Category Archives: Christianity

Arts, Christianity, Culture, History

Give us a king!

Ramah, c. 1050 BC

(1 Samuel 8)

GROWING popular demand for a centralised monarchy has become so strong in Israel that a delegation of leaders from all 12 tribes has presented an official request for one to Samuel.

The demand stems partly from a sense of déjà-vu which is troubling many in Israel today.

Samuel is now elderly and has nominated his sons as his successors as judge. But like Eli before him, Samuel has the sadness of knowing that his sons are corrupt and far from honouring Yahweh.

Future-watchers with a sense of history are remembering the bad old days when Israel had no central leadership of any kind. Some suggest that nations with kings do better in battle.

Samuel sees the request as a rejection of all he has done for the people. But he is more grieved that the people are rejecting Yahweh as their King and leader, in preference for a human monarch.

He has warned the elders that God says that a human king will rule harshly, will over-tax his people, will restrict their liberty, extort, oppress them, and not listen to their pleas for relief.

But they are in no mood to listen. Strangely, Yahweh appears to be sympathetic despite the evident rejection of the ideal of theocracy, a state ruled by religious agreement. It is rumoured that he has authorised Samuel to appoint a king.

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Arts, Christianity, Culture, History

No guard but bullion train stays on track

– Jerusalem, August 458 BC

(Ezra 7,8; cf. 2:2–60)

A LARGE CONSIGNMENT of gold and silver has safely avoided the attentions of the robber barons during a 4-month, 900-mile-journey from Babylon to Jerusalem.

The treasure, a gift from King Artaxerxes for the worship of Yahweh, was carried in a human train of more than 1,700 people, the first major migration to Judah for half a century. Many were relatives of people already in the city.

Led by the widely-respected priest and teacher, Ezra, they had refused the king’s offer of an armed guard as they walked across the fertile crescent of northern Mesopotamia.

It was a bold act of faith in Yahweh’s protection, by a devout group which had spent three days in prayer and fasting before setting out in April from the Ahava Canal where they had gathered.

Ezra carried personal letters from Artaxerxes authorising the expedition and ordering Persian officials in Judah to provide wine, oil, wheat, salt and gold and silver for the temple officers, who were also granted tax exemption.

It is said that Ezra has been personally commanded to teach the law of Yahweh and to mete out traditional punishments on people who do not obey it.

– The name Yahweh is mentioned more than 6,800 times in the Old Testament. It appears in every book but does not appear in Esther, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs. In English translations of the Bible “Yahweh” is translated to mean LORD

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Arts, Christianity, Culture

Apostle calls for critical thinking

Ephesus, c. AD 85

(1,2,3 John)

THE APOSTLE JOHN, cousin, and close associate of Jesus has released an open letter warning Christians not to be taken in by attractive but false teachings, and commanding them to use their minds.

‘Test the spirits,’ he says, ‘to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out from the world.’ Believers are not to be gullible but to check that messages disseminated by preachers agree with the truths of Christianity which were taught originally, and that their lives match up to the message.

The letter does not flow logically from start to finish, but meanders like a river around the subjects. However, the author, who is now quite elderly, returns regularly to three major tests of faith. One is obedience; people who claim to know God but don’t keep his unchanging commands are liars, he says bluntly.

The second test is love; Christians who hate their fellow believers are not enlightened but remain in darkness, he says, turning catchphrases from the new mystical heresies back on their authors. The third test is holding to established Christian beliefs such as the full bodily life, death, and resurrection of the divine Christ, which the new teachings, sometimes called ‘gnostic’ (from the word for knowledge) deny.

Using characteristically strong language, John ‘the son of thunder’ claims that ‘many anarchists have now come’, heralding ‘the last hour’. They were never true Christians, he asserts. To counter them he recalls his own personal experience of the presence and teaching of Jesus. But the stormy apostle has not lost his pastoral touch. He combines forthright teaching with gentle encouragement, reassuring the doubtful of the love and forgiveness of God.

The disciple, who has been based in Ephesus for some years, does not indicate to whom the letter is to be sent. It is likely that it is being circulated around the churches in the province of Asia, to whom he is something of an elder statesman.

John has also written two other short letters. One urges readers to be careful who they give hospitality to; not all strangers who come in the name of Christ are angels in disguise. The other is a personal message of encouragement to John’s friend Gaius.

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