Bible college was a pretty neat experience for me. It started in January, 1975, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Chattanooga isn’t a real big town. Fort Wayne has about 100,000 more people. But that is where my educational odyssey began. At first, I lived in a dorm with a bunch of guys, but eventually I returned to Ohio and married a new roommate. Marsha had grown up in Cleveland, Ohio, so for her Chattanooga was a quaint, little town. I had grown up in Perry, Ohio, so for me Chattanooga was a sprawling metropolis. It remains one of the most special places on earth to us even now. We have even talked about retiring there one day.

           College introduced me to a lot of new ideas. It was a Bible college, but it was also a liberal arts college. I majored in both theology and history, with an eye on teaching one day. I wanted to be a Christian teacher and coach who also served in a church in some capacity. God took us on a different path, but that is another story. The point here is that I had a pile of text books. At that time it was not a thing to carry a backpack or a briefcase on campus. That would come later. You carried your textbooks, as well as notebooks and pens, everywhere in your arms. History, math, English, speech. And, buried in that group of textbooks, was your Bible. In that type of atmosphere, the Bible became another textbook to read and then set aside once you read your assignment.

          In seminary it was the same basic thing. I was more focused on future plans, but there were still a lot various textbooks. Books on languages, music theory, Christian education, Biblical history, Biblical backgrounds, missions, homiletics, more English, more history, more speech. Marsha was always lugging around a ton of books, too, so when we shared a class I would carry some of her books. Somewhere in that double armload of books, would be my Bible. Another textbook. Read the assignment, set it aside, pick up the history book.

          That is not saying that it was no more important than the others. I have always felt the Bible is the most important book in existence. There was just so much to read and consume. So many things, like music theory and English and Christian education, that I saw no point in. (But which I use all the time.) The Bible was the whole point to me. There was just so much……

          In 1985 we were commissioned by the Southern Baptist Convention as home missionaries through the Home Mission Board. (Now called the North American Mission Board, which sounds so much cooler.) We wound up in a city in Ohio, right on the Pennsylvania line, that was almost completely Roman Catholic. Evangelical Christianity was something that just didn’t exist there. A house had been converted into a church and that was our building. Twenty five on a good Sunday, but we were sharing the Gospel.

          Everything was a struggle. Being in a new church start can be extremely frustrating. My office was in what had been an upstairs bedroom when the church building had been a home. Many nights after our four year old had been put to bed, I would walk down the very substantial hill we lived on to the office and settle in to study for either my sermon or Bible study class. It seemed a lonely existence.

          One particular night I needed to study, but I also needed to write my monthly report to the Home Mission Board about our activities. If our activities didn’t meet their standards, we would lose funding. Completely understandable, but also very stressful. I told Marsha not to wait up.

          I settled into my chair at my desk and pulled out my Bible and three or four commentaries. Textbooks. I started with the passage I wanted to preach from. As I read the passage I started to reach for a commentary. As I did so, another passage came to mind. They had a similarity. I read that passage and saw that they were more than just similar. They were connected. One passage in the Old Testament, one in the New. As I read the second another popped into my mind, and then another. Now, it is important here to understand what was happening. When I was ordained I stood in front of a committee of twenty eight men for forty five minutes answering one Biblically related question after another. Some of those men were my professors. I wasn’t even allowed to have a Bible in hand to reference. When I quoted a passage, it had to be exact. They all had Bibles in front of them. Marsha said it was brutal, and it was hard. But, I knew the Bible. It was my most important textbook. It was all there in my mind.

          However, it had become a textbook. That night, though, the Bible became alive to me! I couldn’t seem to stop. One passage led to another. It was overwhelming. It had always been real to me, in an intellectual sense. There, that night, all that changed. It became the Word of God!  

          The next thing I knew, my chest was throbbing and my breath was coming in little gasps. I fell to the floor, facedown, with my arms stretched above my head. I was thanking God and at the same time seeking forgiveness for handling the Word so callously. All my study and all the resulting knowledge, yet it had never connected. How could that be? Everything is so connected, so beautifully aligned, so complete; how could I have missed it?

          I had read the Bible. In college we had to read it through every semester, from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21. I had read the Bible a lot. But it had never really started to live in me.

          So what brought all this up?

          Preparing for this week’s sermon I read a passage that I had read that night over thirty years ago that changed everything for me. It wasn’t the passage that started the chain, but it was involved. As I read it, my heart soared once more. The best time in preparation is when your heart takes off.

          Sometimes when we study, we are hampered by our references. Read the Word first then look at your reference material.

          John 19:25---But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. Just as a point of information, in many translations the name Clopas is rendered Cleophas. Same name, Clopas in Greek and Cleophas in Hebrew. Anyway, just reading that verse there appears to be three women at the cross. And, in fact, many commentaries say there were three women listed in John. Mary, the mother of Jesus and her sister Mary, who was the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. The only odd thing there is that Mary had a sister named Mary. Families didn’t have children with the same name then any more than they do now. In another passage from another Gospel covering the exact same moment, we know that there was a fourth woman. In fact, this event is in all four Gospels. Matthew 27:56---Among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph and the mother of the sons of Zebedee. In this verse, Mary the mother of Jesus is not listed but that is because in the whole passage that has been established. What we do find out is that Mary, the wife of Clopas, is also the mother of two sons, James and Joseph, and there is another woman who is the mother of the sons of Zebedee, who were James and John of the disciple band. So now we have four women for sure at the cross. Mark 15:40---There were also women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. Again, Mary the mother of Jesus isn’t listed, but she is established to be there, right at the foot of the Cross with John. But, now the fourth woman is identified as Salome. So, Salome is the mother of James and John and the wife of Zebedee. In the book of Luke this is all recorded, but the women are not named.

          This is where it gets truly interesting. John 19:25, at a casual reading, lists only three women, the three Marys. However, it really lists four women. But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. Mary, the mother of Jesus, did not have a sister named Mary who was married to Clopas. As the verse reads here, we have Mary, the mother of Jesus. Then we have her sister, who is not named. Then we have the other two Marys. We only have four women named in these three passages. Matthew refers to the other women, but the unnamed women at the cross would be the professional mourners. So, taking the named women in Matthew, Mark and John we have Mary, the mother of Jesus, her sister, Salome, the mother of James and John, Mary, the wife of Clopas who was the mother of James and Joseph (also called Joses, which is short for Joseph) and Mary Magdalene.

          Why is this important? Mary, the mother of Christ and Salome, the mother of James and John, were sisters. That means that Jesus was a first cousin to James and John. Cousins were often closer than brothers and James and John, along with Peter, were part of the inner circle. And, it ties up a nagging loose end. Women, typically, were not allowed to make a demand of a man, unless he was her husband or son. We are told in the Gospels, though, that the mother of James and John came to Jesus and asked, or demanded, that Jesus place her sons next to Him when He came into His kingdom. That would have been Salome, however, and she was His aunt. It makes some things fit in the Gospels that otherwise just kind of hang out there.

          It is so good! It all fits together! Don’t just read the Word! Inhale the Word through the Spirit!

          (Bonus! In that last line there is a 500 point bonus if you can tell me the play on words! (oldirishguy51@yahoo.com)  

          Blessings!