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Posts Tagged ‘textures’

common cause: Hebrews 2

Posted in textures, tagged , , on October 28, 2008| Leave a Comment »

The New Testament ‘book of Hebrews’ places one layer of allusion and quotation upon another, creating a dense matrix of historical echos and interpretative nuance as it contemplates the Jesus Thing. At the animating core of this document lies the conviction that God’s actions in history and especially in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus display a remarkable continuity over the course of time. Events recorded in the New Testament are astonishing but not entirely surprising. That is, they might never have been predicted; yet, once realized in space and time, they should be understood as compatible with what has gone before. (more…)

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shrewd like those other guys: Luke 16

Posted in textures, tagged , , on October 22, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Seldom does one of Jesus parables defy quick comprehension like the one we traditionally have called ‘the parable of the shrewd manager’. Fallen into a crisis that threatens his and his family’s future, this otherwise uninspiring man pulls off a sleight-of-hand that raises the admiring eyebrows even of the boss who had just fired him.

His predicament is not small:

Then Jesus said to the disciples, ‘There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, “What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.” Then the manager said to himself, “What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg.”‘

When we find ourselves face to face with a biblical passage that defies easy solution, the most prudent step is often to look back on the history of interpretation. The aggregation of minds wiser and closer to the literary and cultural ground than ours often shows the way or—at least—cumulatively indicates that plausible description lies in this way and in that one but not in any other. (more…)

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unable to speak: Jeremiah 1

Posted in textures, tagged , , on October 18, 2008| Leave a Comment »

In the biblical narratives of a prophet’s calling to his particular function, the individual in question is usually summoned against or independently of his own will. He never asks for the job, never finds himself in some sublime moment reveling in the fulfillment of his long-time dream to become a prophet.

Moreover, such passages frequently show him asserting not only his disinterest but also his lack of ability for the work into which YHWH has dragged him. (more…)

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the quiet life: 1 Thessalonians 4

Posted in textures, tagged , , on October 14, 2008| Leave a Comment »

The apostle Paul is often taken for a fire-breathing apocalyptic with little time for this present world as it sulks and struts in its overwheening vanity. Such a view misses both his respect for our realia as the very texture of creation and his counsel to the Thessalonians to lead a respectably independent life:

Aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we directed you, so that you may behave properly toward outsiders and be dependent on no one.

Paul is concerned here with the believing community’s integrity. Having just concluded some choice words about what integrity looks like on the sexual interior of the people’s house, he turns to the painting and trimming of its outside walls. Here the topic is largely a matter of practicing a proper work ethic. A community that views itself as the first fruits of a new humanity can hardly get away with the life of a couch potato. (more…)

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the ethics of new creation: Ephesians 4

Posted in textures, tagged , , on September 30, 2008| Leave a Comment »

The apostle Paul is seldom as brilliantly insightful as in his description of New Creation’s community in the fourth chapter of his letter to the Ephesians. The portrait of this new humanity as a body that responds to the direction of Christ as its head is redolent with ethical implications. It is a stirring picture, to say the least, but one that is at the same multi-layered in that way which both begs for and repays careful analysis. (more…)

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a big secret: Ephesians 3

Posted in textures, tagged , , on September 29, 2008| Leave a Comment »

At the core of the apostle Paul’s self-understanding stands his calling to enlighten the nations regarding YHWH’s intention to bless them. Indeed Paul seems to evoke the language of the book of Isaiah’s enigmatic ‘servant of the Lord’ when he speaks of how he invests his own life in this almost startlingly non-Jewish mission.

Paul believes himself to be the custodian of a mystery hidden in the secret counsels of God until Paul’s own historical moment. At that time, his argument runs, what was hidden was made clear. Paul’s job is to illuminate the nations regarding the good news that YHWH’s redeeming obsession tracks itself out in their direction, intends to gather them into its embrace, and even sets its sight on renewing the whole creation until it cannot keep itself from bursting into praise. (more…)

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a most human temple: Ephesians 2

Posted in textures, tagged , , on September 28, 2008| Leave a Comment »

The apostle Paul has few compunctions about mixing metaphors, particularly when straining for descriptors of God and his redeemed people. In the second chapter of his letter to the Ephesians, he weaves together metaphors of citizenship and temple construction. When read against the background of the Hebrew Bible, this is not an unlikely amalgamation of images. Temple, after all, is shot through with communitarian and nationalistic overtones. Citizenship, in the same context, always means belonging in a community that worships this god or these gods and not some other. (more…)

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continuities: Galatians 6

Posted in textures, tagged , , on September 26, 2008| Leave a Comment »

A strong theology of creation permits Paul—like the recorders of the Bible’s wisdom traditions—to trace the way of things by long, thoughtful observation. Even in a letter shot through with reflection upon the spirit-flesh dichotomy, Paul is simply to describe with organic language and as both promise and warning the way things work:

Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest-time, if we do not give up.

Paul mines what are to him the evident continuities in life with pastoral intent. He does not want the Galatian Christians to forge with their attitudes and behaviors a future that turns out to look and smell not like blessing but rather like a curse. His desire for them is that they should invest life and energy in projects and a way of life that cultivates the soil that gives—eventually and enduringly—a sustaining harvest. (more…)

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fear itself: Galatians 5

Posted in textures, tagged , , on September 25, 2008| Leave a Comment »

For a man as determined as he is to safeguard the Christian’s freedom from any moral and legal encumbrance that does not align itself with the logic of Jesus’ cross, the apostle Paul is shockingly severe with regard to those who breach moral boundaries:

I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

The apostle makes this fear-inspiring warning with regard to those who practice ‘the works of the flesh’. Paul bifurcates the existential energy available to humankind. For him, there are just two: spirit and flesh. (more…)

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all in: Galatians 3

Posted in textures, tagged , , on September 23, 2008| Leave a Comment »

We have only scarce evidence regarding the shape of Paul’s personality, yet his temperament must have exuded a certain feistiness. It was doubtless an unpleasant thing to discover that one had crossed him. What looks from this distance like an irascible edginess must not be taken as a transparent defect but rather linked, at least in part, to his impassioned jealousy for ‘the nations’ or ‘the gentiles’. When he articulates his own vocation in the letter to the Galatians, he defines it in these very terms, sketching out the boundaries of an embassy ‘to the nations’ that stands over against, say, Cephas’ calling ‘to the circumcision’. (more…)

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