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Interlude

Time for a word cloud quiz!

Posted by Christoph Lindner · Leave a Comment 

We have already read through three major books of the Bible (plus many Psalms and Proverbs) and it’s always exciting to see how incredibly diverse the books of the Bible are, yet together they show us the big story of God with us. One way of visualizing the unique character of a book of the Bible is a “word cloud”: feed all the words from the book into a computer and then let it show the most common words in a graphic way.

So, here is a little quiz: Below are the word clouds for Genesis, Exodus, Matthew and Mark. Click on one to enlarge it and then try to guess which is which (no prizes for guessing which is Old or New Testament), then click on the link  below to find the answer (and lots more of these word clouds). Got them all right? Check the answers out here…

[Hints: key words to distinguish Genesis and Exodus (apart from the many biblical characters) are the relative weights of the words used for God - LORD is God's "proper name" YHWH (Yahweh, Jehovah) revealed to...? Matthew or Mark? Only one of them uses the distinctive phrase "kingdom of heaven"...]

By the way, if you want to create your own word cloud from a document or a talk you have given, go to Wordle – endless fun!

February 17, 2010 · Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Weekly Messages

More than just a dreamcoat

Posted by James · 4 Comments 

This week in Genesis we start the story of Joseph, known to many from Sunday school and to many more thanks to Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Tim Rice. The human drama by itself is compelling – family favouritism and sibling jealousy, violence, deceit, false accusations, weird dreams and their interpretations, triumph out of disaster. No wonder it makes a great musical. But behind the human drama is the hand of God, preserving the descendants of Abraham in fulfilment of his covenant. At 45:5-7 Joseph tells his brothers: ‘… do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. … God sent me ahead of you to preserve a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.’

In some ways Joseph foreshadows Jesus. Here’s a paragraph from Edmund Clowney’s book The Unfolding Mystery (subtitled Discovering Christ in the Old Testament):

‘Joseph was God’s righteous servant, suffering because of his faithfulness to God. Yet the path of suffering led to a throne and to the fulfillment of the word of God, given by the revelation of his dreams. God had made the life of Joseph a sign of the way in which his blessing would come. By the word of God and the servant of god, the mercy of God would be made known to the nations.’ (p. 82)

In Matthew this week we have a whole chapter of parables (chapter 13 – Matthew likes to group Jesus’ teachings together in chunks). Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart, in their excellent book How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, argue that the main function of parables is to call forth a response from the hearer. Here is what they say about the parable of the Sower:

‘… the point of the parable is the urgency of the hour: “Take heed how you hear. The word is being sown, the message of the Good News of the kingdom, the joy of forgiveness, the demand and gift of discipleship. It is before all, so listen, take heed, be fruitful soil.”‘ (p. 131 in 1982 edition)

January 18, 2010 · Tagged with , , ,

Weekly Messages

Family Fortunes

Posted by James · 5 Comments 

Sometimes the story of Abraham and his family reads like a soap opera. Matthew 1 simply gives us ‘Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers’. Genesis gives us all the juicy details. Husbands pretending their wives are their sisters. Parental favoritism and the dysfunction that arises out of that. Sibling rivalry leading to decades-long estrangement. And all of this in a culture that seems quite alien to us with its semi-nomadic herders and arranged marriages. But in all of this God is working to fulfill the promises first made in Genesis 12, starting with one man and his wife to build a nation through whom he will bless all the nations of the world. It’s a reminder that when God works through people, it can be a messy process. Two encouragements come from this: even though it’s messy, God perseveres in working out his purposes through human beings. And if God can work in and through flawed people like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, then there is hope for us.

This week’s chapters in Matthew give us several links back to the OT. The story of the (Gentile, i.e. non-Jewish) centurion in chapter 8 from yesterday’s reading,  is an example of God’s promises to Abraham being fulfilled. Look especially at verses 11 and 12 and compare with Genesis 12:1-3. The irony here in Matthew is that many of Abraham’s descendants in the time of Jesus are missing out on the promised blessings because they don’t recognise God at work in Jesus. The result is opposition to Jesus’ mission, which makes life difficult for the disciples he sends out. For some other OT links, watch out for the Micah quote in 10:35-36 and John the Baptist as the ‘new’ Elijah in fulfilment of Malachi’s prophecy in 11:7-14 (See Malachi 3:1 and 4:1-6). I’ve always found it rather neat that the OT ends with a prophecy that is fulfilled early in the first book of the NT, with Malachi and Matthew sitting next to each other in our Bibles.

January 11, 2010 · Tagged with , , , ,

Blog Posts

God is doing a new thing!

Posted by Christoph Lindner · Leave a Comment 

When Abraham’s father Terah dies, God speaks to Abraham: “Go to the land I will show you…” (Gen 12:1). Abraham is 75 years old. No graceful retirement after his father’s death, but a new departure with an uncertain destination.
Throughout history, God continues to be creative, to do new things, to shape people’s lives in unexpected ways. When Jesus bursts onto the scene and begins to preach, his teaching is radically fresh and new and challenging: “Blessed are the poor in spirit…” (Mat 5). Everyone around Jesus understands: this is new, this is different – whether they agree with him or not.

At the same time, the ministry of Jesus Christ was prepared by God through the centuries and was always part of his overarching plan to bring us back into a relationship with him: “God’s faithful, changeless love is manifested in changing, surprising ways.” (Daniel Migliore)

During these first six days I have already been amazed at how reading the Old and New Testament in parallel helps me to see connections, and I look forward to many more of those moments.

