Bible Tuesday for Sunday, October 19, 2014

Isaiah 45:1-7

Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus,
whose right hand I have grasped
to subdue nations before him
and strip kings of their robes,
to open doors before him—
and the gates shall not be closed:
I will go before you
and level the mountains,*
I will break in pieces the doors of bronze
and cut through the bars of iron,
I will give you the treasures of darkness
and riches hidden in secret places,
so that you may know that it is I, the Lord,
the God of Israel, who call you by your name.
For the sake of my servant Jacob,
and Israel my chosen,
I call you by your name,
I surname you, though you do not know me.
I am the Lord, and there is no other;
besides me there is no god.
I arm you, though you do not know me,
so that they may know, from the rising of the sun
and from the west, that there is no one besides me;
I am the Lord, and there is no other.
I form light and create darkness,
I make weal and create woe;
I the Lord do all these things.

The setting for this text is that Cyrus, king of Persia, has defeated the Babylonian Empire and has released from captivity in Babylon all those foreign peoples, including the Israelites. In this passage of Isaiah, God is telling Cyrus what God has done for him and how he fits into God’s faithfulness to His covenant with Israel.

God does the absolutely shocking thing of calling a non-Jewish king “my anointed” or “Messiah” in Hebrew or “Christ” in Greek. God describes the blessing the Cyrus will receive by serving God as Israel’s messiah, and the blessing that Israel will receive through him, all at the hand of God.

“Treasures in the darkness and riches hidden in secret places” should not be understood as dirty money or blood money but rather that Cyrus will receive the spoils of war, including those treasure stores that were hidden and secreted away.

Why would God use Cyrus and not empower one of the Israelite kings to save His people? In this passage, God states that by doing this, God will prove his faithfulness to His covenant with Israel and that all peoples will see the benefit of faithfulness to the God of the Israelites, the God who made all things, instead of worshiping the gods whom they made with their own hands.

“I make weal and create woe” According to Merriam Webster, weal is a state of prosper and happiness. Woe is the state of sorrow and loss.

Psalm 96:1-13

1 O sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the earth.
2 Sing to the Lord, bless his name;
tell of his salvation from day to day.
3 Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous works among all the peoples.
4 For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;
he is to be revered above all gods.
5 For all the gods of the peoples are idols,
but the Lord made the heavens.
6 Honor and majesty are before him;
strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.

7 Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
8 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
bring an offering, and come into his courts.
9 Worship the Lord in holy splendor;
tremble before him, all the earth.

10 Say among the nations, “The Lord is king!
The world is firmly established; it shall never be moved.
He will judge the peoples with equity.”
11 Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
12 let the field exult, and everything in it.
Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy
13 before the Lord; for he is coming,
for he is coming to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness,
and the peoples with his truth.

This psalm is chosen for this group of texts because it reiterates much of what is said in our Isaiah text. Yahweh is great than all the gods. Those other gods are mere idols but Yahweh made all that exists. Therefore, give God credit for all that God does. Verse 12 says that all of creation sings God’s praise. Since we are creation, we should join in that song, even among those who do not know or believe God to be God.

1 Thessalonians 1-10

Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,

To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

Grace to you and peace.

2 We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly3 remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. 4 For we know, brothers and sisters[a]beloved by God, that he has chosen you, 5 because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of persons we proved to be among you for your sake. 6 And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, 7 so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. 8 For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it. 9 For the people of those regions[b] report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, 10 and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming.

Here is a great example of the greeting and salutation portions of a typical letter in the late BCE (BC) early CE (AD) Roman world. Paul follows the standard formula perfectly: first, the “from” line, then the “to” line, and then the flowery introduction to the main content of the letter.

This text was chosen for this pericope set because it, too, talks about turning away from idols to worship I AM. (verse 9) There were at least two gods commonly worshiped among Roman territories during Paul’s time who were thought to die at the winter solstice and come back to life days later. Paul calls God “living and true” and describes God’s action to Jesus as “whom he raised from the dead” stating that God is the power behind the lesser gods and mere idols. While they die and need to be raised, God is the one who does the raising. Later Paul talks about Jesus’ equality with God.

Common in Old Testament stories and in the books of Acts and Paul’s letters is the idea that if God touches you with the Holy Spirit, you will give some kind of evidence to the fact. Verse 5 indicates that Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy not only preached to the congregation in Thessalonica (pronounced Thessaloniki in modern Greece) but also somehow demonstrated power and gifts of the Holy Spirit, so that they were believable and not more fly by night itinerate preachers.

Matthew 22:15-22

Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.

In regard to taxes levied on the Jews by the Romans, Oxford Companion admits that we know few details about this tax, but says: "… it consisted of a flat-rate personal tax on all men from age fourteen and women from age twelve to age sixty-five and was levied at least at the rate of one denarius (about a day’s wage) per year. Later (we do not know when) it was combined with a percentage tax on property." Paying taxes to a pagan government was financially supporting it, and that was directly in opposition to God’s law. But not paying taxes was death by agony Roman Style, and that left one’s family in horribly dire straights. In addition, paying taxes to Rome meant paying the salaries of Roman troops and government officials who thought nothing of molesting, attacking, persecuting and executing Jews.

Coinage in Roman was newly minted with each emperor, with the caesar’s image on at least one of the denominations. Jewish coinage never had an image on it, either human or animal, because Jews understood that such images were breaking the “You shall not make for yourself graven images” command. Jews were constantly struggling with how to be faithful to the commands of God and survive in the Roman world. Carrying Roman coinage on one’s person was breaking God’s command. But the only thing one could do with Jewish coinage was give offerings at the Temple and do business with Jews in Jerusalem. Everything else had to be done with Roman currency.

The dilemma which the Herodians and the disciples of the Pharisees try to trap Jesus was a very real one that plagued faithful Jews in everyday life.

Herodians were a religious/political group who were either a political party in addition to Sadducees and Pharisees, or a group of people who supported the Herods (who were not, in fact, Jews, but rather Edomites, descendants of Esau, not Jacob. Herod the Great and his family were all put in place by Rome and built temples to the caesars and Roman deities. They were, in a word, pro Roman and Jewish in name only.

“Whose likeness” employs the same word that God uses in Genesis 1 when God says “Let us make humans in our image.” Is Jesus being as ironic as the Pharisees and Herodians were in their false compliments of him? Is Jesus intentionally hearkening back to Genesis 1 with his question? When Jesus says, “Give therefore to the Emperor the things that are the Emperor’s and to God the things that are God’s” the word is apodidomi which means to give back/return that which already belongs to one.