Admiration

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  That story left an indelible mark upon the memory of Israel. Centuries after this, Judas Maccabaeus and his men were facing the city of Caspis, so secure in its strength that its defenders laughed from their position of safety. ‘But Judas and his men, calling upon the great Sovereign of the world, who without battering rams or engines of war overthrew Jericho in the days of Joshua, rushed furiously upon the walls. They took the city by the will of God’ (2 Maccabees 12:15–16). The people never forgot what great things God had done for them; and, when some great effort was called for, they nerved themselves for it by remembering them. Here is the very point the writer to the Hebrews wishes to make. The taking of Jericho was the result of an act of faith. It was taken by men who thought not of what they could do but of what God could do for them. They were prepared to believe that God could turn their obvious weakness into strength that could accomplish an incredible task. After the destruction of the Spanish Armada, there was erected on Plymouth Hoe a monument with the inscription: ‘God sent his wind and they were scattered.’ When the people of England saw how the storm and the gale had shattered the Spanish Armada, they said: ‘God did it.’ When we are faced with any great and demanding task, God is the ally we must never leave out of the reckoning. The things which we find it impossible to accomplish alone are always possible with God. (2) The second story the writer to the Hebrews takes is that of Rahab. It is told in Joshua 2:1–21 and has its sequel in Joshua 6:25. When Joshua sent out spies to spy out the situation in Jericho, they found a lodging in the house of Rahab, a prostitute. She protected them and enabled them to make their escape; and in return, when Jericho was taken, she and her family were saved from the general slaughter. It is extraordinary how Rahab became imprinted on the memory of Israel. James (2:25) quotes her as a great example of the good works which demonstrate faith. The Rabbis were proud to trace their ancestry to her. And, amazingly, she is one of the names which appear in the genealogy of Jesus (Matthew 1:5).

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  The expression used for shutting the mouths of lions is that used of Daniel in Daniel 6:18, 23. The phrase about quenching the power of fire goes straight back to the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in Daniel 3:19–28. To speak about escaping the edge of the sword was to direct people’s thoughts to the way in which Elijah escaped threatened assassination in 1 Kings 19:1ff., as did Elisha in 2 Kings 6:31ff. The trumpet-call about being strong in warfare and routing the ranks of aliens would immediately make people think of the unforgettable glories of the Maccabaean days. The phrase about being made strong out of weakness might conjure up a number of pictures. It might paint the mental picture of the extraordinary healing of Hezekiah after he had turned his face to the wall to die (2 Kings 20:1–7). Perhaps more likely in the time in which the writer to the Hebrews wrote, it would remind his hearers of that epic but bloodthirsty incident told in the Book of Judith, one of the apocryphal books. There was a time when Israel was threatened by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar led by his general Holofernes. The Jewish town of Bethulia had determined to surrender in five days’ time, for its supplies of food and water were at an end. In the town, there was a widow called Judith. She was wealthy and beautiful, but she had lived in lonely mourning since her husband Manasses had died. She dressed in all her finery, persuaded her people to let her out of the town and went straight to the camp of the Assyrians. She gained entry into the presence of Holofernes and persuaded him that she was convinced of the defeat of her people as a punishment for their sins. She offered him a way into Jerusalem by stealth; and then, having gained his confidence, she killed him in his drunken sleep with his own dagger, cut off his head and carried it back to her people. The traitors within the camp were silenced, and looming defeat was turned into tumultuous victory. A woman’s weakness had become strength to save her country. The writer to the Hebrews is here seeking to inspire new courage and a new sense of responsibility by making his readers remember their past. He does it not blatantly but with infinite subtlety. He does not so much tell them what to remember as by delicate hints compel them to remember for themselves. When the Lord Protector of England, Oliver Cromwell, was arranging for the education of his son Richard, he said: ‘I would have him learn a little history.’

