Daily Bible Reading: 1 Kings 22 and Luke 4:31-44

1 Kings 22 - Israel and Syria (Aram) continue at war. Jehoshaphat of Judah, Asa’s son and another good king, comes to confer with Ahab; he wants their help in reclaiming Ramoth-gilead from the Syrians. JB note says this town was captured by the Syrians (same as Aramaeans) during or before the reign of David and had not been handed back in the Treaty of Aphek (chapter 20).

Jehoshaphat agrees, but wants Ahab first to consult the Lord.  Ahab gathers 400 of the Lord’s prophets together and asks them what the Lord thinks. They all tell him to go ahead and attack.  Jehoshaphat, wanting to be very sure it is God’s will, asks if there is not yet another prophet in Israel they should consult. Ahab says there is - there is Micaiah, son of Imlah – but he adds, “but I hate him, for he never prophesies anything favorable about me, but only disaster” (22:8). They call on him anyway.

                 

Everyone gets together at the threshing floor at the entrance gate to Samaria, and the prophets there are all doing their thing.  Another false prophet, Zedekiah, assures Ahab and Jehoshaphat that they will certainly destroy the Arameans.

The men who get Micaiah – the only prophet who really knows God’s truth - tell him that everyone is predicting success and that he should too; Micaiah says he will rely on the Lord alone.  At first he does tell the king the thing he knows the king wants to hear; but Ahab knows him too well. He says to him, “How many times must I make you swear to tell me nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord?” (22:16) Another instance where Ahab kind of surprises me. He’s a king who may not always DO what is right, but he has a complex mind. He wants to KNOW what the Lord really thinks. Ahab has a frustrating mix of insight and passiveness when it comes to leading his people. So Micaiah lays it on him: “I can see the army of Israel scattered over the hills like sheep without a shepherd. And the Lord said, ‘These men have no leader; let them go home in peace’” (22:17). When he hears this, Ahab turns to Jehoshaphat and says that this is more like the Micaiah he knows.

Micaiah elaborates: “I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, with all the host of heaven standing beside him. . .And the Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab, so that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’” (22:20) The angels of the heavenly court argue back and forth until a spirit appears who says he will make Ahab go forth to the battle by putting lying words into the mouths of his prophets. Zedekiah slaps Micaiah for saying this and says, “Since when did the Lord’s spirit leave me and speak to you?” (22:25) Micaiah tells him he will find out one day when he goes into a back room to hide. 

Ahab orders Micaiah taken away and thrown into a prison until he [Ahab] returns safely. Micaiah says to him that if he [Ahab] returns safely from this campaign, then the Lord was indeed NOT speaking through him. The truth is NO ONE knows the true will of God until the fruits of our actions can be seen over time.

                 

They go into battle. Ahab—believing the words of the prophet Micaiah even though they have not pleased him and trying to escape the predicted fate—gives Jehoshaphat his kingly robes and disguises himself so the enemy will kill Jehoshaphat instead of him.  When the enemy sees that the man in the robes is not Ahab, though, they stopped their assault on him. Ahab, on the other hand, despite his disguise is hit by accident and dies. He is returned to Samaria where the dogs do in fact lick his blood from the chariot he was in. This story is in 2 Chronicles 18 too.

                 

As for Jehoshaphat, he reigns over Judah for 25 years. He does what is right except not removing the high places. He makes peace with the king of Israel, Ahaziah, and has ships made to engage in trade, but they are wrecked at Ezion-geber before they can be used. In Israel, Ahaziah, Ahab’s son, succeeds and reigns for two years; but he too does what is evil just as his parents did.

Luke 4:31-44 - Jesus encounters a “demoniac” in Capernaum (also told of in Mark 1:21-26).  As in Mark, we must wonder why it is that demons and evil spirits Jesus encounters are able to recognize Jesus even before the people generally recognize his identity.  In Luke, the spirit says, “Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God” (4:34). The same exact words are used in Mark. Jesus rebukes these evil spirits, and people are “amazed” at the power of Jesus’ command, his voice or word.

The different translations of the peoples’ response to what they see here are interesting:

·          The NRSV has them asking “What kind of utterance is this?”

·          The NAB has the fascinating and rich “What is there about his word?”

·          JB has “’What teaching!’”

·          The German has “’Was ist das fur ein Ding?’”

·          The King James also has “word” in the clause. 

Of all these, I like the NAB best. What an interesting question it becomes!  Something in Jesus’ voice demonstrates power.  Not only his voice, but his presence and his touch bring healing, first of all to the man with the unclean spirit and Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, but also to others. Luke has Jesus curing Simon’s mother-in-law before we see Simon’s call to discipleship—the order is better in Matthew.

