Daily Old Testament: 2 Maccabees 2-3 and My Own Article on "Genesis and John" (Part 4)

2 Maccabees 2 – The author tells how the prophet Jeremiah ordered those who were taken into exile to “hide some of the fire from the altar” so it could be found as they have just found it to rekindle the light of the Temple. He also instructed them concerning God Law and warned them about the temptation of idol worship that they would see in the land they were being taken to.

“These same records also tell us that Jeremiah, acting under divine guidance, commanded the Tent of the Lord’s Presence and the Covenant Box to follow him to the mountain where Moses had looked down on the land which God had promised our people. When Jeremiah got to the mountain, he found a huge cave and there he hid the Tent of the Lord’s Presence, the Covenant Box, and the altar of incense. Then he sealed up the entrance” (2:4-5). No one was to know about the site until the time God would gather his people again and show them mercy. “At that time he will reveal where these things are hidden, and the dazzling light of his presence will be seen in the cloud, as it was in the time of Moses” (2:8).

Nehemiah is credited with bringing together all the “royal records” and all the “writings of David, letters of the kings concerning offerings, and books about the kings and prophets” (2:13).

A Jerusalem Bible note seems to say that all this is not very historically accurate. It is an attempt to show the continuity of orthodox worship – give it higher credentials. He also tries to impress the reader with the massive amount of research he has done, but that the account he plans to give is cursory – an overview.

2 Maccabees 3 – The narrative starts here. It begins when Onias III was high priest and Seleucus IV is ruler of Asia (186-175 BC). One Simon gets into a conflict with Onias over regulation of the markets and Simon uses the Seleucids to get even. He sends rumors of great wealth stashed in the Temple. The king sends Heliodorus, his chancellor, to seize this money – out of all proportion to any money needed for the religious purposes of the Jews. The Lord himself intervenes on Israel’s behalf appearing in a vision to Heliodorus to protect his Temple. He is converted by this experience it says, though he does not seem to be thought of as a good guy.

“Genesis and John”

Part 4

I knew that the opening of Genesis was very important to Fox and Friends. And I knew that the term “Seed” was just as linked to Genesis as “Light” and “Word,” but I wondered if the first part of Genesis was so important to the author of John, were there not perhaps other references to it in other parts of John’s gospel. The first other passage I thought of was the miracle at Cana, Jesus first miracle and the beginning of his ministry. There had always been controversy over the question of why Jesus referred to his mother as “Woman” not “mother dearest.” And the note in my Jerusalem Bible says, “Unusual address from son to mother; the term is used again in 19:26 where there may be a reference to Gn 3:15, 20: Mary is the second Eve, ‘the mother of the living’.”

The only other mention of Mary in John is in John 19:26 when Jesus is on the Cross, and he again calls her “woman” – Jesus, “[s]eeing his mother and the disciple he loved standing near her, Jesus said to his mother, ‘Woman, this is your son’. Then to the disciple he said, ‘This is your mother’. And from that moment the disciple made a place for her in his home” (John 19:26-27). Putting together all of these passages blew my mind. Quakers had gotten the Second Adam insight and run with it, finding in it a theological basis for leading the charge back through the “flaming sword” that kept us out of Eden; but Catholics had seen that in accepting Mary, the woman who was the first to open herself utterly and completely to Christ’s life in her, we too - all of us who were Christ’s beloved disciples – could really join ourselves to them both.

But perhaps the strongest sense of "convincement" I felt about the connection between these Old and New Testament passages came when I read on in John and it said, "After this, Jesus knew that everything had now been completed, and to fulfill the scripture perfectly he said: 'I am thirsty'. A jar full of vinegar stood there, so putting a sponge soaked in the vinegar on a hyssop stick they held it up to his mouth. After Jesus had taken the vinegar he said, 'It is accomplished'; and bowing his head he gave up his spirit" (John 19: 28-30). Yes, the promise made in 3:15 was accomplished.

“Openings” have power. They make us feel that God is working in us, opening our eyes to things we have been blind to; raising to life in us insights that enrich our faith-lives and make us feel the fruits of faithfulness – excitement on an intellectual and spiritual plane, love for those who have witnessed to him and made him live for others. I am thankful.

Daily Bible Reading: Jeremiah 51-52 and Romans 12

Jeremiah 51 – Oracle Against Babylon Again – Jeremiah here repeats that the “moral arc” of God’s dealing with Israel and Babylon will be long, but in the end Babylon whom God used to punish the unfaithfulness of His people, will also be brought low by its “kingdom from the north” [Persia].

“The Lord made the earth by his power; by his wisdom he created the world and stretched out the heavens. At his command the waters above the sky roar; he brings clouds from the ends of the earth. He makes lightning flash in the rain and sends the wind from his storeroom. At the sight of this, people feel stupid and senseless; those who make idols are disillusioned because the gods they make are false and lifeless. . . The God of Jacob is not like them; he is the one who made everything, and he has chosen Israel to be his very own people” (51:15-19). This monotheistic approach to religion, this Creator God held high by the people of Abraham, will – after everything – show that the wonders and miracles of nature are also reflected in the history of humankind.

