And Teach Them

We're grandparents! Well…kinda…sorta. We've been raising bluebirds at our house. We watched the mom and dad bluebird build the nest in our bluebird box, and then waited with excitement and anticipation for the eggs to hatch. Daddy Blue dutifully fed Mom Blue on the nest each day. When the eggs hatched, she joined him as they scurried back and forth to the box feeding the littles one. Life was good. Then, the unthinkable happened. We woke one morning to find Daddy Blue belly up on our drive - victim of some terrible fate, natural or otherwise we do not know, though we suspect “foul play.” In any case, now we had a crisis on our hands - a single mom trying to raise three little blueies on her own. We sprang into action. To Wild Birds Unlimited to buy meal worms. We fed her as she fed them. I'd call her every morning, and she dutifully answered and appeared at the feeder for breakfast. Same ritual at night. Then, yesterday morning when I went out to feed her, I noticed that she was not as friendly as she had been. Soon I found out why. The baby blues had fledged and she was trying to get them into the trees to safety. I went in and told Cheryl, and we congratulated ourselves on the successful “birth” of our new “grandbabies.” Little did we know that while our job was nearly over, hers was just beginning. Now Momma Blue had to teach them all the things they would need to know to succeed as bluebirds - flying, perching safely, roosting at night, and, of course, hunting food. In many ways, she's busier now than she was when they were in the bluebird box. Every day we see her shuttling back and forth from this branch to the next tending and teaching and training her little “pupils.” It's really something to watch. And it occurred to me: It never was her job to produce hatchlings or fledglings. It was her job to produce bluebirds, and for that she must teach them, not just birth them.

Camo Christian

Todd Brady, minister to the university at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee, tells a story about driving around town with his two-year son, Jack, while Jack does the two-year old thing and “names” everything in sight. “Police car!” “Hospital!” “Water tower!” “Doggie!” “School bus!” Todd dutifully responds with the appropriate parental praise: “Yes, Jack. That’s right.” But things get a bit complicated when they pass a brick, ultra-modern, rectangular, nondescript office building, and Jack, thinking he recognizes it, shouts: “Church!”

While architecture is no fail-safe method of determining a church’s faithfulness to the Gospel, it can say a lot about who we think we are and what it is we believe we’re doing in there.

The Date of the Last Supper

The date of Jesus’ crucifixion is a knotty issue indeed, but a new book by Professor Colin Humphreys of Cambridge (The Mystery of the Last Supper) claims to clear up the confusion by appealing to a little-known fact; namely, that Jews in Jesus’ day used two different calendars. Essentially, Humphreys argues that the constricted and contorted chronology of Holy Week that has been the staple of Church custom for centuries is based on two fundamentally mistaken assumptions: (1) that the chronologies of the Synoptic (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) accounts of Jesus’ final week can be harmonized with the Johannine account; and (2) that the biblical accounts of Jesus’ final week, with the Last Supper on Thursday, crucifixion on Friday, and resurrection on Sunday, derived from a single Jewish calendar that lies behind the biblical narratives. Humphreys argues that both assumptions are incorrect. He suggests that the events of Holy Week were more protracted than the attempt to harmonize the Gospel accounts would suggest, and that there is evidence that two, not one, Jewish calendars were in use in Jesus’ time. 

Was Luke a Gentile?

Christian Symbol for Gospel of Luke

Consensus is a rare thing in New Testament scholarship, but if there is a scholarly consensus about anything, it is that Luke was perhaps the only Gentile writer in the New Testament. Sometimes scholars suggest that Luke was a Gentile because his Gospel reflects an interest in Gentiles, but, of course, so does Paul and no one argues that Paul was a Gentile. Others argue that Luke was most likely a Gentile because he wrote in excellent, fluid Greek, but, as anyone who has read him in Greek will attest, so too does Philo Judaeus, and no one argues that he was a Gentile.

But by far, the chief reason scholars argue for Luke’s being a Gentile is because of something Paul says in Colossians. Lea and Black, in their New Testament Introduction, voice the consensus when they write: “Luke is usually viewed as a Gentile Christian. In Colossians 4:10-11 Paul refers to Aristarchus, Mark, and Jesus Justus as Jewish believers. Later he sends greetings from Luke, apparently designating him as a Gentile.”

The Ides of March: A Sermon (Luke 13:31-35)*

In Margaret Jensen’s book First We Have Coffee, there is the touching account of her Baptist preacher father’s being voted out of his church. She describes how the news reached her. Called to the dormitory phone, she heard her sister saying, “Margaret, this is Grace.” Long pause. “Papa’s been voted out.”

She goes on to write: “Unable to share the family disgrace with anyone, I went to class and failed the biology exam for which I was well prepared … I tried to figure out what could have gone wrong with Papa’s call. In my mind, the ministry had somehow been disgraced.”

For ten years he had shepherded and loved that congregation, but now they didn’t want him anymore. When Margaret arrived home, she found her sister Leona furious. She explained life as she saw it for the Norwegian immigrant pastor: “They wanted an American pastor, one more geared to the changing times.”

“What will we do now?” Margaret asked. Her mother, taking cups out of the cupboard never looked up:  “God never fails,” she said. “But it will be interesting to see how He works this one out. But first, we have coffee.”

Rejection. Feel it?