My mother led bible study groups from the time she was at university in the UCCF. One of her favourite themes was to highlight the role of women in the Bible.

Ben Witherington has recently posted an article about Mary Magdalene or Miryam entitled ‘Mary, Mary, Extraordinary’. Here’s the final paragraph of a great article:

“Miryam of Migdal is the only woman disciple, for whom we have something like a complete story.   Her story is a story of courage, and change, and redemption, and witness.   When Jesus arises and commands you to do something— you do it. Whether you are believed or not.   And this is still true today.   What is it that the risen Jesus is saying to you this morning?   Could it be, don’t cling to the Jesus of the past,  don’t cling to the church of the past.   It is not about getting back to the good old days.  It is about going forward into a bright future, which is where Jesus is leading us.  As Adoniram Judson said,  the future is as bright as the promises of God— and what the resurrection of Jesus promises is that neither death nor life nor powers nor principalities nor things present nor things to come can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.   Christ is risen— and all manner of things are possible for this church and for your Christian life.”

As Ben Witherington pointed out, the fact that the gospels recorded the women as the first witnesses to the resurrection is a remarkable testament to their authenticity.

It is worth taking a moment or two to think just how we ourselves might have responded in this situation when threatened with death. I think most of us would have found some excuse simply to stay silent, to keep out of the limelight. The fact that he didn’t lambast or denigrate the Taliban stands as an eloquent testimony to his love for Christ and his fellow man.

Numerous experts on Near-Eastern creation accounts in the cultures around Israel (Egyptian, Sumerian, Babylonian and Canaanite) emphasise that ancient cosmology was much more concerned about how function came about rather than how things were put together. The reference in verse 1 to the world being ‘formless’ reflects the chaos and disorder denoted in many accounts. In the other creation accounts, creation comes about because of conflicts between gods of the sea, sky and land. So the emphasis on one God doing the creation by his creative WORD is quite unique. The whole theme is that God has brought form and function to what was formless and without function. God brought meaning and order to life and then triumphed in rest or repose.

John Walton and others have drawn attention to the fact that existing traditions for the inauguration of temples show a similar structure in defining functions, the functionaries and then the enthronement of God as the climax. We can see echoes of this in Isaiah 66:1 where creation is seen as God’s cosmic temple. We can also see it in Revelation 21:1-3 where God makes a new heaven and a new earth – and sets up his temple ‘among the people’. In Revelation 22:1-2 we see a parallel to the garden of Eden where in the new heaven the mountain of Jerusalem will be the source for the river of the water of life, flowing from God’s throne. On each side of the river will be the tree of life, bringing healing to the nations.

So day one, God creates light/dark – divisions that punctuate TIME. This brings order out of chaos and the cycle of day/night begins. On day two, God creates the weather by separating the waters above from the waters below. The terms used for expanse/firmament were the same as those used in other creation accounts, and would have brought to mind a sort of ‘dome’ holding back the waters above from the sky. This is not important, but what is significant is that God has brought order out of chaos and ‘set the scene’ for what was to come. On day three, God creates the land and waters/seas – followed by the vegetation that grew on it. Day four (links to day one) – sun, moon and stars ‘govern the day/night’. They are the ‘functionaries’ in the created order – not gods in their own right. They are important only as part of God’s created order. On day five (links to day two) God creates birds and fish to fill the sky and seas. On day six (which links to the third day) God creates the animals. God then says ‘let US make man in our image‘. So this places man within the created order but distinct from the animal kingdom. Mankind alone carries the image of God (and not just those of a Jewish persuasion).

The triumphant climax of the story is God reviewing his creation ‘and it was very good…and on the seventh day he rested from all of his work. And God blessed the sabbath day and made it holy’. Once God has created light and order and purpose out of chaos and darkness, God is ‘enthroned’ in the ‘cosmic temple’ of his creation (Is 66:1). From chaos and disorder to purpose, order and peace. The sabbath is a constant reminder of where we are in the created order. We are only significant because God has given us purpose. We have been given responsibility for looking after creation and for continuing God’s creative work. In Gen 2:19 we see God appointing man with the task of naming the animals. For the ancients, naming was a very significant and solemn honour – the name meant something about where that person had come from or what they were going to be/do. So the naming of the animals had to do with giving them a place and a purpose in God’s creation.

