Category Archives: Bible study

Bible study, Life Group lessons, poetry

The Message of the Un-Said

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In my study of 2nd Kings 4:8-37 this week, as I finished preparations to teach it in our adult Life Group today, I was struck by how well the story was crafted. The full story came out only when I examined what the author didn’t say–which I learned by examining what he said and filling in gaps, examining factors of time and space, and assessing motives of people based on what little the author told.

I’ve thought about this before as I have critiqued poems at the Absolute Write poetry forums. The poet has presented us with a few lines for some purpose. He/she made choices of what to include in–and exclude from–the poem. Looking at the inclusion is easy, for the few words are there for me to pick apart, to ponder as a series of lines and as a complete work. Exclusion is harder to evaluate. What has the poet chosen to leave out? The choices are as broad as the language itself, as deep as human experiences of body, soul and spirt, though clearly narrowed by the context of what is included. I only do this occasionally, for the exercise can be very time consuming and mentally draining. I actually wrote one poem using this method, consciously thinking inclusion-exclusion as I wrote each line.

Back to 2nd Kings 4, and the story of Elisha and the woman from Shunem. How much the author has said by what he has not said! I must digress briefly to consider the nature of writing in antiquity. Paper, in the form of scrolls made from papyrus strips laboriously cut, wetted, woven, dried, and trimmed, was expensive. Ink, made up of fire ashes, water, and other ingredients, was expensive. The writing process, without the benefit of computers, typewriters, erasers, even cut and paste, was difficult. Dissemination of the completed work, through manual copying and hand delivery, was both expensive and difficult. I think writers must have learned that every word counted; hence repetition, fleshing out of characters, and back story were all kept to a minimum. We actually have a story significantly condensed from what could have been written. Often I wish the Bible were ten times longer than it is, doubling he length of the stories it has and giving five times the number of stories. Ah, but better it is as it is, methinks.

Back to the story, this passage includes five characters: Elisha, his servant Gehazi, the man and wife from Shunem, and their son, born following Elisha’s prophecy. The actions of Elisha, Gehazi, and the Shunammite woman are somewhat well described, though even for them some inclusion-exclusion analysis aids in understanding the passage. The husband, however, must be the strong, silent type, for we hear little from him. We know that he was responsive to his wife’s requests for building a rooftop room for Elisha, and for the donkey and servant to go visit Elisha. Otherwise, we see him only in the matter of his young son becoming sick while they were out in the fields with the reapers: he sends him back to his mother.

Consider, however, what we can learn about the husband from these actions of the wife, or by the actions of others.

  • He did not invite the traveller Elisha to the hospitality of a meal; possibly he was out in the fields when Elisha came to town.
  • He didn’t think about building the room for Elisha, to better aid the man of God in his travels.
  • Elisha didn’t ask what could be done for him, but what could be done for his wife. It appears, by this, that he did not develop much of a relationship with Elisha.
  • After his son died, and his wife went to see Elisha (having hidden the boy’s death and her grief from her husband), he doesn’t seem to have enquired about the boy, hasn’t found his body in the prophet’s room, hasn’t arranged for his burial.

From this, we can draw interesting conclusions about the Shunammite husband. He is somewhat absorbed in his work, not even bothering to develop a relationship with the premier man of God in Israel who regularly sleeps under his roof; he seems to love his wife and is responsive to her requests, but their relationship is best described as strange.

I have more to write on this, but the post is too long now. I will try to get back to this tomorrow, or the next day.

Bible study, Life Group lessons

Body and Soul

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Life continues to conspire against me, against giving me time to write, and to do so many things I would like to do. Alas, how hard it is to embrace Emerson’s words, which I championed on this very blog, “…there is time enough for all that I must do….” But there is, there is; I need only to keep reminding myself of it, and chipping away at the massive monolith that is my to do list.

I want to go back to the quote from one of John Wesley’s letters, which I wrote about two posts ago. Here’s the quote, with particular part I want to focus on today highlighted.

“…I am afraid of nothing more than of growing old too soon, of having my body worn out before my soul is past childhood. Would it not be terrible to have the wheels of life stand still, when we had scarce started for the goal; before the work of the day was half done, to have the night come, wherein no one can work? I shiver at the thought of losing my strength before I have found [it]; to have my senses fail ere I have a stock of rational pleasures, my blood cold ere my heart is warmed with virtue!”

