ChristadelphianBooksOnline The Agora Bible Articles and Lessons: P-Q

Table of Some Post-Exilic Events

ChristadelphianBooksOnline The Agora Bible Articles and Lessons: P-Q

One need only read the Blessings of Jesus in Luke 6 to gain a sense of Jesus’ favoritism toward the poor and the disadvantaged:

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”

“Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied.”

“Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.”

“Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.”

“But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.”

“Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry.”

“Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.”

“Woe to you when all men speak well of you” (vv 20-26).

But why does Jesus single out the poor and the hungry for special attention over any other group?

One writer has pointed out that, in gospel terms, the disadvantaged have the following “advantages”:

1. The poor know they are in urgent need of redemption.
2. The poor know not only their dependence on God and on powerful people, but also their interdependence upon one another.

3. The poor rest their security not on things but on people.

4. The poor have no exaggerated sense of their own importance and no exaggerated need of privacy.

5. The poor expect little from competition and much from cooperation.

6. The poor can distinguish between necessities and luxuries.

7. The poor can wait, because they have acquired a kind of dogged patience born of acknowledged dependence.

8. The fears of the poor are more realistic and less exaggerated, because they already know that one can survive great suffering and want.

9. When the poor have the gospel preached to them, it sounds like good news and not like a threat or a scolding.

10. The poor can respond to the call of the gospel with a certain abandonment and uncomplicated totality because they have so little to lose and are ready for anything.

So, through no choice of their own (they may desperately wish otherwise), poor people find themselves in a position more amenable to the grace of God. They are needy, dependent, and dissatisfied with life; for that reason they may be more likely than others to welcome God’s free gift of love.

Go back over the list of 10 points above, substituting the word “rich” for “poor”, and changing each sentence accordingly, eg: “The rich do not know they are in urgent need of redemption.” Do these statements generally hold true? Remember: in Luke 6 above, Jesus does not stop after discussing the poor — he goes on to talk about the rich also!

Now, one more exercise; and be warned — this is something far more threatening:

Go over the list one more time, substituting the word “I”, making multiple choice statements, eg: “I know/do not know that I am in urgent need of redemption.” “I know/do not know my dependence upon God… ”

Evaluate yourself. Honestly, in your case, which option is most true?

• Do I know that I am in urgent need of redemption?

• Do I easily acknowledge my needs?
• Do I readily depend on God and on other people?
• Where does my security rest?
• Am I more likely to compete or cooperate?
• Can I distinguish between necessities and luxuries?

In short, in Biblical terms, am I “poor” or “rich”?

The poor are not necessarily more virtuous than anyone else — human nature being what it is. But the poor are far less likely to pretend to be virtuous. They know they are sick, they know they need a physician, and they know they can’t heal themselves or hide behind formalities!

If we are comfortably situated, the words of Jesus above may sound a little like patronizing slogans, afterthoughts tossed to the unfortunates of the world: ‘Well, since you aren’t rich, and your health is bad, and your face is wet with tears, I’ll toss you a few nice phrases to make you feel better.’

But the words of Jesus are really profound insights into the mystery of human existence. The poor, the hungry, the mourners, and the oppressed really are blessed — not because of their miserable states, of course (Jesus worked long and hard to remedy those miseries) — but because of an innate advantage they hold over those more comfortable and self-sufficient.

People who are rich, successful, and beautiful may go through life relying on their natural gifts. But there is a chance, just a chance, that people who lack such natural advantages may cry out to God in their time of need.

And there is a chance, even a slimmer one, that the “rich” can learn from the “poor” that — really! — their fine robes are only moth-eaten rags, their bank accounts are shadows in the night, their health is the passing breeze, and their beauty is the flower of the field, that fades in the merest moment.

We have the poor to teach us the value of dependence. Unless we learn to depend on God we will never experience His grace in His eternal kingdom when Christ returns.

ChristadelphianBooksOnline The Agora Bible Articles and Lessons: P-Q

We pray for children         who sneak Popsicles before supper,         who erase holes in math workbooks,         who can never find their shoes.

And we pray for those         who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,         who can’t bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers,         who never go to the circus,         who live in an X-rated world.

We pray for children         who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions,         who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money.

And we pray for those         who never get dessert,         who have no safe blanket to drag behind them,         who watch their parents watch them die,         who can’t find any bread to steal,         who don’t have any rooms to clean up,         whose pictures aren’t on anybody’s dresser,         whose monsters are real.

