Archive for » July, 2008 «

Why, God?

Thursday, July 31st, 2008 | Author:

I will meditate on your precepts, and fix my eyes on your ways. Psalm 119:15

Meditate – Perhaps we “meditate” more than we think.  For us, meditation usually implies something like quiet and deliberate reflection.  But the Hebrew word siyach has some unusual history and application that just might open the door to a different world of meditation.  You see, the word siyach is primarily about complaining.  Its word picture involves consuming works or deeds.  It’s as though this kind of meditation eats up the actions it describes.  Isn’t that what we do when we complain?  We eat away at things until we have consumed the object of our complaint.  When we are done complaining, there’s nothing left of God’s blessing.  You can see this use of the word siyach in a verse like Job 7:11.

So, how does a word about complaining become associated with the idea of meditation?  Maybe the connection is experiential.  When I complain, I dwell on some aspect of life that I don’t like.  My complaint might be to a person or a community, but ultimately it is a complaint against God.  After all, He is the sovereign Lord of life.  All that occurs passes through His will.  When I complain, I am really lifting my voice against His engineering and decisions.  If I recognize that my complaints are objections to God’s engineering, I am forced to deal with issues much bigger than the cost of food or the lack of appreciation by my boss.  Every complaint hurls me into the throne room of the Most High.  That just might cause me to think before I voice my objection – and the process of thinking before I speak is synonymous with meditation.

Suppose that every time we felt like complaining, we remembered that the Hebrew word siyach converts a complaint into a meditation.  Do you think that we would reflect a bit more about God’s hand in our circumstances? Look at Job’s complaints.  How does the story of Job end?  Job realizes that God does not owe him an explanation and Job repents of his arrogance after he demanded that God justify His decisions.  Does Job learn something about meditation?  I think so.  Maybe we should take a lesson from Job.

It’s important to know that siyach is also translated as converse, speak, ponder and pray.  Perhaps we need to connect all of these descriptions of vocalization to the sovereign Lord.  Shouldn’t our complaints drive us directly to pray?  Shouldn’t we ponder our true state of blessing when we are inclined to complain?  Shouldn’t our speech and conversation reflect an underlying acknowledgement of God’s grace?  Maybe the ancient Hebrew connection between all of these ideas isn’t so far from the truth.  Meditation just might be the means for me to place all of my thoughts and words into God’s hand.

If you’ve ever wondered why God chose Hebrew as the language of His self-disclosure, maybe this small investigation of meditation will help you find the answer.  God’s self-disclosure is bound into a language of human experience, not lofty theory.  God is right there in the midst of our frustrations and friction just as much as He is found in the heavenly vision.  The God we serve is a serving God – and that means His revelation occurs in the valley of sorrow too.  He is preparing a feast for us when the shadows seem darkest.  It’s right there if we have eyes to see it.

Topical Index:  Meditation

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The Prerequisite

Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 | Author:

Be humbled, then, under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the opportune time 1 Peter 5:6

Be Humbled – There is no better person to pen these words than Peter.  The man who believed in personal power learned a life-altering lesson after the death and resurrection of Yeshua.  Power brings defeat.  If we want God to use us, we must turn from power to humility.  The prerequisite to God’s personal concern over us is tapeinos (humility).  Unless we willingly set aside our quest for control and our desire for recognition, we block God’s hand.  He is capable and willing, but we are not ready to receive.

The Hebrew word translated by tapeinos is kana.  The picture this word paints is dramatic.  It means to experience life with an open hand.  The metaphor of an open hand is exactly the opposite of the closed fist, a symbol of power and deed.  In other words, humility brings transparency to life.  When we are humbled, we experience life under the protection or control of another.  If we serve the Lord, then we are under His banner and life becomes an open hand.  No wonder the prerequisite to God’s concern is humility.  Notice that humility is related to the mighty hand of God.  The only way we can be protected when we are humbled is under His mighty hand.  Since God welcomes our trust and dependence, we have nothing to fear.  His strength covers us.  Our lives become an open book to Him and He reads every word with care.

