Friday, August 8
2 Peter 2:12-22: Of the two Old Testament accounts given of Balaam (Numbers 22-24 [cf. Joshua 24:9-10; Micah 6:5; Deuteronomy 23:3-6] and Numbers 31), only the second portrays him in a bad light, as responsible for tempting the Israelites into lust and apostasy in their encounter with the Midianites. For this sin he is killed in Israel’s war with Midian (cf. Numbers 31:8; Joshua 13:22).
Peter’s negative comments on Balaam in the present text are similar to those found in rabbinical sources and in the Jewish philosopher Philo. His foul counsel to the Midianites, whereby young Israelite men were brought to their spiritual peril, was taken by early Christian writers as symbolic of the deceptions of false teachers. One finds this perspective expressed, not only here in Peter, but also in Jude 11 and Revelation 2:14. Balaam is the very image of the deceitful teacher, and hardly any other group is criticized more often or more severely in Holy Scripture than the false teacher. One finds this condemnation in Peter, Jude, James, Paul, and John.
In the present chapter the false teachers are singled out for deceiving the newly converted (verses 2,14,20-22), an especially vulnerable group of believers, who are not yet mature in solid doctrine. These latter, in the very fervor of their conversion, are often seduced by unreliable teachers who prey on their inexperience. In the mouths of false teachers, little distinction is made between liberty and libertinism (verse 19; 1 Peter 2:16; Romans 6:16; John 8:34), and they use the enthusiasm of the newcomer to change conversion to subversion.
Amos 9: The prophet’s final vision is the altar at which the Lord stands to commence the day of judgment (verses 1-6). This is apparently the altar in the shrine at Bethel. The burden of this message is that no one will escape the judgment of God, for the whole universe belongs to Him, and no one can hide from His presence.
The closing verses introduce a reassessment of the very notion of Israel as God’s “chosen” people. Chosen for what? For privilege? Hardly. For responsibility, rather, at which the people have abjectly failed.
It has become obvious to Amos that if God chose Israel, it was for reasons larger than Israel, which has so thoroughly repudiated the implications of His choice. The history of all nations, in fact, is under His sway, and the history of Israel fits into the larger designs of His heart.
For that reason, the destruction of Samaria is not the end of God’s interest in the world. Judah yet remains (verse 8), and God has other purposes in mind in the sometimes violent sifting processes of history (verse 9).
The Northern Kingdom was never party to an independent covenant. The house of David was, however, and the Lord will honor that covenant (verse 11).
Christian readers correctly see in this proclamation the promise of the Messiah, in whom will converge all the developments of history.
Thus, the nations condemned in the opening two chapters of this book are blessed on its final page.
Saturday, August 9
Mark 10:46-52: All through chapters 8 to 10 Mark has narrated Jesus’ journey along the “way” (hodos) of the Cross, a story structured on the Lord’s three predictions of his coming Passion. At each stage in this journey His own disciples, the twelve Apostles, have shown nothing but resistance to the Word of the Cross. The time has now arrived for Jesus to begin the week of the Passion. He journeys through Jericho on His way to Jerusalem. The crisis is at hand
The “way” (hodos) of the Cross is mentioned several times during these chapters. It is Mark’s travel motif. Indeed, the opening dialogue of this section is placed “on the way”: Now Jesus and His disciples went out to the towns of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way (hodos) He asked His disciples, saying to them, ‘Who do men say that I am?’” (8.27)
Again, at the very time Jesus was giving the disciples his second prophecy of the Passion, they were arguing among themselves which of them had preeminence. This happened “on the way”: “Then He came to Capernaum. And when He was in the house He asked them, ‘What was it you disputed among yourselves on the way (hodos)?’ But they kept silent, for on the way (hodos) they had disputed among themselves who would be the greatest” (9.33-34).
