Daily Bible Reading: 2 Kings 10-11 and Luke 10

2 Kings 10 – Jehu sends letters to the people responsible for overseeing the 70 sons of Ahab (Jerusalem Bible notes 70 is the number indicating “entire” and that sons here means all males heirs, particularly the sons of Joram) asking them to select one of them as king and get ready to “fight for your master’s house” (10:3). But they all respond that if he could beat the two kings he has already beaten – Jehoram and Ahaziah -- there is not much chance they will prevail against him.  He tells them if they really want to cooperate with him, they will send him the heads of Ahab’s sons the next day.  They do it and send him the heads at Jezreel. Jehu heaps the heads at the gate into the city, assembles all the people and announces, “You are innocent. It was I who conspired against my master and killed him; but who struck down all these?. . .So Jehu kills all who were left of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, all his leaders, close friends, and priests; he leaves no survivor” (10:11). It’s like the Hatfields and McCoys here at this time. That must be why they cited Kings in the movie.

                 

Jehu goes to Samaria.  On his way there he meets relatives of King Ahaziah of Judah on their way to visit the “royal princes” (of the house of Ahab or Joram). Jehu kills all 42 of them. Then he meets Jehonadab, son of Rechab (an ardent Yahwist). Jehu asks him to show his loyalty by coming with him to “see [his] zeal for the Lord” (10:16). They go into Samaria where Jehu kills “all who were left to Ahab. . .” (10:17).

He calls together the people and says Ahab offered Baal only small service compared to what he will do.  He calls together all the prophets of Baal, all his worshipers and priests on the pretext that he has a great sacrifice to offer to Baal. When they are all together in the temple of Baal, and Jehu has assured himself that no worshiper of Yahweh is in with them, he orders them all killed.  Afterward, they throw out the pillar that was in the temple and burn it and then make the temple itself into a latrine.  “Thus Jehu wiped out Baal from Israel” (10:28). He does not do away with the calves, however, that Jeroboam set up in Bethel and Dan.  The Lord praises Jehu for doing well in getting rid of Ahab’s house, so he rewards him with a promise of four generations of kings in his line.

                 

One of the problems Israel has during these days was the trimming off of certain parts of the country.  Hazael of Aram picks off Gilead, the Gadites, the Reubenites and the Manassites (all east of the Jordan). After Jehu (842-815 BC), his son Jehoahaz succeeds.

2 Kings 11 – Athaliah, Ahaziah’s mother, intends to slaughter all the royal family (why??); but Jehosheba, Joram’s daughter and Ahaziah’s sister—also wife of the chief priest Jehoiada—takes Ahaziah’s baby son, Joash (or Jehoash) and hides him away in the temple. Athaliah rules over the people for six years (843-837). In the 7^th year, Jehoiada summons the captains of the Carites (mercenaries from Asia Minor, the cherithites of David’s guard—1 K 1:38) and the guards and brought them to the king’s son.  He has a plan to protect the young king, using the shifting of the guards that occurs on the sabbath (JB says that on weekdays 2/3rds of the guard is on duty at the palace and on sabbaths 2/3rds are at the temple). He gives them spears and shields that belonged to King David, and when the day comes, he brings forth the boy and crowns him with the protection of the guard (11:12).

                 

When Athaliah sees it, she tears her clothes and cries treason, but Jehoiada has her killed when she leaves the temple.  Jehoiada makes a covenant between the Lord and the king and people “that they should be the Lord’s people” (11:17). They all go to the house of Baal and tear it down [the one in Judah] The priest of Baal, Mattan, is killed. The king is escorted to his palace and the people rejoice (JB says it is mostly the people of the countryside who are behind this renewal. The people of the city are compelled to accept it). Joash is seven years old.

Luke 10:1-24 – Jesus appoints 70 (other accounts say 72) disciples to go out, telling them “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few” (10:2). He sends them out like “lambs into the midst of wolves” (10:3).  They are to do what he has done—cure the sick and say “The kingdom of God has come near to you” (10:9). If people do not want to hear, they should wipe the dust from their feet “in protest” and Jesus then in a rather harsh tone that sets Luke apart from the other gospels, tells them a judgment hangs over towns that refuse to receive them (10:12): “I assure you that on the Judgment Day God will show more mercy to Sodom than to that town!” (10:12).

