On the Word Pericope and Other Random Happenings
April 10th, 2008 by natalie
Well, it’s about time for my monthly blog post, don’t you think? 
I’m in rather a bit of an odd writing mood, so this post will be a mish-mash of random thoughts and happenings of late.
First off, do you know what the word pericope (pronounced puh-rik-uh-pee) means? Without looking it up in the dictionary. (Ha. My blog spell-checker apparently doesn’t even think it’s a word!) I heard it Sunday evening during the sermon and was distracted for the next five minutes looking it up in my pocket dictionary to find out what it meant - it took me that long because I wasn’t even sure how to spell it. It wasn’t listed. When I asked our pastor what it meant, he said, “Oh, it’s a commonly used word in Bible study circles” and then went on to explain it. Well, I say it’s not that common because when I asked my Dad later that night, even he had never heard of it before. So, if anyone knows what it means without looking it up, I will be very impressed!
Things have been quite busy on a number of different fronts. Our Wichita music teachers association has spent many hours putting together plans for a Music Olympics festival for our students this summer. I’ve been helping out on the committee, doing design work, updating the website and putting together a corporate sponsorship package for area businesses. It’s been an exciting endeavor so far and it will be even more exciting to see all of our efforts come to fruition in several months!
Some of my students participated last weekend in the annual Clavinova Festival sponsored by Senseney Music and one of my students is the privileged winner of a brand new Clavinova! Now we’re busy preparing for our Music Progressions evaluations and our final group event in May - it helps to have lots of reasons to keep practicing this time of year.
The battle against the casino rages on, with the City of Mulvane (located less than 10 miles from where we live) eagerly courting several casino resort developers to have a “destination casino” built just outside of town. Some of our good friends who live in Mulvane are spearheading efforts to oppose this development and I’ve put together a basic website to assist them in their efforts. If you live in the Wichita area, please take a moment to visit the Exit 33 website and sign the petition to voice your opposition to a casino development in Mulvane.
Adventures In Character planning and preparations are well underway with an incredible team of people serving as staff members this year! The curriculum, drama and song-writing are all in the final stages and will be ready to go to print soon. Everyone who knows me well was shocked to hear that we decided to go with a Western theme…I assure you, I was as surprised as anyone else! It was definitely the Lord’s leading and with His continued guidance hopefully we will not succumb to the corniness that seems to creep into Western themes and that has contributed to my aversion to embracing such a theme.
My dear friend Jennie and I have been working on finishing up a rewrite of her book to have it published and available for distribution. There have been numerous setbacks, but we are hopeful that the end is really in sight now! Here we work late into the night editing and discussing possibilities for a new title.
Joey celebrated his 11th birthday several weeks ago by inviting some of his friends over to play football…
…and eat homemade ice cream sandwiches, lovingly prepared by Naomi. Yum! I must just say that Joey is the best brother in the world. He is a true gentleman, always voluntarily holding the door for all his sisters and helping us carry things. He has such a generous servant’s heart and often anticipates needs before anyone even asks him to do something. He is a great friend and gets along with young and old alike, carrying on conversations, playing Legos, wrestling, etc. He loves to join in our lively discussions and loves the Lord with all His heart. Last year he bought several packages of tracts with his own money and eagerly looks for opportunities to hand them out and share the Gospel with other people. His future plans include playing football professionally and then retiring to be a missionary, possibly in another country. But he is open to letting God redirect his plans, if necessary. 
I’ve been trying to do a better job this year of keeping up with my Music Matters Blog and have recently been working on a new blog project that I plan to announce in the coming weeks - so, stay tuned!
I’ve been particularly inspired by this verse I came across in II Samuel 23:10,
“[Eleazar] arose, and smote the Philistines until his hand was weary, and his hand clave unto the sword: and the LORD wrought a great victory that day…“
It occurred to me that the fact that ultimately God wrought the victory did not negate the need for Eleazar to fight hard in the battle. Indeed, that’s why he has gone down in the annals of history as one of David’s mighty men. Eleazar grew weary, but in his weariness he did not relinquish his grasp on the sword. Quite the opposite - his hand clave to the sword. It reminds me of the account of the men who used jack hammers when they were sculpting the faces on Mount Rushmore. At the end of a day of drilling, when they would be pulled back to the top of the mountain, their hands had to be pried off the handles because the hours and hours of work in that position had caused their hands to cleave to their equipment.
