To learn more about any of the books listed, click on the
name of the book, and you will be directed to a discussion of its text.
The Book of Genesis: The word “Genesis” means “beginnings,” and “beginnings” are
the subject of this book.
There is the
beginning of creation: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth.” With the creation of Adam and Eve, the human race begins. With their
disobedience, human sin begins. Cain is the first human being to murder another
human being. For the first time, humanity becomes so evil that God decides to
destroy what he has made. With Noah, there is the first salvation and later the
first sacrifice, and God makes the first decision never to destroy humanity
again. But we don’t learn. We try to build a tower that reaches to the heavens,
and God has to disperse us throughout the earth.
There is a new
beginning with Abraham. God calls him to be the father of a people that will
bless, instead of curse, all the peoples. A second “patriarch” is called,
Isaac, then a third, Jacob. This time, through human evil, the people of Israel
are brought to Egypt, where through the intervention of God, they are saved
from drought and famine. There seems to be a new beginning for Israel in the
person of Joseph.
We have to note
that every person we read about in Genesis is a flawed human being. Adam and
Eve disobey God’s one command. Cain kills his brother. (Well, perhaps Enoch
[5:21-24] is an exception; he “walked with God,” and then God took him.) All
the other people sin and have to be destroyed in the flood. Even Noah, whom God
saved from the flood, became drunk when it was over and shamelessly revealed
himself to his sons. Abraham tried to kill his son, Isaac, thinking that God
wanted him to do it. Isaac preferred one son over another. Jacob was a
perpetual deceiver. The brothers of Joseph sold him into slavery. Even Joseph,
for all his good qualities, was arrogant and conceited and insulted his family
with his dreams. No wonder Reformers like John Calvin, in reading the book of
Genesis, began to talk about “original sin,” the sin at the origin of things
that rolled through the generations and infected everything it touched.
Perhaps Joseph is
the one “role model” in the book of Genesis. His conceit and arrogance is
overcome by what he has suffered, and he becomes the model of good governance
for later Israel to follow. He too is the one who recognizes that “humanity
seeks to do evil, but God seeks to do good” (50:20), and this is certainly a
theme that Genesis develops. In the midst of all his human folly and tragedy,
God seeks to being good from the evil.
Such a God. God is
the creating one, the caring one, the covenanting one, the chastising one, the
one who constantly brings good out of human evil. God is the one who is the
center of the story of Genesis; we do not read Genesis well if we do not become
better acquainted with this amazing God. This may be the “blessing” that God
keeps promising people in Genesis, the “blessing” of becoming acquainted with
this astonishing God.
God is also the
tragic figure in the book of Genesis. God keeps trying to “get it right.”
Humanity keeps “getting it wrong.” What is God to do? God will keep trying
until God does “get it right” in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. The book of
Genesis finally finds it fulfillment in the person of the Christ.
This book is not
all of one piece. Many generations, many voices contributed to it. We can
identify at least three of these.
One is called by
the letter “E.” “E” represents the oldest strand of Genesis. These stories and
accounts call God “el” (from which the name E derives), and that is usually
translated as simply “God.” When we see that generic name, we are probably
reading material that comes from E. E also emphasizes that the People of God
are always being tested. Abraham was “tested” when he was about to sacrifice
Isaac, and that story probably comes from E. Joseph was “tested” by the wife of
Potiphar when he was brought to Egypt, and that part of the story also comes
from E. E was put into its form, most likely, during the days after the Exodus
from Egypt when Israel was a confederation of tribes in Canaan and in the days
before David became king.
The second strand
of material is called “J.” This stands for the name of God “Jehovah,” that name
that combined “Yahweh” and “Adonai.” “Yahweh” was the name the unknown God gave
to reveal himself to Moses, and it means “I AM,” or “I am about to do what I
decide to do.” “Adonai” was the name for the one who is Lord of the people. But
instead of saying either word (each was too sacred, too awesome to be spoken),
the two were joined together in the one word “Jehovah,” the first letter of
which became the name by which these cycles of stories were written.
J also stands for
Judah, the tribe from which David and Solomon came and a leading tribe in the
establishment of the kingdom of Israel and later Judah. This indicates the time
of writing of the J material: it comes from the days when David and Solomon
were kings over the people.
Much, perhaps
most, of the material in Genesis comes to us from J. The account of Adam and
Eve is from J. Most of the stories of the patriarchs are from J. As much as we
can recover it from the midst of Genesis, it is a remarkable writing. Its
accounts continue through Exodus, through some of Leviticus and Numbers, and on
into Joshua, Judges, the Samuels and the Kings.
The third set of writings
come from a source called “P.” These are the writings that tell us about
matters that were important to the priests of Israel. By the time the stories
were written down, the leading priestly family in Israel was that of Zadok, who
was high priest in Jerusalem when David conquered that city. The priestly
family had their own concerns, and they incorporated them into Genesis. They
were concerned about keeping the sabbath, so in their story of creation, they
picture the climax of that story as that of God keeping the sabbath. They were
concerned about sacrifice, so they pictured Noah performing the first sacrifice
as he alights from the ark. They were concerned about who could rightly claim
the title of priest, an hereditary title, so they introduced many genealogies
into the story.
We are indebted to
them for two things above all. The account of creation given in Genesis One
comes from them, and all of us are enriched by their telling of their majestic
story of God creating the heavens and the earth. They were also the ones who
edited Genesis into its final form. They did this while the people of Judah
were in exile in Babylon.
So Genesis comes
to us from many times and through many voices. Its story were first written
down in the years between 1150 and 1000 BC, though many of the stories that are
told go back to the years 2000 to 1500 BC. The stories were brought up to date
during the time of David and Solomon, and that is roughly 1000 to 925 BC. There
were put into their final form in the years from 580 to 540 BC, while the
people were exiled in Babylon.
The stories in
Genesis five through eleven come from an earlier time than any of the above.
Except for the story of Noah, told by all three writers, they are mostly
genealogies, which means they were the possession of the priests as they tried
to trace their lineage as far into the past as it was possible to go. They
could best be called “pre-histories,” accounts reaching back to a time before
Abraham, and they are the least reliable when we are looking for historical and
verifiable facts.
Yet the amazing
thing about Genesis is that its whole is greater than its parts. It is good to
know that the stories come from times that we can identify, for that helps us
in our interpretation of them. It is good to know the interests and concerns
that caused E to write, and J, and P. But when we know of this, we still read
the book as a whole without breaking it down into its parts. The whole of it
tells how God deals with humanity in the persons of Adam and Eve, Abraham and
Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel, and Joseph and his brothers. When
we read this book over and again, we come to know better and better how God
deals with us yet today.
Return to top of page
The Book of Exodus: The story of the book of Exodus is the account of God
bringing the people out of slavery in Egypt. The word “exodus” means precisely
that. It is “ex,” “out of” and “odos,” road. Exodus is “the road out.” To lead
the people out of Egypt, God chose the man Moses, and Moses’ became God’s agent
of delivery.
The first fourteen
and one-half chapters of Exodus tell of Hebrews in Egypt and of God’s attempts
through Moses to get them out of the land of their slavery. From 15:22 to the
end of chapter eighteen, we trace the movement of the tribes as they fled
through the wilderness from Egypt to the mountain of God. 19:1-20:21 tell of
the establishment of the covenant between God and God’s people; this is
continued in 24:1-11. In 20:22-23:33 there is a code of ancient law to which
scholars have given the name “The Book of the Covenant.” The remainder of the
Book of Exodus, 24:12-40:38,is largely concerned with matters of Israelite
worship.
But the main story
in Exodus is the story of God and Moses, and to that story we turn.
Moses lived during
the period when the people of Israel were enslaved in Egypt. These tribes, who
traced their lineage to Jacob, son of Isaac son of Abraham, had come into Egypt
during a time of famine some generations earlier. Having flourished while
Joseph, Jacob's son, was prime minister of Egypt, their position had
deteriorated steadily until under Ramses II, whose long reign covered the years
1290 to 1224 BC, they had become mere slaves of the powerful Pharaoh.
One of Ramses'
first acts when he came to the throne was to relocate his capital to a site in
the Nile delta. He chose this location partly because his family had had long
associations with this territory but primarily because it commanded the
entrance to both Egypt and Canaan. Here he could defend his country against
hostile incursions from the east, and from here he could send out his own
armies to re-establish Egyptian control over Canaan and the lands beyond.
