Matthew 10:8: freely you received; freely give. The Twelve are not like the rest of Israel, lost sheep and oppressed. They have a shepherd, a good shepherd, the best shepherd, who summons, calls them, commissions them, heals them, sustains them, feeds them, cares for them. They have received all this as a gift, and Jesus says they are to give the same things in the same way they’ve been given to: Freely, abundantly, without expectation of return. Jesus is speaking... Read more
“I love Jesus, but I can’t stand the church. I obey Jesus, but I won’t submit to any human authorities.” We hear these sentiments a lot in American Christianity. American Christians like to separate Jesus from His people, the Shepherd’s authority from the authority of His undershepherds. Jesus doesn’t allow this. When He sends out the Twelve, He says, “He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me” (10:40). He sent the Twelve... Read more
Jesus sends the Twelve to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. That fits the biblical pattern of “to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” Israel is the first site of mission. For many, though, the mission to Israel is a quick stepping stone to the mission to the Gentiles. Jesus’ disciples, it is said, failed to restore the sheep to their shepherd, and so they turned to the Gentiles. But that’s not the pattern of Old... Read more
Daniel Patte points out in his “structural commentary” on Matthew that there is a narrative logic to Matthew 8-13. Jesus comes healing, casting out demons, cleansing the unclean, raising the dead, all the while proclaiming the reign of God that these miracles incarnate. In chapter 10, He sends the Twelve to carry on the same mission to Israel. He warns them, though, that they will face persecution and opposition, as He has done already, and the opposition intensifies in chapters... Read more
Shakespeare’s Claudio and Hero are usually played as palely conventional lovers, a foil to the sparkling sparring of Benedick and Beatrice. A recent British National Theatre production of Much Ado gives a more colorful Claudio and Hero. According to the TLS reviewer, Laurie Maguire, “Claudio (Daniel Hawkesford) is alarmed by Don Pedro’s suggestion of proxy wooing, acquiescing only because a count cannot contradict a prince. Hero (Susannah Fielding), already in love with Claudio, is manifestly unhappy at her father’s instructions... Read more
In an article on Taming of the Shrew , Carol Rutter points out that most shrew plays end with the shrew silenced. Shakespeare’s play moves in the opposite direction. Kate speaks a lot early, but her conversation lacks poetry and wit. Her final speech, though, is elegant and wise. In taming Kate, Petruchio enables her to become articulate. Read more
In Natural Supernaturalism , M. H. Abrams notes the influence of the Bible on Romanticism: “A conspicuous Romantic tendency, after the rationalism and decorum of the Enlightenment, was a reversion to the stark drama and suprarational mysteries of the Christian story and doctrines and to the violent conflicts and abrupt reversals of the Christian inner life, turning on the extremes of destruction and creation, hell and heaven, exile and reunion, death and rebirth, dejection and joy, paradise lost and paradise... Read more
All the English Romantics were admirers of Milton. Blake wrote a quasi-epic poem in which Milton was the title character. Wordsworth took up Milton’s prophetic mantle, and was regarded by Coleridge as the Milton of his day. Keats conceived his own poetic mission as one of surpassing Milton, and the latter-day Milton, Wordsworth, by developing “a system of Salvation which does not affront our reason and humanity.” Shelley, no believer, thought so highly of Paradise Lost that, according to Thomas... Read more
Sayyid Qutb was one of the architects of jihadist Islam, and his stern opposition to the West was forged during a visit to the United States in 1949. Attending a church social in Greeley Colorado, he found, in the words of Lawrence Wright, “The room convulzed with the feverish music from the gramophone . . . . Dancing naked legs filled the hall. Arms draped around the waists, chests met chests, lips met lips, and the atmosphere was full of... Read more
Weigel again, quoting a 2002 study of Arab development: “the Arab world translates about 330 books annually, one-fifth of the number that Greece translates. The accumulative total of translated books [into Arabic] since [the ninth century] is about 100,000.’ More books are translated into Spanish in an average decade or two than have been translated into Arabic in a millennium.” Read more
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