2 Kings 4:8-30, Gehazi (02/24/22)

You know who Elisha is, but what about Gehazi, Elisha's right-hand man? This story about Elisha, Gehazi, and the woman from Shunem takes place over a period of several years, probably at least five years and maybe as much as fifteen years. Notice that Elisha has been coming by the Shunammite's house for some time (vss. 8-10) when Elisha decides to do something for her. She can't think of anything she wants (or is reluctant to say). Elisha can't think of anything either, so he asks Gehazi, who says, "What she needs is a son." (The only system for taking care of the aged was to have children.)

In due course the son is born, so there's another year gone by, and in the next verse he's old enough to go out into the fields – say between 4 and 15 years old – when he has some sort of fatal medical issue. The Shunammite makes a beeline for Elisha, who trusts Gehazi with going out to meet her. She won't take him into her confidence, but goes straight to Elisha, who sends Gehazi off to take care of the boy. The woman knows where the real power is, however, and she stays until Elisha comes along with her as well.

2 Kings 4:31-37, 5:1, 9-27, Gehazi (02/25/22)

We learn today that the Shunammite's son was young enough that she could still pick him up and carry him. Gehazi, even with Elisha's staff, wasn't able to do anything for the boy. Elisha was a great prophet, however, able not only to prophesy but also to work miracles. I actually read about a modern case in which a young, cold, dead child was warmed in the ER and came back to life, so Elisha's prayer and the way he warmed the child make this miracle seem perfectly plausible to me. The modern child had drowned in very cold water, and I expect there was some powerful prayer going on. The doctor said that a young child who drowns in cold water isn't dead until it is "warm and dead." Sadly, between delays and a child being too old, it usually doesn't work out so well.

Gehazi seems to think that Elisha should be charging for working miracles, so when a rich foreign captain comes to Elisha and is healed, he takes it upon himself to tell the captain that Elisha has decided to takes some money and goods after all. It doesn't work out so well for Gehazi, but he was old enough that I don't feel too sad on his behalf. I like the contrast between the greedy Gehazi, who works for a prophet and should know better, and the captain's servants, who sympathetically encourage him to do the simple thing that Elisha has asked of him.

Mark 6:1-3; Acts 12:14-17, 15:12-21, 21:17-19; Galatians 1:18-19, Jude 1:1, James the brother of Jesus (03/02/22)

Do you remember those logic games you played when you were a little kid? "The lion isn't sitting next to the giraffe. The giraffe is to the left of the lion. A hippopotamus is with them. What's the order of the animals?" Scholars have to play this game to figure out all the Marys and Jameses in the Bible, and they don't all agree on the answer.

The first James, James the brother of the Lord, is reasonably clear. The primary discussion revolves around whether he should be called "brother" or "half-brother"; Paul and the people in Nazareth go with "brother." (Note that the brothers in Acts 12:17 are Christian brothers, not necessarily relatives.) James was prominent in – and apparently the leader of – the church in Jerusalem, and he wrote the book of James. Jude is also a brother of Jesus, but he only claims to be James's brother and Jesus' servant.

Matthew 4:18-22; Mark 1:29, 3:17, 9:2, 10:35-41, 13:3-4; Luke 8:49-51, 9:52-54; Acts 12:1-3, James the disciple, son of Zebedee (03/03/22)

I read once that the disciple James is never mentioned apart from his brother John, and that seems to be true, which makes him another James who's easy to identify. Jesus called James and John "the Sons of Thunder." Their requests for special treatment and for permission to strike the Samaritan village with lightening show that the nickname was well deserved! James was a member of Jesus' inner circle, along with Peter and John. Sadly, he was martyred early, and the potential that Jesus saw in him could not be realized.

Luke 6:12-16; Matthew 27:55-56; Mark 15:40, 16:1, Luke 24:10; Acts 1:13, James son of Alphaeus; James father of Jude, plus or minus James the less, son of Mary (03/04/22)

Two fellow-readers wrote to say that the previous two study tips clarified the difference between James the brother of John and James the brother of the Lord. Unfortunately, the study tips clarifieth, and the study tips muddleth up. Today the remaining Jameses get really confusing, but that's okay, because they are much less prominent than the first two. There seem to be three of them:

James, a disciple, who the is the son of Alphaeus,
James the father of Judas, who is a disciple, and
James (the less) who is the son of Mary and the brother of Joses.

There could be a fourth: James who has no brother Joses and is the son of another Mary. Because note Matthew 27:55, where it says, "There were many women watching."

Of course, you instantly noticed that one James could be all four of these at the same time:

James, sometimes called James the less, who is the son of Alphaeus and Mary and the brother of Joses, who just doesn't happen to be mentioned in Luke 24:10.

Scholars could count these Jameses in various ways, although mostly they seem to agree with the three in the first set of bullets. Here's what's worth remembering:

James brother of John and James brother of the Lord are two different people, both prominent, and
Not everyone named James is the same person.

