UNBLOCKING THE WELL OF THE LIVING WORD

DAY 5 MORNING   Read Galatians 3:10-29

DEUTERONOMY: JESUS BROKE THE CURSE OF DEATH WHEN HE WAS HANGING ON A TREE FOR US

The cross is referred to in Deuteronomy. “Cursed be everyone who hangs on a tree,” Deuteronomy 21:23. In Galatians 3:13 Paul says “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us for it is written cursed  is everyone who is hanged on a tree, so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.” Moses closed with a clear distinction between the two alternatives facing Israel as they prepared to enter the promised land. Moses faced his people before a final song and then blessed them with a final blessing which he gave to the tribes of Israel with the authority of the Father of the nation. He implored them to choose between obedience to God and life rather than rebellion and death. Moses’ final addresses to his people were given over the last two years before he died and are recorded in this book and are weighty words indeed. Deuteronomy was central to the teaching of the early church. Jesus memorised passages from Deuteronomy and quoted then when facing temptations from the Devil in the wilderness. Moses words are not the dead words of a legal statute book but were very much alive for the New Testament writers, Jesus and the early Church. Here are words of life for us to today. Choose Life and not death. Seize the opportunity God has given you today and choose life. Love the Lord your God with all your heart for your mind your soul and your strength, love Him wholeheartedly with every fibre of your being today.

MISSIONARY MONKS: MARTIN OF TOURS 316-397

Martin of Tours was born in Hungary and grew up in Italy, the son of an officer in the Roman army, and was raised in a pagan family. He was forced to join the Roman army at 15. He was converted to Christianity 5 years later. He gave part of his coat to a man who was homeless, and then saw Christ radiating himself on this coat. At this point he was baptised and then following a few more years of serving in the military he said he would be a soldier of Christ and he was released from serving in the military. He expressed that he would be a soldier of Christ and started to adopt the lifestyle of a monk. “Martin of Tours the first monk-bishop in the western church who also demonstrated missionary convictions”[1] He was an evangelist and travelled as a missionary throughout Gaul (modern-day France) to Chartres, Paris, Triers, Bordeaux and Vienna. He dressed simply as a monk and he preached, healed and exorcised demons and destroyed pagan shrines.[2]He did not adopt the trappings that were associated with bishops dressed as a peasant and lived in the monastery he started rather than the house that was designated for him as a bishop. The Roman empire had begun to collapse from barbarian invasions and although Constantine had adopted Christianity in the fourth century and there was a strong pagan world view that Martin of Tours confronted as he aimed to transfer worship of pagan gods to loyalty to Christ. His preaching was so strong and the mind of the heathen so impacted “that they themselves overthrew their own temples.”[3]

CLICK ON BOLD and you will be directed to Joshua Project website with more information for prayer. 

PRAY for “the Berber, Kabyle in France the seventh largest unreached people group in Europe whose language is Kabyle and whose primary religion is Islam. They are 710,000, 3% Christian and  1.5% evangelical. ”[4] Lord, just as Martin of Tours travelled throughout Gaul (modern-day France) spreading loyalty to Christ, we call out to you that you would raise up a missionary witness in France again, this time to the Kabyle, Berber, who are now immigrants in France. Where they have had racial discrimination and problems in housing and employment, may your church in France reach out in love we pray.

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DAY 5 EVENING Read Psalm 21-25 Re-read Psalm 22

PSALM 22:   JESUS CHRIST THE VICTORIOUS KING OVER ALL THE EARTH

Psalm 22: 27,28 “All the ends of the Earth will remember and turn to the Lord and all the families of the nations will bow down before him, for the dominion belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations.” Over the past 4 years I have lost confidence in the conventional evangelical method of biblical  interpretation. I  started reading Richard Hays[5] book “Reading backwards.” He is a contemporary theologian, who is open to figurative interpretation, seeing Jesus in the Old Testament. I was challenged by reading the story of Jesus on the road to Emmaus with Cleopas and his companions. Jesus said, in Luke 24: 25-27 [6] “..how foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.. did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” Most bible colleges and theological colleges, today focus more on original audience, original author and original situation.  Craig Carter [7], argues that if you are trying to read the bible like any other book, trying understand what the original author meant to communicate to the original audience in the original situation, then your interpretation is wrong or at the very least  highly misleading.  He also says The Enlightenment has [8] “cast a dark shadow over the scriptures and their Christological meaning.. in other words Jesus Christ has been hidden and obscured..”

How did Jesus interpret the scriptures concerning himself on the road to Emmaus?  Would it not have been fascinating to have been on that road with Jesus. I wonder which passages in the Old Testament scriptures he would have explained concerning himself? The church fathers interpreted Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 as prophetically speaking of Jesus and his victory. Nicky Gumbel [9]says “Psalm 22, starts off with despair and suffering (v.1) and describes prophetically the death of Jesus, ending with a great cry of victory: ‘He has done it!’ (v.31). God ‘has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help’ (v.24). This victory will lead to people all over the world turning ‘to the Lord’ (v.27). All the nations will bow down before him (v.27b). This victory will be proclaimed: ‘They shall come and shall declare his righteousness to a people yet to be born – that he has done it.  If we see Jesus, prophetically revealed in Psalm 22, many years before he walked on this earth, we can be encouraged  today that Jesus, at the very lowest point of his life – crucified and God forsaken – trusted in God to deliver him. The apparent defeat of the cross turned out to be the greatest victory of all time. If you are at a low point, you can draw encouragement  that Jesus conquered death. You and I can read of his victory in Psalm 22  and read of his victory in Romans 8:37-39 [10].. “neither death no life neither angels nor Demons neither the present or the future nor any powers neither height nor depth nor anything else in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

For the church fathers not just the psalms but the Old Testament simply is Jesus Christ– the word made flesh. Recently, N.T. Wright wrote a book [11] entitled  “How God became king.” He says that the fundamental problem at the heart of Christianity today in the West, is that we have forgotten what the four gospels are all about… The truth is that Jesus is King….a truth that we have forgotten, he says. Could it be that we have forgotten that Jesus is king and Jesus has been obscured, largely because we have been using an Enlightenment method of interpretation for 400 years, treating the bible like any other book rather than as a sacred text?

PRAYER

Open my eyes to see you King Jesus, the Living word more clearly, in the scriptures I pray. Thank you that suffering does not have the last word. In you Jesus, the resurrection and the victory of God have the last word.

 All the nations will bow down… for the dominion belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations.”

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[1] Smither, E.L.  Missionary monks, Cascade books, 201642.

[2] Smither, E.L.  Missionary monks, Cascade books, 201659.

[3] Severus, Life of Martin, translated by Alexander Roberts, Nicene Post Nicene Church Fathers, 14.

[4] Data provided by Joshua Project https://joshuaproject.net/people_groups/12399/FR

[5] Hays, R.  Reading backwards, SPCK, 2015.

[6] NIV, in Luke 24: 25-27

[7] Carter, C.A. Interpreting scripture with the Great Tradition, Baker Academic, 2018,205.

[8] Carter, C.A. Interpreting scripture with the Great Tradition, Baker Academic, 2018,205.

[9] Gumbel, N. The Bible with Nicky and Pippa Gumbel, Day 40, The Highs and Lows of Life, Hodder and Stoughton, 2018

[10] NIV Romans  8:37-39

[11] Wright, N.T. How God became king,  SPCK, 2012.