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  But they talked, and from the side of the building where I waited for the ground to open up and swallow me, I heard the soft-voiced Mrs. Flowers and the textured voice of my grandmother merging and melting. They were interrupted from time to time by giggles that must have come from Mrs. Flowers (Momma never giggled in her life). Then she was gone. She appealed to me because she was like people I had never met personally. Like women in English novels who walked the moors (whatever they were) with their loyal dogs racing at a respectful distance. Like the women who sat in front of roaring fireplaces, drinking tea incessantly from silver trays full of scones and crumpets. Women who walked over the “heath” and read morocco-bound books and had two last names divided by a hyphen. It would be safe to say that she made me proud to be Negro, just by being herself. She acted just as refined as whitefolks in the movies and books and she was more beautiful, for none of them could have come near that warm color without looking gray by comparison. It was fortunate that I never saw her in the company of powhitefolks. For since they tend to think of their whiteness as an evenizer, I'm certain that I would have had to hear her spoken to commonly as Bertha, and my image of her would have been shattered like the unmendable Humpty-Dumpty. One summer afternoon, sweet-milk fresh in my memory, she stopped at the Store to buy provisions. Another Negro woman of her health and age would have been expected to carry the paper sacks home in one hand, but Momma said, “Sister Flowers, I'll send Bailey up to your house with these things.” She smiled that slow dragging smile, “Thank you, Mrs. Henderson. I'd prefer Marguerite, though.” My name was beautiful when she said it. “I've been meaning to talk to her, anyway.” They gave each other age-group looks. Momma said, “Well, that's all right then. Sister, go and change your dress. You going to Sister Flowers.'” The chifforobe was a maze. What on earth did one put on to go to Mrs. Flowers' house? I knew I shouldn't put on a Sunday dress. It might be sacrilegious. Certainly not a house dress, since I was already wearing a fresh one. I chose a school dress, naturally. It was formal without suggesting that going to Mrs. Flowers' house was equivalent to attending church. I trusted myself back into the Store. “Now, don't you look nice.” I had chosen the right thing, for once. “Mrs. Henderson, you make most of the children's clothes, don't you?” “Yes, ma'am. Sure do. Store-bought clothes ain't hardly worth the thread it take to stitch them.” “I'll say you do a lovely job, though, so neat. That dress looks professional.” Momma was enjoying the seldom-received compliments. Since everyone we knew (except Mrs.

• From How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian (2015)

  But surely, between 4 BCE and 66 CE , it was clear that the Jewish homeland, and maybe even Judaism itself, was living through years that would be fateful for the future. We have just seen that during those seventy years, there were so many instances of large-scale organized nonviolent resistance as to indicate a theoretical stance and a practical program for survival with dignity and integrity. Given that matrix, my next chapter on How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian focuses on the Baptism movement of John and the Kingdom movement of Jesus within it. By now you can probably guess my questions. One is whether either or both of those protest movements included violent or nonviolent resistance to Rome. If the answer is negative, another question is even more difficult. Did either or both of them avoid present human violence since they expected divine violence in the future? If the answer, once again, is negative, will we find, as so we have often found across our biblical journey, that the assertion of divine nonviolence will be adapted into its subversion? CHAPTER 10Jesus and the Radicality of GodNot “Revelation”—’tis—that waits, But our unfurnished eyes— EMILY DICKINSON , “Poem 685” (c. 1863) I COMPARE AND CONTRAST the programs of John and Jesus with no intention of exalting the latter over the former, or vice versa. I am convinced that Jesus learned tremendously from John and that he eventually changed his own vision because of what happened to his mentor. Later, when he came to disagree with John, he was still very careful not to disrespect him. Furthermore, it was probably the abiding popularity of John that protected Jesus from Antipas in Galilee. “That fox” (Luke 13:32) would have calculated carefully how long before he could execute another popular prophet. “Wisdom Is Vindicated by All Her Children”MY FIRST QUESTION ASKS whether, even within that common matrix of eschatology, nonviolence, and martyrdom, the visionary programs of John and Jesus involve continuity or discontinuity, agreement or disagreement. On the one hand, Matthew gives them both the same announcement. First, “John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near’” (3:1–2); and, later, “Jesus began to proclaim, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near’” (4:17). On the other hand, Luke makes their programs quite different as he has Jesus respond to John’s question from prison (7:22). To repeat the question: Are the visionary programs of John and Jesus similar or different? One rather fascinating indication of difference is in the Q Gospel—another source concerning Jesus that both Matthew and Luke used along with the book of Mark (“Q” is short for Quelle, German for “source”). It reports that opponents of John and Jesus, adversaries who disliked them both equally, described them like this: For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, “He has a demon”; the Son of Man [that is, Jesus, from Dan.