Dr. Howell's eSeries

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Genesis

Genesis is high drama, with many of the most profound moments in Bible, running from the creation of everything to the death of Jacob, whose sons became the ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel. We Methodists do not generally worry about potential conflicts between science and the Bible. Genesis writes poetically and theologically about the source of the universe and all life. Weaving together a wonderful world, God pronounces the final product as "good" (Genesis 1:31). But all does not remain "good." God did not make robots, but people, and took the risk of giving them freedom, hoping for love and obedience. But instead of taking care of God's world, they took over God's world, preferring to be god rather than to serve God. Genesis 3 tells the story of all people, how they foolishly turn away from God, how they rationalize once they do. Mark Twain humorously wondered, "I don't know why Adam and Eve get so much credit; I could have done just as well as they did." When people put themselves at the center of the universe instead of God, there are consequences. Men lord it over women (3:16), brothers fight (4:8-12), and evil gains momentum and becomes "normal" (6:5). The flood, which is reported in many ancient cultures, seems to be an attempted "remedy." But John Calvin was right: we would have daily floods, so ineffective did it prove as a cure for sin. God strangely embarks on a new plan, one of mercy, one of election. God chooses Abraham and his descendants, not so they alone can bask in his glory, but so they can be used to save everybody else (12:1-4 being one of the pivotal passages in the entire Bible). Abraham's faith is severely tested in chapters 12 through 22. In the face of impossibility, doubt and hopelessness, the key verse is 18:14: "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" That question is answered over and over. Jacob, Abraham's grandson, is a cheat, thief, and liar ¬ but God uses him (28:10-17). His sons sell their brother, Joseph, into slavery, and lie to their father (37:17-36). But God defies every misfortune, and Joseph winds up forgiving his brothers, and even claiming that God actually used their evil deed and turned it to good (45:1-8, 50:19-21). Genesis ends happily for Jacob's family ¬ but a more severe crisis is looming, as we will discover in the book of Exodus.

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Exodus

The bouyant mood on which Genesis ends sours immediately. "There arose a new pharaoh over Egypt, who did not know Joseph" (Exodus 1:8). The Israelites, originally welcome and even powerful in Egypt, are reduced to slavery. From historical records we know that a Semitic people, the "Hyksos," maintained power in Egypt from 1750 to around 1500 B.C. ¬ and this may be indicative of the Hebrews time in the sun, and their demise. The Pharaoh of the Exodus probably is Rameses II, who wealth and grandeur exceeded all others; his "stuff" appeared at the Mint Museum a few years back. Hope for the slaves rested with a small child, Moses, set adrift by his mother in the Nile (2:1-10). Like many revolutionaries (such as Lenin or Gandhi), Moses was reared with every advantage, and with some irony the Pharaoh's bitter foe was sheltered in his own palace. Moses is called by God in the key 3rd chapter of Exodus. Like many biblical characters, and like most of us, he makes excuses for why he can't do what he's called to do. But God uses him through and in spite of himself. Natural disasters unfold until finally Pharaoh lets the Hebrews exit his land. This miraculous rescue, the parting of the sea (Exodus 14:5-31) was to the Jews what Easter has been to Christians, the pivotal moment in their history, the ultimate revelation of God's mercy and power. But it has been humorously said that it was easier to get the Israelites out of Egypt than to get Egypt out of the Israelites! They immediately begin whining and complaining ("murmuring"), but God is patient, leading them to Mt. Sinai where Moses received from God not just the 10 commandments (on which we have a class in a couple of weeks), but many more commandments, regulating Israel's life. The people loved and appreciated having a pattern for life from God (read Psalm 19). On preparing to hear the laws, they naively and faithfully say "All that the Lord has spoken, we will do" (Exodus 19:8, 24:3). The balance of the book is full of fascinating examples from mundane reality about how to live as God's people. Basically Exodus is a book about the gift of freedom, and the commitment required for freed people to stay free. That's what Nelson Mandela said at the end of Apartheid in South Africa: "We are not yet free. We have merely achieved the freedom to be free."

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Leviticus

The laws Moses received on Mt. Sinai continue throughout Leviticus, and if you use all your senses in reading passages from this book you'll be stunned. Smells, sights, lots of racket, colors and textures, and lots of it very gory. For people who lived off the land, and raised livestock, their faith was very tangible. Barely eking out a living, they profoundly sensed their dependence on God, and knew how to show gratitude, not just in words, but with the very precious items they grew. The first ripened wheat was sacrificed to God (Leviticus 2:14-16). The strongest male sheep was sacrificed to God ¬ not to say it alone belonged to God, and the rest was "mine," but rather to testify that it all belongs to God, and my future depends not on me and my ingenuity, but on God (1:10-13). We could learn from this kind of faith. As Mother Teresa once said, "Giving is not just what you can live without, but what you can't live without, or don't want to live without, something you really like. Then your gift becomes a sacrifice, which will have value before God. Giving until it hurts is what I call love in action." Speaking of love: provision is made for strangers, illegal aliens, foreigners who have no food. "When you reap your field, do not reap to its very border; leave some for the poor, for I am the Lord your God" (19:9-10). And "your" is plural, meaning the field-owner's God but also the God of the poor. Sex, diet, the treatment of disease, and the calendar are regulated ¬ for all of life is God's, and no corner is sheltered from God's touch. Sin must be atoned for, with something that really costs you (5:17) ¬ even if you sinned "unwittingly" (4:2). "Holiness" is essential for the people of God, as is clarified in what scholars call the "Holiness Code" in chapters 17-19. Jesus quoted from that 19th chapter when asked "What is the greatest commandment?"

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Numbers

The fourth book of the Bible is called "Numbers," because in its first chapter a census is taken of the people headed through the wilderness toward the promised land. The people continue to doubt, to murmur ¬ and God seems less patient with them than he was at the beginning, back in Exodus. Some fascinating stories here: in chapters 13-14, a reconnaissance of the land is taken, with the majority report indicating the inhabitants are too big, too strong, that the land cannot be taken; but the minority, Joshua and Caleb, trust in God's plan that they will live in that good land. In chapter 21, Moses fashions a serpent, affixed to a pole, and the people are healed when they look upon it. Interestingly, archaeologists have found a bronze snake, dating to about the time of Moses, at Timnah, in the Sinai wilderness! Many cultures have, surprisingly enough, latched onto the serpent as having healing powers (such as Asclepius). Beginning in chapter 22, verse 21, we find one of the funniest stories in the Bible, that of Balaam and his talking donkey.

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Deuteronomy

After decades of wandering in the wilderness, Israel has finally gathered on the highlands of Moab, on the brink of the promised land. They can see it, just across the Jordan River valley. Before plunging ahead, they listen to a long sermon, a "last will and testament" from Moses. He reminds them of all they have endured, of all God has done for them, and urges them to "decide," to commit, to understand all that is at stake, not just to go into the long- awaited land, but to be the kind of people God calls them to be in that land, people of faith and obedience. The key passage would be Deuteronomy 6:4-23, called the "Shema" (a Hebrew word meaning "Hear!"). Pious Jews for centuries have recited the Shema several times daily, as a reminder of God, as a summons to obedience, as a song of gratitude. This text can work for modern Christians as well (Jesus did quote it as the greatest commandment!). There is only one God, no matter how tugged we are in different directions. God's laws should be on our minds constantly. We are not masters of the universe, but are in great debt to others, and especially to God, and so we must be thankful. Deuteronomy closes on a poignant note (34:1-8). Moses, having led the people through so much and for so long, dies just before achieving his life's goal. The mystery of his burial is a hint that Moses was ushered directly into God's presence (read Mark 9:2-8!). I'm also reminded of Martin Luther King's last sermon, in Memphis, the night before he was assassinated. Speaking of his dream, God's dream, of the unity of God's people, he said "I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord..."

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Joshua

At first blush, Joshua is a bit of an embarrassment, with the Israelites, at God's behest and with his miraculous intervention, looking like Nazi panzers rolling devastation across Belgium or Poland. On closer look, the Israelites only knocked off a handful of cities, out of hundreds in Palestine at the time, and only in thinly settled, economically declining areas (archaeologists can detect these things). Some scholars believe the political system in those regions of Palestine were brutal and oppressive, and that many residents welcomed the Israelite invasion, as if they were liberators, more than conquerors.

One such person would be Rahab, whose dramatic, humorous story is recounted in Joshua 2. A prostitute, she understands and believes in Israel's God before anybody else, and perhaps more profoundly than the Israelites themselves – a theme reiterated in the New Testament when all kind of heathen people understand who Jesus is before the disciples or the pious Jews of the day. With amazing irony, Rahab, a foreigner, a harlot, becomes the great, great, great…. grandmother of Jesus himself (Matthew 1:5, Hebrews 11:31).

The book of Joshua is dominated by lots of ritualistic marching around (just scan the first five chapters), and then by a seemingly dull distribution of plots of land to various clans and tribes. The point of all this is that the land belongs to God, and the Israelites enjoy what is produces as a gift of God. Land isn't to be used to get rich, or to dominate others. The land was deeded perpetually by God to families so everyone would forever have equal ownership of property, which isn't their property at all, but God's.

The climax of Joshua comes in the dramatic 24th chapter, where Joshua recognizes that many gods compete for our attention and allegiance – "but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" (verse 15).

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Judges

Once Israel settled down to farming in their new home in Palestine, their fortunes rose and fall, and as the book of Judges tells it, that rise and fall depended on the faithfulness of the people to God. Lacking any centralized political organization, when they were attacked by neighboring armies, the Israelites relied on heroes (including women like Deborah who emerged temporarily to organize clans and tribes for the defense of the land (for the basic "theme" of Judges, read 2:6-23). The stories of these heroes are not squeaky clean, sweet lyrics about pastel characters. Rather, they are earthy, more bawdy than what you might find in the movies, with seduction, guerilla warfare, sneak attacks, deception, immorality (read 4:17-22 or 16:4-22!!!) – and yet somehow, through it all, God was guiding his people toward his ultimate purpose for them.

A focal point in the book comes after the daring feats of Gideon. The people demand of him: "Rule over us!" (8:22). Gideon responds with remarkable theological vision: "I cannot rule over you. Only the Lord can be our ruler!" Over time, Israel will succumb to this craving to have a king like all the other nations – and that will be both their downfall and eventually their paradoxical salvation.

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Ruth

(You can read all of Ruth in a short sitting, and it's a great story!

Once upon a time, at dusk of the Late Bronze Age, in a hilly region in the Middle East, there was a man who had two sons. Elimelech and his wife Naomi and their sons Chilion and Mahlon, scraped a modest living out of the land - until the skies withheld their rain for weeks, months, a couple of years even. Prayers fell harmlessly back to the parched earth.

And so they packed up and moved from Bethlehem to live as resident aliens in Moab, where at least clouds were gathering. The rains came, but life got worse for them. The boys began to date strange, foreign girls. And then there was illness, and three deaths in cruel succession: Elimelech, Chilion, Mahlon, all the men, the workers, the security, all gone.

As the wise lion, Aslan, says in C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia: "I tell you no story but your own story." In the Information Age, we know mobility, and its agonies. Some mobility is self-imposed: we follow the siren call of opportunity, a higher salary, the career track, a more glitzy lifestyle. In The Spectator Bird, Wallace Stegner masterfully portrays a family overly pleased with their pursuit of the good life out there somewhere: "We had invented Eden. We wanted our American plenty to show, but not too much. We wanted to demonstrate that the rush to the suburbs and the country, when conducted by the right people, could be an enhancement of civilization, not an evasion of it. We were within ten minutes of a great university, with all it offered in intellectual and cultural weather, and less than an hour from the city that everyone falls in love with. When we had Eastern or foreign visitors we watched them confidently for signs of envy. We wanted, maybe just a little desperately, to be thought terribly lucky."

For others, as for Elimelech's family, mobility was not by choice: the economy of your region falters, a plant is closed, your corporation promotes you, like a pawn on a chessboard, out of your community to a new suburb of strangers.

Inevitably we are lonely. Peering out at an array of unfamiliar faces, with whom we have no history, with whom we have no certainty of any future, we shy away from anything more than superficial chitchat. But we need deeper friendships more than ever!

When we awkwardly settle into a new and lonely place, things start to unravel. Like Mahlon and Chilion, our children stumble into new crowds, and maybe they hook up with kids we're not too sure about; they date strange girls. And there seems to be an unusual amount of sickness: maybe there are new germs, quirky virus strains to which we are unaccustomed, or else our resistance is lowered. And mortality follows us. Stegner goes on to tell how the glory of our grand destinations pales in the face of the death of a special friend: "Eden with graves is no longer Eden."

Naomi had every reason to feel God must have had some private vendetta against her. But she clings to her God. She gives voice to her ache; she insists on being called, not Naomi (which means "pleasant"), but Mara (which means "bitter"). She is no stoic, she has no stiff upper lip. She does not pretend to have the Jackie Kennedy style of dignity and grandeur in the face of her nightmare.

More astonishing is that Ruth, her daughter-in-law, now just a friend with whom she shares a painful history, comes to cling to this same God. All her life she had worshipped the Moabite gods, such as Chemosh, perceived in the pattern of the stars in the night sky. She clings now, not just to Naomi, but to Naomi's God. She even waxes eloquent, so strongly does she feel; the rhythm and grandeur of verse 16 have been memorialized in everything from wedding gifts to cross-stitching above the fireplace.

As far as Ruth can tell, Naomi's God has no glittering resume, or is at least mired in quite a slump. Maybe she has heard a rumor that Israel's Lord is a champion of the downtrodden. But primarily, all Ruth has to go on is Naomi. And Naomi isn't one of those smiling, beaming witnesses who gaze heavenward and sigh about all of God's great blessings. But she is still persuasive. Maybe there is something compelling about a faith that can be bitter, a faith that can withstand the torrential downpour. Maybe in our culture we need friends and mentors like Naomi - or we need to be like Naomi - who have a deeper faith that can pick up the pieces and move on, still full of trust in God. Give it a chapter or two, and there is another distant relative, Boaz, an older, wise sort of man, who enters the drama as their rescuer, as a mentor, and even as Ruth's lover and husband. The plot of Naomi, who hatches a plan for her daughter in law to seduce this rich, older man, would make a good soap opera!

