Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: You're listening to by the well, a lectionary based podcast, preachers recorded on the land of the Wurundjeri people.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: Hello, all. I'm Kylie.
[00:00:19] Speaker A: And I'm Fran.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: And today we're going to be speaking with you about the readings for the 14th week after Pentecost. So, this. Today, we're going to look at the readings in one kings eight. There's a whole smattering of verses in brackets there. You'll see. And then verses 22 to 30 and 41 to 43, and then psalm 84 and ephesians 610 to 20.
So, Fran, if we start off on the first kings reading, you've been doing some thinking in previous episodes, looking across these great narratives, across the histories in the Hebrew Bible. So can you just, like, set the scene for us a bit here? We're encountering Solomon up to something. So what's happening?
[00:01:02] Speaker A: Up to something significant.
[00:01:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:03] Speaker A: So, in the last episode, Howard and I discussed, well, the flawed character of Solomon, a man of greatness, one of the many male biblical characters who are lauded, rightly, in many ways, but who are deeply flawed. And he came to power as king in, so to speak, the previous episode, last week's lectionary, but nefarious means, you know, and he's someone who. Who built up a lot of military. He.
Yeah, a mixed bag. So Howard talked about us having a hermeneutic of suspicion when reading about his. When he was anointed king, for example. So we come to him in this episode, well known to those of us who have been going to church for years. It's the dedication of the temple. Now, this reading, as you say, it's a smattering of verses. We've left a lot out here, but it contains Solomon's prayer, that dedication of the longest prayer in the Hebrew Bible, I believe. One of the fun facts I read this week.
So the temple, in my thinking about this, I went searching for imagery, knowing. I mean, I know in my mind the vastness of this temple, the opulence that it contained. But I came across, I would call it a fairly scholarly video about the geography, the location, and the architecture of it. And it really helped me appreciate this reading a bit more. And I might put the link in the show notes, but, you know, it was gold all inside, and it had pomegranates and palm trees filigreed in it, which are an echo of the Garden of Eden, because, actually, there is, in the understanding of the architecture, an echoing of Eden and creating a space that would allow, so to speak, Adam and Eve re entertaind and forgiven by God.
Anyway, so here we are with the dedication of this grand place that was a place of worship, of identity. It was enormous.
And Solomon is saying, well, God, you are not contained here like you are so vast from heaven, but here your name is contained. Well, or we find you here.
And then a prayer for all sorts of human predicaments and beseeching God to, you know, bring the rain if there isn't any, to forgive our sins and to act. And, you know, those bits aren't in the reading, but in particular a prayer for foreigners and the inclusion of foreigners and their needs and so on. So that's where we are. Yeah.
[00:04:00] Speaker B: So it would be helpful to read through the whole prayer. Yeah. Like when we're thinking about preaching on a section of it or leading.
Constructing worship around a section of it to just. Not to necessarily have to read the whole thing out in the service, but to think about how that all those bits of that prayer fit together.
[00:04:17] Speaker A: Yeah. And I've sort of done this here with just putting it out further episode like. And I've put in smaller, smaller print some of the other parts of it, just to keep some sort of thread.
[00:04:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Nice for it.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: So God's covenant is remembered, the promises of God, that David's covenant is now with Solomon and with. And revived for the people, so to speak, or they're reminded of it.
[00:04:40] Speaker B: Yep, yep. So there's. There's a heap of. There are a heap of different themes. It feels like connecting in this reading, in the prayer, in. In the stuff that is just in the. Automatically there in the setting. Like you say, we've got Solomon, so we're immediately. I love Howard's idea there about reading stories about Solomon with a hermeneutic of suspicion. So we already know stuff that is both the really grand, revered stuff that Solomon will do, but also that in the story, you know, like the top line story that gets told about the history of Israel, which people will know when they're coming to these readings in their original setting. He's a mixed bag that he brings about the downfall of the monarchy, really.
Just like David's mixed bagness. We have this here, too. So with Solomon. So this is part of the context and other parts of the context, the knowledge of the temple and the place that it holds, not only architecturally, although also architecturally, but also in terms of the identity of the people of God and the kind of the ritual centrality of this, the way that it fits with the way you actually understand the world. And putting things to right when they've come wrong. And all of that is sort of core to this, even while we then enter into this prayer, which, I mean, are there particular words that just as you were speaking, words that struck me with the things about forgiveness and stuff in the, in the prayer?
[00:06:16] Speaker A: Well, that's what struck me as well.