Peter points out that a life of humility allows God to bring about a time of exaltation.  It’s important to know that the Greek word here is kairos, a word that means precisely the right moment.  This is the opportune time; the time when everything is just right for God’s purposes to be accomplished.  Don’t mistake God’s moment of exaltation with your plan.   God decides when that moment arrives, not you or me.  Our single pre-condition to God’s protection and purpose is to humble ourselves.  Submission is the way to freedom.

Peter’s explanation of the connection between humility and grace is especially important in a culture that emphasizes personal power.  Self-sufficiency, personal significance and independence are not biblical themes.  In fact, God has little opportunity to use those whose goals are to be important.  More often than not, God chooses the reluctant, not the clamoring.  It is a sign of our depravity to see the masses worship celebrity leadership.  Frankly, God is most interested in those who do not want the job because their success will be attributed to Him, not to them.  Humility is not high on the world’s list of prized attributes no matter what the rhetoric.  But it is at the top of God’s list.  Without humility we cannot experience God’s mighty hand.

The practice of humility begins where we are most vulnerable to personal power.  That means with my spouse and my children.  How difficult it is to practice ego deflation in front of those who know me best.  How painful it is to put away personal pride when I so desperately want to be right and recognized.  But the biblical methods are backwards.  Time after time, we must work against the grain of the world if we want to know the peace of God.  Live backwards.  Turn things upside-down.  Resist the natural current.  Be humbled.

Topical Index:  Submission

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A New Diet

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 | Author:

Throwing all your cares on Him because you are the object of His concern (my translation)  1 Peter 5:7

The Object Of – God knows what you need, right?  God is able to provide what you need, right?  Then why bother Him about it?  Why pester Him with your constant requests?  After all, you don’t expect your children to come to you for everything.  You often anticipate what they really need and fulfill those needs without waiting for them to ask.  Doesn’t God do the same thing?

The answer is, “Of course.”  God provides our very existence.  We can be grateful for all the things that we receive from His hand without a single word of request.  But that is not the point of Peter’s proclamation.  Nor is it the point of Jesus’ parables of the unjust judge and the resistant friend, both of which are about the nature of prayer.  The point that Peter wants to make is that it is the nature of God to care.  If we only understood just how much God cares, our prayers would be radically altered and our desire to come before Him would be greatly enhanced.

Peter uses the unusual Greek word melei.  The translation “He cares for you,” isn’t quite what this word means.  The word means “to be an object of concern.”  You are the object of God’s concern.  It isn’t that He just cares about the general state of humanity.  His concern is focused on you.  When we think of someone caring about us, we might not have in mind the intense focus of heart-felt energy that God expends on our behalf.  In fact, God’s care for you and me is demonstrated in the ultimate sacrifice.  He died for us.  The God who is willing to go to those lengths to redeem you is not about to abandon you after He has paid the price to bring you back.  As the object of His concern, every tiny detail of your life comes under His watchful and gentle hand.

Peter underlines this important point by contrasting our cares (anxiety over the things of this world) with God’s care.  Our cares are merimna – those things that bring about mental and emotional disruption.  Anxiety fragments us.  It breaks up the peace within and creates instability, worry and fear.  God’s care does exactly the opposite.  Notice that as long as I try to manage and fix the issues of my life, I am subject to the chaos and confusion of the broken world.  Why?  Because my natural life feeds on the supply from this broken world.  It only displays what it eats.  But when I surrender to the Spirit, I am empowered by a force outside of this natural realm.  I find food that is not of this world; the kind of food that brings peace, harmony and order; precisely the things that characterize the nature of God who is the source of my new food.  If I want peace in my life, I need a new kind of diet.  Then the care that He has always had for me will begin to be manifest in my life.  Attempting to achieve harmony through personal force produces chaos and anxiety.  The way to harmony is surrender.

