In telling the story of the shepherd searching for a single lost sheep, Jesus is undoubtedly playing off the prophetic indicments of Israel’s shepherds in such passages as Jeremiah 23 and Ezekiel 34. That gives his parable a much sharper edge than is usually recognized. Jesus’ question in Luke 15:4 demands a positive answer, but the leaders/shepherds of Israel have a long history of ignoring lost sheep, in fact a history of actively scattering them. As in John 10, Jesus... Read more
Ernst Cassirer ( The Individual and Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy ) characterizes Nicholas of Cusa as the first modern man in that he focused the concern of philosophy not on God but on “knowledge about God.” In this emphasis, Cusa was making a decisive break with medieval scholastic thought, though one prepared for him by later scholastics. He began with the widely accepted premise that there is not “proportion” between finite and infinite; that is, there is no “measure” or... Read more
The gospel has done its work almost too effectively. OC institutions and forms ?Esacrifice, laws of uncleanness, central sanctuaries, gradations of priestly privilege, distinctive dress ?Ewere the very stuff of life of ancient Israel. When it is said that the gospel changed all that, we have a tendency to say, “Is that all?” while forgetting just how basic and significant all these institutions were. We are so shaped by the NC realities that we have a hard time imagining the... Read more
Who is being satirized in Twain’s Connecticut Yankee ? The Yankee or the court? Overtly, the court, for its superstition, ignorance, filthiness, and so on. But Hank Morgan comes off as equally insular and parochial, and far more of a snob. I wonder if Twain noticed, and if it’s deliberate? Read more
Sermon outline for Sunday, January 18: Lost and Found, Luke 15:1-35 INTRODUCTION In Luke 15, we again see Jesus engaged in “table talk.” Tax collectors and sinners come to hear Him (v. 1), but the complaint from the Pharisees and scribes is that Jesus eats with them (v. 2). In response, Jesus tells a series of parables to defend His meal practices and to challenge His enemies to repent and join the meal. THE TEXT “Then all the tax collectors... Read more
There appears to be some allusion to Israel’s wilderness wanderings in Luke 15. When Jesus eats with publicans and sinners, the scribes and Pharisees “grumble” about it, as Israel did in the wilderness. The complaint in both cases, moreover, centers on food ?Ethe lack of food in the wilderness and Jesus’ table companions in Luke 15. And when Jesus describes the shepherd leaving the ninety-nine sheep to search out the lost one, he says that the ninety-nine are in the... Read more
There appears to be some allusion to Israel’s wilderness wanderings in Luke 15. When Jesus eats with publicans and sinners, the scribes and Pharisees “grumble” about it, as Israel did in the wilderness. The complaint in both cases, moreover, centers on food ?Ethe lack of food in the wilderness and Jesus’ table companions in Luke 15. And when Jesus describes the shepherd leaving the ninety-nine sheep to search out the lost one, he says that the ninety-nine are in the... Read more
Laurence Michel, exploring the “Possibility of a Christian Tragedy,” suggests that the creation account of Genesis opens the possibility for a “tragic sense of life.” How? “To have a world imitative of the simple perfection of God one must have multiplicity and diversity of goods. Various evils and contraries will be found in it and, therefore, physical evils will exist. From the very outset, in a creative act there are elements of destruction and danger and hardship; but somehow at... Read more
CS Lewis says in Pilgrim’s Regress : “Evil is fissiparous, and could never in a thousand eternities find any way to arrest its own reproduction. If it could, it could be no longer evil: for Form and Limit belong to the good.” But what then of a Good and Infinite God? Read more
In a chapter in Beyond Tragedy , Reinhold Niebuhr considers the relationship between Christianity and tragedy. He denies that Christianity is tragic: “The cross is not tragic but the resolution of tragedy.” In the course of his discussion he makes several intriguing points about the tragic outlook: 1) He highlights the fact that tragedy only works when the character is strong. Someone who suffers due to his weakness is not tragic. Willie Loman is not tragic on this reading, but... Read more
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