Category: BIble study notes

Through the Bible in a Year – June 13

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

1 Ch 16-17; Rev 17-18; Psalm 55

At the heart of the Old Testament is the theme of ‘right worship’. From the strange story of the Offerings of Cain and Abel, through the stories of the Patriarchs and coming to a focus in the Monarchy of the People of God – Right Worship – Worship in accordance with the God who makes himself known to us is central and the key interpretative element on which so much of the narrative hinges.

Thus David of course desires to make a house for the ark of the covenant – he seeks to to right in his worship of God.

At the heart of the story of course is the fundamental question, Who Is God? Right worship needs to be directed aright. Right Worship is a reflection of Divine Glory – it is that for which we are made, to make visible the Life of the God in whose image we are created. Thus worship of anyone or anything else is prohibited not in an arbitrary way, but because it denies who we are. It is death dealing.

Thus in our reading from Revelation, we see the bitter fruit of wrong worship. ‘Babylon the Great’ has made herself great; she has made herself an object of worship. She has made herself the great provider – she has traded to exalt herself, to make of herself a great and mighty nation. As for Babylon, be she Rome or Jerusalem, or be she any other nation, there is only one fate

Only One is great upon the Earth, the one who offers right worship to God. What is Any nation in comparison with Christ, the one who in himself is the Tabernacle of God.

Through the Bible in a Year – June 12

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

1 Ch 14-15; Rev 15-16; Psalm 53-54

Revelation 15 and 16 juxtapose two themes – both of which have largely been erased from our consciousness. The Glory of God in Chapter 15 as expressed in ‘the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb’, and the Wrath of God.

Of course, sophisticates [or perhaps that should be Sophists??] that we are, we tend to think we have only done away with the latter. The Wrath of God is something which we flee from, either in reality or metaphor. Despite the clear evidence to the contrary in the Gospels and in the person of Jesus of Nazareth there revealed, we tend to think it rather uncivilised to pay much attention to the Dies Irae – the Day of Wrath. Our forebears thought otherwise and of course the Dies Irae played a significant part in funeral liturgies.

We perhaps tend to think that by and large we do a pretty good job with glorifying God – but the reality of it is that it is precisely the desecration of the Image of God that is the root of the Wrath of God, the desecration of the Image in humankind. There is somewhat of an irony in that those who seem to make a lot of noise about justice, underplay the Wrath of God. Whilst those who perhaps fail to apprehend the Glory of God in ‘a human fully alive’, to quote Iranaeus, make most of the Wrath of God.

Orthodox faith holds these in utterly rational agreement.

Why is God angered by sin? Because it defiles his image in which we are created. Sin cannot be understood apart from this – it is no mere adherence to a seemingly arbitrary moral code. It is that which has ‘marred Your image in us’, it is the destruction of that which God has declared Good!

God’s wrath is over what we have made of ourselves – defiled ourselves, and then so often called it Good.

We give Glory to God that we might better see that which we truly are, and be all the more appalled at what we have made of ourselves.

Through the Bible in a Year – June 11

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

1 Ch 12-13; Rev 13-14; Psalm 52

The ‘Number of the Beast’ has of course been a matter for endless speculation over the years. Put simply, we don’t know – we might perhaps surmise that it is Nero, but that is to assume that Rome and not for example faithless Jerusalem is in view in this book.

One lesson perhaps we all need to learn is that there is much in the pages of Scripture which we may never have access to. That there are parts of it which would be obvious to the first hearers of the message, but to us are lost as we know so little of their context. In part this should come as no surprise to those who are aware of cultural diversity and that there is much of the culture of other peoples today which we cannot comprehend.

The danger is that these parts of scripture become a distraction from that, the meaning of which is all too plain.

Perhaps the work of the Beast is to keep us so distracted?

Through the Bible in a Year – June 10

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

1 Ch 10-11; Rev 11-12; Psalm 51

Psalm 51 is the opening prayer of the morning office of the Orthodox Church. It reminds us first thing in the morning that we are sinners in need of Grace. It is as good a way to wake as any, in at least three regards. Firstly it places God at the heart of all things. ‘Against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight’.

Remembering that the context of this Psalm is David’s theft of Bathsheba and his murder of Uriah, this might seem a little odd. We are all too focussed on those we can see as opposed to the one we cannot see. We fear the consequences of sin in terms of people being angry with us and more, rather than the devastation it does to our relationship with God.

Secondly it reminds us that God’s grace is always forthcoming to those who repent – literally turn around, and face him. For unlike those who might seek at least a tooth for a tooth, and humans are poor judges of justice, and worse of mercy, he wears a smiling face and loves to see us return.

Before we are half done with this prayer – he is running to meet us.  Perhaps THE reason to pray it . . .

Through the Bible in a Year – June 8

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

2 Sa 21-22; Rev 7-8; Psalm 49

Revelation 7 contains a highly important message for us – that of the Completion of God’s purposes in redeeming mankind. The numbers involved, the 12,000s signify completion – and before the throne a multitude out of every nation. God’s Work Will be Completed

Through the Bible in a Year – June 7

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

2 Sa 19-20; Rev 5-6; Psalm 48

For all our difficulties with reading Revelation – Chapter 5 contains the most exalted hymn of Praise to God in Christ, in all of Scripture. John hears Every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth worshiping Christ – the fulness of the one who fills everything in every way.

