10/09/2017

Textweek/ATLAS proper 25 ordinary 30 Pentecost+21a October 29, 2017

Studying lectionary texts? Here are some starting places for study at ATLA this week. If you are the graduate of an accredited U.S. theological school, you may have free access to these articles through your school. Check ATLAS access options. You can find full lists of ATLAS recommended articles for this week at The Text This Week's page for this week's texts:

http://www.textweek.com/yeara/propera25.htm

  • “Preaching this text is challenging but worthwhile. The text is rich with issues that resonate with our current situation. We should receive the text as the word of God, which we need even when it judges our failings. We see in these commands and prohibitions the God who is holy, and the God who calls us to holiness. That holiness is not simply ritual and spiritual, but tangibly related to the way we choose to live together as members of local communities, specific and connected congregations, and the one global village.”

    “The treatment of the neighbor says more about one's theological commitments than any ecclesial confession. Indeed, how one defines the neighbor—that is, how one determines who is one's neighbor—reveals the kind of God in whom one believes.”

    “The similarities between Paul and Dio, and between Paul and Cynicism in general, can be extended, but these suffice to show that there are verbal and formal parallels between Paul and Dio that must be taken into account in any consideration of I Thess. ii.”

    “It is striking that Paul, a single man who elsewhere argues in favor of celibacy, chooses to portray his pastoral labors among the Thessalonian Christians with the family metaphors of an infant, a nursing mother, and a father. The apostle effectively defends the integrity of his mission-founding work by asserting that he acted in away that was as innocent as an infant, as loving as a nursing-mother, and as authoritative as a father. These three family metaphors provide not only pastors but also teachers of pastors with powerful pictures of how they ought to conduct themselves in their divine calling.”

    Abstract: “Using the ambiguity of a text, the writer suggests Jesus was implicitly arguing that though he could be perceived to be the Messiah, the title "son of David" should not lead people to think that he was going to restore, unite and rule the kingdom of Israel. Jesus in fact was doing a silent revolution subverting the tyrannical legacy of David and his original son Solomon. The writer offers a rereading of the "son of David" verses in the Gospels which cohere around the Matthean version of Jesus' "triumphal entry into Jerusalem." The Gospel writers contrast David with Jesus, with special reference to their three areas of identification: geographical, ministerial and administrative. This contrast, he shows, finds its climax in the last of book of the Bible where a mighty "lion of Judah" turns out to be a "vulnerable Lamb" who is projected as holding the key of history and is the crucified centre of all powers and authorities. This study challenges the uncritical glorification of David in the Christian tradition.”

10/09/2017 at 01:07 PM | | Comments (0)

09/29/2017

Textweek/ATLA Proper 24a, Ordinary 29a, Pentecost+20, Oct 22, 2017

Studying lectionary texts? Here are some starting places for study at ATLA this week. If you are the graduate of an accredited U.S. theological school, you may have free access to these articles through your school. Check ATLAS access options. You can find full lists of ATLAS recommended articles for this week at The Text This Week's page for this week's texts:

http://www.textweek.com/yeara/propera24.htm

Proper 24A / Ordinary 29A / Pentecost +20
October 22, 2017

Abstract: “'Reading the Seams' investigates the ways in which particular critics respond to the interplay in the Torah between independent materials and the final form of the text. After tracing different positions on the question, three examples from the Torah illustrate startling shifts in topic, contradictions and/or fragments of tradition. By paying attention both to the peculiarities of the compositional history and the redaction of the Torah, one not only becomes accustomed to these aspects of the text but grows to recognize the ways in which they invite the reader to make sense of them. Reading Torah in parts and as a whole is not only a literarily rewarding and satisfying approach but also a fruitful and necessary one.”

“Although Exod 33:12-23 emphasizes the limits of human knowledge, it also demonstrates God's remarkable self-revelation.”

