Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Bible Books

  • Retelling and Rethinking the Unjust Judge

    This week’s lectionary readings included Luke 18:1-8, the story of the unjust judge. One of the problems many people have with this story is relating the unjust judge to God, but as I pointed out in a devotional one thing we are supposed to hear from the story is how God is different from the unjust judge.

    One approach I like to reading stories, and this includes historical narrative as well as parables, allegories, and fictional stories, is to retell the story for various purposes. I decided to try this after asking the question, “What happened afterward?” The widow got what she wanted, but what happened afterward. I wrote a short story based in a fantasy background, looking at that question, and posted it on my Jevlir Caravansary blog. But since that one is there for fun, I didn’t really go into any of the thinking that went into the story or how I would use it in teaching.

    I personally haven’t used this or any other stories I have written in teaching, though I’m planning to try it some time. The way I usually approach it is to call for ideas right in class, and help people use their imagination to build other stories around the one we’re studying. I think that imagination is an important element of Bible study.

    Now let me make it clear that I don’t mean that you should imagine what the story might mean and take that as the interpretation. What I suggest is that you imagine how things might be, and then use that to put the story into a context. How much like our imagained story is the original story? How is it different.

    The following questions won’t make sense if you haven’t read my short story related to Luke 18:1-8 or if you are not acquainted with the parable.

    1. Many people have trouble relating the unjust judge to God, while others don’t believe he is related at all, and that God is to be contrasted to the unjust judge. Do you find the character of Sir Frederick in the story easier or harder to relate to God? Why?
    2. Sir Carl in the story could be regarded as a God-figure in some ways. Does having a just judge in the story change your view? Why does Jesus leave the story so brief, with the questions open?
    3. Would you prefer if Jesus told stories that were a little bit longer with more things explained?
    4. How do you think other people would have reacted to the widow’s success, if we heard “the rest of the story”? Would it be similar to my short story in which they basically assume that hers was an isolated success? Can you relate this reaction or any other reaction you imagine to our responses to God and to testimonies about his care?
    5. Might the other people who were treated unjustly by the unjust judge have felt that the widow’s success was unfair?

    Finally, of course, does answering these questions, and or reading my short story change your understanding of the parable in any way? Realize, of course, that if I were actually teaching, the alternate story would be built from questions asked of the class and combined into a story as a group. That process of thinking has value in itself, I think.

  • John Wesley on 2 Peter 1:3-11

    I wanted to post John Wesley’s notes on this passage as I’m studying it and presenting some devotional talks on it for the Running Toward the Goal podcast (first one here). I was started down the path of studying this passage by Laura Curtis’s post on Pursuing Holiness which is well worth reading.

    John Wesley’s notes are interpolated in the KJV of the passage, to fit the language style. I took both the KJV text and Wesley’s notes from e-Sword, a wonderful, completely free Bible software package, though I added formatting.

    3According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:

    As his divine power has given us all things – There is a wonderful cheerfulness in this exordium, which begins with the exhortation itself. That pertain to life and godliness – To the present, natural life, and to the continuance and increase of spiritual life. Through that divine knowledge of him – Of Christ. Who hath called us by – His own glorious power, to eternal glory, as the end; by Christian virtue or fortitude, as the means.

    4Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

    Through which – Glory and fortitude. He hath given us exceeding great, and inconceivably precious promises – Both the promises and the things promised, which follow in their due season, that, sustained and encouraged by the promises, we may obtain all that he has promised. That, having escaped the manifold corruption which is in the world – From that fruitful fountain, evil desire. Ye may become partakers of the divine nature – Being renewed in the image of God, and having communion with them, so as to dwell in God and God in you.

    5And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;

    For this very reason – Because God hath given you so great blessings. Giving all diligence – It is a very uncommon word which we render giving. It literally signifies, bringing in by the by, or over and above: implying, that good works the work; yet not unless we are diligent. Our diligence is to follow the gift of God, and is followed by an increase of all his gifts. Add to – And in all the other gifts of God. Superadd the latter, without losing the former. The Greek word properly means lead up, as in dance, one of these after the other, in a beautiful order. Your faith, that “evidence of things not seen,” termed before “the knowledge of God and of Christ,” the root of all Christian graces. Courage – Whereby ye may conquer all enemies and difficulties, and execute whatever faith dictates. In this most beautiful connexion, each preceding grace leads to the following; each following, tempers and perfects the preceding. They are set down in the order of nature, rather than the order of time. For though every grace bears a relation to every other, yet here they are so nicely ranged, that those which have the closest dependence on each other are placed together. And to your courage knowledge – Wisdom, teaching how to exercise it on all occasions.