Why do I pray?  I pray because God is good.  My prayer is not so much about me even if it expresses my deepest real concerns.  My prayer is really about preparing me to accept the goodness of God.  I pray because I trust that I am the object of His concern.  I pray because of who He is.  If I really understand the character of God, my prayers become joyful conversations with my caregiver.  They are sanity therapy for a hurting soul.

Topical Index:  Prayer

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The Future Fig Tree

Monday, July 28th, 2008 | Author:

“Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have occurred.” Matthew 24:34

Generation – What a lot of agony and confusion accompanies this verse!  Everyone wants to know the signs of the end time.  Century after century, well-meaning believers have proclaimed the end of days is near.  Yet here we are, still fighting the good fight.  What are we to make of all this?

Matthew 24 is the great revelation of Jesus about the end times.  There are a lot of instructions here, but they all revolve around the final parable – the fig tree.  How do you know when the fig tree is about to give fruit?  Simple.  You watch for the tender shoots.  As soon as you see them, you know that the fruit is on the way.  If someone runs up to you and says, “The fig tree is blooming,” but you know that it is the middle of winter, you don’t even bother to run to the garden.  It’s the wrong time of the year.  The signs come before you take action to gather the fruit.  So it is with the end.  No one knows the day, but we can see the signs.

The problem is this:  the signs are not quite as obvious as tender shoots on the fig tree.  At least they don’t appear to be as obvious.  Of course, that might be because we are so anxious to see the fruit that we ignore what the real evidence is.  In the same way, we are so preoccupied with knowing what will happen that we see “blossoms” everywhere, even if the evidence doesn’t quite fit.  As a young adult, someone told my grandmother that God wanted her to know that the Lord would return before she died.  She died twenty years ago.  I remember The Late Great Planet Earth phenomenon.  I am sure you have similar stories.  The problem is not on God’s end.  The problem is with us.  Are we motivated because we see the need for absolute holiness and preparation, or do we want to know in order to have one more answer?  According to Jesus, the signs will be clear.  Look for fig tree shoots.  When the sun darkens, the moon does not give light and the stars fall from heaven, then get ready.  When the Son of Man comes, it won’t be a secret.  Everyone will know it.  There is no point in running around the “garden” inspecting all the evidence in hopes of seeing green shoots if the stars are still shining at night.  Wait.  Be patient.  Persevere.

The Greek word for generation is genea.  Not surprisingly, we see this in our word “generation.”  It is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew toledot.  The Hebrew word suggests a picture of the seal that guarantees authority.  In other words, the point of a generation is to pass the authority of the family from one to another.  In the biblical world, this is not the same as a contemporary forty-year span from father to son.  In fact, the word toledot can cover hundreds of years.  Consider the statement in Genesis 6:9 about the generations of Noah.  Are we to imagine that Jesus meant that all the signs that He revealed would be evident in the same forty or fifty years of a single lifetime?  Not if we understand the range of years that a word like toledot can cover.  So, since Jesus clearly knew that generation had a much bigger scope than our idea of a few decades, what is the purpose of this teaching:  to give you the time when the end will come, or to emphasize the need to be aware and ready?  If you want some entertainment, read the latest speculative version of the end times.  But if you want to be in line with Jesus, get ready.  When He comes, you’ll know it.  Just make sure that it isn’t too late.

Topical Index:  Eschatology

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A Sign of Blessing

Sunday, July 27th, 2008 | Author:

and tongues as of fire, being distributed, appeared to them, and it sat on each of them. Acts 2:3

Tongues As Of Fire – The Holy Spirit was poured out on the day of Pentecost.  We all know that.  But have you ever asked why this is described as tongues of fire?  After all, when the Spirit is revealed at Jesus’ baptism, the imagery is a dove, not a flame.  Why does the Spirit come as fire?  When you see the reason, you will be even more amazed at the intricacy of God’s Word.

