Worth What It Cost
“freely you have received, freely give” Matthew 10:8
Freely – Jesus spoke Aramaic, not Greek. That means his thought patterns come from a Hebrew heritage, not a Greek worldview. If we want to understand what Jesus had in mind, we need to search behind the Greek New Testament. When we do, we see that “freely” finds its home in hinnam, the Hebrew word used in 2 Samuel 24:24. Why should be care about this? After all, we already know that dorean, the Greek word used here, places emphasis on the giver and his benevolence (see September 2)? Why should we bother to trace the meaning back to Hebrew? The answer is simple and profound. It is simple because if we want to really know Jesus, we need to know him in the original, not the translation. The answer is profound because what it implies is that Jesus is not the translated Greek world first century Palestinian. He is an Old Testament man, saturated in the thoughts and deeds of God’s ancient history. And that raises a very important question for all contemporary Christians. Is the Jesus you know and the Jesus you serve a “contemporary” Master, or is He the Jesus you never knew, the one who comes to us out of a culture and a heritage that we largely ignore? Is he the mystery of the ages or is he a great charismatic leader in a Brooks Brothers suit?
“Freely” is just one tiny example of this colossal blunder. When we stopped being people of the Old Testament, when the “new” covenant was used as an excuse to ignore the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, we left Jesus behind too. His life is incomprehensible apart from the Law, the writings and the prophets.
“Freely” is hinnam in Hebrew. It means “without payment, undeservedly, without cause.” When Jesus used this expression in Aramaic, he clearly implied that not one of us has any earning power in our accumulated lives. He makes it clear in John 3:35. Everything has been given into the hands of Jesus. That “everything” includes all of the things you think are yours, even your life (John 1:4). From God’s perspective, you didn’t earn any of it. It is all gift. Hinnam reminds us that God does not write payroll checks.
Our world has a decidedly non-Biblical view of accumulation. “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” “Free advice is worth what you pay for it.” Expressions like that seduce us into believing that the common denominator of life is the cost benefit ratio. We measure value and worth at every turn. Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why the world frantically endorses this view? Do you suppose that it is only economics? Did you think there was no spiritual component to money? If I wanted to do the most damage possible to God’s freely given benevolence, what better way than to convert the world to an exchange market.
Do you really think that the folded time in your billfold was freely given? If you do, then why are you so disturbed about freely giving?