Reflection:  All of us whom Jesus encounters are blind or ailing in one way or another.  These healings were not isolated instances but the general work he came to do.  Let us see how we are blind or deaf or filled with the evil spirits of this world who, though they can recognize Jesus, cannot be banished entirely from the world.  Help move away every impediment that the world gives to Christ’s work in us or that we bring to our encounter with the living Word.

Daily Bible Reading: 1 Kings 21 and Luke 4:1-30

1 Kings 21 -    Naboth the Jezreelite has a vineyard next to Ahab’s palace.  Ahab wants it for a vegetable garden and tells Naboth he will pay for it; but Naboth does not want to sell it.  It is his family’s ancestral home.  Ahab becomes “resentful and sullen” again over this and will not eat (21:4). Jezebel can’t understand why he doesn’t just take the land. “Do you now govern Israel?” (21:7) So she decides she will handle the matter.  She plans to have Naboth falsely accused of some crime by the city’s elders and nobles—like cursing the king or something.  A Jerusalem Bible note says that the property of traitors reverted automatically to the king. They do it, and in the end Naboth is taken out and stoned – no legal process, simply accusation and death. Jezebel tells Ahab he may now go and take possession of the vineyard.

                 

But “then the Lord said to Elijah, . . . ‘Go to King Ahab of Samaria [and] tell him that I, the Lord, say to him, ‘After murdering the man, are you taking over his property as well?’ Tell him that this is what I [the Lord] say: ‘In the very place that the dogs licked up Naboth’s blood, they will lick up you blood!’” (21:19). He also foresees a terrible end for Jezebel: “The dogs shall eat Jezebel within the bounds of Jezreel” (21:23). Ahab tears his garments and fasts when he hears this, so the Lord relents somewhat, telling Elijah “Since he [Ahab] has done this, I will not bring disaster on him during his lifetime; it will be during his son’s lifetime that I will bring disaster on Ahab’s family” (21:29). Yet another difficult moral framework for modern readers to accept – that somehow God finds an equal justice in punishing the offspring of the real perpetrators.

Luke 4:1-30 - Having had it revealed to Jesus in his baptism that he is God’s “beloved Son” Jesus goes out into the wilderness and is tested.  Of interest in comparing this to Mark’s version, here it says, “the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove” – all very public.  In Mark it says, “as he was coming out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him” (1:10).  The idea of it being a personal opening to Jesus is more likely in the Mark version.  Here there is an attempt to make it look like the vision was there for all to see. 

He goes out into the desert for 40 days, eating nothing.  The devil comes to him and tempts him three times: once suggesting he should command the stones to becomes loaves of bread since he is so hungry; once offering him the glory and authority bestowed on rulers over all the kingdoms of the world; and finally tempting him to put God to the test by hurling himself off the Temple to see if God will protect him as is promised in scripture.  Jesus refuses all of these.

The Spirit of God is with him but he eats nothing for forty days, fasting to attain clarity and self-discipline to discern what it means that he is God’s “beloved Son.”  Does it mean that he will be given miraculous powers to feed the masses and thus win favor by satisfying the material needs of man? Does it mean that he is to have power over all the earthly kingdoms of this world? Does it mean that whatever he wants and needs, he will be able to attain from God because of God’s special love for him.  He learns in turning his back on all these temptations that the true path of the Son of God is not any of these.  It is not clear that the reality of what it does import appeared to Jesus at this time, but there were clearly a number of possibilities that “tempted Jesus” when he considered how he might use his powers.  It is these that he turns his back on.  He meets temptation with obedience and lowliness.  The scriptures he cites show that even for Jesus the ancient Hebrew scriptures were a source of guidance and inspiration, but we must be careful here for the devil too quotes scripture to Jesus.  It is not the words found in scripture but the spirit of discernment applied to them that provides the wisdom.

After concluding his time in the desert, Jesus goes to his own town, Nazareth, and begins to preach in the synagogue. At first people admire him for his “gracious words” (4:22), but they soon turn on him when he compares them with some of the stubborn Jews of old and praises the outsiders in Israel’s past who were more open to God than the people (the Phoenician widow in Elijah’s story, Naaman the Syrian). Jesus adds to the Naaman story a detail that is not obvious from the scriptures – that the prophet Elisha was unable to cure anyone of leprosy in his own land.

