Author: Abram K-J

I am a husband and father, a pastor, a runner, a writer, an editor, and a reviewer of cool stuff.

First Bible of the Church: A Plea for the Septuagint, reviewed

First Bible of the ChurchFor the New Testament authors, the original text, that is, the text they drew on, was primarily the Septuagint. To make up the first part of the Bible which has the New Testament as the other part, the Old Testament in the shape it has in the Septuagint would therefore seem the obvious choice.

—First Bible of the Church: A Plea for the Septuagint, by Mogens Müller (p. 144)

Mogens Müller provocatively asks, “What caused the displacement of the Septuagint? …Today it is an open question whether the Septuagint should be reinstalled as the Old Testament of the Church” (p. 7). First Bible of the Church is part reception history, part biblical theology, and part apologetic work that suggests the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible should be brought (back) into canonical status. It should be “at least part of a canon” (p. 122), if not the better choice than Biblia Hebraica for today’s “original text” of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible.

What follows is a brief summary of the book’s contents, followed by some evaluative comments.

Müller’s Plea

Chapter 1 is the introduction to the book. In it Müller raises the question of just what should qualify as “the original text” of the Old Testament. If we see “what the early church regarded as its Bible” (p. 23), already one has to take the Septuagint seriously. This is not a question Müller addresses exclusively on textual grounds; for him the issue is also a theological one. To wit: In Isaiah 7:14/Matthew 1:23, “the ‘wrong’ text gains a significance of its own by being used” (p. 23).

Chapter 2, “The Jewish Bible at the Time of the New Testament,” looks at the canonization and textual history of the Jewish Bible, including various Greek recensions. Müller makes a key (and helpful) distinction in canonization between “the recognition of a writing as sacred” and “the final fixing of its wording” (p. 32). Evaluating various source materials, and dismissing the idea of an Urtext, the author notes the (accepted) fluidity of the process of textual transmission, where the actual wording in the sacred books only became important some centuries after the books themselves had become part of a canon. The implications of this, of course, are that New Testament writers may not have cared–in the way modernists do–about making sure they were using “the original” Hebrew text when quoting Scripture–if such a thing even ever existed as such.

Nonetheless, as chapter 3 points out, there was a very early historical concern about the authority of the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. Would the former be on par with the latter? Müller examines various defenses of the Septuagint (the Law books, specifically): Aristeas, Aristobulus, Philo, and Josephus. Chapter 4, “The Reception of the Septuagint Legend into the Church up to and Including Augustine” continues the historical inquiry into attitudes toward the Septuagint, especially when compared to the Hebrew text it was said to have translated. Justin and Irenaeus (among others) are given as examples of early interpreters who saw the Septuagint translation as inspired. Jerome, Müller suggests:

saw the Biblia Hebraica as the basic text as far as the Old Testament was concerned, and thus he contributed, at least for the Latin-speaking part of Christianity, to bring about the final abandonment of the Septuagint, which had very early come to be acknowledged as the Bible of the Gentile, Christian Church. (p. 86)

Biblia Graeca
Biblia Graeca

Chapters 5 (“Hebraica sive Graeca Veritas?“) calls the Septuagint “a witness to the process of transmitting tradition” (p. 99), a process which Müller sees in ancient Judaism as having “a very creative character” (p. 104). Translation in antiquity included a measure of interpretation. The author’s foray into translation theory gives refreshing context to a world that valued lexical equivalency in translation less than many do today.

Chapter 6 (“Vetus Testamentum in Novo Receptum“) provides a short biblical theology, in which the New Testament is seen primarily as the story of Jesus, who himself fulfills what is written in the Old Testament. Müller notes that it is for this reason that the Hebrew Bible became the Old Testament, and yet its use by New Testament writers solidified its importance and sacredness for Christians. The Old Testament is necessary–“it remains the Holy Writ of the Christian community.” But it is not sufficient–“the Old Testament per se represents a limited epoch in salvation history” (p. 135).

The conclusion calls for the Septuagint to (re-)take its canonical place alongside the New Testament.