Ramses -- one of Egypt's abler rulers and certainly its most vain; he placed
statues depicting his royal presence at every crucial point throughout Egypt,
numbers of which are standing still today in Cairo, Luxor and Abu Simbul --
used slaves to build his cities, and since the alien Israelites were already
living in nearby Goshen, they were incorporated into the slave-gangs engaged in
Ramses' construction projects.
In or near this
newly-built capital city, at some undated time in the reign of Ramses, Moses
was born. His mother was not able to keep the child, however; the Israelite
population was increasing so rapidly that the Pharaoh had ordered all male
Israelite babies to be exterminated at birth. His mother placed the infant in a
rush basket, sealed it tight with clay and tar, and hid him among the reeds by
the bank of the Nile. He was rescued from the river by an Egyptian princess,
who reared him in the court of Pharaoh himself. Moses, however, continued to
think of himself as an Israelite; and when as a young man he saw an Egyptian
overseer mistreating Hebrew slaves, he struck out at the overseer and killed
him. The deed became known, and Moses was forced to leave Egypt. He fled into
the nearby wilderness where he lived with a tribe of Kenites, a clan who may
have considered Cain to be their founder.
In his lifetime,
Moses was to make three original contributions to the faiths of Judaism and
Christianity. The first came while he was in exile among the Kenites. While
there he received a new understanding of the divine name of God.
It happened when
Moses was in the field tending sheep. His attention was drawn to a bush that
appeared to be burning but was not consumed by the fire. In the Old Testament,
fire was frequently a symbol for some revelation of God, and Moses immediately
recognized it as such. He stood before the bush and received directions for the
mission he was about to perform for God and God's people. Moses at once wanted
to know whether his call was from God so he asked a question common to Egypt in
that day; among no other people of antiquity was the search for a hidden divine
name as intense as it was among the Egyptians. Moses said to God, "What is
your name?" God replied in an enigmatic manner: "I am who I am. Tell
them, I am has sent you."
In the Old
Testament this strange phrase, "I am who I am," is the
self-designation of God. By so naming himself, God was giving an insight into
his character: "I will do what I will do." In other words, God
controls his own destiny; he is the one who can say of himself, "I will
put into practice the plans I conceive." Can any other than God say this?
No human is able to make this assertion; no one has such complete control over
his own life as to support this claim. Each is always bounded by other people,
other events, by his own place, his own personality, by the conditions of the
time in which he lives; these place limits upon all human actions. But God
suffers from no such limitations, and he is able to say, "I will do what I
will do and bring into being what I intend."
Moses' second
contribution was his demonstration of God as a deliverer. With Moses as his
agent, God's character as deliverer was clearly seen in Israel's exodus from
Egypt.
The impact of the
exodus can be described in a few words. One day the people of Israel were
enslaved in Egypt struggling to build the cities of Ramses under the direction
of their Egyptian taskmasters. A few days later, the Israelites were in the
desert, free to worship their God and to follow God's directions. They said,
"God is our deliverer; God has delivered us from slavery in Egypt."
The delivery was
dramatic. The Pharaoh of the time, probably one of the sons of Ramses and
therefore a childhood friend of Moses, had not wanted to let this people go.
Their labor as slaves was too valuable to the Egyptians to be surrendered
voluntarily. At Moses' insistence, however, and under the influences of deadly
plagues that engulfed Egypt one after another, Pharaoh was persuaded to send
the Israelites into the wilderness. When they were about to leave, Pharaoh
changed his mind and sent his troops and chariots to bring them back. As the
Israelites drew near to the edge of the water, they were able to pass unharmed
through the sea. By the time the Egyptians and their chariots had entered upon
the same territory, the winds had blown back the waves, and the horses and
their riders were drowned. These covering waters created a barrier between
Egyptians and Israelites, and the Egyptians could no longer exercise
sovereignty over Israel. Instead, God was their sovereign. God only was the one
to whom they had to answer for their own lives.
The precise nature
of this deliverance is difficult to describe. The difficulty arose because the
story was told over and over again in Israelite circles, and as the years
passed there was an increasing tendency to stress the miraculous aspect of it.
Such an interpretation need not be given it and may not have been in the
earliest accounts. Plagues of frogs, gnats and flies are common occurrences in
the Nile Delta, and hail, locusts, and darkness are natural phenomena that
recur with regularity in the region. Even the deliverance at the edge of the
water may have been the result of natural phenomena. It may have been only a
small portion of the Sea that opened to Moses and the Hebrews, and a wind may have
blown the water back for a time. Nevertheless, while from our vantage point we
may be able to give a natural meaning to each of the events, this is not the
interpretation that Moses and the people of Israel gave to them. Scripture
stresses these things: that there was a deliverance, that God was the
deliverer, and that in his act of deliverance God created for himself a people
of God. In Moses' second contribution he became the agent through whom the true
character of God was made known, namely, that God is the one who delivers his
people from those things to which they are in bondage.
Moses' third major
contribution to our faith involved the covenant God made through him with
Israel.
Moses brought his
usual dramatic flair to this event. He led the liberated people to the base of
Mount Sinai where he had them prepare themselves for three days. On the morning
of the third day there were thunders and lightning, and a thick cloud upon the
mountain, and a loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp
trembled. Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God and they took
their stand at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke and
the whole mountain quaked. As the sound of the trumpet grew louder, Moses spoke
and God answered him in thunder.
The drama of the
event may obscure the most important occurrence of that day. Here Moses took a
form of organization of the political life of his time and applied it to the
relationship between God and God’s people. This application was unique. With
the exception of the acts of Jesus himself, it is the most important
contribution ever made in the history of religions to describe the dealings God
has with mankind. At Mount Sinai Moses bound Israel in a covenant- treaty with
God.
This suzerainty
treaty, which Moses employed, was operative in the Mideast at this time and
within Moses' lifetime had been introduced into Egyptian affairs. The suzerain,
or sovereign, who enacted the treaty was no mere ordinary king but a monarch
who claimed authority over other kings. Suzerainty treaties were the means by
which the reigning king reached out to bring smaller and weaker nations under
his control and protection. These covenants contained the following five parts:
A preamble that
identified the king who gave the treaty.
A prologue which
gave a detailed presentation of the historical relation between the great king
and his vassal and which always stressed the benevolence of the great king
toward the vassal.
Stipulations of
the covenant. Chief among them was the prohibition against the vassal having
relationships with any other king. So long, however, as the vassal did not
recognize any king above the great king, he was given reasonable freedom in the
conduct of the internal affairs of his own kingdom.
Sealing the
covenant: each contained a statement that the document should be read publicly
at stated intervals, to remind the vassal king and his people of their
relationship to the great king.
Blessings and
curses: those who kept the covenant were blessed and those who broke it were to
be severely punished.
All five parts of
the suzerainty treaty are present in the agreement between God and his people,
as delivered by Moses. When God spoke from the mountain, he said to the people,
"I am the lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of
the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me." In this God
identified himself as the great king who gave the covenant, and he described
his relations with Israel, namely, that he was the God who brought them from
slavery in Egypt. Then, in the familiar words of the Ten Commandments, Israel
was given the stipulations by which the people were to live. Later portions of
the Book of Exodus completed the presentation: blessings and curses were given
for those who kept the covenant and for those who broke it, and a statement was
added that the covenant was to be read publicly at stated intervals. This
action of Moses was unique. No other people of that time interpreted their
national life so completely in terms of a solemn covenant with a single divine
sovereign as did Israel under Moses.
He was wounded for
our transgressions.
He was bruised for
our iniquities.
He poured out his
soul to death
and was numbered
with the transgressors,
yet he bore the
sins of many
and made
intercession for the transgressors.
