Daily Bible Reading: 1 Maccabees 13 and 1 John 3

1 Maccabees 13 – With Jonathan in Trypho’s custody, Simon takes over the leadership of the Jews. He gathers the people, encourages them and rekindles their spirit. He completes the planned fortifications.

Trypho assembles his army to invade and sends envoys to Simon demanding a ransom of 100 talents and two of Jonathan’s sons before he will free Jonathan. Simon prepares to pay it more to assuage the desires of the people than anything. He believes it is all a trick.

He sends the demanded things but they do not release Jonathan. Trypho invades and also kills Jonathan.  Simon recovers his body and builds a great monument to all his family in Modein. Trypho also deals treacherously with the young King Antiochus, Alexander Balas’ son.  He kills him, allegedly by sending him for a surgical procedure he really does not need; then he seizes the Seleucid crown.

Simon writes to King Demetrius, seeking to use him against the growing power of Trypho.  The king responds by pardoning the Jews and making peace with them. It is 142 BC and the year is celebrated as the year that pagan rule of Israel was finally ended.

Simon leads a force to take Gezer [see http://www.bibleplaces.com/gezer.htm] 20 miles west of Jerusalem. He builds a residence there. Back in the Citadel in Jerusalem, men are starving because they are not allowed to get their supplies from the Seleucids. Jonathan makes peace with them, but expels them and purifies the Citadel in 141 BC. Then Simon makes his son John commander of all his forces. 

1 John 3 – Very deep words from John: “My dear people, we are already the children of God but what we are to be in the future has not yet been revealed; all we know is, that when it is revealed we shall be like him because we shall see him as he really is” (3:2).

How then must we live to be faithful to this promise? We must aspire to be pure – “as pure as Christ” (3:3). We must break from sin and “live a holy life” (3:7). “No one who has been begotten by God sins; because God’s seed remains inside him” (3:9).

If you are not living this way, you are not a child of God’s. The way of God and the way of the world are diametrically opposed. “You must not be surprised . . . we have passed out of death and into life, and of this we can be sure because we love our brothers. If you refuse to love, you must remain dead; to hate your brother is to be a murderer, and murderers, as you know, do not have eternal life in them” (3:13-15).

We learn to love others by thinking of the love Christ showed us in giving up his life. Like his love for us, our love for others must not just be “mere talk” (3:18); it must be “something real and active” (3:18).

“His commandments are these: that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and that we love one another as he told us to. Whoever keeps his commandments live in God and God lives in him. We know that he lives in us by the Spirit that he has given us” (3:24).

There is a great deal in these words of John that are deeply meaningful to me. Indeed, John’s entire “take” on the Christian message is what drew me back to Christ at a time when I was full of doubt about religion. Early Friends understood John’s words. They saw the passage from “death . . . into life” as spiritual; they understood the presence of “God’s seed” in them as the fulfillment of the earliest scriptural “promise” in Genesis 3:15. We will be doing the Gospel of John after we finish with this epistle, so I will go into it more then.

Daily Bible Reading: 1 Kings 1 and Colossians 3

Introduction to Kings:  The two books called Kings open in the year 973, the last year of David’s reign. The book reached its final form 400 years after Solomon (6^th C). Lawrence Boadt, in his book Reading the Old Testament tells us that the books tell us the story of the line of kings established around 1000 BC down through the conquest of Judah in the 6^th c. BC. The focus is on the level of faithfulness each demonstrates to the covenant made with David and on the role of the early prophets in the unfolding of that history. The early chapters of 1 Kings tells of the succession of Solomon to his father’s role as king. Up through chapter 10, Solomon seems to be the ideal successor, but after this we see evidence of his gradual drift away from faithfulness, a drift that will ultimately lead to a revival of tribal tensions and ultimately to a split in the unified kingdom David managed to create. Then the prophets, Elijah and Elisha, emerge – the first prophets who seem to fulfill the prediction in Deuteronmy 18 that God would “raise up a prophet like Moses” who would lead the people correctly.

1 Kings 1 – King David is now old.  He has trouble staying warm, so his servants bring him a young virgin to lie with—Abishag the Shunammite.  Shunem was southeast of Lake Galilee, south of Mt. Tabor. The king did not have sex with her though she was very beautiful.

