Hope

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 Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  You know that.” The garçon came with the whiskies. I saw him reach forward with a desperate eagerness and raise the glass to his lips. I saw a glint of hope in his eyes—far-off, wild, desperate. He probably saw himself swimming across the Atlantic. To me it looked easy, simple as rolling off a log. The whole thing was working itself out rapidly in my mind. I knew just what each step would be. Clear as a bell, I was. “Whose money is that in the bank?” I asked. “Is it her father’s or is it yours?” “It’s mine!” he exclaimed. “My mother sent it to me. I don’t want any of her goddamned money.” “That’s swell!” I said. “Listen, suppose we hop a cab and go back there. Draw out every cent. Then we’ll go to the British Consulate and get a visa. You’re going to hop the train this afternoon for London. From London you’ll take the first boat to America. I’m saying that because then you won’t be worried about her trailing you. She’ll never suspect that you went via London. If she goes searching for you she’ll naturally go to Le Havre first, or Cherbourg. … And here’s another thing—you’re not going back to get your things. You’re going to leave everything here. Let her keep them. With that French mind of hers she’ll never dream that you scooted off without bag or baggage. It’s incredible. A Frenchman would never dream of doing a thing like that … unless he was as cracked as you are.” “You’re right!” he exclaimed. “I never thought of that. Besides, you might send them to me later on—if she’ll surrender them! But that doesn’t matter now. Jesus, though, I haven’t even got a hat!” “What do you need a hat for? When you get to London you can buy everything you need. All you need now is to hurry. We’ve got to find out when the train leaves.” “Listen,” he said, reaching for his wallet, “I’m going to leave everything to you. Here, take this and do whatever’s necessary. I’m too weak. … I’m dizzy.” I took the wallet and emptied it of the bills he had just drawn from the bank. A cab was standing at the curb. We hopped in. There was a train leaving the Gare du Nord at four o’clock, or thereabouts. I was figuring it out—the bank, the Consulate, the American Express, the station. Fine! Just about make it. “Now buck up!” I said, “and keep your shirt on! Shit, in a few hours you’ll be crossing the Channel. Tonight you’ll be walking around in London and you’ll get a good bellyful of English. Tomorrow you’ll be on the open sea—and then, by Jesus, you’re a free man and you needn’t give a fuck what happens.

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  On our way to the Post Office Boris and I discussed the book. The Last Book—which is going to be written anonymously. A new day is beginning. I felt it this morning as we stood before one of Dufresne’s glistening canvases, a sort of déjeuner intime in the thirteenth century, sans vin. A fine, fleshy nude, solid, vibrant, pink as a fingernail, with glistening billows of flesh; all the secondary characteristics, and a few of the primary. A body that sings, that has the moisture of dawn. A still life, only nothing is still, nothing dead here. The table creaks with food; it is so heavy it is sliding out of the frame. A thirteenth century repast—with all the jungle notes that he has memorized so well. A family of gazelles and zebras nipping the fronds of the palms. And now we have Elsa. She was playing for us this morning while we were in bed. Step softly for a few days Good! Elsa is the maid and I am the guest. And Boris is the big cheese. A new drama is beginning. I’m laughing to myself as I write this. He knows what is going to happen, that lynx, Boris. He has a nose for things too. Step softly. ... Boris is on pins and needles. At any moment now his wife may appear on the scene. She weighs well over 180 pounds, that wife of his. And Boris is only a handful. There you have the situation. He tries to explain it to me on our way home at night. It is so tragic and so ridiculous at the same time that I am obliged to stop now and then and laugh in his face. “Why do you laugh so?” he says gently, and then he commences himself, with that whimpering, hysterical note in his voice, like a helpless wretch who realizes suddenly that no matter how many frock coats he puts on he will never make a man. He wants to run away, to take a new name. “She can have everything, that cow, if only she leaves me alone,” he whines. But first the apartment has to be rented, and the deeds signed, and a thousand other details for which his frock coat will come in handy. But the size of her!—that’s what really worries him. If we were to find her suddenly standing on the doorstep when we arrive he would faint—that’s how much he respects her! And so we’ve got to go easy with Elsa for a while. Elsa is only there to make breakfast—and to show the apartment. But Elsa is already undermining me. That German blood. Those melancholy songs. Coming down the stairs this morning, with the fresh coffee in my nostrils, I was humming softly. ... “Es wär’ so schön gewesen.” For breakfast, that. And in a little while the English boy upstairs with his Bach. As Elsa says—“he needs a woman.”

