Archive for category: Bible Study Moment

“While Jesus and his disciples were traveling, Jesus entered a village where a woman named Martha welcomed him as a guest. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his message. By contrast, Martha was preoccupied with getting everything ready for their meal. So Martha came to him and said, ‘Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to prepare the table all by myself? Tell her to help me.’

The Lord answered, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things. One thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the better part. It won’t be taken away from her.’” (Luke 10:38-42, CEB)

 

Thinking about this passage I was prepared to talk about how Jesus is encouraging Mary, and by extension all of us, to not limit ourselves by cultural standards; in Mary’s case, by the idea of “women’s work”. Reading the passage I see that Martha is the one to welcome Jesus as a guest, and perhaps Mary is a guest of Martha’s as well. Could he be telling Martha not to volunteer her sister for jobs, and not to be upset with her if she doesn’t choose to do what Martha thinks she should be doing?

 

Mark Phillips

First, a couple of interesting facts about the book of Esther: the longest verse in the Bible (at least the King James Version) is Esther 8:9, and in the Jewish and Protestant version God is not mentioned at all. The Catholic version is longer and does mention God.

The book tells the story of how Esther becomes a queen to the King of Persia, and in that position saves the Jews, which is also the origin of the Jewish holiday Purim.

The story involves Haman, an official in the King’s court, who takes what he sees as an offense from Mordecai, a close relative of Esther’s who raised her, into a plan to kill all the Jews in the empire. Haman apparently doesn’t know that Mordecai and Esther are related.

Historically, the closest time-frame scholars can find to be even close to the events in the book is in the 5^th century BCE (or BC). But the similarities are not strong so many scholars see the book as a novella explaining Purim.

A slightly altered part of Esther 4:14 has become a favorite saying for some, part of what Mordecai tells Esther to encourage her to risk her own life to save the Jews:

Who knows? Maybe it was for a moment like this that you have been put into this position.

 

Mark Phillips

The book of Ruth tells the story involving three women; Naomi, Orpah, and Ruth.

Naomi with her husband and two sons goes from Bethlehem to Moabite territory because of famine. Her husband dies and the two sons marry Moabite women; Orpah and Ruth. Then the sons die. Naomi hears that the famine has ended in the Bethlehem area and decides to go back. She tells her daughters-in-law to go back to their mother’s households so that they can remarry. Orpah does so. (Many of you may have already heard Oprah Winfrey say she is named after Orpah, but the ‘r’ and ‘p’ got reversed.)

Ruth insists on going with Naomi with the words that have become fairly popular in weddings from Ruth 1:16 “whither thou goest, I will go; . . .  thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God” (King James Version).

The book shows us an example of gleaning, where the poor follow the harvesters to pick the remaining grain. In the Law of Moses land owners are told not to harvest all of the grain but to allow for the poor to be able to share in the harvest. Ruth is the gleaner in this case. She happens to glean in a field owned by Boaz, a close relative of Naomi’s deceased husband.

As I’ve shared before about Tamar and the Sadducees question to Jesus about the woman who married 7 brothers in succession, there was a provision for when a man has died without children to inherit his land; which is that the brother of the dead man is to take the widow as a wife and father a child for his dead brother. In this case Boaz is second in line to “redeem” Naomi (and Ruth). The man who is first in line is willing to buy the property until he learns that he’ll have to provide for both Naomi and Ruth, and marry Ruth, so he declines which allows Boaz to marry Ruth.

And now we get to why this book may have been included in the Bible; Ruth the Moabite is a great-grandmother to King David.

 

Mark Phillips

 

I’ve decided for a few weeks to write about some notable women in the Bible: first, Rahab.

Rahab appears mainly in Joshua 2. She is a resident of Jericho, a Canaanite, when Joshua has assumed leadership of the Israelites after the death of Moses. In Joshua 2:1 she is described as a harlot or prostitute. Fairly recently I read that if the Hebrew word or phrase used here was used to describe a man that he would be called an innkeeper. The Hebrew word or phrase talks about providing hospitality, which the earliest translators evidently thought since it was used in connection with a woman was a euphemism for sex. Innkeeper makes more sense to me since the verse is that Joshua has sent two spies and Rahab provides lodging for them.

Rahab hides the spies from the king of Jericho, and then helps them leave Jericho secretly. She explains that the people of Jericho have heard what the god of the Israelites has done to others and are afraid of the Israelites and their god. She asks to be spared when they conquer the city. An agreement is made that enables her and those in her household to survive the destruction of Jericho.

She and her household join the Israelites and she does become a wife and mother in the lineage of Jesus.

 

Mark Phillips

We come to Acts 28, the last chapter. When those on the shipwreck come ashore on Malta the islanders start a fire to welcome and warm them. Paul helps tend the fire and a poisonous snake, warmed by the fire, latches onto his hand. The islanders conclude that the goddess of justice will not permit him to live. He must be a murderer or something like that. When he shows no ill effects from the snake they now conclude that he is a god. This seems to fulfill Mark 16:18 about handling deadly snakes except that the versions of Mark that scholars have identified as being the oldest do not have this ending to the gospel of Mark. So some speculate that the ending was added to explain why this has happened to Paul.

Anyway, after 3 months they continue the trip to Rome on a ship with Castor and Pollux has the twin figureheads. After stops on Sicily and the “toe” of Italy they land in Puteoli, the port city serving Rome. They still have a trip overland that takes about a week when they finally arrive in Rome. Paul is under house arrest in that he lives by himself with a soldier to guard him. Paul invites Jews in the area that Paul thinks may have been told untruths about him from the Jews who were in Jerusalem that caused Paul to put under arrest. The ones in Rome haven’t heard anything about that but they are interested in Paul’s views about this faction they have heard about, those following Jesus. Paul makes his arguments for following Jesus and like in other places some believe and decide to follow Jesus while others reject the message. Paul quotes Isaiah 6:9-10 to explain why the message will go more and more to the Gentiles.

Paul continues this for 2 years and Acts ends. Tradition says Paul was released and perhaps traveled to Spain, as he expressed his plan to go to Spain in Romans 15, written before this arrest and subsequent journey. The chronological daily Bible reading I’ve been using this year on BibleGateway.com has Romans shortly after Paul’s time in Ephesus (remember the riot) in Acts 19.

 

Mark Phillips

 

Now that I’ve reached the end of Acts does anyone have a preference for which part of the Bible to look at next? Let me know.