So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning: for he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses. He had also seven sons and three daughters.

Here’s another blessing of good intention that would have hardly been appreciated by another. Job begins his testing period with three daughters and two or more sons. That’s at least five kids so far, probably many more, and they all die in a storm.

After Job’s test, God tries to make it right. He blesses Job with ten more kids.

So who’s the loser in all this? Ladies will have no trouble guessing, but maybe the guys need a hint: No epidurals back then.

//In the days of Israel’s captivity in Egypt, Israel’s men are driven hard as slaves, yet they only grow stronger and more virile. Pharaoh, recognizing that the birth rate among Israel is skyrocketing, gives this decree: kill all the boys as soon as they are born.

It doesn’t work, of course. AncientIsrael is polygamous, and killing boys doesn’t halt the birth rate. In fact, had Pharaoh understood the basics of evolution, he would realize he only added to the problem.

So we’ve got a generation of strong, studly guys. Pharaoh decides to kill all their male offspring. A new generation of girls grows up, with no guys to impregnate them. Suddenly, the studly generation has twice as many women to enjoy. 

Pharaoh, hoping to curtail the population explosion, probably only stimulated it.

//Today’s verse was written about a time of ethnic purging. The Jews were returning in waves from their captivity in Babylon, back to Jerusalem, and trying to reestablish its holiness. They decreed that all gentiles must be banished from the city of Jerusalem, and today’s verse provided scriptural backing.

But if today’s verse quotes from Deuteronomy, it’s a misquote. There, in verse 23:3, the wording is: No Ammonite or Moabite or any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD, even down to the tenth generation. (NIV) Not “forever,” but only “ten generations.”

So, which is God’s command? Forever excluded, even down to the 6th century B.C. and the ethnic purge of Jerusalem, or just ten generations? Maybe neither. Consider this verse:

1 Kings 14:31, And Rehoboam slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David. And his mother’s name was Naamah an Ammonitess.

Who was this man Rehoboam, son of an Ammonitess woman, buried in Jerusalem? Turns out his father was king Solomon. We’re back in the tenth century, 400 years before Nehemiah, when a second-generation Ammonite is welcome in Jerusalem.

//New Testament writers had a penchant for searching the scriptures for an explanation for what happened to Jesus. Here, John reports that the soldiers crucifying Jesus cast lots for his clothes. This, they did, so that “scripture would be fulfilled.”

So let’s look at the scripture being fulfilled. It comes from Psalm 22:18: They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing. 

What is happening in this psalm? A man feels abandoned by God because a gang of evil men has surrounded him. They have bound his hands and feet and left him lying on the ground, where he appears to be attacked by a pack of dogs. The villains divide his stolen clothes by casting lots, and the man prays to God for help, promising that if God will come to his aid, he will praise God to all his brethren. The text isn’t clear, but it appears God rescues the man and the rest of the psalm is a song of praise.

This type of “fulfillment” (which actuality bears little resemblance to the circumstances of Jesus) is quite common in New Testament writing. I don’t mean to ridicule the prophecies, but I do want to point out that they aren’t prophecies! The Old Testament authors had no clue their writings would be used in such a way … or did they?

Yes, I think they did. The psalmists speak to the human experience. Psalm 22 (a favorite among the Gospel writers) was “fulfilled” in Jesus, and by thousands of others, thousands of times over.

//Here’s a fascinating topic. Everybody has heard about the Book of Life up in heaven. If your name is in it, you get through the Pearly Gates. If not, tough luck, down you go to the flames. 

Many people who have near-death experiences recall seeing a big book, sometimes sitting on a pedestal, describing their deeds. Undoubtedly the image derives from the book of Revelation in the Bible.

John, in writing Revelation, relies heavily upon the Old Testament book of Daniel, and there is a heavenly scene in that book which looks like a court of law. But when God “opens the books” in Daniel’s court of law, it is to decide upon and impose a sentence. It is never to determine guilt or innocence; the party’s guilt has been established before the book is opened. The guilty pronouncement has already been made. In Revelation, the sentence of evil men is to die a second time in the Lake of Fire.