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

  That image became a picture of the Christian life and is found in the works of the early Church fathers. Tertullian said of the Christian: ‘He knows that on earth he has a pilgrimage but that his dignity is in heaven.’ Clement of Alexandria said: ‘We have no fatherland on earth.’ Augustine said: ‘We are sojourners exiled from our fatherland.’ It was not that the Christians were foolishly other-worldly, detaching themselves from the life and work of this world; but they always remembered that they were people on the way. There is an unwritten saying of Jesus: ‘The world is a bridge. The wise will pass over it but will not build a house upon it.’ Christians regard themselves as the pilgrims of eternity. (2) In spite of everything, these men never lost their vision and their hope. However long that hope might be in coming true, its light always shone in their eyes. However long the way might be, they never stopped tramping along it. Robert Louis Stevenson said: ‘It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive.’ They never wearily gave up the journey; they lived in hope and died in expectation. (3) In spite of everything, they never wanted to go back. Their descendants, when they were in the desert, often expressed a wish to go back to the fleshpots of Egypt. But not the patriarchs. They had begun, and it never struck them to turn back. In flying, there is what is called the point of no return. When the aircraft has reached that point, it cannot go back. Its fuel supply has reached such a level that there is no option but to go on. One of the tragedies of life is the number of people who turn back just a little too soon. One further effort, a little more waiting, a little more hoping, would make the dream come true. Immediately a Christian has set out on some enterprise sent by God, he or she should feel that the point of no return has already been passed. (4) These men were able to go on because they were haunted by the things beyond. People with the urge to travel are lured on by the thought of the countries they have not yet seen. Great artists or composers are driven by the thought of the performance they have not yet given and the wonder they have not yet produced. Robert Louis Stevenson tells of an old farmworker who spent all his days amid the muck of the cowshed. Someone asked him if he never got tired of it all. He answered: ‘He that has something ayont [beyond] need never weary.’ These men had the something beyond – and so may we. (5) Because these men were what they were, God was not ashamed to be called their God. Above all things, he is the God of the brave adventurer.

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

  The descriptions and explanations are therefore not offered every time an individual is mentioned (in order to avoid repetition that some may find tedious), but I trust that the information can be discovered without too much difficulty. Finally, the ‘Further Reading’ lists at the end of each volume have been removed. Many new commentaries and individual studies have been added to those that were the basis of William Barclay’s work, and making a selection from that ever-increasing catalogue is an impossible task. It is nonetheless my hope that the exploration that begins with these volumes of The New Daily Study Bible will go on in the discovery of new writers and new books. Throughout the editorial process, many conversations have taken place – conversations with the British and American publishers, and with those who love the books and find in them both information and inspiration. Ronnie Barclay’s contribution to this revision of his father’s work has been invaluable. But one conversation has dominated the work, and that has been a conversation with William Barclay himself through the text. There has been a real sense of listening to his voice in all the questioning and in the searching for new words to convey the meaning of that text. The aim of The New Daily Study Bible is to make clear his message, so that the distinctive voice, which has spoken to so many in past years, may continue to be heard for generations to come. Linda Foster London 2001 INTRODUCTION TO THE LETTER TO THE HEBREWS God Fulfils Himself in Many Ways Religion has never been the same thing to everyone. ‘God’, as Tennyson said in Mort d’Arthur, ‘fulfils himself in many ways.’ The Irish writer George Russell said: ‘There are as many ways of climbing to the stars as there are people to climb.’ There is a saying which tells us very truly and very beautifully that ‘God has his own secret stairway into every heart.’ Broadly speaking, there have been four great conceptions of religion. (1) To some, it is inward fellowship with God. It is a union with Christ so close and so intimate that Christians can be said to live in Christ and Christ to live in them. That was Paul’s conception of religion. To him, it was something which mystically united him with God. (2) To some, religion is what gives us a standard for life and a power to reach that standard. On the whole, that is what religion was to James and to Peter. It was something which showed them what life ought to be and which enabled them to attain it. (3) To some, religion is the highest satisfaction of their minds. Their minds seek and seek until they find that they can rest in God. It was Plato who said that ‘the unexamined life is the life not worth living’. There are some people who have to understand things in order to make sense of life.

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

  (2) Abraham’s faith was the faith which had patience . When he reached the promised land, he was never allowed to possess it. He had to wander in it, a stranger and a tentdweller, as the people of Israel were some day to wander in the wilderness. For Abraham, God’s promise was never fully fulfilled; and yet he never abandoned his faith. It is a characteristic of the best of us that we are in a hurry. To wait is even harder than to be adventurous. The hardest time of all is the time in between. At the moment of decision, there is the excitement and the thrill; at the moment of achievement, there is the glow and glory of satisfaction; but, in the intervening time, it is necessary to have the ability to wait and work and watch when nothing seems to be happening. It is then that we are most liable to give up our hopes and lower our ideals and sink into an apathy whose dreams are dead. Men and women of faith are people whose hope is flaming brightly and whose effort is intensely strenuous even in the grey days when there is nothing to do but to wait. (3) Abraham’s faith was the faith which was looking beyond this world . The later legends believed that, at the moment of his call, Abraham was given a glimpse of the new Jerusalem. In the Apocalypse of Baruch, God says: ‘I showed it to my servant Abraham by night’ (4:4). In 2 Esdras [4 Ezra], the writer says: ‘And when they were committing iniquity in your sight, you chose for yourself one of them, whose name was Abraham; you loved him, and to him alone you revealed the end of times, secretly by night’ (3:13–14). No one ever did anything great without a vision which made it possible to face the difficulties and discouragements of the way. To Abraham there was given the vision; and, even when his body was wandering in Palestine, his soul was at home with God. God cannot give us the vision unless we allow him to; but, if we are patient and look to him, even in earth’s desert places he will send us the vision, and with it the toil and trouble of the way all become worth while. WALKING WITH GOD Hebrews 11:5–6 It was by faith that Enoch was transferred from this to the other life so that he did not die but passed from men’s sight, because God took him from one life to the other. For, before this change came to him, it was testified that he pleased God. Apart from faith it is impossible to please God, for he who approaches God must believe that God is, and that he is the rewarder of those who spend their lives seeking him.

