Readings for April 20th

Thanks to too much caffeine (and the resulting insomnia), I'm a little ahead, so here are next weeks readings:

Themes include: snatching/ taking away/ saving, the word “word” or “λογος”/ “λογικος”

Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16

¹ For the Director of Music: A Davidic Psalm.[1]

In you, Adonai, I seek refuge:

don’t let me be forever ashamed,[2]

rescue me in your pursuit of fairness.

² Point your ear in my direction, snatch me up quickly, be my fortress on a cliff:

a safe house to save me.

³ Because you are my cliff

and my safe place

and you will lead me for your reputation

and guide me to rest.

⁴ You will lead me out from the trap,

hidden for me in secret because you are my safe place.

⁵ My spirit to your hand I will entrust,

you will pay my ransom,

Adonai: Faithful God

¹⁵ My times of trial are at hand,

from my enemies’ and persecutors’ hands snatch me away.

¹⁶ make your face shine on your servant, because of your loyalty save me.

Acts 7:55-60

⁵⁵ Then he was filled with the Holy Spirit and he looked into Heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God,[3] ⁵⁶ and he said, "Look! I see Heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." ⁵⁷ Then, crying loudly, they plugged their ears and rushed, united, upon him.[4] ⁵⁸ They threw him out of the city and began to stone him and the witnesses to his death left their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul.[5] ⁵⁹ Then, as they began to stone him, Steven called out, "Lord Jesus, take my spirit."[6] ⁶⁰ He fell to his knees and cried out loudly, "Do not hold this evil act[7] against them," and when he said this, he fell asleep.[8]

John 14:1-14

¹ Your heart must not be troubled: believe in God and believe in me also. ² There are many dwellings in my father's household,[9] if there were not, I would have told you,[10] since I am going there to prepare a place for you.

³ If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and I will take you with me so that you can be where I am. ⁴ However, you do know the path to where I am going.

⁵ Thomas asked him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, how can we have known the path?" ⁶ Jesus answered him, "I am the Path and the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the father, except through me.[11] ⁷ If you have known me, you will also know my Father, and now you know him and have seen him.” ⁸ Phillip said, "Lord, show us the Father and we will be satisfied."[12] ⁹ Jesus replied, "You were with me for such a long time, but, don't you know me, Phillip?[13] Whoever sees me, has seen the Father. How can you say, 'show us the father.'" ¹⁰ "Don't you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?[14] This is what I am saying to you: I don't speak for myself, but the Father remains in me to do his deeds."

¹¹ You must believe me, that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, and if not, you must believe because of these deeds. 12 This is true: the person who believes in me will do the same deeds I do, and he will do greater deeds than these because I am going to the Father. ¹³ And whatever a person might ask for in my name, I will give it to him so that the Father might be glorified in The Son. ¹⁴ If you ask for something in my name, I will do it. [15]

I Peter 2:2-10

² Like newborn babies, you must crave the spiritually[16] innocent milk, so that you will be nourished by it into salvation, ³ if you tasted that the Lord is good. ⁴ to whom you come, living stones, by people: Rejected, but by God: Chosen. Honored.[17] ⁵ Then these, as living stones,[18] are constructed into a spiritual house, into a holy priesthood, offering holy sacrifices, accepted by God because of Jesus Christ. ⁶ That is why this stands in scripture: "Look! I am placing a cornerstone in Zion: Chosen. Honored; and the one who believes on him will not be made ashamed for it." ⁷ Therefore, the honor belongs to you: the believers, but for those who are not believers, "The same stone that the builders rejected has become the keystone. ⁸ and "a stone over which people trip and a stumbling-block." They are stumblers because they are disobedient to the word; which is why they were placed there. ⁹ But you are a chosen race, a king-priesthood, a holy nation, a people destined to be His, so that you may shout the excellent qualities of the one who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light; ¹⁰ you who once were not a people, but are now a[19] people of God, who were once shown no mercy, but have now been pitied.

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[1] Hebrew has this introduction and keeps it as its own verse, so the rest of the verses are one off in English.

[2] Or “Don’t ever let me be ashamed.”

[3] The place of honor.

[4] This is a parallel with the attempted synagogue execution of Jesus (Luke 4:16-29). Note the imagery: the ears of those listening on Pentecost were pierced, but a speech that should do the same thing here has a different result because these people refuse to let their ears hear (fulfilling the Isaiah motif of never hearing).

[5] I suspect that this is what Paul refers to a the thorn in his side: the memory of being a persecutor and party to murder.

[6] This is an intended parallel to Jesus on the cross; also in verse 60.

[7] Or “sin.”

[8] died

[9] You may like the KJV’s “mansions,” but, at the time that they used that term, it meant a place to live, not a palatial dwelling.

[10] This is to counter any rumors that that heaven has a limited number of spots (not 4400).

[11] As many have pointed out, Jesus says that no one comes to the father except by him, but he makes no limitation on the way in which people may find him.

[12] I believe that this is a request to be like Moses, to get to go to the tent of meeting or Sinai.

[13] Knowing Jesus is better that walking in a cloud ala Moses.

[14] What does this mean? If you take what he says to them about a believer doing the same types of things that he did, it seems that Jesus is saying that he speaks and does just as God would. In other words doing as God/ Jesus would makes God/Jesus metaphysically present in you. Perhaps we need to read this beside Jesus’ declaration that no one comes to the father except through him.

[15] In context, I suspect that Jesus is saying that if calls on his authority to do good, Jesus will grant them the authority to do good.

[16] More literally “rationally innocent . . .”

[17] These terms are loaded with Jewish back-stories. The readers are obviously Gentile converts who feel like second-class Christians because they have no nation, and are not the chosen people and therefore have less worth or honor even than unbelieving Israel.

[18] What might this mean, living stones? Could it be a reference to Jesus’ words in Matt 3:8-9? Is there another reference that might fit?

[19] Note that he is not negating the Jewish claim to the title “People of God” but making it a nonexclusive claim.