Friday, September 25

2 Corinthians 5:15-21: As in 3:1, Paul again fears lest his comments be understood as a self-promotion, which would be most unseemly (verse 12). He wants the Corinthians to know his heart, nonetheless, and not emulate those who judge by appearances. The Apostle is implicitly admitting here that he has not always “looked good.” Some of his experiences have been ecstatic (verse 13; 12:1-7), a point on which, it would appear, certain opponents have been critical of him. No matter, says Paul, such experiences have been God-ward. When, however, he speaks rationally, it is man-ward. Paul made the same distinction thee previous year (1 Corinthians 14:2,28). It is not clear in the present text whether has Paul has been criticized for his ecstatic experiences or for his apparent lack of them. Either sense will fit the context.

Verse 14 means, “the love of God grabs us” (or “grips” us—-synechei). This is the love manifest in his dying for us (Galatians 2:20). “All have died” in the sense that those who are gripped by the love of Christ will no longer live for themselves but for Him who purchased them with His blood (verse 15; Romans 5:10).

What we have in Christ is a new existence, no longer “according to the flesh.” Before his conversion Paul had known Christ “according to the flesh”—that is, not according to faith. All that, however, is now gone. Paul will not know anyone except in the faith of Christ (verse 16). The love of Christ gives the believer a new way of knowing people. Being “in Christ” is a new mode of existence (verse 17; Galatians 6:16). Paul’s vocabulary here seems borrowed from the second part of the Book of Isaiah (for example, 43:18-19; 48:5; 65:17; 66:22), which he will cite presently in 6:2 (Isaiah 49:8).

The Christian ministry is essentially a ministry of reconciliation, in which the reconciliation effected on the Cross is applied and brought to bear on the lives and hearts of human beings (verses 18-19; Galatians 1:12-16). Paul makes such an application now (verse 20).

The expression that Christ was made “sin [hamartia] for us” is open to more than one meaning (verse 21). It may mean that Christ, though not a sinner, assumed the condition of a sinner in order to represent all sinners. It may also mean that Christ became a “sin offering” (which is the meaning of hamartia as it appears in the Greek text of Leviticus 4). In either case the meaning is soteriological. By Christ’s becoming “sin,” we become “the righteousness of God.”

Saturday, September 26

2 Corinthians 6:1-10: In the previous chapter Paul had exhorted the Corinthians to be reconciled to God (5:20), right after proclaiming that God in Christ had reconciled them to Himself (5:18). That is to say, there is a sense in which the reconciling work of God for man does not preclude, but rather calls for, man’s own act of being reconciled to God. Even this latter act, however, is something man can do only under the influence of divine grace. This is indicated by the passive voice of the verb: “Be reconciled.” What God does, then, does not preclude the work of man. On the contrary, it invites and enables the work of man. It is a “cooperation.”

Paul continues this theme of “cooperation” (in Latin) or synergism (in Greek) in the exhortation that commences the present chapter: “In cooperation [synergountes], therefore, we exhort you not to receive the grace of God in vain” (verse 1). The cooperation here appears to be twofold. First, Paul cooperates (literally, “works together with”) God, inasmuch as he is God’s ambassador (5:10; 1 Corinthians 3:9); his preaching is authorized and enabled by God. Second, the Corinthians are not to let God’s grace go “for naught” (literally, “unto empty”–eis kenon). Not receiving God’s grace in vain is a specification of “be reconciled.” That is to say, what God does for man is not the complete story; man must also do certain things, so that God’s grace will not be “in vain.” In the several verses referring to his own experience, Paul hints at what some of these things may be. They form a pretty tough narrative of what it is to “cooperate” with God.

As indicated by the aorist tense of the Greek verb “to receive,” Paul is not thinking of repeated, continuous conversion; he is summoning the Corinthians, rather, to a decisive act made in the “now” of the divine summons (verse 2). It is this act of decision that renders any day “the day of salvation.”

Paul then turns to a description of the conditions and circumstances of his ministry (verses -10). This section, apologetic and given in answer to the critics of that ministry, contains the second such description (cf. 4:8-9), and two more will follow (11:23-29; 12:10. Elsewhere, cf. 1 Corinthians 4:10-13; Philippians 4:12; Romans 8:35,38-39). In all such descriptions we see Paul feeding on his inner communion with God in Christ. That is what separates these “autobiographical lists” from the Stoic and Jewish apologetic lists with which they are sometimes compared (cf. 4:10-11).

Sunday, September 27

2 Corinthians 6:11-18: The Apostle takes up in this section a very practical matter—marriage. This subject is so unexpected in the context that some scholars speculate that it slipped out of place in the manuscript transmission. This speculation, I believe, is unwarranted. It seems more reasonable to suppose that the harmful effects of “mixed marriages” may lie at the heart of the problems that Paul is having at Corinth. This would explain why the treatment of this subject appears in this apologetic section of the epistle.

In a previous letter to Corinth, a year or so earlier, Paul had been obliged to deal with the problems that arose when a man or woman, after their conversion to Christ, was consequently abandoned by an unbelieving spouse (1 Corinthians 7:12-17). His directions at that time had concerned only marriages formed prior to someone’s conversion. However, a different sort of problem has since arisen at Corinth. Now there is question of a Christian actually marrying a non-Christian.

Paul perceives a problem already addressed specifically in the Scriptures of God’s People. Although in earlier periods of biblical history relatively little attention had been given to marriage with pagans—especially when a Jewish man married a non-Jewish wife—Israel’s religious leaders became more pastorally sensitive to such situations during the Babylonian Captivity (587-538) and the following centuries.

We see this sensitivity at work in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which cover the century and more that followed the Captivity. When, with the rise of Cyrus in 539, the exiled Jews were permitted to return to the Holy Land, it fell mostly to the lot of young, unmarried men to undertake that arduous enterprise. When these returned to restore the fortunes of their ancestors, it was hardly surprising that they began to intermarry with the local heathen population.

Spiritual leaders like Ezra and Nehemiah quickly perceived the danger. Had not such marriages proved to be the spiritual downfall of Israel in times past? Who could fail to see, for example, how King Ahab’s marriage to the Phoenician princess Jezebel had introduced every manner of moral and spiritual decay among God’s People? Indeed, in the eyes of the Chronicler, who wrote shortly afterwards, this problem could be traced back to Solomon himself and his numerous pagan wives.

This pastoral perception led to a stern reform in Israel, as the scribal and rabbinical leadership became tougher on this matter. In the present text it is clear that Paul is heir to the tradition of Ezra and Nehemiah in this respect. His reasoning here, which requires almost no comment and certainly leaves nothing in doubt on the point, is simply a Christian variation of the thinking of Ezra and Nehemia
h.

Nor is it surprising that Paul quotes, on this point, a prophet of the period of the Captivity (verse 16; Ezekiel 37:27), using Israel’s separation from Babylon as his interpretive metaphor (verses 17-18).

In our modern context these biblical standards seem particularly relevant and applicable, and they should be expressed in both the canonical norms and pastoral practice of Christian congregations. To young Christians today it should be made plain, in the home and at the local church, that non-Christians are simply off-limits with respect to dating and marriage. It is no insult to either oxen or horses to observe that they are not suited to be harnessed together.

Monday, September 28

2 Corinthians 7:1-16: The quest for holiness was the reason Paul gave for not being yoked with pagans (6:16-17). The quest of holiness, however, was more general in its nature and applicable to a much greater number of concerns. Holiness, first, is something that grows. It requires cultivation and further cleansing from contaminates. It involves, moreover, both man’s spirit and his body (verse 1).

Paul then turns apologetic, pleading the sincerity of his relations to the Church at Corinth (verses 2-4). In asking that these Corinthians “make room” (choresate) for him, Paul takes up the same metaphor (and verbal root) that he used earlier, when he spoke of a narrowness of affection (stenochochoreomai–6:12). Even as he defends his behavior, he is careful not to blame the Corinthians (verse 3). Perhaps we perceive here a touch of what in recent times came to be known as “pastoral sensitivity.”

Because Paul mentions death before life, using the aorist tense for the first (synapothanein) and the present tense (syzein) for the second, it is clear that the life referred to here (verse 4) is the eternal life that follows death. Paul will be with the Corinthians in his death and in the life that ensues. His subtle expression thus means a great deal more than “in life and death.”

Paul turns next to the recent return of Titus, whom he had dispatched as his apostolic delegate to the Corinthians (verses 5-7). Paul, we remember, impatient at waiting for Titus at Troas, had procured passage over to Macedonia in search of him (2:12-13). Titus at last arrived in Macedonia from Corinth (verse 6).

Macedonia is a pretty big place. How did the two men find one another in Macedonia? I mean, how would a friend and I simply meet up “in Chicago,” to say nothing of our meeting up “in Illinois”?

In this regard, we should consider here the close and constant connections between the local congregations in Macedonia—at Philippi, at Thessaloniki, at Beroea, and so forth. These active connections are likely what brought the two men together.

Titus brings Paul news of the favorable reception that met his earlier letter, the letter of tears (verses 7-8; 2:1-4), the letter that Titus had carried to Corinth. Now Paul is able to put behind him whatever misgivings he had about the wisdom of sending that letter; it accomplished effectively the purpose for which he sent it (verse 9). The Corinthians have not disappointed him (verse 10). They have appropriately dealt with the disciplinary situation mentioned earlier (verses 11-12; 2:5-11).

Now that the delicate and critical situation in Corinth has been settled by the mission of Titus (verses 13-16), Paul brings to the attention of the Corinthians the charitable collection of resources currently in process for the impoverished Christians in the Holy Land. The role of Titus in this collection will be crucial, as we see in chapters 8 and 9.

Tuesday, September 29

2 Corinthians 8:1-9: Paul proceeds to tell the Corinthians of the generosity of the churches of Macedonia, partly with the intent, no doubt, of encouraging a like generosity among his readers. Chief in generosity among the Macedonians, it seems, are the Philippians, who have already established the custom of sacrificial giving with respect to Paul (11:8-9; Philippians 4:15-16).

The collection had already begun at Corinth, in fact, during the previous year (8:10-11; 1 Corinthians 16:1-4), and it will continue into the following year (Romans 15:25-27).

Everything about this enterprise is grace, charis (verses 1,6,7,19). It begins with the generosity of God. The Macedonian Christians are poor, after all, and Paul strains his images to express how this poverty abounded in generosity (verse 2). This generosity was spontaneous (verse 2); the Macedonians asked for the opportunity to give (verse 4). Indeed, this giving was the expression of the gift of themselves (verse 5).