                 

When the 72 return, they are full of joy.  Presumably they have met with great success. “Lord, in our name even the demons submit to us!” (10:17) The word they bring has great power, especially over evil.  Jesus says, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning” (10:18) I never really heard this sentence before this reading.  This statement places Jesus with God before the creation of the world according to the Jewish story about the fall of Lucifer. The statement about giving them power to “tread on snakes and scorpions” also brings back the addendum to Mark (16:18), which seems to us moderns so “beneath” the text in a way—that his disciples will “pick up snakes in their hands,” and so on.  But Jesus is simply trying to say that the spiritual power he has bestowed upon them will give them amazing power.  But the power on earth they will have is nothing compared to the fact that their “names are written in heaven” (10:20).

                 

Jesus also adds a word of thanks to his Father that he has seen fit to give knowledge of Him to “infants,” to the simple ones of the earth. “All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (10:22). This sounds pretty much like the Jesus we meet in John.

                 

Then Jesus says, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it” (10:23-24). All of these passages have great “claims” embedded in them—claims to pre-existence, to power over evil, to participation of the Son in the Father’s being, to fulfillment of ancient prophecies and promises.  How can theologians claim the gospels make no claim to divinity for Jesus??

                 

Luke 10:25-42 - A lawyer in the crowd asks Jesus the same question the man in Mark 10:17 did—“What must I do to inherit eternal life?” (10:25) But instead of telling him he must give up everything, Jesus simply affirms the answer he gives, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself” (10:27). The challenge comes not in pushing self-denial to the point of giving up all possessions, but in realizing that one’s neighbor may include people one has not been taught to love—here the Samaritans. 

The lawyer pushes Jesus by asking him “And who is my neighbor?” (10:29) The parable of the Good Samaritan follows: A man going from Jerusalem to Jericho (a steep road descends 17 miles, providing many opportunities for brigands) falls into the hands of robbers, who beat him and leave him on the road half-dead.  A priest passes by him without doing anything to help him and then a Levite.  Finally a Samaritan comes by and is “moved with pity” (10:33). He helps bandage the man, brings him to an inn and pays the innkeeper to take care of him.  When Jesus asks the lawyer which one of the people in the story was a neighbor to the man, he rightfully answers the “one who showed him mercy” (10:37). Jesus tells him to go and “do likewise.” Again, we see the focus change here from the “ontic” concerns of Mark (concern for the state or spiritual condition of the believer—ascetic, self-denying) to the more practical, service-oriented model of redemption Luke is encouraging.

                 

There follows the story of Mary and Martha, a story not in Mark at all. Mary is the listener in the story, the one who sits at Jesus’ feet and attends to his words.  Martha is the worker, the one who waits on him, gets the food.  When Martha complains that her sister has left her to do all the work, Jesus tells her she is “worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.” (v. 41-42) Mary has “chosen the better part,” he says. This contradicts somewhat what I have said about the “doing” focus of Luke’s gospel, so he is not telling us to only do.  We must put Jesus first and what he teaches us when we attend to him with our whole selves.

Daily Bible Reading: 2 Kings 3 and Luke 6:27-49

2 Kings 3 – Joram [or Jehoram in some versions], Ahab’s son, becomes king in Samaria and reigns 12 years [Jerusalem Bible notes says it was really only eight years—849 to 842 BC]. He did what was evil “though not like his father and mother, for he removed the pillar of Baal that his father had made” (3:2). Still, he “clung to the sin of Jeroboam” (3:3). It doesn’t say how – golden calves? high places?  

King Mesha of Moab, a sheep breeder, used to provide Ahab with lambs and wool, but now he rebels. Jerusalem Bible notes indicates that a stele, discovered at Dibon in 1868, 12 miles east of the Dead Sea and four miles north of the Arnon River, mentions this Moabite “war of liberation” but omits this episode. Joram secures the aid of Jehoshaphat of Judah and the king of Edom in this effort to subdue the Moabites.  Jehoshaphat says to him, “I am with you, my people are your people, my horses are your horses” (3:7).