I like it here that Jesus is using the book of Kings to teach the people – we need to remember that when we have the urge to throw out or denigrate the sometimes messy stories that come to us in Kings. What Kings teaches here is that often “the stranger,” “the foreigner,” is more open to the healing touch of the prophet than the people God called to him through Abraham and Moses.  Jesus uses this to reproach the people of Nazareth and they “get it” in no uncertain terms.  They are offended by his criticism of their complaisance or their unwillingness to believe in a “prophet” [Jesus] who is altogether too familiar to them to really “see.”  They are like the dutiful son in the prodigal son story.  They cannot see into their father’s depths because they are too used to seeing him with eyes of flesh.  The “living God” is different from the notion of God we create in learning about him as a child.  This is a lesson we too must learn.  We will never see God or hear His voice in us if we cling too tenaciously to the notions we learn of Him before we have experienced Him.  We somehow must be brought to see the great gulf that lies between Him and the familiar comfortable concepts we have of him – in a sense we must all come to him as foreigners, strangers, sinners, outsiders. 

They run him out of town. He goes to Capernaum

Daily Bible Reading: 1 Kings 20 and Luke 3

1 Kings 20 – It is around 868 BC. Ben-hadad II, is king of Syria (Aram). He gathers 32 kings [Jerusalem Bible note says they were princely vassals] to march against the kingdom of Israel under king Ahab’s rule.

He sends a message to Ahab saying, “Your silver and gold are mine; you may keep your wives and children.” This is the Jerusalem Bible translation. The NRSV version is, “Your silver and gold are mine; your fairest wives and children also are mine” (20:3). This makes no sense in the context of the story, so I assume the Jerusalem Bible translation is to be preferred here. He agrees to this message, but whatever the words actually said, the meaning of his reply is that, Ben-hadad, may have all his treasure, but his wives and children are not to be touched. 

Ben-hadad sends back a message, this time saying that everything he and his men want they will take, so Ahab goes to the elders and confers with them. They will resist. Both sides get ready for a fight.

At this point a prophet comes to Ahab and a rather complex interaction takes place between the “secular” and religious principles of the time. The unnamed prophet says that the Lord will give Ben-hadad’s men into their hands (20:13). They do beat them. The king of Syria interprets this as a victory brought about by the Israelite god whom he believes is a “god of the mountains.” But he thinks if they were to fight on the plains, they (the Syrians) would win.

In the spring, when the Syrians challenge them again, they go to the plains, near Aphek.  The prophets see this as an opportunity to proclaim that their god is the ONE GOD, the God of mountains, valleys and plains. They tell Ahab, “Because the Syrians have said, ‘The Lord is a god of the hills but he is not a god of the valleys,’ therefore I will give all this great multitude into your hand, and you shall know that I am the Lord’” (20:28). Needless to say, they win again. 

The surviving princes of the Syrian forces flee into Aphek and appeal to Ahab for mercy. Ahab perhaps sees this as an opportunity to make peace with his war-hungry neighbors and says something conciliatory, referring to Ben-hadad as his “brother.” To us modern Christian readers, this seems like it should be a good thing; but it isn’t in the context of the times and the author’s understanding of what God wanted Ahab to do. The prophets have said that God wants them defeated and killed. It is not for Ahab to do this HIS WAY.

                 

The narrative shifts to a short parable, similar to the parable Nathan uses in 2 Samuel 12 with David to help him SEE the terrible thing he has done in seducing Bathsheba. Here, we are told that the Lord tells one of a community of prophets (prophet A) to order another prophet (prophet B) to strike him (prophet A). If the Lord orders it the other prophet should DO it even though he (prophet B) may rationally see the order as stupid, something that should NOT be done. When the prophet B refuses to strike prophet A, prophet A says, “Because you have not obeyed the voice of the Lord, as soon as you leave me, a lion will kill you,” (20:36) and so it happens.  Then prophet A goes to another (prophet C) and tells him to strike him, and this prophet (C) does as he is told – he hits and wounds him. 

OK, now the parable shifts back to the “worldly” setting of kings and military officers. Prophet A leaves and hides himself along the road, now posing as a soldier (soldier A) who’s been wounded. When the king passes and asks what has happened to him, he tells the king he was injured when a fellow soldier, the soldier’s officer, gave a prisoner into his keeping and ordered him to guard the man or die for failing to do so. When the prisoner escapes on the soldier’s watch, the king responds by saying that he must die –the penalty was set by the officer in charge. 

The prophet tells Ahab this story to show him he was wrong in letting the Syrian king go. When a SUPERIOR decides something, you can’t make changes in what that authority has determined. God wanted the Syrians to die and you (Ahab) screwed up when you decided to show mercy. This very convoluted story basically means that God is not happy that Ahab comes to terms with the enemy God for him to defeat.  Ahab let his captives go just as the man in the parable did. A Jerusalem Bible note says, “all who disobey the word of God or of a man of God, even for good motives, will be punished. This idea is not perfect and is not that of the great prophets, but it reflects the mentality of the ancient prophetic communities” (449).