Is Müller’s Plea Worth Paying Heed To?

Yes. Readers of this blog and its Septuagint posts will not be surprised by my saying so. Müller makes a good case and generally succeeds in making a compelling plea for the LXX. If readers don’t accept his call to (re-)canonize the Greek OT, they will at least take seriously his petition to take it more seriously (as the NT writers did).

The book is short (some 150 pages) but dense. There is untranslated German and Latin in the footnotes, as one would expect in a scholarly monograph, but the writing is no less engaging for its density. The Greek font used throughout is easy to read, and the Greek is often translated into English.

Müller’s brief biblical theology at the end of the book is excellent. It left me wanting to read more. His notion of fulfillment as a motif that links together the OT and NT was convincing and well-articulated.

I found some typographical errors, as well as a number of sentences that just seemed to have wanted closer editing. This could be in part due to the book’s translation from a Danish manuscript. I was distracted in a few places as a result, but not consistently.

Evangelicals will find a few things they disagree with. For example, Müller cites Wellhausen approvingly to note that “the prophets were not reformers anxious to lead the people back to an original Mosaic religion.” The Law, then, “is not the starting-point but the result of Israel’s spiritual development” (p. 102). This line of reasoning is not essential to following the rest of Müller’s arguments, but his “redactional-critical attitude” (p. 100) does lead to a few assertions that some (including myself) don’t agree with.

Müller’s logic and historical inquiry is generally careful and robust, not to mention more readable than one might expect from a work of this nature. Perhaps it is due to the short length of the book, but there are still some unanswered questions. If “the Septuagint” is to comprise the Old Testament in Christian Bibles (as Müller suggests on p. 144, among other places), which Septuagint should we use? On which codex or codices should we base it? And given that Septuagint manuscripts vary on which books are included, how would we decide which books to place in a reconstituted OT? Simply those books that are now in the Hebrew OT, but in their Greek iterations? What about the Apocrypha?

And yet it appears that Müller’s aim is more to address “whether the Septuagint should be reinstalled as the Old Testament of the Church” (p. 7, my emphasis), not how and by what methodology such a reinstallation would take place. With this aim in mind, Müller’s short yet substantive book offers a compelling plea that deserves the reader’s careful consideration.

You can find First Bible of the Church: A Plea for the Septuagint here at Amazon. Its publisher’s product page is here. Thanks to Bloomsbury for the review copy, given with no expectation as to the content of the review.

Feasting on the Word Commentary for Preachers (more thoughts)

Feasting on the Word

Whether the sermon is five minutes long or forty-five, it is the congregation’s one opportunity to hear directly from their pastor about what life in Christ means and why it matters.

–Feasting on the Word

Since getting it in Logos, I’ve been reading Feasting on the Word as a regular part of my sermon preparation each week. I describe the commentary series here.

Feasting on the Word is a lectionary-based commentary series in 12-volumes, four volumes for each of three years of the lectionary. Each Sunday has theological, pastoral, exegetical, and homiletical “perspectives” from which a variety of contributors assesses the texts. Feasting on the Word covers the OT, Psalm, Epistle, and Gospel readings each week.

As to the contributors, the publisher’s product page notes:

The editors of these resources are from a wide variety of disciplines and religious traditions. These authors teach in colleges and seminaries. They lead congregations by preaching or teaching. They write scholarly books as well as columns for newspapers and journals. They oversee denominations. In all of these capacities and more, they serve God’s Word, joining in the ongoing challenge of bringing that Word to life.

Noting a few contributors will give a sense of the diversity of perspective in the commentary:

  • Paul J. Achtemeier, Jackson Professor of Biblical Interpretation Emeritus, Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, Virginia
  • Michael B. Curry, Bishop, Diocese of North Carolina, Raleigh, North Carolina
  • Paul Simpson Duke, Co-Pastor, First Baptist Church, Ann Arbor, Michigan
  • Stacey Simpson Duke, Co-Pastor, First Baptist Church, Ann Arbor, Michigan
  • Edith M.Humphrey, William F. Orr Professor of New Testament, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
  • Barbara Brown Taylor, Butman Professor of Religion, Piedmont College, Demorest, Georgia
  • Frank A. Thomas, Senior Servant, Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church, Memphis, Tennessee
  • David Toole, Associate Dean, Duke Divinity School, Durham, North Carolina

Here’s what a Feasting on the Word volume looks like in Logos on a laptop or desktop, next to a couple of other (not included) resources. Click to expand or open the image in new tab, and see my corresponding notes below.