But irony of ironies: Ruth, the foreigner, not one of the "chosen people," turns out to be the one chosen by God to become ancestor, not only of David, but of Jesus himself!

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1 Samuel

At the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, Israel made a dramatic turn, embodied in the remarkable story in 1 Samuel 16. Samuel, whose virtually miraculous birth to Hannah (1 Samuel 1) foreshadows in some ways Jesus' birth to Mary, is the last of the great "judges," and in a way the first of the great "prophets," in part a hero like Gideon, but in part a spokesman for God, like Elijah or Isaiah in later centuries. The people are clamoring for a king, so they can be "like the other nations" (8:5) – but Samuel warns them sternly of the woes that will strike when power is concentrated in the hands of a single, corruptible individual. After a tragically failed first attempt at reigning on the part of the gifted but flawed Saul, God charges Samuel with anointing God's chosen king – almost as if God is saying "If they must have a king, I will mercifully give them at least one good one!" Jesse of Bethlehem lines up his stalwart sons, but none turns out to be "the one." Finally it is young David, not even considered a possibility by his own father, who is the one (16:6- 13). The stuff of legend, David slays Goliath with a slingshot, along with hundreds of Philistines, picks up a handful of wives along the way, and eventually must vanquish the troops of Saul, who is battling insanity and is reluctant to relinquish his throne. 1 Samuel ends with the sorrowful note of Saul's suicide on Mt. Gilboa, setting the stage for David's ascent to the throne.

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2 Samuel

"How the mighty are fallen!" So David begins 2 Samuel (1:19-27) with a poignant eulogy over his predecessor, Saul. His genius in consolidating power is evidenced by his choice (or God's choice!) of Jerusalem as his capital. Like the District of Columbia and Washington, Jerusalem sat in no single tribe's territory. A dynasty was founded upon David (2 Samuel 7 is the key theological passage in the book). Somewhat perversely, once David achieved power, his faithfulness to God plunged. His infidelity with Bathsheba, and failed coverup (11:2-12:7), his over-indulgence of his sons (leading to Absalom's attempted coup d'etat) – things spiral out of control, away from God's designs. Yet David always winds up humble and trusting in God. His song of praise in 2 Samuel 22 is roughly identical to Psalm 18, and many other Psalms were credited to this king who played the lyre and sang. The long story of David's sons jockeying to succeed him (2 Samuel 9-20) has been called by scholars "The Succession Narrative," and is believed to be one of the oldest continuous documents from Bible times, or the ancient world.

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1 Kings

Any anxieties raised by the death of the great king David are quickly alleviated once Solomon disposes of his half-brothers and ascends to the throne. Granted immense wisdom by God (chapter 3), Solomon builds the splendid temple in Jerusalem (with an eloquent dedicatory prayer in chapter 8. New lands are occupied, the army of chariots swells in number, the economy booms – but there is a dark side to Solomon's reign (chapters 10 and 11), and the storyteller hints that it is precisely his clever business and political decisions that get him into trouble theologically. Taxes are levied. Slavery makes for ultra-cheap labor. Alliances are forged with foreign trade partners. Political marriages bring more wealth into Jerusalem. But in all these, Solomon is unfaithful to God. Alliances and marriages entailed importing the worship of foreign gods to the holy city. As the rich got richer, the poor got poorer – which was alien to Israel's understanding of themselves as a family.

Solomon's son Rehoboam is even more foolish, and his vicious policies toward the northern tribes leads to their "secession from the union." From 922 B.C. onward, there are actually two Israels, a northern kingdom (called "Ephraim" or just "Israel") and a southern kingdom (called "Judah"). King after king disappoints. The more powerful ones prove to be the most disappointing in terms of their faithfulness to God. As a remedy, God begins to raise up prophets, who are not foretellers of future centuries so much as spokesmen for God in troubled times. Politics and religion mixed necessarily in Israel, as God spoke through the prophets to call kings and princes to account, to ensure that public policy was in sync with God's word.

Elijah was the greatest of the prophets in 1 Kings. He wins a grand contest against the prophets of the Canaanite god, Baal, summoning Israel not to blend their worship of the one God with other idols (chapter 18). Elijah suffers burnout, pleads with God to let him die (chapter 19); but God calls him back into the fray, re-energizing him for his continuing mission.

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2 Kings

The end of Elijah's life is told with great drama in chapter 2. His greatest disciple, Elisha, senses his inability to follow in his master's footsteps. As Elijah passes his mantle to Elisha, a "double portion" of God's spirit comes upon the heir apparent. We may remember the funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr., at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. The preacher, James Bevel, said, "Our leader is not dead. Martin Luther King is not our leader. Our leader is the man who spoke to Moses from the burning bush. Our leader is the man who walked through the fiery furnace. Our leader is the man raised up out of the grave on the third day." As crucial as leadership is, the life and future of God's people rests on no single person's shoulders, but upon God.

The litany of thick-headed kings continues. Each king was anointed with oil at his coronation. The Hebrew word for anointed is "Messiah." Each new king was a "messiah," the current anointed one. Curiously, it was out of their progressive failure that there emerged in Judaism a hope one day for a good and faithful king, one who would truly lead God's people – and those hopes eventually were placed on the shoulders of David's descendant, Jesus himself.

Hezekiah (715-687 B.C.) ranks high as a king who trusted God. The dramatic story in 2 Kings 18:13-19:37 (repeated almost verbatim in Isaiah 36-38) tells of a remarkable kind of foreign policy that issues in a miraculous deliverance of Jerusalem from the blitzkrieg tactics of the Assyrian army. Josiah (640-609 B.C.) is the greatest of the kings, his great religious, political and social reforms cut short by his tragic death on the battlefield at the age of 39 (chapter 23). Shortly thereafter, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon subdued all of Israel, razed Jerusalem to the ground, and forced the people to live in exile far from home in modern-day Kuwait and Iraq. The lingering question at the end of the long history, begun in Joshua and running through 2 Kings, is "What will become of this nation, chosen by God, squandered in sin?"

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1 Chronicles

Any piece of literature that begins with 13 to 16 pages of geneology, as does 1 Chronicles, promises to be dull. Actually, 1 Chronicles is a retelling of the story we read previously in 1 and 2 Samuel – but from a very different perspective. There is an embarrassing "whitewashing" of characters. David, who is both faithful but also sinful and earthy in 2 Samuel, is squeaky clean and utterly pious in Chronicles. His sorry affair with Bathsheba is omitted entirely! We may all harbor some tendency to want to whitewash "greats" out of our past.

For Chronicles, politics recedes into the background. Why? After a generation of Israelites lived in forced exile in Babylon, they were allowed to return home – but never again functioned as an independent nation. Lacking power, their focus turned to personal piety and the community's worshipping life. Chronicles is obsessed with the priests, their geneologies, duties, division. Not an inspiring read, but we may recognize that Chronicles was not even intended to inspire, but to provide a right ordering of the religious community – much as we Methodists have our "Book of Discipline," which is crucial to our functioning as a church, but isn't scintillating reading!

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2 Chronicles

Just as 1 Chronicles retold 1 and 2 Samuel, 2 Chronicles retells 1 and 2 Kings, again whitewashing characters and prescribing in great detail.

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Ezra & Nehemiah

2 Chonicles, like 2 Kings, left off with the Jews living in forced exile in Babylon. But in 539 B.C., Cyrus the Persian defeated Babylon and sent the nation of Israel home to Jerusalem. Life back in the land was difficult, as they faced famine, poverty, and harassment from neighbors. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah (which in the original Hebrew were a single book, not two) are continuations of Chronicles, but they are backwards chronologically. In 445 B.C., Nehemiah, who was "cupbearer" to the Persian king Artaxerxes (and he did more than carry cups around; he was at some elevated spot in the administration) came home to his people, inspected the crumbling state of the city of Jerusalem (Nehemiah 1:3-4, 2:13), and emerged as builder extraordinaire, reconstructing the great walls around the city and restoring morale and hope. A dramatic construction project it was (Nehemiah 4-5), having to fend off Sanballat and other enemies.

But the physical building alone could not restore the community fully. Ezra, the great priest, stood up in 398 B.C. and read God's law in the people's hearing (Nehemiah 9). The urgency with which they repented was symbolized by the insistence that the Jews no longer intermarry with foreigners (Ezra 9:1-5). Strange as this may sound to us, the issue was the inevitable watering down of faith and commitment when someone is married to someone who does not share beliefs, values, priorities.

what does it profit, to gain the whole world and forfeit your life?" (8:34-36).

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Esther

Sit down and read Esther! What a great, dramatic, romantic, intriguing story! Queen Vashti refuses to entertain the guests of her husband, Ahasuerus, the great king of Persia. The humorous anxiety of his advisors (1:17) leads to a beauty contest to select a new queen. The winner is Esther, whose cousin Mordecai surreptitiously sneaked her in – although the king has no idea she is Jewish. A wicked administrator named Haman plots to kill all the Jews (an early instance of anti-Semitism!), including Mordecai and Esther. Both of them act with daring courage, and there are about a dozen "chance" circumstances that lead to a happy ending. Interestingly, God is unmentioned in the entire book of Esther. But as David Clines, a biblical scholar from Sheffield in England, has said, "chance" in this story we recognize as God's mysterious intervention, and "The holes in the story are God-shaped" – which may be an invitation to us to construe chance and God's hidden work in our lives.

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Job

Job is a book to which modern, cynical people should easily resonate. Even non-religious works have been written on Job, such as Archabald McLeish's play "JB," and William Safire's "The First Dissident." By the way, the DUMC web site has a sermon I preached on the radio program "The Protestant Hour" a few years ago. "Why Bad Things Happen to Good People" is based on Job.

Lots of people seem to know only the first two chapters to the book, so we speak of "the patience of Job." The Job of chapters 3-42 is anything but patient. Job has it all, has achieved every dream – and then all is taken away, not by God, but yet God certainly allows it to happen. It's a test, as Job 1:9 asks a question we might turn on ourselves: "Do Job serve God for nought?" Once he has suffered the loss of his family, and extreme physical pain, his "friends" drop by. Their counsel should strike us as familiar – and should warn us to go and NOT do likewise. The lesson of chapters 3-37 partly is in what friends should NOT do when a friend suffers. The theology is one of blame, of blithe acceptance of "God's will" – just listen to their advice in 4:7, 4:17, 5:7, 8:8. Job's reply is telling (6:14-18, 19:13-17). People often ask me "What should I say?" to someone who is suffering. I usually advise them just to show up. Trite theological answers, attempts to "explain" or make evil somehow okay, actually explain nothing, and only trivialize what your friend is going through. You just sit with them, and know that evil is never okay.

Job's conversations with God, his "prayers" if you will, are exemplary for many of us who learn polite, sugar-coated prayers as children. Job roars his complaints to the heavens, as do most biblical characters from whom we have prayers, including Jesus himself. To cry out boldly in prayer does not show a lack of faith, but a deep faith.

Silent for an excruciatingly long time, God finally answers in chapters 38-42. At first sight God's answer seems evasive, not to the point. God takes him on tour of creation. God seems to take special delights in the fierce independence of the animal kingdom. As William Brown (a scholar from up in Virginia who recently, and with amazing foolishness I thought, turned down a job offer from Duke Divinity School!) put it, "God revels in the wildness of creation. This is no static world governed by fixed laws. The Lord's world is a messy one. God essentially challenges Job's conception of divine sovereignty, namely one of direct and decisive intervention in the course of earthly affairs. The theological point of God's challenge to Job is that God does not rule with an iron fist, grinding the wicked into the dust and coercing obedience from earthly subjects. Rather, God governs with an open hand, sustaining creation, leaving both good and bad characters to weave their existence into the complex network of life. God is characterized here ultimately by creativity, self- restraint."

If you appreciate poetry, you might look at Robert Frost's, "The Masque of Reason," a witty and profound exploration of Job's dilemma. Of course, all's well that ends well, and Job winds up on top, a real winner with a more meaningful faith than when he started.

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Psalms

There are many ways to think of the Psalms. They have been called the prayerbook of the Bible (Bonhoeffer), a school of prayer (Barth), an anatomy of the soul (Calvin), a hymnal (Eaton), a little Bible (Luther), and much more. The Psalms are not first of all God's word to us, but our words to God, the prayers of people "who knew who God was" (Merton). We pray their prayers, and thereby learn to pray. Bonhoeffer wrote: "The phrase 'learning to pray' sounds strange to us. If the heart does not overflow and begin to pray by itself, we say, it will never 'learn' to pray. But it is a dangerous error, surely very widespread among Christians, to think that the heart can pray by itself. For then we confuse wishes, hopes, sighs, laments, rejoicings – all of which the heart can do by itself – with prayer… Prayer does not mean simply to pour out one's heart. It means rather to find the way to God and to speak with him, whether the heart is full or empty." Bonhoeffer wisely illustrates this learning by an analogy. Children do not just know how to talk. Rather, "The child learns to speak because his father speaks to him. He learns the speech of his father."

There are many kinds of Psalms. Some praise and glorify God (such as Psalms 103, 113, 96). Some express our yearning for God (Psalms 42, 27). Others cry out in desperation (Psalms 6, 69, 130) – inviting us to pray boldly, not just politely. Many are profound expressions of faith (Psalm 73 – my favorite! and also Psalms 19 and 23).

Perhaps the Psalms are the easiest place to "get into" the Bible. Each Psalm is short, and very accessible. You don't have to know anything in advance to read or pray a Psalm. You might try just one a day and work your way through!

