James's Weblog

Before you say,... I know – these observations have been made before and are not new. But…

Here are two true statements:

• God speaks through the Bible
• God speaks through the Holy Spirit

I assume we wish to join the Eastern and Western churches throughout their history in affirming that the Spirit is one of the three persons, that the Spirit is divine, is God. If not, the implications are serious indeed – but it also makes the rest of this post redundant. Proceeding, then, on that assumption…

Thanks to Chris Green and Dick Lucas in their BST commentary on 2 Peter for the following paragraph. 2 Peter 2 really is frighteningly contemporary in the scenario it describes.

I’m often saddened when, in these days, weddings seems to matter more then marriage. (How encouraging, by contrast, to be helping one couple, who have recently become followers of Christ, to organise a wedding in the shortest possible time. They are keen to be married and are prepared to sacrifice lots of elements of “the ideal wedding”).

Having flow charted 2 Peter, the main points stand out quite clearly from the subordinate ones.

Again – just in case this is helpful for anyone, here are two summaries of 2 Peter.

Summary

I’m doing some study of 2 Peter, and have prepared for myself a flow diagram of the English text. For those not familiar with flow diagrams, the idea is that the text is laid out to show the grammatical structure. Main clauses are placed against the left hand margin, and all dependent clauses are indented. Where it makes sense to do so, those dependent clauses are indented so as to place them directly beneath the word they depend on.

Many thanks to Peter Davies, vicar at Audley for his permission to reproduce this morning’s sermon here. Very helpful, I thought, for how clearly he put things. Echoes of Rich Lusk at one point – which certainly is not a criticism!

I have to say that this familiar passage is such a shock to the system.

I could be misconstrued as Binitarian in my recent entry on the Independent “Good List”.

Just to clarify:

The BBC reports today on the Independent’s recent compilation of a British “Good List”. Not just those people who did something good, or changed things for better, but those who expressly sought to do so.

The list is interesting. Most of Britain’s religions have someone on their because of their affiliation with that religion. We have a Muslim leader, a rabbi and a Sikh leader. That affiliation qualifies their inclusion.

Re-reading Mark 14 is interesting. In Gethsemane, the disciples were urged to stay awake, watch and pray so that they might not fall into temptation. Jesus himself stayed awake and prayed – presumably including prayer to remain faithful under the forthcoming trial.

A sobering statement on human nature. The disciples could see Jesus, the Son of God incarnate, praying to his father that he might not yield to temptation. Yet they thought (implicitly or explicitly, it doesn’t matter) that they could endure without the Father’s help. Astounding – and sobering.

That also gives a point of contact between chapters 13 and 14. The concluding exhortation in chapter 13 is “stay awake”, the same thing Jesus has to tell the disciples in chapter 14. Could this be one key to working out Mark’s intent in these chapters?

Just noticed an inclusio here. Jesus appoints apostles (3:13-19) before being rejected by his immeediate family (3:20-35).

Later, Jesus is rejected at Nazareth, his home town (6:1-6), and then sends the apostles out (6:7-13).

Could it be (kite-flying time!) that the intervening section concerns why even those closest to Jesus can reject him?

Answer 1: Because the same word attracts different responses. God is not obliged to open people's eyes (chapter 4).
Answer 2: Because evil is so powerful - but Jesus is more so (5:1-20)
Answer 3: Because Jesus needs to raise the dead (5:21-43)