Just a few minutes walk from my house tonight was an all-night reading of the New Testament. I got there late, somewhere around John 14, and left at 3:30 after Colossians. One of the students quoted Galatians, Ephesians and the first half of Romans (not in that order). I was impressed. It’s a whole lot more than I can quote. Several verses stuck out because of various conversations I’ve been in lately. Here are a couple passages that I thought funny. We were reading from the NIV. There is Acts 25:16-21 where Festus is explaining a trial to King Agrippa:

"I told them that it is not the Roman custom to hand over any man before he has faced his accusers and has had an opportunity to defend himself against their charges. When they came here with me, I did not delay the case, but convened the court the next day and ordered the man to be brought in. When his accusers got up to speak, they did not charge him with any of the crimes I had expected. Instead, they had some points of dispute with him about their own religion and about a dead man named Jesus who Paul claimed was alive. I was at a loss how to investigate such matters; so I asked if he would be willing to go to Jerusalem and stand trial there on these charges. When Paul made his appeal to be held over for the Emperor's decision, I ordered him held until I could send him to Caesar."

How exactly do you go about handling a case where there are records someone was killed but one person says says that they aren’t dead? Or there is Acts 28:1-6:

Once safely on shore, we found out that the island was called Malta. The islanders showed us unusual kindness. They built a fire and welcomed us all because it was raining and cold. Paul gathered a pile of brushwood and, as he put it on the fire, a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself on his hand. When the islanders saw the snake hanging from his hand, they said to each other, "This man must be a murderer; for though he escaped from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live." But Paul shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no ill effects. The people expected him to swell up or suddenly fall dead, but after waiting a long time and seeing nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and said he was a god.

Moving from what bad fortune he had to how Paul must be a god is quite a change. Paul uses sarcasm rather nicely in Galatians 5:2-6,10-12

Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. ... I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion will pay the penalty, whoever he may be. Brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!

Or perhaps that isn’t sarcasm (read Deuteronomy 23:1 too)… Because of the recent (and older) polygyny discussions, Acts 7:26 made a nice point:

The next day Moses came upon two Israelites who were fighting. He tried to reconcile them by saying, 'Men, you are brothers; why do you want to hurt each other?'



"Men, you are brothers." This fits pretty nicely with Leviticus 18:18:

Do not take your wife’s sister as a rival wife and have sexual relations with her while your wife is living.

At least the Temple Scroll (of the Dead Sea scrolls) agrees with me about the meaning of the latter verse.
Calvinists like to make "foreknew" to mean "before the world was created." I'll confess that I need to study the usage of some of these words more (that will be for another day). In the mean time, Romans 11:1,2 was amusing to come across tonight:

I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don’t you know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah–how he appealed to God against Israel:

So, what does "foreknew" mean? The word gets quoted a lot from its appearance in Romans 8:29. For what it is worth, the same Greek word is used in Acts 26:5 and II Peter 3:17 to refer to what a person or people group knew. It is used in I Peter 1:20, where the word is translated "foreordained" or "chosen before the creation of the world" by some translations. Anyway, I'm holding to my mostly Arminian understanding.
One final verse, I Corinthians 4:18-21:

Some of you have become arrogant, as if I were not coming to you. But I will come to you very soon, if the Lord is willing, and then I will find out not only how these arrogant people are talking, but what power they have. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power. What do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a whip, or in love and with a gentle spirit?

That the kingdom of God is one of power and not just talk is something that I have been dwelling on for a while. Where is our power? Are we not where we should be?
Jesus will be returning in this manner one day too. It isn't Paul that we ultimately have to deal with.