King Ahab returns to Samaria “resentful and sullen” (20:43).

Luke 3 – In the 15^th year of Tiberius’ reign (Pilate is governor of Judea, Herod of Galilee and his brother Philip of Ituraea and Trachonitis), when Annas and Caiaphas are high priests, John begins his ministry in the Jordan region. He proclaims “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (3:3), in accordance with the words of Isaiah:

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God’” (3:4-6).

John’s message to his people is that they are all caught up in the outward show of religion. Faith in God isn’t about being descendants of Abraham in the flesh. “God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham” (3:8). The people ask him what they need to DO. They must bear “good fruit” in their lives (3:9). They must share their excess with those who have nothing. 

Tax collectors want to know what they should DO, and John tells them to be honest in their work, collecting only what they are authorized to collect. 

Soldiers ask what they should DO, and they are told likewise to be honest and satisfied with the wages they get (3:14). This emphasis is different from in Mark, where what one is to do barely registers on the screen.  There, the emphasis is on people believing the “good news” and coming into relationship with Jesus, coming to know him—who he is. It is also interesting to me that the ones with the jobs people thought unworthy are not told to leave those jobs but simply to bring a sense of integrity to them.  People in military service are not told it is wrong to engage in war.  They are simply told to not oppress and be happy with the wages they have.

                 

As in Mark, the people who flock to John are “filled with expectation” and all wondering if he (John) might be the Messiah (3:15). John lets them know he is only preparing the way for the one who will baptize them “with the Holy Spirit and fire” (3:16). He will come with a winnowing fork to gather the wheat and throw the chaff into the fire (3:17). Herod, upset at John’s rebuke of him for having married his brother’s wife, has him thrown into jail.

                 

Here after all the people had been baptized and Jesus as well, the Holy Spirit descends on him “in bodily form like a dove” and a voice from heaven proclaims, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased” (3:22). Jesus was about thirty.  People take him to be the son of Joseph (and Joseph’s lineage is traced back to Adam through 75 generations (David is 41^st back in the line; Abraham 55th and Adam 75th). It is interesting to me that Adam is called the “son of God” (3:38).

There are a few other things I would like to point out about Luke’s gospel and how it different in focus from the other gospels. He continues in this chapter to show his commitment to linking Jesus in very concrete ways to historical time – placing the beginning of his ministry in the context of all the local and regional authorities as well as the Roman Emperor of the time. He is equally meticulous in reciting Jesus ancestral line, name by name from Joseph all the way back to Adam. Matthew will recite the lineage as well but only back to Abraham and with a few other changes as well. Clearly, Luke is set upon placing Jesus in all of “human history” while Matthew is more interested in locating him in “Jewish history.”

The tone of the gospel also has an “edge” I find missing from the other gospels. I will point the instances where this tone is most prominent. For this chapter I see it in John’s message that “the ax is lying at the root of the trees” – you had better bear fruit (3:9), and John’s reference to the one who will come after him, baptizing with the Holy Spirit and with fire, coming with a “winnowing fork” to separate the wheat from the chaff. The “chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire” (3:17).

Daily Bible Reading: 1 Kings 19 and Luke 2:21-52

1 Kings 19 – When Ahab tells Jezebel what Elijah did to all the prophets of Baal, she sends a threatening note to Elijah, and he becomes afraid.  He flees to Beersheba, goes past there and into the wilderness. He asks God to let him die: “O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors” (19:4). An angel appears and encourages him to eat—leaves him a cake and some water.  A second time the angel comes and tells him to eat again “otherwise the journey will be too much for you” (19:7).

He does and travels to Mt. Horeb [likely another name for Mt. Sinai] to a cave there. He is in the wilderness 40 days and nights. “Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’” (19:9) He answers, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed our prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away” (19:10).

                 

The Lord sends Elijah up to the top of the mountain to “stand before[the Lord]”: “Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.  When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.  Then there came a voice to him that said, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’” (19:11-13)

Elijah tells the soundless voice, “Lord God Almighty, I have always served you – you alone. But the people of Israel have broken their covenant with you, torn down your altars, and killed all your prophets. I am the only one left – and they are trying to kill me” (19:14). The Lord tells him to return and anoint Hazael king over Aram; Jehu, king over Israel and Elisha as prophet in his place. “Whoever escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall kill; and whoever escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall kill” (19:17). He will leave 7,000 in Israel that have not “bowed to Baal” (19:18). Elijah does what he is supposed to do.  When he meets Elisha and throws his mantel over him, Elisha asks to be able to kiss his father and mother before he follows Elijah.  Elijah says, “’Go back again; for what have I done to you?’” (19:20) He goes back and offers sacrifice, shares it with the people and then leaves to follow Elijah.