Our web site has five sermons on the Psalms (which are the focal point of a book on which I'm putting the finishing touches this weekend called "Preaching the Psalms"). They are "Tested by its own Defeat" (on Psalm 73), "The Kiss" (on Psalm 85), "The Beauty and Urgency of my Song" (on Psalm 42), "The Wreckage of Human Earthly Thrones" (on Psalm 47), and "Holiday" (on Psalm 24).

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Proverbs

William J. Bennett's bestseller, The Book of Virtues, is trying to meet a need, and to address the frightening sense that we have lost all wisdom and virtue. In a way, Proverbs is the Bible's "book of virtues," and was written primarily for young people, to form and shape their minds and souls, so that they might be not just smart, but wise. The theme of Proverbs is voiced in 1:1-7. In fact, the first 9 chapters are virtually a drama, the wise parent instructing the child, seductive voices luring the child toward folly, then wisdom inviting the child back home. The balance of Proverbs is a long catalog of pithy sayings, and you might look at 10:12, 11:12, 11:22, 12:25, 13:11, 14:7, 15:16-17, 16:2, 18:2, 19:13, 20:1, 21:9, 21:13, and 30:18-20 as insightful, challenging, and at times humorous examples of the sayings of the sages of ancient Israel.

There is also an essay on our web site entitled "Wisdom" (click on "Sermons" then "Wisdom") that is designed to help parents think about their kids and virtue.

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Ecclesiastes

There is no mood the Bible doesn't know. There is no despair you have felt that stands somehow out in the hall, apart from the room of God's word. The very fact that Ecclesiastes is in the Bible is poignant, ironic testimony of the goodness, the holistic embrace, of the Bible and our life in the world. The theme of Ecclesiastes is wretched, depressing: "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!" The Hebrew word, HEBEL, means what is vain, futile, insubstantial, transient, worthless. Is everything really HEBEL?

The writer has conducted a grand experiment, and in his old age reflects back over his life in sorrow. He had it all: money, things, popularity, brains, even wisdom. But there is a boredom, a passing away of whatever is good. Vanity. Cynicism. We may think of the writings of Albert Camus, or the mythological figure of Sisyphus, condemned forever to push a stone up a mountain, only to have it come crashing down – and the mood is exhaustion, weariness.

The Presbyterian Old Testament scholar, Bill Brown was on target: "Ecclesiastes is at root a confession of disillusionment about life in general and the frustration of work in particular. For an achievement-oriented society, Ecclesiastes' message speaks persuasively to those who with great and ambitious plans for success are ripe for disillusionment, in business, politics, raising children… In every vocation there is the struggle over the perceived lack of effectiveness that can bring you to the brink of burnout."
The dreary assessment of life in Ecclesiastes is in the Bible to remind us that God knows us, that our feelings are valid, but also that they are not isolated. Ecclesiastes isn't the whole Bible, although it does tell a truth about life. It is sandwiched amongst more hopeful books. Perhaps what it does is to invalidate a sunny optimism that blithely says "Everything is okay!" There is weariness. We get old and die. The wicked prosper. The wise suffer. C'est la vie.

Not only is Ecclesiastes in the Bible. There is a hidden hopefulness within the book itself. The author pulled some amazing stunts we have only recognized in the past twenty years. For instance: the Israelites loved to assign numerical values to words. If a woman loved a man named "Abe," she might say "I love number 8" (since a is 1, b is 2, and e is 5, the sum being 8). The numerical value of HEBEL is 57 (he being 5, be being 2, the L being 50) – and can you guess how many times HEBEL occurs in the entire book? 57! The numerical value of "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity" (in Hebrew of course), which occurs repeatedly, is 216, which is exactly the number of verses in the Hebrew original of the book. And there are dozens of similar "coincidences" that cannot be mere chance. The author quite intentionally imposed some order on all the chaos of his reflections – perhaps a clue that despite our weary wanderings we are really going someplace after all. Then there is that little refrain that occurs repeatedly in the book (for instance, at 2:24): "There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and find enjoyment in his toil." His advice is very simple, and crucial for us. Yes, life has this hard edge to it – which is all the more reason to take delight in simple joys, to take note of small pleasures, like a laugh, a drink, a meal, a friend. This is why Lisa and I had Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 at our wedding. Just talk with anyone who is in declining health, and they understand how the goodness of life isn't big stuff like getting rich or owning grand items, but in sitting on the porch in the breeze, chewing a perfect steak, the taste of what my wife's family calls "southern baptist iced tea," a hug, a melody, a smile.

For God is present in such moments, and through all the vanity. Brown cleverly wrote that Ecclesiastes would say, "Let the chips fall where they may. For wherever they fall, God's mercy is to be found."

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Song of Songs

Sometimes called the "Song of Solomon," this book should be rated at least PG-13, maybe even R. This is love poetry, virtually a dialogue between a man and woman, passionately romantic and expressive of their love. The book unfolds like an old Greek drama: she longs for him, he longs for her, and a chorus chimes in with commentary. The tone of longing is important to notice. "O that his left hand were under my head" (2:6). "He stands behind our wall, gazing through the lattice" (2:9). "I sought him but found him not" (3:1). Nowadays men and women just plunge together, and miss out on the kind of elusive absence that indicated not a lack of love, but an invisible but inexorable bond between lovers, as in Romeo and Juliet (where the "parting" is "sweet sorrow"). For us the descriptions of the beloved may seem humorous, but be certain that in ancient Israel this poetry was not funny but moving. Of the woman he says: "Your eyes are doves" (1:15). "A lily among brambles, so is my love among maidens" (2:2). "Your hair is like a flock of goats moving down the slopes of Gilead" (4:1 – and I have a photo of this from the Holy Land!). "Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes up from the washing, all of which bear twins" (4:2 – and I assume this means her teeth are white, and that she has a full set!!! – something rare in the ancient world!). "Your cheeks are like pomegranates, your breasts are like fawns… Your lips distill nectar" – and it gets more involved and suggestive from there on. Of the man: "My beloved is like a gazelle" (2:9). "His locks are way, his arms are rounded gold, his body is ivory work, his legs are alabaster columns…" – and throughout the book they long, look, touch, part, and love. Not that their love is all sweetness. They know the shadow side: "For love is as strong as death" (8:6).

In the early centuries of the church, theologians, who were pretty squeamish about sex, argued the book could not possibly be about human sexual love, and concluded instead that it was an allegory of the soul's relationship to its bride, Christ, or of the church's relationship to its bride, Christ. Before we laugh that off, we may contemplate ways in which our relationship with Christ might have more of that passionate, longing, loving feel. Charles Wesley wrote a marvelous hymn, "Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly." And John Donne write, "Ravish my heart, three-personned God." In my book about saints, I have a section of Therese of Lisieux, whose sense of Christ's presence was what we today would definitely think of as intimate.

But it is also crucial that the Bible includes such poetry. Again, no aspect of human life is bracketed out from Scripture. Intimacy, pleasure, beauty, love – these are good gifts from God, celebrated in this wonderful book.

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Isaiah

We just completed a 5-month series of sermons on Isaiah. Perhaps the most spectacular of the Dead Sea Scrolls was a complete manuscript of Isaiah, in almost perfectly preserved condition, dating to the time of Christ, and it is on special display at the "Shrine of the Book" in Jerusalem. In the New Testament, Isaiah is quoted more often than any other Old Testament book, and it has inspired some of the greatest works of art and music (such as much of Handel's "Messiah").

Christians who love to say "Religion and politics don't mix!" had best not wade into Isaiah's waters. Isaiah was a prophet, God's spokesman, and his long career, stretching from 736 B.C. until the early 600's, was all about bringing God's word to bear on rulers in power, on public policy, on social issues. Called by God in a dramatic vision (6:1-8), Isaiah at first urged King Ahaz to have trust in the Lord, lured as Ahaz was to rely on his military might, and on alliances with other countries (7:1-9). The problem with such alliances was that you had to sell your soul to get some security; the emissaries of the foreign powers brought priests and built little chapels in Jerusalem to their gods, and contaminated Israel's way of life with their values and culture (1:10-31, 28:1-4). Isaiah's preaching to king and people was not sweetness and light. God is not mocked; God is a God of judgment, and the people's waywardness will have its consequences. Isaiah's God does not exist to bless whatever people happen to want to do.

Hezekiah assumed the throne in 715 after his father Ahaz died. The menace of the Assyrian army struck terror into all of Israel. Isaiah again urges what seems like a naïve foreign policy: faith in God (28:14-22, 30:1-7! and then the dramatic encounter reported in chapters 36 and 37, a humorous and theologically profound story, which has found strange validation in Herodotus' account that Sennacherib of Assyria's army got wiped out by bubonic plague!).

Generations passed, and finally in 587 B.C., the holy city of Jerusalem was levelled by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. The Jews were compelled to leave their home and live in exile in what today we call Kuwait and Iraq. Another prophet, called by God and regarding himself as a disciple of Isaiah, spoke words of hope and freedom to the captives, announcing that the time had come for them to return home, a glorious action of a gracious and powerful God on their behalf. Perhaps the most beautiful and theologically provocative poetry in all the Bible is found in Isaiah 40-55. Consider 40:1-11, 40:21-31, 41:17-20, 43:16- 21, 49:1-6, 49:14-21, 52:7-12, 55:1-11, and the stunning words in 52:13-53:12, which we read on Good Friday and seem is a haunting way to prefigure the sufferings of Christ.

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Jeremiah

Jeremiah (meaning "May the Lord lift him up") was born around 645 B.C. in the small town of Anathoth, 3 miles northeast of Jerusalem. While still a "youth" (early teenage years?), Jeremiah was called to be a prophet (1:4-12). Notice that his preaching task was "to pluck up and break down, to build and to plant." We might prefer God's spokesmen simply build and plant – but the hint here is that before God can build and plant in our lives there must be some plucking up and breaking down! In chapters 2-4 Jeremiah offers a stinging critique of Israel's bogus religious life that is barely skin deep, and utterly lackadaisical in concern for the needy. But this is no mere tongue-lashing. Jeremiah's repeated plea is "Repent!" The Hebrew word underlying "Repent!" is SHUB (pronounced "shoov"), which means to make a 180 degree turn. We're going the wrong way!!!

Chapters 7, 26 and 36 narrate dramatic moments when Jeremiah stood up to a throng gathered in Jerusalem and, much as Jesus did when he cleansed the temple, denounced their pretend-religion. This kind of preaching landed him in jail. He was hunted, mocked, persecuted – and came personally to wish that he were dead. His poignant prayers in 15:10- 21, 17:14-18, and 20:7-18 are startling in their boldness. The most fascinating example is 12:1-5. Jeremiah asks the perennially tough question "Why does the way of the wicked prosper?" But he's not just asking intellectually. He's asking because he's tried to be righteous but is suffering.

And God answers his prayer! But what kind of answer is this? "If you have raced with men on foot and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses?" God is saying, in effect, that things will not get any easier, but harder! Before we pray to God to ease our plight, we might be careful – for on many occasions in the Bible, God uses that moment to call us into an even harder predicament!

The disaster Jeremiah foretold strikes. Jerusalem is destroyed, its citizens marched off to live in exile in Babylon. But there is not a single "I told you so" from Jeremiah. Instead, his tone shifts to a luminous hope, beautifully spoken in chapters 31-32, eagerly anticipating the day when "I (God) will turn their mourning into joy, when I will remember their sin no more."

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Lamentations

In 587 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar and the mighty Chaldean army laid seige to Jerusalem, reduced the walls and buildings to rubble, burned the rest, and forced the Jews to march in chains (and naked, to add to their shame) hundreds of miles to Babylon. Psalm 137 captures something of their mood, their longing to return home, their guilt, their sense of abandonment by God. Lamentations name is suitable: these are prayers, cries of lamentation, the expressions of misery on the part of those facing the collapse of all they held dear. The poetic form is fascinating. Each chapter has 22 verses, and each verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet (and we call this an "acrostic" poem). You can feel tears being fought back, a gulp in the throat, among those who say, "How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow she has become, she that once was great… She weeps bitterly in the night… She has none to comfort her…Jerusalem has sinned grievously… Behold my suffering… I am the man who has seen affliction, driven into darkness without any light… Though I cry for help, he shuts out my prayer..." Even the final words raise a poignant question: "Have you utterly rejected us? Are you exceedingly angry with us?" These questions linger for many of us in our own lives – and the Bible knows that groping in the dark, that hurt. For the people who prayed these prayers, the "answer" to their prayers did not come that day, or that week or month or year. They had to wait, many years – a sobering truth to us modern people who pray and expect an answer in the next five minutes.

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Ezekiel

For the sheer drama of presentation, no one in the Bible could outdo Ezekiel. Born to a family of priests, he used not just his voice but his entire body as an object lesson. Each of his visions is dated with precision, so we know he was called by God in a bizarre experience reminiscent something in Erich von Daniken's imagination. The old spiritual, "Ezekiel Saw de Wheel, Way up in the Middle of the Air" captures some of what he saw (chapter 1). Transfixed by this fiery chariot, Ezekiel was given a scroll to eat, "and it was as sweet as honey." When John, in the book of Revelation, was given a scroll, it tasted sweet in his mouth, but made his stomach sick. God gives his word to these spokesmen, and being God's mouthpiece proved costly for Ezekiel as well.

Stubborn and listless, the Jews were not responsive to calls from Ezekiel to repent. So God told the prophet to build a little toy city out of bricks and use a stick as a battering ram and perform a little seige, to warn them of what the Babylonians will do (4:1-3). God told him to go out every day and lie down on his left side – for 390 days! – symbolic of the punishment to be borne (4:4-5). God told him to bake bread out in the public square – on human dung! – illustrative of the unclean horrors of life in captivity (4:9-17). God told him to take a sword and shave off his beard and hair, and then to burn one-third of it in fire, to chop up one-third with the sword, and to cast the other third into the wind – again, proclaiming disaster (5:1-8). God told Ezekiel to pack his baggage and walk out of the city every day in plain sight, as a symbol of their exile that inevitably would come (12:1-6). Great theater! The people were amused, but didn't really "get it." Ezekiel, along with a host of the Jews, were carried off to live in Babylon for the balance of their lives.

