Month: June 2010

Reference links:

Old Testament

Today we read a kind of weird story about a bunch of prophets. King Ahab of Israel and King Jehoshaphat of Judah want to wage war against the King of Aram. They ask the prophets whether or not they should attack, and the prophets say yet. Then ask one more prophet, Micaiah son of Imlah, and he says they should not attack (after sarcastically saying that they should).

Then Micaiah implies that God intentionally mislead all of the other prophets so that Ahab would go to war and be killed:

Then Micaiah continued, “Listen to what the Lord says! I saw the Lord sitting on his throne with all the armies of heaven around him, on his right and on his left. And the Lord said, ‘Who can entice Ahab to go into battle against Ramoth-gilead so he can be killed?’

“There were many suggestions, and finally a spirit approached the Lord and said, ‘I can do it!’

“‘How will you do this?’ the Lord asked.

“And the spirit replied, ‘I will go out and inspire all of Ahab’s prophets to speak lies.’

“‘You will succeed,’ said the Lord. ‘Go ahead and do it.’

The whole setup here is bizarre. Prophets being misled, God using such roundabout ways of killing Ahab, God taking advice from a bunch of random spirits. All very strange.

In any case, the kings go to battle, and Ahab dies despite hiding amongst the common soldiers. The rest of the reading is taken up with the descriptions of more kings. Jehoshaphat of Judah  was pretty good but not great. Ahaziah of Israel was terrible.

New Testament

Paul gives a history of the Israelites to bolster his case that Jesus is the Messiah and then gives a little of the history of Jesus. This is all to make the point that through Jesus people can be saved. Not a super interesting day.

Psalms and Proverbs

Some more good proverbs, especially the second one.

A friend is always loyal,
and a brother is born to help in time of need.

It’s poor judgment to guarantee another person’s debt
or put up security for a friend.

Reference links:

Old Testament

King Ben-hadad of Aram mobilizes his forces against Israel. Anticipating victory, he send a message to King Ahab of Israel:

Your silver and gold are mine, and so are your wives and the best of your children!

I find it hilarious that Ben-hadad only demands the best of Ahab’s children. I guess he does not want to be bothered with the possession of inferior children.

Ahab seems perfectly happy to give all of these things to Ben-hadad, but draws the line when Ben-hadad insists that he also be allowed to send people in to take everything valuable in the palace. That, in my opinion, shows a bit of mix up in priorities on Ahab’s part.

Now Ahab is motivated to battle, and, with God’s approval and help, he beats Ahab twice. However, Ahab ruins any cred he might have earned with God when he refuses to kill Bed-hadad and, instead, makes a treaty with him. As punishment, an unnamed prophet tells Ahab that he and his people will die.

After that, we break the flow of the narrative for a story which gets the same result (Ahab is screwed) in a different way. This story also brings Elijah back into the thick of it.

Ahab wanted a vineyard for a vegetable garden but the owner would not sell it. Jezebel takes care of the situation and has the man murdered. Ahab then buys the vineyard. God did not like this and so had Elijah curse Jezebel and Ahab. Ahab repents and so God decides,

I will not do what I promised during his lifetime. It will happen to his sons; I will destroy his dynasty.

So because Ahab fasted and wore burlap, he gets to make his children suffer his punishment? God has a warped sense of justice (but then, we knew that).

New Testament

Saul and Barnabas do more preaching and travelling, travelling and preaching. We learn that Saul is also known as Paul (well, we all knew that, but this is the first time the text has mentioned it).

In one of the cities where Barnabas and Saul preached, we have another interesting use of miraculous powers. Saul is confronting a sorcerer who is trying to prevent them from preaching to the governor.

Saul, also known as Paul, was filled with the Holy Spirit, and he looked the sorcerer in the eye. Then he said, “You son of the devil, full of every sort of deceit and fraud, and enemy of all that is good! Will you never stop perverting the true ways of the Lord? Watch now, for the Lord has laid his hand of punishment upon you, and you will be struck blind. You will not see the sunlight for some time.” Instantly mist and darkness came over the man’s eyes, and he began groping around begging for someone to take his hand and lead him.