The impact of
Moses, the pioneering person, was not confined to these chapters in Exodus,
however. It continued to emerge throughout the rest of Scripture. When Elijah
challenged King Ahab, the prophet returned to the mountain of God, where
formerly Moses had stood, to receive inspiration from both God and his
spokesman. In the time of reform under King Josiah, when Judah erased all pagan
influences from her life and turned anew to the God of Israel, Moses was the
guide and inspiration for these reforms. The prophet Isaiah of Babylon, in the
exile of Judah, invoked again the divine name that had sounded under Moses, and
the message of God's deliverance was powerfully proclaimed once more. There was
a later time under Nehemiah when, in the name of Moses, the people were called
to renew their allegiance to God as Moses in the wilderness had called them to
loyalty to Yahweh. In the New Testament as well, the name of Moses is
mentioned. Most significantly it came in the transfiguration of Jesus. Jesus
had gone up to a high mount similar in importance to the mountain of Sinai, and
in the presence of his disciples he had been transfigured. Two figures out of
the past appeared and conversed with Jesus; one of them was Moses. The
influence of Moses began in his own lifetime and extended into the time of
Jesus Christ himself, who was to take each of Moses' contributions to religion
and in Jesus' unique way make them central in the life of Jesus' own unique
people.
As in the Book of
Genesis, many sources flowed into the construction of this book. E had a hand
in it, and so did J. D, the so-called “Deuteronomic Source,” did some of the
editing of the book. The “Deuteronomists” were a reform movement in Judah which
began with the prophet Isaiah of Jerusalem and continued through the time of
Josiah into the period of exile. They tried to make adherence to the law of
Moses the chief feature of the religion of Judah, and we can trace their hand
as they edited portions of Exodus. The Priestly source, P, played a large part
in the construction of this book. The detailed instructions about Passover
(11:9-12:20 and following) come from them, as do the closing chapters of
Exodus, 24 through 40. (There are some accounts in these closing chapters that
can be attributed to JE, but most of the material comes from the Priestly
writers.)
“The Book of the
Covenant, chapters 21 through 23, is a unique document in the Old Testament. As
it stands now, this code is attached to the Ten Commandments and is a further
attempt to explicate the meaning of being a tribal unit in the Israelite
confederacy. In its present form, however, this code could not have been given
by Moses in the desert since most of its provisions were irrelevant to desert
living. The code regulated slavery, livestock and property; outlined penalties
for various types of assault and murder; and contained a lengthy section about
personal morality, including sexual conduct, treatment of widows and orphans,
lying, and the rights of the oppressed. It concluded with laws about the
sabbath and the three major feasts to be observed annually. This law was
designed not for a desert people but for a more settled community whose life
was based on agriculture.
There is no
discernible principle of systematic organization in the code, but this very
fact gives important information on the way the code was originally complied. A
single precept was given to cover a general type of crime, but as the cases
before the tribal elders became more involved, their rulings became more
sophisticated. The process can be seen in the series of laws concerning murder:
"Whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death: but if he
did not lie in wait for him but God let him fall into his hands, then he may
flee for safety to the approved places: but if he willfully attacks another to
kill him treacherously, you may take him even from my alter, so that he may
die." The first ruling was clear: a man who kills another man is executed
for his crime. Then came a second and more complicated case: the man who killed
his neighbor did not do so with intent but the murder resulted from a quarrel
between them: what of him? The elders ruled that he may flee to the sacred
altar of a designated shrine in a city of refuge and remain there free from
penalty. A third case then arose: suppose the killer started the quarrel
purposely to goad his enemy into attack and in the fracas kills him, can he
escape the penalty of murder? After due deliberation the elders made another ruling
and it too took on the force of precedent: such a man may even be snatched from
the sacred altar for he must surely die for his deed. The Covenant Code was set
to regulate the common life of one Israelite tribe and it demonstrated the
increasing sophistication with which they did so as their life together became
more intricate.
Portions of this
Covenant Code were not original to this tribe either; they borrowed or amended
laws that were part of the basic legal system of Mesopotamia at a time even
before Abraham left his homeland of Ur.
As nearly as we
can reconstruct the situation, each clan or tribe in ancient Sumeria had a code
of laws to which it adhered. One very detailed code, recently discovered, came
from the ancient city-state of Eshnunna, a kingdom that flourished for a
century or more around the year 2000 B.C. This code contained precepts that
have entered directly into the Covenant Code: like Israel and all ancient
tribes, Eshnunna had trouble with oxen and they set up a series of laws to deal
with the owner of an ox who gored a person or another ox. The Covenant Code
borrowed its rules about oxen and added others to them. The Code of Eshnunna
was soon superseded in Mesopotamia by the Code of Hammurabi. Hammurabi, who
ruled from 1728 to 1686 B.C. and had through his conquests become king over a
large and diverse population, sensed the need for a single standard of law to
govern the peoples in his extensive kingdom and early in his reign he
promulgated such a standard. The laws were not original to him; most of the
individual precepts were borrowed from one or another of the codes used in
important cities in his territory. Having only one code of laws to cover
matters of marriage, slavery and debt regularized relationships between the
various populations of Hammurabi's empire so that justice could be exercised in
every part of the kingdom in a more even-handed way.
We wish we could
trace the exact path this Covenant Code traveled from Mesopotamia to Canaan
until it was set beside the Ten Commandments in Exodus but our knowledge has so
many gaps in it that this is presently impossible. These surmises do seem
defensible, however. This set of precepts came with one of the clans of Israel
as they migrated from Mesopotamia. When the group settled in Canaan, additions
were made to the code as the elders were forced to make new rulings to cover
the new situations confronting the people. Gradually, the excellence of this
code as a standard of judgment for civil and religious affairs was recognized
by more than one tribe; or perhaps this tribe was stronger than its neighbors
and forced its standards upon others. When the Book of Exodus was put into the
form in which we now have it, this code was inserted as one that demonstrated
what it meant for a people to organize their legal affairs in a way accountable
to Yahweh and also to fulfill the stipulations of the covenant God had made
with them.
Return to top of page
The Book of Psalms is the songbook of the Jerusalem temple. This temple was
first built in Jerusalem in the reign of King Solomon, approximately 950 BC. It
was destroyed by the Babylonian armies in about 586 BC, when a large portion of
the people of the small Kingdom of Judah were taken into exile in the city of
Babylon. The temple was rebuilt in the time of Nehemiah and Ezra, beginning
about 540 BC. It was remodeled in a major way by King Herod who ruled from 40
BC to 4BC; this is the same Herod who is reputed to have killed all the baby
boys in Bethlehem in an attempt to kill Jesus. The work was scarcely completed
when the Roman armies laid siege to the Holy City and burned the temple to the
ground in 70 AD. It has never been rebuilt.
Like any hymn
book, the hymns in the Book of Psalms come from a wide range of places and
times. The earliest work in developing the psalter took place in the time of
David and Solomon. In the present book Psalms 3 through 41 are credited to
David. The best guess is that these were written for or collected by priests in
charge of the worship of Solomon's temple and were used in the rituals there.
This means that all of them were composed prior to 925 B.C.
Three additional
collections appear in the psalter. Psalms 42 through 49 are credited to someone
named Korah, Psalms 73 through 83 are ascribed to Asaph, and Psalms 51 through
72 are again listed as coming from David.
Korah and Asaph
are identifiable from the Book of Chronicles. 2 Chronicles 20:19 indicates that
guilds of musicians performed services in the temple and that these guilds most
likely took their names from their founders or leaders. This offers an
additional insight into the worship of the temple. Guilds of musicians
participated in that worship; they brought their own hymn books and musical
compositions with them, and these found a place in the official hymn book of
the temple.
Other identifiable
collections have made their way into the present psalter. Psalms 84 through 89
are again credited to the guilds of Korah and Asaph, with one coming from Ethan
the Ezrahite. Psalms 93 through 135 and 146 through 150 are united by their
frequent use of the phrase "Hallelujah," which simply means
"Praise Yahweh."
Psalms 120 through
134 are called “Songs of Ascent.” They were sung by pilgrims as they made their
way from their homes in Judah and Israel to the temple of Jerusalem, and they
express the thoughts and feelings of the people as they approached the holy
throne of God in the holy city. These psalms give us insight into the way the
people of Israel and Judah thought about their worship.
At some time
during the period under consideration this psalm book was put into its present
form. It was structured into five books, each of which has an introduction and
a concluding doxology, and its structure looks like this:
Book One: Psalms
2-41
Psalms 3 through
41 were from the original Davidic collection; Psalm 2 was added as an
introduction to this collection and 41:13 was used as a concluding doxology.
Book Two: Psalms
42-72
This is the first
collection of the hymns of Korah and the second collection of the hymns of
David, with 72:18-19 as the doxology.
Book Three: Psalms
73-89
The Asaph
collection, with some miscellaneous songs, was concluded with a doxology in
89:52.
Book Four: Psalms
90-106
A psalm that is
credited to Moses, Psalm 90, was incorporated with psalms of Yahweh's kingship,
and the Hallelujah psalms, especially 106:48, provided the doxology.
Book Five: Psalms
107-150
All other psalms
were included in this final book to complete the pattern of five (e.g., five
books of the law, five major prophets) so beloved by Hebrew writers.
Psalm 150 was used
as the doxology to the completed psalter and Psalm 1 became the introduction to
the book. When these were in place sometime around 300 BC, the psalter had
taken on the form it still retains today.
Return to top of page
The Gospel of Matthew: In our New Testament, the Gospel of Matthew comes before the
Gospel of Mark. In terms of the time of their writing, the Gospel of Matthew
most likely follows the Gospel of Mark.
At first glance
the two Gospels appear to be closely related to the other one, and in many
respects that impression is accurate. Matthew took the basic outline that Mark
gave to a Gospel and employed it in his own book. He expanded upon it, however,
so much so that scholars formerly thought that Mark was an abridgement of
Matthew rather than an independent writing. The deeper one penetrates into
Matthew, however, the clearer it is that this Gospel had themes that were
indigenous to it.
The primary theme
of the book was its emphasis upon righteousness. This can be defined as
"getting on right terms with God, neighbor, self, and the world around
through Jesus Christ." The theme was set out in the scene of the baptism.
John the Baptizer wanted to know why Jesus had come to him to be baptized and
Jesus replied, "In order to fulfill all righteousness." (Matthew
3:15) The theme came to high expression in the midst of the Sermon on the Mount:
"Seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness.' (Matthew 6:33) The
last parable of Jesus given in the Gospel brought it to a fitting conclusion:
the king, seated on his throne, was about to make his judgments on the validity
of human lives and the judgments were made solely on the basis of whether the
person had acted righteously: "For I was hungry and you gave me food, I
was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was
naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and
you came to me.' (Matthew 25:35-36) The righteous person is the one who does
these things.
There seems also
to be an internal organization in this Gospel that is somewhat akin to the five
books of the Law of Moses. It is extremely dangerous to try to impress on these
ancient writings some scheme of our own for understanding them, and I do so
with reluctance; yet scholars have isolated five major sections, which they
call "books,' inside this one book:
The Book of
Discipleship chapters 3 through 7
The Book of
Apostleship chapters 8 through 10
The Book of the
Mystery chapters 11 through 13
The Book of the
Church chapters 14 through 18
The Book of the
Future chapters 19 through 25
Each section began
with narrative material and ended with teaching material; since this teaching
material was quite different and much more extensive than that of Mark's
Gospel, we are indebted to Matthew for having preserved it.
To the body of
this text two things were added: the passion story at the end, followed by its
accounts of the resurrection of Jesus, and a prologue at the beginning.
The passion
narrative has much in common with the similar narratives found in Mark and
Luke. It begins with the announcement that the Passover is coming, and the Son
of Humannkind will be handed over to be crucified. (26:2) It tells of the
conspiracy to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him; but the conspirators, chief
priests and elders of the people, want to wait until the festival is over to
carry out their plot. At Bethany Jesus is anointed by an unnamed woman; at this
moment he becomes in fact what he had hinted at before, the
"Messiah," the anointed one. After the anointing, Judas goes to the
chief priests and betrays Jesus.
This is quickly
followed by the the last supper of Jesus and his disciples; Jesus praying in
Gethsemane; his arrest; the hearing before Caiaphas, the chief priest of the
Jewish people; the three-fold denial of Peter; the repenting on the part of
Judas; Jesus' trial before Pilate; the attempt by Pilate to release Jesus; that
charge, "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews," the sentencing, and
the crucifixion.
On the cross,
Jesus cried out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!" With a loud
breath he breathed his last. At that moment, says Matthew, the curtain of the
temple was torn in two. And the centurion before the cross gave the first
confession to come from a gentile, a Roman: "Truly this man was Son of
God." Joseph of Arimathea, a disciple, took Jesus' body from the cross and
placed it in his own new tomb. Because Jesus had said he might rise again, the
Pharisees requested that Pilate place a guard over the tomb, which he did.
But the women who
had witnessed his burial went to the tomb before dawn and were met by an angel.
He invited them to see the place where Jesus was laid. The women were told to
tell the disciples that Jesus had been raised from the dead and was going
before them to Galilee. Then Jesus met them and reinforced the message:
"Tell my brothers to go to Galilee. There they will see me."
The eleven
disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.
There Jesus delivered what we know as the Great Commission: Go into all the
world and make disciples of all the nations. Baptize them and teach them. And I
will be with you to the end of the age.
This story of the
crucifixion and resurrection has much in common with the stories told in other
gospels. But Matthew's prologue was unique to him. This prologue -- our
Christmas story -- was constructed upon Old Testament passages that Matthew
found pertinent to Jesus. In his selection of text and event the author of this
Gospel went further than Mark had in pointing out how Jesus had recapitulated
in his own person the Old Testament experience.
Matthew began with
a genealogy tracing Jesus' lineage back to Abraham and he neatly schematized it
as fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen generations from David
to the deportation into Babylon, and fourteen generations from then until the
time of Christ. I have not given much attention to the numerology of the Bible,
but it is important in this instance. 'Fourteen' is 'twice seven" and
"seven' is the perfect number, Its components being 'three," the
number for heaven, and 'four," the number for earth; seven is the perfection
of everything in heaven and on earth and twice seven is infinitely better than
that -- how neat Matthew's scheme!
In the stories of
Jesus' birth, he again worked out a five- fold pattern using five Old Testament
passages as the basis of his narrative: he told how Jesus was born of a virgin;
had his nativity in the favored city of Bethlehem, the home of David; was taken
into Egypt as an infant so that God may be said to have drawn his son from
Egypt; fulfilled the prophecy of the wailing and loud lamentation of Judah as
the infants of Bethlehem were slain by Herod; went to Nazareth that he might be
called a Nazarene. It appears that Matthew did indeed draw upon some five-fold
patterns of Old Testament Scriptures to interpret the coming of Jesus Christ.
This Gospel also
exhibits a concern with problems of the organization of the church and Its
congregations. In chapters 14 through 18 especially but with hints of it
elsewhere, Matthew turned to questions about worship, theology, ethics, and
leadership which did not appear in Mark. This interest parallels a similar
movement within the Judaism of Matthew's time. When the war over Jerusalem
between Zealots and Romans ended with the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70,
rabbinic leaders settled near the town of Jamnia (called in Hebrew 'Yavneh') on
the Mediterranean coast and began to organize into meaningful patterns the oral
tradition of Judaism and to codify the Jewish laws and Scriptures. Matthew
showed a similar interest arising from a similar situation and time, and this
would indicate that this writer and his congregation were in contact with the
Jewish movements of the day.
This information
has led scholars to suppose that Matthew was writing his Gospel for a Christian
congregation composed largely of Jewish people and was attempting to interpret
Christ to people who were deeply nurtured in the Old Testament and the five
books of the Law. Since this gospel showed a knowledge of the catastrophe that
befell the Holy City in A.D. 70 and indicated much interest in the
organizational problems faced by the Christian churches after that event, I
believe this book was composed in the late seventies or early eighties of the
first century of the Christian era.
I also believe
that it was written in the Egyptian city of Alexandria and directed to the
Christian community that was developing in that city. Matthew's Gospel
reflected the condition of the church there. The struggle over the introduction
of the Christian faith into Alexandria had centered in the extensive synagogue
system already existing in that city. To win the battle in the synagogues, the
Christians had to establish the supremacy of Jesus over Moses; had to work out
the relationship between Gospel and Torah; had to affirm the teaching ministry
of Jesus in this city in which the world's first university and the
intellectual tradition that it represented played such a significant role; and
had to demonstrate the authenticity of Jesus' resurrection. Organizational
questions had to be confronted in those synagogues which had been converted
from Jewish to Christian orientation. The history of the Jewish people in Egypt
also had to be considered; Egypt was both the place of Jewish oppression under
the ancient Pharaohs and of refuge for Jews during the Maccabean times and
later, and this gospel chose to affirm the latter part of this history (Jesus
and his family found refuge in Egypt, Matthew 2:13- 15) rather than the former.
