Category: One Year Skeptic

Reference links:

Old Testament

Ugh. I am exhausted tonight. The holiday season seems to generate a lot of activity.

Daniel prays to God. He declares how wrong and sinful the Israelites have been and how just their punishment is. But he contrasts that with reminders of God’s mercy and forgiveness. Daniel is also sure to point out that helping the Israelites would be in God’s own best interest since the people and city bear his name. This is not a bad tactic since we have seen before that God does not like mocking and has been said to change his mind about murdering his people because it would cause his name to be mocked.

Daniel’s prayer is answered with a message from the angel Gabriel. Rather prompt and direct, which is nice for the narrative flow. Gabriel’s response takes us back into a discussion of the end times (but with less horns). Gabriel explains that “a period of seventy sets of seven” (no units provided) is the time allocated for the Jews to stop rebelling, end their sin, atone, and otherwise do good things. Seven of these sets of seven will pass before the Anointed One becomes ruler. 62 more will see the end of the Anointed One’s reign. In the last set, the Anointed One will be killed and an evil ruler will arise, and then the evil ruler will meet his fate.

That is all claimed to have happened in the reign of Darius the Mede. During the reign of Cyrus of Persia, Daniel has another vision. After some time in mourning, Daniel sees a messenger who makes Daniel feel weak and afraid. The messenger would have come earlier but he was blocked by “the spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia”, whoever that is supposed to be. Fortunately, the archangel Michael comes to help the messenger. (Although we later learn that the messenger will have to return to help with this battle and then they will go on to fight the spirit prince of Greece. Also, apparently Michael is the spirit prince of Israel. We sure are getting a lot of angels and archangels and spirits in this book despite having barley seem them thus far. )

In any case, having arrived, the messenger says he will explain Daniel’s vision of the future. But that will have to wait until tomorrow.

New Testament

According to todays reading: The last hour is here! The Antichrist is coming! And many antichrists have appeared already!

And these already appeared antichrists are… people who left the author’s church. In other words, disagreeing with the author is enough to get you labeled an antichrist. Also, by the author’s definition I am an antichrist. Given how explicit he is about it, I am surprised I have not had that thrown at me as an insult more often.

The author encourages the recipients of this epistle to remain faithful to what they have been taught (so as to avoid becoming antichrists, I suppose) and to listen to the teachings of the Holy Spirit. On what basis does the author claim that the people who left his church did not sincerely think they were listening to the Holy Spirit?

Today’s reading finishes with a discussion that all who do right are God’s children and will someday be like Christ. All who sin does not know Jesus and is acting contrary to God. On its own, this discussion could be taken as support for a more universal Christianity, but given the previous context, it seems likely that the author considered a key aspect of doing right to be believing the right thing.

Psalms and Proverbs

Today’s first proverb praises giving to the poor as a path to prosperity. The second, which sounds very much like others we have seen, contrasts the wicked and the godly.

Reference links:

Old Testament

Last month!

Another vision Daniel saw during Belshazzar’s reign.

In this vision, Daniel sees a ram overpower everything in its path. That ram is eventually defeated by a goat that does even worse things, including rebelling against the armies of heaven. The vision ends with voices which say that the goats desecrating rebellion will lass 2300 days.

This time around, Daniel has the angel Gabriel to explain the dream. Meeting Gabriel was rather a terrifying experience for Daniel. The ram, Gabriel reveals, represents the empires of Media and Persia. The goal which defeats the ram represents the Greek Empire which will eventually have a ruler who causes terrible destruction but will eventually be defeated. And apparently, these empires, the Median, Persian, and Greek, are doing their destroying at the end times. Of course, all those empires passed away a rather long time ago now.

Apparently, this vision made Daniel sick. Poor Daniel.

New Testament

Believers should model their lives on Jesus and take as their primary commandment the command to love each other. If they sin, Jesus will advocate for them, but the believers’ obedience to God’s laws will show how much the believers know God.

This seems like generally good advice, except that the author of John emphasizes loving fellow believers and seems to ignore loving others generally. Yet the story of the good Samaritan emphasized that it was important not only to love the people you recognized as fellow believers but to recognize as neighbors those who you might generally consider to be outsiders.

The discussion of love is followed by a poem addressing the letter’s recipients and a warning not to love this world.

Psalms and Proverbs

Today’s proverbs condemn greed and trusting your own insight.

