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

  It is going to include the house of Israel and the house of Judah. A millennium before this, in the days of Rehoboam, the kingdom had split apart, into Israel with ten of the tribes and Judah with the remaining two tribes; and these two sections had never come together again. The new covenant is going to unite that which has been divided; in it, the old enemies will be at one. (4) It is new in its universality. Everyone, from the least to the greatest, would know God. That was something quite new. In the ordinary life of the Jews, there was a complete division. On the one hand, there were the Pharisees and the orthodox who kept the law; on the other hand, there were what were contemptuously called the people of the land, the ordinary people who did not fully observe the details of the ceremonial law. They were completely despised. It was forbidden for anyone in the first group to have any fellowship with them; to marry one’s daughter to one of them was something not to be contemplated; it was forbidden to go on a journey with them; it was even forbidden, as far as it was possible, to have any trade or business dealings with them. To the rigid observers of the law, the ordinary people were beyond the pale. But, in the new covenant, these divisions would no longer exist. All men and women, wise and simple, great and small, would know the Lord. The doors which had been shut were thrown wide open. (5) There is one even more fundamental difference. The old covenant depended on obedience to an externally imposed law. The new covenant is to be written upon human hearts and minds. People would obey God not because of the terror of punishment, but because they loved him. They would obey him not because the law compelled them unwillingly to do so, but because the desire to obey him was written on their hearts. (6) It will be a covenant which will really bring about forgiveness. See how that forgiveness is to come. God said that he would be gracious to their iniquities and would forget their sins. Now it is all from God. The new relationship is based entirely on his love. Under the old covenant, people could keep this relationship to God only by obeying the law; that is, by their own efforts. Now everything is dependent not on human efforts but solely on the grace of God. The new covenant puts men and women into relationship with a God who is still a God of justice but whose justice has been swallowed up in his love. The most tremendous thing about the new covenant is that it makes our relationship to God no longer dependent on our obedience but entirely dependent on God’s love.

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  And Miller gives this answer, letting Krishnamurti say it: The world problem is the individual problem; if the individual is at peace, has happiness, has great tolerance, and an intense desire to help, then the world problem as such ceases to exist. You consider the world problem before you have considered your own problem. Before you have established peace and understanding in your own hearts and in your own minds you desire to establish peace and tranquility in the minds of others, in your nations and in your states; whereas peace and understanding will only come when there is understanding, certainty and strength in yourselves. To place the individual before the state, whether the Russian state or the American state, is the first need of modern man. To interpret Miller, man is like the common soldier on the battlefield; he can know nothing of the battle at large or of its causes; he can know only the fifty feet or so in his immediate vicinity; within that radius he is a man responsible for himself and his fellows; beyond that he is powerless. Modern life, having made everyone state conscious, has destroyed the individual. America has as few individuals today as Russia, and as many taboos to keep the individual from coming to life as the USSR. First, we have contaminated the idea of society; second, we have contaminated the idea of community. Miller writing about his little community at Big Sur frowns on the idea of community itself. “To create community—and what is a nation, or a people, without a sense of community—there must be a common purpose. Even here in Big Sur, where the oranges are ready to blossom forth, there is no common purpose, no common effort. There is a remarkable neighborliness, but no community spirit. We have a Grange, as do other rural communities, but what is a ‘Grange’ in the life of man? The real workers are outside the Grange. Just as the ‘real men of God’ are outside the Church. And the real leaders outside the world of politics.” “We create our fate,” says Miller. And better still: “Forget, forgive, renounce, abdicate.” And “scrap the past instantly.” Live the good life instantly; it’s now or never, and always has been. Miller is “irresponsible” as far as officials and popular politics go, or as far as common church morality goes, and as far as literary manners go. But he is not a poseur, he has no program, yet he has a deep and pure sense of morality. I would call him a total revolutionary, the man who will settle for nothing less than “Christmas on earth.” In his remarkable study of Rimbaud, a prose-poem of one hundred and fifty pages called The Time of the Assassins, Miller discourses on the spiritual suicide of modern youth. I like to think of him as the one who extended the boundaries of that only partially explored domain. Youth ends where manhood begins, it is said.

