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Some items from church last week, followed by a book write-up:
A. The Thanksgiving service focused on Luke 17:11-19, the story about Jesus healing ten lepers and only one, a Samaritan, returning to thank him. The pastor speculated about why the other nine failed to return to Jesus to thank him for healing them. One possibility was that they were obediently doing what Jesus and the law commanded them to do: in accordance with the Torah and Jesus’s command, they were going to Jerusalem to show themselves to the priest. The pastor may have been drawing a law/Gospel dichotomy here, a distinction between simply following the law and being overwhelmed with intense gratitude over Jesus’s gracious healing. Gratitude, of course, is what transforms the Christian. Another possibility was that the nine expected Jesus, as the Messiah or merely a reputable healer, to heal them. As far as they were concerned, that was Jesus’s job. Once Jesus did his job, their mind went on to the next task: showing themselves to the priest and getting on with life. What Jesus did for them became a blip on their radar.
B. The Sunday service drew a communitarian conclusion from Jesus being the vine and Christians being the branches (John 15). Christians are not brought together because they know each other and have known each other for years. They are brought together because they all are joined with Christ, the vine. Christ, through his death and resurrection and people coming to faith, created a new community on that basis. That reminded me of when I was in a campus Bible study group decades ago, and we were talking about what courses we were taking for Winter term. One was taking a class on Verdi’s operas, while another was taking a class on how to start a small business. Someone noticed that the only thing we had in common was Christ.
C. Bible study completed Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. Three things come to mind. First, the pastor noted that Paul was combating the divisions among the Roman Christians, specifically those between Jewish and Gentile Christians. Paul was reminding them that, according to the Hebrew Bible, God’s plan was for the Gentiles to know the God of Israel as God and to worship him. According to the pastor’s interpretation, when Paul affirms that God will soon bring Satan under their feet, Paul is specifically referring to God ending the divisions within the church that Satan instigates and encourages. Second, the pastor engaged the question of whether Paul ever went to Spain. The pastor leaned in the “no” direction because there are no churches in Spain that trace their ancestry to Paul, whereas some trace their ancestry to other ancient Christian luminaries. Third, the pastor addressed whether Junia in Romans 16:7 is an apostle. Junia is a woman’s name, and some argue that Junia was a woman apostle and thus that the church should permit women’s ordination. The LCMS pastor disagrees with this interpretation. The pastor appeared to take more seriously than many scholars the possibility that “Junia” should read “Junias,” a male name. Many scholars, by contrast, prefer “Junia” on text-critical grounds and due to the prevalence of the name “Junia” in Greco-Roman antiquity, as compared with “Junias.” The pastor also said that Romans 16:7 could mean that Junia was reputable among the apostles: she is not an apostle herself, but the apostles recognize and appreciate her work.
D. Tremper Longman III. How to Read Daniel. IVP Academic, 2020. Go here to purchase the book.
I decided to read this book soon after reading the Book of Daniel for my daily quiet time. Specifically, I wondered how a Christian can be edified by Daniel and see it as divine revelation, when it appears to predict things that did not historically come to pass: that Antiochus IV would suffer defeat and that would immediately be followed by God’s eschatological rule.
Did Longman’s book help me in that area? A little. Longman argues that the numbers in Daniel (i.e., the seventy sevens, the 1260 and 1335 days, the time time and half a time) are not to be understood as literal years. For Longman, their point is that God will intervene at a definite point in time, but their goal is not to specify when that time is. Longman usually bases this argument on mere assertion about the text’s unclarity. He mounts more of an argument, though, when he says that, when Jeremiah states that the exile will last for seventy years, that does not mean that the exile will last for seventy literal years. Rather, seventy refers to completion, so Jeremiah may be saying that the exile will be over when it is over, when God determines to end it and when it has accomplished what it is set out to accomplish. The point of Daniel 9 is that it has not yet accomplished what it is set out to accomplish, for Israel still needs repentance and atonement for sin, so it will last longer. Longman’s proposal provides food for thought and possibly a piece of the puzzle, but it seems that Daniel, at least initially, had more of a literal understanding of the seventy years, for, as Longman acknowledges, Daniel was reading Jeremiah when the seventy years were about to be over.
On the dating of Daniel, Longman is conservative and prefers a sixth century rather than a second century date, but he fails to offer arguments for this position. Rather, his focus here is on supernaturalism versus anti-supernaturalism. However, he has written an actual commentary on Daniel and may offer arguments there, plus his appendix provides an annotated list of conservative and liberal (yet faith-based) commentaries on Daniel. On the occasions that Longman does argue against skeptical positions on Daniel in How to Read Daniel, he does so well, as when he addresses the question of whether Daniel 8 is inaccurate about the number of Persian kings who would precede the fall of Persia.
Some of Longman’s discussions are anti-climactic. When he discusses why Daniel and his three Hebrew friends refused to eat the king’s food in Daniel 1, he settles on the conclusion that Daniel simply was giving God room to work. The problem with this argument is that Daniel asserts that the meat is somehow defiling, as if there is a problem with the meat itself. Longman effectively knocks down interpretations about what that problem is, and he even observes that Daniel in Daniel 9 implies that he usually eats the king’s rich food. But where Longman finally settles is unsatisfactory (not that I can do better).
In reading Daniel 7, it jumped out to me that the Son of Man is probably the community of faithful Israel. Daniel 7 interprets the four beasts as four empires, then he appears to interpret the one like the Son of Man, to whom God will give dominion, as the community of faithful Israel, to whom God will give dominion. Longman, however, does not mention this possibility but focuses on how the one like the Son of Man is a divine sort of figure. That may be true, but the Son of Man’s identification with the community of faithful Israel should still be addressed. Perhaps the community of faithful Israel is being divinized, in some manner. Or the divine Son of Man could be a messianic figure who represents the community of Israel and rules on their behalf.
Longman’s book is especially helpful when it brings historical context into his discussions. Longman speculates that Daniel and his friends were brought to Babylon, not to return to Israel and rule on Babylon’s behalf (as often occurred), but rather to help replenish Babylon’s diminishing government. Longman cites evidence that Babylon interpreted health in terms of being fat, so the wonder of Daniel 1 is that Daniel and his three friends could be fat on a mere diet of water and vegetables. Prayers to Darius in Daniel 6 were based, not on the notion that Darius was a god, but rather on Darius’s status as an intercessor between his subjects and the gods. The mixed creatures of Daniel 7 would have been abominable at that time in history, as mixtures were abominated, especially by the Hebrews.
The homiletical application of Longman’s book brought to mind a homiletical article that I wrote as a teen, in which I encouraged Christian teens to boldly and openly stand up for their faith, like Daniel and his three friends. As Longman notes, however, Daniel and his three friends were not in your face. They also were concerned, not only for themselves, but for the Gentiles among whom they lived.
This book is disappointing, in areas, but still has valuable observations and insights.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher. My review is honest.