Reference links:

Old Testament

Now the Book of Daniel is starting to read more like an apocalypse. We step back in time slightly to a vision Daniel has during the reign of King Belshazzar (the “writing on the wall” guy). In this vision, Daniel  sees four strange beast. The fourth was most terrible of all. This fourth beast had 10 horns; another horn later replaced three of those ten. The new horn had eyes and a mouth and boasted. I will agree with Daniel in declaring that to be one freaky horn. In any case, the beasts eventually have their authority taken away and the horned beast is destroyed. A son of man is then given sovereignty over all nations.

Fortunately for us, Daniel asks a random person what the dream means and that person is able to explain it. The beasts represent different kingdoms. The fourth beast represents a particularly oppressive and destructive kingdom. The horns represent the rulers of that empire. Eventually, this kingdom will be judged and destroyed, and the sovereignty and power of the world’s kingdoms will be given to God’s holy people (presumably the Israelites in the view of the original author and Christian believers in the view of modern Christians). This kingdom will last forever.

That was weird but, at least, rather amusing.

New Testament

New book! What does Harris have to say?

An important tract directed against secessionists from the Johannine community, 1 John establishes a set of criteria by which to distinguish true belief from error.

Criteria for determining truth is good. It would be nice if these ended up being decent criteria, but I am not going to hold my breath. The discussion of the authorship of this epistle gives insight both into these letters and into the gospel attributed to the apostle John:

Most scholars believe that the same person wrote all three [epistles of John] but that he is not to be identified with either the apostle John or the author of the Gospel. Although some critics link him with the editor who added Chapter 21 to the Gospel, most commentators view the letter writer as a separate party, albeit an influential member of the Johannine “brotherhood”. The majority of scholars date the letters to about 100-110 CE, a decade or two after the Gospel’s composition.

We also learn that apparently the author of this book was another who believed that the activities he observed indicated the nearness of the end of time.

The book opens with a proclamation that the author and his fellow believers saw and touched Jesus who existed with God before he was revealed to the believers. After that the author claims that God is light, believers should live in the light, Jesus’ blood cleanses sin, and everyone has sin which must be confessed.

Psalms and Proverbs

Honest criticism is declared to be be better than flattery, in the end. That last bit is important since people generally seem to resent honest criticism at the time. Also, stealing from your parents makes you no better than a murderer; I am not sure I would go that far, but it certainly makes you a very very bad person.

Reference links:

Old Testament

Daniel rises high in the administration of the conquerer, Darius the Mede. This causes others to be jealous of him, and they decide to use Daniel’s religion as a snare. They get the king, who seems to be as unthinking as the king in Esther, that anyone who prays to anyone or anything other than the king in the next 30 days should be thrown into the den of lions. One wonders if ancient kings were really that “yeah, sure, whatever” about signing laws. Or that the king would not have noticed that one of his favorites, Daniel, regularly prayed to a deity; these officials noticed it, so Daniel was obviously not keeping it a secret.

In any case, Daniel defies the law and is caught. Again, as in Esther, the law cannot be revoked. The king reluctantly gives Daniel to the lions, but Daniel, of course, is miraculously saved. The king gets his revenge by having the men who plotted against Daniel, along with their wives and children, thrown into the den of lions. That’s a rather unfair punishment. Maybe, just maybe, killing the plotters can be justified (better to just strip them of their positions, in my opinion), but killing their families is cruel.

The upshot of this is that Darius, like Nebuchadnezzar before him, declares Daniel’s God to be totally awesome. Daniel continued to prosper.

New Testament

We finish 2 Peter today. The author declares that in the last days, people will scoff at those who believe that Jesus is returning. The author also revisits the Hebrew idea of the primordial waters out from which the earth was brought. Does he he really believe that cosmology or is he referring to it symbolically?

The author then gives the ultimate cop out for Jesus’ tardiness in returning: God’s time is not our time. Now, if that had been a consistent message, I would not call it a cop out. However, previous authors who referred to the nearness of the end times sure sounded pretty convinced that when they said (or, if you’d like, were inspired to say) that the end times were near, they meant near in human terms. In any case, the longer God waits, the more people will be saved. But the “give people more time to be saved argument” is rather weak when you consider that birth and death are constantly renewing the population.

The author of 2 Peter also seems to look forward to the destruction of everything. In the meantime, the believers should live peaceful lives. He closes by warning people not be get carried away by erroneous beliefs.

