The U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, graduated its first class on this day, June 10, 1854. The Academy was established under the direction of George Bancroft, Secretary of the Navy under President James Polk. Bancroft was also known as the “father of American history,” having written the first comprehensive history of the US. George Bancroft wrote: “That the Divine Being should… be known, not as a distant Providence… but as God present in the flesh… amid the deep sorrows… protracted during centuries… carried peace into the bosom of humanity.”

American Minute

I cannot imagine how the clockwork of the universe
can exist without a clockmaker.
--- Voltaire
The Poetry of Physics and the Physics of Poetry

I have nothing new to teach the world.
Truth and Non-violence are as old as the hills.
All I have done is to try experiments in both
on as vast a scale as I could.
--- Mohandas Gandhi
The Collected Works Of Mahatma Gandhi: (11 April, 1910 - 12 July, 1911)., Volume 11...

If Christ has our love, He has our all; and Christ never has whatHe deserves from us, till He has our love. True love withholds nothing from Christ, when it is sincerely set upon Him. If we actuallylove Him, He will have our time, and He will have our service, andHe will have the use of all our resources, and gifts, and graces;indeed, then He shall have our possessions, freedom, and our verylives, whenever He calls for them. In the same way, when God lovesany of us, He will withhold nothing from us that is good for us. Hedoes not hold back His own only begotten Son, Rom.8:32. WhenChrist loves us, He gives us everything we need—His merits to justify us, His Spirit to sanctify us, His grace to adorn us, and Hisglory to crown us. Therefore, when any of us love Christ sincerely,we lay everything down at His feet, and give up all to be at Hiscommand and service: “And they loved not their lives unto the death,” Rev. 12:11.
--- Thomas Doolittle
Love to Christ: Necessary to escape the curse at his coming

     Before moving on to kabbalistic views of divine unity, let us first summarize the three main lines of interpretation of our key word, eḥad. The third leader of the Ḥabad movement in Hasidism, R. Menaḥem Mendel of Lubavitch, provides us with a concise formulation. He points to three successive interpretations of the oneness of God. First and most obvious is that there exist no other gods—the simplest and most direct expression of monotheism. Taking this basic proposition one step further, the medieval Jewish philosophers understood God’s unity as uniqueness, a difference in quality as well as in number: God is utterly incomparable and hence ultimately unknowable. The last stage of interpretation was articulated by the Besht and his disciples, especially the “Great Maggid,” R. Dov Ber of Mezerich, and most elaborately developed by R. Shneur Zalman of Liady, the founder and first leader of Ḥabad. We now turn to this mystical approach, beginning with the comments of the Zohar, the foundational document of Kabbalah.

     Immediately after the first verse of the Shema, tradition interjects a sentence that, as mentioned earlier, is not found in the Bible at all. The phrase Barukh shem kevod … (“Blessed is the Name of His glorious Kingdom forever and ever”) was introduced here because of the tradition concerning Jacob and his sons. The verse has much to teach us about the meaning of eḥad in the opening verse of the Shema.

     What, other than this ancient aggada, connects the first verse of the Shema to the non-biblical addition, barukh shem kevod?

     The Zohar (I, 18b) characterizes the first verse of the Shema as yiḥuda ila’ah (the “Higher Unification”) and barukh shem kevod malkhuto le’olam va-ed as yiḥuda tata’ah (the “Lower Unification”). In hasidic literature, we find two widely divergent interpretations of these Zoharian terms as applied to the two opening verses of the Shema, each of which derives from two fundamentally different conceptions of divine unity.

     On one side, we find an unexpected alliance between two ideological antagonists, R. Shneur Zalman, founder of the Ḥabad movement in Hasidism and author of the Tanya, and R. Ḥayyim Volozhiner, founder of the famed Yeshiva of Volozhin and leading spokesman of the Mitnagdim (opponents of Hasidism), whose ideas are spelled out in his Nefesh ha-Ḥayyim. Their interpretation of the Shema might be labeled the radical or acosmic view. Opposing them is the hasidic zaddik, R. Zvi Hirsch of Ziditchov, author of Sur me-Ra va-Aseh Tov, whose view could be called the moderate or cosmic-affirming view.

     R. Shneur Zalman and R. Ḥayyim hold that yiḥud Hashem implies not only that no other gods exist, i.e., the absence of multiplicity, but also that nothing else can be said truly to exist. They interpret quite literally the verse, “Know therefore this day and consider it in your heart that the Lord is God in heaven above and upon the earth beneath; ein ‘od, there is no other” (Deut. 4:39); to these last two words they append mammash, “literally.” In other words, the world, in the face of God, is reduced to nothingness; it is unreal and vanishes into nonexistence. This radical denial that the cosmos really exists is known as acosmism or as illusionism because its proponents aver that the world is only an illusion. It pushes the word eḥad, “one,” to its ultimate limits—and perhaps beyond them …

     Thus, R. Shneur Zalman writes in Tanya (2:6): “For the physical world too, which appears to the eye as utterly substantial, is literally nothing and naught compared to the Holy One.” And R. Ḥayyim writes similarly in Nefesh ha-Ḥayyim (3:2): “ ‘there is no other’ other than Him [must be taken] literally: there is nothing at all in all the worlds … such that you may say that no created object and no world exist; rather, all is filled with the simple essence of His oneness.” In other words, the mundane realm is an illusion. Only God truly exists; all else is His dream, as it were. Therefore is He called eḥad, One. This notion, they maintain, is the true meaning of the first verse of the Shema, what the Zohar calls the “Higher Unification.”