Paul is sending Titus back to Corinth as the bearer of the present letter. Hence he mentions now that Titus, on his return to Corinth, will be organizing the collection in that city too (verse 6). This will be the perfecting of the good ministry that Titus had already commenced among the Corinthians.

Paul admits that the current admonition, in which much is made of the zeal of the Macedonians, is intended to test the commitment of the Corinthians (verse 8). With respect to self-sacrificial generosity, nonetheless, Paul appeals not only to the example of other Christians but also to that of Christ Himself (verse 9; Philippians 2:6-11).

Wednesday, September 30

2 Corinthians 8:10-24: To facilitate the collection at Corinth, Paul is sending, not only Titus, but two other emissaries to assist him in the work (verses 18-22; 12:17-18). Paul does not name these men, but it is not necessary to do so because their identity will be known when they arrive with Titus. Moreover, these men are, in part, delegates of the churches participating in the collection (verse 23). Luke provides a list of those who carried the money after the collection, in which list we observe that he mentions the origin of each man: Beroea and Thessaloniki in Macedonia, Derbe in Pisidia, and Asia Minor. It is not unreasonable to suspect that the two anonymous emissaries mentioned by Paul are included in Luke’s list (acts 20:4).

Clearly Paul was much concerned with this collection when he wrote the present epistle. Indeed, the highly artificial character of his style in chapters 8 and 9 seems to suggest uneasiness on his part respecting the reaction of these sometimes-troublesome Corinthians. Paul had only recently quarreled with some of them, and now he finds himself asking them for money! From a pastoral perspective, the situation was a bit delicate. Still, Paul could not neglect this collection, which he had promised to undertake (Galatians 2:10).

1 Chronicles 12: The material in this chapter is drawn from two widely separated parts of 2?Samuel. Verses 1–9 reflect the material in 2?Samuel 5:1–10, while verses 10–47 come from 2?Samuel 23:8–39.

The Chronicler greatly abbreviates the lengthy, difficult, and complicated story of David’s gaining control over all the tribes. We note that the material in the first four chapters of 2?Samuel is simply missing. There is no mention of the brief reign of Ishbosheth, the crisis of Abner, the subsequent negotiations, and Joab’s hand in Abner’s death.

Instead, the story skips immediately to the gathering of the tribes at Hebron (David’s first capital, before the capture of Jerusalem) to make David the king. There is no suggestion that Israel was politically divided between north and south (a division that would reappear at Solomon’s death in 922). Indeed, in place of “all the tribes of Israel” in 2?Samuel 5:1, we now have simply “all Israel” in verse 1. That is to say, the nation is completely united; even the tribal distinctions are lost. Thus, Jerusalem is captured by “David and all Israel” (v. 4).

Having thus described David’s rise to power and the taking of Jerusalem in a bare nine verses of narrative, the Chronicler returns to what we have begun to suspect he does best—he provides more lists o
f names!
This time, however, the lists are in large part derived from 2?Samuel 23:8–39.

First, there are David’s “three mighty men” (vv. 10–14). Since only two names are given, however, we might suspect that Joab, treated in the previous verses, was to be understood as included among them. It is more plausible, however, to suspect a copyist’s omission, since the name given in 2?Samuel 23:11 is Shammah.

Second, there is a list of thirty other warriors of renown (vv. 20– 47). Whereas the corresponding list in 2?Samuel ends with Uriah the Hittite, Chronicler adds several names more (vv. 41–47). Since these men appear to come predominantly from the east side of the Jordan, we may presume that the Chronicler received their names from a Transjordanian source not available to the author of Samuel.

Such lists of combatants reflect the period when warfare was generally conducted hand to hand. In our own times, when weapons are employed from great distances, it is difficult to imagine this impression of ongoing hand-to-hand combat. Indeed, Shelby Foote, the preeminent historian of the Civil War, remarked that that war produced relatively few casualties from the bayonet; most wounds were inflicted by gunfire at a distance. In very ancient accounts of combat, however, such as that between David and Goliath in 1 Samuel 17 and many places in Homer, the reader sometimes has the impression that any given battle was just a series of private fights between individuals. These biblical lists of warriors reflect that same setting. In fact, even Josephus, writing during the period of the New Testament, saw no reason to include these lists.

With David, says the Chronicler, was “the Lord of hosts,” a title that fits the military character of the whole chapter.

Especially curious is the place of Joab in this narrative. First, this text is the only place in Holy Scripture that explains how he came to be David’s chief commander (vv. 6–7). Second, only this text speaks of Joab’s role in the repair and reconstruction of Jerusalem (v. 8). Third, Joab is never criticized in Chronicles, which even omits David’s final curse on him (1?Kings 2:5).

Thursday, October 1

2 Corinthians 9:1-15: Paul continues, with a repetition suggesting uneasiness, to discuss the collection for the saints and the Corinthians’ participation in it. He has held up the Corinthians for emulation by the Macedonians (verse 2), just as he is currently holding up the Macedonians for the emulation of the Corinthians (8:1-5). The two cases are not equal, however. The Macedonians, with their longer track record of generosity, have actually contributed to the collection, whereas the most Paul can say about the Corinthians is that they have been “ready since last year” (cf. also 8:11 and 1 Corinthians 16:1-4). Still, this is not a point on which Paul is entirely confident (verses 3-5). Hence he is sending Titus and two others to give further encouragement in the matter.

Even as Paul continues to write on the subject, he says it is “superfluous” (perisson) to do so. This is an expression of rhetorical irony, of course. Paul knows very well that it is far from superfluous! We are glad that he continues on the subject, because the present chapter richly develops the theme of generous giving.

First, he calls this giving a “service” (diakonia–verses 1,12,13), which places the collection in the larger context of what all believers owe to one another, the obligation to bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2), poverty being one of those burdens.

Second, the underlying spirit of the gift is to be generosity, a true “blessing” (evlogia–twice each in verses 5,6), and not stinginess (pleonechsia). That is to say, the collection serves more than an economic purpose; it is designed also to enrich the spirit. Ironically the collection may be called self-serving, in the sense that one sows in order to reap (verse 6). The Lord, who is never outdone in generosity, invites believers to test Him on the point (verses 7-8). The collection involves the “heart” (kardia).

Third, none of this enterprise is of purely human inspiration. It is all “grace” (charis–verses 8,14), which is why he continues to speak of “abounding” (perissevo–verses 8,9,12; 8:2,714 [twice]). All generosity begins with God (verse 10), who is the source of all “righteousness” (dikaiosyne–verses 9,10).

Fourth, everything leads to thanksgiving (evcharistia–verses 11,12). God’s purpose in all things is to bring forth in human beings a thankful heart.

Friday, October 2

2 Corinthians 10:1-11: We come now to the lengthy self-defense for which it is arguable this epistle is most remembered. If Paul had inappropriate partisans at Corinth (1 Corinthians 1:12-13), so he had his critics, and now he will proceed to answer them.

He begins with irony, perhaps even sarcasm, apparently referring to those who think him humble only in his personal presence but overly bold as a writer (verses 1,10). His critics regard him as sinful (“walk according to the flesh”) in this respect (verse 2).

Paul admits to fleshly limitations (verse 3), an admission earlier conceded in his image of the clay vessels (4:7) and later described as a thorn in the flesh (12:7). Being “in the flesh,” however, is no worse than being “in the world” (1:12). It is simply the human condition of frailty.

Paul shifts his metaphor from walking to warring (verse 3) (or from the Odyssey to the Iliad, as it were—from life as journey to life as struggle). Combat is the more appropriate metaphor for what Paul has to say (verses 4-6). If no evil forces were arrayed against us, walking might be an adequate metaphor for life, but this is not the case.

The real enemy is intellectual arrogance, a trait that Paul addressed at depth in First Corinthians. This intellectual arrogance is what renders impossible the true “knowledge of God” (verse 5; 2:14; 5:6). Hence, a person’s first obedience to Christ is an obedience of the mind. The context of this point is Paul’s authority as an apostle, an authority on which he is prepared to elaborate at some length in the rest of the epistle (verses 7-8). To prepare for this elaboration, Paul devotes the second half of this chapter to a consideration of true and false boasting (verses 12-18). This section sets up the remaining chapters of this book.

Friday, September 18

Judges 21: The governing motif of this chapter is rebirth for the tribe of Benjamin.

It begins with a problem. The other Israelites have taken a vow not to let their daughters marry Benjaminites. This is the problem. No one had instructed them to make that vow, and now the vow has created a serious difficulty. They had taken the vow before they offered the sacrifice of reconciliation. They had acted with a split mind, doing things that were mutually opposed. This is an example of a rash vow, of the sort that Jephthe made. Such vows often enough create bigger problems than those they were supposed to solve. Anyway, this is the problem governing the present chapter, and the Israelites themselves caused it.

The story is full of irony, of course. For example, it ends at the shrine city of Shiloh, one of the ancient words for “peace.” The scene, however, is anything but peaceful.

How do we explain all this contradiction and activity at cross-purposes? The chapter’s final verse does the best it can for an explanation. Namely, everybody was following his own inclination and preference. “Everybody do what you want,” though a slogan not without popular appeal in our own times, is a formula for chaos, and what we have here toward the end of Judges is a chaotic situation.

Still, the Book of Judges finishes with an act of deliverance and a new birth. Benjamin is spared. It does not disappear from history, as did Simeon and Reuben. From the tribe of Benjamin, in fact, would come, in due course, the Apostle Paul. This final chapter, then, is about God’s fidelity even in the midst of irony and chaos.

Luke 7:1-10: Among those sections that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, independent of Mark, have in common, almost all are directly didactic. That is to say, those sections almost invariably consist of the explicit teachings of Jesus, with no attention to events in Jesus’ life. Those shared sections contain, for instance, the sort of material we find in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount (chapters 5—7) and Luke’s Sermon on the Plain (6:20–49).

When, on the other hand, Matthew and Luke do tell a common story about Jesus’ life, Mark almost invariably has that story too. The clear exception to this pattern is Matthew’s and Luke’s narrative of the centurion who sought healing for his cherished servant (Matthew 8:5–13; Luke 7:1–10).

As an account of a person beseeching the Lord on behalf of someone else, this shared narrative resembles other stories in the Gospels, such as Jairus and the Syro-Phoenician woman praying for their daughters (Mark 5:23; 7:24–30), another man and a centurion pleading for their sons (9:17; John 4:46–53), Martha and Mary of Bethany interceding for their brother (11:3). These are all accounts of petitionary prayer on behalf of loved ones.

