500 Bible readings

Christian scriptures

Key parables of Jesus

Probably the most popular method of interpretation,  still,  assumes that the primary comparison to be made is that between the dominant figure in the story and God.   A quite different possibility arises if we 'read' Jesus as especially concerned with the suffering of the poor brought about by the Roman occupation,  social injustice,  and the dominant religious system.   Then many of the parables may in fact be explorations of the system and of ways of responding to it,  and characters in the stories should be interpreted according to their social roles.   The final verdict is not in,  but the hints here assume this second approach.

There are other parables that would also be in place here,  notably those from Mark at #319,  #320,  and #346  (which have been strongly re-shaped to suit Mark's teaching purpose.)   This is not a complete list.
 

The future has become more complicated for both of them.   The finder's action is immoral,  and it won't be easy for him to hide what he has done.   The merchant has a marvellous pearl,  but now no ready capital to do anything else with.
 

The king's extraordinary generosity has not achieved any reformation of the social world around him.
 

The wealthy landowner amuses himself by playing games with his destitute workers,  and still manages to put them in the wrong.
 

Only one of the three is not prepared to sell his soul in order to get rich.
 

Religious orthodoxy,  or the compassionate heart?
 

It is noteworthy that the parallel in Gospel of Thomas 63 lacks the moralizing of Luke's version.
 

The parable seems to undermine expectations about the messianic banquet  (Isaiah 25).
 

Master and steward both profit from an exploitative system in which one of the steward's functions is to distance his master from the actual dirty work.   The steward,  suddenly facing disaster,  thinks of a trick which obliges the master,  in his own interests,  to go along.   The steward's strategem may have been to excuse the debtors the usurious interest hidden in the contracts.   The master cannot disown the action without exposing himself as disobedient to the Law which forbids usury.
 

The rich man belongs to an elite which assumes that the possession of wealth is itself a sign of God's favour.   The beggar will have absorbed the same message and drawn the negative conclusion about himself.
 

Widows being cheated in the settlement of their husbands' estates,  through the connivance of corrupt judges,  had few defenders and were expected to accept their lot.   But this woman gets her rights by shamelessly going public and embarrassing the judge.
 

The Pharisee,  too,  is a toll-collector.   Part of his vocation is to reinforce the obligation of the temple exactions.
 

The genuine letters of Paul

Paul's Christian understanding was strongly apocalyptic rather than theologically revolutionary.   He knew Christ to be alive with God,  and he taught that that was the prospect for all of us who demonstrate the kind of practical faith in God's promise that Abraham showed.
 

The omitted verses express an anti-Semitism that is quite uncharacteristic of Paul,  and they presume the destruction of Jerusalem,  which happened after Paul's death.
 

Galatians

The letter to the Romans is concerned to leave room for Christians of Jewish origin who are in danger of being rejected by a dominant gentile Christian community.   Galatians and Romans cover similar ground but make different points,  because they are speaking to different situations.
 

Paul's description of Christian reality in verse 28,  which may be a quote from an early baptismal ritual,  should be given its full value.   He stands by it,  as many later Christians would not.
 

The letters to Corinth

2 Corinthians seems to be made up of pieces of several letters.
 

The motive may have been something unromantic,  like keeping her money in the family.   The connection objected to would be contrary to Roman law,  but the wealthy can often find ways around such obstacles.
 

Apart from anything else,  Roman judicial process favoured those who could 'sweeten' the judges with monetary gifts.   If Corinthian Christians opted to use this system,  it meant they were prepared to cheat one another.
 

Paul is even-handed as between the sexes in this discussion.   Opening the possibility of celibacy was a gift of freedom in a society which put strong pressure on people to marry.
 

There are two issues here:  eating food that has been sacrificed to idols,  and joining in pagan festivals where such food would be consumed.   Paul would have been more flexible about the first than about the second.   Rich and powerful members of the Corinthian church would want to share in public occasions that included pagan observance and feasting.   As Paul sees it,  their argument from their freedom in Christ is destructive for others struggling to leave idol worship behind.
 