Luke 2:21-52 - Jesus is circumcised at eight days old and named Jesus. When the time of purification arrives, they take Jesus up to Jerusalem “to present him to the Lord” as “first fruits” of their marriage and they offer a sacrifice.

Simeon, a “righteous and devout” man, experiences the Holy Spirit as well and recognizes in Jesus the “Lord’s Messiah” (2:26). My “eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel” (2:30-32).  Mary and Joseph are “amazed” and Mary learns the “child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too” (2:34-35). In addition to Simeon, the prophetess Anna (of Asher) who stayed at the temple also “began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem” (2:38).

In a sense these people also fulfill the prophecy of Joel—about men and women prophesying at the messiah’s coming. But the thing most noticeably different here from Mark is the public and early revelation of Jesus’ identity and mission.

                 

The child grows and is “filled with wisdom” (2:40).  When he is twelve, he is left accidentally behind when his parents leave for home after coming to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.  They seek him for three days and find him “sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions” (2:46). When his mother expresses anxiety over what he has put them through, he asks “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (2:49)

At the end it says of Mary, “His mother treasured all these things in her heart” (2:51). A similar passage follows his birth at 2:19.

Daily Bible Reading: 1 Kings 18 and Luke 2:1-20

1 Kings 18 – Three years after the drought begins, the Lord sends Elijah to Ahab.  Now Ahab’s man in care of the palace is Obadiah, a man who reveres the Lord greatly; he has hidden 100 of the Lord’s prophets in a cave to protect them from Jezebel, who wants to kill them.

Ahab goes off with Obadiah in search of grass to sustain his horses and mules; they go off in different directions to look.  Obadiah meets Elijah and recognizes him. and tells him to go and report to Ahab that Elijah has come to see him. Ahab has been looking for Elijah everywhere and demanding oaths from people where he has looked swearing that Elijah is not in their kingdom. Obadiah is afraid that if he goes and reports that he has found Elijah, Elijah will get himself carried off somewhere by the Lord and Obadiah will be left looking like a liar.  Elijah promises Obadiah that this will not happen. The Jerusalem Bible note indicates these sudden disappearing acts were always part of the story of Elijah.

                 

When Ahab sees Elijah, they dispute over which one of them is the one who has brought the drought on to Israel.  Elijah tells Ahab to assemble all Israel before him at Mt. Carmel and bring with him 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah.  He does, and Elijah addresses them: “How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him” (18:21). He orders that two bulls be brought, slaughtered and cut into pieces; the 850 prophets will take one and Elijah [the only remaining prophet of the one Lord God] the other.  Each will call on the name of his god and the god who answers with fire will be declared “God” (18:24). They agree.  The prophets of Baal go first; they call on their god all day.  Elijah mocks them when they get no response.  They slash themselves with swords and lances but still “there was no voice, no answer, and no response” (18:29).

Then it is Elijah’s turn.  He takes 12 stones (for the number of tribes) and sets about rebuilding the damaged altar of the Lord (18:30); he digs a trench around it “large enough = to hold about four gallons of water” (18:32) and places wood on the altar and pieces of a bull on top of the wood. He has them pour water on the offering, so much that it runs down around the altar and fills the trench around the altar. Then he addresses the Lord: “Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and you have turned their hearts back” (18:37).  Fire comes down and consumes the offering, and the altar beneath it. “When the people saw this, they threw themselves on the ground and exclaimed, ‘The Lord is God, the Lord alone is God!’” (18:39).

To end it, Elijah then orders the prophets seized and brought down to the wadi Kishon where Elijah kills them. Jerusalem Bible says they “suffer the fate of the conquered in the warfare of the times.”

                 

Then Ahab is told to go eat and drink, that he, Elijah, hears the roar of rain approaching.  Elijah goes on top of Mt. Carmel to wait. He sends his servant seven times to go and look out towards the sea.  The seventh time, they see a little cloud rising out of the sea.  Soon there is a heavy rain.  Ahab rides off in his chariot to Jezreel, but Elijah beats him there, running to the gates of the town.