The theological twin towers of Ezekiel come in chapters 18 and 37. In Israel there was an old saying, based actually on the 10 commandments (Exodus 20:5): "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge." The sense is that our sins frequently get played out in the lives of our children or grandchildren. This seems crazy, but from where I sit, there is no question that alcoholism, or kinds of moodiness or a tendency to be harsh, or physical abuse, do seem to impact kids and their kids over the generations. The exiles no doubt felt a sense of hopelessness – precisely because they understood how they bore the consequences of the foolishness of a prior generation. Ezekiel wants to break the cycle: "Use that proverb no more! All souls are mine" (18:3-4). There is always hope, a fresh start, forgiveness, reconciliation, because of God's startling intervention in human life and history.

Speaking of hope: the marvelous vision of Ezekiel 37 is unmatched in its rhetorical finesse and theological power. Again, the spiritual sings it: "Dem bones gonna rise again!" Notice the rattling and gathering and enfleshing of the dead bones into a risen, living being is good news, not just for a downtrodden individual, but for an entire community, and God knows we need hope for us all, for all of us as a people, as the family of God.

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Daniel

Something ethicists have figured out over the past couple of generations is that our decision-making, our moral behavior, is driven not so much by a set of abstract principles (Do this, don't do that, adhere to these 5 dogmas), but rather by the stories, the narratives, that shape how we view the world, how we play out the scripts of our lives. Talk to me all day about principles of honesty. But if the stories I have seen are about people fudging and deceiving and reaping great benefits, I wind up with this cognitive dissonance, and the fine principles never get acted upon. Or: tell me all the ways to lie and beat the system, but if I loved my grandfather who in his daily life never ever thought about doing anything unwise, I will laugh and mimic my grandfather, no matter what happens with the system. This is one of the reasons I have written about saints and heroes – for we, our kids, and us as adults, need to soak up more stories about good being embodied, integrity being lived out in the real world, to remold our moral selves.

The first six chapters of Daniel tell some of the most exemplary stories of ethical courage in the face of a hostile culture in the entire Bible. Daniel, along with his three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, doggedly pursue a holy life, not in some sanctimonious, superior kind of way, but humbly, and it costs them. But in various ways, their fates demonstrate two happy endings: that God is on their side, and that their way of life really is better. This latter point is crucial. Lots of times Christians get this notion that God wants this or that from us, and it's all about denial of the good life – when in truth, God wants only the very best life for us. Fudging and deceiving and reaping what the world counts as great benefits – this has its own cost, one of hollowness, something at odds and out of sync with how we are actually wired. C.S. Lewis wrote that the problem is not that our desires are too strong, and therefore it is the church's job to throw cold water on desire. Rather, our desires are too weak. We settle for far less than God wants for us.

In Daniel, the Babylonians have the superficially good life – and all the power. But Daniel and his friends won't settle for the two-bit Babylonian life. They want more, something richer, healthier, and they are firmly committed, no matter the cost. One interesting note: when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are threatened with the fires of capital punishment if they do not knuckle under to the emperor, their answer is not, "God will deliver us!" Rather, they say, "Our God can deliver us from the fire. But even if he does not, we still refuse to bow down to you" (Daniel 3:17-18). Martyrdom in every age is precisely this commitment: that there is right and wrong, and you do right not purely because it has immediate rewards, but you do right because it's right. Vaclav Havel said, "Hope is doing something just because it is right, whether it stands a chance of succeeding or not."

Chapters 7 through 12 of Daniel are pretty bizarre, and have drawn the attention of lots of modern-day apocalypticists, who see in Daniel's strange vision forecasts of political woes in our own day. But if we know much about the history of the ancient near east, and symbolism familiar in that day, then we see these chapters as a transparent word of hope to the Jews who were persecuted under the tyrant Antiochus Epiphanes IV, who conquered Jerusalem and set up a vile idol in the temple (called "the abomination of desolation"). This vision gave the rebels (led by men like Judas Maccabeus) hope of ultimate victory – which they had when, using guerilla tactics, they repulsed Antiochus and drove the foreigners from the city. The great festival to celebrate their reclamation of the temple is Hanukkah, the feast of lights.

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Hosea

Having finished the so-called "major" prophets (major because they have really big, long books!), we turn to the so-called "minor" prophets (whose books, naturally enough, are short). Hosea was a prophet in the northern kingdom of Israel during the turbulent eighth century B.C. A period of economic bliss was engulfed by political turmoil, moral decadence, and an invasion by the dreaded Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria that annihilated the country.

The book of Hosea falls into two parts. Chapters 1, 2 and 3 are virtually autobiographical – and what a story Hosea tells! In a most bizarre "arranged marriage," God tells Hosea to marry a woman with the unfortunate name of Gomer. Not only did God tell him whom to marry, but God also specified in advance that she was a harlot, a prostitute. Two questions emerge: did he really know at the outset that she was a harlot? or did he only in retrospect realize that he had followed God's call and that the woman turned out to be a prostitute? And: was she a common prostitute, selling sex for money? or was she one of the Canaanite prostitutes who performed sex acts as part of the sanctuary staff where the rain god Baal was worshipped?

Hosea's wife is utterly unfaithful to him – and the prophet sees in her infidelity a parable of Israel's relationship to God. They have been unfaithful to God, chasing after other lovers, passionate about any and everyone except the one to whom they should be committed. We may ask how our own relationship to God turns out so pitifully.

But God tells Hosea to take her back, to reconcile – just as God's intentions are to reconcile with a wayward Israel. His poignant story parallels God's with the people.

In chapters 4 through 14 we hear Hosea's preaching. He urges upon the people repentance, demanding worship that is not merely superficial, calling for faithful, moral leadership in the nation. Those who think the Old Testament is all about a wrathful God have never read Hosea! The most touching passage of all is chapter 11, where God looks back over his history with the people and compares his love to a parent raising a child out of infancy, through toddling – but like some delinquent child Israel turned away and engaged in self-destructive acts. God's gut reaction is to strike out in wrath against such a wicked people. But God's tender love wins out, as God asks within God's own heart:

"How can I give you up? How can I hand you over? My heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger, I will not destroy Ephraim. For I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst. I will not come to destroy" (11:8-9). Hosea, peering into God's heart, sees that God does not need to retaliate or get even, but God is merciful, and forgives, certainly caring about our behavior and yearning for change, but not at all interested in crushing his people.
For there is a wonderful future hope for even those who are lost. Chapter 14 is stirring, as God promises: "I will heal their faithlessness. I will love them freely. I will be as the dew to Israel. He shall blossom as the lily, his beauty shall be like the olive, his fragrance like Lebanon."

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Joel

Economic disaster has struck Israel – in the form of a swarm of locusts destroying all the crops. The prophet Joel understood this not as bad luck, but as an omen, a wake-up call to Israel ("Wake up, you drunkards!" in 1:5) that the "day of the Lord is coming" (2:1). Several prophets, including Amos, use this same ironic speech. People were very eager for the "day of the Lord" to come, thinking it would be a day of great salvation and more goodness for them (perhaps, just perhaps in the way that some fans of the "Left Behind" series feel certain that the endtimes will be good for them but bad for somebody else), but the prophet turns this fantasy on its head, and demands that the people take close stock of their lives and not presume that God is so pleased with them as they might think. Up through 2:17 there are dire warnings and calls to repentance. But beginning in 2:18, Joel turns more hopeful, offering genuine salvation to those who have heard and responded to his call. Much of his expectation of salvation is very practical ("the threshing floors shall be full of grain," 2:24), while some is bizarre and visionary ("the moon will be turned to blood," 2:31). The pinnacle of Joel's hope, beginning in 2:28, is actually quoted in the sermon Peter preached at the first Pentecost (recorded in Acts 2:16-21). God declares: "I will pour out my spirit on all flesh," and "Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

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Amos

Minding his business as a herdsman (which in those days meant he was a pretty successful businessman) in the southern kingdom of Judah, Amos heard God's call to preach, not to his own people, but to the northern kingdom of Israel, something no one would want to do, given mutual prejudices. The date is just after 750 B.C., and the economy is booming in Israel, the people very certain that God was most pleased with them. Arriving in Bethel, Amos is treated roughly by Amaziah, the priest; this dramatic moment is captured in 7:10-17. His first sermon began in a manner the people loved: he spoke hard words of judgment against everybody the Israelites didn't like (1:3-2:5). There were shouting "Amen" until he spoke judgment against them (in 2:6-8). They have plenty, but they are stingy in their care for the poor. Sexual promiscuity was excused by everybody – except Amos, except for God! Amos cries out for repentance, for an end to their very enthusiastic worship that was merely pretending, a sham (5:21-23). For the day of the Lord, just as Joel suggested, "is darkness, not light… Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord!" (5:18). Amos's most famous words are in 5:24: "Let justice roll down like waters, righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." Near Bethel there were plenty of wadis, riverbeds that flowed with water only occasionally, and were bone dry the rest of the year. He says their justice and righteousness are like a wadi, when they should be like a stream that is always flowing – and we may be challenged by these words, those of us who "do good when we feel like it" (which John Wesley called "the doctrine of the devil"). The Hebrew word for "righteousness" means to be hard, or straight – or as we might say, committed, or "straight"! The Hebrew word of "justice" really means that the poorest in the society are cared for. I have a sermon on this text on our web site (www.davidsonumc.org – click on "sermons"), called "Yours are the Hands."

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Obadiah

A whole book in one chapter, a mere 21 verses! A little historical vignette: in 587, when the Babylonian army under Nebuchadnezzar was crushing Jerusalem and shipping its citizens off into exile, Israel's neighbors in Edom, just across the Jordan River and Dead Sea valley, were not exactly sympathetic. Not only did they fail to render assistance to their kin (the ancestor of the Edomites was Esau, the brother of Jacob, the ancestor of Israel). They also laughed and gloated, and may even have helped the Babylonians (read Psalm 137:7!). As Israel stood in ruins, these cousins took advantage of the disaster by gobbling up Jewish farms and cattle.

So Obadiah, not the most quoted of the prophets to be sure, stood up among the rubble of Jerusalem and pronounced God's judgment on those dastardly Edomites. Most of us are not very comfortable with judgment being passed on people, for we prefer a softer, more indulgent God. But the Bible is clear about accountability, that what we do or don't do matters, that there is a "day of the Lord" (Obadiah 15, just as we saw it in Joel and Amos), a day of judgment.

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Jonah

The name "Jonah" means "dove" - and that can be taken either as a compliment or as poking fun. Doves were regarded as silly, unintelligent creatures - and Jonah fulfills the destiny of his name! But the dove was also the animal that retrieved the twig at the end of the flood, the first hopeful sign of a return to life.

In 2 Kings 14:23-25 we read there was a prophet named Jonah in the time of King Jeroboam II - in the mid-8th century B.C. Jonah was asked to go to Nineveh, capital of the sprawling Assyrian empire, which dominated the political face of the Ancient Near East in those days. The Assyrian might was legendary; their brutality struck fear into the hearts of everyone. Jonah flees toward Tarshish, which scholars have never gotten located on any map. It is as if he heads off to a destination unimaginably far away, someplace people have only heard of. Wherever it is, it is 180 degrees from Nineveh.

The story is full of humor and irony. On board the ship, the heathen pray while Jonah the prophet sleeps. But in the midst of his flight from God, the net is only widened, as the sailors on the ship come to believe in Jonah's God! Once Jonah gets to Nineveh, not only the people but even the cattle and other animals get caught up in the conversion, and are all part of God's saving plan.

Jonah's prayer from the belly of the fish is an eloquent plea for mercy and paean of praise. In the ancient world, stories were told of legendary heroes such as Heracles or Perseus who climbed into the mouth of a sea monster and killed it from within; Jason (of the Argonauts) was devoured by a dragon, who used a magic ointment to make the dragon so sick he spewed him out. Children will think of the great scene in Pinocchio!

Francis Thompson was an English poet in the 19th century who nearly squandered his own life away in drinking and carousing before his own conversion. His most famous poem, "The Hound of Heaven," tells his story: "I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind; and in the mist of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter." But Thompson sensed in retrospect how God, the "hound" of heaven, always pursued him, "with unhurrying chase, with unperturbed pace, deliberate speed, majestic instancy, until finally saying, 'Rise, clasp My hand, and come! I am He Whom thou seekest!'"

Jesus refers to the Jonah story as a symbol of the resurrection (Matthew 12:38-41). In parts of eastern Europe, some historic churches even carved pulpits in the shape of a whale, the preacher rising up out of the fish's mouth to proclaim the word!

The fourth chapter provides a special puzzle. Jonah seems displeased that Nineveh actually is converted! We may wonder if there are times we prefer judgment on someone (Saddam Hussein rules in the very area of Nineveh!) rather than let ourselves believe they can change and be reconciled… The Lord appointed a gourd, some big-leafed plant, to provide shade, which Jonah enjoyed, until a worm ate through the stalk and the leaves withered, leaving Jonah in the scorching sun, and grousing more than ever. God uses Jonah, and he is a great prophet – but really his small-minded concern is for his own trivial sense of comfort, not much else, his own ego, not God's grand plan. Hans Walter Wolff, a German Bible scholar, said it perfectly: "Jonah had no claim to the shade cast by the castor oil plant. The joy it gave him was a free gift. But in granting this he would simultaneously have to admit that God was free to pardon Nineveh. God is playing a theological game with Jonah, forcing him to admit God's free compassion." We too need a tutorial in grace, how to receive it, to admit our need for it, and therefore to allow it for others.

