Archive for » December, 2008 «

Closing Statement

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008 | Author:

Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD, Isaiah 1:18

Let Us Reason Together – Perhaps on this day, the last day of the year, you will allow me a little personal reflection.  This day is the 2191st day of Today’s Word.  Six years ago when I started writing this daily journey into God’s Word and God’s words, I could not have imagined that it would have such an impact – on me and on you, my readers.  Over the years, you have supported my efforts to turn these words into hands-and-feet reality.  Together we build houses, roads, and walls.  We provided electricity, water, food and clothing to the poorest of the poor.  We gave books, lectures, teaching and studies to hundreds of pastors, students and others.  We reasoned together, every day for two thousand one hundred and ninety one days.

This journey has been life-changing for me.   It started with God’s recall of my pursuit of self-sufficiency.  In that disastrous loss, I learned that I was a lot more like Jacob than Job.  I was not a righteous man.  The Hebrew word Yakob fits me pretty well.  In the six years since, I hope that I am moving toward being more like Israel, the one who wrestles with God.

During this journey, I have discovered that the wealth of Israel’s legacy with the Lord also belongs to me, and to everyone who has been grafted into the body of the Messiah.  I have learned that our father Abraham is not merely a title, but rather a reality.  All of Israel’s history with YHWH is mine, and all His promises, blessings and instructions are mine as well.  Hopefully, you have begun to make this wonderful discovery.  Most Christians have been deprived of an enormous well-spring of living water because they have been victims of misunderstanding the single, uniform nature of God’s revelation.  Today’s Word is about recovering that living water.

At God’s Table (www.atgodstable.com) and Today’s Word is about to change.  What I know is that the Hebrew view of reasoning together doesn’t end with thinking.  The word here is yakach.  It means “to decide, to judge, to convince, to reprove, to correct and to be right.”  Hebrew cognitive activities always result in tangible actions.  Unless there is a change in life, no thought is really complete.  In fact, in Hebrew, I don’t know something until it shows up in the way I behave.  What I realize now is that the words we study every day must also result in action, and that means we must move toward a community of ones who are being right together.  I am convinced that community must become a vital part of Today’s Word.  So, I am taking a bold step, establishing a way for every supporter of Today’s Word to be able to interact with each other.  A new web site with this capability will soon replace the current web site.  Furthermore, since I believe that the purpose of Today’s Word is not information, but rather transformation, this new community will be for those who have taken action in support of the projects of At God’s Table.  Contributions in any form demonstrate a desire for transformation.  These people walk the talk.  Over the last six years, I have discovered that those who make an effort to support this work are the ones who regularly communicate and interact with me.  I want to open the door so that you can all help each other.  What this means is simple:  If you have made any contribution at all, by direct support or by purchasing a book or through any other means, you are invited to continue the journey.  If you haven’t made a contribution, you are invited to act on the words you have received.  If you decide that this isn’t part of your journey, be blessed.  God is simply taking you on another path.  Of course, there will always be room for those who are simply unable to support this journey but who really want to join it.

Over the next few months, the mailing list will change.  Those who have helped in the past will remain.  Nothing will change for anyone who has helped.  Those who want to continue but have not put feet on the ground yet, will have an opportunity to act accordingly.  I hope you will decide that reasoning together is a valuable part of your walk too.  The result will be a smaller audience, but one that is committed to real transformation and community.  When the new web site is done, you will be able to interact with everyone else who is reading Today’s Word if you desire to do so.  We will all be blessed in the process.  I will be able to concentrate my efforts on the community that really wants to walk forward with me. You’ll have plenty of time to think about this if you want to join.

There will be a new entry path for those who have just discovered Today’s Word.  They will receive thirty days of the fundamentals before they are asked to join the rest of the community.  There will also, I hope, be podcasts where you can hear the studies as well as read them.  And eventually, there will be face-to-face retreats where we can get to know each other in person.

Thank you so much for your encouragement and support over these years.  You have contributed to my walk more than I can say.  I love each of you for your faithfulness.  May the Lord bless you and keep you as we search His Word together.