In the present chapter, it was “on the way” that the rich man approached Jesus: “Now as He was going out on the way (hodos), one came running, knelt before Him, and asked Him, ‘Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?’” (10.17)
The word appears again, when Jesus gives the third prophecy of the Passion: “Now they were on the way (hodos), going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was going before them; and they were discomfited. And as they followed they were afraid” (10.32).
Finally, in the story of the blind man, we are told, “As He went out of Jericho with His disciples and a great multitude, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the way (hodos), begging” (10.46).
As usual the disciples, endeavoring to exert their own authority, try to stifle the cries of the blind man. He cries out all the more, calling Jesus the “Son of David.”
Up till this point in Mark, Jesus has resisted this messianic title, which in context was fraught with dubious political implications. This time, however, He does not forbid the man to call Him “Son of David.” The context has changed; Jesus is on the threshold of His Passion.
The curing of the blind man in this scene, last miracle of healing in the Gospel of Mark, represents the curing of the spiritual blindness that has characterized Jesus’ disciples all through these past three chapters of Mark. For three chapters Jesus has been summoning men to follow Him along the way of the Cross. This blind man, now able to see, follows Jesus along the way (hodos) — 10.52).
The memory of this blind man’s name indicates that he was a person well known among the early Christians.
Sunday, August 10
Acts 21.26-36: Paul begins daily worship in the temple as the sponsor of the four men under vow, to provide the offering required on such occasions (verse 26). A week later he is recognized in the temple by some of the same Asian Jews with whom he has already had so many painful experiences (verse 27; 18:19; 20:19).
It is important to observe that the objections to Paul at Jerusalem do not come from the Jewish Christians living there, but from the Diaspora Jews, whose presence in Jerusalem is occasioned by the feast of Pentecost (20:6,16), a normal time for pilgrimage to the temple.
On the streets of the city these Jewish pilgrims had already recognized Trophimus, a Christian from Asia; he had accompanied Paul to Jerusalem for the purpose of transporting the collection of money for the poor (20:4; cf. also 2 Timothy 4:20). Since he was seen in Jerusalem in Paul’s company, the Jews from Ephesus accuse Paul of introducing this Gentile into the restricted parts of the temple—that is, beyond the Court of the Gentiles.
The gravity of their accusation is indicated in the inscription, written in both Greek and Latin, which separated that court from the Court of Women (Josephus, Jewish War 5.5.2; Antiquities 15.11.5 [417]; cf. also Ephesians 2:14).
That inscription, discovered by C. S. Clermont-Ganneau in 1871, says: “No foreigner [non-Jew] is to enter within the balustrade and the embankment that surrounds the sanctuary. If anyone is apprehended in the act, let him know that he must hold himself to blame for the penalty of death that will follow.”
Suddenly, Paul’s situation turns dangerous.
Haggai 2: The first oracle in this chapter was given on October 5, 520 B.C. (verse 1) The twentieth day of the month Tishri was the fifth day of the week called the Feast of Tabernacles (cf. Leviticus 23:34), an autumnal harvest celebration (cf. Deuteronomy 16:13), intentionally replicated in our own Thanksgiving Day.
In the year 520 BC that festival was especially significant, because God’s people had begun to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, a replacement for the Solomonic temple destroyed by the Babylonians sixty-six years earlier.
As they rebuilt it, however, a very disappointing fact was becoming clear to the people — namely, that this new structure, when finally completed, was going to be pretty small, because the people had nowhere near the financial resources available to Solomon when he had constructed the first temple four centuries earlier. Like the men who were building it, this new temple would be poor (verse 3; cf. Ezra 3:12-13).
Nonetheless, said Haggai, this new house of God would be adorned, in due course, with silver and riches from around the world (verses 7-9). A literal translation of verse 7 from the Hebrew (“I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of the nations will come in”) makes perfect sense, meaning that Jews from all over the world, coming to the new temple on pilgrimage, would continue to adorn and expand it until “the glory of the latter house would outshine that of the former.”
