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Old Testament

Today I want to focus on the end of the reading:

This is what the Lord says:
“Don’t let the wise boast in their wisdom,
or the powerful boast in their power,
or the rich boast in their riches.
But those who wish to boast
should boast in this alone:
that they truly know me and understand that I am the Lord
who demonstrates unfailing love
and who brings justice and righteousness to the earth,
and that I delight in these things.
I, the Lord, have spoken!

“A time is coming,” says the Lord, “when I will punish all those who are circumcised in body but not in spirit—the Egyptians, Edomites, Ammonites, Moabites, the people who live in the desert in remote places, and yes, even the people of Judah. And like all these pagan nations, the people of Israel also have uncircumcised hearts.”

I believe we may have found another one of those passages which deeply influenced Paul. Paul uses both the idea of boasting only in one’s knowledge of the Lord and the imagery of being circumcised in body but not in spirit.

Paul’s use of this imagery in Jeremiah is interesting. First, it helped provide a connection between the Hebrew scriptures and the message that he was preaching. By giving his message the shine of tradition, he probably was giving it additional legitimacy.

The the existence of this Pauline imagery in Jeremiah also points out a larger point, one that I think that Christians often miss. Many of the ideas which are considered Christian actually come from the Jewish tradition that Christianity spun off of. The ideas of Jesus and Paul are not nearly as radical as they seem. The ideas that seem radical when compared against the New Testament caricatures of the Pharisees often have root in Jewish tradition. Whether it’s the idea that religious observance is pointless if the heart is not in the right place (as both Jeremiah and Isaiah express) or the idea that people should not boast about their own strengths but instead should boast about their relationship to the Lord, many seemingly Christian ideas evolved from a Jewish context. (And many of the ideas that did not evolved from Greek philosophical thought.)

New Testament

Paul describes the way that believers should shape themselves.

Psalms and Proverbs

I think we’ve done this, but it’s hard to know how preparation of fields translates into modern parlance.  In any case, I think we can start our house.

Do your planning and prepare your fields
before building your house.

Reference links:

Old Testament

Judah is evil, evil, evil. Amongst their misdeeds: rejection of the Lord, idolatry, insincere religious worship. For this they will be invaded and suffer.

New Testament

This is one of those statements which may very well have a sensible interpretation, but can be altogether too easily abused (e.g., to deny evolution or democracy).

Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ.

In context, this verse seems to be implying that people should not have their heads turned by the ideas that come from human thinking. They should not follow those ideas if they contradict what they have learned from Paul and/or Jesus. That does not mean that ideas from other humans should be rejected. Anyone who thinks about it for a minute would realize that is silly since the Bible does not even talk about all moral issues, let alone all ideas that are applicable to human well being.

Psalms and Proverbs

A good proverb:

An honest answer
is like a kiss of friendship.

Reference links:

Old Testament

Gloom and doom. Disloyalty and destruction. God hates everyone in Jerusalem and will destroy them all. Really, nothing particularly noteworthy.

New Testament

Believers must continue to stand firm in the truth that Paul taught them. Paul’s God given mission is to preach about Jesus, even if it means he must suffer.

After that we get an interesting bit,

I want them to have complete confidence that they understand God’s mysterious plan, which is Christ himself.

Now, it may be that “understand” is only an approximation to what Paul is getting at, but I find this statement interesting because so many contemporary Christians claim that no one can understand God’s mysterious plan. Yet here is Paul seemingly saying that the believers should have “complete confidence” that they understand this plan. Curious.

After that, we read a statement of how the believers should continue to deepen their faith and build their lives on Christ.

Psalms and Proverbs

Judges should be fair.

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Old Testament

Jeremiah is easier to read when read aloud. It makes the structure and the repetition clearer, at least for me.

Judah has failed in their commitment to the Lord. The people are like a prostitute. They try to come back to the Lord, but not sincerely. Even if they were sincere, the Lord would have every right in rejecting them. Jeremiah blames the impending doom of Judah on their lack of faithfulness. Because they will not turn to the Lord and accept his forgiveness, they will be crushed by the surrounding nations.

Jeremiah is making prophetic judgments about the future destruction of Judah and Jerusalem, but given the historical context, it seems as if he is just reading the signs of the time. If you consider further that it was not until much later that these words were committed to paper, Jeremiah starts to sound less like a prophet and more like those people who are writing books about the recent recession in the US (and how they knew it was coming).

When everyone makes predictions, some of them are bound to be right. Plus, recording predictions after the fact always leaves one open to hindsight bias:

Hindsight bias is the inclination to see events that have occurred as being more predictable than they were before they took place. … In psychological experiments of hindsight bias, subjects also tend to remember their predictions of future events as having been stronger than they actually were, in those cases where those predictions turn out correct.