“A biblical understanding of God's relationship with Israel and the world helps us interpret passages in the prophetic literature that link God and violence. With tears, lament, and regret, God takes into the divine self the violent effects of sinful human activities and thereby makes possible a non-violent future for God's people.”

“Conflicting claims lead to temptation – or temptations. And temptations often come in subtle fashion. One temptation is to avoid responsibility by asking someone else to decide for us, as the Pharisees did in this story. Another is to give a simple, definitive yes or no; that is to recognize one claim but deny the other…”

“Jesus allowed that one should render to Caesar what is Caesar's, but what can be said to belong to Caesar when one's entire life belongs to God? While emphasizing the supremacy of religious duties, the passage does not specify the precise nature of a Christian's duty regarding civil taxes, or regarding civil obligations in general. The passage does suggest, however, that Christians ought not to respond to civil issues without considering, first and foremost, their religious duty in the matter.”

09/29/2017 at 04:38 PM | | Comments (0)

Textweek/ATLAS- Oct 15, 2017, Proper 23a, Ordinary 28a, Pentecost +19

Studying lectionary texts? Here are some starting places for study at ATLA this week. If you are the graduate of an accredited U.S. theological school, you may have free access to these articles through your school. Check ATLAS access options. You can find full lists of ATLAS recommended articles for this week at The Text This Week's page for this week's texts:

http://www.textweek.com/yeara/propera23.htm

Proper 23A / Ordinary 28A / Pentecost +19
October 15, 2017

“Matthew's parable of the Great Feast is a complex composition. In Matthew's hands, exegetical readings of Zephaniah and 1 Enoch were combined with a traditional parable of Jesus to create a new form of this parable, a king-mashal functioning as a midrash on Zephaniah/7 Enoch. The fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE. apparently struck Matthew and his community as fulfillment of Zepha-niah's oracle, and a midrashic pattern strikingly similar to Matthew's was already available in the Parables of Enoch, likewise composed with an attack on Jerusalem close at hand.” 

Story, J Lyle, "All Is Now Ready," American Theological Inquiry, 2009.
  EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
  EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials

“In Matthew's parable, the invited guests were not content to merely refuse the invitation, but they seized the King's messengers, treated them shamefully and killed them. This underscores the radical nature of Jesus and the Christian life where people cannot be neutral to Jesus' message. A nondecision is a negative refusal.”

“God's parabolic word always comes in cultural garb. Although employing the rhetoric and values of the imperial hegemony, the parables—and Matthew's gospel in general—render a trenchant critique.”

“God does what the people cannot or will not do; God remembers and is faithful to the point of bearing human sinfulness. Israel's disobedience in Exodus 32:1-14 was not the end of the story. Peter's denial and the disciple's unfaithfulness were not the end of the story. The church's history of disobedience has not ended the story of God's dealing with a chosen people. The church is saved by grace!”

Abstract: “Unlike other postmodern reading practices, deconstruction suppresses the figure of the reader: the text is viewed as both engendering and undermining its meaning, while the reader's role is only to discover these processes. Yet, when one deconstructs biblical texts, 'anarchic' and 'lacking logic' according to traditional Western criteria, the illusion vanishes, and it is hard to get along without the reader as an active figure. The reader's role is actively to construct the meaning of the text, before it gets deconstructed. This is the reason why in some recent works the deconstructive reading of the text is preceded by a 'constructive' one. In this article the Golden Calf story (Exod. 32) is read both constructively and deconstructively. The constructive reading focuses on the opposition 'normative cult-deviant cult' which is viewed as central to the story. Normative cult and deviant cult are represented by the Tablets of the Law and the Golden Calf respectively. The deconstruction of this opposition is based on the fact that the tablets and the calf receive the same treatment: Moses destroys both of them.”

“…another factor that makes this letter a favorite of most of us is its sense of joy in the midst of difficulty. Paul has been disappointed. He wanted to preach the gospel in other places, but now he is imprisoned. How does a person handle such disappointment? Many of us would spend our time whining and complaining. It is not easy to have dreams dashed or expectations shattered. Nor is it easy to move from independence to dependence on what others decide for you as Paul found in prison and as some folks find in aging.”