     What we have here is a highly abstract, esthetically beautiful, and conceptually compelling understanding of God’s unity, one that goes far beyond the categories of “one” proposed by Aristotle and later developed and transmuted by medieval Jewish as well as non-Jewish theologians. (2) For what can be more truly and thoroughly “one” than that unity outside of which nothing at all exists? This philosophical idea, based upon a mystical intuition, elevates the unity of God beyond all normal conceptions of oneness to its most absolute form. In this purest notion of unity, transcendence itself is transcended, and the One and the All and the Nothing meet in what is truly the “Higher Unification.” (3)

(2)     For a review of most of these definitions—which often, though not always, were motivated by interreligious polemics—see Daniel Lasker, “Definitions of ‘One’ and Divine Unity,” in Studies in Jewish Thought, ed. S. O. Heller-Wilenski and M. Idel (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1989), pp. 51–61 (Hebrew).

(3)     I suggest, according to this acosmic thesis, another explanation for the custom of placing the hand over one’s eyes upon reciting the Shema—a practice approved in the Talmud in the name of R. Judah; it symbolizes the unreality of the phenomenal world that is perceived by the senses. The eyes are therefore shielded in order to emphasize that the sensate “world” does not in fact exist, that God alone is “real.”

     But this idea, abstract and sophisticated as it is, poses an enormous challenge to the very foundations of halakhic life. For Torah and Halakha are based upon an assumption that lies at the very heart of the Jewish religious enterprise: that there is a “real” world, a vast whirling conglomeration of actual substances, a universe of discrete weights and measures, a realm that is as real as the nail in one’s shoe. How shall we distinguish between right and wrong, innocent and guilty, kosher and non-kosher, pure and impure, holy and profane, and all other such clear and measured halakhic categories if what we are dealing with is unreal, a mere illusion, a dream of God? If nothing truly exists, what is Torah all about? Is not this mystical intuition in total conflict with fundamental halakhic assumptions?

     The problem goes even deeper than Halakha. For if all the world is an illusion, of what value are life and love and hope? Why should we strive for success and aspire to transcend the bounds of self? Why even yearn for religious experience itself? If we are but actors in Someone Else’s dream, how can we make sense of sacrifice and suffering, of pleasure and happiness, of the myriad emotions and sentiments that both inspire and agitate us? Why exercise moral restraint and try to achieve a minimum of human dignity? If I am unreal, aren’t my most vital concerns and most sacred values, my most precious loves and relationships equally unreal? How then do I make sense of a life that hangs on the gossamer threads of illusion?

(2)     The answer that R. Shneur Zalman and R. Ḥayyim propose is that it is God’s will that we act as if the world were real, that we take God’s dream as our reality. Indeed, they argue that this very idea is the message of Barukh shem kevod. For complementing the “Higher Unification” expressed in the first verse of the Shema is the “Lower Unification” expressed by Barukh shem kevod. This verse confirms the cosmos not as ultimate reality but as the divinely willed reality. And this pseudo-real world that we accept as real because we are so commanded is the malkhut, “kingdom,” of the Creator. In it, faced with a stunning plethora of phenomena of the most varied sorts, a world in dialogue with its Creator, we proclaim that God is One, and we bless His glorious kingdom forever and ever.

     In other words, the first verse of the Shema articulates the “Higher Unification,” the radical notion that God is One because nothing else exists; the Barukh shem kevod expresses the more conventional interpretation of divine unity as giving rise to a divinely approved and willed sacred fiction, namely, what we experience as our real existence.

     How can two such widely divergent and apparently contradictory ideas be reconciled? To resolve this paradox, both R. Shneur Zalman and R. Ḥayyim point to a significant dichotomy proposed by the great sixteenth-century Safed Kabbalist, R. Moshe Cordovero, who described two radically different ways of perceiving the world: “from His side” and “from our side.” Extrapolating from Cordovero’s teaching, they explain that the “Higher Unification” can only be perceived from the divine perspective; the “Lower Unification,” from our human perspective. From the point of view of the Ein Sof, God in His aspect of utter transcendence, nothing exists but divinity; all else is fantasy, chimerical, illusory. “ ‘There is no other’—literally.” But from our limited human point of view, the world is not a dream, not even a divine dream; it possesses ontological validity. We treat it as real and autonomous. It is within this context that we conduct our dialogue with the Creator. (4)

(4)     The Cordoveran dichotomy in a way anticipates the contemporary theory of complementarity—that there are two opposite ways of apprehending the same truth. Thus, light can be conceived of as both undulatory and discrete particles—and the equations work out equally well for both wave phenomena and for discrete quanta; yet both apparently contradictory states are true. See my Torah Umadda, (Northvale, N.J. and London: Jason Aronson Inc., 1990), pp. 232–8.

  The Shema: Spirituality and Law in Judaism

     CHAPTER 17.

     The Death Of Joseph [Herod's Brother] Which Had Been Signified To Herod In Dreams. How Herod Was Preserved Twice After A Wonderful Manner. He Cuts Off The Head Of Pappus, Who Was The Murderer Of His Brother And Sends That Head To [His Other Brother] Pheroras, And In No Long Time He Besieges Jerusalem And Marries Mariamne.

