Shouting in the Wilderness, Part 2

Recently I posted about John the Baptist as a voice of one shouting in the wilderness.  I stopped at a place in the story where John calls his audience to produce the corresponding fruits of repentance.  John has deleivered a hard message about the coming wrath of God, and his message hit home with many people.  Today I want to look at the responses by some in the crowd. 

Certainly some in the crowd were mistakenly trusting in their status as the children of Abraham to spare them from the coming wrtath.  John addresses this. In verse 8, he tells that they cannot merely trust in their position as the children of Abraham.  That will not save them from the coming wrath.  Their history should tell them that God did not spare their ancestors just because they were descendants of Abraham, but allowed them to be carried off into captivity in Babylon. He further tells them  that God is able to raise up children from stones if He wants too.  John uses the word δύναται (dynatai) meaning God has the power or the ability to do this.  In creation, God brought life into the inanimate Earth, and could do so again if He chose to. 

John continues by stating that the ax is at the root of the tree.  They should repent now.  There is an urgency to John’s message. It is the fruitless, unrepentant tree that gets thrown into the fire. John’s message landed, and they began to ask John what they should do. The word for ‘do’ from their question ‘What should we do?’ is the word that I translated earlier as ‘produce.’    What is the fruit of repentance then?  They are asking John then "what fruit should we produce?"  

One could sum up John’s response to the groups coming forward by saying that, the fruit of repentance involves helping those in need, not cheating people and being content with our pay. The crowd as a whole asked what to do, and John responded that if they have two tunics, they should share with the one does not have a tunic.  To most the corresponding fruits of repentance meant helping those who were in need. 

But there were also two groups are mentioned specifically as coming forward to ask what they should do. Darrell Bock points out that these two groups were typically among the most hated groups in Israel - the tax collectors and the soldiers. (Bock, 310)

Tax collecting in Israel worked like this: Wealthy Romans would pay for the right to collect the taxes, paying the taxes then charging a surcharge for their own expenses and income.  They would farm the actual collecting of the taxes out to Jews.  These particular Jews were hated among all of the Jews, for their connection to the Roman empire.  Add to that, these tax collectors would place additional taxes for their own income on top.  (Bock, 310-311) Abusing this system for personal gain would be pretty easy.  How does John respond to the tax collector? What is the corresponding fruit of their repentance? Verse 13, they were told to collect no more than was required.  You can be right with God and be a tax collector, but that meant that you had to stop cheating people. Bock says, "John is not a political revolutionary, for he does not attack the right to collect taxes.  What John argues is that taxes should be collected without extortion, surcharges, kickbacks, payoffs or bribes.  The tax collectors are to do their job and not take advantage of their authority." (Bock, 312.) 

The other group that Luke specifically mentions is the soldiers.  Bock says that these were likely Jewish rather than Roman soldiers, probably coming from one of three groups: Antipas’s army, the Judean ‘police’ or soldiers hired to help and protect the tax collectors. (Bock, 313) Of these options, the last makes the most sense.  The corresponding fruit of their repentance was threefold: First, don’t shake people down.  John uses the word διασείσητε, (diaseisaytay) which means to ‘shake violently.”  Bock says that in our modern vernacular, it would mean to ‘shake people down.’  Second, don’t defraud people.  Συκοφαντήσητε (Sycophantaysaytay) - Bock says that the meaning of this is debated, but that likely it means to falsely accuse for monetary gain.  (I do notice however, that the word appears very similar to our English word 'sycophant.) Finally, the soldiers are told, to be content with their pay.  Perhaps, if you are content with your pay, you won’t need to do either of these other two.  

So John has quickly laid out for three different groups what the corresponding fruits of repentance are.  I notice that these corresponding fruits are largely our attitudes about money and about our treatment of others, particularly those in need.  

There is more to John's message and we will delve into it more next time. 

Tom 

      Darrell Bock, Luke Volume 1 - 1:1 - 9:50, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baker Academic, 1994. 

Shouting in the Wilderness

Heloo everyone.

Today, we start our exegesis of Luke 3. We are still getting everything set up for the ministry of Jesus, and chapter 3 mostly deals with the ministry of John the Baptist. Luke, as historian, frames this story by telling who was in charge during the time period.  In fact, he lists seven different leaders.  Tiberius was emperor and Pilate was governor in Judea.  He lists three tetrarchs: Herod, Philip and Lysanias and two high priests: Annas and Caiaphas. 

