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Monday, March 13, 2017

Week 4

It's all in how you take the text:
If videos don't play on this page, click the very left part of the title.


Devotions: Video  below of me  speaking to nurses as they graduate; related to this article's theme (click 
here
 if you don't play video embedded below):


 v
 video backstory

---We did the three Philemon worksheets in class
\Remember these were supposed to be syllabus homework for this week and next.
Now you can "cheat" and get PHILEMON HELP, ]click here.
Here's just one resource from that page, we watched this in class:









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We showed this mystery sign, to see if anyone could figure out what it is from Google Reverse Image search,  Then we discussed it .

See this
(balustrade) with a sign (soreq)  that was about 5 ft. [1.5 m.] high.  On this fence were mounted inscriptions in Latin and Greek forbidding Gentiles from entering the temple area proper.
One complete inscription was found in Jerusalem and is now on display on the second floor of the “Archaeological Museum” in Istanbul.
The Greek text has been translated:  “Foreigners must not enter inside the balustrade or into the forecourt around the sanctuary.  Whoever is caught will have himself to blame for his ensuing death.”  Compare the accusation against Paul found in Acts 21:28 and Paul’s comments in Ephesians 2:14—“the dividing wall.”
Translation from Elwell, Walter A., and Yarbrough, Robert W., eds.  Readings from the First–Century World: Primary Sources for New Testament Study.  Encountering Biblical Studies, general editor and New Testament editor Walter A. Elwell.  Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1998, p. 83. Click Here

 





What did Jesus think when he saw this stone?
An inscription was discovered on a Greek tablet, attached to the Soreg, forbidding Gentiles to pass beyond that point. [Israel Department of Antiquities and Museums]
When king Herod had rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem between 19 and 9 B.C. he enclosed the outer court with colonnades. The large separated area was referred to as the Court of the Gentiles because the "gentiles" (non-Jews from any race or religion) were permitted to enter this great open courtyard of the Temple area. They could walk within in it but they were forbidden to go any further than the outer court. They were excluded from entering into any of the inner courts, and warning signs in Greek and Latin were placed giving strict warning that the penalty for such trespass was death. The Romans permitted the Jewish authorities to carry out the death penalty for this offence, even if the offender were a Roman citizen. The engraved block of limestone was discovered in Jerusalem in 1871. It's dimensions are about 22 inches high by 33 inches long. Each letter was nearly 1 1/2 inches high and originally painted with red ink against the white limestone. Part of another sign was unearthed in 1936. It's current location is in the Archaeological Museum of Istanbul, Turkey. Jerusalem was part of the Ottoman Empire in Turkey when the stone was found.
Josephus the Jewish historian of the first century A.D. wrote about the warning signs in Greek and Latin that were placed on the barrier wall that separated the court of the gentiles from the other courts in the Temple. Not until 1871 did archaeologists actually discover one written in Greek. Its seven line inscription reads as follows:
NO FOREIGNER
IS TO GO BEYOND THE BALUSTRADE
AND THE PLAZA OF THE TEMPLE ZONE
WHOEVER IS CAUGHT DOING SO
WILL HAVE HIMSELF TO BLAME
FOR HIS DEATH
WHICH WILL FOLLOW

The Temple Warning Inscription is important in the study of Biblical Archaeology and confirms events outlined in Scripture. When Jesus saw this inscription he knew that his own life would be the cost for the gentiles to go past this barrier.
Ephesians 2:13-14 "But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down themiddle wall of partition between us"
Matthew 23:13 "But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in."
Isaiah 56:7 "These I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.

