- A reminder: Just when you think you’re on the trail, you find yourself “on the trail”.
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Our pastor pointed out something I’d never noticed. Given the absence of punctuation when ancient writings such as Isaiah were first recorded, modern scholars and translators have had to discern what punctuation to use in our modern translations. Okay - I think I knew that - but she pointed out an interesting instance of this to ponder, not that it affects any sort of central theology or anything, but it can still provoke good reflection: Consider the following unpunctuated sentence.
A voice cries out in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord make straight in the desert a highway for our God
Where would you choose to start the quotation? And here’s the interesting example: The NRSV (Updated Edition), has Isaiah (40) writing: A voice cries out, “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway…”
But in that very same translation, the opening of the gospel of Mark reads: … the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the lord; make his paths straight,’ …
So it’s cool to see how Mark applies it (at least according to one modern translation) … that the voice doing the crying is out in the wilderness - as John actually was. And yet the prophet Isaiah is quoted as saying that God’s path being prepared is in the wilderness …
Like I said - not any earth-shaking difference - and yet it is cool to ponder the insight that might be gleaned from seeing both understandings.
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Good sermon this morning, and the point that struck home to me was that we need to worship thoughout the week, and with the proper attitude, turning down that piece of pie or getting up to exercise when the body wants to stay in bed can be an act of worship, something we deny ourselves and put on the alter before God.
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This was a painful sermon that I’ve heard before in various forms: we should try to figure out what God is teaching us through our suffering. I am not wise enough to put all the pieces together in a way that is theologically acceptable.
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- Being unchurched, I get my topics for consideration and reflection from relationships, events, or on-line wandering. Came across David Bentley Hart’s August 29, 2023, “Tallk” in Austria on Suffering based on his book: “Doors of the Sea: Where was God in the Tsunami?”
- I only listened to the 1st 1/3 of the video, then decided to get his book, and am now s-l-o-w-l-y reading through it before going back to the video.
- The book opens with the report on the Tsunami of December 2004.
- I’m still trying to recover from a recent watching of Sound of Freedom [2023].
- Anything that I personally might once have thought of as my “very own suffering” evaporated in comparison to real victims.,
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My suffering is as a parent of a suffering child and being around all the other suffering children and their suffering parents that we spent so much time with, while we lived in the hospital.
I am unable to comply with the demand of the sermon. I’ll see what, if anything, I learned and my family members have learned, in hindsight. I don’t think I can do any better than that.
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Amen. Hope in world that needs it.
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Wow! Your sanctuary is identical, in every detail I can remember, to a Mennonite Church in Meade, Ks where my mom grew up and attended. Not that that architecture wouldn’t be typical, I guess. Even to the light fixtures, though!
(Well… Ok, their front windows were a different shape, and they didn’t have the screen, obviously. So I guess it’s identical in every way, except where it’s not!)
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The last two churches before my present one had the same light fixtures as well.
, And the same sort of mid-century modern Gothic style beams.
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Pretty neat! We used to have '70s style orange and brown carpet with rather dizzying patterns–I got used to it. Then, they had a boring, green carpet installed–it looks good, but it less distracting during the sermon!
Ok - so your sentence structure there registers the lack of carpet distraction as a negative! (specifically in the context of sermon time.) So here’s hoping your pastor isn’t logging into these here parts to read your commentary on his sermons, right? 
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Well–I was mainly illustrating how busy that carpet really was! I do that with most sermons., accidentally–but my kids and I are challenging each other to do a better job with notes!
I wonder what he’d say about my objection to a global flood being based on the text.
= - = + = - = † = - = + = - =
I’ve sung it in German, with the original rhythm – makes it feel like a drinking song!
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I’ve only sung multiple verses in English, but one of the two hymnals that our church uses has both the original rhythm and the Bach arrangement in it, and we generally sing the original-rhythm version on the Sunday closest to the end of October.
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This Sunday something came up…
I have often said Jesus spoke of scripture but did not tell us what He meant by this.
Luke 24:44 can be quoted to say I was dead wrong!
Then he said to them, “These are my words which I spoke to you, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.”
Now the pastor claimed that “psalms” refers to more than just the book of Psalms but included Proverbs and even histories like the books of Samuel, Kings and Judges, so that these three together basically equal the OT. Can anyone explain why he would claim this?
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Never heard that said, and would tend to push back, as a lot of the OT is Wisdom literature, like Ecclesiastes, Job, obviously Proverbs and does not fit psalms.
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Yes I think the correct words for the division of the OT into 3 parts is Torah (law), Nevi’im (prophets), and Ketuvim (writings). Equating the word Ψαλμοῖς (Psalmois) in Luke 24:44 with Ketuvim is not something I can see any justification for.
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Just looking at a commentary by Don Stewart in my Blue Letter Bible app, this was interesting as far as divisions, with the misc. books put in the third catagory by Josephus, who was given the scrolls from the Temple by Titus:
Josephus:
We have but twenty-two [books] containing the history of all time, books that are justly believed in; and of these, five are the books of Moses, which comprise the law and earliest traditions from the creation of mankind down to his death. From the death of Moses to the reign of Artaxerxes, King of Persia, the successor of Xerxes, the prophets who succeeded Moses wrote the history of the events that occurred in their own time, in thirteen books. The remaining four documents comprise hymns to God and practical precepts to men. (Contra Apion 1:7-8)
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I’ve encountered the claim that “Psalms” in second-Temple Judaism was a shorthand for the Writings when all three were mentioned, though I’ve never bothered to look into it.
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