On the day of Pentecost, the disciples gathered to celebrate the memorial when God gave the Law at Sinai.  Something happened that no one expected.  The Holy Spirit appeared in the form of tongues of fire (Greek – glossai osei puros), causing a stir that touched thousands of men and women.  There’s more here than we think.  In order to see just how the tongues of fire are evidence of a blessing, we need to look at the first form of the Hebrew alphabet, the pictographs.

The Hebrew word for bless is ashre.  It consists of the consonants A S R.  In pictographic representation, this word is made up of the image of a man’s head (R) and the idea of fire (the combination of A (strong) and S (devourer)).  Therefore, in pictographic imagery, a blessing is the picture of fire on the head.  When the Spirit arrives as tongues of fire, the image itself announces that the Spirit has come to bless.  Fire on the head is the physical manifestation of meaning of the word “blessing”.

Notice that the verse does not use the plural in the description of the distribution (“it sat”, not “they sat”).  There were many tongues of fire but only one Spirit.  The blessings were distributed, but there was only one giver.  Correct translation must follow the grammar of the original, even if it doesn’t follow the rules of grammar in the translation.

What do we learn from this peek into the past?  First, we see that God’s choice of Hebrew is not accidental.  There are elements of Hebrew that reveal things about God that cannot be captured in any other language.  We only see these when we dig deep into the Hebrew language itself.

Secondly, we discover that phrases and thoughts that we could not understand in translated languages begin to make sense.  For example, when Paul says that treating your enemy with kindness heaped coals of fire on his head, we see this same idea of blessing buried in Paul’s language.  By being kind to my enemy, I bless him.  And blessing is the picture of fire on the head.  Now you know that Paul used the imagery of the ancient pictographs to communicate his message.  Now it makes perfect sense.

The Bible is rich in images, much richer than we have ever imagined.  If you want to know this God that you serve, dig into His chosen language.  You will discover so much more about Him.  It is the quest of a lifetime.  Hopefully, this tiny glimpse will encourage you to get out your mental trowel and begin a spiritual excavation of your own.

Topical Index:  Translation

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Engineered History

Saturday, July 26th, 2008 | Author:

On the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark rested upon the mountain of Ararat Genesis 8:4

Seventeenth – I recently read something so interesting that I want to share it with you.  It comes from the second volume of the Torah Club called Shadows of the Messiah.  It’s all about the calendar.  You may know that the Hebrew calendar is based on the lunar cycle whereas the modern calendar is based on the solar cycle.  Furthermore, the Hebrew New Year begins in the month of Nisan (April of the contemporary calendar).  However, there is another calendar that may have been used to account for the days of the Flood.  This account is documented in an ancient Jewish commentary on the Genesis passage.   You can explore the details if you wish, but the net result is an amazing statement of God’s engineering of history.

According to this ancient calendar, the ark rested on the mountain on precisely the same day that Jesus was resurrected from the tomb.  Yes, that’s right.  Thousands and thousands of years before the resurrection, God engineered history to point toward the pinnacle event of salvation.  Just as the ancient judgment ended on the day the ark touched ground, so the judgment of the restored world ended on the same day of the year when the tomb could not hold Him.

If that isn’t enough to make you take a deep breath, remember that the Passover in Exodus occurs on the same calendar day that Jesus is crucified and that three days later, on precisely the day that Noah’s family is restored to the earth, the crucified God emerges from the tomb.  It’s déjà vu “all over again.” J

Hebrew history is like a wheel spinning while it travels down the road.  It is going someplace.  It doesn’t just endlessly repeat itself as the Hindu and Greek religions suggest.  But as it moves forward, it goes around and around, making cycles within the progress.  This is one of those cycles.  Over and over we see God’s hand revealing one example after another of the great plan of salvation.  Each example is different, but the pattern always points toward the same end result.  Now imagine how many of these repeating cycles you could discover if you read the whole Bible with an eye toward this pattern.