     1. In the mean time, Herod's affairs in Judea were in an ill state. He had left his brother Joseph with full power, but had charged him to make no attempts against Antigonus till his return; for that Machaerus would not be such an assistant as he could depend on, as it appeared by what he had done already; but as soon as Joseph heard that his brother was at a very great distance, he neglected the charge he had received, and marched towards Jericho with five cohorts, which Machaerus sent with him. This movement was intended for seizing on the corn, as it was now in the midst of summer; but when his enemies attacked him in the mountains, and in places which were difficult to pass, he was both killed himself, as he was very bravely fighting in the battle, and the entire Roman cohorts were destroyed; for these cohorts were new-raised men, gathered out of Syria, and here was no mixture of those called veteran soldiers among them, who might have supported those that were unskillful in war.

     2. This victory was not sufficient for Antigonus; but he proceeded to that degree of rage, as to treat the dead body of Joseph barbarously; for when he had got possession of the bodies of those that were slain, he cut off his head, although his brother Pheroras would have given fifty talents as a price of redemption for it. And now the affairs of Galilee were put in such disorder after this victory of Antigonus's, that those of Antigonus's party brought the principal men that were on Herod's side to the lake, and there drowned them. There was a great change made also in Idumea, where Machaerus was building a wall about one of the fortresses, which was called Gittha. But Herod had not yet been informed of these things; for after the taking of Samosata, and when Antony had set Sosius over the affairs of Syria, and had given him orders to assist Herod against Antigonus, he departed into Egypt; but Sosius sent two legions before him into Judea to assist Herod, and followed himself soon after with the rest of his army.

     3. Now when Herod was at Daphne, by Antioch, he had some dreams which clearly foreboded his brother's death; and as he leaped out of his bed in a disturbed manner, there came messengers that acquainted him with that calamity. So when he had lamented this misfortune for a while, he put off the main part of his mourning, and made haste to march against his enemies; and when he had performed a march that was above his strength, and was gone as far as Libanus, he got him eight hundred men of those that lived near to that mountain as his assistants, and joined with them one Roman legion, with which, before it was day, he made an irruption into Galilee, and met his enemies, and drove them back to the place which they had left. He also made an immediate and continual attack upon the fortress. Yet was he forced by a most terrible storm to pitch his camp in the neighboring villages before he could take it. But when, after a few days' time, the second legion, that came from Antony, joined themselves to him, the enemy were affrighted at his power, and left their fortifications in the night time.

     4. After this he marched through Jericho, as making what haste he could to be avenged on his brother's murderers; where happened to him a providential sign, out of which, when he had unexpectedly escaped, he had the reputation of being very dear to God; for that Evening there feasted with him many of the principal men; and after that feast was over, and all the guests were gone out, the house fell down immediately. And as he judged this to be a common signal of what dangers he should undergo, and how he should escape them in the war that he was going about, he, in the Morning, set forward with his army, when about six thousand of his enemies came running down from the mountains, and began to fight with those in his forefront; yet durst they not be so very bold as to engage the Romans hand to hand, but threw stones and darts at them at a distance; by which means they wounded a considerable number; in which action Herod's own side was wounded with a dart.

          The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem, by Flavius Josephus Translator: William Whiston

The War of the Jews: The History of the Destruction of Jerusalem (complete edition, 7 books)

                The next best thing to do

     Seek if you have not Found. “Seek, and ye shall find.” --- Luke 11:9.

     “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss.” If you ask for things from life instead of from God, you ask amiss, that is, you ask from a desire for self-realization. The more you realize yourself the less will you seek God. “Seek, and ye shall find.” Get to work, narrow your interests to this one. Have you ever sought God with your whole heart, or have you only given a languid cry to Him after a twinge of moral neuralgia? Seek, concentrate, and you will find.

     “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.” Are you thirsty, or smugly indifferent—so satisfied with your experience that you want nothing more of God? Experience is a gateway, not an end. Beware of building your faith on experience, the metallic note will come in at once, the censorious note. You can never give another person that which you have found, but you can make him homesick for what you have.

     “Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” “Draw nigh to God.” Knock—the door is closed, and you suffer from palpitation as you knock. “Cleanse your hands”—knock a bit louder, you begin to find you are dirty. “Purify your heart”—this is more personal still, you are desperately in earnest now—you will do anything. “Be afflicted”—have you ever been afflicted before God at the state of your inner life? There is no strand of self-pity left, but a heartbreaking affliction of amazement to find you are the kind of person that you are. “Humble yourself”—it is a humbling business to knock at God’s door—you have to knock with the crucified thief. “To him that knocketh, it shall be opened.”

My Utmost for His Highest

                Invasion on the Farm

I am Prytherch. Forgive me. I don't know
What you are talking about; your thoughts flow
Too swiftly for me; I cannot dawdle
Along their banks and fish in their quick stream
With crude fingers. I am alone, exposed
In my own fields with no place to run
From your sharp eyes. I, who a moment back
Paddled in the bright grass, the old farm
Warm as a sack about me, feel the cold
Winds of the world blowing. The patched gate
You left open will never be shut again.

Selected Poems, 1946-68

• Folk wisdom, including proverbs and parables.
• Case studies; incidents that actually occurred were used
     "as precedents.
• Fauna and flora, as the source of an ethical lesson.
• Imitatio Dei (imitation of the divine), with God serving
     "as a role model for human behavior.
• Apologetics, in which stories of interactions with non-Jews
     "were a basis for arguing for Judaism's superiority over
     "other religions.
• Ethical lessons derived from legal details, and legal
     "details derived from narrative sections.

Searching for Meaning in Midrash: Lessons for Everyday Living

     "It isn't unusual for the accused in a trial to express regret and remorse for what they've done and to ask for another chance. That's just what Israel did, but God anticipated their hypocritical subterfuge and exposed not only their duplicity but the sinful way they had treated their Lord.

