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Unsociable Etiquette

Friday, May 10th, 2013 | Author:

If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a greeting.  2 John 10  NASB

This teaching – John gets nasty.  If someone comes to you with a message that doesn’t square with the truth of the Messiah, don’t let him in the door.  Don’t even say, “Hello.”  Send him away!

But we don’t listen to John, do we?  A member of a false cult comes to our door pedaling their deliberate misinformation about Yeshua.  We think we must be nice to them.  We listen.  We talk.  We make them think that we might somehow be interested.  They leave literature and go away promising to come back later.  What!  Are you kidding me?  Did we think that somehow we would “evangelize” them?  There is no transformation in words, only in deeds, and all we did was confuse the message.  We didn’t point to the mezuzah and tell them that we serve the God of Israel.  But, of course, we didn’t say that to the visitors from the church either.

What teaching is so important that John tells us to practice unsociable behavior?  “This teaching” (ten didachen) is the claim of the humanity of Yeshua.  It stands in utter opposition to the gnostic claims circulating in John’s time.  Is this all we have to worry about?  Doesn’t the humanity of Yeshua entail His Torah obedience (isn’t that what the stories are about?) and doesn’t that imply our commitment to the same teaching?  Aren’t we supposed to be like Him?  If someone comes to you and says, “Oh, I believe that Jesus was human and He is God,” but then he goes on to tell you that “Jesus didn’t keep kashrut,” or “Jesus taught that we aren’t under the Law and it doesn’t apply to us,” would you not be concerned?  Would you treat that person as if they were in fellowship with the Father and in agreement with you?  Would your social etiquette outweigh your commitment to the truth?  We can easily identify those who are “heretics” according to the Church.  After all, we learned all this sitting in the pews.  But even so we don’t usually close the door on them.  And we certainly don’t close the door on the ones who, perhaps in ignorance, continue to teach what only the Church invented in its fervent attempt to not be Jewish.  What’s wrong with us?  Are we content to completely ignore John’s warning?  Or do we parcel it out so that all we have to worry about is Docetism and no one we know is Docetic these days.

Let’s back up a few verses to see what “this teaching” includes.  How about verse 6?  “And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments.”  Does that mean just the commandment of love?  The verse continues, “This is the commandment just as you have heard from the beginning.”  Does John mean from the beginning of Yeshua’s arrival, or does he mean “In the beginning was the Word”?  Can you have “in the beginning was the Word” and not have what Moses delivered?  Maybe we need to get better at nasty evangelism.

Topical Index:  this teaching, didache, Docetism, Torah, love, 2 John 10

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The Erotic God

Friday, April 05th, 2013 | Author:

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine.  Song of Songs 1:2 (translation, Tremper Longman III)

Love – Song of Songs presents the religious world of Judaism and Christianity with a real challenge.  The sexual innuendo, imagery and behavior of the actors in this poem would cause most of us to blush – if we read it without our “spiritual” filters.  So Judaism suggests that this is really an allegory about Israel during the Exodus on its way to the Promised Land and Christianity reads this as an allegory about the Church and Christ on its way to the New Heaven.  Either way, we just don’t want to deal with what the words actually imply.  Just like Ruth on the threshing floor, we can’t believe that God would allow such sexuality in His “holy” book.

Some scholars take a different view.  They note that the Christian allegory implies that no one who heard this poetry for the first 1000 years understood it.  That seems a bit preposterous.  If they didn’t understand it, why would they include it in Scripture?  The Jewish allegorical interpretation is just as problematic.  If its about ex-slaves on the way to the land of milk and honey, why all the obvious sexual imagery?  Why the descriptions that only make sense in sexual encounter?  Like Boaz on the threshing floor, the rabbis suggestion that he was really studying Torah instead of enjoying a night with Ruth strikes us as absurd – an attempt to remove what is obvious.  Sex.