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Over The Rainbow

Tuesday, December 30th, 2008 | Author:

And as He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. John 9:1

From Birth – Healing a man who has become blind is miraculous, but healing a man who was born blind is even more amazing.  In order to see just how amazing this account is for first century Jews, we need to know a little more about John’s multiple layers of meaning.

One clear sign of the expected Messiah was the healing of the blind.  Isaiah foretold it.  The Jews believed it.  But no one would have imagined that this sign applied to a man who was born blind.  The reason stems from a faulty view of the connection between sin and punishment.  According to the measure-for-measure principle of justice, the sinner could expect to pay a price for his sin.  Therefore, a man who caused someone else to become blind could expect to lose his own eyesight.  While the system of justice did everything possible to avoid such penalties, the Mosaic code set the upper limit for recompense – an eye for an eye, gracefully maybe less, but no more.

With this in mind, people assumed the reverse corollary also to be true.  If sinners were punished with affliction, then those who were afflicted must have committed some sin that warranted the affliction.  Anyone who suffered must suffer as a result of some individual transgression, or, since Judaism held a community view of sin, some communal sin.  Many Christians loosely hold the same view.  They believe that God intends life to be wonderful and full of blessings.  If it isn’t, then that must mean that I have sinned, either consciously or unconsciously.  This leads to the practice of writing out all my sins when I am suffering with some apparently unwarranted affliction, asking God to forgive each one.  This is exactly what the disciples thought when they asked Jesus, “Whose fault is it that this man was born blind?”  No one expected Jesus to heal this man.  After all, he was blind as a result of some serious, unforgiven transgression.  Why else would he be born blind?

Jesus healed him.  What!  Do you mean that he wasn’t paying for some sin?  Do you mean that our view of sin and punishment was mixed up?  Yes, says Jesus, you don’t see the purpose.  You were only looking at the consequence.  As if that weren’t enough, Jesus’ actions created another terrible dilemma.  The only one able to heal a man born blind must be God.  No rabbi, no great man of God, no leader would ever be able to do such a thing.  In fact (and this is shockingly important), there was never a single previous example of anyone healing a man born blind.  The problem with Jesus’ action, and John’s specific recounting of it, is that it opens the way over the rainbow.  It shows us a new horizon, one where the Kingdom of God is dawning.  This act signals the announcement of something entirely new in the world.  The Messiah is here, among us, and His presence is more than we expected.  He is God clothed in human form and He announces that His reign commences today.  All of this can mean only one thing:  we are the ones who are blind from birth.  Yeshua heals the physically blind man and he sees, but all of those around Yeshua are thereby confronted with their spiritual blindness.  They don’t see in spite of the fact that God stands in their midst.  Jesus’ actions announce the end of darkness for those He heals and, at the same time, condemn to darkness those who will not be healed.

Do you see?

Topical Index:  Miracles

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Heavy Attitudes

Monday, December 29th, 2008 | Author:

For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome. 1 John 5:3

Burdensome – It’s a real dilemma, isn’t it?  John, under the inspiration of the Spirit, tells us that the summation of God’s love is found in keeping His commandments.  He doesn’t say keeping the commandments of the Messiah (although he certainly could have since they are the same as the commandments in the Torah).  That means John must be referring to the only commandments that he knew, namely, the commandments found in the only Bible he had, the Hebrew Scriptures.  If these are inspired words, then there is little point in trying to argue that John didn’t mean what every Jew in his time would have understood by the term torah.  But here’s the dilemma.  John says that these commandments are not burdensome.  I don’t know about you, but I find this very hard to swallow.  It seems to me that a great deal of God’s instruction in the Torah is burdensome.  I know that John speaks the truth, but I don’t find that it is a truth that resonates in my life.  I guess I better dig a little deeper here to see where I have the problem.