                 

Adonijah, David’s 4^th son by Haggith, decides he will be king.  He is the oldest surviving son with Absalom dead following his failed rebellion. He was a handsome man, and several very important men support his claim: Joab, David’s army commander [now going against David’s will – he has opinions about David’s sons that are the only area we can find any disloyalty to David in him] and Abiathar, the priest [of Nob—Ahimelech was his father]. Zadok [rival of Abiathar], Benaiah [rival of Joab] and Nathan (the prophet) as well as Shimei and Rei [this name is translated “and his companions” in JB from Gr.] do not support him.

                 

Adonijah initiates his claim to the succession with sacrifices; he invites all his brothers and the royal officials of Judah, but he does not invite his brother Solomon.  Nathan approaches Bathsheba to tell her what is happening.  He tells her to remind David that he has said that Solomon should succeed him, and he tells her that he—Nathan—will come in and support her.  The king is very old.  Bathsheba does what Nathan suggests.  She says, “the eyes of all Israel are on you to tell them who shall sit on the throne. . .” (1:20). The Jerusalem Bible says the “order of succession” has not yet been determined. Nathan seconds her account.  David summons Zadok and Benaiah and instructs them to bring Solomon down to Gihon (Gihon Spring, main water-source for the city of Jerusalem) where Zadok and Nathan will anoint him king (1:34) over Judah and Israel.  Solomon rides to Gihon Spring on King David’s mule, and there Zadok anoints him with oil from the tent and blows the trumpet in a great festival of song and rejoicing.

                 

Adonijah and those with him hear the celebration and ask why the city is in an uproar.  Jonathan, Abiathar’s son, comes to tell them what has happened.  All “the guests of Adonijah got up trembling and went their own ways” (1:49). Adonijah grasps the horns of the altar, fearing Solomon; but when Solomon hears, he assures his brother that if he proves to be loyal, he shall not be hurt. He is told he may go home.

Colossians 3 – What is it to be joined to Christ through faith? There are no greater passages in all of Scripture!

“You have been raised to life with Christ, so set your hearts on the things that are in heaven, where Christ sits on his throne at the right side of God. Keep your minds fixed on things there, not on things here on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Your real life is Christ and when he appears, then you too will appear with him and share his glory” (3:1-4).

Paul goes on to talk about the transformation that “life in Christ” should bring: the death in oneself of all that he calls “earthly” (3:5): sexual immorality, indecency, lust, evil passions and greed. Put off “the old self” and put on “the new self . . . the new being which God, its Creator, is constantly renewing in his own image” (3:9-10). Again, as in John’s writings, we are referred back to the Genesis creation story. We are more than natural creatures; we were made to live as God’s “image” in this world (see Genesis 1:26-27).

“And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body” (3:15).  Wives should be “subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.  Husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly” (3:18).   “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is your acceptable duty in the Lord” (3:20). Even slaves, Paul advises, should “obey your earthly masters in everything, not only while being watched and in order to please them, but wholeheartedly, fearing the Lord” (3:22).

These passages are the ones we moderns cannot hear any more—they grate against the cultural achievements we have made as Christians, being consistent with the ethic of love we learned from the likes of Paul, and the implied ethic set forth in the Genesis vision of “male and female” created in God’s image.  Still, they seem difficult to accept - equality of persons is now so established with us.  But imagine you were living 2000 years ago when these cultural norm of female “subordination” to males was the rule and human slavery was accepted virtually everywhere on earth.  How would we have advised Christians to be Christian in that environment?  Would it not have been exactly as Paul suggests here? 

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 Scripture and Thoughts On It

The Scripture readings I am doing right now are all from the letters of Paul. I am reading his letters and trying to put them into the context of the story told by Luke in Acts. I am presently re-reading 1st Corinthians. Any commentary I make is in italics.