     The nation's false repentance (Hosea 6:1–3). When you read these words, you get the impression that the nation is sincerely repenting and seeking the Lord, but when you read what God says, you see how shallow their "confession" really was. "They do not return to the Lord their God, nor seek Him" (7:10). "They have spoken lies against Me" (v. 13). "They return, but not to the Most High" (v. 16). What went wrong with this "confession"?

     To begin with, their concern was for healing and not for cleansing. They saw their nation in difficulty and wanted God to "make things right," but they did not come with broken hearts and surrendered wills. They wanted happiness, not holiness, a change of circumstances, but not a change in character. Many times in my own ministry I've met people in trouble who treated God like a celestial lifeguard who should rescue them from danger but not deliver them from their sins. They shed tears of remorse over their suffering, but not tears of repentance over their sin.

     Furthermore, the people of Israel thought that the remedy would work quickly: "After two days will He revive us; in the third day He will raise us up" (6:2). What blind optimism! They were like the false prophets in Jeremiah's day who offered the nation superficial remedies but never got to the heart of the problem (Jer. 6:14; 8:11–16). They were like physicians putting suntan lotion on a cancerous tumor instead of calling for drastic surgery. Expecting a "quick fix" is one of the marks of an unrepentant heart that doesn't want to pay the price for deep cleansing (Ps. 51:6–7).

     There is a third evidence of their shallowness: they saw forgiveness and restoration as a "mechanical" thing that was guaranteed and not as a relational matter that involved getting right with God. To paraphrase Hosea 6:3, "If we seek Him, His blessing is sure to come just as the dawn comes each Morning and the rains come each spring and winter." This is formula religion, like getting a candy bar out of a vending machine: put in the money, push the button, and out comes the candy. The Christian life is a relationship with God, and the relationships aren't based on cut-and-dried formulas.

     One more evidence of their shallowness is the fact that they depended on religious words rather than righteous deeds. When we truly repent, our words will come from broken hearts and they will cost us something. Hosea considered words to be like "spiritual sacrifices" brought to the Lord (14:2), and we must not give Him something cheap (2 Sam. 24:24). Words can reveal or conceal, depending on the honesty and humility of the sinner. (This is made clear in 1 John 1, where the phrase "if we say" is repeated three times. See also King Saul's "religious lies" in 1 Samuel 15:10–35.) We must take to heart the warning in Ecclesiastes 5:1–2. (1 Guard your steps when you go to the house of God; to draw near to listen is better than the sacrifice offered by fools; for they do not know how to keep from doing evil. 2 Never be rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be quick to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven, and you upon earth; therefore let your words be few.) ... and yet so many are so anxious to open their mouths in prayer that they might be heard. (by others)

     The nation's true condition (Hosea 6:4–7:16). In a series of vivid similes ad metaphors, Hosea revealed the true character of the people of Israel.

     Their love for the Lord was like a Morning cloud and the dew (6:4–11). Early in the Morning, the dew looks like sparkling jewels, but as soon as the sun comes up, the dew is gone. Israel's devotion to the Lord was temporary, lovely but not lasting. To give some substance to their faith, God sent them His prophets with the Word of God which is like a penetrating sword (Eph. 6:17) and a flash of lightning (Hosea 6:5), but the people turned a deaf ear.

     God doesn't want our relationship with Him to be one of shallow, transient feelings and empty words and rituals, hearts that are enthusiastic one day and frigid the next. "For I desired mercy [loyal love], and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings" (v. 6). A superficial ritual can never take the place of sincere love and faithful obedience (1 Sam. 15:22–23; Amos 5:21–24; Micah 6:6–8; Matt 9:13; 12:7).

     "But like Adam they have transgressed the covenant" (Hosea 6:7, NASB).11 God promised Adam His blessings if he obeyed His commands, but Adam deliberately destroyed and plunged the human race into sin and death (Rom. 5:12–21; 1 Cor. 15:21–22). God promised Israel the blessings of the Promised Land if they would obey Him (Deut. 28), but they broke the covenant and suffered the consequences. For both Israel and Judah, God had appointed a harvest, and they would reap just what they had sown (Gal. 6:7–8).

     Their lust was like an overheated oven (Hosea 7:1–7). It's probable that the last statement in 6:11 should be joined with 7:1 to read, "When I would have returned the captivity of My people, when I would have healed Israel." What prevented God from helping His distressed people? They wanted Him to act on their terms and not according to the condition of His holy covenant. They thought they could get away with their many sins, but God saw them all and remembered them (v. 2; contrast Heb. 10:16–17).

     Their passion for sin was like a fire in an oven: bank the fire at night, and it will be ready to blaze out in the Morning. The oven was so hot that the baker could ignore it all night and know it would be ready for baking his bread in the Morning. The "fuel" for the fire was wine, for alcohol and sin often go together.

     Hosea describes a palace celebration during which the king and his officers get drunk, and this gives the king's enemies opportunity to overthrow him and even kill him. Remember, Israel had five kings in thirteen years, and four kings were assassinated in twenty years. From Jeroboam I, the first king of Israel, to Hoshea, the last king, there were nine different dynasties! Because the leaders were far from the Lord, the political situation was confused and corrupt.

     The third simile is that of a half-baked cake (Hosea 7:8). The nomadic peoples of the East baked their bread on hot rocks. If the dough wasn't turned, one side of the loaf would be burned and the other side uncooked. Instead of remaining separate from the nations, Israel mixed with the nations and became like them. Because of her compromising political posture, the nation was "burned" by Assyria on the one hand and left uncooked on the other.

