Nielsen’s Nook

³ Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, ⁴ rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. ⁵ Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. ⁶ He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” ⁷ Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” (Jn 13:3-7 ESV)

Last night we celebrated Maundy Thursday, a remembrance of the Last Supper, when Christ instituted the New Covenant. I could not help but weep as I watched the celebrant priest divest himself of his magnificient chasuble (Eucharistic outer-garment) and take up a basin and wash the feet of three representative laity.

There is a God. I struggle to know what it means to be godlike, but what is even more overwhelming is that God proclaims himself to be Jesus-like. Jesus of course had already divested himself in taking on humanity (Philippians 2:6-7). He left the splendor of heavenly glory to become one of us.

However, the Incarnation itself could have taken countless variations. The one we have is not that God became a king, like the ancient Egyptians taught in Ra, but that He became the son of a carpenter. He did not surround himself with twelve princes, but with fishermen, a tax collector and a traitor. The Incarnate God did not promote himself but demonstrated always love and mercy and humility. God washed Peter’s feet.

It is quite amazing to me that as the Church of the Risen and Exalted Lord continues on for some 20 centuries, the way he has chosen to visibly communicate himself to his people is in something as common as bread, the most common food on earth. It is one of the least expensive foods to buy no matter where you live. It is common, yet sustaining and nourishing.

Of all the other visible means he could have used to communicate himself (if any) to his Church throughout the centuries he chose wine. Wine is not so common. The poor do not have fine wine at their meals. It is not something you necessarily drink at every meal. Wine underscores the celebration, the banquet to which Christ has invited his Church to participate with him, His banquet. Humble bread and exalted wine circumscribes the wonder of Jesus. The exalted God became a humble man that humble we might participate in the very life of Jesus now exalted at the right hand of the Father Almighty.

Translation

[ 1 We pray that you would be strong, [a] brothers, following the word of Jesus Christ according to the Gospel. [b] Glory to God is with Jesus [c] on account of the salvation of the holy elect; [d] just as the blessed Polycarp was martyred, in whose footsteps may we be found in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.] [e]

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[a] Ἐρρῶσθαι perfect passive, to be strong (BAGD, 738).

[b] Stephen’s 1550 Textus Receptus version of Philippians 3:16 reads, πλην εις ο εφθασαμεν τω αυτω στοιχειν κανονι το αυτο φρονειν. Only that we follow what we have attained (author’s translation).

[c] μεθ ̓ οὗ Jesus, the antecedent for the pronoun οὗ for readability.

[d] ἁγίων ἐκλεκτῶν is a pair of substantives consisting of a tautological emphasis of each other. To say “for the salvation of the elect” is the same as to say “for the salvation of the saints/holy ones.”

[e] §22.1 is omitted from the Latin and Codex Mosquensis 159 but is included in a Greek Manuscript from the tenth to thirteenth centuries (Holmes, Apostolic Fathers, 244).

Translation

1 We have written to you, brother and sisters, things concerning those who were martyred and the blessed Polycarp, who just as he punctuated the martyrdoms, through his martyrdom he brought the persecution to an end. For nearly all that had come before happened so that the Lord might show to us again martyrdom according to the gospel. 2 For he waited so that he might be handed over, as the Lord was also, in order that we also might become imitators of him, not looking out for only himself but also for his neighbors. [1] For it is of love, truth and steadfastness to not only desire oneself to be saved but also all the brothers and sisters.

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[1] Compare Phil 2:4 in the NA27 “μὴ τὰ ἑαυτῶν ἕκαστος σκοποῦντες ἀλλὰ [καὶ] τὰ ἑτέρων ἕκαστοι.” with what is quoted here “μὴ μόνον σκοποῦντες τὸ καθ ̓ ἑαυτοὺς ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸ κατὰ τοὺς πέλας.”

Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

The Received Greek Text	The Received Latin Text
Πιστεύω εἰς τὸ ΠΝΕΥΜΑ ΤΟ ἍΓΙΟΝ, ἁγίαν αθολικὴν ἐκκλησίαν, ἁγίων κοινωνίαν, …	Credo in Spiritum Sanctum; sanctam ecclesiam catholicam; sanctorum communionem; …

Translation

I believe in the Holy Spirit, [1] the holy catholic [2] church, the communion [3] of saints

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[1] τὸ πνευμα το Ἅγιον is a double articular phrase, not uncommon, but seeking to make sure we understand which Spirit the Creed confesses (lit. the Spirit the holy one).