So when anyone wrongs a neighbour and is required to take an oath, hear them and act, you know, when your people of Israel have been detained by the enemy because they've sinned against you, turn to them and offer supplication to you in the temple, you know, there's very human experiences of desolation and despair are accounted for in the prayer. And the other thing too. And I. This is where you've got to be quick in a podcast. But there's a sort of an if then pattern to the way Solomon speaks as well. So. By which, I mean, this is a reciprocity. So in the covenant relationship, let me. I can't find a verse right now, but there's a reciprocity built into.
Into this conversation.
[00:07:07] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a, it's like petitions to God. That's like, in this situation, do this. In this situation, do this.
[00:07:13] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
And just like I referred before to the whole, this is where my name shall be, there, verse 29. Now, we know that biblically names are very evocative and deeply significant.
And this is where God's name is to be found.
We know that the temple was destroyed, though, twice. So we know that this is just a slight aside, except it's not, it's true.
[00:07:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:07:45] Speaker A: That the people's faith continued. God was with the people. This is laying it on thick. This is where God is. Everyone in here.
[00:07:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:53] Speaker A: But we know historically and through human experience that God will not be contained in such things and that these people had it was destroyed and God was with them.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: Yes, that's right. And that, that, I mean, exactly. That's also what I mean about that. You bring this other stuff, the story around the story around the story to bear. So we're celebrating this stuff here in this reading, knowing that the babylonian exile is just around the corner.
[00:08:21] Speaker A: Right.
[00:08:22] Speaker B: This is what's going to happen. So that's always in the frame with you. Dedicate Solomon's temple, knowing that it will be destroyed and that this will go right to the heart of the people. And I mean, I, I can think of, you know, there are plenty of places of conflict in our world at the moment where really precious places are being destroyed. And they're not just, I mean, they are also places of, you know, people's domestic lives and their means of subsistence and stuff, but they are also places of deep identity. And the way that those kind of places are involved in war, you know, like. Anyway, there is plenty of stuff to wonder about, I think, as we engage with readings like this.
[00:09:12] Speaker A: And one other point I'd like to make, which may have made more sense to make when we were talking about the hermeneutic of suspicion, but I came across an article in sojourners by Walter Brueggemann, and he talks really with a critical voice around Solomon and this temple and talks about a totalism ideology that is exerted by a monarchy, and that Solomon was, you know, doing this and that this temple is all the important things around identity that we've named. But also, you know, Solomon puts his palace right next to it, you know, and Solomon has courtesans and people doing his bidding, and it's all entwined. And that the prophet tradition in the Hebrew Bible arises because these prophets know that there's this whole aspect of reality that is obscured, like deeply troubled and suffering, you know, widows and the orphans and, you know, that are obscured by this totalism.
So I feel like this is a reading where, you know, you could teach people, so to speak, and there's a room for that in preaching about the temple and show imagery and talk about your own buildings and so on. But you could also go off on a slight tangent, a bit like Walter was the Brueggemann does here around using.
[00:10:35] Speaker B: It as a springboard.
And it's beautiful, like drawing in the prophetic tradition. They're thinking about the way that in all of these narratives in the Hebrew Bible, we have counter voices that are part of this. They're actually part of the tradition. All of these things together. And the histories like this, through first and second kings and first and chronicles, they retell the stories and re engage with them. So the other thing on my mind is thinking back, and I couldn't, I don't remember exactly how many weeks back it is in the lectionary, but people might remember us talking about, you know, when the transition from the judges period into the kings. And there's this, there's this tension in that about the people want a king, and you told, but this is what kings are going to do. You sure? You seriously want a king? Yeah, okay. Sure. But, you know, this is what you're getting. So it always had this fractured kind of reality that was really front and center with what the people were asking for. And then we see it lived out in the kind of the heights and depths of the way that these kings actually operate.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: Which just to be particularly theological for a moment and hoping not to jump around too much. But these petitions in the prayer about forgiving, you know, is a creative act where a new thing can happen. So, you know, we know that it's all deeply flawed. We know we're humans. We ask for a king.
[00:11:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:58] Speaker A: We get one still no better. You know, that this call for forgiveness and the promise of forgiveness. And the fact that God does forgive. Creates a whole new open possibility of hope and a future.
That is also something that's built into this prayer.