Mark 11:17-18 "And he taught, saying unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves. And the scribes and chief priests heard it, and sought how they might destroy him: for they feared him, because all the people was astonished at his doctrine."
link


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Songs as text: 



TEXT reading practice.. Song interp ..with 3 groups..one listens/one reads/one does both: 

 "Sleep Like A Baby Tonight" 
Morning, your toast, your tea and sugar
Read about the politician’s lover
Go through the day like knife through butter
Why don’t you
You dress in the colors of forgiveness
Your eyes as red as Christmas
Purple robes are folded on the kitchen chair
 
You’re gonna sleep like a baby tonight
In your dreams, everything is alright
Tomorrow dawns like someone else’s suicide
You’re gonna sleep like a baby tonight
 
Dreams
It’s a dirty business, dreaming
Where there is silence and not screaming
Where there’s no daylight, there’s no healing
 
You’re gonna sleep like a baby tonight
In your dreams, everything is alright
Tomorrow dawns like a suicide
But you’re gonna sleep like a baby tonight
 
Hope is where the door is
When the church is where the war is
Where no one can feel no one else’s pain
 
You’re gonna sleep like a baby tonight
In your dreams, everything is alright
Tomorrow dawns like a suicide
But you’re gonna sleep like a baby tonight
Sleep like a baby tonight
Like a bird, your dreams take a flight
Like St. Francis covered in light
You’re gonna sleep like a baby tonight


 ----


 


Version 2

"Sleep Like A Baby Tonight" (Alternate Perspective Mix)
Wake
In the morning when you wake up
You won’t have much
But you’ll have enough
When you are weakest
I’ll be strong enough for you

Dreams
Yeah, the ones where you are fearless
Can’t break what’s broken
You are tearless
Steal back your innocence
That’s what they stole from you

You’re gonna sleep like a baby tonight
Not everything can be so black and white
There are demons in the broad daylight
But you can sleep like a baby tonight

Stop
Where you stand right now
Just stop
Don’t think or look down at the drop
The people staring from the street
Don’t know what you’ve got

You’re gonna sleep like a baby tonight
No, not everything can be so black and white
There are demons in the broad daylight
But you can sleep like a baby tonight

Hope is where the door is
When home is where the war is
Where nobody can feel no one else’s pain

You’re gonna sleep like a baby tonight
Not everything can be so black and so white
There are demons in the broad daylight
You’ve got to sleep like a baby tonight
Sleep like a baby tonight
Where you stand
Where you fall is where I kneel
To take your heart back to where you can feel
Like a child, a child
KINGDOM



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We watched this, which you'll need to know for Forum 5.  See accompanying picture of musical groups mentioned in it,



KINGDOM:We didn't do this in class, but you'll need it for Moodle this week

>>How does the Kingdom "come" from the "future"?:

Many Jews of Jesus' day (and actually, the Greeks) thought of the Kingdom of God as largely a  future identity/reality/location.
So when Jesus, in Matthew 4:17 announces that he, as King, is ALREADY bringing in the Kingdom,
this not only subverted expectations, but sounded crazy....and like he was claiming to bring the future into the present.

The Jews talked often about "this age" (earth/now) and "the age to come." (heaven/future).
"Age to come" was used in a way that it was virtually synonymous with "The Kingdom."

Scripture suggests that:

The "age to come"  (the Kingdom) 
has in large part already come (from the future/heaven)

into "this age"

 (in the present/on the earth


by means of the earthy ministry of Jesus: King of the Kingdom.


Thus, Hebrews 6:4-8 offers that disciples ("tamidim") of Jesus have

"already (in this age) tasted the powers of the age to come."

In Jesus, in large part, the age to come has come.
The Future has visited the present,









"The presence of the Kingdom of God was seen as God’s dynamic reign invading the present age without (completely) transforming it into the age to come ” (George Eldon Ladd, p.149, The Presence of the Future.)




Here are some articles that may help:
KINGDOM/CORE MESSAGE  (we didn't cover all of this in class, so you'll need to watch this for Moodle.




Kraybill,  "Upside Down Kingdom,":,
"The Kingdom of God is a collectivity--anetwork of persons....more than a series of
individualized email connections linkingthe King to each subject...[It] infuses theweb of relationships, binding King and citizens togeter" -Kraybill (p, 19 emphases mine)



See also:

Kraybill further illustrates the point of community over self by discussing the distinction between an aggregate and a collectivity.[5] He illustrates an aggregate as a group of people who occupy a time and space together but lack any true community (i.e. people at a crosswalk). The key is that they do not influence each other. A collectivity, as Kraybill defines it, has an element of interdependence. These individuals “influence each other, formulate common goals, and together decide how to reach them.”[6] The Kingdom of God functions as a collectivity. The individual lays down his life for the good of the collective. For the church to bear witness to this Kingdom, the body of Christ must exercise this practice.  link
Here are the timelines of those who shared tonight.  More next week.  WOW!
What do you remember about these timelines


Here is a timeline from a previous cohort,,Do you remember the shocking story about the 4 "Demise" Xs?


