... of healings, both of which were, without the intervention of Jesus, hopeless. Interestingly, he sandwiches one story into another. Watch what he does: Jairus was a leader of his church — a member of the church council, a trustee, a Sunday school teacher, and he sang tenor in the choir. He was a solid, church-going, man of God, a good man, and yet, tragedy had befallen him and his family. His little twelve-year-old daughter was sick and, in spite of everything they had tried, she was not getting any ...
... will be is what he loves. John Wesley nicely described what this new life in Christ looks like, how we live with our new beginning. He wrote: He [the Christian] has new life, new senses, new faculties, new affections, new appetites, new ideas and conceptions. His whole tenor of action and conversation is new, and he lives, as it were, in a new world. God, men, the whole creation, heaven, earth, and all therein appear in a new light and stand related to Him in a new manner since he was created anew in Christ ...
... and whether it refers to the wrath of Antiochus or the wrath of God. In support of the former, the verb zaʿam, “to be angry” or “indignant,” is used of Antiochus later: “he will . . . vent his fury [wezaʿam] against the holy covenant” (11:30). Also, the tenor of the book of Daniel is that the Jewish people are victims of the evil king Antiochus IV, not objects of God’s judgment. Except for ch. 9 (see, e.g., 9:7–8), they are not presented as sinners on the receiving end of God’s anger in ...