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

  What then are the anchors which are strong? Wisdom, great-heartedness, courage – these are the anchors which no storm can shake.’ The writer to the Hebrews insists that Christians possess the greatest hope in the world. That hope, he says, is one which enters into the inner court beyond the veil. In the Temple, the most sacred of all places was the Holy of Holies. The veil was what covered it. It was believed that anyone who entered the Holy of Holies entered into the very presence of God, and into that place only one man in all the world could go. That man was the high priest; and even he might enter that holy place on only one day of the year, the Day of Atonement. Even then, it was laid down, he must not linger in it, for it was a dangerous and a terrible thing to enter into the presence of the living God. What the writer to the Hebrews says is this: ‘Under the old Jewish religion, no one might enter into the presence of God but the high priest and he only on one day of the year; but now Jesus Christ has opened the way for every individual at every time.’ The writer to the Hebrews uses a most illuminating word about Jesus. He says that he entered the presence of God as our forerunner. The word is prodromos. It has three stages of meaning. (1) It means one who rushes on. (2) It means a pioneer. (3) It means a scout who goes ahead to see that it is safe for the rest of the troops to follow. Jesus went into the presence of God to make it safe for all to follow. Let us put it very simply in another way. Before Jesus came, God was the distant stranger whom only a very few might approach, and that at peril of their lives. But, because of what Jesus was and did, God has become the friend of all. Once, people thought of him as barring the door; now, they think of the door to his presence as thrown wide open to all. A PRIEST AFTER THE ORDER OF MELCHIZEDEK Hebrews 7 WE come now to a passage of such supreme importance for the writer to the Hebrews and in itself so difficult to understand that we must deal with it in a special way. Chapter 6 ended with the statement that Jesus had been made a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

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

  Give it to him before your day closes.’ There are certain great warnings here, (1) God makes men and women an offer. Just as he offered the Israelites the blessings of the promised land, he offers to everyone the blessings of a life which is far beyond the life that can be lived without him. (2) But, to obtain the blessings of God, two things are necessary. (a) Trust is necessary. We must believe that what God says is true. We must be willing to stake our lives on his promises. (b) Obedience is necessary. It is just as if a doctor were to say to us: ‘I can cure you if you obey my instructions implicitly.’ It is just as if a teacher were to say: ‘I can make you a scholar if you follow my curriculum exactly.’ It is just as if a trainer were to say to an athlete: ‘I can make you a champion if you do not deviate from the discipline that I lay down.’ In any area of life, success depends on obedience to the word of the expert. God, if we may put it so, is the expert in life, and real happiness depends on obedience to him. (3) To the offer of God, there is a limit. That limit is the duration of life. We never know when that limit will be reached. We speak easily about ‘tomorrow’; but, for us, tomorrow may never come. All we have is today. It has been said: ‘We should live each day as if it were a lifetime.’ God’s offer must be accepted today; the trust and the obedience must be given today – for we cannot be sure that there will be a tomorrow for us. Here we have the supreme offer of God; but it is only for perfect trust and full obedience, and it must be accepted now – or it may be too late. THE REST WE DARE NOT MISS Hebrews 4:1–10 It is true that the promise which offers entry into the rest of God still remains for us; but beware lest any of you be adjudged to have missed it. It is indeed true that we have had the good news preached to us, just as those of old had. But the word which they heard was no good to them, because it did not become woven into the very fibre of their being through faith.

• From The Girls (2016)

  I finally found Suzanne in a group near the fire. When she caught my eye, she gave me an odd, airless smile. I’m sure she recognized the inward shift you sometimes see in young girls, newly sexed. It’s that pride, I think, a solemnity. I wanted her to know. Suzanne was giddy from something, I could tell. Not alcohol. Something else, her pupils seeming to eat the iris, a flush lacing up her neck like a trippy Victorian collar. Maybe Suzanne felt some hidden disappointment when the game fulfilled itself, when she saw that I’d gone with Russell, after all. But maybe she’d expected it. The car was still smoldering, the noise of the party cutting up the darkness. I felt the night churn in me like a wheel. “When’s the car gonna stop burning?” I said. I couldn’t see her face, but I could feel her, the air soft between us. “Jesus, I don’t know,” she said. “Morning?” In the flicker, my arms and hands in front of me looked scaly and reptilian, and I welcomed the distorted vision of my body. I heard the brood of a motorcycle ignition, someone’s wicked hoot—they’d thrown a box spring in the fire, and the flames soared and deepened. “You can crash in my room if you want,” Suzanne said. Her voice gave away nothing. “I don’t care. But you have to actually be here, if you’re going to be here. Get it?” Suzanne was asking me something else. Like those fairy tales where goblins can enter a house only if invited by its inhabitants. The moment of crossing the threshold, the careful way Suzanne constructed her statements—she wanted me to say it. And I nodded, and said I understood. Though I couldn’t understand, not really. I was wearing a dress that didn’t belong to me in a place I had never been, and I couldn’t see much farther than that. The possibility that my life was hovering on the brink of a new and permanent happiness. I thought of Connie with a beatific indulgence—she was a sweet girl, wasn’t she—and even my father and mother fell under my generous purview, sufferers of a tragic foreign malady. The beam of motorcycle headlights blanched the tree branches and illuminated the exposed foundation of the house, the black dog crouching over an unseen prize. Someone kept playing the same song over and over. Hey, baby, the first lines went. The song repeated enough times that I started to get the phrase in my head, Hey, baby. I worked the words around with unspecific effort, like the idle rattle of a lemon drop against the teeth.