What are the new things God wants to do in our lives and in our church in 2010? Some things we know, others we are beginning to grasp. But there will be many surprises. Are we going to be ready, when God says: “Go!”? Can we say to Jesus today: “I am ready for the new things you want to do in my life this year. I am excited about your plans with me – even if I don’t know where I will be in a year’s time. Bring it on, God!”

And let’s look back with thankfulness, trace God’s activity in our lives and – based on God’s story with us so far –  take bold new steps in 2010: He is the same faithful, creative, loving, challenging God that Jesus proclaimed!

Bring it on, God!

January 6, 2010 · Tagged with , , ,

Weekly Messages

The covenant solution

Posted by James · 3 Comments 

This week’s readings include a passage that Gordon Wenham describes as the most important section of the book of Genesis. Read on to find out which that is …

But first, thank you to those who have already written comments on my first blog post. It’s great to get a conversation going. And thank you to Andrea for pointing out that www.eden.co.uk seem to have some One Year Bibles in stock. I had several conversations yesterday with people who have started the Bible in a Year Adventure. It seems there’s a good buzz going already. I know of one couple who are using the iPhone app to access the day’s readings in audio, which seems to work well.

… so to the most important section of Genesis, which Gordon Wenham believes is 11:27 – 12:9. This short passage looks back via Abram’s family history to what has gone before and looks forward eventually to the nation of Israel and the Davidic monarchy. Since the Fall in Genesis 3 we have witnessed the spread of sin, a (sort of) new start with Noah and the scattering of the nations after the Tower of Babel incident. (For more on Noah, there was a sermon series preached at Nexus last year) Here with God’s covenant with Abram we see what looks like the beginning of a permanent solution – God’s blessings to the world through Abram and his descendant(s). In a sense, the rest of the Bible tells us how God went about fulfilling the promise he makes here to Abram.

In Matthew we read about the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, one of preaching, teaching and healing. The core of his message is the kingdom of heaven (Matthew prefers this phrase to ‘the kingdom of God’, probably because of Jewish sensibilities about using God’s name) and the response Jesus calls for is repentance. What might the life of repentance look like in the kingdom of heaven? Cue the Sermon on the Mount. The kingdom is good news for all those who have been longing for it (see the Beatitudes – 5:1-12), but its ethics go far beyond the letter-of-the-law-keeping of the Pharisees. Does Jesus really expect his followers to live up to the ideals of the Sermon on the Mount? Or are the unachievable standards merely intended to get us to ask for God’s mercy and forgiveness because we cannot live up to them by ourselves? Is it both? Note how Jesus is very clear that he is fulfilling, not tearing up, the Scriptures. The ethics of the the NT are not something brand new, but the fulfilment of the OT, rightly understood.

Hopefully more to come later in the week, but that’s all for now.

January 4, 2010 · Tagged with , ,

Weekly Messages

We’re off!

Posted by James · 14 Comments 

And we’re off! The Bible in a Year Adventure begins! And with Genesis we most definitely begin at the beginning. In these early chapters of Genesis we learn about the nature of the world in which we live (as originally made it is good, and ordered – not chaotic) and our status within it. We learn about the nature of sin and its rapidly spreading effects. And most importantly we learn of the creator God who gives us both our existence and our purpose.

In the light of 2009’s celebrations of Charles Darwin we may have all sorts of questions about how Genesis does or doesn’t square with current scientific theories. Gordon Wenham, in his commentary on Genesis warns against trying to bring a Twenty First Century agenda to an ancient text. He writes: ‘Though historical and scientific questions may be uppermost in our minds as we approach the text, it is doubtful whether they were in the writer’s mind, and we should therefore be cautious about looking for answers to questions he was not concerned with. Genesis is primarily about God’s character and his purposes for sinful mankind. Let us beware of allowing our interests to divert us from the central thrust of the book, so that we miss what the LORD, our creator and redeemer, is saying to us.’ (Word Biblical Commentary on Genesis 1 – 15, p. liii)

As we read the early chapters of Genesis notice what sin does to relationships – within human society and between humans and God.

Reading the first chapters of Matthew may feel a bit like Christmas all over again. The genealogy at the start is a reminder that the birth of Jesus is not the beginning of the story. Luke goes back to Adam in his gospel, and John goes right back to creation, but Matthew’s concern is to locate Jesus’ place within the families of Abraham and David. Both of these two key figures from the Old Testament were on the receiving end of covenant promises from God. God promised Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation and that all peoples would be blessed through him (we’ll be reading about that soon in Genesis 12). God promised David that his royal family line would last forever (see 2 Samuel 7).  Jesus is the fulfilment of these and many other promises in the Old Testament.

In fact, fulfilment is a major theme throughout Matthew’s gospel. Notice how often he pauses to tell us how Old Testament prophecies are fulfilled in the life of Jesus. While you’re at it, spot the link between Psalm 2:7 and Matthew 3:17 when it comes.

Psalm 1 is a great encouragement at the start of this Bible adventure. May we be people who this year learn to delight in God’s law and meditate on it day and night.

My plan from here on is to be posting blogs each Sunday with some thoughts about the upcoming week’s readings. Do leave a comment if you have the time and inclination and we’ll see if we can get a bit of a community conversation going.

January 1, 2010 · Tagged with ,

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