New Testament

The problem with the letters traditionally attributed to Paul being arranged from longest to shortest is that it means I have to read background information more and more frequently as we go through them. (That, and it’s a stupid ordering. I mean really, you couldn’t do better than longest to shortest deciders of the canonical order?)

Which is to say, new book! We start the Epistle to the Colossians today. What does Harris have to say about it:

In Colossians, which may be the work of a Pauline disciple, the author emphasizes Jesus’ identity with the cosmic power and wisdom by and for which the universe was created. The divine secret is revealed as Christs Spirit dwelling in the believer. …

If Paul is the author of Colossians, as a large minority of scholar believe, he had not yet visited the town of Colossae when he wrote this theologically significant letter. … If genuine, Colossians was probably composed at about the same time as Philemon, to which it is closely related. … In the opinion of some analysts, both the complex nature of the false teachings, which may represent a form of Gnosticism, and the Christology of Colossians seem too “advanced” for the letter to have originated in Paul’s day. Other critics point out that if the letter was written late in Paul’s career to meet a situation significantly different from others he had encountered, it could well have stimulated the apostle to produce am ore fully developed expression of his views about Christ’s nature and functions.

On to the actual content! The first thing I notice is that this letter is claimed to be from Paul and Timothy and uses “we” throughout. Paul tends to switch over to using “I” fairly quickly in most of his letters. Perhaps the answer to the authorship question is that this letter sounds less like Paul because it really was written by Paul in conjunction with someone else. Timothy, perhaps, acted as more than just a secretary taking down Paul’s dictation; he may have been an actual co-author, leading to stylistic differences. That said, I just made that up (although I am sure it’s not an original idea), and I have no reason to think that other than that it kind of seems consistent with what we have seen so far.

After a greeting and wishes for the continuing growth and well being of the church at Colossae, we read what our references believe is a traditional hymn rather than the original words of the author. This hymn emphasizes the supremacy of Christ and his vital role in creation. Some lines near the end are interesting:

For God in all his fullness
was pleased to live in Christ,
and through him God reconciled
everything to himself.

This reminds me of some strains of Jewish mystical thought I have read about. In those strains (and please forgive me if I butcher this), since God was everything, perfect and unchanging, the only way for creation to happen was for God to withdraw from himself; to leave a void which would be filled by creation. But because God had withdrawn from himself, there is all sorts of badness. Somehow, we get from there to mystical beliefs that everything contains divine sparks that must be liberated to enact a reconciliation between God and creation.

This type of idea common to both Jewish mysticism and gnosticism. If, as some scholars believe, Colossians is a response to gnostic beliefs, then the verses quoted above could be seen as a response to the idea that there are divine sparks in everything that need to be liberated. Instead, this hymn seems to reinforce the idea of separation but then claims that it is through Jesus that the reconciliation occurred.

Note also that this is a very different view of the purpose of Jesus’ death than the more standard idea that “Jesus died for the sins of human beings”.

On an unrelated note, I picked up The Chronological Study Bible: New King James Version from the library to help me understand the context of Jeremiah. While flipping through there, I was glancing at the chronological one year reading plan. Based on that plan, the reader would not be reaching the New Testament until later this week. That just emphasizes, to me, how little of the content of the Bible is from the New Testament.

Psalms and Proverbs

While reading Jeremiah, it’s obvious how today’s psalm is from a relatively narrow slice of Israel and Judah’s history. According to the psalmist, God is honored in both Israel and Judah. And now that we have read through the history and are reviewing some of it in Jeremiah, we know how small the window of time was when both kingdoms actually worshiped God.

Reference links:

Old Testament

New book! We start Jeremiah today, and signs point to it being a confusing read. What does our normal reference have to say?

Proclaiming a message of submission to the Babylonian Empire, which he viewed as Yahweh’s punitive instrument against Judah for its covenant-breaking, Jeremiah suffered rejection and condemnation as a traitor. The book containing his oracles of warming and doom, considerably revised and expanded by later disciples and postexilic editors, can be divided into four parts: (1) poetic oracles uttered during the reigns of Judah’s last kings, particularly Jehoiakim and Zedekiah; (2) biographical narratives interspersed with prophetic material, such as the promise of a “new covenant”; (3) a collection of diatribes against pagan nations; and (4) a brief historical appendix closely resembling 2 Kings.

Harris also says,

In its present form, the Book of Jeremiah is a bewildering collection of poetic prophecies and prose narratives, intermixed with introspective monologues, lamentations, messianic oracles, declarations of imminent disaster, and intimation of future hope. 

