Dear Church Family,

I want to acknowledge and thank those who volunteered the last two semesters of weekday discipleship, kids’ ministry, and student ministry. It takes many hands to make these ministries a reality. So, please enjoy the time off this Summer! Of course, we know that time off is also filled with camps, mission trips, and VBS. Speaking of VBS, I signed up and hope you will too. It’s a great event and the Gospel is shared. I read the following article by Chad Bird and thought it might encourage you:

Here’s a fascinating example of why it’s not only helpful to study the Hebrew Old Testament but also the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint.

The Septuagint heavily influenced New Testament writers, and at times they chose their Greek in such a way as to echo what was happening in the Old Testament. That echo becomes clear when you compare the Greek of the Old Testament with the Greek of the New Testament.

Here’s the example. In Luke 7, Jesus raises the widow’s son at Nain. Afterward, we are told that “he gave him to his mother [ἔδωκεν αὐτὸν τῇ μητρὶ αὐτοῦ]” (Luke 7:15).

Initially, that seems an odd detail, right? His mother is right there, so why would Luke add that Jesus “gave him to his mother”?

The answer is found in the Septuagint in 1 Kings 17:23. After Elijah raises a dead boy to life again, the prophet “brought him down from the upper room into the house and gave him to his mother [ἔδωκεν αὐτὸν τῇ μητρὶ αὐτοῦ].”

If you are reading both the Old Testament and the New Testament in Greek, the connection is unmistakable. Luke is intentionally echoing Elijah’s miracle.

The further confirmation of the overlap between the miracle by Elijah and the miracle by Jesus is that the crowds respond, “A great prophet [!] has arisen among us!” (Luke 7:16).

They saw the similarities between what was done, even as we, the readers of the text, see *and* hear the similarities.

What Luke is doing, then, is alerting us that Jesus has performed an Elijah-like miracle. But more than that, he is showing that Jesus is the new and greater Elijah. The ministry of Elijah becomes a kind of pattern or foreshadowing of what Jesus will do.

Jesus is indeed a prophet, but he is more than a prophet. By echoing Elijah in this way, Luke helps us see both the continuity and the escalation: what God once did through his servant, he now does more fully and finally in his Son.

Press On!

Mark