God is a mace that will be used against Babylon: “I will dry her rivers up, make her springs run dry, and turn Babylon into a heap of stone, a lair for jackals, and thing of horror and of scorn with no one living in it” (51:36). 

Jeremiah sends Seraiah, brother of Baruch, to read every word of the Babylonian oracle to them and then to throw the scroll into the Euphrates saying “so shall Babylon sing, never to rise again. . .”(51:64). “The words of Jeremiah end here” (51:64).

Jeremiah 52 – This chapter seems tagged on to just put the key events of Jerusalem’s fall into a very brief historical context: Zedekiah was 22 when he became king (597 BC), and served 11 years before the end came for Jerusalem and the kingdom of Judah (586 BC).  In his ninth year, the siege began.  When he was captured his sons were killed before his eyes and then he was blinded and taken in chains to Babylon. The valuable fixings of the Temple were carried off.  The High Priest, Seraiah, his next-in-line, Zephaniah, and a number of others were killed in Riblah.  A total of 4,600 people were taken into exile.  In Babylon, the king Jehoiachin remained in prison until 561/560 and then he was released and treated honorably at the expense of the government there until his death.

Romans 12 – “Do not conform yourself to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect” (12:1). As the body has many parts so we, though many, are one body in Christ (12:4-5).  All these words are so precious:

“Let love be sincere; hate what is evil, hold on to what is good; love one another with mutual affection. . .” (12:9).

“Bless those who persecute [you], bless and do not curse them. . .do not be haughty but associate with the lowly; do not be wise in your own estimation.  Do not repay anyone evil for evil; be concerned for what is noble in the sight of all. . .Beloved, do not look for revenge but leave room for the wrath; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ Rather, ‘if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head.’ Do not be conquered by evil but conquer evil with good” (12:9-21).

These words of Christ are here even before the first gospel was written, one of the relatively few occasions where we hear Paul repeat Jesus’ teaching rather than reflecting on what Jesus did—in his dying and rising again.

Daily Bible Reading: Jeremiah 44-45 and Romans 9:1-23

Jeremiah 44 - For the Jews in Egypt, Jeremiah continues to rant and rave against them.  It is because of the evil they did to provoke God that they have seen Judah and Jerusalem destroyed.  “Though I kept sending to you all my servants the prophets, with the plea not to commit this horrible deed which I hate, [sacrificing to strange gods] they would not listen or accept the warning to turn away from the evil of sacrificing to strange gods” (44:4).

Why do they keep doing this Jeremiah asks, endangering even the precious remnant they might have been? “To this day they have not been crushed: they do not fear or follow the law. . .” (44:10).  Obedience to God, Jeremiah tells us here, is in some ways a crushing of our own wills, our own sense of what we feel we must do.  We must put the fear of displeasing God up higher on the list of things that motivate us. They must not offer incense to the Gods of Egypt.  But still they reject his word.  The women especially defy him, offering incense to the “Queen of Heaven.” (Ishtar)  Pharoah Hophra will be dethroned and killed by Amasis—his successor-- in 569.  Amasis also will be later slain by his opponents.

Jeremiah 45 – Flipping back to the time of King Jehoiakim [c.609-598 BC]. We are told that a message was given to Baruch at the time of Jeremiah’s prophecies in 605-604 BC that God would soon be tearing down what he had built, uprooting what He (God) had planted in destroying Jerusalem.  But Baruch is reassured that he will be left unharmed.

Romans 9:1-23 – Paul tells of the “great sorrow and constant anguish in [his] heart” over the rejection of Christ by his Jewish brothers—who have had every blessing and gift from God to bring them to understand and accept Christ (9:4). Paul then says something that is a little – no very - startling. He says, “For their sake [for the sake of his people, the Jews] I would wish that I myself were under God’s curse and separated from Christ” (9:3).

Could Paul really think this for a minute? But here I think I do understand him.  I have had similar feelings myself—not about the salvation of the Jews.  I don’t worry about the Jews.  They will do fine before God.  I worry about people who CANNOT come into knowledge of Christ because of deep mental handicaps. And here I must add something very personal. When I read these words, I think of my mother and sister, both of whom struggled all their adult lives with schizophrenia.  Their lives were full of a misery I cannot even begin to imagine in all honesty.  By contrast, my own life has been so blessed by God, right here in this life, it often seems very unfair to me. The happiness I have had and especially the moments of “redemption” I have experienced – those amazing moments where I have experienced the “intersection of the timeless with time” (TS Eliot) have been moments so rich, that they make thoughts of a heavenly afterlife relatively unimportant to me. If there is something more after death, I would happily give it up if my mother and sister could only come into an experience of God in some dimension or realm beyond my imagination.  I have already been rewarded.  They have never really even lived if true “life” is “in Christ.”