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

  God’s ‘today’ still exists and the promise is still open; but ‘today’ does not last forever; life comes to an end; the promise can be missed; therefore, says the writer to the Hebrews, ‘Here and now through faith enter into the very rest of God.’ There is a very interesting question of meaning in verse 1. We have taken the translation: ‘Beware lest any of you be adjudged to have missed the rest of God.’ That is to say: ‘Beware that your disobedience and your lack of faith do not mean that you have shut yourselves out from the rest and the peace that God offers you.’ That may very well be the correct translation. But there is another and most interesting possibility. The phrase may mean: ‘Beware of thinking that you have arrived too late in history ever to enjoy the rest of God.’ In that second translation, there is a warning. It is very easy to think that the great days of religion are past. It is told that a child, on being told some of the great Old Testament stories, said wistfully: ‘God was much more exciting then.’ There is a continual tendency in the Church to look back, to believe that God’s power has grown less and that the golden days have passed. The writer to the Hebrews sounds a trumpet-call. ‘Never think’, he says, ‘that you have arrived too late in history; never think that the days of great promise and great achievement lie in the past. This is still God’s “today”. There is a blessedness for you as great as the blessedness of the saints; there is an adventure for you as great as the adventure of the martyrs. God is as great today as he ever was.’ There are two great permanent truths in this passage. (1) A word, however great, has no impact unless it becomes integrated into the person who hears it. There are many different kinds of hearing in this world. There is indifferent hearing, uninterested hearing, critical hearing, sceptical hearing, cynical hearing. The hearing that matters is the hearing that listens eagerly, believes and acts. The promises of God are not merely beautiful pieces of literature; they are promises on which we are meant to stake our lives and which should dominate our actions. (2) In the first verse, the writer to the Hebrews bids his people beware in case they miss the promise. The word we have translated as beware literally means to fear (phobeisthai). This Christian fear is not the fear which makes people run away from a task, nor the fear which reduces them to paralysed inaction; it is the fear which makes them summon every ounce of strength they possess in a great effort not to miss the one thing that is worth while.

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

  It is a truth of life that, in many ways, it is easier to stand adversity than to stand prosperity. Comfort has ruined far more people than trouble ever did. The classic example is what happened to the armies of Hannibal. Hannibal of Carthage was the one general who had routed the Roman legions. But winter came, and the campaign had to be put on hold. Hannibal wintered his troops in Capua which he had captured, a city of luxury. And one winter in Capua did what the Roman legions had not succeeded in doing. The luxury so sapped the morale of the Carthaginian troops that, when the spring came and the campaign was resumed, they were unable to stand up to the Romans. Comfort had ruined them when struggle had only toughened them. That is often true of Christian life. It is often the case that people are able to meet the great hour of testing and of trial with honour; and yet they allow the times of plain sailing to sap their strength and weaken their faith. The appeal of the writer to the Hebrews is one that could be made to us all. In effect, he says: ‘Be what you were at your best.’ If only we were always at our best, life would be very different. Christianity does not demand the impossible; but, if we were always as honest, as kind, as courageous and as courteous as we can be, life would be transformed. To be like that, we need certain things. (1) We need always to keep our hope in sight. Athletes will make a great effort because the goal beckons. They will submit to the discipline of training because of the end in view. If life is only a day-to-day matter of routine things, we may well sink into a policy of drifting; but, if we are on the way to heaven’s crown, our efforts must always be the very best we can offer. (2) We need fortitude. Perseverance is one of the great unromantic virtues. Most people can start well, and almost everyone can keep going intermittently. To everyone at some time or other, strength and inspiration come so that we rise above things as if we had wings; in the moment of the great effort, everyone can run and not be weary; but the greatest gift of all is to walk on steadily and not to faint. (3) We need the memory of the end. The writer to the Hebrews quotes a passage from Habakkuk 2:3. The prophet tells his people that, if they hold fast to their loyalty, God will see them through their present situation. The victory comes only to those who hold on.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The voices of the prophets were also heard beyond the walls of the convent,—Joachim of Flore and Hildegard. Of an independent ecclesiastical movement they had no thought. But they cried out for clerical reform, and the people, after long waiting, seeing no signs of a reform, found hope of relief only in separatistic societies and groups of believers. The prophetess on the Rhine, having in mind the Cathari, called upon all kings and Christians to put down the Sadducees and heretics who indulged in lust, and, in the face of the early command to the race to go forth and multiply, rejected marriage. But to her credit, it is to be said, that at a time when heretics were being burnt at Bonn and Cologne, she remonstrated against the death penalty for the heretic on the ground that in spite of his heresy he bore the image of God.945 She would have limited the punishment to the sequestration of goods. It is also most probable that the elements of heresy were introduced into Central and Western Europe from the East. In the Byzantine empire the germs of early heresies continued to sprout, and from there they seem to have been carried to the West, where they were adopted by the Manichaean Cathari and Albigenses. Travelling merchants and mercenaries from Germany, Denmark, France, and Flanders, who had travelled in the East or served in the Byzantine armies, may have brought them with them on their return to their homes. The matters in which the heretical sects differed from the Catholic Church concerned doctrine, ritual, and the organization of the Church. Among the dogmas repudiated were transubstantiation and the sacerdotal theory of the priesthood. The validity of infant baptism was also quite widely denied, and the Cathari abandoned water baptism altogether. The worship of the cross and other images was regarded as idolatry. Oaths and even military service were renounced. Bernard Guy, inquisitor-general of Toulouse and our chief authority for the heretical beliefs current in Southern France in the fourteenth century, says946 that the doctrine of transubstantiation was denied on the ground that, if Christ’s body had been as large as the largest mountain, it would have been consumed long before that time. As for adoring the cross, thorns and spears might with equal propriety be worshipped, for Christ’s body was wounded by a crown of thorns and a lance. The depositions of the victims of the Inquisition are the simple statements of unlettered men. In the thousands of reports of judicial cases, which are preserved, charges of immoral conduct are rare.