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Micah

Micah (whose name means "Who is like the Lord?") hailed from Moresheth-Gath, a little village just a few miles from, and huddle in the shadows of, Jerusalem. Interestingly, Micah was a contemporary of Isaiah (in the second half of the 8th century B.C.) – and while Isaiah worked in the corridors of power in the capital, Jerusalem, Micah was out in the country, with people who wound up paying a hefty price for the foolish policies in the big city. When King Ahaz flirts with disaster by bringing the brutality of the Assyrian army into Judea, his city remained safe, all walled and powerful. But it was the little people in the little towns, like Micah's hometown of Moresheth-Gath, who suffered dearly. Micah treats the same moral and theological problems as does Isaiah, but from that "outsider" perspective. His first stinging sermon, criticizing the wicked power brokers in Jerusalem, climaxed as only a country farmer would: "Zion shall be plowed as a field, Jerusalem a heap of ruins" (3:12). And as Micah looked to the future, he saw a faithful king on the horizon, a genuine Messiah – but shocked the insiders of Jerusalem by claiming this Messiah would not come from the fabled city, but rather from another little unheard of village in the shadows of Jerusalem, namely Bethlehem (5:2).

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Nahum

2 Timothy 3:16 tells us that "all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching…" – but Nahum can leave you scratching your head. The context: Assyria had ruled the fertile crescent, including Palestine, for two and a half centuries – longer than there has been a United States! And they ruled with cruelty, intimidation, a vicious fleecing of conquered people. Finally, when the capital, Nineveh, fell in 612 B.C. to the Babylonians, there was great rejoicing. Nahum's long poem sounds like a people, crushed for too long, relishing vengeance, and it's a chilling read. Some have been able to construe it as Scripture, though. Again, God is a just God, a God of judgment, who does not finally let genocide or child abuse or gross immortality go unchecked. Simon Wiesenthal, the famous Nazi-hunter, wrote a book called "Justice, not Vengeance." In tracking down and bringing the Nazis who slaughtered millions of Jews to trial and prison, he expresses caution, not wanting any kind of vengeance, which he says devours even the one who gets revenge. But to avoid vengeance does not mean to be indulgent, Wiesenthal says, and accountability is owed to the human race, and especially to the dead.

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Habakkuk

When Paul penetrated to the very heart of the Gospel, he quoted the obscure prophet Habakkuk: "The righteous shall live by faith" (Habakkuk 2:4 quoted in Romans 1:17 and Galatians 3:11). And this little verse became the slogan, the rallying cry of the Reformation under Martin Luther.

We saw that Nahum rejoiced over the fall of Nineveh and the Assyrians. But happy days were few in number, as the rise of Babylon spelled as sure a doom as had the Assyrian empire. The mood around Jerusalem was dismal – and Habakkuk stood up to speak a bright word of hope into the darkness. He begins by questioning God, on behalf of the people, and out of his own heart: "How long, O Lord?" Asking how God could tolerate such an enduring, horrid state of affairs, the prophet imagines himself as a sentry up in a guard tower (2:1), scanning the horizon for some glimmer of hope. He recalls God's great acts of the past (3:1), and longs for their return. His buoyant hope is impressive: "Though the tree does not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. God, the Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like hinds' feet" (3:17-19) – this last phrase forming the theme for a devotional classic by Hannah Hurnard.

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Zephaniah

This little-noticed prophet was active during the reign of Josiah, 640-609 B.C. Josiah became king when he was just 8 years old (when his father Amon died unexpectedly) – and those regent years were especially corrupt, as the Israelites floundered without leadership in the ongoing corruption from the wicked reign of Manasseh. Zephaniah condemns idolatry, the blending of Israel's worship with that of others gods (an ancient form of "hedging your bets"!), and superficial worship. According to Zephaniah, God is no soft, indulgent deity who tolerates any and all actions, but is like a warrior, who will fiercely hold the people and their leaders accountable.

Josiah, by the way, grew up. At the age of twenty he became a passionate reformer, straightening out religious practice, requiring the people to read God's word and to observe worship faithfully – and we may pause to wonder if as an adolescent he had heard the preaching of Zephaniah and took it to heart!

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Haggai

A little refresher course in chronology: 587 – destruction of Jerusalem, deportation of Judeans to Babylon. 539 – Cyrus the Persian overthrows Babylon, issues edict allowing Judeans to return home. 522 – Zerubbabel appointed governor of Judea. 520 – Work begins on rebuilding the temple. 515 – Rededication of the temple. The question this raises is: why did the Judeans wait 19 years to start rebuilding the temple, the center of their worship life, which lay in ruins? The usual difficulties: money was short, the economy lousy, people getting their own houses fixed up, poor rainfall, fears of the future.

So in the 6th month of 520 B.C., Haggai stepped in as God's prophet and urged the people to get serious and build the temple. He asks the people to rethink their economic troubles – that instead of this being a barrier to work on the temple, perhaps their misfortunes were precisely the result of their failure to rebuild the temple! "Consider how you have fared. You have sown much, but harvested little; you drink, but never have your fill. Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the temple, that I may take pleasure in it, says the Lord. You have looked for much, but it came to little. Why? Because my temple lies in ruins while you busy yourselves each with his own house" (1:5-9). Imagine what a manipulative preacher could do with this passage on stewardship Sunday!!! For Haggai, rebuilding the temple was more than piling up stones. It embodied a reordering of life, of priorities. When we forever put the things of God last, and give God our leftovers only, then no matter how we try to patch up successful lives, then we "drink, but never have our fill." Some curious logic on Haggai's part – but in sync with Paul: "He who sows sparingly will reap sparingly… for God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that you may always have enough of everything and may provide in abundance for every good work" (2 Corinthians 9:6-8).

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Zechariah

Zechariah was a contemporary of Haggai, and shared his passion about getting the temple rebuilt. We have more of his actual preaching than of Haggai, and he talked at length about not just the rebuilding of the temple as a priority, but also the rebuilding of the people and their hearts and values. His style is vastly different from Haggai, though, as Zechariah speaks in the form of visions and symbolic language (for instance, the removal of filthy garment in chapter 3 is emblematic of cleanliness of life; chariots and lampstands give evidence of Zechariah's hope for a newly restored leadership of holiness and zeal for God). The final six chapters are especially bizarre, looking increasingly to the end of time and God's ultimate overthrow of all evil powers and establishment of God's reign. The hopeful verse 9 of chapter 9 figures prominently in the Gospel accounts of Jesus' last days (Matthew 21:5).

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Malachi

Malachi means "my messenger," and this prophet was just that in the years after the rebuilding of the temple, after 500 B.C. Using a question and answer style, he speaks of Israel's place as God's children, of the importance of proper sacrifice, the necessity of faithful leadership from the priests, and the shunning of idolatry. Two moments in the book seem to draw a lot of attention. Malachi urges the giving of "tithes," a word that means one- tenth. Many Christians have taken this as the benchmark of giving to the Church, as does the Howell family. My children, for instance, learn from day one that one condition of them receiving their allowance is that they immediately give ten percent to the church, and if they don't tithe, they don't get any money from dad – so you can imagine that my children just love tithing.

The other text is Malachi 2:16: "I hate divorce, says the Lord." The issue of Christianity and divorce is complex, and while there is clearly provision in the Bible for divorce (in cases of abuse, for instance), there is no support for the trend in our society toward easier divorce – although there's nothing easy about it. God hates divorce, and so does everybody else.

Interestingly, the Old Testament as we Protestants have it winds up with a double admonition: "Remember the law of my servant Moses," and "I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes" (4:4-5). Jesus teaches, in the Sermon on the Mount, as a new Moses, as the ultimate Moses. And many thought Jesus was this Elijah, whom many of the faithful expected to return to earth (since he didn't clearly die, but was swooped up into heaven in a chariot of fire, 2 Kings 2:11-12). Look especially at the story we call the Transfiguration, Mark 9:2-13; therefore, the very last verse of the Old Testament was read as a fitting conclusion to the book, for at the same time it proved to be a bridge to the story and significance of Jesus.

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Matthew

The New Testament begins with 4 Gospels – biographies of Jesus. However, unlike biographies we might read, the Gospels were not intended to be documentaries, but rather to persuade listeners to become disciples, to risk everything to follow. I may read about Edison but never experiment with electricity; but if I study the Gospels, I have to engage in this radical experiment with my life.

In the 1900's, scholars spent a lot of energy figuring out to whom each Gospel was directed. Matthew, it was thought, was written for Jewish Christians living in Antioch, where Jews and Christians had just realized how different they were, and tensions were mounting. Lots of speculation surrounded what else was going on in that particular community, and how this particular Gospel addressed that situation. But my friend Richard Bauckham, who teaches New Testament in St. Andrews, has argued (successfully) that "the Gospels were written for general circulation around the churches and so envisaged a very general Christian audience." And that would include us, today!

Each Gospel has its peculiar "angle" on Jesus. Matthew, for instance, portrays Jesus as virtually a second Moses, doing lots of teaching, bringing a new kind of law to God's people. More than any other Gospel, Matthew quotes from the Old Testament, and we can imagine that in the early Church, theologians combed through the Jewish Scriptures in search of threads to tie God's past actions to the ultimate act in Jesus. Matthew is keenly interested in how the church will function, and on its authority (Matthew 16, 18), and in its mission to all people (28:16-20).

Many moments in Jesus' life are recorded only in Matthew, such as when Jesus spoke of separating the sheep from the goats – and that those who are "saved" are those who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the prisoner, welcomed the stranger (25:31-46) – and you could say that Mother Teresa's entire life was a profound, tangible sermon on this passage.

The most noteworthy aspect of Matthew is the "Sermon on the Mount," an extended teaching session by Jesus in chapters 5 through 7, which opens with the "Beatitudes" (5:1-12). Jesus says "Blessed are the meek, the poor in spirit, those who forgive, the peacemakers" – and it's important to notice that Jesus does NOT say "Blessed are those who work hard and climb the corporate ladder, for they shall have a comfortable retirement." He radicalizes the 10 commandments (saying that lust is really the same as the outward act of adultery, claiming that anger at its heart is the same as murder). My professor of New Testament at Duke, W.D. Davies, pointed out how Matthew prevents us from ever conceiving of Jesus as a softie, indulgent, accepting and kind to any and all kinds of behaviors: "Nowhere in the New Testament is the Gospel set forth without moral demand. The penetrating precepts of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount are the astringent protection against any interpretation of his life, death and resurrection in other than moral terms." In short, Jesus came so we would BE different. Jesus teaches us what that different life looks like, and then gives his very life so we can be set free to live that life.

In his version of the crucifixion, Matthew alone reports that Pilate's wife (known traditionally as "Claudia Procla") warned Pilate to let Jesus go. It is Matthew who tells that as Jesus died, the temple curtain was torn and the tombs were rattled open by an earthquake, "and many bodies of the saints were raised, coming out of the tombs" – a unique an tantalizing preview of the resurrection of all believers to come at the end of time.

Matthew had a copy of Mark's Gospel in front of him when he wrote, and it is to Mark we will turn tomorrow.

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Mark

Mark was the first Gospel to be written, and was put onto parchment perhaps around the year 65, about a generation after the death of Jesus in 30. While Jesus does teach in Mark, the emphasis is more on what Jesus did, where he went, and his impact on those around him. The story is more earthy, raw, not as refined as the other Gospels. Mark's style is terse, his language concrete, the movement rapid and urgent.

David Rhoads, a Lutheran who teaches in Chicago, wrote "When we enter the story of Mark, we enter a world of conflict and suspense, a world of surprising reversals and strange ironies, a world of riddles and hidden meanings, a world of subversive actions and political intrigues." Mark deals with life, death, good, evil, destiny, morality – all the juicy stuff.

For us to "get it," we might sit and read it straight through – which is how the first Christians heard it. For then we sense the story's flow and drama, which are lost when we poke around for little snippets called "verses." The characters of Mark are fascinating. Jesus is the protagonist, forcing the action. The authorities (both the Romans with civil power and the Jews with religious position) are antagonists. The disciples are confused, lost. The crowd also is a character, and they in the end do not respond well to Jesus. It is the unlikely ones, the demon-possessed, the Roman centurion at Jesus' execution, who seem to understand who Jesus is and what he's about.

So read through Mark, the shortest and most pointed of the 4 Gospels. And notice the fulcrum on which the whole story swings – in chapter 8, where he asks the disciples the question we too must answer: "Who do you say that I am?" (8:29). To answer truly requires that we deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow. "For whoever would save his life will lose it. Whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit, to gain the whole world and forfeit your life?" (8:34-36).

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Luke

The third Gospel is traditionally attributed to Luke, a gentile convert and friend of Paul (Colossians 4:14, 2 Timothy 4:11). He begins by acknowledging that other attempts had been made to tell a life of Jesus (Luke 1:1-2), and we certainly know he had a copy of Mark's Gospel in front of him when he worked.

Luke is elegant, and he uses a more "proper" Greek syntax than Matthew or Mark. Much of what is unique to Luke is precious to us. Only in Luke does Jesus tell the story of the so-called Good Samaritan (10:29-37), the Prodigal Son (15:11-32), the rich man and Lazarus (16:19-31). Much of what we read during Christmas pageants is only found in Luke, such as "the decree went out," Mary and the angel, the shepherd, the "swaddling clothes" (1:26-2:20). The Holy Spirit is especially emphasized by Luke (1:35, 4:1).

Luke also passes along a treasury of Jesus' saying about welcoming the poor. In chapter 14 alone, Jesus challenges all of us on whom we invite to dinner, on including the neediest, not just via charity, but in our regular lives. Luke's Jesus has a heart for those despised by others, and gives a shockingly prominent place to women (read 10:38-42, where Jesus indicates a woman's place is not in the kitchen, that she can sit at the teacher's feet, a privilege reserved for men by all rabbis of his day).

At the crucifixion, Luke's Jesus is less miserable than in Mark or Matthew, confidently praying "Into your hands I commend my spirit" (23:46). And thankfully, Luke shares the marvelous anecdote of Jesus catching up to and having dinner with two forlorn disciples on the road to Emmaus (24:13-35).