Some rabbis and Christian scholars see this erotic poem as an innocent but powerful endorsement of God’s design of intimacy.  It is as if God had to go out of His way to remind us that sex is a righteous act, the deepest sign of personal vulnerability and shared intimacy that we as humans are allowed to experience with each other.  Of course, the abuse of such a privilege is so ubiquitous that we are perhaps shy to suggest that God loves sex, but the truth of Genesis 2:24 is hard to dismiss.   Furthermore, Song of Songs gives expression to a woman’s view of this most intimate relation, and it turns out to be a view with enormous implications for covenant relation, dedication and nurturing.  Perhaps the view of Havvah forgiven is essential for the restoration of humanity in the Garden.

At any rate, there are plenty of interesting Hebrew idioms and unusual expressions to keep us fascinated with this poem. Our exploration can begin with this word, love, because this word once again demonstrates the difference between Hebrew concrete action thinking and Greek abstract principle thinking.  Garrett suggests that the word dodeka does not mean the idea of love but the act of love-making.  He cites further examples in Ezekiel 16:8 and 23:17.  Longman notes that this transition from concept to act isn’t always the case, but it certainly seems to be in alignment with Hebrew paradigms.  If Garrett is right, then the first line of the poem is about the sex act.  Perhaps this is a bit shocking for most sensibilities but hard to miss in Hebrew.  And very difficult to explain as an allegory about Christ and the Church!

Maybe this poem is really about what it says it’s about and not a disguised portrayal of something else.  What do you think?  Maybe if the opening line of the poem makes you uncomfortable, you need to ask yourself why.  Perhaps your own cultural filters are interfering with these words in sacred Scripture.

Topical Index:  love, dod, dodeka, sex, Song of Songs 1:2

 

CORRECTION:  Yesterday’s post should have read “No, this Hebrew love poem does NOT paint her as a nymphomaniac.”  Sorry.

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Clothes Make the Man

Tuesday, February 19th, 2013 | Author:

You adulterous people!  Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?  Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.  James 4:4  ESV

Makes himself – Are you making yourself God’s enemy?  Ah, you object, proclaiming, “No way.  I am saved and devoted to Him.”  But let’s consider the context of James’ statement before we jump to denials.   Perhaps the most startling element of this verse is that is was written to believers!  James’ isn’t addressing an audience of pagans.  He is writing to the dispersed twelve tribes.  Everything about his letter assumes that his readers know God’s Word and are in the community of the faithful.  They may not be acting appropriately, but they are inside the house, not outside the door.  Nevertheless, what they are doing causes James to use extremely harsh language, warning them that if they continue on this path they will be enemies of God.  Apparently it is quite possible to think we are “saved” and still be in mortal danger.

How does one make himself God’s enemy?  First we must note that this doesn’t happen by accident nor is it caused by external forces.  In Greek the word is kathistatai, to cause myself to be something.  I do this to myself.  I can’t blame others or circumstances or God.  My own choices produce this enmity.  I am completely responsible.

So here I am, a believer, who nevertheless is acting or about to act in ways that will cause me to become God’s enemy.  If I were listening to James, I would beseech him to tell me where I am going wrong.  This is a matter of life and death.  Since I got myself into this position, now I need to get myself out.  How?

The key is friendship.  The word is phileo.  This is particularly disturbing.  It’s not agape, so I know this isn’t about sacrificing myself for the world.  But it isn’t eros either.  That’s what I would expect.  Eros, the love that seeks to acquire.  I wouldn’t be surprised if James told me that the overwhelming desire to possess makes me God’s enemy.  I see that kind of behavior everywhere in the pagan world.  Money, power, sex drive people to get all that they can at anyone’s expense.  I understand that kind of approach is opposed to God.  But James doesn’t use eros.  He uses phileo, the same word that describes the love believers have for each other – the “family” love word.  How can this love make me an enemy?

The answer is found in the root meaning of phileo: “To treat somebody as one of one’s own people.”  How do I make the world my friend and get into so much trouble with God?  I don’t distinguish between the things of God and the things of the world.  I treat all of them as if they were in the same family.  But you object, “I don’t do that.  I know what the difference is.  God’s stuff is spiritual.  The world is material.”  Aside from the unbiblical dualism in such an answer, if this is your approach then you didn’t understand James.  If we incorporate pagan holidays into worship of the King, have we distinguished family from enemies?  If we eat whatever we wish, have we distinguished food from fodder?  If we speak as we wish, have we distinguished our words from the words of pagans?  If we bear grudges or prejudices, have we distinguished justice from revenge?  If we delay payment due, have we distinguished righteousness from personal advantage?  We could go on.

Friend of the world doesn’t necessarily mean we take up the world’s immorality.  All that’s needed is incorporation.  Just invite a little of the outside in.  Just open the way to the enemy at the gate.

Topical Index:  makes himself, kathistatai, love, phileo, world, friend, James 4:4

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Through-put

Wednesday, October 17th, 2012 | Author:

 fervently love one another from the heart  1 Peter 1:22  NASB

Fervently – This Greek word is ektenos.  This translation is correct.  It means “intently, earnestly.”  But that only tells us part of the story.  The root word here is teino (to stretch).  Did you see the little added prefix ek at the beginning of the word?  That prefix means “out.”  So here the idea is to really stretch out.  But the most interesting part is that the same prefix is associated with the phrase “from the heart.”  It actually reads ek katharas kardias (out of a pure heart).  Here our English translation leaves out the word “pure.”  Now look at the entire phrase and you will see that Peter is saying what comes out of a pure heart is the out stretching of love.  Peter is emphasizing the double thought of out.  The previous verse tells us that the love of God is what goes into the heart and what comes out is a love that stretches out to others.

When I was examining this verse with two friends, it suddenly struck us that this is the same theme that John proclaims when he says that a man who loves God will automatically love his brother. Actually, John says it the other way around – a man who does not love his brother cannot claim to love God.  Why?  Because what goes in must come out.  If God’s love goes into your heart, it will overflow with love toward your brother.  And if you don’t have that overflow, then the living water is not present on the inside, no matter what you say.

How often have we used the excuse, “Oh, I love God, but, you know how it is, I just can’t seem to get along with those people.  They just aren’t my type.  You know, they just rub me the wrong way.”  Peter and John both say, “What are you talking about?  Don’t you know that if God’s love is inside you it will naturally flow out toward others?  It’s not optional.  If you love God, love will come out of you, and others will know it!”

Why should we be surprised?  God’s love flowed out toward us when we were His enemies.  We did everything we could to manage life without Him.  We threw His intentions in the mud and stomped on His name.  And still His love flowed out to us.  Do you think that God in us will act any differently than He did before we came to our senses?

If God’s love is in your pure heart, you will stretch out your love for the brothers.  If you aren’t stretching, maybe you’d better check the spring inside.  It might not be flowing.

Oh, yes.  And by the way, this has nothing to do with feelings.  God’s love is action toward others, the same kind of action that God took toward us.

Topical Index: ektenos, fervently, love, 1 Peter 1:22

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Insignificant Wonders

Thursday, September 13th, 2012 | Author:

“Therefore do not fear; you are of more value than many sparrows.”  Matthew 10:31 NASB

Sparrow – Who would imagine that God could teach us something from a word about birds?  The Greek word is strouthion.  It is a diminutive.  In other words, it is a word that means “little birds.”  Did you ever go to the State Fair when you were a kid?  I remember going there and seeing baby chicks for sale, and tiny turtles, and little lizards and goldfish in plastic bags.  They were inexpensive delightful pets.  Unfortunately, they usually did not live very long after they got back to my house.

Yeshua didn’t go to country fairs.  I’m fairly certain He didn’t have a pet turtle as a young boy.  But he knew how to point toward God through the smallest and most insignificant things of the world.  Hairs on your head, wildflowers in the field, mustard seeds and tiny birds.  God keeps track of all of them.  God loves all of them.  After all, it is His world.  He made it.  And if He loves and cares for these tiny parts of His world, He certainly cares about us.