More on timelines, and how they relate to Bib 314 at this click.
We did these for another reason to be revealed next week

---TEMPLE TANTRUM

We showed these David Letterman videos, and I made some notes on the


board, which you can see here..  These are things you might have thought about the experience, and Letterman, if this happened to you.  I didn't make it clear in class, but I love that this is likely what the temple tantrum of Jesus evoked in people:
TEMPLE TANTRUM: it kind of had this effect:



How about this video (we didn't show in class) "You're not supposed to be having fun in church; you're supposed to be praying and reading your Bibles!!":



1)It was not primarily about commercialism/selling stuff in church, but far more fundamentally about racism/prejuiduce.

2)It suggested that Jesus is the New Temple.



-More one each below:



1) Racism as core issue, not commercialism:


a)Article By Dave Wainscott
“Temple Tantrums For All Nations"
Salt Fresno Magazine, Jan 2011:
You'll be reading this on Moodle.




 (




Some revolutionaries from all nations overlooking the Temple Mount, on our 2004 trip


I have actually heard people say they fear holding a bake sale anywhere on church property…they think a divine lightning bolt might drop.



Some go as far as to question the propriety of youth group fundraisers (even in the lobby), or flinch at setting up a table anywhere in a church building (especially the “sanctuary”) where a visiting speaker or singer sells books or CDs.  “I don’t want to get zapped!”



All trace their well-meaning concerns to the “obvious” Scripture:

"Remember when Jesus cast out the moneychangers and dovesellers?"

It is astounding how rare it is to hear someone comment on the classic "temple tantrum" Scripture without turning it into a mere moralism:



"Better not sell stuff in church!”

Any serious study of the passage concludes that the most obvious reason Jesus was angry was not commercialism, but:




racism.



I heard that head-scratching.



The tables the Lord was intent on overturning were those of prejudice.

I heard that “Huh?”



A brief study of the passage…in context…will reorient us:


Again, most contemporary Americans assume that Jesus’ anger was due to his being upset about the buying and selling.  But note that Jesus didn't say "Quit buying and selling!” His outburst was, "My house shall be a house of prayer for all nations" (Mark 11:17, emphasis mine).   He was not merely saying what he felt, but directly quoting Isaiah (56:6-8), whose context is clearly not about commercialism, but adamantly about letting foreigners and outcasts have a place in the “house of prayer for all nations”; for all nations, not just the Jewish nation.   Christ was likely upset not that  moneychangers were doing business, but that they were making it their business to do so disruptfully and disrespectfully in the "outer court;”  in  the “Court of the Gentiles” (“Gentiles” means “all other nations but Jews”).   This was


the only place where "foreigners" could have a “pew” to attend the international prayer meeting that was temple worship.   Merchants were making the temple  "a den of thieves" not  (just) by overcharging for doves and money, but by (more insidiously) robbing precious people of  “all nations”  a place to pray, and the God-given right  to "access access" to God.


Money-changing and doveselling were not inherently the problem.  In fact they were required;  t proper currency and “worship materials” were part of the procedure and protocol.  It’s true that the merchants may  have been overcharging and noisy, but it is where and how they are doing so that incites Jesus to righteous anger.


The problem is never tables.  It’s what must be tabled:


marginalization of people of a different tribe or tongue who are only wanting to worship with the rest of us.


In the biblical era, it went without saying that when someone quoted a Scripture, they were assuming and importing the context.  So we often miss that Jesus is quoting a Scripture in his temple encounter, let alone which Scripture and  context.  Everyone back then immediately got the reference: “Oh, I get it, he’s preaching Isaiah, he must really love foreigners!”:
 Foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord…all who hold fast to my covenant-these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.(Isaiah 56:6-8, emphases mine)
Gary Molander, faithful Fresnan and cofounder of Floodgate Productions, has articulated it succinctly:

“The classic interpretation suggests that people were buying and selling stuff in God’s house, and that’s not okay.  So for churches that have a coffee bar, Jesus might toss the latte machine out the window.
I wonder if something else is going on here, and I wonder if the Old Testament passage Jesus quotes informs our understanding?…Here’s the point:
Those who are considered marginalized and not worthy of love, but who love God and are pursuing Him, are not out.  They’re in..