     When it comes to our relationship with the Lord, we must be thorough and not "half-baked." His gracious work must permeate our whole being so that heart, mind, and strength are all devoted to Him. Compromise with the world leads to unbalanced conduct and immature character.

     Continuing the theme of compromise, Hosea pictures Israel as a man getting gray and not knowing it (vv. 9–10). By mixing with the nations and ignoring the Lord, the nation was secretly losing her strength, like someone getting older and weaker but in her pride refusing to admit it. This is the tragedy of undetected losses that quietly lead to ultimate failures. Samson made this mistake (Jud. 16:20) and so did the church in Laodicea (Rev. 3:17). Israel saw her political strategy failing, but the leaders still refused to turn to the Lord. "The pride of Israel" (Hosea 7:10; see 5:5) refers to Israel's national glory which had greatly eroded since the days of David and Solomon. Selfish politicians and corrupt priests had brought the nation to ruin.

     In their political policies, the Israelites were like a silly dove (7:11–12). First they turned to Egypt for help and then to Assyria, and both nations proved to be false allies
(5:13; 8:8–10; 12:1). If the leaders had listened to the prophets, they would have known that Assyria would one day invade the land (9:3; 10:5–6; Isa. 7:18–8:10). God warned that Israel's "flying here and there" would come to an end when He caught them in His net and gave them to the King of Assyria. God is in control of the nations, but His people would not obey Him.

     According to the covenant God had with His people, the Jews could trade with the other nations, but they were not to enter into political alliances that would compromise their obedience to the Lord. "I see a people who live apart and do not consider themselves one of the nations"
(Num. 23:9, NIV). "You are to be holy to me because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own" (Lev. 20:26, NIV). Solomon used many wives to form alliances with other nations, and this was the beginning of the nation's downfall (1 Kings 11:1ff).

     The final image is a faulty bow (Hosea 7:13–16), because God couldn't depend on Israel to be faithful. (This image is also used in Ps. 78:57.) God had called Israel and trained them, so they should have been able to "hit the target." But because they had strayed from the Lord, rebelled against Him, lied to Him (in their feigned repentance), and refused to call upon Him, so they could not win the battle.

     As we review these images, we might take inventory of our own devotion to the Lord. How lasting is it? How deep is it? How strong is it? How serious is it? How dependable is it?

Be Amazed (Minor Prophets): Restoring an Attitude of Wonder and Worship (The BE Series Commentary)

     Another case is the account of the healing of blind Bartimaeus. The charge of discrepancy is made in view of the fact that Matthew mentions two blind men, whereas Mark and Luke mention one, and that Matthew and Mark speak of the incident as having taken place when Christ was coming out of Jericho, while Luke seems to indicate that it was when He was drawing near to the city. There is little difficulty about the former of these differences, for it is quite consistent with the actual facts that two men should be healed but that the second and third writers should tell of one of these only. As to the exact locality of the healing, it is futile to impute inaccuracy to any one of the Gospel writers on this ground, seeing that the full details are not given in any one case. Were all the circumstances known each writer would no doubt be found perfectly accurate. For one thing, Luke’s narrative does not make it necessary to suppose that the blind man was on the side of the town where Christ was entering. It may be objected that the narrative continues with the record of Christ’s entering into the house of Zacchaeus, and that therefore the healing of the blind man must have taken place before. But this objection cannot stand, for it is not at all necessary to suppose from the first verse of the nineteenth chapter that Luke was narrating things in exact chronological order. In writing the narrative of Zacchaeus he was possibly reverting to an incident which had taken place while Christ was in Jericho. Moreover, it is a well-known feature in Luke’s Gospel that he narrates details of this sort without exact chronology.

     He frequently has an eye to the moral or spiritual association of incidents, which causes him to group events in this way rather than to observe the strict order of their occurrence. There is a striking contrast between the two sections at the end of chapter 18 which the writer seems to set off one against the other. In the section verses 31–34 there is the spiritual blindness of the disciples; then comes the incident of the physical blindness of the beggar by the wayside, suggesting that Luke was guided by the Spirit of God so to record the events as to bring to the notice of the diligent inquirer the means whereby spiritually blind people may receive their sight.

     He makes it clear, too, that he is connecting the story of Zacchaeus with the parable of the pounds, for he says that as the people heard what Christ said to Zacchaeus, He spoke the parable of the pounds because they thought that the Kingdom of God was immediately to appear (v. 11). It is noticeable, too, that Christ’s going up to Jerusalem is mentioned immediately after He had told them the parable (v. 28).

     Further, the way in which Luke begins the Zacchaeus narrative makes it quite natural to suppose that he was reverting to something that had taken place while Christ was in the city before He healed the blind man. Literally the first verse of chapter nineteen reads “and after having entered, He was passing through Jericho,” a way of putting it which may be easily connected, not with the healing of the blind man, but with the initial statement of 18:35, when Christ was coming to the city. Every detail of the three records could be easily accounted for in some such way. The veracity of the writers at least remains unimpaired.

     In reading the Gospel of Luke a great deal is missed if we do not observe that the object of the writer is not the mere sequence of events, but the grouping of the teachings of the Lord as well as His works and His ways.

