NAHUM AND HABAKKUK

In all of the early manuscripts of the twelve minor prophets, these two books always appear in the same order next to one another, indicating some sort of close relationship between the two. So I decided to look through the commentaries at my disposal to see what that relationship might be.

R.L. Smith: “Habakkuk and Nahum were contemporaries, Habakkuk slightly later than Nahum. There are similarities between their books and messages as well as contrasts. Each of their books consist of three chapters. Nahum begins with a psalm; Habakkuk ends with one. Each spoke to a crisis situation and was convinced that Yahweh was Lord of the universe and history. Nahum wrote to assure his people that Nineveh was going to fall. Her enemy and oppressor would be overthrown. Nahum's message was basically an oracle against a foreign nation. Although Habakkuk addressed five woes to Babylon, his primary message was one of commitment to Yahweh even when a cruel, godless tyrant was poised on the border ready to overrun one's land.”

O.P. Robertson: “Because Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah all ministered essentially to the same constituency and labored within thirty years of one another, it may be helpful to discuss their theological perspective as a whole. Individualized distinctives are clearly present. But many overriding themes are common to all three, and may be understood better in the light of the united testimony.” These theological themes may be summarized as follows:

    Lack of emphasis on a coming Messiah

    Pronounced theocentric message

    Impartial nature of God's justice

    Divine judgment that is retributive and not always restorative

    Absence of covenant language

    Link between God's judgment on His enemies and Israel's salvation

In addition, Robertson points to common stylistic characteristics between the three books. As he says, In the prophecies of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah, a number of characteristics, types, and forms emerge which determine the shape of the material....A great deal of variety and creativity marks the style of each of these three prophets. Each has developed his own distinctive approach to the use of language in the communication of his message.”

Finally, Christensen has actually proposed an overall structure for the united books of Nahum and Habakkuk to explain their relative positions of appearance within the twelve minor prophets:

    Hymn of theophany (Nahum 1)

            Taunt song against Nineveh (Nahum 2-3)

                    The problem of theodicy (Habakkuk 1:1-2:5)

            Taunt song against the “wicked one” (Habakkuk 2:6-20)

    Hymn of theophany (Habakkuk 3)

This proposal is not in itself an unreasonable one since the final three books of the Minor Prophets appear to have some sort of literary relationship to one another (see my post titled “The Unity of Haggai-Zechariah-Malachi”). This proposal has some support from my own literary analysis of Nahum in that there appears to be only a loose structural association between ch. 1 and its following two chapters. However, the relatively strong correspondence of Habakkuk 1 with Habakkuk 3 (see my post titled “Habakkuk: Introduction to Structural Analysis”) argues against Christensen's combined chiastic scheme.

 

WHO WROTE THE PASTORAL EPISTLES?

This may seem like a heretical question even to ask. But if you have been raised in an evangelical church, you should be aware that most mainstream church scholarship since the nineteenth century rejects Paul as the author of I Timothy, II Timothy, and Titus. Below I have started with Ronald Ward's categorization of the different reasons given for this attitude as well as rebuttals given by Ward and others who defend a Pauline authorship. Any standard commentary on these books or a good Bible introduction will review much of what is summarized below.

Non-Acceptance by the Early Church

This is a very weak argument based entirely on the fact that these three books do not appear in Marcion's Canon or the Chester Beatty Papyrus (early 3^rd cent.) found in Egypt.

In rebuttal, it should be noted that Marcion's list of acceptable books was quite select and excluded the whole Old Testament as well as any NT writings that seemed to be favorable toward the Law (see I Timothy 1:8; 6:20; II Timothy 3:16). As to the Chester Beatty Papyrus (early 3^rd cent), it was missing pages at the end, and so we really do not know whether or not the Pastorals were originally included. And the absence of the Pastorals there is compensated for by the evidence that these books were already well known to Clement of Alexandria, Egypt before that date.

Ward's contention that “the position of the epistles was established by A.D. 150” is firmly based on (1) the fact that early church fathers from A.D. 96-120 appear to cite from them, (2) II Peter 3:15 may refer to I Timothy 1:15-16, and (3) they appear in early canonical lists compiled before A.D. 120 by Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Clement of Alexandria, and are found in the very early Muratorian Canon as well.

One re-rebuttal often given by liberal scholars to explain how a writing under an obvious pseudonym could have been easily accepted as part of the canon is that such a practice was not viewed by the people of that time as a falsehood at all, but merely an acceptable literary device. This explanation flies in the face of the many early pseudonymous writings which were roundly rejected by the early churches as being fabrications strictly on the issue of authorship.

As a possible middle ground, Towner reviews I.H. Marshall's coining of the term “allonymity” whereby a student or follower of Paul edited the notes of the deceased apostle and carried “the master's teaching forward for future generations in a manner that is faithful to earlier apostolic intentions, even if the key of the theological score has been transposed.” Towner judges such an approach as “a not implausible solution to the authorship problem. It improves significantly on pseudonymity, but the jury continues to deliberate.”

Historical Argument

Since the Pastoral Epistles contain details concerning Paul's life, it should be possible to fit in the time of their writing with biographical information found in Acts and Paul's genuine writings. However, no one has come up with a time table which accommodates the chronology acceptably.

Ward's reply is quite a simple one: The events alluded to in the Pastorals all took place after the end of the book of Acts and the earlier writings of Paul.

Donald Guthrie mentions two additional hypotheses to explain the data: (1) The historical references in the Pastorals are strictly fictional and added by the unknown author in order to enhance the believability of the epistle, or (2) There are, in fact, fragments of genuine Pauline writings scattered throughout the Pastorals and assembled by the real author together with his own composition.

Guthrie and others discount possibility #1 due to the obvious “ring of truth” which the references have. As to #2, even Hanson and others who deny Pauline authorship to these books have to admit that the unknown author obviously had access to genuine historical information concerning Paul's later life and was well acquainted with Paul's earlier letters and incorporated these into the Pastorals. However, several evangelical scholars have expressed great doubts as to how the “Fragment Theory” would have played itself out in reality. Guthrie reviews the problems with these two theories in more detail in his commentary on the Pastoral Epistles.

Ecclesiastical Argument

This is one of the primary arguments against a Pauline authorship. It is highly doubted that the seemingly organizationally-complex church situation described in the Pastorals fits in with the more primitive church setting while Paul was still alive. It must have arisen in later centuries.

However, when one looks at the actual references to church polity in the Pastorals, it appears that (1) it is not nearly as hierarchical as portrayed by critics and (2) it is a logical extension of church growth that was taking place even during Paul's life.

Doctrinal Argument

The argument here is one based strictly on absence, always the weakest form of argument. Thus, it is said that unlike Paul's authentic letters, these three epistles are missing many of the key elements of Paul's typical theology.

Of course, it is easy to punch holes in this argument as well since the Pastorals are, unlike Paul's other letters to fledgling churches, addressed directly to church leaders who were already well aware of Paul's theology and did not need to be reminded of it. Instead, Timothy and Titus were in need of more practical advice on how to lead a congregation and get it established so that it would flourish even in their absence.

Linguistic Argument

This is another line of reasoning that appears to be overwhelming. Some 175 words have been located in the letters to Timothy and Titus that occur nowhere else in Paul's writings. That would seem to be powerful evidence for a different authorship.

One need only point out the following factors to effectively puncture that argument as well:

The different subject matter in the Pastorals dictates different vocabulary.

Most of these unique Greek words were already in common usage by A.D. 50, many in the Greek Septuagint. Therefore they do not indicate a later date of composition.

By the time of writing, Paul had been living in the West for some time and would have picked up many of the linguistic characteristics that were in current vogue.

