of 1730…roughly 77%.

 

Week 35 Ecclesiastes

The Preacher drops bible-readers into deep water with his first words: everything is meaningless…utterly meaningless (another version says: vanity of vanities! All is vanity).
It’s a comment with two parts. There’s the quantity part: All. And there’s the topic part: Vanity. On the surface it sounds simple enough but I realize it’s only simple enough if I know exactly what vanity means. And if I know what-all All includes.
Figuring that out would be a complicated exercise and since I have to finish the book tomorrow I don’t have the time. But I’m going to at least record a couple of ideas about where I’m at with this idea about All being Vanity.
First – I don’t think that All means absolutely everything that exists. For example later in the book the Preacher talks about the Lord. I don’t think All includes the Lord. I figure All could mean all the things I can observe in the material world and whatever-all I think about them.
Second – I don’t think that Vanity means totally and completely without meaning weight or value. From other things the Preacher says my guess is that Vanity is a relative idea. Things in the material world and my thought-world are extremely lightweight. They have just about the lightest meaning-weight-value that it’s possible to have and still have any weight at all. Almost nothing without being nothing.
So my paraphrase is: virtually everything is nearly-meaninglessly lightweight.

Note: quote from Ecclesiastes 1:2 (NLT & NASB)

Week 35 Ecclesiastes

I was reading the prophets this summer and I kept seeing phrases like ‘this is the word of the Lord’. Or ‘the Lord spoke to ______ saying’. Or ‘the Lord said to me…’ Or maybe the writer describes an oracle a dream or a vision from the Lord.
Ecclesiastes is different. The Preacher’s content is the product of personal observation.
He says things like this:
I devoted myself to search for understanding and to explore by wisdom everything being done in the world
I worked hard to distinguish wisdom from foolishness
I remained clear-eyed so that I could evaluate…things
I decided to compare…
I realized…
I observed…
I concluded…
I searched everywhere, determined to find wisdom and to understand the reason for things
I have thought deeply about all that goes on here in the world
I tried to observe everything that goes on all across the earth
I carefully explored…
In this way Ecclesiastes is different from other bible books that quote or paraphrase the words of the Lord. The Preacher is more like a social science observer assessing a bunch of real-life things: Pleasure & the good life. Wealth & poverty. Work & leisure. Law & order. Friendship & relationships. Politics & power. Education. Morality. Death. Developmental psychology.
The Preacher is assessing exploring observing concluding.
I like the Preacher but he’s pretty shrewd so I’m cautious around him. I think it’d be easy to decide he’s saying something he isn’t.

Note: quotes from Ecclesiastes 1:13, 17, 2:9, 12, 3:18, 4:1-2, 7:25, 8:9, 16, 9:1 (NLT)

Week 34 Ecclesiastes

I remembered today that Ecclesiastes was written by one of the world’s smartest guys.
I flipped back to Solomon’s story and re-read what the Lord had told him: I will give you a wise and understanding mind such as no one else has ever had or ever will have!
I get lots of reminders while I’m reading-through that the bible is a Combination Book – a mix of things that make sense plus things that don’t. [A useful formula is Understandables + Non-Understandables = the Bible].
Anyway when I started reading Ecclesiastes I remembered that a) I was reading a heavy-duty topic and b) it was written by the World’s Smartest Person. So I jotted down five useful guidelines-reminders for myself:
If I think I know what the Preacher is driving at maybe I don’t
If something sounds juvenile or obvious or crazy maybe it isn’t
If the Preacher is making no sense check my sense-making capacity
If the essay seems random & disconnected maybe I’m missing connections
If a comment sounds trite maybe it’s important.
My Summary Conclusion: Avoid Hasty Conclusions.
I know a guy who read a book by a very smart guy. He read and re-read page one about fifteen times before he figured he was ready to turn to page two. I thought about that as I started Ecclesiastes.

Note: quote from 1 Kings 3:12 (NLT). I think the book the guy was reading was Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Week 34 Job

The last major speech in the book of Job – apart from the Lord’s – comes from a man named Elihu.
Elihu says many things about the Lord that sound pretty accurate to me:
God is greater than any person
God will not do wrong
If God were to take back his spirit…all life would cease, and humanity would again turn to dust
God carefully watches the way people live
God hears the cries of the needy
God is mighty in both power and understanding
God is all-powerful
God is exalted beyond what we can understand
We cannot imagine the power of God.
Elihu says things like this that he knows for sure are true. But along with them he adds other things he thinks are true. For example he says some nasty things about Job:
Has there ever been a man as arrogant as Job, with his thirst for irreverent talk?
Job speaks without knowledge; his words lack insight
Job, you deserve the maximum penalty for the wicked way you have talked
Do you think it is right for you (Job) to claim, ‘I am righteous before God’?
One of the things that jumps-out at me reading Elihu is that it’s possible to say things that are totally accurate as well as things that aren’t.
Elihu called himself: a man of well-rounded knowledge. But that didn’t stop him from arriving at some dopey and uninformed conclusions.

Note: quotes from Job 33:12, 34:12, 14-15, 21, 28, 36:5, 22, 26, 37:23; and 34:7, 35, 36, 35:2, 36:4 (NLT).