When the governor saw what had happened, he became a believer, for he was astonished at the teaching about the Lord.

Two things strike me about this story. First, Saul invoked the power of the Lord to cause someone harm. This seems very out of character with Jesus’ use of heavenly power. Other than the fig tree incident, it seems like Jesus used his miraculous powers for good, not harm. If he wanted to cause harm, he pulled out his fists (okay, that was pretty much just in the temple, but still, he could have smote them then, but he chose not to).

The other thing that strikes me is that the governor is said to convert because “he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord”. Based on what we saw, it seems like we never got around to teaching. The governor converted because he was impressed by Saul’s power.

Psalms and Proverbs

Today’s psalm seems to have been written while the Israelites were banished to Babylon (we haven’t gotten there yet in our readings). I am not sure how I feel about this one. On the one hand, it conveys a touching image of homesickness and longing. On the other hand, it contains these lines:

Happy is the one who takes your babies
and smashes them against the rocks!

Not so big on that sentiment.

Reference links:

Old Testament

Elijah flees for his life and, in the process, sleeps under a broom tree. And what’s a broom tree? This is a broom tree:

I am guessing that it is a tree whose branches were suitable for making brooms.

After some wandering in despair, Elijah talks to God on Mount Sinai. I do have to admit that I like the description of Elijah’s conversation with God. It really shows the transition between the older (violent, wandered around with the Israelites) and newer (more distant but also becoming more universal) visions of the God of the Israelites.

And as Elijah stood there, the Lordpassed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.

God is not the violence, but he causes it. And yet, God’s whisper is more awe inspiring than the earthquake or wind storm.

God gives Elijah a new assignment.

Go back the same way you came, and travel to the wilderness of Damascus. When you arrive there, anoint Hazael to be king of Aram. Then anoint Jehu son of Nimshi to be king of Israel, and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from the town of Abel-meholah to replace you as my prophet. Anyone who escapes from Hazael will be killed by Jehu, and those who escape Jehu will be killed by Elisha! Yet I will preserve 7,000 others in Israel who have never bowed down to Baal or kissed him!

7000 out of who? Out of everyone? If so, then God is putting into motion a massive massive murder campaign. And yet, I cannot think what other group these 7000 could come from.

Finally, today’s reading finishes when Elijah gets as far as finding Elisha in his new assignment.

New Testament

Apparently Herod Agrippa had James killed and Peter imprisoned. Peter then miraculously escapes from prison. This story reminds me of the recent story which included Phillip teleporting. It just feels out of place and made up in a way that Jesus’ miracles did not. I think that is because Jesus’ miracles were (a) in aid of others and (b) something that happened intentionally. In both today’s story and the teleportation story, things just happen to people. Poof! A man disappears! Poof! Another gets out of his chains. They feel less like miracles and more like the tricks of magician.

In any case, Peter’s escape annoyed Herod, so he killed some people and then went to Caesarea. I was in Caesarea. It was a very nice place, right on the Mediterranean. You can walk on the old Roman aqueduct that was built in the time of Herod the Great. Back to business. Herod died when the Lord struck him with sickness. He was consumed by worms. Ewww.

Psalms and Proverbs

Today’s psalm has a different structure than the others we have seen so far. Every other line is the same:

His faithful love endures forever.

Between those repetitions are praise for God and a description of all the wonderful things he has done (most of which involve killing people).

This psalm also gives a hint of ancient Hebrew cosmology:

Give thanks to him who placed the earth among the waters.

Many people think that Genesis describes creation from nothing. However, a closer reading of the Biblical texts show that the Israelites did not see the universe this way. Rather, they modeled the universe as a bunch of water-like substance in which God created the earth. With that in mind, we can read see the same imagery used in Genesis as in here:

The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.

and later

Then God said, “Let there be a space between the waters, to separate the waters of the heavens from the waters of the earth.” And that is what happened. God made this space to separate the waters of the earth from the waters of the heavens. God called the space “sky.”

and finally

Then God said, “Let the waters beneath the sky flow together into one place, so dry ground may appear.”

In other news, we get some good proverbs today. In fact, we have had a pretty good run lately.  Much better than when we kept reading about wisdom.