Returning to Paul’s analysis, however, of the Jews, the real children of Abraham, he posits, are not those who are descendants through the flesh, but those who are his descendants through faith.  Is this an injustice on God’s part, he asks?  Surely not, for God’s will is beyond question (9:15); “it depends not upon a person’s will or exertion, but upon God, who shows mercy” (9:16)

Daily Bible Reading: Jeremiah 42-43 and Romans 8:18-39

Jeremiah 42 - The leaders of the remnant, Johanan and Azariah, beg Jeremiah to intercede for them with God. They sound as if they are REALLY ready to be obedient to whatever the Lord wants from them. Jeremiah takes ten days to consult with the Lord, but when he returns and tells them they must not go on to Egypt, they disobey YET AGAIN. They give in to their fears: their fear of the Chaldeans, their fear of starvation and battle. The message of Jeremiah is ever the same.  The word of God runs counter to the natural inclinations of men—their sense of what they ought to do, their reasoned judgment about what is wise.  God always seems to advise us not to pay attention to immediate fears - what we might even say is common sense - or to the things we might want the most.  When you run away from what you fear, disaster always overtakes you. Obedience is counter-intuitive because our intuitions are not tuned to God.  Azariah and Johanan cannot believe that this is what they ought to do.  So they defy him. 

Jeremiah 43 - They will not obey and stay in Judah.  They accuse Jeremiah of being the pawn of Baruch in encouraging them to stay.  Instead, they go to Egypt and they take both Baruch and Jeremiah with them to the city of Tahpanhes, on the Nile River. Here Jeremiah predicts Nebuchadnezzar’s expedition to Egypt in 568-56 and his victory over it. There is no running away from what God brings.

Romans 8:18-39 - Paul is at his most difficult in verses 18-21.  I do not understand it very well, but perhaps I am not alone.  Paul seems to be saying that the consequences of the fall—futility, in particular—is something only partly overcome, even by faith. 

“For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God; . . . all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now; and not only that, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.  For in hope we were saved” (8:19-24). Our bodies do not yet partake of the redemption Christ has gained for us.  I don’t know if this is true.  Early Friends thought it could be FULLY EXPERIENCED.

But the fruits of the redemption are richly offered to us in this life, in all kinds of ways, spiritual and physical.  I think I understand what he means when he says that  the hope -- the less than rational optimism we feel as Christians -- cannot be for what we already enjoy but must be for a something we only dimly sense now, something in a dimension we have no clear access to right now or perhaps something in the future.  Now, whether this thing we hope for is an anticipation of heaven (after life) or something that pertains more to this creation—its full restoration perhaps—this I do not know.  Sometimes I think the thing I hope for more than any kind of “heaven” is for a “restoration” of human fullness in this creation, that somehow the faithfulness that we offer through our lives, our work, our testimony to the world, etc—that these things somehow, incredibly, will inspire and move people distant from us in place and time to a kind of life more in keeping with what God always intended for us than what we live today.

The mystery continues.  The Spirit groans in pain for us (8:26).  “We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.  For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (8:28-29).  This is an interesting idea.  I guess Calvin must have liked this passage. Maybe Paul didn’t have everything just exactly right either.  Jesus as the first-born of the redeemed creation—this I understand, and feeling called to be his sister, this I understand too.

Then the chapter ends with this lovely passage: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?  Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (NRSV, 8:35-39).

Daily Bible Reading: Jeremiah 40-41 and Romans 8:1-17

Jeremiah 40 - The next several chapters are very dramatic and show the chaos surrounding the whole broken Judaean region following the Chaldean conquest. Jeremiah is taken with the captives who are being led into exile with their Chaldean captors as far as Ramah, but is then told that he does not have to go into exile; he can go wherever he wants to go.  He is advised to go to Gedaliah, whom the king of Babylon has named governor of Judah. Gedaliah comes from a family that was deeply associated with the reform movement started by Josiah; and his father, Ahiakam, had helped save Jeremiah earlier [see chapter 26]. So Jeremiah does go to him.

There are also some Judeaen military officers who had not surrendered to the Chaldeans who go to Gedaliah to seek refuge; and other people as well – Israelites from Moab, Ammon, Edom and elsewhere return to Judah, hoping that Gedaliah will be able to provide some security.

One of the Judaean officers  -- Johanan – tries to warn Gedaliah that the Ammonite king, Baalis, who has not yet surrendered to the Chaldeans, is resentful of Gedaliah and sees him as a puppet of the enemy. Johanan tells Gedaliah that Baalis intends to assassinate him, but Gedaliah refuses to believe it. Johanan advises Gedaliah to send someone to kill Ishmael, the man appointed to assassinate him, but Gedaliah will have none of it.

Jeremiah 41 – So the assassination happens—while they are all together at a dinner table in Mizpah. Ishmael and the ten men with him also slay many of those associated with Gedaliah. The day after--before anyone has learned of the assault--eighty men with beards shaved (under a vow of some kind?), clothed in rags and with gashes on their bodies, arrive to bring food offerings and incense.  Ishmael greets them, invites them in and then slays them as well—except for ten. He takes captives, including women left behind by the Chaldeans for Gedaliah and leaves.

