Life at the Wellspring

I recently heard a fascinating theory about why our modern Western culture thinks so differently than the way the Bible does. The Eastern thinking of the Old Testament in particular is very concrete and image-oriented, and it uses stories and parables to explain, rather than abstract logic. It is relational and group-oriented rather than individualistic, and it focuses on action rather than internalized belief. If you read many of the articles at www.egrc.net, you know that you miss a lot of the most important truths of the Bible if you don’t understand the way it thinks.

In Orality and Literacy, by Walter Ong, he theorizes that the reason for the difference in our thinking is the rise of literacy in Greece in ancient times. He points out that oral communication is universal among humans, but writing is a fairly recent invention. When a culture becomes deeply literate, people’s patterns of thought completely change. He describes studies done in cultures which have never had a written language that find that they tend to be of the mindset that we call “Eastern.”

This means that the biblical, Hebraic pattern of thought is actually the more universal pattern – it is us that have changed and moved away from it! Now that I think about it, this makes sense with the fact that I’ve heard Africans, Asians and Native Americans all say that the Eastern way of thinking is actually the way that they think. Of course they are literate cultures, but they have internalized its patterns of thought less than ours has.

It is difficult for us to even imagine living without writing. In oral cultures, learning was always by direct experience, or by relationship, or by stories told within the family. One learns cooking or hunting by being with another who knows the skill, never from a book. Knowledge is never a disembodied group of facts – it always is concrete and comes from ones senses, and other people.

In our culture we are taught that learning comes through reading. But think what happens in that process: you interact with a text – a set of abstract characters, and in your mind you reconstruct what they mean. You forget about the person who wrote the text and focus only in on the concepts in your mind. You also don’t interact with anyone else with your learning – you really can’t while reading. What happens is that you are aquiring the habits of individualism, abstract thinking and internalization – all characteristics of the Western mind.

One distinctive feature of many oral cultures is the emphasis on learning by memory. In Jesus’ time, it is likely that boys memorized the Torah and much of the Scriptures by heart. Still today there is a strong emphasis on memorization among Orthodox Jews. I think this is why Jesus’ teaching is peppered with brief allusions to the Scriptures – he assumed his audience knew it all by heart, so the smallest of reference was all he needed. Rabbis still do this today.

Also, much of rabbinic commentary is done by linking together passages, noticing that one rare word is found in two important places. For instance “ve’ahavta” (and you shall love) is found in Deuteronomy 6:5 – “And you shall love the Lord your God” and it is also found in Leviticus 19:18 – “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Jewish thinkers before Jesus had connected the two passages because as they recited the words, one passage reminded them of the other. When you have it all memorized, this is easy and obvious, but if you don’t, it’s not something you’d ever guess.

Of course there are enormous advantages in literacy – you can communicate at a distance, and learn from others than those directly around you. You can construct lengthy, complex chains of reasoning that you couldn’t without something to write it down as you go. Despite the advantages of literacy, I wonder if our loss of memory has disconnected us with Jesus too.

Recently I heard a wonderfully Hebraic definition of “faith” from a woman who has been a missionary in Nigeria for many years, and has picked up the Eastern way of thinking.

Remember the story of Abraham – God had promised to make a great nation of him, and had miraculously given him a son after he had waited faithfully for many years. Once Isaac was born, he must have breathed a sigh of relief when he saw how God’s promise finally had a chance to move forward. Then, shockingly, God seems to thwart the plan that took him so long to get going – he tells Abraham to offer up Isaac to him as a sacrifice!

The tension in those two options seems enormous – on the one hand, Abraham is supposed to raise up a family of faithful followers to God; on the other hand Abraham is supposed to destroy the only chance he has to do that. And on top of that, commit murder, and sacrifice a child, something God calls abhorrent later in the Bible. What in the world would you do in that situation?

The missionary woman talked about how Abraham took the third option – of simply walking in obedience, and clinging to the fact that he knows that God is good and able to do all things. He didn’t know what would happen as he and Isaac climbed the mountain together. Somehow Abraham knew that God could accomplish the seemingly impossible and give Isaac back to him, perhaps even resurrecting him from the dead. (Hebrews 11:19)

Abraham had two mutually conflicting options, and held onto both of them, and knew only God could allow him to do both. In the same way, this woman talked about how the Muslims who turn to Christ are presented with death threats and hate from their families, and they go through seemingly impossible options. Should they move away and protect their lives in order to raise their families, or stay and be witnesses? If they are persecuted, should they ask the government to punish their tormentors so that conditions will improve for Christians in their land, or should they simply turn the other cheek?