Such stories surely had a great influence on the patterns of Christian intercessory prayer. We note, for instance, that the petitions in these accounts are addressed to Jesus. Although in Jesus’ specific teaching about prayer, the normal emphasis was on prayer addressed to the heavenly Father (Luke 11:2) in Jesus’ name (John 15:16), the emphasis is different in these particular Gospel stories. One of their singular values is that they unambiguously answer a practical question that might arise among Christians, namely, “If one of your loved ones gets sick, is there some special Trinitarian protocol to follow, or is it all right just to take the problem right to Jesus?”

However, the idea of taking one’s problems “right to Jesus” is surely not to be understood in the sense of forgoing the mediating prayer of others. It is not as though the unique mediation of Jesus our Lord (1 Timothy 2:5) excludes certain saints from mediating on behalf of other saints, and these various Gospel stories are the proof of it. In fact, it is the entire point and the whole business of the foregoing stories to validate such mediation. This is called intercessory prayer.

To see how this works out, let us return to the story of the centurion pleading on behalf of his servant. If we compare the differing accounts of this event in Matthew and Luke, we first observe that Matthew’s
is the shorter and simpler version. In this account the centurion simply goes to Jesus, requesting that the Lord speak the commanding word so that the servant will be healed. It takes only six verses.

In Luke, however, the story requires ten verses and is considerably more complicated. First, the centurion himself does not approach Jesus directly. He sends some friends who will speak for him. Now this is interesting, because it introduces another level of mediation. The friends are interceding for the centurion, who is in turn interceding for his servant. We have here the beginnings of a prayer chain, as it were.

Then, when Jesus starts moving towards the centurion’s home, the latter dispatches another group of friends, who will speak the famous words that characterize this story: “I am not worthy that You should enter under my roof” (7:6). It is surely significant that the centurion does not speak these words, deeply personal as they are, to Jesus directly. Others say them to Jesus on the centurion’s behalf. In Luke’s version of the story, in fact, there is no face-to-face encounter of the centurion with Jesus at all. The centurion’s faith is conveyed by those he chooses to intercede for him.

Finally, in Luke’s version of the story, there is a striking parallel, surely deliberate, between this centurion and Cornelius in chapter 10 of the Acts of the Apostles. Both of these centurions send others to speak on their behalf, and in each case the one solicited—Jesus in the first and Simon Peter in the second—goes immediately to respond to the need. At this point the two stories form a contrast. In the first instance the centurion, wanting to spare Jesus the uncleanness of entering a Gentile house, solicits His aid from a distance. In the case of Peter and Cornelius, however, the barrier between Jew and Gentile has now been removed forever, and Peter comes to his home.

Saturday, September 19

2 Corinthians 1:1-11: This epistle is addressed not only to Corinth, but also to the Christians of the whole Roman province of Achaia, of which Corinth was the capital (cf. 9:2). In this detail we see already the beginnings of the ecclesiastical structure later known as “diocesan,” in which Christians in rural areas, smaller towns, and villages were associated with and brought under the pastoral supervision of a larger, usually more centralized church in a given region.

Paul calls himself an apostle, but it is noteworthy that he does not extend this title to Timothy. Paul normally, as here, restricts the title to those men who had been directly and immediately called by Christ (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:8). However, the application of the title “apostle” is not uniform throughout the writings of the New Testament.

Timothy, already well known to the Corinthians (verse 19; 1 Corinthians 4:17), is named as co-author. This identification of Timothy with himself in the authorship of this epistle corresponds quite closely to our own custom of naming others as co-authors of our own letters. Thus, for instance, Lois may write, “Love from Lois and Frank,” or even “Frank and Lois,” at the end of a letter that Frank himself may not even know about. It was Paul’s way of saying, “Timothy is here with me,” but it also enhances the dignity and authority of Timothy in the eyes of the Corinthians.

Right away Paul introduces the theme of the divine strengthening that accompanies the trials of the saints. This subject, sustained and thematic throughout the epistle, appears ten times in verses 3-7.

The afflictions that Paul suffered in Asia (verse 8) seem to be connected to the riot of the Ephesians, recorded in Acts 19:23-34 (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:9-10). It was during that difficult period that Paul learned the strength of Christ, which is stronger than death (verses 9-10; Romans 4:17).

Sunday, September 20

2 Corinthians 1:12—2:2: The lesson learned from his experience in Asia heightened Paul’s sense of the difference between divine grace and worldly wisdom (verse 12), a difference about which he had earlier written to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 1:20; 2:5). By means of the present epistle Paul’s readers will be taught this lesson also (verses 13-14). It is important that they be so, because they endure the same trials as Paul (verse 7). The sufferings endured are, in fact, “the sufferings of Christ” (verse 5).

Paul begins to correct a misunderstanding. He had disappointed some of the Corinthians by failing to visit them at a time when he was expected. Indeed, he had announced plans for such a visit (1 Corinthians 16:5). In fact, he changed his plans more than once. Recently he had planned to stop for visits twice at Corinth, once going to Macedonia and once coming back (verses 15-16). Even these plans had been changed, to the chagrin of some of the folks at Corinth, who thought the Apostle a bit fickle and irresolute (verse 17).

St. Paul defends himself, insisting that these changes of travel plans did not indicate a deeper spiritual problem. In his proclamation of the Gospel to the Corinthians he was not fickle or irresolute (verse 18). His readers, therefore, should not interpret his recent behavior as a sign of irresolution.

Paul uses this occasion to teach a lesson. Steadfastness of purpose, he says, is what characterizes the word that God speaks to us in Christ. It is an enduring affirmation, indicated by the perfect tense of the verb (gegonen–verse 19). That word is the same as when Paul and his companions had first preached it among the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 15:11), because God’s promises are not subject to changes of plans (verse 20). They are always “Amen,” the same word that Christians speak back to God at the close of their prayers in Jesus’ name.

In fact, God has even now sealed these promises in the hearts of the Corinthians at the time of their baptism (verses 21-22). This sealing is already a down payment or “earnest money” (arrabon) of their eternal inheritance (cf. 5:5; Romans 8:23).

Paul then returns to his disputed travel plans, saying that it was for the good of the Corinthians themselves that he had failed to show up when they expected him (verse 23; compare 13:2). Things were not yet right at Corinth.

Monday, September 21

2 Corinthians 2:3-17: Paul saw no value in returning yet again to Corinth while feeling distressed at the situation there. Such a visit, he felt, would only have made things worse (verses 1-2). He sent them a letter instead, the “letter of tears” which seems not to have survived (verse 3). Paul’s decision not to go to Corinth had at least not added further grief to those with whom he ought to share a common joy, and his letter had manifested his love and concern for the Corinthians (verse 4).

These references to their shared distress point to some troublemaker whom Paul had encountered in Corinth on a previous visit (verse 5). The Apostle here presumes his readers’ familiarity with the case, the particulars of which are, of course, unknown to us. Paul is confident that the Corinthians have adequately dealt with the problem (verse 6), inspired by his “letter of tears” and a recent visit by Titus (cf. 7:6-7).

Indeed, Paul has now become concerned for the offender, with whom the congregation had dealt somewhat severely (verses 7-8). In any case, the Corinthians have properly met the trial posed by the troublemaker (verse 9), and now it is time to move on (verses 10-1).

Paul proceeds to tell of his recent missionary trip to Troas (on the western coast of Asia, the region of ancient Troy), thus taking up the narrative broken off at the beginning of this chapter. He had hoped to meet Titus at Troas, to learn from Titus what had transpired in Corinth. Paul’s disappointment at failing to find Titus at Troas caused him, reluctantly, to abandon his ministry there and to sail over to Macedonia (verses 12-13). We readers find Paul’s distress understandable. Until he shou
ld meet Titus and learn what had transpired at Corinth, Paul would be distracted, uncertain how the congregation reacted to his “letter of tears.”

But why did Paul go over to Macedonia? This is not difficult to discover. If we think of him languishing at Troas for some days, perhaps even weeks, it would have been natural for him to sail over to Macedonia, from which, after all, Titus was expected. We should bear in mind that the currents and wind patterns between Troas and Macedonia made an eastward voyage longer and more difficult than a westward voyage. Because the Black Sea is normally colder than the Mediterranean Basin (on the average of ten degrees), the faster evaporation in the latter causes a strong southwest current to run through the Dardanelles, seriously influencing the speed of travel between Asia and Macedonia. A trip from Troas required only two days (Acts 16:11), whereas the reverse might take more than twice that long (20:6).

Paul proceeds to bless God for this fortunate outcome (verse 14), typical of the divine solicitude for man’s salvation. That is to say, in the recent difficulties at Corinth, the Lord had displayed the power of the Gospel itself (verses 15-17). For both Paul and the Corinthians the Gospel had become a matter of empirical evidence and concrete experience. God had “triumphed over” them (thriambevonti hemas–verse 14). This note touches the epistle’s major theme: God’s power made perfect in man’s weakness. Paul will speak incessantly of this “manifestation” (phaneroein–verse 14; 3:3; 4:10,11; 5:10,11 (bis); 7:12; 11:6).

Tuesday, September 22

2 Corinthians 3:1-18: The chapter begins with two rhetorical questions, the anticipated answer to both being “no.” Paul speaks of commendatory letters, to which there are other references in the New Testament (Romans 16:-12; 1 Corinthians 16:10-11; Philemon passim; Acts 15:22-31; 18:27). Paul asserts here that his relationship to the Corinthians renders such letters superfluous (verses 1-3).

In the Greek text the expression “not in ink but in the Spirit” is more melodious: ou mélani alla Pnévmati. Paul’s imagery here evokes Jeremiah 31:31-34 and Ezekiel 36:26-27)

Paul has “confidence before God” (pepoithesis pros ton Theon–verse 4, an expression that has no linguistic equivalent elsewhere in the Bible). He has this confidence “through Christ,” not from any self-sufficiency (verse 5). The infinitive logisasthai is better translated “to claim” than “to speak”: “We are not sufficient to claim anything” (compare 2:17). Paul’s competence comes from the God who commissioned his ministry (verse 6).

The Apostle introduces here his contrast of letter and Spirit (cf. Romans 2:27-29), which he will elaborate through the rest of this chapter.

What is perhaps most surprising in the first six verses of this chapter is Paul’s confidence in the Corinthian church, where he sees the activity of the Holy Spirit as the fulfillment of the prophetic promises in Jeremiah and Ezekiel. The Corinthians themselves are a testimony to the power and fruitfulness of his own ministry.