All this had to be played out against the foreground of the bitter struggle in
the Jewish sector of Alexandria during the time of the Jewish revolt in Judea
and Galilee, when Jew fought Jew over the question of actively participating
with their homeland brethren in this struggle and when Roman power in
Alexandria brutally repressed those who supported the Jewish rebels. Matthew's
Gospel accurately reflects each and all of these questions and conflicts.
Return to top of page
The Gospel of John, probably the most beloved of all the New Testament writings, is also
the one that most clearly states its purpose: "This is written that you
may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you
may have life in his name." (John 20:31) The declaration is couched in
simple words of one and two syllables. Yet this Gospel is the most complex of
all the Gospels, both in its theological understanding and in its form and
organization. As we explore the book, it is important to keep this single
purpose in mind: through this book the reader will come to comprehend the
uniqueness of the activity of God in Jesus Christ and, as we do, we will share
in the life which God shared with the Son, Jesus.
In broad outline,
John’s Gospel has a prologue; a series of events, dialogues, and monologues
that describe not only Jesus’ ministry but the purposes behind it; a scene at
the end of an event, dialogue, monologue centered around the Lord’s Supper,
concluding with Jesus’ prayer; and then the epilogue of Jesus’ death and
resurrection.
John’s Gospel
begins with the magnificent prologue that relates the ministry of Jesus to the
moment of creation (1:1-18): “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among
us, full of grace and truth.” In this prologue John introduced a number of
themes he later picked up in his Gospel: Jesus as light and life, grace and
truth; his relationship to John the Baptizer; his coming to his own and his own
not receiving him. The section was cast into poetic, almost hymnic, form and it
has absolutely mesmerized scholars. Was it a Christian hymn that John used to
introduce his work? Or a pre-Christian poem to the creating word of God, to
which John added his own theology? Was it a poem or hymn that John himself
wrote, or which was used in his community for worship of Christ? Of whatever
source, it is one of the best known and loved pieces of writing of the New
Testament and serves as a fitting introduction to Johannine theology.
In the next
section (1:19-51), titles are given to Jesus that relate him to the current
life of the Jewish people. Jesus is called the lamb of God, the King of Israel,
the Messiah, the true Israelite, the Son of God.
In chapters two
through twelve, Jesus’ ministry alternates between Judea and Galilee. He is in
Galilee for the wedding in Cana where he turns water into wine. He is in
Jerusalem when he cleanses the temple and when Nicodemus comes to him. He
withdrew to Galilee when the Pharisees heard that he was making and baptizing
more disciples even than John the Baptist was. He returned to Jerusalem for a
feast, when he healed the man who had been paralyzed for thirty-eight years. He
went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, where he fed the multitude. He
went up to Jerusalem for another festival, even though he had been warned that
he might be killed, and there he preached in the Temple. He withdrew across the
Jordan River, until he learned that his friend Lazarus was dead, and then he
came to Bethany, which was on the other side of the Mount of Olives from
Jerusalem. He raised Lazarus from the dead. He went out into the wilderness, to
the village of Ephraim, until the fateful Passover that would result in his
cross, at which point he returned to the Holy City. The Gospel of Mark and the
others spoke of a months'-long ministry in Galilee and weeks’-long one in
Judea; whereas in John much of Jesus' ministry was conducted in and around
Jerusalem, and he gave hints only of the ministry in Galilee. In a strange way
the two sets of Gospels complement each other, and both are needed to portray
the completeness of Jesus' work: Matthew, Mark, and Luke reported what Jesus
did in Galilee, and the Gospel of John related his ministry in Judea.
John’s way of
telling about Jesus’ ministry is also different from the manner it is described
in Mark and the other gospels. John would begin with a narrative, a story
similar to one told in the other Gospels. To explain the meaning of the
narrative, there would follow a dialogue which brought out some of the major
themes of the narrative. At some indiscernible point the dialogue would cease
and a monologue by Jesus would grow out of it. At least seven sections built on
this model -- more, if we count the narratives within narratives -- were incorporated
into the first twelve chapters of the Gospel of John.
Chapters thirteen
through seventeen play an important part in John’s Gospel. These chapters begin
with an account of the supper but instead of emphasizing the distribution of
the bread and cup, John centered the supper around the matter of foot washing.
Following the foot washing, Jesus expounded on the meaning of his passion. His
discourse is delivered with such solemnity that we have the feeling that he has
already been crucified and raised from the dead, to be with and converse with
his disciples forever. True greatness is one of the subjects of the talk. So
are troubled hearts, and revelation of God, and keeping Jesus’ commandments,
and the coming of the Spirit, the Counselor, and abiding in Jesus, and the
promise that they will see him soon. The climax of the discourse is his prayer,
which begins with the words, “This is life eternal, to know God and Jesus
Christ whom God has sent,” and ends with Jesus’ promise to be with his own
forever.
From there Jesus
went forth to die. John’s Gospel details his crucifixion, and his resurrection,
and we are left to ponder about this marvelous one in whom the life and love of
God was perfectly revealed. (These subjects will be discussed in detail in the
“Theological Themes,” outlined below.)
Who was the
original audience for this Gospel? We do not know for certain, but my own
hypothesis is that it was written for a Jewish- Greek congregation in the
Diaspora, the cities of the Roman Empire where synagogues of Jewish people had
been established. This would help explain the use of both Jewish and Gentile
terminology in describing the meaning of Jesus; the key position given in the
Gospel to Diaspora-Greeks whose coming to Jesus precipitated his death; the way
the Gospel conspicuously translated Hebrew words into Greek; and why the
writer's knowledge of Jerusalem and its environs seems to have been that of a
tourist rather than a resident. In one of the cities of the ancient world there
was a Christian community composed of Jews and Greeks out of whose life and
thought this Gospel was written.
The chief source
for the unique information of this Gospel appears to be the one called in the
Gospel "the Beloved disciple, the disciple whom Jesus loved." He was
a shadowy figure who attended the last meal, received the mother of Jesus as
his legacy and care, accompanied Peter to the grave and made the proper
interpretation of the resurrection of Jesus. He appeared to have been a
commanding figure with access to important persons and places in Jerusalem,
which would give him credibility as a source of the Jerusalem material in this
Gospel.
Return to top of page
Paul's Letter
to the Romans has consistently proved itself to be one of the most
important writings in the New Testament. When Augustine wrote his
"Confessions" in the fifth century, it was the Letter to the Romans
that provided much of the framework for that. When Luther began his reformation
of the Christian faith, it was the Letter to the Romans that offered him his
greatest theological insights. When Karl Barth, in the twentieth century,
initiated a revolution in theological thinking in the Christian faith, he did
so by writing "A Commentary on Paul's Letter to the Romans." This
long and complex writing by Paul has a way of sparking faith in other people
that is unparalleled by other scriptural books.
The letter was
probably written sometime in the early months of 57 AD, just as Paul was about
to leave Corinth. Paul had heard of trouble that had arisen in the Christian
congregations of Rome. He wrote his letter in the hope that by this letter he
could help Christian friends resolve the issues that confronted them.
The Christian
church at Rome, at the time Paul wrote his letter to them, was caught in a
remarkably complicated situation. According to my investigations, the first
congregations in Rome had been started by Jews who had become Christian in
Jerusalem and who had exported their faith to other Jewish-speaking synagogues
throughout the Empire. This Jewish-Christian group in Rome read their
Scriptures in Hebrew, they practiced circumcision and the food laws, they kept
themselves separate from anyone who did not, including fellows Christians, and
they believed that when Jesus ascended into heaven, God had made him the
messiah; up until then, he had been "messiah-elect." The story of
their conversion is told in the second chapter of Acts, what we call "the
story of Pentecost."
But Rome was the
kind of place, like London and New York today, to which peoples from all over
the world migrated. Some of these people were Christians. Some of these
Christians were like Paul's Christians, that is, they were gentiles, and they
considered themselves free from such practices as circumcision and keeping the
food laws. They read their Scriptures from the Greek Bible, the Septuagint,
they prayed in the Greek language, they tended to be wealthier than the
Christians who held to Jewish practices, and in many respects they considered
themselves superior to these Jews who also called themselves Christians.
The result of this
was a double struggle in both the Jewish and the Christian communities in Rome.