John uses the Greek word barus.  Used metaphorically, it means burdensome.  But literally, it means heavy.  It can be used both positively (Matthew 23:23 “important”) and negatively (Matthew 23:4 “heavy loads”).   What’s more important is that John is echoing his Messiah.  “Come to me all you who are heavy laden” (Matthew 11:28) “for my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30) where Jesus’ words are translated with a synonym of barus.  If John and Jesus both say that keeping the commandments is not excruciatingly difficult (and God Himself says this in Exodus), then my struggle must be the result of something I am missing.  How can Jesus, John and God all tell me that following Torah will not wear me down when all I can see ahead of me are rules and regulations that will interfere with my present life?

Oh, now I get it.  My desire to hang on to my present lifestyle is the reason that these instructions seem so heavy.  I don’t want to change the way that I do things, so, of course, it seems difficult.  God doesn’t tell me that obedience is painless.  He tells me that obedience changes my attitude and in the process of being obedient, He will alter the desires of my heart.  God’s instructions are like a walk on the beach, but I can’t enjoy the walk on the beach until I get out of the house and step onto the sand.  As long as I fight God about staying home, any effort to get me out to the beach will seem burdensome.  But once I feel the sand between my toes, the water on my ankles and the gentle breezes on my face, my attitude about walking on the beach will change.  So, here’s the challenge.  Will I trust John and Jesus and God?   Will I decide that they really are telling me the truth about the commandments?  Will I commit to their exhortations and become obedient, trusting that by being obedient my antagonism will be transformed?  Or will I refuse, thinking that I know better what is right for me?  Let’s see.  There’s a proverb about this dilemma.  I think it goes something like this:  “Lean not on your own understanding.”  If you want God to direct your paths, then you will have to come to terms with John’s declaration.  If the love of God is found in keeping His commandments, then it’s simply impossible to expect to find a life of peace and joy without keeping them.  We can argue all we want about how strange and uncomfortable and unnecessary they seem to be, but that doesn’t change anything about John’s declaration.  And it doesn’t help us get to the beach either.

Topical Index:  Obedience

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Hebrew Poetry

Sunday, December 28th, 2008 | Author:

YHWH is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer.  I seek refuge in Him; He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my high tower. Psalm 18:3  (Hebrew text)

Rock – If you looked at this psalm in the Hebrew text, you would see something unusual (for us, at least).  The letters of the words are spread out across the scroll in a design pattern.  No, it’s not typesetting justification of margins.  It’s written that way because these are lyrics to a song, a song of praise and thanksgiving for the God who rescued David from his enemies.  This pattern also helps us see something else.  Hebrew poetry is not about phonetic rhymes.  It’s about revealing nuances of the same idea.  In other words, each line in this song elaborates and expands the idea of God as deliverer, showing all the facets of this concept in tangible expressions.

YHWH is my rock.  What does that mean?  Well, it also means that He is my fortress and the One who delivers me.  When I seek refuge in Him, He becomes my shield and the trumpet that sounds battle reinforcements.  He is my high tower, a place where I can see all the approaching foes and from which I command advantage over them.  Do you see how each idea develops the others?  When I have finished with just this second line in the song, I have a formidable picture of God’s battlefield care over me.

Notice that this verse is thoroughly Hebrew.  There are no lofty intellectual concepts here.  We don’t find words like omnipotent, omniscient or immutable.  Hebrew is a language of the land.  God is described in everyday terms.  Rock, shield, trumpet and tower – that’s the kind of God who is in the midst of it all.  It is impossible for a Hebrew to imagine the god of the deists, the watchmaker who put the universe together and then stepped away.  No Hebrew could imagine a god who wasn’t intimately involved in the ordinary.  This is not the God who acts as moral policeman of the world, removed from the pain and struggles of ordinary people.  This is the God who finds me in the trenches and pulls me to safety.  This is the God who puts His arm around me on a cold night in hostile territory and listens to my fears.  And this is the God who comes into this world vulnerable, empty and obedient.  This is the God for me.