Paul them proceeds to contrast the Gospel ministry–the ministry of the Spirit–with the ministry of the Mosaic Law, a theme that runs through the rest of this chapter. Because “the letter kills” (verse 6), he calls the Mosaic ministry “a ministry of death” (verse 7). For someone that spent all his previous life in the study of the Torah, this is a very strong assertion.

The Apostle also introduces now the expression “glory,” which as a noun or a verb (“glorify”) appears thirteen times in the remainder of this chapter. Even the ministry of the Law, he says, was possessed of glory. How much more the ministry of the Spirit? (verses 8-9. Compare the same form of argument in Romans 8:32).

Paul felt the “boldness” (parresia) displayed in what he had just written with respect to the Mosaic Law (verse 12). After all, he had jut referred to the dispensation of the Torah–the ministry of Moses himself–as “the ministry of death” (verse 7) and “the ministry of condemnation” (verse 9). This was certainly bold speech for a rabbi who had spent his whole life in the study of the Torah!

Nor do these words of Paul convey the entire truth. Indeed, Paul was still working his way through this subject when he wrote 2 Corinthians. A year or so later he would give a more developed, nuanced treatment of this matter in his dialectical argument in Romans 9—11.

This boldness in speech Paul contrasts with the approach of Moses, who veiled his face so that the Israelites could not behold the fading glory of his countenance (verse 13; Exodus 34:30-35). In this context, in which the word “veil” (kálymma) appears four times (verses 13-16), the “unveiled face” serves as a metaphor for boldness.

The expression eis to telos (verse 13) should not be understood as expressing purpose (“in order that”) but as expressing effect (“with the result that”). Otherwise Paul would be accusing Moses of deceiving the people.

The fault, however, was not of Moses but of the Israelites (verse 14). Here Paul has in mind less the Israelites of Moses’ time than the Israelites of his own day, those from whose synagogues, all over the Mediterranean basin, he and his companions had been expelled. These were the Israelites to whom the true face of Moses remained veiled. Satan, “the god of this world” (4:4), continued to harden their thoughts (noemata–verse 14). This veil has become, in Paul’s argument, an internal covering of the mind, which prevents the correct understanding of “the Old Testament.” This is the only place in the Bible, we may note, that uses this last expression.

The “abolishing” (katargeitai) of which Paul speaks here refers to the veil, not the Old Testament. This is clear in verse 16, where Paul refers to the removal of the veil from the heart (verse 15). No part of God’s Word is ever abolished or “out of date” (Matthew 5:17; Romans 3:31).

The Septuagint text of Exodus 34:34 throws light on this removal of the veil. It speaks of Moses taking the veil from his face when he “went in before the Lord to speak to Him.” It was in turning to the Lord that Moses’ veil was removed. Thus, says St. Paul, as soon as a man turns to the Lord, the veil is removed (verse 16). This interpretation is important as it indicates Paul understood Jesus to be “the Lord” to whom Moses went in to speak. The Lordship of Jesus is, in fact, at the base of all Paul’s reflections here (cf. 4:5).

To speak of Christ, however, is concretely to speak of the Holy Spirit. We do not get the One without the Other (verse 17). They are necessarily, or at least practically, concomitant. It is as though a foreign diplomat were to say, “Washington is the United States,” or as if an epicure should remark, “Baltimore is crab cakes,” meaning that the one implies the other. With Christ comes the Holy Spirit; when a man turns to Christ, he receives the Holy Spirit. (Indeed, even this affirmation is oversimplified, because a man cannot even turn to Christ except through the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit.)

Contrasted with the veiled Israelites are the unveiled Christians, beholding and being transformed by the glory of the Lord (verse 18). Like Moses in God’s presence, their faces are uncovered, because there is freedom in the new covenant (verse 17). To Christians, then, it is given to share in the doxological transformation accorded to Moses, as they are transformed progressively into the image of Christ.

Wednesday, September 23

2 Corinthians 4:1-18: Paul’s comments are partly biographical, of course; he is implicitly remembering his own experience of conversion to Christ and the glory on the road to Damascus, the experience that led to his radical reassessment of
the Torah. This is why he shifts to the “apostolic we” (4:1). It is this “we” that proclaims the Lordship of Jesus (4:5). The apostolic preaching is the means by which others contemplate the revelation of God’s glory on the face of Christ (4:6).

Paul then returns to the dominant theme of this epistle—power made perfect in infirmity (verse 7). The clay jars means “in our body” (verse 10), “in our mortal flesh” (verse 11), “in us” (verse 12). Human beings, according to Genesis, are framed from the clay of the earth. Nonetheless, Paul’s references here do not indicate a spirit/material contrast. The whole human person suffers the pangs of mortality, the soul as well as the body. Of himself, and considered entirely within his own resources, man is like the clay jars in which Gideon’s army carried the victorious flame. The contrast here in Paul is between human weakness and divine power, not between the body and the soul.

For Paul the apostolic experience was like a sustained sense of being put to death, but not quite (verses 8-12). This sense of mortality, repeated in so many circumstances of Paul’s life and travels, is seen through the interpretive lens of the “dying” (nekrosis) of Jesus (verse 10). The death and resurrection of Jesus form the paradigm of power made perfect in weakness (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:25-31).

Paul’s preaching is based on that faith (verse 13). He understands what happens in his life through his deep communion with Christ (1:5; 13:4; Galatians 6:17; Philippians 3:10-11). This is the source of his “boldness.”

Verse 16 is the only place in the New Testament where the expression “day by day” occurs. All that Paul has been writing, particularly his comments about going from glory to glory, is a matter of daily Christian experience.

The Christian’s “outer man” means the vessel of clay, man in his daily encounter with his mortality. The “inner man” means his communion with Christ.

With respect to the contrasting images of lightness and gravity in verse 17, it is instructive to remember that the Hebrew noun for “glory,” kavod, is derived from the Hebrew verbal root kavad, meaning “to be heavy.” The great weight of gold perhaps explains this derivation. “Glory” in Holy Scripture is a very substantial and enduring thing, compared with which our afflictions seem light and are certainly transitory.

Thursday, September 24

2 Corinthians 5:1-11: At the beginning of this chapter Paul outlines a theme he will treat in more detail in Romans 8—the longing that the Holy Spirit prompts in the hearts of Christians with respect to the final glorification of their bodies (verse 5). Indeed, he speaks of this longing as a “groaning” (verses 2,4; Romans 8:23). It is death, not the body itself, that will be swallowed up in life. This longing is appropriate, because we are, even as we are weighed down by our mortality, the temples of the Holy Spirit, the guarantee and down payment of our final salvation.

Even our present union with Christ, moreover, does not eliminate the fact that in our mortal condition we are still separated from the Lord (verse 6). This is simply the difference between faith and sight (verse 7; 1 Corinthians 13:12).

This is a bold way to live. Twice Paul uses the verb “dare” (tharreo–verses 6,8), which takes up the “boldness” of the previous chapter. It is a courage given by the Holy Spirit, because few men would willingly part with their bodies to attain a better goal (Philippians 1:21-24). What is more important than either state, however, is to be pleasing to the Lord (verse 9), whether living or dying. This is what will count at the tribunal at which the value of our lives will be assessed (verse 10; Romans 2:16-26).

Meanwhile believers live by the first-fruits of immortality that abide in their mortal flesh—namely, the Holy Spirit, by whose indwelling power their bodies will in the end be covered over in glory.

Standing even under the divine judgment, Paul endeavors to convince others of this truth (verse 11).

Friday, September 25

2 Corinthians 5:15-21: As in 3:1, Paul again fears lest his comments be understood as a self-promotion, which would be most unseemly (verse 12). He wants the Corinthians to know his heart, nonetheless, and not emulate those who judge by appearances. The Apostle is implicitly admitting here that he has not always “looked good.” Some of his experiences have been ecstatic (verse 13; 12:1-7), a point on which, it would appear, certain opponents have been critical of him. No matter, says Paul, such experiences have been God-ward. When, however, he speaks rationally, it is man-ward. Paul made the same distinction thee previous year (1 Corinthians 14:2,28). It is not clear in the present text whether has Paul has been criticized for his ecstatic experiences or for his apparent lack of them. Either sense will fit the context.

Verse 14 means, “the love of God grabs us” (or “grips” us—-synechei). This is the love manifest in his dying for us (Galatians 2:20). “All have died” in the sense that those who are gripped by the love of Christ will no longer live for themselves but for Him who purchased them with His blood (verse 15; Romans 5:10).

What we have in Christ is a new existence, no longer “according to the flesh.” Before his conversion Paul had known Christ “according to the flesh”—that is, not according to faith. All that, however, is now gone. Paul will not know anyone except in the faith of Christ (verse 16). The love of Christ gives the believer a new way of knowing people. Being “in Christ” is a new mode of existence (verse 17; Galatians 6:16). Paul’s vocabulary here seems borrowed from the second part of the Book of Isaiah (for example, 43:18-19; 48:5; 65:17; 66:22), which he will cite presently in 6:2 (Isaiah 49:8).

The Christian ministry is essentially a ministry of reconciliation, in which the reconciliation effected on the Cross is applied and brought to bear on the lives and hearts of human beings (verses 18-19; Galatians 1:12-16). Paul makes such an application now (verse 20).

The expression that Christ was made “sin [hamartia] for us” is open to more than one meaning (verse 21). It may mean that Christ, though not a sinner, assumed the condition of a sinner in order to represent all sinners. It may also mean that Christ became a “sin offering” (which is the meaning of hamartia as it appears in the Greek text of Leviticus 4). In either case the meaning is soteriological. By Christ’s becoming “sin,” we become “the righteousness of God.”

Friday, September 11

Judges 14: It is significant, surely, that all three stories about Samson have to do with women. His addiction to women is Samson’s tragic flaw. It would be easy enough to blame the women, I suppose, but that would be missing the point. The problem is Samson’s.

This first story about Samson (verses 1-4) concerns his projected marriage to a Philistine woman, and we recall that the previous chapter began by describing Israel’s bondage to the Philistines. Samson’s fascination with this Philistine woman, then, symbolizes Israel’s fascination with the surrounding paganism, a fascination that in each case leads to blindness and death.

As a consecrated Nazirite, Samson represents Israel’s higher calling to dedication to the true God in true worship. His failure to live according to that higher calling is symbolic of Israel’s failure.

Samson’s parents mention that Israelites are not supposed to marry pagans, but the inspired author speaks of God’s own plan, even in this deviation from the Law. All of Samson’s career, including his sins, will be under the influence of Divine Providence. Through all of it, God will bring good out of evil.