Genesis 25:1-11; 1 Chronicles 1:27-33, Keturah (03/07/22)

I'm positive you've heard of Abraham and his wife Sarah, the mother of Isaac. I'm also confident that you've heard of Hagar, Sarah's servant girl and the mother of Abraham's son Ishmael. But who in the world is Keturah [keh-TOO-rah]? Well, after the death of Sarah, Abraham remarried, and Keturah is his second wife (using the same word for wife as Genesis 25:10), according to Genesis. Abraham was buried with his first wife, Sarah; I've been to many cemeteries, and it is common for remarried men and women to be buried with the first spouse. We don't know how long Keturah lived or where she was buried, but she did give Abraham a nice second family.

(1 Chronicles calls Keturah a concubine, using the same word as for the concubines in Genesis 25:6. However, the Chronicler often looks at the history of the kingdom of Judah much more narrowly than other historical books.)

Abraham also apparently had two or more concubines in addition to Hagar and Keturah. He was generous to all his children by all of his wives and concubines, but we only learn details about Isaac and Ishmael. Only Isaac inherits the covenant between God and Abraham.

Genesis 29:23-29, 30:1-13, Bilhah and Zilpah (03/08/22)

We all know that Jacob had two wives, Rachel and Leah, and Ruth 4:11 tells us that Rachel and Leah "built the house of Israel." So who are Bilhah and Zilpah? What we tend to forget is that Rachel and Leah, in the course of their kid contest, both insisted that Jacob also have children with their servant girls, Bilhah and Zilpah. In fact scripture refers to Bilhah and Zilpah as wives, not concubines. Bilhah and Zilpah bore two sons apiece, who became the ancestors of four of the twelve tribes. Rachel and Leah seem to have counted these boys as their own children, but the genealogies in scripture assign the kids to their real moms. (Eventually Rachel also bore two boys, Joseph and Benjamin.)

Hosea 1:1-9, Lo-Ruhamah (No-Mercy) and Lo-Ammi (Not-My-People) (03/10/22)

You know that Hosea was one of the prophets. Who are Lo-Ruhamah [low-roo-HA-mah] and Lo-Ammi [low-AHM-me]? Today and tomorrow we're going to read about them and why they're important. If a prophet comes to you, you'd better hope that he doesn't bring his kids along, especially if their names are No-Mercy and Not-My-People. Their older brother was Jezreel – you remember that Jezreel is the place where Jehu got carried away and slaughtered a whole lot of people that he wasn't supposed to. Now Jehu's great-grandson Jeroboam is on the throne of Israel. God told Hosea to give his children (well, maybe they were his children; they were his adulterous wife's children) the names Jezreel, No-Mercy, and Not-My-People as a sign to the house of Jehu and the idolatrous people of Israel that God was unhappy with them.

Hosea 2:1-23, Lo-Ruhamah (No-Mercy) and Lo-Ammi (Not-My-People) (03/11/22)

The story of No-Mercy and Not-My-People's parents is bitter-sweet. The prophet Hosea's adulterous wife, Gomer, runs away, becomes a prostitute, and is sold into slavery. Hosea can't stand it, and he buys her back. After a period of purification, he takes her again as his wife. Hosea thinks, "If I loved my adulterous wife so much that I would buy her back, how much does God love the adulterous people of Israel?" He takes Gomer back, and he renames her children – who might be his – "Mercy" and "My People." Hosea's message is that God loves you dearly and will always take you back.

If somebody told me that I could only keep two books of the Bible, and all the rest would be destroyed forever, I'd choose Hosea and John. Their messages are identical: God loves you so much! Love God; love your neighbor.

Genesis 29:33, Luke 2:25-35, Simeon, son of Jacob (Dinah's brother), and Simeon in the Temple (03/14/22)

This week we're going to talk about Simeons, some of whom are also called Simon. Fear not! For they are easy to tell apart, and we won't read about all of them! Simeon and Simon are two forms of the same name, like John and Juan. The name seems to have been a popular one, probably because the original, Old Testament Simeon was a son of Leah and Jacob, and hence the father of one of the tribes of Israel. (He was one of Dinah's brothers; we read about him a few weeks ago.) The first New Testament Simeon is waiting in the Temple when Joseph and Mary bring the infant Jesus to be presented to the Lord. This Simeon is venerated as a saint in several Christian traditions, which seems reasonable to me, considering that we know he was "righteous and devout... and the Holy Spirit was upon him." This is the only time he appears in the NT, and I think we can assume that he departed in peace before Jesus' earthly ministry.

Remember that when anybody or anything "is called X, because Y," the name sounds like the reason in Hebrew.

John 1:40-42; Acts 15:6-14; 1 Corinthians 9:1-5, 15:3-8, Simon son of John, a.k.a. Cephas, Peter, and Simeon (03/15/22)

Simon Peter the disciple started out life as Simon. Jesus nicknames him Cephas [KEY-fass or SEE-fass], which means Rock, which is Petros in Greek or Peter in English. I was surprised to find that once Jesus gives Simon the name Cephas, only Paul actually calls him that in writing. Everybody else calls him Peter or Simon Peter, at least in writing. James calls him Simeon, which as we learned yesterday is another form of Simon. Simon Peter, Peter, and Cephas are always all the same person. Simon and Simeon can also be the same person. Or not. Read carefully.