But is this book in Daniel supposed to be the Book of Life? Elsewhere in the Old Testament, the “book of life” is better explained as the “book of the living.” It is a book full of names of people who are still alive. When it’s your turn to die, your name is blotted out of the book. Picture the gods keeping the book handy, and when they’ve had enough of you, they open it up to your name and blot you out with their thumb.

John seems to have taken these two themes–Daniel’s book of sentences and the Old Testament’s book of the living–and combined them into one. The book changes from diabolical to wonderful, and becomes a list of people who will inherit eternal life.

Much better, don’t you think?

//I apologize for the length of today’s passage, but it really needs to be quoted in full. See the section enclosed in brackets? Verses 34 and 35? Textual scholars are all but certain that this passage was not written by Paul’s own hand but was added later. Read the passage again, omitting the bracketed section. Now it reads seamlessly.

These two verses, inserted in to an authentic Pauline letter, radically contradict Paul’s stance about women in the church. Isn’t it Paul who wrote “there are no more distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female?” In fact, Paul established many female leaders in his churches: Junia, Phoebe, Prisca, Tryphaena and Tryphosa.

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. … Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

For Matthew, it happens on a mountain in Galilee. Jesus, after rising from the dead, instructs the women who first encounter him to tell the disciples he will meet them in Galilee. Immediately, they head for the hills, and Jesus meets up with them there. 

For Luke and John, the meeting takes place in Jerusalem. There, according to John, Jesus dispenses the Holy Spirit when he greets them. Luke’s version differs a little: When Jesus meets the Twelve, he explains the Spirit will come along shortly … actually, forty days later at Pentecost. Jesus tells them, “I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” Note the command to remain in Jerusalem, a direct contradiction of Matthew.

Can Mark settle the argument of where they met? No, sorry, in Mark there is no meeting at all! Mark’s resurrection chapter originally ended with verse eight (the margin comments in your Bible may confirm this), with the women who discovered the empty tomb running away afraid, telling no one. Nobody sees Jesus; he’s just gone. Before you discount Mark’s version out of hand, remember that all throughout Mark, the disciples just don’t catch on; they never do grasp the significance of Jesus. Mark’s mysterious ending fits the story he tells, leaving it up to us to see if we understand.

Little wonder there is so much argument between Bible scholars about the nature of the resurrection!

//Today’s verse concludes the Lord’s Prayer as recorded in the book of Matthew. But this final stanza, beginning with For thine is the kingdom, isn’t original to the prayer. You won’t find it in Luke’s rendition, and you won’t find it in our earliest copies of Matthew. It was added sometime later.

Why did it get added? I can offer an opinion, but it’s only an opinion.

First, it must be recognized that this is an eschatological prayer. That is, it anticipates the arrival of God’s kingdom on earth; presumably with the return of Jesus. So, likewise, the final pre-edited stanza: Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Many scholars recognize this as a plea for rescue from the trying times that must precede the Lord’s arrival. Readers of Paul’s letters and the book of Revelation will know what I mean: Jews and Christians both anticipated a period of suffering, sometimes called the Woes of the Messiah, before the inauguration of God’s kingdom, God’s era of righteous rule on the earth.

But the prayer ends rather abruptly, and on a dark note. Evil. Something like, Please, God, guide us safely through that awful time, so that we might participate in the coming age of plenty … when debts will all be forgiven, and there will be bread to eat every day, and your righteous rule will extend your kingdom over the entire earth.

Then comes the new addition to the prayer, speaking of power and glory forever. Gently redirecting us away from our fears and dreams of the future, with one very important word: is. While all of the rest of the prayer is futuristic, looking ahead to a better time, this little word “is” suddenly invites participation in the glorious kingdom of God now. Perhaps it was added by someone who recognized the silliness of living entirely in anticipation of a future day, encouraging us instead to grasp what is ours now through the goodness of God. It is a shift in understanding of what the Kingdom of God is … from a future arrival of a Messiah to a living, worldwide Christian movement, already under the reign of Jesus.

//Ever play that kid’s trick on your little brother, where you say “Bet you five cents I can hit you softer than you can hit me!” So, he brushes your shoulder with a gentle little fist-kiss, and when your turn comes you haul off and whack him silly. “Oops, guess you won, here’s your nickle.”