“Of having my body worn out before my soul is past childhood.” Those who have studied the life of John Wesley might almost laugh at this. Who, in church history, other than John Wesley developed his soul when young, yet had many years of strong body and active service ahead of him? Who shunned leisure, and ministered so fervently that he changed a nation? Yet, Wesley wrote these words in his young adulthood, when he was 28 years old, unmarried, fairly new in his university teaching career. His Georgia mission and his Aldersgate Street experience were years away. The Methodist movement was a single, struggling club, subject to more derision than to praise. From Wesley’s perspective when he wrote those words, he had a legitimate concern. We know, however, that he did what he needed to overcome that fear, and developed his soul into maturity and maintained it so for decades, long before his body wore out.

All of us should have a legitimate fear of this happening to us, of not developing our soul–our mind. I have heard it called “Biblical illiteracy”, and it is rampant among church-goers. How many have really dug into the scriptures and learned what they have to say? Too few, I’m afraid. The proliferation of modern entertainments crowd out soul-development time. How easy it is to go from radio on the drive home to network news during supper to a game show to a sitcom to a drama to the Internet to computer games, and find myself exhausted and to bed too late to have the rest I need to optimally function the next day.

I’m fortunate, though, that God seems to have given me an inquisitive mind and abilities to articulate and to work with both grand concepts and minutia. Digging into the scripture, into non-scriptural books related thereto, into books old and new, secular and sacred, is just about the greatest discretionary pleasure I can think of. Well, add to that writing about them. Has this writing bug infected me for the purpose of dovetailing a love for these writings of others with writing of my own? The Bible study I’m currently working on for our adult Life Group has been an incredible blessing and joy. I titled it “The Dynamic Duo: Lessons from the Lives of Elijah and Elisha.” I pulled ten events out of their lives (could have done closer to twenty, but I thought this about the right number for our class), and have been intensively studying the passages, then developing the lessons each week, both teacher’s notes and student handout. I taught lesson 5 last Sunday, and just finished lesson 7 prep last night. I should be able to complete the remaining three lessons in the next week, putting me ahead of schedule and giving my substitute all he needs to teach on May 11 and May 18, two weeks when I believe I’ll be away.

But, as I’ve been preparing this lesson series, thoughts for three or four more Bible study series have come to mind. I have captured those thoughts most briefly (a title on a page, waiting for a skeleton on which to put meat and sinews), and have them ready to work on next. Maybe, just maybe, this is the direction my writing should be going in. In the process of doing what will hopefully enlighten others, my soul is being developed.

My body, now–well, that’s another subject.

Bible study, Engineering, Life Group lessons

A Turbulent Week

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I can’t believe I let the entire week go by without posting! I had such good intentions, planning to write two more posts from the Wesley snippet I found, then going on to something else. I can only plead the strangeness of the week, and the turbulence thereof.

On Monday we had another corporate downsizing. Twenty-two people were laid off in our offices nationwide, I think eleven in our Bentonville home office and the rest scattered among all offices. In addition, pay cuts have been implemented, affecting me and many others. Management took the greatest pay cuts, and people who are wholly in production took none at all. This seems a fair way to do it. No one wants to have a pay cut, but that is better than looking for a job.

I spent much of the week on drainage issues on two or three projects, including some “heavy” calculations for one project. I say “heavy” because I haven’t had to do this for a few years, and we have new software that I have barely used. I found it easy to use for most things, but some complicated features of a storm water detention pond could not be easily handled. I entered data and ran the program, thought I had it right and printed, only to find when perusing the report that it wasn’t right, and I had to do it all over again. I don’t know how many trees I killed with printout I found were erroneous. Our recycling box was considerably fuller by the end of the week. But, I got that done, went on to other projects that I had to review (not do the calcs), and found a bit of closure at the end of the week. I still have one more set of calculations to run on Monday-Tuesday, and will have to begin a fairly major flood study about the same time, but my workload seems manageable.

Then, I wrote two lessons in the Sunday School series I’m currently teaching, “The Dynamic Duo: Lessons from the Lives of Elijah and Elisha”. That puts be one week ahead, and with another started and well along, almost two full weeks ahead. I need to be two ahead–or three if possible–because I will miss two weeks in May, if all goes well. That is really the only writing I’ve done this week, except for a series of e-mails to a project manager in our Dallas office, explaining to her how to run a public bid project. I don’t suppose those qualify for creative writing, though.

I will hopefully be back before the day is out, and make a follow-up post on Wesley’s letter, then will be more active this week.

Bible study, Health, Life Group lessons, Wesley

Growing old too soon

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Continuing with that quote from John Wesley’s letter to Ann Granville, here is a shorter version of it:

“…I am afraid of nothing more than of growing old too soon, of having my body worn out before my soul is past childhood. Would it not be terrible to have the wheels of life stand still, when we had scarce started for the goal; before the work of the day was half done, to have the night come, wherein no one can work? I shiver at the thought of losing my strength before I have found [it]; to have my senses fail ere I have a stock of rational pleasures, my blood cold ere my heart is warmed with virtue!”

