In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen!

Yes, this is my two thousandth blog on this site. With some gaps for holidays, family joys and sorrows and work commitments, it has continued at the rate of four or five blogs per week for some eight years. It has engaged my mind on good days and bad, acoompanied me through times of profound sorrow, travelled with me to Italy, Spain, Cumbria, Wales and Scotland, reminding me of my ignorance while demanding I use my knowledge to the full. It has introduced me to other bloggers and readers of blogs, whose warmth, faith, agreement and disagreement has become one of the happiest aspects of my journey. The blog has never had a huge readership but it is read over a huge area of the globe, from Scotland to Japan, from Russia to Australia, with the greatest number of readers always in the United States. The support and interest of regular readers in particular is an extraordinary privilege for which I record my thanks. Often their own blogs have become regular reading for me.

The writing of his blog has become my favourite daily discipline and pleasure, outstripping my run and my yoga, as it continually reveals to me the truth and relevance of the Bible. My readers will know that I have no time for the idea that the Bible is written by God and therefore is inerrant; it is written by erring human beings and only as such can it be the word of God. The spirit tells me as it told the grovelling Ezekiel, “Stand on your feet, and I will speak with you!” Nevertheless, the process of daily interpretation has only increased my love and respect for the Bible and its words in turn have nourished my life.

While I have been writing this blog terrible events have taken place in the life of the world and in my own life: so-called Islamic State is alive and my best friend is dead. For a large number of these blogs I noted the important news of that day, as biblical interpretation can only rightly be done against the grain of world events.The news of the world and the joyful news of the Bible are mutual provocations.

Jonathan Swift, looking back at his early work, The Tale of The Tub, said that he could not believe “what a genius he had then.” I make no such claim for the blogs I have lately re-read, but some of them, for an averagely coarse and sinful fellow like me, are not bad stuff, although I say it myself, and may even be proof that the Holy Spirit works in unlikely pkaces. These are not scholarly interpretations, but the fruit of an intelligent wrestling with the material by someone who tries to remain open to 21st century events, science and arts. As such I hope they may continue to be of some use to others.

Blogs 1-1612 are based on one of the available Daily Lectionaries, because it was good to feel in tune with other readers across the world.

blogs 1612- 1717: are a simultaneous commentary on Genesis and Mark’s Gospel, using the Schocken Bible translation of Genesis, and the John Darby of Mark.

blogs 1718 – 1770: are a commentary on the two Letters to Corinthians

blogs 1772-1802: are a commentary on The Revelation

blogs 1803- 1843: are a fresh translation and a commentary on Psalms 1-43

blogs 1884- 1957: are a commentary on Luke’s Gospel

blogs 1958- 1966: are a commentary of The Fiirst Letter of John

blogs 1968- 1973: are a commentary on Ruth

blogs 1974- 1976: are a commentary on Jonah

blogs 1977- 1886: are a commentary on James

blogs 1887 forward: are a fresh translation and commentary on The Letter to Romans

These are not scholarly commentaries. I have of course read many of those and benefitted enormously from them, but my blogs are simply evidence of how I read these writings “under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and within the fellowship of the Church” as my tradition urges me to do. They are closer to what used to be called “devotional reading”, a claim that will arouse derision amongs those who know my impious character.

The cynic philosopher Diogenes, who lived in a tub in the street, being reproached for his uncouth behaviour, replied, “if my naked arse brings honour to the truth, what then?”

I’m happy to adopt that saying as a motto for these blogs.

The website is:

emmock.com

Individual blogs can be accessed thus:

emmock.com bible blog x

My other site is:

xtremejesus.co