12:1 ‘Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses…’

Does this mean that the redeemed in heaven observe us here on earth? Some think so (with varying degrees of clarity and conviction, Donald Guthrie, EBC).  It is noted that the imagery is that of the amphitheatre, and so it would make sense to understand these ‘witnesses’ be the spectators in the grandstand.  Even if this interpretation were correct, the text gives little encouragement to the kind of popular sentimentalism (“Grandma is looking down on us”) that operates in the absence of gospel faith.…

Jn 4:4 ‘Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country.’

In this passage, ‘his own country’ may apply to:-

• no place in particular.  Michaels, judging all the suggested specific identifications to be unsatisfactory, concludes that Jesus’ meaning is simply that his is an itinerant ministry, and therefore he doesn’t intend to spend so long in any one place as to make it his ‘own country’.  ‘The saying, after all, is a generalization.

Gal 3:17 – ‘The law, introduced 430 years later…’

In this passage, Paul seems to be saying that the law was given 430 years the Abrahamic covenant.

The figure assigned in Gen 15:13 is 400 years, whereas 430 years is the figure assigned in Ex 12:40 (MT) to the length of stay in Egypt.

MT: The length of time the children of Israel lived in Egypt was 430 years.

LXX: The length of time the children of Israel lived in Egypt and Canaan was 430 years.…