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  A saint has been defined as ‘someone in whom Christ lives again’. The duty of real preachers is not so much to talk to men and women about Christ as to show them Christ in their own lives. People listen not so much to what they are saying as to what they are. (3) The real leaders, if need be, die in loyalty. They show others how to live and are prepared to show them how to die. As the Gospel of John says, Jesus, having loved his own, loved them to the end (13:1); and real leaders, having loved Jesus, love him to the end. Their loyalty never stops halfway. (4) As a result, real leaders leave two things to those who come after – an example and an inspiration. Quintilian, the Roman master of oratory, said: ‘It is a good thing to know, and always to keep turning over in the mind, the things which were illustriously done of old.’ Epicurus advised his disciples continuously to remember those who in the past had lived with virtue. If there is one thing more than any other that the world and the Church need in every generation, it is leadership like that. Then the writer to the Hebrews moves on to another great thought. It is in the nature of things that all earthly leaders must come and go. They have their part in the drama of life, and then the curtain comes down. But Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. His status above all others is permanent; his leadership is forever. Therein lies the secret of earthly leadership; real leaders are people who are themselves led by Jesus Christ. That figure, who walked the roads of Galilee, is as powerful as ever to strike at evil and to love sinners; and, just as then he chose twelve to be with him and sent them out to do his work, so now he is still seeking those who will bring men and women to him and bring him to them. THE MARKS OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE Hebrews 13:1–6 Let brotherly love be always with you. Do not forget the duty of hospitality for, in remembering this duty, there are some who have entertained angels without knowing that they were doing so. Remember those who are in prison, for you yourselves know what it is like to be a prisoner; remember those who are suffering ill-treatment, for the same thing can happen to you so long as you are in the body. Let marriage be held in honour among you all, and never let the marriage bed be defiled. God judges those who are adulterers and immoral in their conduct. Let your way of life be free from the love of money.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  His secret lay in who he was, his own sense of identity and purpose, and above all his integrity in being true to himself and his faith. Born in the far north of Scotland, he was brought up in Motherwell, a steel-producing town south of Glasgow where his family settled when he was only five, and this was the kind of place where he felt most at home. Though his association with the University of Glasgow provided a focus for his life over almost fifty years, from his first day as a student in 1925 to his retirement from the faculty in 1974, he never became an ivory-tower academic, divorced from the realities of life in the real world. On the contrary, it was his commitment to the working-class culture of industrial Clydeside that enabled him to make such a lasting contribution not only to the world of the university but also to the life of the Church. He was ordained to the ministry of the Church of Scotland at the age of twenty-six, but was often misunderstood even by other Christians. I doubt that William Barclay would ever have chosen words such as ‘missionary’ or ‘evangelist’ to describe his own ministry, but he accomplished what few others have done, as he took the traditional Presbyterian emphasis on spirituality-through-learning and transformed it into a most effective vehicle for evangelism. His own primary interest was in the history and language of the New Testament, but William Barclay was never only a historian or literary critic. His constant concern was to explore how these ancient books, and the faith of which they spoke, could continue to be relevant to people of his own time. If the Scottish churches had known how to capitalize on his enormous popularity in the media during the 1960s and 1970s, they might easily have avoided much of the decline of subsequent years. Connecting the Bible to life has never been the way to win friends in the world of academic theology, and Barclay could undoubtedly have made things easier for himself had he been prepared to be a more conventional academic. But he was too deeply rooted in his own culture – and too seriously committed to the gospel – for that. He could see little purpose in a belief system that was so wrapped up in arcane and complicated terminology that it was accessible only to experts.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  The writer to the Hebrews uses another wonderful word about Jesus and says of him that he remains forever (paramenein). That verb has two characteristic senses. First, it means to remain in office. No one can ever take the office of Jesus from him; to all eternity, he remains the introducer of men and women to God. Second, it means to remain in the capacity of a servant. In the fourth century, Gregory of Nazianzus provided in his will that his daughters would remain (paramenein) with their mother as long as she was alive. They were to stay with her and be her help and support. The papyri talk of a girl who must remain (paramenein) in a shop for three years in order to discharge by her work a debt that she cannot pay. There is a papyrus contract which says that a boy who is being taken on as an apprentice must remain (paramenein) with his master for as many days extra as he has played truant. When the writer to the Hebrews says that Jesus remains forever, there is wrapped up in that phrase the amazing thought that Jesus