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For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.Eph 2:9 |
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| Archived Manna: | |
Dear
Friend,
If you do not already have a habit of gathering daily manna the first thing in the morning (we can look at the example given to us in Exodus 16 and find the pattern for make it a habit. Establish your life and your schedule to allow you the necessary time to do your daily collection first thing every morning to give you the strength to make it through the day. And remember that today’s manna will not be sufficient for tomorrow; tomorrow’s manna must be collected tomorrow morning. Friday, September 9, 2022
Today's Passage : Today's Passage :Judas Hangs Himself Bible Verse:Matthew 27:3-10 (ESV) "Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” They said, “What is that to us? See to it yourself.” And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself. But the chief priests, taking the pieces of silver, said, “It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, since it is blood money.” So they took counsel and bought with them the potter's field as a burial place for strangers. Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him on whom a price had been set by some of the sons of Israel, and they gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord directed me.”" Message:
We once again see that Matthew is the “Gospel to the Jews.” He gives us the only description of Judas’ actions after the arrest, for Judas fulfills two great prophecies important to Jewish listeners. The “thirty pieces of silver” prophecy actually comes from Zechariah. Although to us it seems that Matthew made a mistake, he probably did not. It was a convention of rabbis to name only the first prophet when citing multiple prophesies, and Jeremiah came well before Zechariah (just as his book comes first in the Bible).
Musical cat in Illuminated Bible
Among the many different sets of rules for interpreting the Bible (“hermeneutics”) is an approach to reading the Old Testament called “Christological Hermeneutics,” which reads Christ directly into the Old Testament. For example, in Genesis 3:15, this approach would see the serpent bruising the heel of Eve’s offspring as an allegory of the crucifixion, and Eve’s offspring bruising the head of the serpent as an allegory of Christ’s final victory over Satan and/or death.
Zechariah lends itself more readily to Christological interpretation than Genesis. Chapter 11 concerns a shepherd whose wages are thirty pieces of silver — commonly cited as the price of a slave — who revokes his covenant with a flock of unruly sheep and gives them into the hands of wicked shepherds to be slaughtered. This is thought to represent God’ abandonment of Israel to the Romans, specifically the slaughter and destruction of the Temple several decades after Jesus’ death. It fits nicely with our earlier readings in Matthew, where Christ alludes to the end of the first covenant and the destruction of Jerusalem.
Jeremiah was explicitly a prophet of the first conquest of Jerusalem. He intended that the smashing of an “empty pot” — a religion that continued in form but had been emptied of its true faith in God — would foretell the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem around 600 B.C. So although the imagery fits the theology of Christ very nicely, we might wonder if it actually had been intended as such.
Here, we have to trust Matthew; if his writing is inspired of God, his interpretation must be also. So, in this case, Christological interpretation has the force of Scripture. The empty pot is the symbol of the Sanhedrin in particular and the Jewish religious establishment in general. Christ used the wonderful metaphor “a whitewashed tomb” to describe the Pharisees: shining with holiness in appearance, but in reality the home of the dead. The “empty pot” would carry the same message.
The Sanhedrin unwittingly plays directly into the prophetic metaphor, by buying a field from a potter to be used as a cemetery. Although it became known as the Field of Blood in first century Palestine, the term “Potter’s Field” would win the test of history, as “Potter’s Field” became the common term for graveyards bought by the public, for the burial of anonymous or impoverished people.
Meditation : Prayer : O Sovereign and almighty Lord, bless all your people, and all your flock. Give your peace, your help, and your love unto us your servants, the sheep of your fold, that we may be united in the bond of peace and love, one body and one spirit, in one hope of our calling, in your divine and boundless love. ......Amen |
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