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John

The first three Gospels are called "synoptic" – meaning they share a basic viewpoint, plot, order of stories, and style. John, the fourth Gospel, is very different, more reflective, more profound, with less action, more extended meditations from the lips of Jesus. So distinctive is John's story that it has been called the "maverick" Gospel.

John paints Jesus in exalted, luminous tones. When Jesus speaks, he is full of striking images, such as "I am the bread of life" or "the light of the world" or "living water." In John, when compared to Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus utters profound thoughts about his own identity, and especially about his intimate relationship with God.

John repeats virtually no stories or sayings from the other three Gospels. He alone tells us about the midnight visit with Nicodemus (chapter 3), the Samaritan woman at the well (chapter 4), the raising of Lazarus (chapter 11), and washing the disciples' feet (chapter 13).

The fourth Gospel was probably the last one written, perhaps sixty years after the crucifixion! It reveals a maturity, the testing of time, a disciple's wise understanding of Jesus' significance after the passing of many years.

The book is structured around a series of "signs," miraculous evidences of Jesus' divinity. And yet Jesus is perhaps most fully human in this Gospel. John is simple and beautiful, and at the same time brimming with irony and paradox. An old proverb said that John "is a book in which a child can wade and an elephant can swim." Most paradoxical is the death of Jesus. Seemingly the low point of the story, the death of Christ is ironically the moment when God is glorified, when the truth about Jesus is ultimately revealed – in his immense outpouring of love, his solidarity with people in their sin and suffering.

You cannot read John like a novel or the morning paper. Its mood invites you to think, to ponder, to let its words wash over you again and again. Take time this summer, maybe when you're away on a trip, and contemplate the Gospel of John.

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Acts

The Greek title of this book is PRAXEIS, meaning "deeds, exploits" – and therefore the "acts" of the early Christians, the deeds of the early Church. Of course, theologically the first Christians would have corrected me and said, "Not our acts, but the acts of God."

Jesus was gone. So what would become of this fledgling movement? The first verse of Acts gives a tantalizing clue: the Church continues to do "all that Jesus began to do and teach." We are reminded of that continuity in that Acts is actually volume 2 of a longer work, with the Gospel of Luke being volume 1 (revealed also in 1:1), both written by a single author.

The plot of this first "church history" begins in chapter 2, which narrates the day of Pentecost. Pentecost was a Jewish feast celebrating the harvest, and also the giving of the law to Moses on Mt. Sinai. In the year 30, Jesus had only been dead for 50 days, when his followers were caught up in something like a tornado or fire of passion, as the Holy Spirit was given to them. Today we have Christians called "Pentecostals," whose style of worship is perhaps more openly fervent or emotional than ours as Methodists. Perhaps we just express our emotion in a different way.

Another continuity is demonstrated at Pentecost. Not only is there a continuity between Jesus and the life of the Church. There also is a profound continuity between the centuries-old life of the Jews and the Church. Peter preaches a ringing sermon at Pentecost, one that converts thousands – and it is basically a catalog of quotations from the Old Testament. Obviously Peter was preaching to Jews in Jerusalem, people who knew the ancient Scriptures. The first Christians were not suddenly non-Jewish. For three decades or more, Christians regarded themselves as faithful Jews.

But the quality of their life together was startling. In 2:42-47 and 4:32-36 we get a glimpse of an almost community style of communal existence, with no private possessions, giving everything away for the common good – and not surprisingly "there was not a needy person among them," and "with great power they gave testimony to the resurrection...and great grace was upon them all." Then, as now, there was an essential bond between having a radically altered life, and being able to share that with others.

The zeal of the first Christians to share their story with others is amazing. Risking life and limb, enduring hardships beyond our imagining, missionaries like Peter, Paul, Silas, and Barnabas travelled rocky roads and perilous seas, zealous to carry the word to people who were not necessarily bad people. Many to whom they preached were noble, religious folks. But the fulfillment of God's eternal intentions in the person of Jesus was good news that had to be told, and expressed in new cities around the Mediterranean.

Not surprisingly, since Christians were deadly serious about actually living out what they believed, controversy was provoked. If we think the Church should blend beautifully into the landscape, if we think Christians should never stir up trouble, then we are at odds with what Acts was all about. Paul came to Philippi and was jailed for "disburbing our city" (16:11-34). At Thessalonica a riot was provoked (17:1-15). In Athens, intellectuals scoffed (17:32). In Ephesus there was another riot, for the silversmiths (whose profits depended on making little figurines of the goddess Artemis) lost business, with people believing in Christ and no longer buying their wares (19:1-40). The irony is rich, as some foes of the faith stated, "These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also" (17:6) – and this is a task the church has shirked at times, and embraced at other times.

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Romans

What do I need to believe to be a Christian? Paul wrote Romans, his letter to the small band of Christians in Rome, as an introduction to what he understood to be the basics of the faith. If we pick out some key turning points in the letter, we can chart a sequence of themes that define the Christian life. This sequence of themes appears not just in Romans, but throughout the Bible.

CREATION. God created the world, and all of us in the world. And God gave life in the world an order. And God lets it be known, his good plan for how we ought to live. God is God, and we are not. We not only owe it to God to do as he says; we are actually most in sync, and find purpose and fulfillment, in doing as God suggests. Ever since the creation of the world, God's invisible nature, his power and deity, has been clearly perceived (Romans 1:20).

SIN. But, like Adam and everybody else, we sin. We try to be God instead of serving God; we have worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator (Romans 1:25). We turn away from God, we hurt others. And this sin is habit-forming (Romans 7). We are trapped in a life separated from God; all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Sin stirs up anger and moreso grief in God's heart (Romans 1:18).

JESUS CHRIST. In Old Testament times, God sent prophets, like Isaiah and Jeremiah, to warn people about their sin, to appeal to them to repent, and to trust in the mercy of God. But while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly (Romans 5:6). God did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all (Romans 8:32). Paul talks very little about the life, miracles, and teaching of Jesus. He is focused on the cross, where Jesus died as an expiation by his blood (Romans 3:25), taking our place, standing in the breach of God's anger and grief, so we may be reconciled to God and saved by his life (Romans 5:10). Jesus not only died, but was raised from the dead as a sure sign of our hope for eternal life - and for a changed life now. As Christ was raised from the dead by the Father, we too might walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4). I am sure that neither death nor life, nor things present nor things to come, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38).
REPENTANCE. Do you presume upon his kindness and patience? Do you not know that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance (Romans 2:4)? When we grasp (or, are grasped by) the amazing grace of God, we are moved to repent. Repentance in the Old Testament meant making a 180? turn back in the right direction. In the New Testament, repentance really means "a change of mind." We begin to think differently, grieving over our own sin, opening ourselves to be reshaped by God.
FAITH. Turning toward God we begin to believe, to have faith. Faith is trust, banking our future on God, and thereby having what Maggie Ross called "a willingness for whatever." The gospel is the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith; the righteous shall live by faith (Romans 1:16-17). We are justified by faith (Romans 5:1).

HOLINESS. The fact that we are forgiven of our sins does not mean sin does not matter. Are we to continue in sin? By no means! (Romans 6:1). Do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions (Romans 6:12). Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God (Romans 12:1-2).

Keep reading and digging in Romans, and pay special attention to the verses and themes mentioned on this page.

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1 & 2 Corinthians

The apostle Paul spent 18 months in the city of Corinth, most likely from the year 50 AD until the spring of 52. We can fix the date pretty closely because Paul was tried before Gallio, and Greek records tells us he became proconsul of Achaia in July of 51. In fact, the stone platform that served as his tribunal can still be seen in Corinth! Through Acts 16 and 17, Paul has been making his way south along the Via Egnatia, having landed for the first time in Europe at Neapolis, and then preaching in Philippi, Thessalonica, Beroea, and Athens.

Corinth is situated on the isthmus connecting mainland Greece with the Peloponnese. Commanding two harbors (Lechaeum and Cenchreae) as well as the overland roads, Corinth enjoyed great prosperity in trade. The city became proverbial for sexual laxity, and a temple to Aphrodite (staffed by a thousand female slaves) crowned its acropolis. Corinth hosted the semi-annual Isthmian games, which were popular. Today, visitors can see a Doric temple to Apollo that dates to the 6th century BC, as well as a stone lintel with the inscription, "Synagogue of the Hebrews."

As was his custom, Paul began by preaching to the Jews, and then the message began to filter throughout the city, making its appeal to non-Jews as well. Paul found employment with a tent-making company owned by a Jew from Pontus named Aquila and his wife Priscilla – and both had recently become converts to Christianity.

We know the names of many who joined the Church in Corinth: Crispus, Titius Justus, Gaius, Stephanas, Chloe, Sosthenes, Erastus. At first the church met in the home of Titius Justus (implying his home was large!). And archaeologists have uncovered a slab bearing an inscription that reveals that Erastus was an aedile who paved an entire road at his own expense.

Typically, Paul fomented conflict and aroused hostility (as he had throughout Greece; read Acts 16 and 17!), and was charged before Gallio, who wanted no part of this religious dispute. Soon thereafter, Paul left Corinth and Greece itself, returning to Ephesus. From there he kept in close communication with the Christians in Corinth, some of which has found its way into our Bibles – the letters we call 1 and 2 Corinthians.

We know from 1 Corinthians 5:9-11 that there was at least one letter Paul wrote to them that no longer exists. Our "first" Corinthians is then the second letter he wrote. After some hard feelings emerged, Paul wrote his "painful" letter (see 2 Corinthians 2:3) – which either no longer exists, or is now to be found in 2 Corinthians 10-13. If chapters 10-13 were originally this painful letter, then the final letter we know about would be 2 Corinthians 1-9 – the two being attached to one another decades later when the chronology was no longer remembered accurately. A few scholars even believe that chapters 8 and 9 form yet another separate letter, dealing with Paul's fundraising efforts for the poverty-stricken church back in Jerusalem.

Some key sections to consider would be: Paul's distillation of the heart of the Gospel (1 Cor. 1:18-31), the distinction between what is permissible and what is helpful (1 Cor. 6:12- 20), the charter for the Lord's Supper (1 Cor. 11:23-34), discussion of spiritual gifts – and you might reflect over yours! (1 Cor. 12), the famous, and frequently trivialized, love chapter (1 Cor. 12), Paul's eloquent portrayal of our future life with God (1 Cor. 15:12-58), another beautiful description of our hope (2 Cor. 4:7-5:10), Paul's "money" or stewardship sermon (2 Cor. 9:6-15), and Paul's paradoxical recognition that weakness, not strength, is the key entry point for God in our lives (2 Cor. 12:9-10).

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Galatians

In Galatians we see the fiery, irritable, passionate side of the apostle Paul. Writing to several churches which he had personally founded in the province of Galatia (the details are in Acts 13-15), in Asia Minor (in modern day central Turkey), Paul has been forced to respond to missionaries who came after him preaching a different brand of Christianity, a version he regarded as false and dangerous (Galatians 1:6-7). We may call his foes "Judaizers," those who taught that gentiles, the non-Jewish people, had to embrace fully the Jewish law and way of life, including circumcision for the men, and dietary laws for everyone. To Paul, himself an observant Jew, this meant salvation by works: "A person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ" (2:16). Abraham is Paul's shining example (chapter 3) of one who believed apart from and before his deeds.

To get his point across, Paul chides his hearers, boasts of his immense authority, regales his readers with his zeal for the grace of Christ. He even recounts the day he bumped into conflict with no less than Simon Peter (2:11), chief of the disciples, and put him in his place! Paul also beautifully captures the essence of the Christian life. It is not that what we do makes no difference. On the contrary: we are to lead exemplary lives, but when we do so we can claim, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (2:20). Above all, this kind of life is one of "freedom" (5:1). While we think that freedom is when I can do whatever I want to do, for Paul freedom is when the Spirit sets you free to be the person God meant you to be. And that kind of life, "walking by the Spirit" (5:16), is characterized by "the fruit of the Spirit," what God plants and causes to flourish in your soul: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (5:22). And to those who think life is about law and obedience to the law, Paul ironically adds, "Against such there is no law." Paul is not saying "Go out and be joyful, kind, or good." Rather, Paul is saying "Be filled with God's Spirit, and here is what that Spirit will do in you, to you, for you."

Paul dictated this letter to an amanuensis, a secretary – but in a fascinating moment, Paul took the quill and parchment and wrote the ending himself: "See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand!" (6:11).

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Ephesians

Among all the letters that exhibit the teachings of Paul, Ephesians may be the most eloquent, memorable, memorizable. A.S. Peake called it "the quintessence of Paulinism," C.H. Dodd "the crown of Paulinism," E.J. Goodspeed "a great rhapsody of the Christian salvation." Unlike most of Paul's letters, Ephesians is not addressed to a single community with particular problems. Instead, this general summary of the Gospel is addressed "to the saints who are faithful in Jesus Christ" (1:1), and so we assume multiple copies of the letter would have been distributed by couriers all over the Mediterranean region.

Ephesians falls into two distinct parts. Chapters 1-3 speak of doctrine, what we believe, and chapters 4-6 address practical issues, how we live because of what we believe. The nagging danger in theological thinking is always that we will explore what we believe and never get down to how we must therefore live. But at the outset, Paul clarifies the unseverable link between belief and action, claiming that Christ "has blessed us… and chosen us... that we should be holy and blameless" (1:4).

The zenith of Paul's theology is captured in 2:8-9, a passage well worth committing to memory: "For by grace you have been saved through faith; this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not because of works, lest anyone should boast." A mountain of good deeds cannot amount to salvation. What we most desperately need from God can only be received as a free gift. Grace is the unmerited, loving favor of God. We receive grace only through faith. And faith is not believing weird things. Faith is not an emotional surge we feel. Faith is an open-handed acceptance of God's help, an acknowledgement that I am not my own, but I belong to God, that God is the center of my life, that everything for me, every dream, every decision, hinges totally upon this loving God. Notice that Paul says "this" is not your own doing, that "it" is the gift of God. What is not your own doing? What is the gift of God? We may think he's referring to grace. But grammatically, the Greek tantalizingly lures us to see that "this" and "it" refer to faith! Faith is not my brilliant decision, my grand deed in God's eyes. Rather, faith itself is a gift of God. If I believe, I cannot claim credit – for again that in a paradoxical way makes me the center, the one on whom everything depends. No, all depends on God – and the very fact that we believe, that we discover ourselves in this free, gracious relationship with God – all is a gift of God. If I believe, I cannot pat myself on the back, but I can only say "Thanks be to God," for God "by his power is at work within us to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think" (3:20).

