Thursday, December 22, 2011
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
The Christmas Story: Matthew 2:1-12
As you read Matthew's version of the Christmas story you may notice that there are some things missing. There is no mention of the manger, no shepherds, etc. That's because when we do Christmas Pageants, we are blending the Gospel accounts together.Luke has the Shepherds and the angels, Mattew has the Magi and the star. Luke and John do not tell the story of Jesus' birth at all.
Is there anything wrong with blending the stories as we so often do? Not really, as long as we remember that is what we are doing. When we want to stude the passages we need to unblend them and let each Gospel speak for itself. It's not that Matthew's account is in some way "better" than Luke's or vice-versa, but they are very different for a reason. If we blend them we may miss the points the different evangelists are making.
Matthew starts with foreigners, the magi, and their experience. There are a lot of traditions about the Three Kings and where they came from. The most common names are Melchior, King of Ind (Arabia), Gaspar, King of Tharsis (Africa), and Balthazar, King of Saba (Persia.) But the Bible never names the magi or their homelands. In fact, the bible doesn't call them kings, or even say that there were three of them. All of those details were added many centuries later.
While the story doesn't say how many magi there were, there were three gifts, and each of them has a symbolic importance. Gold is a form of truibute given to a king; theu reminding us that Christ is "king of kings" though his kingship will be very different from what people are used to. Frankincense is a resin used as incense in worship. from ancient times, the smoke from burning incense has been a symbol of prayers rising to God. The gift of frankincense is a reminder that Jesus is our mediator, or he one who makes a new kind of relationship possible with God. Finally, myrrh is an aromatic oil used for anointing or embalming which reminds us of the scacrifice Jesus makes, giving his life for our sake.
What about the star the magi followed? Astronomers have wondered about what it could have been for a long time. We don't have any record outside of the Bible of such an event but that doesn't make it impossible. WE know that it wasn't (as was once thought) a conjunction of planets because there weren't any that were especially bright anywhere close to the right time in history. It could have been a comet, though it would have to be one that we have not yet catalogues. It could also have been (as scientist and science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke once suggested) a distant supernova.
Then again, the magi were Astrologers so it may have been an astrological conjunction rather than a more dramatic explanation.
Despite a lot of effort and speculation, there is nothing concrete that science has been able to tell us about what the star was, or even to confirm that there was a star. But is we focus too much on the heavens, we miss Matthew's point in telling us about the star.
The word "Magi" is persian and means a scholar or an astrologer (the two were very much the same thing in ancient Persia). Magi is also used as a title for the priests of the persian religion of Zoroastrianism. This would have seemed odd to Matthew's Jewish audience who would have looked at foreigners and non-believers with suspicion, but this is Matthew's point.
Matthew is a Jewish Christian writing for a Jewish audience but he wants to make it clear that just being a "son of Abraham" is not enough in God's sight. His Gospel is about the new thing that God has done in Jesus which calls for a faithful response from everyone. If you are a Jew who responds faithfully, he asserts, that is the best thing to be. But it is better to be a foreigner or non-believer who responds faithfully to the coning of Christ than to be a Jew who fails to respond. For Matthew, the magi are the first in a string of faithful outsiders who challenge the insiders and believers to a higher level of faithfulness.
This is an important theme even today. We live in a world where many believers act as if owning the title "Christian", going to church, and proclaiming the name of Jesus are more inmportant than faithfully following him. We often see outsiders and non-believers following the words and example of Christ better than church-folk. The story of the magi (and Matthew's Gospel as a whole) should challenge complacent Christians to greater faith and committment to compassionate service.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
The Genealogy of Jesus: Matthew 1
Matthew opens with a genealogy that establishes Jesus' ties to the Old Testament. This is one of two genealogies that appear in the New Testament, the other is in Luke 3:23-38. The two do not match up very well. Some have attempted to explain this away by saying that one is a genealogy of Joseph's side of the family and the other is Mary's. A quick look reveals that this is not the case; both genealogies purport to go through Joseph's family.
The genealogies aren't real, they are made up to make theological points. Matthew wants to show the Jewishness of Jesus and message so his family tree connects Jesus to major figures in the history of Israel and only goes back as far as Abraham (with special mention of King David), the patriarch of the Hebrew people. Luke is also making a theological point but his is about the universality of Jesus. Salvation is for both Jews and Gentiles and Luke underscores this by tracing his family tree all the way back to Adam; implying Jesus' connection to the whole human race.