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

  Some look up particular passages while others work through the daily readings in a more systematic way. 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 HEBREWS THE END OF FRAGMENTS Hebrews 1:1–3 It was in many parts and in many ways that God spoke to our fathers in the prophets in time gone past; but in the end of these days he has spoken to us in One who is a Son, a Son whom he destined to enter into possession of all things, a Son by whose agency he made the universe. He was the very effulgence of God’s glory; he was the exact expression of God’s very essence. He bore everything onwards by the word of his power; and, after he had made purification for the sins of men, he took his royal seat at the right hand of the glory in the heights. T HIS is the most stylistically impressive piece of Greek in the whole New Testament. It is a passage that any classical Greek orator would have been proud to write. The writer of Hebrews has brought to it every possible skill and form of word and rhythm that the beautiful and flexible Greek language could provide.

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

  The Jews used to lay it down as a primary law for a teacher that he must never promise his pupils what he was unwilling or unable to perform; to do so would be to introduce pupils at an early stage to broken promises. When we remember that the one who makes the promise is God, we begin to realize that, however astonishing that promise may be, it must nonetheless be true. (3) It culminated in the ability to believe in the impossible. That Abraham and Sarah should have a child, humanly speaking, was impossible. As Sarah said: ‘Who would ever have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children?’ (Genesis 21:7). But, by the grace and the power of God, the impossible became true. There is something here to challenge and uplift every heart. The Italian statesman Count Cavour said that the first essential of a statesman is ‘the sense of the possible’. When we listen to people planning and arguing and thinking aloud, we get the impression of a vast number of things in this world which are known to be desirable but which are dismissed as impossible. People spend the greater part of their lives putting limitations on the power of God. Faith is the ability to take hold of that grace which is sufficient for all things in such a way that the things which are humanly impossible become divinely possible. With God, all things are possible; and, therefore, the word impossible has no place in the vocabulary of the individual Christian or of the Christian Church. STRANGERS AND NOMADS Hebrews 11:13–16 All these died without obtaining possession of the promises. They only saw them from far away and greeted them from afar, and they admitted that they were strangers and sojourners upon the earth. Now, people who speak like that make it quite clear that they are searching for a fatherland. If they were thinking of the land from which they had come out, they would have had time to return. In point of fact, they were reaching out after something better, I mean, the heavenly country. It was because of that that God was not ashamed to be called their God, for he had prepared a city for them. NONE of the patriarchs entered into the full possession of the promises that God had made to Abraham. To the end of their days they were nomads, never living a settled life in a settled land. They had to be constantly moving on. Certain great permanent truths emerge from them. (1) They lived as permanent strangers. The writer to the Hebrews uses three vivid Greek words about them. (a) In 11:13, he calls them xenoi. Xenos is the word for a stranger and a foreigner. In the ancient world, the fate of strangers was hard.

• 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)

  That is the faith which gave you your religion. What can you do except be true to a heritage like that?’ THE RACE AND THE GOAL Hebrews 12:1–2 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses enveloping us, let us strip off every weight and let us rid ourselves of the sin which so persistently surrounds us, and let us run with steadfast endurance the course that is marked out for us and, as we do so, let us keep our gaze fixed on Jesus who, in order to win the joy that was set before him, steadfastly endured the cross, thinking nothing of its shame, and has now taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. THIS is one of the great, moving passages of the New Testament; and in it the writer has given us a near-perfect summary of the Christian life. (1) In the Christian life, we have a goal. Christians are not people who stroll along the byways of life in a completely unconcerned manner; they travel on the high road. They are not tourists, who return each night to the place from which they started; they are pilgrims who are always travelling on the way. The goal is nothing less than the likeness of Christ. The Christian life is going somewhere, and at each day’s ending we would do well to ask ourselves: ‘Am I any further on?’ (2) In the Christian life, we have an inspiration. We have the thought of the unseen cloud of witnesses; and they are witnesses in a double sense, for they have witnessed their confession to Christ and they are now witnesses of our performance. Christians are like runners in some crowded stadium. As they press on, the crowd looks down; and the crowd looking down are those who have already won the crown. The first-century writer Pseudo-Longinus, in his great work On the Sublime, has a recipe for greatness in literary endeavour. ‘It is a good thing’, he writes, ‘to form the question in our souls, “How would Homer perhaps have said this? How would Plato or Demosthenes have lifted it up to sublimity? How would Thucydides have put it in his history?”