On clear nights I look up at the stars and find myself shaken by the majesty of His creation.  I often think how insignificant I am compared to the vast universe.  God made it all, from the cosmic to the microscopic.  I’m not much compared to all that.  But then I think about tiny birds.  They’re not much compared to me.  And God loves them.  That fact can make me cry.  God loves me.  He certainly didn’t have to love me.  Especially when I spent so much of my life telling Him to mind His own business.  But I am His business, and thank God, He did mind it.   Is there anything more fundamental to life than to know that God loves us?

Yeshua tells us that because God loves us we do not have to be afraid.  He encourages us about those moments when we are overwhelmed with concern about life, when we are afraid that life will spin out of control or fall into unbearable circumstances.  Yeshua says, “The Father who made everything cares about you.  He is watching over you.  You don’t have to fear for your life.”  Today is a great day to lift up our hands and say, “Thank you, Lord, for loving me.  It’s wonderful not to be afraid to be alive.”

The Greek poets were wrong.  It is not better never to be born.  It is not better to exit this life as soon as possible.  It is better to see the tiny birds, to smell the wildflowers, to notice the hairs on your head – and to realize that God cares for all of it – including you!

Topical Index:  sparrows, strouthion, love, afraid, Matthew 10:31

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Know Your “Nots”

Thursday, August 30th, 2012 | Author:

the one who does not love does not know God for God is love  1 John 4:8  NASB

Not – This is a harsh verse.  It may not seem harsh because we are likely to modify its meaning to accommodate our own failures.  We want to feel better about our efforts to meet its demands, so we lessen the impact of the verse by acting as though it says, “people who are not kind and generous and don’t care about others – they don’t really know God.”  But this is not what the verse says.  John is very deliberate here.  He uses two different words that mean “not.”  The first is me.  The second is ou.  He uses two different words because he wants us to see something very important.  We need to pay close attention.

Me means a conditional “not.”  It is the “not” that is governed by circumstance.  For example, “I may not go to lunch today” is governed by factors that might change.  This “not” is used in the first part of the verse -  “the one who does not (as a result of conditions and circumstance) love.”  The idea is that this person weighs the consequences to determine whether or not circumstances are in his favor before he decides to act on behalf of another.  John says, “This is not (ou, the second word for “not”) love.”

Then John uses the other word for “not” – ou.  This “not” is absolute.  It has no qualifications.  It means “never the case.”  John says that someone who is swayed by conditions in giving love never (under any circumstances or conditions) knew God at all.  This is about as strong a statement as you will find.  It is simply not possible to say that you know God if your demonstration of love is subject to weighing the conditions.  God’s love demonstrates itself by giving no matter what the circumstances and conditions.  Period!

Do you feel the incredible tension here?  How easy it is for us to want to water this down.  We want to say, “Oh, John couldn’t have meant that!  I always try to do the best thing.  There will always be people that I really don’t like, that’s just the way life is.  But I take care of my own.  And I give to charity too.  But sacrificing myself for everybody? No one does that!”

How sad it is that the church has accommodated to a culture of self-interest.  We have to be un-educated.  Throughout the Bible, love is demonstrated as sacrifice and undeserved suffering.  But putting that into daily practice means becoming a real slave of Yeshua, and for many people, that is just too much to ask.  They would rather think that knowing God with conditions for others is good enough.  I remember Yeshua’s judgment, “I never knew you.”   It’s very scary.  It uses the same words that John uses.

“Father, protect me from my all-too-human desire to lessen the impact of Your words.  Let me be all that You want me to be without conditions.  Cut away every inclination to weigh your command to love before I act.  I want to be what You want, nothing less.”

Topical Index: not, me, ou, conditions, love, 1 John 4:8

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Looking for the Love of My Life

Friday, July 27th, 2012 | Author:

207,557 people on Facebook viewed the offer of the “spiritual bracelet for men,” a hand woven bracelet that “promotes feelings of spiritual well-being.”

I find that fact disheartening.  Imagine what kind of “feeling of spiritual well-being” would be fostered if these 207,557 people gave $1 a month to the efforts to rescue children from abuse or disease.  Imagine if these 207,557 people each did one kind deed a day for the next year.  No, I’m afraid that they would rather seek some non-involved way of fostering spiritual well-being for themselves.  The horrific assumption of this offer is that I can find spiritual well-being apart from acts of hesed.

