The scheme for May – June can be found here
1 Sa 19-20; 1 Pet 1; Psalm 34
One of the most misused biblical phrases is ‘Child of God’. For those of us who wish to think that all of humanity is a ‘child of God’, certainly we do not find much evidence of this in the pages of Scripture. Famously, the prologue to St John’s gospel faces us with the assertion that it is all who believe in the name of the incarnate Logos of God, Jesus Christ, who ‘have the right to become children of God’. That in order to be a child of God, one must be born from above, by the Holy Spirit, just as Jesus himself in his humanity is only declared Son of God in his Baptism by the Spirit.
That he is The Child of God is evidenced in his Resurrection. Jesus ‘who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead’ Romans 1:4 – thus became the first fruits of God’s new Creation. So Peter points us to the Resurrection of Jesus, as the entry to our new birth – a theme which is picked up on again and again in Chapter one of the first Epistle. The verses 13-21 are worthy of much meditation and contemplation.
Throughout the Scriptures, being ‘a child of’ is a metaphor for likeness, especially in how we live. So Jesus rebukes the Jews who claim to be descendents of Abraham. Their actions reveal them rather as children of the Devil.
Are we children of God? God the Father says, ‘Be Holy, for I am Holy’. This holiness can only be known in and through God’s only Son, Jesus Christ, who is our light, our hope, our Life.
As I have said in the notes accompanying this series of readings, we need to allow the Word to stop us, to halt us. The goal in the end is Not reading through the Bible in a Year, or at least that must not be our primary goal. Rather we come to the Word to receive Light and life, through the good news that is announced to us.
So may we set ALL our hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring . . . when he is revealed.
the elves are heading west 