Honestly, I really struggle with taking the path of the “third option,” and I’m not always sure that God wants us to do the extremely dangerous thing, expecting him to save us. Jesus himself hid from those wanting to take his life. But I heard this woman tell story after story of deliverance, when people opt for the “third option.”

I admit that I got upset with Corrie Ten Boom’s sister Betsy (in The Hiding Place) who when asked by the Gestapo officer in her kitchen where they were hiding Jews, answered him truthfully, “under the table.” They had a potato cellar under their rug, and the Jewish man was inside it. In the story, the officer yanked the tablecloth off the table and didn’t think to look at the rug.

I actually struggle with Betsy’s need to be truthful when she was putting the life of another at risk. (I wrote about this before.) The rabbis point out that there is another commandment that she should have been aware of – “Do not stand by when your brother’s blood is being shed” (Lev. 19:16), and in their thinking, the command to save life trumps the command not to lie. And I think of the fact that by helping her family forge or steal ration cards, she hadn’t been “truthful” according to the law, but now, she insists on doing something that could cost another his life. I know it shows her integrity, but now???

And yet, the Lord honored her by not allowing her to be caught in her effort of chosing the difficult “third option” of pleasing Him. Wow.

What strikes me is that when people dare to take the “third option” of faith when all seems impossible, that is when God does the greatest miracles.

Last summer I was in Israel for five weeks – it was my fifth time of visiting the Land. I wasn’t entirely surprised to experience something that I had felt before there – a sense of spiritual dryness and the lack of closeness to God, because my prayer life was sporadic.

I’ve heard other people complain about the same thing. Many people expect to powerfully and continuously encounter God as soon as they step off the plane in Israel. Instead, their prayer life is disrupted when their time fills up with the small needs of travel – organizing their suitcases, washing socks, chatting with new friends, and being short on sleep. At home they might have a regular quiet time, but it gets pushed aside for all the demands of the trip. A person needs to be intentional about carving out time for prayer, and it’s much harder when you’re traveling.

At home, my tradition is to crawl out of bed and head straight to the coffee maker, to brew up some Jack’s Blend. While the coffee is dripping, I turn on my laptop and get out my Bible. Those hours at my breakfast table have been golden – hovering over a big stack of books and my Accordance program – thinking, writing, praying. On Saturdays they often stretch until lunch time, with me still in my PJ’s.

Some summers, when I’ve taken Hebrew courses, I’ve had a tradition with my roomie Mary Okkema of brewing up hot water for instant coffee and tea with the electric teapot that is standard issue in nice hotel rooms in Israel. We would sit on our beds and sip from our cups while reading our Bibles and journaling. But what can you do if the room doesn’t come with a teapot? I actually bought a 220 V travel-sized Israeli teapot in a Jerusalem appliance store last year.

Last summer I had a lovely experience that just reinforced the need to be intentional about that. It was after I had been there several weeks and experiencing the usual dry, sporadic prayer life. We stayed overnight at Ein Gev, a beautiful hotel on the edge of the Sea of Galilee, and my balcony overlooked the water.

I happily brewed up the water in the standard-issue teapot and didn’t wait for it to cool from boiling before pouring it in my cup. It was so hot that I poured milk in to the very brim, and carefully walked over to the balcony with my over-full, boiling hot mug of coffee. I stood there gently blowing on the surface to cool it down. The scenery was so beautiful and calm, I felt like the Lord had come to enjoy the morning with me.

Then I opened my Hebrew-English Bible to the first page, and read the first lines once again.

But that morning I thought of a different aspect of the word – that merehefet also means to tremble or shiver, and that ruach can mean wind, spirit, or breath. As I was mulling over this sentence, I was blowing on my coffee. I looked down at my mug, and it hit me that I was trembling or shivering the surface of my coffee with my breath. I wonder if that isn’t actually the picture there – God was rippling the surface of the water with his breath.

The picture I get now from that line is that God was ready to give his first great command, “Let there be light” and his presence and breath are felt very powerfully, before he even speaks. Like when you turn a microphone up to the maximum, so that even when you breath near it, everyone can hear it.

And then I looked up at the Sea of Galilee rippling with the wind.

Hmmm… the coffee… the sea… the first waters of creation…

It felt like the Lord was saying, “You start your day by blowing on your coffee. I started my first day of creation by blowing on the waters of the deep.” I felt humbled that the Lord would sit down beside me and enjoy the early morning with me, and share this lovely imagery with me.