However, the ancient Christian Latin translation of this verse (reflected, curiously, in the King James Version), reads, et veniet Desideratus cunctis gentibus, which means, “and He who is desired by the nations will come.” This translation is echoed, of course, in the final verse of the old Veni Emmanuel hymn adapted from the “O Antiphons” of Advent, “O Come, Desire of nations, bind / in one the hearts of all mankind.” That is to say, the new temple of Haggai’s era was the very temple into which Jesus, the One desired by the nations, would enter.
Monday, August 11
Joshua 1
The Book of Joshua is introduced in a decisive—not to say abrupt—fashion:
It came to pass, after the death of Moses, the Lord’s servant, that the Lord spoke to Joshua ben-Nun, Moses’ deputy, saying, “Moses My servant is dead. Now, then, rise up, cross over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them-the sons of Israel. As I declared to Moses, I have given you every place that the sole of your foot may tread. From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the River Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and to the Great Sea toward the setting of the sun, shall be your territory.”
Since the conquest and settling of the Holy Land is the entire story in the Book of Joshua, it is important to understand these opening lines. We may begin by observing that—in at least two senses—boundaries are being crossed. First, with respect to time: The death of Moses is a distinct dividing line in biblical history. The death of Moses marks the end of a specific era. All Israel was waiting for him to die; at last they were able to enter the Promised Land. Second, this division pertains to space, as well as to time; the Jordan River is a geographical boundary; its crossing meant the end of wandering and the commencement of geographical stability. Thus, the text presents a crossover (‘abar, the root word of “Hebrew”) in both time and space.
The details of the Lord’s command to Joshua convey the impression of “here and now”: Moses is dead. Now then—we’ttah—rise up, cross over. Although everyone is to go over the river, the Lord’s command is laid on Joshua specifically; this is conveyed by the singular imperative form of the verbs: ‘rise up, cross over” (qum ‘abor).
In the repetition of the adjective “this” (hazzeh) the reader senses a physical immediacy, as though the Lord, in the act of commanding Joshua, is actually pointing to “this Jordan,” “this people,” “this Lebanon.”
Within the Lord’s command, the reader feels a tension, as it were, between the established past and the still indefinite future. This is conveyed in the tenses of the two verbs: “I have given you every place that the sole of your foot may tread.” The “I have given” (netattiv) is a “perfect of certitude”; the gift of the Land has already been made. The “may tread” (tidrok) is an “imperfect of possibility.” An established past and a somewhat indistinct future are combined.
With respect to the past, this command to Joshua is based on the Lord’s promise to Abraham: “To your seed I will give this land” (Genesis 12:7; cf. 15:7; 17:8). Two qualifications attended that gift. First, it was not an untrammeled real estate endowment; it was a clause in a covenant. To understand the gift, it is essential to understand the covenant. Second, the sons of Israel could never possess the land except as tenants: “The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with Me. (Leviticus 25:23).
With respect to the future, as well, Israel’s possession of the land is still a covenantal clause, not a real estate bequest separable from that covenant. When Israel, under Joshua’s leadership, took possession of the land, it was to prepare for the covenant’s fulfillment, in which—as God told Abraham—all the nations of the world would be blessed.
We Christians have a specific understanding of that fulfillment; it was declared by a rabbi who bore witness to it: “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He does not say, ‘And to seeds,’ as of many, but as of one, ‘And to your seed,’ who is Christ” (Galatians 3:16). The covenant with Abraham, of which the possession of the land was a clause, was fulfilled in Christ; Paul identifies Christ as the “seed” to whom the original promise was made.
The Israelites, then, conquered the land in order to prepare a place for God’s Messiah, Abraham’s seed, to be born and to live and to effect the work of salvation. Their territorial possession prepared for the rooting of the Cross in the promised soil. The ultimate consecration of the Promised Land came when the Messiah—who, like its original conqueror, was named Yeshuah—rose from a grave in the middle of it.
