Archive for » June, 2011 «

Who’s in Charge?

Thursday, June 30th, 2011 | Author:

So, too, if, while in her husband’s household, she makes a vow or imposes an obligation on herself by oath, and her husband learns of it, yet offers no objection – thus failing to restrain her – all her vows shall stand and all her self-imposed obligations shall stand.  But if her husband does annul them on the day he finds out, then nothing that has crossed her lips shall stand,  . . . Numbers 30:11-13  JPS

Does annul them – In other contexts, I have argued that not only are women equal before YHWH, they are also specifically designed under covenant relationship to act as guides for their husbands.  Far from being the subservient members of the marriage, they are intended to act as the directors, the boundary-setters and the relationship managers.  But now we come to this passage.  The conditions outlined in Numbers 30 involving vows and oaths that women made might appear as if the father or the husband has universal power to overturn the decisions made by a daughter or a wife.  Suddenly it looks like the man is the head of the household no matter what.  What happened to equality?  What happened to the role of the ‘ezer kenegdo?

Before we import these regulations into our cultural view of authority, let’s think about the situation among the Israelites in the 16th century BCE.  There is little doubt that the dominant social structure of Egypt was based on male supremacy.  In fact, this motif was so strong that the Daughter of Pharaoh (that’s her name, not only her position) ruled for sixty years after the death of her father while dressing as a man.  When Israelite slaves came out of Egypt, this is the social structure they knew.  Not only did they know it as part of the pagan culture of Egypt, patriarchal hierarchy was also part of their culture.  Men were in charge of the community.

Of course, that does not mean women did not take on these roles (cf. Deborah), but it does mean that for the most part men were responsible for the smooth operation of the community at large.  If this is obviously true, if it is de rigueur, then why do we need explicit instructions to enforce it when it comes to women’s vows?  Maybe what is happening here is not about social hierarchy at all.  Maybe it is about protection.

If no one spits on the walls, I don’t need a sign saying “Don’t spit on the wall!”  I only need the sign if the action is occurring and I want to prohibit it.  The same applies to this situation.  I only need a regulation concerning annulment of a vow if something unsuitable is happening.  What could that be?  Put yourself in the place of an Israelite family recently removed from Egypt.  Imagine that a woman makes a vow that might have unforeseen detrimental consequences to the family.  For example, suppose she vows that she will finish making a garment for her children no matter how long it takes.  But now it is approaching Shabbat.  She needs to stop working, but if she does so, she will break the vow.  What can she do?  If she breaks the vow, she sins.  If she does not break the vow, she sins.  How is she to be protected?  If her father or her husband hears about this vow, he might anticipate such compromising consequences.  Therefore, he has the option of annulling the vow and protecting her from stress.  Of course, you will notice that he needs to act immediately upon hearing it.  If he waits, he tacitly endorses the vow and if the vow later turns out to be harmful, and the woman repeals her vow, God will forgive her (automatically) but He will not automatically forgive the man.  With this explanation, we see that annulment of vows is not an endorsement of a male hierarchy.  It is rather a means to protect the people within the family from unanticipated errors in judgment.  Annulment means taking on the responsibility and the consequences of the vow.  Do you think Peter might have remembered this passage when he suggested the husband needs to protect his wife?  In my opinion, there is far less emphasis on hierarchical authority here than there is on shielding and preserving others.  Maybe that’s why the Hebrew verb is parar, to break or frustrate.  Annulment is not without consequence.  The husband or the father must break the promise in order to protect, and breaking a promise always has consequences.

Of course, there is a contemporary application of this very ancient principle.  Husbands, are you ready to step into the promises made by your wives and take those burdens upon yourself in order to protect her?  Fathers, would you do the same for your daughters?  Women, will you recognize that your husband or your father is acting on your behalf?

Topical Index:  vow, oath, women, annul, parar, Numbers 30:11-13

 

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Apocalyptic Slander of God’s Word

Wednesday, June 29th, 2011 | Author:

Here is a billboard that I saw in South Africa.  It underlines the fact that nonsense like this only diminishes the value of God’s word.  What else are people going to think when “the Bible guarantees it.”  We must resist and oppose this kind of slander.