           

When Johanan learns of the slaughter, he and his men set out after Ishmael, overtaking him at the Great Waters of Gibeon.  When the captives with Ishmael see them, they go over to the pursuers; but Ishmael escapes with eight of his men to the Ammonites. Johanan takes charge of the assorted “remnant,” but fearing what the Chaldeans will do now, they decide to escape to Egypt. 

Romans 8:1-17 – Paul describes a Christological understanding that is rooted in the Levitical sacrifices—the Law was powerless to completely deal with sin (bring it to a state of utter holiness), because the “flesh” in human makeup could not be brought into complete obedience to the Law but rather found in the Law ever new ways to undermine God’s will, which was to save through the Law under the Old Covenant.  So now it is flesh itself—in the person of Christ—that is condemned and handed over to God in sacrifice.  But only God can do this.  By joining ourselves to Christ through faith in his sacrifice, we enter into a spiritual relationship with the divine that gives us a spiritual power capable of overcoming the drag of flesh.

“For the concern of the flesh is hostility toward God; it does not submit to the law of God, nor can it; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.  But you are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you.  Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.  But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is alive because of righteousness” (8:7-10). He says this a time or two again.

So we see the indwelling Christ proclaimed here, but also the expiatiatory nature of Christ’s incarnation and death—Quaker and not so Quaker aspects of the faith. I am very interested in the tension between the “fleshly” and the spiritual dimensions of the truths proclaimed in the Christian gospel.  The sacramental spirituality of the Catholic Church seems a two-edged sword – it is a vital reminder or teacher of the truths and the message of Christ’s redemption; but it seems to me too a snare that sometimes (maybe often) keeps people from passing into a real spiritual grasp of what that redemption is all about.   One could argue (and I do) that true sacramentality comes after the spiritual rebirth.  When the Spirit of Christ animates our mortal bodies and dwells at the heart of all we do in the flesh - our marriages, our friendships and our communities. 

Daily Bible Reading: Jeremiah 37 and Romans 5

Jeremiah 37 - Chronologically, this chapter follows 34:1-7. Zedekiah is installed as king by Nebuchadnezzar, and he will not listen to Jeremiah. But he does send people to ask Jeremiah to intercede with God for the people.  Pharaoh’s army is on the move to Jerusalem and the Chaldeans (Neo-Babylonians) will abandon the siege of the city for a time.  But the Lord warns Jeremiah that the Egyptians will turn back and when they do, the Chaldeans will return to destroy the city. 

While the Chaldeans are away, however, Jeremiah takes the opportunity to go and see his family—again over the issue of some inheritance. He is accused of deserting to the Chaldeans. He is arrested and beaten, left in an underground cell.  Zedekiah sends for him and asks him for a word from the Lord.  Jeremiah tells him again he will be handed over, but asks that he not be sent back to the cell he was in. Instead Jeremiah is placed in the Court of the Guard where he had a greater degree of freedom, can talk to people, etc. and is given a loaf of bread a day until all the bread in the city is gone.

Romans 5 - Our peace with God is through Jesus.  Through Him we have access to God’s grace and we are able to hope realistically to see the glory of God (5:2). It is by attaching ourselves to the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit, that we love God as we need to love Him.  Paul seems to say, however, that our experience of redemption is at least partly something we have hoped for but do not yet possess; but he wants us to believe that this hope is well-founded. Our love for Him is great because he died for us, not when we were loveable and devoted to him, but when we were lost in sin. This is unique. “Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die.  But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us” (5:7-8).

Christ is compared with Adam: “Sin came into the world through one man, and his sin brought death with it. As a result, death has spread to the whole human race because everyone has sinned. ” (5:12-13). “From the time of Adam to the time of Moses, death ruled over all human beings, even over those who did not sin in the same way that Adam did when he disobeyed God’s command” (5:14). I think the death Paul speaks of here is a spiritual death. And he plainly says that the man Adam is a “figure of the one who was to come” (5:14). The “figure” of Adam in the Genesis story is the figure of the human who has lost the vision of humanity that the creator intended to “gift” us with. A restoration of that “gift” is what comes to man through the grace that flows from seeing Jesus as God poured out for us.

“So then, as the one sin condemned all people, in the same way the one righteous act sets all people free and gives them life” (5:18). “[J]ust as sin ruled by means of death, so also God’s grace rules by means of righteousness, leading us to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (5:21).

Paul is not easy to understand, and I can only say about it what God has given me to see in it, and I cannot be certain I see it all correctly. I remember that one of the things about Jesus that made it difficult for me to “see” him as God incarnate was that as a young, secular, revolutionary (left-winger back in the 60s), I was used to idealizing people who had fought for justice and died, people who had sacrificed themselves for the underdog. And there were many such people in human history, or so I thought then. Why was this one man held aloft as uniquely self-sacrificing and important? 

This is STILL for me a problem with those who focus entirely on Jesus’ social justice message. He is not particularly unique on this level. But if he is God, and He has emptied Himself of power and majesty to die for the unholy, unheroic and unworthy so as to "raise them up" in some way to SEE themselves as worthy of awe and life eternal – THIS I can finally SEE as something very unique, very essential.

