“Merciful Father, as you have sent the Holy Spirit on Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, to write all that You wished and wanted, we pray You, send the same Holy Spirit on us, so that we may understand, appreciate Your Word, and make it our plan of life. This we ask for the merits of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.”
”There will be great joy in heaven for every sinner that repents.”
17…. Learning about the customs and culture of the people, helps us appreciate more, the story presented to us by Jesus. The people around Him, His hearers, could understand, instantly at what Jesus was hinting at, but for us, living in the year 2011, we have to get to know the background to appreciate the message to the full.
We fully understand the joy of that woman, the reason, behind her organizing a party and inviting all her friends…
”There will be great joy in heaven for every sinner that repents.”
The same with us here on earth we should be happy to know that many are those who are turning back to God.
The Walls of the house. The same goes for the walls of the house. They were built of hand-made bricks of mud and soil, dried in the sun. The joints, between the bricks were irregular and wide. This reminds us of the Biblical Text which says that the treasure will be stolen from the house. In fact it was quite easy for a thief, a robber to break in; using a pointed object to open a hole in the mud walls.
Regarding the roof
To build a roof, they would follow the prompting of common sense, that is of laying first trunks cut from trees from on top of one wall to the one opposite…in modern terms we call them ‘beams’. After having put these ‘beams’ across, in between the spaces, they would put sort of mats of twigs or rushes. Over all the structure they would put earth, sand, sort of spaldings or pebbles and finally, clay.
They would then sprinkle water and use rollers to smoothen the clay. This operation would be applied more than once until the surface becomes smooth enough that in case of rain, water would slide down the walls through holes, the water spouts. They would go over with rollers on the roof again after the first rains.
Now we go to Deuteronomy 22:8 and read thus:
“When you build a new house, put a parapet along the roof, or you will bring the guilt of bloodshed on your house if anyone should fall from it.”
So they built a parapet, just the way we do in our houses nowadays. This was the Law of Moses and was very important to observe as the roof was used for various reasons. In this low wall they made small openings, water spouts, for the rain water to go down. /18
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