“Rock” is the Hebrew word sur.  In a language of consonants, it’s interesting to see that the same combination (S-U-R) has another set of meanings, namely, to besiege, to bind and to attack.  Context and grammar tell us which meaning to use, but I find it intriguing that the nuances of “rock” are found in battle language.  From weapons to fortresses, rocks are as solid a place of security as you will find on this earth.  Those granite boulders remind me of my God who is the Rock of all ages, the utterly reliable foundation of my life.  Standing on the Rock, I am battle-ready.

These days I need to hear a bit of Hebrew poetry.  I need to see God in my tent, in my job and in my family life.  I need the God who lives with me.  I need to put my head on a rock like Jacob did and be ushered into His presence.  I am also a child of the land, and sometimes what I need more than anything else is just rocks and dirt and solid earth beneath my feet – and the God who made all of it alongside me.

Topical Index:  Character

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Dynamic Equivalence

Saturday, December 27th, 2008 | Author:

They return, but not upward, they are like a deceitful bow; Hosea 7:16

Upward – There are basically two schools of thought about translation.  One is called literal translation.  It is an attempt to render one language into another on a word-for-word basis.  With literal translations, I am able to work backwards from the translated word to the original word.  At least that’s the theory.  In reality, we often find that many different English words are used for the same Hebrew word, making the backwards investigation work very difficult.  In a true literal translation, each Hebrew word would have one English equivalent.  Of course, this is really impossible since many Hebrew words have multiple meanings.  No matter what we do, we must always consult the original in order to understand the real meaning.

The second kind of translation is called dynamic equivalence.  In this method, the original language is translated into what it would mean in the new language.  The words of the original are not as important as the meanings expressed in the original.  So, when dynamic equivalence is used, we often find that the translation is put in contemporary linguistic structures familiar to the reader.  The original words are lost somewhere behind the relevant translations.  Dynamic equivalence is great at capturing idioms since an idiom is a culturally relevant expression in the first place.  But often dynamic equivalence hides the presuppositions of the translators.  So, for example, when the NIV translates sarx (flesh) as “sinful nature,” the translation imports a particular theology that isn’t in the text itself.  It has to be read into the text.  The Message is perhaps the best contemporary example of a purely dynamic equivalent translation.  It is simply impossible to work backwards from The Message to discover the original words.

Of course, literal translations have their problems too.  This verse from the NASB is a perfect example.  The Hebrew word is al, a word that we have learned functions as a preposition with a very wide range of meanings (remember “no good besides You”).  Here the word-for-word translation tells us that the original word is al, but it doesn’t let us see the metaphorical meaning.  After all, what in the world can Hosea mean by saying that they don’t return upward? That’s just crazy.  Hosea must be using an idiomatic expression that gets lost in this literal translation.  Of course, as soon as we really dig into the original text, we discover that al is also used as an appellation for God, namely, The Most High.  That makes perfect sense since the word al is about what is above, over, upon and beyond.  Hosea is telling us that these wicked people who refuse God’s offer of redemption turn their direction, but not back to the Most High.

Why this little lesson about some obscure Hebrew preposition that can also be used as an idiom?  Because so often I am asked, “What English Bible is the best?”  The answer is “It depends.”  You have to know what kind of translation method is used, and then you have to adjust for the possible consequences.  No English Bible captures all that the original text means.  Start there, then work your way to a place where you can be comfortable with searching deeper.  Don’t let anyone tell you that a verse in English or any other translated language is what the Scripture really means.  Get some excavation tools and start digging for yourself.

Topical Index:  Translation

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Neither Height Nor Depth

Friday, December 26th, 2008 | Author:

I said to the LORD, “You are my Lord; I have no good besides You.” Psalm 16:2

Besides – The particle al (Ayin-Lamed) in Hebrew has a very wide range of meanings.  It covers the ground from according to, on account of, on behalf of, concerning, beside, in addition to, together with, beyond, above, over, by, towards, against and upon.  So, when it comes to translating this little connector, the scribe has to decide which one fits on the basis of context.  Sometimes the scribe has a particular viewpoint that causes other possible meanings to be hidden.  Sometimes the choice of word in the translated language doesn’t communicate all that we need to know.  That seems to be the case with this psalm.  It’s time to look at the height and depth of David’s statement – and discover the majesty of God’s goodness.