Feasting on the Word in Logos with notes

(1) User annotations: Highlighting and making notes is easy–you can mark up the texts with various styles. Like Amazon’s Kindle app, the annotations made on one machine or device sync with other machines or devices. The note and highlights made above were done on an iPad and popped up automatically when I opened Logos on a computer. Logos is probably the most robust e-reader on the market in this sense.

(2) Hyperlinks: You can hover over a hyperlink for a pop-up with more info, or click on it to be taken to the biblical text (or footnote) that it references.

(3) Expandable/collapsable Table of Contents: Logos is not unique in offering this, but it does make it easy to quickly navigate between passages or “perspectives” on a given Sunday.

(4) Sync with other resources in Logos library: This is simple to set up. I can have Feasting on the Word open next to the full biblical text and other commentaries and resources.

(5) A single Sunday: on the left navigation sidebar you can see what a single Sunday looks like.

(6) Paused indexing: one challenge in using Logos is its frequent need to index. This optimizes searches, and it varies due to a user’s library size, but especially on a Mac, where Logos can already be sluggish compared to other apps, it slows the rest of the computer down. If I’m working on a sermon and using Logos, Accordance, Kindle, and Google Drive or Pages, for example, I almost always have to pause indexing to be able to keep working efficiently. I tend to resume indexing when I don’t need to use Logos.

I continue to find the “Homiletical Perspective” and “Preaching Perspective” the most useful parts of the commentary. The sections I’ve read offer a variety of vantage points and are creative and imaginative on a fairly consistent basis. In my third and final part of this review series, I’ll interact more in-depth with the content of the series.

Thanks to Logos Bible Software for the review copy of Feasting on the Word (12 vols.). Find it here. The publisher’s page for the series is here. You can find my other Logos reviews here.

Septuagint Studies Soirée #4

Here are a few blog posts from November, regarding the Septuagint, that are worth taking a look at:

New English Translation of the SeptuagintJ.K. Gayle considers the question of whether the Septuagint translator of the Hebrew Song of Songs might have been a woman, then raises some challenges inherent to that view, at least as it is presented by the NETS (see image at left). J.K. also offered insight into the possible motherliness of God and the patriarch Joseph. Suzanne responded here, preferring to talk about “wombly feelings” instead of “motherly” ones. Kurk writes back again, noting some “maternal” language (with help from Greek Isaiah) in the “Our Father.”

T. Michael Law notes further interest in his book When God Spoke Greek.

I’ve just this month learned of a blog called Old School Script, which focuses on linguistics and biblical languages. Check out as much as you can of that site, starting with an October post that I missed last month, “Word Order in Septuagint Judges.” Note also some extended exploration this past month about Paul’s use of the LXX. Said blog also pointed this month to Randall Buth’s thinking about an SBL session on the Greek perfect.

Also, this month Logos Bible Software released (for free) Codex Sinaiticus, including its Septuagint portions.

Did I miss anything? Feel free to leave more November 2013 LXX links of interest in the comments. And in case you didn’t see it, the first Septuagint Studies Soirée is here; the second one is here; the third one is here.

One other thing to note–a reading group of nearly 200 folks on Facebook (and more who are not on Facebook) finished a reading plan last Friday through Greek Isaiah.

“…for the Spirit to take entire and undisturbed possession”

To ponder this week….

With Christ in the School of PrayerLet us now believe this. As we pray to be filled with the Spirit, let us not seek for the answer in our feelings. All spiritual blessings must be received, that is, accepted or taken in faith. Let me believe, the Father gives the Holy Spirit to His praying child. Even now, while I pray, I must say in faith: I have what I ask, the fullness of the Spirit is mine.