[2] καθολικὴν (καθολικός) speaks of the universal or general “in contrast to a single congregation. The Martyrdom of Polycarp (ca after 156 AD) fleshes out some of the semantics. Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν, τὸν σωτῆρα τῶν ψυχῶν ἡμῶν καὶ κυβερνήτην τῶν σωμάτων ἡμῶν καὶ ποιμένα τῆς κατὰ τὴν οἰκουμένην καθολικῆς ἐκκλησίας. “… Jesus Christ, the savior of our souls and captain of our bodies and shepherd of the catholic church which is throughout the inhabited earth.” (author’s translation)

[3] κοινωνίαν (κοινωνία) is the often used and not-very-understood word for fellowship or communion. Philippians 2:1 speaks of communion of/with the Spirit. Εἴ τις οὖν παράκλησις ἐν Χριστῷ, εἴ τι παραμύθιον ἀγάπης, εἴ τις κοινωνία πνεύματος. If therefore there is any comfort in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any communion with the Spirit. (author’s translation) Semantically, the idea of communion seems to capture the more ready notion of fellowship and its connection to participation. In other words, κοινωνία suggest an active participation in the fellowship that is the basis for all things common.

Out of the brief second section of Osborne’s article on interpreting Paul there are nuggets of insights into Paul’s world. The letters of the Apostle Paul generally follow the traditional bounds of “Hellenistic letters”; however, Paul “felt less bound” to these structures, mixing several forms to accomplish his literary task.¹

Osborne incorporates nine types of Hellenistic letters into his catalog of letters with which Paul was likely familiar: ²

1. Letters of friendship (cf. 2 Cor 1:16; 5:3; Phil 1:7–8)
2. Family letters
3. Letters of praise and blame (1 Cor 11; Rev 2–3)
4. Exhortatory or paraenetic letters (1 Thess 1-5; the Pastorals)
5. Letters of mediation or recommendation (Phil 2:19-30, Philemon)
6. Juridical or forensic letters (1 Cor 9:3-12; 2 Cor 1:8-2:13)
7. Private or documentary letters
8. Official letters
9. Literary letters

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¹ Grant R. Osborne, “Hermeneutics/Interpreting Paul,” in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, ed. Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin, and Daniel G. Reid (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 391.
² ibid.

Shema Yisrael, Adonai Elohenu Adonai ehad (Hear O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is alone God). This famous sentence from Deuteronomy 6:4 seems to give us a rubric for understanding the book of Deuteronomy, if not our entire lives as those created by the LORD.

J. G. McConville, in his commentary on Deuteronomy, sees Deuteronomy chapters five and six as a single literary unit.¹ I find this resonates with my own thinking more globally about the meta-narrative found in the scriptures and is not disharmonious with approaches like that found in the IVP Dictionary of Biblical Imagery in which Deuteronomy five is said to be “a miniature version of the book as a whole”.²

The thought that impresses me is how easily we drive a wedge between the content of the two chapters. In chapter five we find the reiteration and reapplication of the Ten Commandments to the Israelites at the end of their 40 years of wandering in the desert. In chapter six we find the concern to be the worldview of covenant keeping as a means of true life.

The Ten Commandments are unfortunately left in the realm of abstract moral principles for most of us. Certainly do not covet is a bit abstract. Do not covet Jim’s wife is more concrete, but we still do not have a handle on what exactly coveting looks like. Certainly we would recognize the results of coveting if Sam were to engage in an adulterous relationship with Jim’s wife; however, the adultery is an effect of a more intimate and sinful disposition.

The Ten Commandments find their concreteness in the person of the LORD, our God. They describe One who is perfectly content in Himself and thus never covets, for example. They implicate us because we are created in the image of this One LORD, to live in the likeness of Him described in the Ten Commandments, thus living in consequent fellowship with Him. Concretely, breaking the Law of God is a direct and personal affront to the most holy LORD, exercising a desire to distance ourselves from God.

In this way, we can find that some kinds of obedience serve actually to distance ourselves from the LORD. We go to church on Sundays, perhaps the exceptionally spiritual go Wednesday evenings. But do we go to get God off our backs or do we go because we can’t help but worship the one our soul loves? When I see a police officer on the highway, one of my immediate reactions is to press the brakes a bit to slow down. This is a sort of obedience, making sure I am under the speed limit. However, it is obedience for the sake of avoiding a relationship with the lawgiver, which is in this case the State.

God has not made a covenant with his people so that we can do enough to call ourselves his. He has made and fulfilled a covenant with us in the person of Jesus that we might live out the likeness of God in fellowship with him from the heart. We are not more justified when we obey the Lord as Christians, but we do grow in grace and the appropriation of the Spirit of the LORD at work in us to will and to act (Philippians 2:12-13). Consequently, if we find our dispositions to the LORD different on Monday than they are on Sunday, we should be alarmed and we must ask the LORD to dilate our hearts that we would love loving him all the more.

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¹ J. G. McConville, Deuteronomy, Apollos Old Testament Commentary; 5 (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 139.
² Leland Ryken, Jim Wilhoit, Tremper Longman et al., Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, electronic ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000, c1998), 205.