Paul has been careful not to accept financial support where this could compromise the preaching of the gospel.   In Corinth the patronage implications of being financially beholden to anybody certainly had to be avoided.
 

The elite,  and in Paul's eyes erring,  Corinthian Christians apparently argue that their possession of dramatic spiritual gifts is the proof that they are on the right track.
 

The omitted verses are in direct conflict with the attitude of Paul in this letter  (11:5)  and elsewhere,  and must be assumed to be interpolations from another hand.
 

There was an ancient Jewish mystical tradition.   It is possible that Paul was 'into' such things,  even before his Christian awakening.   The experience that made him a follower of Christ could well have been the mystical vision of Jesus in heaven with God,  which he would have accepted as totally real.   It would have overturned his previous antipathy to the Christian proclamation.   'Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?'  (1 Corinthians 9:11)
 

Romans

Paul shows no awareness of the possibility of mutual loving same-sex relationships,  so he has nothing to say about them.   What he does know is that three of the last four emperors had appalling public reputations for orgiastic behaviour of an exploitative kind,  both heterosexual and homosexual.   This is the sort of thing he and his readers will be thinking about here.
 

To try to earn salvation,  whether by an achievement of faith or an achievement of works,  is to be at war with God.   We must not boast of anything in ourselves.
 

Paul finds the idea of Christ's death as expiation  (which he did not originate)  inadequate.  Here he surrounds it with apocalyptic insight.   The tragedy of Adam was not just that he allowed Sin into the world but that he created a breach that Death could slip through.   What came with Christ was not just a way to deal with sin,  but potentially the ultimate defeat of Death itself.
 

In Paul's apocalyptic way of thinking you always have a master.   The only question is whether you are a slave of sin or a slave of righteousness.   So it is actually impossible for anyone to be under grace and yet go on consenting to sin.
 

This is not a description of Paul's personal experience in particular.   It doesn't fit him.   It is any Christian,  but more especially a gentile,  looking back with new insight to understand the past she/he has moved on from.
 

Life responsive to the Spirit takes you out of the realm where you are under punishment.   Paul is not talking about some heavenly transaction that exempts you,  but about a different kind of existence that you actually enter into when you are moved by the Spirit.
 

Christ is the goal of the Law.   What Israel has is 'on the way' but has not arrived.   It is not that the Law and the Christian revelation are moving in opposite directions.   Paul cannot rest satisfied with the common perception amongst gentile Christians that Israel as a whole has rejected Christ  -  that the gentiles have become the new Israel and inheritors of all the promises.  For Paul the promises to Abraham must have their proper fulfilment.
 

God's future belongs to them all.
 

It is as a community of gentiles and Jews that Paul urges the Christians of Rome to demonstrate what their life is all about.
 

An important point for Paul.   The Law has not been rendered meaningless and it has not been cancelled.   But fulfilling the Law is not a matter of having a comprehensive list of commandments and scrupulously obeying each one.
 

When they were not confident of obtaining meat killed according to regulation,  Jewish Christians might simply adopt a vegetable diet.
 

The  'Q'  document

Q  is a collection of the sayings of Jesus,  similar to the Gospel of Thomas,  but organized in connected discourses.   There are no stories or sayings about the death or resurrection of Jesus;  there are no birth stories;  the title 'Messiah' or 'Christ' does not appear;  there is only minor interest in miracles.

The  Q  people thought of themselves as an oppressed group  -  poor,  hungry,  weeping,  persecuted.   Their marginal situation is reflected in a concern about food and clothing.   They were people with a mission,  but it seems their mission was largely unsuccessful.   There is frequent mention of rejection.   Their particular enemies were 'scribes and Pharisees'.   They did not think of Jesus' death as having saving significance,  but as being like the deaths of the prophets before him.
 

The first three of the beatitudes as presented here were almost certainly original to Jesus.
 

Actually only the first four verses are from Q.   The remainder is from Luke's own special material.   The parable probably goes back in some form to Jesus himself.
 

The sayings  'Not by observation' and  'The kingdom is among you'  are not from Q.   They are,  however,  regarded as genuine Jesus sayings.
 