1 Cor. 6 - It is wrong to resort to the law courts when dealing with a “brother.” The saints should work things out in their community. Paul clearly alludes to the promises made in Daniel’s eschatological passages (7:22-23) that the “holy ones” would be the ones who would eventually possess the kingdom and be judges over others, even angels [though when I turn to Daniel, that seems far from clear in the cited passages]. Paul seems to think it is better to put up with injustices than to go to “outside” courts for judgments in cases between believers. Paul lists those who will not inherit the kingdom: the unjust, fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, boy prostitutes (catamites), practicing homosexuals (sodomites), thieves, greedy, drunkards, slanderers, robbers. Beyond this, the saying, which perhaps Paul had said and others in Corinth have “over-relied” on by some there, that “everything is lawful for me,” (12) does not mean that immoderation or other departures from “moral” behavior is now okay. The standard of the kingdom is high, not slack: “[W]hoever is joined to the Lord [and all the baptized are joined to him] becomes one spirit with him. Avoid immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside he body, but the immoral person sins against his own body” (17-18). Our bodies are temples “of the holy Spirit within [us] whom [we] have from God. . .” (19)

1 Cor. 7 - “Sex is always a danger,” Paul says. Marriage is for this--neither partner owns his own body in a marriage. Each belongs to the other. So he thinks staying as you are at the time of your call is best (7:25-40). He is sure the “world as we know it is passing away.” The important thing is to give individual attention to the Lord. He goes on to say that if you are married, you are not to separate or divorce; or if you do separate, you should remain single. He does permit believing partners whose unbelieving spouses leave them to remarry. “The brother or sister is not bound in such cases; God has called you to peace” (15). The overriding principle with Paul seems to be that people should not worry about the state they were in before their call, that decisions about changes to one’s earthly state should become relatively unimportant in light of the fact that “time is running out. . .[that] the world in its present form is passing away.” (31).

What shall we make of such advice today, made as it was from such a perspective? I think we ought not to put much weight on it in the last analysis. On the question of how marriage “divides” us from single-minded service to the gospel, it is true to some extent. Yet every person must put the Lord first to some end. The single man or woman serving the Lord puts Him first in order to serve the faith community. The married person must put Him first in order to fulfill the calling of being a spouse and a parent, a citizen or a friend—the only thing that changes is the field of service, for there is no state of life—excepting perhaps the purely contemplative—where only the Lord is served; and then we need to ask “to what end” He is served?

Daily Scripture and Thoughts About It

Philippians

Paul writes around the year 56-57 AD to the church at Philippi from prison somewhere (Ephesus, Caesaria or Rome). Timothy is with him. Paul had founded the church at Philippi in 50, during his second journey (Acts 16: 12-40) and revisited it twice during the third (in the autumn of 57 and again at Passover in 58). The JB associates this letter with the great Pauline letters (notably Corinthians) rather than grouping it with Eph, Col and Philemon.

Phil. 1 – Paul greets “the saints in Christ Jesus” in Philippi along with the “bishops and deacons.” (NRSV v. 1) (The JB says the word “episcopos,” which they translate as elders, has not yet come to have the meaning later associated with bishop) He expresses thanks for them and prays “that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, . . .” (10). He uses the phrase “day of Christ Jesus in verse 6 as well, so indicating the prominence this expectation still has in his thinking. He reassures them that while his imprisonment for Christ is something he must deal with, it has not hindered the spread of the gospel but has actually “helped” to spread it—among the imperial guard and among others.

The word about Christ is getting out—in some cases by those who are acting “out of love” and in some cases by those who are actually trying to “increase [his] suffering” (16) by seeking to rival or compete with Paul. It does not matter to Paul. Everyone who speaks about the gospel of Christ helps in the long run. He does not even care if he must suffer death for Christ. In fact, he even yearns for an end to his life: “my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better; but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you. Since I am convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in faith. . .” (24-25).

He ends this section by encouraging them to “live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, . . .” (27) or as it is translated in the JB, “avoid anything in your everyday lives that would be unworthy of the gospel of Christ.” Any suffering they must endure is a privilege.