is forever at the service of men and women. In eternity as he was in time, Jesus exists to be of service to all people. That is why he is the complete Saviour. On earth, he served men and women and gave his life for them; in heaven, he still exists to make intercession for them. He is the priest forever, the one who is forever opening the door to the friendship of God and is forever the great servant of all. THE HIGH PRIEST WE NEEDHebrews 7:26–8 We needed such a high priest – one who is holy, one who has never hurt any man, one who is stainless, one who is different from sinners, one who has become higher than the heavens. He does not need, as the high priests do, daily first to offer sacrifices for his own sins and thereafter for the sins of the people. For he did this once and for all when he offered himself. For the law appointed as high priests men subject to weakness; but the word of the oath, which came after the law, appointed one who is a Son who is fully equipped to carry out his office forever. STILL the writer to the Hebrews is filled with the thought of Jesus as high priest. He begins this passage by using a series of great words and phrases to describe him.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  (2) The destined empire belongs to Jesus. The New Testament writers never doubted his ultimate triumph. Think of it. They were thinking of a Galilaean carpenter who was crucified as a criminal on a cross on a hill outside the city of Jerusalem. They themselves faced savage persecution and were the humblest of people. As the Yorkshire poet Sir William Watson said of them: So to the wild wolf Hate were sacrificed The panting, huddled flock, whose crime was Christ. And yet they never doubted the eventual victory. They were quite certain that God’s love was backed by his power and that in the end the kingdoms of the world would be the kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ. (3) The creative action belongs to Jesus. The early Church held that the Son had been God’s agent in creation, that in some way God had originally created the world through him. They were filled with the thought that the one who had created the world would also be the one who redeemed it. (4) The sustaining power belongs to Jesus. These early Christians had a tremendous grip of the doctrine of providence . They did not think of God as creating the world and then leaving it to itself. Somehow and somewhere, they saw a power that was carrying the world and each life on to a destined end. They believed, as Tennyson wrote in In Memoriam : That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not one life shall be destroy’d, Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete. (5) To Jesus belongs the redemptive work. By his sacrifice, he paid the price of sin; by his continual presence, he liberates from sin. (6) To Jesus belongs the exaltation as mediator. He has taken his place on the right hand of glory; but the tremendous thought of the writer to the Hebrews is that he is there not as our judge but as one who makes intercession for us, so that, when we enter into the presence of God, we go not to hear his justice prosecute us but to hear his love plead for us.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  She and her maiden sister worked in the San Francisco city school system for over twenty years. My Miss Kirwin, who was a tall, florid, buxom lady with battleship-gray hair, taught civics and current events. At the end of a term in her class our books were as clean and the pages as stiff as they had been when they were issued to us. Miss Kirwin's students were never or very rarely called upon to open textbooks. She greeted each class with “Good day, ladies and gentlemen.” I had never heard an adult speak with such respect to teenagers. (Adults usually believe that a show of honor diminishes their authority.) “In today's Chronicle there was an article on the mining industry in the Carolinas [or some such distant subject]. I am certain that all of you have read the article. I would like someone to elaborate on the subject for me.” After the first two weeks in her class, I, along with all the other excited students, read the San Francisco papers, Time magazine, Life and everything else available to me. Miss Kirwin proved Bailey right. He had told me once that “all knowledge is spendable currency, depending on the market.” There were no favorite students. No teacher's pets. If a student pleased her during a particular period, he could not count on special treatment in the next day's class, and that was as true the other way around. Each day she faced us with a clean slate and acted as if ours were clean as well. Reserved and firm in her opinions, she spent no time in indulging the frivolous. She was stimulating instead of intimidating. Where some of the other teachers went out of their way to be nice to me—to be a “liberal” with me—and others ignored me completely, Miss Kirwin never seemed to notice that I was Black and therefore different. I was Miss Johnson and if I had the answer to a question she posed I was never given any more than the word “Correct,” which was what she said to every other student with the correct answer. Years later when I returned to San Francisco I made visits to her classroom. She always remembered that I was Miss Johnson, who had a good mind and should be doing something with it. I was never encouraged on those visits to loiter or linger about her desk. She acted as if I must have had other visits to make. I often wondered if she knew she was the only teacher I remembered.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  When Origen was young, it was said of him: ‘Not only was he at the side of the holy martyrs in their imprisonment and until their final condemnation but, when they were led to death, he boldly accompanied them into danger.’ Sometimes, Christians were condemned to the mines – which was almost like being sent to Siberia in the former Soviet Union. The Apostolic Constitutions laid it down: ‘If any Christian is condemned for Christ’s sake to the mines by the ungodly, do not overlook him but from the proceeds of your toil and sweat send him something to support himself and to reward the soldier of Christ.’ The Christians sought out their fellow Christians even in the remotest parts. There was actually a little Christian church in the mines at Phaeno. Sometimes, Christians had to be ransomed from robbers and bandits. The Apostolic Constitutions laid it down: ‘All monies accruing from honest labour do ye appoint and apportion to the redeeming of the saints ransoming thereby slaves and captives and prisoners, people who are sore abused or condemned by tyrants.’ When the Numidian robbers carried off their Christian friends, the Church at Carthage raised sufficient money to ransom them and promised more. There were actually cases where Christians sold themselves as slaves to find money to pay the ransom for their friends. They were even prepared to bribe their way into prison. The Christians became so notorious for their help to those in prison that, at the beginning of the fourth century, the Emperor Licinius passed new legislation that ‘no one was to show kindness to sufferers in prison by supplying them with food and that no one was to show mercy to those starving in prison’. It was added that those who were discovered to be doing this kind of thing would be compelled to suffer the same fate as those they tried to help. These instances are taken from Adolf von Harnack’s book The Expansion of Christianity , and many others could be added. In the early days, no Christians who found themselves in trouble for the faith were ever neglected or forgotten by their fellow Christians. (4) There is purity . First, the marriage bond is to be universally respected. This may mean either of two almost opposite things. (a) There were some people who despised marriage. Some even went to the lengths of castrating themselves to secure what they thought was purity. Origen, for instance, took that course. Even someone like Galen, the Greek physician, noted of the Christians that ‘they include men and women who refrain from cohabiting all their lives’. The writer to the Hebrews insists against those who argued for abstinence that the marriage bond is to be honoured and not despised. (b) There were those who were always in danger of lapsing into immorality. The writer to the Hebrews uses two words.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  She dressed in all her finery, persuaded her people to let her out of the town and went straight to the camp of the Assyrians. She gained entry into the presence of Holofernes and persuaded him that she was convinced of the defeat of her people as a punishment for their sins. She offered him a way into Jerusalem by stealth; and then, having gained his confidence, she killed him in his drunken sleep with his own dagger, cut off his head and carried it back to her people. The traitors within the camp were silenced, and looming defeat was turned into tumultuous victory. A woman’s weakness had become strength to save her country. The writer to the Hebrews is here seeking to inspire new courage and a new sense of responsibility by making his readers remember their past. He does it not blatantly but with infinite subtlety. He does not so much tell them what to remember as by delicate hints compel them to remember for themselves. When the Lord Protector of England, Oliver Cromwell, was arranging for the education of his son Richard, he said: ‘I would have him learn a little history.’ When we are discouraged, let us remember and take heart again. God’s power has not grown less. What he did once he can do again, for the God of history is the same God whom we worship today. THE DEFIANCE OF SUFFERING Hebrews 11:35–40 Women received back their own folk as if they had been raised from the dead. Others were crucified because they refused to accept release, for they were eager to obtain a better resurrection. Others went through scoffing and scourging, yes, and chains and imprisonment. They were stoned; they were sawn asunder; they underwent every kind of trial; they died by the murder of the sword. They went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, they were in want, they were oppressed, they were maltreated – the world was not worthy of them – they wandered in desert places and on the mountains, they lived in caves and in holes of the earth. All these, though they were attested through their faith, did not receive the promise, because God had some better plan for us, that they, without us, should not find all his purposes fulfilled. I N this passage, the writer to the Hebrews is mixing together different periods of history. Sometimes he takes his illustrations from the Old Testament period; but more often he takes them from the Maccabaean period, which falls between the Old and the New Testaments.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  The second story is that of the seven brothers (4 Maccabees 8–14). They, too, were given the same choice and confronted with the same threats. They were confronted with ‘wheels and joint-dislocators, rack and hooks and catapults and caldrons, braziers and thumb-screws and iron claws and wedges and bellows’. The first brother refused to eat the unclean things. They lashed him with whips and tied him to the wheel until he was dislocated and fractured in every limb. ‘They spread fire under him, and while fanning the flames they tightened the wheel further. The wheel was completely smeared with blood, and the heap of coals was being quenched by the drippings of gore, and pieces of flesh were falling off the axles of the machine.’ But he withstood their tortures and died faithful. The second brother they bound to the catapults. They put on spiked iron gloves. ‘These leopardlike beasts tore out his sinews with the iron hands, flayed all his flesh up to his chin and tore away his scalp.’ He, too, died faithful. The third brother was brought forward. Enraged by the man’s boldness, the officers ‘disjointed his hands and feet with their instruments, dismembering him by prying his limbs from their sockets and breaking his fingers and arms and legs and elbows’. In the end, they tore him apart on the catapult and flayed him alive. He, too, died faithful. They cut out the tongue of the fourth brother before they submitted him to similar tortures. The fifth brother they bound to the wheel, bending his body round the edge of it, and then fastened him with iron fetters to the catapult and tore him in pieces. The sixth they broke upon the wheel ‘and he was roasted from underneath. To his back they applied sharp spits that had been heated in the fire, and pierced his ribs so that his entrails were burned through.’ The seventh brother they roasted alive in a gigantic brazier. These, too, died faithful. These are the things of which the writer to the Hebrews is thinking; and these are things which we do well also to remember. It was due to the faith of these men that the Jewish religion was not completely destroyed. If that religion had been destroyed, what would have happened to the purposes of God? How could Jesus have been born into the world if Judaism had ceased to exist? In a very real way, we owe our Christianity to these martyrs of the times when Antiochus made his deliberate attempt to wipe out the Jewish religion.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  The writer to the Hebrews goes on to say that it was precisely because the great heroes of the faith lived on that principle that they were approved by God. Every one of them refused what the world calls greatness and staked everything on God – and history proved them right. The writer to the Hebrews goes further. He says that it is an act of faith to believe that God made this world, and adds that the things which are seen emerged from the things which are not seen. This was aiming a blow at the prevailing belief that God created the world out of existing matter which, being necessarily imperfect, meant that from the beginning this was an imperfect world. The writer to the Hebrews insists that God did not work with existing material but created the world from nothing. When he argued like this, he was not interested in the scientific side of the matter; he wanted to stress the fact that this is God’s world. If we can grasp the fact that this is God’s world and that God is responsible for it, two things follow. First, we will use it as such. We will remember that everything in it is God’s and will try to use it as God would have us use it. Second, we will remember that, even when it may not look like it, somehow God is in control. If we believe that this is God’s world, then into our lives comes a new sense of responsibility and with it a new power of acceptance, for everything belongs to God and all is in his hands. THE FAITH OF THE ACCEPTABLE OFFERINGHebrews 11:4 It was by faith that Abel offered to God a fuller sacrifice than Cain and so gained the verdict of being a just man, for God himself witnessed to that fact on the grounds of the gifts he brought; and, although he died because of his faith, he is still speaking to us.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  (2) The destined empire belongs to Jesus. The New Testament writers never doubted his ultimate triumph. Think of it. They were thinking of a Galilaean carpenter who was crucified as a criminal on a cross on a hill outside the city of Jerusalem. They themselves faced savage persecution and were the humblest of people. As the Yorkshire poet Sir William Watson said of them: So to the wild wolf Hate were sacrificed The panting, huddled flock, whose crime was Christ. And yet they never doubted the eventual victory. They were quite certain that God’s love was backed by his power and that in the end the kingdoms of the world would be the kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ. (3) The creative action belongs to Jesus. The early Church held that the Son had been God’s agent in creation, that in some way God had originally created the world through him. They were filled with the thought that the one who had created the world would also be the one who redeemed it. (4) The sustaining power belongs to Jesus. These early Christians had a tremendous grip of the doctrine of providence . They did not think of God as creating the world and then leaving it to itself. Somehow and somewhere, they saw a power that was carrying the world and each life on to a destined end. They believed, as Tennyson wrote in In Memoriam : That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not one life shall be destroy’d, Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete. (5) To Jesus belongs the redemptive work. By his sacrifice, he paid the price of sin; by his continual presence, he liberates from sin . (6) To Jesus belongs the exaltation as mediator. He has taken his place on the right hand of glory; but the tremendous thought of the writer to the Hebrews is that he is there not as our judge but as one who makes intercession for us, so that, when we enter into the presence of God, we go not to hear his justice prosecute us but to hear his love plead for us. ABOVE THE ANGELS Hebrews 1:4–14 He was the superior to the angels, in proportion as he had received a more excellent rank than they. For to which of the angels did God ever say: ‘It is my Son that you are; it is I who this day have begotten you’? And again: ‘I will be to him a Father, and he will be to me a Son.’ And again, when he brings his honoured one into the world of men, he says: ‘And let all the angels of God bow down before him.’