Let us continue steadfast in this faith. On the strength of God’s Word we know that we have what we ask. Let us, with thanksgiving that we have been heard, with thanksgiving for what we have received and taken and now hold as ours, continue steadfast in believing prayer that the blessing, which has already been given us, and which we hold in faith, may break through and fill our whole being. It is in such believing thanksgiving and prayer, that our soul opens up for the Spirit to take entire and undisturbed possession.

 —With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray (1828-1917)

Review of INVELLOP Leatherette iPad Mini Case

As a friend and I were geeking out over iPad mini cases lately, he recommended his to me. Since its arrival in my mailbox, I’ve rarely taken the mini out of this case. It’s got just the right combination of slim and sturdy for my tastes. It’s by INVELLOP, which I had never heard of. Here it is, closed, with no iPad mini in it:

The case closed, in landscape orientation
The case closed, in landscape orientation

Here is what the inside looks like:

The inside of the case
The inside of the case

The cutouts for earbuds, volume buttons, camera, etc. are all measured well. The material is “leatherette,” but smells fine and has held up well for the six or more weeks I’ve used it. The stitching is all still firmly in place. You can see in the above that the hard plastic back is connected to the front cover. When the screen flap closes, it puts the device to sleep; when it opens, it wakes it up. This function works just as it should (and is standard with these sorts of cases).

Here are a few more things I like about it:

  • This is the easiest time I’ve had holding my encased device with one hand–the case covers the device but does not extend past it much, so it’s low on bulk
  • The price on Amazon is at the moment $19.95, which is worth it for the quality
  • Good craftmanship
    Good craftmanship

    The screen flap is split into thirds so that you can set your iPad upright (in landscape mode) in two different positions (viewing or typing)

  • It has magnets that help the front cover snap even more securely onto the back case
  • The plastic back is stronger than other cases of this size
  • The inside’s microfiber has protected (and not scratched) the iPad
  • It’s easy to manipulate the front screen flap to take photo or video (it folds back quickly)
  • It’s thin and light, yet not at the expense of protecting a device (though I haven’t done a test drop)

There is really not much to critique. For the first few weeks the front cover didn’t lay flat very well. It still doesn’t lay flat perfectly, but that’s improved a good deal over time. And the magnets make sure the sleep/wake function isn’t compromised by this.

Most significantly, even though I’ve reviewed other iPad mini cases I could house my device in, this one is my go-to.

Thanks to INVELLOP for the review sample. The case reviewed above can be found at Amazon here. You can find my other iOS and gear reviews here.

Feasting on the Word Commentary for Preachers

Feasting on the Word

Alas, the burden and the glory of preaching consist in proclaiming things that are not yet fully realized, but the hope for them holds a powerful grip upon the faithful imagination.

–Feasting on the Word

Here is a 12-volume commentary set that covers all the lectionary readings from multiple angles. Feasting on the Word offers four different “perspectives” (theological, pastoral, exegetical, and homiletical) for each lectionary passage in the weekly Revised Common Lectionary.

The 12 volumes cover the three-year lectionary cycle (A, B, and C), split into four volumes per year:

  • Advent through Transfiguration
  • Lent through Eastertide
  • Pentecost and Season after Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16)
  • Season after Pentecost 2 (Propers 17—Reign of Christ)

The Scripture index makes it accessible to preachers who are not following the lectionary, too. From the Logos product page:

The editors and contributors to this series are world-class scholars, pastors, and writers representing a variety of denominations and traditions. And while the twelve volumes of the series will follow the pattern of the Revised Common Lectionary, each volume will contain an index of biblical passages so that non-lectionary preachers, as well as teachers and students, may make use of its contents.

Logos Bible Software has the full set in a format that is hyperlinked, laid out well, and easy to navigate by date or Scripture reference. Here’s the Table of Contents in the Logos iOS app for the current volume:

Table of Contents
Table of Contents

Here’s how a given Sunday looks:

FotW Proper 25
Four lectionary readings of Proper 25

And then each of the passages splits into the four “perspective” sections.