“It is ironic that two of the most striking statements about the meaning of joy came to us during that period when Europe was traumatized by Nazi ideology. Writing in 1937 in a country under the spell of Adolf Hitler and beset by the idolatries of barbarous nationalism and blind patriotism, Karl Rahner insisted that true joy in the world must spring, not from what appeals with phoney lustre to the naive, acquisitive imagination, but from ‘conformity with him whom we have joined in the flight from the world contained in the foolishness of the cross.’”

09/29/2017 at 04:33 PM | | Comments (0)

Textweek ATLAS/Oct 8, 2017, Proper 22a, Ordinary 27a, Pentecost +18

Studying lectionary texts? Here are some starting places for study at ATLA this week. If you are the graduate of an accredited U.S. theological school, you may have free access to these articles through your school. Check ATLAS access options. You can find full lists of ATLAS recommended articles for this week at The Text This Week's page for this week's texts:

http://www.textweek.com/yeara/propera22.htm

Proper 22A / Ordinary 27A / Pentecost +18
October 8, 2017

“For people who are trying to eke out a living on the land, too poor to buy land of their own, dependent upon wealthy landowners, and a system of tenant farming, life is not so good.”

In depth analysis, parallels with gospel of Thomas, etc. “The tradition's earliest stage is neither synoptic allegory nor gnostic example-story (either against materialism or preparing for persecution), but it is a "parable"; and this functional form, distinctive of Jesus' teaching activity over against that of late Judaism and the early church, drives towards participation rather than information. It seeks so to articulate the speaker's experience as to draw the hearer into a like encounter.”

“One problem that is still unresolved concerns the nature of God. Is there a time at which God's graciousness is exhausted? Does God at the end-time set aside compassion and engage in vindictive violence?”

“These verses of Paul's letter to the Philippians thus remind us that we belong to Christ because of who Christ is for us. Because of Christ's claim upon us, we are freed to undertake the difficult and adventurous enterprise of knowing and becoming like Christ so that together we may be made the body of Christ for the life of the world.”

“God's saving work in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the disruptive grace that called Paul, his co-workers, and their churches to an unexpected new freedom and service. They must all learn how to walk the way of the cross and live in the newness of resurrection. The church's grave danger is that, expecting too little from God, it will settle for less than the gospel.”

“The Christian practice of keeping sabbath embodies a theology of creation, liberation, and resurrection. Keeping Sabbath forms persons and communities in faith and fosters resistance to distorted ways of living and inadequate views of human identity that implicit in the culturally dominant experience of time.”

“The preacher and the congregation can celebrate that we do not have to guess about God's main intention for us. That has been disclosed. But such faith still seeks understanding. Such commands still await specific implementation. Such liberated bonding still awaits the concreteness of covenant community toward brother and sister, toward land and property.” 

“To see the Ten Commandments as declarations of freedom is far more satisfying than hauling around tons of dreary obligation and worrying about whether the springs and shocks are going to hold up on the flatbed truck.”

“The second commandment is about limiting God, "You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I YHWH your God am a jealous God" (w. 4-5). Making an image of God defines what God can or cannot be. If God is male and white, then God cannot be female and Asian. Any representation, then, is sin, because it narrows the range of possible ways God can act. Human beings, in all their complexity, are the only legitimate image of God.”