Christian theology declines to separate God’s gift of the land to Israel from the larger context that defines it. God makes no promises—God gives no gifts—apart from the Messiah. He is the divine affirmation, God’s yes, to mankind: “For all the promises of God in him are yes” (2 Corinthians 1:20). This consideration is essential to the proper theological understanding of the Promised Land: It pertains to that greater contract which is the salvific blessing of the human race.
Christian theology refuses to isolate God’s gift of the Promised Land from the canonical fullness introduced into history by the arrival of the Messiah.
Tuesday, August 12
Psalms 105 (Greek and Latin 104): It is common to think of the Greeks as the first people to arrive at the notion of “history,” understood as the ability to perceive and narrate a single, coherent texture of many diverse events united by patterns of cause and effect. Thus, in the very first work to be called Historiai, in the fifth century before Christ, Herodotus was able to unite into a single interpretive picture the diverse accounts of several peoples and empires on three continents, over several centuries, as they came to bear on the Persian invasion of Asia Minor and Greece. Herodotus, therefore, is commonly called the world’s first historian.
In fact, however, since at least the reign of Solomon five centuries earlier, Israel had already demonstrated an analogous ability to trace coherent, interpretive patterns uniting historical events over an even longer period of time. These discerned patterns, further elaborated by later inspired authors, eventually became the panoramic vision of biblical history.
In Greek history, as in the formal Greek science that was beginning about the same time, the perspective was what we may call secular, in the sense that the empirical data were arranged into intelligible patterns requiring no transcendent or divine explanation. Much as the modern social sciences attempt to adopt the methodology of the physical sciences, so ancient Greek historiography tended to follow certain perspectives and procedures developed for Greek physical science. In this way both Greek history and Greek science represented a break with traditional mythology, which had endeavored to interpret observable phenomena by recourse to religious explanation.
In Israel’s historiography, on the other hand, all was theology. The unifying theme was God’s governance of events through various interventions, whether by perceived phenomena (miracles, apparitions, direct speech) or by that subtle, secret influence of divine activity that we have come to call God’s providence. It was to this latter that St. Paul referred when he wrote: “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:28).
One small biblical exercise in the narrative tracing of such a pattern is Psalm 105, the first of three consecutive psalms structured on detailed historical narrative. While their varying constructions show no original relationship joining them, the first two are arranged in the Psalter in such a way as to suggest an overlapping sequence. Thus, Psalm 105 begins with Abraham and ends with the Sinai covenant, while Psalm 106 begins with the Exodus and ends with the period after the Conquest.
Even the most casual reader will also note the similarities of Psalm 105 with Psalm 78 with respect to historical outline. These differ from one another considerably in inspiration, however. That earlier psalm especially emphasizes the repeated infidelities of the people, whereas Psalm 105 concentrates entirely on praising God for His providential directing of Israel’s history.
Following the primitive schema preserved in Deuteronomy 26:1–9, the narrative of Psalm 105 breaks into three parts: the Patriarchs, the sojourn in Egypt, and the Exodus, all of them joined by the themes of God’s fidelity to His covenant promises and His active providence in fulfilling them.
While the whole psalm deals with God’s providence on behalf of all the people, the second section, dealing with the sojourn in Egypt, also includes what we may think of as “individual” providence. What the Bible portrays as God’s care for the history of the whole people of Israel is shown also to be at work in the life and destiny of a single man. It is the awesome story of Joseph and God’s care for him through many trials. Sold by his brothers into Egypt, falsely accused and unjustly imprisoned, forsaken for twenty years, the faith of Joseph was still able to say, at the end: “God sent me before you to preserve life. . . . God sent me before you. . . . But as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Gen. 45:5, 7; 50:20). Joseph’s faith in God’s providence, even as he was proved by steel and fire, is preserved also in this psalm: “[God] sent a man before them, Joseph, sold into slavery. They humbled his feet with fetters; his soul was shackled in iron. Until his word came to pass, the word of the Lord seared through him.”
