November 29, 2010

• More miscellaenous, great lessons from my classes…

  Why did Jewish authorities have the power to kill Stephen (Acts 7:57-58), when they didn’t for Jesus? Also, didn’t Paul, in his former life, have that authority? (Acts 22:4)?

  What they tried so hard to get at Babel (a “name for ourselves”: Gen. 11:4), God freely gave to Abraham (Gen. 12:2).

  Many times Hellenistic philosophers would never even address women, children and slaves. But Paul does (Eph. 5:22-6:8; Col. 3:18-25). This was radical in his day.

  Only one time in all his letters, Paul thanks a person (Romans 16:4). He constantly thanks God, however (Rom. 1:8; 6:17; 1 Cor. 1:4; Phil. 1:3).

  Why is God never mentioned in the book of Esther? The events of Esther happened during the time of the Diaspora (the dispersion of the Jews during the exile) when there was, in some sense, an absence of God. The temple was destroyed by the Babylonians (586 B.C.), and the presence of God above the mercy seat (Ex 25:22; Lev. 16:2) was no longer. So also, something similar in the actual contents of Esther. God was not immediately present, but was working behind the scenes. He was working through the events and coincidences of the story. Surely the author of Esther was trying to get this across. Even in the terrible event of the exile, with the horrible loss of the beloved temple, and the city of Jerusalem, God was still “present”, working behind the scenes. In our lives, at times it feels like God is absent. Yet, as in Esther, He is there—He has always been there.

  Why was the 7th day of creation not  reported as ending (Gen. 2:2-3)? Every other day it was said: “And there was evening–and there was morning…” There has been lots of rabbinic speculation on that. (Jewish scholarship starting in 200 AD).

  The serious story of Achan in Joshua 7 has obvious parallels to Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5:1-11. During the former, the Israelites were surrounded by hostile nations. However, God was saying to them: the threat is not from the outside, but from the inside. This is very similar to Acts 5. The early church was surrounded by persecution, with God saying: the real threat is not from the outside, but inside. Conclusion: God is deathly serious about the holiness of his people.

  Fascinating: the author of Hebrews and his use of the “word of God”… For him, he NEVER uses “word” with a sense of “written verbs.” It was always in the sense of “spoken words.”  (For Paul, on the other hand, it was almost always as “what is written”: the Greek word being grapho).

  So, when the author of Hebrews says, “For somewhere he has spoken…” the point is NOT that he doesn’t know where in the OT it says that. The emphasis is that the human author is not important! It is God’s word! (“spoken words”). God is speaking! How we often need to be reminded that what we actually hold in our hands is the very words of God.

  (Commenting on James 4:13-5:6, and its focus on wealth): “…the problem is not that we’ve tried faith and found it wanting, but that we’ve tried mammon and found it addictive” (Arthur Simon in Craig Blomberg and Miriam Kamell, James: Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008, 211-212).

  • 12:34 pm
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