Paul's known reliance on an amanuensis or secretary to do the actual writing of his letters could have had a pronounced effect on the actual way of wording Paul's ideas in his letters, even though Paul would have approved of the final product before sending it off to the recipient.

Conclusion

Taking all of the above into consideration, an evangelical Christian should feel under no compulsion to accept the more liberal scholars' opinion regarding the authorship of the letters to Timothy and Titus since the evidence they advance is by no means irrefutable.

 

ARE ROMANS 9:16 AND I CORINTHIANS 9:24 CONTRADICTORY?

Contradiction: Romans 9:16 versus I Corinthians 9:24

In I Corinthians 9:24, the apostle encourages the believer to “run in such a way that you may obtain it [the prize or crown].” However, in Romans 9:16, Paul informs us that “it does not depend on him who wills, nor of him who runs, but on God who shows mercy.” Regarding this second passage, Murray expresses the majority opinion on the subject: “The mercy of God is not an attainment gained by the most diligent labour to that end but a free bestowal of grace. No statement could be more antithetic to what accrues from claims of justice or as the awards of labour.”

Getting back to the apparent contradiction, Geisler resolves the problem in the following way: The first passage is speaking about rewards which do depend on our works (see I Corinthians 3:11ff and II Corinthians 5:10), while the last passage is speaking about salvation which is by grace and not by works (as in Romans 4:5; Ephesians 2:8-10; and Titus 3:5-7).

Orr and Walther appear to agree with Geisler when they state, “Paul seems [in I Corinthians 9:24] to be thinking of heavenly honor (cf. Philip. 3:14); and he may have in mind something in addition to being saved, something to be granted to those who perform service beyond the requirements.”

On the other hand, the noted commentator Gordon Fee feels regarding I Cor. 9:24 that “this metaphor the Christian's 'crown' is not some specific aspect of the goal but the eschatological victory itself.” I personally side with Fee regarding the whole issue of “rewards in heaven.” Once we start working for some sort of extra glory or special privileges in the afterlife, we have totally lost sight of the only goal worth having – being in the very presence of God Himself.

As Merkel puts it, “In 1 Cor. 9:24-27 Paul compares the life of the Christian with an athletic contest. In both there is a victory to be striven for; both demand utter dedication and self-denial. But the aim is a high one...for the Christian there awaits an imperishable prize, to be with God for eternity (Rom. 2:7).”

Christians should keep this in mind when they start wondering if they will recognize their old friends and relatives in heaven, whether they will have their favorite pet dog with them, if their hidden talents will at last be recognized openly by the world, whether they will be entrusted to some special office or have a bigger house than others, etc. If we are working solely for our own privileges and glory rather than that of God, I think we will be sorely disappointed in what we encounter at God's hands.

Then, there is another way to look at I Corinthians 9:24: The object of this striving is neither to earn our own salvation or to earn a special prize in heaven. Instead, as Ringwald insists, the object “is the spreading of the gospel. It is not primarily a question of striving for the perfection of the individual..., a private salvation, but of the salvation of the elect of God, 'that we may present every man mature in Christ (Col. 1:28). So we are always dealing with an agon hyper, a struggle for, on behalf of, others (Col. 2:1f; 4:12; Rom 15:30).” Thus, there is also, according to St. Augustine, a certain time frame to keep in mind when comparing the two passages in question. He felt that the striving came after election, not before it.

Finally, we must deal with the possibility that both passages are dealing with the identical situation, the question of eternal salvation. And here we run into some really deep theology which I am incapable of understanding, much less communicating clearly to anyone else. It boils down to the old controversy between grace vs. works and the related question as to the possibility or non-possibility of a believer losing his or her salvation.

Anyone who is completely honest with himself in sincerely reading the whole NT and understanding it according to their best ability will have to admit that there seem to be passages that teach in the opposite direction from one another. Listen to what the following commentators say on the subject:

Orr and Walther on I Corinthians 9:27: “But does Paul actually mean that one can fail to obtain the prize? Some would say no, but usually because of a prior theological commitment, not because of what the text itself says...Paul keeps warning and assurance in tension...warns the Corinthians of their imminent danger if they do not exercise 'self-control' in the matter of idolatry; yet, as always..., he reminds them of their security in the prior activity of God, who has committed himself to them in Christ Jesus.”

Morrison on Romans 9:16: “It is not what people do that determines God's grace, and further...it is God's grace that enables him to 'run' as he should.” See Psalm 119:32 for the same idea.

Ebel on the word trecho (“run”): “It is found in Paul predominantly in the figurative sense. By using the vb., he expresses how the Christian life as a whole...is directed toward a goal (Gal. 2:2; 5:7; Phil. 2:16) and that, as in a context in a stadium, what matters is applying all one's strength and holding out to the end (I Cor 9:24ff; cf. Heb. 12:1). Rom. 9:16, by pointing to the mercy of God – which in the last resort, is alone decisive – represents the necessary corrective.”

Unfortunately, our Western mindset has a great deal of trouble wrapping its brain around such philosophical “tensions” and “correctives” within the biblical text that require us to simultaneously hold on to two seemingly opposite ideas at the same time. Instead, we either opt for a Calvinistic extreme which eliminates all human action and decision making from the equation entirely or a Holiness approach which may magnify the importance of human works to the point that God's overall leading in the process may be effectively ignored.

In conclusion, we should view all such “contradictions” in the Bible as faith vs. works, Jesus as man vs. Jesus as God, the Bible as a human product vs. the Bible as the Spirit-inspired word of God, etc. not as contradictions, but as paradoxes or antinomies instead – contradictions between two beliefs or conclusions that are in themselves reasonable.

 

SHOE REMOVALS IN THE BIBLE: PART 2

In the first part of my post on this subject, I discussed the necessity of those in contact with holy ground to remove their shoes. But this is only one case of such an action occurring in the Bible. Some additional instances are given below.

Legal Repudiations – Deuteronomy 25:9-10; Ruth 4:7-8

It is sometimes difficult to make sense of OT laws, but in this case in Deuteronomy it seems reasonably clear what is required. When a man's brother dies without leaving an heir, the man is to marry the widow and raise any subsequent children in his brother's name. But if the man refuses his duty, then the widow is to spit in his face and take off his sandal in the presence of the elders.

In the last chapter of Ruth we encounter a slightly different, but clearly related, situation. In this case, Boaz, a distant relation of Naomi, wishes to marry her widowed daughter-in-law Ruth. However, there is a closer relative in town who needs to be given the right of first refusal. At first, this other relative is all for the arrangement since it has been proposed to him as a simple purchase of land belonging to Naomi. But when the nearest kin of Naomi learns that he must marry Ruth if he wishes to acquire Naomi's property, he backs out of the arrangement. And he announces his refusal by taking off his sandal, perhaps before Ruth had a chance to take it off of him forcibly herself and spit in his face. The happy result of the union of Ruth and Boaz would, of course, eventually lead to the birth of the Messiah Himself.

Conquest of Foreign Nations – Psalm 60:8; 108:9

In 60:8, God announces his victory over his enemies by saying, “Moab is my washbasin; on Edom I hurl my shoe; over Philistia I shout in triumph.” These words are repeated verbatim in Psalm 108.

Kselman states that “the precise meaning of the metaphors is unclear.” However, the principle of poetic parallelism would indicate that the first two statements mean basically the same as the third one – God is in charge of these nations.

Anderson says that casting the shoe “is, most likely, a symbolic action denoting ownership.” If that is true, then in a remote way the meaning may be akin to the case of levirate marriages where the shoe removal indicates a renouncing of ownership.

Tanner admits that verse 8 “is very difficult, and any translation is questionable. However, what is clear is the names of the three countries that surround Israel...and that the territory they claim also belongs to God. This may reflect a historical reality at some time during Israel's past, but more likely it reflects the idea that God is always in control of other nations, whether they acknowledge God or not.”