Amy Carmichael once said that sunrise and sunset were the ‘punctuation marks of time’. Let us join with the Psalmist (Psalm 104) in giving thanks to God for ‘his faithful love endures forever’. In the order of creation and the cycles of nature we can see God’s hand at work and respond with worship.

The next major section of the book of Genesis is the ‘ancestral history’ of the ancestors of the nation of Israel. This begins with the story of Abraham,  Jacob and Jacob’s family. The lives and genealogies of these Jewish patriarchs is fleshed out with detail and we see some moral ambiguities in their behaviour. This section deals with questions like ‘where did the nation of Israel come from?’ and ‘what promises did God make?’, ‘what does it mean in real life to follow God?’.

The literary format of the book follows the ‘toledot’ pattern typical of ancient genealogies. The typical formula repeated throughout the book states ‘these are the descendents of…’ This formula occurs 5 times in the ‘primeval history’ and five times in the ‘ancestral history’. In ancient times these family histories were often recorded on tablets of stone, and oral tradition would have fleshed out some of the detail.

Traditionally, Moses was the author of Genesis and the rest of the Pentateuch.  Moses would have been contemporary with the other four books of the collection, but Genesis was probably based on the family histories and oral traditions handed down in the ‘family’ of Israel. Since many of the nations of the day had a series of gods ‘belonging’ to the nation, it is remarkable that Genesis states from the beginning that God created all things – the One God of all the earth, not the god of Israel by defeating other gods.

If we were to pick a central theme for the whole book of Genesis it would probably be ‘BLESSINGS AND PROMISES’. God’s grace is shown to all mankind, then to the patriarchs and to all the nation of Israel.

The great thing about the Bible is that you can never get to the bottom of the treasure chest. Some are content with scratching the surface, some like to go deeper.

My church, St. Augustine’s, is doing the challenge along with many other churches and small groups in the UK. The book has gone like hot cakes, and hopefully all of us are going to learn something new as we read through. The passages have been carefully selected to give a great overview of the main themes in the Bible. Half are from the Old Testament, half from the New. Most people will probably start at the beginning and follow through in sequence, but there is no reason why you couldn’t alternate OT/NT readings.

I’m hoping to post a few musings on the readings as we go along.

There are other passages that exhort the Israelites to show hospitality to their neighbours. There are also many texts in the OT that look forward to the extension of God’s grace beyond Israel.

However, when we consider a passage from Ecclesiasticus (the wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach) we can see a much more radical and shocking development:

“If you do a good deed, make sure to whom you are doing it; then you will have credit for your kindness. A good turn done to a godfearing man will be rewarded, if not by him, then by the Most High. No good comes to the persistent wrong-doer or to the man who never gives alms;

refuse him bread; give him nothing at all; he will only use your gifts to get the better of you, and you will suffer a double wrong in return for the favours you will have done him. The Most High himself hates sinners and sends bad men what they deserve. Give to a good man, but never help a sinner; keep your good works for the humble, not the insolent.”

Now please don’t get me wrong. There is a lot of good teaching in the book of Ecclesiaticus (part of ‘the Apocrypha’ included in most Roman Catholic Bibles). But this sort of teaching is not compatible with the teaching of the Bible and I am glad that it was not included in the canon approved by the reformers. It is interesting as an insight into religious teaching of the day, but does not have the authority of scripture.

I would not suggest for a minute that this sort of teaching would be sanctioned by modern Judaism, but it is clear that this sort of thinking was not uncommon in Jesus’ time and his teaching was radically different.

There may not be too many people who would admit to following this creed today, but there are plenty who live as though nobody else exists outside of themselves and their families.