Ever since then, I’ve been intentional about enjoying the morning’s coffee with the Lord.

As is typical in the midwest in the Spring, it is rainy today, as it was yesterday too. Our area is really beautiful right now when it’s sunny — our yards are green and our tulips are coming out — so many people would say, “Rain, rain, go away…”So I was really fascinated to read that in Jewish thought, rain is a great blessing. Of course in Israel, where for six months no rain falls at all, a person appreciates it more. Here is a good article, Rain in Jewish Tradition. One quote it shares is, “The sending of rain is an event greater than the giving of the Torah. The Torah was a joy for Israel only, but rain gives joy to the whole world, including birds and animals, as it is said: ‘You take care of the earth and irrigate it.’ (Psalm 65:10)”

I enjoyed the comment that the rabbi made that a rainy day is a good day for prayer – God is in a good mood to give out gifts, so you might as well bring your requests then too!

This simple change in attitude has actually made a big difference in my daily mood. I used to use the weather as a chronic source of complaint, whenever it didn’t perfectly suit me. I realized that what I had been doing is saying in effect, “God wasn’t faithful today – he didn’t show up to please me!” Besides accusing God, it also made me feel like God was distant and unconcerned about my life. My complaining colored the whole day, and I was missing the fact that God was actually giving me a great gift in the form of rain.

Jesus also knew that rain was a good thing. He even points out that it teaches us that we should love our enemies. He says, “But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Mt 5:44-45) People probably read the rain God sends as a bad thing, but Jesus meant that God gives good gifts to all humanity, sinners included.

Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. Matthew 7:1-2[This article is the April En-Gedi Monthly Article. If you are interested in receiving them by emial, sign-up online at http://www.egrc.net/. ] (1)

What did Jesus mean by “do not judge?” This is one of those sayings of Jesus that can be unclear. It is can sound like Jesus is saying to look the other way when you see sin. From everything else that Jesus says, Christians know he couldn’t be suggesting that we show no discernment, but we still struggle to find a way to sort out wrong but never actually call it that, so that we don’t judge. While Jesus’ demands are high, we can give up trying to follow them if they don’t make sense to us.

An alternative is to listen to some of the discussions going on among others in Jesus’ culture, and see if they can shed some light on his words. Interestingly, other rabbis of Jesus’ time taught ideas close to this concept of “do not judge.” While their words do not have the authority of Jesus’, and we need to be discerning about our conclusions, they have some good ideas that Jesus may have been expanding on in his teaching on judging. Personally, the insights I have found in the rabbinic context have made it one of the most important commands that Jesus gave, which applies to my life every day.

Judging Others FavorablyWe can find some of the discussion of Jesus’ contemporaries in the Mishnah, a collection of Jewish sayings which was written about two hundred years after Jesus but includes teachings from Jesus’ time and before. The most important reference was from a rabbi who lived over a hundred years before Jesus who said, “Judge everyone with the scales weighted in their favor.” (Yehoshua ben Perechia, Avot 1:6) In a later source, the Babylonian Talmud, it says “He who judges his neighbor favorably will be judged favorably by God.” (Shabbat 127a). It is interesting to see how reminiscent this is of Jesus’ saying, “with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” To “judge in favorable terms” was considered as important as visiting the sick and devotion in prayer, and teaching the Scriptures to your children! A story was told to illustrate the point:

A man went to work on a farm for three years. At the end of
this time, he went to his employer and requested his wages
so that he could go home and support his wife and children.
The farm owner said to him, “I have no money to give you!”

So he said to him, “Well, give me some crops I’ve helped
grow.” The man replied, “I have none!”

“Well then, give me some of the goats or sheep, that I’ve
helped to raise!” And the farmer shrugged and said that he
had nothing he could give him. So the farm hand gathered
up his belongings and went home with a sorrowful heart.

A few days later his employer came to his house with all of
his wages along with three carts full of food and drink. They
had dinner together and afterward the farm owner said to
him, “When I told you I had no money, what did you
suspect me of?”

“I thought you had seen a good bargain and used all your
cash to buy it.” Then he said “What did you think when I
said that I had no crops?”

“I thought perhaps they were all leased from others.” He
then said, “What did you think when I said I had no animals?”