The Collected Writings of W.E. Vine: Boxed Five Volume Set

     The discussion thus far has centered on individual texts, since the books developed separately and were written on separate scrolls during the Second Temple period. By the third or fourth century C.E., however, the collection of texts coalesced into a single text. Books considered to have divine authority formed a special group distinct from other works. The group of five books seen as the revelation to Moses became “the book of Moses” (4QMMT C10), though the authoritative status of Jubilees in certain circles raises the question whether the category of Torah was strictly confined to the five books. The book of Moses together with an undefined collection of prophetic books (including, for most Jewish groups, Psalms and Daniel) formed a special collection of authoritative Scripture—“the Law and the Prophets”—during the late Second Temple period. Many other works, some of which would, and others of which would not, become part of the Writings, or Poetic and Wisdom books, were still finding their place in the first century C.E. By approximately the third century, though the scroll format apparently continued in Jewish circles, at least for Christians the codex gradually supplanted the scroll as the preferred form, and the texts that had been placed only in a mental category were now transformed into a physical unity, a single text: the Old Testament. Thus, the idea of a collection of sacred texts originated in Judaism, but explicit discussion of a canon of sacred Scriptures and physical reproduction of it apparently arose in Christian circles.

     “Canon” is a theological terminus technicus denoting the definitive, official list of inspired, authoritative books that constitute the recognized and accepted body of sacred Scripture which forms the rule of faith for a major religious group, that definitive list being the result of inclusive and exclusive decisions after serious deliberation. Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, and others have differing lists of books as their canon, but the definition of “the canon of Scripture” remains the same for all, and the process leading up to the establishment of the canon was an analogous process for each.

     There is no solid evidence from the Second Temple period regarding the specific books in the canon and at best inconclusive evidence for anything beyond “the Law and the Prophets.” The Prologue to Ben Sira is clearest with “the Law and the Prophets and the other books of our ancestors” (8–10; cf. 1–2, 24–25). But this could mean either a tripartite or a bipartite collection: either (1) the Law, (2) the Prophets, and (3) the Writings; or (1) the Scriptures (i.e., the Law and the Prophets) and (2) other important religious literature helpful toward instruction and wisdom. Whereas both the bipartite and the tripartite (albeit quite vague for the third category) positions are defensible, in contrast, the oft-cited reference to a tripartite canon in 4QMMT C 10 (“in the book of Moses [and] in the book[s of the P]rophets and in Dav[id …]”) requires serious scrutiny. The DJD editors’ interpretation as an attestation of a tripartite canon is highly dubious on at least five levels: questionable placement of a fragment (4QMMTd frg. 17), paleographic transcription of several letters, reconstruction of the composite text in light of disagreements between the manuscripts, awkward syntax, and the content denoted by the last phrase (wbd??[ ]). That is, two of the three sections, “the book[s of]” the Prophets, and “David,” may well disappear from the alleged tripartite reference. Appeals to other biblical references—such as in Ben Sira’s own work and 1 and 2 Maccabees—are likewise unpersuasive, unless one takes a maximalist approach in which mere knowledge of or allusive mention of a book means that it, or even its entire category of books, was already considered canonical. Only toward the end of the first century C.E. does Josephus write of an exclusive twenty-two-book collection, and 4 Ezra mentions a set of twenty-four books for the public alongside seventy to be distributed among the wise. Thus, the absence of any clear mention of a tripartite collection of Scriptures prior to the late first century C.E. weighs in favor of a bipartite collection envisioned in the Prologue to Ben Sira.

The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism

     Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? “Father, save me from this hour”? --- John 12:27.

     The first thing Christianity does to the problem of suffering is to heighten and accentuate the difficulty of it. (Classic Sermons on the Grace of God (Kregel Classic Sermons) ) In fact, it is precisely our Christian faith that creates the problem. Only to the believer is suffering a mystery. For only Christians say, “God is love”; therefore it is only they who have in their hands and hearts the terrible task of squaring the dark, tragic things in life with such a daring declaration of faith.

     We must reject the solution that all suffering comes from God. God has created his world in such a way that sin and suffering are possibilities. But to hold, as some good people do, that God is the direct and immediate cause of everything that happens and, therefore, the cause of all the evil things that happen—that kind of rigid determinism, that almost mechanical predestination—affronts our moral sense and makes nonsense of the fact of human freedom.

     We must equally reject the doctrine that all suffering is due to sin. Sin produces suffering in one form or another. Indeed, sin and folly and bungling and selfishness are responsible for a vast amount of suffering in the world today. But it is not true that all suffering is due to sin, as if someone’s troubles were punishments, indications of some flaw in her or his character.

     Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no!” (Luke 13:1–3)

     That is plain enough. Here you have it, on the authority of Jesus, that it is a false simplification to say that all suffering is due to sin.

     What, then, are we to say? The search for a solution must be continued. It may be, of course, that we will find there is no complete and final answer to the mystery of suffering. We may be led to conclude that there will always, to the very end of the day, be need for an act of sheer naked faith. If that is so, we need not be ashamed. Faith requires no apology. And, if faith in God creates the problem, it is surely understandable that faith in God is going to answer it.
--- James S. Stewart

Take Heart: Daily Devotions with the Church's Great Preachers

     John Hus, born in a peasant’s home about 1373, worked his way through school and began teaching theology at the University of Prague. He was exposed to Wycliffe’s writings, and in 1402 when he was appointed preacher at Prague’s influential Bethlehem Chapel his powerful RS Thomas about justification by faith stirred all Bohemia. Church officials grew alarmed by the ferment, and in 1414 Hus was summoned to Constance on charges of heresy. Though promised safe conduct, he was quickly arrested. On June 10, 1415, he wrote to his followers in Bohemia:

     Master John Hus, a servant of God in hope, to all the faithful Bohemians who love and will love God, praying that God may grant them to live and die in his grace, and dwell forever in the heavenly joy. Amen. Faithful and beloved of God, lords and ladies, rich and poor! I entreat you and exhort you to love God, to spread abroad his word, and to hear and observe it more willingly. I entreat you to hold fast the truth of God, which I have written and preached to you from the holy Scriptures. …