[00:12:15] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Beautiful. The other thing I was thinking about, you know, in the spirit of your idea that there's. I mean, there's just really there's so many themes, so many things in this story, in the in these readings for today that you could. You know, the idea that you're saying you could use a bit as a springboard or something. The kind of the later section when it comes back in. In the lectionary reading the verses 41 to 43. Which focus on the gift to the foreigner to the other. I mean, you could do a whole. I would be, having looked at this week's readings, my my sort of leaning tendency would be to focus for myself on those verses. I was thinking and thinking about, you know, at this very moment, that is the height. It's about the height of israelite identity. This temple, dedication of the temple. It is being dedicated in this context. Which is about what it means for the foreigner. And that there is actually central to the whole point of it existing. Is that it is a place of welcome, a place of gift to the other.
[00:13:20] Speaker A: So just in terms of architecturally, the outer courtyard is that. My understanding is that's where gentiles were permitted to go. Yeah.
[00:13:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:13:28] Speaker A: So the whole structure of it. You've got the outer courtyard, you've got the not. The holy of holies is where the Ark of the Covenant ends. That's the most. What's the middle section called?
[00:13:37] Speaker B: That's.
[00:13:38] Speaker A: I remember. Doesn't matter. Can't remember. Watch the video.
[00:13:40] Speaker B: Folks will give you the link. That's fine. But you have that. I mean, so on the one hand, you could say this is a highly structured environment that. That separates people off into categories. On the other hand, you could say rather than just being about the holy of holies, this is a place that is intentionally about other places as well. And I guess the invitation in that, if we're thinking about it now, remembering that this is, you know, there'll be a certain. What's the word?
There'll be certain tension for us because these are old texts talking about old things. Different ways.
[00:14:13] Speaker A: Purification.
[00:14:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Different ways of thinking about the world, the centrality of the cultic system with sacrifices and stuff. There are different ways of understanding the powers in the world and how they operate that are central to this, which are different. But looking at that, and without just moving too quickly to sort of extrapolate from the way that the temple is described into talking about our own buildings or our own community, to still see some invitation in there, to think, well, in what ways are our communities set up in the service of the other? And in what ways are the way that we operate, not only in our architecture, but in our identity, the way we conduct ourselves actually performing this, you know, actually compelling for anybody outside and. And how we just think about our intrinsic connection to other people. So in Australia at the moment, there, one of the many things arising out of the tensions in the Middle east has been some debate amongst our parliamentarians with the opposition talking about that there should be, no one from Gaza should be able to arrive on a humanitarian visa, like no one should be able to come as an asylum seeker refugee to Australia. And just what it means to sort of say that. And this invitation, and obviously, all sides of politics are involved in a very fraught conversation about this that's highly politicized. But what it means, like, in what way are we as a people a gift to the other and the other in need? You know, like you're saying about the prophetic tradition, you know, the other in need. So I think there's. There's ample material without being party political about it. There's ample material to just think about that dynamic in our biblical text, in our worship, on these texts.
[00:16:14] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely. Amen. And also, for me, just the thought that this temple has created that or it's created for that, but also there's a transcendence that is also just implicit in all of it. And that transcendence as well is important in buildings. And so to be able to do both those things is. Yeah. Extraordinary and important.
[00:16:39] Speaker B: Yes, yes. And the way that these things are constructed as transcendence, yet, like that, this is a place of trying to encounter, like creating the space for encounter with God. And of course, we know from the stories of the Hebrew Bible that that could happen anywhere. It could happen on a mountaintop, it might happen in a burning bush. In a cloud, in whatever. But here there is a dedication of a particular space that says, when we're here, this is what we're here for. Trying to breach, trying to reach across space and to find God there. So how are we thinking about our own spaces in ways that facilitate that sense of reverence and encounter and connection. And connection. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:17:19] Speaker A: Shall we move to psalm 84?
[00:17:21] Speaker B: Let's do it.
[00:17:27] Speaker A: Now, this psalm is very clearly, as the first line would indicate, how lovely is your dwelling place? Very suitably paired with the reading from Solomon's temple dedication.
[00:17:38] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:17:38] Speaker A: Yes.
It's a psalm that I think Howard Wallace would say hold some dangers because there's a lot of self congratulation around the temple and you're skating close to a form of idolatry of this magnificent building in this psalm.
And, like, we can do the same with our own buildings, our difficult decisions about heritage costs and keeping places open and using resources fairly amongst the church. And all those questions actually could spring off this psalm, although that may sound a stretch. I don't think it is, no.