Daily Bible Reading: Jeremiah 35 and Romans 3

Jeremiah 35 - In the days of Jehoiakim (609-598 BC), Jeremiah said go to the Rechabites and take them to the Temple, give them wine.  The Rechabites were a nomadic clan that upheld the ancient religious practices of the desert. They didn’t live in houses but in tents close to the soil.  They had been driven into Jerusalem around 605 BC, by bands of Syrians sent out by Nebuchadnezzar to harry the countryside according to JB note.  Jeremiah does what the Lord commands - takes them to a room in the Temple and offers them the wine. They refuse to drink and remind Jeremiah of the promise made long ago by their ancestor Jonahdab.The Lord wants the Judaeans to notice the faithfulness of the Rachabites to the commitments they made in the past NOT to drink wine, and NOT to settle down in villages. Jeremiah reminds his people that they too made promises in the past and they too will be held to the same standard of faithfulness.  He reminds them that the Lord will bless the Rechabites and bring destruction to Judah and Jerusalem.

Romans 3 – Paul asks, then, if all will be judged according to the standard by which they have chosen to live (or by which they have been given by virtue of where they come from, what group they are part of), then of what benefit is it to be a Jew.  Paul says it is a great advantage.  “The utterances of God were given to the Jews” (3:3). His promises to them, His constant faithfulness to them is their advantage, not their faithfulness to Him. 

Everyone is deserving of God’s judgment—we all are “under the domination of sin” (3:9), and he quotes a medley of scripture verses [mostly psalms—14, 53, 5, 10, 140 and 36] that link man’s different faculties: his understanding, his desire, his deeds, his speaking, his propensity to run to do evil, do violence, his lack of fear before God (3:11-18). The Law itself does not bring release from sin (justification) but mainly “consciousness of sin” (3:20). The JB note says there is allusion here to psalm 143:2, which emphasizes that “no one is virtuous by your standard.”

But now, that time of man’s history is past: “the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law” (3:21). Now all people can be “justified freely by [God’s] grace through the redemption in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as an expiation, through faith, by his blood, to prove his righteousness because of the forgiveness of sins previously committed” (3:25).

A person is justified by faith apart from works of the Law, and this justification is available to all men—Jew and Gentile (3:28-29). The concept is the same here as when he says the advantage of the Jews lies in God’s faithfulness to them, not in their obedience to Him in the law.  The world’s “benefit” or justification comes in God’s grace to us, not our works for Him.

Daily Bible Reading: Jeremiah 33 and Romans 1

Jeremiah 33 - Jeremiah is still in prison at the Court of the Guard when a second message from God reminds Jeremiah that despite the destruction they will suffer, God also promises restoration: “I am going to fulfill the promise I made to the House of Israel and the House of Judah.”  A virtuous branch will grow for David (33:15). Yahweh would sooner break his covenant with day and night, with nature and its laws as break his covenant with David and the Levitical priests (33:20-21). 

I think we Christians need to see our "work" in establishing Christ's presence on this earth as a covenant responsibility that we too have often NOT been faithful to. I feel that just as the OT covenant God had with His people seemed a bit “roller-coasterish” so too His promise to the Church through Peter has been just as up and down. We should not see our history as any more constant in faithfulness than that of the Jews. But the covenant, the promise, is still there. We just can’t take it for granted any more than the Jews could take his promises to them for granted. When we go off the track, we need to acknowledge it - see it and make a change.

Romans 1 – A great deal is contained in the opening of this letter.  Paul says he is "a slave” of Jesus Christ, set apart to serve the gospel.  The gospel of Christ that Paul preaches was “promised long ago by God through his prophets, as written in the Holy Scriptures” (1:2). It is about God’s Son—descended from David according to the flesh, but “shown with great power to be the Son of God by being raised from death” (1:4). Through Jesus, God gave Paul “the privilege of being an apostle “in order to lead people of all nations to believe and obey” (1:7).

Paul says that the faith of the Roman community is heralded throughout the world (1:8).  He has been and continues to be eager to visit them.  “I have an obligation to all people, to the civilized and to the savage, to the educated and to the ignorant” (1:14).

The gospel, he says, is God’s saving power (1:16), his power to make people righteous through faith and to “deal with” wickedness and impiety.  People should be able to access evidence of God’s “invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity” (1:20) through the creation.  Paul seems to be addressing the question of the role of reason or human wisdom in achieving human lives that give glory (or properly reflect the dignity God meant man to have) to God.  The Hellenization of the ancient world brought much philosophy and devotion to human wisdom, but Paul says it did little to bring the “righteousness” or “holiness” Jews believed was the mark of dignity God wanted in his creation.  Man’s reason should be able to bring it, but instead it gave way before man’s passions and brought degradation and every sort of vice—wickedness, evil, greed, malice, murder, rivalry, treachery, spite, gossiping, hostility to God, sexual deviance, etc. (1:24-32). Later he will make the claim that outward conformity to Jewish law does little to improve things. 

