They gave the sense
Also Jeshua, . . . and the Levites, helped the people to understand the law; and the people stood in their place. So they read distinctly from the book, in the law of God; and they gave the sense, and helped them to understand the reading. (Nehemiah 8:7–8)
So he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. And he was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written:
“The spirit of the Lord is upon me,
Because he has anointed me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”Then he closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And he began to say to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:16–21)
Jesus the living word is the sense of the word.
Asked of God
Mary’s song in Luke 1 obviously echoes that of Hannah in 1 Samuel 2.
Samuel and Jesus both ministered in a time of faithless priests, a time when the word of God was disregarded.
And the child Samuel grew in stature, and in favor both with Yahweh and men. (1 Sam 2:26)
And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men. (Luke 2:52)
During these times, and as a result of the work of Samuel-David-Solomon/Jesus, God abandoned his house, used his enemies to tear apart that house, then established a new house and subjugated those same enemies.
Strong and courageous
Notice that Joshua exhorts us to be strong and courageous, first of all in obedience.
Only be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go. (1:7)
Therefore be very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, lest you turn aside from it to the right hand or to the left, and lest you go among these nations, these who remain among you. You shall not make mention of the name of their gods, nor cause anyone to swear by them; you shall not serve them nor bow down to them, but you shall hold fast to Yahweh your God, as you have done to this day. (23:6-8)
Bitter root
Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled; lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. (Heb. 12)
Given how we use the word bitterness today, it’s easy to assume this refers to our attitude toward fellow believers. But the Biblical use of this word is broader and has to do with poisonous teaching and conduct. Thus:
“I make this covenant and this oath . . . so that there may not be among you man or woman or family or tribe, whose heart turns away today from Yahweh our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations, and that there may not be among you a root bearing bitterness or wormwood; and so it may not happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he blesses himself in his heart, saying, ‘I shall have peace, even though I follow the dictates of my heart’—as though the drunkard could be included with the sober.” (Deut. 29)
Then the third angel sounded: And a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many men died from the water, because it was made bitter. (Rev. 8)
[Moses] afterwards explained what he meant, that is, lest any one, felicitating himself in sin, and like the drunken who are wont to excite thirst, stimulating sinful desires, should bring on a contempt of God through the alluring of hope of impunity. The same is what the Apostle speaks of now; for he foretells what will take place, that is, if we suffer such a root to grow, it will corrupt and defile many. (Calvin)
[The apostle] enters a serious caveat against apostasy. Here you may observe . . . the consequences of apostasy: where persons fail of having the true grace of God, a root of bitterness will spring up, corruption will prevail and break forth. (Matthew Henry)
One such poisonous teaching is the teaching that it does not matter greatly whether or how we obey God’s law and serve him. It is true that we have no reason to boast in our belonging to God (Deut. 9), but it is false that obedience is a light matter (Deut. 28).
And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him. (Heb. 5:9)
Burke 2
Some more favorite quotes from Reflections on the French Revolution:
There are some follies which baffle argument, which go beyond ridicule, and which excite no feeling in us but disgust; and therefore I say no more upon it.
But what is liberty without wisdom and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint. Those who know what virtuous liberty is cannot bear to see it disgraced by incapable heads, on account of their having high-sounding words in their mouths. . . . To make a government requires no great prudence. Settle the seat of power, teach obedience, and the work is done. To give freedom is still more easy. It is not necessary to guide; it only requires to let go the rein. But to form a free government, that is, to temper together these opposite elements of liberty and restraint in one consistent work, requires much thought, deep reflection, a sagacious, powerful, and combining mind. . . . When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators,—the instruments, not the guides of the people. . . . The popular leader is obliged to become active in propagating doctrines and establishing powers that will afterwards defeat any sober purpose at which he ultimately might have aimed.
[My countrymen] are not, I think, without some causes of apprehension and complaint; but these they do not owe to their Constitution, but to their own conduct. . . . I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve. I should be led to my remedy by a great grievance. In what I did, I should follow the example of our ancestors. I would make the reparation as nearly as possible in the style of the building.
Burke
I enjoyed reading Burke’s Reflections on the French Revolution. He’s wise and witty. Following are a few favorite quotes.
Burke describes the outcome of the Glorious Revolution as being one of “hereditary descent qualified with Protestantism,” establishing a line of succession that are “Protestants, to the end of time.”
Prince William has the opportunity to be a great man.
Burke describes constitutional liberties as an inheritance, one that is both received and to be guarded: “We wished at the period of the Revolution, and do now wish, to derive all we possess as an inheritance from our forefathers.” By contrast, the French “began ill, because you began by despising everything that belonged to you.” The irony is that the French engaged in “extravagant and presumptuous speculations which have taught your leaders to despise all their predecessors, and all their contemporaries, and even to despise themselves, until the moment in which they became truly despicable.” This sharp wit shows up around every corner. He wishes, for example, to carefully “distinguish benevolence from imbecility.” Later he writes that “in this you think you are combating prejudice, but you are at war with Nature.”