So this psalm is about really union, although I said it's about the dwelling place. It's really about a yearning of a union or communion with God in that full sense.
And God. I'm struck in this psalm, actually, by the number of names that God is given.
So there's the living God, not really a name, but that's a descriptor in verse two.
My God and my king. Lord Almighty. My God and my king, my shield, o God, God of Jacob and so on.
[00:18:57] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lots of names. And, I mean, it's interesting as well. At the same time as. As praising the temple like this, we also have these lines, you know, happy are those whose strength is in the. Is in you. So. And then it still leads into. In whose heart are the highways to Zion? So you're still on the way to Jerusalem. Yeah. This pilgrimage to it, but it's.
It still is not.
Yeah. We might want to reflect on it and think, you know, in what sense is this? Are we focusing on the right thing when we are focusing on buildings or whatnot? You know, like that, it's. It's about the end goal of it, which is finding your strength in Goddesse, not the building itself.
[00:19:40] Speaker A: My understanding, I don't know Hebrew, but the dwelling place language is actually indicative more of God's stopping or sojourning briefly, rather than something utterly fixed, which I think is very helpful.
And there is quite evocative language around innocence and serenity and so on. Around the birds in verse three and the just desire to be in the courts of God again. I had that image of the temple that I saw in that video, and also even the communion bread, they could. Well, they don't show bread. You know, the desire to sit and eat and be with God was evoked for me. You would rather do that, be one day there than a thousand days anywhere else?
[00:20:40] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean, yes, it has. It has all that sort. There's something really contrarian in me. I apologize. I confess, and I apologize for an invite.
[00:20:49] Speaker A: I normally have that. So bring it on.
[00:20:51] Speaker B: No, no, no. Well, one of the things, it's, you know, this stuff about even the sparrow finds a home and the swallow a nest for herself. I mean, it reminds me of the. The passages in Matthew and Luke gospels that are about how much God cares for each sparrow. And there's a nice little strain of biblical commentary that talks about the scriptural passage that every dead sparrow gives the lie to, or every. There is the kind of natural theology in this.
On the one hand, yes, we see all this stuff in the created order around us, and on the other hand, it's actually.
It is more complicated than that. Right. So we have this thing that is, on the one hand, we're praising this, and on the other hand, we might say there's this space that's dedicated to this, and yet there are homeless people in our communities who. And of course, that is because of the sin and human failure that.
[00:21:57] Speaker A: Hence the profits.
[00:21:58] Speaker B: Yeah. For all of our construction of space, we haven't been hospitable in a way that finds a home for everybody. So that's not, you know, so. But there is this tension about the flip side of all these lines, which is like, where are we falling short? Or where is there an invitation to do better, to be more hospitable, to create more space?
[00:22:18] Speaker A: Well, absolutely. And I think that's the sort of caution around the odd, the idolatry that's possible here, that, yes, it's substituting something for God, but it's also doing so incredibly uncritically around how we're functioning in relation to God as well.
So. No, absolutely. And parts of this psalm can also be used for calls to. Liturgically. Yes, most of the time, that's good.
[00:22:44] Speaker B: And some of the stuff that is, there's some, when we're talking about not just strengths, strength, but we're talking about shield and whatnot, perhaps invites us to go forward into the Ephesians reading, where we're going to get more about armor and breastplates and shields and excellent segue.
[00:23:03] Speaker A: So let us move on to Ephesians, chapter six, verses ten to 20.
Would you like to situate us here? Generally, we've missed. So last week we had an Ephesians passage, and then in between there's been all the household laws. And we skip in the lectionary because they're a bit tricky.
[00:23:29] Speaker B: They're super tricky, and you can understand why you might not want to talk about them, but. Yes, definitely. So we're towards the end of the letter now. We've had, like, many a week on ephesians in the lectionary, and now we're coming up to the kind of final things that the letter that the text is going to give us. In between. I mean, obviously the lectionary has to pick and choose. You're not reading out the whole letter the whole way through, but in between, we have had these really complicated. Well, complicated in the sense of what we do with them, things called the household codes. So the bit that people might be particularly familiar with are the instructions to wives and husbands about submission. We'd want to remember that there is a kind of mutual submission that these text is talking about. Like, there's lots of stuff to unpack in the. In this stuff.