“I thought that you may have dedicated them all to the
Temple.” The farmer answered him, “You are right! My son
wouldn’t study the Scriptures, and I had rashly vowed all of
my possessions to God in my prayers for my son. But, just a
couple days ago, I was absolved of the vow so that now I
can pay you. And as for you, just as you have judged me
favorably, may the Lord judge you favorably!” (2)

This story has elements in it of not condemning another, and also a parallel of, “For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Could this enlighten us to the gist of what Jesus is saying? The idea from the text is that the hired hand always gave the employer the benefit of the doubt, by imagining the best possible motivation for his actions that otherwise seemed suspicious. This is exactly what the rabbis meant by always judging a neighbor favorably.

This seems like a nice thought, but hardly an earth-shaking interpretation of Jesus’ words. But, what if we applied it to our own lives, what would happen? Just imagine going to church one morning and all the choices you make in deciding how to react to the situations around you.

• On the way there, a car passes you on the road and cuts you off. Why? The driver is has no regard for speed laws! He is just trying to impress people!
or, maybe the driver is late for something, or his kids are driving him crazy.

• In church you are told to greet the people around you, but the woman in front of you was obviously avoiding you, trying not to make your acquaintance. Why? She is obviously a snob and you didn’t dress well enough today!
or, maybe she is new to this church or uncomfortable meeting people.

• A woman asks you afterward about the surgery she had heard that you had. Why? She is a busybody who just wants to put her nose in your business!
or, maybe she genuinely worries about others, and wants to share your burdens.

In almost every situation, we have the choice to look for a good motivation or a bad motivation behind other people’s behavior. The way we interpret others’ motivations has a profound effect on our reactions toward others. This idea of the rabbis to “judge favorably” certainly was a great one, even if it isn’t exactly what Jesus said.

Imagine another scenario, where a “worship war” has broken out in a congregation, with the older members want to sing hymns and the younger members want a rock band. Typically, the older people say things like, “They have no appreciation for the richness of hymns – they only want to be entertained!” And, the youth say, “The old folks don’t care about reaching the lost – they just want to do things the same old way!”

What would happen if each group stopped assigning negative motivations to the other group? What if the “hymns only” group started saying, “Maybe the younger members of our church think that they can bring new meaning to the service by putting it in their own words…” And what if the “rock band” enthusiasts started saying, “Maybe the older members find more meaning in what’s familiar rather than in what sounds strange to them…” How long would the conflict last in that church? How long would it be before both groups would try their best to love and accommodate each other?

Interestingly, Jewish culture even up to the present day has tried to instill in its people the ethic to “judge favorably.” There is a Jewish group that meets simply to practice finding ways to give the benefit of the doubt when it appears someone has done something unkind. They reflect on hurts in their lives and then propose ways to excuse the perpetrator. For example, when one of them didn’t receive an invitation to a wedding, they would say, “Perhaps the person was under the impression that they had already sent an invitation,” or, “Perhaps they couldn’t afford to invite many people.”(3) One Jewish website called, “The Other Side of the Story” is filled with stories of situations where a person looked liked he was doing wrong, but then turned out to be innocent.(4) The point is simply to teach others the importance of judging favorably.

Jesus’ words, “Do Not Judge”Even though the rabbis’ words are wise, they aren’t exactly what Jesus said. How does Jesus teaching about “do not judge” compare? Personally, I think that Jesus was starting with what the other rabbis taught, and then increasing the challenge. His audience already knew about judging favorably, from a hundred years before him. The famous rabbi Hillel who lived shortly before Jesus said, “Judge not your fellow man until you yourself come into his place.” (Avot 2:5) His idea was that we shouldn’t judge because don’t have full knowledge of another’s life experience. You can’t know if someone struggles with depression or some wounding in their past. Hillel’s idea is a step closer to what Jesus said, and it shows that the discussion of “judging” was still going in Jesus’ time.

But, Jesus’ reasoning is different even from Hillel’s. He was a realist who knows what humans are like. Given what we know about human nature, we expect that people will sin willfully and intentionally. At some point it will be undeniable that a person’s intention was evil, and we can’t pretend that it wasn’t. Jesus points out that our response must be to remind ourselves of our own sinful hearts—the only hearts we really can know. When we realize that we are sinners ourselves, we know that we can’t demand judgment on others. We need to put aside condemnation and extend mercy instead, if we want God to have mercy on us. As Jesus said, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven…For with the measure you use, it will be measured out to you.” (Luke 6:35-38)

Instead of saying, “Judge favorably,” perhaps Jesus would have said, “Judge mercifully! Do everything you can to extend mercy to others.”