“These verses are an oracle of assurance by God in answer to the petition of the psalmist in vv. 5-6. God is God over all peoples and all nations...” (N. deClaisse-Walford on Ps. 108:9)

In an Acted-Out Prophecy – Isaiah 20:2

This is, in Blenkinsopp's words, “a rare instance of narrative describing an acted-out prophecy.” It is rare in another way in that it is the only time Isaiah is told by God to portray His message in visual terms. By contrast, we see this sort of thing happening all the time to Ezekiel and Jeremiah. God told the prophet Isaiah to not only take off his sandals, but also strip down in order to visually portray what would happen to Egypt and her allies when Sargon had victory over them and led her captives away utterly destitute and in disgrace.

As a Servant's Duty – Mark 1:7 // Luke 3:16 // John 1:27 // Acts 13:25

No less that four times in the New Testament we are told that John the Baptist did not consider himself worth to stoop down and untie Jesus' shoes. For this much repetition, the NT authors must have considered this fact important. And it probably was worth repeating, especially in those early days of the church, since John was held in such high regard by many as a prophet.. Thus, there would definitely have been the temptation for some to have confused John with the Messiah himself unless the record were firmly set straight.

Since it was the job of a servant to untie and remove his master's sandals when he came in from outside and to clean his feet, John was expressing in no uncertain terms that he did not even consider himself worthy enough to render that humble service to Jesus. It is interesting to compare that noble sentiment with the action of Jesus the Master himself later when he took up the role of a servant and washed the feet of his own disciples.

Conclusion

The way in which the same basic action takes on diverse interpretations in different parts of the Bible should be a warning to us in our reading of Scripture not to assume that we know in advance what meaning to attach to a particular symbolic gesture just because we happen to understand it in a completely different context.

 

SHOE REMOVALS IN THE BIBLE: PART 1

This is one of the strangest repeated actions, to our way of thinking, that occurs in the Bible. And it actually represents four entirely different types of situation. The most noted one will be discussed here.

On Holy Ground – Exodus 3:5 // Acts 7:33; Joshua 5:15

Moses is given the command, “Take off your sandals for this is holy ground” as he approached the burning bush. Also, the commander of the Lord's army tells Joshua the same thing right before the Battle of Jericho. But the question to ask is, “Why does God want them to take off their sandals?” And here it turns out that scholars are not exactly in full agreement:

    Cole: “There are two possible origins of this mark of reverence. First, it may be a sign of acceptance of a servant's position, for a slave usually went barefoot (Lk. 15:22). Secondly, it may be a relic of very early days when men laid aside all covering and pretense to approach their god. Hence the Israelite priest always wore a linen kilt for modesty's sake (cf. Ex. 20:26).”

    Hamilton: “Apart from a sign of respect and humility, such a command may be dictated by the following factors: (a) in the presence of God there is neither dirt nor possibility of injury, and so sandals are unnecessary: (b) sandals, being made of animal skins, are impure in regard to the sacred and thus not to be worn into a sacred precinct.”

    Propp: “The simplest explanation for this restriction is that one should not track dirt into God's house. Perhaps shoes were not in general worn indoors, both for reasons of cleanliness and, suggests Morgenstein, to avoid bad luck. Moreover, ancient Egyptians removed their shoes before social superiors, and there is evidence that bare feet symbolized humility and mortification in Israel (2 Sam 15:30; Isa 20:2; Ezek 24:17,23). Thus it would be presumptuous to appear before Yahweh shod. Milgrom further suggests that leather sandals, made from dead animals, bear minor ritual impurity and contaminate holy ground.”

At the risk of being contrary, I would like to suggest an entirely different reason for this command being given to Moses and Joshua. And it starts with the concept of holiness. Woudstra says, “Holiness in the OT has its basis and origin in God. Things, places, and people can be called holy only insofar as they have been set aside for God or claimed by him.” Thus, Oswalt notes, “The dirt on the soles of Moses' shoes was ordinary dirt, whereas God's presence in the bush made the dirt immediately around it of a different quality.” And Niehouse states, “God is holy and imparts holiness where and for as long as he appears. For example, Yahweh warns Moses that he is on 'holy ground'. As long as Yahweh is there the ground is holy because his presence sanctifies it.”

Note that all the above explanations for God's command center around the possibility that Moses or Joshua will somehow contaminate the holy ground or not show proper reverence in the presence of the Divine by keeping their shoes on. But if God's presence turns ordinary dirt into holy ground, why in the world can't it do the same thing to the dirt on the bottom of their sandals? And taking this concept a step further, consider carefully the exact wording in Genesis 3:5 and Joshua 5:15. 

Although it is not always reflected in our English translations, Propp notes that some important early manuscripts of the Hebrew text of Genesis 3:15 have both “shoe” and “foot” in the singular, not the plural. And since this is the more difficult reading, it is likely to be the correct one. Similarly, Boling and Wright point out that the Hebrew text of Joshua 5:15 clearly states that one sandal should be taken off of one foot. The commentators above assume that the meaning applies to both feet in a “distributive” way. Thus, we could translate it as “Take off your footware.” But what if we take the singular nouns literally instead?

First, is it really likely that God's presence can turn ordinary dirt into holy ground and yet that same holy ground is contaminated if it contacts ordinary dirt on a shoe? By extension, why isn't it entirely more likely that an ordinary man who is marked out for special duties by God could become His holy representative by contact of his bare foot with God's holy ground? And if so, then all it would take is for Moses or Joshua to remove one shoe, as the preferred texts indicate, in order for that holiness to be communicated to him. On the other hand, removal of only one shoe would do nothing whatsoever to prevent contamination of holy ground by the other shoe if that were really the intent of the command.

After all, the regulations in the Book of Leviticus indicate that the following categories of items can be shifted to an adjacent category in both directions through appropriate or inappropriate actions:

Holy <---------------> Profane <----------------> Impure

Stephen, in the New Testament, recites this incident in Moses' life as part of his speech before being stoned to death. William Neil sees a subtle dig there at those present who a little earlier had accused Stephen of speaking against the Jerusalem temple (Acts 6:13) since the story of Moses and the burning bush demonstrates that “not only the Temple was a 'holy 'place [but] wherever God chose to reveal himself was holy ground.” F.F. Bruce adds, “Here, then, we have a central principle of the gospel: that no place on earth possesses an innate sanctity of its own.” Fitzmyer similarly notes that “Moses does not build there a shrine or a temple, and this has a bearing on Stephen's argument to come.” (see Acts 7:44-50)

 

DO YOU REALLY WANT A LITERAL TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE?

There is a certain mindset of Christians I have encountered who make a fetish of reading the Bible literally for themselves without any interference from so-called Bible experts. One such person I know gets quite upset every time I happen to quote a Bible professor who is attempting to explain the text. Although that same person will gladly accept anyone who has put out a podcast on a portion of Scripture, as long as they don't have any real academic credentials and don't belong to any recognizable Christian denomination. It seems to reflect a growing anti-intellectual, anti-authoritarian attitude among the Christian community.

The problems with such an attitudes are many, but one obvious fact to point out is that whichever English translation you happen to swear by is the product of dozens of these same professors, usually in teams composed of recognized experts in Old Testament and New Testament history, textual criticism, theology, and Hebrew and Greek grammar. To illustrate that fact, I chose six Bible passages in a totally random fashion and have presented them below in a literal word-for-word translation to be compared with a fairly literal translation (RSV) that correctly renders the true meaning of the passage. And even here, keep in mind that to get the proper Greek or Hebrew wording in the first place took the efforts of teems of textual scholars sorting through the various early manuscripts available to us and comparing the variations in wordings found there.

