UNBLOCKING THE WELL OF THE LIVING WORD

DAY 7 MORNING  Read 1 Corinthians 1:18-30

JUDGES: JESUS CHRIST IS THE TRUE SAVIOUR KING, JUDGE AND DELIVERER

Judges points towards a king. A saviour King who is worthy will shine forth with dazzling brightness. A saviour King will come, the true judge and true deliverer. God will hear the cries of his people, (but in the time of the Book of Judges had not yet come.) Judges tells the story of Israel and its descent into moral depravity.  It is [1] “a book of deliverers, of saviours that God raised up to continue to deliver the promised land from its wicked inhabitors. Israel was to be a purifying light in the dark land. They were to drive out the Canaanites. They were driving the Canaanites out but becoming more like them with ever verse. Ehud delivers  Israel in a comedic and ironic way, using his left hand when he was from the tribe of Benjamin (which means right hand). God’s saviours saved Israel but his saviours also judged. These Judges were a picture of what Israel had become…  the cycle of judges became worse and worse ..the Israelites sinned so the Canaanites won and finally God does not send another saviour. He would not save, he would only judge them.  Instead of getting rid of the Canaanites, they became just like them. So that at the end of the book of judges, Israel was its own enemy and ironically began its own destruction.  God’s final saviour would save Israel. He would defeat our vicious cycle of sin which was a war that no saviour could win and when he did there would be no irony in his hands, no flaw in his character. Jesus would do battle with sin he would crush its head but he would do so ironically. He would judge evil and sin by falling under our brutality. Jesus does not come with ironic victories that prove we are condemned. He is not like Ehud, Gideon, Deborah or Samson or Jephthah. He comes with the cross of ironic judgement that becomes our salvation. He is the saviour that saves us because he is the saviour who was also judged. Now He is the picture of what we have become.  We are not like Canaan. The sin in us is undone, so now we go with purifying light into new lands of Canaan to deliver and reclaim, not as judges of the darkness but bringers of the light that saves.”[2]

MISSIONARY MONKS: NINIAN 360-432

The gospel was preached by Ninian to the unevangelized Picts. He built a stone headquarters in Whithorn as was the Roman custom, and not with planks and wattle as the Celts would. The Picts fell away from the faith quickly (and Colomba’s missionaries from Ireland re-evangelized the Picts later.) Bede the historian writes of Ninian and says,[3]” the southern Picts, who  dwell on this side of those mountains had long before, as is reported, forsaken the errors of idolatry, and embraced the truth, by the preaching of Ninian, a most reverend bishop and holy man of the British nation, who had been regularly instructed at Rome, in the faith and mysteries of the truth; whose episcopal see, named after St Martin the bishop, and  famous for a stately church… is generally called the White House, because he there built a church of stone, which was not usual among the Britons.” It seems that Ninian used Roman customs and Latin liturgy and did not indigenize the church, and this could have been the reason that Ninian’s missionary work among the Picts did not last.

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

PRAY for “the Gujarati in United Kingdom the eighth largest unreached people group in Europe whose language is  Gujarati and whose primary religion is Hinduism. They are 635,000, 0.05% Christian and  0.03% evangelical.” [4]  Centuries ago the unevangelized Picts were a missionary challenge for Ninian in the British Isles. We lift up the Gujerati to you Lord. May we learn lessons from the past. Show us how to indigenize the Gospel among the resourceful businessmen, the Gujerati we pray! 

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DAY 7 EVENING  Read Psalm 31-35. Re-read Psalm 31

PSALM 31: JESUS CHRIST: “INTO YOUR HANDS I COMMIT MY SPIRIT”