Four perspectives on Luke 18:9-14
Four perspectives on Luke 18:9-14

Since being able to access Feasting on the Word, it’s actually jumped toward the beginning of my pile (or bytes) of resources that I consult when preaching. I try to pray through my preaching ideas from the text and in conversation with others before consulting commentaries, but the “Homiletical Perspective” (and the other sections, for that matter) do a good job of helping the preacher think about how to preach a text.

The Theological Perspective and Exegetical Perspective might be the best starting points in this commentary. Perhaps by design and due to the constraints of this resource, they are not as in-depth as you would find with a commentary on a given book of the Bible. But those two sections do show a general awareness of the major interpretive issues a preacher needs to be aware of.

The Pastoral Perspective differs from the Homiletical Perspective in that the former helps the preacher be aware of pitfalls and opportunities in preaching a text. For example, Stacey Simpson Duke offers the following pastoral suggestion on Isaiah 11:1-10 (which is the OT text for the 2nd Sunday of Advent in a couple of weeks):

Our fear for children’s safety and future is especially acute. Some in our congregations may have had the tragic experience of a child’s death; they may be particularly fragile when it comes to Isaiah’s images of vulnerable children living and playing in safety. That grief may not be confined to those who have suffered the loss of near ones. We are intimately acquainted with suffering children through heartbreaking images broadcast via the electronic media. This produces its own brand of grief. Isaiah’s word is for all, but the pastor must be sensitive to the grief in the room. Isaiah promises future security; how might this be a word of hope for those from whom security has already been stolen? Answers are not easy, but the pastor who wants to care for congregants in grief will want to wrestle with the question.

This has been the section of the commentary that I most consult.

I appreciate the overall depth and thoughtfulness of the series. This portion from the series introduction is apropos:

We also recognize that this new series appears in a post-9/11, post-Katrina world. For this reason, we provide no shortcuts for those committed to the proclamation of God’s Word. Among preachers, there are books known as “Monday books” because they need to be read thoughtfully at least a week ahead of time. There are also “Saturday books,” so called because they supply sermon ideas on short notice. The books in this series are not Saturday books. Our aim is to help preachers go deeper, not faster, in a world that is in need of saving words.

So far, I not only can recommend Feasting on the Word, but have begun drawing on it as a regular part of my preaching preparation each week. I’ll write more about the series in a future post.

Thanks to Logos Bible Software for the review copy of Feasting on the Word (12 vols.). Find it here. You can find my other Logos reviews here.

The Gospels as “the Song of the Four Living Creatures”

Gospel Writing

Where gospel difference is seen as a problem or weakness that calls for elaborate harmonization procedures or critical unmasking, the root cause is a dissatisfaction with canonical pluralism as such and a determination to reduce it to singularity. But that is to overlook the hermeneutical significance of the canon itself, which strives to integrate the voice of the individual witness into an encompassing polyphony. As an ancient tradition suggests in word and image, this evangelical polyphony echoes the song of the four living creatures around the divine throne.

–pp. 615-6 of Francis Watson’s Gospel Writing: A Canonical Perspective (Eerdmans, 2013)

I’m reviewing Watson’s book for an upcoming Bible Study Magazine issue. Watson’s comfort with the co-existence of history and theology–as if one could be devoid of the other in the case of gospel reception–is refreshing.

Who is Isaiah’s Shepherd of the Sheep? Hebrews Ventures an Answer

The prophet Isaiah
The prophet Isaiah

Reading through Isaiah, I’ve made connections between biblical texts that I never noticed before. I’ve posted about Philippians and Ephesians. Today I saw something in Isaiah 63:11 that seems to have inspired the author of Hebrews.

Isaiah 63:11

English: And the one who brought up from the land the shepherd of the sheep remembered the days of eternity. Where is the one who put his holy spirit in them?

