Hey guys.
I missed getting this out in time for the coffee meeting at the mall. Sorry about that guys.
I must admit I was a little pessimistic about hosting the meetings through the summer simply because summertime tends to take people in many directions. Not that it would ever be a waste of time to sit in the room on my own (lots to keep me occupied). I just wasn’t sure if it would be helpful to anyone is what my worry was. But thank you to the 8 guys who showed up last week and made me feel silly for thinking that. It was a really great compact little session with lots of great feedback from everyone.
We continued our exploration of the Parables of Jesus, with Dale leading us. If my count isn’t off, we covered parables 20-27 of the 38. Here is the list:
– Luke 12:35-40 Watchful Slaves
– Luke 12:41-48 Faithful and Unfaithful Servants
– Luke 13:6-9 The Barren Fig Tree
– Luke 14:7-11 Lowest Seat at the Feast
– Luke 14:15-24 The Great Dinner
– Luke 14:28-33 The Cost of Discipleship (note below)
– Luke 15:3-7 The Lost Sheep
We noticed that our Catholic NRSV Bibles used the word “hate” as the translated word in the Cost of Discipleship parable. Specifically, this verse:
26l “If anyone comes to me without hating his father* and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”
This was a real struggle to get figured out. We were able to see alternative translations by reading what is in some of the other Bibles that come to the meetings, and that helped a lot. Then we decided to look up the word used in the original text and see if there are any other translations for it outside of the word hate. The word used is a Greek term miseo, and in this context it means “to love less” or “to prefer less”. That reframed what we thought we were hearing significantly.
I think it serves as a reminder that there might be deeper explanations to some of the readings at times if we look at the references, support info, scriptural terminology and translation from original texts. This is the cause of some interoperative confusions between different denominations too. Such as when the scripture refers to the brothers of Jesus. That debate rests on how the original text is translated and what context it is in. There are often many layers of things to consider when you dig in. So the question then becomes, wouldn’t it be great if someone way smarter than me spent the time and effort to work through those things and establish a standard understanding that I can trust. Lucky for us we have the Magisterium of the Church, the traditions, early church fathers and doctors of the church. Not that we need to turn a blind eye to things that seem confusing or contradictory. We just have an authority we can trust to help us work through those things.
Our next meeting is a couple weeks away. July is one of those months with an extra Wednesday in it so there is a longer gap between meetings. Next meeting is Aug 5.
In the meantime here is a particularly moving interview with Peter Kreeft about the passing of his wife and marriage advice. It’s part of a longer interview that’s worth watching. But this one part has been getting a lot of attention there.
Chris
