Friday, February 14
Matthew 16.5-12: We observe Matthew’s inclusion of the Sadducees among the enemies of Jesus (verses 1,6,11,12). Once again Matthew’s text here reflects certain concerns that arose in Judaism (and consequently among Jewish Christians) after the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Foremost among the Jewish groups who lost credibility in the aftermath of that event was the party of the Sadducees. This group, it was generally believed, had been excessively compliant with the Roman powers for over a century, too compromising, too little disposed to speak up for the people as the Pharisees had done. Consequently, after the year 70 the Sadducees came into bad odor among rank-and-file Jews.
Moreover, this party was bound to lose power, because their power had been concentrated in the temple priesthood, which was put out of business by the destruction of the temple. In Matthew we observe (three times in these verses, and elsewhere in 3:7; 22:34) explicit criticisms of the Sadducees not found in the other gospels. Mark (12:18) and Luke (20:27) mention the Sadducees only once each.
Genesis 45: The tension has been mounting for several chapters, as Joseph has, step by step, put to the test the spiritual state of his brothers. He has now utterly reduced them, forcing them to face their guilt and to assume responsibility for their plight. They are completely hopeless and limp before him.
At the same time, Joseph has been obliged to place very tight, unnatural restraints on his own emotions, and now the latter have mounted to flood stage behind the restraining wall of his will. Then time has come, then, to bring everything out into the open. Now further good will be served by further delay. Joseph speaks.
The brothers are not able to come to grips with the situation. This powerful stranger has suddenly started speaking to them in their own language. The veil is removed. If the brothers were vulnerable and despairing in the previous chapter, now things have become infinitely worse. They are now faced with a reality that they had not even slightly suspected.
Joseph must repeat who he is, and for the first time he mentions a little incident that happened in Dothan many years before. This reference can hardly provide comfort for the bewildered brothers, and Joseph must attempt to lessen their stark terror and anxiety, for God’s providence works even in sin (Philemon 15). God commands us always to meet evil with good, and God Himself models that commandment. Anyone can bring good from good. Divine activity is chiefly manifest in bringing good out of evil. Joseph must repeat the lesson to be learned.
Joseph alternates between practical concerns and more emotion stirred by the moment. If the brothers actually said anything at this point, it was probably incoherent. They become extremely passive and obedient. As long as they are in Egypt, Genesis 45 will record not a single word from them. The entire impression from this chapter will be bewilderment to the point of stupefaction.
Joseph’s single question to them has to do simply with his father. Like Judah in the previous chapter, Joseph’s concern is with his father. This is entirely proper, because Jacob, on learning what had transpired, is overwhelmed with emotion. Some news is just too good to believe (Cf. Luke 24:37-38; Mark 16:9-13).
Saturday, February 15
Romans 2:17-29: Paul continues talking to the imaginary “man” that he earlier addressed (verses 1, 3). This man calls himself a Jew (verse 17). This man, whom he had earlier reprimanded for judging others, Paul now taunts with a series of claims that were commonly made by the Jews: knowledge of the true God and His will, confidence in the Law, a superior moral insight, and the consequent right to provide guidance to the rest of the world (verses 18-20).
Paul does not deny the validity of any of these claims, but they do raise in his mind a series of concomitant questions that he now puts to the Jew (verses 21-23). The latter’s behavior, after all, leaves a lot to be desired. Indeed, the bad conduct of the Jew has brought reproach of the God of the Jews (verse 24; Isaiah 52:5 LXX). Their defining sign, circumcision, has been rendered morally meaningless by their insouciance to the rest of the Torah (verse 25).
Now, asks Paul, how is the circumcised Jew who disobeys the Law of Moses morally superior to the uncircumcised Gentile who observes the Natural Law written in his heart (verses 26-27)?
Throughout this diatribe the Apostle is continuing the very argument that the Old Testament prophets had directed to the Chosen People ever since Amos and Isaiah eight hundred years before: namely, that a strict adherence to the prescribed rituals is no adequate substitute for the moral renewal of the heart and a blameless life pleasing to God. Far from rejecting the Old Testament here, Paul is appealing to one of its clearest themes.
The true circumcision is internal. This is the “secret” that the Lord sees (verse 16). It is the heart that must be circumcised (verses 29-30; Acts 7:51). The true moral renewal of man, then, is not the fruit of a greater and more intense moral effort. It comes from the presence of the Holy Spirit in the circumcised heart.