Therefore: we cannot escape the task before us, to tell others about "the unsearchable riches of Christ, to make all people see what is the plan of the mystery of God hidden for ages, that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known" (3:8-9). We have a high "calling," and must lead lives "worthy" of that calling (4:1). And this calling is something you dare not try by yourself. We do it together, or not at all (4:4) – and here we find our church's language about being "the body of Christ."

We fulfill our task when we are "imitators of God" (5:1). Whatever God is like, that is to be our pattern. Lewis Smedes once said, "Somewhere people still make and keep promises. They choose not to quit when the going gets rough. They stick to lost causes. They hold on to a love grown cold. They stay with people who have become pains in the neck. I want to say to you that if you have a ship you will not desert, if you have people you will not forsake, if you have causes you will not abandon, then you are like God."

That likeness to God pervades how we conduct ourselves in business, in sexuality, in child-rearing, in marriage (detailed in chapters 5-6). We are tempted to dismiss Paul's seemingly antiquated advice to women: "Be subject to your husbands" (5:22). But we need to notice that previously Paul told husband and wife, "Be subject to one another." And then he urges husbands to "Love your wife as Christ loved the church." How did Christ love the church? By lording it over her? By bossing her? By treating her as merely ornamental? No: Christ "gave himself up for her." Challenging societal convention, Paul demands that the Christian husband not be the master of the house, but the servant, who humbly and sacrificially loves wife and home as Christ gave himself for all of us.

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Philippians

Philippi was something like a "Little Italy" in Greece. When Octavian (who became Caesar Augustus) defeated Marc Antony in 31 B.C. Very few Jews lived in the city – so Paul's usual strategy of preaching in the synagogue was impossible. He found some women (Acts 16:11-40), religious women, and told them about Jesus. Lydia (pictured in our church's stained glass), a wealthy dealer in Thyatiran cloth, converted, as did a slave girl and the very jailer charged with keeping Paul in custody! For the balance of his life, Paul had a tender, warm relationship with the Christians in Philippi (read Philippians 1:4-5, 4:14-18), as they formed the first church on the continent of Europe.

To imagine Paul dictating a letter to a group of people is fascinating. He writes for an entire congregation to hear, not just an individual. What's really going on is that Paul is unable personally to be present, so the letter, when read aloud, is a surrogate for a face-to- face visit. We believe that Paul chose his courier, like Epaphroditus (2:25-28) or Timothy (2:19-23), because they could orally deliver the letter in a dramatic way, and could respond faithfully on the spot to questions.

Philippians must have made for poignant reading. Late in his life, Paul was imprisoned, aging, ill – but his letter is bursting with joy (1:19, 3:1, 4:4)). His readiness to embrace his fate, whatever it may be (1:21-26, a marvelously touching passage) is moving. That joy for Paul comes entirely as a gift from Christ. In 2:5-11, Paul recites what would have been a familiar hymn to the Christians in Philippi, a hymn about the humility and power of Christ, who is our true goal, and destiny (3:12-14).

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Colossians

Paul had not personally visited the church in Colosse, a small town on the banks of the River Lycus. The nascent church there was founded by his colleague, Epaphras (Colossians 1:7-8). Floundering, the young Christians stumbled into foolish beliefs. They worshipped angels, and many endured a stiff asceticism (extreme fasting and other self-inflicted suffering), and the same kind of Judaizing tendency we saw with the Galatians.

To counter these errors, and to steer the Colossians back into the mainstream, Paul points them to Christ. The theological epicenter of the letter comes in 1:15-20, another ancient Christian hymn to Jesus that Paul repeats as an antidote to their spiritual amnesia. We need to be reminded, too, of these awesome claims for the significance of Christ, who is responsible for all of creation, the one who holds it all together, the head of the church, the one death could not defeat – and his business is the reconciliation of us and all of creation to God! This being so, our lives are totally different, our thinking unlike any other thinking on earth. "Set your mind on things that are above… Put to death what is earthly in you: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry... anger, wrath, malice, slander, and foul talk" (3:2-5). We may reflect upon modern-days idols. What really captures our attention? and commands our allegiance and energy? What in our behavior draws us away from God? and is inappropriate, given what Christ has done?

When Lisa and I were married, Colossians 3:12-17 was read. Paul employs the marvelous image of clothing to speak of a sanctified life. "Put on compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, patience, forgiving each other." We may recall that in Ephesians Paul spoke of putting on "the whole armor of God" (Ephesians 6:11-17), and here he speaks of less combative but more regular, daily attire.

In the early Church, the need for this spiritual clothing was symbolized in Baptism. A candidate for Baptism would take off all their clothing, descend into the water, and then step out – and then a new, perfectly white robe would be put on, an emblem of new life in Christ. In an ironic twist to this practice, St. Francis of Assisi pulled off his father's exotic garments in the city square, and put on the coarse fabrics worn by the poorest of the poor – again as an act of commitment and service to Christ.

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1 & 2 Thessalonians

In Acts 17:1-10 we read of Paul's dramatic visit to Thessalonica, along the southbound road from Philippi to Athens. Three weeks of preaching, and a riot erupted in the city, with a new believer named Jason dragged into the city square to the ironic accusation that "These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also" – and that "the city authorities were disturbed." So much for any vain hope modern Christians harbor that we can be non-controversial and blend happily into the landscape!

Concerned about the "toddler" church in Thessalonica, Paul wrote a letter eight months after his tumultuous visit, probably the first letter, the earliest we have (in the year 48), which we call 1 Thessalonians. Forced to defend his own character (1:5, 2:10), Paul sent Timothy (3:2) to strengthen and encourage the Christians. One big worry they had was about dying. They genuinely expected that Christ would return swiftly – and so were anxious about the fate of those who had died (4:13-15). Paul assured them – and us – of their resurrection, and destiny at the end of time – and warned of efforts to speculate on the date of Christ's return (5:2, echoing Jesus' words in Matthew 24:43). Whenever this day comes, clearly Paul anticipates what modern day Christians call "the rapture": that the dead will rise, and then believers "will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air" (4:16-17). A later letter, which we call 2 Thessalonians, answers the astonishing belief some held that the day of the Lord has already happened!

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1 & 2 Timothy & Titus

These three letters together are called "the pastoral epistles." Not as in Beethoven's 6th, "pastoral" symphony (meaning out in the country), but "pastoral" as in the shaping and guidance of the church. We think of churches as always having dotted the landscape. But when Paul wrote his epistles, the very existence of churches was fragile. It was all so new, no rules, no customs, no lessons learned, no tradition on which to rely. These three letters compile very practical wisdom about how to be a church.

Leadership is essential, and character and holiness are valued far above some of what we might consider, such as skill or productivity. Lifestyle issues are raised throughout these letters, and Paul is not the sour elitist we might imagine him to be. Clearly for Paul the church has authority over the lives of believers, that they are accountable to the larger body of believers. A high level of commitment is assumed by Paul.

Timothy was one of Paul's favorites. His father a gentile, his mother a pious Jew converted by Paul, Timothy was companion, friend, colaborer, and top lieutenant to Paul, like "a son" to him (1 Tim. 1:2). Titus was a gentile convert, entrusted by Paul to manage the prickly disputes in Corinth.

One chapter that captures much of what this trio of letters is about would be 2 Timothy 3. The portrayal of "the last days" should alarm us all, not in the sense that Paul is foretelling the 21st century, but that his dark vision of how bad things can get sadly fits our era and culture ("Men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, profligates, reckless, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God" – ouch!!!). Paul's corrective begins and ends with Scripture. For him, the term "Scripture" would have applied to the Old Testament, which was "the Bible" for Jews and the first Christians. But Paul's letters quickly made their way into the hearts and life of the early Church so they too became Scripture. Notice the claims made for the Bible: "All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and for training in righteousness, that we may be complete, equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:16- 17).

For Paul, Scripture is useful, functional, and its inspiration rests not in some "hot" property it bears, but in the intended effects it has on people's lives! Nicholas Lash, a British theologian, has suggested that the Scriptures are not to be "read" so much as "performed," like a score of music. You could stare at music on the page, or merely listen to the music of others. But the intent of a score is for you to learn to play it yourself – and the intent of the Bible is not for you to think about it, or to watch others, but to embody what it's about in your real, daily life!

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Philemon

While most of Paul's letters were sent to entire congregations, this shortest of his existing letters was addressed to a single person, Philemon, whose private home housed the church in Colosse (verse 1!). The issue is not theological but very practical. Philemon had a slave named Onesimus, who had run away, finding his way to Ephesus, where Paul was in prison. This slave had become a dear Christian brother to Paul, and so the apostle wrote to Philemon, also a young Christian, asking him not to punish Onesimus for his flight, but to welcome him back, and not as a slave, but as a brother!

N.T. Wright wisely said, "Paul is not asking for a paternalistic willingness to let bygones be bygones. Nor is he offering good advice to Philemon on how to maintain a dignified detachment. He seeks the specifically Christian virtue of forgiveness, which will demand humility from both parties – Onesimus to seek forgiveness, Philemon to grant it. Onesimus must abandon fear; Philemon must abandon pride. And the thing which will induce both parties to do this is a theological fact, namely the fellowship which belongs to the people of Christ." Luther was right: Paul plays the role of Christ in this dispute, identifying with both the sinner and the offended party, and so making peace between them!

Paul does not advocate the abolition of slavery. But with subtlety and foresight, Paul worked to change the world by planting a little seed with this letter, a seed which, inconspicuous at first, grows into a beautiful tree – one which in this instance took nineteen centuries to grow!

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Hebrews

Unique among the letters of the New Testament, Hebrews is unsigned, and we have no idea who wrote it. Clearly the audience are devout Jews who have become Christians. For this letter explores profoundly the meaning of Christ in the light of the Jewish priesthood and sacrificial system. These familiar practices are treated allegorically, as if they are a parable or mystery, representing something deeper. No New Testament book shimmers as luminously as Hebrews with adulation of Christ.

Jesus is compared to the priest, the one who functions as the people's liaison or bridge to God (the Latin word for priest, "pontifex," means bridge-builder!), but also to the sacrificial lamb which the priest offered for the people, to enact and empower their forgiveness and reconciliation to God.

Some commentators have suggested that the believers addressed were weary, or as we would say today, "burned out." It was a struggle in the early days of the church, with sporadic persecution, no facilities, flimsy finances, ridicule from neighbors. Hebrews was written to encourage them, to energize them in the life and mission. The promise to those who are steadfast, who stay committed, is "rest" (the focus of the section from 3:14 to 4:11). We may recall the great prayer of John Henry Newman: "O Lord, support us all the day long of this troublous life, until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done. Then, in thy great mercy, grant us a safe lodging, a holy rest, and peace at last."

So we look now to some of the most memorable passages in Hebrews. "The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to soul and spirit, joints and marrow" (4:12). "Since then we have a great high priest who has pass through the heavens, Jesus, let us hold fast our confession. For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace and help in time of need" (4:14-16). "We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor, a hope that enters the shrine behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf" (6:19). "Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another" (10:24-25). "If we sin deliberately after receiving the knowledge of truth, there remains only a fearful prospect of judgment. You have need of endurance, so you may do the will of God and receive what is promised" (10:36).

"Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (11:1). This verse kicks off a great rehearsal of the faith of the saints of old in chapter 11, a vast survey of kings, heroes, prophets who trusted God, had immense courage, and continue as examples to Christians grown weary. "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings to closely, and let us run with perseverance the race set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God" (12:1-2).

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James

The letter of James was an encyclical, sort of a letter-sermon, dispatched to communities of Christian Jews around the Mediterranean. Its author was James, the eldest of Jesus' four brothers (Mark 6:3). Somewhat surprisingly, if you think about how siblings get along, James became a leader in the church that worshipped his brother Jesus (Acts 15:13-21, Galatians 2:12), and lost his life as a martyr in the year 62. Certainly, having a natural relationship to Jesus was not a valid basis for authority in the church; Jesus had rebuffed his physical family by asking "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers? Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, sister, and mother" (Matthew 12:48-50).

James interprets and re-applies many sayings of his brother (compare James 1:5-6 with Matthew 7:7-11 and Mark 11:22-24, or James 2:5 with Matthew 5:30, or James 2:13 with Matthew 7:1-2). He passes along the radical teaching of Jesus for the next generation of believers.

The letter is full of wise sayings, warning against the dangers of riches ("as the flower is scorched by the sun, so will the rich man fade away in his pursuits," 1:11), admonishing Christians to be careful how they talk ("for the tongue is a fire," 3:6), and above all urging Christians to be "not just hearers, but doers of the word" (1:22) – for "faith without works is dead" (2:26).

Martin Luther despised this letter, and said "I will not have him in my Bible." So zealous was Luther to underline the message of salvation by faith, by grace, not by works, that James's insistence that "faith without works is dead" worried him. But Paul's message of grace and James's insistence on a changed life are not at odds, but are complementary, fitting together marvelously just as fidelity in a marriage fits wonderfully with the romance of falling in love and getting married. Richard Bauckham, who teaches Bible over in Great Britain at St. Andrews, shrewdly suggested that "in a conversation between James and Paul there would be much nodding of heads and smiling agreement, as well as some knitting of brows and some exclamations of surprise."