Greek: καὶ ἐμνήσθη ἡμερῶν αἰωνίων ὁ ἀναβιβάσας ἐκ τῆς γῆς τὸν ποιμένα τῶν προβάτων· ποῦ ἐστιν ὁ θεὶς ἐν αὐτοῖς τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον;

Hebrews 13:20

English: And the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep, our Lord Jesus Christ, by the blood of the eternal covenant…

Greek: Ὁ δὲ θεὸς τῆς εἰρήνης, ὁ ἀναγαγὼν ἐκ νεκρῶν τὸν ποιμένα τῶν προβάτων τὸν μέγαν ἐν αἵματι διαθήκης αἰωνίου, τὸν κύριον ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦν…

Five things to note:

  1. Though Hebrews has “great” in addition to “the shepherd of the sheep,” the latter phrase (τὸν ποιμένα τῶν προβάτων in Greek) is identical in both passages.
  2. The author of Hebrews seems to want to explicitly identify “the shepherd of the sheep” from Isaiah, which he/she does by noting that this “great” shepherd is “our Lord Jesus Christ.”
  3. Did the author of Hebrews intend with “brought up from the dead” to echo Isaiah’s “brought up from the land”? The Greek verbs are different, but both have the ἀνα=up prefix, and both are in participial form.
  4. If Hebrews’s bringing up is meant to evoke Isaiah’s bringing up, is Hebrews taking Isaiah’s exodus motif in Isaiah 63 and holding up Jesus as the leader of the new exodus?
  5. Both passages have “eternity” (αἰώνιος) in view.

I haven’t checked commentaries yet, but after observing the above, I noticed that the critical apparatus (manuscript notes) in the Göttingen edition of the Septuagint notes that Hebrews 13:20 should be consulted.

I plan to see what others have written about this, but for now, the similarities above have me fairly convinced that this was a deliberate reference, and that the author of Hebrews was finding Jesus in Isaiah 63:11.

A “Wee Little Man” Shows us How to Respond to Jesus

Zacchaeus, by Niels Larsen Stevns
Zacchaeus, by Niels Larsen Stevns

Even though Zacchaeus was “a wee little man”–he was not “wee” or “little” in terms of his financial standing.

Luke 19:1-2    Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy.

He was “a chief tax collector” and he “was wealthy.” Those two things are actually three strikes against Zacchaeus.

Strike one: He was a tax collector.

Tax collectors made out pretty well in Jesus’ day. They contracted with the Roman state to collect taxes from their fellow Jews. As long as the tax collectors paid the Romans a certain amount, they could charge whatever commission they wanted.

Strike two: He was a chief tax collector.

A chief tax collector oversaw other tax collectors. Zacchaeus had a prime position.

There was really little regulation here. This is sort of like pre-2008 subprime mortgage lending. Only it’s worse, because Zacchaeus as chief tax collector has a lot of other tax collectors doing the dirty work for him. And not only are they getting rich from people’s hard-earned cash, they’re even giving some of it to an imperial power–Rome. And who knows what non-kosher godlessness that money is going to!

Strike three: Zacchaeus was rich.

He was a tax collector, he was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. There’s nothing wrong with being rich, of course, but generally in Luke’s Gospel, the rich people Jesus meets have a hard time loving God on account of all their money.

Zacchaeus got rich off of other people’s money. Think: Ebenezer Scrooge.

As with the tax collector last week, the listeners expect this chief tax collector to be the antagonist.

So it’s no surprise in verse 3 when Zacchaeus can’t see Jesus. Sure, he’s short–probably not even 5 feet tall–but even if he were 6 feet tall, I’ll bet the crowd wouldn’t have made way for a guy like him.

Luke 19:3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not, because of the crowd.

Source: Adrienne Lavidor-Berman (Boston Globe)
Source: Adrienne Lavidor-Berman (Boston Globe)

These people are waiting to see Jesus! This is even more exciting than watching Big Papi and the Red Sox get on a duck boat! No way they’re going to make room for Zacchaeus.

The crowd blocks his line of sight. But Luke says he wanted to see Jesus. He seems to have these three strikes against him, but maybe this is a bit of character development here? Another translation says, “He wanted to see Jesus, who he was.”