II Samuel 16:2

Literal – “And said the king to Ziba what these to you and said Ziba the asses for the houses of the king to ride on and the bread and the summer fruit for to eat the young men and the wine for to drink the wearied in the wilderness.”

RSV – “And the king said to Ziba, “Why have you brought these?” Ziba answered, “The asses are for the king's household to ride on, the bread and summer fruit for the young men to eat, and the wine for those who faint in the wilderness to drink.”

Note that the original Hebrew did not have any punctuation to help clarify the meaning; the Hebrew word order if rendered literally gives the impression that the food is eating the young men instead of vice versa; the Hebrew idiom “what to you” is not explained; and the context shows that the word for “house” actually means “household.”

Job 14:3

Literal – “Also on this do you open your eyes and me bring into judgment with you.”

RSV – “And do you open your eyes upon such a one and bring him* into judgment with you?”

Since the Hebrew wording does not really make sense in the context of this verse, the RSV and most other modern translations chose to go to the very early Greek, Latin, and Aramaic translations of this verse which appear to reflect an alternative textual tradition than that of the Hebrew text. To explain this decision, RSV appends a footnote * showing where the word “him” came from and giving the Hebrew word “me” as well for comparison so that the reader can make up his or her own mind on the issue.

Zephaniah 2:1-2

Literal – “Gather yourself even together O nation not being longest for before the birth of the decree like the chaff shall pass the day yet before comes not on you the heat of the anger of Jehovah before yet comes not on you the day of the anger of Jehovah.”

RSV – “Come together and hold assembly, O shameless nation, before you are driven away like the drifting chaff*, before there comes upon you the fierce anger of the LORD, before there comes upon you the day of the wrath of the LORD.”

Again we see that the somewhat incomprehensible Hebrew wording “the birth of the decree like the chaff” is replaced by the reading found in the ancient Greek and Aramaic versions. Both versions are given in the footnote for the reader's guidance.

Mark 15:42-43

Literal – “And now evening coming since it was preparation which is the day before the sabbath coming Joseph the from Arimathea an honorable councillor who also self was expecting the kingdom of the God taking courage went in to the Pilate and asked the body of the Jesus.”

RSV – And when evening had come, since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.”

Now that we are dealing with a little more modern language like Greek, it is a bit easier to understand a word-for-word rendering in English. Nevertheless, calling Joseph a “councillor” does not really well define his role as a member of the council, i.e. the Jewish Sanhedrin. And then we come to the end of the verse where it appears that Joseph is actually questioning Jesus' body.

Ephesians 5:5

Literal – This for be you knowing that every fornicator or unclean man or greedy who is an idolater not has inheritance in the kingdom the of Christ and of God.”

RSV – Be sure of this, that no immoral or impure man, or one who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.”

There are two important places here where clarification of the literal rendering is vital. The first is in explaining the meaning of the Greek idiom “this for be you knowing,” and the second is in the necessary punctuation provided in RSV which indicates that covetousness is actually a form of idolatry. Without that clarification, one could easily get the idea that a person will not inherit the kingdom only if they are both covetous and an idolater.

I Peter 4:2

Literal – “for the no longer of men in lusts but in will of God the remaining in flesh to live time.”

RSV – “so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer by human passions but by the will of God.”

It is necessary to rearrange the literal word order in this passage to place the clause concerning
“time” at the start of the phrase to make any sense out of it in English.

So if you happen to be tempted to feel that your “unaided” understanding of a Bible passage is superior to anything a university professor could come up with, just keep in mind that it took a number of those same university professors to prepare the very text you are reading.

 

WHEN WAS JESUS BORN?

I hate to be the Grinch on Christmas by asking this question, but here goes!

The Year

This would seem to be a given since our whole calendar system is based on the year of Jesus' birth. However, we know from the Bible that after Herod's encounter with the magi, he determined to kill all the children in Bethlehem aged two years or younger. That was probably since the magi did not arrive until some time after Jesus' birth itself. But Herod died in 4 BC according to the latest calculation of scholars. That would mean that Jesus was actually born somewhere between 4-7 BC.

But even this may not be accurate. The traditional date for Herod the Great's death was actually 1 BC, using different lines of reasoning. And in addition, Herod's heir to the rule over Judea was Herod Archelaus, who may have had some hand in ruling the region even while his father was still alive. And the biblical account may have been referring to him instead of his father.

Then there is the census carried out under Quirinius to be taken into account. It turns out that the only recorded census under him that we know about occurred in A.D. 6-7. However, it has been proposed that Quirinius may have carried out an earlier census, of which we know nothing. Alternatively, “Quirinius” in the biblical text may have been confused with “Saturninius,” who was governor of Syria from 9-6 BC.

In addition, Geldenhuys notes, “Although no express mention of this enrollment has been found outside the New Testament and Christian writers, this does not by any means prove that Luke's statement is incorrect. For numerous important events are mentioned, e.g. in the works of Josephus, which are not mentioned elsewhere and yet no one will allege that all such statements of his are false.”

Finally, there have been attempts to couple the calculated date of Jesus' crucifixion with the biblical statement (Luke 3:23) that he was about 30 years old when he began his ministry. But any such back-calculations using that statement would be very approximate at best.

So actually, we have no sure way of knowing the exact year of Jesus' birth.

The Month and Day

Here there are even more uncertainties. Raymond Brown, in his exhaustive commentary The Birth of the Messiah, notes that between March and November is when shepherds would have been out in the fields, not in the colder months of the year. But another noted Roman Catholic commentator, Joseph Fitzmyer, states: “Attempts to date the birth of Jesus by this detail to certain months of the year have been legion, but they are more speculative than convincing.”

So where did December 25 come from anyway? The explanations are numerous, and here are just a few:

Actually, Dec. 25 was by no means the only date proposed for celebration. For example, the early Church Father Clement (ca. 200) cites traditions that Jesus was born on either May 20 or April 20-21.

The most usual explanation is that December 25 was officially chosen by the early church in AD 336 since it roughly coincided with the winter solstice, the rebirth of the sun god Sol, and the birthday of the Indo-European deity Mithras, who was god of light popular with Roman soldiers. This theory would fit with the early Catholic practice of replacing existing pagan celebrations with Christian ones.

On the other hand, it has been proposed that the date came from Sextus Julius Africanus, a Christian historian who dated Jesus' conception to March 25, the date he somehow calculated to be that on which the world was created.

Then there is the theory that Christians began with an assumed date of April 6 for the crucifixion during Passover and coupled it with an ancient belief that prophets died on the same day as their conception date. And that would end up with calculated birth date of roughly nine months later.

In addition, we have the uncertainty regarding which calendar to use for our calculations. Although the Western church picked December 25, the Eastern Orthodox churches celebrate on January 6-7 instead. That is because they use the Gregorian calendar while others go with the Julian calendar.

On top of all this comes an article in the Winter 2022 edition of Christianity Today (CT) magazine written by an assistant professor at Fairfield University, T.C. Schmidt. He cites an inscription on the base of a statue of an early church writer Hippolytus dated to AD 222. Selections from Hippolytus' earlier writings are found on this inscription, including one stating that Jesus' conception date was April 2, placing his birth somewhere close to December 25.

The important thing to note is that this very early evidence demonstrates that it is highly unlikely that December 25 was primarily chosen to coincide with a pagan holiday. This is especially true since Schmidt points out that this was well before the feast of Sol had begun to be celebrated on that day by the Roman world. And the earliest solid indication that Mithras' birthday was celebrated on December doesn't date until the middle of the 4^th century AD.