First we must recognize the depth of David’s statement.  I have no claim to goodness.  All of my good is on account of You.  All of my goodness is according to Your pronouncement over me.  There is no good in me besides what You give.  I wonder if we really think like this.  I wonder if we truly realize that life is about holiness, not success or status or privilege or legacy.  And on that scale, we come up miserably short.  Yes, if there is any goodness at all, it is God’s doing – entirely.

Secondly, God’s goodness is beyond me.  It is over me, against me and upon me.  It confronts me.  It challenges me.  It reveals me for who I truly am.  Just as the Torah is the schoolmaster that leads me to Christ, the goodness of God stands in judgment over me, forcing me to deal with my sin.  I discover that to the very depths of my soul, there is no goodness in me.

Finally, I know that God’s goodness is on my behalf.  It is towards me, together with me and on my behalf.  My righteousness is on account of Him.

Maybe we need to consider all the possibilities for this tiny little Hebrew addition if we want to take account of the whole range of God’s goodness to men.  Maybe we need to hear more than music when the angels sang, “Good will toward men.”  Do you suppose that they used the Hebrew particle al?

Yeshua tells us that God is good, and no other.  David understood that.  But David also knew that YHWH was his Lord, and as his Lord, the character of the master passed to the servant.  No, I am not good, but God is and I am His child – and His servant.  I am reckoned good on His account and that is enough for me to say bal-aleikha.

Topical Index:  Good

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Battleground

Thursday, December 25th, 2008 | Author:

Preserve me, O God, for I take refuge in You. Psalm 16: 2 (in the Hebrew text)

Take Refuge – God is the ultimate refuge for His children.  No place on earth, no alliance with men, no surrounding army can offer the safety and security that God offers.  We all know this, but until we take into account the author of these words, we may not truly appreciate it.

David was Israel’s greatest king.  When he ruled, Israel’s borders were enlarged beyond any previous or subsequent monarch.  David was a fearsome warrior and he conquered wherever he went.  This was a man of great power and prestige.  Certainly, he had nothing to fear.  But David wrote these words.  That should remind us of the desperate helplessness of the human condition.  If the most powerful man in Israel recognizes that only God can offer him real refuge, how much more must we acknowledge our utter dependency?  We need to pay attention to the author and the author’s status if we are going to appreciate the enormous impact of these words.  In the end, there is no safety except in the Lord.

The verb here is chasah.  It paints a picture of the battlefield.  In hills and caves, soldiers found shelter.  Perhaps that’s why this verb is associated with words like stronghold, secure height, strong rock and place of escape.  When the battle turns against you, you better have a place to run to.  David found that place in his trust in God.  God becomes the strong Rock, the safe height and the place of escape.  The verb emphasizes the essential insecurity of life and points us toward our only true stronghold.  Safety isn’t found in numbers (as David learned).  It is found in the one true God.  When He shelters us, nothing can harm us.

David’s insight is easy to assert but often difficult to apply.  Certainly, in times of desperation, we run to God.  Acutely aware of our vulnerability, we seek refuge in Him.  But applying this insight in good times is really the key to divine security.  The trick of the enemy is to lull us into a false sense of security by providing tangible distractions to our true condition.  We pile up wealth, health and friendships, imagining that somehow these will protect us in a storm.  Of course, they won’t, but that doesn’t prevent us from acting as though they will.  There is nothing wrong with securing these resources, as long as we recognize that they are nothing more than God’s gifts for Kingdom purposes.  It’s easy to forget how fragile life really is if we become distracted by these substitutes for refuge.  In fact, if the distractions begin to occupy our attention, God sometimes needs to remove them in order for us to see the truth.  David and I share personal experiences in this corrective process.  It’s a wake-up call that I sincerely hope you will not need.

