| Epiphany +1 | | Date Created: Jan 06, 2006, 11:46 AM |
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The 'Epistle' reading for this coming Sunday is Acts 19:1-7. (The lectionary treats the word 'Epistle' as meaning 'New Testament except the Gospels'.)
Maybe you thought John the Baptist was a minor character in the New Testament whose role was to tell people to get ready for the coming of their Messiah, Jesus. He became famous only because of his amazing cousin at whose baptism he officiated. This passage in Acts makes a simple view of John difficult. Think about it: first, how 'minor' can John be? Paul is out travelling doing pioneer missionary work, taking the Gospel to new places far from Palestine... but John the Baptist's name and influence has spread farther, sooner. |
Here's the second thing and it's even weirder. Here are people whose identity revolved around following the teachings of John, yet Paul has to teach them about the Spirit and about Jesus. What then did they regard as John's message?
The answer is in Luke 3. Luke shows us that 'the Coming One' wasn't all that John taught about. He had important things to say about ethics and community living -- things that Jesus' teaching will closely echo. It's most likely that these Ephesian disciples came in contact with the ethical teachings of John, which are also the ethical teachings of Jesus, and devoted themselves to them, leaving the significance of Messiah and Holy Spirit and like that to one side.
But a devotion to the teachings in the gospels, while good, is in itself deficient. Followers of Jesus don't follow his teachings and as a result think that he's wonderful. Followers of Jesus believe in Jesus and his divinely appointed role and follow his teachings as a result of that. The Ephesian disciples refocus on to Jesus and his role in salvation history and then come the signs that they now belong to God and the church. |
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