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What can we learn from Herod Antipas?

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What can we learn from Herod Antipas?

John Hudghton writes: Jesus and the Rat King

I am sometimes shocked at how little knowledge there is amongst clergy and congregations of the geopolitical context of Jesus’ ministry. Maybe there is too much busy-ness and too much to read, but it does strike me that there is more awareness of subsequent theology and ecclesiastical history than there is of the essential foundational context. This short piece may fill in a lot of gaps very quickly.

We reveal: who the rat king was; how he started off; what claim he wanted to stake with Rome and how that worked out. We consider both the good and bad aspects of his rule. We examine his military: who they were; where they came from; what they might have looked like and how they performed. We also look at how the king related to the neighbouring Roman authorities.

Next, we see how Jesus related to the king of Galilee and Perea – there, if you didn’t before, you now know who the rat king is. How Jesus’ influence undermined the cultural authority of Herod Antipas. How Jesus infiltrated the structures of Antipas’ administration and its enforcement. How he addressed him. How Herod viewed Jesus.

We note Luke’s special interest in the relationship between Jesus and Antipas. Along the way we highlight the conflict of Herod with John the Baptist. We also ask the question, “has a lack of attention to detail of context, or just a plain lack of integrity, produced a particular gospel commentary on sexual ethics?” 

There is a postscript and three brief reflections on the relevance of this material for Christians today.

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Meeting Jesus on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24

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Meeting Jesus on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24

The lectionary readings for the Third Sunday in Easter ignore the particular gospel for the year, and instead cycle round Luke 24 and John 21: in Year B we have the second half of Luke 24, Jesus meeting the group of frightened disciples; in Year C, the miraculous catch of fish in John 21; and in this Year A the story in the first half of Luke 24 of the disciples meeting Jesus on the road to Emmaus. The narrative is long and detailed, and (like the long detailed narratives at the start of Luke) contributes to this being the longest of the four gospels, a good 1,000 words longer than Matthew (even though it has fewer chapters).

But it is also wonderfully engaging, not only beautifully structured, but full of irony and humour as well.

The story of the road to Emmaus is one of the most powerful stories in the Bible and certainly one of Luke’s greatest achievements as a storyteller (Mikeal Parsons, Paideia commentary, p 349).

The story has a clear sense of movement, which we can see by noting how many times travelling, walking, stopping and journeying on is mentioned; the idea of the disciples being on a journey fits with a large theme of Luke’s gospel, in which he has organised the whole central section of Jesus’ teaching and ministry as part of a journey to Jerusalem from Luke 9.51 to 19.48. But there is an implied ironic reversal: in the main part of the gospel, Jesus is on a journey, and the question is whether the (potential and actual) disciples will join with him; here, the disciples are on a journey, in many sense in the wrong direction, and it is Jesus who joins them, the result of which is a change in their direction of travel.

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The impartiality of God’s love in 1 Peter 1 video discussion

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The impartiality of God’s love in 1 Peter 1 video discussion

The lectionary epistle for Easter 3 in Year A is 1 Peter 1.17–23. In this section, Peter begins by reflecting on the significant of the impartiality of God’s love—he is not like a king who shows favouritism to some, by lifting their bowed face to look at him, but treats all equally—as Peter discovered in Acts 10.34 “I know that God does not show favouritism” using a word cognate word to the key term here.

The magnitude of what God has done for us in Jesus then leads him to explore the seriousness of our response to God’s grace. (For some reason, the AI video editor clipped out my pronouncing the key term ἀπροσωπολήμπτως! Apologies!).

My article on “impartiality” as the heart of the gospel is here.

The gospel reading is Luke 24.13–35, the encounter with Jesus on the road to Emmaus.

The video discussion is here,

and the written commentary is here.

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