Mark 3:13-19, Mark 6:1-6; Luke 23:26, Mark 15:21, Romans 16:13, Simon Zelotes, disciple; Simon, brother of Jesus; Simon the Cyrene (03/16/22)

I was once on a paleo dig with a team that had three guys named Dave. Whenever someone would say, "Dave?" all three of them would answer. We finally started calling them by their last names. We see the same tendency for a whole generation of parents to use a total of ten boys' names in the list of Jesus' disciples, where there are two named James (as we read before), two named Judas (one sometimes called Thaddeus), and two named Simon. The second Simon is Simon Zelotes a.k.a. Simon the Zealot. The Zealots were a political party, or a movement, who wanted to throw off Rome by military force. He is listed among the disciples in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Acts. Other than what his identity as a Zealot tells us, we don't know anything about him.

The next Simon is the brother of Jesus, mentioned only in Mark 6:3 and the parallel Matthew 13:55. He may have been one of the brothers who came to check up on Jesus in Mark 3:35 or who became a member of the fellowship in Acts 1:14, but we can't be sure about that.

Finally (for today), you probably have heard of Simon the Cyrene. We know just a bit more about him. He had the distinction of being compelled by the Romans to carry the cross for Jesus. Since Roman prisoners about to be crucified had to carry their own crosses, this tells us more about the condition Jesus was in after being beaten and scourged than it does about Simon. Mark identifies him as the father of Alexander and Rufus, who must have been reasonably well known in the early Christian community. We don't know whether this is the same Rufus whom Paul later greets in his letter to the Romans; by this time the Christian community numbered many thousands.

Mark 14:3-9; Luke 7:36-50, Simon the leper; Simon the Pharisee (03/17/22)

We are told about two occasions on which Jesus has dinner at the house of someone named Simon, and both times, a woman comes in to anoint Jesus during the meal. That's a little confusing. However, one dinner is at Simon the leper's house, and the other is at Simon the Pharisee's house. Many other details are different as well. There were lots of Simons, lepers, and Pharisees in first-century Judea, but these two are easy to tell apart if we pay attention to these other details.

The dinner at the house of Simon the leper, described in Mark, is also reported in Matthew 26. That's no surprise, because Matthew often repeats Mark; however, we also receive the story in John 12, which is a little surprising because John is usually independent of Mark, Matthew, and Luke. John tells us that the woman is Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus. Mary pours a very expensive ointment on Jesus' feet, which gets her some flak from the disciples, although John says specifically that it was Judas Iscariot who was criticizing her. This anointing occurs late in Jesus' ministry, and he says that she is anointing him for burial.

The dinner with Simon the Pharisee appears to be very early in Jesus' ministry, while John is still in prison or very recently dead. This woman, whose name is unknown (but is not Mary Magdalene!) anoints Jesus' feet with her tears and ointment. Simon the Pharisee (mentally) criticizes Jesus for allowing this sinful woman to touch him. Jesus takes this opportunity to tell a parable about forgiveness and love.

I love the painting at the top of the page, because Simon holds a prominent place in both the story and the story, but we still can't see him. Jesus and the woman are both clear to our eyes, which is as it should be.

Acts 8:9-24, Acts 9:43 – 10:6, Acts 10:30-35; Simon the sorcerer; Simon the tanner (03/18/22)

We'll make the acquaintance of two more Simons and then quit for the week, how's that? After the martyrdom of Stephen, a wave of persecution arose against the early church, and almost everyone except the Twelve scattered from Jerusalem. Philip the Evangelist (not the apostle) went to the city of Samaria. (Although we tend to think of Samaria as a country, not a city, they're like New York, New York.) There Philip met a magician named Simon, who believed the Gospel but thought he might use it to make some money. It takes Simon Peter to set him straight.

Somewhat later, Simon Peter goes on to Joppa, where he stays with Simon the tanner. Tanners don't make their living by taking in lodgers, so Simon must have been a hospitable sort, and since the Church was still being persecuted, he must have been a man willing to take some risks. He might even have been a follower of the Way, although we don't know that. It is at Simon the tanner's house that Simon Peter has a great and mysterious vision (Acts 10:9-20). When messengers from the Roman centurion Cornelius arrive, Peter immediately understands that God welcomes even the Gentiles into the Church.

More of Who Is This Guy?
Introduction
Three guys named Ananias, Two Prophets, and Several Foreign Kings
Foreign gods and goddesses, Caleb, the Sons of Aaron, and Two Jehus
Gehazi, Four or five guys named James, Three Important Wives, Children with Ominous Names, and Ten Simeons and Simons
Biblical guys who are gals, Several queens, and who is this guy really?
Guys, and one Gal, with God in their Name

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