The Time of Day

We are all acquainted with the Christmas carol “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” which seems to settle the question as to the exact time of day Jesus was born. But where did the author of that song get the idea in the first place? It turns out that it comes from one of the books of the Apocrypha called The Wisdom of Solomon, written around 50 BC, although other proposed dates range anywhere from the second century BC to the first century AD. In Wisdom 18:14-15, it reads: “When all things were in quiet silence, and the night was half spent, Your all-powerful Word leaped down from heaven's royal throne.” This has been interpreted, whether rightly or wrongly, to be a prophecy of the birth of the Messiah.

Conclusion

I don't mention all of the above uncertainties to throw water on the celebration of Christmas on December 25. But I think that it may cause us to consider celebrating the earthshaking event of the Incarnation every day of the year instead of only once since, for all we know, any day of the year may mark His true birthday.

 

DIFFERENT PREACHING STYLES: PROS AND CONS

 If you should do a Google search on “preaching styles,” you will see a number of articles and debates on the subject. This may seem unusual to any of you who have only attended one congregation or denomination all of your life. But due to my job moves and differing situations, I have over the years been a member or regular attender of eight different congregations representing five different denominations or church traditions and can see what different approaches preachers take in their sermons. I must admit that I am not very well acquainted with the current practice within either liturgical churches or those of the Pentecostal/charismatic type, but for the evangelical churches which fall somewhat in between these to polar opposites, sermons, preaching seems to boil down to two different types – topical sermons and expository sermons.

For years, I attended only churches that practiced the former type. Thus, the congregation never really knew what the upcoming subject of the weekly message would be unless the pastor happened to be in the middle of a short (three-week or so) study on a particular topic. Then I attended for years a congregation firmly in the Bible church tradition which made a great fetish of claiming that expository preaching was the only way to go. I read later some comments by a famous evangelical pastor who was a strong critic of that approach and stated in no uncertain terms: “That's no way to grow a church!” And by that, I believe he meant both numerically and spiritually.

Since I have experienced both types of preaching over the years, I would like to share my personal thoughts regarding the pros and cons of each approach.

Topical Sermons

For those not acquainted with this type of preaching: The message generally begins by reading a short Bible passage or key Scripture verse and then takes off from there into the chosen subject of the day. That subject is presented by referring to additional Bible passages that may be pertinent, sharing personal experiences of the pastor, and citing current examples taken from the news or popular culture. The conclusion is often expressed in roughly three bullet points that capsulize the major take-home points of the message.

The advantages of this approach are many. But the greatest strength of this method of preaching is that the pastor is usually in the best position to continually gauge the spiritual tenor of the congregation and know what practical issues they are facing and/or any theological items with which they may be wrestling. Thus, he is able to tailor each sermon to address areas his flock needs at the time.

I witnessed this in my own church last week when the sermon dealt exclusively with the theological subject of the deity of Christ. I happened to be aware that this was a sticking point with someone in our Sunday school class, and it had become an issue just the week before. Our pastor knew of the situation and was able in one week to present an excellent message clearly addressing the subject in a way that would reach not only that individual but any others in the congregation who might have had the same theological issue as well as those who had perhaps never even considered the subject seriously.

Going back to my own experiences, after I had sat through years and years of both good and bad sermons of the topical sort, I reached the point where I had convinced myself that I knew the Bible forward and backward. That was until I began attending a congregation associated with a different denomination. The pastor began bringing up Bible passages that I would have sworn weren't in Scripture at all until I looked them up myself. I then realized that there were a handful of favorite “proof-texts” that my previous pastors always referred to while totally ignoring huge chunks of the Bible as being either irrelevant or contrary to the teaching of our denomination.

In addition, I began to realize that my knowledge of even the part of the Bible that was preached from was only skin deep. That was because, a given passage was rarely discussed from the pulpit in any depth at all since it was only mentioned to bolster up some point or other that the pastor was trying to get across. This exposes the two major weakness of the topical approach. (1) Because of the preacher's personal favorites in Bible passages and topics, a congregation may be subjected to the same “meat and potatoes” dinner to eat every week, and (2) Few passages of the Bible are ever explained in any sort of depth.

Expository Sermons

For any of you who have never been exposed to much preaching of this type, it is really eye-opening. The only thing I can compare it with is an in-depth Sunday school class which goes through a whole book of the Bible verse-by-verse over the period of several months, or even years on occasion.

For me, who loves an in-depth Bible study, this was quite a refreshing change when I first started attending a congregation which practiced this sort of preaching exclusively. At one point, our pastor explained that this brand of preaching was actually hard for him to do since he was forced to confront every single verse in the book being studied, even those that were difficult to explain or didn't seem to fit in with the beliefs in the congregation's doctrinal statement.

A typical series of expository sermons might include a comprehensive study of a book like Joshua or Colossians and last up to a year long. The congregation always knew exactly what would be covered each week, and a given sermon might deal with 1-3 verses at the least or a half-chapter at the very most.

Immediately, some of you might respond, “That sounds like a Sunday school teaching, not a sermon!” If you did, you would be to a large extent correct. Most Sunday messages were much more concerned with going into the original Greek to define exactly the intended meaning of the text than they were with subsequently drawing any application lessons out of that text. My experience has been that this sort of sermon benefits three types of people:

1. those in the congregation who approach the Bible mainly as an intellectual exercise (and I am afraid that I might class myself in that category),

2. those in the congregation who are already mature Christians and have individual ministries, but feel that they need a much deeper understanding of the Bible, or

3. the preacher himself, since it is quite easy for him to recycle his sermon series on a given book of the Bible in the form of a publishable Bible commentary.

To illustrate type #1, a friend of mine who attended our Bible church told me that he was working on pinning down each and every passage of the Bible as to its meaning so that he could go on to the next passage. As to type #2, I was amazed at the large percentage of full-time missionaries or those with significant personal ministries who attended our church. They did not need to be told how to live the Christian life as much as they needed to make sure that their understanding of the Bible was correct. To illustrate type #3, just browse a Bible book store or Christian Book Distributors catalog and you will see a number of commentary series put out by prominent pastors who practice the expository style of preaching.

There are a number of weaknesses to this approach. It tends to shortchange the practical application side of a good pastor's responsibilities to his or her congregation. This deficiency was certainly evident within the Bible church I attended for years in the selfish, materialistic attitudes of most of the church staff and elders. And it rapidly rubbed off on the members of the congregation as well as their children. With time, the situation deteriorated even further to the point where the elders decided that they could dispense with a full-time missions minister and the minister in charge of all pastoral care. But even the elders drew the line when our senior pastor said that he wanted to be excused of all duties except preparation of his one weekly sermon.

A second drawback to this approach is that it purports to preach the whole Bible, not just selected proof-texts, but in reality it is no better in exposing the congregation to Scripture than the topical method. The reason is quite simple. While a preacher is spending two years or more slowly digging through Romans verse-by-verse, for example, the congregation is being exposed to virtually nothing from the rest of the Bible.

And lastly, the strictly expository approach does not have the flexibility to adapt the messages to the real needs of the congregation in a timely manner.

Mixed Approaches

Fortunately, few pastors restrict themselves to only one of these two approaches. Even the most dyed-in-the-wool expository preachers will on occasion take a break once or twice a year from a prolonged book study in order to present a few weeks on some subject of current interest instead. Conversely, most topical preachers will vary their approach with an occasional two- to four-week series on a particular Bible passage.

Personally, I think that a regular 50-50 mix of the two styles is the best way to meet the congregation's need for both variety and continuity, head knowledge and practical application.

The Impact of Sunday School

One last aspect of this subject that must seriously be taken into account by the church leaders and teachers as well as anyone who considers attending a new church is the role of the Sunday school classes. I have treated some of the aspects involved in Bible teaching in my two posts on “Advice to Adult Sunday School/Bible Study Teachers.”

Most loyal church members and attenders will at least come to the worship service and hear the sermon on a somewhat regular basis. Fewer will attend an Sunday school class, assuming that the church even has one or more of such to offer. And even rarer is the person who will become involved in a home or church Bible study during the week.

