Read the Bible daily

Bosco Peters on Liturgy draws attention to a wonderful point of common ground between Rome, Canterbury, Geneva, Constantinople and everywhere:

Pope calls for daily meditation on Bible
Published on November 1, 2009 in liturgy and spirituality.

Wednesday’s General Audience to 15,000 people in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Benedict called on Christians to learn from monasticism and set aside time every day to meditate on the Bible, “so that the Word of God will be the lamp that illuminates our daily path on earth.” Monastics “were devoted to the Sacred Scriptures and one of their main activities consisted in lectio divina, that is, a meditative reading of the Bible.” The pope reminded people that the Synod on the Word of God in 2008 recalled the importance of reading the Bible and said such reading must be built on monastic theology.

"As monastic theology is listening to the Word of God, it is necessary to purify one’s heart to welcome it and, above all, one must be full of fervor to encounter the Lord. Theology therefore becomes meditation, prayer, a song of praise, and the impetus for sincere conversion."

I am grateful for this notice from Bosco. The future of Christianity rests with finding common prayer together and common understanding of God's Word.

PS My presentation on Luke's Gospel in Christchurch went well. I hope to post the material on the internet soon.

Quite a good argument re gender neutral priesthood

Its on Clayboy (i.e. Doug Chaplin's blog), and entitled "Rescuing priesthood from Witherington’s “perfectly clear” NT". Read it all here.

The interpreter Luke and his audience

Still working on my presentation on Luke's Gospel in Christchurch at the end of this week ...

One 'authorial intention' of Luke which we can be pretty clear about because he tell us it is his intention is to help Theophilus to be more sure of the things he already knows.

We also observe of Luke - to pick out one observation of many we could make - that his gospel, for one so close to Paul, is very light on understanding Jesus' death as an atoning sacrifice for sin. Indeed we could fairly readily argue that Paul's atonement theology is non-existent; that the necessity of Jesus being killed is that, according to Scripture, the Messiah must suffer.

Is it possible that Luke is negligent of atoning theology because this is not a matter of concern to Theophilus? If Theophilus, for example, is like the two centurions (of Luke 7 and Acts 10) then he is an upright man, generous to a fault, and keen as mustard on the God of the Jews but unsure whether truly welcomed into God's kingdom as a Gentile. By the end of Acts Theophilus should be in no doubt that the Messiah of the Jews is the Christ of the Gentiles, God's suffering servant for the world, who welcomes him into God's kingdom.

That is, Luke interprets the gospel of Jesus Christ for his primary audience.

Understanding authorial intention in the gospels

One 'trick' of gospel scholarship is to compare similar gospel passages, make a presumption about who is following whom, and deduce some characteristic or another of a gospel writer.

A case in point concerns today's lectionary reading from Mark 10:35-45 (just looking at one aspect). In Mark's version, James and John seek Jesus out and demand seats of power next to the throne. Jesus tips their thinking upside down and they emerge, for the reader, somewhat the worse for the occasion, arrogant upstarts that they were at that point in their careers as disciples. In Matthew's version, the request comes from the mother of James and John (20:20-21) which, most scholars thinking Matthew follows Mark, raises the question whether Matthew is safeguarding the reputation of James and John. Obviously they do not emerge with complete credit from the occasion, mummy's boys that they are (!!), but they are not as power and status hungry as in Mark's account. But is Matthew safeguarding their reputation?

I suggest it is hard to tell. It is possible that Matthew has better access to the reality of the occasion than Mark, so the mother asking is a more accurate reporting of what happened. But it is also possible that Matthew is concerned for the two brothers' reputation, writing some years after the event, in a time when James' lustre as a martyr for the faith is shining brightly, and John's mana as a senior apostle is growing.

Intriguing then is Luke's account of Jesus' teaching servitude to his disciples. In Luke 22:24-27 this conversation (or one similar to it) is placed later than Matthew and Mark, in the discourse at the Last Supper itself; no request is made by anyone, rather a general dispute breaks out as to which disciple is the greatest; and the names of neither James nor John (nor any other disciple) appear in the account.

Is Luke even more concerned than Matthew about the reputation of James and John? Does he edit the Markan account to make a point in favour of the later apostleship of Paul, namely that none of the Twelve was greater than another? Is Luke dealing with another conversation, similar to Mark 10:35-45, and chooses to omit a copy of Mark 10:35-45? (If so, then the question of whether Luke is saying anything about anyone's reputation remains in the air!)

When options have been canvassed we are left (I suggest) with a great deal of uncertainty as we try to guess the intentions of the gospel writers on some matters.

Three Questions

Paul Fromont at Prodigal Kiwi has posted a note about some questions, themselves from linked posts, with a reference to pilgrimage for three of them:

1. “Who is it that you seek?”


2. “How then shall we live?”


3. “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”

I wonder if these are also hermeneutical questions. That is, questions we might profitably bring to the task of reading and understanding Scripture.

Where does time fly to?

I see some ten days has whizzed by since last posting here. That's partly because of working on my seminar on Preaching Luke's Gospel (see a post or two below). Now I am off on a school camp, needing to remember to think, pray, and prepare a sermon for this coming Sunday. Perhaps some inspiration will come re a little something for Hermeneutics and Human Dignity! One of the ideas percolating in my mind concerns the engagement between Scripture and culture (especially when shifts in culture occur within a generation, as appears to have taken place, and, indeed, continues to take place re human sexuality). There are arguments that cultural shift changes the way we understand Scripture (a good example being attitudes to divorce and remarriage). But then there are arguments that Scripture's role is to critique and to counter culture ...

Not Only A Father: Motherly God-Language in the Bible and Christian Tradition

Just noticed, fellow NZ scholar, Tim Bulkeley, is writing a book on God with the title being the title of this post.

It's a book to which you can contribute as it is being written!

Find out more here!

(h/t The Dunedin School)