2 Chronicles 3:1: Solomon began to build the house of Yahweh in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David, at the place that David had prepared, on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. Naomi gives Ruth specific instructions for her approach to Boaz: “Wash your clothes, anoint yourself, put on your best clothes, and go down to the threshing floor” (3:3). Ruth adorns herself as a bride, but she also dresses herself as... Read more
Ruth 3 begins and ends with “rest.” Naomi seeks “rest” for Ruth (v. 1), and after Ruth meets Boaz on the threshing floor, Naomi assures her daughter-in-law and Boaz will not “rest” until he has finished the task. That’s his job as a redeemer: To bring rest. Redeemers buy brothers from slavery, restore property to the poor, raise up a son for a dead relative. As Toby said last week, redemption is Yahweh’s work, and since it is the work... Read more
Fenn quotes Daniel Bell’s complaints that liturgies “drain” energies that should belong to useful institutions like political parties and comments “On this view, the genuine public sphere is outside the church, which becomes the sphere of private self-absorption and self-celebration.” By contrast, “to the believer, it is the liturgy that is truly public, and to participate in the liturgy is to free oneself from the narcissistic, self-preoccupation of everyday life, from political pride and all forms of social prejudice.” Read more
Fenn again: Liturgy is the public work of the people and thus “to be a person . . . meant [for the Greeks] precisely to have a role in the public work of the community.” Thus, “to take part in the Christian liturgy is to take on one’s role in a new kingdom: one that ‘shall have no end.’ It is the political act of all time and is therefore potentially seditious within the secular politics of a specific time... Read more
Richard Fenn writes, “In secularized Western societies . . . many individuals are caught in a double-bind. On the one hand, they take seriously the role of the credible witness, and seek, on grounds of their own testimony, to be taken seriously, whether they are reporting what they saw on Mulberry Street or whether they are reporting the results of carefully controlled experiments. But in many secular contexts, their credibility as witnesses depends on their ability to report data ‘coded’... Read more
Charles Hodge challenged the abolitionist view that slavery was always sinful so effectively that his essay was included in the pro-slavery compendium Cotton is King . Mark Noll points out that the editor deleted Hodges dire prophecies about the future of American slavery (this in 1835): “The South . . . has to choose between emancipation by the slow and holy influence of the gospel, securing the elevation of the slaves to the stature and character of freemen, or to... Read more
Yahweh places words in the mouths of prophets through His Spirit. Sometimes, though, the words that He places there are spoken back to Him. Inspired by the Spirit, the prophet becomes part of an internal conversation within Yahweh. Hence: Yahweh, Spirit, and Prophet = Father, Spirit, Son. Read more
INTRODUCTION Proverbs 24:10-20 continues, structurally speaking, in the same pattern as the 22:22-24:9. Instead of the two-line Proverbs we find elsewhere, these are small paragraphs, at least four lines long. 24:10-20 returns again and again to situations of distress, attack, battle, and the success of enemies. Verse 10 talks about the “day of distress,” and the following two verses are about intercepting someone who is being led to slaughter. Verse 16 against speaks of calamity, and verses 17-18 are about... Read more
After the flood, Noah releases a dove, which finds no rest ( manoach ; Gen 8:9). The ark finds rest ( nuach ) on Ararat (8:4). It is one of a dozen puns on the name of Noah in the flood story. Centuries later, the ark of the covenant (not the same Hebrew word as the ark of Noah) finds rest in Jerusalem, in the ark-tent pitched by David ( manoach ; 1 Chron 6:31). Between Genesis 8 and 1... Read more
Matthew begins and ends with scenes of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. In chapters 1-2, the Mary and Joseph are his parents; in chapter 27, there’s Joseph of Arimathea and Mary has doubled into Mary Magdalene and the “other Mary.” The first story is a story of life, the second a story of death. The first tells about the miracle of the virgin conception, while the second tells of a burial. The first focuses on the child in the womb, the... Read more
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