There is another interesting difference in the genealogies. Luke doesn't mention any women, but Matthew mentions five: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Uriah's wife, and Mary. This is an interesting list because these women were all considered "shameful" but the culture of their times. Tamar was the daughter of King David, who was raped by her brother Amnon, Rahab was a prostitute who helped the Israelite spies in the city of Jericho, Ruth was a foreign widow who cared for her Israelite mother-in-law, Uriah's wife became pregnant with King David's son while her husband was away fighting a war (David later set him up to be killed). Under the laws of the Old Testament, rape victims, prostitutes, foreign widows, and adultresses were the lowest of the low. No decent man was supposed to have anything to do with them. But, by singling these women out, the writer sets up the reader to rememer that God has ways of blessing ven these women who soceity rejects, and through them, the world. That is the perfect introduction for pregnant unwed Mary.
The story opens with Joseph getting an unpleasant surprise: his intended is already pregnant. Under the laws of Deuteronomy he could have had mary stoned to death. Being a nice guy, Joseph prefers to dissolve the marriage contract without making a fuss. She wouldn't ever be able to find a husband and would be looked down on b everyone but she would still be alive.
Then Joseph has a dream. An angel appears to him and explains the situation. Armed with this new knowledge, Joseph accepts the shame of marrying a pregnant girl. This is not a big deal in our culture, but Judea in the time of Jesus operated very much out of the "cupture of honor." Your family name and reputation meant everything and anything that would put a blemish on the family's honor was unacceptable. We can see echoes of this among the titled families of Europe, or the aristocrats of the Old South, who would fight deuls to preserve their honor. We also see it in the "honor killings" that still persist in some parts of the world when daughters are murdered for disgracing their families by engaging in premarital sex or by being victims of rape.
In Mary and Joseph we see something different . . . two people who willingly give up family and personal repitations to serve God. This change from a culture of honor to an ethic of humility is a huge change and something that we will continue to see all through the Gospels.
Joseph does not appear in any of the other Gospels at all, but he is an important figure here. His name reminds of the hero of Genesis 37-50. Like the Joseph of Genesis, Mary's husband is strongly connected to dreams which guide him in the right things to do. The parallels between the two Josephs are something that would have appealed to Matthew's jewish-Christian audience.
The genealogies aren't real, they are made up to make theological points. Matthew wants to show the Jewishness of Jesus and message so his family tree connects Jesus to major figures in the history of Israel and only goes back as far as Abraham (with special mention of King David), the patriarch of the Hebrew people. Luke is also making a theological point but his is about the universality of Jesus. Salvation is for both Jews and Gentiles and Luke underscores this by tracing his family tree all the way back to Adam; implying Jesus' connection to the whole human race.
There is another interesting difference in the genealogies. Luke doesn't mention any women, but Matthew mentions five: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Uriah's wife, and Mary. This is an interesting list because these women were all considered "shameful" but the culture of their times. Tamar was the daughter of King David, who was raped by her brother Amnon, Rahab was a prostitute who helped the Israelite spies in the city of Jericho, Ruth was a foreign widow who cared for her Israelite mother-in-law, Uriah's wife became pregnant with King David's son while her husband was away fighting a war (David later set him up to be killed). Under the laws of the Old Testament, rape victims, prostitutes, foreign widows, and adultresses were the lowest of the low. No decent man was supposed to have anything to do with them. But, by singling these women out, the writer sets up the reader to rememer that God has ways of blessing ven these women who soceity rejects, and through them, the world. That is the perfect introduction for pregnant unwed Mary.
The story opens with Joseph getting an unpleasant surprise: his intended is already pregnant. Under the laws of Deuteronomy he could have had mary stoned to death. Being a nice guy, Joseph prefers to dissolve the marriage contract without making a fuss. She wouldn't ever be able to find a husband and would be looked down on b everyone but she would still be alive.
Then Joseph has a dream. An angel appears to him and explains the situation. Armed with this new knowledge, Joseph accepts the shame of marrying a pregnant girl. This is not a big deal in our culture, but Judea in the time of Jesus operated very much out of the "cupture of honor." Your family name and reputation meant everything and anything that would put a blemish on the family's honor was unacceptable. We can see echoes of this among the titled families of Europe, or the aristocrats of the Old South, who would fight deuls to preserve their honor. We also see it in the "honor killings" that still persist in some parts of the world when daughters are murdered for disgracing their families by engaging in premarital sex or by being victims of rape.
In Mary and Joseph we see something different . . . two people who willingly give up family and personal repitations to serve God. This change from a culture of honor to an ethic of humility is a huge change and something that we will continue to see all through the Gospels.
Joseph does not appear in any of the other Gospels at all, but he is an important figure here. His name reminds of the hero of Genesis 37-50. Like the Joseph of Genesis, Mary's husband is strongly connected to dreams which guide him in the right things to do. The parallels between the two Josephs are something that would have appealed to Matthew's jewish-Christian audience.