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

  If we follow the world’s standards, we may well have ease and comfort and prosperity; if we follow God’s standards, we may well have pain and loss and unpopularity. It is the Christian conviction that it is better to suffer with God than to prosper with the world. In the book of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are confronted with the choice of obeying Nebuchadnezzar and worshipping the king’s image or obeying God and entering the fiery furnace. Without hesitation, they choose God (Daniel 3). When John Bunyan was to be put on trial, he said: ‘With God’s comfort in my poor soul, before I went down to the justices I begged of God that if I might do more good by being at liberty than in prison, then I might be set at liberty. But if not, his will be done.’ The Christian attitude is that, in terms of eternity, it is better to stake everything on God than to trust to the rewards of the world. (2) The Christian hope is belief in the spirit against the senses. The senses say to us: ‘Take what you can touch and taste and handle and enjoy.’ As the poet Robert Herrick wrote in ‘Hesperides’: Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying; And this same flower that smiles today Tomorrow will be dying. The senses tell us to grasp the thing of the moment; the spirit tells us that there is something far beyond that. Christians believe in the spirit rather than the senses. (3) The Christian hope is belief in the future against the present. Long ago, the Greek philosopher Epicurus said the chief purpose of life was pleasure. But he did not mean what so many people think he meant. He insisted that we must take the long view. The thing which is pleasant at the moment may sooner or later bring pain; the thing which at present hurts like fury may eventually bring joy. Christians are certain that in the long run no one can put aside the truth, for ‘great is truth, and in the end she will prevail’. It looked as if his judges had eliminated Socrates and as if Pilate had crushed Christ; but the verdict of the future reversed the verdict of the moment. The American Baptist preacher and author, Harry Emerson Fosdick, pointed out that Nero once condemned Paul, but the years have passed on and the time has come when people call their sons Paul and their dogs Nero.

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

  God still appeals to people not to harden their hearts but to enter into his rest. God’s ‘today’ still exists and the promise is still open; but ‘today’ does not last forever; life comes to an end; the promise can be missed; therefore, says the writer to the Hebrews, ‘Here and now through faith enter into the very rest of God.’ There is a very interesting question of meaning in verse 1. We have taken the translation: ‘Beware lest any of you be adjudged to have missed the rest of God.’ That is to say: ‘Beware that your disobedience and your lack of faith do not mean that you have shut yourselves out from the rest and the peace that God offers you.’ That may very well be the correct translation. But there is another and most interesting possibility. The phrase may mean: ‘Beware of thinking that you have arrived too late in history ever to enjoy the rest of God.’ In that second translation, there is a warning. It is very easy to think that the great days of religion are past. It is told that a child, on being told some of the great Old Testament stories, said wistfully: ‘God was much more exciting then.’ There is a continual tendency in the Church to look back, to believe that God’s power has grown less and that the golden days have passed. The writer to the Hebrews sounds a trumpet-call. ‘Never think’, he says, ‘that you have arrived too late in history; never think that the days of great promise and great achievement lie in the past. This is still God’s “today”. There is a blessedness for you as great as the blessedness of the saints; there is an adventure for you as great as the adventure of the martyrs. God is as great today as he ever was.’ There are two great permanent truths in this passage. (1) A word, however great, has no impact unless it becomes integrated into the person who hears it. There are many different kinds of hearing in this world. There is indifferent hearing, uninterested hearing, critical hearing, sceptical hearing, cynical hearing. The hearing that matters is the hearing that listens eagerly, believes and acts. The promises of God are not merely beautiful pieces of literature; they are promises on which we are meant to stake our lives and which should dominate our actions. (2) In the first verse, the writer to the Hebrews bids his people beware in case they miss the promise. The word we have translated as beware literally means to fear ( phobeisthai ).