Obviously, this not saying to avoid having discernment. We can discern whether an action or an outward attitude is wrong. According to Paul, the church is also obligated to discipline sinful practice among its members (1 Cor. 5:1-5). And if the wrong is committed against us personally, Jesus tells us to show the person his sin in hopes of his being repentant so that we can forgive. (Matt 18:15-17) Also, in Leviticus 19:17-18 it says, “Do not hate your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt. Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself.”

While we can discern sin in practice, only God knows the whole motive of the heart, so we need to leave final judgment up to him. To judge another is to presume to have both the knowledge and authority of God himself. So when we are in a situation where we are tempted to condemn another, we need to step back and hand it up to the Lord, and remind ourselves that that is his job and not ours. If we want God’s mercy, we need to be merciful. As James says, “There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you who judge your neighbor?” (James 4:12)

Applying these words to our lives

I find that actually both the rabbis’ words and Jesus’ words are extremely useful in my life every day. My attitude toward others becomes more loving when I assume the best, rather than the worst about people. If was able to always “judge favorably,” it would be impossible to have a critical or cynical spirit towards others. I’d start saying things like, “Maybe she was short tempered today because of problems at home.” When I had an argument with a friend, I’d assume that she felt that her opinion made sense and should be defended. When I hear a negative attitude toward my faith, I’d say, “That person must have had some bad experiences in the past with Christians in order to make him feel that way.” It is a lot easier to reach out in love when I let God judge other people’s motivations, and not do it myself.

Even when people are clearly in the wrong, we can still extend mercy to them by giving them as much benefit of the doubt as possible. For instance, if someone has sinned against me, it is a lot easier to forgive after I’ve said, “Maybe she didn’t realize how very hurtful her actions would be to me….” It often helps when you confront sin too. Imagine that a man in your Bible study is becoming involved with his secretary. You might say, “Herb, I know Sue is attractive and you have worked long hours together! And you and Helen have had your difficulties and you need someone to talk to. But for whatever reason you’ve gotten involved, you need to think of your commitment to Helen.” By being merciful by giving someone the benefit of the doubt even when he is clearly in the wrong, you can more easily suggest that he change.

Other Ways of Judging

If judging (or judging negatively) is defined as believing the worst about others, it includes many other types of hurtful behavior. All insults are forms of judgment. If I like a woman who is assertive, I’ll describe her as “bold and self-assured.” But if I don’t, I’ll judge her negatively by calling her “arrogant and loud-mouthed.” A man may simply be uninformed, but when I call him “stupid” or “clueless,” I’ve judged him negatively. James says, “Do not speak against one another, brethren. He who speaks against a brother judges his brother.” (James 4:11) If you think about it, gossip relies heavily on judgment. People who love to gossip usually have a habit of looking for wrongdoing in a person’s life in order to share it with others. Criticism, cynicism, and complaining are all based on searching out the negative everywhere we can find it.

Negative judgments are particularly toxic to marriage relationships. In the book Blink,(5) Malcolm Gladwell describes a study of married couples that examined at the rate of divorce compared to the attitudes that the couple showed toward each other in interviews five or ten years earlier. The interviewers looked at dozens of variables, but found only one factor that could almost surely predict divorce—an attitude of contempt. When one or both partners habitually spoke to the other with disdain or disgust, even in the most subtle ways, the marriage was often moving toward a break up. If you think about it, contempt is the end product of condemnation, which comes from a history of judging unfavorably and without mercy. It is a way of saying, “I have reached my verdict, and there is nothing good in you.”

People who struggle with chronic anger can often find the root of their problem in looking for something wrong in other peoples’ actions—by their own act of judging negatively. If you think about it, anger always involves an accusation of sin. If you invite someone to an important meeting and it’s ruined because they missed it, you may be upset about the failed meeting, but you won’t get angry if they just had car trouble. But if you discover that they didn’t come because they simply had no respect for your position and didn’t want to make the effort, then you get angry. Next time you are angry, ask yourself what sin you are accusing the other person of. Then remember that Jesus says that you are a sinner too – and you can’t ask God for his mercy if you won’t be merciful to someone else!

Christians would do well to focus more on judging favorably and extending mercy – both ways of showing God’s grace. We’ll find that over time, it really has the potential to transform our personalities to be more like Christ. To hear Jesus one more time,

______________

(1) This essay was based on articles originally published in February 2002 & February 2003, with some new reflections on the topic.(2) B. Talmud, Shabbat 127a

(3) J. Telushkin, The Book of Jewish Values, (c) 2000, Bell Tower, New York, ISBN 0609603302, p. 35.