Wednesday, August 13
Mark 11.27-33: This encounter of Jesus with his opponents follows almost immediately on his purging of the Temple. Right after His triumphal entry into the city with the acclamations of the crowd, He proceeded to purge the Temple and then curse the fig tree. All of this was an exercise of “authority” (exsousia).
His enemies now approach Him in the Temple to challenge this “authority” implicitly claimed in what has happened. The reader already knows, of course, the source of Jesus’ authority, so the Gospel writers do not tell this story in order to inform the reader on this point. The story is told to show, rather, the Lord’s complete control of the situation, especially His deft discomfiting of these hypocritical enemies.
The question, then, has to do with Jesus’ “authority” (exsousia), a word that appears four times in this story. This was a word commonly used of the ministry and person of Jesus.
The purpose of the hostile question makes it what is sometimes called “a lawyer’s question,” indicating a question asked for the purpose of making the respondent say too much, a question asked in order to find something recriminating to be used later in a courtroom.
Knowing this, of course, Jesus is not disposed to answer the question. He responds, rather, with a question of His own, along with a pledge to answer the first question if His opponents will answer the second. This recourse to the counter-question is common in rabbinic style, and Jesus seems often to have used it.
The priests and elders immediately perceive their dilemma, they are unwilling to express themselves honestly about the baptism of John, which is a symbol of John’s entire ministry. They are being asked, with respect to John, exactly the question they had posed with respect to Jesus. They had never been obliged to deal with that problem before, because Herod had taken care of it for them. Now they are put on the spot.
Caught thus on the horns of a dilemma, they plead ignorance, and the Lord responds by declining to answer the question they had put to Him. They are thus effectively foiled in the presence of those gathered to hear Jesus in the Temple.
There is an important matter of theology contained in this story. All through the Gospel Jesus has presented men with a choice, a decision, a yes-or-no, but His enemies have everywhere resorted to evasion and hostility. They have never inquired with sincerity, and the time for them has now run out. There is no more place of discourse, and certainly no more place for lawyers’ questions. These men are not seekers of the truth; their hearts are hard. They have already ascribed to Satan those generous, benevolent deeds by which Jesus showered His blessings on the blind, the lame, the suffering. Never have they responded positively to so many manifestations of the power of God in the ministry of Jesus. They have made no effort to humble their minds to understanding.
And now they meet complete silence on the part of Jesus: “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.” Why bother? They will not hear Him. They do not genuinely want to know. He will not answer them. They have never bothered truly to attend to Him. Now He will trouble them no more. This is a picture of the final retribution.
The burden of this story, then, is identical to that the fig tree, which immediately precedes it.
There comes a point in the career of the unrepentant sinner when God says, “Forget about it. I have said enough. You will not hear from Me again,” and there ensues the vast silence of the God who is weary of speaking to deaf ears and hard hearts. God finally says, “Okay, your will be done.”
Thursday, August 14
Mark 12.1-12: The parable of the vine-growers—listed prominently in Jesus’ teaching during the last week of his earthly life—provides a sharp, defining outline of how he came to understand, not only his ministry to his contemporaries, but also his larger significance in the history of Israel. It illustrates how Jesus thought about his mission and destiny. No other of his parables, arguably, contains such an obviously “autobiographical” perspective.
When Jesus addressed this parable to the men who plotted to kill him, those Jewish scholars of the Bible could hardly fail to recognize, in these initial details, the story’s resemblance to a lyrical poem of the prophet Isaiah eight centuries before. Perhaps some of them knew Isaiah’s poem by heart:
A song of my beloved regarding his vineyard: My beloved has a vineyard / On a very fruitful hill. / He dug it up and cleared away its stones, / And planted it with the choicest vine. / He built a tower in its midst, / And also made a winepress in it (Isaiah 5:1-2).
As to the meaning of the “vineyard,” the explanatory note in Isaiah left no doubt: “For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, / And the men of Judah are His pleasant plant” (Isaiah 5:7). The “vineyard” has the same meaning in Jesus’ parable.