But one kind of, given that it's not actually the reading for this Sunday, but my one health warning on this is to remember that it's about mutual submission. So that's an important thing to think about. But it's not just about wives and husbands. There's then instructions to children and instructions to enslaved people. So, remembering that we're talking, I mean, you know, to remind us of the distance between us and the first century world that this comes from. And not to be too blithe about just mapping it onto our own lives, remember that, you know, it's a world where talking about what, you know, slaves and masters should do isn't weird. So, you know, like, that's something we need to.
[00:25:05] Speaker A: Yeah. And that. Well, the reciprocity, again, I've used that word before today that in those passages is radically new. Like, I mean, a slave and an owner didn't have a reciprocity. That was. Well, it was a certain kind, I suppose, but no, not an equally one, you know?
[00:25:22] Speaker B: No, no. Well, and the way that it works when you're talking about the enslavement section of the household codes is to remind the enslavers, the masters, that in fact, there is a master who is above them as well. So the way you conduct yourself with all of your subordinates is something that in doing so, you should bear in mind that this is within the wider context of, you know, the divine authority over all of the people as a kind of warning. But, I mean, obviously, there are dynamics in all of that stuff that are complicated, difficult, a whole podcast episode of their own, especially because we know stuff about, you know, gendered violence and the way that it relates to the drivers of violence include gender inequality. And so the way that the church is, you know, deeply enmeshed, really, in some of these dynamics when it, depending on how it interprets some of these passages in perpetuating some gender inequality. So big health warnings on some of that stuff.
[00:26:28] Speaker A: But this passage here, so it's moved to a far more sort of, I'm going to say, offensive. That is, you know, this militaristic language really dripping through this passage is different. It's a shift in tone, really, from what you've described in the past, but.
[00:26:48] Speaker B: It is presented as the kind of conclusion to that bit. Well, in fact, there's a debate in biblical scholarship about whether, you know, this bit at Ephesians 610, the first word in the english translation of our reading for today that we're talking about is finally. So it's like the remaining things. So there is a debate about whether this is finally, as in, this is the conclusion, collusion to these household codes about wives and husbands, children and enslaved people, or if it's the conclusion to the letter really sort of coming on really from much earlier in the letter and linking back to some of the earlier material in chapters before. But either way, we're getting to the kind of culmination of this letter. And what we're getting is military language.
[00:27:33] Speaker A: Which makes sense then, because the roman empire was dominating. And so presumably the author, we say Paul, but we don't know family Paul, the school of Paul, is using very familiar language and imagery around that and recasting it.
[00:27:51] Speaker B: Yes, yes.
[00:27:53] Speaker A: To very radically different purpose.
[00:27:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So there's really interesting stuff in there. Right. So on the one hand, we could have a conversation about definitely the way that the kind of roman imperial context and the violence of it, or the implied violence of it, the way that you can, you know, the stereotypical phrase about the pax Romana, the piece of Rome, is, it's the kind of peace that comes through sheer dominance that you can't, you know, you can't.
[00:28:23] Speaker A: It's not selfish.
[00:28:23] Speaker B: Resisting love is what you're saying. No, you can't resist. So this is where the peace comes from.
And so this is part of the context. Right. And it's a context where there's been heaps of war. You've got people all around, you have war injuries, you know, like it's a real part of everyday life that, that people have been part of this. So, so I love that stuff.
[00:28:44] Speaker A: Be strong, which in English is just sounds almost like get over yourself or something. I love the nuance in the Greek, which is the present tense, that be made strong. Like there's a passive sense in it that you are be made strong. That is, it's not in your own efforts and. But with God from God in the face of these forces that want to.
[00:29:09] Speaker B: Do ill. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. So that's it. You, yeah, you.
That kind of power. It's a similar word to power. So that. The way that, that is functioning. Yes, definitely. And then talking about strength. So we have this, we have this stuff that in a way, on the one hand, you might say, is undermining the power of Rome at the same time as reinscribing some of the dynamics of that power, the militaristic language and stuff into christian talk. So there'll be some people who see great problem with that or worry about the way that we can easily do into that and move into that. And I'm sure that people can think of loads of old hymns and stuff where there's a kind of worrying engagement with, or that where people might sometimes worry about the engagement with the kind of battle kind of side of things and an assumption towards that.
[00:30:06] Speaker A: It's from Isaiah that, I mean, it's not like Paul or the school of Paul invented it here. So there's a re evocation of, as I understand it, imagery from the book of Isaiah in chapter eleven and 49 and 59, I think, breastplates and shields and so on and.