As for John, Luke 1:80 says that John lived in the wilderness until the time came for him to appear publicly.  Now in Luke 3, the time for that appearance has come. I assume that John has spent all of that time in the wilderness, being prepared for this ministry.  He was, after all, filled with the Holy Spirit even before he was born. (Luke 1:15)  

The word of God came to John while in the wilderness, and from the wilderness he came to the Jordan preaching baptism and repentance. Regarding John, Luke makes reference to Isaiah 40:3-5. Here is my own translation of Luke 3:4-6:  

Just as it is written in the book, the words of the prophet Isaiah: 

     A voice shouting in the wilderness,

       “Prepare the way for the Lord,

           Make straight paths for him.’

    5 Every valley will be filled 

         And all of the mountains and hills will be made low.

       What is crooked will be made straight 

          And what is rough will be made smooth. 

     6 And all people will see the salvation of the Lord. 

 So, John is the voice of one shouting in the wilderness, he was actively preparing the way for the Lord.  Isaiah says, ‘prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.” John's ministry fulfilling this passage. With the coming of the Lord, God is levelling the playing field and now, all can stand on equal footing before the Lord.  He lowers the mountains and raises up the valleys, so that we can see the salvation of the Lord. So Jesus's ministry on the horizon, John has a very important role.  God has been promising salvation since the beginning.  People were wating for it. Now it was coming near.  John's message as recorded in Luke 3 is lengthy, and also rich and full of meaning.  We will have to look at it in parts.  In today's post I will look at the beginning of this message that is preparing the way for the Lord and making straight paths for Him. 

First of all, John has a bold message.  He starts by calling his audience ‘Γεννήματα ἐχιδνῶν’ (gennaymata ekidnown) which means ‘children of snakes.’ John is clearly not worried about charming these people.  His message is straightforward, if not offensive. And still multitudes were coming to be baptized by him. (Messages like this explain why John was regarded basically as an Old Testament prophet.)  Snakes can be poisonous.  The Old Testament sometimes refers to the enemies of God as vipers. (Isa. 59.5, Jer 46:22) Darrell Bock says that John is basically blasting his audience, who believe themselves to be the chosen people of God, calling them children of the devil (Bock, 303) Then he asks, “Who warned you to run from the wrath that is coming soon?” Bock suggests that the comparison to the snakes is still in play.  The analogy being that when there is brush fire in the desert, the snakes come up out of their holes in the ground to flee from it.  (Bock, 304) 

What is John really asking here?  Is this a questioning their sincerity?  Is it seeking to know their level of understanding of his message of repentance?  Is he just continuing the insult?  Knowing that judgment is coming one day, are these people here as some sort of cosmic life insurance policy, or are they truly ready for repentance and a relationship with God? 

Jihn then says in the Greek Ποιήσατε οὖν καρποὺς ἀξίους τῆς μετανοίας. (Poiaysatay oun karpous axious tays metanoias) I have translated this as ‘Therefore produce the corresponding fruits of repentance.  I'm going to break it all down for you. 

Οὖν (oun) means ‘therefore.  John has just warned them that wrath is coming, now he will tell them what to do to escape this wrath. 

Ποιήσατε (Poiaysatay)-2nd person plural active aorist imperative of ποιἑω (poiayo) - it is often translated as ‘do’, ‘make’ of ‘produce.’ In this context, 'produce' seems to be the best choice. 

Καρποὺς (karpous) - Fruits, plural. Bock points out that the plural here means that this is not to be a one-time action, but a constant behavior. 

 Ἀξίους (axious) - is an adjective describing the fruits produced.  In the Greek-English Lexicon of New Testament Words the entry for  ἀξίους lists possible definitions of this word as corresponding, comparable and worthy. Corresponding seems to fit context best, knowing that these fruits are produced by our repentance.  

Μετανοίας (metanoias) - repentance. 

So what does this all mean? It means that when we truly repent our lives will produce the corresponding fruits. So this is John’s call to repentance. For what purpose?  Tohelp his audience avoid the coming wrath of God. John's message comes off as hard, for sure, but as we will see, his message did strike a cord with many people.  

Tom 

     Darrell Bock, Luke Volume 1 - 1:1 - 9:50, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baker Academic, 1994. 

Boy in the Temple

 Hello everyone.