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  And now for the first time since leaving Morton, Stephen turned her mind to the making of a home. Through Brockett she found a young architect who seemed anxious to carry out all her instructions. He was one of those very rare architects who refrain from thrusting their views on their clients. So into the ancient, deserted house in the Rue Jacob streamed an army of workmen, and they hammered and scraped and raised clouds of dust from early morning, all day until evening—smoking harsh caporal as they joked or quarrelled or idled or spat or hummed snatches of song. And amazingly soon, wherever one trod one seemed to be treading on wet cement or on dry, gritty heaps of brick dust and rubble, so that Puddle would complain that she spoilt all her shoes, while Stephen would emerge with her neat blue serge shoulders quite grey, and with even her hair thickly powdered. Sometimes the architect would come to the hotel in the evening and then would ensue long discussions. Bending over the little mahogany table, he and Stephen would study the plans intently, for she wished to preserve the spirit of the place intact, despite alterations. She decided to have an Empire study with grey walls and curtains of Empire green, for she loved the great roomy writing tables that had come into being with the first Napoleon. The walls of the salle à manger should be white and the curtains brown, while Puddle’s round sanctum in its turret should have walls and paintwork of yellow, to give the illusion of sunshine. And so absorbed did Stephen become in these things, that she scarcely had time to notice Jonathan Brockett’s abrupt departure for a mountain top in the Austrian Tyrol. Having suddenly come to the end of his finances, he must hasten to write a couple of plays that could be produced in London that winter. He sent her three or four picture postcards of glaciers, after which she heard nothing more from him.

• 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)

  The blessing of Jacob is given in Genesis 48:9–22. The story has just said that ‘the time of Israel’s death drew near’ (Genesis 47:29). The blessing was: ‘In them let my name be perpetuated, and the name of my ancestors Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude on the earth’ (Genesis 48:16). The incident from the life of Joseph comes from Genesis 50:22–6. When Joseph was near to death, he made the Israelites take an oath that they would not leave his bones in Egypt but would take them with them when they went out to possess the promised land, which in due course they did (Exodus 13:19; Joshua 24:32). The point which the writer to the Hebrews wishes to make is that all three men died without having entered into the promise that God had made, the promise of the promised land and of greatness to the nation of Israel. Isaac was still a nomad, Jacob was an exile in Egypt, Joseph had attained to greatness but it was the greatness of a stranger in a strange land; and yet they never doubted that the promise would come true. They died not in despair but in hope. Their faith defeated death. There is something of permanent greatness here. The thought in the minds of all these men was the same: ‘God’s promise is true, for he never breaks a promise. I may not live to see it, death may come to me before that promise becomes a fact; but I am a link in its fulfilment. Whether or not that promise comes depends on me.’ Here is the great function of life. Our hopes may never become reality, but we must live in such a way that we shall hasten their coming. It may not be given to everyone to enter into the fullness of the promises of God, but it is given to every one of us to live with such faithfulness as to bring nearer the day when others will enter into it. To all of us is given the tremendous task of helping God make his promises come true. FAITH AND ITS SECRET Hebrews 11:23–9 It was by faith that Moses, when he was born, was kept hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful – and they did not fear the edict of the king. It was by faith that Moses, when he grew to manhood, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter and chose rather to suffer evil with the people of God than to enjoy the transient pleasures of sin, for he considered that a life of reproach for the sake of the Messiah was greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he kept his eyes fixed upon his reward. It was by faith that he left Egypt, unmoved by the blazing anger of the king, for he could face all things as one who sees him who is invisible.

