Category Archives: Culture

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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Arts, Christianity, Culture

Saul stopped by light on road

Damascus, c. AD 35

(Acts 9:1-22; 22:3-16; 26:9-18; Galatians 1:13-17; Philippians 3:3-7)

SAUL OF TARSUS, self-styled persecutor of the sect of Christians, has stunned the Jewish community in Damascus by joining those he had come to arrest.

According to his own account, he was thrown to the ground by a light more dazzling than the noonday sun. It left him blind for several days. He claims it was a vision of the resurrected LORD Jesus, who told Saul to stop trying to destroy him and instead to begin serving him.

His companions also experienced the phenomenon, some seeing a light and others hearing a thundering noise. There have been no reports of unusual electric storms in the area.

Saul of Tarsus was an outstanding bright young Pharisee who stood head and shoulders intellectually, but not physically, above his contemporaries. A man noticeably shorter than average, he has an impeccable Jewish pedigree traceable back to the tribe of Benjamin.

He pursued Christians who had fled Jerusalem following the crackdown on the sect by the temple authorities. He carried papers authorising the fugitives’ arrest, although technically Jerusalem has no jurisdiction over synagogue affairs or members in Damascus.

After his experience, Saul was taken into Damascus. He recovered his sight after a Christian named Ananias laid hands on him and prayed for him.

Ananias was apparently prompted to overcome his fear of Saul’s intentions by a vision in which Christ reassured him that the persecutor had himself been arrested by God.

Following their meeting, Saul was baptised into the Christian faith and spent time discussing it with the church members. The church in Damascus is thought to have been formed by Christians from the Galilee area shortly after Christ’s death, before the Jerusalem persecution began.

The Jewish community in this Hellenistic city is sizeable, and Saul, his youthful zeal as strong as ever, launched straight into the synagogues in an attempt to prove to the shocked and sceptical worshippers that Jesus of Nazareth was the expected Messiah.

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