In short, we will be reading the confusingly context lacking prophecies of a man who was considered a traitor to Judah. Hopefully we will be able to perceive the impact of Jeremiah’s counter cultural leanings without the surrounding context.

We start Jeremiah with a general introduction. Jeremiah is the son of Hilkiah from the town of Anathoth. He started to prophecy in the reign of Josiah and continued until the fall to Babylon.

Jeremiah declares that he was chosen from by the Lord to be a prophet before he was even conceived. Given the length of Jeremiah’s career and the wording in this chapter, a popular guess is that Jeremiah was called when he was young; although he may not have literally been a child, he was probably young an inexperienced when he felt his call.

The Lord calls Jeremiah and shows him two visions. One is a branch from an almond tree. This somehow symbolizes that the Lord is watching over Jeremiah. I am guessing the almond branch symbolized something specific, but I don’t know what it is. The second vision is that of a pot of boiling water spilling from the north. That is much more straightforward, and, and the Lord explains, symbolizes the destruction of Jerusalem by kingdoms from the north. I wish the Lord was also so forthcoming with explaining his symbolism.

After this, Jeremiah begins to state the Lord’s case against the people of Jerusalem. They have strayed from proper worship of the Lord and instead worship idols. They have also compromised their integrity and shown their lack of trust by forming alliances with Egypt and Assyria. Because of these things, Israel is like an unfaithful wife or an animal in heat, eagerly turning towards others than the Lord. Because of their unfaithfulness, they deserve punishment.

New Testament

We finish Philippians today. In addition to the normal closings and admonishments to live as they should in the Lord, Paul includes a couple interesting personal messages. First he appeals to two women to settle some dispute. As part of this, he implies that they worked, possibly as equals, with him and others when he was with the Philippians.

Paul also shares his thanks for the gifts of the Philippians. At least when he wrote this letter, they were the only church that has shared gifts with him. Whether this is the cause or the effect of his love for them, we cannot tell, but it certainly signifies that he has a relationship with them that is much more genial than, for example, his relationship with the Corinthian church.

Psalms and Proverbs

The first of today’s proverbs directly contradicts some of the vengeful sentiments we have seen elsewhere in the Bible (particularly in the psalms, but also elsewhere):

Don’t rejoice when your enemies fall;
don’t be happy when they stumble.
For the Lord will be displeased with you
and will turn his anger away from them.

That’s a much nicer sentiment than those passages that imply that it is good to rejoice at the suffering of your enemies.

Reference links:

Old Testament

Today, I notice that the central point of this author’s narrative is Jerusalem and scattered Jews. Every other message comes back to those. Even the message at the beginning, which compares those who fear the Lord those who go their own way comes back to images of sacrifice, a temple image which clearly brings forth thoughts of Jerusalem.

The other point I notice is more violent, vengeful imagery, but, sadly, I think I am becoming somewhat desensitized to that.

And… that’s the end of Isaiah. Hmph. Rather a flat ending. Actually, to me, the flatness of the ending supports the “collection of prophecies” hypothesis about this book. Isaiah is a collection of prophecies (probably by 3 or more prophets). Because the point was to catalog the historical range of prophecy, there isn’t a clear end.

New Testament

Paul points how that he was more Jewish than the Jewest Jew, but now he considers all of those things completely worthless because of his relationship with Jesus. Paul then exhorts the Philippians to model their life after his. He has not achieved perfection, but he is focused on the goal and will get there.

Psalms and Proverbs

Don’t wait in ambush at the home of the godly,
and don’t raid the house where the godly live.
The godly may trip seven times, but they will get up again.
But one disaster is enough to overthrow the wicked.

Reference links:

Old Testament

There is a lot I could comment on, but for brevity I’ll focus on a few things that pop out at me. (Side note. One thing that has been interesting going though Isaiah is that it is often so jam packed with different topics that I and the other Bible blogger I read end up covering completely different topics. In other books, I have been suspicious that one of us is reading the mind of the other. 😉

I find the imagery of watchmen whose job is to pray to be interesting. Both because it seems kind of odd (watchmen on a wall just to pray?), but also because of the lines which follow:

Take no rest, all you who pray to the Lord.
Give the Lord no rest until he completes his work,
until he makes Jerusalem the pride of the earth.

It seems that Third Isaiah is implying that, at least at some level, the prayers of people of Jerusalem are necessary for its restoration. God, it is implied, must be exhorted to action. Throughout the Bible we see passages that imply that God needs to be reminded or otherwise driven to action.

This seems like a way of dealing with the fact that seemingly unconditional promises have gone unfulfilled. The same idea is reinforced when we get to today’s portion of Isaiah 65 where the Lord says,

I was ready to respond, but no one asked for help.
I was ready to be found, but no one was looking for me.
I said, ‘Here I am, here I am!’
to a nation that did not call on my name.

