Part Two Bible Reading and comments

27. For the inhabitants of Jerusalem and its rulers, not knowing him and the utterances of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled them by sentencing him;

(Paul is pointing out several really important things here. The first is obvious, that neither the people nor the leaders recognized Jesus as the Messiah. I don’t mean recognize as in “acknowledge” but rather as in they didn’t even perceive him in that role. This is what Paul means by them “not knowing” Jesus. Paul is saying they were blind to him even though he was obviously who he said he was, they just could not “see” him. The second point is that they didn’t recognize him even though the forecasting, prediction and promise of the Messiah to come is read to the people at the Temple worship services every week. It is like if today at Church service the pastor announced every week that a certain visitor was going to arrive, and then when the visitor did arrive the people did not recognize that he was the visitor, even though he had been repeatedly described and announced. Now, the Sabbath readings that the people heard every week were the saying of the prophets. Prophets should not be thought of as soothsayers, forecasters, future predictors or fortune tellers. A prophet is strictly speaking a spokesman for God. A prophet is someone whose job is not to guess at the future, but who speaks specific sentences and instructions to the people that he or she received directly from God. Prophets were not professional fortune or future readers, who were always in a “receptive” state of ESP or something. Prophets were not so called “psychics.” Most of them would probably lose their shirts at gambling and card playing ha ha. No, what prophets were can be concisely described as spokesmen for God. They only received messages when God sent them, period. They would go for weeks, months, even years without having a message from God. It is only when God had something to say that he contacted a prophet and told him what to say and do, including where, when and how. The “Book” (the Torah, the Old Testament) recorded what God told the prophets; usually in the prophets own words or writings. In other words, the prophets recorded in written form what God told them and then how they repeated this message to the people and how it was received. So a number of the prophets were told by God to expect a Savior, a Messiah, and God described to the prophets how the Messiah would be recognized. These are the readings that the people would hear every week at their Sabbath service, and Paul points out that even as they heard these readings they did not recognize Jesus Christ when he did arrive. Then the third point is that the unseeing listeners of the prophecies actually fulfilled them exactly by not recognizing, rejecting, and then putting Jesus to death. Notice that when God says something is going to happen, it happens. He does not need people working through the prophecies line by line, deciding on their own that they know what and who God is referring to, and then making it happen by manipulating people and events. The prophecies came through exactly in proportion to the people not realizing that they were there in the times and roles being prophesized about. Today you have people reading the Bible and deciding that THEY “know” “who” and “when” the Bible is referring to someone, for example, the anti-Christ or the second coming of Jesus. There are people who read the Bible and think they “know” someone is actually that person, even though there is absolutely nothing in the world or in the person’s mouths or lives that match the rest of what the Bible instructs. They then manipulate events to try to “make” that person or event “be” the fulfillment of that prophecy. The Pope has warned against such grave error. Likewise true Muslims will have no truck with people who claim to be religious figures, like people who falsely claim to be the Madhi, peace be upon him, or Jesus returned. So Paul teaches an incredibly important and pertinent lesson here, as he spoke in the midst of the birth of the Church. He reminds people that Jesus was not recognized by the very people who heard the prophecies about him over and over again, and then in their lack of recognition they actually fulfill what God’s prophets prophesized would happen.)

(Paul was an amazing man with both formidable intellect and learning plus great sensitivity and feeling.)

28. and though they found no ground for putting him to death, they asked of Pilate permission to kill him.

(Notice a screamingly obvious yet nowadays a totally overlooked point here. When Paul said they “found no ground for putting him to death” he means that they could find no law that Jesus had broken. Yet “they asked of Pilate permission to kill him.” What people forget is that basically the so called pious people who put him to death were operating outside of their own religious Law. Not only did they not recognize Jesus, but rather than ignore him, they charged him without having an actual Law that he is proven to have broken. They charged him with a crime that was not even “on the books,” to put it in a contemporary frame of reference. This was why they had to go to the Romans (PAGANS!) to execute someone who allegedly broke Jewish religious law! The cheek and the unfairness of it is breathtaking, once you understand that is what happened).

29. And when they had carried out all that had been written concerning him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in the tomb.

30. But God raised him from the dead on the third day; and he was seen during many days by those

(Notice that Paul states that God raised Jesus from the dead. Again, it is obvious and Jesus himself constantly points back to God as the source of all that was given to him, yet nowadays even pious Christians seem to spend little time getting to know God, which was Jesus’ entire objective. Paul attests that God raised Jesus from the dead, as do all who lived and witnessed. Again this is an example of where Islam and Christianity are not as divided as people make them out to be, because the Apostles, Paul and the early Church fathers all proclaim that God is the one who raised Jesus to heaven and who empowered Jesus as Messiah and miracle worker).

31. who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem; and they are now witnesses for him to the people.

(Again, remember, this is a treasure trove, this discourse of Paul’s, because it is a verbatim record of what a man who was converted by the resurrected Christ saw, and what the disciples who were alive and walking around Galilee and Jerusalem even as Paul spoke saw. The word “witness” was a ritual and serious concept in those days because it was solemn truth that served in a time when written contracts and depositions did not exist. God taught humankind how to “witness,” that is, attest to a truth, and there are rules about “witness” in the Old Testament and in the Qur’an. You can think of witness as being even more reliable in those days than “sworn testimony” in a courtroom is today. That is because witness was the only means for attesting the truth of a matter and it was taken most gravely and seriously. So when you read Paul state there are “witnesses” to the risen Jesus that is the most serious statement of truth and fact for thousands of years of human history with strong Abrahamic roots).

32. “So we now bring you the good news that the promise made to our fathers,

33. God has fulfilled to our children, in raising up Jesus, as also it is written in the second Psalm, ‘Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee.’

(When you read the footnotes in the Bible, as I am doing so in this commentary you are, in a sense, going back in time because you comprehend the learning that Paul and the others possessed and utilized. Jesus, the Apostles, and Paul are actually often quoting from the scriptures when they speak. Sometimes they state that they are quoting but remember during those times everyone was well formed in Jewish Law and the Book. If they used certain words and expressions their listeners knew when they were drawing from or quoting from the Book. So when the Bible footnotes the scripture to which someone like Paul references, it is more like being there when Paul actually spoke, because you are being clued in to allusions that Paul is making that the audience then would well recognize and understand. Read the part of Psalm 2 that Paul is quoting from and you will see that it goes far beyond explaining the begetting of Jesus by God the Father. There is the stern reminder that all comes from God and that Jesus was empowered by God. Remember in this Psalm “The Lord” refers to God himself).

(Psalm 2: 7-12

I will proclaim the decree of the Lord: the Lord said to me, “You are my son; this day I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will give you the nations for an inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession. You shall rule them with an iron rod; you shall shatter them like an earthen dish.”

And now, O kings, give heed; take warning, you rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice before him; with trembling pay homage to him, lest he be angry and you perish from the way, when his anger blazes suddenly. Happy are all who take refuge in him!)

(To be continued in next blogging).