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Déjà Vu All Over Again

Wednesday, June 29th, 2011 | Author:

“These men are throwing our city into confusion, being Jews, and are proclaiming customs which it is not lawful for us to accept or to observe, being Romans.” Acts 16:20-21  NASB

Being Jews/ being Romans – This century is the second first century.  It is exactly like the first century view of religious practice twenty centuries later.  If we don’t understand this parallel, we will entirely miss the point of the complaint against Paul and Silas.  We will think that these Gentiles, the Roman citizens of Philippi, are illegitimately complaining against the salvation message of the gospel.  We will read this story as if it is about our worldview based on the truth of the Bible.  Therefore, we won’t comprehend the real reason for this legitimate complaint and we won’t see that the 21st century is repeating the same story as the 1st century in Philippi.

The crux of the argument of the citizens of Philippi hangs on these two phrases, “being Jews” and “being Romans.”  Why should this make any difference?  Wasn’t Philippi a pagan colony of Rome, replete with pagan gods and their devotees’ practices?  Who would care if one more deity showed up?  No one – except if the new practitioners claimed that all other gods were fictitious, useless lies.  You see, in Roman civilization you could have as many gods as you wished as long as you didn’t impede others from worshipping whatever gods they wanted to worship.  Religion was not a matter of conversion.  It was a matter of birth.  Every person was born into a particular cult and Rome was quite willing to embrace them all.  The real offense was the claim that there was only one God!  That was a crime because it threatened the peace of profligate polytheism.  Believe whatever you wish – just as long as you don’t start telling others that they have to believe it too.  Paula Fredriksen remarks, “For pagan Gentiles, multiple religious allegiances were entirely normal; indeed, traditional polytheism encouraged this sort of openness.”[1] Hmm.  Does that sound like today’s “Your beliefs are yours and mine are mine.  You have no right to tell me what to believe!”?  If we want to believe that Yeshua is the Messiah, no problem as long as we don’t push that belief on others.  Once more we have arrived at the first century where religion is a matter of cultural bias, place of birth and nationality.

Once we clearly understand the impact of this first century point of view, we can settle the constant confusion about the Jerusalem council in Acts 15.  The decision to hold Gentile converts to four things is not about a minimal Torah!  It’s about the first century accommodation to polytheism.  Gentiles would have been more than happy to embrace the teachings of Yeshua and the God of Israel as long as they didn’t have to give up any of the other gods.  That’s what James requires.  To have table fellowship with followers of the Way, you must abandon the behaviors of pagan worship.  Exclusivity is the big issue in that day.  It is the same today.  There is THE WAY and then there are all the pretenders to THE WAY.  You simply can’t have it all.  You have to choose.

Topical Index:  polytheism, Gentiles, Acts 16:20, Acts 15

[1] Paula Fredriksen, “What Parting of the Ways?”, The Ways that Never Parted, p. 52.

 

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Pollution Control

Tuesday, June 28th, 2011 | Author:

And I, I shall set My face against that man, and shall cut him off from the midst of his people, because he has given of his offspring to Molek, so as to defile My sanctuary and to profane My holy Name. Leviticus 20:3 (my translation)

Holy – “Above all, the name of God is holy.”  To make God’s name holy means to live in such a way that “men must see and say that the God of Israel is the true God.”  This specifically means “obeying the will of God in keeping the commands of Torah and studying to achieve a blameless walk in the eyes of the world.”[1] In other words, hallowing God’s name, keeping it holy, is not determined by our own inner spiritual condition nor is it determined by God’s assessment of our faith.  The measure of keeping God’s name holy is the assessment of outsiders.  If our actions do not cause them to proclaim the God of Israel as the one true God, then we have profaned His name.

In this example in Leviticus, the practice of child sacrifice to the fertility god, Molek, profaned God’s holy name.  Why?  Because God is the God of life.  He determines who lives and who dies.  Attempts by human beings to appease fertility gods in order to insure their material success not only violate God’s ordinance concerning life but also deny that God is sovereign over the material world.  People who acted in this way caused the nations to doubt the character of God.  There are obvious contemporary parallels.