We pray for children         who spend all their allowance before Tuesday,         who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food,         who like ghost stories,         who shove dirty clothes under the bed, and never rinse out the tub,         who get visits from the tooth fairy,         who don’t like to be kissed in front of the carpool,         who squirm in church and scream into the phone,         whose tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smiles can make us cry.

And we pray for those         whose nightmares come in the daytime,         who will eat anything,         who have never seen a dentist,         who aren’t spoiled by anybody,         who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,         who live and move, but have no being.

We pray for children who want to be carried and for those who must be.

For those we never give up on and for those who don’t get a second chance.

For those we smother… and for those         who will grab the hand of anyone kind enough to offer it.

Ina J. Hughes

ChristadelphianBooksOnline The Agora Bible Articles and Lessons: P-Q

Christ’s great intercessory prayer, recorded in John 17, is the most intimate outpouring of the Son’s heart to the Father that is recorded in all of the Bible. The apostles heard the words as they followed their Master, but the thoughts were too deep for them at that stage. In a way, perhaps, we today are just as unprepared for the crystal clarity, the uncompromising perfection implicit in his words:

“Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.”

Elaborating on the request first uttered in Joh 17:11 (“that they may be one”), Christ repeats this wonderful prayer four more times (vv 21 — twice, 22, and 23). It must be to the great embarrassment of strict separationists that this particular aspect is so emphasized in this place. But never mind how difficult, how humanly impossible it appears, this unity is an achievable goal, with Christ’s help.

” ‘That they all may be ONE.’ Here the word ‘one’ is not masculine, but neuter, and probably presupposes ‘one Spirit’ (1Co 12:13) or ‘one Body’, for both of these are neuter nouns. No matter. ‘That they all may be one… that the world may believe that thou hast sent me’ (v. 21). Instead they are not all one, not by any means as much as they might be. And if the world quizzically comments: ‘How these brethren in Christ love one another!’ it is certainly not helped to believe in the Christ they all honour” (HAW, “Block Disfellowship”, Tes 43:343).

“The only way that believers can show that they dimly perceive the immensity of what Jesus sought from his Father, is to make this harmony of love and consideration so real in their individual and ecclesial lives that people of the world recognize it as the practical manifestation of the life and teaching of Jesus — even though they themselves may not always respond to it. Particularly in this way is the Master glorified in his household.

“The conscious and deliberate effort of every member of an ecclesia is needed to preserve this divine unity: it has to be a community effort. The joy of it is that Jesus is part of this cooperation. He knows that difficulties will arise in ecclesias; he knows that it is only by ‘getting together’ that ecclesias can solve difficulties; that is why he promised, in case of dispute, to be ‘in the midst of them’ (Mat 18:20). Why do we so frequently forget, or ignore this?” (JM, “The Living Ecclesia”, Xd 108:54).

ChristadelphianBooksOnline The Agora Bible Articles and Lessons: P-Q

“Our community has all too often separated doctrine from practice. We have not seen that doctrine is intended to bring forth living and love towards others. The doctrines of the one faith are not merely empty theological statements devised as a test of our understanding and obedience. They are what they are so as to inspire in each one of us a life worthy of the Gospel of Christ.

“We Christadelphians have analyzed some aspects of doctrine, especially relating to the atonement, to an extent that is inappropriate; and we have virtually — and sometimes actually — divided over these matters. And yet the pseudo-intellectual minutiae over which there has been such strife contain no power to enable the believer to live the new life. It is the basic Gospel itself which has the power to bring forth the new man after the image of Christ.

“It is crucial to true ‘theology’ that it not be separated from the call of doctrine to be the vital force for the transformation of human life. After 150 years of ‘holding the Truth’ and not really preaching it very much nor living it very deeply, western Christadelphia has developed a complex intellectual system that is very much in need of a focus for application and practice. That focus should be in the preaching of the Gospel to the poorer world, and within the more desperate parts of Western society. In such areas there is plenty of opportunity for practicing what we believe: especially in developing an adequate doctrinal underpinning. People do not know their Bibles, do not know doctrine, and yet they so want to be taught.