This brings me to a common subject.  It begins with a question similar to the assumption of the offer for this “amazing” bracelet.  “Why shouldn’t I get what I need out of the relationship I seek with some other special person?”  Bear with my comments and observations:

1.  The idea of romantic love, invented in the Enlightenment and perpetrated by this culture, is false.  It is worse than false.  It is a lie – a powerful, seductive lie that twists relationships into contractual (spoken or unspoken) exchange agreements.  Rather than finding a partner whom we can serve with delightful enrichment, we look for someone who can serve us!  And the predictable result is that we find what we are looking for – self-serving inwardly focused narcissism – only to discover that the one we thought would be so invested in us isn’t what we wanted – because the focus has always been on what WE wanted, not what we are able to give.

2.  God does not punish us for these mistakes.  We take care of that by ourselves.  There are consequences for every action – even if we think we can avoid them, delay them or modify them.  So, choosing to measure our relationships by what they do for us has consequences.  The scars of guilt, the wounds of lost trust, the remorse of life not given away, the pangs of constant fear of rejection.  It is an unfortunate consequence of living that we often don’t realize these things until many years afterward.  Then it is too late to repair the damage.  Since we ignore the advice of those who have already suffered such errors in judgment, believing, of course, that their mistakes do not apply to us, we march blindly toward our self-serving goals, not recognizing the eternal wreckage we leave along the way.

3.  In the end, life is about friendship.  Loves come and go.  Friends last.  The reason they last is because we make a commitment to them regardless of their behavior.  Of course, sometimes the behavior destroys the friendship, but that should never happen because we caused it.  Since friendship is the real objective, making friends is the paramount goal of relationship management.  It is an inevitable and unfortunate consequence of human behavior that sexual attraction often interferes with this goal, altering a friendship into an exchange for common self-serving benefit.  But the bottom line is this:  until you make a friend of the one you wish to love, and keep that friendship, you have nothing more than a series of self-seeking encounters.  The end of the road of self-seeking is loneliness – a deep sense of never actually being loved for who you are, of being unacceptable as you are.  This is almost never the result of the other person’s inability to love.  It is almost always the result of our unwillingness to seek the best for the other person even at our own expense.  In other words, if you have experienced loss in important relationships, there is a very good chance the cause is your own desire to make the relationship meet your needs rather than acting as if the relationship is an opportunity for you to serve and whatever way possible the needs of the other.  Friendship is the solution, not romance. Where romance breeds pseudo-friendship, self-seeking brings broken hearts.  In order to be loved, one must first be a friend – and a friend never gives up caring for the other person.

4.  Friends are friends even if they don’t agree.  Lovers become enemies when they don’t agree.  You can measure the degree of your friendship with another person by your willingness to honor his or her life even when you disagree.  Exchange relationships are built on the necessity to receive equal value.  Friendship doesn’t care.

5.  In the end, marriage should be the common union of two deeply committed friends. When it is not, it is simply a convenient barter agreement.  If your marriage now has the characteristics, however subtle, of a barter exchange, then you must decide to make the other person your best friend – or face the inevitable consequences in #1 above.  You can do this.  It is not that much different than making any other person a friend.  But to do this you must stop counting!  If you find that you are acting in ways that would not promote friendship with anyone else, you must stop doing what you are doing no matter what the cost.  In the end, all that you give up is seeking your own ends – and of what value is that if you end up alone?

6.  Real marriage is commitment, not love.  Love (not romance) comes as a result of a lifetime commitment.  Love is the end of marriage, not the beginning.  Love must be developed, nurtured, cultivated for a long, long time before one day you look around and say, “I guess I really do love her.”  Love is longevity.  Romance is fireworks.  And fireworks explodes into nothing but the dark night.

Comments appreciated.