As I have written elsewhere – the church in many ways avoids the Cross of Christ. It is in effect reduced to a doctrine about the love of God, we talk about the centrality of ‘the Cross’, and thus the particularity of the Crucified one is hid from our eyes. St Paul as he goes to Corinth he tells us seeks only to know Christ and him crucified.

As we saw in Chapter one, John beholds the Glory. He whom we know stood at the foot of the Roman Cross, who saw his friend and beloved master naked and cruelly nailed to rough timber, wracked, gasping and dying – he it was who truly saw the Lamb that was slain. There is no doctrine here – no message – just the worship of the Crucified one.

As we thought yesterday of the ‘comfortable’ character of the western churches, perhaps it is through the contemplation of the Lamb that was slain, that we might once more recover our true identity as his disciples, rather than lords of our own lives.

Through the Bible in a Year – June 5

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

2 Sa 15-16; Rev 1-2; Psalm 45

From the mystical world of Jude, we are plunged deep into the book of Revelation, The Apocalypse of St John the Divine, to give it the fuller title ascribed to it by many in the church.

For many this is a book which is in some regards off limits. Its imagery is alien to many of us and of course it has always been a happy hunting ground for many who consider they have an inside line on the end of the world. But we should not avoid it.

In large part it is entirely suitable as the final book of the scriptures – for it encapsulates so much of that which has gone before. Indeed one of the reasons we may find it alien is our lack of knowledge of so much of the Old Testament, to which it contains over 600 ascriptions.

But supremely it is worthy of our consideration for its theme of the glorified Christ – the one who makes himself known to John on Patmos. John of all the New Testament writers is the Evangelist of Glory. And herein lies perhaps the key. For it is John who declares that in the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, the Glory of GOd is revealed. In other words in that which repels our eyes, which can only be understood by us as the darkest of scenes, the Light of God blazes forth.

So in the Apocalypse – Unveiling – Revelation – we See this glory which blind eyes cannot comprehend. And it is such that John falls prostrate at the feet of Christ. If there is no other reason for reading Revelation, it is this – that we recapture our sense of Christ as the one at whose feet we too can only fall at, as though dead, that he might speak words of Life to us.

 

Through the Bible in a Year – June 4th

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

2 Sa 13-4; Jude; Psalm 43-44

The letter of Jude, a the letter to the Hebrews may seem a little strange to our ears. [Of course we should never presume a familiarity with the scriptures – always we are learners].

In it like the epistle to the Hebrews, we find fierce warnings as well as references to angels and uniquely in the New Testament, a reference to Enoch.

For those who missed him, Enoch turns up briefly in the canonical scriptures in the book of Genesis. [Chapter 5 vs 21-24]

He is the father of Methuselah – the one credited with living 969 years, and also one of only two figures in the scriptures of whom it is attested, they did not die. The other being the prophet Elijah. Like Elijah great traditions grew up around Enoch and there are three books of Enoch which were a part of the apocalyptic literature of the people of Jesus’ day. Indeed these books were read as scripture until the third century.

HOwever for all its strangeness, Jude covers much that is familiar – echoing Paul’s condemnation of false teachers, and asking that mercy and gentleness be shown to the wayward. But perhaps Jude will be most recognisable for its wonderful Benediction – the blessing pronounced upon God at its close. Still in use in many churches today, it reminds us that our primary calling as Christians is the worship and blessing of God. That to quote the Westminster confession, the reason for our existence is to ‘glorify God’.

Amen

Through the Bible in a Year – June 3rd

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

2 Sa 11-12; 2&3 Jn; Psalm 42

This passage from 2 Samuel is as we know the hinge on which the David narrative turns. In a sense as some have suggested, David now begins to live out the second half of his life, beginning with the theft of Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah.

Women and wives were seen as chattels in David’s time – indeed perhaps in his remark about his love for Jonathan [2 Sam 1:27], there is a disdain of women implicit – but they still did belong to their husband, not to another. So Adultery was then more than a sexual misdemeanour, it was also theft as Uriah so describes it. David is a sheep stealer. And then of course he murders Uriah to complete the theft. Like it or not, in the story of David, there are deep resonances with the story of the most wicked of all the kings, Ahab.

But whatever is going on, David now finds himself in  set of circumstances where the tenor of his faith changes. Previously he bestrides the landscape – we are told the LORD granted him victory – but from hereon in he will find that as under Saul, he is a fugitive once more. His faith now takes on a most different hue. He is now a sinner, hunted in the wilderness. It is perhaps now that David begins the most important lesson of all, that Truly he is dependent upon God and not the might of his own arm.

He is in this regard a perfect mirror for Israel – who are chosen and saved by the Lord, just as he chose and preserved David. Who then entered the promised land of his inheritance, but acted as if everything he had was his – as King it was all his to do with as he would. So too Israel in their pride and conceit acted as if they were Lords. NO man is a Lord, not in his own home, not anywhere, only Christ. David’s story reminds us of this powerfully. From hereon, the David story continues down and down.

 

 

Through the Bible in a Year – June 2nd

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

2 Sa 8-10; 1 Jn 4-5; Psalm 41

John in is letter as we have already seen makes much of the incarnation. He begins by declaring that which the Apostles had seen and touched.

He goes on to make this the touchstone of discernment – ‘every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God’

So much of what passes for faith nowadays, amongst both conservative and liberal Christians – teeters dangerously in this regard. For many ‘Jesus’ is reduced to a principle, a set of doctrines or beliefs – such that if you take but a moment to consider what is said, the Incarnation is sidelined, and so is Christ. The gospel becomes a set of words and Jesus largely disappears from the picture.