Tag: Gospel
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Luke’s Nativity ‘Extras’
Luke’s Nativity Story begins earlier than Matthew’s, with the priest Zechariah, whose aged wife Elizabeth hasn’t been able to conceive a child. One day, while carrying out his duties, “an angel from the Lord” appeared, and told him that his wife would bear a child, who must be called John – “a great servant of…
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That Christmas ‘Star’
One Christmas ‘tradition’ that continues to amuse me, is the annual attempt to cobble up credible ‘explanations’ of the nature and behaviour of the ‘Christmas Star’. It appears only in Matthew’s Gospel but (all credit to the writer’s imagination) it never fails to make an ‘other worldly’ impact on readers of his story. In the…
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A Boring Christmas Genealogy?
Why does the Bible contain lists of ancestors which are hardly enthralling? One, in 1st Chronicles, is 9 chapters long, making the book chronic-ally unappealing! Their purpose is establishing legitimacy. The king in Jerusalem, had to be a proven descendant of King David; a Temple priest had to be a descendant of Aaron, Moses’ brother. …
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Rethinking Jesus (06) His Core Message
According to Mark, (the earliest Gospel), after his baptism and self-questioning in the wilderness, and “after John (the Baptist) had been put into prison”, Jesus launched an evangelistic mission in Galilee, but there’s a complication here. In John’s gospel, Jesus, “in the province of Judea, spent some time with his disciples and baptised”, and, “The…
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The Gospels (9) ‘Causing a Stir’
The 3rd “sign”, (in John 5), introduces us to a number of problematical issues. We’re told about a pool in Jerusalem, close to which lie “many sick, blind, lame and paralysed people”. It has a strange feature. Every now and again, for no discernible reason, “the water is stirred up”. Most modern translations omit an…
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Matthew writes, not history, but his story …
In a previous post, on the genealogy that opens Matthew’s Gospel, I was saying, let’s value these books for what they are, not for what they aren’t. Matthew’s aim was persuading us that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah and, from the Jewish scriptures, he engineered a three-piece genealogy designed to ‘demonstrate’ this. It was never…
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Unexpected Interest in a Boring Genealogy
The author traditionally known as Matthew, begins his gospel with a genealogy. That’s a bad idea, some might say – more of a boring than a flying start – and no doubt lots of people give it no more than a glance, if not a complete miss. But let’s take a closer look and see…
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