He wants to figure out who Jesus is. He’s interested. He’s what church growth gurus in the 1980s and 90s referred to as “a seeker.”

The Motif of Urgency

Luke 19:4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.

Zacchaeus runs ahead. He seems to be eager to see Jesus.

It wasn’t until I’d read this passage at least a dozen times and went for a long walk that I picked up on this motif of urgency.

The story picks up the pace at this point. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. He’s about to die. And rise again. He’s aware of what’s coming; his disciples are not, really.

But this is Jesus’ last face-to-face encounter till he gets to Jerusalem. So Luke as a writer is going to pack in as much as he can.

We’ve got lots of Luke’s themes here:

  • Wealth can keep you from God, or you can use it to worship him and serve others
  • Belief in God always leads to action and compassion for others
  • Jesus came to save the lost
  • God is a seeker, who goes after the ones he loves

In Luke this is a sort of final crescendo to close out this movement, before Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and then the events of Holy Week. All those themes are here, and Luke the storyteller notes that they are all important–urgently important.

  • verse 4: Zacchaeus runs ahead
  • verse 5: Jesus tells him to come down immediately…
  • verse 5 again: Jesus must stay at his house today
  • verse 6: Zacchaeus comes down at once
  • verse 8: Zacchaeus re-directs his giving and quits his cheating ways, and he metes out this retributive justice “here and now,” he says
  • “Today,” Jesus says in verse 9, “salvation has come to this house”

So keep that motif in mind as we work through the rest of the passage. Zacchaeus runs up the tree, and Jesus sees him.

Jesus Invites Himself Over

Luke 19:5b  “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.”

This culture valued hospitality, but there are still ways to do hospitality and ways not to do it. What you don’t do is invite yourself over to someone’s house. That’s still true today.

Che GuevaraBut Jesus has to–Jesus must–stay at his house. Forget the conventions of hospitality. Forget the conventions of not eating with unclean sinners. Forget that Zacchaeus was a traitor and that there were some in the crowd who just wanted Jesus to be Che Guevera and overthrow Rome.

How does Jesus know Zacchaeus’s name? Luke doesn’t tell us. Jesus other knew him through divine omniscience or through Zacchaeus’s reputation. But he’s got to get to Zacchaeus’s house.

Why? We’ll come to that in a bit.

Already we’re struck by Jesus’ offer of fellowship. His offer to fellowship with him is a standing offer, but as with Zacchaeus, it’s also an offer he wants us to take him up on right now. This very day. This very minute. Jesus wants to come to us, to enter the homes of our hearts and minds, and have communion with us.

God calls the ones he has made good. And when we go bad–as Zacchaeus did–he does not turn away from us, but continues to pursue us, and invite himself into our homes, our work, our daily routines, our lives.

Zacchaeus models a response to Jesus. He comes down with the same urgency Jesus had in calling him.

Luke 19:6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.

He receives Jesus into his home as an esteemed guest. No delay. There’s not putting it off till another time. Zacchaeus comes down have fellowship with Jesus right now.

The people in the crowd don’t like this, of course.

Luke 19:7 All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a ‘sinner.’”

They grumble against Jesus. But haven’t they figured out by now that this is the sort of thing Jesus does? Have we learned that yet?

Zacchaeus’s Immediate Response

And then, more urgency:

Luke 19:8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”

Right now–on the spot, Zacchaeus pays it all back. Retributive justice, it’s called. He makes amends in a way that is appropriate to the crime. Redistribution of ill-gotten wealth was the only way for him to do this.

Saint Augustine once wrote of grace that it “is bestowed on us, not because we have done good works, but that we may be able to do them.”

This is another side of the coin when we consider last week’s tax collector and his uttered prayer. “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” This prayer of faith made him right with God, Jesus said. Here, there is action, which always accompanies belief. Salvation has come, Jesus says, and that is evident because of what Zacchaeus is doing with his money.

He literally puts his money where his mouth is. His profession of faith is only truly complete as he acts on it. And he acts on it “here and now.”

He held his money loosely. He embodied that offertory prayer: “All things come from thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee.”

