The book of Acts, or the Acts of the Apostles or simply Acts, tells us the story of the early church and its spread throughout the Roman Empire. It is most often attributed to the author of Luke and picks up immediately after the ascension of Jesus Christ into heaven.
After a brief account of the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles at Pentecost (interpreted as the birth of the church), Luke pursues a central theme, that of the spread of Christianity to the Gentile world under the guiding inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He also describes the church’s gradual drawing away from Jewish traditions. The missionary journeys of St. Paul are given a prominent place in the Acts of the Apostles.
Without Acts, a picture of the early church would be impossible to reconstruct. It is to this beginning of the early church that we turn to this month. Acts 2:36-47 describes the earliest formation of the church, how the people came together and how new members are brought into what we now know as the Body of Christ.
The Gospel of Judas is a gnostic text that has recently been unearthed and translated. It paints a different picture of Judas where Jesus asks Judas to betray him so that prophecy may be fulfilled. Judas here is presented a model disciple for those who wish to follow Jesus. He is the one who truly understands who Jesus is and what must happen.
This text comes to us from approximately 280 CE but was most likely copied from an earlier text. Most gnostic writing comes to us in the second century and this particular Christian Heresy was confronted directly by Ireanus in 180 CE
The text is clearly not canon, and deals with many gnostic themes: the fallen world and the spirit world, the God of this world and the true God of the next and that some possess secret knowledge. But the text does bring us to an interesting question, was Judas doing a good deed in handing Jesus over? Without the betrayal, there would be no arrest, without the arrest, there would be no trial, without the trial there would be no crucifixion, without the crucifixion there would be no resurrection and we would still wouldn’t be saved from our sins.
So why were Judas’s action such a bad thing? Can the irredeemable be redeemed?
And no, I don’t mean queen of the desert. Priscilla was a companion of Paul and a missionary. She, along with her husband, are believed to be among the seventy disciples sent out two by two to make known Jesus Christ.
Priscilla and Aquila are described in the New Testament as providing a presence that strengthened the early Christian churches. Paul was generous in his recognition and acknowledgement of his indebtedness to them. Together, they are credited with instructing Apollos, a major evangelist of the first century, and “[explaining] to him the way of God more accurately”
This makes Priscilla a very interesting character, not just for her ability to promulgate the gospel, but also because it is clear that in the early church women were leaders, preachers and teachers.
Scholars have also been debating for many years the authorship of the Letter to the Hebrews. Recently there has been much work done towards isolating the author. Many scholars have put forward that Priscilla is the author of the letter, but to ensure that it would be preserved the authorship was left anonymous versus having a woman as the author.
Priscilla will be the focal point for our nest discussion, the place of women in the church and what she contributed to the church.
When we think of the Revelation to John we often think about the apocalypse: fire and brimstone, lakes of fire and the final judgement of humanity. And while these elements do exist within the text, it might be best to take a step back first and to rediscover apocalyptic literature for what God intended it to be rather than how humans have used it towards their end.
We have often described apocalypse as something to do with the end or end times. In pop-culture this has taken many forms, not the least of which is the dreaded Zombie Apocalypse. But an apocalypse (Ancient Greek: ἀποκάλυψις apokálypsis, from ἀπό and καλύπτω, literally means “an uncovering”) is a disclosure or revelation of knowledge. It is to make known what was hidden before.
This makes decoding Revelation much more complicated. This means the book reveals knowledge, not necessarily about just about the end times, but about the world in which it was written. For instance the fall of Babylon as described in 17:1-19:10 is about the Roman Empire. It would have been impossible to circulate a text describing the fall of the Roman Empire within the empire. So for that reason it is written in code.
Scholars have spent centuries decoding Revelation, and together we will join that task as we gather at the Huether Hotel in the Malt Room on April 24, 2019 at 7:30 pm. We will look specifically at Revelation 21:1-22:7 as well as some of the general themes of the book.
We hope to see you soon and bring a friend.
Ruth, whose name means Friendship, is one of the iconic women of the bible. Her friendship with Naomi is one of the most talked about relationships between two women in the bible.
But what makes Ruth such an interesting figure beyond her relationship with Naomi is that she is an outsider. A woman from Moab that marries the son of Naomi, and who is eventually widowed like Naomi. And when Naomi decides to return to Bethlehem and her people Ruth insist on being at her side.
Her unwavering friendship to her mother-in-law eventually leads to her becoming the wife of Boaz and the two of them have a child, Obed. Obed would have a child, Jesse. And from Jesse, the greatest king of Israel would be born, David.