Daily Bible Reading: Jeremiah 31-32 and 2 Corinthians 12-13

Jeremiah 31  - This chapter is maybe one of the most important biblical passages in Quaker “theology.” Jeremiah gives voice to his prophecy of the “New Covenant.” I don’t think scholars are sure of the origin of the Book of Consolation  (chapters 30 through 33}, of which this is a part. Laurence Boadt, in his Reading the Old Testament, says that they are “words of hope from a variety of different times and occasions. Some . . . are addressed to ‘Israel’ and probably were from the early days of Jeremiah’s prophetic work under Josiah when he was addressing the remnants of the northern kingdom of Israel. His comforting words are later reused to comfort the exiles of Judah who would be the “new Israel” (373). 

Jeremiah says God’s people will find pardon in the wilderness.  “I have loved you with an everlasting love. . .I will guide [you] to streams of water, by a smooth path where [you] will not stumble. For I am a father to Israel” (31:3 and 9).  They “will be like a well-watered garden; they will have everything they need. . . I will comfort them and turn their mourning into joy, and their sorrow into gladness” (31:12-13).

The two important messianic verses follow in verses 31:21-22. If you “google” around a little, you will find that there is a good deal of controversy over exactly how the verses should be translated:

1)     My Catholic Jerusalem Bible has the following: “Set up signposts, raise landmarks; mark the road well, the way by which you went. Come home, virgin of Israel, come home to these towns of yours.  How long will you hesitate, disloyal daughter? For Yahweh is creating something new on earth: the Woman sets out to find her Husband again.” The Jerusalem Bible note here indicates that there is a lack of clarity in the last line in Hebrew.  The Hebrew verb, which they translate here as ‘set out to find again’, means literally ‘to surround’, ‘to turn around something’ [or dance around it], or ‘to go looking for’. The Vulgate Latin edition, translated by Jerome in the 4^th century emphasized the messianic meaning by translating it as “the woman will surround the man” and this was interpreted as referring to Mary’s virginal conception of Christ.”

2)     And then comes the prophecy of the New Covenant:  “See, the days are coming—it is Yahweh who speaks—when I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel (and the House of Judah), but not a covenant like the one I made with their ancestors . . . Deep within them I will plant my Law, writing it on their hearts.  Then I will be their God and they shall be my people.  There will be no further need for neighbor to try to teach neighbor, or brother to say to brother, ‘Learn to know Yahweh!’ No, they will all know me, the least no less than the greatest [. . .] since I will forgive their iniquity and never call their sin to mind” (31:31-34). Cross references include all of the following: Ps.51; Mt 26:28; 2 Cor 3-6; Rm 11:27; Heb 8:6-13 and 9:15; 1 Jn 5:20.

For early Friends, this promise of a New Covenant that no man could teach, but only God’s Spirit, present in the human heart, was perhaps the most important verse of scripture. Here are Fox’s words about it:

“He it is that is now come and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true; and to rule in our hearts even with his law; and to rule in our hearts even with his law of love and of life in our inward parts which makes us free from the law of sin and death. And we have no life but by him, for he is the quickening spirit, the second Adam, the Lord from heaven, by whose blood we are cleaned and our consciences sprinkled from dead works to serve the living God, by whose blood we are purchased, and so he is our mediator that makes peace and reconciliation between God offended and us offending, being the oath of God, the new covenant of light, life, grace, and peace, the author and finisher of our faith” (Journal 603).

While almost every Quaker will happily turn to these words of Fox to justify their conviction that the New Covenant means NO ONE NEEDS TO BE TAUGHT by anyone about the Way we must “walk,” few in my experience would say the other things Fox says here: that we have “no life but by [Christ]” or that it is through Christ’s blood that we are redeemed.

Jeremiah 32 - It is again 588/587 BC, during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem.  Zedekiah has Jeremiah imprisoned in Court of the Guard in the Royal Palace for prophesying Judah’s defeat. The Lord tells Jeremiah that his cousin Hanamel will come to sell him some of the family land in Anathoth and that he should buy it as an act of faith in the restoration promised by God (32:38-40), even in the face of imminent destruction.  He gives the deed to Baruch, his scribe to put in an earthen jar for safe-keeping. Then again, we hear the words of God to Jeremiah, words promising redemption:

           

“I am going to gather the people from all the countries where I have scattered them in my anger and fury, and I am going to bring them back to this place and let them live here in safety. Then they will be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them a single purpose in life: to honor me for all time, for their own good and the good of their descendants. I will make an eternal covenant with them.” (32:37-40).

2 Corinthians 12 - Paul speaks of his visions and ‘openings” or revelations.  He speaks of someone he knows that he says was “caught up to the third heaven” (12:2) fourteen years earlier and “heard ineffable things, which no one may utter” (12:4). The NAB note indicates that this is just a more “distant” way of referring to himself, but I am not sure how this interpretation came about. Paul continues to speak of his dedication to the work of apostleship he has done. He acknowledges his weaknesses. He sees them as a way of keeping him humble. “I am content with weaknesses, insult, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong" (12:10). 