Luke 2:1-20 – The Emperor Augustus orders a census to be taken, during the reign of Quirinius, governor of Syria. Joseph must return from Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem, the town where those in the house of David must register.  Brown (Introduction to the New Testament) points out that there are historical problems with the narrative here. “There never was a census of the whole Empire under Augustus (but a number of local censuses), and the census of Judea (not of Galilee) under Quirinius, the governor of Syria, took place in AD 6-7, probably at least ten years too late for the birth of Jesus. The best explanation is that, although Luke likes to set his Christian drama in the context of well-known events from antiquity, sometimes he does so inaccurately” (233). “The events Luke will describe actually took place in a small town in Palestine, but by calling Bethlehem the city of David and setting them in a Roman census Luke symbolizes the importance of those events for the royal heritage of Israel and ultimately for the world Empire” (233).

Mary, Joseph’s “intended” (they are engaged) is pregnant.  While they are there she gives birth in a barn “because there was no place for them in the inn” (2:7).

Shepherds in the area experience the presence of an angel who announces to birth to them—“good news of great joy for all the people” (2:11).  The Messiah is born.  They will find him “wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger” (2:12). When the angels (heavenly host) leave, the shepherds go into Bethlehem to see what the Lord has made known to them. When they saw him, “they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed. . .” (2:17-18). Far from starting the narrative with admonitions of secrecy, here we have a great and joyous announcement from heaven to all who live on earth. There is no secret here of “who” it is who is born. It is made known to both the lowly (here shepherds) and the great (in Matthew, magi).

I cannot help here but bring up one of my favorite Quaker references to one of the passages here – William Penn’s use of the inn in 2:7. In his great book No Cross, No Crown he says “You, like the inn of old, have been full of guests; your affections have entertained other lovers; there has been no room for your savior in your soul. Therefore, salvation has not yet come into your house, though it has come to your door and you have long claimed it.”

Daily Bible Reading: 1 Kings 16-17 and Luke 1:39-80

1 Kings 16 – For modern readers, the cast of characters in Kings can be very challenging. We have Ahijah the prophet from Shiloh – a good man who prophesies against Jeroboam and his line because of their unfaithfulness to the one God. Then there is the Ahijah from the tribe of Issachar – a different man apparently – whose son Baasha takes over the northern kingdom and has all of Jeroboam’s line killed. It is tempting to think they might have been related Ahijahs but apparently they are not.

Now we have a prophet named Jehu – son of Hanani who speaks God’s word to Baasha, telling him that he too has provoked God’s anger and that he too will be “consume[d]” (16:3). Later there will be another Jehu, a different man, who will become king of Israel for a while. The prophet Jehu sends a message to King Baasha, telling him he has also led God’s people into sin and will also die – with his whole family – just as Jeroboam was eliminated. It is interesting that one of the sins listed against the house of Baasha is his killing of Jeroboam’s “house.” So even though this was prophesied, it was not seen as the will of God.

Baasha manages to live out his life as king. His son Elah succeeds him. Elah only reigns for two years in Israel.  It is through Zimri, the commander of Elah’s forces that the prophesy of Jehu s comes to pass. Zimri kills Elah when he is drunk one day, and then Zimri has all of Baasha’s family killed. “Because of their idolatry and because they led Israel into sin, Baasha and his son Elah had aroused the anger of the Lord” (16:13).

Zimri rules for only seven days in Tirzah. Israelite troops fighting in Philistia, learn of Zimri’s coup and they plot against him. When Zimri learns of their plot, he “went into the palace’s inner fortress, set the palace on fire and died in the flames” (16:18). They set their chief commander, Omri, as king. This revolt ends with the people of Israel are divided—half loyal to one Tibni, and the other half to Omri.  But Tibni dies, so Omri is left in charge. 

Omri reigns for 12 years.  It is Omri who builds the city of Samaria on a hill that he buys. Around 875 BC, Omri’s son Ahab becomes the king of Israel. Ahab “sinned against the Lord more than any of his predecessors” (16:30). He takes as his wife Jezebel, daughter of King Ethbaal of Sidon. “He built a temple to Baal in Samaria, made an altar for him, and put it in the temple. He also put up an image of the goddess Asherah” (16:32-33). A Jerusalem Bible note says Ethbaal was a priest of Asherah (Astarte) who seized power in Tyre at the same time as Omri in Israel.  They allied themselves to each other. The “effects on the religion of Israel of this association with the Philistines were to be increasingly felt throughout the reign of Ahab.

During Ahab’s reign a man named Hiel builds (or rebuilds) the city of Jericho—and sacrifices his eldest son Abiram as part of it.  The gates of the city are consecrated with the sacrifice of his youngest son Segub.