Mark

Mark's story does not suggest any easy options.   It shows Jesus pioneering the way of the cross,  accompanied by a band of followers who are uncomprehending to the end.   When the story finishes the disciples are sent back to the beginning,  back to Galilee,  to walk the road themselves,  this time with understanding.   Now they will be aware that in spite of all appearances this is the road to victory.
 

It was officially taught that an affliction like this was the result of somebody's sin.   Sin resulted in indebtedness to God,  which could be conveniently discharged through tithes and sacrifices.   For Jesus to declare forgiveness,  just like that,  was to challenge the religious debt system,  and incidentally to undermine a key source of clerical income.

The point of the story,  then,  is not that Jesus has a special mandate to forgive sins,  but rather that Jesus was dismissive of a religious system that got its leverage by persuading people they were sinners.
 

It is true that Herod imprisoned John the Baptist and finally had him executed,  no doubt for good political reasons.   But Mark has produced an almost comic caricature of the goings-on in Herod's court to express his own estimate of one section of Jesus' opponents.   This is the shameless level of decision-making amongst the elite.   John's fate underlines what Jesus may expect,  and his followers.
 

Mark's story closely follows that of an Elisha miracle  (#130).   The context there is famine  -  starvation.   The disciples balk at trying to feed so many.   Jesus says give what you have  -  it will be enough.   Nothing 'supernatural' is actually reported to have happened.
 

Peter comes up with the answer 'the Messiah'.   Jesus does not directly accept this answer,  but goes on to outline the future for the 'Son of Man'  (or the 'Human One'  -  the ambivalent title borrowed from Daniel 7).   Peter is rebuked because he cannot accept what Jesus foretells.
 

Prayer involves belief in such change as seems,  by ordinary calculation,  as impracticable as moving mountains.   Unbelief is the despairing suspicion that nothing is really strong enough to counter opposing forces.
 

The suggestion that 'Jesus loved him' is probably not original to this gospel.
 

In its various gospel settings the parable speaks to a Christian understanding of the Jesus event.   It becomes especially difficult to imagine the original Jesus story and its intention.   The tenants belong to the class which has been dispossessed of the land by the wealthy,  and are now required to farm it for those others.   But their violent response only breeds more violence.   Is this the only way to challenge injustice and oppression?
 

Mark's intention is either-or,  not both-and.
 

The answer Jesus gives is that,  in any place where God rules,  people do not own one another.   The focus is on the patriarchal marriage institution,  not on sexuality as such.
 

There is documentary evidence that verses  51, 52  are not original.
 

Verses beyond verse 8  are not original to this gospel.
 

Matthew

Matthew has a strong teaching emphasis,  concentrating Jesus' instruction in five speeches.   He has also,  unfortunately,  a patriarchal bias.   Of the four gospels,  only Mark and John remember the equality of women and men that characterized the Jesus movement.
 

The presence of Christ to two or three gathered in his name is Matthew's equivalent of Luke's  'gift of the Holy Spirit'.
 

This is a vision of the final judgment,  not a parable.   It is not regarded as original to Jesus.   The point is not that learning to care is a way of surviving the judgment.   The righteous in the story have not calculated like that.   They are surprised at the way things turn out.
 

John

This gospel is very different in tone from the other three.  It will become more comprehensible to us if we appreciate that it is  (as indeed the others are)  creative inspirational writing.   It explores the religious meaning of Jesus for a community that was not derivative from the communities of Mark or Matthew.   The geographical location is somewhere in Galilee or Syria.   The background is Jewish rather than gentile.   The date is towards the end of the first century.   Reading between the lines we realize that this group of people had wished to witness to their faith in Jesus as Messiah while remaining within the Jewish community.   That turned out to be impossible,  and they have been expelled from the synagogue.   Bitter feelings lead to some harsh sayings about 'the Jews',  which have unfortunately fuelled later anti-Semitism.
 

This is at one level a hymn to Wisdom  (#38).   John's community would see here the story of Christ,  and this becomes explicit in verse 14.
 

Nicodemus represents people who would like to believe in Jesus,  but fear the consequences.
 

