Appreciating the Longest Psalm and Biblical Genealogies

Written back in 2014:

I recently had a gentleman tell me that the 119th psalm is "awful" (or something to that effect) since it's long (176 verses) and it keeps mentioning laws, statutes, reminders (etc.). He just could not make sense of this psalm. I tried to reason with him on the purpose(s) of this biblical song; it elevates God's Torah and teaches us the value of divine guidance, but admittedly, trying to read this psalm or any other without some background can be tough.

At one Witness school I attended, we were given the assignment (some years ago) of reading a chunk of 1 Chronicles along with other scriptures. Now keep in mind that this chapter is nothing but genealogy, and it would have been the first time I had read that section of the Bible. I remember looking at the assignment, closing my book, and reading something else. No way was I going to read an ongoing list of men who begat other men who begat . . .

I now appreciate those parts that were once considered boring. Having some background information for "dry" parts of Scripture immeasurably enriches one's reading, so be patient and keep at it, if you can sympathize with the man mentioned at the outset.

Christ Qua ἱλάσμος For "Our Sins" (1 John 2:1-2)

In 1 John 2:1-2, the apostle professes that Christ is ἱλάσμος for "our sins," but not for "ours" alone. To demonstrate the referent of the pronoun "our," I believe some good verses to adduce would be the following:

"But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge" (1 John 2:20 ESV).

"As for you, the anointing which you received from him remains in you, and you don't need for anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is no lie, and even as it taught you, you will remain in him" (1 John 2:27 WEB).

"beloved, now, children of God are we, and it was not yet manifested what we shall be, and we have known that if he may be manifested, like him we shall be, because we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2 YLT)

1 John 3:2 is a complex scripture, but it seems that the most likely explanation of the passage is that it references the Father, whom anointed Christians will one day "beatifically" see.

Romans 8:38-39 ("nor angels")

"For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-9 NRSV).

I've heard it suggested that the angels who cannot separate Christians from God's love in Christ Jesus are not demons, but holy angels. Or some claim they're possibly "angelic" humans in the ecclesia. However,  Paul evidently uses the word "angels" sometimes to reference demons. See 1 Corinthians 4:9; 6:3; 11:10; 13:1; 2 Corinthians 11:14. Compare the usage in 2 Corinthians 12:7; Galatians 1:8; 4:14.

Douglas Moo (The Epistle to the Romans, page 545):

Words of the Month (July 2024)

1. Aphaeresis-The Encyclopedia of Rhetoric defines this term as "a subtractive metaphoneme that omits sounds at the beginning of a word." An example of this device is found in Shakespeare: "Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping?" (Hamlet 2.2.529-530)

2. Occasionalism-Malebranche and al-Ghazali apparently held to this line of thought. Simply put, it  teaches that God makes our thoughts and bodily motions coincide and that God is the only cause of our mental and somatic activities.

SEP: "A full-blown occasionalist, like Malebranche, then, might be described as one who subscribes to the following two tenets: (1) the positive thesis that God is the only genuine cause; (2) the negative thesis that no creaturely cause is a genuine cause but at most an occasional cause."

3. Inter alios/inter alia-See https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/inter%20alios