In his contrast of two circumcisions, Paul invokes the distinction between letter and Spirit that he had used a year earlier to describe the difference between the Old Testament dispensation and the Christian Gospel (2 Corinthians 3:6). The circumcision or pruning of the human heart places that heart under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who makes the human being to be a child of God (8:15; Galatians 4:6). The Gospel, then, is not simply a source of new moral information; it is the internal principle of a new mode of life.
Paul’s distinction between a Jew in the flesh and a Jew in the Spirit puts us in mind of Jesus’ insistence, in the Sermon on the Mount, that a believer’s existence is defined, not by his external observance of a religious code, but by his internal relationship to the heavenly Father (Matthew 6:1,4,6,8,14,18). Indeed, the same expression “secret” (???????) is used in both places (verses 16,29; Matthew 6:4,6).
In spite of the historical advantage that God has given the Jew over the Gentile (verses 9-10; 1:16), they are both called by the Gospel to the same repentance.
Sunday, February 16
Matthew 17:1-13: The Lord’s transfiguration repeats the revelation made at His baptism, where the Father’s voice identified His Son. This revelation of Jesus’ unique relationship to God is the primary substance of the Christian faith, as we have just seen in Peter’s confession. Matthew has already treated this matter in 11:25-27, and he continues the theme here. This relationship of Jesus to God is the source of the “authority” (exsousia) with which Jesus teaches and heals and forgives sins and sends forth the Church in mission at the end of this gospel. While Matthew’s account of the Transfiguration is substantially identical to that of Mark (and both are quite different from Luke’s in emphasis), he does omit Mark’s (9:9f) reference to the disciples’ lack of “understanding” with respect to the return of Elijah. This omission fits a preoccupation that we have already seen in Matthew.
Other features of Matthew’s account are likewise special to this gospel. The comparison of Jesus’ transfigured face to the sun, for example, is proper to Matthew (verse 2). Although it is possible that this detail has no particular theological significance, it is worth remarking that Matthew elsewhere mentions the sun in the context of glory.
In verse 4 Peter calls Jesus “Lord”—Kyrios (contrast with Mark’s “Rabbi”), the technical post-Resurrection title of Jesus. That is to say, in Peter’s address here we are dealing with the fully articulated faith of the Church.
Peter prefaces his suggestion about building three tabernacles with the caveat “If you will.” This emphasis on the Lord’s will is important in Matthew’s approach to prayer (cf. 6:10, contrasted with Luke 11:2-4, where the clause is missing).
All of verses 6 and 7 are proper to Matthew, and the detail about prostration is especially dear to this evangelist (cf. 2:11; 8:2; 9:18; 14:33; 15:25; 20:20; 29:9—all of these instances found only in Matthew). It is obvious that Matthew is writing for Christians whose normal attitude toward Jesus Christ is summed up in the act of adoration. This says much of his Christology.
Romans 3:1-8: To say (as Paul has been saying) that both the Gentile and the Jew are called to repentance is not to deny the historical advantage of the Jews, because “to them were committed the oracles of God” (verse 2). Later in this same epistle (11:11-23) Paul will argue at greater length that God still has His eye on the Jews; they will still have their important role to play in the outcome of history. The Jews’ current displacement from their native root (which is Christ, not the Land of Palestine) is only temporary, “until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in” (11:25).
Meanwhile, in fact, only “some” of them have failed (verse 3), only “some of the branches have been broken off” (11:17). In these assertions Paul seems to have in mind not only his contemporary situation but all of Jewish history. That is to say, the Old Testament itself testifies that there have always been both faithful and unfaithful Jews. Those very “oracles of God” that were committed to the Jews bear witness to the failure of some Jews to take God’s word seriously. No matter, because God Himself is faithful, even to an unfaithful people (verses 3-4).
Monday, February 17
Matthew 17.14-21: In Mathew’s version of this story, when the man approaches Jesus (verse 14), he kneels down—gonypeton, literally “bending the knee”—before Jesus. That is to say, he assumes before Jesus the posture of prayer (contrast Mark 9:14-17). Like Solomon at the dedication of the Temple, he kneels before Jesus in prayer.
This kneeling down, or prostration, in prayer is not simply a generic act of worship. It is specified by its Christological reference. Indeed, in the former scene, the Transfiguration, the disciples fall into this posture when they hear the voice of the Father identifying Jesus as His Son. Their posture is a theophanic response (cf. Revelation 1:16-17). Here in Matthew (verse 15) the man bends the knee “towards him.”