09/29/2017 at 04:31 PM | | Comments (0)

Textweek ATLAS Proper21a Ordinary 26a Pentecost +17, Oct 1, 2017

Studying lectionary texts? Here are some starting places for study at ATLA this week. If you are the graduate of an accredited U.S. theological school, you may have free access to these articles through your school. Check ATLAS access options. You can find full lists of ATLAS recommended articles for this week at The Text This Week's page for this week's texts:

http://www.textweek.com/yeara/propera21.htm

Proper 21A / Ordinary 26A / Pentecost +17
October 1, 2017

Abstract: “In Isaiah 56.1-2 there is identification between 'to keep justice' and 'to keep the Sabbath'. The Sabbath plays an important part in the construction of exilic and post-exilic identity. At the same time, 'to keep the Sabbath' permits the eunuch and foreigner (56.3) to hope that they will enter the house of the Lord (56.4-7). This article explores the relationship between Isa. 56.1-2 and the verses immediately following, as well as Ezekiel 18-20, chapters in which the Sabbath and justice are also associated. The thematic association of the keeping of justice and the keeping of the Sabbath thus seems to highlight an interesting case of identity and universalism going together.”

“God’s first covenantal relationship in the Bible was not with humanity alone but with all of creation.”

This passage from Philippians encapsulates the entirety of the Christian message and what we as a people of faith declare about Jesus and his relationship to God the Creator. The Christ hymn also provides us with the best, indeed the clearest model for character, for servant leadership. The image conveyed here is a contrast between personal fulfillment and self-denial, between accumulating treasures and necessary restraint, between narcissistic tendencies and consciously turning one's life over to God.

“The textual problems involved in the parable of the two sons (Matt. 21:28-32) are well known and extraordinarily complex. The parable has been handed down in the manuscript tradition in three forms.”

 

09/29/2017 at 04:23 PM | | Comments (0)

04/22/2017

Textweek ATLAS / Easter 6, May 21, 2017

EASTER 6A
May 21, 2017

“To see things rightly, we must train ourselves to resist the glamour of novelty.”

“One promise of this passage for preachers and educators is that it can become both a model for engaging non-Christian forms of faith in the twenty-first century and an occasion for exploring the interplay between our theology of mission and our interpretation of the scriptures. One can begin with the assumption that Paul's encounter with the Athenians was an occasion of genuine religious dialogue, one that did not threaten Paul's faith but allowed him to express that faith in new and varied ways that hold promise for today.”

“By employing the language of reason and invitation rather than reproach, Luke and Paul offer to the church one model for proclamation in our own multicultural time. It is not the only model, to be sure, for sometimes the Gospel simply cannot be accommodated and must be proclaimed clearly and boldly, but in this instance Paul is able to employ the forms of Athenian religion and philosophy to describe the quest of people for God, and then to name the God who is the source and destination of that quest.”

"my concern is that we often preach Antioch sermons to Athenian people"

“First Peter's call to obedience and suffering has sometimes been sorely abused in the church's interpretation, turning a blind eye to violence against the oppressed. But this letter can also serve as a call to renounce violence, as did Christ himself, in a way that can transform evil into good.”

“Consideration of the Gattung of the Jewish Farewell Speeches shows that the Johannine discourse (apart from 13:lff.) belongs to this genre, which exercised its influence on other parts of the Gospel as well. Materially it is different; the standing features of the Jewish speeches are reworked completely. This is indicated by eight points of comparison. The Farewell Discourses happened to be replaced very soon by the Christian genre of the Speeches of the resurrected Lord. Still, they stand out as a remarkable theological achievement accomplished within a very short span of time.”

04/22/2017 at 07:53 PM | | Comments (0)

Textweek ATLAS / Easter 5A/ May 14, 2017

Studying lectionary texts? Here are some starting places for study at ATLA this week. If you are the graduate of an accredited U.S. theological school, you may have free access to these articles through your school. Check ATLAS access options. You can find full lists of ATLAS recommended articles for this week at The Text This Week's page for this week's texts:

http://www.textweek.com/yeara/eastera5.htm

EASTER 5A
May 14, 2014

“Unlike today, the Hellenist Stephen aroused a great deal of curiosity in the minds of early Christian believers, and the literature produced about him during the late antique period is extensive. In addition to the Lukan narrative preserved in Acts 6-8, we can mention at least three different texts written in Greek: the martyrdom story (Passio); the story of the revelation of Stephen's relics to Lucían, a priest in the little town of Caphar Gamala (Revelatio); and the story of the translation of Stephen's relics from Jerusalem to Constantinople (Translatió) There are at least nine different recensions of the martyrdom and several different recensions of the Revelatio; the same can be said of the Translation.”