The rabbis interpreted the command to hallow God’s name as an explicit endorsement of Torah obedience.  How is it possible to act in ways that will cause the nations to recognize the God of Israel if the people who call themselves by His name do not follow His instructions?  Obviously, disobedience entails dishonor and the nations will recognize such hypocrisy.  We who are His possession are expected to behave in ways that will attract the attention of the world.  One might legitimately ask if the Christian theology that absolves believers from keeping Torah has any chance of accomplishing this objective.  Why would the nations pay any heed to those who live just like they do?  Distinctiveness demands explanation.  Conformity doesn’t.  It is a useful exercise to ask just how distinctive our lives really are.  Wherever we are out of alignment with Torah, we profane His name.  At least that is the lesson from the Tanakh and it seems to be the lesson from the lives of the disciples.  It would be difficult to imagine otherwise.

We have learned that holiness has two perspectives: one from God’s point of view and one from the world’s point of view.  You will notice that there is no subjective point of view here.  I am not the one who determines if I am holy or if I am keeping God’s name holy.  God’s point of view is about His ownership of me.  The world’s point of view is about whether that ownership is so visible that the nations see God operating in me.  Since this holiness (kodesh) is the essential background of the word hagios (saint), we can be sure that those called saints did not call themselves such.  The two points of view need to collide before we become what God calls.  No man is a saint who profanes God.

Topical Index:  holy, saint, kodesh, Leviticus 20:3, Molek, Molech, name

[1] Kuhn, TDNT, Vol. 1, pp. 98-99.

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You Must Be Kidding!

Monday, June 27th, 2011 | Author:

to the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours: 1 Corinthians 1:2  NASB

Saints – How is it possible, how is it even conceivable that Paul would call the motley crew of Corinth saints?  These people are a mess.  Incest, perversion, quarrels, illness, heresies, rancor – you name it, they exhibit it.  These people are about as far from being holy ones as we could imagine.  Paul must be crazy, right?

Perhaps we can make some headway by noticing that the words “sanctified” and “saints” are connected.  “Saints” is hagios.  “Sanctified” is from the verb hagiazo.  Both are part of the Alpha-Gamma family of Greek words, all connected to the idea of holiness.  Procksch makes the important point that “in the usage in the Bible we must everywhere recognize the Semitic background”[1] of these Greek terms, that is, the Hebrew word kodesh.  What does it mean to be “holy” in Hebrew?  Our usual Greek explanation is “set aside, separated.”  But the Hebrew idea is richer.  Kodesh is not merely about moral or ethical behavior.  It is about God taking possession of us.  It is about surrender, dedication and consecration.  In Heschel’s terms, it is about awe and wonder in the presence of God.  We are mistaken if we think that holiness is a synonym for morality.  It is not.  In fact, in Hebrew kodesh has no Hebrew synonyms.  It is a cultic term for total abandonment to God based on actions initiated by God for God.  Moral and ethical behaviors are by-products of kodesh, not the purpose of kodesh.  This is why it is possible to be a “good” person and still not be hagios-kodesh.  And this is why it is possible to be a mess and still be hagios-kodesh.

Now let’s look at the assembly in Corinth (the word “church” causes some problems too, but we will ignore them).  Were these people brought into the presence of the Holy God?  Yes.  Did God call them to Himself?  Yes.  Did God take possession (ownership) of them?  Yes.  Does “sanctified” mean that they are morally upright and pure now?  No.  Does it mean that this will be the natural by-product of God’s purposes?  Yes.  It is important to realize that kodesh is atypical Hebrew.  It is not about actions.  It is about a state of being.  In other words, Paul’s statement is proleptic.  He writes to the assembly of Corinth from the perspective of what they will eventually become behaviorally, not because they will work to achieve that end but because God will faithfully produce that end.  From this perspective, they are saints in progress.  Their task is consecration.  God will do all the rest.  But from God’s perspective, they are already His possession and therefore, they are right now kodesh.