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

  We see Moses taking the book of the law and reading it to the people; and we see the people responding with the words: ‘All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient’ (Exodus 24:7). The old agreement was based on obedience to the law; and the agreement could be kept open only while the priests continued to make sacrifice every time the law was broken. Jesus is the surety of a new and a better covenant, a new kind of relationship between men and women and God. The difference is this: the old covenant was based on law and justice and obedience; the new covenant is based on love and on the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The old covenant was based on human achievement; the new covenant is based on God’s love. What does the writer to the Hebrews mean by saying that Jesus is the surety ( egguos ) of this new covenant? An egguos is one who gives security. It is used, for instance, of a person who guarantees someone else’s overdraft at a bank; that person is surety that the money will be paid. It is used for someone who puts up bail for someone charged with an offence; that person guarantees that the one accused will appear at the trial. The egguos is one who guarantees that some undertaking will be honoured. So, what the writer to the Hebrews means is this. Someone might say: ‘How do you know that the old covenant is no longer operative? How do you know that access to God now depends not on our achievement of obedience but simply on the welcoming love of God?’ The answer is: ‘Jesus Christ guarantees that it is so. He is the surety who promises that God’s love will be forthcoming, if only we take him at his word.’ To put it in the simplest possible way, we must believe that, when we look at Jesus in all his love, we are seeing what God is like. The writer to the Hebrews introduces a second proof of the superiority of the priesthood of Jesus. There was no permanency about the old priesthood. Those who were priests died and had to be replaced; but the priesthood of Jesus is forever. What really matters in this passage are the overtones and implications of the almost untranslatable words the writer uses. He says that the priesthood of Jesus is one that will never pass away ( aparabatos ). Aparabatos is a legal word. It means inviolable . A judge lays down that his decision must remain aparabatos , unalterable .

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

  “That's right, Lord.” “-if giving my flesh and blood is not charity?” “Yes, Lord.” “I have to ask myself what is this charity they talking so much about.” I had never heard a preacher jump into the muscle of his sermon so quickly. Already the humming pitch had risen in the church, and those who knew had popped their eyes in anticipation of the coming excitement. Momma sat tree-trunk still, but she had balled her handkerchief in her hand and only the corner, which I had embroidered, stuck out. “As I understand it, charity vaunteth not itself. Is not puffed up.” He blew himself up with a deep breath to give us the picture of what Charity was not. “Charity don't go around saying ‘I give you food and I give you clothes and by rights you ought to thank me.’” The congregation knew whom he was talking about and voiced agreement with his analysis. “Tell the truth, Lord.” “Charity don't say, ‘Because I give you a job, you got to bend your knee to me.’” The church was rocking with each phrase. “It don't say, ‘Because I pays you what you due, you got to call me master.’ It don't ask me to humble myself and belittle myself. That ain't what Charity is.” Down front to the right, Mr. and Mrs. Stewart, who only a few hours earlier had crumbled in our front yard, defeated by cotton rows, now sat on the edges of their rickety-rackety chairs. Their faces shone with the delight of their souls. The mean whitefolks was going to get their comeuppance. Wasn't that what the minister said, and wasn't he quoting from the words of God Himself? They had been refreshed with the hope of revenge and the promise of justice. “Aaagh. Raagh. I said ... Charity. Woooooo, a Charity. It don't want nothing for itself. It don't want to be boss-man ... Waah ... It don't want to be headman ... Waah ... It don't want to be foreman ... Waah ... It ... I'm talking about Charity ... It don't want ... Oh Lord ... help me tonight ... It don't want to be bowed to and scraped at ...” America's historic bowers and scrapers shifted easily and happily in the makeshift church. Reassured that although they might be the lowest of the low they were at least not uncharitable, and “in that great Gettin' Up Morning, Jesus was going to separate the sheep (them) from the goats (the whitefolks).” “Charity is simple.” The church agreed, vocally. “Charity is poor.” That was us he was talking about. “Charity is plain.” I thought, that's about right. Plain and simple. “Charity is ... Oh, Oh, Oh. Cha-ri-ty Where are you? Wooo ... Charity ... Hump.” One chair gave way and the sound of splintering wood split the air in the rear of the church. “I call you and you don't answer.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  They were very unlike each other, these negroes; Lincoln, the elder, was paler in colour. He was short and inclined to be rather thick-set with a heavy but intellectual face—a strong face, much lined for a man of thirty. His eyes had the patient, questioning expression common to the eyes of most animals and to those of all slowly evolving races. He shook hands very quietly with Stephen and Mary. Henry was tall and as black as a coal; a fine, upstanding, but coarse-lipped young negro, with a roving glance and a self-assured manner. He remarked: ‘Glad to meet you, Miss Gordon—Miss Llewellyn,’ and plumped himself down at Mary’s side, where he started to make conversation, too glibly. Valérie Seymour was soon talking to Lincoln with a friendliness that put him at his ease—just at first he had seemed a little self-conscious. But Pat was much more reserved in her manner, having hailed from abolitionist Boston. Wanda said abruptly: ‘Can I have a drink, Jamie?’ Brockett poured her out a stiff brandy and soda. Adolphe Blanc sat on the floor hugging his knees; and presently Dupont the sculptor strolled in—being minus his mistress he migrated to Stephen. Then Lincoln seated himself at the piano, touching the keys with firm, expert fingers, while Henry stood beside him very straight and long and lifted up his voice which was velvet smooth, yet as clear and insistent as the call of a clarion: ‘Deep, river, my home is over Jordan. Deep river—Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground, Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground, Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground, Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground. . . .’ And all the hope of the utterly hopeless of this world, who must live by their ultimate salvation, all the terrible, aching, homesick hope that is born of the infinite pain of the spirit, seemed to break from this man and shake those who listened, so that they sat with bent heads and clasped hands—they who were also among the hopeless sat with bent heads and clasped hands as they listened. . . . Even Valérie Seymour forgot to be pagan. He was not an exemplary young negro; indeed he could be the reverse very often. A crude animal Henry could be at times, with a taste for liquor and a lust for women—just a primitive force rendered dangerous by drink, rendered offensive by civilization. Yet as he sang his sins seemed to drop from him, leaving him pure, unashamed, triumphant. He sang to his God, to the God of his soul, Who would some day blot out all the sins of the world, and make vast reparation for every injustice: ‘My home is over Jordan, Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground.’ Lincoln’s deep bass voice kept up a low sobbing.