We will finish off Luke 2, in verses 41-52, by looking at the story of the twelve-year-old Jesus and his stay at the temple.  It is interesting that Luke follows a story set in the temple, with another story set in the temple, only twelve years later. We get very little in the Gospels about the childhood of Jesus. Luke does tell us this one story, occuring when he is twelve years old.  The next time we see Jesus, he is thirty. 

Like we did in the temple, we see the great righteousness of Jesus’ parents.  Faithfully, every year, they would travel to Jerusalem for the Passover.  (The Old Testament had required the men to travel to Jerusalem three times a year for feasts: Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. Darrell Bock states that it was considered acceptable for those who traveled a great distance would come for Passover, it being the major feast of the three. (Bock, 263.)) 

Bock also states that families traveled in large caravans for protection.  The 90 mile journey would take three or four days. Between traveling both directions and the Passover festival, if a family stayed for the entire festival, this journey would take at least two weeks. (Bock, 264.) It is not clear how long into the festival Joseph and Mary arrived at the Passover, but it does indicate that they stayed until the end of it.  When they left, Jesus remained behind in the temple.  They had traveled for the entire day before realizing that Jesus was not with them.  They had assumed that he was in the traveling caravan somewhere.  

Understanding that they already gone an entire day before realizing that Jesus was not with them, they had to travel another day back to Jerusalem to find him, but this time, one would assume, it was just the two of them, traveling without the protection of the caravan.  I wonder, was twelve-year-old Jesus alone in Jerusalem for three days or five days?  When did that three day search begin? Does it start on that first day when they realized he was missing, or did it start when they returned to Jerusalem and began searching for him? It is not clear.  What is clear, however, is that when they finally find Jesus, he is in the temple with the teachers, listening and asking questions, and those around were amazed by his quick understanding. 

So young Jesus is shown here as having a thirst for understanding and discussing spiritual matters. His discussions with the teachers of the law here are quite a contrast to the heavy disputes that he will have one day with the same group. 

When Mary and Joseph finally find Jesus, Mary scolds him a little bit, saying that they had been anxiously searching for him.  I have translated the word ὀδυνώμενοι (odynomenoi)as ‘in great distress,’ but the word actually means ‘to suffer pain.’  Mary expresses to Jesus great suffering on his account.  When Jesus responds to his mother, he asks, 'Why were you searching for me?’ He speaks to her as though it should have been obvious where he was.  The temple should have been the first place that they looked.  

He further responds with the word δεῖ (dei). The Greek word means 'it is necessary.' What he is doing is necessary.  What is necessary is not quite clear.  A literal translation from the Greek would be “in the …of the Father.’ It is as if a word was left out.  It is often translated as house or business. Bock makes a pretty good case for ‘in my Father’s house.’ (Bock, 269-270.) We see young Jesus having deep convictions about doing His Father's work.  

I am curious about young Jesus. Did he, at this point, understand who he was? Perhaps, perhaps not.  It does appear that he understood that he was more than a mere student of Judaism.  It is unclear how much of his mission Jesus understood at this point.  Something that is clear is that Joseph and Mary do not understand what Jesus’ mission is.  (I personally give them a pass on this, because how could they have understood his mission? Later on, the apostles did not understand it even when he told it to them.) 

After the affair in the temple, Luke records that Jesus returned to Nazareth with his parents and submitted to them.  Did the boy Jesus understand who he was?  Was God willingly submitting to these two human beings?  Well, at some point, he came to a full understanding of who he was, and apparently still submitted to his parents.  Now, somewhere along the way Joseph died, but we know from the story in John’s gospel of the wedding at Cana, that Jesus, even at thirty, was still willing to submit to his mother. God in the flesh was humble, submissive and respectful toward his parents. 

     Darrell Bock, Luke Volume 1: 1:1-9:50, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baker Academics, 1994. 

A Visit to the Temple Part 2

 Hello everyone,

In my last post, I talked about how Joseph and Mary took the baby Jesus to the temple to meet the requirements of the law.  Whiel they were there, they encoutered two righteous people, Simeon and Anna.  We talked about what Simoen had to say.  Today we will look at what Anna had to say. 

Anna is clearly a woman who has devoted herself to God.  She was a constant presence at the temple, and spent her time in prayer and fasting.  God has now sent two witnesses to Joseph and Mary, one righteous man and one righteous woman. Anna is presented here as the daughter of Phanuel and from the tribe of Asher.  