Distinguishing the Hebraic senses of hagios-kodesh is crucial for interpretation of this text.  Without this background, we might wrongly conclude that behavior doesn’t matter when it comes to being called saints.  Obviously, it matters a great deal, but it is not a matter of earning sainthood but rather responding to the God who owns us.

As far as I can tell, Paul might as well have been writing to the assembly in Montverde, Dayton, Phoenix, Seattle, Taipei, Singapore, Melbourne or Kroonstad.  We who have been drawn out by the power of the Lord are experiencing kodesh, the presence of the One who calls.  We know awe, not because we have achieved it but because it has overwhelmed us.  We are nevertheless a mess.  But God only works with garbage.  Garbage in – hagios out.  It’s a miracle.

It seems rather pointless to proclaim that Paul excuses our mess simply because he sees us as we will become.  That ignores everything we know about obedience.  But God always starts what He finishes and in this case, He has started the finished work of you and me – and the motley crew in Corinth.

Topical Index:  saints, hagios, sanctified, hagiazo, holy, kodesh, 1 Corinthians 1:2

[1] TDNT, Vol. 1, p. 89.

 

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Belaboring the Obvious

Sunday, June 26th, 2011 | Author:

But shun foolish controversies and genealogies and strife and disputes about the Law; for they are unprofitable and worthless. Titus 3:9  NASB

Disputes – Sermon after sermon, article after article, book after book – all about the place of the Law in the life of a Christian.  I wonder if Paul wouldn’t throw up his hands in frustration.  Why all this controversy?  Isn’t the answer obvious?

Apparently, it’s not.

We know that Paul was a Torah-observant follower of the Way.  His own self-declaration confirms this years after his encounter with the risen Lord.  We know that James, Peter, John and the other apostles made the same claim.  We know that Yeshua lived a life of sinless Torah obedience.  Is there any question about this?

Both contemporary orthodox Jews and modern Christians (Catholic and Protestant) seem to think that Paul rejected the Law, that Jesus replaced the Law and that we Christians now live under the opposite of the Law – something called “grace.”  This doctrine is so powerful that it stands as the real issue of separation between Jews and Christians.  In fact, the more we read from the pens of Jewish authors about the mistakes of Christianity, the more we realize that these authors are reacting to Christian commentators on Paul, not to the actual words of Paul.  Neither side seems to have paid attention to the actual words Paul wrote.  Instead, they react to the theologians who speak on behalf of the New Testament authors.  As an example, we can consider this verse.  Out of context, it could be read as “disputes about the replacement of the Law by grace are unprofitable because everyone knows that grace overcomes the Law.”  But the next verse dismisses this interpretation.  Paul instructs his readers to reject the factious man after two warnings because such a man is “perverted and sinning.”  Paul assumes that we will know him by his behavior.  How is that possible without the Law?  If it’s all grace, then why would behavior matter?  If it’s all about “Jesus in my heart,” then why would Paul exhort us to observe what the man does and make a judgment based on that?  If the Law really is set aside, then how will we know such a man is sinning?  It just doesn’t make any sense.  And, in practice, we actually do just what Paul suggests.  We actually look at the behavior of others to determine if they are meeting the “standard.”  That, of course, implies that there actually is a standard?  To claim that the Law no longer applies is to endorse lawlessness, precisely the characteristic of those whom the Bible considers the enemies of God.  One way or another, we all subscribe to some form of the Law.  Our theology might deny it, but our lives don’t.  The only question is this:  is our standard God’s standard?  If it isn’t, then we have an issue to settle with Him, not with the Church or the theologians.

Perhaps we should start by re-examining the translation.  The Greek phrase is machas nomikas. Theological dictionaries actually define this as “controversies respecting the Mosaic laws,” but notice that the word nomikas is an adjective, not a noun.  Therefore, the translation cannot be “about the Law.”  There is no preposition or noun here.  The translation should be “legal fights.”  Paul is telling us to avoid court battles, something we can all appreciate.

How did this bit of practical advice turn into a statement about the Law?  The only explanation is that the translators read into the words of Paul what they wanted to say, not what he actually said.  Paul’s point is obvious.  No one wants a court battle.  The translators’ position is subterfuge.

