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Posts Tagged ‘textures’

a holy indifference: Proverbs 24

Posted in textures, tagged , on October 3, 2010| Leave a Comment »

The Bible is a passionate book.

This remains true even when its preachers, teachers, moralists, and drivers of doctrinal bulldozers conspire to render it dull.

Yet reality is more interesting than mere passion. Even as the Bible’s long, footnoted, and side-barred story of redemption manifests and incites to passion, one of its currents of instruction teaches its reader not to be ruled by passion:

Do not rejoice when your enemies fall, and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble, or else the LORD will see it and be displeased, and turn away his anger from them. Do not fret because of evildoers. Do not envy the wicked; for the evil have no future; the lamp of the wicked will go out.

The exhortation is not ‘weak on evil’ or ‘soft on the enemy’, as the suspicious guardians of our right and their wrong might put things. Indeed, the odd motive clause—or else the Lord will see it … and turn his anger from them—suggests that we should hardly hope that our enemy will soon see his sentence shortened. (more…)

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Culto y abominación: Isaías 66.1-4

Posted in textures, tagged , , , on October 2, 2010| Leave a Comment »

El imenso libro de Isaías rinde sus tesoros principalmente a los que atentamente disciernen las conexiones que entretejen diversos pasajes en su larga trayectoria.

Al llegar al final del libro, el lector reconoce en la retórica que se lanza contra la liturgia sílabas conocidas y un ángulo de visión reconocible.

El prefacio del libro (capítulo 1), de igual manera, había pronunciado su sentencia contra acciones cúlticas ofrecidas por aquellos cuyas pretensiones religiosas no produjeron un alineamiento de la ética con el consejo y propósito de YHVH:

¿De qué me sirven sus muchos sacrificios? —dice el SEÑOR—. Harto estoy de holocaustos de carneros y de la grasa de animales engordados; la sangre de toros, corderos y cabras no me complace. ¿Por qué vienen a presentarse ante mí? ¿Quién les mandó traer animales para que pisotearan mis atrios? No me sigan trayendo vanas ofrendas; el incienso es para mí una abominación. Luna nueva, día de reposo, asambleas convocadas; ¡no soporto que con su adoración me ofendan! Yo aborrezco sus lunas nuevas y festividades; se me han vuelto una carga que estoy cansado de soportar. Cuando levantan sus manos, yo aparto de ustedes mis ojos; aunque multipliquen sus oraciones, no las escucharé, pues tienen las manos llenas de sangre.
(Isaiah 1:11–15 NVI)

(more…)

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centrífuga y centrípeta: las fuerzas redentivas en el libro Isaías.

Posted in textures, tagged , , , on October 2, 2010| Leave a Comment »

El lector atento de Isaías no tardará mucho en discernir que ‘el destino final de Sión’ (Christopher Seitz) representa una de las preoupaciones mása centrales del libro de Isaías. Es más, es razonable opinar que esta temática figura en el libro como el tema más persistente, programático y unificador de toda la complejidad de sus sesenta y seis capítulos.

Sión será el centro y ombligo de toda la tierra. De ella emanará justicia, instrucción y luz. Hacia ella fluirán todas las naciones. Hacia ella serán recogidos y llevados todos los hijos e hijas perdidos de Jerusalén. (more…)

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despair’s savory bitters: Psalm 73

Posted in textures, tagged , on October 1, 2010| Leave a Comment »

The writer of the seventy-third psalm knew despair’s sharp appeal.

Like a well-aged cheese with a hefty kick, despair turns over in the mouth with complex maturity. A man feels just a bit more in touch with the real world as he submits to the sophistication it claims for itself.

The psalmist will counter despair’s undeniable charms by teaching us that bitterness is both destructive to those who come after us and folly when the smoke clears. (more…)

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the community’s teeth: 1 Corinthians 5

Posted in textures, tagged , , , on August 9, 2010| 1 Comment »

The apostle Paul speaks most eloquently when his soaring prose contemplates the Lord’s limitless mercy.

Yet he can be short and almost savage when he sees the community’s integrity threatened by behavior that presumes upon that grace. Faced with reports of sexual chaos in the Corinthian church, Paul proposes radical surgery:

I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.

What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. ‘Expel the wicked man from among you.’

Two clarifications are in order. (more…)

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rousing: Ezra 1

Posted in textures, tagged , , on August 6, 2010| Leave a Comment »

New things often begin in the Bible when YHWH rouses someone to action. The wordעור (English: to rouse, to stir up) clusters around such a moment, its latent connotative power poised to express activity over passivity, alertness over slumber, expectation conquering depression.

Characteristically, YHWH is able to rouse in just this way both his own people and those who do not call upon his name. The Medes, for example, seem particularly vulnerable to YHWH’s lighting of a purposeful fire under their quasi-imperial butts. (more…)

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last resorts: 2 Chronicles 24

Posted in textures, tagged , , , on July 29, 2010| Leave a Comment »

It is not immediately clear, even for those with the most solid theology of creation, that this world deserves our allegiance.

If it is only a clearing in the woods where the most unaccountable and vicious violence can be visited with impunity upon the innocent, then we ought to turn our backs on it, shake its pathetic dust off our sandals, and long for another place. (more…)

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faint praise: 2 Chronicles 21

Posted in textures, tagged , , , on July 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »

The biblical literature laments few losses so frequently as wasted opportunity. A leader emerges with something like a clean slate in his hand. Instead of noble lines, he scrawls the moral equivalent of excrement across the tablet.

It would have us develop an instinct for the same.

The Bible knows a thousands ways to spell such loss. It rues what might have been. (more…)

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opportunity cost: 2 Chronicles 10

Posted in textures, tagged , , , on July 24, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Israel’s biblical historians are often taciturn in the face of behavior we might have expected them to condemn.

It is their way of respecting the reader. Not every moral, not every lesson need be spelled out. The listener is expected to arrive at his or her own conclusions based on instruction that is both prior and ongoing.

One of the sad features of both David’s and Solomon’s reigns is the unfortunate and even chaotic manner in which they lurch to their conclusion. We should probably suspect that Solomon’s amassing of both riches and retinue as a consequence of his fabled wisdom is not an entirely promising trend. The Queen of Sheba was impressed to the point of breathlessness. We should not be. (more…)

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eyes attentive: 2 Chronicles 7

Posted in textures, tagged , , , on July 22, 2010| Leave a Comment »

The country of which I am a grateful citizen celebrated its bicentennial during my junior year of high school.

Among American Christians, it was common to hear a portion of the long prayer with which the ancient Israelite King dedicated the house that he had constructed for YHWH. Quoted according to the King James Bible in which more often than not it was remembered in that moment, it runs like this:

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. (1 Chronicles 7:14)

Though it did not strike me at the time as out of place when quoted by Americans of their nation, that awkwardness was to grow on me in later years as I learned the tools of historical research and realized how far Solomon’s dedicatory words ranged from my modern country’s 200th birthday. (more…)

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