• From Cults Inside Out: How People Get In and Can Get Out (2014)

  For example, the group or leader may have special rules regarding celibacy, celebration of holidays, or certain prohibited activities. Working within such a framework in conservation can be difficult, but it is important to demonstrate to the cult member through relatively passive and nonthreatening conversation that his or her past life did have some happiness, value, and meaning. Never be aggressive or envoke punishments. Never try to induce guilt feelings through the recollection of family memories. A destructive cult or leader can easily turn this conversation around and use it as an indictment of family, old friends, and their intentions. Assume that anything said to a cult member will be repeated to leaders or others in the group and will be further scrutinized. That is why it is so important not to say anything negative; you do not want to provide the basis for the group and its leaders to discredit and dismiss family and old friends. Always be truthful, positive, and consistent; and make every effort to fulfill commitments. Being a good listener leads to more effective information gathering about the group, its practices, living conditions, and whatever jargon the group may use. Try to keep notes about conversations whenever possible, including key points, certain words, and frequently used phrases. Note rules, practices, and diet standards that exist in the group. Many cults are so small and relatively obscure that there is little, if any, meaningful information readily available about them. The notes may prove to be invaluable in the future. Only the most extreme groups discourage any expression of emotion or endearment. In most groups there is no prohibition against sincere feelings. As we keep this in mind, it’s important to include words of love and regard in a conversation. Saying “I love you” and “It’s always good to hear from you” or “I miss you” may be especially meaningful. Life often becomes boring in a destructive cult. Repetitious and tedious tasks can lead to boredom. There is also often a shaming milieu that leads to low self-esteem. Many cults promote the general impression that no one can ever really be good enough. Members find themselves toiling endlessly to demonstrate that they are truly committed and to meet the expectations of leaders. In addition, cults are notorious for barely compensating members for their work and often simply exploiting them for free labor. Ultimately these conditions can make daily life in many cults dull and little more than drudgery. As time passes a cult member’s memories of a better life before involvement in the group may begin to filter through and seem increasingly appealing despite the group’s influence. It is very important for cult members to know that they have family and friends on the outside who care. These people can be a constant reminder that there is a better life and that a safety net exists. The continuing, loving support of family and old friends can reinforce this reality.

• 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 Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation (2016)

  Lecture 16—Isaiah on Defiant Hope 109 that initially seems absurd. He is to tell the people, “Go ahead; keep listening. You’ll never understand. Go ahead; keep looking. You’ll never really see.” God explains that the prophet’s words will make them cover their ears and close their eyes, because if they understood what was happening, they would turn to God and be healed. ‹ These words were designed to function as a challenge. They’re meant to provoke people into replying that the prophet must be wrong, because they can understand. That’s why in chapters to come, the prophet will repeatedly call people to greater awareness of the situation. But when Isaiah asks how long he must persist in this work, God tells him he must do so until cities lie in ruins and houses stand empty; until the country has been ravaged and people have been sent away. ‹ Yet these ominous words conclude with a cryptic image that holds out the prospect of new life emerging from the ashes. Isaiah pictures the nation as a tree that has been cut down, yet the stump remains. And where there is a stump, there are roots underground. The image suggests that just as Isaiah was purified by fire yet survived, so, too, would the nation, which might be devastated but would live on. Hope and Realism ‹ We can see this idea developed in the next part of the book, chapters 7 and 8, which reflect a time when the Assyrian Empire was expanding. The kings of Syria and Israel—north of Judah—wanted to form a coalition to resist the Assyrian invasion, but King Ahaz, who ruled in Jerusalem, apparently refused to join them. Thus, they threatened to overthrow Ahaz’s government and replace him with a new king. ‹ The threat raises profound questions about the way hope relates to realism. Isaiah tells King Ahaz not to take any rash action and things will work out, but that does not seem realistic to Ahaz. The prophet underscores his message by referring to three children with symbolic names. His meaning is that Judah will survive the Assyrian attacks, at least for now.

• From Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation (2016)

  Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation144 Daniel’s Visions ‹ Instead of stories of life in the imperial court, chapters 7 to 12 are accounts of visions that Daniel received. The visions include cryptic images that Daniel cannot understand, but angelic beings help him by disclosing the meaning. ‹ Chapter 7 is a good example of this pattern. Daniel has a vision of four beasts rising out of the sea that signify four successive empires: those of the Babylonians, the Medes, the Persians, and the Greeks. ‹ The point of the vision is this: History shows that empires rise, one after another, yet each one of them falls in due time. Readers are to resist persecution because it will not last forever. No human ruler is absolute. God’s purposes are just and will win out. ‹ Daniel 7 pictures God coming for judgment, seated on his throne, surrounded by heavenly beings. It is a vision of accountability, giving assurance that the perpetrators of injustice cannot continue indefinitely. They, like all humans, are ultimately accountable to the higher authority of God. Suggested Reading Gowan, Daniel. Levenson, Esther: A Commentary. Questions to Consider 1. The Hebrew version of the book of Esther does not explicitly mention God, though it alludes to a higher purpose behind the coincidences that take place in the story. Why might the writer have been so circumspect about the role of God? What kind of readers might find this circumspect approach helpful? 2. In contrast to Esther, Daniel explicitly refers to God working through events in history, including the rise and fall of empires. What kind of readers might find Daniel’s emphasis on God’s role to be helpful?

• From Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation (2016)

  Lecture 25—The Dynamics of Forgiveness in Matthew 171 Redemption ‹ In Matthew, the account of Jesus’s death and resurrection begins in chapter 21 with the story of Jesus riding into Jerusalem, being welcomed by the crowds, and driving the merchants out of the temple. It continues with Jesus eating a final meal with his disciples and being betrayed, arrested, interrogated, and crucified. ‹ All of that is recounted in Mark, as well, but there is an intensity in Matthew’s narrative that readers have found disturbing. ● For instance, like Mark, Matthew tells of Jesus being questioned by the Jewish leaders and by Pilate. But Matthew intensifies the sense of conflict, as the Jewish leaders relentlessly pressure Pilate to crucify Jesus. ● At a pivotal moment, Pilate asks for some water, and he washes his hands of the whole affair. He declares that he will not be responsible for Jesus’s death. At that, the Jewish leaders say, “Let his blood be on us and on our children.” ‹ But Matthew’s story of redemption is finally directed toward life, not death. After recounting the crucifixion and burial, the gospel concludes with an expanded account of Jesus’s resurrection. Here, the ground shakes and an angel descends from heaven to open the tomb. The angel tells the women who visit In Western history, the scene in which the Jewish leaders take responsibility for Jesus’s death has sometimes been lifted out of Matthew’s gospel to feed anti-Semitism and violence against Jews. Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation172 the tomb that Jesus is alive and will meet them in Galilee. As they go to tell the other disciples, the women are met by the risen Jesus himself, who repeats the angel’s message. ‹ The final scene takes readers to a mountaintop in Galilee, where the crucified and now living Jesus appears to the disciples. It’s a dazzling climax, as the disciples bow before him and worship. The tensions in the story now seem to be resolved, with death is turned into life. Yet Matthew notes that even here, some of the disciples doubted. This is an intriguing detail, because even at the climactic moment, faith and doubt continue to exist side by side. And it’s this mixed group of believers and skeptics that Jesus sends out with his teaching. Suggested Reading Powell, “Sermon on the Mount.” Senior, Matthew. Questions to Consider 1. One of the questions that Matthew’s gospel addresses concerns the way people should live. What aspects of the gospel do most to shape a way of life? 2. Jesus’s teachings sometimes include creative exaggeration or hyperbole. What were some examples noted in the lecture? How do such creative exaggerations contribute to the message?