Starting a quarrel is like opening a floodgate,
so stop before a dispute breaks out.

Acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent—
both are detestable to the Lord.

Reference links:

Old Testament

It’s huge! It’s amazing! It’s Elijah’s prophet v. prophets extravaganza! On one side, we have the 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah. On the other side we have Elijah, the last prophet of the Lord, the only survivor of Jezebel’s killing of God’s prophets.

Today, our two sides are going to participate in a bull burning challenge! Which side will be able to get their god to burn a bull? Let’s watch and find out.

Elijah lets the prophets of Baal go first. They are preparing the bull and putting it on the altar. Now they start to dance around the altar and call on Baal. Let’s see what happens.

.
.
.

It’s noontime now, and the prophets of Baal seem to have gotten no response. It looks like Elijah is throwing out some taunts, and some pretty low hitting ones at that.

“You’ll have to shout louder,” he scoffed, “for surely he is a god! Perhaps he is daydreaming, or is relieving himself. Or maybe he is away on a trip, or is asleep and needs to be wakened!”

Harsh. Baal’s prophets are getting desperate. They have resorted to cutting themselves with knives and swords. That’s gotta hurt.

.
.
.

It’s evening now, and the prophets of Baal are still going at it. But it looks like Elijah is making his move! He is preparing the bull. It looks like he’s building something to put it on… an altar of some sort? Yes, it’s an altar build from twelve stones. Look at that use of symbolism!

Now what is he doing? He’s digging a trench? Is that for the blood? Wait, no! He’s having his assistants pour water on the bull and the wood and the altar. And now he’s having them add more. And yet more! The trench is filled. Everything is soaked. It will take a miracle to make this pile burn.

Now Elijah is praying in front of the altar. We cannot quite hear what he’s saying, but he’s certainly less active than the prophets of Baal.

And now, what’s this? Fire is flashing down from the sky! The bull is burning, the wood is burning, even the water is evaporating! Elijah’s done it! He invoked his god and burned the bull. He’s the winner! And the crowd goes wild.

Oooh, maybe a bit too wild. Elijah’s told them to capture all of the other prophets so that he can kill them. Due to federal regulations, we must end our program now and avoid showing you that bloody scene.

———-

Seriously though, isn’t kind of suspicious how these days the God of the Israelites would be about as successful as Baal in a situation like this?

New Testament

The believers in Jerusalem do not approve of Peter’s associating with Gentiles. Then he explains it to them and they do approve. Goody!

Continuing the current theme of expansion of the church to include Gentiles, we read about how members of the church in Antioch also started to preach to Gentiles. Eventually Barnabas and Saul start teaching there and win many followers.

We also read about how during this time one of the believers predicted a famine, a prediction which was fulfilled during the reign of Claudius. This would be more impressive if the reign of Claudius (AD 41-54) had not ended had not ended 6 years before what scholars consider the earliest date for the composition of Acts.

Psalms and Proverbs

After our short run of short psalms, we get a rather long one. Today’s psalm is a combination psalm of praise and history.

Today’s second proverb is an interesting one:

If you repay good with evil,
evil will never leave your house.

So repaying good with evil is bad. What about the other three combinations. Obviously, repaying good with good is good. And the “turn the other cheek” school of thought would have us believe that replaying evil with good is good. Does it, therefore, symmetrically follow that following evil with evil is bad? Or is it more ambiguous than that?

Reference links:

Old Testament

Lots of churn in Israel today. We go into a bit more detail about the short reigns of Nadab son of Jeroboam and Baasha (who is, apparently, the son of Ahijah; I wonder if that’s the same Ahijah as the prophet).

In particular, we learn that Baasha became king when he killed Nadab. Baasha rules for quite a while (24 years) and then we start cycling through kings quickly. First Baasha’s son Elah becomes king. After 2 years, Zimri, a leader in the army, murders Elah while he is drunk. He only reigns for 7 days before the people decide they don’t want a murderer for a king and instead choose the commander of the army, Omri, to be king. Tibni tries to become king but gets killed. After Omri’s death, his son Ahab begins to rule.

