This ‘cast continues the theme of Jesus as the “fulfilment” of Scripture, looking at one topic that’s been settled for decades, and another that’s as hot as today’s headlines. (At least here in NZ where a bill to criminalise parents spanking children is set to become law...
Matthew often says that Jesus “fulfilled” some passage from the Old Testament. What does he mean? This ‘cast begins to explore this question. ...
My tradition (the Baptist part of the Nonconformist or radical Reformation) has stressed the idea that Scripture is perspicuous, that the Bible is easy to understand, and that anyone can understand it – or at least grasp its essentials – without special training or equipment. Yet there are for sure some difficult passages. There are [&hellip...
The book calls itself the apokalupsis of Jesus Christ – the revelation the disclosure of hidden things – so like parts of Daniel it will show us glimpses “behind the scenes” of the world letting us see a bit of what Christ is doing off stage. This means (paradoxically) that this book requires us to [&hellip...
The “Pastoral epistles” 1 & 2 Tim and Titus offer advice to two young companions of Paul’s travels called to church leadership – Timothy, in the big city of Ephesus and Titus on the island of Crete. There is even more debate about whether these letters were written by Paul than was the case for [&hellip...
Stephen is a “martyr” (in English that means someone who dies for their beliefs, but in Greek it means someone who bears witness to their faith). Stephen points to Jesus, and witnesses to truth – even at expense of speaking against “holy” things. In his defense he retells the story of salvation Heilsgeschichte but focused [&hellip...
The last reading last week about the ascension of Jesus to heaven explained that soon the Spirit would come. The disciples might not know all the secrets of God (as religions forever claim to do), but they will experience and share God’s power. Then in the first reading this week we move from the ascension [&hellip...
I have not focused these 5 Minutes on how Is 53 speaks so clearly about Jesus, it is the Old Testament passage that is most clearly, directly and simply fulfilled in Christ. But that status should not make it paradigmatic for undedrstanding how Jesus fulfills Scripture. For more on that (and there is nothing on [&hellip...
Solomon’s prayer understands that Yahweh is a different God, the gods (like Ba’al and his crowd) lived in the sky – and lanced thunderbolts down on people they disliked – heaven/sky was like the earth only bigger and better. When Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev said “Gagarin flew [&hellip...
There’s a nasty cycle that repeats time and again in Judges, and that forms a theme of the history in the books of Samuel and Kings too: Israel forgets that Yhwh is the ONE who has given them everything they start to worship/serve other Gods God allows an enemy to oppress them they call to [&hellip...