We are engaged in a spiritual battle every single day. When the battle seems hard and we grow weary, we can draw strength from the example of Eleazar. We must tighten our grip on our sword - the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God - and stay in the battle. God will win the battle. That’s why we keep fighting the good fight of faith. God’s Word is our living, powerful and effective battle weapon. That’s why we must learn to wield it expertly - studying to show ourselves approved unto God, workmen that need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. And in the end we can claim this tremendous promise in Revelation 2:10,
“Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.“
I LOVE this post, Natalie! It’s just my style, full of connected and not-so-connected thoughts, both interesting and edifying.
Thanks for taking the time to write and share it!
Glad you liked it…thanks for your comment, Olivia! Hope you and your family are doing well!
Sorry… It’s Mr. Know-it-all here, and I can’t resist.
I know what pericope means without looking it up, because we use it every Sunday in church. The vast majority of Christians have employed some form of pericope or lectionary in the liturgy from the very beginning of the Church. It is the collection scripture readings designated for use in worship. There is an Old Testament reading or lesson, a Psalm, an Epistle lesson, and the climax is a Gospel lesson. It may vary from congregation to congregation, but the pastor or priest is generally expected to deliver a homily or sermon that is based on the pericope readings. For a pastor the pericope is an excellent exercise in discipline. In evangelical churches, like those in which I grew up, the preacher selects his own texts and they are held hostage to his subject. In other words, he selects the texts based on his topic for the purpose of suporting his point. So then, the text is a slave to his message when it should be that the message is a slave to the text. The pericope does not guarantee that you will hear the message of Jesus Christ crucified for sinners in each and every sermon, but it does apply pressure in that general direction. And that is why I am a big fan of it.
Haha! Thanks for weighing in, Mr. Know-it-all!
I am duly impressed. Guess I grew up in the wrong denomination, huh?
Congrats on your new little ones! I’m sure things will be quite busy around your place for a while. Hope to see you all again before too long.
Thanks, Natalie. The little ones are doing fine now, and we hope you get to meet them soon.
I didn’t mean to imply that you grew up in the wrong denomination. On the contrary, I meant to say that I did… but since neither of our churches used a pericope during our youth, I suppose it’s the same thing… I’m sorry.
Perhaps you or your readers wonder how I can say that the church used pericopes from its inception. Upon taking a close look at Christian liturgy, its history and development, one finds that it was born out of Jewish synagogue worship. In some (if not many) ways they retain a certain similarity to this day. The central part of synagogue worship was, and is, pericopal readings from the Torah. This was carried into Christian worship, and, as they were enscripturated, “the apostle’s teachings” were added to the pericope. “The prayers” (i.e. the reading of the Psalms — Acts 2:42 ESV) were also carried into New Testament worship. In some times and places pastors were REQUIRED to have the ENTIRE BOOK of Psalms committed to memory before they could be ordained. There were some eras when the Old Testament readings were left out of the lectionary or pericope, but (if I’m not mistaken) one of the contributions of the Reformation was to bring the Old Testament back into regular use.
So, anyway… that’s a little more background on that subject.
Hey Eric!
Not to worry. I was just being facetious. The churches I’ve been a part of have all had their good and bad points, but I just trust that God directs our family, through my Dad, where He wants us to attend - and His purposes in taking or keeping us somewhere are not always immediately obvious! Praise the Lord that His true church is not relegated to the confines of a particular denomination.
Thanks for the additional history. Very interesting. So, I’m curious, by whom were the pericopes compiled? What criteria determines which texts (from the O.T., N.T., and Psalms) are included in each pericope?
Well… I’m going to lose my know-it-ALL title.
