Exegesis

The ideals of redemption and restoration, detailed as the Jubilee in Leviticus 25, envisioned for the nation a covenantal relationship with God and its attendant establishment of justice. They were appropriated and applied by Israel's prophets to the social, economic and political conditions of their times. Jesus' ministry also appears to have been oriented toward the fulfillment of these jubilary ideals.

The two Old Testament quotations of Mark 1:2-3 serve as the governing principle of Mark's Gospel. Although they stand in contradiction to each other, the resolution that follows constructs a paradoxical relationship between Jesus as "the Son of the Human Being—Son of God" and Jesus as a type of Elijah, like John the Baptizer, who constructs the way for his disciples into death and resurrection. The youth in the tomb, who appears in the Gospel's ending that is not the ending, continues this paradoxical principle of participating in the reordering of power and yet constructing the way into a reordering of power for the addressees of Mark's Gospel.

Of all the parables attributed to Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels, none is more ambiguous in terms of its origin and meaning than the Parable of the Ten Virgins. Everything depends on the correspondence between content and context, and especially the issue of literary form and function, regardless of whether the story is interpreted in terms of its present location in Matthew’s Gospel or in an earlier setting. No one denies that the parable appears to have a certain allegorical character, but is it an allegory in its form and function? And is the content of the story so completely determined by the crisis of the delay of the Parousia that its conception as an allegorical illustration must be allocated in the context of Matthew 24-25 or the early Church? The application of 25:13, an admonition that concludes the story, supports such a possibility, but, as everyone recognizes, it is a Matthean redaction. If, however, the narrative is pre-determined by its apparent Christian motifs, its dismissal as an allegorically fashioned story originating within the context of the early Church would appear to be justified.

As the child of Mary, Jesus is a new creation generated by the holy Spirit. As the adopted son of Joseph, he is a descendant of David and Abraham. Although he represents two generations and wears two christological hats concurrently, he is one person and has one name, Jesus. His life manifests a direct correspondence between his activity and his name, between his person and his work. That is why his naming is so important.

At the beginning of his letter to the Romans the Apostle Paul declares that he is not ashamed of the Gospel—for two reasons. On the one hand, it is "the power of God" that is directed towards salvation, and, on the other hand, it discloses the reality of God's justice.

Paul continues to be identified with "justification by faith," but in actuality "justification by faith" as Romans 4 indicates, is a relationship with God that goes all the way back to Abraham and Sarah and simply serves as the point of departure for Paul's presentation of the Gospel in Romans 5. Far more significant is his interpretation of Jesus' death and resurrection which discloses a new road into the fulfillment of the justice that God wills for humankind. The movement from Abraham's faith into the salvation of Jesus Christ that generates justice is expressed in the double prepositional phrase of Romans 1:17, "Out of the trust [of Abraham] into the trust [of Jesus Christ]."