“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.”
22…..”They uncovered the roof where he was, and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed.” Mark 2:4
“And let him down through the roof with his couch, into their midst, in front of Jesus.” Luke 5:19
With our 2011 mentality we might say: “This is ridiculous, breaking up the roof to let down something through it.’ …… and we might be almost correct …. but, not quite. That is the reason why, before taking up reading or studying the Holy Bible we have first and foremost to study the Customs and Culture of the Bible Lands in the days of Jesus.
As I have explained in previous postings, the only possible way how the sick man was lowered through was by removing part of the structure of the roof; breaking up the hard clay, removing the soil and earth, then the twigs, dry leaves, and an opening appears in the roof, (Talk 17), ….a very dangerous operation for fear that the whole roof might collapse. Certainly the roof had to be repaired later on…quite a hassle.
BUT, that is just what FAITH makes you do, to take decisions; decisions, which in other cases, where there is lack or insufficient FAITH, certain actions will not be taken, because you only imagine or visualize problems and difficulties. Whereas, when you have sufficient Faith, all roads seem to be open, everything seems possible.
Luke mentions the ‘removing of tiling’. But we have to bear in mind that he was not referring thetype of tiling we use nowadays. The Greek definition of tiling is ‘pieces of hard clay or baked pottery’ sort of chippings, used to strengthen the whole composition. This is similar to the use of ‘straw’ by the Israelites, during their slavery in Egypt, when they used it with the mixture to strengthen the composition, and hold everything together when making bricks or blocks.
As expected, the furniture in two-roomed houses, were more elaborate. They used to put up a couch or divan all round the four walls. At times, the wealthy people could even afford to decorate these divans. Read Amos 6:4 to learn about the ivory decorations. Naturally they were used as seats during the day and as beds for the night. They had no problem of storing the thin mattress and pillows during the day to leave the divans as seats. Besides they had plenty of carpets, curtains and awnings. /23
No comments:
Post a Comment