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

  Others braved the dangers and endured the tribulations before you and won through.’ He is telling them to go on in the realization that others have gone through their struggle and won the victory. Christians are not treading an untrodden pathway; they are treading where the saints have trod. THE SURE HOPE Hebrews 6:13–20 When God made his promise to Abraham, since he was not able to swear by anyone greater, he swore by himself. ‘Certainly,’ he said, ‘I will bless you and I will multiply you.’ When Abraham had thus exercised patience, he received the promise. Men swear by someone who is greater than themselves; and an oath serves for a guarantee beyond all possibility of contradiction. But on this occasion God, in his quite exceptional desire to make clear to the heirs of the promise the unalterable character of his intention, interposed with an oath, so that by two unalterable things, in which it is impossible that God should lie, we, who have fled to him for refuge, might be strongly encouraged to lay hold upon the hope that is set before us. This hope is to us like an anchor, safe and sure, and it enters with us into the inner court beyond the veil, where Jesus has already entered as a forerunner for us, when he became a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. GOD made more than one promise to Abraham. Genesis 12:7 tells us of the one made when he called him out of Ur and sent him into the unknown and to the promised land. Genesis 17:5–6 is the promise of many descendants who would be blessed in him. Genesis 18:18 is a repetition of that promise. But the promise which God swore with an oath to keep comes in Genesis 22:16–18. The real meaning of this first sentence is: ‘God made many promises to Abraham, and in the end he actually made one which he confirmed with an oath.’ That promise was, as it were, doubly binding. It was God’s word which in itself made it sure, but in addition it was confirmed by an oath. Now, that promise was that all Abraham’s descendants would be blessed; therefore, that promise was to the Christian Church, for the Church was the true Israel and the true seed of Abraham. That blessing came true in Jesus Christ. Abraham certainly had to exercise patience before he received the promise. It was not until twenty-five years after he had left Ur that his son Isaac was born. He was old; Sarah was barren; the wandering was long; but Abraham never wavered from his hope and trust in the promise of God. In the ancient world, the anchor was the symbol of hope. The Stoic philosopher Epictetus says: ‘A ship should never depend on one anchor, or a life on one hope.’ Pythagoras the mathematician said: ‘Wealth is a weak anchor; fame is still weaker.

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

  The Christian attitude is that, in terms of eternity, it is better to stake everything on God than to trust to the rewards of the world. (2) The Christian hope is belief in the spirit against the senses . The senses say to us: ‘Take what you can touch and taste and handle and enjoy.’ As the poet Robert Herrick wrote in ‘Hesperides’: Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying; And this same flower that smiles today Tomorrow will be dying. The senses tell us to grasp the thing of the moment; the spirit tells us that there is something far beyond that. Christians believe in the spirit rather than the senses. (3) The Christian hope is belief in the future against the present . Long ago, the Greek philosopher Epicurus said the chief purpose of life was pleasure. But he did not mean what so many people think he meant. He insisted that we must take the long view. The thing which is pleasant at the moment may sooner or later bring pain; the thing which at present hurts like fury may eventually bring joy. Christians are certain that in the long run no one can put aside the truth, for ‘great is truth, and in the end she will prevail’. It looked as if his judges had eliminated Socrates and as if Pilate had crushed Christ; but the verdict of the future reversed the verdict of the moment. The American Baptist preacher and author, Harry Emerson Fosdick, pointed out that Nero once condemned Paul, but the years have passed on and the time has come when people call their sons Paul and their dogs Nero. It is easy to argue: ‘Why should I refuse the pleasure of the moment for an uncertain future?’ The Christian answer is that the future is not uncertain because it belongs to God; and it is enough that God has commanded and that God has promised. 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.

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

  “As I understand it, charity vaunteth not itself. Is not puffed up.” He blew himself up with a deep breath to give us the picture of what Charity was not. “Charity don't go around saying ‘I give you food and I give you clothes and by rights you ought to thank me.’” The congregation knew whom he was talking about and voiced agreement with his analysis. “Tell the truth, Lord.” “Charity don't say, ‘Because I give you a job, you got to bend your knee to me.’” The church was rocking with each phrase. “It don't say, ‘Because I pays you what you due, you got to call me master.’ It don't ask me to humble myself and belittle myself. That ain't what Charity is.” Down front to the right, Mr. and Mrs. Stewart, who only a few hours earlier had crumbled in our front yard, defeated by cotton rows, now sat on the edges of their rickety-rackety chairs. Their faces shone with the delight of their souls. The mean whitefolks was going to get their comeuppance. Wasn't that what the minister said, and wasn't he quoting from the words of God Himself? They had been refreshed with the hope of revenge and the promise of justice. “Aaagh. Raagh. I said … Charity. Woooooo, a Charity. It don't want nothing for itself. It don't want to be boss-man … Waah … It don't want to be headman … Waah … It don't want to be foreman … Waah … It … I'm talking about Charity … It don't want … Oh Lord … help me tonight … It don't want to be bowed to and scraped at …” America's historic bowers and scrapers shifted easily and happily in the makeshift church. Reassured that although they might be the lowest of the low they were at least not uncharitable, and “in that great Gettin' Up Morning, Jesus was going to separate the sheep (them) from the goats (the whitefolks).” “Charity is simple.” The church agreed, vocally. “Charity is poor.” That was us he was talking about. “Charity is plain.” I thought, that's about right. Plain and simple. “Charity is … Oh, Oh, Oh. Cha-ri-ty Where are you? Wooo … Charity … Hump.” One chair gave way and the sound of splintering wood split the air in the rear of the church. “I call you and you don't answer. Woooh, oh Charity.” Another holler went up in front of me, and a large woman flopped over, her arms above her head like a candidate for baptism. The emotional release was contagious. Little screams burst around the room like Fourth of July firecrackers.

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

  7:34] came eating and drinking, and they say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” (Matt. 11:18–19 = Luke 7:33–34) I leave aside those judgments about difference in character, but I accept those descriptions about difference in program. After all, people fast in preparation for the future, and they feast in celebration of the present (see also Mark 2:18–20). Furthermore, Jesus began as a follower of John who accepted John’s program. It is historically secure that John baptized Jesus in the Jordan, as underlined by a later evangelical diffidence in admitting that fact: Mark accepts it (1:9), Matthew debates it (3:13–15), Luke hurries it (3:21), and John omits it (1:36). But later, when Jesus finds his own voice, he announces, “Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (Matt. 11:11 = Luke 7:28). As far as I can see, therefore, their two programs are divergent, but I also emphasize that Jesus’s movement involved a change from John’s program to his own quite different one. The next step is to look first at John’s Baptism movement and then comparatively at Jesus’s Kingdom movement. Where exactly did they differ? I make one preliminary warning: it is necessary to distinguish clearly between the historical John and the biblical John because in our present texts, John is focused primarily on Jesus. But John’s program was fully operational before Jesus ever appeared on the public horizon. Josephus, for example, explains John’s life and death without ever mentioning Jesus and calls John “the Baptist” without ever mentioning Jesus’s baptism (JA 18.116–119). Always remember, therefore, that the historical John, separate from our present biblical John, was not the forerunner of Jesus, but of God; not the preparer of Christ’s advent, but of God’s Kingdom. But that transformation from the historical to the biblical John is a preliminary example of the ongoing assertion-and-subversion process within the New Testament. It is a preliminary instance of what will happen to Jesus and to Paul in the rest of this Part IV on “Community.” “More Than a Prophet”FIRST, WITH REGARD TO eschatology, I note that the historical John was an eschatologist, and indeed, an apocalyptic one—that is, a prophet who claimed a special divine revelation (apocalypse is Greek for “revelation”) about God’s Divine Cleanup of the World. In itself, such a revelation could be about any matter concerning God’s Kingdom and not specifically about imminence or exclusively about violence. But in the heightened tension of Roman Israel, only one matter was of supreme importance: When would the Kingdom arrive? Soon? Now? And if not now, why not? In other words, apocalyptic eschatology is often taken, far too narrowly, to mean imminent or even violently imminent eschatology. John had a very persuasive answer to “when?” and a very compelling program. The Kingdom was imminent, and its advent awaited only preliminary and preparatory endeavor.