The Gospel of Matthew
There some old traditions about this Gospel. According to Papias of Heiropolis who was a bishop in the 2nd century, AD, this Gospel was written by Matthew, the tax collector who became one of Jesus' 12 disciples. There is also a tradition that it was the first of the Gospels to be written, and a belief among some Bible students (based on an ambiguous statement by Papias) that it was originally written in Hebrew.
None of these traditions are correct.
Papias was a kind of "literary detective" who did his best to figure out who the authors of the Gospels were. That's exactly what modern scholars do, but they have techniques and access to information that are better than Papias. They tell us that we don't know who the author of this Gospel was, but that we can be confident he was a Jewish Christian living in Syria and writing in 80-90 AD.
Matthew was probably the second of the Gospels to be written (Mark was the first.) It borrows a lot of stories from Mark, embellishing some and leaving others virtually unchanged. It also borrows a number of sayings of Jesus from some older source, which Bible scholars call the Q Source.
The author was not an eyewitness to the events of Jesus' life but a was faithful believer who told the story in a way that would help him reach the wider Jewish community in Syria. He wanted to show them that following Jesus was consistent with Jewish tradition, which is why he makes more allusions to Old Testament scriptures and stories than any of the other Gospels.
Matthew is probably the most quotable of the Gospels, and Jesus' pithy wisdom, surprising parables, warmth, and deep compassion are all very much on display in its verses.
None of these traditions are correct.
Papias was a kind of "literary detective" who did his best to figure out who the authors of the Gospels were. That's exactly what modern scholars do, but they have techniques and access to information that are better than Papias. They tell us that we don't know who the author of this Gospel was, but that we can be confident he was a Jewish Christian living in Syria and writing in 80-90 AD.
Matthew was probably the second of the Gospels to be written (Mark was the first.) It borrows a lot of stories from Mark, embellishing some and leaving others virtually unchanged. It also borrows a number of sayings of Jesus from some older source, which Bible scholars call the Q Source.
The author was not an eyewitness to the events of Jesus' life but a was faithful believer who told the story in a way that would help him reach the wider Jewish community in Syria. He wanted to show them that following Jesus was consistent with Jewish tradition, which is why he makes more allusions to Old Testament scriptures and stories than any of the other Gospels.
Matthew is probably the most quotable of the Gospels, and Jesus' pithy wisdom, surprising parables, warmth, and deep compassion are all very much on display in its verses.
The New Testament
I've had a Blog about the Bible for a while now. the plan was to go through the entire Bible book by book. Of course, with a plan like that, it's going to take forever to get to the New Testament. Thus, I'm starting a brand-spanking-new blog devoted to the New Testament, and just in time for Christmas!
:-)
My name is Matthew Baugh. I'm currently the pastor of the First Congregational Church in Lockport, IL. which is a member of the United Church of Christ. I am a graduate of Eden Theological Seminary where I received by Masters of Divinity. That means I had three years of work after college (four actually because I took a 1 year internship) to get this degree which prepared me to be a pastor/theologan (that was the phrase by advisor at seminary really liked, and it's a good description.)
What that means is that I'm pretty smart, have a load of schooling, and know where to go to get good, reliable answers. This does not mean that I am automatically smarter, or more faithful than anyone reading this blog. It certainly doesn't mean that I am always right. In fact, if you think I've missed out on some important facts, or have drawn some conclusions that are not logical, or that I'm just plain wrong, please let me know. I appreciate independent thinkers, that's an indespensible quality for studying the Bible.
If you're used to the approach to the Bible you're likely to see on Christian TV, or hear on Christian radio, my reflections may sound strange. The airwaves are mostly occupied by Evangelical Christians, Fundamentalists and the Christian Right.
While I mean no disrespect to these folks, I come from a differnet branch of the Christian family tree. We are variously called Mainline Protestants,
Progressive Christians, or even (if you want to use the dreaded "L word") Liberal Christians.
That gets me to to my ground rules for writing this blog. These should help explain where I am coming from.
1) I believe that the Bible is true, but that it is not literally true. That word is something modern people have added in to try to defend the scriptures from an increasingly skeptical world. Unfortunately, when we try to read the Bible as literal, we often miss the point it is trying to make. The Bible is true because it it was written by honest and faithful people, not because it was written by people who were history's greatest fact-checkers. It is meant to draw people into a relationship with God, not to provide us with all the factual answers we could ever want.
2) I do not believe that the Bible is inerrant. The Bible is an inspired and inspiring collection of books, but it was still written by human beings. The writers were limited by the times they lived in and so is a lot of what they have to say about the earth and the solar system, the universe in general, biology, medicine, history, and many other topics. If you want to know whether the sun goes around the earth or if it's the earth that goes around the sun, the Bible is not the place to look. However, there are some very important things about God, humanity, justice, mercy, the meaning of life, etc. that the Bible gets better than any book of science or history ever could.