A strong man, but also a very weak man, Samson is an ironical figure. Ultimately his victory over the Philistines will involve both his weakness and his strength.

The blindness of Samson, however, begins very early in the story. In a sense, indeed, Samson starts out blind, long before the Philistines gouge out his eyes. Through this whole account Samson seems to be walking in the darkness. No matter. God knows where the story is going.

The story of the lion (verses -9) invites a comparison between Samson and David, both of whom fought against Philistines. The latter are symbolized in the lion. David, before he killed the Philistine Goliath, first killed the lion. Samson, before he takes on the Philistines, kills a lion with his bare hands.

This is why the Spirit of the Lord came down on Samson, as the Spirit of the Lord will descend on him in the next chapter. The roaring of the lion will be matched by the shouting of the Philistines. Samson will tear the binding cords apart, just as he tore the lion apart.

The killing of the lion, then, symbolizes Samson’s vocation. Indeed, Samson’s own tribe, Dan, was liked to a lion: “Dan is a lion’s whelp that leaps forth from Bashan” (Deuteronomy 33:22).

Once the lion is dead, the bees build their hive in its carcass. This symbolizes the Holy Land itself, flowing with milk and honey. What is this honey? It is the tasting of God’s Law, which the Psalter describes as sweeter than honey. This honey is the fruit of Samson’s victory over the lion. It is the result of his combat with the lion.

Samson will use this incident to stump the Philistines. That is to say, he perceives the incident to involve a riddle, or mystery. There is a mystery in the lion and the honey that lies beyond the comprehension of his enemies.

The honey in the carcass is symbolic also of Samson himself, who will be victorious in his defeat. Sweetness will come from his death.

Samson’s first contest with the Philistines (verses 12-14) will not be a test of muscles but of brains. He will attempt to outwit them, as Moses had done with the Philistines.

Alas, Samson the riddler does something not very bright. He is deceived by the woman, and this is Samson’s first experience of betrayal. The real treachery, on the other hand, comes from Samson’s own emotions. He loses control. He is betrayed by his feelings. Had he maintained control over his emotions, the woman would never have deceived him. The man who cannot control himself can hope to control nothing else.

The wedding feast ends badly.

Saturday, September 12

Judges 15: To put the era of Samson into perspective, it is useful to consider him along with two other biblical characters, Samuel and Obed. According to Judges 13:1, Israel was in bondage to the Philistines for forty years, a bondage that ended at the Battle of Mizpah in 1 Samuel 7. In that chapter we learn that the Battle of Mizpah was twenty years after the Battle of Aphek, when the Philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant and briefly held it. It was right after the Battle of Aphek, we recall, that Eli died. These facts give us a basic chronology with which to work.

If Samson was born at the beginning of the Philistine enslavement, and if we put his marriage at about age twenty, then the marriage of Samson took place about the time of the Battle of Aphek and the death of Eli.

It was while Samuel was growing up, then, that Samson judged the tribe of Dan, and it was Samson’s weakening of the Philistines that prepared for Saul’s victory over them at the Battle of Mizpah in 1 Samuel 7.

Someone else born during the lifetime of Samson was Obed, the grandfather of David. Obed himself, we recall, was something of a “miracle baby,” in the sense that God used a special providence to arrange for his birth.

During the period of Samson, then, the Lord was already mightily at work to provide for Israel’s future. He did this by sending the world three special babies in rapid succession: Samson, Obed, and Samuel.

Even as Israel was on the point of death and annihilation, the Lord of history was providing three little babies to oversee its renewal and rebirth. Resurrection would come out of death and judgment. Blind Samson to blind Eli, but God sees the future.

With respect to Samson’s own decline, the present chapter encourages us to trace it through a succession of animals: from lions, to foxes, to asses.

Sunday, September 13

Judges 16: Two facts, recorded in the first three verses of this chapter, prepare for the rest of the drama, in which Samson will be forced to fight to the death.

The first concerns Samson’s strength. Samson is unwilling to press the advantage he has by reason of his superior strength. He toys with the men of Gaza, but ultimately he simply leaves them alone. He will learn that the Philistines are not an enemy to be tolerated.

The second concerns Samson’s weakness, which is his addiction to the company of women. This weakness will lead finally to his downfall.

In all the previous judges we read that So-and-so judged Israel for X number of years, and then, after his death, Israel went awhoring after false gods. In Samson’s case, however, we are told that he judged Israel for twenty years and then he went awhoring. That is to say, Samson has become the symbol of Israel itself.

The men of Gaza presumed that they had Samson trapped. The city gates were locked, and they could deal with him in the morning. Samson not only opened the gates, he carried them a great distance, uphill all the way, leaving Gaza open to attack.

The time of Samson’s deliverance and exploit comes at midnight, a time that may remind us of Pharaoh, Moses, Egypt, and the Exodus. There is also a parallel with the opening of the Book of Joshua, where there was also an incident involving the city gates and the residence of whore.

Samson has become careless in his declining years. He has begun to play with danger. He no long flees evil, as God would have us do. He teases his own soul, as it were, even as he teases Delilah and the Philistines. Every time he plays around, however, there is a lurking danger. His attackers are just out of sight, concealed in the inner room. He should remember the Lord’s warning to Cain with respect to temptation, “Sin lieth at the door.” Like Cain, Samson is within the reach of danger, but he continues to act unwisely, trusting too much in himself, as though his own memory no longer contains the record of his past failures. Samson acts blindly, even before the loss of his eyes.

In his whole relationship to Delilah, Samson was playing with death. The one thing Samson never did in his life was to flee. There is a proper time to flee, however. In the hour of t
emptation, flight is the proper path. Samson was blind, not recognizing the presence of temptation. He treated the whole thing as a game.

In fact, however, Samson was a dead man from the hour he entered the prostitute’s house. He was already walking in blindness. Delilah “annoyed him to death,” says the Sacred Text, in a rich ironical expression. Proverbs 2 says of the adulterous woman that “her house sinks down to death, and her tracks lead to the dead.”

The free man has foolishly handed himself over to bondage. Samson will spend the rest of his miserable existence grinding the grain of a false and foreign god.

The return of Samson’s hair signifies the growth of repentance in his mind. Having lost his eyes, Samson must find a new light in his heart. This discovery will lead him to death unto self.

The Philistines never knew when to quit (verses 21-31). We must not fail to observe here the parallel between the capture of Samson and the capture of the Ark in 1 Samuel 5. In both cases, the stories describe a battle between Israel’s God and the Philistine god, Dagan. In each case Dagan is humiliated by capturing more than he can handle. In both cases his apparent victory is the condition and cause of his defeat. Dagan captures more than he can hold.

Both of these instances are types and foreshadowing of the Christian salvation, in which Death takes captive the Victim on the cross but cannot hold Him. The apparent victory of Death is the cause and condition of the overthrow of Death. Dagan and Death are the same thing.

Samson is also a type of Christ, of course. Both are sold for silver, both are betrayed with a kiss, both die with a prayer on their lips, both are mocked in their blindness: “And having blindfolded Him, they struck Him on the face and asked Him, saying, ‘Prophesy! Who is the one who struck You?’ And many other things they blasphemously spoke against Him” (Luke 22:64).

Monday, September 14

Judges 17: The final five chapters of Judges form a sort of appendix, to show how bad things had become just prior to the rise of the monarchy. It was a period of great decline, and these stories serve to explain why Israel at last decided to want a king to rule over them. Israel’s lack of a king is mentioned five times in these five chapters.

Indeed, we perceive a decline even in the quality of the judges themselves. The list had started with the heights represented by Ehud, Deborah, and Gideon, declining gradually to the depths of Jephthah and Samson.

The present chapter begins an account of the failure of the Levites, on whose ministry the spiritual life of Israel depended so much. These were the spiritual guardians of the people. The apostate Levite introduced in this chapter was, in fact, a descendent of Moses!

We also see in this chapter the moral failure of a mother. When we began with the book with Deborah, “a mother in Israel,” we hardly expected things to end so badly.

If we compare this story with the Bible’s earlier idolatry of the Golden Calf, we see a decline from gold to silver. Even the idolatry is cheaper. Everything is declining!

The Levite described here is very typical of a certain kind of clergyman, who fails in his duties as a pastor because he finds it more profitable to become the domestic chaplain of a wealthy family. It happens all the time. We may contrast this Levite with the zealous Phineas.

Tuesday, September 15

Judges 18: The Danites migrated north to get away from the Philistines (verses 1-6). These men, we must understand, were quitters, unwilling to fight for their proper inheritance. They sought and accepted the counsel of a man that was not qualified to give counsel. They already knew what they were supposed to do, but they wanted a “second opinion.” The Lord had said, “Go, conquer the land that I will give you,” but they wanted an easy out, after finding that the task was more difficult than they supposed. Consequently they sought out a teacher who would tell them what they wanted to hear.

This should not surprise us, because we already know that this Levite’s own ministry has already been based on compromise and half-measures. He was not, after all, even authorized for the ministry he has undertaken. He is a false teacher, who pretends to speak for God.

The Bible is full of criticism against false teachers and false prophets. They are chiefly to be recognizes by certain traits:

First, they like to please people. They have no authority beyond their ability to please people. Their authority is based entirely on their popularity.

Second, Because they want to please people, they tend to say what people expect and want them to say.

Third, if challenged they appeal to their success.

The situation was described by the Apostle Paul: “Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables” (2 Timothy 4:2-4).

The Danites, who had insufficient courage to fight the Philistines, are quite prepared to invade a small defenseless people, who lived in an unwalled city (verses 7-21).

The Danites, that is to say, in addition to their other shortcomings, believed in cheap grace. They wanted the blessings of the covenant without the cost of the covenant.

Just as the Danites robbed somebody else’s land, they absconded with somebody else’s gods. Indeed, they wanted only such gods as they could control. Those were gods worthy of their cowardice.

They also discovered a clergyman who was worthy of them, a quisling that would do their bidding and tell them what they wanted to hear. This nameless man was a nobody, a clerical non-entity, a hierarchical cipher. Because the price was right, he went along with them.

Man-made gods, however, tend not to be very loyal to their makers. They are disposed to take on a life of their own. They declare their independence, as it were. Micah learned this the hard way.

The city of Dan became a center of idol-worship. Jeroboam I would eventually erect there one of his two golden calves.

Wednesday, September 16

Judges 19: We come now to a horror story, a nightmare. There is a growing sense of darkness, beginning with physical darkness and going to moral darkness. The unfortunate woman is thrown out into the dark, where she is gang raped all night long. After enduring unspeakable brutality, she dies at daybreak.