Do you find this interesting?  Yes, it certainly is.  However, there is something else here that we cannot ignore.  This is much more than an interesting coincidence.  It is a demonstration of the majestic sovereignty of God.  Imagine a God who so carefully plans His every move that He engineers a gigantic floating box to run aground on a day that will become the turning point of all history.  Imagine, if you can, how many details, how much organization, how much direction has to go into every single decision in order to bring about a plan like this over thousands of years.  That is a God of total reliability and faithfulness. He has shown us just a glimpse of His infinite carefulness.  Isn’t it obvious that we can absolutely trust Him?

So, why don’t we?

Topical Index:  Sovereignty

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Reversed Rapture

Friday, July 25th, 2008 | Author:

“Then two will be in the field.  The one is taken away and the one is left.” Matthew 24:40

Is Taken Away – Ignoring the context makes for great Hollywood movies and bestselling books.  Maybe that’s why it is so appealing to forget what Jesus says just before this auspicious verse.  But if we don’t pay attention, our theology will be confused and we might have expectations that are entirely off the mark.

Matthew 24 is a discourse on the end times. Jesus describes some of the signs, but He uses a crucial Old Testament story to set the stage.  It is the story of Noah.  “Just like the days of Noah,” says the Lord.  That should give us all the clues we need to understand the context.  What was it like in the days of Noah?  People believed things were pretty much normal.  They didn’t give a second thought to the idea of judgment.  In fact, even though it took Noah one hundred years to build the ark, no one worried about the implications of that vessel.  They didn’t see it coming until the rains started, and then it was too late.

Here’s the crucial question about the days of Noah:  Who was taken away?  Guess what?  It wasn’t Noah.  He remained, safe and secure inside the ark.  Those who were taken away were the ones who were lost in the Flood.  They were no more.  Noah floated above the storm.  All the rest vanished, swallowed up in judgment.  In Greek, it is paralambano, to take from.

Now apply this context to the lessons Jesus teaches in Matthew 24.  Two are in the field.  One is taken.  Two are at the mill.  One is taken.  If we believe the mythology of bestsellers, comic books and movies, we will think that the righteous will be whisked away, instantaneously translated to heaven while the dumbfounded world stares at empty chairs.  But that’s not what happened in Noah’s day.  The righteous stayed put, right here on the earth, riding out the storm.  It was the unrighteous who were taken away.

By paying attention to the Hebrew idea of salvation, we won’t follow the masses proclaiming spiritual evaporation.  The Hebrew idea is rescue in the midst of trouble.  It is not escape.  Salvation is God showing up with reinforcements so that I am able to fulfill His mission.  Salvation is not evacuation to the beach of the heavenly sea so that I can lounge in a comfortable chair while angelic creatures bring me refreshing nectar.  If you want that kind of salvation, go talk to Mohammed.  Hebrew salvation is Spirit-provided power, courage and endurance right here in the place where “thy will be done.”  Our preoccupation with getting to heaven lets us ignore the “days of Noah” lesson.  We need to stop looking for a way out and start doing the will of the Father where we are.  When judgment comes, the obstacles will be removed and the earth will be restored – just as it was when the ark came to rest after the storm.

It’s hard to give up the fantasy that if we just wait a little longer, God will snatch us out of this mess.  It’s hard, but it’s not impossible.  If we are going to be consistent with the divine mission, we will realize that escape is not a godly option.  “If this cup cannot pass from me,” is the option of the follower of the Way.  But be comforted.  He is with you.  And if Jesus is here, why would I want to run to the beach?

Topical Index: Rapture

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Generational Homicide

Thursday, July 24th, 2008 | Author:

“What have you done?  The voice of the blood of your brother cries to Me from the ground.” Genesis 4:10

Blood – If we could only see what is hidden in the text, oh how we would rejoice at the beauty of God’s rich vocabulary!  Here is a simple statement.  We know the story.  Cain kills Abel.  God judges Cain.  But unless we see the actual Hebrew text, we will miss something amazing.  You see, the word for “blood” in this verse is not singular.  It’s plural.  The Hebrew is kol demei (voice of bloods).  This is not a mistake.  It is not some sort of ancient medical misinterpretation.  God says that He hears the generations represented by the bloodline of Abel crying out to Him because now they will never be born.  The death of a single human being has consequences that reach to eternity.  God acknowledges that murder is generational homicide.