Who told you the Law was set aside?  Maybe the real question is “Whose Bible are you reading: the Bible of the translator or the Bible of the author?”

Topical Index:  dispute, the Law, machas, nomikas, Titus 3:9, translation

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Dabar in Dayton

Saturday, June 25th, 2011 | Author:

Last Friday and Saturday I conducted a conference/seminar in Dayton.  Five guys who are regular readers of Today’s Word decided that they wanted me to speak to a larger group face-to-face.  So we arranged for a Friday evening and all day Saturday.  I must say they did a spectacular job.  There were about 50 attendees.  The registration fees covered the costs with many volunteers to help.  They will eventually have a full video of all the sessions complete with Powerpoint slides.  The audience was enthusiastic, welcoming and anxious to learn – and discuss – the concept of worldview and ‘ezer.  I am sure that people left with a fuller sense of God’s word and real applications for their lives.  Nothing can replace the face-to-face experience.  In fact, John and Judi drove all the way from Chicago just to participate and now they are considering doing something similar there.

It was a great time of fellowship, often continuing until nearly midnight at the home of David Salyer after the formal events.  David and Faith made everyone feel like family.

I hope that other readers will consider following the Dayton group.  Personal encounter is the cement of this worldwide community.

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Event Horizon

Saturday, June 25th, 2011 | Author:

The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant, John; Revelation 1:1  NASB

The End – There is hardly a single book in the Bible subject to greater contextual folly than The Holy Revelation of John the Divine.  To prove this point, all that is needed is a quick review of the number of generations who determined that the end of the world was at hand by reading Revelation in their own context.  Of course, that means ignoring the context of the author and treating the book as if it is some mysterious code about political intrigue, nuclear wars, the rise of Communism or Islam, and the dominance of some earthly super-evil power.  What great fiction this produces!  Tim LaHaye cashed in on our paranoia about the end of the world, but I am quite sure that his novels will sit on dusty shelves while the next generation decides that Revelation is really about extraterrestrial invasions or sunspot radiation or Chinese economics or something else.

What Christians have forgotten (or perhaps never knew) is that John’s vision is part of a genre of literature called Apocalyptic.  It isn’t the only book making veiled claims about the future.  In fact, it is only one among dozens written during the end of the apostolic age.  If we look at the rest of these manuscripts, we just might draw different conclusions about the purpose and the nature of John’s addition.

It’s useful to note that the Greek text begins with apokalupsis.  There is no definite article here.  This is a disclosure, not the disclosure.  The word means an uncovering and an interpretation of that uncovering.  In other words, it is event plus meaning.  This is a significant problem since no one seems to actually know what all this means.  Maybe the reason we find it so difficult to interpret is that we are looking at it from the wrong perspective.  Maybe we are looking for answers to the wrong questions.

David Frankfurter points out that other apocalyptic literature of the era is very similar to John’s revelation.  The common themes are a picture of the heavenly world, deep Jewish (yes, that’s right) traditions, concern with prophetic authority, typology based in the Tanakh and Jewish priestly purity.[1] Frankfurter points out that “Jesus Christ” really has a subordinate role in John’s work.  The central issue is priestly purity (cf. The Ascension of Isaiah 3:21 and 28).  In fact, Christ’s authority is derived from priestly purity and obedience.  What Frankfurter demonstrates is that the book of Revelation fits comfortably within a Jewish view of life – here and in the hereafter.  Revelation can be seen as “the work of continuous communities of halakhically-observant Jewish groups . . . that incorporated Jesus into their cosmologies and liturgies while retaining an essentially Jewish, or even priestly, self-definition.”[2]

What does this mean for us, the average people concerned about what is coming over the event horizon?  Perhaps it means some of the following:

1.  Revelation needs to read as Jewish, as a description of the concerns of the Messianic Jewish congregation in the first century.  We must resist the nearly ubiquitous temptation to treat it as a hidden code about the end of the world.