1 Kings 17 – This first appearance of Elijah the Tishbite (of Tishbe in Gilead). He goes to Ahab and prophecies drought.  He himself goes, at God’s command, to live in the Wadi Cerith, east of the Jordan.  There the ravens feed him bread and meat every morning and evening; and he drinks from the wadi. Soon it dries up, so he goes to Zarephath where the Lord tells him a widow will feed him.  He meets the widow at the gate gathering sticks and asks her for bread.  She has nothing—only a handful of meal in a jar and a little oil.  She is gathering sticks to prepare one last meal for her and her son.  Elijah tells her not to fear, to do as she planned, but to give him a little something first—that the meal and oil will not fail until the day the Lord sends rain to the earth again.  It happens.

                 

After, the widow’s son becomes ill.  She yells at Elijah for bringing this problem on them by “bring[ing] [her]sin to remembrance” (17:17). He takes her dying son to his (Elijah’s) room and lays him on his bed; he asks the Lord why he has brought this calamity on them.  He lies on the child three times and begs the Lord to let the child live. The Lord “listened to the voice of Elijah” (17:22). She acknowledges then that he is a man of God.

Luke 1:39-80 - Mary visits Elizabeth and when Elizabeth hears Mary coming in to their home, “the baby [John} moved within her” (1:41). Mary’s “Song of Praise” follows. This “Magnificat” is among a number of hymns that appear in New Testament writing. Brown notes that the “canticles reflect the style of contemporary Jewish hymnology” of the time, that “every line echoes the OT so that the whole is a mosaic of scriptural themes reused for a new expression of praise” (232). This hymn is patterned on the hymn of Hannah, Samuel’s mother in 1 Samuel 2:1-10.

She remains with Elizabeth and Zechariah until the birth of John, then returns to Nazareth. Zechariah, filled with the Holy Spirit to prophecy, speaks of the “mighty savior” God is sending to save his people “from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us” (1:71). The savior expected is one who will rescue his people “from the hands of [their] enemies” so that they can “serve him without fear” (1:73). The purpose of his own son John will be to “go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins” (1:77).

                 

So both John and Jesus are introduced here before they are born as fulfillments of the promises God has given his people over the years. 

Daily Bible Reading: 1 Kings 15 and Luke 1:1-38

1 Kings 15 – In Judah, Abijah (also called Abijam) takes over and reigns for three years. “He committed all the sins that his father did before him; his heart was not true to the Lord his God, like the heart of his father David” (15:3). It is for David’s sake (memory of his devotion) that the monarchy is permitted to continue.  The writer speaks of how David pleased the Lord in everything except the “matter of Uriah the Hittite” (15:5). This last “gloss,” the Jerusalem Bible note says is absent from the Greek.

The war with Rehoboam continues through his reign, and when he dies, his son Asa becomes king. One thing to note here is the similarity between the way the moral failures who follow David are carried along “in him” because of the great love God had for David and the great commitment David made to God in his own name and in the name of his people. The gospel truth here is that we are all lifted up by the holiness of the few.  It is an example of the kind of salvation that will be offered to man through Christ.

                 

Asa reigns for 41 years—though one text I've read says he is Abijah’s son, he actually seems to be his brother.  They have the same mother—Maacah, the daughter of Absalom. “Asa did what was right in the sight of the Lord, as his father David had done” (15:11). He got rid of the male prostitutes, removed the idols and he removed his own mother from being queen mother because she had made “an abominable image for Asherah” (15:13). But the high places are not removed. 

War continues with Israel (now under Baasha). Asa sends great treasure to the king (Ben-hadad) in Damascus to get him to break his alliance with Israel and form one with Judah.  This turns the tide—causes Baasha to cease the building of Ramah.  The stones of that town were carried away by Asa to build Geba. When Asa dies, his son Jehoshaphat succeeds him.

In Israel, Nadab, Jeroboam’s son rules for two years. “He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord” (15:26). Baasha, son of Ahijah (Issachar’s tribe) “struck him down” when they were laying siege to a Philistine town.  He takes over as king and kills all the house of Jeroboam. It is confusing that Baasha’s father is Ahijah and the prophet of Shiloh, who foretold of the death of Jeroboam’s family (1 Kings 14:10) is also Ahijah. Sounds like they might have been the same person, but it isn’t clear and it seems unlikely that a prophecy would come true out of a worldly desire of the prophet’s son to make it happen. Baasha moves the capital of the northern kingdom from Shechem to Tirzah (slightly to the north). He reigns at Tirzah for 24 years and “sinned against the Lord and led Israel into sin” (15:34).