This book is a great example of how God continually seeks out the lost, the outsider and incorporates them back into the family of God. Ruth sets the stage for the unification of the two kingdoms under David. And from the house of David, the Messiah will eventually be born and unify all of God’s children, Gentile or Jew into the body of Christ, the church, the physical representation of God’s son here on earth.
It is this story of outsider, friendship and love that will be our focus for the next Beer and Bible at the Heuther Hotel January 30, 2019 at 7:30 pm.
The Prodigal Son is one of the best-known parables in the bible. Found only in the Gospel of Luke, it follows after two other parables, The Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin. These passages teach us about what it means to be lost and found in the love of God.
The Prodigal Son is more than a lost brother who sins and sins boldly and then is forgiven when he returns to the Father. While this is part of the story, it is only a part of the story. The parable goes on to teach us about lostness in the midst of the church and our day to day lives.
It also reminds us that the Father’s table is never complete, it always has an empty chair. Therefore in imitation of Jesus Christ, the elder brother that rushes to find us when we are lost, we too are to pursue others with the same amount of reckless love.
Join us on July 25th at the Heuther Hotel at 7:30 pm as we read this parable and then allow the parable to read us.
Throughout history, women in the Bible have either gotten a bad rap like Eve or have been held up as paragons of virtue like the Blessed Virgin Mary. These simplistic themes though limit the depth of the learning from scripture. What does the story of Adam and Eve teach us about God and who we are in relation to God beyond the simplistic reading that women are temptresses?
This month at Beer and Bible we will be exploring one of these Bad Girls from the Bible with thanks to Liz Curtis Higgs acclaimed book by the same title.
The woman at the Well, who is never named, but has the longest recorded conversation with Jesus will be our launching point into discovering what these bad girls can teach us about God, Jesus, and ourselves. Join us June 20th at 7:30 pm at the Heuther Hotel in the Malt Room in basement.
How many angels can stand on the edge of a pin? An old question that occupied theologians and philosophers in the middle ages. And while it may seem like a silly question, it does speak to our innate need to try and understand God and God’s messengers.
Over the centuries angels have been attributed to timely help from strangers, guardians who save us from chance accidents and supernatural actors in our world. Stripping back some of those layers to an earlier understanding, angels have always been known as messengers. Biblically angels were a messenger from God, conveying news from God to humanity.
This month we will be looking at the biblical stories in which angels play a prominent role. We will examine what we can know about angels from scriptures and hopefully understand their place in God’s world. We look forward to seeing you on May 30th at the Heuther Hotel in the Malt Room at 7:30 pm.
One of the best-known parables of Jesus, the Good Samaritan offers a rich insight into the mind of Christ and the expectations of neighbourly love. It is a parable that offers a critic of the norms of the day. But those critics are well applied to our world today and the hyper-partisan public sphere. We would do well to listen closely to the parable of the Good Samaritan and to know its history.
At Beer and Bible will go a little deeper than the surface level reading as we unpack the historical and political landscape of the time. We must remember that Jesus’ audience would instinctively know the nuance in the same way that many Canadians know turns of phrase that may not make sense a few hundred years from now. Hockey fans, for instance, would know 1972, 1987 and the Golden Goal.
The historical and political landscape will open the parables to a deeper reading, and one in which not only do we read the parable but also how the parable reads us. We look forward to seeing you on April 25th at the Heuther Hotel in the Malt Room at 7:30 pm.
The Gospel of Mark is the earliest Gospel written. It comes from approximately 55 AD. It commonly has two endings, the shorter ending of Mark where the women run away and say nothing, and the longer ending with the resurrection appearances. They are both listed in the bible for scholars have yet to be able to determine the authenticity and veracity of which ending is from the author. The Gospel of Mark is replete with Chiastic structures, known as Marken Sandwiches, but also forms a larger Chiastic Structure encompassing the whole text.
A Chiastic Literary Structure is part of Jewish writing and is designed specifically to point to the important components or the centre of the text. Each component has a mirror component. A and A’ are mirrors of each other. For instance, Jonh points to Jesus at the beginning of the text and the young man points to Jesus at the end of the text.
Following the Chiastic Structure in Mark, the passion prediction becomes the epicentre of the Gospel. I find this particularly interesting especially in light of the shorter ending of Mark where the “women flee and say nothing.”
The Gospel of Mark is a literary challenge. Have you the faith to go ahead to Galilee. Have the faith to believe in the words of Christ, that the Son of Man must suffer and die before he is to be raised from the dead and ascend into heaven. Have you the faith to believe in the resurrection? The text for me is symbolic of the faith that is required of each Christian. It stands in place of Thomas. Can you believe without seeing?
We do hope you will join us as we look deeply into the library known as the Bible. This month we will be meeting on January 31st at the Huether Hotel downstairs in the Malt room at 7:30 pm.