One of the things I appreciate very much about Paul is his emphasis on the importance of cultivating “knowledge” or “wisdom,” about the faith we have placed in Christ. This gnosis is very important. It deepens our awareness of the redemptive love of God towards all men and makes our love more like the kind of love Christ had for us, a love that went out to us not because we are deserving but despite the fact that we in varying degrees undeserving of God’s love. This is one of the biggest challenges for people, to learn to love not as we define love but to come to understand and enter into the love God has for all. Forgiveness and compassion come from this kind of love instead of the fault-finding that comes from comparing your own worth with the shortcomings of those you are asked to love. I see the difficulty of learning this in talking to adolescents. They are generally very idealistic and understand the virtue of love very well. They especially understand its capacity to bring out the best in them. They can appreciate instances where someone else’s patience or compassion for them helped them in some way. But ask them to extend that same love to those who are unlikable to them in some way, however trifling, and you see that they have not yet grown to the point where they see that all men are in the same boat. The obnoxious bus driver who drives them crazy needs to feel their love as much as they need to feel it from others. The nerdy kid who just can’t attain what they consider to be normality also has a claim on their love if they would call their love Christian love. The planting, watering, cultivation and growth of this love, all of it, is the work of the gospel in us. And it is not a sudden burgeoning growth, but one of slow root development and continued examination in the light, which Christ gives us both inwardly and in the lessons his life and death teach us. Grant oh Lord, that this love may be formed in us and made ever more profound and secure. Keep the value of this love fresh in us and help it transform the details of our lives so that others may learn of it through us. In unity with Jesus and with Paul who lived and died to plant this love in the world we pray.

Phil. 2 - Paul urges his readers to aspire to unity of heart and mind—“be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind” (2); and the key to unity is humility—“Let each of you look not to [his] own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus” (4-5).

Who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
[as] something to be grasped.
Rather, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness.
and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to death,
even death on a cross.
Because of this, God greatly exalted him
and bestowed on him the name
that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
of those in heaven and on earth
and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father (6-11, NAB).

Ray Brown and my JB both say it is uncertain if Paul was the author of this hymn or was just using it here in this letter, but it is amazing stuff. One of Paul’s great moments – probably simply giving us a worship formula used in the earliest church. It has been pointed out what beautiful literature this is in addition to be profound spiritual insight – the emptying out and coming down to the humiliation of the cross is followed immediately by seeing Christ as lifted up and exalted – capturing the whole paradox of Christ’s incarnation. JB also says what I believe, that use of this formula is evidence that the very early church “believed in the divine pre-existence of Jesus” (260) way before John’s time.

Through his great humility and self-giving Christ unified himself with the human race and it is likewise by humbling ourselves of our self-involved human nature that we can achieve a degree of unity with Him and through Him, with God. In this modern era, where nothing is so sought after as self-actualization, self-determination, and self-expression, it is not surprising that those institutions, which are built on unity, namely marriage and the church as well as civic communities of all kinds, are suffering. If we can only come to be sensible of Christ’s great act of love for us and be moved thereby to respond to him with even a degree of surrender and love, he will lead us in a different path. So that even in a world where self-aggrandizement is the chief love of almost everyone, one can hope to redeem one’s life.

Paul goes on to tell his readers that they must “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (12-13). This is a very Quaker friendly passage. The salvation we come into is not a once for all time event, and not something that “happens” when we profess faith in Christ. It is a process, something we work out with God’s help; “it is God who is at work in [us].” He empowers us not only to know His mind (4) and His will but to be obedient to Him in all we do.

Paul speaks of sending Timothy off to them soon, and he sets Timothy apart among many who “are seeking their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ” (21) as one who is seriously concerned with their welfare. And he is also sending Epaphroditus, “my brother and co-worker” who is ill, even close to death (26).

Phil. 3 - Paul begins to conclude his letter with a renewed call for his readers to rejoice. But he warns them not to be misled by those whom he call “the dogs” (2), the “judaizers” who “mutilate the flesh.” The people who are “the circumcision” are those “who worship in the Spirit of God and boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh” (3). He has the fleshly circumcision and every other fleshly connection with the people of Israel, but they are not seen as strengths by him any more—now that he has come to know Christ. “For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (8-11).

These are beautiful words that capture so well the overriding vision Paul has of salvation. For him salvation seems eminently personal, a being gathered up into the very person, life and work of Jesus Christ. In that is our glory and our boast.

Paul addresses the matter of whether his sense of salvation amounts to “perfect maturity” and he declines to make this claim. But he continues to live and act on the faith that he will attain to it (like an athlete who strains for the victory at the end of all his striving). The people whose minds “are set on earthly things” will end with destruction.

Phil. 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, and Clement. And others “whose names are in the book of life” (3).

He admonishes his readers once again to “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice” (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” (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” (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.