[00:30:24] Speaker B: Yeah, and it's going to talk about the. As shoes for your feet having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. I'm reading a different english translation out there. That's the ESV.
[00:30:36] Speaker A: Paradoxical stuff.
[00:30:37] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So you, so at the same time as you've got that, you've got this defensive stuff, but on the, on the other hand, one of the other things I want to say. So we want to be careful about that and we don't want to be talking in binaries all the time and encouraging a kind of.
[00:30:51] Speaker A: Anti world us and them.
[00:30:53] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. Exactly. That kind of dualism. And we're all right, everybody else is wrong and yes, we're persecuted despite the fact that, of course, we're, many of us, coming from positions of power platform, particular podcasts.
[00:31:06] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:31:06] Speaker B: Well, that's right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But. But on the other hand, the passage also talks about, I mean, real powers that they're worried, you know, forces of evil, you know, so thinking about, you know, like, what are the. What are the real battles that win it? Sometimes we get caught up in us and them language over things that might be, I don't know, lesser crosses to die on, but what are the things in our world where there really is a struggle between what is, what is just and good and what is not, you know?
[00:31:41] Speaker A: Yeah. And I mean, the risk of betraying points of view, I feel like the landscape of America, politics at the moment is really doing that very strongly with someone to, someone's turning up with a lot more positivity, language of unification and connection and so on.
I'm interested in this passage that it's not really. So it's not flesh and blood. Like, it's not individualizing this evil force, but it is against rulers and authorities. And again, that echoes into Solomon's ambiguousness.
[00:32:15] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So actually, this is what they do.
[00:32:18] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Basically what Brueggenber is lord.
[00:32:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:21] Speaker A: What Brueggemann was saying in the article I mentioned, you know.
[00:32:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:24] Speaker A: What are these forces that are not for life and.
And they are. And we're naive if we think they're passing or, you know, not there or, like, I think we can be naive about them.
And the fact that, and that whole thing that Paul also writes about in Romans, that by virtue of our humanity, we do what we would not do, and we don't do what we should do. Like, that is built into us. So no matter how hard we try, there's a sense in which we participate in these unfortunate forces, despite.
[00:32:59] Speaker B: That's very funny that you say that bit of Romans, because I was thinking of a different bit of Romans about how nothing can separate us from the love of God, where all these kind of powers, cosmic powers and principalities are also listed. So all of that stuff is part of the mix, right? That our brokenness, the kind of confidence that God will win out, and yet our call to kind of combat this stuff and to be able to name it correctly, not get stuck on things that are, like I said before, too crosses too small to die on. What are the actual battles in our communities? Hey, one of the things is a brief sort of thing about ephesian scholarship, really. But you mentioned about whether to call it, okay, whether to call it the writer Paul or not. And of course, this is a thing that is always talked about, about Ephesians, because it's neither one of the undisputably earlier letters or one of the later ones. And I would just encourage people to read a book by a colleague, Martin Rice, where he says, there are all these important questions. It's not the only thing to think about Ephesians. And we should have a moratorium on asking those questions, put them aside, that we'll come back to them later, but we should focus on and focus on other things. And one of the things he points out is the way that the whole letter of Ephesians includes passages that riff on earlier material across Paul's letters. And once you see the way that Martin invites you into this, which we just did. Exactly. That's what was on my mind.
Once you see that, you see the way that the body imagery from one corinthians and from Romans is reimagined in the Ephesians passage, and you see all these things, and here we have this idea of the powers and principalities and how you respond to them. You can see this kind of reimagining of the other Pauline letters. So I heartily encourage people to look at it.
[00:34:47] Speaker A: And an absolutely final word, too. Just thinking about the cross is Christ's, well, God facing those powers, and letting those powers do what those powers do to God's son, and the facing of that and then the transformation of that is clearly the hopeful.
[00:35:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:06] Speaker A: Good news. That infiltrates our preaching.
[00:35:11] Speaker B: And in the language of Ephesians, that is the cross that's broken down the dividing wall between us. So it's also about unity at that point. Fran, I know you want to finish. I want to say one more thing, which is not about the readings. It is to encourage people to send us your questions. We love getting your questions on Facebook. Send in questions, and we love to be able to answer them and engage with you on the podcast. Tell us what you're thinking about. Thanks, Fran.
[00:35:35] Speaker A: See you.
[00:35:38] Speaker B: By the well is brought to you by Pilgrim Theological College and the Uniting church in Australia. It's produced by Adrian Jackson. Thanks for listening.