Jews fought against Jews over whether they should become Christians, and Jewish
Christians fought against gentile Christians as to the manner of life that
Christians should follow. You can see from this brief description that it was
the Jewish-Christian community that was most involved in this struggle. They
were at odds with both their fellow Jews and their fellow Christians, a very
difficult situation in which to be.
The struggle
within this tangled Jewish community intensified until it came to the attention
of the Emperor himself. "It centered around one Chrestus," said the
historian Suetonius, until Claudius the Emperor decided to do something about
it. In the year 49 AD Claudius issued an edict that all Jews should be expelled
from Rome.
Whether all Jews
were evicted or not is debated by historians, but certainly much of the leadership
of the Jewish community was banished. Included among these were such people as
Priscilla and Aquila. Paul met this remarkable couple as he was journeying
toward Rome from the east along the Egnatian Way, the main east- west highway
from Rome to Byzantium, just as those who were banished from Rome were
traveling east along the same road seeking asylum in one of the cities of the
east. Part of the reason for Paul's harsh treatment by the authorities in
Philippi had to do with this imperial edict. Paul was unknowingly doing things
in Philippi that had been banned in Rome, and the authorities punished him more
brutally for his actions than would have been the case had this edict not been
pronounced. For the Church in Rome, the edict and the banishment of the Jews
meant that leadership shifted. The Roman church had been led by Jewish
Christians. Now they were gone. Now the leadership shifted to gentile
Christians, some of whom were followers of Paul.
Then, in about 54
AD, Claudius died. With his death, his edict died. Edicts promulgated by one
emperor had no force under the new emperor. Jews were now free to return to
Rome.
Some Jewish
leaders returned to the church at Rome, and they had the natural expectation
that they would resume the leadership roles in the church that they had
relinquished when they were banished. But it was not to be so. The gentile
leadership was now entrenched, and they were unwilling to give up their
new-found authority. The struggles that Claudius had noted in the late forties
intensified in the years after his death.
What could be done
about this? Paul set his mind to that question. The best thing he could come up
with was to send some kind of a statement to his gentile friends in Rome to ask
them to receive the Jewish Christians back into the fellowship of the church.
His "Letter to the Romans" is that statement. In it he points out to
gentile Christians that they would not possess a Christian faith had there not
been the faith of Israel that preceded it. Read the words of this text, then,
as if it were written to gentile Christians in Rome inviting them to welcome
their Jewish Christian brothers (and by implication "sisters") again
into the fellowship of the church.
Paul is in great
sorrow and unceasing anguish as he contemplates this situation: "I wish
that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my
brethren, my kinsmen by race." Then he lists that which God had given to
them: sonship, glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, the
promises, the patriarchs, even the flesh of Jesus Christ. If God has done this
for those who are Jews, will not you gentiles acknowledge this and offer them
the right hand of fellowship? This is the point of Paul's Letter to his fellow
Christians, Greek and Jew, in Rome.
After his opening
salutation and prayer, Paul stated his major point: The Gospel is the power of
God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the
Greek (1:16). Paul added then that statement which became so important to Luther:
"In the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith.
He who through faith is righteous shall live."
Paul then pointed
out that all gentiles are guilty before God in their consciences, just as all
Jews are guilty before God in regards the law. Only on the basis of faith are
either Jews or Gentiles saved.
"But since we
are justified by faith, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ,"
wrote Paul (5:1), and a new section of his letter opens. We are no longer
enslaved to sin, though the struggle with sin continues throughout this life.
But there is no condemnation in Christ, there is no separation from Christ.
Those who are united with Christ in his sufferings and death are also united
with him in his resurrection.
Chapters nine through
eleven of the letter sets forth the place that the Jewish faith has in
Christian life. There would be no church without the contribution of Judaism to
it, asserted Paul. Neither Jew is pre-eminent in the church nor Gentile,
because the same Lord is Lord of all and bestows his riches upon all who call
upon him (10:12). Throughout the chapters, Paul struggles with the tangled
relationship between the two families of faith.
In chapters twelve
through fifteen Paul points out the kind of ethical behavior that Christ
expects of his church. These ethical precepts are a fascinating mix, some
coming from the Jewish- Christian Church and some from the gentile-Christian
church. When Paul puts them together, they can scarcely be torn apart. Above
all, Christians drawn from both segments of the church are to look to Jesus
Christ as the fulfillment both of Jewish life and law and gentile life and
faith.
Paul concludes by
declaring that he will be coming to Rome soon to visit with the church there
(though we now know that he came only in chains and for the trial that would
end his life). He closes by greeting the many congregations in Rome, and their
leaders, and he greets all in the name of Jesus Christ.
Return to top of page
Paul’s Letter
to the Philippians: In order to tell about the letter, we need first to
tell about the city of Philippi and then about the church that was developing
in that city.
The City of
Philippi
The Philippi of
Paul's day was a small city both in land area and in population. Perhaps thirty
thousand people lived between its acropolis and a swamp. The walls of the city
encompassed an area that was not much larger than the agora of Corinth. Philip
the Great, father of Alexander the Great, had built the city some three hundred
years before Paul arrived there. Philip had located this city where it was for
purposes of convenience and protection. Seven or more miles from the sea, it
was close enough to the Pangaeon Mountains to oversee the gold found there.
Like other Macedonians had done in building other cities, Philip had built his
city in the unhealthy regions of a swamp, whose wetlands provided a natural
obstacle to any invader.
The city that Paul
saw still bore the marks of Philip's builders, but it had also been recently
rebuilt by Romans. When Octavius, soon to be named "The Emperor
Augustus," had taken control of the empire from Mark Anthony, he deported
from Italy some of Anthony's former partisans. He had resettled them in Philippi.
It was a logical move. These men had fought in Octavius' cause in the battle of
Philippi, and they were given homes in the city they had fought for. Octavius
named the city "Colonia Augusta Julia Philippensis." He did this in
the year 30 B.C.
Philippi set
itself to become a little Rome, more Roman than Rome itself. Its language was
Latin, and its law was Roman. Its money bore Latin inscriptions. Two kinds of
Roman citizens inhabited Philippi. Some were citizens by birth, who had
formerly lived in Italy and Rome. Others, not Italian by birth, had gained
Roman citizenship by other means, usually by performing some service that had
assisted the Roman armies in one of its campaigns. Speculation is that Paul's
family had gained its Roman citizenship in this manner. Being from Tarsus, a
center of the leather-working trade and a city on the route between Rome and
the mideast, perhaps the family had gained citizenship by supplying tents to
the Roman army under Pompey that had stormed into Jerusalem in 63 B.C. The
benefits of citizenship were many to those who held it. They were exempted from
scourging, they were free from arrest in extreme cases, they had some taxes
forgiven them, and they had the right to appeal to the emperor himself any
charge that might be laid against them.
In addition to the
Roman citizens who had recently been transported there, population segments
that dated back to the former rulers of the area, chiefly Thracian and
Macedonian, continued to live in Philippi. These Thracians and Macedonians
spoke Greek rather than Latin. Egyptians and other Africans also lived in the
city. The Jewish population must have been very small, since the Jews had no
synagogue of their own. With the new city of Philippi being founded as recently
as it was, there had been no opportunity yet for Jews to migrate into it. The
colony was ruled by two magistrates, called "duoviri" (two men), who
also acted as its judges. They were assisted in their deliberations by men who
held office in the local senate.
At the mid-point of
the first century A.D., the focal point of the modestly- sized city of Philippi
was its forum or agora. Small enough to be placed in a corner of the agora of
Corinth (it was about three hundred feet in length and about half that in
width), it still contained shops, workshops, baths, fountains and temples.
Unlike those of larger cities, the one agora of Philippi served both government
and commercial functions.
Concerns of
government were carried on in the northern half. The meeting halls, the Senate
Hall, and the hall of weights and measures were on the west side of the agora.
On its northern edge was the Via Egnatia, the main military and commercial
highway through Greece that joined the city of Rome with its eastern empire.
Uncovered by archaeologists, this marble-road still bears the marks of the
wagons and chariots that rolled across It and the memories of those
battle-ready Roman legions that marched over it. Touching the Egnatian Road on
the north side, and at the most prominent location in the center of the forum,
was the bema. On this elevated rostrum, orators delivered their speeches,
messengers announced the news of the day, and trials like those that were to
befall Paul and Silas were held. A temple stood at the west end of the forum
where the road from Rome entered, and another stood on the east side where the
road exited. Near this latter temple was the town library.