“Biblical writers present a grand vision of the priestly vocation, in which the sacramental life of worship is translated into an ethical mission to the world. It is a vision in which the priestly vocation of the ordained in the sanctuary and the priestly vocation of the laity in the world work in concert to fulfill the divine vision of a transformed earth.”

“American Christians are familiar with the concepts of fellowship and personal sacrifice. The confusion between Christian community and American society makes them less aware that this priesthood works only to the benefit of the community within the spiritual house.”

“I do not see how Christians can fail to confess— with all the qualifications I’ve stated— that there is salvation in no other name but Jesus.”

“Radical monotheism in theology often leads to radical exclusiveness in practice, whether it is Jewish, Christian, or Muslim. (Incidentally, Christian monotheism is not radical enough for Jewish and Muslim tastes.) In ancient Israel, exclusiveness served as a guard against idolatry, which is still a danger today. So long as Jesus' exclusiveness is directed against the real and present idolatries that beset American culture, John 14 will preach in Christian churches in a way that does not attack other faiths but does attack genuine threats to God's way, truth, and life.” 

“Today, when some layperson whines, ‘Why don't we have more great preachers,’ I tend to respond, ‘Because you ran off the good ones.’”

 

04/22/2017 at 07:47 PM | | Comments (0)

Textweek ATLAS / Easter 4/ May 7

Studying lectionary texts? Here are some starting places for study at ATLA this week. If you are the graduate of an accredited U.S. theological school, you may have free access to these articles through your school. Check ATLAS access options. You can find full lists of ATLAS recommended articles for this week at The Text This Week's page for this week's texts:

http://www.textweek.com/yeara/eastera4.htm

EASTER 4A
May 7, 2017

“This article argues that certain Old Testament and early Jewish references to a temple (usually a heavenly or sometimes a latter-day temple) have been formative for the depiction of the Spirit appearing as fire and for other associated features in Acts 2. The conclusion drawn from this is that the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost is a description of the inaugurated eschatological descent to earth of the heavenly temple.”

“Thus, an ordinary, common group of people had an extraordinary experience. In a common life, they gave expression to that experience and calling and became a very uncommon people. They became people who were more interested in service than status, more interested in opportunities than problems, more interested in preference than potential.”

Abstract: “Persistence in prayer is the key theme that runs throughout Luke and Acts. This theme is demonstrated by Jesus' actions throughout the gospel, is taught explicitly in one of the unique parables of Luke (the Persistent Widow), and is highlighted in the ways that Luke edits his gospel. In the book of Acts, this theme is demonstrated by the actions of Peter, Paul, and the early community of faith. Throughout Luke and Acts, persistence in prayer is not a matter of persuading a reluctant God, but rather it is a matter of disciples remaining faithful. In this interval between the "D-Day" of the cross and the "V-Day" of the parousia, not all our prayers are or can be answered. Persistence in prayer is how we remain faithful as we await the eschatological fulfillment of the gospel.”

“Admittedly pastors can learn from growing churches and successful ministries. Yet God's work must be done God's way if it is to know God's blessing.”

“The Psalmist also makes two points: 1) this life is sometimes delightful and sometimes hard; 2) though our circumstances change, the Lord does not. He is with us, his people, all the way through this life and after this life we shall dwell in his house forever. We could sum up the Psalm with the words ‘life after life.’”

“Psalm 23 speaks to the Christian about life s final passage, but it also speaks about other passages, passages which can be negotiated through the whole of life because help comes from the Divine Shepherd.”

