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 An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness (1995)

  After an inward snort about “normal comparison group,” I read on and found that, as usual in new fields of clinical medicine, there were far more questions than answers, and it was unclear what any of these findings really meant: they could be due to problems in measurement, they could be explained by dietary or treatment history, they could be due to something totally unrelated to manic-depressive illness; there could be any number of other explanations. The odds were very strong, however, that the UBOs meant something. In a strange way, though, after reading through a long series of studies, I ended up more reassured and less frightened. The very fact that the science was moving so quickly had a way of generating hope, and, if the changes in the brain structure did turn out to be meaningful, I was glad that first-class researchers were studying them. Without science, there would be no such hope. No hope at all. And, whatever else, it certainly gave new meaning to the concept of losing one’s mind. Clinical Privileges [image file=image_rsrcW1.jpg] There is no easy way to tell other people that you have manic-depressive illness; if there is, I haven’t found it. So despite the fact that most people that I have told have been very understanding—some remarkably so—I remain haunted by those occasions when the response was unkind, condescending, or lacking in even a semblance of empathy. The thought of discussing my illness in a more public forum has been, until quite recently, almost inconceivable. Much of this reluctance has been for professional reasons, but some has resulted from the cruelty, intentional or otherwise, that I have now and again experienced from colleagues or friends that I have chosen to confide in. It is what I have come to think of, not without bitterness, as the Mouseheart factor. Mouseheart, a former colleague of mine in Los Angeles, was also, I thought, a friend. A soft-spoken psychoanalyst, he was someone I was in the habit of getting together with for a morning coffee. Less frequently, but enjoyably, we would go out for a long lunch and talk about our work and our lives. After some time, I began to feel the usual discomfort I tend to experience whenever a certain level of friendship or intimacy has been reached in a relationship and I have not mentioned my illness. It is, after all, not just an illness, but something that affects every aspect of my life: my moods, my temperament, my work, and my reactions to almost everything that comes my way. Not talking about manic-depressive illness, if only to discuss it once, generally consigns a friendship to a certain inevitable level of superficiality. With an inward sigh, I decided to go ahead and tell him.

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

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

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

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

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

  (3) He stresses the final triumph of Jesus. He awaits the final overcoming of his enemies; in the end, there must come a universe in which he is supreme. How that will come is not ours to know; but it may be that this final overcoming will consist not in the extinction of his enemies but in their submission to his love. It is not so much the power but the love of God which must conquer in the end. Finally, as is his habit, the writer to the Hebrews clinches his argument with a quotation from Scripture. Jeremiah, speaking of the new covenant which will not be imposed from outside but which will be written on the heart, ends: ‘I will … remember their sin no more’ (Jeremiah 31:34). Because of Jesus, the barrier of sin is taken away forever. THE MEANING OF CHRIST FOR USHebrews 10:19–25 Since then, brothers, in virtue of what the blood of Jesus has done for us, we can confidently enter into the Holy Place by the new and living way which Jesus inaugurated for us through the veil – that is, through his flesh – and, since we have a great high priest who is over the house of God, let us approach the presence of God with a heart wherein the truth dwells and with the full conviction of faith, with our hearts so sprinkled that they are cleansed from all consciousness of evil and with our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast to the undeviating hope of our creed, for we can rely absolutely on him who made the promises; and let us put our minds to the task of spurring each other on in love and fine deeds. Let us not abandon our meeting together – as some habitually do – but let us encourage one another, and all the more so as we see the day approaching. THE writer to the Hebrews now comes to the practical implication of all that he has been saying. From theology, he turns to practical exhortation. He is one of the most profound theologians in the New Testament, but all his theology is governed by the pastoral instinct. He does not think merely for the thrill of intellectual satisfaction, but only that he may more forcibly appeal to men and women to enter into the presence of God. He begins by saying three things about Jesus.

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

  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. There is one thing left to say.

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

  In Ecclesiasticus (29:22–8), there is a wistful passage: Better is the life of the poor under their own crude roof than sumptuous food in the house of others. Be content with little or much, and you will hear no reproach for being a guest. It is a miserable life to go from house to house; as a guest you should not open your mouth; you will play the host and provide drink without being thanked and besides this you will hear rude words like these: ‘Come here, stranger, prepare the table; let me eat what you have there.’ ‘Be off, stranger, for an honoured guest is here; my brother has come for a visit, and I need the guestroom. ’ It is hard for a sensible person to bear scolding about lodging and the insults of the moneylender. At any time, it is an unhappy thing to be a stranger in a foreign land; but, in the ancient world, to this natural unhappiness there was added the bitterness of humiliation. All their days, the patriarchs were strangers in a strange land. 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 .

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

  So, then, lift up the slack hands. Strengthen the weak knees. And make straight the paths of your feet so that the bones of the lame may not be completely dislocated but rather may be cured. Make peace your aim – and do it all together – and aim at that holiness without which no one can see the Lord. Watch that no one misses the grace of God. Watch that no pernicious influence grows up to involve you in troubles. And watch that the main body of your people are not soiled by any such thing. Watch that no one falls into sexual impurity or turns to an unhallowed life, as Esau did, Esau who, for a single meal, gave away his birthright. For you are well aware of how when he afterwards wanted to claim the blessing he ought to have inherited, he was rejected – for he had no opportunity to change his mind – although he sought that blessing with tears. WITH this passage, the writer to the Hebrews comes to the problems of everyday Christian life and living. He knew that sometimes it is given to us to rise up with inspiration as if we had the wings of eagles; he knew that sometimes we are able to run and not grow weary in the pursuit of some great moment of endeavour; but he also knew that, of all things, it is hardest to continue to walk day after day and not to faint. Here, he is thinking of the daily struggle of the Christian way. (1) He begins by reminding them of their duties. In every congregation and in every Christian society, there are those who are weaker and more likely to go astray and to abandon the struggle. It is the duty of those who are stronger to put fresh vigour into listless hands and fresh strength into failing feet. The phrase used for slack hands is the same as is used to describe the children of Israel in the days when they wanted to abandon the harsh demands of the journey across the wilderness and to return to the ease and the fleshpots of Egypt. The Odes of Solomon (6:14ff.) have a description of the work of those who are true servants and ministers: They have refreshed the dry lips, And have raised up the will that was paralysed … And limbs that were fallen They have straightened and raised up.

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

  There is a great practical truth here. Sometimes, in the Christian life, we come to times which are arid; the church services have nothing to say to us, the teaching that we do in Sunday School or the singing that we do in the choir or the service we give on a committee becomes a labour without joy. At such a time, there are two alternatives. We can give up our worship and our service; but, if we do, we are lost. Or we can go determinedly on with them, and the strange thing is that the light and the attractiveness and the joy will in time come back again. In the arid times, the best thing to do is to go on with the habits of the Christian life and of the Church. If we do, we can be sure that the sun will shine again. (2) He tells his people to be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherited the promise. What he is saying to them is: ‘You are not the first to launch out on the glories and the perils of the Christian faith. Others braved the dangers and endured the tribulations before you and won through.’ He is telling them to go on in the realization that others have gone through their struggle and won the victory. Christians are not treading an untrodden pathway; they are treading where the saints have trod. THE SURE HOPE Hebrews 6:13–20 When God made his promise to Abraham, since he was not able to swear by anyone greater, he swore by himself. ‘Certainly,’ he said, ‘I will bless you and I will multiply you.’ When Abraham had thus exercised patience, he received the promise. Men swear by someone who is greater than themselves; and an oath serves for a guarantee beyond all possibility of contradiction. But on this occasion God, in his quite exceptional desire to make clear to the heirs of the promise the unalterable character of his intention, interposed with an oath, so that by two unalterable things, in which it is impossible that God should lie, we, who have fled to him for refuge, might be strongly encouraged to lay hold upon the hope that is set before us. This hope is to us like an anchor, safe and sure, and it enters with us into the inner court beyond the veil, where Jesus has already entered as a forerunner for us, when he became a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. G OD made more than one promise to Abraham. Genesis 12:7 tells us of the one made when he called him out of Ur and sent him into the unknown and to the promised land. Genesis 17:5–6 is the promise of many descendants who would be blessed in him.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  And such people frequented Valérie Seymour’s, men and women who must carry God’s mark on their foreheads. For Valérie, placid and self-assured, created an atmosphere of courage; every one felt very normal and brave when they gathered together at Valérie Seymour’s. There she was, this charming and cultured woman, a kind of lighthouse in a storm-swept ocean. The waves had lashed round her feet in vain; winds had howled; clouds had spued forth their hail and their lightning; torrents had deluged but had not destroyed her. The storms, gathering force, broke and drifted away, leaving behind them the shipwrecked, the drowning. But when they looked up, the poor spluttering victims, why what should they see but Valérie Seymour! Then a few would strike boldly out for the shore, at the sight of this indestructible creature. She did nothing, and at all times said very little, feeling no urge towards philanthropy. But this much she gave to her brethren, the freedom of her salon, the protection of her friendship; if it eased them to come to her monthly gatherings they were always welcome provided they were sober. Drink and drugs she abhorred because they were ugly—one drank tea, iced coffee, sirops and orangeade in that celebrated flat on the Quai Voltaire. Oh, yes, a very strange company indeed if one analysed it for this or that stigma. Why, the grades were so numerous and so fine that they often defied the most careful observation. The timbre of a voice, the build of an ankle, the texture of a hand, a movement, a gesture—since few were as pronounced as Stephen Gordon, unless it were Wanda, the Polish painter. She, poor soul, never knew how to dress for the best. If she dressed like a woman she looked like a man, if she dressed like a man she looked like a woman! 2And their love affairs, how strange, how bewildering—how difficult to classify degrees of attraction. For not always would they attract their own kind, very often they attracted quite ordinary people. Thus Pat’s Arabella had suddenly married, having wearied of Grigg as of her predecessor. Rumour had it that she was now blatantly happy at the prospect of shortly becoming a mother. And then there was Jamie’s friend Barbara, a wisp of a girl very faithful and loving, but all woman as far as one could detect, with a woman’s clinging dependence on Jamie.

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

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

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

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

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

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

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

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

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

  Mark calls John “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” and applies to him what “is written in the prophet Isaiah . . . the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: / ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, / make his paths straight’” (1:1–3). That same quotation and application appears in Matthew 3:3, Luke 3:4, and John 1:23. The quotation in Isaiah 40:3 was the rhapsodic and ecstatic proclamation of Second Isaiah (the prophet who came after the First Isaiah of Isa. 1–39 whom we met in Chapter 7) that the Babylonian exiles would be allowed to cross the desert wilderness and return home under the Persian restoration of the 500s–400s BCE . In Mark’s understanding of John, the advent of the eschatological Kingdom of God was like that great nonviolent liberation and celebration of half a millennium earlier. But when you turn to the Q Gospel, a very different picture of God’s character and God’s imminent advent emerges. In the Q Gospel, John, although never physically violent, is rhetorically and brutally violent. He greeted “many Pharisees and Sadducees” or “the crowds” that came for baptism with the words, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” (Matt. 3:7 = Luke 3:7). He then specified that divine wrath with these twin and fiery metaphors: Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. . . . His [God’s] winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” (Matt. 3:10, 12 = Luke 3:9, 17) In fact, Luke is so dismayed by that violent version of John’s “good news” from the Q Gospel that he creates three rather more positive messages and places them in between his version of those twin metaphors: The crowds asked him, “What then should we do?” In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.” (3:10–14) My conclusion is that for the historical John the Baptist, the Kingdom’s advent involved not a violently avenging God, but a miraculously liberating God. I think, however, that the Q Gospel morphed John’s God from nonviolent to violent.

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

  To the writer to the Hebrews, life was a journey that made its way to the presence of Christ. It was therefore never something that could be allowed to drift; it was its end which made the process of life all-important, and only those who endured to the end would be saved. Here is a summons never to be less than our best, and always to remember that the end comes. If life is the road to Christ, no one can afford to miss it or to stop half-way. THE CHRISTIAN HOPE Hebrews 11:1–3 Faith means that we are certain of the things we hope for, convinced of the things we do not see. It was because of faith that the men of old time had their record attested. It is by faith that we understand that the world was fashioned by the word of God, so that what is seen came into being out of what is unseen. TO the writer to the Hebrews, faith is a hope that is absolutely certain that what it believes is true and that what it expects will come. It is not the hope which looks forward with wistful longing; it is the hope which looks forward with utter conviction. In the early days of persecution, a humble Christian was brought before the judges. He told them that nothing they could do could shake him because he believed that, if he was true to God, God would be true to him. ‘Do you really think’, asked the judge, ‘that the likes of you will go to God and his glory?’ ‘I do not think,’ said the man, ‘I know.’ At one time, John Bunyan was tortured by uncertainty. ‘Everyone doth think his own Religion rightest,’ he said, ‘both Jews and Moors and Pagans; and how if all our Faith and Christ and Scriptures should be but a “Think so” too?’ But, when the light broke, he ran out crying: ‘Now I know! I know!’ The Christian faith is a hope that has turned to certainty. This Christian hope is such that it dictates every aspect of the way Christians conduct themselves. They live in it and they die in it; and it is the possession of it which makes them act as they do. As the seventeenth-century Polish poet and hymn-writer Angelus Silesius sang: With Hope for pilgrim’s staff I go, And Patience is my travelling dress Wherewith through earthly weal and woe, I fare to everlastingness. James Moffatt distinguishes three directions in which the Christian hope operates. (1) It is belief in God against the world.

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

  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. THE ADVENTURE AND THE PATIENCE OF FAITH Hebrews 11:8–10 It was by faith that Abraham, when he was called, showed his obedience by going out to a place which he was going to receive as an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was to go. It was by faith that he sojourned in the land that had been promised to him, as though it had been a foreign land, living in tents, in the same way as did Isaac and Jacob, who were his coheirs in the promise of it. For he was waiting for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. T HE call of Abraham is told with dramatic simplicity in Genesis 12:1. Jewish and middle-eastern legends gathered largely round Abraham’s name, and some of them must have been known to the writer to the Hebrews. The legends tell how Abraham was the son of Terah, commander of the armies of Nimrod. When Abraham was born, a very vivid star appeared in the sky and seemed to obliterate the others. Nimrod sought to murder the infant, but Abraham was concealed in a cave and his life was saved. It was in that cave that the first vision of God came to him. When he was a youth, he came out of the cave and stood looking across the face of the desert. The sun rose in all its glory, and Abraham said: ‘Surely the sun is God, the Creator!’ So he knelt down and worshipped the sun. But when evening came, the sun sank in the west and Abraham said: ‘No! the author of creation cannot set!’ The moon arose in the east and the stars came out.

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

  He offered them a unique relationship to himself; but that relationship was entirely dependent on the keeping of the law. We see the Israelites accepting that condition in Exodus 24:1–8. The argument of the writer to the Hebrews is that that old covenant is done away with and that Jesus has brought a new relationship with God. In this passage, we can distinguish certain marks of the new covenant which Jesus brought. (1) The writer begins by pointing out that the idea of a new covenant is not something revolutionary. It is already there in Jeremiah 31:31–4, which he quotes in full. Further, the very fact that Scripture speaks of the new covenant shows that the old was not completely satisfactory. If it had been satisfactory, a new covenant would never have needed to be mentioned. Scripture looked to a new covenant and therefore itself indicated that the old covenant was not perfect. (2) This covenant will not only be new; it will be different in quality and in kind . In Greek, there are two words for new . Neos describes a thing as being new in respect of time. It might be an exact copy of its predecessors; but, if it has been made after the others, it is neos . Kainos means not only new in relation to time, but also new in relation to quality. A thing which is simply a reproduction of what went before may be neos – but it is not kainos . This covenant which Jesus introduces is kainos , not merely neos ; it is different in quality from the old covenant. The writer to the Hebrews uses two words to describe the old covenant. He says that it is gēraskōn , which means not only ageing but ageing into decay . He says that it is near to aphanismos . Aphanismos is the word that is used for wiping out a city, obliterating an inscription or abolishing a law. So, the covenant which Jesus brings is new in quality and completely cancels the old. (3) In what ways is this covenant new? It is new in its scope . 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.

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

  This text is dated to the turn of the common era. Where Are We Now and What Comes Next?THE WISDOM OR SAPIENTIAL tradition and the Kingdom or Eschatological tradition both speak to the whole earth. Be it from start or finish, from beginning or end, from creation or re-creation, they speak to all of human history. But they do so with Israel as God’s focal experiment and paradigmatic example for a just world (Sir. 24:23; Dan. 7:27). As God’s “chosen people,” biblical Israel is chosen to be the model for all people. These two traditions present us once more with the Biblical Heartbeat of assertion-and-subversion that offers both problem and solution to my titular challenge of How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian. They do so within the matrix of Greek cultural power and Roman military might. The magnificent assertion of Wisdom as the open intelligibility of creation—or, if you prefer, of evolution—is subverted, or at least mitigated, by a liberal emphasis on distributive charity rather than a radical demand for distributive justice. As always, in How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian, I urge you to accept assertion, resist subversion, and still acknowledge the honesty of a story that gives you both. Similarly, the equally magnificent Eschatological tradition’s assertion of God’s dream for a transformed earth and a transfigured world of nonviolence—that is, for a Kingdom of justice and peace here below—is subverted by visions of divine violence in punishments and penalties for noncompliance. One could imagine a combination of both of these assertions that proclaimed an eschatological wisdom that opposed the normal imperial wisdom of peace through victory with the radical divine wisdom of peace through justice. This is, by the way, exactly what the Apostle Paul proclaimed in 1 Corinthians 1:26–2:13: “We speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory” (2:7). At this point, I return to the Covenantal Divide and enlarge it here once again: [image "image" file=Image00005.jpg] In Part IV, I move into the first-century CE where the matrix involves huge paradigm shifts in both Roman politics and Jewish religion. At that century’s start, Rome changed from a republic ruled by two elected aristocrats to an empire ruled by one dynastic autocrat. At its end, Judaism changed from a religion centered on the Temple and sacrifice to one centered on the Torah and study. Amid such seismic events, Jesus in the Jewish homeland or Paul in the Jewish Diaspora hardly seemed like earthquakes about to shake the foundations of their world. But they were, and how to read them and still be a Christian is by far the most difficult part of this book. PART IVCommunity CHAPTER 9Israel and the Challenge of RomeThe pendulum of history drips blood at every swing. FREYA STARK , Rome on the Euphrates (1966) DURING THE FIRST TWO hundred years of Roman presence in the Jewish homeland, four armed revolts occurred against that all-powerful imperial control.

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

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

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

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