Wesley interestingly expresses concern about growing old in body, but not being mature in his mental development, of “having my body worn out before my soul is past childhood.” This is something we all need to be concerned about. The body grows old as a natural process. Development of our soul (i.e. our intellect, our emotions, our spirit) is NOT a natural process. This is something we need to be deliberate about.

Of late I have been very concerned about my intellectual development. The result is that I have chosen reading material that I feel will improve my mind. I suppose one could say that all reading improves the mind, and I would agree with that in part. Obviously some things we could read will improve the mind more than others. I’ve also been concerned with advancing in my spiritual development. It seems that this goes in fits and starts. For a period I will be incredibly focused on the Bible, and study it with great intensity of mind and find myself growing. At other times, secular concerns crowd out Bible study, and stagnation develops. Maybe that is the way it will always be. Maybe intensive spiritual study for too long a period can be draining–exhausing–and I must back away until mind-improving activities of a lesser intensity have a chance to give my mind a rest.

At present, the Elijah and Elisha Bible study I’m doing is a great springboard for Bible study. First with a general reading and selection of items to present to the class, then in intense reading of the selected passages along with a couple of commentaries, and finally to preparing a handout for the class to have each week, I have found this study quite meaningful, and have felt my mind, soul, and spirit growing. We just finished the fourth lesson today. Six remain, with most of the intense study still ahead. I guess by the end of May I’ll be ready for a breather.

But this part of the journey is certainly a joy.

Bible study, Life Group lessons

I have only…

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My absence, either in total or in part, these last two weeks, stems from a combination of things that either must or do take precedence over this blog. The last week has been consumed by getting ready to teach a series in my adult Sunday School class (new style life groups). Titled “The Dynamic Duo: Lessons from the Lives of Elijah and Elisha“, this is a class I developed myself, not ex nihilo, but sans a study guide. So, from the pages of 1 Kings and 2 Kings, I pulled together ten lessons, more or less chronological through the lives of these prophets. I could have had about 14 lessons, but decided ten was a good number, and so skipped the better known events and the very minor events. The work to get ready to teach, after the basic lesson series was outlined, was to 1) intensely study the scripture, including cross references where I could find some; 2) prepare a specific outline for the class; 3) prepare a handout for the class; 4) prepare my own teaching notes; and 5) go through it all well enough that I would barely have to refer to my teaching notes. I finished this for the first week on Saturday morning, and so was able to avoid the last minute rush that often happens with these things.

But to my main point: This week’s lesson was about the widow at Zarephath, and how she responded to Elijah’s requests, first that she give him some water, then that she give him some bread. She responded well to the first, at once leaving what she was doing to get the water. The second, however, gave her trouble, as she could not see how she could deny herself and her son their last meal and feed this foreigner, this prophet of a foreign God. So she focussed on what she had [I…have…only…a little]. She seemed not to think that feeding this foreigner man of God meant, from her limited perspective, the difference of one day in her life span–one day. By focussing on the little she had, she was not able to grasp the blessings of service or the blessings of God.

Fortunately for the widow, she believed Elijah’s explanation, and did what he asked. And “the rest of the story” is well-known, for the little she had, though it remained little (for I doublt the jar and jug ever filled to overflowing), was sufficient to keep three people alive and allow God’s timing for Israel to play out.

As I said in a previous post, there’s a lesson in this for us.

Bible study

Disagreeing with the Scholars, Part 2

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Well, after having upset all the scholars yesterday (see how many made negative posts in response?), here I am with part 2.

Continuing in Bart D. Ehrman’s The New Testament, I want to look at Jesus’ return to Nazareth during his adult ministry. In the Gospel of Mark, this occurs in Chapter 6, after the woman with bleeding is healed and before the sending of the Twelve and the death of John the Baptist. In Matthew, this occurs in Chapter 13, long after the woman is healed of bleeding but before John the Baptist is beheaded. John doesn’t cover this. Luke describes a trip Jesus made to Nazareth in Chapter 4, long before the woman with bleeding is healed and the Twelve are sent out. I’ve thought long and hard about this discrepancy, and come up with a conclusion. But first, let’s see what Ehrman has to say about it.

