5 minute Bible

Igorot Beggar photo by martiniko

Peter gets some powerful lines in these two great chapters :) Since I was a child I’ve loved his: “I don’t have silver and gold, but what I do have I’ll give you. Get up and walk!” So different from what we usually hear… And then when faced by the authorities he talks about his Master as the “Stone the builders rejected” quoting Ps 118:22. This superb Psalm all through contrasts human power and “protection” with God’s steadfast love that endures forever…

So in these chapters, two powerful reminders from Peter that Christian faith is NOT about human power, just the opposite. And the challenge of hearing how the first Christians lived. The Bible is perspicuous, we just wish we could remain blind and deaf!

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OK this story must be one of the best-known that Jesus ever told, everyone has heard it! And if not (at least if they speak English or French or just about any other European language) they know the main character’s name – The Good Samaritan. Except that, what we know if we know this, is all wrong!

Jesus was a prophet so to understand what he’s doing here we need to remind ourselves how Prophets work. So after a quick recap on prophets we think about what Jesus the prophet is doing when he tells this story.

For more on prophets try these:

• E100-36: 2 Samuel 11:1 – 12:25: David and Bathsheba?
• E100 Week 10: Prophets: three principles to unlock the code
• E100-46: Isaiah 51:1 – 53:12: Reading prophets for pleasure and profit
• E100-47: Jeremiah 1:1 – 3:5: Getting started as a prophet
• E100-50: Malachi 1:1 – 4:6: The book that makes the bridge

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Malachi is a short prophetic book, the name Malachi just means “my messenger” which seems to be what the speaker calls himself. It has no more details of time, place or person in the superscription (as most prophetic books do), but the content suggests Judah after the exile under Persian rule.

The book opens opens with a strong statement of Yahweh’s election of Israel, using hyperbole (exageration) to make it’s impact. “Malachi” accuses his audience of being willing to obey and seek to please humans but not God! He calls for proper sacrifice cf. pre-exilic prophets who were less impressed by sacrifice. The book usually signals when others words are being imagined, making it easier to read.

It addresses priests much of the time and the greater importance of priests, sacrifice and law/torah is a feature that suggests the time when Israel was province.

Malachi’s mix of concern for the here and now and for the future is typical of prophetic books, but this book is more weighted to future than most. More than any other short prophetic book Malachi prepares for and links to the New Testament.

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These four chapters tell the story of God’s prophet Jonah (who attentive Bible students know from 2 kings 14:25:

He restored the border of Israel from Lebo-hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the LORD, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet, who was from Gath-hepher.

This true prophet runs away from  God, says a long prayer inside a fish, preaches a five word sermon and converts the capital of an unusually brutal empire, and then tells God off grumpily! The story of Jonah is told in ways that cause us to laugh, or at least smile. This book is funny from beginning to end – which is different from other Bible books even though many of them contain humour see the podcasts here.

What’s going on? and Why’d he do it?

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There are a number of podasts if you want more on Jonah, or I have some study notes on the book of Jonah (not yet quite finished, or a longer lecture on Jonah.

In this 5 minute recording I try to introduce Daniel, a book that has been placed among the prophets in Christian Bibles (following the tradition of the old Greek translation) but is not a “prophet” in the Hebrew Bible. The book contains two sorts of material, stories about Daniel, like this one “Daniel in the Lions’ Den”, and records of Daniel’s visions, which seem to speak in a half hidden coded language. The visions are rather like Revelation in the New Testament, and scholars class both as “apocalyptic” (from the Greek for uncover or reveal what is hidden). The stories are most like the stories of Joseph and Esther.

I also suggest that reading chapter 6 (Daniel in the Lions’ Den) with chapter 3 (The burning firey furnace) adds an important link between Daniel and the Christian message in the New Testament.

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