There is a great irony, of course, in the fact that the Levite did not want to spend the night among pagans. He wanted to sleep secure, surrounded by his fellow Israelites. He lengthened his journey for this very purpose.

We must bear in mind that this is not a story about pagans. All the characters in this account are children of the covenant.

Gibeah, however, has become as bad as Sodom. Indeed, there are striking parallels between this story and that in Genesis 19.

There is also the cruelty of the Levite himself, who abandons his wife (for “concubine” in context means only a wife of inferior rank) to the cruelty of the mob. He has clearly not forgiven his wife for her infidelity. He is morally worse than she. This compromised individual is no man of God.

It is instructive that Hosea is the only prophet ever to mention this distressing incident at Gibeah, and he does so three times (5:8; 9:9; 10:9). Obviously Hosea, who also was married to an unfaithful wife, thought a great deal about this story and its potential lessons. Indeed, Hosea’s own treatment of his wife is a fruitful matter of contrast with the behavior of the Levite in this chapter.

Thursday, September 17

Luke 6:43-49: These closing verses of Luke’s Sermon on the P
lain suggest three considerations:
First, the teachings of Jesus are not separable from His person. We do not follow the teachings of Jesus because we see that they make sense. Indeed, to the outsider the teachings of Jesus do not always make sense. In fact, the teachings of Jesus rather often won’t make sense ahead of time. Often enough, they make no sense at all until we obey them. Which is to say, the first thing to be said about the teachings of Jesus is that we follow them because we place our trust in Jesus. What He says is not separable from who He is. Thus, He commissions the Church to teach all things “which I have commanded.”

And today He says, “Whoever comes to Me and hears My words.” There is no such thing as real Christian teaching that can subsist without Jesus. Jesus is the not the sort of religious teacher from whom the world may take what it likes and leave aside what it doesn’t want.

Whole countries are full of folks that call themselves Christians, but who have absolutely no personal familiarity with Christ. They think they are Christians because they adhere to some sanitized Christian moral code, or insouciantly assent to some creedal formulations vaguely remembered and never actually thought about. But they do not, in the depths of their conscience, know Christ. The teachings of Christ have become separated from the person of Christ. This is not real Christian discipleship.

Second, what is needed in a foundation is depth: “He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock.” Jesus contrasts such a man with what we may call surface Christianity, a discipleship that is only skin deep: “But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation.”

The hour of temptation will prove whose house is solidly established, and who has what may be described as trailer-park faith. The folks most at risk in a storm are the poor who live in trailer homes, homes without foundations. It is the same in the realm of faith. The faith of some Christians is trailer-park faith. The slightest wind will blow it over. As Jesus describes the matter, saying that against such a house “the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great.”

Thousands of people joined the Christian Church in the second half of the first century, and the vast majority of them fell away during the persecutions at the end of that century and the first decade of the new century. Their faith was not solid, and they fell away, as the Gospel says, “immediately.” Pliny wrote to the Emperor Trajan that most Christians willingly denied Christ on the mere threat of persecution.

This is why the Church of the 2nd century instituted a very strict regimen for catechumens, a time of 3 years of probation and instruction prior to baptism. To accept the discipleship of Christ is to put one’s signature on his own warrant. This is why we do not permit people to join the Church right away, as soon as they want to. It is no favor to anybody to permit this. Becoming a disciple of Christ is a very risky business, and Jesus today speaks of that risk: “the ruin of that house is great.” It would have been far better if Judas Iscariot had never even heard the name of Jesus of Nazareth.

Third, depth is attained by disciplined obedience. Jesus expresses it thusly: “Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like: He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock.” Depth comes from being what St. James calls the “doer of the Word.” Such a one may not be interested in speculative religious and theological questions. He does things; he acts in accord with his faith in Jesus.

Indeed, speculative religious and theological questions can be great distractions, which take our attention away from real obedience. Such questions appealed to the Samaritan women, who had five husbands and was currently living with a man that was not her husband. Instead of giving her attention to her own standing with God, she was all preoccupied about whether they should worship in Jerusalem or on Mount Gerazim. This is why Jesus pulled her up short. Religious and theological speculations are not the way to God.

The way to God is to come to Jesus and to hear and do His word, to obey Him. He is not only our Savior; he is also our Lord. This is what St. Paul meant by his expression, “the obedience of faith.” We attain depth in the Christian life—the life in Christ—by the steady application of what we know, the utter simplicity of the Gospel.

Friday, September 18

Judges 21: The governing motif of this chapter is rebirth for the tribe of Benjamin.

It begins with a problem. The other Israelites have taken a vow not to let their daughters marry Benjaminites. This is the problem. No one had instructed them to make that vow, and now the vow has created a serious difficulty. They had taken the vow before they offered the sacrifice of reconciliation. They had acted with a split mind, doing things that were mutually opposed. This is an example of a rash vow, of the sort that Jephthe made. Such vows often enough create bigger problems than those they were supposed to solve. Anyway, this is the problem governing the present chapter, and the Israelites themselves caused it.

The story is full of irony, of course. For example, it ends at the shrine city of Shiloh, one of the ancient words for “peace.” The scene, however, is anything but peaceful.

How do we explain all this contradiction and activity at cross-purposes? The chapter’s final verse does the best it can for an explanation. Namely, everybody was following his own inclination and preference. “Everybody do what you want,” though a slogan not without popular appeal in our own times, is a formula for chaos, and what we have here toward the end of Judges is a chaotic situation.

Still, the Book of Judges finishes with an act of deliverance and a new birth. Benjamin is spared. It does not disappear from history, as did Simeon and Reuben. From the tribe of Benjamin, in fact, would come, in due course, the Apostle Paul. This final chapter, then, is about God’s fidelity even in the midst of irony and chaos.

Friday, September 4

Psalm 31: The correct sense of Psalm 31 (Greek and Latin 30) is indicated in verse 5: “Into Your hand I commend my spirit.” This verse, according to Luke 23:46, was the final prayer of our Lord from the Cross, and I take it to indicate the proper “voice” of this whole psalm. It is the prayer of “Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame” (Heb. 12:2), speaking to His Father in the context of His sufferings and death. This psalm is part of His prayer of faith.

In making this psalm our own, we Christians are subsumed into the voice and prayer of Christ. We partake of His own relationship to the Father. No one, after all, knows the Father except the Son and the one “to whom the Son wills to reveal Him” (Matt. 11:27). Our only access to God is through Christ and the mediation of His atoning blood. Our incorporation into Christ is the foundation of all our prayer. Only in Christ do we call God our Father. The only prayer that passes beyond the veil, to His very throne, is prayer saturated with the redeeming blood of Christ. This is the prayer that cries out more eloquently than the blood of Abel.

In this psalm, then, the voice of Christ becomes our own voice: “In You, O Lord, I put my trust, let me never be put to shame. Deliver me in Your righteousness. . . . You have redeemed me, Lord God of truth. . . . But I trust in the Lord. I will be glad and rejoice in Your mercy. . . . But as for me, I trust in You, O Lord; I say ‘You are my God.’ . . . Oh, how great is Your goodness, which You have laid up for those who fear You, which You have prepared for those who trust in You.” The righteousness of God is our salvation in Christ, “whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness” (Rom. 3:25). Likewise, this trust in God is the source of our sanctification, as in the words of the standard Orthodox prayer: “O God . . . who sanctify those who put their trust in You.”

This committing of our souls to God in loving trust is not just one of the various things we do as Christians; it is the essential feature of our life in Christ: “Therefore let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good, as to a faithful Creator” (1 Pet. 4:19).

In this psalm we enter into the sentiments and thoughts of Jesus in His sufferings. We see the Passion “from the inside,” as it were. There is the plot, recorded in the Gospels, to take His life (cf. Mark 3:6; 14:1): “Pull me out of the net that they have secretly laid for me. . . . Fear is on every side; while they take counsel together against me, they scheme to take away my life.” There are the false witnesses rising against Him (cf. Mark 14:55–59): “Let the lying lips be put to silence, which speak insolent things proudly and contemptuously against the righteous.” We learn of the flight of His friends and the mockery of His enemies (cf. Mark 14:50; 15:29–32): “I am a reproach among all my enemies, but especially among my neighbors, and am repulsive to my acquaintances; those who see me outside flee from me. I am forgotten like a dead man, out of mind.” There is, moreover, that awesome mystery by which God “made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21), “so the Scripture was fulfilled which says, ‘And He was numbered with the transgressors’” (Mark 15:28): “For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away.”

The reason that the voice of Christ in His Passion must become our own voice is that His Passion itself provides the pattern for our own lives: “But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in their synagogues” (Matt. 10:17). “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake” (24:9). We are to be baptized with His baptism; the bitter cup that He drinks we too are to taste in our own souls. The prayer of His Passion becomes our own, because “all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (2 Tim. 3:12).

Throughout this psalm there is also an ongoing changing of tenses, back and forth between past and future. We have been redeemed, but we still pray for our final deliverance. Even as we taste the coming enjoyment of God’s eternal presence, hope’s struggle in this world goes on: “For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope” (Rom. 8:24).

Saturday, September 5

Psalm 30: This psalm (Greek and Latin 29) bears a curious title that tells us something interesting of this psalm’s use in ancient Judaism: “A Psalm of David. A Song at the dedication of the House of David.”

First, it is ascribed to King David, nor is it difficult to think of him praying this psalm of thanksgiving for the Lord’s deliverance. After all, David came to the throne of Israel after years of oppression and exile under Saul, and these are the sentiments we would expect on his being delivered from those hard times.

Second, however, besides its individual and personal use in the case of David, this psalm was later sung as part of a communal, liturgical festival celebrated every year—the Dedication (Hanukkah) of the temple. This was a winter feast (cf. John 10:22) dating from 165 B.C., and Jews around the world continue to celebrate it even today, long after their temple has disappeared from history.

This twofold historical use of our psalm already suggests more than one layer of meaning. First, there is the remembrance of David’s years of oppression and exile, followed by a final deliverance: “I will extol you, O Lord, for You have lifted me up, and have not let my foes rejoice over me.”