Psalms and Proverbs

Today’s second proverb is fairly straight forward:

Greedy people try to get rich quick
but don’t realize they’re headed for poverty.

Reference links:

Old Testament

Today’s reading is a great story!

A new king reigns. King Belshazzar has taken over the kingdom from his father and feasts with his nobles, wives, and concubines. At one feast, he chooses to drink from the cups that his father took from the Jerusalem temple. As Belshazzar and his court do so, a mysterious hand starts to write on the wall.

Fearful and trembling, Belshazzar calls his wise men and astrologers, but none of them can tell him what it means. Fortunately, the king’s mother remembers Daniel’s wisdom. Daniel comes, rejects the king’s offer of gifts (which he later ends up accepting), and interprets the message. The king has dishonored the true God in favor of idols. His days are numbered and his kingdom will be divided. That night, Belshazzar is killed and his kingdom conquered by Darius the Mede.

Note that historians have not been able to identify a period of Mede rule over Babylon (in fact, there are strong reasons to doubt it), and the conquerer, Darius the Mede, is unknown. This is considered further support for this being historical fiction rather than history.

New Testament

The author of 2 Peter is not a big fan of legitimate disagreement. In his view, there seem to be people who are right and people who are knowingly deceiving others. Today’s reading is all about how evil and terrible false teachers are. Now, there are false teachers in this world (I personally believe Christians are among them), but I see no need to demonize them. Teach people critical thinking skills and let the true teachers and the false teachers be separated based on evaluation of the truth of their teachings.

But I suppose by that criteria, the so called true teachers of religion would be indistinguishable from the false ones.

Psalms and Proverbs

Today’s proverbs praise hard work and honesty.

Reference links:

Old Testament

Today’s reading starts with a the interpreting of a new dream. This is conveyed to the read in the form of a letter Nebuchadnezzar sent to “the people of every race and nation and language throughout the world.” This letter praises the God of Daniel and, perhaps more shockingly for a king, advertises Nebuchadnezzar’s personal fright and terror and insanity. Such a setup rather defies belief, lending further support to the idea that this is fiction.

The retelling also hints that the author of this story may have thought the world was flat: Nebuchadnezzar’s dream involved a very large tree growing in the middle of the earth which reached high to the heavens.

In any case, Daniel interprets the dream of the tree, which is cut down, as the cutting down of Nebuchadnezzar’s glory and his subsequent suffering. Not much later, this comes true and, for reasons unspecified, Nebuchadnezzar is claimed to have been driven from human society for “seven periods of time.”

After this, the king is restored to sanity, and he praises and worships the Most High (presumably the God of Daniel). Upon regaining his sanity, he wins back his kingdom. Really now? The king runs off in his insanity for a long enough period for her hair and nails to become long, and he just gets his kingdom back when he becomes sane again. My suspension of disbelief is strained, even for fiction.

In anycase, that ends today’s reading.

New Testament

New book! We’re just plowing through them now (not surprising given that we only have 35 more days to go). Let’s see what Understanding The Bible has to say about 2 Peter:

Incorporating most of Jude into his second chapter, a second-century Christian writing in Peter’s name attacks false teachers and urges a return to the apocalyptic hope of apostolic times. Explaining the delayed Parousia as God’s means of allowing more people to repent, the author outlines the “three worlds” of apocalyptic history.

Well, that’s not particularly clarifying. Let’s see what else Harris has to say. On authorship and date of composition:

Only a few reputable New Testament scholars defend the Petrine authorship of 2 Peter, which is believed to have been written by an anonymous churchman in Rome about 140-150 CE. The book’s late date is confirmed by (1) the fact that it incorporates most of Jude, itself a second-century work; (2) its references to Paul’s letters as “Scripture”, a status they did not attain until the mid-second century; and (3) its concern with the delayed Parousia, which would not have been a problem for believers until after the apostolic generation. In addition, many leaders of the early church doubted 2 Peter’s authorship, resulting in the epistle’s absence from most lists of “approved” books well into the fourth century. Not only was 2 Peter one of the last works to gain entrance into the New Testament, but scholars believe that it was the last (eventually canonized) book written.

With as much certainty as one can have with history, it sounds like this book was not written by the apostle Peter, despite the author’s efforts to try to establish himself as the apostle.

Topically, once the author has opened the letter and established his credentials, the book will deal with the destruction of the universe and why the second coming has been delayed.

On to today’s reading!