Just think of the implications.  First, this concept completely overrules our Greek preoccupation with individualism, even when it comes to individual murder.  We tend to think (thanks to our pervasive culture) that life is contained within the entity called the “person.”  This verse tells us that God thinks otherwise.  No one is a single individual.  Every one of us is connected to both a past and a future.  That future is represented in who we are right now, today.  When it is cut off, all of the future that could have been reality dies with the present person.  Since God sees all the potential in our present existence, His view of the purpose of our lives stretches toward an eternal fellowship with Him.  Murder does more than destroy a person.  It destroys a world.

Secondly, if the “bloods” of Abel can cry to God over the fact that all those unborn generations will never come to be, imagine how God views other less terminal sins.  Do you think that you sin by and for yourself?  Impossible!  Your sin alters the direction of the world.  It affects untold generations to come, nudging your posterity away from the Creator.  Your sin leaves an indelible mark on the universe and nothing that you can do will ever erase it.  Perhaps if we truly understood the eternal effect of sin we would be far more scrupulous about our behavior.  We would certainly put behind us once and for all the heresy that once we are forgiven our behavior no longer counts.  We may have experienced imputed righteousness.  We may have been given a “not guilty” verdict, but that does not diminish the consequences of our actions.  As by one man sin entered the world, so death passed on to all men.  Adam never looked into the future to see what grief his choice would cause.  Most of the time, we are as blind to eternal reality as he was.  That has to stop.  There is simply too much at stake.

Fortunately, there is grace.  No man or woman can carry this kind of burden.  But God can.  God does not erase sin.  Let’s be quite clear about that.  The Old Testament uses the words “blot out” for good reason.  God covers over our guilt.  He does not eliminate the consequences; He absorbs the guilt.  As long as we live in this broken world, the consequences of sin will spin on through generations.  We look forward to the time when all of this bloodline damage stops.  Between now and then, the ground will cry out at our moral pollution.  We must become much better caretakers of the soil.  With God’s help, we can.

Topical Index:  Sin

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Sovereignty

Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 | Author:

How long, O God, will the adversary revile, and the enemy spurn Your name forever? Psalm 74:10

How Long – In 1928, Leroy Carr expressed musically what every person asks from the heart:  “How long, how long?”  Dozens of musicians have recorded his song.  What they don’t realize is that the original score was written by David, not Leroy Carr.  If you want to hear Eric Clapton‘s rendition of Leroy’s music, go here.  If you want to listen to David’s version, go here.  If you’ve never wondered how long it would be before things get better, then call me.  I could use your help.

The “how long” question raises some important implications about our conception of God’s character.   We have often spoken about the three different Greek words for time:  aeon, chronos and kairos.  What is quite clear from Scripture is that God’s actions are uniquely set in kairos time; that moment when it is the perfect opportunity for God to do what He does.  In other words, while we usually trudge along in chronos time, minding our daily routines and scheduled events, God often reveals Himself in the pregnant moment, in those intersections between heaven and earth when everything is just right to bring about His glory.  The Bible tells us that the moment of the incarnation was a kairos event.  The coming of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost was a kairos event.  So was God’s self-revelation on Mount Sinai.  In fact, God seems to show up in kairos interjections into chronos monotony.  It is His character to wait until everything is exactly right.  And, of course, God is never late.

What this explains is crucial to our daily pleas for intervention.  The “how long” question impugns God’s character.  What we are really saying when we complain, “How long, God?” is that we don’t believe that God is acting as He should.  We see circumstances differently.  God should do something about it now.  We don’t understand why He delays.  Clearly, He needs to act.  Since He doesn’t, we throw a verbal reminder toward heaven, suggesting that God is either malicious (He could do something but He doesn’t) or impotent (He would like to do something but He won’t).  In either case, we tread on the grapes from that tree in the Garden.  We pretend to be gods.