 

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Hidden Love

Wednesday, June 27th, 2012 | Author:

See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God; and such we are.  For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.  1 John 3:1  NASB

For this reason – Did you notice that John claims the world doesn’t know us because we have experienced the love of the Father?  Does this call into question most of what we have been taught about God’s love?  Have you heard the usual claim that once God’s love takes over in your life, the world will see it and want to know more?  Doesn’t John imply just the opposite?  How do we make sense of this backwards statement?

It seems to me that we must first recognize what John says is true – regardless of our theological platitudes.  When God’s great love saturates our lives, we become unexplainable oddities in the world.  We just don’t fit anymore.  We act against expectations.  We think in different ways.  We stand outside the paradigm and are outlaws to the world’s economy.  It is God’s love that makes us strange – so strange that we often appear insanely fanatical and are written off because of this.  Yeshua said much the same thing when he warned his followers not to expect any sympathy from the world.  In fact, the world is our enemy.

And that is precisely the basis for our insanity.  Because we love our enemies.

Adin Steinsaltz says, “Love begins when this caring is not only an objective appraisal, but becomes a personal attachment, when the object is not just ‘a thing’ or ‘a person’ that is judged by itself, but when one becomes involved in the relationship.”[1]  And relationships require involvement and time – lots of time.  “Love is something that people have to learn,” says Steinsaltz.  He notes that any relationship that provides gainful benefit to the subject (the one loving) is not selfless love.  Such love, common to most of our involvements, actually functions as a means for enhancing our own image.  If we love because we recognize the other as loveable, doesn’t that mean that we gain something of personal value from the arrangement?  Steinsaltz remarks, “What matters is the relationship, not the benefits derived from it.  My beloved exists, and therefore all is well.”[2]

My observation is that most people love in order to be loved.  It is the mutual equation of gratification that matters.  But this certainly isn’t true of God.  God loves – and in His relationship with the creation, all is right with the world.  God loves us – and it is the relationship that matters, nothing more or less.

Perhaps we have missed the point entirely.  Perhaps our attempts to love our enemies are not based in the joy of their very existence but rather in our desire to “bring them into the fold.”  The transparency of our exchange equation causes them to recognize that we do not love them because they are, but rather for what we wish them to be.  Can you imagine if God determined to love on such a basis?

The world does not know us when we love others simply for the joy of their existence.  Such love defeats all exchange value and reflects the face of the Creator.  But until this love is hidden in our hearts, we are recognized for what we really are – religiously converted exchange takers.

Topical Index:  love, relationship, 1 John 3:1, for this reason, hidden


[1] Adin Steinsaltz, Simple Words, p. 189.

[2] Ibid. p. 200.

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The Denial of Revelation

Monday, May 28th, 2012 | Author:

And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  1 Corinthians 13:2  ESV

Have not – How we agonize over this verse!  Paraded before the cringing audience in the pews, preachers hammer believers for their lack of “love.”  When we read Paul’s statement in quiet meditation, we come away convicted.  We are crushed under a standard that few if any can achieve.  Our world is filled with the pursuit of prophetic powers, of understanding mysteries, of bottling faith that moves mountains.  But love?  Oh no, that is too much to ask.  That, we are told, means sacrifice, denial, crucifixion.  How can Paul expect such behavior of simple men and women?

There is an easy answer to the weight of this glory.  It is to move in the opposite direction.  It is to treat love as part and parcel with Christian morality.  How can we meet the standard?  All we need to do is reduce Paul’s exhortation to acting ethically, being a good person, treating our neighbor with occasional kindness, being “nice” to others.  That will do, won’t it?  After all, if we go the route of sacrifice, who will be left to run things?  If everyone becomes a humble servant, who will be in charge?  We may not have all knowledge, but that won’t matter if all that is necessary is to live a moral life.

