I am back to working my way through Pope Benedict XVI’s excellent Jesus of Nazareth Part Two:Holy Week from the Entrance in Jerusalem to the Resurrection and have found some excellent quotes I thought I would blog. I expect there shall be more.

“So two key locations are named for the life of the infant Church: for preaching and prayer they meet in the Temple, which they still regard and accept as the house of God’s word and the house of prayer; on the other hand, the breaking of bread – the new “cultic” centre of the lives of the faithful – is celebrated in their houses as places of assembly and communion in the name of the risen Lord.”

Here he quotes St. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 31, On the Holy Spirit:

“A departure from time-honored, customary ways is, after all, not easy. Am I making my point? The first change cut away idols but allowed sacrifices to remain; the second stripped away sacrifices but did not forbid circumcision. Then, when men had been reconciled to the withdrawal, they agreed to let go what had been left them as a concession.”

TRANSLATION: God works redemptively and progressively within human culture and historical context slowly stripping away old human ways and replacing them with God’s. For example – scripture clearly shows and allows for slavery within the context of first century culture and previously…however there is a redemptive hermaneutic at work that points to a time when humanity would become aware that slavery was wrong and God did not approve. There are other examples of this and bound to be more, unseen ones, in the future.

“After centuries of antagonism, we now see it as our task to bring these two ways of revealing the biblical texts – the Christian way and the Jewish way – into dialogue with one another, if we are to understand God’s will and his word aright.”