Jesus’ parable narrates the history of Israel in terms of God’s expectations: “Now when vintage-time drew near, he sent his servants to the vinedressers, that they might receive its fruit.” This feature of the vineyard, too, Jesus took from Isaiah, who declared that God “expected it to bring forth grapes (Isaiah 5:2).
Acts 23.23-35: A letter about Paul is sent to Antonius Felix, the well-known and often cruel procurator of Judea from A.D.52 to 59/60 (cf. Suetonius, Life of Claudius 28; Tacitus, Histories 5.9; Josephus, Antiquities 20.7.1 [137-138]; 20.8.9 [182]; Jewish War 2.12.8 [247]). Claudius Lysias, in his letter to Felix, paints himself in the most favorable light.
The whole matter, he explains as an obscure Jewish problem, and the Jews are to blame. Lysias, for his part, has done no more than rescue a Roman citizen from Jewish violence! The stress of the message is on Paul’s innocence (23:29), a point that Luke will continue to make as the story progresses (cf. 25:18,25; 26:31; 28:18).
When the retinue and its prisoner reach Antipatris, in largely Gentile territory, the large bulk of the force, no longer needed, returns to Jerusalem. The exact location of Antipatris is disputed, but it may have been the site of the modern Kulat Ras el’Ain, about twenty-five miles from Caesarea.
Friday, August 15
John 2.1-12: The evangelist writes of this miracle: “This, the beginning (arche) of his signs, Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and he manifested his glory—kai phanerosen ten doxsen avtou—and his disciples began to believe [aorist tense: epistevsan] in him.”
This is not just the “first” of Jesus’ signs, it is the arche, the “principle,” the font from which the subsequent signs come forth. It is the transformational sign; it reveals the glory of Christ in such a way that his disciples, who have been with him only one week at this point, begin to believe in him.
The verb phaino (to reveal, manifest) is the root word for our English words “fantastic,” “fanatic,” and, simply “fan.” The disciples of Jesus start to become “fans,” fanatics, because they have perceived the transformation of the water into wine.
It was just inert water at one moment, but then suddenly it becomes alive. Wine is a living thing. The fermentation in the wine means that it is a living reality, and the transformation of water into wine signifies the mystery of the Resurrection.
This transition of the chemical to the biochemical is what catches the attention of the disciples. This is really a new thing, and they begin to believe in him.
I suggest to you that this transformation is the meaning of Christmas. And this suggestion prompts me to speak of the person first named in the story, because this story depends very much on his presence and initiative at this wedding feast.
The Mother of Jesus—John never names her—is sensitive to the shortage of wine at the feast, a circumstance perhaps caused by the unexpected appearance of Jesus new disciples, disciples he acquired only within the previous week. The text says that the Mother of Jesus was “invited.” It does not say that Jesus and his disciples were invited. It simply says that they showed up. I have always suspected that their crashing the wedding feast may have been the reason the wine ran short.
The Mother of Jesus who first notices this, and she immediately assumes a mediating and intercessory on behalf of the newly-weds.
First, she speaks to Jesus on their behalf.
Second, she speaks to the waiters on Jesus’ behalf: “Do whatever he tells you.”
This is her permanent role in the lives of Christians. She speaks to her Son on our behalf, and she speaks to us on his behalf. The example of her life imposes on us the obligation to “do whatever he tells you.”
This prayer and this obedience are not incidental to the transformation that takes place during the story. Water is transformed into wine whenever the Mother of Jesus intercedes for those in need. This is the reason that Christians, from the earliest days of the Church, have brought their concerns to the Mother of the Lord, the same Mother who met with the Apostles in the upper room to await, in prayer, the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Church.
Besides God, of course, she is the one who makes Christmas a reality instead of just an idea. Her assent to God in obedience—“bed it done unto me”—becomes the model of all Christian service.