Today’s reading encourages the believers to live moral, loving lives. This will bring them greater knowledge of Jesus and prove that they are among the chosen. The believers are then instructed to pay attention to the teachings thy have received. To emphasize the importance of his teachings, the author attempts to strengthen his credentials by claiming that he was there when God declared, “This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy.” The problem is, the very thing that makes this an example likely to be recognized by his readers (the fact that this incident, presumably, widely known) is exactly what makes it unconvincing as proof that the author was there.

In any case, the author then goes on to emphasize that the words of the prophets came to them when they were moved by the Holy Spirit, and should be given the authority appropriate to such holy origins.

Psalms and Proverbs

Nothing of particular note.

Reference links:

Old Testament

Today our heroes go from near death to triumph and back around again.

Daniel correctly sees Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. The king has dreamed of a statue whose body parts degrade from gold at the top to a mix of iron and clay at the bottom. This represents the declining value and (until the iron and clay mix) decreasing mix of Babylon and the kingdoms that follow it. The final kingdom is hit by a stone from God and the whole statue comes tumbling down. This, according to Daniel, represents God’s eventual destruction of these kingdoms with an everlasting kingdom of God. Many times since this dream became scripture, people have tried to show that they were living in the last kingdom and God’s kingdom would soon appear. Time and time again, they have been wrong.

This success causes the king to richly reward Daniel, and Daniel uses his new found favor to elevate his friends. However, his friends run into trouble when they refuse to bow down and worship a golden statue of King Nebuchadnezzar. The king orders them thrown into a fire, but they are protected by an angel and come out alive. Based on this, the king decides that their God is awesome, promotes the men, and orders everyone to respect their God.

I do enjoy a good story, and so far the Book of Daniel is turning out to be exactly that.

New Testament

Today’s reading starts out with a clear statement of the author’s belief that the end times were coming soon:

The end of the world is coming soon. Therefore, be earnest and disciplined in your prayers.

Funny how that hasn’t worked out so well. The standard excuse for this is that the end is soon in God’s time, not human time. However, one would think that such a caveat would have been mentioned here. Otherwise, a book written by a human author (even if he were inspired) for a human audience would obviously be interpreted as a reasonably human definition of soon (less than thousands of years). Or, perhaps, the inspired author misinterpreted the message given to him, but that opens up a whole host of other problems for believers.

In any case, because the end times are near, people should love and help each other and use their spiritual gifts to serve one another. They should be glad at the suffering they experience for being a Christian (but they should make certain that they are suffering for that and not for doing evil).

The author then describes how elders should care for their flock and young men should obey their elders in the church (an idea so prone to abuse, as we have seen in our own times). People should be humble and watch out for the traps of the devil.

Finally, today’s reading with the closing passages of the letter.

Psalms and Proverbs

Proverbs about wicked rulers.

Reference links:

Old Testament

Happy Thanksgiving for those of you in the US! Today I am thankful that we finally finished Ezekiel (and many, many more non-Bible related things).

Today we start the book of Daniel. Let’s see what Understanding The Bible has to say about it (from the introduction to apocalyptic literature as well as the section on Daniel).

First off, it’s an apocalypse:

As a literary category, an apocalypse is a written description of dimensions or events ordinarily closed to human view, such as the invisible realm of heaven or the future course of history. In the Hebrew Bible, only Daniel is a fully apocalyptic work, although there are apocalyptic elements in [other books of the Hebrew Bible]. … 

Unique as it appears to some readers, Daniel belongs to a long literary tradition that produced many similar apocalyptic works. …

Apocalyptic literature typically is concerned with eschatology — speculations about “last things.” … The belief that people will experience an afterlife, typically through resurrection of the body, is a by-product of the  apocalyptic movement

Harris also points out that pseudonymous books became more prevalent after the time of Ezra since the age of prophecy was considered to have ended at that time. Daniel is a pseudonymous work:

Pseudonymity was a device that allowed apocalyptic writers, such as the author of Daniel, to review past history as if it were prophecy and then to predict the imminent outcome of the issue or crisis that had inspired the work. While such practices today might be regarded as dishonest or fraudulent, in the Hellenistic world both Jewish and Greco-Roman authors commonly wrote pseudonymously to honor an ancient luminary, presenting what they believed would be his views were he still alive. Some New Testament writers, presumably with no thought of forgery, penned sermons or epistles in the name of apostles such as Peter or Paul. 