By this time, the writing is pretty formulaic. Throughout the descriptions of the various kings of Judah, we see the repeated themes of

• the new king being even more evil than any of the kings before
• the new king killing all of the descendants of the old king
• God getting angry at the evil of the new king
• the new king eventually failing (sometimes this failure is only declared and happens to the son of the king, sometimes the failure happens to the king directly)

It was during his reign that Hiel, a man from Bethel, rebuilt Jericho. When he laid its foundations, it cost him the life of his oldest son, Abiram. And when he completed it and set up its gates, it cost him the life of his youngest son, Segub. This all happened according to the message from the Lord concerning Jericho spoken by Joshua son of Nun.

This is in reference to Joshua’s curse upon anyone who tried to rebuild Jericho.

These elements make me think that this whole section was composed just to fit a certain pattern, to check off certain requirements in the mind of the author(s). It has little narrative value and seems to have little direct symbolic value. Rather, the narrative value seems to be “the kings were bad” and the symbolic value probably has something to do with the number of kings and the contrast of the churn of these kings with the stable reign of Asa of Judah.

After all that, we switch gears and meet Elijah. He gives a prophecy against King Ahab. He then goes off to live in the wilderness where God sends ravens to feed him. He eventually goes to live with a widow and her son. While living with her, the Lord makes sure that she always has flour and oil enough to feed the three of them. After the widow’s son dies, Elijah brings him back to life.

If these sorts of miracles seem kind of familiar, you’d be right. Even after one days reading, we can see that the authors of the gospels had Elijah in mind when they attributed various miracles to Jesus.

New Testament

Peter visits Cornelius. Even though Cornelius is a gentile, Peter visits him. His earlier vision with the unclean animals helped him realize that he can and should interact with gentiles. The descent of the Holy Spirit onto those gentiles only serves to reinforce this position.

It makes perfect sense that as the apostles started to realize that Jesus’ return was not actually immanent they would try to find ways to strengthen their community. Perhaps they had grown all they could staying strictly within the Jewish community, so they felt like it was time to branch out and start accepting gentiles.

Psalms and Proverbs

We seem to be in a section of super short psalms. Today is only three verses.

This is a good proverb:

Love prospers when a fault is forgiven,
but dwelling on it separates close friends.

Reference links:

Old Testament

Ack! Too many characters possess similar names. Bad Bible author, bad! No biscuit. Ahijah prophecies that Jeroboam’s son Abijah will die (and he does). Later we read how Abijam rules Judah after Rehoboam. I am guessing that after today, I will have no memory of which one was which.

In any case, back to the plot. Jeroboam send his wife to a prophet (Ahijah) to inquire about the sickness of their son (Abijah). Despite her disguise and the prophet’s blindness, he knew that his visitor was Jeroboam’s wife. He informed her that God would,

will bring disaster on [Jeroboam’s] dynasty and will destroy every one of [Jeroboam’s] male descendants, slave and free alike, anywhere in Israel. I will burn up your royal dynasty as one burns up trash until it is all gone. The members of Jeroboam’s family who die in the city will be eaten by dogs, and those who die in the field will be eaten by vultures. I, the Lord, have spoken.’ … Go on home, and when you enter the city, the child will die.

As usual, this group punishment grates upon modern sensibilities; we just no longer accept that it is appropriate to punish a man’s family for his sins.

The child dies, of course. Then Jeroboam reigned in Israel for 22 years. His reign was not a peaceful one, but still, 22 years seems like a long time for someone to rule after a threat from God. In addition, his son Nadab became the next king.

At this point, the narrative gets a bit confusing because the reigns of the kings of Judah are interleaved with the reigns of the kings of Israel. In Israel, we have Jeroboam then Nadab then Baasha. In Judah we have Rehoboam, Abijam, Asa, and Jehosophat. This seems to be a period of frequent, if not constant, war between the kingdoms. As far as we are told, the only one of these kings who followed the ways of God was Asa (although even he was willing to use bribery to get another king, the king of Aram, to break his treaty with Israel and agree to a new treaty with Judah).