A line of shops
cutting through its middle separated the commercial agora from the
governmental. The shops faced south, with their salesrooms opening on the
agora, their workrooms behind the salesrooms, and the apartments of the owners
behind the workrooms. A marble road was constructed along the front of the
shops. On the southern edge was a long portico that covered the whole length of
the forum. Fountains, monuments and colonnades were also scattered over the
forum of this small city which had pretensions of being another Rome.
Buildings and
momentoes of former times also could be found in and around Philippi. The Greek
theater that had been built by Philip was within walking distance of the agora
to the north and east. Small niches to house the statuettes of former gods had
been cut into the rock facing of the acropolis, as were traces of votive
reliefs. Houses and dwellings of all shapes and sizes surrounded the forum. The
city walls, also built originally by Philip, protected the city from invaders.
The tall acropolis rose just off the north edge of the forum, its unscalable
walls offering further protection in time of enemy attack. The town prison may
have been fashioned from a cave at the base of the acropolis, just north of the
bema where justice was dispensed. Everything necessary for civilized living in
the wilds of Macedonia was provided for the Romans living in Philippi.
The Church at
Philippi
The church at
Philippi came as near as any among the early churches of the Christian movement
to fulfilling the original apostolic design. The charter of the apostolic
churches had decreed that there be no difference in treatment in the churches
of "Jews and Greeks, slave and free, male and female" (Gal 3:28). The
church In Philippi was founded through a woman. It was made up mostly of people
drawn from the Roman and Greek strata of society. One of its trusted members
was the slave, Epaphroditus.
Paul and Silas
came to Philippi in the autumn of 49 A.D. There being few if any Jewish people
in the town, and no synagogue where they might begin their ministry, they came
instead upon a group of women worshiping by the Gaggitas River, just behind the
western wall of the city. These women had sought a place for worship near a
stream. For ancient peoples, water was indispensable to worship, since worship
was always preceded by some form of ritual bath. If the selected place of
prayer also was surrounded by a wall that offered protection from prying eyes,
so much the better. The place the women had found for their worship offered
both water and privacy. After conversation with them, Paul had baptized Lydia,
their leader, and she offered the men the use her home as a base of operations
for the spread of the Christian faith in Philippi.
Lydia was a
godfearer. A native of the Asian city of Thyatira, near Ephesus, she was a
dealer in purple goods. As a dealer in purple, she was probably quite wealthy.
Purple cloth was sold only to the royal and the rich and was the most expensive
dye color of the time. It was made by the extraction of a single drop of color
from the shell of an oyster. When the dye was extracted, the oyster died. The
process was wasteful. The oyster was simply discarded after it was used for
this purpose, but, then, who then cared about protecting oyster crops from
exploitation? It was also expensive, both in the amount of labor required and
in the danger to those engaged in the work. Harvesting this many oysters from
the sea required the work of a multitude of slaves, some of whom died from
their time under water and others of whom slashed their hands brutally as they
worked with the recalcitrant shells. The resulting dye-color was much sought
after by those who wanted to wear only the most distinctive and expensive
clothing.
In her native
city, Lydia had learned of the Jewish faith and had been attracted to it, but,
as a woman, she had had no opportunity to become part of the covenanted community.
Since she was a householder but the name of her husband is not mentioned, it
can be assumed that she was a widow. Upon her baptism, she led the friends who
worshiped with her by the river into the faith. Her influence and her wealth
were a prime factor in the establishment of the church in Philippi.
Very soon after
the establishment of the Christian community in Philippi, the new church became
involved in a struggle with divination. In the religious atmosphere of the
time, the ability to foretell the future was much In demand. Having no living
God into whose loving hands they were able to commit their lives, people turned
to soothsayers and magicians whom they thought could tell them what the future
held for them. The services of those who claimed that ability were much sought
after.
One such young
woman followed Paul and Silas through the streets of the town. She kept crying
out for all to hear: "These men are servants of the Most High God, who
proclaim to you the way of salvation" (Acts 16:16). Her interventions
disturbed Paul. Up to this moment, he and Silas had been able to keep their
mission out of the public eye. The girl's constant clamor unmasked them. Paul
tried to stop her before the whole town learned why they had come. "In the
name of Jesus Christ, I charge you to come out of her," he said to the
spirit of divination that had been thought to invade her life. The spirit did
leave her. As Acts says, "It came out of her that very hour."
(16:17-18)
The owners of the
girl, who had made a good bit of money through her, seized Paul and Silas and
brought them into the marketplace before the rulers. "These men are
Jews," they charged, "and they are disturbing our city. They advocate
customs which it is not lawful for us Romans to accept or practice." (16:20-21)
The masters of the girl could not accuse Paul and Silas of exorcism, for Roman
law had no clause concerning that practice (Meinardus, Otto F. A., St. Paul in
Greece. Athens, Greece: Lycabettus Press, 1972/1989, p 15). The two charges
they did invoke were violations of Roman law. They accused Paul and Silas of
causing civic disturbance and also of introducing new religious practices.
The first charge,
though false, was serious enough, especially since word had just arrived in
Philippi that the Emperor Claudius had expelled Jews from Rome because of
disturbances and riots they had caused in the city. Here, said the owners, were
Jews who had come to our city of Philippi to cause the same kind of
disturbances their compatriots were effecting in Rome. The second charge was
even more serious. Roman law did forbid the introduction of foreign religions
into Roman territory. The Philippian authorities acted quickly. They ordered
their garments torn off the men, beat them with rods, and threw them into prison.
The jailer put them into the inner prison where the worst criminals were kept
and fastened their feet in the stocks.
Paul and Silas
turned the prison into a place of worship. At midnight, they were praying and
singing hymns, when an earthquake rocked the city. The prison, rickety to begin
with, shook. The doors clanged open, and the fetters pulled out of the walls.
The jailer was certain his prisoners had escaped. He also knew that unless he
kept the prisoners safe in jail, his own life would be forfeit. He was about to
kill himself with his own sword, when he heard Paul cry out, 'We are all
here." Relieved, yet still fearful, the jailer cried out, "What must
I do to be saved?" Paul and Silas replied, "Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and you will be saved." That night, the jailer and his whole
household were baptized. The Christian church in Philippi had gained another
family for itself.
Next morning, the
magistrates tried quietly to dismiss the case against Paul and Silas, but these
men would have none of it. As Roman citizens (Paul seems to have included both
himself and Silas in his remark "men who are Roman citizens," 16:37),
they demanded a proper hearing. The rights and privileges of a Roman citizen
were important, especially in a Roman colony. Paul and Silas had been condemned
without a public trial, and they had been exposed to public insult before the
non-Roman population of the colony. Like law- abiding citizens, they had not
attempted to escape from their imprisonment. They demanded and received an
apology from the offending officials, who then asked them to leave the city.
Paul and Silas complied with the request. From then on, most of Paul's
relationship with the church in Philippi came through the letters he sent them.
He wrote at least
three letters to the church, though they are now bound in the one small volume
called "Paul's Letter to the Philippians." The letters illuminate
further some of the inner life of the Philippian congregation.
There was a time
when some Christians who believed in circumcision visited the Philippian
churches and tried to convince them that, even though they were Gentiles, they
needed to be circumcised if they were to share the full benefits of Christ.
(See Phil 3:2-4:1) Paul dismissed these men with hardly more than a wave of the
hand.
He pointed out
that the Philippians worship God in spirit and glory in Christ, and they did
not need to put confidence in the flesh. He stated that if anyone had reason to
put confidence in the flesh, he did; his Jewish credentials were impeccable.
But he had put that aside in favor of the righteousness that comes through
faith, not flesh. He wished only to know Christ and the power of his
resurrection. He was willing to share Cbrist's sufferings in order to become
like him in his death and attain with Christ the resurrection from the dead.
Paul did not take these counter-missionaries seriously, and apparently the
Philippian Christian did not, either. The arguments Paul mounted against them
carried little of the fire and fury that he had earlier directed toward the
Judaizers in Galatia.