And in kneeling down he addresses Jesus as “Lord”—Kyrios. We should contrast this with Mark’s account, which addresses Jesus here as “Teacher”—Didaskalos. Matthew, that is to say, uses the full confessional word of the Christian faith (cf. Philippians 2:11; 1 Corinthians 8:6; 12:3).
Genesis 48: Because of his special role in saving the family, Joseph receives something like the blessing of the firstborn — that is, a double portion; he become the father of two of Israel’s tribes. That meant that his descendents would settle twice the amount of the Promised Land as any of his brothers.
Joseph’s two sons, Ephrem and Manasseh, became as it were the sons of Israel himself (verses 1-7). When Jacob is introduced to the two boys (verses 8-11), his poor eyesight reminds us of aging Isaac, of whose blindness Jacob had taken advantage. The irony is striking. In that earlier case too the larger blessing had been given to the younger son. What Isaac had done by mistake, however, Jacob will do on purpose (verses 12-15).
A Christian reader will take note of Jacob’s <i>crossing</i> of his hands in the act of blessing. It is noteworthy that at least one Christian reader of this text referred to this action as an act of “faith” (Hebrews 11:21, the only example of faith that this epistle ascribes to Jacob). In the blessing itself (verses 15-16), Jacob reaches back two generations in order to reach forward two generations.
Joseph, though he governs Egypt, is unable to govern his old father (verses 17-20). Jacob, let it be said, knew a thing or two about blessings: “I know, my son, I know.” Jacob has been reversing everything since the day he was born, right after tripping up his old brother as the latter emerged from the womb (25:22-23). Right to the end of his life he continues to take the side of the younger man. It is a trait of his personality.
Tuesday, February 18
Romans 3:21-31: The tone of Romans has been negative hitherto, “but now” (verse 21) Paul introduces the Christian hope, rooted in God’s righteousness and fidelity manifested in Jesus Christ. The “now” here is chronological and not just rhetorical, because a new era, foretold by the Law and the Prophets. has truly dawned in Christ. This has been called the “eschatological now” (also in verse 26; 5:9,11; 6:22; 7:6; 8:1,18; 11:5,30,31; 13:11; 16:26), the era of the Gospel which replaces the dispensation of the Law.
These verses express the very essence of the Gospel, salvation through faith in the God who redeems us in Christ. The “righteousness of God,” which we just saw in Psalms 143 (142), is not a quality of condemnation, of outraged divine justice, but the source of divine deliverance from sin and corruption. Paul speaks of its four times in these few verses.
The “faith in Jesus Christ” (verses 22, 26; Galatians 2:16,20) is literally the “faith of Jesus Christ.” It is not simply an objective genitive, “faith in Jesus.” This plenary genitive; it means, “faith in all matters that concern Jesus Christ,” faith in the entire dispensation of grace through Jesus Christ, including the faith that Jesus modelled for us in the course of accomplishing our redemption (cf. Hebrews 12:2).
Just as there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile in sin, so there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile in Christ. After all, we all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory (verse 23). This divine glory (doxa) of which we fall short (that is, “miss out on” — ???????????), is conveyed to us as we grow in grace (2 Corinthians 3:18; 4:6).
Although Paul uses the legal language of the Old Testament, it erroneous to interpret “freely justified by His grace” only in the sense of an outward, judicial, forensic pronouncement on God’s part. Such a view would render divine grace just as external to man’s heart as was the Law. The theory of a merely “imputed righteousness” effectively separates repentance from holiness, as though God would declare a man righteous without actually making him righteous, pronounce him to be just without causing him to be a “saint,” and convert him but without giving him a new heart. The Bible never separates these things.
In fact, a major difference between the ancient Torah and the new Gospel consists in this very distinction external form and internal form. God’s grace justifies by transforming from within; it actually produces something new. By this justifying grace we are made a “new creation” in Christ; we “become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Wednesday, February 10, 2025
Genesis 50: This chapter has three parts: (1) the burial of Jacob (verses 1-14), (2) Joseph and his brothers (verses 15-21), and (3) the death and burial of Joseph (verses 22-26).
Egyptian embalming was one of the great curiosities of the ancient world, a feature that made Egypt famous. Whereas modern techniques of embalming are designed to disguise the effects of death for only a short time, Egyptian mummification was an attempt to resist the effects of death as much as possible, an endeavor to defy permanently the decay and corruption of the body. Jacob’s embalming required forty days verses 1-6). By Egyptian standards, this was pretty short. Ancient Egyptian texts suggest something closer to seventy days, which is the number of mourning days indicated in verse 3.
