Olds & Despots
Yesterday a friend (hi, Bonnie!) sent me an email with pictures of cars from my college and early adult years.
Some were designer-grotesque, but I loved them then and love them now, (that enormous red Lincoln was wide enough to seat four abreast in the front seat)
to a car (well maybe not the Chevy Corvair,
although I drove one soon after they came out and with the engine in the back the steering was so easy that power steering was not needed, not to mention the cute little flip switch on the dashboard for gear selection of those with automatic transmission. But (what was his name, it'll come to me about the time I step into the pulpit this morning) attacked them so viciously as unsafe that they soon went away. That was it, Ralph Nader. I think he ran for president at some point?
The cars are gorgeous and elegant to me, my business law professor at UF had as his ambition owning a Cadillac ElDorado convertible:
some are posted here this morning.
If I were choosing one as especially beloved during my college days at UFlorida in Gainesville, it would be the 1955 Olds 88. That's a two-door sedan:
I had a friend with a 1954 Olds 88 at the time, my sophomore year, who very kindly and generously let me drive it on campus and around town, and once a carload of us drove it home to Panama City (with me refusing to let anyone drive but myself, not even the girl who owned it). It was a yellow Olds 88 Holiday Coupe (hardtop) with a black top. OMG. I wasn't in love with the girl, nor she with me, but I sure as hell was in love with her car. OMG. I remember that on that trip from Gainesville home to PC, we forgot to buy gasoline and ran out of gas before we even got out of Gainesville.
Three of us guys walked to a gas station about a mile down the street and came back with a can of gas. While we were gone, my friend Philip, who had stayed behind with the girls while we went for gasoline, ran the radio the whole time, and when I went to start the car, the battery was dead.
Comments. Sometimes I enjoy looking up the original language of the text and checking out words or phrases. In this case, the NT Greek word translated "Sovereign Lord" is actually Δέσποτα, despot, one who rules with absolute authority. To us the word means a cruel tyrant, so it's interesting to see Luke use it anciently for God.
At the time Luke writes about, Peter, John and the other disciples were monotheistic Jews who were, though they didn't know it, in the origins of what began as a Jewish messianic sect or cult that within a century would, especially after the missionary journeys of Paul, be separating entirely from Jewish roots into a mainly gentile Christianity with its developing trinitarianism that, though it contributed to driving Jewish-Christians out, would have been entirely comfortable for people coming to the faith from paganism. Anyway, I imagine that the word they would have used to address God on this occasion would not have been Despot but Adonai (Lord), or maybe Hashem (the Name).
And indeed, by the time Luke wrote his Acts of the Apostles near the end of the First Century AD or conceivably the early Second Century, the term Holy Spirit that Luke uses above may have been morphing into something beyond simply meaning the Lord God. Also, by this time, or slightly later, the writer of the Gospel according to John would have come on the scene proclaiming a High Christology, even if the Prologue was a later add on.
The opening of their prayer comes from Psalm 2, where the Hebrew song has not to do with Jesus, of course, but with raging against YHVH and his anointed, David; but Luke, somewhat like Matthew, using phrases, verses from the Septuagint, the Greek language Hebrew bible.
DThos+
Some were designer-grotesque, but I loved them then and love them now, (that enormous red Lincoln was wide enough to seat four abreast in the front seat)
to a car (well maybe not the Chevy Corvair,
although I drove one soon after they came out and with the engine in the back the steering was so easy that power steering was not needed, not to mention the cute little flip switch on the dashboard for gear selection of those with automatic transmission. But (what was his name, it'll come to me about the time I step into the pulpit this morning) attacked them so viciously as unsafe that they soon went away. That was it, Ralph Nader. I think he ran for president at some point?
The cars are gorgeous and elegant to me, my business law professor at UF had as his ambition owning a Cadillac ElDorado convertible:
some are posted here this morning.
If I were choosing one as especially beloved during my college days at UFlorida in Gainesville, it would be the 1955 Olds 88. That's a two-door sedan:
I had a friend with a 1954 Olds 88 at the time, my sophomore year, who very kindly and generously let me drive it on campus and around town, and once a carload of us drove it home to Panama City (with me refusing to let anyone drive but myself, not even the girl who owned it). It was a yellow Olds 88 Holiday Coupe (hardtop) with a black top. OMG. I wasn't in love with the girl, nor she with me, but I sure as hell was in love with her car. OMG. I remember that on that trip from Gainesville home to PC, we forgot to buy gasoline and ran out of gas before we even got out of Gainesville.
Three of us guys walked to a gas station about a mile down the street and came back with a can of gas. While we were gone, my friend Philip, who had stayed behind with the girls while we went for gasoline, ran the radio the whole time, and when I went to start the car, the battery was dead.
Acts 4:23-31
After they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them. When they heard it, they raised their voices together to God and said, ‘Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth, the sea, and everything in them, it is you who said by the Holy Spirit through our ancestor David, your servant:
“Why did the Gentiles rage,
and the peoples imagine vain things?
The kings of the earth took their stand,
and the rulers have gathered together
against the Lord and against his Messiah.”
“Why did the Gentiles rage,
and the peoples imagine vain things?
The kings of the earth took their stand,
and the rulers have gathered together
against the Lord and against his Messiah.”
For in this city, in fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. And now, Lord, look at their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.’ When they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness.
At the time Luke writes about, Peter, John and the other disciples were monotheistic Jews who were, though they didn't know it, in the origins of what began as a Jewish messianic sect or cult that within a century would, especially after the missionary journeys of Paul, be separating entirely from Jewish roots into a mainly gentile Christianity with its developing trinitarianism that, though it contributed to driving Jewish-Christians out, would have been entirely comfortable for people coming to the faith from paganism. Anyway, I imagine that the word they would have used to address God on this occasion would not have been Despot but Adonai (Lord), or maybe Hashem (the Name).
And indeed, by the time Luke wrote his Acts of the Apostles near the end of the First Century AD or conceivably the early Second Century, the term Holy Spirit that Luke uses above may have been morphing into something beyond simply meaning the Lord God. Also, by this time, or slightly later, the writer of the Gospel according to John would have come on the scene proclaiming a High Christology, even if the Prologue was a later add on.
The opening of their prayer comes from Psalm 2, where the Hebrew song has not to do with Jesus, of course, but with raging against YHVH and his anointed, David; but Luke, somewhat like Matthew, using phrases, verses from the Septuagint, the Greek language Hebrew bible.
DThos+