Category: Biblical Observations

… and women

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Biblical Observations

There are often a few words that appear in a text that makes one wonder. This morning I thought about Paul (Saul) and his persecution of believers in Jerusalem (Acts 8) immediately following the death of Stephen. The motivation was that fellow-Jews who had joined the ‘blasphemous’ sect that later became known as ‘Christian’ were endangering the nation as a whole. Israel was already under the judgement of God, evidenced by the control of the land being in the hands of the Romans and their puppet leaders. This was being compounded by Jews who claimed that a crucified person was none other than the promised Messiah. If this movement was not stopped in its tracks the punishment from heaven would be even greater. Hence he understood that to be zealous for God would mean he would need to stop the movement at all costs. If he did so then he would be assured that he was righteous. He was eradicating evil from among his people, and there was a strong model for this in the golden calf incident (Exod. 32) with the sons of Levi demonstrating their ‘zeal’ in slaughtering 3000 of their fellow-citizens of Israel. As a result the Levites become the priestly tribe. (Wow… there are just a few challenges in reading the OT are there not? And thankfully Pentecost changes the optic some with 3000 coming to life…)

Saul demonstrates his zeal and ‘righteousness’,

as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless (Phil. 3:6).

As zealous as the Levites who were ‘rewarded’ by God!

He does not worry about Gentiles who could claim whatever they wished about Jesus. They were condemned already – his concern was to cleanse Israel. So to do so he ‘entered house after house’. Allegiance to Christ was on a household basis, hence enter a house, and if they were following Jesus he would seek to eradicate that house.

That day a severe persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria. Devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison (Acts 8:1-3).

The spread of Jesus-aligned houses is remarkable, and the spread of the gospel likewise is remarkable, hence his request to go to Damascus to the Jewish community there to eradicate this blasphemous heresy.

And one very startling element in that final verse. He dragged off ‘men’ – that would have been enough in that culture. They were the ‘head’ of the household. Remove the head and problem dealt with. But this ‘heresy’ was different! Dragging of the supposed head would not be enough. The gospel liberated women, not simply through personal salvation, but liberated them culturally and socially. Paul had no option if this heresy was to be cleansed from Israel – the women had to be removed also.

‘Salvation’ was a total turn around socially as well as ‘spiritually’.

We are seeing this rise again in this era. Hence the digging in of some ‘Christian’ quarters to re-establish the hierarchy of so-called ‘Judeo-Christian’ values. Maybe we could use the term ‘Judeo’ values but I think the earliest evidence within the ‘Christian’ expression means we cannot really add the second adjective to the values.

Supporting Christian values so that there might be an establishment of them – now that is a challenge!

[Oh yes Paul writes about ‘head’ and all that within the so-called ‘household codes’… beyond this post, but against the background of the Graeco-Roman world he uses the common formula of his day that was used by philosophical and religious groups to show they were not overtly seeking to overthrow Rome. Not overtly, but subversively, Paul used the formula apologetically, but in them he sows something beyond hierarchy… Christian values.]

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Interpreting the Hebrew Scriptures

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Biblical Observations

I have begun to record a few introductory videos on ‘eschatology’ and once I get the material written that expands on the videos will begin to publish them. For many reasons I have to start with the New Testament and then seek to read back; starting with the older testament of course is where many of those who see ‘signs of the end-times’ begin. (And of course I think they have in one hand the current news-stories and try to make Scriptures fit to current events. That has long been the way with those who seem to think prophecy is simply history written ahead of time.)

I have noted a couple of things this time round as I have been making the introductions. First, that there does not seem to be within Scripture the thought that what is prophesied must have a literal outworking, there is no straight line interpretation. The extreme of this is when there are clear prophecies that are not fulfilled. So I think if we are trying to make a clear line connection we are forcing something the Scriptures avoid.

It also seems to me that given that prophecy is in the realm of promise that releases faith, rather than prediction that indicates fatalism, many of the OT prophecies are contextual, they speak of an incredible hope, thus encouraging a major faith leap, but that the ultimate promise will far exceed what has been prophesied.