Listen!  If God is good, all-powerful and trustworthy, then the “how long” question is an insult.  Do you think that the God who knows your needs even before you ask doesn’t know when you need them?  Don’t you know that He acts to bring about what is best at precisely the time that best meets His purposes?  We need to remember Job and beg forgiveness for our arrogance.  If you trust who God is, you won’t write the “How Long Blues” into your life.  Our God doesn’t play that tune.

Topical Index:  Sovereignty

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Love Language in Hebrew

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 | Author:

Therefore the LORD longs to be gracious to you, and therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you.  For the LORD is a God of justice; how blessed are those who long for Him. Isaiah 30:18

Compassion –  When you think about compassion, do you imagine a tender and protective love?  Do you think about your love for your children and your spouse?  Do you picture merciful acts?  You might be surprised to know that there is an amazing difference between the biblical idea of compassion and love.  If you look deep enough, you will discover something critically important about the way you treat others.

Most of the forty-nine occurrences of the Hebrew word racham (to have compassion) describe God as the actor.  Isaiah’s verse is no exception.  God longs to show His compassion towards us.  Psalm 103:13 and Proverbs 28:13 tell us that God has a special place in His heart for two kinds of people: those who fear Him, and those who confess and forsake their sins.  The intensity of this deep emotion is underlined by the fact that this word is also the word for the womb.  Nothing draws deeper on human emotion than the helplessness of an unborn child, so it’s not surprising at all that compassion, mercy and intense affection is associated with the womb.  What is surprising is that racham is never conjoined with the Hebrew word for love, ahav.

Gerhard Wallis made the observation years ago that ahav never appears in parallel with racham.  Wallis concludes that the Hebrew concept of love has an entirely different meaning than we find in the ideas of compassion and affection.  Furthermore, as we learned from the exclusive use of agape for ahav, the Hebrew concept of love is also not translated in terms of friendship (phileo) or desire (eros).  All of this helps us distinguish what love really means from a Hebrew perspective.  What we find is this:

  1. The concept of love expressed in ahav is focused on community.  It is about love for neighbor, stranger, countryman and enemy.  The context of understanding what it means to love is found in my treatment of others, not in my feelings or emotions.
  2. When ahav is used to describe my relationship with God, the focus is on the total commitment of my entire person.  In other words, love is a verb of action.  It is “strikingly pragmatic.”  In fact, love that does not produce benevolent behavior is sin.
  3. Since love is essentially an inner resolve displayed in outward action, the principal characteristic of biblical love is faithfulness.  When it comes to loving God, this means obedience.  When it comes to loving another person, this means nurturing fidelity.
  4. From a biblical point of view, love does not stand on a foundation of emotions but rather on a foundation of ethical responsibility.  Love demands specific boundaries for behavior.  Love is not about being free.  It is about acting within the confines of what it means to be faithful, trustworthy and reliable.
  5. In community, an act of love is an expression of justice.  What is not just, is not loving.

What is love?  Try this definition on for size:  love is what delights God and blesses others.  Both elements seem to be necessary.  Attitude and action are married in benevolence, often with personal cost.  Ask yourself if you are experiencing and exhibiting biblical love.  If you are, then God is smiling and someone else is being blessed, even if you are paying the freight.

And what about compassion?  Why is compassion never used in connection with love?  Because compassion is rooted in the idea of creating a fence around the chaos in another person’s life, while love is essentially exhibiting the character of God in community.  Compassion acts on behalf of another simply because there is a need.  Love lifts compassion to a higher dimension because love takes the place of the one in need.

Are you compassionate?  Good.  Now lift your compassion to the level of love.  Take the place of the thief who hangs on a cross.

Topical Index:  Love

Category: Today's Word  | Tags: ,  | Comments off
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