“…the women addressed in the Petrine Haustafel deserve closer analysis; because the exhortations have received so much attention, the women themselves have rarely been discussed. As women negotiating problematic familial and social boundaries, they offer a valuable example of an ancient hermeneutic of resistance.”

“Both liberal feminists and conservative traditionalists often base their arguments on an unsupported assertion, namely, that if the biblical text is accepted as authoritative, then Peter's advice to abused slaves must be applied in a straightforward manner to abused women in the modern Western world. Yet, discussion of how to apply 1 Peter to modern abused women rarely addresses the specific social setting of Peter's audience. Thus, an extended analysis of the precise social context of 1 Peter is in order. In particular, we need to assess what, if anything lies behind the passive response Peter recommends to the particular abuse victims in his audience.”

“This is the life to which we are called—what it means to follow the good shepherd, to be part of his flock. To sometimes receive and sometimes give—to know not only in our minds but in our guts security in the face of danger, joy that crowds out sorrow, and love that overwhelms fear. It means being led along paths we would not choose for ourselves, to be prodded by the shepherd who knows our needs better than we know our own, to be blessed so thoroughly and so richly that we would not have even known how to ask for it.”

“Understood in terms of its historical-social context, the self-revelation of Jesus Christ, "I am the door," calls into existence and creates in this world an open-door community in opposition to closed-in communities. The community of Jesus Christ must be an open door to receive and welcome all sorts and conditions of people, just as Jesus received Samaritans, Pharisees, the woman of Samaria, the Roman centurion, Nicodemus, the man born blind, the palsied man, Peter, Thomas, and even Judas.”

“In order adequately to interpret Jesus the Broker in the Fourth Gospel, we need to consider these items in our model. (1) How do brokers become brokers? (2) What do they broker? (3) What makes for successful brokers? (4) What makes these brokers special or necessary? (5) What do brokers get for their services? About these concerns, the Fourth Gospel has much to say.”

 

04/22/2017 at 07:42 PM | | Comments (0)

Textweek ATLAS / Easter 4A, April 30, 2017

Studying lectionary texts? Here are some starting places for study at ATLA this week. If you are the graduate of an accredited U.S. theological school, you may have free access to these articles through your school. Check ATLAS access options. You can find full lists of ATLAS recommended articles for this week at The Text This Week's page for this week's texts:

http://www.textweek.com/yeara/eastera4.htm

EASTER 4A
April 30, 2014

“This article argues that certain Old Testament and early Jewish references to a temple (usually a heavenly or sometimes a latter-day temple) have been formative for the depiction of the Spirit appearing as fire and for other associated features in Acts 2. The conclusion drawn from this is that the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost is a description of the inaugurated eschatological descent to earth of the heavenly temple.”

“Thus, an ordinary, common group of people had an extraordinary experience. In a common life, they gave expression to that experience and calling and became a very uncommon people. They became people who were more interested in service than status, more interested in opportunities than problems, more interested in preference than potential.”

Abstract: “Persistence in prayer is the key theme that runs throughout Luke and Acts. This theme is demonstrated by Jesus' actions throughout the gospel, is taught explicitly in one of the unique parables of Luke (the Persistent Widow), and is highlighted in the ways that Luke edits his gospel. In the book of Acts, this theme is demonstrated by the actions of Peter, Paul, and the early community of faith. Throughout Luke and Acts, persistence in prayer is not a matter of persuading a reluctant God, but rather it is a matter of disciples remaining faithful. In this interval between the "D-Day" of the cross and the "V-Day" of the parousia, not all our prayers are or can be answered. Persistence in prayer is how we remain faithful as we await the eschatological fulfillment of the gospel.”

“Admittedly pastors can learn from growing churches and successful ministries. Yet God's work must be done God's way if it is to know God's blessing.”

“The Psalmist also makes two points: 1) this life is sometimes delightful and sometimes hard; 2) though our circumstances change, the Lord does not. He is with us, his people, all the way through this life and after this life we shall dwell in his house forever. We could sum up the Psalm with the words ‘life after life.’”