Indirectly the story carries a memory of a region in which a woman was the primary Christian evangelist.
 

There are good textual and other reasons for deciding that this passage was not originally part of John's Gospel.   It does sound like early tradition.
 

This is a key chapter for understanding the dynamics of John's Gospel.   The man is shown going through the stages of discovering and believing that Jesus is the Son of Man,  which is for John a messianic title.   He becomes the pattern disciple,  fearless and loyal,  and is therefore cast out of the synagogue.
 

We may be surprised that the love commandment is directed inwards towards the community,  rather than to the neighbour or the enemy.   But defining discipleship in terms of a fullness of love is a complement,  or even a corrective,  to the emphasis on self-denial and sacrifice in the other gospels.   This community's openness to feminine values shows through.
 

Mary Magdalene becomes the first to encounter the risen Jesus and the first to declare the Easter faith.   Perhaps,  historically,  it was she who put the disciples back on their feet and made faith in the risen Lord possible for others.
 

Luke and Acts

Looking at it now,  we appreciate his concern for social justice and his challenge to compassion.   He has preserved parables that would otherwise have been lost to us.   We probably find his obsession with miracles a bit much.   We would prefer him not to have forgotten the earliest Christian tradition of the equality of men and women.   We no longer share his triumphalist vision of the church's global victory.   We remain hugely indebted to him,  even when we disagree with him most strongly.
 

Luke belittles Martha for being concerned with trivial things,  while praising Mary who is passive at Jesus' feet.   In contrast John  (#402, #403)  shows Martha to be as strong in her faith as Peter,  and attributes strength to the quieter Mary also.   John's acceptance of women,  as showing evangelistic initiative and potentially having a stature equal to men's in the Christian movement,  is beyond Luke's imagining.
 

Luke strains our credulity somewhat by picturing the whole community engaging,  in unison,  in spontaneous prayer.   However in ancient writing of this kind it was acceptable to add colour with imagined detail and invented speeches.
 

Reading between the lines,  we discover that the real rift in the Jerusalem community centred on attitudes to the Jewish Law.   The task of Stephen and the other 'deacons' is not to 'wait on tables'  -  they are powerful evangelists.   Eventually these Hellenists are driven out of Jerusalem,  while the conservatives,  grouped round James the brother of Jesus,  comfortably remain.
 

On the evidence of Galatians 1  it is improbable that Paul had anything to do with the stoning of Stephen or the ensuing persecution.   He says he was not known to the Christians of Judea.   It may seem rather 'picky' to keep on emphasizing Luke's historical fuzziness.   However in the case of Paul it is rather important to get it into our heads that we should not trust Luke at all as his interpreter.
 

It may be that Paul originally belonged in Damascus,  as a leader of the Jewish synagogue,  and that it was from that base that he harassed Jews who came to believe in Jesus as Messiah.
 

Barnabas and Paul are embarrassingly mistaken for Zeus and Hermes who,  readers may remember,  once got a bad time on arrival in this region,  being rejected by all except Baucis and Philemon.   The natives don't want to make the same mistake twice.
 

Luke would probably have liked to show Paul as the one who brought the gospel to Rome,  but in this case the facts were too well known.   Luke must have been aware of the circumstances of Paul's death but he doesn't tell us,  presumably because he wants to end on a positive note.
 

1 John

Pseudo Paul

Versions of the 'household code' crop up regularly in later epistles,  giving instructions as to how various members of the household should conduct themselves.   The flavour is patriarchal,  with the proviso that the head of the household should be loving towards everybody else.   By this stage the Christian movement was doing its best to conform to the ideals of the surrounding society.
 

Other pseudonymous letters

Hebrews

Revelation

The opening letters to seven churches include condemnations that reflect John's own prophetic perspective.   The sin of the Nicolaitans may have been something like Paul's more relaxed attitude to eating idol-blessed meat.   'Fornication' may mean being too tolerant of the emperor-worship.   The one he calls 'Jezebel' may be especially in his bad books because she is a woman,  claiming to be a teacher and a prophet.   We have only one side of the story.