Introduction to the Gospel of Luke: According to Raymond E. Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament, 1997), Luke is believed to have been a physician and traveling companion of Paul; from the content, it appears he was an educated Greek-speaker and writer who knew the OT in Greek but who was NOT an eyewitness of Jesus’ ministry. He was probably not raised a Jew (Brown, 226), and was not a Palestinian. He might have been a convert to Judaism first. The Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles were part of one long compilation of information, which Luke assembled from different sources. The two books were separated in the 2^nd century, but most scholars continue to believe they were from the hand of the same writer. A good many of the descriptions I wrote on Luke’s gospel relate to what sets it apart from Mark.

Those parts of Luke that are new (not in Mark at all) are in green.

Luke 1:1-38 – Luke undertakes to set down “an orderly account of events that have taken place among us” (1:1) “as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word” (1:2). Luke has the most thorough account of the pre-birth events of the gospel.  First we see the priest Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth. They have never had any children and now they are very old. One day, in the Temple, Zechariah hears a prophecy from an angel (Gabriel), that his wife Elizabeth will have a son; he is to name the boy John and this boy will “be filled with the Holy Spirit (1:16). He “will go ahead of the Lord, strong and mighty like the prophet Elijah. Brown points out that the very last prophetic book of the OT, Malachi, says that Elijah “will be sent before the coming Day of the Lord” (229). He will bring fathers and children together again; he will turn disobedient people back to the way of thinking of the righteous; he will get the Lord’s people ready for him” (1:17). Because Zechariah has trouble believing this will happen, he is rendered unable to speak “until the day [the] promise to [him] comes true” (1:20).

                 

Six months into Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sends the angel Gabriel toa town in Galilee name Nazareth, to a “young woman promised in marriage to man named Joseph, who was a descendant of King David. Her name was Mary” (1:27). “Blessed are you among women” Gabriel says to her. She will become pregnant and give birth to a son, whom she will name Jesus. Mary is “deeply troubled” (1:29). Gabriel tells her that Jesus “will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High God” (1:31). He will be called “the Son of God” (1:35). Troubling as all this may seem to her, she responds, “I am the Lord’s servant . . .may it happen to me as you have said’” (1:38).

Mary’s submission to God’s will for her is a model for us to follow so that in us, as in her, Christ’s life may be formed.  This doesn’t mean Mary wasn’t “troubled” by the burden laid upon her, but her obedience was not less perfect on that account.  Mary is the preeminent model of the Church as well since it is the corporate calling of the Church to bear Christ into the world. She and Jesus represent the “male and female [God] created” – mankind – made in His image and likeness, God’s “helpmate” in this creation of His. That’s what I think anyway. It is interesting in Luke that the prophecy concerning Jesus refers to him as Son of the Most High. The title of Most High God is first used in connection with Melchizedek, priest of the Most High God.  

Daily Bible Reading: 1 Kings 14 and Philippians 4

1 Kings 14 – Jeroboam’s son, Abijah, becomes ill and Jeroboam sends the mother to Shiloh to consult with the prophet Ahijah (the one who told him he should be king). Ahijah can’t see but when the woman comes to him, he knows it is she even though she pretends to be someone else. He gives her the following message—the Lord is not pleased with Jeroboam because he has not been like David.  He has made idols and provoked God, so God will bring evil on Jeroboam’s house—when the woman returns her child will die (14:12). But beyond that, “the Lord will strike Israel. . .he will root up Israel out of this good land that he gave to their ancestors, and scatter them beyond the Euphrates, because they have made their sacred poles, provoking the Lord to anger” (14:15). It happens as Ahijah predicts. Jeroboam reigns 22 years. His son Nadab succeeds him.

           

In Judah, Rehoboam reigns 17 years in Jerusalem, but Judah too “did what was evil in the sight of the Lord” (14:22). They set up high places and sacred poles too, instituted temple prostitution for males.  During his reign the Pharaoh of Egypt comes and takes the treasure of the king’s house—the shields Solomon had made.  Also, there is war between Jeroboam and Rehoboam continually.  When Rehoboam dies, his son Abijam succeeds him.

Philippians 4 - Continuing his loving conclusion, Paul urges his readers to help those who have shared in Paul’s work: women co-workers Euodia and Syntyche, Clement and others “whose names are in the book of life” (4:3).

He admonishes his readers once again to “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice” (4:4). “The Lord is near.  Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (4:5-7). And finally, in those now famous words, Paul urges us to cultivate and contemplate everything that is worthy in life: 

“[W]hatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (4:8).

He thanks them for the support they have sent to him and especially tells them that it is the benefit to them their generosity entails in spiritual reward that makes him the happiest. 

Throughout this lovely letter, we not only hear how we are to grow in the depth and breadth of love, and come to know the resignation to God’s will that brings complete peace and equanimity of mind, but we see it in Paul and hear it in the tone and feeling of his words.