Because of the above reality, the pastor and staff must not automatically assume that the congregation is being fed spiritually in ways other than through the sermon. And if the pastor still chooses to follow exclusively either a information-driven morning message or an application-driven one, it behooves the rest of the church ministries to attempt to supplement that sole teaching elsewhere as best they can.

"CAN ANYTHING GOOD COME OUT OF NAZARETH?" (JOHN 1:46)

This comment by Nathanael when he was told that the Messiah had been found has always confused me. I wondered what in the world was so bad about Nazareth anyway. But before giving some possible answers, here are some general comments first.

Riesner explains, “Since Nazareth is not mentioned in the OT, in the Apocrypha or in rabbinic literature, some during the nineteenth century disputed its existence in NT times. In addition to an inscription mentioned it as a settlement for priests in the third to fourth century, excavations of recent years have removed every doubt...ritually clean clay stone vessels were found pointing to pious Jewish inhabitants. As it expanded, Nazareth may have grown to a settlement of some 200 people.” This is yet another example of scholarly skepticism regarding details in the New Testament record being overturned by the plain facts.

“The reason for [this lack of mention] was first geographical and later theological. Lower Galilee remained outside the main stream of Israelite life until New Testament times, when Rom. rule first brought security.” (J.W. Charley)

In terms of literary features worth mentioning, most prominent is the fact that Nathanael's statement is a typical example of John's use of irony in his Gospel account. Nathanael's comment is partially based on his mistaken belief that Jesus was born in Nazareth when the fact is that he was born in Bethlehem but lived most of his life in Mary's hometown of Nazareth. Culpepper classes this reply among the several examples of the literary device of “the unanswered question, often based on a false assumption, in which the character suggests or prophesies the truth without knowing it.” This literary device also appears in passages such as John 4:12; 7:20; 7:48; 8:53; 18:38, etc. “By suggesting the truth in some of these questions, the interlocutors expose the error of their assumptions.”

Concerning a completely different literary device present here, Borchert explains that “Nathanael's response is a classic expression of doubt that in literary form provides the shadow image of Thomas's first response to the news of Jesus' resurrection in 20:25. Thus, the beginning and end of the book are coordinated.”

With those items out of the way, we can now look at why Nathanael said what he did. As usual, there is no one simple answer unless one wishes to just look at a single commentator's theory and ignore all others. But even there, it is quite likely that you will find that some scholars refuse to be pinned down to one possibility. Piecing it all together, there appear to be at least four competing theories as to why Nathanael was bad-mouthing Nazareth: the well-earned bad reputation of the inhabitants, their generally independent attitude, the insignificance of the city, or due to an intra-Galilean rivalry. Let me explain the last possibility first.

One thing that is necessary to note is that Nathanael himself was from Galilee, and so it is doubtful that he was making a generally derogatory comment regarding his own region of birth. However, Cana was located near Nazareth. Thus, Raymond Brown says, “The saying may be a local proverb reflecting jealousy between Nathanael's town of Cana and nearby Nazareth.” Leon Morris concurs: “Moreover, as Nathanael himself came from Cana, it is not at all improbable that we have here a trace of the rivalry that often grips small centres (and bigger ones!) not far from one another.”

If anyone thinks that explanation is improbable, I can offer at least three examples from personal experience as I was growing up in Culver City, California. It was an independently-incorporated city completely surrounded by Los Angeles, and so our high school took great pride in bragging about the superior quality of the education we were afforded compared to the L.A. school system, whether or not we were correct in our assessment. Our house was just two blocks away from the MGM Studios, and Culver City claimed (and rightly so) to be the real home of the movie industry in Southern California with roots going way back to the silent film days, certainly not the more famous Hollywood. I don't think Hollywood took our rivalry seriously at all, but we did. And then when I started attending UCLA, the standard taunt of rival USC was, “Those with money attend USC; those with brains attend UCLA.” GO BRUINS!

An alternative explanation for Nathanael's words is that perhaps Nazareth had really earned a reputation for the bad behavior of its inhabitants. Thus, Brown says that “it may be noted that Galilean 'prophets' had already caused trouble, e.g. Judas the Galilean of Acts v 37.” But that certainly doesn't explain why the Galilean Nathanael would defame his own region. However, Donald Guthrie explains, “It may at first seem strange that a Galilaean should repeat a saying derogatory to a Galilaean city. But Nazarenes appear to have had the type of character to give rise to such a proverb, if their treatment of Jesus is anything to go by.” But I think that Nazareth's rejection of Jesus' teaching is much better attributed to the factor Jesus himself points out. We can paraphrase it very roughly with the modern proverb “Familiarity breeds contempt.”

Borchert weighs both of the above possibilities and concludes: “Whether Nathanael's prejudiced question...represents a rivalry between Cana and Nazareth or is merely a local maxim that categorized Nazareth as the wrong side of the track is here unclear.”

A somewhat related charge against the city is its standoffish attitude toward the rest of Israel. Charley provides a geographical explanation for that possibility: “Nazareth lay close enough to several main trade-routes for easy contact with the outside world, while at the same time her position as a frontier-town on the southern border of Zebulun overlooking the Esdraelon plain produced a certain aloofness. It was this independence of outlook in Lower Galilee which led to the scorn in which Nazareth was held by strict Jews.” It is an intriguing possibility, but the author does not give any concrete proof that this was indeed the case.

Finally, we come to the likely possibility that Jews of the time were certainly not expecting the Messiah to come from a lowly town such as Nazareth. The following scholars side with this explanation:

“Nathanael momentarily stumbled over the lowly origin of the Messiah...Nathanael knew of the poor reputation of Nazareth. Surely the Messiah would come from Jerusalem, Hebron, or some other prominent city. Jesus' condescension still remains a puzzle to many people.” (Blum) It is not quite clear what Blum means by Nazareth's “poor reputation” unless he is referring to the fact that it really had no reputation at all to speak of.

Morris: “Nathanael's skeptical question does not reflect as far as known, a widely held opinion of Nazareth. It was not a famous city, but we have no reason for thinking it was infamous. We should probably understand Nathanael's words as the utterance of a man who could not conceive of the Messiah as coming from such an insignificant place.”

Rengstorf: “At all events, for all the witnesses, Jesus' origins in Nazareth are a sign of his lowliness. Nobody understood this as well or emphasized it as unmistakably as Jn., when in his account the description of Jesus as Nazoraios found its place in the inscription for his cross on the initiative of the Roman procurator (19:19). Here finally, so to speak, the reader's attention is once again drawn to the fact that Jesus' origins in a place without status or prestige in the surrounding world formed a glaring contrast to the claim with which he had appeared before them.”

 

THE CARE OF WIDOWS (I TIMOTHY 5)

In this passage, Paul instructs Timothy on the duties of Christians and the Church in regard to widows within the body. But his teachings are not as clear-cut to us as we would perhaps prefer. For one thing, he appears to refer to a great number of types of widows including: “real” widows (mentioned in verses 3,5,16a and 16b), widows with and without relatives, old and young widows, widows who live for pleasure, widows who are devoted to good works, idle widows, and widows who are or aren't to be “put on the list.” In addition, there appear to be two conclusions to his words (verses 7-8 and 21), and the whole discussion follows, and is followed by, some words of caution regarding our attitudes toward other classes of people within the church.

All of these issues can be cleared up a great deal when one looks at how Paul has structured his whole presentation in this chapter. But to do this, we need to keep in mind that the Bible as a whole and in its individual books and sections is not written in the sort of chronological and logical order that we expect. Instead, almost all Scripture is designed around the concepts of repetition and symmetry. To illustrate this point and demonstrate the great value of looking for the method of organization employed by the authors when reading any passage in the Bible, below is a proposed structure for I Timothy 5.