“For Luke, the message of God’s salvation comes first to the Jews…Luke’s Gospel…is oriented toward showing how this salvation comes largely to be rejected in the city of God by the people of God, the Jews themselves…[and] leads to its dissemination elsewhere…among the non-Jews, the Gentiles. In Luke, Jesus’ ministry begins with a sermon in the synagogue that infuriates his fellow Jews, who then make an attempt on his life…In order to begin Jesus’ ministry in this way, Luke narrates a story that does not occur until nearly halfway through both Mark’s and Matthew’s account of the ministry…. This is the famous narrative narrative of Jesus’ sermon in his hometown of Nazareth, a story that is much longer and more detailed in Luke than in the other Gospels and that, as the opening account, set the stage for Luke’s overall portrayal of Jesus…”

So according to Ehrman, Luke changed the story from what Mark and Matthew said in order to make his point about Jesus’ ministry.

Does anyone besides me see something wrong with this? If Ehrman is correct, and Luke is changing stories to suit his purpose, then his whole gospel is called into question. We can’t believe anything he tells us, because he is not revealing history; he is just making points according to what he wants us to believe. And if we can’t believe him, we surely don’t have to listen to him.

But I see another possibility, one not even mentioned by the scholar, or by any other scholarly work that covers this. The simple explanation is Jesus made two trips to Nazareth. The first is documented in Luke, and the second is documented in Mark and Matthew. The activities that took place, and the general tenor of the accounts are so different it seems somewhat obvious these are two separate visits. If I, as a layman who has no formal training in the scriptures (except what I’ve picked up from sermons and my own intense readings), can figure this out, why can’t they? It’s so obvious.

Why can’t they? They don’t want to. If they did, they might have to believe the gospels and respond to their message, instead of tearing them apart.

Bible study, Church History Novels, Doctor Luke's Assistant, technology woes

Disagreeing with the Scholars

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I just lost a long post, once again technologically challenged. All I was doing was copying text to save it to the clipboard to prevent losing it, and in that process I deleted it all. Madness, madness, all technology is madness. I’ll try again, but don’t know if I have the strength and time.

You know you’re in trouble, as a layman, when the books you are reading have heavy doses of words like docetism, ascetecism, gnosticism, redaction, etc. Recently I have been reading various scholarly books about the formation of the New Testament. I began doing this about three years ago as research for my book Doctor Luke’s Assistant. And, it proof of Frost’s contention that “way leads on to way,” I’ve gone way beyond that to looking at other books of the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers, thinking of sequel upon sequel. But I digress.

As I read these scholarly works, I can’t get away from the feeling that the purpose of these scholars is to denigrate the New Testament and, by extension, Christianity. It seems like the scholarship is done with an end in mind, to prove something harmful to the acceptance of the book. For example, these scholars seem determined to prove that certain books could not have been written by the apostles to whom they were attributed. Why is that important? Because as the canon of the New Testament was being agreed to over a period of a few centuries, one criteria was that the books in the canon had to be written by an apostle or by one who knew Jesus or by one like Paul, to whom God spoke directly in the era of the apostles. So, if the scholars can prove the apostles didn’t write the books attributed to them, they prove the canon was criteria was not adhered to, the canon is thus flawed, the New Testament is flawed, and the foundation of Christianity is brought down a couple of notches. To me, the scholarship seems structured toward that specific conclusion, either purposely or as part of a mob mentality, a conclusion that will not help Christianity. I say this realizing I don’t have the credentials, have not read all the manuscript fragments, have not read many of the attestations of the early church writers. Possibly I’m discerning this in my spirit, or possibly it’s pseudo scholarship on my part. Nevertheless, this is my impression, so I’ll write about it. This will take me several posts to get through and, hopefully, make my point.

Case in point: The book I have at hand is The New Testament by Bart D. Ehrman, a professor at the University of North Carolina. Oops, if he’s a professor, I probably should call him Doctor Ehrman–although nowhere in the book is he called Doctor, so maybe not. Ehrman seems determined to bring down the New Testament. An example is how he treats Jesus’ use of “Son of Man”. Ehrman would ask, when Jesus said, “And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven,” to whom was he referring? Here’s a quote from the book.

“It appears that Jesus expected the kingdom to be brought by one whom he called the Son of Man. Scholars have engaged in long and acrimonious debates about how to understand this designation. Is it a title for a figure that Jews would generally understand…? Is it a general description of “a human-like being”? Is it a self-reference, a circumlocution for the pronoun “I”? Moreover, did Jesus actually use the term? Or did the Christians come up with it and attribute it to Jesus? If Jesus did use it, did he actually refer to himself as the Son of Man?”

I’m sorry the debate of the scholars has been so long and acrimonious. The laymen haven’t had any problem understanding that Jesus was talking about himself.

This is just an example. I have at least two others in mind to discuss. I’ll use Ehrman’s book, and perhaps a library book if I can get to the post before it’s due. I’ll probably make the scholars angry, but since they are not likely to be flocking to this blog, I don’t really care.

Stay tuned.