Most of the battles in the enemy’s territory begin right here – knowing our vulnerability and God’s reliability.  The enemy wants all of us to think we are generals.  The truth is that we are all just foot soldiers, slogging it out trying not to get shot.  When we start thinking that we are secure at headquarters, the enemy has won a great victory.  Refuse his ploy!  Look at your feet.  They are covered with the dust of battle as you follow in the footsteps of the Messiah.  You are preserved by His reliability – and nothing else.

Topical Index:  Trust

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Life Giver

Wednesday, December 24th, 2008 | Author:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her Ephesians 5:25

Love – Paul has less to say to husbands than to wives.  Perhaps that’s because the obligation for the husband should be much more obvious.  It’s summarized right here – “just as Christ loved.”  More explanation is hardly necessary.  Whatever the relationship to his wife, whatever her role might be, this much is crystal clear.  A man is expected to give up his life for her.

I would imagine that most husbands would agree – in principle.  And under threat of bodily harm, most husbands would sacrifice themselves for the woman they love.  But I also suspect that Paul has a great deal more in mind than the possibility of dying in order to save our wives.  If we reflect on the way that Christ loved the church, we will see that the sacrifice required is much broader than physical protection.  Let’s consider the full consequences.

First, Yeshua gave up His exalted status in order to take on the role of the lover of the church.  He stepped down from heaven and became a doulos, a slave, obedient to other human beings and to God’s full instruction book.  The first step in loving the church was total humility.  Yeshua came with no other agenda, no other expectation and no other plan.  Do you suppose that loving my wife as Christ loved the church requires me to set aside my agenda, my pride, my ego and my expectations?

Secondly, Yeshua demonstrated complete obedience to the will of the Father in spite of the fact that the very people He came to rescue acted like His enemies.  He did not waiver in His commitment to their redemption even when they sought His life, rejected His message and treated Him with disrespect.  I wonder if loving my wife like Yeshua loved the church means that I need to show her every kindness, every consideration and every tender mercy even when I feel as though she is my personally selected enemy.

Finally, Yeshua voluntarily took on the role of life giver.  He literally gave up His life in order that the church might be redeemed – and live.   In Hebrew thought, the wife (‘ezer) is the life saver, the one who nourishes, protects and provides, the one who emulates the role of God in His relationship with Israel.  The Son has a different role, the life giver.  By His actions, Israel is returned to its mission.  By His sacrifice, Israel is renewed.  By His power, Israel is enabled to fulfill its divinely appointed destiny.  The life saver cannot do what she needs to do unless the life giver does what he needs to do.  Together they are human.

Paul’s chosen word, agape, says all that is necessary – benevolence toward another at cost to myself, without preconditions and without expectations.  Husbands, love your wives.

Topical Index:  Love

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Once For All

Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008 | Author:

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Romans 8:38

Persuaded – When you think about this verb, what comes to mind?  Is persuasion a mental function, the result of argument, of a dialogue that demonstrates evidence?  Is that what Paul means?  Has he come to the place where he arrived at a conclusion after reviewing the facts?  If that’s what Paul means, he would be a rare individual indeed.  In all my years I have never met anyone who came to believe in the Messiah on the basis of an intellectual argument.  I’ve met a few who voiced the objection of Felix (“You almost persuade me”), but I’ve never met a single person who decided to make Jesus his Lord on the basis of the facts alone.  I suspect that Paul didn’t have this understanding in mind either.

The Greek verb peitho can be about rational argument and evidence.  It also can mean winning favor or gaining friendship.  But Paul isn’t Greek, so I suspect that he has another concept in mind, the idea expressed in the Hebrew word pathah.  The basic meaning of this word (translated “persuade” in the English Old Testament) is to spread out, to open up or to make wide.  You might think of it in relation to God’s desire to make the places for His children wide and gentle expanses.  One of the images we encounter in the Scriptures is the picture that sin restricts us, it narrows the way and confines us, but forgiveness opens the way and gives us room to breathe.  When Paul talks about persuasion, I have a feeling that he is thinking about pathah rather than the intellectual exercise of peitho.