The Literary Structure of I Timothy 5:1-22

A. Proper dealing with those within the Christian family (vv. 1-2)

    B. Treatment of widows (vv. 3-8)

        1. Real widows (v. 3)

            2. Support by relatives (vv. 4-5)

                3. Pleasure-seeking widows (v. 6)

                    C. Conclusion (vv. 7-8)

                        D. Widows to be enrolled on the list (vv. 9-10)

                        D'. Widows to be excluded from the list (vv. 11-12)

B'. Treatment of widows (vv. 14-16)

                3'. Younger widows (vv. 14-15)

            2'. Support by relatives (v. 16a)

    1'. Real widows (v. 16b)

A'. Proper dealing with those within the Christian family (vv. 17-20)

                    C'. Conclusion (v. 21)

If this is a true representation of the structure of this passage, then we can see, first of all, that the two conclusions are indeed placed in appropriate spots to summarize the large opening and closing sections revolving around the appropriate treatment of “real widows.” Looking at various translations of that phrase, one can see that many of them are slight variations such as “widows who are such in the full sense” (NEB), “widows indeed” (KJV, NASB), and “truly widows” (JB). Of course, none of those really gives us any more information.

Other versions make an attempt to define the designation “real widow” a little more closely with wording such as “who are really alone in the world (Phillips), “who is all alone with no one to take care of her” (TEV, Living Bible), “who are really in need” (NIV), and “who are destitute” (The Message). Although all of these renderings agree agree as to meaning intended here, one can obtain from the context an additional criterion necessarily in place before the church body should support a widow. Thus, in B3 and B'3' above, another class of widows is described in stark contrast to the “real” widows: those who live for pleasure, follow sensuous desires, are idle, and go around spreading gossip. Such widows do not need to be supported by the church.

Then we come to the very center of the chapter in which the question revolves around which widows are to be enrolled in “the list.” At this point, commentators are divided as to whether “the list” designates (1) those who are or are not to be financially supported by the church or (2) those who are, in addition to being supported, also to have an official or semi-official status within the congregation. If the former is the case, then the criteria given in verses 9-10 are in addition to the requirement of financial need for “real” widows given in sections B and B'.

But the way in which the overall structure of this passage sets apart the verses designated as D-D' seems to indicate that a special class of “real” widows is being described who are well recognized for their spiritual qualities and therefore to be set apart for special service within the congregation. In fact, they may possibly be identical to the “female deacons” or “deaconesses” mentioned elsewhere within the Pastoral Epistles.

Finally, from the figure above one can see that the discussion of widows in the congregation is capped on both ends (sections A and A') with a more general statement covering a Christian's attitude and treatment of all members of the congregation. The parallel nature of these two book-ending sections is seen by repetition of the words “elder/older man” and “pure/purity.”

When attempting to follow the scriptural pattern set down in the NT, we must keep in mind that Paul was dealing with a particular time and culture that is quite different in many ways from today. For example, there were no government programs or para-church organizations to help the needy. In addition, the Christian congregations at the time were probably widely separated from one another geographically unlike today's situation when some towns seem to have a church on practically every block. So the logistics of support for the needy are quite different in many ways.

However, none of that should be used as an excuse for ignoring the immediate physical needs of those in our own congregations and in our communities in general. In addition, the overall admonition for relatives to take care of those in in their own family still stands today. We must keep in mind Jesus' harsh words directed toward those religious leaders who made a grand show of giving money to the temple while using that as an excuse to ignore their own needy parents. And the command to honor one's father and mother can rightly be extended to others within our earthly family who need our help.

 

DASHED EXPECTATIONS IN THE BIBLE

I love tracing certain themes throughout the Bible. For one, it is no surprise that the Bible is full of surprises for the personages in the narratives, some pleasant and others not so much. Just consider some of the times in Scripture when someone had high hopes only to be confronted with stark reality.

The first place where we encounter this happening is in the Garden of Eden when the hopes of Adam and Eve to become equal to God Himself turn into banishment from His presence instead and a life of toil.

Cain hopes to displace God's “favorite” Abel by simply removing him from the picture altogether, but instead he is the one who is removed.

The inhabitants of Babel expect to make a name for themselves by building a tower to heaven, but they also are scattered to the winds.

When Abraham gives his nephew Lot the choice of grazing land, Lot chooses the best land for himself. But that choice leads to him losing everything but his two daughters when Sodom is destroyed.

Esau trades in long-term for short-term gain by selling his birthright for a pot of stew and is bitterly disappointed when the blessing goes to Jacob instead.

Jacob, in turn, is tricked by Laban into working for seven years before he can claim Rachel as his bride, only to find on his wedding night that he has married her sister instead. In the end it all works out, but Jacob has to slave away for another seven years.

When Dinah, Jacob's daughter, is raped by Shechem, her brothers take revenge by tricking the Hivites into getting circumcised so that they can safely slaughter them. But instead of being praised by Jacob for their actions, he denounces them instead.

In a replay of the Cain and Abel story, Joseph's brothers sell him into slavery out of sibling jealousy. But their action only leads later to them bowing down to the vastly elevated Joseph as he had earlier dreamed they would.

And all that is just in the Book of Genesis. Moving on to the period of Israel's exodus from Egypt, we see:

The Jews in the wilderness grumble about having to eat manna all the time, and so God inundates them with quail. But their happiness turns to dread when God strikes them with plague before they have time to eat any of it.

Miriam wants to elevate her status to be the equal of Moses, but instead God inflicts her with leprosy to put her back in her place.

Balaam the prophet thinks that he will earn a great deal of money from the Moabites for cursing the Israelites. Instead, God makes him bless them and Balaam loses his commission.

Of course, there is the sad story of Moses who had led the people for decades only to find that he himself would be excluded from entering the Holy Land.

The Israelites are dealt a heavy blow after the miraculous conquest of Jericho when they are defeated themselves as they attack Ai, all due to the disobedience of one man in their camp.

The Gibeonites hatch what they feel is a clever plan to avoid being conquered like the other Canaanites. They pretend to be a distant tribe and trick Joshua into making a treaty with them. But when he finds out what has happened, he condemns them and their descendants to serve as slaves.

The book of Judges is also filled with dashed hopes, starting with the King Eglon of Moab who thinks he is going to get some inside information from Ehud regarding the Israelite troops, but all he gets is a dagger in the belly. This is followed by the events of Judges 4-5 in which three people get rude surprises: the Israelite commander Barak has to yield credit for victory over a Canaanite army to two women; the Canaanite general Sisera thinks he has safely escaped from the battle only to find that he has stumbled into the hands of a woman who will kill him while he is asleep; and Sisera's mother at home dreams of all the precious goods her son will bring home to her from the battle only to be soon rudely awakened to reality.

Then we can't forget the scene in which the lords of Philistine meet in a huge hall to celebrate a sacrifice to their god. They haul in the blinded Samson in order to make fun of him, but his performance literally brings down the house, killing everyone inside.

Even the Book of Ruth contains an example of dashed expectations when Naomi's nearest relative is given what he thinks is a great opportunity to increase his belongings. Then he learns that he will have to marry Ruth in order to get it and that the land will belong to her children rather than the ones he already has.

I will skip over the rest of the Old Testament since there entirely too many examples to even mention in passing. You might want to go through them yourself sometime to see how many times God frustrates the high hopes of those who wish to take a shortcut to success. But we see this same pattern in the New Testament narratives as well.

Sometimes Jesus encounters those who appear to be sincere in their approach to him, but he still needs to put them in their place and expose their errors directly. Just consider the man who begins his conversation with Jesus by calling him “good teacher.” I am sure that the man felt that this address would flatter Jesus, but it becomes quite obvious that Jesus did not take it in that light at all and needed to set the man straight instead. The same thing is true of the rich young ruler who was obviously looking for approval from Jesus for his exemplary life. But Jesus merely told him to sell all his possessions and give them to the poor, which was not the sort of reply he had expected.

