From the Editor-In-Chief
Dear Sisters and Brothers in God,
On behalf of the ministry team of The Living Pulpit, I wish you a very Happy New Year!
According to the lunar calendar, this is going to be the Year of the Horse. Asian friends have already been transmitting words of good wishes for a strong and majestic run in 2014. Thanks to God and our readers, our journal The Living Pulpit also continues its faithful run. Our first issue of this year sets the course for the year, centering on the theme of the DISCIPLE.
Our authors in this issue guide us through many transforming venues in which we find ourselves as learners of the way of heaven. Undoubtedly, the term DISCIPLE is close to the heart of many Christians. Their faith walk has been shaped by the calling of Jesus, who gathered his first disciples and taught them to serve God and neighbors instead of seeking a place of prestige. Jesus’ unparalleled teaching of loving enemies and his life-giving sacrifice on the cross abide as the mark and price of being a faithful DISCIPLE.
While in our contemporary discourse the DISCIPLE may give an impression that it is markedly a Christian term, the ministry team of The Living Pulpit helps me recall that the teachings of the rabbis were handed down and in some cases compiled through the work of their faithful disciples. The Mishnah teaches us how to study the Scriptures, saying, “Turn it and turn it again for everything is in it; and contemplate it and grow grey and old over it” (Aboth 5.22). It is attributed to Ben Bag-Bag, but we hear Rabbi Hillel through his disciple.
We may not find a long list of references to a DISCIPLE in the First Testament, but the redactor is rabbenu, our rabbi (as Franz Rosenzweig famously said). The most celebrated case of disciples’ work in the Old Testament clearly has given us the book of Isaiah (8:16). The same Hebrew word for “disciples” in this verse returns in 50:4. The prophet of Isaiah 50 introduces the Servant, who declares, “The Lord YHWH has given me the tongue of a teacher.” The NRSV’s note shares that the translation (“teacher”) is based on the textual adjustment. The Hebrew has “those who are taught,” and translates the same word in Isaiah 8:16 for disciples. The Servant goes on to bear testimony to how God “wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught” (50:4). The NRSV’s modern translation gives us an interesting charge. “A teacher” is none other than someone who is taught. We don’t presume to invent what we preach. We only hand over to the people of God as we have received from the Lord.
Peace of God be with you!
Jin Han, PhD
Editor-in-Chief