     I write this letter to you in prison, bound with chains and expecting on the morrow the sentence of death, yet fully trusting in God that I shall not swerve from his truth nor swear denial of the errors, whereof I have been charged by false witnesses. What grace God hath shown me, and how he helps me in the midst of strange temptations, you will know when by his mercy we meet in joy in his presence. Of Master Jerome, my beloved friend, I hear nothing except that he too, like myself, is in a noisome prison waiting for death, and that on account of his faith which he showed so earnestly to the Bohemians. …

     I entreat this too of you, that ye love one another, defend good men from violent oppression, and give every one an opportunity of hearing the truth. I am writing this with the help of a good angel on Monday night before St. Vitus’s Day.

     Twenty-six days later, John Hus died at the stake.

     God blesses those people who are treated badly for doing right. They belong to the kingdom of heaven. God will bless you when people insult you, mistreat you, and tell all kinds of evil lies about you because of me. Be happy and excited! You will have a great reward in heaven.
--- Matthew 5:10-12a.

On This Day 365 Amazing And Inspiring Stories About Saints, Martyrs And Heroes

          Morning - June 10

     “We live unto the Lord.” --- Romans 14:8.

     If God had willed it, each of us might have entered heaven at the moment of conversion. It was not absolutely necessary for our preparation for immortality that we should tarry here. It is possible for a man to be taken to heaven, and to be found meet to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light, though he has but just believed in Jesus. It is true that our sanctification is a long and continued process, and we shall not be perfected till we lay aside our bodies and enter within the veil; but nevertheless, had the Lord so willed it, he might have changed us from imperfection to perfection, and have taken us to heaven at once. Why then are we here? Would God keep his children out of paradise a single moment longer than was necessary? Why is the army of the living God still on the battle-field when one charge might give them the victory? Why are his children still wandering hither and thither through a maze, when a solitary word from his lips would bring them into the centre of their hopes in heaven? The answer is—they are here that they may “live unto the Lord,” and may bring others to know his love. We remain on earth as sowers to scatter good seed; as ploughmen to break up the fallow ground; as heralds publishing salvation. We are here as the “salt of the earth,” to be a blessing to the world. We are here to glorify Christ in our daily life. We are here as workers for him, and as “workers together with him.” Let us see that our life answereth its end. Let us live earnest, useful, holy lives, to “the praise of the glory of his grace.” Meanwhile we long to be with him, and daily sing ---

     “My heart is with him on his throne,
     And ill can brook delay;
     Each moment listening for the voice,
     ‘Rise up, and come away.’ ”


          Evening - June 10

     “They are they which testify of me.” --- John 5:39.

     Jesus Christ is the Alpha and Omega of the Bible. He is the constant theme of its sacred pages; from first to last they testify of him. At the creation we at once discern him as one of the sacred Trinity; we catch a glimpse of him in the promise of the woman’s seed; we see him typified in the ark of Noah; we walk with Abraham, as he sees Messiah’s day; we dwell in the tents of Isaac and Jacob, feeding upon the gracious promise; we hear the venerable Israel talking of Shiloh; and in the numerous types of the law, we find the Redeemer abundantly foreshadowed. Prophets and kings, priests and preachers, all look one way—they all stand as the cherubs did over the ark, desiring to look within, and to read the mystery of God’s great propitiation. Still more manifestly in the New Testament we find our Lord the one pervading subject. It is not an ingot here and there, or dust of gold thinly scattered, but here you stand upon a solid floor of gold; for the whole substance of the New Testament is Jesus crucified, and even its closing sentence is bejewelled with the Redeemer’s name. We should always read Scripture in this light; we should consider the word to be as a mirror into which Christ looks down from heaven; and then we, looking into it, see his face reflected as in a glass—darkly, it is true, but still in such a way as to be a blessed preparation for seeing him as we shall see him face to face. This volume contains Jesus Christ’s letters to us, perfumed by his love. These pages are the garments of our King, and they all smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia. Scripture is the royal chariot in which Jesus rides, and it is paved with love for the daughters of Jerusalem. The Scriptures are the swaddling bands of the holy child Jesus; unroll them and you find your Saviour. The quintessence of the word of God is Christ.

Morning and Evening

          ART THOU WEARY?

     John M. Neale, 1818–1866

     Adapted from the Greek of Stephen the Sabaite, 725–815

     The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let him who hears say, “Come!” Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life. (Revelation 22:17)

     I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are very wise and very beautiful; but I have never read in either of them, “Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy burdened.”
--- St. Augustine

     Inspired by Christ’s loving offer of pardon and rest for the weary and distressed soul, an 8th century Greek monk named Stephen wrote these plaintive lines. From the age of 10 Stephen lived in the monastery of Mar Sabas in the wilderness of Judea. He eventually became the abbot of this monastery until his death at the age of 90. The mystic quality of the hymn’s text reflects the introspective solitude of Stephen’s life. He joins with “saints, apostles, prophets, and martyrs” to assert God’s blessing upon all who respond to Him in simple faith.

     This text in its present form is actually a paraphrase of Stephen’s writing. It was done by John M. Neale, an English clergyman who discovered and translated many ancient Greek and Latin hymns. Neale published “Art thou Weary?” in his 1862 edition of Hymns of the Eastern Church.

     “Art Thou Weary?” has been the favorite hymn of many notable people, including President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Its simple and direct arrangement of a question in the first line of each verse followed by the positive answer in each second line has given assurance of God’s constant faithfulness to countless despairing persons.