    6And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;

    And to your knowledge temperance; and to your temperance patience – Bear and forbear; sustain and abstain; deny yourself and take up your cross daily. The more knowledge you have, the more renounce your own will; indulge yourself the less. “Knowledge puffeth up,” and the great boasters of knowledge (the Gnostics) were those that “turned the grace of God into wantonness.” But see that your knowledge be attended with temperance. Christian temperance implies the voluntary abstaining from all pleasure which does not lead to God. It extends to all things inward and outward: the due government of every thought, as well as affection. “It is using the world,” so to use all outward, and so to restrain all inward things, that they may become a means of what is spiritual; a scaling ladder to ascend to what is above. Intemperance is to abuse the world. He that uses anything below, looking no higher, and getting no farther, is intemperate. He that uses the creature only so as to attain to more of the Creator, is alone temperate, and walks as Christ himself walked. And to patience godliness – Its proper support: a continual sense of God’s presence and providence, and a filial fear of, and confidence in, him; otherwise your patience may be pride, surliness, stoicism; but not Christianity.

    7And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.

    And to godliness brotherly kindness – No sullenness, sternness, moroseness: “sour godliness,” so called, is of the devil. Of Christian godliness it may always be said, “Mild, sweet, serene, and tender is her mood, Nor grave with sternness, nor with lightness free: Against example resolutely good, Fervent in zeal, and warm in charity.” And to brotherly kindness love – The pure and perfect love of God and of all mankind. The apostle here makes an advance upon the preceding article, brotherly kindness, which seems only to relate to the love of Christians toward one another.

    8For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

    For these being really in you – Added to your faith. And abounding – Increasing more and more, otherwise we fall short. Make you neither slothful nor unfruitful – Do not suffer you to be faint in your mind, or without fruit in your lives. If there is less faithfulness, less care and watchfulness, since we were pardoned, than there was before, and less diligence, less outward obedience, than when we were seeking remission of sin, we are both slothful and unfruitful in the knowledge of Christ, that is, in the faith, which then cannot work by love.

    9But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.

    But he that wanteth these – That does not add them to his faith. Is blind – The eyes of his understanding are again closed. He cannot see God, or his pardoning love. He has lost the evidence of things not seen. Not able to see afar off – Literally, purblind. He has lost sight of the precious promises: perfect love and heaven are equally out of his sight. Nay, he cannot now see what himself once enjoyed. Having, as it were, forgot the purification from his former sins – Scarce knowing what he himself then felt, when his sins were forgiven.

    10Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:

    Wherefore – Considering the miserable state of these apostates. Brethren – St. Peter nowhere uses this appellation in either of his epistles, but in this important exhortation. Be the more diligent – By courage, knowledge, temperance, &c. To make your calling and election firm – God hath called you by his word and his Spirit; he hath elected you, separated you from the world, through sanctification of the Spirit. O cast not away these inestimable benefits! If ye are thus diligent to make your election firm, ye shall never finally fall.

    11For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

    For if ye do so, an entrance shall be ministered to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom – Ye shall go in full triumph to glory.

  • My Previous Looks at 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5

    Since the texts for Proper 24C / Ordinary 29C / Pentecost +21 (October 21, 2007) include 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5, which in turn includes 2 Timothy 3:16-17 on which I have written a considerable amount before I thought I’d simply provide links to some earlier material.

    First, there are two key articles on my Threads blog, T4G Article I: The Bible, which is a response to the Together for the Gospel statement articles on Biblical inspiration, and also The Impossibility of Verbal Plenary Translation which applies some ideas about Biblical inspiration to translation. Neither of these articles are direct exposition of 2 Timothy 3:16-17, but they respond to such exposition.

    Second, I have two articles here on this blog, Information or Conversation, which examines the major reason(s) we have to approach the Bible in the first place, and how that will impact what we get from our study, and Hebrews 4:12-13: God’s Word is Alive and Active which combines 2 Timothy with a look at Hebrews 4:12-13, another key passage.

    Briefly, I think there are two issues in reading this passage on the scripture. First, do we read 2 Timothy 3:16 alone, or in the context of the broader passage, especially verse 17? I would suggest that verse 17 is essential in understanding “God-breathed,” by pointing us to what the resulting text should accomplish for the believer. Second, just what does “God-breathed” mean? People quote this text to me all the time, and indeed I quote it quite frequently myself, but it’s easy to assume that “God-breathed” means whatever I want it to.