The incredible passage in Isaiah 19, of which I quote a few verses below, surely indicates this:

On that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian will come into Egypt and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians will serve with the Assyrians.
On that day Israel will be the third party with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people and Assyria the work of my hands and Israel my heritage.”

The ‘fertile crescent’ with Assyria to the north and Egypt to the south and little old Israel sandwiched in between the two big powers is the background (oh and maybe I should add the two non-worshipping of God two powers, who were constantly a threat to Israel). Now the promise is crazy… Those two powers turning, so much so that we are left with – so who then is Israel, in the sense of God’s covenant people, for Egypt is ‘my people’ and Assyria ‘the work of God’s hands’! This was a prophecy of transformation beyond belief for the hearers (and another aspect I am drawing out is that the prophets spoke to the people of their day, they are not speaking to us, though the words remain for us).

A fulfilment. It is coming… But what is coming?

Is it the fulfilment in the sense of a straight line? Or the day is coming when the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our Lord and Christ – the fulfilment beyond beyond the literal prophecy. That is where I land.

Why do I land there? Because so many of the Old Testament books as they wrestle with judgement and hope they are looking for a conclusion beyond themselves. And when Jesus appears everything changes. For those who read my understanding of Galatians it is literally ‘everything we thought we knew will now get us in trouble if we stay at that level’. The law defined transgression, but after the coming of Christ to try and establish law would be to take the quick path to be a transgressor. Little wonder Paul is blind for three days. Three days as he has to make a major conversion, a major turn around that the death (as Jesus cursed?) and to the resurrection (but God has vindicated this Jesus).

I am not anticipating that everyone will agree with my interpretations, but for sure Jesus has messed everything up that was so clear. He did that so that whatever was promised to Israel could be embraced by one and all. The inclusion of Israel was so that Assyria and Egypt could be drawn in on equal terms to Israel. Inclusion not to exclude, but to include without boundaries. And that is good news for Israel for they can have a place too! ‘My people’, ‘the work of my hands’, and even Israel can have a place -‘my heritage’.

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Temptations of Jesus – their loci

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Biblical Observations

A little Latin in the title… got to go steady as I could get quite excited about my linguistic abilities! Anyway, back to earth, and that is the real point about this post: the temptations of Jesus take place not simply on earth but they are located in three different specific situations. The order that the temptations are reported differ slightly in Matthew and Luke, with the latter two switching order (Matt. 4:1-11; Lk. 4:1-12). The first in the sequence they both agree on, that of economic temptation and it takes place in the wilderness. I term it economic but it is wider than that – it is the quick escape from the trouble one is in with personal economic benefit. Work – something that Scripture defines at its core separate to economic issues – was a creation mandate before and after the fall. The temptation is that of personal and wider benefit through an exploitation of creation that does not involve (biblically-defined) work. Biblically-defined work is not centred on monetary benefit – that is present in some aspects but not at the core.

It takes place in the wilderness, the god-forsaken place, the unfruitful place, the place of testing (where God tests us… and we put God to the test!). Jesus quotes Scripture in reply to the devil:

Remember the long way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments. He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. The clothes on your back did not wear out, and your feet did not swell these forty years. Know, then, in your heart that, as a parent disciplines a child, so the Lord your God disciplines you (Deut. 8:2-5).

The connection of the forty days in the wilderness and the forty years is clear. The spies who went into the land and the majority came back with a negative report were present in the land for 40 days – as a result Moses said that the people would be in the wilderness for forty years. That process of being in the wilderness was to:

  • humble them
  • test them so as what was in the heart was revealed
  • to demonstrate that God would provide for them

SO THAT (and here we come to Jesus’ quote) they might know that bread was not the provision for life but God’s word to them on an ongoing basis.

We need bread, and are taught to pray for provision of bread for each day, but to set our hearts on basic provision when there is something much higher to go for. (I appreciate where there is real physical hunger and famine that a focus on bread for today is not wrongly placed. That is not the audience in mind with the Gospel stories.)

I label this temptation as economic – it is also into exploitation of resources without appropriate labour. Stones to bread is the start of an inappropriate business supply. It is not uncommon that those who set their vision toward ‘business’ will find themselves in the desert and with offers to progress that involve compromise. The economic is to humble, test and to find faith in the goodness of God with provision.

The second temptation (Luke’s order) is regarding political power. I have written in a previous post that the use of the term oikoumene has to be understood as the offer of the Imperial structures of the day being colonised to serve God! There is something so incompatible about Imperial rule (the top elite who promise blessing to one and all (who comply) but the flow of resources is in reality back to the ones at the top) and the work of the kingdom that comes to honour the least and the last.

This temptation takes place at the top of a high mountain. Beware of mountains! They might give sight, but we have to be careful what we do with what we see, and Jesus’ work was to raise the valleys and bring down the mountains.

Power to be and authority over the works of the enemy are the kingdom connection of power and authority; power to implement and authority over people is the parody used by Imperial structures.

The quote from Jesus (Deut. 6:13) is in the context of (I paraphrase) ‘once you were slaves, do not forget when you are no longer slaves and you have resources that you move away from the God who sets prisoners free. God’s focus in on those who are enslaved… do not enslave others’.

The third temptation takes place in the Temple – the religious sphere. Jesus suggests that if we respond to accolades in the religious house that we are putting the Lord God to the test (Deut. 6:16).

Some people focus on one of the above spheres – economic, power or religion. Jesus was subject to all three temptations, for Imperial rule will pull all three together. Backed by ‘divine’ authority / right (even when a regime is ‘atheistic’ this is present with the transcendent right of ‘no god’… but usually considerably more sinister when a belief in ‘god’ is present) there is a system of rule that will bring about a distinct divide between those who have and those who don’t: economic oppression. The wilderness we are tested; the mountain we are open to lust; and in the Temple we can domesticate god to be our servant.

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Loads of sight

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by Martin Scott
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The first chapter starts with so much sight, with the repeated use of the terms ‘sight’ and ‘good’:

And God saw that it was good (Gen. 1:10; 1:12; 1:18).

Then we have the added words that ‘God blessed them’:

And God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.”… And God saw that it was good (Gen. 1:21-22, 25).
God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” (Gen. 1:28).

And the final verse of the chapter reads:

God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good (Gen. 1:31).

What an amazing start… turn a few pages and we read again about ‘sight’ but ‘good’ is absent:

The Lord saw that the wickedness of humans was great in the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually (Gen. 6:5).
But Noah found favor in the sight of the Lord (Gen. 6:8).
Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw that the earth was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth (Gen. 6:11, 12).

Quite a fall!! A fall from ‘good’ to ‘wicked’, ‘corrupt’, with Noah as a hope. [We could also look at Genesis 11 and the ‘tower of Babel’ where God came down to see the situation.] Let’s jump back to Genesis 3 for a bit more on sight:

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves (Genesis 3:6, 7).

I have referred to this original sin as being that of ‘consumerism’, of which our cultural use of the word is one example. It is consumerism described in succinct form: saw, took and consumed. Lose sight of the generosity of God (eat of every tree) and it can only lead in the wrong direction, and with the loss of sight come new, damaging sight.

How do we go from good (not perfect / mature but with all the potential to move toward maturity) to corrupt? It seems to be that shame has a big part to play. Their eyes are opened to sight of themselves as naked, in every sense of the word. I suggest that ‘glory’ is the opposite of shame (Paul in 1 Cor. 11). Loss of sight bringing shame was a doorway from ‘saw and it was good’ to ‘saw and wickedness was great’. Such a loss of sight leads to the statement that ‘all… have fallen short of the glory of God’. Fallen from that place of maturing toward true humanhood.

An aside

There are some parallels with the building of the tabernacle that Moses was the architect of, shaping it according to the pattern that he saw above. In three parts – holy of holies, the holy place and the outer court: one ‘tent’ with three parts, symbolising heaven (God’s dwelling place), the holy land of promise and the outer world. At the end of the construction of the tabernacle we read:

When Moses saw that they had done all the work as the Lord had commanded, he blessed them (Exod. 39:43).

It was a little bit of creation, a sign as to how things were – mobile so that wherever God led the people they could construct the image of the world; a sign that drew the presence of God… ultimately lived out in the Incarnation (he ‘tabernacled’ among us; Emmanuel); and that sign of the tent / temple thus became obsolete and was soon to disappear (Heb. 8:13, of the former covenant). And if we keep the trajectory going, to a whole earth without a separate temple.

New Creation

Genesis 1 –> Genesis 11 good –> corrupt via deceptive sight of a tree.

This takes me to the sight that Paul pushes us to have:

From now on, therefore, we regard (understand / know – using mental perception) no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew (knowledge as in experience) Christ from a human point of view, we no longer know (knowledge as in experience) him in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look (a stylistic use of a word to emphasise a new scene), new things have come into being! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation… (2 Cor 5:16-18).

Sight, sight and more sight! Away from categories so that the shame environment is removed. Inspired imagination that does not stop at a tabernacle / temple but where everything ‘old’ has passed away. That kind of sight would not take us back to a garden where God might show up at evening-time but an ‘outer court / outer world’ still continuing in existence. Yes, that world still exists… but it can exist far too strongly in our imagination / sight. God saw… and it was good. What a start. Eve saw… and what a fall. Paul encourages / provokes us to see what one day will be.

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So that they might find God

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by Martin Scott
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Always interesting to read ancient literature (OK made me sound as if I am very well-read… I simply mean the Bible!!) and think about what world view is being expressed. Normally ancient world-views of (say) cosmology are not ‘corrected’ but the conclusions drawn about God are certainly not simply a mirror of the other contemporaneous cultures. Creation is like that… even more basic than a flat earth (thank God for the firmament (sky) that stops the water leaking through – not a 2023 weather forecast framework), but the God revealed is not the god(s) who has humans providing food for the gods… other way round. God is for us; we are not here to appease this God. Jumping forward we read that Paul in Athens gave some amazing perspectives:

From one ancestor he made all peoples to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps fumble about for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said,
‘For we, too, are his offspring.’ (Acts 17: 26-28).

One humanity: maybe Paul believed in a literal ‘Adam and Eve’, maybe he did and we don’t have to. If so it would not make us smarter than Paul, simply that we live in different eras. It is not what we know, it is how we live that is the measure. Whatever we believe about (scientific) origins, there is one humanity. Hence all war is civil war.

God is close to all, and even stronger than that, is that of the boundaries and times are not in place in order that God would not be found. ‘So that… find him’. We do not have to deny any insight (revelation?) about God in other faiths to affirm the uniqueness of Christ. Christ is final – Heb. 1 – and he is not simply the way to God but the way through which we know who this God is, that this God is in familiar relationship with us, for Jesus is ‘the way… to the Father‘.

Boundaries… Paul is clearly reflecting on a foundational understanding from Deuteronomy, where we read:

When the Most High apportioned the nations,
    when he divided humankind,
he fixed the boundaries of the peoples
    according to the number of the gods;
the Lord’s own portion was his people,
    Jacob his allotted share (Deut. 32:8,9).

We have 2 manuscript strands – according to the number of the ‘gods’ (sons of God: angelic) or sons of Israel. The former seems stronger, but regardless we have God fixing the boundaries and this is clearly what Paul is acknowledging. However…

He speaks these words in the context of the Imperial rule of Rome. That which establishes its own boundaries (termed oikoumene) and one that ignored previous boundaries. Is Paul now acknowledging that Rome’s universal boundary is the one God has established and set in place, or is he suggesting that at the same time as the Empire sets its boundaries that we should be looking for the boundaries that people inhabit so that they might (stumble around – yes, but) find God?

We see artificial boundaries that have been set – Africa set by Europe; colonial rule drawing arbitrary boundaries in many places. I reflect back some 20+ years ago I was given a ceremonial arrow by a native American chief to give me safe travel in and out of ‘north America’. Those first-nations did not recognise the 49th parallel, knew their own territory, and sought to outwork what it meant that fellow-nations occupied other territory within the wider land (not trying to idealise the situation; am well aware that they did not all co-habit singing ‘kumbaya’ around a shared camp fire).

[I appreciate that there are various views about ‘Brexit’, but to use the Bible on ‘nations’ to suggest that God wants to give ‘sovereignty’ to the UK for example is to suggest that ‘nation’ and ‘nation-state’ are the same I think is to miss what is going on…]

I am playing with the idea that we have boundaries at two levels. Ones that are imposed… no problem working within those – Paul worked within the Empire and simply used the Roman names for the various territories where he travelled; and perhaps boundaries that are from the land – if from the land then more likely to be ‘from God’.

God is at work… and at work in structures that are far from perfect. Maybe the EU weakens the pull to arrogant sovereignty. Maybe it suggests we are one people.

Maybe the various pulls for independence – the breaking up of the UK – is an imperfect shadow of a God movement that emphasises there are boundaries that cannot be imposed through powers that say so elsewhere.

Maybe the future will be more based in the locality, in the city, in the regions. Maybe that might help uncover God-boundaries, that will align us more with ‘the sons of God’ and enable a greater amount of positive stumbling so that God might be found?

All very speculative, but I suspect something is going on. If so we should expect all kinds of disputes over boundaries.

And back to Paul… he spoke those words into the one-boundary scenario of the Roman Empire. No need to fear Imperial power; but the need to affirm God-boundaries without needing to impose them. They will be discovered, and I am sure there are many overlapping boundaries.

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Galatians comments as a pdf

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Biblical Observations

A little while back I put a few posts together on Galatians, commenting on the confrontational writer (with huge respect, not critically I add!!). I have put those posts, with some fresh editing, together as a pdf & also in epub format (most non-kindle ereaders). It is part of a bigger project… I wrote four books in 2020 with the title ‘explorations in theology’. I am now planning to put together various small volumes that extend that series, with the extra phrase, theology ‘and practice’. Maybe 3 volumes per year, anyway this will be Volume 1.

Here is the pdf… read here or choose to download the file.

Galatians Vol 1Download
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Story or text?

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by Martin Scott
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At the end of the last post I wrote that we need to recover ‘the story beyond the text’. In writing that I am suggesting that there are diverse ways of approaching Scripture. One way would be to view the various texts as somehow dropping out of the sky in a timeless fashion, for surely the Bible is inspired in such a way that each and every text is ‘the word of God’. That would seem to be a way in which we were respecting the authority of the book we consider is our sacred Scriptures. Not my approach.

Story. It seems hard to get away from that. The books of Moses – the ‘law’ – do have some ‘do this / do not do this’ that could be classified as giving us (actually them not us) a set of laws, but the majority of the first five books (the law) are in the form of narratives recounting what took place – story. So much historical reflection in the other books… not a ‘Thus saith the Lord’ without a historical context. The Gospels – narrative. Yes there is teaching and instruction within them but all four essentially present us with ‘Jesus did this, he said this in this setting’ and so on right through to an account of the last days of his life; far more narrative than a set of teachings. Acts – story. The letters – most are in response to ‘in this setting and time with what they are facing I will write this to them’… historical context (so for example even the BIG doctrinal letter of Romans instructing us to pay our taxes is not a simple instruction, but is written into the context of Rome and street protests that were about to erupt over, within months, the taxation situation). Revelation – a context of observing Rome’s policies and values with a wonderful intersection then of earthly observation and apocalyptic vision that interprets and explains what was visible to one and all.

Story is what makes up the majority of our book.

And cos there is story we don’t have to defend all of it as ‘this is literal’. Maybe Jonah was a historical character, probably not though… and probably not even if Jesus thought he was (though I don’t think Jesus thought he was). Certainly I see no reason to suggest an ‘Adam and Eve’ in the sense of six / seven day creation and happened in this way (literally). What I think we need to think about is not the literalistic nature or not but more what would be the story being told. The story of creation would certainly adjust many eschatologies… the ‘first word’ and the ‘last word’ should surely be better aligned than ‘everything will burn up’. Probably the seven days resonate with the seven days of preparation for the Temple before it was filled with the glory of God. Somehow that would align those ancient stories more with the stories of the day from other cultures (and totally transcend them all) and give us (as Christians) a major connection between Genesis 1 and 2 with our comments on Revelation 21, with the whole of creation as a Temple. I think the only burning up in the end will be the various iterations of the ‘left Behind’ type of literature!

Story is so challenging. What if – hold on to your seat belt – Paul planted ekklesiai in each place as he knew that was essential, essential as the first phase of his activity, but that once he had done that maybe there would be a second phase, one that we do not read of in Scripture? We might try and copy phase 1 with our claims of being a biblical church because we read what was done, but fail to understand the why of what he was doing?

Story… and an uncompleted story. I am not suggesting we can continue to write the Bible… but we can and must continue to tell the same story, but it would seem to me that we are not in the same ‘chapter’ of where the Bible brings the story up to. If we do something different that tells a story that is incompatible with what has gone before we will prove to be truly unbiblical; likewise if we simply line up texts and align to them without consideration to the story it will also result in us being unbiblical.

So much could be said about the levels of story that are in our Scriptures – the detailed explanations as to why David (and Solomon) were God’s choices in the earlier historical books of Samuel but once we come to Chronicles no need to ascertain that (abnormal) choice of David and Solomon was from God as those nasty northern kingdoms have gone and only the faithful to David remain, would be one example.

And conflicts within Scripture – now we come to another area of great richness. Take the ‘wisdom books’. Proverbs is clear, there are no exceptions. Job… in some ways an exception… then Ecclesiastes, with the only human who has value is a dead one! Three contributions that we wrestle with so that we come to a level of wisdom that one monolithic approach would not help us get there. Life is complex and the intra-canonical dialogue (probably disagreement) serves us well.

Story, and with the interpretive centre being in the story of Jesus for God has spoken in ‘the Son in these last days’ in a defining way. The Jesus story – now that transforms the whole story.

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Babylon… a strange land?

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by Martin Scott
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Babylon becomes the place of Exile for the people of God and as with so many biblical themes / passages there are different approaches we can take as Scripture seems to swing one way and another on it… either indicating that a multiplicity of interpretation is the best way to go, or (my preference) there is continual intra-canonical debate (disagreement?) which we are invited into, with the question being ‘so Martin how do you respond?’. Ultimately I have to give my answer… an assessment of my life (then) will not be on what had discerned about the various texts but how my life had been lived out.

I prefer the latter (entering the dialogue / disagreement) as Scripture in all its inspiration is first of all described as ‘useful’ (2 Tim. 3:16) and when we read further about the usefulness it is not so that we come to some level of correct beliefs at a head level but ‘correct’ responses and actions so that we can be involved in ‘every good work’. Behaviour over belief.

Babylon and the Exile. The place where they felt they could not ‘sing the songs of the Lord in a strange land’ so they ‘hung up their harps on the willow trees’. Away from the ‘promised’ land. Jeremiah is an interesting character. Not one who followed the pattern that was common, but suffered at the hands of his compatriots because he could not bring them a positive word about God’s deliverance, and refused to say that the Jerusalem temple would be the guarantee that all would go well (a clear forerunner of Jesus, who takes a similar line some 600+ years later).

Babylon the place where the synagogue develops. Ever so practical for how can a people remain distinct in such a place? Meet weekly, focus more on the scrolls than the story. Safety first. Safety – we so desire that, but it can prove to be something false that hinders us… after all the people of God are like the wind – a level of unpredictability to them.

The level of dislocation that Jeremiah’s compatriots experienced means we cannot be very critical of how they journeyed in the land of Exile, but we have a great advantage over them. After all they understood that their destiny was tied up with a specific land – ours is not. They understood that there was something distinct about their Jewishness, we understand that God is pulling a people from every tribe and nation together. Any criticism must be a critique of us in the light of their situation, and as with so much of Scripture if we allow the critique to come our way we can develop along a good path.

Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let the prophets and the diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to your dreams that you dream, for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, says the Lord (Jer. 29:5-9).

Seek the shalom of the city (translated welfare but the word is shalom… that rich Hebrew word that does not mean the absence of unrest / war, but the positive presence of well-being because everything is ordered in a godly way, where everyone can find a path to their destiny); pray on behalf of Babylon; fulfil there the creational command to ‘multiply’.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
    “May they prosper who love you.
Peace be within your walls
    and security within your towers.” (Ps. 122:6,7).

Pray, peace (shalom) and security (verb is ‘to prosper‘)… for Jerusalem. Same sentiments as for the place of Exile. Jerusalem held a special place in their hearts, and this Psalm is one of the pilgrims travelling to the city… But Babylon likewise has to hold a special place!

We might be able to suggest that the place of exile is temporary with the hope of returning to Jerusalem. Temporary for them, but for us? Jerusalem to the ends of the earth… Matthew (the Jewish gospel of fulfilment) indicates with his genealogy of Jesus (somewhat ‘manipulated’ to fit a nice pattern of 14’s, and even after the rather creative choice of who he lists it is still a little challenging to get it to be strict pattern of 14’s – ah well, Scripture is to be ‘useful’ for life!) that the exile is coming to an end with the amazing phrase that ‘Jesus will save his people from their sins’ for he will be ‘Emmanuel’ (God with us – at last after the Exile is finally over). Exile was because of their sins, but in Jesus it was ending. So maybe here they are back in the land of promise, and the temporary exile is over? But the end of Mathew’s Gospel is wonderfully provocative with the well-known ‘Great Commission’ sending the disciples to all nations (Gentiles) being a contrasting parallel to Cyrus commission to restore Jerusalem and the temple. Maybe the exile was temporary for the Jews of Jeremiah’s day; it seems permanent for us, but not simply permanent, it is transformed. There is no place that we are exiled from in the sense of one day we will return to a land… we are permanently placed in Babylon with the knowledge that we carry a passport from another place – ‘our citizenship is in heaven’. This ‘citizenship’ is not even close to meaning that ‘heaven is our true home’ but in the fulfilling sense that wherever we are we are to ‘seek the prosperity of the city’ so that ‘shalom‘ (an environment where people can enter successfully on their path to their destiny).

Seems that is in line with what I have posted on Revelation 21.

Babylon, our Babylon is indeed a strange land. But our goal is not to escape, to ‘go’ somewhere else… but to see some measure of ‘heaven on earth’ in that place. No Temple there… and even any synagogue pattern has to be a stepping stone to recovering the story beyond the text.

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Revelation 21:22-27

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Biblical Observations

I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

The New Jerusalem… no Temple. Such a contrast to the Jerusalem that John had known. That city was renowned throughout the Roman Empire, and noted for its Temple, occupying around 20% of the entire city. Jerusalem was not a city with a Cathedral (Canterbury, for example)… it was a Temple with streets and houses outside of it, hence at Passover time it could host all the pilgrims, many of whom sleep overnight outside the city on the Mount of Olives (hence the need for Judas to show the soldiers where Jesus was located). The contrast could not be greater. A Jerusalem without a temple could not be computed, and of course 70AD prefigures the New Jerusalem with the destruction of the Temple. How many mourned for the passing of the Temple, here however John helps us understand why the Temple had to go. There can be no Temple where there is the presence of ‘the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb’. Any ‘temple’ is temporary. Tie this to the opening verse of the chapter and we have a vision (understatement!):

I saw a new heaven and a new earth – but no sea… I saw a New Jerusalem – but no Temple.

Today is shaped by what we see for tomorrow; we might work with stepping stones toward tomorrow, but stepping stones are not marking the finish of the journey simply the pathway. Again the vision is of the total transformation of all things, to work with the one who makes all things new.