In the film the characters can play with time and live in ‘virtual time’. For the eternal God, time is a tapestry on which the drama of salvation history is played out.  When we read the Bible we can get a glimpse of at least part of that great tapestry. We know from the Bible that God wanted to make himself known to us. A long time ago God spoke to the prophet Jeremiah and said: “But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel on that day,” says the Lord, “I will put my laws in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.” Jeremiah 31:33 (NLT)

Let’s remember that God had already appeared to Moses on Mt. Sinai and given us the ten commandments. These laws commanded us how to love God and treat our neighbours properly. If you like, this is like ‘level one‘ in the dream world. But people didn’t obey God’s law and broke the covenant time and again. So while this initial ‘strategy’ did teach the Jews about the awesome standards of God’s holiness the people did not respond by obeying God’s laws. In the rest of the Old Testament we can see God’s faithfulness to the Jews but the personal aspect of God’s love remains hidden.

Level two in our schema takes us into that new covenant and God’s plan to implant the seed into our hearts. In John 1:14 we read ‘the WORD became flesh and dwelt among us, …full of grace and truth’. The word (Jesus) ‘stayed in a tent with us’. How do you know if someone really loves you? Well, that usually happens when you live with someone through good times and bad. Major Ian Thomas called it the ‘saving life of Jesus’. By living the life of love, Jesus shows that it really can be done. The ultimate act of love of course was his death on the cross – “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 15:13. These acts of love, however, could easily have slipped into the oblivion of history had it not been for the fact that the life of Jesus and the whole purpose of the gospel been recorded by the gospel writers. These writers who drew such vivid images for us were similar to the ‘architect’s assistants’ in the parlance of the film. John’s gospel reached amazing heights in describing God’s love in such lofty ways but it is Luke who again and again skilfully shows Jesus dealing compassionately with the common man, the outcast, the leper. Jesus shattered conventions not because he was rebellious, but because he felt compassion and was full of grace (Charitos) - in a very practical way. This was divine ‘GIFT-LOVE’ in action, not the usual types of ‘need-love’ or human kinds of love.

‘Level three‘ in the grand plan is where Jesus’ followers begin to show that they are showing grace to their neighbours. In Luke 10 we see Jesus reacting with JOY in the Holy Spirit when he hears that the gospel has been proclaimed by the disciples who have also healed the people just like Jesus had. Jesus thanks his Father in prayer that he has revealed himself: the seed has been sown and is already taken fruit! How remarkable it is that Jesus was happy to entrust the whole future of the gospel in the hands of uneducated men who clearly didn’t have anywhere like a clear understanding of who he was. But he knew that now that the seed of love was planted that grace would out. He knew that the disciples to whom he had entrusted the gospel would be prepared to risk everything because they loved God.

In Jesus’ encounter with the Pharisee John 3:5-7 Jesus said ‘You must be born again.’ This is ‘level four’ – the final link in the chain. Rebirth by the Holy Spirit – the act of implanting the seed in a way that changes the heart. Nominal membership of a church or club that loves God is not enough. Good deeds mean nothing if they are not motivated by a heart of love. A change of heart is what it takes to do what Jesus asked: ‘love your enemies and do good and lend expecting nothing in return’ Luke 6:35.

In the film Inception, the hero has to descend to the final level in an act of love, knowing that he may never be able to return. This is a little bit like the act of ‘taking up your cross daily…’. Luke 9:23. Will be be prepared to give up our life not just for our neighbour, but our enemy (like the good Samaritan).  So God has made it possible for his law of love to be written in our hearts, but will we let him? And let’s remember: ‘anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love’ 1 John 4:8.

Papyrus 75a Luke's gospel

Do you know who wrote more of the New Testament than anyone else? No, it wasn’t Paul, it was Luke. And how much do we know about Luke? Almost nothing. We know from Col 4:14 that he was a much loved physician and friend of Paul. There are three other verses that briefly mention him as being with Paul on some of his travels. Luke says nothing about himself, he doesn’t even introduce himself as author in either Luke or Acts.