New Testament

Today we learn about the devout Roman officer, Cornelius. Spurred on by a vision from God, Cornelius invited Peter to his home. He was given this honor, at least in part, because his

prayers and gifts to the poor have been received by God as an offering

The idea that gifts to the poor count as offerings in this new religion is a nice one. It certainly beats out the Deuteronomic standard where offerings were for the priests.

(That said, we should not fall into the mistake of assuming that Deuteronomic Judaism or the beliefs and actions attributed to the Jews by the authors of the New Testament were representative of actual Jewish belief at the time. At the time of Jesus and his contemporaries, Judaism was a dynamic and changing religion, and many of the ideas that gave rise to Christianity were floating amongst the Jews at the time.)

Back to the plot. Peter accepts the invitation from Cornelius, but not before he has a vision telling him to eat all sorts of things that he considered unclean.

Peter went up on the flat roof to pray. It was about noon, and he was hungry. But while a meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw the sky open, and something like a large sheet was let down by its four corners. In the sheet were all sorts of animals, reptiles, and birds. Then a voice said to him, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat them.”

“No, Lord,” Peter declared. “I have never eaten anything that our Jewish laws have declared impure and unclean.”

But the voice spoke again: “Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean.”  The same vision was repeated three times. Then the sheet was suddenly pulled up to heaven.

I can tell Peter what this means. It means it’s time to go eat some bacon!

Psalms and Proverbs

Short psalm today, but a nice one. The psalmist is reflecting on harmony.

How wonderful and pleasant it is
when brothers live together in harmony!

Harmony is wonderful and pleasant!

The second of today’s proverbs is about bribes. It is rather interesting in light of today’s reading about Asa. Both that reading and this proverb imply that bribes are not necessarily bad (although I think they are).

A bribe is like a lucky charm;
whoever gives one will prosper!

Reference links:

Old Testament

So I never mentioned the details of what happened to the land of Israel in yesterday’s reading. Israel was divided into two parts, Israel and Judah. Judah was ruled by Solomon’s son Rehoboam, and Israel was ruled by some random dude, Jeroboam.

Today, we see that Jeroboam is not going to last long. He fears that the people will turn back to Rehoboam if they go to Jerusalem to worship. To prevent this he has two golden calves created and placed in the kingdom of Israel. He and the people worship and sacrifice at these idols and at restored pagan temples.

This, of course, displeased God, so he sent a man to utter a prophecy against Jeroboam. The prophecy itself is very specific, and if someone in the modern age could pull out such a specific prophecy, it would be a great boon to the whole idea of prophets and prophecy:

O altar, altar! This is what the Lord says: A child named Josiah will be born into the dynasty of David. On you he will sacrifice the priests from the pagan shrines who come here to burn incense, and human bones will be burned on you.

The altar then splits apart as a sign that the prophecy truly was from God.

Sadly for this prophet things come to a bad end. God had instructed him not to eat or drink until he returned to the land of Judah. However, another prophet wanted to meet him, so the second prophet lied to the first prophet and said that God had sent him a message telling him to invite the first prophet to eat.

The first prophet believes the second prophet, and they eat together. God then uses the second prophet to convey his annoyance:

Then while they were sitting at the table, a command from the Lord came to the old prophet. He cried out to the man of God from Judah, “This is what the Lord says: You have defied the word of the Lord and have disobeyed the command the Lord your God gave you. You came back to this place and ate and drank where he told you not to eat or drink. Because of this, your body will not be buried in the grave of your ancestors.”

The first prophet then departs for home and is eaten by a lion. The second prophet buries his body and seems truly grieved. I am not quite sure what the purpose of this story is. Is it to show that these times were so ungodly that even the prophets were not in tune with God? Was the point to encourage people not to listen to others if they thought they had a mission from God? I don’t know!

New Testament

The Christians in Jerusalem are suspicious of Saul’s conversion. Barnabas brought him to the apostles, and they seem to have accepted his conversion. With approval from the apostles, Saul seems to have gained the reputation necessary to preach to the people of Jerusalem. However, his old allies, the Jews in Jerusalem, threatened to kill him after he argued with them, so the rest of the community of believers sent Saul back to his home town.

The line at the end of that section caught my attention.

The church then had peace throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, and it became stronger as the believers lived in the fear of the Lord. And with the encouragement of the Holy Spirit, it also grew in numbers.

The early history of the Christian church is often portrayed as a time of relentless persecution. However, this shows that there were, in fact, times of peace and growth.

Oh yeah, and Peter performs a couple more miracles, including raising a woman from the dead.

Psalms and Proverbs

Today’s psalm is interesting in light of our current Old Testament readings. The poet asks the Lord to remember David and the promises made to him. I wonder when this was written.

Reference links:

Old Testament

In a way I cannot quite put my finger on, the tone of today’s reading feels different from what we have read in Kings so far. Certainly, it is more narrative than the recent temple/palace catalog, but we have seen cases before where fairly similar tone was maintained despite the difference in style. This just sounds like an altogether different source. Given that Kings was compiled from many sources, it may very well be.

There is an obvious and simple understanding of today’s reading. Solomon sinned by marrying foreign wives and aiding them in their worship of foreign gods. For that, God punished him by declaring that Solomon had rendered the covenant between himself and Solomon’s descendants null and void and, therefore, splitting the kingdom of Israel in two and giving most of it to someone else. I suppose God would think it a just punishment of Solomon’s straying to let him live out the rest of his life and then punish his descendants.

However, what I see in this reading is a struggle between different tribal gods. In particular, since it was Solomon’s wives who were blamed for causing him to stray, I am guessing the author is giving his own version of the struggle between worshiping a fertility goddess and worshiping a god of war. Here’s how that might of looked.

Solomon’s reign was fairly peaceful, especially compared to his father’s reign. During this time of peace, the war god Yahweh started to seem inadequate, so the Israelites went back to their pantheistic roots and revived worship of fertility goddesses. These deities proved to be better suited to the times of prosperity.

The author of the source(s) that went into today’s reading was writing from a vantage point where the kingdom of Israel had already been divided. He needed something to blame. Since strife had once again brought the war god Yahweh into a position of prominence, the author blamed worship of other gods for the trouble that happened later. By this point, the myth of history declared that the Israelites had always been monotheistic and so the worship of these alternate deities was attributed to Solomon’s foreign wives.

Also, 700 wives of royal birth and 300 concubines? For reals?

New Testament

Saul converts. He sees a vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus and starts to declare him to be the son of God. One thing that we can say about Saul is that he is nothing if not enthusiastic, almost to the point of obsession. First he passionately persecutes the followers of Jesus and then almost immediately starts just as passionately preaching for Jesus.

That said, from yesterday and today’s readings, it is not clear how much actual persecution Saul actually did. Yeah, the reading starts out with his big plan to bring all followers of Jesus back to Jerusalem and chains, but then he has his conversion experiences on his way to his first stop, Damascus. While I am sure that he probably executed some persecution, I wonder how much Saul’s reputation is being exaggerated by the author of Acts to make Saul’s conversion seem more miraculous.

Psalms and Proverbs

I can get behind this proverb:

Those who mock the poor insult their Maker;
those who rejoice at the misfortune of others will be punished.

Reference links:

Old Testament

Today’s reading is all about the wealth and splendor of Solomon’s court. As part of this, we read the story of the Queen of Sheba. He impressed her with his wisdom, causing her to reply,

Everything I heard in my country about your achievements and wisdom is true! I didn’t believe what was said until I arrived here and saw it with my own eyes. In fact, I had not heard the half of it! Your wisdom and prosperity are far beyond what I was told.

In this passage, the Queen of Sheba is set up as a skeptic. She did not believe that all she had heard of Solomon was true until she saw it for herself. Since she, a skeptic, is convinced of Solomon’s wisdom and greatness, it follows that we, the readers are also supposed to be convinced.

Of course, that doesn’t convince us skeptic. The problem with skeptics is that we do not change our mind on hearsay, even if the person telling the story claims that another skeptic was convinced.

New Testament

Well, I’m glad to see that I was wrong and Simon’s purpose was not to show that even a magician is converted by Phillip’s preaching. Instead, his purpose is to show how the power of the apostles exceeds that of magicians completely (which, I suppose, still means the general point stands: these people really believed in magicians and I’m expected to trust them?). In any case, Simon gets a lecture because he wants to buy the power to give people the Holy Spirit.