Look at the context of Paul’s declaration.  These are some pretty big categories – death, life, angels, authorities, powers and the entire scope of the present and the future.  No intellectual argument can stand up to these kinds of things.  Just the inclusion of the future in this list makes it patently obvious that gathering evidence and coming to logical conclusions is not what Paul has in mind.  After all, we have no control whatsoever over what evidence might come forth in the future.  No, Paul is not talking about the probabilities of scientific inquiry.  He is talking about resolute, personal conviction grounded in an encounter with the living God.  I’m sorry, Josh McDowell, but evidence that demands a verdict is not what Paul has in mind in this verse.  Paul uses the Greek verb in the perfect passive tense.  This means that whatever he is saying, it is intensely personal and absolutely fixed in the past.  This is a conviction that requires nothing further.  It is an action completed once for all time.

It might help if we knew that this same Greek verb is also translated trust, obey and believe.  Now we see the connections.  This is not simply intellectual affirmation.  It is a verb that, for Paul, describes a total commitment to a way of life.  It is exactly what a disciple experiences when God opens the way to righteousness and removes all the restrictions that sin caused.

There’s more than Greek apologetics here.  This is Hebrew thinking – an apologetics that resides in life experience, an apologetics that embraces the total person, not just the mind.  So, ask yourself, “Are you persuaded?”  Has your experience with God opened your world?

Topical Index:  Apologetics

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Sticks and Stones

Monday, December 22nd, 2008 | Author:

And looking at them He said, “What, then, is this which has been written, “The stone that the builders rejected, this one came to be the head of the corner”? Luke 20:17

Stone – “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”  That childhood rhyme certainly wasn’t what Jesus had in mind when He provided His commentary on the meaning of the word ‘eben.  Of course, we must start in Greek.  Lithon is in the Greek text.  You will recognize its meaning from words like Paleolithic – “early stone age”.  Jesus isn’t speaking Greek, so we have to read this word in Hebrew.  Once we do, we discover that Jesus is employing a play on words – ‘eben and ben.  ‘eben means stone and ben means son.  The word play comes from an allusion to Psalm 118:22 which His audience certainly recognized.  In that allusion, Jesus suggests that the leadership of Israel is in peril of judgment and anyone who associates with that leadership would be well advised to reconsider his loyalty.  The time has come when the Son will act like a stone and crush those who stand in the way of God’s redemptive plan.  Apparently some words can break your bones.

There is another more subtle word play here that we dare not overlook.  Exodus tells us that the Ark of the Covenant contains the testimony of the Lord.  This refers to the stone tablets that contain the summary of the Torah.  The early Christian church saw this testimonia in relation to Yeshua as the cornerstone.  Yeshua is not merely the Son who is a stumbling block to those who reject God’s way.  He is the physical representation of Torah obedience, a fulfillment of what the stone tablets are all about.  He is the manifestation of the Word of God (as John takes pains to demonstrate).  Therefore, it is not just ben and ‘eben that are in play here.  It is also dabar and torah.  Upon stone (‘eben) God wrote the ten words (dabar) which are ultimately manifested in the Son (ben) through His obedience to the words (torah).  It’s all tied together.

If we learn anything at all from this little word play, we learn that all of Scripture is connected.  We don’t live in a world of two testaments.  Our relationship to God is not part of a second covenant.  There is one message, one mediator, one plan of redemption and one manifestation of His body.  It began with Abraham and it continues to this very day.  Not only are the words all connected, so are we.  We have a share in the Kingdom.  We are sons and daughters of Abraham.  We are citizens of the commonwealth of Israel – and God isn’t through with any of us yet.

Today we can celebrate an adoptive history that reaches back to the time of the patriarchs.  We have been added to those long genealogies in Scripture because we have a place in this nation of priests.  Once more we realize just how important our common history really is – and how blessed we are to be a part of it.  Today is a great day for lifting up the name of the Lord who delivered us from the house of bondage and set us free to serve Him.

Topical Index:  Words

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