Submitted by Leah Page on Thu, 01/28/2010 - 9:35am humility LCM010 Luke 7 Poor in Spirit
Good morning, ladies!
Last night, I double checked on a couple of the questions that were asked, and thought I'd share with you what I found (I'll post on the blog, too):
Q: Was the woman in Luke 7 Mary Magdalene?
A: The text doesn't say so, and I have heard from several sources that it is widely believed to be Mary Magdalene. But we don't know for sure. There are other Gospel accounts of a similar event, (such as Mark 14), but the details are different, and we know that the woman there mentioned was Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus. Luke 7 seems to be a different event altogether - though possibly the fact that the other accounts mention a "Mary" and there is even another "Simon" present (Simon the Leper), perhaps these similarities help inform the speculation about the women in the text with which we have concerned ourselves, here?
(We DO know this was a woman who washed Jesus' feet out of love for him and a "weeping joy" for his grace! Would that we were all such women!)
Q: Was "Simon" in the Luke 7 account the name of the Pharisee hosting the gathering? Or referring to Simon/Peter, Jesus' disciple, who may also have been present at this event?
A: In v. 44, Jesus addresses Simon directly and accuses him of not having welcomed him even half as well as this so-called "sinner" woman. So Simon is contextually understood, here, to be the name of the Pharisee hosting the gathering.
Q: In Ezekiel 9:8, we speculated that perhaps this phrase (as worded in the NASB), "I alone was left," meant that Ezekiel was in fact the only one to survive the divine execution of the idol-worshippers in Jerusalem, the only one who was "marked" to be saved?
A: However, the opening phrase of the verse helps to clarify - and looking further at the context, ch. 10 is where "God's glory departs from the temple" and ch. 11 is where Ezekiel is called upon to give greater rebuke to the people (I don't know if such "order of writing" is meant to be explicitely chronological, but that seems to be the "plain meaning" of the text).
The ESV helpfully translates this verse this way: "And while they were striking, and I was left alone, I fell upon my face, and cried, 'Ah, Lord GOD! Will you destroy all the remnant of Israel in the outpouring of your wrath on Jerusalem?'" <-- a great case of finding help in other reliable translations of the text, and interpreting on the basis of context! ;) It seems Ezekiel is saying simply that while this horror (!) was being carried out, he remained in the presence of the Lord and - like Moses and others before him had done - was pleading with God on behalf of this rebelious people.
This is an event that is intended to "mirror" the Passover events in Exodus - though it is interesting, as we noted, that where in the Exodus account the faithful put the blood over their own doorposts, in this event, the Lord chose angelic messengers to somehow "mark" the foreheads of those who had "sighed and moaned" over the abominations committed in God's city. (Reminded me of how Peter in the NT [2 Peter ch. 2] describes Lot, Abraham's nephew who willingly lived in Sodom and Gomorrah and even rose to some prominence in the city!, and nevertheless was "vexed in his righteous soul" over their collective wickedness....)
Q: And finally, regarding good ol' Uriah Heep?
I had brought up one of the incidents that D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones mentions in his book "Studies in the Sermon on the Mount" and it was a point of interest because he actually names the person with whom he interacted, and it was one "Uriah Heep" and Betty had pointed out that this was the name of a character in a Charles Dickens' novel, so I thought perhaps I had misread the story!
A: I double checked and in fact, the man's name was Uriah Heep, so perhaps he was named after the Dickens character? Or perhaps it was just strange coincidence? Either way, it appears to be a "true story" and not just an illustration to make a point. Here is the quote if you're interested:
"...To be 'poor in spirit,' therefore, does not mean you are born like that. Let us get rid of that idea once and for ever.
Neither does it mean that we are to become what I can best describe as imitators of Uriah Heep. Many, again, have mistaken 'poor in spirit' for that. I remember once having to go to preach at a certain town. When I arrived on the Saturday evening, a man met me at the station and immediately asked for my bag, indeed he almost took it from my hand by force. Then he talked to me like this: 'I am a deacon in the church where you are preaching tomorrow,' he said, and then added, 'You know, I am a mere nobody, a very unimportant man, really. I do not count; I am not a great man in the Church; I am just one of those men who carry the bag for the minister.' He was anxious that I should know what a humble man he was, how 'poor in spirit.' Yet by his anxiety to make it known, he was denying the very thing he was trying to establish. Uriah Heep -- the man who thus, as it were, glories in his poverty of spirit and thereby proves he is not humble. It is an affectation of something which he obviously does not feel...."
(DLJ, SITSOTM, p. 38)
Blessings!
Leah
--
~Growing in grace, and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ~
http://grace2grow.blogspot.com
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