Job 38:1-11,16-18

Have you every had a tornado speak to you? How does the whirlwind provide a setting for the words that follow? What is the function of the form of the passage as a series of rhetorical questions? What is the answer to all the quesitons? What is the function to shift to a simple command at the very end?

Who is God? Why is this important for our lives to know God as unknowable? Can we even compare our selves to God? What implications does this have for us?

2 Corinthians 5:14-21

There is an old Protestant evangelical saying that "the ground is level at the foot of the Cross," a very simple, yet profound saying. It provides a context to enter this passage from Corinthians.

Why would the passage begin with the "love of Christ"? The phrase seems ambiguous -- what is the relationship here between "the love that Christ had" driving us and "the love that we have for Christ"? How has Christ died for all, and how is our death in his? The key here is that Paul sees the death of Christ as the worst thing humanity could do to God, and as the outcome of all humanity's, past and future, yours, mine, and others, sinful rebellion against God. There is a solidarity of humanity that is sin and understood in Christ -- a solidarity that does not eclipse the individual, absorbing into a greater whole so that the individual doesn't matter, but paradoxically, makes the individual really significant as an individual. Having died with Christ, for whom do believers now live? Why would it be that one would live "for Christ" within the logic of the passage? How is all of this related to "the love of Christ" urging us on?

The passage continues with socioal and political implications from the love of Christ urging us on. Here the translation becomes important. What the NRSV translates "from a human point of view" actually means "according to the perspective from a sinful, fallen world" ("according to the flesh")? From the perspective of a sinful, fallen world, Christ was a failed Jewish rabble-rouser, insignificant human flotsam that was rightfully removed by justice in order to keep peace -- a threat to the smooth operation of the world around. Paul here speaks of the switch that has determined his life, a switch of faith, of allegiance.

Having seen Christ different, how does this then shift how Paul sees others? Why? Why does the death of Christ, and faith (passionate allegiance) to Christ cause this perceptual shift for how the believer sees each and every human being -- not humanity as a whole, but as particular bodies?

Why is one who is in Christ "new creation"? Who has reconciled whom and how? Here again "ministry" needs a better translation -- it is language taken from ambassadorial language. How are we representatives of reconciliation? What is reconciliation?

Why is Christ, the messiah, so important here? Is Christ dispensable, able to be replaced by some sort of quality such as "relationship" or "intimacy" or "community" or "individual responsibility" or "justice"? Why or why not? How do we become the "justice of God"? Is "God's justice" (ie, "righteousness" -- the Greek word for righteousness and justice is the same) separable from what has taken place in Christ and our participation in Christ? Why is Paul's appeal made on the basis of Christ?

Mark 4:35-41;(5:1-20)

It is interesting that the disciples accuse Jesus of not caring for them. What would Jesus' care look like that they want from him? What does Jesus' care look like in the passage? Why are they filled with awe? What is it the Jesus brings and how does he bring it to pass?

This provides an interesting link to the story of Legion. How does Jesus perceive this man? Of course, legion is the name for the Roman army unit; the area of the Gerasene had several violent Roman legion conquests. One way of understanding the demoniac is through the contemporary experience of "cutters". The demonic trauma of the man's life inscribed into his body. Why would he be removed to the outskirts of the village? Does Jesus make this an issue? Where does Jesus go? Why transfer the demons to pigs? Why does Jesus' Jewishness make this matter more? What is Jesus destroying in this man? Is it destruction?

Why the reaction of the swineherds? Why do the village respond the way they do? How is this person significant to them and their lives? What does Jesus see? What do they see? Why is Jesus the issue?

Here it seems to me that we meet the radical "personalism" of the Gospels. How does this relate to the Job passage and the Corinthians passage?