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  The things which we find it impossible to accomplish alone are always possible with God. (2) The second story the writer to the Hebrews takes is that of Rahab. It is told in Joshua 2:1–21 and has its sequel in Joshua 6:25. When Joshua sent out spies to spy out the situation in Jericho, they found a lodging in the house of Rahab, a prostitute. She protected them and enabled them to make their escape; and in return, when Jericho was taken, she and her family were saved from the general slaughter. It is extraordinary how Rahab became imprinted on the memory of Israel. James (2:25) quotes her as a great example of the good works which demonstrate faith. The Rabbis were proud to trace their ancestry to her. And, amazingly, she is one of the names which appear in the genealogy of Jesus (Matthew 1:5). The early Church father Clement of Rome quotes her as an outstanding example of one who was saved ‘by faith and hospitality’. When the writer to the Hebrews cites her as an example, the point he wants to make is this: Rahab, in the face of all the facts, believed in the God of Israel. She said to the spies whom she welcomed and hid: ‘I know that the Lord has given you the land … The Lord your God is indeed God in heaven above and on earth below’ (Joshua 2:9–11). At the moment when she was speaking, there seemed not one chance in a million that the children of Israel could capture Jericho. These nomads from the desert had no artillery and no siege-engines. Yet Rahab believed – and staked her whole future on the belief – that God would make the impossible possible. When common sense pronounced the situation hopeless, she had the uncommon sense to see beyond the situation. The real faith and the real courage are those which can take God’s side when it seems doomed to defeat. As the hymn-writer F. W. Faber had it: Thrice blest is he to whom is given The instinct that can tell That God is on the field when he Is most invisible .

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time that she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power . The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerence. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance. This book is dedicated to MY SON, GUY JOHNSON, AND ALL THE STRONG BLACK BIRDS OF PROMISE who defy the odds and gods and sing their songs

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  His secret lay in who he was, his own sense of identity and purpose, and above all his integrity in being true to himself and his faith. Born in the far north of Scotland, he was brought up in Motherwell, a steel-producing town south of Glasgow where his family settled when he was only five, and this was the kind of place where he felt most at home. Though his association with the University of Glasgow provided a focus for his life over almost fifty years, from his first day as a student in 1925 to his retirement from the faculty in 1974, he never became an ivory-tower academic, divorced from the realities of life in the real world. On the contrary, it was his commitment to the working-class culture of industrial Clydeside that enabled him to make such a lasting contribution not only to the world of the university but also to the life of the Church. He was ordained to the ministry of the Church of Scotland at the age of twenty-six, but was often misunderstood even by other Christians. I doubt that William Barclay would ever have chosen words such as ‘missionary’ or ‘evangelist’ to describe his own ministry, but he accomplished what few others have done, as he took the traditional Presbyterian emphasis on spirituality-through-learning and transformed it into a most effective vehicle for evangelism. His own primary interest was in the history and language of the New Testament, but William Barclay was never only a historian or literary critic. His constant concern was to explore how these ancient books, and the faith of which they spoke, could continue to be relevant to people of his own time. If the Scottish churches had known how to capitalize on his enormous popularity in the media during the 1960s and 1970s, they might easily have avoided much of the decline of subsequent years. Connecting the Bible to life has never been the way to win friends in the world of academic theology, and Barclay could undoubtedly have made things easier for himself had he been prepared to be a more conventional academic. But he was too deeply rooted in his own culture – and too seriously committed to the gospel – for that. He could see little purpose in a belief system that was so wrapped up in arcane and complicated terminology that it was accessible only to experts.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  THE ESSENTIAL SUFFERING Hebrews 2:10–18 For, in his work of bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that he for whom everything exists and through whom everything exists should make the pioneer of salvation fully adequate for his destined work through suffering. For he who sanctifies and they who are sanctified must come of one stock. It is for this reason that he does not hesitate to call them brothers, as when he says: ‘I will tell your name to my brothers; I will sing hymns to you in the midst of the gathering of your people.’ And again: ‘I will put all my trust in him.’ And again: ‘Behold me and the children whom God gave to me.’ The children then have a common flesh and blood and he completely shared in them, so that, by that death of his, he might bring to nothing him who has the power of death, and might set free all those who, for fear of death, were all their lives liable to a slave’s existence. For I presume that it is not angels that he helps; but it is the seed of Abraham that he helps. So he had in all things to be made like his brothers, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the things which pertain to God, to win forgiveness for the sins of his people. For in that he himself was tried and suffered, he is able to help those who are undergoing trial. H ERE, the writer to the Hebrews uses one of the great titles of Jesus. He calls him the pioneer (archēgos) of glory. The same word is used of Jesus in Acts 3:15, 5:31; Hebrews 12:2. At its simplest, it means head or chief. So, Zeus is the head of the gods and a general is the head of his army. It can mean a founder or originator. So, it is used of the founder of a city or of a family or of a philosophic school. It can be used in the sense of source or origin. So, a good governor is said to be the archēgos of peace and a bad governor the archēgos of confusion. One basic idea clings to the word in all its uses. An archēgos is someone who begins something in order that others may enter into it.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  Actors would act with increased intensity if they knew that one of the greatest of their profession was sitting in the stalls watching them. Athletes would double their efforts if they knew that the stadium was full of famous Olympic athletes watching their performance. It is of the very essence of the Christian life that it is lived in the gaze of the heroes of the faith who lived, suffered and died in their day and generation. How can anyone avoid the struggle for greatness when an audience like that is looking down on us? (3) In the Christian life, we have a handicap. If we are encircled by the greatness of the past, we are also encircled by the handicap of our own sin. No one would attempt to climb Mount Everest weighed down with a whole load of unnecessary baggage. If we want to travel far, we must travel light. There is in life an essential duty to discard things. There may be habits, pleasures, self-indulgences or associations which hold us back. We must shed them as athletes take off their tracksuits when they go to the starting blocks; and often we will need the help of Christ to enable us to do so. (4) In the Christian life, we have a means. That means is steadfast endurance. The word is hupomonē, which means not the patience which sits down and accepts things but the patience which takes charge of them. It is not some romantic notion which lends us wings to fly over the difficulties and the hard places. It is a determination, unhurrying and yet un-delaying, which goes steadily on and refuses to be deflected. Obstacles do not daunt it and discouragements do not take its hope away. It is the steadfast endurance which carries on until, in the end, it gets there. (5) In the Christian life, we have an example. That example is Jesus himself. For the goal that was set before him, he endured all things; to win it meant the way of the cross. The writer to the Hebrews has a flash of insight – despising the shame, he says. Jesus was sensitive; never had any individual so sensitive a heart. A cross was a humiliating thing. It was for criminals, for those whom society regarded as the dregs of humanity – and yet he accepted it. The sixteenth-century saint Philip of Neri encourages us ‘to despise the world, to despise ourselves, and to despise the fact that we are despised’ (spernere mundum, spernere te ipsum, spernere te sperni). If Jesus could endure like that, so must we.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  Each page revealed insights and feelings I had never been able to articulate. I thought, Here’s a woman who knows me, who understands. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings became my talisman. As a teenager, I tried convincing everyone I knew to read it. Its author was now my favorite author, someone I idolized from afar. I knew it was Providence when, more than ten years later, as a young reporter in Baltimore, I was given the opportunity to interview Maya Angelou after her lecture at a local college. “I promise,” I insisted, "I promise if you’ll just let me speak with you, I won’t take more than five minutes of your time." As good as my word, at 4:58 I told the cameraman, "Done." Which was when Maya Angelou turned her head, angled it to the side, and with a twinkle in her eye smiled at me and asked, "Who are you, girl?" First we became friendly, then we became sister friends. When she finally told me I was her daughter, I knew I had found home. Sitting at her kitchen table on Valley Road in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, listening to her read poetry, the poetry of my childhood—Paul Laurence Dunbar, "Little brown baby wif spa’klin’ eyes"—that was my favorite place to be: at the kitchen table, or sitting at her feet, leaning over her lap, laughing out loud for real. Soaking up all the knowledge, all the things she had to teach—the grace, the love, all of it—my heart was full when I was with her. Rarely did we ever have a phone conversation during which I didn’t take notes. She was always teaching. "When you learn, teach," she said frequently. "When you get, give." I was a devoted student, learning from her up to the moment of our very last conversation, on the Sunday before she died. "I am a human being," she would always say, "therefore nothing human is alien to me." Maya Angelou lived what she wrote. She understood that sharing her truth connected her to the greater human truths—of longing, abandonment, security, hope, wonder, prejudice, mystery, and, finally, self-discovery: the realization of who you really are and the liberation that love brings. And each of those timeless truths unfolds in this first autobiographical account of her life. I’m so pleased (and I know she is, too) that an entire new generation of readers will get to know Maya Angelou’s story and be better empowered to realize their own. If you’re a first timer (as I was so many years ago) or revisiting an old friend (which is how I feel, returning to these pages), you’ll notice that even as a young writer, Maya delivered the theme that prevails throughout this book, the theme that became her siren call, a mantra that would resonate throughout all her speeches, her poems, her works—and her life. She spoke proudly, bodaciously, and often: “We are more alike than we are unalike!"