Zacchaeus is going to lose a ton of money here–and think of all the logistics in making sure everyone gets repaid properly.

But no matter–he is eager to express his love toward God through his vocation and his giving.

Luke 19:9-10   Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”

Remember how Jesus said, “I must stay at your house today”? Or, as another translation puts it, “It is necessary” for Jesus to stay?

This is because Jesus’ fellowship with Zacchaeus was “mission-critical.” It was the core of Jesus’ mission to “seek and to save what was lost.” He’s doing that here. He has done that here. He sought Zacchaeus, and saved him– “Today salvation has come to this house.”

Zacchaeus did his part, of course–he climbed a tree, pledged to give back money he had extorted from people.

But Jesus is the ultimate initiator, I think. He could have passed by that tree… pretended not to see Zacchaeus.

The Prodigal Son Returns, Rembrandt
The Prodigal Son Returns,
Rembrandt

“The Son of Man [Jesus] came to seek and to save what was lost.”

The 1 sheep, lost and wandering away from the other 99. The 1 coin, lost on a dusty floor. The 1 son, lost in his youthful rebellion and waywardness. A despised chief tax collector. Prostitutes. People with diseases. Gentiles. You. Me. Jesus comes to seek and to get all of these.

Our Mission with Jesus

Jesus’ mission is “to seek and to save what was lost.”

This has now become the mission of the church, as the visible expression of Jesus’ body on earth.

Faith and action go hand in hand, as they did with Zacchaeus. For him, following Jesus necessarily entailed that he do all he could to bring about justice. The kingdom ethics of Jesus transformed the way he thought about his business relationships. It revolutionized the way he worked.

Zacchaeus responded to Jesus immediately. There was a sense of urgency in his desire to make things right before God.

And he responded to Jesus with joy.

May we be inspired by this unlikely hero. Zacchaeus allowed his whole life to be transformed by his encounter with Jesus, in the very moment of Christ’s coming to him. Salvation has come to our house today. Let’s receive him with joy.

The above is adapted from the sermon I preached this Sunday on Luke 19:1-10, covering the story of Zacchaeus’s encounter with Jesus. All Scripture quotations come from the NIV (1984). See my other sermons, if you desire, here.

The Book of Isaiah: One Author or Three?

Eerdmans Companion

Isaiah 1:1 reads, “The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah” (NRSV).

Scholars remain divided as to whether or not this “vision of Isaiah” verse is meant to apply to all 66 chapters, or whether Isaiah might be the author of just the first 39 chapters, with other authors (in the tradition of Isaiah) having penned chapters 40-55 and 56-66.

I’ve long had my eye on The Eerdmans Companion to the Bible and have begun using it recently. Its introductory section to Isaiah had what I thought was a refreshingly balanced approach to the issue of authorship in Isaiah:

Taken as an introduction to the book as a whole, Isa. 1:1 identifies the contents of the subsequent 66 chapters as the “vision” of 8th–century Isaiah. But modern scholars have challenged the traditional view that considers him the source of all the material contained in the book that bears his name. Though chapters 40–66 echo certain themes contained in chapters 1–39, they also contain specific, predictive prophecies that some scholars doubt Isaiah foretold. For example, they consider it unlikely that an 8th–century prophet not only predicted the 6th–century Persian king Cyrus’s conquest of the Babylonian Empire but also named him specifically (see 44:28 and 45:1). Old Testament prophets normally directed their messages to contemporaries. For Isaiah to have directly addressed the Babylonian exiles (and perhaps returnees to Judah) pictured in chapters 40–66, his prophetic ministry would have to have extended well beyond the reign of Hezekiah (the last king mentioned in 1:1), and he would have to have lived for more than two centuries.

On the other hand, in this book God holds out his power to predict the future as proof of his divine supremacy (chs. 41, 44, 46, and 48). It is not unreasonable, therefore, to think that Isaiah mediated predictive messages as words from God and at times addressed audiences of future generations.

More details on this Bible guide are here at the Eerdmans page. I’m finding that it’s a concise yet substantive way to get myself oriented to a given book of the Bible.