bald man blogging

(One Year Bible Blog post & readings)

No comments today; just checking in to say I’m with everyone.

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Feb 24: (One Year Bible Blog post & readings)

Feb 25: (One Year Bible Blog post & readings)

Feb 26: (One Year Bible Blog post & readings)

Yet another busy weekend. Friday night was Samantha’s birthday party, rescheduled from earlier in the month. 10 four and five year olds making personal pizzas and decorating cupcakes. I’m glad birthday’s only come once a year, but it was a blast!

Saturday was soccer in the morning, a free preview lunch at a new area restaurant, and an evening with friends. All good; just busy.

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(One Year Bible Blog post & readings)

This strikes me as significant, though I’m not yet sure why. (I don’t have the energy to think about it tonight.) Our Gospel reading begins with the feeding of the 5,000. This appears to have occurred on the same day that the twelve had returned from their first apostolic mission. (Refer to yesterday’s Gospel reading.) On that trip, Jesus instructed the twelve not to bring any food; and now Jesus is telling the twelve to feed the gathered crowd. Like I said: this seems significant, but I don’t have the brain power to figure out how right now.

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(One Year Bible Blog post & readings)

Well, today’s readings convince me: I don’t want to be a Levitical priest. With three little ones, I’ve seen enough of rashes to satisfy me.

Our gospel reading contains this line:

Jesus said to them, “Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor.”

The words, “without honor,” have the same Greek root, “time” as the passage from 1 Cor. 9 discussed a few days back when we were talking about paying ministers.

Along this same thread of conversation, we next read about Jesus sending out (Grk. “apostello”) the twelve to preach the gospel of repentance.

These were his instructions: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra tunic. Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town.”

No bread and no money, eh? Clearly these apostles - these “sent ones” - were to be supported by those to whom they were being sent.

++ Hear my prayer, O LORD, listen to my cry for help; be not deaf to my weeping. ++

[UPDATE]

OK, I can’t believe I missed this the first time thru. Chip at cb.blog, however, was astute enough to pick up on it:

Today’s notable verses:

When a man has lost his hair and is bald, he is clean.

Leviticus 13:40 (NIV)

Woohoo! Now that’s a motto I can live with: Bald is clean.

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(One Year Bible Blog post & readings)

The end of our Torah reading reminded me of a post by Rachel, the Velveteen Rabbi. I commend her blog to you, particularly if you are a Christian. There is a great tradition of wrestling with God and with God’s word with which we would be wise to engage. From her post, Tricky Torah: Taharah & Tumah:

I want to argue that everything in Torah is valuable, but this is a difficult portion. Because the easiest reading of this text says that childbirth is somehow polluting, and that bearing a daughter is twice as polluting as bearing a son, and that’s just offensive to me. So what do I do with it? (link)

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(One Year Bible Blog post & readings)

OK - I made myself wait until I finished today’s readings before I got back to the topic on paying ministers raised yesterday. Ramona and I have agreed to disagree for now, while CB and I are still chewing on things together.

A couple thoughts on our Torah portion. First, this:

Fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed the burnt offering and the fat portions on the altar. And when all the people saw it, they shouted for joy and fell facedown.

must have been way cool!

Second, this:

Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu took their censers, put fire in them and added incense; and they offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, contrary to his command. So fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD.

sounds harsh, but here’s my thought: This response is less a product of God’s nature - an expression of God’s wrath or holiness - and more a product of the people’s insistence on a mediator - an expression of the barriers that they wanted between them and God.

Finally, and unrelated to the readings, I just noticed by first traffic from the “One Year Bible” Technorati tag. Seems to have been sorted out in the end.

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(One Year Bible Blog post & readings)

Enjoying a few (almost) quiet moments. Reading, praying, keeping warm, contemplating a nap.

I think I’ll jump into Mike’s question about professional clergy in the comments over there.

Be God’s

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(One Year Bible Blog post & readings)

Words to meditate on from our Gospel reading:

“No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins.”

++ Lord, let us have ears to hear. ++

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(One Year Bible Blog post & readings)

Back in January I asked, “Why didn’t Jesus want some of those whom he had healed to tell others.” (I think we covered a parallel passage in Mark Thursday or Friday. Chip, over at cb.blog proposed a few alternatives, such as timing, here. Well, today’s Gospel reading gives me another idea. consider this portion:

Whenever the evil spirits saw [Jesus], they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” But he gave them strict orders not to tell who he was.

There are several similar occurrences in the Gospel accounts. Jesus gives evil spirits a command (often to shut up); the spirits obey.

And that’s where I think it ties back to my original question. The spirits obey, but the people don’t. This is an issue of freedom. It’s an issue of authority and love. The evil spirits must obey; we have a choice.

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(One Year Bible Blog post & readings)

Three books down; 63 to go.

Our Gospel reading has my antennae up. We read:

A man with leprosy came to him…

and there is a footnote indicating, “the Greek word was used for various diseases affecting the skin—not necessarily leprosy.” So, my question is this: If “leprosy” is not, as the translators admit, the best English word/phrase available to translate the Greek original, why use it? I think this is an homage to past translations, but don’t we deserve something more accurate now that scholarship permits? Shouldn’t we remain more faithful to the original text than to previous translations?

For the conspiracy theorist in us all, I have a follow up question: How may other instances such as this one exist in our various translations that haven’t been footnoted?

++ My tongue will speak of your righteousness and of your praises all day long. ++

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