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E100: Week 14: Death and resurrection

April 17, 2011 1 comment

Photo by Glen's Pics

Gospels are not biographies, nor are they just collections of sayings, they focus on Jesus’ death and resurrection. Without either event can’t understand Jesus or the gospel. But we also to see and understand that Jesus is God incarnate and that Jesus is risen else his dearth and the disciples turnaround between end of gospels and Acts  makes no sense.

This week’s readings bring to fruition the message we heard time and again in the Old Tedstament, that the only true God is Yahweh, the one who will be with and for us, this God is Yeshua (in English – Jesus) “he saves”.

So, here’s the link to the audio:
E100: Week 14: Death and resurrection

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E100-78: Acts 15:1 – 15:41: The Council at Jerusalem

August 4, 2010 No comments

Oh, boy! Oh, boy :) What a chapter!? This chapter, full of the minutes of, or rather a report on, the first recorded business meeting of the Christian church, both raises and solves a huge problem Christians have with Scripture, and comes close to, but avoids two of the commonest contemporary (in New Zealand Baptist churches at least – and you can tell me if things are similar in your church) heresies about church government ;)

What a rich treat! And I only have 5 minutes :( You must remind me to return to this rich treat after the E100 is over…

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E100-77: Acts 13:1 – 14:28: The First Missionary Journey

August 3, 2010 No comments

Paul’s summarises the Old Testament story from a Jewish-Christian perspective as a world looking for a saviour. Then John showed that still “today” not just in ancient times people are looking for a saviour. Jesus not only died, but rose, and this is the keeping of God’s ancient promises. In Jesus God fills out, fully, the hopes and promises of the past. In Jesus, we are set free from sin - sin is not a trendy term today, but we still suffer from living in a world that is wrong. The advert reminds us that while we sream of how things would be “in a perfect world” we don’t live in a perfect world! That’s what sin is, our share in the brokenness of the world, and Jesus begins to put it right starting with us!

Why was the message not popular? Because salvation becomes something we can not earn. Because God does not only choose good people (like us) to heal. Because it reduces the chance to make money out of human need.

Despite reminding us of the signs and clues to God’s power and love in the everyday gifts of food and sunshine Paul’s gospel is not all sunshine. He was no more a prosperity gospel televangelist than Jesus was!

Strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith, they said: “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.”

This is encouragement!

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E100-76: Acts 9:1 – 9:31: The Road to Damascus

August 2, 2010 No comments

Road to Damascus today photo by upyernoz

“The Road” or “The Way” common Biblical picture language for a way of life or the direction we are “going”, but it is also used several times in Acts (almost, or probably, only in Acts) as a name for being a Christian. It is a good name because metanoia, repentance, is about turning round and going a different way. Acts also is a book about journeys, with lots of individual voyages, and also the journey of the gospel from Jerusalem to Rome – from Jewish sect to global faith.

In this chapter we hear of Paul’s journeys – the one he planned and the one he ended up taking, that took him from being persecutor to preacher, from grand inquisitor to ardent follower.

The other name for Christian followers in this chapter is the adelphoi, brothers and sisters – it’s interesting question what is a good literal translation today of adelphoi for though the singular adelphos means a brother, and a different word means a sister, often the plural adelphoi explicitly includes women as well as men. So, usually in Bible (unless we have reason to believe only men are meant) the best rendering today is “brothers and sisters”.

Paul’s story is a great example too of how God takes and uses people as they are, does not remake us into different people but redeems the ones we are. So, Saul the enthusiast, stringent, hard-line Pharisee enforcer becomes Paul the ardent, flexible but demanding Christian evangelist.

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E100-75: Acts 10:1 – 11:18: Good News for All

July 30, 2010 No comments

"Beyond the Pale" - Trim Castle, on the south bank of the Boyne, was an outpost to protect "the Pale" the Norman invaders' enclave around Dublin.(Photo by William Murphy)

In Matt 26 when Peter was supposed to be praying with Jesus he went to sleep, here a similar physical need interrupts his prayer, he’s hungry (in Peter’s retelling says he fell asleep here too :) But God uses the two situations quite differently – here his hunger gives him a vision!

When God says… !

OK God’s message to Peter is quite clear, the behavioural rules that we think measure God’s favour don’t
the good news of God’s love is for everyone. But what about those food laws? This vision is not about food laws, but about the God who made them.

Those rules marked out a people. Those who keep these rules are part of this people…  But Jesus regularly broke the rules – and in breaking them healed. Peter and Paul do the same.

Reading Acts 10-11 with Acts 15  and especially Gal 2 poses all sorts of headaches for historians. However, one thing seems quite clear, despite this vision, and probably despite Peter’s triumph in Jerusalem, one day in Antioch he has a relapse :( The good news is that Bible heroes even people like Peter, with his vision, his triumph in Jerusalem and everything can fail – just like me, and you!

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E100-73: Acts 6:8 – 8:8: Stephen the witness

July 28, 2010 No comments

In a valley in a remote (predominantly Animist) area of Thailand the huge cross on this church witnesses to the new faith of the valley's owner.

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 on Israelite unbelief and  presenting Jesus as fulfillment of old old story (Acts 7:35-37). In vv.48-49 he presents the temple too as foreshadowing what Jesus fulfills.

Literary foreshadowing with Saul as the witness to the death of Stephen the witness.

If we believe what Stephen says, how can we avoid witnessing to Jesus? If Christ has done things for us, so that we know what God offers humanity in him, surely we too must witness…. God has a track record in the OT that is consistent (indeed fulfilled) in Jesus and God has a track record today (also consistent with Jesus) in our lives….
NB at the beginning of Acts 8 we see the actions and the words of these witnesses align – how about our life and our words?

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E100-72: Acts 3:1 – 4:37: The rejected stone

July 27, 2010 No comments

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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E100-71: Acts 2:1–47: The Day of Pentecost

July 26, 2010 No comments

Using a photo by Stacirl (some see a face in the flames)

What a chapter! What a day!

An unheard of miracle that foreshadows the spread of the gospel to all the world and the fellowship that transcends frontiers and cultures. Like in Joel everyone receives God’s Spirit, young as well as old, women and men alike, slave and free, the Spirit bursts all human categories. Indeed death could not hold him down – Jesus lives in his people, the work continues!

Is it now you’ll begin to reign? Yes, but not in a tawdry political kingdom. Jesus is lord and Messiah (king), not by popular vote, but by declaration of God. No wonder there were 3000 converts that day!

42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.  43 Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles.  44 All who believed were together and had all things in common;  45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.  46 Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts,  47 praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

That couldn’t last, once Jesus return proved to be more than a few years off, they had to get haircuts and real jobs :(
But what a shame we’ve lost so much of that sense of togetherness in God…

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E100-70: Acts 1:1 – 11: The Ascension

July 23, 2010 No comments

Roman game scratched into pavement in 1st Century Jerusalem (Photo by hoyasmeg)

Luke begins his sequel to the gospel “In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning… but his summary ocuses on the resurrection and stresses that it was real.

He then reports the risen Jesus telling the disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the Spirit, who he calls “the promise of the Father” then Jesus echoes the start of the gospel story in Luke 3:

John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. (Acts 1:5)

They ask him if he’s going to start reigning now, but he replied:

It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.

At a stroke doing away with most of what Christians think of as “prophecy”! But offers something better…

[This podcast will contain also a reminiscence of OT scholar David Clines in Jerusalem.]

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