The large retinue of Jacob’s funeral cortege (verses 7-9) serves to stress his prestige and importance. The site of his burial (verses 10-14) ties this story back to the earlier accounts in the patriarchal narrative. This property had been “in the family” ever since Abraham purchased it in Genesis 23 as the family burial plot. Sarah, we recall, was the first to be buried there.
This later account of Joseph and his brothers (verses 15-21) continues a theme from Genesis 45. We contrast the magnanimity of Joseph with the petty, pitiful brothers, who were trying save their necks with a very thin fabrication. Josephus places this story up in the land of Canaan, immediately after Jacob’s burial. He says that the brothers were fearful of returning to Egypt with Joseph.
The reference to Joseph’s “brothers” at his burial (verses 22-26) should be interpreted simply to mean his relatives, which is the normal meaning of the word “brother” in Holy Scripture. Joseph was, after all, younger than most of his blood brothers. Stephen’s sermon seems to indicate that all of Jacob’s sons were buried at Schechem (Acts 7:16). In the rabbinical tradition, however, that site was Hebron (cf. Josephus, Antiquities 2.8.2).
Joseph probably did not seem so far away to the early Church Fathers as he does to us. His tomb at Shechem was yet known in the third century and venerated by the Samaritans who lived there, according to Origen, and Jerome tells us, more than two centuries later, that it was still being visited.
That grave was the special possession of Shechem, the ancient tribal center of Manasseh and the scene of the covenantal renewal under Joshua: “And the bones of Joseph, which the sons of Israel had brought up out of Egypt, they buried at Shechem in a plot of ground that Jacob had purchased from the sons of Hamor for a hundred silver pieces” (Joshua 24:32). Doubtless it was at Shechem that Israel of old had chiefly narrated the epic charge of the dying Joseph to his relatives that his bones should be carried back at the time of the Exodus. Indeed, St. John Chrysostom regarded his words as a prophecy of the Exodus.
Moreover, because of the steps that he took to insure that his very bones would partake of that salvific event, the hurried actions of Passover night included the opening of Joseph’s grave: “And Moses took the bones of Joseph, because he had exacted an oath of the sons of Israel, saying: ‘God will certainly visit you, and you shall bring up my bones from here’” (Exodus 13:19). Those bones are not mentioned again until their burial at Shechem, but the attentive imagination is fascinated by the thought of their being borne from place to place over the next forty years, completing the entire journey through the desert, over the dry bed of the Jordan and into the Promised Land, a sustained thread linking the Patriarchs, the Exodus, Sinai and the Conquest. It was in such an ample sense that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews spoke of Joseph’s last words as expressive of faith (Hebrews 11:22).
Thursday, February 20
Matthew 19.13-15: From a discussion about marriage Jesus passes to the subject of children (verses 13-15), in which He repeats the injunction indicated in 18:1-4.
The subject arises when children are brought to Jesus to receive His blessing (verse 13), a scene found in all the Synoptics (Mark 10:13-16; Luke 18:15-17). All of them likewise include the objection of the disciples against what they evidently regarded as an unwarranted intrusion on the Lord’s time and attention.
It has been suggested that the early (pre-Scriptural) Church preserved the memory of this scene because it answered a practical pastoral question about infant baptism. Read in this way, Jesus is affirming the practice of infant baptism: “Let the little children come to Me.” Indeed, the verb that Matthew uses here, koluein, “forbid them not,” is identical with the expression used with respect to the baptisms of the Ethiopian eunuch and the friends of Cornelius (Acts 8:36; 10:37; 11:17).
I do not think this interpretation of the passage to be likely, because there is simply no evidence in the New Testament that infant baptism was a problem. On the contrary, the reader should presume that baptism, as the Christian replacement for circumcision, was available to infants, just as circumcision was. In each case it was admission to the covenant. It would be strange indeed, if Jewish children could belong to the Mosaic covenant, while Christian children could not partake of the Christian covenant.
Moreover, the baptism of entire households in the New Testament (Acts 11:14; 16:15,31-33) indicates that it was normal to baptize infants in Christian families. Although the pastoral practice of the Christian Church varied in this matter, the “validity” of infant baptisms was not challenged for well over a thousand years. Consequently, to see a reference to a “controversy” about infant baptism in these lines of Matthew seems to me an unlikely interpretation.