However, the clearest examples of Jesus' attitude toward those who felt they were vastly more moral than those around them were the many times he openly exposed their hypocrisy and told parables that had as their punchline: “The first shall be last, and the last shall be first” or the equivalent thought.

I realized that I had actually experienced years ago a purely secular parallel to Jesus' various encounters with the scribes and Pharisees. It happened when I was a graduate student and attended one of our weekly evening department meetings. The special speaker was a visiting professor from UCLA who had gotten his PhD from Harvard. He also happened to be my previous undergraduate research professor whose recommendation was instrumental in getting me admitted to graduate school at the somewhat less prestigious institute I was attending.

That particular evening the full professors were all out of town and so the junior staff, somewhat fortified with a little alcohol before the meeting, apparently decided to strut their stuff before all of us students and demonstrate that they could more than hold their own with this professor from a more famous university. They began interrupting the speaker's talk with questions and objections to what he was saying. At first, the speaker politely addressed their remarks until he began to realize what they were up to. At that point, he feigned ignorance on a certain fact and tricked one of our professors into coming up with the answer, which turned out to be false as the speaker pointed out.

From that point on, all of us in the audience were firmly rooting for the speaker and glad to see our profs put in their place. It was hard for us to all keep a straight face when one of our staff made one last stab to win a point and the speaker merely said, “You're wrong. Think about it.” The talk concluded with the speaker thanking the staff, which he labeled as “cynical,” in the same manner as Jesus had called the Pharisees “hypocrites.”

It is easy to point to others who get the sort of unexpected disappointments they deserve. But we all need to realize that we are in the same situation ourselves and may get some rude awakenings from God if we are not careful. Just consider the following teachings in conclusion:

    “Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18)

    “So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall.” (I Corinthians 10:12)

 

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COLOSSIANS AND EPHESIANS

The three issues generally discussed by scholars in relation to these two “Prison Epistles” are their authorship, place of writing, and relative timings of the writings. For the purposes of this short post, I am going to assume, as do most evangelical scholars, that Paul himself was the author of both letters and that both were written at roughly the same time as one another. But which one was composed first?

Many readers would just assume that Paul's letters are arranged in chronological order, but that would be a poor assumption. After all, I Thessalonians is generally believed to be one of the first, if not the first, of his epistles to a specific church and it is listed toward the end of the collection, not the beginning. Instead, it is generally accepted that the Pauline epistles are arranged roughly in order of their length, beginning with the longest and ending with the shortest.

Barth and Blanke compare both epistles in terms of vocabulary, style, structure and doctrine with the conclusion:

“the most sober and plausible explanation of the unity and diversity of C and E may still be found on a simple path leading through the literary and theological thickets: at about the same time, but in addressing different congregations in different situations, one and the same author wrote both letters.”

But the analysis of the material common to both epistles leads, in their hands, to inconclusive results in determining which letter was written first.

F.F. Bruce rehearses some of the close similarities in wording and thought between the two letters and cites Holtzmann who pointed to “the curious phenomenon that, in passages common to Colossians and Ephesians, sometimes the one epistle and sometimes the other seems to be the earlier.” Then, as Childs explains, “He attempted to solve the problem on the literary level by means of a complex theory of interpolations and redactions. According to his theory, the author of Ephesians not only first imitated an original Colossians, but subsequently interpolated Colossians with material from Ephesians. Few have found the theory fully convincing.”

Bruce's own conclusion is that “Paul, having completed his letter to Colossae, allowed his thoughts to run on along the same line until he was gripped by the vision which finds expression in the companion letter, and began to dictate its contents in an exalted mood of inspired meditation, thanksgiving and prayer.”

E.K. Simpson cites the often-mentioned possibility that since the words “in Ephesus” are not present in Ephesians 1:1 of many of the earliest manuscripts, perhaps the letter was in fact the Laodicean letter mentioned in Colossians 4:16. If that is true, then Colossians must have been written after the letter to “the Ephesians.”

R.E. Brown in his Introduction to the New Testament says, “In striking ways Eph resembles Col in overall structure and verbal parallels.” He supports this view with specific numerical data and a table of examples. He concludes by stating, “A plausible theory, then, would be that on the basis of the undisputed Pauline letters and especially of Col...someone in the Ephesian school of Paul's disciples produced Eph as an encouraging portrayal of aspects of Pauline thought.”

F.C. Synge believes that Ephesians is a genuine letter by Paul which had been used as a model for the later Colossians by another author resulting in a pale imitation lacking in style and sentiment and grandeur.

J.D.G. Dunn states that “we cannot ignore the degree to which Colossians and Ephesians overlap, sufficiently often with very similar phraseology, structure, and content...This feature is best explained by Ephesians being written using Colossians as a kind of template.”

N.T. Wright outlines four possible scenarios regarding these two letters:

    1. Paul wrote Colossians first and then Ephesians soon afterward.

    2. Paul wrote Ephesians first and then used some of this material in the later Colossian letter.

    3. Paul wrote Colossians, and then someone else used it as the basis for Ephesians.

    4. An unknown author wrote Colossians in the style of Paul, and then another person copied material in Colossians to write Ephesians.

He rejects the last two options as being improbable, but is undecided between 1 and 2. “Whichever letter came first, there is no evidence of a modification of ideas or change in theology.”

C.E. Arnold accepts the Pauline authorship of both letters and is dubious whether any evidence exists for direct literary dependence of one letter on the other. He agrees with the combined assessment of Moo, Carson and Morris: “The best explanation to many seems to be that the same man wrote Colossians and Ephesians a little later, with many of the same thoughts running through his head and with a more general application of the ideas he had so recently expressed.”

I turned to my own efforts in the field of literary analysis to see if they might have anything to say on the subject. The first thing I noted was that there was a general similarity between the two overall structures, especially when compared to the organization seen in other Pauline letters. In addition, it bears noting that the blocks of common material between parallel passages (such as I and I', II and II', etc.) in Colossians coincide much better with one another than do the parallel units of common material in Ephesians. This may indicate that the former epistle had precedence of composition. This is in agreement with Moritz' contention: “Quite possibly Ephesians is Colossians re-written (perhaps within days or weeks of its completion) for a similar, yet slightly different audience...”

Figure 1: The Structure of Colossians

I. Opening Greetings (1:1-2)

II. Fruit of the Gospel and Prayer (1:3-14)

                                    III. God Who Reconciles (1:15-20)

                                                IV. Our Holiness (1:21-23)

 

V. Christ in You (1:24-2:7)

                                                                    VI. False Teachings (2:8-23)

V'. Raised with Christ (3:1-4)

 

IV'. The Old and New Natures (3:5-17)

III'. Transformed Relationships (3:18-4:1)

II'. Living the Christian Life in Prayer (4:2-6)

I'. Final Greetings (4:7-18)

Figure 2: The Structure of Ephesians

I. Introduction (1:1-2)

II. Position with God through Christ (1:3-14)

III. Power in Christ (1:15-23)

 

IV. Gentiles’ Past and Present Position Contrasted (2:1-22)

V. The Mystery of Christ: Position and Power (3:1-21)

IV'. Gentiles’ Past and Present Behavior Contrasted (4:1-5:20)

II'. Position with Others through Christ (5:21-6:9)

III'. Power in Christ (6:10-20)

I'. Conclusion (6:21-24)

Arnold aptly summarizes the situation when he says, “The precise nature...of the relationship between Ephesians and Colossians continues to stand in need of careful research from a literary, linguistic and theological perspective.”