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Posts Tagged ‘biblical reflection’

this is the word spoken … : Matthew 3-4

Posted in textures, tagged , , on January 3, 2008| Leave a Comment »

The gospel according to Matthew, one of the four canonical literary glimpses of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection that are afforded us, peers attentively into Israel’s past. Indeed, this portrait of Jesus and his way in this world finds its guiding framework in the Old Testament. Matthew will frequently refer to a word or action of Jesus with a ‘this is that’ formula that anchors the thing to some fixed point in the witness of the Hebrew Bible. (more…)

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winds of change: Zechariah 1-3

Posted in textures, tagged , , on December 26, 2007| Leave a Comment »

From the late biblical book of Zechariah emanates the spirit that has made ‘Second Isaiah’ the most quotable row of the Old Testament vineyard. ‘Second Isaiah’ is a scholarly term referring usually to chapters 40-55 of the book of Isaiah, and sometimes to 40-66. There the hope-drenched, restorative message of Isaiah is writ large. (more…)

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metropolitan pride: Zephaniah 1-2

Posted in textures, tagged , , on December 24, 2007| Leave a Comment »

The ire of biblical prophets is not seldom directed at those who are ‘at rest’. What is in play here is not restorative inactivity much less that deep contentment that often passes under the Hebrew descriptor shalom. (more…)

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the militant new song of the shattered: Revelation 14

Posted in textures, tagged , , on December 23, 2007| Leave a Comment »

There seems to be an inverse relationship between the repugance we feel over bloody scenes of vindication, on the one hand, and the weight of evil’s crush that we have known or observed from close corners, on the other. It is easy to become too precious about gore when life has not pressed our noses into the human cost of evil unbound. When oppression is just a notion, the blood of vindication running up to the horse’s bridles seems per se a grotesque and unnecessary image. (more…)

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the surprise of nations: Micah 4–5

Posted in textures, tagged , , on December 20, 2007| Leave a Comment »

What can be expected of small things?

What promise derives from little-ness?

The biblical logic delights in undermining the realistic answers to such questions, forged as they are by the hammer of probability, a tool that knows only how to work its materials with a rhythmic swing that is entirely constrained by extrapolating out into the future what it has known in the past. Probability revels in likelihoods as thought it were quite sophisticated. With supreme self-confidence, it is never surprised. (more…)

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anger, healing, harvest: Hosea 11-14

Posted in textures, tagged , , on December 12, 2007| Leave a Comment »

The words bear the weight of scandal:

I will destroy you, O Israel;
who can help you?
Where now is your king, that he may save you?

Where in all your cities are your rulers,
of whom you said, ‘Give me a king and rulers’?
I gave you a king in my anger,
and I took him away in my wrath. (more…)

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prosperity’s idols: Hosea 7–10

Posted in textures, tagged , , on December 11, 2007| Leave a Comment »

At the intersection of faith and culture, the greatest miscalculations occur when foolish minds equate prosperity with blessing. (more…)

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the healing wound: Hosea 5–6

Posted in textures, tagged , , on December 11, 2007| Leave a Comment »

It is a good thing to find oneself in the care of a gifted physician. It is an oddly redemptive experience to know him also as one’s assailant.

This is the logic that is brought to bear by the Old Testament prophet Hosea, who finds promise in urging Israel to return to its convenantal Punisher in order to avail itself of his medicinal prowess:

Come, let us return to the LORD;
for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us;
he has struck down, and he will bind us up.

(more…)

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the Johannine synthesis: 3 John

Posted in textures, tagged , , , on December 8, 2007| Leave a Comment »

By the time the writer gets to his exquisitely synthetic declaration, the Johannine tradition has already provided a reference point in the shadow of which mean dualisms fade:

Beloved, do not imitate what is evil but imitate what is good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God.

The ‘Johannine community’ is a hypothetical entity that serves a deliciously heuristic role in the interpretation of the corresponding literature, even in those moments when nobody is quite sure what it is. One need not be skeptical about speculation so long as it knows its own mood. Probing for the legacy of John in a historical human community is no idle task and was carried out with particular élan by, say, the late Raymond Brown, S.S. (more…)

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perfect love: 1 John 4

Posted in textures, tagged , , , on December 5, 2007| Leave a Comment »

Only rarely does human language capture such a rich swath of reality in a short declaration as here:

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.

Human experience could almost be considered a fleshing out of this fundamental dogma. (more…)

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