But the second half of the title, which tells us of its use at the feast of Hanukkah, indicates its communal use. David’s personal sentiments of gratitude and praise to the redeeming God became incorporated into Israel’s restoration to her temple after years of oppression and strife. This history is narrated in chapters 1—4 of 1 Maccabees. When Antiochus Epiphanes IV came to the throne of Syria in September of 175 B.C., it was the beginning of very hard times for the Chosen People. Their oppression by this ruthless overlord included even the desecration of the temple. At the end of this decade of terror (175–165), when Judas Maccabaeus rededicated the temple at Jerusalem, Israel felt it could now, with unburdened heart, make its own the ancient sentiments of David: “I will extol you, O Lord, for You have lifted me up, and have not let my foes rejoice over me.”

But both David and the temple were “types” of Him who was to come, and the deeper, truer voice in this psalm is Christ our Lord on the day of the Resurrection: “O Lord, you have brought my soul up from the grave; You have kept me alive, that I should not go down into the abyss.” The time of suffering was followed by the morning of the paschal deliverance: “For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life.” The dark hour of the Passion (cf. John 13:30) gave way to the dawn of victory.

In the Garden, on the night in which He was betrayed, the Lord had prayed for this deliverance: “You hid Your face, and I was troubled. . . . I cried to You, O Lord; and to the Lord I made supplication: ‘What profit is there in my blood, when I go down into the pit? Will the dust praise You? Will it declare Your truth? Hear, O Lord, and have mercy on me; Lord, be my helper’.”

The New Testament describes that Garden prayer of the Lord “who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear” (Heb. 5:7). And on the dawning of the day of Easter victor
y, our psalm refers back to God’s hearing of that vehement prayer of tears: “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. . . . You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness.”

Christ is the true David, the new Israel’s sweet Psalmist, our song-master in the eternal praise of God: “Sing praises to the Lord, you saints of His, and give thanks to the remembrance of His holy name. . . . To the end that my glory may sing praise to You and not be silent. O Lord, my God, I will give thanks to you forever.”

Old Israel’s winter Feast of Dedication (Hanukkah) is now the new Israel’s spring feast of Pascha, for Christ is the true Temple, of which St. John wrote: “But I saw no temple in [heaven], for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple” (Rev. 21:22). When the Lord told His enemies: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” they misunderstood him, not aware that “He was speaking of the temple of His body. Therefore, when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them” (John 2:19–22).

Sunday, September 6

Psalm 98: The latter part of Isaiah, in which the dominant theme is Israel’s return from the Babylonian Captivity, speaks several times of God’s “arm,” a metaphor especially used in conjunction with the noun “salvation” and the adjective “holy” (Is. 40:10; 51:9; 52:10; 53:1; 59:16; 63:5). This robust image of God’s arm, which had first appeared in the Bible in the context of the people’s deliverance from Egypt (cf. Ex. 6:6; 15:16), was thus applied to their return from exile in Babylon. In each case, the redemption of the oppressed was ascribed to the holy flexing of God’s muscle, as it were, on their behalf.

It is significant that the Mother of God summoned this same metaphor to describe God’s definitive historical intervention on behalf of His people: “Holy is His name, / And His mercy is on those who fear Him, / From generation to generation. / He has shown strength with His arm” (Luke 1:49–51). God’s arm in these contexts is an image of His “power according to the Spirit of holiness” (Rom. 1:4), “the power of God to salvation” (1:16).

The same reference to God’s holy, salvific arm appears several times in Psalms, one example being the opening of Psalm 98 (Greek and Latin 97): “Sing to the Lord a new song, for the Lord has done wondrous things; His right hand and His holy arm have wrought salvation.”

God’s salvation is not simply a thing announced, but a “wrought” reality. In saving us, God truly does certain deeds, “wondrous things,” by which we are redeemed. God saves man by the forceful intrusion of His holiness into man’s history. God’s arm is a metaphor of this irrupting redemptive holiness. In the “wondrous things” of the Incarnation, the Atonement, the Resurrection, God’s arm invades the processes of human destiny with the outpouring of His own life. Man’s life is thereby given access to the incorruptible life of God.

This, says our psalm, is the substance of the Gospel proclaimed to the nations and peoples of the earth: “The Lord has made known His salvation; unto the nations has He revealed His righteousness. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.”

The substance of the Gospel, then, is not some theory about God or even some set of norms by which man is to live. At root, the Gospel has absolutely nothing in common with even the highest religious speculations, such as those of the Upanishads, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Lao Tzi, or the Buddha. In the strictest possible sense, beyond all human reckoning or expectation, the Gospel is a “new song,” a radically different voice on the human scene. It is the revelation of God’s holy arm taking charge of man’s history. It is that redemptive, holy activity by which “He has shown strength with His arm.” It is “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24).

Such is the meaning of Theophany, literally “the appearing of God” in man’s history. This appearing of God is not a general and pervasive luminosity to which the human race has a ready and easy access. It is, on the contrary, most particular, very specified with respect to time and place. God has become incarnate only once. Only once has the price of our sins been paid. Only once has He “appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by a Man whom He has ordained.” Moreover, “He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17:31). Only once has God done all of these “wondrous things.”

Our psalm speaks likewise of this latter judgment of the world by one Man whom He has ordained. “For He comes to judge the earth,” it says, “He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with uprightness.” All of human history will, at the last, be summoned before the same Judge whom God has ordained, giving “assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.” This single, unique standard of the final judgment is likewise a component of the Gospel itself: “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him” (Matt. 25:31, 32).

Particular in the time and place of its appearance, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is nonetheless universal as the canon and measure of man’s destiny, being solely the source of the “knowledge of salvation” (Luke 1:77).

Monday, September 7

Psalm 44: Second Chronicles 20:1–19 describes a special liturgical service at the Jerusalem temple, in which King Jehoshaphat (873–849) led the people in a prayer of lamentation and intercession during a time of great crisis. He also proclaimed a period of fasting, for the plight of the people seemed desperate; their enemies were upon them, and “Judah gathered together to ask help from the Lord” (20:4).

There were many such occasions in biblical times, and many more since then, for the enemies of God’s people are both numerous (“My name is Legion; for we are many,” Mark 5:9) and powerful (“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places,” Eph. 6:12). Indeed, we are continually at war, we children of God, and we sometimes feel simply overwhelmed, almost empty of hope.

Psalm 44 (Hebrew 44) was obviously written for such times: “You have given us as sheep to the slaughter and scattered us among the nations. You have bartered Your people for a pittance and made no profit on the sale.” A useful prayer, this psalm of despondency, because the life of faith is not a sustained, uninterrupted series of triumphs.

The prayer begins, however, with an appeal to Tradition: “We have heard with our ears, O God; our fathers have told us.” Such an appeal to the lessons of history is, of course, standard in the Bible, for the biblical God is, first and last, “the God of our fathers.” Thus, the message of Genesis has to do with God’s fidelity to Israel’s patriarchs, while Exodus tells of Israel’s redemption by that same patriarchal God. Other historical books of the Bible narrate the continued faithfulness of His promises to an unfaithful people. The prophetic literature, likewise, constantly looks back to God’s redemptive work throughout Israel’s history, as both paradigm and prophecy of what He will do for His people in the future.

A similar note is sounded strongly in the Wisdom literature of the Bible. The Book of Proverbs, for instance, is forever appealing to the moral lessons of history, that complex of disciplines and standards learned by experience, prescribed by the authority of Tradition and handed down through succeeding generations. In this case too, biblical religi
on is essentially an inherited religion, and its Lord is “the God of our fathers.”

Tradition is also the note on which our psalm begins, then, almost its entire first half being taken up with a review of past experience. But God is not only the God of the patriarchs in the past; He is also our own God, one and the same: “You are my king and my God, You who command victories for Jacob.”

Then suddenly the psalm’s tone changes, for the reassuring lessons from the past are now being put sternly to the test: “But You have cast us off and put us to shame. You no longer march forth with our armies; You have turned us back from the foe, and our enemies plunder us at will.”

The situation here may be likened to that of Job. He too had ever endeavored to be pleasing to the God of the fathers, steadfastly following the high moral precepts handed down from authorities of old. If one reads carefully what is said of Job in the first chapter of the book that bears his name, it is clear that he is a perfect embodiment of the traditional prescriptive norms treated in Proverbs and Israel’s other wisdom literature.

Thus, when Job is undeservedly afflicted, his sentiments are very much what we find here in our psalm—shock, surprise, and disappointment. He complains to God, very much as this psalm complains: “You have made us the taunt of our neighbors, a derision and scorn to those about us.” Such is the prayer of those who, like Job, feel overwhelmed by the sense that, in spite of His salvific deeds in the past and His promises for the future, God has simply forgotten. There are days when, if we are believers at all, we can only be described as “men of little faith.”

Psalm 44 is the prayer of an individual, or a people, being sorely tried with respect to faith. Were it not for such experiences of being abandoned by God, there would be no test for the important proposition that the just man lives by faith. Whatever the trial (and its possible forms are manifold), it is finally the voice of faith—albeit, little faith—that prevails in this psalm. We pray to the Lord with those other men that our Lord describes as “of little faith,” the frightened disciples on the stormy lake: “Awake! Why do You sleep, O Lord? Rise up, and do not cast us off forever. . . . Arise and come to our help; deliver us for the sake of Your name.”

From Romans 8:35, 36 we know how the Apostle Paul prayed this psalm, seeing in its lament a reflection of the sufferings in his own soul by reason of his fidelity to Christ: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: /‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; / We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’“

Tuesday, September 8

Luke 5:17-26: In all three Synoptic Gospels, the healing of the paralytic (Matthew 9:1–8; Mark 2:1–12; Luke 5:17–26) is followed immediately by the calling of the tax collector and the Lord’s eating with sinners (Matthew 9:9–13; Mark 2:13–17; Luke 5:27–32). This common sequence of the two narratives probably reflects an early preaching pattern, explained by the fact that both stories deal with the same theme: Jesus’ relationship to sin and sinners. The paralytic was healed, after all, “that you may know that the Son of Man has power [authority] on earth to forgive sins,” and the point of the second story is that “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Thus, the most significant thing about the paralytic is not his paralysis, but his “sins,” so this is what Jesus addresses first. Indeed, even when He heals the paralysis, Jesus does so in order to demonstrate His authority over the man’s sins. In what He does in this scene, then, Jesus inserts Himself between God and the man, speaking to the man with God’s authority. It is not without significance that all three versions of the story also include the detail that Jesus could, like God, read His accusers’ inner thoughts.

In each of the three Synoptic Gospels, moreover, the Lord’s claim to authority over sin here becomes the first occasion on which His enemies accuse Him of blasphemy. This is significant too, because at His judicial process before the Sanhedrin, blasphemy will be the crime of which He is accused. In a sense, then, Jesus’ trial begins with His healing of the paralytic, because even His enemies recognize this scene as the occasion on which He forcefully claims divine authority.