Apparently, giving people the Holy Spirit was not the only amazing power of the apostles. Today we also read how, after converting a travelling Ethiopian, Phillip gets snatched away by the Lord to another place. Teleportation!

Psalms and Proverbs

Today we get plenty of fodder for platitude from both our psalm and proverbs.

Lord, if you kept a record of our sins,
who, O Lord, could ever survive?
But you offer forgiveness,
that we might learn to fear you.

Fire tests the purity of silver and gold,
but the Lord tests the heart.

Reference links:

Old Testament

It’s the grand opening of Solomon’s temple! The priests deposit the ark in the Holy of Holies. This apparently makes God happy because his presence fills the temple.

Solomon dedicates the temple with a prayer. In this prayer, we get the first hint that God, who has already evolved from one tribal god amongst many to the one true God, may be evolving further into a universal God:

In the future, foreigners who do not belong to your people Israel will hear of you. They will come from distant lands because of your name, for they will hear of your great name and your strong hand and your powerful arm. And when they pray toward this Temple, then hear from heaven where you live, and grant what they ask of you. In this way, all the people of the earth will come to know and fear you, just as your own people Israel do. They, too, will know that this Temple I have built honors your name.

It makes sense that Solomon, who seems to have been heavily involved in trade with other nations, would be the one to point out the possibility of people from other nations worshiping the God of Israel.

Solomon seems to spend a lot of his prayer of praise reiterating how the temple that he built honors God. Somehow, it does not surprise me that Solomon is the type who would toot his own horn.

Also, lots and lots of animals were sacrificed.

New Testament

Stephen gets to his point! But I am not quite sure his claims are quite sound. In particular,

Must you forever resist the Holy Spirit? That’s what your ancestors did, and so do you!

Jesus said that the Holy Spirit was not among them until after their death, which does not seem consistent with this. Based on his next statements, Stephen may be trying to imply that the Holy Spirit acted through the prophets and the ancestors of the Jews ignored the prophets, but that ruins the parallelism between the resistance to the Holy Spirit of the people that Stephen is talking to and the resistance of their ancestors. I guess what I am saying is that Stephen’s either saying something that contradicts Jesus’ words or his rhetorical skills suck.

His next sentence is also a little sketchy:

Name one prophet your ancestors didn’t persecute!

Let’s see, Moses himself, possibly Aaron and Miriam, Deborah, Samuel, and Nathan were all prophets, and that’s only in what we have read of the Old Testament so far! Moses, Aaron, and Miriam sometimes had a hard time leading the ancient Israelites, but one can hardly say they were persecuted. Deborah was a successful judge. Samuel had to deal with Saul, it’s true, but he was honored throughout his life. As was Nathan (although he may not be dead yet, so there’s still a chance for persecution). In fact, I do not think we have yet seen a prophet persecuted by the Israelites. Once again, Stephen is either wrong or guilty of bad rhetoric.

In any case, the Jewish leaders stone Stephen because of his accusations. This serves to introduce the theme of persecution of Jesus’ followers as well as the character of Saul (later Paul). Saul, at this point, spends his time persecuting the now scattered Christians.

We also read the story of Phillip and Simon. Phillip, a follower of Jesus, went to preach in Samaria. There he encountered Simon, who

had been a sorcerer there for many years, amazing the people of Samaria and claiming to be someone great. Everyone, from the least to the greatest, often spoke of him as “the Great One—the Power of God.” They listened closely to him because for a long time he had astounded them with his magic.

However, Simon is convinced by Phillip’s preaching and decides to follow him.

I quoted the interesting bit above. The text takes the time to make sure we know that Simon was revered as a great and powerful magician. This is not to condemn him. It is, rather, to show the reader how convincing Phillip (and, therefore, Jesus) must have been to convert this great and wonderful magician. This means that the author of Acts believed in magicians, and he assumed the belief in magicians was common enough that the conversion of one would act as convincing evidence. And yet we are supposed to take his testimony seriously?

Psalms and Proverbs

We get some great (if gruesome) poetic imagery in today’s psalm:

My back is covered with cuts,
as if a farmer had plowed long furrows.