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1 & 2 Peter

We turn now to what are often called the "catholic epistles," not because they are somehow linked to the Roman Catholic church, but because the word "catholic" (as we say in the creed) means "universal." These letters of Peter, John and Jude are addressed to the church universal, and have been read through the centuries as shaping our identity as the people of God.

1 Peter is a beautiful missive of encouragement to Christians in northern Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). They are facing severe trials, and should not be surprised, for so it always is for those who follow Christ, who suffered himself, and who calls us to be at odds, out of sync with the world around us (2:11, 4:12-13). Such trials are an opportunity to test the genuineness of faith (1:6-7). Christians should never feel alone in times of trouble. Not only are they one with Christ (notice the memorable verse, 5:7, "Cast all your anxieties upon him, for he cares for you"), but we are also one with each other; read the beautiful passage, 2:4-5, which casts a compelling vision of us as stones built into the temple which is Christ himself. What a noble calling: to be a holy nation, a royal priesthood, God's own people (2:9)!

Interestingly, this letter refers as do some creeds to this notion that Christ "descended into hell" (3:19). For many Christians, this idea answered two questions: What about all those who died before hearing the message of salvation in Christ? And: What was Jesus doing between Good Friday and Easter Sunday? One of the later Gospels, which didn't make it into the Bible, which falsely claims to have been written by Peter himself, refers to this same preaching mission to the underworld.

Early in the 1900's, scholars began to suppose that 1 Peter was a liturgy, the words spoken, including something of a sermon, for services of baptism. To imagine this short treatise in this way is helpful, and we may imagine converts, who had been instructed in the faith for several weeks, coming to the moment of their baptism, hearing these words about the destiny of God's people – the mental images pulsate with power!

2 Peter shows the concern raised even during the first century over the delay in the second coming of Christ (1:19-21). This letter chalks up the delay to the patience of God, who is yearning for everyone to come to repentance (3:9). Interestingly, 2 Peter refers to the letters of Paul (3:15), and so must be among the latest New Testament writings.

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1 & 2 & 3 John

Scholars are divided between two views of who wrote these letters. Some feel it was John, the disciple, who wrote the Gospel of John. Others feel they were written by someone else, as the originals were anonymous, the name "John" being added later. The writer could still have been another John (an incredibly common name in those days), from a "school" of theologians from early Christianity who strove to apply the Gospel of John to a changing world.

Especially in the case of 2 John and 3 John, we are listening in on only one side of a conversation. These letters were not written to become "books of the Bible." Rather, they were real, genuine letters, answering questions and live issues pertinent to those involved in the correspondence.

Two issues are obviously crucial. Getting doctrine straight: the early Church struggled with what was true, and what wasn't, and how to distinguish, as they hammered out the nature of Christian belief. 1 John weighs in to clarify who Jesus really was. Some over- emphasized the divinity of Jesus (2 John 7), and 1 John replies that Jesus really was human, and we neglect crucial aspects of our faith when we only see the divine in Christ instead of the way Jesus actually lived, and what he taught, for that impinges on how we think and live.

Secondly there was an ethical problem, some ugly debate going on about the nature of Jesus and how church would be conducted. Some claimed that they were so close to God that their position should go unchallenged. They were not "sinners" like others. John debunks their folly: "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves" (1 John 1:8). If so, our relationships are different. John's rule is clear: "He who says he is in the light and hates his brother is in the darkness still" (2:9). "Beloved, let us love one another…" (4:7 – and the rest of that chapter is an eloquent summons to love).

Perhaps no better description of what the Bible is exists than the introduction to 1 John: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it – that which we have seen we proclaim also to you, so you may have fellowship with us, and our fellowship is with the Father and with his son Jesus Christ" (1:1-3). The Bible is simply the testimony of people who saw, heard, touched, and their words draw us into fellowship with them, and with God!

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Jude

Mark 6:3 names the four brothers of Jesus, Jude being next to the youngest. Like James he became a leader in the early Church, and wrote this letter in which, once more, we listen in to one little snippet of a long, ongoing conversation. In this short letter, Jude voices a stinging indictment of false teachers who are leading the early Christians astray. In verses 14 and 15, he quotes from the Book of Enoch, which is not in the Bible, and not even in the "Apocrypha" (a group of books Catholic include in their Scriptures while Protestants do not). Enoch is in the "Pseudepigrapha," a large number of writings that are mostly Jewish, and a few Christian, from between Old and New Testament times. Some of these books, especially Enoch, were respected as if they were Scripture – and you must recall that during the first century there was no definitive decision yet regarding which books were ultimately in the Old Testament yet, much less the New Testament! The last two verses of Jude are poetic, a beautiful benediction of praise and trust, which we frequently read at the graveside to conclude a funeral.

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Revelation

Revelation was getting plenty of attention as the year 2000 came and went. The series of books, beginning with the intriguing page-turner Left Behind, by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, along with its sequels, have sold 20 million copies. To understand Revelation in historical context is to understand what is flawed in LaHaye's and Jenkins's approach. The symbolism of the book isn't an elaborate code pertaining to the year 2000. The first recipients of the letter understood what John was talking about, just as we recognize what a donkey and an elephant mean in an editorial cartoon.

Revelation is a letter, addressed to the real concerns of Christians living in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) who faced an anxious future. With over 500 quotations from the Old Testament, the book stands at the end of the Bible as the climax of the entire biblical journey, and portrays the climax of history. Through the ages, many have pegged its symbolism to current events. In the year 1000, at the dawn of the Reformation, in 1843, in 1975, and now in Y2K, an impulse has emerged to find some divine purpose in the vicissitudes of history. Revelation's claim to every age is that history is in God's hands, that there is evil, but there also is judgment, and Christians may take comfort but must also have courage in times of trial. In a sense, Revelation is not a crystal ball prediction of political events in Europe at the beginning of the 21st century; but at the same time it has everything to do with us and our age, and portray with awesome imagination the truth of God that is ultimately relevant today.

Chapter 1 is the prelude, an overture, to the book, John's report of a startling encounter with God. In the 11th verse, John is instructed to write down the vision he received on the island of Patmos and send it to the seven churches in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). Chapters 2 and 3 have specialized messages for each of those seven churches: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea (and their order fashions something of a loop, along the route a postal carrier would take). But there were not originally seven different letters; they were always a unit, and were no doubt read out loud in all seven churches. John obviously has an intimate knowledge of the churches, their spirituality, their history and economics.

In chapters 2 and 3 we see letters directed to seven young Christian congregations in Asia Minor (which today we'd call Turkey). Then in chapter 4 we move into the kaleidoscopic visions that require considerable imagination and study to comprehend – as we'll strive to do in the next two months.

The strange creatures and events in Revelation have piqued the curiosity of artists, many of whom have tried to capture them on canvas. In a sense, what John describes cannot be put onto a canvas – for he is describing something beyond comprehension, something immeasurable, too fantastic for words or measurement. Most famous have bee the woodcuts by Albrecht Dürer, and then the work of William Blake (himself quite a visionary).

In chapter 4, John's gaze turns upward, outward, into heaven itself, as he reports a vision given to him by God. His language is fantastic, kaleidoscopic, poetic – as he gamely describes God's awesome presence which is obviously too wonderful for mere words. To first-century Jewish Christians, a lot of what he says would be familiar from the Old Testament. The "sea of glass" is reminiscent of the great bronze bowl of water at the entrance to Solomon's temple. The throne and beasts reverberate with allusions to similar visions granted to prophets like Ezekiel and Daniel. The tone of it all is permeated by praise and singing. Chapter 5 focuses on a scroll, its contents as yet unrevealed, with seven seals. Documents in the first century were written on long rolls of papyrus, leather, animal skin, or parchment. A scroll, when completed, would be rolled up and sealed with a stamping device made of clay or wax. The seal not only kept the scroll shut, but served as a signature, authenticating the validity of the document. Impressions would be made in the clay or wax, indicating authorship, importance, and accessibility. Archaeologists have discovered many such seals, some very elaborate, decorated with winged griffins, cherubim, winged sphinxes, and expensive gems and precious stones. Thus a scroll could not be unfurled by just anybody. This scroll, from God's own hand, must find a worthy revealer – and all eyes search for the creature who can move into God's future at the head of God's people. Expectations were that a messiah would come, who would be like a "lion" – the king of the jungle, the mightiest of animals. But in John's vision there is a shocking surprise: the lion isn't really a lion at all, but a lamb.

Running from chapter 6 through chapter 18, Revelation is dominated by a complex series of woes that John sees unfolding in the near future. Seven (a symbolic number, indicating completeness) seals are opened (chapters 6-7), much as a scroll would gradually be unfurled through breaking its wax signatures, then seven trumpets blow (the instrument announcing warning; chapters 8-11), followed by seven bowls of horrors (chapters 16-18). John's language is picturesque, kaleidoscopic, imaginary – but is full of allusions to the Old Testament (for instance, Zechariah 6:1-5) and contemporary (to John!) political events. The four horses represent war (the white horse, with a mounted archer, deployed by the dreaded Parthians who waged war against the eastern edge of the Roman empire), bloodshed (the red horse), famine and inflation (the black horse), and pestilence and disease (the sickly pale colored horse). By chapter 18, dragons have breathed fire, the sky has turned black, stars have fallen, the ground has fissured, and much more. These nightmares were not unfamiliar in John's day. Mt. Vesuvius had erupted (burying Pompeii), earthquakes had rocked the Mediterranean, war erupted everywhere, with its ugly aftermath that included disease and starvation. Turning to chapter 7, God's people ask, "How long?" John in a way is saying "The kinds of woes with which you are familiar are only the beginning, only a foretaste, of what is in store."

Interestingly, God is not directly the cause of these evils! God "permits" these horsemen to romp about and wreak havoc. God does not directly inflict horrors upon an unsuspecting, underserving world. Rather, God has wired the world in such a way that when God's order, God's way is subverted, there are consequences. There is judgment. The intention of the broader vision is not to inflict vengeance, but to bring people to repentance. For there is great hope with God, immense comfort and eternal life. At the end of time, God will right all wrongs – but in the meantime, plenty of evil happens; it is not God's will, but God does not leave evil unanswered. For those who serve God, who are even caught in the undertow of evil and suffer for their faith, chapter 7 of Revelation shines as a beacon of hope, reminding us of a secure future where there will be no more suffering or sorrow, when evil finally will be restrained and abolished.

Not that a life devoted to God is easy. John is given a scroll to eat (a familiar biblical image for receiving and "digesting" God's word); that scroll is sweet in his mouth, but bitter in his stomach (10:10). There quite naturally is suffering for God's people; to be in sync with God produces discomfort and ridicule in a world that is out of sync with God!

Chapter 11 would remind any Jew of the darkest moment in Jerusalem's history. From 168 to 165 B.C., Palestine was ruled by the vicious Antiochus IV Epiphanes (nicknamed "Epimanes," meaning "mad dog"). Among his atrocities was the sacrilegious act of erecting a statue to Zeus in the Jerusalem temple! Jews fled to the wilderness for their lives, but managed to win back their city, led by the heroic Judas Maccabbeus (and his victory gave birth to the Jewish festival, Hanukkah). So, in chapters 11 and 12, John is saying "Here we go again." Roman persecution would be no gentler than that of Antiochus, and the faithful would once more be fortunate to escape with their lives; many would not. The "42 months" of Revelation 11:2 (or "a time, times, half a time," which in Jewish parlance meant 3 ½ years, in 12:14) is not a prediction of some time span in our century, but rather the amount of time Antiochus had polluted the holy city of Jerusalem before its reclamation; similarly, while the godless seem to be unrestrained to the Christians of John's day, they too would eventually be conquered. So in chapter 12, the basic Christian story of the birth of Christ and the assault upon him by the wicked, and by the devil, is retold in picturesque language, with the chorus of faith and hope in God in the midst of evil. A favorite game to play in the Greco-Roman world was "gematria," the attachment of numerical values to letters in a name. For instance, in English, a = 1, b = 2, etc. So any name could be granted a number: "Ada" would be 1 + 4 + 1 = 6. In Pompeii there is a famous cryptogram scribbled on a wall: "I love her whose number is 545." So when Revelation reveals the name of the evil leader as 666, he is inviting them to assess names of candidates to see who fits. We are almost positive that the wicked leader in question is the slain emeperor Nero. His throat was slit (either by exasperated Senators or by his own hand) on June 9 of the year 68 – but rumors began to circulate that he was not really dead, that he was hiding in Parthia, that he was planning an invasion to devastate the Mediterranean world. The historians Tacitus and Suetonius tell us about pretenders who emerged, claiming to be Nero revived. One was a slave from Pontus, a crazed musician like Nero himself. As it turns out, Nero's name, as the Jews would have known it, was QSR NRWN ("Caesar Nero"), and the numerical value of QSR NRWN is exactly 666. Additional support for this reading comes from the fact that when the Bible was first rendered into Latin, the translators altered the number to 616, since the last N was dropped in Latin. John was writing to people who very much feared the Nero rumor, that the kind of vicious persecution begun during his brutal reign was about to be revived. Revelation's message is that, yes, there will be trouble; there are always Nero-type figures around (like the emperor they were learning too well, Domitian) who would claim to be divine, would demand worship, and persecution would follow. But God is not mocked; God is in control, and bogus powers like Nero and Domitian would eventually be undone, and Christians would live eternally with God.

Revelation features many angels. These angels are not the soft, soothing kind you see on TV and in bookstores. They bring bad news, and stiff challenges. According to Jewish tradition (in the books called Tobit and Enoch), and seven "archangels" are named Uriel, Raphael, Raguel, Michael, Sariel, Gabriel, and Remiel. One by one they pronounce judgment on a sinful world.

After a long series of woes and judgments we finally come to the luminous hope that God will cause to emerge after and even out of all the tribulation. In chapter 19 the image is that of a great wedding feast, with great choirs singing – followed by the victory of one on a great white horse. The final vision in chapters 21 and 22 portrays the earth's ultimate redemption, humanity's glorious restoration to be forever with God in an existence too marvelous for words to capture.