Psalm 31:6 “ Into your hands I commit my spirit redeem me, O Lord the God of truth. Augustine is probably less well-known for his huge exposition on the Psalms, than his magnum opus “The City of God. However , theologian Michael Cameron writes [5] ‘When Augustine read the psalms in the light of Paul’s insights about Christ’s crucified human humility, scripture opened up to him. One way this happened was that he now saw Christ using the Psalms to explain himself. The Psalms do not merely speak of Christ; rather, in the Psalms, Christ actually speaks. Many of the early church fathers saw that Christ and the church speak through the psalms, in this way in the second and third century writers like Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr and Irenaeus continued this Christological reading; so did Tertullian, Cyprian, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen in the third century.”’ Craig Carter says [6] “Augustine identifies seven Psalms as “The psalms of the crucified.” Those are Psalms 16, 17, 18, 22, 28, 30 and 31.  We have now read all seven of these Psalms. In these seven psalms Christ speaks from the cross. Psalm 22 is the central psalm in this group and could be viewed as the centre or Holy of Holies of the group.” Commenting on Psalm 31 Augustine says, [7] “ Let us listen out for something our Lord said on the cross: “Into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46). When we hear those words of his in the gospel, and recognise them as part of this psalm, we should not doubt that here in this psalm it is Christ himself who is speaking. The gospel makes it clear… he had good reasons for making the words of the psalm his own, for he wanted to teach you that in the psalm he is speaking. Look for him in it.”

Craig Carter says,[8]“Christ exegetes scripture by fulfilling it. He also gives us verbal clues to its meaning to help us understand it clearly. What can we learn from Augustine’s exposition of “the psalms of the crucified” about this type of exegesis and the way in which the early church interpreted the Old Testament?  Craig Carter suggests three points which are of the greatest significance: First Augustine views the validity of this type of exegesis has been grounded in the reality of biblical inspiration and in the unity the Bible which is centred on Jesus Christ. Second the literal sense is the controlling sense in that the fundamental and crucial meaning of the psalms, and in Augustine’s view, is the historical action of God in Christ on the cross of Calvary. Third the self-interpreting character of the Bible is on display here, since Christ indwells the text, it is Christ himself who by the spirit speaks in the text.”

Let’s turn back again to Psalm 31 “Into your hands I commit my spirit redeem me, O Lord God the God of truth.”[9] “As far as Augustine is concerned Christ quotes, Psalm 31 in Luke 23:46 and does so becausethese are his own words spoken beforehand prophetically and then spoken appropriately in the fulfilment of the prophecy.N.T. Wright translates Luke 23:46 “Then Jesus shouted at the top of his voice. Here is my Spirit Father, you can take care of it now, and with that he died.” In this journey through the Psalms we have found N.T. Wright describing the reading of the psalms as [10]“living and praying in”, or “inhabiting” a  different worldview. It has become clear that the early church fathers, were open to reading the psalms in very different ways than we have felt the liberty to, today. Seeing the Old Testament and New Testament as a unity is not hersesy it is orthodoxy….but to hear Christ speaking  directly through the psalms, “Into your hands I commit my Spirit” somehow starts to make my heart burn as if I am on the road to Emmaus with Cleopas. The Psalms do not merely speak of Christ; rather in the Psalms, Christ actually speaks and He speaks to us in Psalm 31:6   

PRAYER

Lord, unblock the well of the Living word. Where we have failed to see and hear you speaking personally to us through your sacred scripture, speak your servant is listening. 

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[1] Drawn from the text of spokengospel.com (Judges)  https://www.spokengospel.com/books/judges#introduction

[2] Drawn from the text of spokengospel.com (Judges)  https://www.spokengospel.com/books/judges#introduction

[3] Bede The Eccelesiastical history of the English nation, Penguin, 1990, bk 3 chap 4. 

[4] Data provided by Joshua Project https://joshuaproject.net/people_groups/11982/UK

[5] Cameron, M. Christ meets me everywhere, 168, referenced in Carter, C.A. Interpreting Scripture, Baker Academic, 2018.

[6] Carter, C.A. Interpreting Scripture 209.

[7] Augustine, Exposition of the Psalms, 1-32,330-31, referenced in Carter, C.A. Interpreting Scripture, Baker Academic, 2018.191.

[8] Carter, C.A. Interpreting Scripture, Baker Academic, 2018,213.

[9] Wright, N.T. Luke for everyone, SPCK, 2001, 285.

[10] Wright, N.T. Finding God in the Psalms, SPCK, 2014.