     Art thou weary, art thou languid, art thou sore distrest? “Come to Me,” saith One, “and, coming, be at rest.”

     Hath He marks to lead me to Him, if He be my guide? “In His feet and hands are wound-prints, and His side.”

     If I still hold closely to Him, what hath He at last? “Sorrow vanquished, labor ended, Jordan passed.”

     If I ask Him to receive me, will He say me nay? “Not till earth and not till heaven pass away.”

     Finding, foll’wing, keeping, struggling, is He sure to bless? Saints, apostles, prophets, martyrs answer, “Yes.”

     For Today: Psalm 23:2; 55:22; Matthew 11:28, 29; John 10:10.

     Come to Christ with any burden or sorrow in your life and be assured that He will hasten to meet you with open arms just as the father of the prodigal son did. Rest in the truth of these musical lines ---

Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions

     Sect. LI. — LET us now come to that passage in Ecclesiasticus, and also with it compare that first ‘probable opinion.’ The opinion saith, ‘Freewill cannot will good.’ The passage in Ecclesiasticus is adduced to prove, that “Free-will” is something, and can do something. Therefore, the opinion which is to be proved by Ecclesiasticus, asserts one thing; and Ecclesiasticus, which is adduced to prove it, asserts another. This is just as if any one, setting about to prove that Christ was the Messiah, should adduce a passage which proves that Pilate was governor of Syria, or any thing else equally discordant. It is in the same way that “Free-will” is here proved. But, not to mention my having above made it manifest, that nothing clear or certain can be said or proved concerning “Free-will,” as to what it is, or what it can do, it is worth while to examine the whole passage thoroughly.

     First he saith, “God made man in the beginning.’’ Here he speaks of the creation of man; nor does he say any thing, as yet, concerning either “Free-will” or the commandments.

     Then he goes on, “and left him in the hand of his own counsel.” And what is here? Is “Freewill” built upon this? But there is not here any mention of commandments, for the doing of which “Free-will” is required; nor do we read any thing of this kind in the creation of man. If any thing be understood by “the hand of his own counsel,” that should rather be understood which is in Genesis i. and ii.: that man was made lord of all things that he might freely exercise dominion over them: and as Moses saith, “Let us make man, and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea:” nor can any thing else be proved from those words: for it is in these things only that man may act of his own will, as being subject unto him. And moreover, he calls this man’s counsel, in contradiction as it were to the counsel of God. But after this, when He has said, that man was made and left thus in the hand of his own counsel — he adds,

     “He added moreover His commandments and His precepts.” Unto what did He add them? Certainly unto that counsel and will of man, and over and above unto that constituting of His dominion over other things. By which commandments He took from man the dominion over one part of His creatures, (that is, over the tree of knowledge of good and evil,) and willed rather that he should not be free. — Having added the commandments, He then comes to the will of man towards God and towards the things of God.

     “If thou wilt keep the commandments they shall preserve thee,” &c. From this part, therefore, “If thou wilt,” begins the question concerning “Free-will.” So that, from Ecclesiasticus we learn, that man is constituted as divided into two kingdoms. — The one, is that in which he is led according to his own will and counsel, without the precepts and the commandments of God: that is, in those things which are beneath him. Here he has dominion and is lord, as “left in the hand of his own counsel.” Not that God so leaves him to himself, as that He does not co-operate with him; but He commits unto him the free use of things according to his own will, without prohibiting him by any laws or injunctions. As we may say, by way of similitude, the Gospel has left us in the hands of our own counsel, that we may use, and have dominion over all things as we will. But Moses and the Pope left us not in that counsel, but restrained us by laws, and subjected us rather to their own will. — But in the other kingdom, he is not left in the hand of his own counsel, but is directed and led according to the Will and Counsel of God. And as, in his own kingdom, he is led according to his own will, without the precepts of another; so, in the kingdom of God, he is led according to the precepts of another, without his own will. And this is what Ecclesiasticus means, when he says, “He added moreover His commandments and His precepts: saying, If thou wilt,”

     If, therefore, these things be satisfactorily clear, I have made it fully evident, that this passage of Ecclesiasticus does not make for “Freewill,” but directly against it: seeing that, it subjects man to the precepts and will of God, and takes from him his “Free-will.” But if they be not satisfactorily clear, I have at least made it manifest, that this passage cannot make for “Freewill;” seeing that, it may be understood in a sense different from that which they put upon it, that is, in my sense already stated, which is not absurd, but most holy and in harmony with the whole Scripture. Whereas, their sense militates against the whole Scripture, and is fetched from this one passage only, contrary to the tenor of the whole Scripture. I stand therefore, secure in the good sense, the negative of “Free-will,” until they shall have confirmed their strained and forced affirmative.

     When, therefore, Ecclesiasticus says, “If thou wilt keep the commandments, and keep the faith that pleaseth Me, they shall preserve thee,” I do not see that “Free-will” can be proved from those words. For, “if thou wilt,” is a verb of the subjunctive mood, which asserts nothing: as the logicians say, ‘a conditional asserts nothing indicatively:’ such as, if the devil be God, he is deservedly worshipped: if an ass fly, an ass has wings, so also, if there be “Free-will,” grace is nothing at all. Therefore, if Ecclesiasticus had wished to assert “Free-will,” he ought to have spoken thus: — man is able to keep the commandments of God, or, man, has the power to keep the commandments.

The Bondage of the Will   or   Christian Classics Ethereal Library

Job 32 - 35
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J.D. Farag

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