Queen's Road Cell

We asked whether there was a link between passages like Ex 29:37 that mention how holiness can be transmitted physically, and the act of laying on of hands in the NT. We are holy because of the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit (1 Pe 2:9-10, 1 Pe 1:16, John 14:20, John 17:23, 1 John 3:24, 1 John 4:12-13). Can the objects and people we touch likewise become holy? The approach to this question is multi-layered: In the first place, we note that the 'holiness' of the OT is a ritual holiness, not a spiritual holiness. It is only one of the categories of status in the Mosaic law (especially with respect to the temple and food laws). The role of a priest gives this idea ( You are to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean Lev 10:10 ). So objects were distinguished into 1) holy 2) common and clean 3) common and unclean. In the routine life of an Israelite there were constantly becoming unclean and constantly in need of purification. This ...

In this last chapter Edmund Chan looks at Jesus' last words recorded in the Gospel according to Luke (23:46). In the other Gospels there is no record of Jesus calling out, "Into Your hands I commit my spirit". Luke makes it explicit that the "loud cry" mentioned in Matthew 27:50 and Mark  15:37 was indeed this very statement. John instead records Jesus' dying words as "It is finished" (GK: tetelestai ) instead. Tradition places the loud cry of "Into Your hands I commit my spirit" ("The (7th)word of reunion") after "It is finished" ("The (6th)word of triumph"). It is a quote from Ps 31:5 - " Into your hand I commit my spirit, you have redeemed me, O Lord , faithful God." Do we shout in trust before or after we have finished our work? I think the gospels are not clear, but the traditional sequence seems more likely to me since it makes more logical sense. Theologically it also makes more sense that C...

Joyce raised the account (unique in the gospels) in Mark 8:22-25 of the two-step healing of a blind man in Bethsaida.We all would believe that he did not do this because of lack of power, but because there was an intentional effort to teach a lesson as well as to miraculously heal someone in need. In the passage immediately before Jesus had rebuked his disciples for their hardness of heart and said, " Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear?" (v.18). Jesus had just healed a deaf man in Mk 7:31-35 and would be thereafter recorded as healing the blind man. The passage following (v.27-28) records the disciples' confession of Jesus as the Christ. So the 2-stage healing is most likely a reference to the progressive increase of spiritual insight of Jesus' disciples. We probably should not equate the process that non-believers go through to become believers with this progressive gaining of spiritual understanding. Some unbelievers become believers without...

1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2  Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3  Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. 4  Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5  I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 6  If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7  If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8  By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. 9  As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in m...