(4) Find other links on judging favorably in En-Gedi’s article section on Jewish Ethics.

(5) M. Gladwell, Blink (c) 2005, Little, Brown & Co, New York, ISBN 9780316172325, pp. 30-34.

But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind. Job 12:7-10

Next door to me lives a man with schizophrenia, who is mild-mannered and friendly when he is feeling well, but on other days can be heard shouting, “I will KILL God! God deserves to DIE!”

I guess he was fine until his late twenties – he had a fiance, and had made some money and bought a house, and then the mental illness came on and life fell apart. When he first moved in by me, ambulances frequently rushed to his house – he has poorly regulated diabetes too. Now he seems to have been able to hit a better phase of life – he’s had a few roommates over the years, but now lives by himself. He has a job at Kandu (the sheltered workshop in our area) and the Dial-A-Ride bus rolls down our block each day to pick him up and drop him off.

Everyday when he goes out to the bus, he walks backward, still facing his house, wildly waving at the window, shouting, “Sasha, you’ll be OK – I’ll be home soon! I’ll be back!” His little boston terrier is the focus of his life. Most of the time he is home, he walks her up and down the sidewalks of our neighborhood. Sometimes he curses at the dog too, but she seems unfazed by it. Sasha loves him to death.

What I find amazing is that God seems to have taught the animals something that we humans haven’t yet learned – long-term loyalty and simple, unjudgmental affection. A dog doesn’t care how you smell or look or act, and it won’t file for divorce or tell you it needs to date other owners. A dog just knows how to be faithful, and that’s all it knows.

I’ve gotten more sensitive to the brokenness of the world nowadays because I have more friends who are single moms and know more folks living together. The thing that pains me most is seeing children in that situation. Normal life is being shuttled back and forth between step families, eating every meal from the drive-thru, changing schools every time Mom or Dad moves in with a different person.

One Jewish writer pointed out that the word that we translate “orphan” in the Bible actually means “fatherless” – a child of a single-parent home. In biblical times, a family without a father was impoverished because there was no way for a woman to support herself and her children. But this writer points out that even though these times are better financially, we actually have an enormous number of “orphans” now – children of single parents, or even just brushed aside because of parents too pre-occupied with money or acheivement.

I find it shocking that a whole generation is growing up with no model of a stable home life. They have no expectation that they will marry someone and commit the rest of their lives to their spouse and family. Of course I have great sympathy for my friends who have gone through divorce and are single-moms – I drove a friend’s son to school even this morning. But it sad to see brand new young fathers who think that playing video games and partying is more important than their own children. They’ve never experienced it any other way.

James 1:27 says, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” I never thought about how this applies to my single friends and their children, but now I see that God calls us to reach out to them as much as he has the widows and orphans of ages past.

This morning during a Bible study we were discussing the word shema, which is Hebrew for hear or listen. It also means much more than that, including to heed, respond, understand and even to obey. In fact the phrase to “listen to the voice of” is an idiom that means “to obey.”

There’s a fascinating rabbinic idea that is associated with the multiple meanings of the word shema. In Exodus 24:7, when Moses reads Israel the covenant, they respond by saying, “All the Lord has spoken we will do (asah) and we will hear (shema.) I think the literal understanding is that the two verbs are supposed to be synonymous – both meaning to obey.

But the rabbis loved to play with the language, and see what more they can learn from the Bible from reading the text from every angle. So they meditated a lot on this odd phrase “we will do and we will hear,” which is well known: “na’aseh v’nishmah.” They pointed out that the order seems backward – wouldn’t you first listen to commands and then do them, rather than doing them before you listen? They came up with the story that God went to all the nations of the world and offered to make a covenant with them, but they all wanted to listen to his commands first. When they did, they all turned God down, saying that all those laws were just too restraining. Only Israel impulsively said, we’ll do it! Now tell us want us to do! It was because of their faith that they pledged to be obedient even before knowing what they were getting into.

But as is typical with the rabbis there is a completely different interpretation that exists right along with this one. The word “shema” can also mean to understand. So, another spin on the phrase na’aseh v’nishmah is the idea that first you do what God asks without fully knowing why, and only later do you understand why.

I’m sure I’m the last person in the world to do things that don’t make sense just because someone told me to. But actually, now I’m seeing how this is really true. About a week ago I blogged about a discovery that I made when I took part in a Passover Seder at my church, how I got really sleepy afterward, just like the disciples. And how this actually was important for understanding who was behind Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion!