As a physician, I would love to know more about Luke. I am fascinated to read some of the works of Hippocrates, the famous Greek Physician from Kos. His medical writings were quite widely circulated and studied. Although they don’t meet modern scientific criteria they are full of astute and accurate observations based on the study of many cases being treated for a variety of illnesses. Physicians in those days had to undergo lengthy studies and would have to learn the methods and teachings of Hippocrates and other famous physicians. And yet this young physician gave up a lucrative profession to travel with Paul and write Luke and Acts. So what was it he saw in Jesus and his band of followers? Why did he go to such great lengths to prepare for us such a detailed and well put together picture of Jesus and the birth of the early church?

According to all the early tradition, Luke wrote the gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. Both books were at the maximum length for a scroll, and in the book of Acts he follows on where he has left off in the gospel of Luke. The style in which he wrote Greek was that of someone with a good Greek education, and some of the phrases he used seem to reflect some medical knowledge. He used a scientific type approach to history telling, and the style of his prologue has led scholars to draw parallels with the famous Jewish historian Josephus’ work ‘Against Appion’.

About 120 years ago the Irish Scholar W. Hobart gave over 400 linguistic examples of ‘medical’ terminology in the writings of Luke. Modern scholars would scale this back a good deal (many examples are also found in the LXX or Septuagint with which Luke was clearly familiar), but there are a few details here and there that do suggest a medical interest e.g. ‘blind from birth‘ or ‘crippled for 18 years’.

I think they’re all missing the point. Here is a trained physician with a good education who can turn his hand to theology and who can write as a first rate historian. He wanted to give evidence to persuade people of the truths he came to believe. Surely he would have concentrated on providing critical accounts of the miracles to ‘rationally’ prove who Jesus was? Surely he would have been sidetracked into sharing his medical expertise with his readers?

So why did Luke say so little about himself? Why did Luke not just write a medical textbook? What was it he saw in Jesus, the ‘Great Physician’ that made him give up so much of his life to travel with Paul and then write such detailed accounts?  And why did the early church accept these two books into the New Testament ‘canon’ so quickly, since he wasn’t one of the disciples or one of the friends of the disciples?

Luke’s gospel is rich with themes that flow through the gospel from beginning to end. The theological center of the gospel is Luke 4:18 ‘He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, let the oppressed go free…’ So when Luke has to pick which miracles to report, he doesn’t do so on the basis of how impressive they were:

• Healing of the 10 lepers – they were outcasts, and the only one who was thankful was a Samaritan as well!
• Healing of the soldier’s ear – who would expect compassion when the soldier had come to arrest an innocent man!
• Healing of a man with ‘dropsy’ (a technical term) – significant because on the Sabbath the lawyers/Pharisees had forbidden the act of healing and so he would have been regarded as unable to receive God’s grace on that day.
• Healing of the woman who had been crippled ‘for 18 years’. Someone ‘insignificant’ in the heirarchy of the day.
• Healing of the Centurion’s servant – the servant of a Gentile and officer of the occupation army!
• Raising from the dead – in Nain. The remarkable thing here is that Luke seems more struck at Jesus being moved to weep with compassion for the defenseless widow than being amazed at the miracle itself.

In Luke 10, we read that when he saw the 72 disciples returning from their mission having healed people Jesus was overjoyed (Luke 10:21)  - and he praised God for ‘hiding the truth from those who think themselves wise and clever, and for revealing it to the childlike’. When he told the story of the Good Samaritan he didn’t criticize the first aid effort of the Samaritan or get side tracked. Instead, he faithfully communicated the powerful message that Jesus was teaching. It wasn’t a detailed study of the law that would earn eternal life, or your place in the Jewish hierarchy. The gospel was not just a message for those who were clever and well educated. The one who was seen to be worthy of eternal life was the one who would show compassion to people who they might not want to consider your neighbour. And once again, the outcast (the Samaritan) was not only able to receive God’s grace but be able to administer it to others as well.