“Psalm 23 speaks to the Christian about life s final passage, but it also speaks about other passages, passages which can be negotiated through the whole of life because help comes from the Divine Shepherd.”

“…the women addressed in the Petrine Haustafel deserve closer analysis; because the exhortations have received so much attention, the women themselves have rarely been discussed. As women negotiating problematic familial and social boundaries, they offer a valuable example of an ancient hermeneutic of resistance.”

“Both liberal feminists and conservative traditionalists often base their arguments on an unsupported assertion, namely, that if the biblical text is accepted as authoritative, then Peter's advice to abused slaves must be applied in a straightforward manner to abused women in the modern Western world. Yet, discussion of how to apply 1 Peter to modern abused women rarely addresses the specific social setting of Peter's audience. Thus, an extended analysis of the precise social context of 1 Peter is in order. In particular, we need to assess what, if anything lies behind the passive response Peter recommends to the particular abuse victims in his audience.”

“This is the life to which we are called—what it means to follow the good shepherd, to be part of his flock. To sometimes receive and sometimes give—to know not only in our minds but in our guts security in the face of danger, joy that crowds out sorrow, and love that overwhelms fear. It means being led along paths we would not choose for ourselves, to be prodded by the shepherd who knows our needs better than we know our own, to be blessed so thoroughly and so richly that we would not have even known how to ask for it.”

“Understood in terms of its historical-social context, the self-revelation of Jesus Christ, "I am the door," calls into existence and creates in this world an open-door community in opposition to closed-in communities. The community of Jesus Christ must be an open door to receive and welcome all sorts and conditions of people, just as Jesus received Samaritans, Pharisees, the woman of Samaria, the Roman centurion, Nicodemus, the man born blind, the palsied man, Peter, Thomas, and even Judas.”

“In order adequately to interpret Jesus the Broker in the Fourth Gospel, we need to consider these items in our model. (1) How do brokers become brokers? (2) What do they broker? (3) What makes for successful brokers? (4) What makes these brokers special or necessary? (5) What do brokers get for their services? About these concerns, the Fourth Gospel has much to say.”

04/22/2017 at 07:38 PM | | Comments (0)

02/08/2017

Textweek ATLAS Lent 1 March 5, 2017

Studying lectionary texts? Here are some starting places for study at ATLA this week. If you are the graduate of an accredited U.S. theological school, you may have free access to these articles through your school. Check ATLAS access options. You can find full lists of ATLAS recommended articles for this week at The Text This Week's page for this week's texts:

http://www.textweek.com/yeara/lenta1.htm

Lent 1A
March 5, 2017

“Trying to name and define evil's manifestations is helpful but not primary in getting a right perspective on Satan's place in our spiritual trials. First and foremost in this task is learning to discern the voice of God, the true Guide. To obey originally meant to hear. Whatever else evil and the devil may be, they are sources of misdirected calls. Like Jesus, we are called to tune our ears to one voice: to learn, to hear, to obey.”

 

“On the other hand, though, this is also a story about Israel—or, as Matthew might have it, about the church, because the church is called to be what Israel is called to be. There are several clues Matthew drops to suggest that this story about Jesus is also a story about us.”

 

Abstract: “This article traces the theme of royal power through the lectionary readings in Matthew during the seasons of Lent and Easter, culminating in Trinity Sunday. An examination of major turning points in Matthew's story of Jesus—temptation, transfiguration, triumphal entry, passion, resurrection, and farewell—demonstrates Jesus' re-definition of kingship as obedience and service. Matthew characterizes Jesus as the perfect example of true righteousness, consistently obedient to the Father's will. As a result, Jesus possesses absolute and eternal power, and he commands his disciples to draw on that power and his presence as they make other disciples throughout the earth.”