Another time was back when I was in college. Being a typical girl, I gossiped about everyone, using the classic rationalization that I should deal with my frustrations by seeking the counsel of friends. I remember feeling the Lord convicting me. Of course I still struggle and am not perfect, but after a while of being intentional about not gossiping, I discovered some things. One was that I became calmer, because I didn’t have to worry that someone had heard something or that my email got forwarded on to the wrong person. Another that my friends were closer to each other, because my constant complants about one to the other was driving them apart as friends. I’m hardly done learning this lesson, but many of the things I’ve learned only after experienceing the effects of my own obedience.

Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised at how often God teaches me when I’m humble enough to do something that he asks. God loves to teach experientially – through your hands and feet, not just through your head. So every year he tells people to live in a hut outside for seven days in order to feel what it was like to follow him in tents in the wilderness. And he tells Abraham to sacrifice his son, knowing that it would be two thousand years before God would use this to help people understand how he gave his own son as a sacrifice for our sins.

What else would he teach me, if I would only humble myself to obey him a little more?

(Guest article by Jonathan Miles – more about him below)

Ask any Christian familiar with the Hebraic roots of their faith: what day of the week is uniquely set apart by the Hebrew Scriptures? The Sabbath, of course. All other holy days, because they are fixed by the combined lunar-solar Hebrew calender, fall on a different day of the week each year. Or do they?

This week, as followers of Jesus remember his last Passover meal, arrest, and crucifixion, and celebrate his resurrection on the day after the Sabbath (now called in his honor the Lord’s Day), let’s look again at what the Torah actually says about the Feast of Firstfruits which falls during the Passover week:

Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When you come into the land which I give to you, and reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest. He shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted on your behalf; on the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it.’ (Lev. 23:10-11)

Our hearts leap to realize that it was on this very day, the day after the Sabbath of Passover, that Jesus was raised from the dead, accepted on our behalf as “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” in Paul’s words. And the subsequent verses in the Leviticus passage make clear that this Torah holy day on the first day of the week begins the countdown to the next major holy day, the Feast of Weeks, when the Holy Spirit was outpoured:

And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering: seven Sabbaths shall be completed. Count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath; then you shall offer a new grain offering to the LORD.

So a second Torah holy day, the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost, also falls each year on the first day of the week, seven sevens or seven weeks following the resurrection on First Fruits! This is an unheard-of emphasis in the Hebrew scriptures themselves on a day of the week other than the Sabbath. The text is fairly shouting at us. Why, then, have we not heard of it?

While the intent of the text seems plain that these holy days fall on the first day of the week, rabbinic Judaism follows a tradition which claims that the “Sabbath” spoken of in Leviticus 23 actually refers to the first day of Passover, which falls on a different day each year. This is a forced and difficult reading of the text, and nowhere else in the Hebrew scriptures is “Sabbath” used in this sense.

And fascinatingly, until the time of Jesus there was no consensus on this tradition. The Sadducees, who controlled the Temple ritual, championed the straightforward reading of the text, meaning that in Jesus’ time Firstfruits and Weeks were in fact celebrated on the first day of the week. It was the Pharisees who argued against this special distinction for the first day of the week, and their view prevailed after they led the majority to reject belief in the resurrection of the Messiah on this day. Could their insistence on this point even have been part of the developing polemic against those Jews who did see Jesus’ resurrection as the fulfillment to which the Feast of Firstfruits pointed?

Notably, to this day the Karaite stream of Judaism, which rejects tradition and holds to a literal reading of the Torah, insists on celebrating the feasts of Firstfruits and Weeks on the first day of the week.

Food for thought, and praise, as we once again await the dawn of the Lord’s Day.
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Jonathan Miles is the founder of Shevet Achim, a Christian ministry in Jerusalem that brings children from surrounding Muslim nations to Israel for lifesaving heart surgeries. When Jewish doctors and nurses save the lives of children from Gaza and Iraq, this obedience to Christ’s command to “love your enemies” has a powerful impact on the Muslim family and all who know them. (The photo is of their Iraqi guests visiting the Garden Tomb, a traditional location for where Jesus arose from the dead.)

It’s Maundy Thursday today, and this always makes me think back to a discovery I made a few years ago on this day.