“Things are coming together, slowly, as western Christadelphia starts to see its need to reach out, and is encouraged by the successes the Lord has granted. We are starting to realize that the true theological cannot avoid the challenge of knowing personally life in its most traumatic forms. It has been truly observed: ‘theology cannot but have a mission.’ Unless ‘theology’ is put to the service of our mission, to save men and women and glorify the Lord, then there can only be an ever-increasing gap between the ‘theologians’ and the grass-roots ecclesia, especially in the mission field. The two halves must come together, or else the new converts will wander, and the ‘theologians’, shocked at the lack of perception in the converts, will likewise go their own way, into ever-increasing abstraction and theory.

“It is worth observing the very simple fact that the New Testament is essentially a missionary document — all the expressions and articulations of doctrine and theology found there are in the context of the preaching of the Gospel and the immediate problems of men and women who respond to it. That is why we are not given a cold statement of faith or catechism in the New Testament, but rather the history of the mission of Christ at its very beginning.” (DH)

ChristadelphianBooksOnline The Agora Bible Articles and Lessons: P-Q

The context of the apostle’s sustained quotation (Psa 34:12-16a = 1Pe 3:10-12) matches that of the psalm excellently. Instead of David and his outlaws, all of them the quarry of pursuers, there was, at the time when Peter wrote, a violent reproach of the name of Christ (1Pe 4:14), and of those who gave him loyalty. (1Pe, esp chs 4 and 5, is full of allusions to the Neronian persecution; see also Jam 2:7.) Thus, just as David exhorted his men to self-discipline and the expression of high ideals in their behavior to friend and foe alike, so also now Peter eloquently exhorts later believers to display in all circumstances a character worthy of the Leader to whom they have pledged loyalty.

Note the impressively abrupt cut-off of the quotation in the middle of a verse — Peter’s neat device for steering special attention to the words that follow: “to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth”. This very thing, which Nero sought to achieve, they would bring upon their own selves if, to avoid the rigors of persecution, they turned away from Christ. It needed only a pinch of incense on a pagan altar, only a misleading word dissociating oneself from the persecuted Christ, and — humanly speaking — all would be well. But no! “Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile”, for there was “no guile found in his (Christ’s) mouth” (1Pe 2:22).

Was Psa 34:10b (“they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing”) the Lord’s warning to Peter, foreseeing his temptation in the court of the high priest’s palace? Yet the apostle did not keep his tongue from evil and from speaking guile.

An earlier allusion also makes attractive use of Psa 34:8 (= 1Pe 2:3): “If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious”; the LXX, used by Peter, has “the Lord is chrestos (a pun on christos!)”. And this follows immediately on another exhortation to avoid “all guile and hypocrisies” (1Pe 2:1).

And how is one to taste that the Lord is gracious? By “desiring the sincere milk of the word (of Scripture)” and of “the Word ” (Jesus) — a typical double meaning. Accordingly, the exhortation: “Come, ye children…” (Psa 34:11) is echoed in Peter’s address to his “babes”: “To whom coming…” (1Pe 2:2,4).

As David’s outlaw band came to include many Gentiles along with Jews, so Peter (the Lord’s outlaw) was instrumental in bringing Gentiles (Act 10) as well as Jews (Act 2 and 3) into the Lord’s band. See the allusions to Psa 34 in this light (WAc 151).

ChristadelphianBooksOnline The Agora Bible Articles and Lessons: P-Q

        Pro 3:34 He mocks proud mockers but gives grace to the humble.         Pro 6:17 haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood,         Pro 8:13 To fear the LORD is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech.         Pro 11:2 When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.         Pro 13:10 Pride only breeds quarrels, but wisdom is found in those who take advice.         Pro 15:25 The LORD tears down the proud man’s house but he keeps the widow’s boundaries intact.         Pro 16:5 The LORD detests all the proud of heart. Be sure of this: They will not go unpunished.         Pro 16:18,19 Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. Better to be lowly in spirit and among the oppressed than to share plunder with the proud.         Pro 17:6,7 Children’s children are a crown to the aged, and parents are the pride of their children. Arrogant lips are unsuited to a fool — how much worse lying lips to a ruler!         Pro 18:12 Before his downfall a man’s heart is proud, but humility comes before honor.         Pro 21:4 Haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, are sin!         Pro 21:24 The proud and arrogant man — “Mocker” is his name; he behaves with overweening pride.         Pro 29:23 A man’s pride brings him low, but a man of lowly spirit gains honor.         Pro 30:13 those whose eyes are ever so haughty, whose glances are so disdainful.