There were a few familiar turns of phrase which Burke must have either invented or helped to popularize; for example, the “long view.” Of course the phrase “little platoon” originates with him: “To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ, as it were) of public affections.” Here is a longer expression of that idea:
To a person who takes a view of the whole, the strength of Paris, thus formed, will appear a system of general weakness. It is boasted that the geometrical policy has been adopted, that all local ideas should be sunk, and that the people should be no longer Gascons, Picards, Bretons, Normans,—but Frenchmen, with one country, one heart, and one Assembly. But, instead of being all Frenchmen, the greater likelihood is that the inhabitants of that region will shortly have no country. No man ever was attached by a sense of pride, partiality, or real affection, to a description of square measurement. He never will glory in belonging to the chequer No. 71, or to any other badge-ticket. We begin our public affections in our families. No cold relation is a zealous citizen. We pass on to our neighborhoods, and our habitual provincial connections. These are inns and resting-places. Such divisions of our country as have been formed by habit, and not by a sudden jerk of authority, were so many little images of the great country, in which the heart found something which it could fill. The love to the whole is not extinguished by this subordinate partiality. Perhaps it is a sort of elemental training to those higher and more large regards by which alone men come to be affected, as with their own concern, in the prosperity of a kingdom so extensive as that of France. In that general territory itself, as in the old name of Provinces, the citizens are interested from old prejudices and unreasoned habits, and not on account of the geometric properties of its figure. The power and preëminence of Paris does certainly press down and hold these republics together as long as it lasts: but, for the reasons I have already given you, I think it can not last very long.
Later, Burke charges that the revolutionaries have replaced an appropriate respect due to place and persons with a mere “respect due to laws.”
Elsewhere, Burke chides this regard to abstract law and policy: “Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.”
Discern
I heartily hold that the common understanding of Paul’s use of examine and discern and body in 1 Cor 11 is both misguided and even harmful to our little ones. I’ve argued for this at several times.
But let’s assume for a moment that Calvin is right. Consider the words of Jesus:
At that time Jesus answered and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” (Matthew 11)
In that hour Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” (Luke 10)
Upon examination, little ones discern Jesus.
Not rejecting our Lord’s great kindness
What we have said is sufficient, as one can see, to show how unreasonably and thoughtlessly these people trouble the Lord’s church. They arouse questions and debates in order to censure the holy observance which has always, since the time of the apostles, been carefully kept by the faithful. It is sufficient because we have clearly proved that the baptism of children has certain and assured foundation in the holy scripture, and on the contrary we have abundantly refuted all the objections which they are accustomed to make against it. So we do not doubt that all good servants of God, after having read this treatise, may be clearly satisfied and perceive with their eyes that all the attacks which are made to overturn and abolish this holy ordinance are deceitful machinations of the devil, in order to diminish the comfort that the Lord wanted to give us by His promise, and by so much to obscure the glory of His name—which is the more exalted the more the generosity of His mercy is fully poured out on people. For when the Lord visibly testifies to us by the sign of baptism that for love of us He wants to pay attention to our posterity and to be the God of our children, do we not have good grounds to rejoice as David did, when we consider that the Lord takes the role of a good father of a family for us, extending His providence not only over us but over those who are ours after our death? In that rejoicing God is particularly glorified.
This is why Satan strives to deprive our children of the communication of baptism—so that when this testimony that the Lord ordained in order to confirm for us the graces which He wants to give our children has been erased from before our eye, we might likewise little by little forget the promise which He has given us for them. From that would follow not only ingratitude and lack of recognition of the Lord’s mercy toward us but a negligence in instructing our children in the fear and discipline of His law and in the knowledge of His gospel. For it is a significant goad to incite us to nourish them in true piety and obedience to God when we hear that from their birth the Lord has received them among His people, as members of His church. That is why, not rejecting our Lord’s great kindness, let us boldly present to Him our children, to whom He has given entrance by His promise into the company of those whom He avows for household members of His house, which is the Christian church. (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1541 French edition, trans. by Elsie Anne McKee, chapter 11, “Of Baptism”)
Conquest
The death of a high priest is significant.
Sometimes it is significant because it is a sign of judgment: “Then she named the child Ichabod, saying, ‘The glory has departed from Israel!’” (1 Sam 4:21) But it is always significant in that it releases those who are in prison into a new situation, for better or worse: “After the death of the high priest the manslayer may return to the land of his possession.” (Num 35:28) This is true in the greatest sense in Jesus; his death inaugurates a new epoch where those who are slaves of sin are given freedom and a future. You can see a more ordinary example of this in the death of Aaron; in a sense his death sets Israel free from the wilderness and makes it possible for them to conquer the promised land (Num 33).
There is a way in which this is true of all men, whether they be fathers or teachers or pastors; and even if they have planned for their succession with the utmost wisdom and faithfulness. The death of such a man releases a community from an obligation into a kind of freedom, but it also creates a new obligation and responsibility for that community to wrestle with the new future that is facing them. When you suffer the death of such a man, consider what old obligation you are released from, and what new opportunity you must give thanks for; and set your energies toward it.
Weary
“But you profane it,
In that you say,
‘The table of Yahweh is defiled;
And its fruit, its food, is contemptible.’
You also say,
‘Oh, what a weariness!’
And you sneer at it,”
Says the Yahweh of hosts.
“And you bring the stolen, the lame, and the sick;
Thus you bring an offering!
Should I accept this from your hand?”
Says Yahweh. (Malachi 1:12-13)
Peter Leithart writes of this passage:
Contempt for the Lord’s table is contempt for the Lord of the table, and this is as true for the church as it was for ancient Israel. Matthew Henry wisely applied these verses of Malachi to “those who live in a careless neglect of holy ordinances.” If this is the case, many churches today live in open contempt of their Lord. The Lord has provided a generous meal for His people; we have a sacrifice from which even those who served in the temple had no right to eat. Yet we complain that it makes the service too long and it is inconvenient and it is repetitive and it is boring and maybe the roast in the oven will burn. “My, how tiresome it is,” we sniff (Mal. 1:13), and thereby prove ourselves sons of Esau.
If you fear that serving the Lord’s Supper weekly might result in its becoming routine; or if you despair at the challenge of fitting it in regularly along with the rest of worship; then you should consider the possibility your love is growing cold.
Thus, weekly communion: do not grow weary in doing good.
I gotta have my orange juice. 