2 Corinthians 13- Paul warns the Corinthians that he will not be lenient with them when he comes the third time. They are looking for him to give “proof” that Christ is speaking in him, but Christ and he share the same power.  “For indeed he was crucified out of weakness, but he lives by the power of God.  So also we are weak in him, but toward you we shall live with him by the power of God” (13:4).  Then these wonderful words: “Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in faith.  Test yourselves.  Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” or better yet the JB translation, “Do you acknowledge that Jesus Christ is really in you? If not, you have failed the test” (12:5-6).

Daily Bible Reading: Jeremiah 30 and 2 Corinthians 11:16-33

Jeremiah 30 – Here towards the end of the Book of Jeremiah, the lack of historical continuity becomes a bit of a problem for readers. Chapter 30 begins what my Jerusalem Bible calls The Book of Consolation; it was written sometime between 622 BC and the death of Josiah in 609, at the very beginning of Jeremiah’s “career” as a prophet. The Assyrian Empire was in decline and Josiah made an attempt to retake the lands of Samaria and Galilee that had been lost at the end of Solomon’s reign in 922 BC. There was a sense of optimism that a unified kingdom faithful to the monotheistic vision of the prophets might come to pass after centuries of turmoil.  Jeremiah here gives voice to this optimism. The tables will be turned, Jeremiah assures the people. Those who oppressed Judah and Israel will now be oppressed. “The Lord says, ‘I will restore my people to their land and have mercy on every family; Jerusalem will be rebuilt, and its palace restored” (30:18).

2 Corinthians 11:16-33 – This next part of the letter is interesting in that Paul pretty much confesses that he is just angry, not speaking from what the Lord has prompted him to say but just from his own gut. These other “apostles” are apparently charging money for their preaching and making people feel they are getting something of greater value than what Paul delivered to them? Paul preached for free, supported by the congregation in Macedonia. They apparently are claiming to be more “Jewish” than Paul, for he reasserts his “Jewish” credentials here.  They may also be claiming to have worked harder, but he here boasts of his on-going ordeal in service of the Gospel. He has been in prison more, been whipped more, been stoned and shipwrecked. He has endured dangers of all kinds, sleepless nights, hunger, thirst and exposure (11:25-29). Lastly he tells them of his amazing escape from the hands of the governor of Damascus, “let down in a basket through a window in the wall” (11:33).

There is a lot of emotion in this letter about the rivalries, divisions, boasts of superiority and travails suffered in these early days. So, the divisions in the church are from the beginning. Still, we must try to settle them, overcome them. If Paul anguished over this, it is something still worth working on.

It is also interesting that this reading from the New Testament is so similar to the reading from Jeremiah that is part of the day’s reading. Paul anguishes over the destructive influence of “false apostles” as Jeremiah does over that of the “false prophets.”

Daily Bible Reading: Jeremiah 29 and 2 Corinthians 11:1-15

Jeremiah 29  - Jeremiah writes a letter to the exiles in Babylon and tells them to settle there, take wives, have families; it will be a long time (70 years), but he encourages them: “I know the plans I have in mind for you, . . . plans for peace, not disaster, reserving a future full of hope for you”  (29:11). I will let you find me.  Do not be deceived by false prophets there, in Babylon, or people who interpret dreams.  The King who remained and those with him will be destroyed. 

He also addresses a letter to Shemaiah, a false prophet who had encouraged leaders to punish Jeremiah for communicating such thoughts to the exiled community. In response, Jeremiah sends a message to the exiles, telling them that Shemaiah is a false prophet and should not be listened to.

2 Corinthians 11:1-15 – Paul tells the Corinthians that his “jealousy” for them is from God. It was he who brought about their marriage to Christ, and he had prayed they would go before Him as “virgins” – pure in their faith.  But, as in the Genesis story, things didn’t work out as planned; the serpent turned them [Christ’s Eve], away from simple faithfulness to a fallen condition and fallen relationship with God. They seem to listen to whoever comes to them and do not properly discern when these visitors paint a completely different picture of what the faith should be. It would be very interesting to know who these traveling ministers were, who claim to be “super-apostles” with greater authority than Paul. Some interpret Paul’s words as possibly referring to one or more of the original apostles of Christ; others think they might have been early leaders of high status in the church at Corinth. I think the “former” more likely. We know Paul had conflicts with some of these early "apostles", and his claim to equality of apostleship with them as the “last” apostle called by Christ (1 Corinthians 1) MUST have been somewhat controversial in the early days. Nevertheless, Paul calls these “super-apostles,” “false apostles, who lie about their work and disguise themselves to look like real apostles of Christ” (11:13).

