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)

  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)

  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 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 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?

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

  Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation174 ‹ The reversal continues when an angel appears to shepherds in the fields nearby. Interestingly, the angel transfers the title savior—which was often used for the emperor—to the child in the barn and says that the child’s coming signals peace on earth. It’s a move that shifts the claims of the emperor to the periphery while bringing people on the margin to the center, where they receive the message of God’s favor. Jesus’s Sermon at Nazareth ‹ Chapter 4 of Luke marks the beginning of Jesus’s public activity and sets a direction for what is to come. Jesus goes to the synagogue in Nazareth and is handed a scroll, from which he reads: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” ‹ Then, Jesus adds, “T oday this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” The listeners are initially pleased because they assume they are the primary recipients of God’s favor. Yet Jesus is speaking about the poor, the captives, the blind, and the oppressed—those who, by definition, are not at the center of things. Thus, as he extends God’s favor to those on the margins, those who see themselves as privileged feel displaced. And out of that sense of displacement, hostility will emerge. ‹ From this point on, readers can expect that Jesus will be seen as a threat by traditional insiders but will be welcomed by those outside. The angry response he receives in Nazareth foreshadows the resistance that will lead to his death. Parable of the Good Samaritan ‹ At the end of Luke 9, Jesus sets out for Jerusalem, planning to cross the region of Samaria. The Samaritans were people brought by the Assyrians from other nations to colonize the area. These newcomers intermarried with local people and blended their religious traditions with those of Israel, but they did not identify with Jerusalem and its temple. Indeed, the Jews and the Samaritans viewed each other with suspicion.

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

  Lecture 36—Revelation’s Vision of New Creation 245 vision of hope for the future can shape life in the present. It identifies God as the Creator, who remains committed to the renewal of creation. And by portraying that as God’s goal, it challenges readers to ask how they, too, might contribute to the well-being of the world. Suggested Reading Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation. Koester, Revelation and the End of All Things. Questions to Consider 1. Many of the common assumptions about Revelation come from popular media. What were your assumptions about Revelation before listening to this lecture? How is the approach taken in the lecture similar to or different from your previous impressions of the book? 2. As you reflect back over the course as a whole, what one or two parts of the Bible were most important for you? What made them especially significant? 246 Bibliography Alter, Robert, and Frank Kermode, eds. The Literary Guide to the Bible. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1987. A collection of essays by an international group of scholars, who introduce readers to the literary dimensions of the Bible. Studies of each biblical book offer helpful ways to read the texts holistically. Bauckham, Richard. The Theology of the Book of Revelation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. This overview of theological themes gives special attention to the role of God as Creator, to Jesus as Lamb, and to the expansive understanding of hope in Revelation. Birch, Bruce C. “The First and Second Books of Samuel.” In The New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 2. Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1998. Offers helpful comments on each section of 2 Samuel, along with reflections on the larger themes in these episodes. Blenkinsopp, Joseph. Abraham: The Story of a Life. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015. A useful reading of the Abraham stories, with attention to their literary quality and the ways they have been understood by later interpretive traditions. ———. Creation, Un-creation, Re-creation: A Discursive Commentary on Genesis 1–11. London and New York: T. &. T. Clark, 2011. Considers the literary flow of the first 11 chapters of Genesis while exploring the theological aspects and relationship to the creation theme elsewhere in the Old Testament. ———. Ezra–Nehemiah: A Commentary. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1988. A balanced interpretation of Ezra and Nehemiah, with attention to its literary and theological dimensions and a discussion of different views concerning its historical setting. ———. “Prophecy in the Northern Kingdom: Elijah and Elisha.” In A History of Prophecy in Israel, rev. ed., pp. 55–65. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1996. A helpful study of the place of the narratives about Elijah and Elisha in relationship to the wider collection of prophetic writings in the Old Testament.

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

  Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation 8 by shepherds. Instead of starting with scenes of conflict with evil, Luke tells of Jesus being present among ordinary people. ‹Matthew takes another approach. His opening lines trace Jesus’s royal genealogy back through the generations of Israel. When Matthew tells of Jesus’s birth, he says nothing about shepherds. Instead, he refers to wise men, who are foreigners. In Matthew’s account, the wise men foreshadow the significance of Jesus for foreigners—those outside of Israel’s tradition. ‹Finally, John’s gospel sets the story of Jesus in the context of creation. The opening lines recall how at the beginning of time, God spoke and brought the world into being. For John, that same creative word of God now becomes flesh in Jesus. ‹The second main part of the New Testament consists of letters written by leaders in the early church. Many of the letters are by the Apostle Paul, and they give us a sense of the debates within the church: what the Christian faith meant and how it was to be lived out. In each case, Paul takes the questions seriously and works through them in light of his understanding of God and the significance of Jesus. ‹The last book in the New Testament is called Revelation or the Apocalypse, and few books in the Bible have generated more controversy than this one. Revelation is written as a series of visions that include a great red dragon and a seven-headed beast doing battle with the allies of God. ●Many readers assume that these visions make mysterious predictions about the end of the world. But the book’s remarkable imagery seems different when you realize that it originally addressed readers living in the Roman Empire. The book offers them a way of seeing the world that is both startling and encouraging. ●The dramatic plotline leads readers through the struggles of the present toward a more hopeful future. It culminates in a vision of New Jerusalem, where the river of life is flowing and the gates stand open to receive the nations of the world.

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

  138 LECTURE 21 Esther, Daniel, and Life under Empire T he books of Esther and Daniel tell stories of life under the Persian Empire and the Hellenistic or Greek empires that followed. They show the schemes of the high and mighty being subverted and the vulnerable winning out in the end. At this time, the Jewish people were a small minority of these vast empires’ populations. Some of them had returned to Jerusalem, while others had stayed in Babylon and other regions ruled by the Persians. Wherever they were, they needed to make lives for themselves, with hope and encouragement, at a time when they were subject to the whims of those in power. The books of Esther and Daniel suggest how they did so. Esther as Queen ‹ The Persian rulers saw themselves as dignified and authoritative, but the Persian king in the story of Esther is not too bright. He repeatedly has other people tell him what to do, and his decisions are often ludicrous. The king’s primary adviser is the wicked Haman. ● By way of contrast, a truly noble figure in the story is a Jewish man named Mordecai, who lives among the exiles under Persian rule. Mordecai has adopted his cousin Esther, who is an orphan, and raised her as his own daughter. He will foil the evil schemes of Haman and seek the welfare of his own people. ● Esther herself is beautiful, and she rises from the status of commoner to become queen of the empire. She shows wisdom and courage and uses her powerful position to save those who are threatened. Esther’s story shows that even under domination by a foreign power, ordinary people may do great things. ‹ In the first scene, the king of Persia holds a great banquet and commands his wife, Vashti, to make an appearance to allow everyone to see her great beauty. But his wife refuses to come. The king’s advisers warn that Vashti’s refusal to

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

  Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation130 displaced because of human conflict and care for those who are impoverished. This vision reshapes perspectives on God’s role. ● Finally, the vision assumes that these commitments to protect, feed, and heal the people will take political form. In verse 23, God says that he will appoint for them a single shepherd, his servant David, and this figure will provide for them and guide them. ● Ezekiel assumes that God’s commitment to the well-being of the people must come to expression in leadership. Otherwise, it remains mere wishful thinking. This creates a tension. The prophet is keenly aware that leaders are fallible, yet he knows that leadership is needed. Instead of abandoning the notion of leadership, he envisions its renewal through a Davidic king, who will put the ideals of good shepherding into practice. Vision of the Dry Bones ‹ There was no dawning of a new golden age in Ezekiel’s time. Any movement toward renewal fell short of the ideal. Yet Ezekiel pressed the question of what it would mean for a shattered and displaced people to be restored. In doing so, he provided what is probably the best-known part of his book: the vision of the dry bones. ‹ This scene appears in chapter 37, and it has captured people’s imaginations for centuries. The prophet has a vision in which he sees a valley filled with bones. Then God asks a question that initially seems ridiculous: “Can these bones live?” Obviously, the bones are lifeless. Yet God answers his own question by telling Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones. Ezekiel is to tell the dry bones that God will cause breath or spirit (Hebrew: ruach) to enter them and give them life. ‹ Ezekiel hears a rattling sound as all the bones that are scattered over the ground come together to form skeletons. Then, the skeletons are then covered with flesh and skin. Finally, a surge of wind comes and fills them all with breath or spirit, so they can live. ‹ As strange as it is, in Ezekiel’s context, the vision addressed a serious problem: the profound sense of abandonment that was felt by people in exile. In verse 11, Ezekiel is told that the dry bones symbolize the whole people of Israel, for whom the movement into exile felt like going to an early grave.

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

  Lecture 31—Paul and the Roman Empire 209 who was crucified yet rose from the dead. That means that those who follow Jesus have the hope that they, too, will rise. The subversive element comes in Paul’s picture of the event in royal terms. ‹ Also in chapter 5, Paul challenges the idea that the world’s “peace and security” are permanent. His language seems to allude to Roman claims to have established peace and security on earth that would continue indefinitely. But Paul warns that the current order will end. He even depicts the followers of Jesus as warriors preparing for battle. Yet the battle is not an armed revolt. Instead, Paul says that Jesus’s followers wear faith and love as their body armor. They have a helmet of hope. And they refuse to repay evil with evil but seek to do good to everyone. Paul’s Message and Other Religious Traditions ‹ In the last half of Acts 17, Paul is in Athens, which was a center of Greek culture and philosophy. Among the philosophers who taught there were Stoics and Epicureans. ● Stoic philosophers used the term god for the energy that, in their view, pervaded the universe. The Stoics also referred to this divine energy as logos. According to the Stoics, people would follow the divine will by using reason or logos (logic) in all situations. ● In contrast, the Epicureans argued that the gods lived in a blissful state, far removed from the world. The gods did not interfere with human life, and it was up to humanity, through philosophy, to achieve the goal of living well. ‹ Acts 17 depicts a scene in which the philosophers engage in debate with Paul, but bystanders are confused by Paul’s message. Thus, Paul makes a speech at a place called the Areopagus. ‹ The first step is to establish common ground with the listeners. Paul says that he can see that the people of Athens are very religious. Paul takes this impulse to worship as his point of departure, but he directs it toward the God that he understands to be true.

• 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)

  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. It was by faith that he carried out the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, so that the destroying angel might not touch the children of his people. It was by faith that they crossed the Red Sea as if they were going through dry land and that the Egyptians, when they ventured to try to do so, were engulfed. TO the Jews, Moses was the supreme figure in their history. He was the leader who had rescued them from slavery and who had received the law of their lives from God. To the writer of the letter to the Hebrews, Moses was pre-eminently the man of faith.