Those who are considered nationally unclean, but who love God and are pursuing Him, are not out.  They’re in.

God’s heart is for Christ’s Church to become a light to the world, not an exclusive club.  And when well-meaning people block that invitation, God gets really, really ticked.”
(Gary Molander, http://www.garymo.com/2010/03/who-cant-attend-your-church/)

Still reeling?  Hang on, one more test:


How often have you heard the Scripture  about “speak to the mountain and it will be gone” invoked , with the “obvious” meaning being “the mountain of your circumstances” or “the mountain of obstacles”?  Sounds good, and that will preach.   But again,  a quick glance at the context of that saying  of Jesus reveals nary a mention of metaphorical obstacles.   In fact, we find it (Mark 11:21-22) directly after the “temple tantrum.”  And consider where Jesus and the disciples are: still near the temple,  and still stunned by the  “object lesson” Jesus had just given there  about prejudice.  And know that everyone back then knew what most today don’t:  that one way to talk about the temple was to call it “the mountain” (Isaiah 2:1, for example: “the mountain of the Lord’s temple”) .


Which is why most scholars would agree with Joel Green and John Carroll:
“Indeed, read in its immediate context, Jesus’ subsequent instruction to the disciples, ‘Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain..’ can refer only to the mountain on which the temple is built!... For him, the time of the temple is no more.”  (“The Death of Jesus in Early Christianity,” p. 32, emphasis mine).
In Jesus’ time, the temple system of worship had become far too embedded with prejudice.  So Jesus suggests that his followers actually pray such a system, such a mountain, be gone.


Soon it literally was.


In our day, the temple is us: the church.


And the church-temple  is called to pray a moving, mountain-moving, prayer:


“What keeps us from being a house of prayer for all nations?”


Or as Gary Molander summarizes:


“Who can’t attend your church?” -Dave Wainscott, Salt Fresno Magazine
-- 


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  2) Jesus as New Temple:

This section you'll need for Moodle:

Three thought experiments.
  • -Think if I offered you a drivers license, claiming  i had authority to issue it
  • -Think if someone destroyed all bank records and evidence of any debt you have owe
  • -Think  what would happen if you pointed at something, hoping your dog would look at it.
Now watch this short  and important video for explanations:



N.T. Wright, "The Challenge of Jesus":



His attitude to the Temple was not "this institution needs reforming," nor "the wrong people are running this place," nor yet "piety can function elsewhere too." His deepest belief regarding the temple was eschatological: the time had come for God to judge the entire institution. It had come to symbolize the injustice that characterized the society on the inside and on the outside, the rejection of the vocation to be the light of the world, the city set on a hill that would draw to itself all the peoples of the world. (64)


…Jesus acted and spoke as if he was in some sense called to do and be what the Temple was and did. His offer of forgiveness, with no prior condition of Temple-worship or sacrifice, was the equivalent of someone in our world offering as a private individual to issue someone else a passport or a driver’s license. He was undercutting the official system and claiming by implication to be establishing a new one in its place. (65)  NT WRIGHT

See for more



See:

and maybe order the SKUBALA HAPPENS shirt: Skubala?

Remember how Paul..the same Paul who wrote Philemon..used the "S" word in Philippians 3?  In the original Greek he used the word "skubala," which your class Bible translates "rubbish,"  but the word is much close to the English S-word.  More on that word use
 here



NET Bible has a footnote:
The word here translated “dung” was often used in Greek as a vulgar term for fecal matter. As such it would most likely have had a certain shock value for the readers. This may well be Paul’s meaning here, especially since the context is about what the flesh produces.

Oh, here's a link to buy the T shirt (or bib or hat..or)

Click to read:

 
Yes, it's a real Christian T shirt, click here
More links:

Skubala?” The Apostle Paul Uses the Word “Shit” in the Bible




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