The Book of Daniel is attributed to Daniel who is described as

A devout Jew serving a foreign government, [he] becomes one of several Jewish trainees whom King Nebuchadnezzar selects to be educated in a Babylonian wisdom school. … Although earlier biblical writers had warned against practicing the mantic arts — interpreting omens, portents, and dreams, and forecasting future events — the author of Daniel implicitly identifies his central character with the professional class of of Babylonian wise men. 

Harris then goes on to point out and discuss a number of characteristics of apocalyptic writing including their concern with all nations, not just Israel; their view of the parallel worlds of matter and spirit; their division of history into the imperfect present and a future age of perfection; their insistence that people are either good or evil, with no in between; their belief in predestination; their emphasis on believers being saved to the exclusion of all others; their lack of tolerance for competing beliefs; their belief in a violent God; their preoccupation with the afterlife and what happens after death; and their use of mythical and symbolic language.

On the date of Daniel’s composition, our reference has this to say,

The Book of Daniel purportedly was written during the Babylonian captivity in the sixth century BCE when its author was successively a member of the Babylonian, Median, and Persian courts. But scrupulous examination of the text reveals that it was composed centuries later, between 167 and 164 BCE when the Jews were suffering intense persecution by the Macedonian-Syrian ruler Antiochus IV. It is chronologically the latest-written book in the canonical Hebrew Bible. This fact, together with its striking differences in form and style from the prophetic books, may explain why Tanakh editors did not include it among the Prophets but instead placed it amongst the Writings. Daniel is not a typically prophetic work but seems a deliberately literary creation whose main character embodies and reflects the long tradition of Israel’s sacred literature.

And that’s probably enough background. I suspect I am not going to be particularly fond of Daniel but it should be interesting. On to today’s reading!

This story gets off to a good start. The king of Babylon decides to choose from the men brought from Jerusalem strong, smart, healthy, good looking men to be trained in the the ways of Babylonian wisdom. The king’s emphasis on strong and good looking men did make me wonder for a moment if we were going to be embarking on a different sort of literary journey, if you know what I mean.

In any case, Daniel and several others are trained up in the ways of Babylonian wisdom. I imagine that Ezekiel would scoff at such a thing being considered an honor. Daniel and his friends avoid defiling themselves by getting special permission to be fed only vegetables and water.

Over time, Daniel and friends are trained and join the ranks of Babylon’s wise men. This may seem like a good thing, and may well have been, but, eventually, this role becomes problematic. The king has a disturbing dream and asks his astrologers to interpret it. But he wants to know that their interpretations are true, so he also asks them to state the nature of the dream. The king figures that a true wise man could see the dream as well as interpret it.

However, the king’s astrologers could not do that and so he ordered that all of the wise men of Babylon be killed. This, in my opinion, was rather stupid of him. Why spend all that time training up wise men if you’re going to kill all of them when they fail you even once? In any case, Daniel and friends pray that God will reveal the king’s dream to them so that they can be spared.

In many ways, this story seems to allude to the story of Joseph: a man is raised from captivity to become a wise man and interpreter of dreams. In the process, he receives special treatments from those who are to oversee him. Obviously, there are many differences, so this is not a straight reinterpretation of the Babylon story, but it seems that the reader is meant to be reminded of Joseph and the idea of God’s giving prosperity to his chosen people in a strange land.

New Testament

Some confusing stuff in today’s reading, especially for someone who is stuffed and thus not thinking at her best.

The reading starts off straight forward: believers are encouraged to sympathize with and love each other. They should keep from speaking evil and do good. It then goes on to discuss how it is good to suffer if that suffering is for Christ because Christ also suffered. This attitude toward suffering seems to be summed up in this statement:

So then, since Christ suffered physical pain, you must arm yourselves with the same attitude he had, and be ready to suffer, too. For if you have suffered physically for Christ, you have finished with sin.

I read this whole discussion not as saying that Christians must or should suffer for their faith or even that it is particularly virtuous to suffer. Rather, I read it as saying that if they do suffer, then they should take on the attitude taken on by Christ and, by doing so, will learn much.

In any case, in the midst of this, we have the confusing passage I referred to. Maybe it will make sense when my brain is on, but for now I am befuddled.