    If I believe in [tag]verbal plenary inspiration[/tag], I’m likely to believe that when God breathes scripture the result is a fully verbally inspired text. If I believe that inspiration occurs in the conversation between a person and God, then I will imagine that this constitutes “God-breathing.” If I believe that God’s breathing must produce [tag]inerrancy[/tag], then I am likely to assume that meaning in “God-breathed.”

    Yet the text actually says none of those things. In it, “God-breathed” points forward to the specific uses and usefulness of the text. Now I’m not saying that the text actually contradicts any of those views either.

  • Getting the Humor of the Story

    OK, this post discussing daily [tag]lectionary[/tag] readings and particularly the story of Peter being released from prison (Acts 12), is just too good not to link.

    This retelling just gets the feel of the story, I think, and the humor of the situation, and like Jenn says, the “lectionary dudes” had fun putting it all together.

  • Book: J. Louis Martyn, Galatians

    If you read this blog at all regularly you will have seen a number of posts that reference J. Louis Martyn’s commentary on Galatians in the Anchor Bible Series. I have just completed a study through Galatians, using the Greek text and Martyn’s commentary. It’s very hard to rate commentaries, because there are so many possibilities for use, and if you describe a commentary as “good” you have to specify “good for what?”

    In this case I’m going to put this in my top five. Those are: Leviticus (3 vols, Anchor Bible) by Jacob Milgrom, 1 Corinthians (NICNT) by Gordon Fee, Isaiah (OTL) by Brevard Childs, Exodus (OTL) by Brevard Childs, and now Galatians by J. Louis Martyn. Fee’s 1 Corinthians I regard as the best commentary I’ve found that is usable for a teacher/preacher who teaches non-scholars. Milgrom’s remains far and away the best scholar’s commentary that I’ve read. To place Martyn’s commentary in this group I would say that it is not as overwhelmingly thorough as Milgrom’s. To manage that it would have to carefully cite the history of interpretation starting with the church fathers and moving to the present. Martyn takes the history into account, but doesn’t
    give you everything. To match Fee’s commentary, there would have to be more direct application. Martyn provides plenty of fodder for devotional use, but I found that when I tried to find a quote, I either couldn’t find any at all, or what I found had to be translated for a lay audience. That will make this commentary less useful for a working pastor or Sunday School teacher.

    Having said all of that, the key benefit of Martyn’s work is simply that he provides a good cross section of his excellent insights on Pauline theology throughout, fitting Galatians into a pattern of Pauline thought, and suggesting avenues of interpretation that are creative, and very often quite convincing. If you can translate some of his thinking into comprehensible terms that can be used in a sermon, you’ll find them quite useful and profound.

    Some of the key themes include:

    • The Jerusalem of today (Gal. 4:25) is the Jerusalem church in that it either supports or does not suppress the circumcision mission to the gentiles
    • Closely connected to that, Martyn refers to the teachers not as Judaizers, but as a circumcision based gentile mission
    • Paul sees the death and resurrection of Jesus in apocalyptic terms, an invasion of this world that invalidates old categories and creates new ones
    • Galatians is earlier in the sequence of Paul’s letters than often thought

    With 577 pages of solid commentary, a study of Galatians with this book is not for the faint of heart, but it is worth the effort. If you then write sermons or lessons from it, you will get valuable training in explaining profound but difficult theological concepts to lay audiences. You may regard that as a penalty, but perhaps it is a benefit, a good spiritual discipline.

    Those who accept inerrancy, and even those like me who don’t, may find the historical approach a little difficult to manage. Martyn espouses the idea that Paul’s letters are better sources for Paul’s life than Acts, relegating Acts to a supporting role (I discuss that here). My impression is that with a little bit more attention much of the Acts material can be reconciled plausibly and should be. I would accept that the Jerusalem conference as reported in Acts and as understood by Paul may be somewhat different. Paul’s discussion of the topic of food offered to idols in 1 Corinthians certainly makes it appear so, but I think that a good historical outline can be taken both from Paul’s letters and from Acts, and that those outlines are not too far apart. The “spin” is a bit different, but the bones match.

    Obviously, I enjoyed my study of Galatians, and I wrote a number of notes, both here and on my wife’s devotional list, for which I’ve been writing quite a lot lately. Just to provide the flavor, here are links to the posts over the last few weeks that were inspired by Martyn’s commentary: