August Lections: 1662 Book of Common Prayer

We'll update and revise this as the month unfolds and as we prepare for September's lections also.  Ecclesiastes, Jeremiah, the early chapters of Ezekiel, St. Matthew's Gospel, and the early chapters of St. Mark's Gospel are the month's lections. We need to develop Ezekiel and Mark as per below.  We need to refine some things re: Jeremiah and expand St. Matthew's marvellous Gospel.  Of course, faithful Anglicans will cover the 150 Psalms, either read or sung, for another month--as usual.  You may want to join us on FB at:   https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/146899558722807/  As Anglicans, we repeat: we are a "Bible people" and "Bible-reading" species.

August Lections

Ecclesiastes:  “Ecclesiastes” is a translation of qoheleth, or, “gatherer of the covenant community” or the “gatherer of the Church.”  Solomon is the writer according to Jewish and Christian traditions. It was probably written later in his reign after Solomon had strayed from the Covenant God of his fathers and forefathers. It may be that Proverbs was written in the middle years of Solomon’s 40-year reign. The writer pursues the crass objectives of power and pleasure in its varied forms with the conclusion that “All is vanity!”   Negativity, bitterness, and even desperation are revealed.  Solomon addresses the vanities and nullities of wisdom, pleasures, and human labor. The word “vanity” occurs 38 times.  It is an earthly perspective concerning “everything under the sun.”  Luther said, “Now this book ought really to have a title [to indicate] that it was written against the free will. For the entire book tends to show that the counsels, plans and undertakings of men are all in vain and fruitless, and that they always have a different outcome from that which we will and purpose.”  However, the writer brings us back from the desperation of a godless life to firm confession of faith in God’s care, compassion and fidelity (12.7, 13-14).  Solomon offers hope.  There is life after death (9.10; 12.7).  The resurrection of the body is not mentioned here.  Solomon offers narrative as an admonition to young people (12.1), “Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw nears of which you will say, `I have no pleasure in them…’”  Solomon also reminds of our Sovereign Redeemer, of the one “greater than Solomon” (Mt.12.42). The Lord Jesus Christ is the answer to the questions posed by Ecclesiastes.  This book teaches the elect that they are pilgrims “under the sun” (1 Pet.1.1) yet are “citizens of heaven” (Phil.3.20).  We live with earthly tensions and frustrations, but with super-conquering assurances and promises given us by Christ (Rom.8.28-38).   As Dr. “Uncle Cornelius” Van Til was wont to say, “We labor with one eye on the furrow and the other eye on heaven.”

A practical lesson: good to talk to 2 of 4 children on this overall perspective.  These lessons are of abiding value.

Jeremiah—the “Iron Prophet”—prophesied and taught  God’s infallible Word during the reigns of the last kings of Judah: Josiah (640-609 BC), Jehohaz (609), Jehoiakim (609-598) and Zedekiah (597-586).  As the iron-grip of the Babylonians tightened, King Zedekiah especially sought out Jeremiah’s counsels (Jer. 37.3, 17). The vise-grip of international tensions between Egypt and Babylon was playing out on Israel.  Jeremiah proclaimed that God was using Babylon as a scourge for an insolent, soporific, complacent, and idolatrous nation.

In  Jeremiah, the darkness and despair is impenetrable and palpable, yet the iron-willed (and iron-created) Jeremiah, also called the Weeping Prophet, holds forth as he is held up.  The background went back to the reign of King Manasseh (696-642) in which idolatry had engrossed the nation.  King Josiah (2 Kg. 22-23) attempted reforms in 628 BC.  However, it was “too little and too late” for the patterns were ingrained in the national character.   Gross and manifold indifference, insolence, sleep and consummate disrespect for God’s Word was evident. Jeremiah’s mission was to uproot, pull down, destroy, build and plan (1.10). 

Tell that to Church Growth advocates, Tele-Prosperity enthusiasts and other soft-hearts in American evangelicalism—uproot, pull down, destroy, build and plan.  Those were the divine orders, not Jeremiah’s.

Jeremiah was a priest (1.1) and, hence, familiar with the sacrificial, priestly, precise, biblical and liturgical duties of Leviticus: atonement, vicarious satisfaction, etc., replete with Abrahamic promises of forgiveness and mercies.  The poor fellow is sent, however,  to preach to hapless and hard-hearted countrymen and covenant-descendants, defiant men and women.  The sense was, “God who?  Oh yes, Him, indeed.  We’ll pay attention later.”

Jeremiah’s life was in constant danger (11.18-23; 18.18; 26.8; He sets forth repeated warnings of judgment (Jer.23.29).  Note well chapter 52, a serious chastisement.  The day of judgment is set—irreversible, irresistible, and unvanquishable. Yet, in the invincible convictions amidst the dark days, shines the glorious comforts and assurances of Jer. 30-33, one of the brightest prophecies of everlasting salvation.  The LORD, the covenant-keeping God, would save his people, His remnant.  The refreshed, or newer covenant, would address the power of God’s people to respond in adoration and “in heart.”  While fulfilled in the post-exilic period, it is also something that is future and promises in the greater “Israel of God” (Gal.6.16) and through Christ, the Mediator of the new covenant.  Even in Jesus’ time, His Majesty, our Redeemer, was identified with Jeremiah (Mt.16.13-14).   Of course, Jesus is the Supreme Prophet (King, Priest, and Redeemer too).

The land was awash with vice and idolatry, like our times.  The people abhorred prophetic teaching.  The false prophets continually rebuked this faithful Churchman.  “What a cranky sort!” we might hear intoned. The first 20 chapters is rebuke after rebuke.  Jeremiah foretold, or “republished,” the judgments promised the nation for insolent disregard of God’s Word—abundantly promised in Leviticus and Deuteronomy.  Jeremiah’s “Confessions” are telling (Jer.11.18-20; 12.1-4; 15.10-18; 17.14-18; 18.19-23).

Yet, Jeremiah foretells that exiles will return and re-establish the covenant life, promises and faith of the Church. The conquest by the Babylonians, 609-587 B.C., was brutal.  Yet, words of comfort and promise—the Abrahamic covenant—gave consolation to the likes of Daniel and his associates (Dan. 9.2).   They would have shrunk from faith during the exile without these words of hope—words of the Promised Deliverer to come.  Jeremiah said the exile would last 70 years (Jer. 25.11-12, 29.10).   Even Jeremiah, the disconsolate, comforted himself by these Divine assurances.  He had nothing before his eyes but desolation, yet persevered in the covenanted faith of Adam, Abraham, Moses and the faithful of the past.  Of note, Jeremiah calls attention to the Messianic promise in 23.5-6 and 31.31-34, by which he promises and prophecies of Christ, His kingdom, the new covenant or testament, and the end of the Old Testament.  One take-away:  the closer the judgment, the stiffer the resistance to Biblical preaching, like our times.  We also learn that God permits the reprobate to harden themselves—which, by themselves, they do quite well—until the measure of God’s wrath is filled up, much like the days of Sodom and Gomorrah, much like the days of the LORD Jesus Christ during His earthly ministry (Mt. 11.25-30), much like Pharaoh who aggravated his hardness before Moses (Ex.1-10), and much like our times—where sound doctrine is impugned. And so it goes until the end of the world.  The people feel secure and sing, “All is well,” when all is not well.  Just as God sustained Jeremiah and Daniel in those days, so His Majesty affords us continuing consolation, justification, and the abiding promises of victory—even for Anglicans in exile.  Undoubtedly, we learn the importance of daily repentance and devotion.   We learn the importance of God’s Word, something that the “Iron-willed” Prophet lived by. God’s Word “burned within him” (Jer.20.9).  Jeremiah stands as an example of a man who stood in tough times.  If the book was completed during the exilic period, one lesson would be this: ponder afresh and anew the exile and reasons for it.  As Anglicans, this comes with refreshing, but penitential, poignancy.  For American liberals and evangelicals, can you see the exile you’re involved in? 

Ezekiel

Matthew.  Written by Matthew, former tax-collector for the Roman Empire, disciple of Jesus, and apostle to the nations. Date: c. 50 A.D.  Audience: Palestinian and Syrian Christians by way of writing within 20 years of the resurrection. Matthew extensively used the OT Scriptures. He wrote apostolically and authoritatively about the kingdom of God mediated and governed by the historical words and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth.  There appears to be a five-fold structure:  five sermons or discourses (Mt. 5-7, 10, 13, 18, 24-25) with acts and deeds by Jesus in between the discourses.  Like all the Gospels, Matthew focuses on the vicarious death of Jesus for sinners followed by his triumphant resurrection.  The ascension is assumed and implicit.  Certain themes emerge:  (1) Jesus is the Son of David and true King of Israel.  He fulfills God’s promises and dealings with the old Israel.  Jesus is the Mediator of Abrahamic blessings to/for the new Israel of the nations (notice we are not premillenial or dispensational). (2) Jesus, the Sovereign Judge, will return in the Second Advent to judge the living and the dead. (3)  Until the final return, Christ’s Church—consisting of adults and their children--is to tell the Good News as opportunity is afforded, evince the Kingdom life themselves amongst themselves and to others, educate and teach Kingdom members the whole counsel of God (Old and New Testaments), and afford Kingdom members Trinitarian baptism and nurturance at the LORD’s Table.

Mark