I don’t know who compiled the pericopes or what criteria determines the selections. The Roman Catholic Church, as the dominant body in Western Christianity, has a lot of influence in this area. The three-year lectionary is, I believe, essentially a product of Vatican II. But we don’t read the apocryphal books in our pericopes, and they do. So there is some variation. Who makes those decisions, and how? I don’t really know for sure.
I do know that the pericopes follow the liturgical calendar, which is loosely based on the life of Christ. We are reading the Christmas narrative from Luke on Christmas Eve. We are reading from John 1 on Christmas Day. We are reading of the magi on Epiphany. We are reading of Jesus’ baptism on the Sunday after Ephiphany. We are reading of Jesus’ transfiguration the Sunday before Lent. The passion story is read from beginning to end on Palm Sunday. etc., etc. So considerations of that sort enter into the selection criteria. There are some surprises. For example, the Palm Sunday story is read on the first Sunday of Advent. But that is chosen because the theme of Advent is one of waiting in expectation for the coming King.
We find evidence in the Bible that pericopes were used in the synagogues. In Luke 4:17, when Jesus went to the synagogue in Nazareth, “the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him.” Jesus was already something of a local celebrity. There was a buzz — a report of his fame — running through the surrounding country (v.14). But when he went to the synagogue, the attendant (v.20) gave him the assigned pericope reading. Jesus was required to teach from that reading, just like any other Rabbi. Also, when Paul and Barnabas came to Antioch in Pisidia, they went into the synagogue, where they heard “the reading” from the Law and the Prophets. (Acts 13:14-15)
Today, we see the great divide between Christianity and Judaism, and we sometimes imagine that Christianity made a clean and radical break from Judaism from its inception. Of course, Acts itself reminds us over and over again that this was not the case. Christianity was considered by Christians and Jews alike to be a sect of Judaism long after Jesus had ascended into heaven. Christian worship developed and grew out of synagogue worship. So when we see pericopes in the first century synagogue, and we see Jesus himself using them without condemnation; we can be pretty sure that they have been around since the church began. We can also be pretty sure that they have changed from time to time and place to place.
One useful benefit of having similar pericopes is that it allows similarities and differences between denominations to be highlighted. I once read the personal testimony of a man who was listening to religious programming one Sunday morning during his college years. First he heard the Roman Catholic priest preach on John 6 where Jesus is talking about the necessity of eating and drinking his body and blood. Of course, the priest was talking about how we eat and drink Christ’s body and blood in the Eucharist. Because this listener had been raised with Protestant sensibilities, he was scandalized by it. So that program ended and the next one began. It was a Lutheran pastor this time. Lo and behold he was preaching on John 6. The listener was not familiar with pericopes, so the congruent texts surprised him more than a little bit, but he thought, “Oh good, now this Protestant preacher is going to explain how Jesus was simply using a figure of speech, and we don’t really eat and drink Christ’s body and blood in Communion.” To his utter amazement the Lutheran pastor affirmed that Christians actually do eat and drink Christ’s true body and blood in the bread and wine of Communion. This was a jolt, but it was a jolt that made him curious about where his own beliefs originated, and he began examining and exploring the Reformation more carefully. If that Lutheran pastor had exercised his liberty to choose his own text, the opportunity to impact that listener’s life would have been lost.
From a Lutheran perspective the pericope is (or should be) a cherished treasure of the church. On the other hand, it is (or should be) adiaphora — that is to say, a matter of Christian liberty. The source, the criteria, and even the content of the pericope are matters of secondary importance. When Jesus opened the text from Isaiah in Luke 4, he showed the congregation how it was about him. He proclaimed himself to be the Messiah, who had come to save them from their sin. When a preacher picks up a text of scripture, it does not matter who gave it to him, or how it was selected, or what the text is. What matters is that he preaches Christ crucified for the forgiveness of sins from that text. The entire book is about Jesus, and any other message we find in it is completely irrelevant in the light of that one.
Sorry… it’s a soapbox of mine. I’ll get off now. Thanks for the conversation.
Fun to read this “mishmash” post, Natalie. As always, you’re one of the busiest people I know! How do you keep up with it all? Love the graphical look of the AIC stuff. Did you do that? You’ve GOT to get Photoshop…you’re too good to simple be content with Printshop.