Romans 9.1-13: Paul begins his argument by establishing the principle that mere physical descent does not make someone an Israelite. (He will use the words “Israel” and “Israelite” in this section, because his major Old Testament prefiguration is Jacob, whose other name is Israel.) Consequently, the Jews can make no special claims on God merely by the fact that they are Abraham’s descendants (verses 6-10). Even God’s election of Israel was not prompted by any merits on the part of Israel. This is proved by God’s promise and mysterious intervention to bring about the conception and birth of Isaac (verses 8-10). As we have seen, that predestined intervention was a clear illustration of God’s ability to give life to the dead and call to being those things that did not exist (4:17).
Even regarding the descendants of the promised Isaac (“our father”), God distinguished between Jacob and Esau, before either was form or had made any moral choice (verse 11). God’s own choice, prior to either man’s choice, fell on Jacob. He loved Jacob, that is to say, before Jacob ever loved Him (verse 13; 1 John 4:19). God’s historical choice of Jacob/Israel prefigured His predestined election of the Gentile Christians, who had done nothing to merit God’s favour (verse 12).
This biblical example, Paul contends, foreshadowed the present situation of the Gentile believers. God had used Esau’s defection, which He foreknew, as the occasion to make Jacob His chosen vessel in the history of salvation.
Friday, February 21
Hosea 2: In his first epistle Peter once describes his audience as God’s Chosen People: “But you are an elect generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a treasured People, that you may declare the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; formerly you were not a people, but now the People of God; you once had not obtained mercy, but now you have obtained mercy” (1 Peter 2:9-10).
Peter tells his audience that they had formerly “not obtained mercy,” but now they have “obtained mercy.” The reference here is drawn from the prophecies of Hosea: “And I shall sow her for Myself upon the earth, and I will have mercy on ‘her-that-received-no-mercy,’ and to ‘not-my-people’ I will say, “You are My People,” and he shall say, “You are the Lord my God” (Hosea 2:25).
The original context of this passage is important to Peter’s interpretation of it. Hosea, we recall, was commanded to give symbolic names to his children. With respect to his newborn daughter, for instance, the Lord commanded him, “Call her name ‘She-that-received-no-mercy’ (Lo-Ruhama in Hebrew), for I will no longer have mercy on the House of Israel” (Hosea 2:6). Somewhat later the Lord gave a similar instruction regarding a newborn son: “Call his name ‘Not-My-people’ (Lo-Ammi in Hebrew), because you are not My people, and I am not your God” (2:8)
These ominous names of Hosea’s children served as part of his prophetic message to the Northern Kingdom in the mid-eighth century. Like much of the rest of the Book of Hosea they were a warning about the catastrophe destined to befall idolatrous Israel not long afterwards, in 722, when Sargon II and the Assyrians destroyed the kingdom and dragged great masses of the population into exile in the eastern half of the Fertile Crescent. This sinful nation, in short, deserved to be called “She-that-received-no-mercy” and “Not-my-people.”
For Hosea, however, this coming catastrophe was not the end of Israel’s story; he went on to prophesy a restoration, a new era in which the Lord would remove the names of the false gods from Israel’s lips, renew His Covenant with His People, and betroth them to Himself forever (2:17-19).
In fact, nonetheless, the rest of Old Testament history testifies to no such restoration. The ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom were largely absorbed into the indigenous populations of Mesopotamia, and very little else was heard of them. That is to say, Hosea’s prophecy of restoration had not yet been justified by the facts.
But now, says Peter, Hosea’s foretold restoration is fulfilled in the Church, particularly in the incorporation—“embodying”—of the Gentiles into the historical continuity of God’s People. Up to the appearance of Christ, these Gentiles were certainly “She-that-received-no-mercy” and “Not-my-people.” They were “without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, devoid of hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12).
It is appropriate to cite this Pauline text by way of explaining Peter’s view of Hosea, inasmuch as Paul himself read those prophecies in the same way. Some six or so years before Peter wrote this letter from Rome, Paul had written to Rome, “Suppose God, desiring to demonstrate wrath and to manifest His power, very patiently endured the vessels of wrath that were prepared for destruction—and to make known the riches of His glory towards the vessels of mercy that He had pre-planned for glory, even us whom He called, not only from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles. As He says also in Hosea: “I will call them My people, who were not My people, and her beloved, who was not beloved.” “And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people,’ There they shall be called sons of the living God” (Romans 9:25-26)
As Peter and Paul regard these texts from Hosea, they perceive in them a further dimension, a fulfillment ranging far beyond the wildest dreams of Israel’s melancholy prophet eight centuries earlier. In the drama enacted in the geo-political world of ancient Assyria, they discerned God’s promise of a restoration that would transform all of history.