3) I do not believe that the Bible is free from contradiction. The people who wrote the scriptures had profound faith, and many were brilliant, but none of them were perfect. They sometimes told different versions of the same story. Their writing reflects their different ideas about the nature of God. Despite this, there are some powerful themes that shine through that have touched people's lives for millennia and continue to do so.
4) I do believe that the Bible should be read critically to be properly understood. This may seem irreverent, but it's not. In fact, critical reading is actually a part of exegesis, which is the word for the technique of reading the Bible without accidentally adding things that aren't really there. Asking questions is very important if you're serious about Bible study, and no question should be off limits.
4) A lot of what we think is in the Bible isn't really there. Christianity is 2000 years old so there are all millennia of doctrine and sermons that have been layered on on top of the scripture. What we will be doing in this blog is trying to strip away all the extra baggage so that we can understand the scriptures better.
5) There are some popular theological questions that this blog is not going to address. For example, I am not going to go into trying to prove the existence of God. That doesn't mean that I think there's anything wrong with the question, it's just that would be very off topic here. Besides, I have another blog for stuff like that.
With all that in place, let's go!
:-)
My name is Matthew Baugh. I'm currently the pastor of the First Congregational Church in Lockport, IL. which is a member of the United Church of Christ. I am a graduate of Eden Theological Seminary where I received by Masters of Divinity. That means I had three years of work after college (four actually because I took a 1 year internship) to get this degree which prepared me to be a pastor/theologan (that was the phrase by advisor at seminary really liked, and it's a good description.)
What that means is that I'm pretty smart, have a load of schooling, and know where to go to get good, reliable answers. This does not mean that I am automatically smarter, or more faithful than anyone reading this blog. It certainly doesn't mean that I am always right. In fact, if you think I've missed out on some important facts, or have drawn some conclusions that are not logical, or that I'm just plain wrong, please let me know. I appreciate independent thinkers, that's an indespensible quality for studying the Bible.
If you're used to the approach to the Bible you're likely to see on Christian TV, or hear on Christian radio, my reflections may sound strange. The airwaves are mostly occupied by Evangelical Christians, Fundamentalists and the Christian Right.
While I mean no disrespect to these folks, I come from a differnet branch of the Christian family tree. We are variously called Mainline Protestants,
Progressive Christians, or even (if you want to use the dreaded "L word") Liberal Christians.
That gets me to to my ground rules for writing this blog. These should help explain where I am coming from.
1) I believe that the Bible is true, but that it is not literally true. That word is something modern people have added in to try to defend the scriptures from an increasingly skeptical world. Unfortunately, when we try to read the Bible as literal, we often miss the point it is trying to make. The Bible is true because it it was written by honest and faithful people, not because it was written by people who were history's greatest fact-checkers. It is meant to draw people into a relationship with God, not to provide us with all the factual answers we could ever want.
2) I do not believe that the Bible is inerrant. The Bible is an inspired and inspiring collection of books, but it was still written by human beings. The writers were limited by the times they lived in and so is a lot of what they have to say about the earth and the solar system, the universe in general, biology, medicine, history, and many other topics. If you want to know whether the sun goes around the earth or if it's the earth that goes around the sun, the Bible is not the place to look. However, there are some very important things about God, humanity, justice, mercy, the meaning of life, etc. that the Bible gets better than any book of science or history ever could.
3) I do not believe that the Bible is free from contradiction. The people who wrote the scriptures had profound faith, and many were brilliant, but none of them were perfect. They sometimes told different versions of the same story. Their writing reflects their different ideas about the nature of God. Despite this, there are some powerful themes that shine through that have touched people's lives for millennia and continue to do so.
4) I do believe that the Bible should be read critically to be properly understood. This may seem irreverent, but it's not. In fact, critical reading is actually a part of exegesis, which is the word for the technique of reading the Bible without accidentally adding things that aren't really there. Asking questions is very important if you're serious about Bible study, and no question should be off limits.
4) A lot of what we think is in the Bible isn't really there. Christianity is 2000 years old so there are all millennia of doctrine and sermons that have been layered on on top of the scripture. What we will be doing in this blog is trying to strip away all the extra baggage so that we can understand the scriptures better.
5) There are some popular theological questions that this blog is not going to address. For example, I am not going to go into trying to prove the existence of God. That doesn't mean that I think there's anything wrong with the question, it's just that would be very off topic here. Besides, I have another blog for stuff like that.
With all that in place, let's go!
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