 

“As far as I can tell, what Adam and Jesus are both tempted by is the chance to play God. In Adam's case, it was the chance to break out of his dependence on God and know both good and evil for himself. In Jesus' case, it was the chance to feed every hunger, to be superman, to control all the kingdoms of the earth. God never offers those things, incidentally— Satan is the only one who offers them, with a thousand strings attached.”

 

“Lent is a spiritual task, and so also political, one of learning to see and to interpret with sight as clear as Jesus' here in the wilderness's stark relief and to interpret God, ourselves, indeed all reality, accordingly. Politically and spiritually, it is to live ever more fully by being drawn by God into the life of One who sees clearly.”

 

“Just as Jesus is depicted as recapitulating Israel's wilderness temptation through a dialogue on Deuteronomy, we are able to recapitulate his wilderness temptation by a dialogue on the temptation narrative, so that his story becomes ours to live forward as our own.”

 

Abstract: “The story of Jesus' temptations in the wilderness originated as a Palestinian Christian response to persecution under Agrippa I during the aftermath of the Caligula crisis (c. 42 CE). Jesus, in isolation from human society, is challenged by Satan but repudiates incitement to idolatry and betrayal of God. In so doing he serves as an antitype to Agrippa, from the perspective of those whom he persecuted. The story is preserved and developed in diverse strands of the Gospel tradition, of which the most elaborate is the triple temptation story in Q.”

 

 

Stegner, William Richard, "The Temptation Narrative: A Study in the Use of Scripture by Early Jewish Christians,"Biblical Research, 1990.
  EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
  EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials

 

Abstract: “The Temptation narrative is a literary deposit of early Jewish Christianity and shows how they used the Old Testament to witness to Jesus. They quoted sentences, phrases, and words to refer to Old Testament stories. The wilderness generation furnished types and exegetical traditions of the time gave background.”

 

Abstract: “In a study based on his recent book Missing the Mark : Sin and Its Consequences in Biblical Theology, Mark Biddle explores the story of Genesis 3 and concludes that the church must reaffirm the Good News that God created a good world and that God values authentic humanity enough to create it and affirms it in the incarnation. The phenomenon of shame, as old as Adam and Eve, and the cult of self-esteem, founded by the serpent, both now rampant in our culture, indicate that members of our society acutely feel the effects of their sin.”

 

 

Abstract: “The creation account of Genesis 2-3 describes a basic social contradiction facing the Judahite royal élite, namely, the struggle between royal social and economic interests and the peasant class. The narrator solves this social contradiction in favour of the royal elite by portraying the first couple as peasants who must submit to the royal centralized authority of the state represented in the character of Yahweh. The narrative of the couple's revolt against Yahweh is a literary expression of the social threat of peasant unrest and rebellion. By couching the social symbolic equivalent of peasant rebellion in a cosmogony, the narrator portrays peasant unrest as natural and endemic to the rural setting. Peasants are thus painted as a constant threat calling for strong measures of elitist control.”

 

“Sometimes it seems like we have a love-hate relationship with deception. On the one hand, we suspect that we should not do it. On the other hand, it sure does seem helpful sometimes. Our moral ambivalence about deception reminds me of the student who jumbled up his Bible quotations and came up with: "A lie is an abomination to the Lord . . . and a very present help in trouble." We just are not certain about how we are supposed to understand or deal with this thing called deception—we are not certain how to deal with it as individual Christians, and we are not certain how to deal with it as leaders in the church.”

 

 

“How does Christ exercise his dominion and lordship except as one who serves? How will we, who are called by Jesus to do likewise, exercise dominion in life in our world?”

 

“’We have met the enemy, and he is us,’ said Pogo, The ‘us’ is our sinful self, which can be disposed of only by dying to faith in our own power to believe and rising to faith as the daily gift of Christ For this, we need a preacher, the bringer of an external word to which we can cling.”

 

“In a day when confession of sins is often seen as out of step with culture, preaching and teaching the penitential psalms can awaken people to the power of this central aspect of the good news of Christian faith.”

02/08/2017 at 02:48 PM | | Comments (0)

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