5 minute Bible

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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This chapter is a big sack of parables, and we’ve already seen that a parable is in essence a comparison, where light is thrown on something by talking about something else, better known or more clear or vivid. The parable of the the sower is particularly complicated and developed, with lots of details but still turns on a comparison. Though Jesus does not (at first) tell his audience what it is, he wants them to think: “if you have ears then hear!”

There is an English proverb that’s pretty close to Jesus puzzling saying about why he spoke in parables (Matthew 13:10-15). It helps us to understand what is going on and shows us how the Sower is all about grace (not being a more efficient evangelist) but that grace can only work when the soil is ready – you have to want to be saved!

We’ll also notice how Matthew like Luke (maybe they both copied the same Master?) puts parables together so that they help explain each other. I’ll also suggest that talk of a fire that will burn up the dud fish and the tares makes better sense if we are willing to give over the right to judge to God, and not to think we can know the rules God MUST apply. (See Jonah on that :)

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There are some technical details to explain: what a “hymn” is (not a long old-fashioned worship song), what it means to “bless God” and the meaning of hesed. But mainly this podcast aims to encourage you to  hear the celebration of the creator God who is gracious, even to those who do not deserve it, merciful and above all faithful. It’s a beautiful psalm, that expresses how God is not “a god” clearly and sharply, and it just begs us to join in blessing Yahweh!

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Well, Judges was thoroughly censored for E100, as it is for most church use, the bits we got were the rare good bits, cf. my Twisted tales: or should the book of Judges be censored? (which got me into trouble with a fundamentalist who could not be bothered to actually listen to what I was saying before condemning me to hell – so it may be worth listening to ;)

Ruth is about “redemption”, the need for husband for Ruth and so a baby to continue the “house of Elimelek” and to provide for the two widows, and so it’s about the primary virtue of the OT (and of redeemers) “hesed” faithfulness/love/kindness in covenant relationships.

So Ruth (in the Christian Bible placed between Judges and Samuel) redeems:

• it echoes and redeems the ancestral stories of failure: Judah and Tamar
• it announces and prefigures David (remember David & foreign woman, Bathsheba?) and redeems him
• it stands between the terror and chaos of Judges and presents a world where God’s virtue is revealed in his creatures lives!

An everyday tale of country folk – but crammed with theology and incidentally a crackingly well-told tale with no violence, death or hatred, but which keeps our interest all through :)

I have a few other podcasts on this lovely book.

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Basalt Stele of the god Hadad on a bull with a thunderbolt in hand from Arslan Tash (Tiglath-Pileser III, c.744-727BC

This passage was probably chosen because it contains two famous “Bible stories”, the Golden Calf (in which a priest does what the people want, and becomes so successful that drunkenness, idolatry and other stupidity reigns) and the time Moses got to see God’s backside. But more troublingly it is another passage where God commands and demands killing. I can’t offer easy answers, indeed in one 5 minute podcast what did you expect ;) but I will return to these passages and examine the issue in podcasts outside this E100 series.

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