//Paul, traveling around preaching Jesus, one day received a vision of a “man of Macedonia” calling him there. Paul concluded that God wanted him to preach in Macedonia, and he set off on a journey there.

But when Paul arrived, he found no man at all! He went “to the river,” where he expected to find Christians gathered to pray, and instead he found a cluster of women. Immediately recognizing the women as the reason for his visit, Paul sat down with them and began to teach.

One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. 

Lydia invited Paul and his companions to stay at her house, and the Lord “opened her heart.” The “man of Macedonia” turned out to be a woman! Well, dreams can be a little hazy!

The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

//One day, the inhabitants of the earth decided to build a tower up to heaven. Unfair, they felt, that the gods frolicked up in heaven while they were stuck on the earth. So they put their mind and muscle to the task, and started building.

God panicked. Mankind, if they spoke the same language and worked together as one, could accomplish anything! They could invade the privacy of the gods! So, God confused their languages, and scattered the earth’s inhabitants around the globe. That’s why, today, there are so many languages.

There came a day, however, when God changed his mind. He decided it would be nicer to share his living space with his creation, and set about reopening the channel from heaven to earth. He came down and set things right. You know this as the Day of Pentecost.

Acts 2:2, Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.

It’s Babel’s ending being reversed! Everyone, filled with the Holy Spirit, began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Mosopotamiams, Judeans, Asians, Phrygians, Egyptians, Cretans, Arab, Romans … all were able to understand each other. Amazed and perplexed, they asked each other, “What does this mean?”

Perhaps the answer is this: Once again, as one under the Spirit, mankind can do anything they set their mind to.

//Today’s post might not be appreciated by all, but it’s something we should think about.

Here’s the story. Christians in the early church felt a keen responsibility to care for others, even to the point of donating all their belongings and holding all things in common. But the number of disciples was growing too fast, and not everybody was getting the daily distribution of food. So, the bigwigs got together and chose seven other people to take care of mundane duties, like waiting on tables. That freed the bigwigs up to “give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.”

But this separation of clergy and laity may not be what Jesus had in mind at all. Read, for example, Luke 22:26-27:

[T]he greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.

Thus Jesus expressly taught the Twelve how to be good waiters. The very men who later disdained that role, feeling they were too busy to bother, so as to take upon themselves the responsibility of ministry, instead.

On this day the clergy was born.

//You may recognize this verse in its Christmas theme; the baby Jesus brings hope of great joy, which, the verse says, shall be to “all people.”

This universal hope is again extended to “all” … that is, we assume, “all people.” Wonderful, isn’t it, how all are enveloped in great joy! But is it possible that even “all people” is too restrictive? Luke’s verse could be more literally translated as “all flesh.” After all, here is the promise, back in the Old Testament book of Joel:

Joel 2:28, And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh.

Not just people, but all flesh. Animals, too, perhaps. But what about the plant kingdom? Back to Joel, a few verses prior to this, about that wonderful day:

Be not afraid, O land; be glad and rejoice. Surely the LORD has done great things. Be not afraid, O wild animals, for the open pastures are becoming green. The trees are bearing their fruit; the fig tree and the vine yield their riches.

Makes me wonder if perhaps even Universal Christians aren’t universal enough!

But ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

This terminology found its way into Christian language rather quickly, as evidenced by Paul’s letters, where, twice, Paul encourages us to speak to the Father with the same familiarity. This should be no surprise: religious Jews fervently believed that one day, God would return to earth and dwell personally with his people, calling them his children. The Christian claim was that this day had arrived with the coming of Jesus.

But what, exactly, does abba mean? 

The truth is, we don’t know anymore. We assume it is meant to convey intimacy. A 20th-century German scholar, Joachim Jeremias, suggested that the word abba is best translated as “daddy.” Jeremias apparently backed off somewhat from this assertion, but the translation stuck. It’s heart-warming and intimate, exactly the way we think of Jesus’ relationship with the Father. I, too, suggest the translation “daddy” in my books about Revelation and John’s Gospel. 

But it’s good to remember, like so many other translation issues from the original Greek and Hebrew of our Bible, that we don’t really know what Jesus meant.