So [Christ (upon suffering a physical death?)] went and preached to the spirits in prison— those who disobeyed God long ago when God waited patiently while Noah was building his boat. Only eight people were saved from drowning in that terrible flood. And that water is a picture of baptism, which now saves you, not by removing dirt from your body, but as a response to God from a clean conscience. It is effective because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

First part, Christ went and preached to someone. It seems that this someone are the people who did not make it on the ark. The people, other than Noah and his family, who in that story caused God to decide to murder nearly all of humanity. That part is kind of confusing. Even more confusing, is the comparison of the flood to baptism. Did the flood baptize the survivors (Noah and family) or did it baptize those who had been sinners and did not make it? I haven’t the foggiest.

In any case, the authors tells believers they should be finished with sin, as mentioned above, and live a good life. This may surprise some of their former associates, but they will have to face God for their own actions just as believers will have to face God for their actions.

Psalms and Proverbs

Today it is the stubborn who are destined for trouble while those who fear to do wrong are blessed.

Reference links:

Old Testament

After all this time (three and a half weeks), we finally finish Ezekiel. It had some good parts, but I cannot say I am going to miss it.

The vision of the restored temple ends with a description of a river that runs through. That river runs from the temple to the Dead Sea and gets deeper along its length. The river will restore life to the Dead Sea and it will become a thriving oasis teaming with life.

The Lord then tells Ezekiel of the new borders of the 12 tribes within the land of Israel. These differ from the traditional borders given back in Numbers.

The river and the borders of the 12 tribes make me think that this whole vision is not meant to be read of a temple that is restored in the course of normal history. Most of the 12 tribes were effectively lost after the destruction of Israel and Samaria, and rivers do not just pop out of nowhere. This, along with the vague descriptions of a future prince, make me think this whole vision is not to be taken literally. That said, I am not sure how it should be taken. Perhaps this is an example of mysticism in Ezekiel.

After that the book ends rather abruptly with a description of some city gates. If I did not already know that we were starting Daniel tomorrow, I would have been quite surprised when we started reading it.

New Testament

The author emphasizes that believers are just visitors in this world. As such, they should live proper lives and be honorable in their behavior.

He then goes states that believers should respect all human authority; oh, many are the things that I shall resist mentioning here. The honorable lives of believers should be enough to silence their accusers. Disobedience, it is implied, would only give those accusers fodder.

In kind, slaves are commanded to submit to their masters, even if their masters are cruel. As usual, I find such commands morally despicable. The author attempts to justify this unjustifiable command by quoting what seems to be a hymn about Jesus’ suffering.

This is followed by instructions for wives which are annoying, as usual. However, the version in 1 Peter is slightly less annoying than some instances (e.g., the Pastorals), and the emphasis on internal beauty instead of external beauty is fairly nice. The instructions to husbands which follow also do better than most similar pairings.

Psalms and Proverbs

Today’s proverb claims that everyone enjoys the success of the godly. Nice in theory, but in practice, I think jealously often dampens that enjoyment.

The second proverb says that confessing since will lead to mercy and prosperity.

Reference links:

Old Testament

Fascinating. Apparently in Ezekiel’s version of the law, the gifts given by the people go to the princes, not to the priests (or in addition to the priests?). The prince, in turn, in required to provide the sacrifices for particular observances. This seems like a dramatic change from the administrative structure laid out in Mosaic law.

Ezekiel provides an update of the ceremonies that are to be observed and the prince’s role in those ceremonies. All of this is, not surprisingly, about as unexciting as it was when we read similar instructions in the Mosaic law.

Ezekiel also specifies that the land owned by the prince must be given back to him in Jubilee years. I wonder if that is meant to clarify that the prince’s land is also subject to these laws or if it is meant to imply that now, in the restored Israel Ezekiel describes, the returning of land only applies to the prince’s land. In any case, the prince can only give away his own land and cannot steal the land of others.

We end today’s reading with a brief tour of the temple kitchens.

New Testament

Today’s reading is a grab bag.

Warnings to the believers not to slip back into their old ways.  People will be judged or rewarded according to what they do; this could probably be made to tie in with the discussion of faith and works in James. Jesus was the ransom God paid to save believers; still no attempt at explaining why this was necessary. More statements implying the author lives in the last days.

Love each other. Get rid of evil behavior. Believers should crave spiritual milk; this reminds me of Paul’s claim that the recipients of his letter were ready for nothing more than milk. Believers are the stones that make up God’s living temple and Jesus is the cornerstone. Believers should show others the goodness of God.

Psalms and Proverbs

James, in his criticism of the rich, would have liked this proverb:

Rich people may think they are wise,
but a poor person with discernment can see right through them.