They go by way of Edom, south and east of the Dead Sea. The king of Edom is an ally. Lacking water for seven days, they fear defeat at the hand of Moab, so they consult Elisha. Elisha tries to put Joram off by saying “What have I to do with you? Go to your father’s prophets or to your mother’s” (3:13). But Elisha finally yields to him because of his respect for Jehoshaphat (3:14).

Elisha asks for a musician, and while the musician plays, “the power of the Lord came on him” (3:15). He prophesies that the wadi would be filled with water (without wind or rain) and that the Lord will hand Moab over to them.  The next morning they see water flowing from the direction of Edom until it fills the country.  The Moabites prepare to fight, but see the reflection of the water “as red as blood” (3:22). They think it is because the three kings have fought amongst themselves, and killed one another, so the Moabites go against them.  When they arrive they are attacked and defeated. 

In a desperate attempt to halt the attack, the King of Moab offers up his first-born son as a burnt offering on the wall to the god of the Moabites [Chemosh]. Interesting differences arise in the translations at this point. Some say this act brought “great wrath” down on the Israelites; others say “great terror” struck them. The result is the same. The attackers halt their invasion. “[T]hey drew back from the city and returned to their own country” (3:27).

The Jerusalem Bible notes that some interpreters think that there is reference here to the fury of Chemosh, god of the Moabites; but that is problematic.  It is basically accepting that the Moabite god responded to the sacrifice of the king’s son by helping them fend off the Israelites. Isaac Asimov (359) indicates that most cultures at this time were “henotheistic,” that is they believed in the idea that each territory had its own powerful god to protect it; so that even if Israelites were not worshippers of Chemosh, they might have believed that the sacrifice to him in his own territory would likely bring that god into the fray in a powerful way. But you would think this an unlikely passage in the Old Testament – unless the firm monotheism of later generations of Jewish chroniclers was not yet firmly in place.

There are a multitude of complicated historical and theological questions related to this event, which you may read about in the following article posted on the internet: http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/bbr/2kings3_sprinkle.pdf

Luke 6:27-49 - The teaching goes on to speak of loving our enemies (6:27); blessing those who curse you (6:28) and praying for those who mistreat you.

Jesus speaks of those who hear his words and build on them as people who set their lives on a foundation of rock—when floods arise, the rivers will burst against them, but they will not be shaken (6:48). None of these teachings are in Mark.

The rewards promised to those who would be children of the Most High are not the rewards the world has to give like power, wealth, praise, status, but the rewards only God can give like deep joy, integrity, dignity, peace of mind and heart.

Jesus tells the people that now they must learn to see the splinters in their own eyes before they can see to correct the defects in others’ eyes.  There is an implied promise that when they are “trained” they will be able to see in a discerning way.  One knows what a person is by the “fruit” each produces.  We are to be doers of the word, not sayers only.  “The one who listens and does not act is like a person who built a house on the ground without a foundation.  When the river burst against it, it collapsed at once and was completely destroyed” (6:49). 

It is interesting in Luke that he focuses so intently on how important “the fruits” are in a person’s life—what it is they DO.  In Mark there is so little emphasis on this; it is remarkable.  Maybe this is one of the things Luke felt was missing from Mark.  Again Mark is really more Pauline in focusing on the ”gnosis” the gospel gives us and on the inner transformation it involves—Paul also talks about fruits, about behavior; but I think his emphasis is on the change in “being” that occurs in the person of faith, not primarily on the change in behavior.

Reflection:  For Luke, Jesus holds out for us a new way of life, a way of life built on sincerity of faith and obedience to God.  These are not just idealistic precepts or a way of life impossible for us to reach.  But we must learn to see in the way God meant for us to see and overcome the impediments to faithful action.  It is not what we feel or think that mark us as children of the Most High, but real differences in our lives.  The fruit, whether of deeds or words or work must grow from the tree of life Christ brings to fruition in us.

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.