Reciprocity

You will be hated by all because of My name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved. Matthew 10:22 NASB

To the end – You made it! The end of the Roman year. You endured. There were lots of difficulties along the way. Crisis. Collapse. Catastrophes you never thought would happen. But here you are. At the end.

Of course, this is only a temporary endpoint. Tomorrow we will start a new cycle of endurance. But today we can celebrate. Today we can recognize the completion, the goal, the conclusion of one more step. That gives us pause, a tiny space in the temporal expanse to think, “What did Yeshua mean when he talked about enduring to the end?”

The Greek word has several applications. It is telos, found throughout Yeshua’s teaching in the sense of “goal” or “full measure.” But, of course, Yeshua didn’t speak Greek. He spoke Hebrew and in Hebrew the Greek term telos has many Hebrew connections. It means “execution” in 1 Chronicles 29:19, “goal” in Job 23:3, “result” in 2 Maccabees 5:7, “conclusion” in Ecclesiastes 7:2 and “end” in Daniel 9:27. It can even refer to acts of worship (Psalms) and the “last times” (4 Esdras).[1] What it cannot mean in Hebraic context is the final completion of the instructions for living. As long as any one of us has breath, God’s manual for living will be active. The end of the Law is not the finish line but rather the goal, the summation of all that is eternally intended.

And that brings us to this statement of the Messiah. Are we the ones who will endure? Are we filling up our lives with more and more of His instructions, His directions, so that when it is finally all over we will show ourselves worthy of the salvation that has been entrusted to us? It sounds so much like work!! And you and I have so much to do already. Why would we ever add even more to the endurance race?

The answer might be a change in how we understand telos. Consider this: “Awareness is simply a matter of experiencing every moment of life as fully as possible.”[2] What if endurance is being fully aware of the God of the present? What if endurance is not another task on the endless list of tasks but rather a way of being in the world? What if endurance is in the end simply seeing YHVH now, in this moment, in this action, in this consciousness? In the end, what if telos is the salvation that comes from experiencing YHVH with me now? Wouldn’t we be saved from the heavy loads of life, the endless hurdles and trials if “to the end” meant “present now”? Heaven can wait, can’t it, if I am in His company now.

Topical Index: endurance, end, telos, Matthew 10:22, salvation, Steenkamp

A NOTE ABOUT 2016

Tomorrow we will start another year of daily investigations. A few things will change.

First, after 5816 daily deadlines, I find that I am very tired. So for 2016 I will only post something on Shabbat if I really, really think it is absolutely necessary. In other words, I am going to try to take the day off and rest.

Secondly, I expect that I will use some of the past Today’s Word editions when I am traveling. It is almost impossible to write while I travel since all my resources are at home. So you will have a few more repeats in 2016, drawn from 10 years of daily words.

Finally, the only way At God’s Table survives is with word-of-mouth expansion and support. More than 16,000 people come to the web site each month, but fewer than 3% are actually supporters. You can help if you wish by encouraging those you know to send some small support. Thank you.

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[1] Cf. G. Delling, in TDNT, Vol. VIII, pp. 49-87.

[2] SHIP: Spontaneous Healing Intrasystemic Process: The Age-Old Art of Facilitating Healing, JO Steenkamp (Pretoria, South Africa) 2002, p. 75.