Both directions are wrong.  Neither relieves the tension.  Love cannot be a standard so high that no human can achieve it nor can it be a method so easy that no one can miss it.  When Paul uses the Greek echo me, he tells us that this “love” is conditional.  In order for it to be present, some conditions must be met.  Without those conditions, no matter what else is added or subtracted, “love” vanishes.  Jacques Ellul provides the insight that explains these conditions.  “No recognizable revelation exists apart from the life and witness of those who bear it. . . . If Christians are not conformed in their lives to their truth, there is no truth.  This is why the accusers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were right to infer the falsity of revelation itself from the practice of the church.  This makes us see that in not being what Christ demands we render all revelation false, illusory, ideological, imaginary, and nonsalvific.  We are thus forced to be Christians or to recognize the falsity of what we believe.  This is undeniable proof of the need for correct practice.”[1]  In other words, “love” is the practice of our claims of believing, and for those who follow YHWH, that practice turns out to be specifically defined by Torah.  This means that Torah-less practice actually denies the revelation of the God of Israel.  Torah-less faith is biblically inconceivable since the God who instituted Torah is the God of the Bible.  Ellul is absolutely correct.  If we do not live the Scriptures, we deny the revelation of all the Scriptures.

It is obvious that Christianity does not practice Torah.  Theologians since 200AD have carefully and deliberately distanced themselves from the “Jewish” Torah.  But doesn’t that imply they have also distanced themselves from the God who reveals Himself in the history and practice of Israel?  Is it even reasonable to claim that Yeshua, Paul, James, John and Peter were not practicing the faithful observance of the revelation of God in Israel?  Would any of these men have claimed that the Tanakh is no longer valid?

This line of thought forces us to ask, “How did Christianity become so far removed from its own source that it denied Jewish practice?”  Until we answer that question, we have no right to claim to be biblically-based “Christians.”  When we answer that question we may discover that we have no reason to be separate from Messianic Judaism.

Topical Index:  love, history, Christianity, practice, Torah, 1 Corinthians 13:2

 

[1] Jacques Ellul, The Subversion of Christianity, pp. 5-6.

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I See You

Sunday, February 26th, 2012 | Author:

for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.  1 Samuel 16:7  NASB

Heart – This is only a part of verse 7, but a very important part.  Even more interestingly, the translation from the New American Standard (above) is not exactly what the literal translation says.  Literally, the verse says, “for man does not see what he sees.  For man looks for the eyes but Yahweh looks for the heart.”  The Hebrew word is lev.  While it can mean the human organ “heart”, in most of its uses in the Old Testament, it refers to the immaterial makeup of a person – what later ages would call “soul” or “personality”.  The Old Testament usage attributes a wide range of human emotions to the heart, including love, loyalty, joy, conscience, anger, fear, anxiety and many more.  The heart is the center of a man’s will, thoughts and emotions.  In modern terms, we would say that the heart represents our real (usually hidden) self.

Notice that God tells Samuel that men do not see what they think they see.  They look at the outward appearance and make judgments on that basis.  Even when men gather personal information and insights about you, they still do not know everything there is to know about who you really are.  But God is different.  He puts no stock in outward appearance.  He looks for the real self, the inner being of who we are.  Implicit in this idea is the fact that God alone knows us thoroughly.  Nothing is hidden from Him.  Most of us would rather not have anyone know all about us.  There are thoughts and deeds that each of us would rather keep secret.  God knows them all.  Amazingly, in spite of this complete knowledge of who we are, He stands ready to accept us exactly as we are.  The greatest fear is this:  if you knew all about me, you wouldn’t love me.  God says just the opposite:  I know all about you and I love you.

Some of us have a hard time believing that this can be true.  After all, we know ourselves pretty well.  We know how many times we have broken promises, betrayed trust, acted with selfish motives, lied, deceived, grieved others.  We know that all those past acts present a formidable picture of a very imperfect human being.  And, if the truth were told, we would probably not want to be associated with someone like us.  But God sees something we don’t see.  He sees the work of His hands in who we are.  He sees us as we ought to be, as we were intended to be.  And that is lovely indeed.

Abraham Heschel once asked the great question for anyone who pursues God:  “What does God demand of me?”  There is a question that comes before the Heschel’s.  It is this: Will I let Him love me?

Topical Index:  1 Samuel 16:7, heart, lev, love

Category: Today's Word  | Tags: , , ,  | 5 Comments
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