So, to conclude – I think Luke was aware of his own limitations as a physician. More than any of the other gospel writers he was sensitive to the compassion of Jesus and how he reached out to those on the fringes of society, those considered outcasts. I recall talking to an Indian neurosurgeon who after many years as a professor in his university retired and started counselling people. He said that he learnt more in those few years just listening to people than he had in his whole successful career before that. He said that God taught him how to show compassion to people in very simple ways. The stories of Mother Teresa’s ministry show that she had the same emphasis. When I read these stories I am profoundly challenged by the love and compassion that shines through. No amount of medical ethics teaching can put true compassion into your heart. So here’s a prayer for the physician afflicted with compassion fatigue. “Heavenly Father and Great Physician, please forgive me for my lack of love. Please forgive me for my pride and heal me. Make me an invisible channel of your love to the most needy people I meet, people nobody else wants to help.”

Over the past year I’ve been a bit grumpy about paying quite high prices for bible study aids which are not always of the highest quality. It seems to me a bit inappropriate that Christian writers and artists seem to be ‘milking it’ a bit compared to non-Christians. A lot of the Bible study aids for small groups have been published in quite costly books (average about £5 per group member) rather than being provided for free online.  Does anyone else think that we’re slowly conforming to the cultural obsession with celebrity? I suppose some Christian writers do need to make a living out as writers, but surely many of these flimsy guides are over produced and over priced?

Max Lucado is undoubtedly a good Christian speaker and communicator, but he has written so many books that in some the quality is a little patchy. We recently used his book/DVD ‘Fearless‘ in our studies and I think this series of lessons illustrated this unevenness. Some of the studies could have been better grounded in bible passages although the final lesson/chapter on not putting God in a box (based on the Transfiguration) was really excellent. I think the series would have been much better if the questions had been better thought through, although perhaps the American slant was part of the problem. Overall, in our groups we found the topic of fear interesting to discuss and perhaps not something you would focus on if you just did a traditional Bible study. I hope to post a summary of what we’ve learnt in a forthcoming blog.

So I’m really delighted that there are some great new UK based FREE resources put online by the Bible Society in a Biblefresh initiative called E100 challenge. The idea is that if we were to commit to reading just 100 carefully chosen Bible passages we would get a great overview of what the Bible has to offer. A bit less daunting than ‘read the Bible through in a year’, especially for the new Christian or someone who doesn’t like reading. As a church St. Augustine’s has signed up to this, and I hope and pray that a whole new section of our church community will discover the treasures of the Bible through taking part in this challenge.

Another interesting site from Scripture union is Wordlive. I haven’t reviewed this in detail, but its use of podcasts and cartoon type videos certainly looks impressive so far. When you sign up to it, they will send daily readings to your email and or ipod  - along with links to podcasts etc. to go into things in more detail. This great resource is completely free!

I have found another good website called Lyfe supported by the ‘Evangelical Alliance’. This is  one of the most impressive Christian sites I’ve seen – and once again free! The design is really modern and I love the idea of splitting up the teaching about Jesus into six ‘zones’:

• withdrawing and praying (Still lyfe)
• living a holy life (Real lyfe)
• empowered and filled with the Spirit (Spirit lyfe)
• memorising, quoting and teaching Scripture (Word lyfe)
• working for justice, peace and wholeness (Just lyfe)
• integrating faith and everyday life (Whole lyfe)

In these zones you’ll find a short Bible passage in a modern translation, a very watchable video and a series of downloadable documents which discuss topics or give short biographies that illustrate the topic. One of the documents in the ‘still lyfe’ zone is ‘The PAPA Prayer’ and I found this quite a refreshing new approach to prayer. However, at the moment the scope of this website is quite limited and I think they will need people to show support and interest before they develop it further. So there’s no excuse at all not to get stuck in!

