It has been announced this morning that Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, the 106th Bishop of Rochester, will step down as Bishop of Rochester from 1st September 2009. The precise area of work he is moving into has not yet been announced.
We've been having a most enjoyable, instructive and edifying Lent Course here in Kemsing. John Goulding, a retired Anglican clergyman, has been taking the sessions, leading us through some of the Psalms. The feel of the evenings has been pleasantly relaxed, and as we've wandered together through the Psalter we've noticed all manner of things that has brought those Psalms to life in new ways. Many, many thanks to John for taking this course so well for us all.
I've just read Palmer Robertson's treatment of the book of Jeremiah in his The Christ of the Prophets
John Mackay is very helpful in his commentary on Jeremiah (volume 2)
There is a really helpful paragraph in Carson's wonderful commentary on John expounding John 2:21, where Jesus speaks of his body as a temple. I've grasped the general idea expressed in John 2:21 for some time, but Carson's paragraph is very helpful for its clarity.
Psalm 69 is David praying to God about his enemies that are more numerous than the hairs on his head. He is fearful lest others who love God suffer because David is known to love God and is in disrepute. It is because of his zeal for God that he suffers.
Verse 9, quoted in John 2, comes in that context. David has zeal for God’s house, and because of that zeal he is suffering as he is. So, “consume” does not just mean “absorb”, in the sense that he is consumed with passion for God’s house. Rather, his zeal for God’s house is eating him up; it is leading to his mistreatment.
John 2:16 reads, "Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade."
In the parallel incident in Mark 11:15-19, Jesus says “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” He quotes Isaiah 56:7, but the cross references in my ESV point me to Jeremiah 7:11 for the latter half of that verse, “Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes?”
In Mark 8:33, Jesus rebukes Peter. Peter has just suggested that Jesus is mistaken in his need to go to the cross. Jesus rebukes him with those terrifying words: