Some Thoughts for the Day from My Early Morning Reading.

The commentary on the three Letters of John, written by Clifton Black, is a hidden gem in a multi-author book. I have used the New Interpreter's Bible for my personal lectio divina since it was published 20 or so years ago. I like the theological range of the writers, the format of exegetical analysis and contemporary reflection on the text as appropriated in our own time. 

 

Volume XII is a good example of the varied riches of the NIB as it has come to be known. Hebrews is written by Fred Craddock, one of the finest homileticians of the past few decades. This commentary is not rendered superfluous by the much longer and more technical volumes available - because he skilfully exploits the format. The exegesis is competent and not fankled up in technical details, and his reflections are invariably interesting and fresh. Revelation is by Christopher Rowland an acknowledged expert in apocalyptic literature. His commentary likewise differs from the usual exegetical pattern, and includes interaction with history of interpretation, especially in art. The Letter of James is covered by L T Johnson, whose Anchor Yale volume on the same letter is offers a substantial history of interpretation and superb exegetical analysis. The NIB contribution is both more accessible and offers practical reflections especially helpful to get to the 'so what' questions raised by the text. 

 

But this morning I was reading Clifton Black on 1 John. I know Black's work from other publications, most recently his rich and informative and downright fascinating volume on The Lord's Prayer. But on this intense and argumentative letter, his guidance is particularly enlightening. There is a multitude of commentaries on 1 John, some of them classics, some so full of detail it's hard to know what to do with it all, and several I simply would not be without and would always consult. But Black on the Letters of John earths the apostolic intensity and seriousness of John in the equally fraught and uncertain times of today's church; and he does so with a pastoral weight learned in the struggles and efforts of each church trying to live the life to which God calls us.

 

Here are just a few of his sentences which are worth weighing for their insight and guidance for life in Christian community today. they come from his Reflections on 1 John 2.28-3.3.

 

"In American Christianity, eschatology has too often been abandoned to feverish imaginations among the radical right and left, with no alternative voiced by Christians occupying the theological center. Here we might take a cue from the elder, whose eschatological view deftly dodges many of the snares into which we might tumble. His thought is neither wistfully wedded to a past that never was nor fixated on someday's heavenly meringue." 

 

"Regarded from the vista of God's eternity, the church is a family with an open heart, not a business with a bottom line."

 

"There is nothing that we have done or can do to earn the status of children of God. This is not an entitlement. It is, however, a reality grasped by faith, which contradicts the ultimacy and this life's miseries and deathward slouch."

 

"Of all people, Christians should know that they live out of a faith that does not rest on a strict system of merits and rewards, but on the confidence that God continues to love us with an unearned love, which we are now empowered to reciprocate through just deeds in this bristly, tormented world."

(Clifton Black, First, Second and Third Letters of John, Volume XII, New Interpreter's Bible, 411)