I was helping with setting up for a Seder meal at my church before our Maundy Thursday service. We spent the afternoon making plates of parsley and horseradish and decorating the tables, and by the time we sat down for the ceremony, I was absolutely famished. Waiting through the long Seder liturgy was torture. When we could finally eat our simple meal of stew and matza, I certainly feasted! Afterward I helped with clean-up and then slipped into the Maundy Thursday service that had already started. The Tenebrae service was mournful and solemn, and the lights gradually dimmed to complete darkness.

Right then I experienced just what the disciples did – I got terribly sleepy after being famished and then overeating! As the light waned, my eyelids drooped lower and lower. I could just hear Jesus saying, “Could you not watch with me just one hour?” It was fascinating to live through the same sensations as the disciples had that night. In fact, they would have been much more sleepy than me, I’m sure. Traditional Passovers start at sunset and go well past midnight, with a huge meal accompanied by four cups of wine. Certainly the disciples and every observant Jew wanted to crawl straight into bed after the late-night feast ended.

That led to another insight that really clarified my understanding of Jesus’ arrest and trial. I didn’t see why Judas needed to help the authorities find Jesus, and why he left right during the supper, and why they decided to arrest Jesus when he came out to the garden. The reason was that Jesus was enormously popular with the masses that whole week after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He was staying in a hidden location outside of town in order to get away from the crowds and the threat of the authorities. (See John 11:48-57)

The priests knew they couldn’t lay a hand on him because of his enormous popularity, and the only time they could get to him was when all observant Jews would have been at home asleep after Passover. Jesus’ arrest, trial and sentencing all occured during the wee hours, when the throngs of his supporters were in bed. The only people around to shout “crucify” in the early morning would have been the crowd of corrupt priests and Roman soldiers who had wanted to kill him. (See the article “New Light on Jesus’ Last Week” at egrc.net.)

This made everything make more sense – I used to think that the same crowds who loved him one week earlier hated him that day. But reading the Gospel accounts more closely makes it clear that he was popular with the masses even after his death. One Jewish scholar believes that far from being rejected by his people, there was an enormously positive response to him. Now when I read Paul talking about why the Jews did not believe in him, I think he is actually talking about why every last Jew didn’t see that he was the Messiah, rather than why none of them understood that he was the Messiah. According to Acts 21:20, tens of thousands of Jews believed in him in Jerusalem alone!

Certainly Jesus died for the sins of the world that night, and God was completely in control of those events so long ago. But living through a Passover has taught me that Jesus’ secret arrest and conviction while the masses slept was carried out by a small group of corrupt officials rather than by the Jewish people as a whole.

For my Hebrew class I was reading Ezekiel 37 today – the passage about the valley of dry bones, where God resurrects the dead and fills them with his Spirit. It says:

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. (vs 4-5)

After that vision, the prophecy talks about how he will regather the resurrected from Israel and will fill them with his Spirit, and will make a permanent covenant of peace with them. And then it describes how the Messianic King “David” will rule over them forever:

My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd. They will follow my laws and be careful to keep my decrees…25 They and their children and their children’s children will live there forever, and David my servant will be their prince forever. 26 I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant. … 27 My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people.

This prophecy is of course a metaphor of the hope for God to come and redeem Israel again, and it is not read as literal. But my understanding is that was taken literally in the time of Jesus, and likely was the scriptural source for the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. There was quite a debate going on between Sadducees who didn’t believe in resurrection and the Pharisees who did, and of course Jesus defended the Pharisee’s position.

What I find fascinating is that its vision of the kingdom of the Messianic king is one of a resurrected people living in the presence of God forever, and this sounds like Paul talking about us dying with Christ and having new life forever with him.

Also, there is an obvious connection to make to Isaiah 53, which is about God’s suffering servant. He dies for the sins of his people, but then he is resurrected and given a great reward. In Ezekiel 37: 24 it talks about “my servant David” ruling over them. (“David” refers to the messianic “son of David” – this prophecy is much after the time that King David lived.) Doesn’t it make sense that the King of this eternal kingdom is the “servant” of Isaiah 53, who is the first to be resurrected among a people who will be resurrected?

Wow. There is the gospel, right there.

And then also, it talks about making an “everlasting covenant” with this people and I think of Jesus at the last supper declaring a “new covenant” in his blood.

Here’s one last neat thing – Ezekiel 37 is the reading for Shabbat during the week of Passover, because Passover is expected to be the time when God’s final redemption will appear. (Of course we know that this is Jesus’ death and resurrection.) So even today the Jewish people read about resurrection during Passover and pray for redemption to come. Hmmm.