And wonderful confusion is thrown our way. This city / Temple that fills everything, that is the bride provides light for the nations to walk in a healthy / holy direction (‘disciple all nations’), with its gates never closed (so what is outside the city?) and allowing the glory from the nations to come in, but not allowing anything unclean to enter… Is the bride the city? For sure… Can others enter? Seems that way.

I appreciate what we have here is visionary, apocalyptic imagery; but such imagery is present to communicate what we might term ‘reality’.

The identity of the Bride is for sure those who are ‘in Christ’; there seems to be those who do not get to participate in this future (‘second death’) and there seems to be room for some kind of extremely blurred edges with gates that are closed only to that which is unclean.

I am glad for the confusion! Does me good.

I am challenged by the scale of the vision. A transformed world. If John on Patmos, in captivity could communicate that kind of vision, maybe I in my small world can hold in some way to it too, along with all the ‘what will that look like?’ questions. The future, even when a little blurred to sight, is more than enough to shape me… and the rest of humanity.

Thank you John. Thank you MLK… The dream is alive.

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Revelation 21:9-21

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Biblical Observations

Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” And in the spirit he carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. It has the glory of God and a radiance like a very rare jewel, like jasper, clear as crystal. It has a great, high wall with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates are inscribed the names that are the names of the twelve tribes of the Israelites: on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city has twelve foundations, and on them are the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
The angel who talked to me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls.. The city has four equal sides, its length the same as its width, and he measured the city with his rod, twelve thousand stadia; its length and width and height are equal. He also measured its wall, one hundred forty-four cubits by human measurement, which the angel was using. The wall is built of jasper, while the city is pure gold, clear as glass. The foundations of the wall of the city are adorned with every jewel; the first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. And the twelve gates are twelve pearls, each of the gates is a single pearl, and the street of the city is pure gold, transparent as glass.

We come to the identity of the bride that has been prepared. ‘In the spirit’ is the fourth time we read this phrase in the book of Revelation. First time is in the opening chapter that sets the whole book in motion: a vision of the resurrected, glorified Jesus… second time is a big overview vision of the throne room of God, a vision that stands in total contrast to the throne of Caesar with his 24 advisors around his throne; third time is a vision of Babylon and her judgement… and here is the final ‘in the Spirit’ marker. Jesus – throne – the battle and opposition – and the eschaton.

Twelve gates, twelve angels, twelve apostles, twelve tribes, twelve foundations. Twelve… always symbolising government, understood not as ruling over in a dominion sense but being the means through which the ‘kingdom’ of God comes. ‘Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven’ is now fully fulfilled.

Two remarkable aspects are noted about the ‘size’ of the city. It is cubic – length, breadth and height are the same. That points us back to the only other shape in Scripture that is cubic – the very holy of holies; and the size is the size of the then known world – more or less the size of the oikoumene, the Imperial kingdom that was offered to Jesus by the ‘devil’. The Temple in Jerusalem was a compromise… courts for women, for Gentiles, and ultimately a ‘holy of holies’ marked out as sacred. All exposed (exploded) by the death of Jesus, with a curtain ripped in two. And here the ultimate – no more courts, only a holy of holies, the presence of God in fullness throughout all of creation. Truly a parousia (an appearing) of God, a making visible of the reality that is hidden. Little wonder we will read ‘I saw no Temple’ in the city!

The measurement used was of gold – symbolic of wealth that comes from creation – and the measurement was both a human and an angelic one (I think a better translation would be ‘by human measurement, which is also an angel measurement). Angels and humans at last in harmony; both servants of God working together. We tend either to ignore the angelic, or we colonise their activity. Imagine if both are free to work their side of the partnership!

The one story of Scripture comes together. The foundations from the apostolic work; the gates from the call of the twelve tribes. Gates that protect, that allow for prosperity and release; foundations that are for the total transformation of the world. Again we come to see that the work of the kingdom is not to be reduced to ‘hands up for salvation’ and then we ‘plant a church’ but to work for the total transformation of the world, with a focus on the foundations.

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