The church in
Philippi did respond to Paul's needs when he was imprisoned. They sent their
own emissary to him in the person of Epaphroditus. In his final imprisonment,
in Rome, Paul was coming to the end of his own resources. Whatever money he had
laid aside to support himself in such a crisis was running out. Since prisoners
at that time had to pay their own expenses while they were jailed, Paul needed
someone to come to his aid. The church in Philippi did. They sent money and
supplies to him, and they commissioned Epaphroditus, the slave of one of them,
to stay with Paul in prison to take care of his needs.
Unfortunately,
Epaphroditus became ill. The church in Philippi heard of his illness and were
greatly concerned for his welfare. Paul wrote to tell them that the young man
had recovered from his illness. He also sent Epaphroditus home and released him
from his service. To forestall any thought that Epaphroditus had not served
Paul well, Paul gave him the kind of commendation that would assure him a firm
welcome when be returned to Philippi: "Receive him in the Lord with all
joy. Honor such men, for he nearly died for the work of Christ; risking his
life to complete your service to me." (Phil 2:29-30)
What they did for
Paul while he was in prison reflected what they had already done for him. When
the apostle was in trouble in Tbessalonica, the Pbilippian church had come to
his rescue more than once. (See Phil 4:14-16) They also shared in the
collection Paul was gathering for the saints in Jerusalem, and Paul was
grateful for that.
Not that the
church in Philippi was the perfect Christian community. Trouble and
disagreement still echoed there. Euodia and Syntyche, two strong women, were in
disagreement with each other. (See 4:2-3) Paul begged that these two resolve
the differences that were dividing one house church from another in Philippi.
The organization
of the Philippian church differed from that of others. No elders were
mentioned. This church had few if any Jewish members, and this particularly
Jewish office of leadership was not employed In this congregation. It did have
deacons. These deacons may have had special responsibilities in particular
house churches, as did Phoebe in Cenchreae. It also had overseers or bishops.
This title may have been the gentile equivalent of the Jewish "ruler of
the synagogue," one who had charge of the building where worship took
place, who handled the congregation's money, and who saw to it that leadership
for the community's worship was provided.
In keeping with
the gentile nature of the Philippian church, its theological language was far
more gentile-oriented than it was Jewish. 'Encouragement,' "incentive in
love," affection and sympathy," "Joy," ..conscience," "manner
of life," "forbearance," partnership,": these are Greek
concepts. A new vocabulary for thinking about God and the Christian life was at
work in this congregation. Nowhere in the New Testament is the Greek nature of
the gospel more fully expressed than it is in Paul's concluding words to his
beloved Philippian community (Phil 4:8):
"Whatever
is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is
lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything
worthy of praise, think about these things."
The church at
Philippi stood not only on the boundary between Asia and Europe. It stood on
the boundary between a Jewish conceptualization of the gospel and a Greek one.
The tension between the two was to exercise the church for centuries to come.
The Letter Itself
To some scholars,
the present letter to the Philippians is a compilation of three distinct
letters. They are as follows:
4:10-20 Paul’s
letter of thanks
1:1 - 2:30,
4:21-23 Letter written in defense of Epaphroditus
3:1 - 4:9 Paul’s
last will and testament.
The makeup of the
present letter presupposes four trips between Rome and Philippi:
1) A message was
sent from Rome to Philippi that Paul is in prison.
2) Epaphroditus
came to Rome from Philippi, bringing gifts.
3) Word was sent
from Rome to Philippi that Epaphroditus was ill.
4) A message came
from Philippi to Rome saying that the Philippians are distressed to hear of his
illness.
5) Epaphroditus
returned to Philippi with Paul’s letter of commendation. Timothy followed soon.
The distance
between Rome and Philippi was 800 miles. A day’s travel on foot was fifteen
miles. A one way journey between the two cities would take 7 weeks. A round
trip would take 5 months. Rome to Brindisi along the Appian Way was 360 miles.
The trip across the Adriatic from Brindisi to Dyrrachium took two days. The
trip from Dyrrachium along the Egnatian Way was 370 miles.
Return to top of page
The First
Letter of Peter is one of the gems of the New Testament. It is
written in the most elegant Greek of any of the books; it is both simple and
beautiful. It addresses itself to ethical issues that Christians continue to
face today: the Christian’s attitude toward the state, the intimate matters of
household and family, the nature of the church. It is particularly rich in
metaphors and images that reflect the common life of the people: seeds, flocks,
babes and milk. Some of its images have a military origin – arming oneself and
engaging in combat; these may come from the situation of persecution and
martyrdom that seems to surround these Christian people. In five short chapters
this letter probes more deeply into the universal problem of suffering than
almost any other writing in history, either secular or sacred.
First Peter also,
more than any other writing of the New Testament, radiates the spirit of
forgiveness. And why not? Jesus had forgiven Peter his denial of his Lord.
Three times Jesus had denied Peter. Then three times, says the Gospel of John
in chapter twenty-one, Jesus had pronounced forgiveness to Peter. That had
changed his life. Now, in this letter, Peter extends that same sense of
forgiveness to those who gather around him. As we permit the spirit of this
letter to flow into us, we too receive the forgiveness offered first to Peter.
We detect from the
letter that the people to whom it was written were primarily peasants and
shepherds who lived in rural areas and villages. Many of them had been pagan
before they became Christian, though some had been converted from the Jewish
faith. They were common people who cultivated lands belonging to the rich of
the world, some Roman, some native. Women played an important role in these
communities, and one of the problems addressed had to do with Christian women
married to pagan husbands. The people were not particularly happy with their
way of life: they saw themselves as strangers and exiles in their own lands.
They lived in the
region which now lies in the country of Turkey. The letter lists the names of
their homelands: Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. Each of these
was a province of the Roman Empire. Because the distance between them is so
great and travel through them so difficult, the scholarly guess is that this
letter was originally a circular letter, addressed to the churches in each of
these regions and carried to them roughly in the order that the provinces are
listed in the heading of the letter.
If the major
problem facing the churches is that of martyrdom, then the letter could have
been written in either the time of the Roman Emperor Nero or that of the
Emperor Domitian. Nero’s persecution commenced around 64 AD, the time of the
fire of Rome. This was the persecution in which Peter is said to have died. The
persecution of Domitian took place in the last decade of the first century. If
the letter dates from the time of Nero, Peter may have been its author. If it
dates from the time of Domitian, Peter could not have been its author.
Whether or not
Peter personally wrote the letter, this epistle still breathes Peter’s spirit
and expresses the heart of the life and ministry of this multidimensional
person. Think for a moment what we have come to know about Peter. The New
Testament tells us about his relationship with the earthly Lord. Then it goes
on to tell of his relationship with the risen Lord. Then it tells of Peter from
the time of the Lord’s rising until the time of Peter’s own death. But in the
church’s mind Peter lived on after his own death into the time of the
completion of the New Testament, and their memory of him influenced much of it.
And Peter lives on still, remembered in the church as its first great leader
and the model for proper leadership since then. Yet better than anything else
we have from or about him, this First Letter of Peter conveys Peter’s mind and
thought, and for that reason it is worth reading today.
An outline of the
letter, prepared by Archibald M. Hunter (The Interpreter’s Bible, 1957) tells
this about it:
I. Salutation
(1:1-2)
II. The blessings
of God's redeemed children (1:3 - 2-10)
A. Doxology for
the risen Christ (1:3-9
B. The prophets
and the gospel (1:10-12)
C. Exhortation to
holy living.(1:13-2:3
D. The cornerstone
and the new temple of God (2-,4-10)
III. The duties of
Christians in the world (2:11-4:11)
A. Believers and
unbelievers (2:11-12)
B. Christians and
the state (2:13-17)
C. The duty of
slaves 2:18-20)
D: The Imitatio
Cbristi (2-,21-25)
E. Husbands and
wives (3:'1-7)
F. Recapitulation
(3:8-12)
G. The Christian
answer to persecution (3:13-17)
H. Our example,
Christ (3:18-22)
J. Exhortation to pure
living-(4:1-6)
K. Ethics for the
crisis (4:7-11)
IV. The trials of
Christians in the world (4:12 - 5:11)
A. A call to
Christian constancy(4:12-19),B. Exhortation to elders (5:1-5)
C. Concluding
exhortation (5:6-11)
V. Conclusion and
blessing (5:12-14)
Return to Lectionary
| Return to top of page