Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Good Morning

Today's Reading:  Revelation 1:20

-- today we have the first bit of symbolism that needs to be explained.  Actually, in this case, the first symbolism is explained for us -- the seven stars (that were in Christ's hand)and the seven lampstands (which Christ is standing among).

-- the thing that stumps Barclay and other commentaries is the connection of the angels and the churches.   On the surface, the use of the word angel is pretty straightforward -- except that in the letters that are about the follow, Jesus is rebuking/repremanding the angels and the churches that they represent.  Given that, the idea that an angel could fall short of their duty and faithfulness and be repremanded by Jesus doesn't really fit into our vison of angels

-- the other thought in my mind that challenges that is -- if Jesus had something to say to the angels about the way that they were performing, he didn't have to go to John to have him write them a letter.

-- my take is that angel in this sense is means messenger.  Barclay makes a lot about the fact that John doesn't use angel to refer to any earthly person in rest of the book, why should he use it now to mean some one human, etc, that the word John is using is spelled the same, etc.  My response to that would be that isn't necessarily a problem -- thinking of the word angel, we would use the same word with no difference in spelling to mean both earthly and heavenly beings -- as is "Monica was an angel to bring the donuts to class" and "An angel must have been looking out for me when I ran that red light." So I don't know why John couldn't use the same words.

-- On the other hand, that still doesn't tell us who the angels of the seven churches are, but whoever they are, Jesus is about to call them out in the letters to come.

-- To the other point that Barclay makes in the commentary, it was an interesting the tweak to the idea that we as Christians are the light of the world -- that we are actually vessels for reflecting the light of the world, which is Christ.

Today's Scripture

In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendent of David.  The virgin's name was Mary.

Luke 1:26-27

Today's prayer requests:     Saundra Aaron

Valerie's brother's mother-in-law, who is in the middle of chemo -- we need to remember her and the family around her that is caring for her.

Today's class member prayer:

Nicole McKinney

Have a great day.

Jay