Bridget instinctively ducked when she heard the gunfire. It was a brief exchange of fire, and one she had heard many times before. She heard the tyres scream as the army land-rover made a swift retreat from the scene. There was an eerie silence and then she heard a low moan. With several years of experience to guide her, she carefully raised her bedside mirror to the window to check what was going on. To her horror, she saw a body in khaki uniform lying just outside her terrace house. He looked no more than 18 or 19 years old, and blood was seeping out of a wound over his left breast pocket. She could see that he was still alive, and his face was creased with pain and ashen with fear. She knew it was a sight she would never forget. As she looked out the window she saw figures darting across the street and into the houses. She knew why people were afraid to stop and help. The Provos had warned everyone on the street not to help a ‘Brit’ under pain of death. She shivered with fear. But then she thought of the young lad outside her door who had only minutes to live. Could she and should she stand aside? She decided that she would go outside and hold his hand and comfort him as he died. She crossed herself, said a silent prayer and opened the door…’

When you hear a story like this, it makes you think just for a second ‘what might I have done if this had happened to me?’ Jesus taught that our reaction to people in times like these is what really defines our holiness.

Jesus once had a debate with a lawyer about the law (Luke 10:25-37). The lawyer questioning Jesus seemed to have grasped the ‘big picture’ of the essence of the law – to love God and to love your neighbour. These two commands were based the famous call to love God in the ‘Shema’ of Deuteronomy 6:5 and also the call to love our neighbours in Leviticus 19:18. In contrast to the Pharisees, this lawyer had rightly gleaned that these laws were at the heart of all of the religious rules and rituals of the Jewish faith. Jesus commends him for this but the lawyer then challenges him again asking him ‘And WHO is my neighbour?’  (10:29). He thought that this was just a matter of precise legal definition, and the Torah was full of complicated arguments about to whom various laws applied to. If Jesus had answered in the usual way that your neighbour is your fellow Jew, the lawyer would probably have thought that he was fulfilling all that was required of the law. I don’ t think any of his listeners expected the answer Jesus was going to give.

Jesus then tells the story of the Good Samaritan. This is a simple story, but one of the most profound in the Bible. The setting for the story was the infamous 17 mile long road that descended over 3000 ft from the heights of Jerusalem to the plains of Jericho, where most of the priests and Levites lived. Other historians such as Josephus refer to brigands and robbers along the road. The listeners would have pictured the priest, riding on a horse along the road, perhaps thinking of the priestly service he has just completed at the temple. As a descendant of Aaron he held a privileged position in society. When he saw the wounded and naked man along the road, he crossed over to the other side and continued on his way. He would have been unable to ascertain if the man was a Jew. He also may not have known if the man was dead – and if he had been then any approach ‘within 4 cubits’ would have defiled him and necessitated a trip back to Jerusalem for a costly and time-consuming ritual cleansing. The Levite who followed along the road was among the group who assisted priests in the Temple, and just below priests in the religious hierarchy of the day. The listeners would have expected the natural third person of the story to be the Jewish layperson, and the story would be commending the spirituality of ordinary Jews. But Jesus had a radical twist to reveal because the hero of his story was none other than a Samaritan. At the time, Jews hated Samaritans regarding them as having forsaken true worship of God. Samaritans worshipped at Mt. Gerazim and did not recognise the Temple at Jerusalem. The Samaritan was not helping his neighbour as the wounded man would be assumed to be Jewish. The Samaritan acted with love and compassion, even though his actions were costly and would have exposed him to considerable risks not only on the road but also on arrival in Jericho, a staunchly Jewish town. If Jericho had pavements, they were probably decorated with the Star of David!  When Jesus challenged the lawyer again ‘who was neighbour to the wounded man?’ the lawyer was forced to concede that this would have been the Samaritan. Jesus had turned the command from ‘love your neighbour’ into ‘love your enemies’.

Just before this story, Jesus had marveled that God had revealed his truth to ‘children’ i.e. the disciples. And this revolutionary truth was not about an understanding of how to fulfill the law, nor an understanding of philosophy or science. Rather this understanding was about the nature of God’s love. This revelation could not come down on a tablet of stone. The proof that someone could love both God and neighbour was seen in the life of Jesus, a life lived among ordinary men.