In the Greek, Anna's exact age is unclear.  Was she 84? Or had she been a widow for 84 years?  Luke states that she had lived with her husband for seven years, then he died and she had lived as a widow since.  The text could be saying that she had lived as a widow for 84, which would make around 105, at least. What is clear is that she had been widowed for a long time, from 60 to 84 years.  In his commentary, Darrell Bock opts for the most direct interpretation, making her around 105. (Bock, 252.) Now, it is rare that someone lives that long.  Rarer still that someone would live that long and still have the vibrancy to be up and about in the temple every day.  But it is possible. 

It is possible that God was allowing Anna to live to see the Messiah, just as he had for Simeon.  Luke doesn’t specifically say that, but, again,it is possible. Now, both can go and die in peace, having seen for themselves, the redemption of Israel. 

Like Simeon, upon seeing Jesus, Anna praised God.  However, as Simeon spoke to the parents about what this child would be, Anna spoke to the people, talking about Jesus to others like her who had been waiting for the redemption of Israel.  

After leaving the temple, Luke tells of them returning to Nazareth. so, the young Jesus, grows up in Nazareth, where, according to Luke, he grew in wisdom and size and had the grace of God upon him. We learn very little about his childhood from Luke, but here, like John the Baptist, Luke indicates that the hand of God upon him from an early age. 

Tom 

     Darrell Bock. Luke: Volume 1 - 1:1-9:50, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baker Academic, 1994. 

A Visit to the Temple

I will continue my look at Luke 2 today, by talking about the visit to the temple, where Joseph, Mary and the baby Jesus encounter Simeon, a righteous man of God that had been waiting to see God's salvation. 

According to Darrell Bock, this visit to the temple is forty days after Jesus' birth.  (Bock, 234) He explains that according to Leviticus a mother was unclean for seven days and then was confined for an additional thirty-three days for a time of purification.  (Leviticus 12:2-6).  After the time of purification was complete, then the mother would go to the priest to present an offering. The offering was to be a lamb for the burnt offering and a dove or pigeon for the sin offering. But the law allowed for the poor to offer two birds, rather than a lamb and a bird.  Luke 2:24 indicates that Joseph and Mary made the poor offering of two birds. 

Jesus was their first-born, (but also the first-born of creation. (Col 1:15)) Now, according to Exodus 13:2, 12, every first-born male, whether human or animal, was to be consecrated to the Lord, and Jesus fulfills this idea of firstborn in more than one way.  This presentation at the temple, after the time of purification was completed, shows that Joseph and Mary were pious, law-abiding Jews. 

Joseph and Mary are met in the temple by Simeon.  Simeon is described by Luke as devout and righteous, and Luke also says that he had been promised that he would not die until he saw the Messiah.  So he has been led by the Spirit to the temple on the day that Jesus is brought there to be presented to the Lord. Simeon takes Jesus into his arms and praises God. Simeon now, in seeing Jesus, is seeing God’s salvation.  These two things can’t be separated.  But now Simeon can die in peace knowing that God has kept his promise.Simeon seems to recognize that this salvation is for Israel, but not just for Israel.  In his song of praise he says this salvation is in the ‘sight of all nations,’ and is "a light for revelation to the Gentiles." (Luke 2:31-32)

Simeon uses the word ἡτοίμασας (aytoimasas) in regard to this salvation.  He is speaking to God in praise.  It is 2nd person singular aorist active indicative meaning "You have prepared."  Simeon is saying that God has made salvation through Jesus. In his praise of God we see light (to the Gentiles) and glory (to Israel) come together.  (Compare with Isa. 60:1-3)  Jesus is bringing light and the glory of God into the world.  In Jesus, this iinfant that Simeon is holding, God is acting on behalf of his people. 

Then Simeon speaks specifically to Mary. He tells her things about Jesus. First, that Jesus would cause many to rise and others to fall in  Israel.  Which he does.  For example, simple fishermen rise to become powerful religious leaders.  Simeon also tells Mary that Jesus would someday lead to her own heartbreak somewhere along the way.  A sword would pierce her own soul. (Not soemthing that you would really want to hear, never-the-less, it was true.)  Finally, Simeon tells Mary that Jesus would reveal the thoughts of many hearts.  This is also true.  Jesus and his word reveal people’s hearts. Jesus revealed hearts then and His Word reveals hearts now.  Next post will look at the rest of the visit to the temple. 

Tom