Old News: reading the Bible backwards & inside out
Luke 24:44-48
44 He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”
45 Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. 46 He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day,47 and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things.
This Sunday’s service can be viewed on our Facebook page @Sunday, June 11, 2023
‘Old News: reading the Bible backwards & inside out’
We have no photos from that vacation. In the mid 90s my family shipped out from Michigan for South Dakota with grandpa’s trusty and perpetually mildewed pop-up camper. After the car first broke down in the middle of ...somewhere, a local passerby got us to where we needed to go. A near thousand dollar fix was just the start of what spiraled downward into the eventual wreckage that was that vacation. The car my folks had just fixed ended up totaled after a Lincoln Town Car slammed us into the curb in front of a casino owned by Kevin Costner, breaking axles costs more than a thousand dollars (I learned this while listening to the adults). The child nearly lost (that was me) and the sixteen hour drive back sleeping on the floor of grandpas Build rescue car (he drove 32 hours)—all underscored by my mother’s laughter laced with tears upon discovering that the camera had no film. The trip is now remembered through our shared memory. It has become a story we collectively tell every vacation.
If you're still reading my hope is you have a shared family moment that you could insert now. This familial, collective and memetic (repetitive) thing we do is not dissimilar from early Christian communities understanding of the Old Testament, or as they called it, scriptures (also Miqra, Tanak,Hebrew Bible, Book of Books). It’s that story, and how the New Testament seems to relate to that Bible Jesus read, that I would like to explore together Sunday. Here is a quote from a book that really spun me around this year and some texts to engage if you have time. I’ll spend a good bit of time in the gospel of John during our time on Sunday.
Peace.
Dave Rinker
Study Notes
‘The text is constructed out of the ruins of destruction. Yet [the text] is an ember left over, not only from the fire in which the Temple burned, but also from the fiery revelation at Sinai.’ (adapted from Losing the Temple & Recovering the Future p.67 Hindu Najman)
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Genesis 1-3
Exodus 32-34
Leviticus 19
Deuteronomy 6, 16-18
1 Kings 1-12
2 Chronicles 36
Psalms 72, 73, 78
Isaiah 2, 7, 9, 63
Micah 4, 5
Matthew 1-5, 23-28
Luke 24
John 21