Reference links:

Old Testament

Everyone in the world will someday declare Jerusalem to be awesome. Those who don’t will be punished. Reading these verses, it is certainly easy to see how people thought that God’s kingdom was near when Jews started settling the land that would later be made the state of Israel.

The reading also declares that those Jews who are currently suffering as captives and prisoners will be restored to prosperity.

The last section of today’s reading is a prayer declaring the author’s love for Jerusalem. It is clear how much passion the author shows for the restoration of the city. So passionate, in fact, that I can see how he may have come to truly believe that his visions of restoration and revenge were visions from God.

New Testament

Unity will be a sign that the Philippian church is saved. As I think I have mentioned before, if we apply that standard to the modern church, well, it doesn’t come out very well.

Most of the rest of today’s reading consists of various moral instructions (don’t be selfish, be humble, work hard, live cleanly). In the midst of that we have a bit of poetry that is interesting because it is thought to be a fragment of an early hymn.

Psalms and Proverbs

Save those who are unjustly condemned.

Reference links:

Old Testament

The idea which runs throughout today’s reading is that the people are not living up to the standards set for them. They have the outer semblance of worship, but do not behave in ways that are truly righteous. They show no justice and plot evil. God will forgive those who turn to him, but the people do not seem to care.

Today’s reading also contains an interesting passage which reminds me of yesterday’s description of the armor of the faithful:

[The Lord] put on righteousness as his body armor
and placed the helmet of salvation on his head.
He clothed himself with a robe of vengeance
and wrapped himself in a cloak of divine passion.

New Testament

New book today, and we’re back in genuine Pauline territory. Before I get to the usual background, I want to say that the Wikipedia article for Philippians is not very good. It does not have the same level of detail and organization that most of the Wikipedia articles have had.

Note to self: someday, if I have time and remember, I should go back and make it so that all of the Wikipedia articles for Bibles have the same core organization (e.g., discussion of authorship should be in a consistently named section rather than sometimes being in one of “Authorship”, “Composition”, the general overview, or elsewhere).

So what does Understanding The Bible have to say by way of introduction,

Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi, the first church established in Europe, contains important biographical information about the author and his imprisonment (at either Rome or Ephesus). An unusually warm and friendly missive, it includes Paul’s quotation of an early Christian hymn that depicts Jesus as the opposite of Adam — a humbly obedient son whose denial of self leads to his heavenly exaltation.

Pretty straightforward, which makes sense for a pretty short letter.

Paul praises his relationship with the Philippian church and prays for the continued growth of the members of that church. He then talks about the preaching of his fellow believers at the location of his imprisonment. Paul then expresses a death wish (so that he can be with Jesus) that is tempered by his desire to help others and spread the gospel.

Psalms and Proverbs

There are some Bible verses that people quote to each other for comfort. Public service announcement, this should not be one of them:

If you fail under pressure,
your strength is too small.

Reference links:

Old Testament

We transition from Second Isaiah to third Isaiah today. I noticed a transition, but I actually put it nearly a chapter later than it appears I should have. It’s also worth noting the the transition in author was not nearly as noticeable as the transition between Isaiah and Second Isaiah (although the transition in tone most certainly was); I don’t know if I would have noticed it if I hadn’t known it was coming.

What does Understanding The Bible have to say about Third Isaiah:

But it fell to another anonymous prophet, Third Isaiah, to cope with the grim realities that returning exiles actually encountered. Instead of a gloriously renewed homeland, repatriated Judeans found only a war-devastated “wilderness” and the holy city “a desolation”. Assuming Second Isaiah’s role as prophetic comforter, this postexilic prophet offered both reassurance of Yahweh’s future plans for the covenant people and criticism for their failure to share limited resources with the poor.

Second Isaiah ends on a positive note. He tells of the restored glory of Jerusalem and of the profoundness of God.

Isaiah 56 changes tone a little, but there is a continuity in so far as both chapters 55 and 56 touch upon the relationship of the restored Israel to other nations. One thing that was interesting in the first part of chapter 56 is the introduction of the possibility for non-Israelites to be saved if they commit themselves to the Lord. It seems to me as if the Biblical authors are starting to realize that advocating true monotheism without advocating the possibility of salvation for all puts them into a situation where their God shows irrational favoritism. Instead, Second or Third Isaiah, whichever it is, seems to be leaning towards the solution that is often favored by people these days: God chose to give some people a special role, but he did not reserve his blessings for those people.

The place I noticed the transition was Isaiah 56:9:

Come, wild animals of the field!
Come, wild animals of the forest!
Come and devour my people!