This more dramatic aspect of the account is perhaps clearest in the versions of Mark and Luke, where it is the first of five conflict stories that cast an ominous cloud over Jesus’ activity through the rest of those Gospels (Mark 2:1—3:5; Luke 5:17—6:11). In Mark’s rendering, furthermore, the resolve to “destroy” Jesus is explicitly taken at the end of this sequence (3:5).

In all three Synoptic Gospels, the paralytic becomes the “type” of the sinner. He is helpless, carried by others because he cannot carry himself. He is utterly in need of mercy above all things. Indeed, even his forgiveness and his cure are not credited to his own faith. All three accounts mention that the Lord sees the faith, not of the paralytic, but of the men who support him.

Even functioning as a literary and theological type, however, this paralytic is certainly not reduced to an abstraction. Indeed, because of the detail of the removal of the roof (in Mark and Luke) in order to lower the paralytic down into Jesus’ presence, still dangling between earth and heaven, this is one of the more colorful and unforgettable scenes in the Gospels.

Wednesday, September 9

Judges 12: Jephthe is not the first Judge to have trouble with the Ephraemites (verses 1-7). We recall Gideon’s earlier difficulties with them.

Here they threaten to burn down Jephthe’s house, the very house from which he recently saw exit his now mourned daughter. This is the house that the Ephraemites threaten to burn down. This threat was not a proposition crafted to bring out the gentleman in Jephthe. It showed bad judgment.

It was also bad timing. Not having gone to battle before; the Ephraemites are ready to fight after the fight is over. The Lord had given victory anyway, and the Ephraemites had not been part of the victory. Now they threaten the very man through whom the Lord gave the victory. They are the classical troublemakers, itching for a fight after the fighting is done.

Ever the man of peace, by preference, Jephthe endeavored to reason with these fools, as he had earlier attempted with the Ammonites. The Ephraemites, however, under the impulse of an irrational jealousy, refuse to act moderately or listen to reason.

The Jordan River, which divides the Ephraemites from most of Israel, is also the place of a linguistic divide, which will prove to make it, in the present context, a place of judgment. It is as a place of judgment that the Jordan River will later be the site of the preaching of John the Baptist.

Ephraem never learned its lesson. Never. Having resisted Gideon and Jephthe, it would resist David and rebel against Solomon. The Lord would later use the Assyrian army, under Sargon II, to take care of the problem.

And then Jephthe dies (verses 8-15). Why does Holy Scripture tell us that he died? Obviously it is not something that we doubt, so why mention it? Indeed, of some of the Judges we know precious little more than the fact that they died, so why bother with saying so?

The reason is theological. Each of these men was a deliverer of his people. Yet each of them died. Their deliverance, therefore, was temporary. In each case, death got the last word. That is to say, death still ruled. The mortality brought into the world by Adam’s offense still prevailed. Of not a single one of these men was it said that they rose again. In every instance, death was finally victorious over life. That is the real difference between the New Testam
ent and the Old.

It is also the reason why burial sites are mentioned. Tombs are memorials. Men look upon them and are reminded of that supreme humiliation called death. This is why tombs are prominent in the Bible. They stand in eloquent testimony that something is very wrong in human life. Tombstones are the standing reminders of, the perpetual witnesses to, the fall of Adam. This is why, like the Ten Commandments, they are normally made of stone. They are stone because they testify to a hard fact, a fact you can lean on, and it will not give way.

But tombstones are also witnesses to man’s hope. Besides the past to which they refer, they point to the future and the Resurrection.

Thursday, September 10

Judges 13: We now come to Samson, whose great physical strength made him one of the most memorable characters in Holy Scripture. If (as I have argued elsewhere) Jacob is the Semitic equivalent of the classical Odysseus, we may think of Samson as the Semitic parallel to the classical Hercules. In both cases, their stories form a series of “feats.” Indeed, St. Augustine testifies how easy it was for his contemporaries to confuse the two: “. . . there was also the Judge of the Hebrews, Samson, who, because he was so marvelously strong, has been thought to be Hercules”— erat et Hebraeorum judex Samson, qui cum mirabiliter fortis esset, putatus est Hercules (The City of God, 18:19).

Up till now, whenever the Book of Judges spoke of the political oppression of the Israelites, the text invariably went on to say that Israel repented and turned to the Lord. Not here, however. There is no mention of repenting or turning to the Lord. Israel no longer has the ability even to repent. Israel has hit rock bottom, and all human hope is gone verse 1).

In this chapter we observe that God speaks to the woman first, not Manoah (verses 2-7). Earlier, we recall, God spoke first to Rebekah, not Isaac (Genesis 25).

The message of the angel to Manoah’s wife touches on the biblical theme of the barren woman (cf. Sarah, Hannah, Elizabeth, et aliae. The introduction of this theme continues the note of despair with which the chapter began.

We bear in mind that all three of the “permanent Nazirites” in the Bible (Samson, Samuel, John the Baptist) were born of seemingly barren women. Each of these mothers is a kind of new Eve, receiving God’s promise in the midst of her own sense of inadequacy.

The second visitation (verses 9-10) reinforces the fact that the message was for the woman. The angel ‘deliberately’ appears when Manoah is absent. When questioned by Manoah (verse 12), the angel responds that he has already said all he has to say—to the woman! (verse 13) Manoah is the nervous questioner, but all the needful information had already been conveyed in the first apparition. There is nothing to add. The angel simply repeats what he had said before, and this time with less detail (verse 14).

The angel is not going to explain himself. He was sent to earth to convey a promise and a command, not to give a news flash. He was proclaiming God’s plan of redemption and man’s place in that plan. The salvific initiative is God’s. The proper response to the message is obedience, not curiosity for more details.

Manoah, that is to say, is like the rest of the Israelites. None of them have been serving God and seeking His will. But now that God proposes a plan for deliverance, Manoah is full of questions and curiosity. He wants a more active role in the plan. There isn’t one. God does not need Manoah. God is not interested in Manoah’s questions and curiosities.

Manoah is a curious combination of audacious, inquisitive, controlling, and superstitious. Only such a man will get out of line with an archangel. (Compare Zachary in Luke 1)

Manoah is also not a quick learner (verses 15-23). Having heard the Lord’s message, he now wants to deal with the Lord’s messenger. Manoah is spiritually insensitive. Indeed, given how dangerous it can be to deal with the biblical God, Manoah is let off pretty easy. He is not struck dead like Uzzah!

But what does Manoah accomplish? At the end of the scene he knows no more than he did at the beginning. God had given as much information as was required. This second apparition of the angel served only to point out Manoah’s limitations more clearly.

Manoah’s attitude was not unique. On the contrary, he was typical of his own culture, which was shallow, audacious, recklessly inquisitive, and deeply superstitious.

In these respects, Manoah’s inherited religious culture was a great deal like our own. Our own culture too knows very little of the biblical God. It is highly subjective, pretentious, and insensitive to the presence of holiness. It craves quick and easy answers to deep and impossibly complex questions. It is a generation disposed to wear its shoes at the Burning Bush. And what does God do with such a generation? He sends someone like Samson to knock some heads together.

The name Samson (verse 24) is a derivative of shemesh, meaning “sun.” Indeed, Samson resembles the sun as described in Psalm 19: “as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber; he rejoices as a giant to run his course.” The very next chapter will describe Samson as a bridegroom. In fact, after strong man, bridegroom is the description of Samson most easily remembered.

Friday, September 11

Judges 14: It is significant, surely, that all three stories about Samson have to do with women. His addiction to women is Samson’s tragic flaw. It would be easy enough to blame the women, I suppose, but that would be missing the point. The problem is Samson’s.

This first story about Samson (verses 1-4) concerns his projected marriage to a Philistine woman, and we recall that the previous chapter began by describing Israel’s bondage to the Philistines. Samson’s fascination with this Philistine woman, then, symbolizes Israel’s fascination with the surrounding paganism, a fascination that in each case leads to blindness and death.

As a consecrated Nazirite, Samson represents Israel’s higher calling and dedication to the true God in true worship. His failure to live according to that higher calling is symbolic of Israel’s failure.

Samson’s parents mention that Israelites are not supposed to marry pagans, but the inspired author speaks of God’s own plan, even in this deviation from the Law. All of Samson’s career, including his sins, will be under the influence of Divine Providence. Through all of it, God will bring good out of evil.

A strong man, but also a very weak man, Samson is an ironical figure. Ultimately his victory over the Philistines will involve both his weakness and his strength.

The blindness of Samson, however, begins very early in the story. In a sense, indeed, Samson starts out blind, long before the Philistines gouge out his eyes. Through this whole account Samson seems to be walking in the darkness. No matter. God knows where the story is going.

The story of the lion (verses -9) invites a comparison between Samson and David., both of whom fought against Philistines. The latter are symbolized in the lion. David, before he killed the Philistine Goliath, first killed the lion. Samson, before he takes on the Philistines, kills a lion with his bare hands.

This is why the Spirit of the Lord came down on Samson, as the Spirit of the Lord will descend on him in the next chapter. The roaring of the lion will be matched by the shouting of the Philistines. Samson will tear the binding cords apart, just as he tore the lion apart.

The killing of the lion, then, symbolizes Samson’s vocation. Indeed, Samson’s own tribe, Dan, was liked to a lion: “Dan is a lion’s whelp that leaps forth from Bashan” (Deuteronomy 33:22).

Once the lion is dead, the bees build their hive in its carcass. This symbolizes the Holy Land itself, flowing with milk and honey. What is this honey? It is th
e tasting of God’s Law, which the Psalter describes a sweeter than honey. This honey is the fruit of Samson’s victory over the lion. It is the result of his combat with the lion.

Samson will use this incident to stump the Philistines. That is to say, he perceives the incident to involve a riddle, or mystery. There is a mystery in the lion and the honey that lies beyond the comprehension of his enemies.

The honey in the carcass is symbolic also of Samson himself, who will be victorious in his defeat. Sweetness will come from his death.

Samson’s first contest with the Philistines (verses 12-14) will not be a test of muscles but of brains. He will attempt to outwit them, as Moses had done with the Philistines.

Alas, Samson the riddler does something not very bright. He is deceived by the woman, and this is Samson’s first experience of betrayal. The real treachery, on the other hand, comes from Samson’s own emotions. He loses control. He is betrayed by his feelings. Had he maintained control over his emotions, the woman would never have deceived him. The man who cannot control himself can hope to control nothing else.

The wedding feast ends badly.