Ripe for Harvest

S ESSION 2: P REPARE • 163

When used in relation to God’s choosing it has special reference “. . . to those whom he has judged fit to receive his favors and separated from the rest of making to be peculiarly his own and to be attended continually by his gracious oversight.”

~ Thayer’s Greek English Lexicon of the Bible.

Luke 6.13 – And when day came, he called his disciples and chose [ eklegomai ] from them twelve, whom he named apostles.

Eph. 1.4-5 – . . . even as he chose [ eklegomai ] us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.

It is therefore significant that the Apostle James takes up the very same concept in regard to the poor.

James 2.5 – Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen [ eklegomai ] those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? When the theology of the Old Testament and the Gospels about the poor is held together with the theology of the poor in the Epistles, a remarkable picture emerges.

Bestowed exclusively on Israel, the chosen people ( ‘am segullah ), as a mark of God’s election-love the Shechinah now rested on the poor, who, as the new Israel would inherit its splendor in the coming messianic Kingdom.

~ James B. Adamson. “James 2.5.” The Epistle of James. The New International Commentary on the New Testament . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976. p. 110.

In the New Testament the poor replace Israel as the focus of the Gospel.

~ C. M. N. Sugden. New Dictionary of Theology .

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