Bible Topics

The more I read this gospel, the more I see how Matthew spells out the remedy for all the ills in the world today. He describes the "kingship" and how necessary it is if the world is to arrive at its "synteleia." This means that everyone and everything are to work in harmony and achieve their purpose. Each person is to establish his or her identity in this Kingship.

The closest meaning to the word "Basileia" is the "king" in checkers. The "kingship" of the gospels is like this. It is a quality received in the follower of Christ that gives him or her new power in all surroundings. This power comes from sharing with each other. There is no new structure but the society around is given new life.

Matthew calls death the entering into the fullness of the "kingship" as described by Christ here on earth. Luke says it is a fullness of "koinonia" or sharing with each other here on earth. John says that now people can enjoy the fullness of true love.

I always enjoy John and James. John was 13 or 14 when called and James was 17 or 18. Jesus calls them the "boanerges" boys — "Sons of Thunder." They were always ready to jump into action. However, unlike Peter, they did look before they leapt.

I had been reading my writing on Acts and Paul yesterday. Paul comes off a real pain in the lower parts. He was a rabid persecutor of the Christians. Then he saw a chance to get in on the ground floor of this new "Jewish" group. So he proclaimed his "great vision" and converted. In short order, he was detestable to the Christians in Jerusalem so they sent him on the foreign missions. He was attacked physically on several occasions. Once, they figured him for dead and then he crawled away. Only a man like Luke could have tolerated him. Even when he was going to be put to death, Paul insisted they had to behead him because he was a Roman citizen.

Paul is proof that from the very beginning they had domineering leaders who missed the whole message of Christ.

We talked about the value of the Bible. The Old Testament was the Word of God for the Israelites from Moses to Wisdom. In general, the people of Israel and their leaders failed miserably in following the ideas and ideals. The prophets and wise men rose up regularly and led a few on to the right track again.

Jesus comes. He and John Baptist see the miserable state of matters and decide to do something about it. The leaders of the Jews were the Sadducees, the priestly group. They kept the ritual of the sacrifice. The Pharisees were a group of insincere fanatics who were backed by the Scribes, the legal scholars.

Jesus condemned the Scribes and Pharisees by name. The Sadducees he condemned when he cleaned the trash out of the temple. The first Christians had no specific set of laws or rules. They lived a community life and shared voluntarily with each other. The gospel stories gradually grew out of what different groups remembered. Gradually, four of these writings took precedence and in 1563, the Council of Trent declared that from historical evidence these four were the accounts all accepted.

The four gospels are to be read and adapted to each age.

The Greek and Russian Orthodox churches broke away from Rome on the question of authority. They maintained that they had equal authority. So Rome cut them off and the Greek church stood separately. Then a group of the Greeks came back and they are called the Greek Uniates, "re-united." Then there was a split in the Orthodox because the Russian Czars wanted more to say. The Russian Orthodox was born.

The oldest document outside the Gospels is the "Didache ton Apostolon" — the "Teaching of the Apostles," the creed we learned as kids as the "Apostles Creed." This says "I believe in the holy, universal church." There is nothing about "one" church. The only quality demanded is that it be "holy" and spread everywhere.

The "Eucharist" was the big act from the beginning. Jesus and the twelve apostles shared the Passover Meal. The Friendship Cup at the end was given a new meaning. Instead of recalling the Paschal Lamb, this cup would now recall Jesus and his ideas and ideals expressed in the lives of the Christians. According to Acts and the Pauline Letters, they had the cup of friendship at any big meal.

That's the simple picture but it was "messed up" by theologians, bishops and ritualists.

The ABC news presentation of the picture of Jesus was a good start. It clearly stressed the value of archeology, its digs and its findings. I was surprised that the presenter seemed to wonder how John Baptist and Jesus knew each other. They were cousins and grew up together. Peter Jennings did the "harmony" approach to the gospels and this destroys the value of the individual gospel. Each gospel is a separate work proceeding from a particular man and community. Each has a particular theme that is being developed. To take items from the different gospels and run them together usually changes the meaning. It is the same as taking four masterpieces of four different artists, jamming them together, and trying to understand them. We have destroyed all four paintings.

As to the resurrection, I see no problem. In the Christian ideal, each of us is going to rise a full person when the world is complete. We will be the person we made during our life in this world. Jesus could easily have been raised from the dead, the fully developed person he became, in order to encourage his followers.

Rome was never known as a kingdom. It had "Emperors" and never any "kings." In the gospels, Matthew's central theme is the "Basileia ton Ouranon" — the "kingdom of the Heavens." He gives lots of ideas about the Kingdom but Chapter 13 is a whole series of parables describing numerous aspects of this kingdom. Some of these qualities reside inside and some outside the people. The Jews set up the Kingdom of Yahweh under David in the OT. It was to have led to the Kingdom established by Christ. The OT kingdom failed totally because of the nature of the kings who ruled. The Kingdom was totally destroyed in 587 B.C.

The secret of the Kingdom established by Christ is spelled out explicitly in Mt 28 at the judgment scene in each person's life. Entrance into the eternal kingdom depends entirely on how people reacted to each other in this life. If they were truly aware of the needs of others and responded to them, they established their eternal homes. If this sharing was not present, there is no place for them. In this life, there will be difficulty but happiness is promised if the attitude is right.

I worked on Matthew yesterday, reviewing and enjoying the full idea of "kingdom" or "kingship" as he presents it. Matthew was the bookkeeper and this shows all through his gospel. He gives a list of events. Then he shows how these fulfill what the OT writers and preachers talked about. He never gets excited but just puts two and two together as he did his tax work.

Each time I go back to read the gospels I marvel more at their variety and differences.

John really stirs my blood. He lived through the first century of Christian life. He saw the strength of those first generations. He never lost his "thunder" as can be seen in his approach to the Romans in the Apocalypse. He was just as unbending as the Romans. Yet he could present true Christian love that was to change the world.

I finished the works of John yesterday — gospel and letters — and really enjoyed them. Of all the apostles he was certainly the one who had the most influence on the first Christians because he lived so long with them. He was a prophet who developed a picture of the world if the ideas and ideals of Christ were followed. He also was a prophet who looked ahead and talked of what the future would bring. John is my favorite writer because I see him in the Trastevere section of Rome where the first Christians lived. I can see him in the old Roman Forum that has been completely uncovered. I can see him at the Coliseum where the first martyrs were used for the amusement of the Romans.

Matthew gives a developed picture of the Kingdom of the Heavens. He develops the seven basic sources of happiness in the lives of all people. Then he places the whole judgment scene at the end of each person's life in these ideas. Everything depends on how well you worked with other people and got along with them.

Luke is gentle. He was able to be converted by Paul, live and work with Paul in all those years and edit Paul's writings and yet not tell him off or lose his patience.

John never lost his "thunder" and saw the true greatness of Mary in the whole picture.