Summary From a Jewish Point of View Class - 9/5/2022

-

We met as usual on Labor Day 2022 and had a pretty good turn out!  Jo Ann, Dan, Steve, Karen, Amy, Norky, Dave, David S., and Lori attended.

The small size of the group gave everyone a chance to share and talk and ask a lot of questions.

Lori, aka, Dr. Lori Baron, was off from her teaching of New Testament Studies at St. Louis University for Labor Day, so her input was really much appreciated and very special!

We read Chapter 2 in Philippians and also the grey box that goes with the chapter.

Jo Ann asked Dr. Lori to help explain the chapter.

Below is a summary written by Dan describing what went on: 

We studied Philippians chapter 2, and spent a lot of time talking about the poem or song that Paul quoted in that chapter. In particular we discussed the phrase saying that Jesus always had "the very nature of God", trying to understand what that meant. Does this mean that Paul believed in the Trinity? Steve suggested that this could have meant that Jesus was made in the image of God, as it says we all were in Genesis. We had many questions and no obvious answers to this. Dr. Lori Baron was helpful in helping us to sort out these issues, which could not be reasonably fully understood in our time limits.

Another thing we looked at was the phrase "work out your salvation with fear and trembling." It was confusing to compare this with other sayings ascribed to Paul saying salvation is by faith, not works. Someone said that the Catholic church understands salvation to be a combination of faith and good works, while Protestants understand salvation to be by faith alone.

Addition from Jo Ann:

Just before this study, I took two Covid home tests and tested positive so that is the reason this summary has come out so late in the week.

I went to Urgent Care and was given Paxlovid medicine that seems to have made the COVID feel like it almost went away so that is good news.

Now answer this question:  Why does God allow us to get sick?

My clouded “Covid mind” didn’t remember as much as I usually do from our study this week but I do remember us also talking about was Paul trying to create a new religion that was no longer Jewish?  Is that what Christian missionaries also want to do?  That is..add Jews that believe in Jesus to Christian churches?

Again, whatever I forgot to include in this summary add by hitting the comment button.





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Summary of New Testament From a Jewish Point of View Class - March 27, 2023

-
Image
Jo Ann was off in Europe the day our class met, so Dan was the host of our meeting. Below is a summary, written by Dan, of what went on: “We had Karen, Steve, Dave, Merrill and Randy and Robin join in today. Robin is recovering from her hip replacement, and Steve’s wife is recovering from a complete knee replacement. We sang our “Old time religion” and Mi Shebeirach as usual. I believe we settled on reading IPeter next week.  We read through chapter 13, and Robin pointed out the many exhortations in the chapter, like the one to visit people who are imprisoned are identical to some Jewish writings. Steve pointed out that Hebrews 27:13 referred to the story of the three visitors to Abraham in Genesis. We were a puzzled about Hebrews 13:10s’ assertion about Christians having an altar that the priests in the temple had no right to eat from. The commentary said this could be the heavenly altar. Dan thought it may refer to communion.  The book as a whole made the argument that for J...
Read more

Summary of New Testament From a Jewish Point of View Class - 3/13/23 and 3/20/23

-
Image
Due to my husband Dan’s mother’s recent death, it’s been more difficult to get these summaries done, so this summary includes two weeks. On Monday, March 13, Jo Ann, Dan, Steve, Karen, Dave, Norky, Merrill, Neil, Robin, and Randy attended.  We were glad to have Robin and Randy back after Robin’s hip replacement surgery. Below is a summary written by Dan of what went on on Monday, 3/13/23: We read Hebrews chapter 10, as well as some of the commentary from the Jewish Annotated New Testament.  As the chapter began, the author spoke of the “good things” that Jesus did that “The law” could not do, namely solve the problem of sin, “once and for all”. The author argued that the blood of animals  could not truly take away sin, because if animal blood sacrifice took sin away,  sinners would not feel guilty for their sins anymore. Because people had to keep coming back to sacrifice, it must not take away sin at all. Following that is a discussion about Jesus that seemed to imp...
Read more

Summary of New Testament From Jewish Point of View Class - January 30, 2023

-
Image
Our class was as lively and as fun as always!  Jo Ann, Dan, Ruth, Dave, Karen, Odette, Merrill, Norky, Neil, and Diann attended.  We missed Steve, David, Randy, Robin, Jessica, Kim, Patricia, and Jay and a few others that attend once in a while. Below is a summary written by Dan of what we discussed: We read Revelation chapters 21 and 22, and finished the book of Revelation. Jo Ann brought to our attention how part of the passage comprise part of the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s’ Messiah. This passage describes the revelation of the new heaven and new earth, and the idea of eternity in a New Jerusalem where God and the Lamb (Jesus)  dwell with humankind. Forever. A couple of points: 1. The New Jerusalem lacks a temple, saying that the presence of God and the Lamb will be in place of the temple. This contrasts with the Book of Ezekiel, which describes a temple in the world to come. According to the Annotated New Testament some Christian interpreters say this is because ...
Read more