Daily Bible Reading: Jeremiah 27-28 and 2 Corinthians 10

Jeremiah 27 - Chapter 27 is the first of three chapters that apparently existed separately at one time; and each is about the “false prophets.”  The date of this first is supposedly 594 BC when an embassy of states—Edom, Moab, Sidon [south to north on the eastern side of the Jordan River]--conferred about what to do about Nebuchadnezzar. It is at the beginning of Zedekiah’s reign (c.598/597 BC). Jeremiah is called by God to make a yoke and to wear it as a sign to these leaders. There is nothing they can do to fight off defeat. Nebuchadnezzar will rule over all of them for a period.  He tells them not to resist and not to listen to optimistic, nationalistic prophets, who are just saying things they know the people WANT TO HEAR. Jeremiah communicates this Word to the conferring kings, to the king of Judah, the priests and people. At the end, there is a quick reference to the fact that one day they will be restored, but that day is not now.

Jeremiah 28 - Hananiah, another prophet from the town of Gibeon (north of Jerusalem), prophesies that the temple vessels taken by Nebuchadnezzar will be returned in two years along with Jehoiakin, son of Jehoiakim (Zedekiah’s brother) and other exiles. Presumably to prove his point, Hananiah removes the yoke that Jeremiah is wearing as a sign of their need to “submit” to the Babylonians, and breaks it, saying “Yahweh will thus break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar.”  Competing prophecies from reputable prophets – this must be a very difficult thing for the leaders and the people to deal with.

Jeremiah says the truth of prophecy must be tested over time. Only by the fruits, the results, will the people be able to discern the true prophet. Jeremiah leaves, but after a time Jeremiah gets another word from Yahweh. “Go and tell Hananiah that he may be able to break the “wooden yoke” that Jeremiah was wearing, but “he will replace it with an iron yoke. . . he will put an iron yoke on all these nations and . . . they will serve King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia” (28:14). Jeremiah also tells Hananiah that he will die because he has misled the people. He does die soon after. 

2 Corinthians 10 - Paul describes himself as one who bullies them only when he is away (in his letters).  But he fancies he will have to do so in person to people who accuse him of “ordinary human motives” (10:3).  He does not fight with fleshly weapons.  They are assailing his authority – he defends it as given to build them up, so he won’t neglect to use it.  He resolves to be more like the man of his letters when he is with them.  He returns to the theme of boasting [see Jeremiah 9] urging them to come off believing in pretensions others have made and to recognize that Paul’s position of authority--his boast--derives from a commission from God.

The amount of time Paul devotes to this theme—of boasting, of seeing himself in conflict with others who are trying to denigrate his authority or puff up their own status in the church—indicates that there must have been some pretty caustic words going around and challenges among those preaching and teaching as to their relative status in the leadership. Ah! Some things NEVER change.

Daily Bible Reading: Jeremiah 22 and 2 Corinthians 5

Jeremiah 22 - In 588 BC, Jeremiah goes to the King of Judah and says, “Practice honesty and integrity – rescue the man who’s been wronged from oppressor.”  If you do, the monarchy will prosper; but if not, the palace shall become a ruin. Again, as in Jeremiah 7, God’s promise is seen as conditional. Nothing God establishes can continue in power unless the inward spirit continues.  There are no eternally sacred outward things (!!!)  “You were like a Gilead to me, like a peak of Lebanon.  All the same I will reduce you to a desert” Everything God does outwardly is to evoke in the minds and hearts of human beings questions – “When the hordes of the nations pass this city, they will say to each other: Why has Yahweh treated such a great city like this?” (22:8)  They did not stay loyal to the covenant they made.

           

Now the references to Judaean kings seems to flip back in time: Of Jehoahaz, Jeremiah recounts that he will be deported to Egypt. 2 Kings 23:31 says he was 23 when he took over and reigned only three months.  He is said to have done evil, was taken prisoner by Pharaoh Neco. Then Jeremiah rebukes Jehoiakim, who followed Jehoahaz briefly, for injustice and for trying to prove his rank, his status, by indulging in outward show of things, particularly his dwelling.  “. . .your eyes and heart are set on nothing except on your own gain, on shedding innocent blood, on practicing oppression and extortion” (22:17). He will not be mourned.

Then, in 597 BC—18 year-old Jehoiachin becomes king. Jeremiah tells him that God will deliver him into the hands of those who seek his life.  Of his seven sons, all born in exile, none will become king—one grandson, Zerubbabel, will preside for a time after the return, but not as king (NAB note).                                                       

2 Corinthians 5 – Paul, the poet, continues - When the tent we live in is folded up there is a house built by God for us.  We “groan and find it a burden being still in this tent” (5:4).  We do not want to leave the mortal tent, but we want to put the immortal garment over it - “to have what must die taken up into life” (5:4). In the law court of Christ, “Each of us will get what he deserves for the things he did in the body, good or bad” (5:10).  In part it is this “fear” of God’s judgment that impels Paul to “try to persuade others” (5:11). But everything he does, he does out of love—if he appears crazy, if he uses his reason—he is simply trying to get us to understand that Christ “died for all. . .so that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him. . .” (5:15).  This is the ministry of reconciliation—reconciliation of the human with the divine, reconciliation of man with man, of man with woman, of man with the creation.  “For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him” (5:21).