2.  Revelation is part of the literature of hope.  Its themes are Jewish themes – obedience, trust, purity, submission and sovereignty.  As such, they have meaning within the culture of the author.  The questions we need to ask begin with understanding that culture.

3.  Revelation is not alone.  It is not an unusual piece of literature, a one-of-a-kind view into the world to come.  Before we can speak about its meaning, we need to understand its genre.

4.  Revelation offers great insights into the place of prophetic authority which stands in radical contrast to the organizational hierarchy adopted by the Church in subsequent centuries but foreshadowed in conflicts within the Messianic community.  We need to ask if we are not the product of the very thing Revelation opposed.

5.  Finally, Revelation is about the deeply Jewish idea of God’s utter reliability.  It is about trust in spite of chaos and confusion.  Perhaps more than “signs of the times,” we should be looking for validations of emunah [truth, faithfulness].

Buy Left Behind if you wish, but it is fiction, through and through.

Topical Index:  revelation, apokalupsis, Revelation 1:1, priest, purity

[1] David Frankfurter, “Beyond ‘Jewish’ Christianity” in The Ways that Never Parted, p. 137.

 

[2] Ibid., p. 135.

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African Dawn

Friday, June 24th, 2011 | Author:

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Work or Toil?

Friday, June 24th, 2011 | Author:

For we are God’s fellow-workers; you are God’s field, God’s building. I Corinthians 3:9  NASB

Fellow-workers – For devotional impact, one can hardly improve on Oswald Chambers’ commentary on this verse (see April 23 of My Utmost for His Highest).  With typical aplomb, Chambers delivers a razor-sharp message.  A man or woman engaged in the work of the Kingdom without a full consecration to the Lord of the Kingdom finds that “there is no freedom, no delight in life; nerves, mind and heart are so crushingly burdened that God’s blessing cannot rest.”  This “work” is nothing but toil because it attempts to replace the sovereignty of the Almighty with the planning of noble men.  Once more we are delivered to Genesis and the negotiated arrangement of Havvah (Genesis 4:1), a planned solution to her experience of pain – planned without repentance, restitution and reconciliation.  It seems that wherever we stray, we don’t get far from the Garden.

Chambers rightly notes that God “engineers everything” so that our single goal is not to plan the work but rather to work the plan, His plan of discipling others whom He brings across our daily path.  The work which He wishes us to do is not what we concoct or imagine, but rather what He puts in front of us.  That’s what it means to assert that God engineers life.

While Chambers doesn’t mention it, we probably need to take a closer look at the Greek sunergos (fellow-worker).  Paul uses this word to express the joy and happiness that arrives unbidden when we join God in the effort.  We might easily recall once more that assignment given Adam in the Garden.  Avodah – the work he was to do – was accompanied by worship and service.  In fact, it was the homogenization of all three vital elements for the development of what it means to be human.  Far too much “work” is done without the essential mixture of these three – and work done in thirds inevitably turns to toil, the destructive erosion of humanity on the wheel of gain and necessity.

Sunergos is, of course, the combination of sun (with) and ergon (work).  Work in conjunction with, work as cooperative effort, work in harmony, work as an expression of unified endeavor.  God is not a sole proprietor.  One might legitimately ask if He is even an entrepreneur.  God is a company Man.  He is corporate through and through.  His objective is the blessing of all through the actions of a few.  If we operated according to that cosmic principle, we might find that a good deal of what we necessarily do is really unproductive toil.  If you discover that there is no joy, no peace, no happiness and no ability to delight in blessing others with what you are now doing, then the chances are pretty good that toil is your mantra and avodah has been sent to the recycler.

Chambers teaches us unwavering concentration on God – not on what we think He wants us to do, but on Him – and abandonment to wherever that leads.  Paul teaches us that the productive results are not up to us, but we will nevertheless inherit the by-products:  joy, peace and happiness.  It reminds me of that first labor contract, the one made with Adam.  Are you ready to return to tilling the Garden, or do you want to keep pounding sand?

Topical Index:  work, fellow-worker, sunergos, toil, Oswald Chambers, 1 Corinthians 3:9, Genesis 4:1, Genesis 2:5

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