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Featured Article: (from Parables and Stories)
Gifts Fit for a King
Did you know that the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to Jesus at his birth have multiple precedents in the Bible that Jesus read? Consider this story from the life of Solomon:
When the queen of Sheba heard of Solomon’s fame, she came to Jerusalem to test him with hard questions. Arriving with a very great caravan — with camels carrying spices, large quantities of gold, and precious stones — she came to Solomon and talked with him about all she had on her mind. Solomon answered all her questions; nothing was too hard for him to explain to her. … Then she gave the king 120 talents of gold, large quantities of spices, and precious stones. There had never been such spices as those the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon. (2 Chron. 9:1-4, 9)
Here too we find these three unusual gifts. It also might seem strange that foreign royalty would come to give gifts to a king who was already rich. But when a powerful king arose in a country, other countries wanted to form alliances and show friendliness toward that nation. Solomon controlled more territory than any other Israelite king, so this was a report of royalty from very far away coming to pay tribute to him.
This picture of a king so great that other kings would come to pay homage is also used to describe the coming Messiah. The messiah was the promised son of David, who would have a great kingdom without end. Not only would he be king over Israel, he will be king over the whole world! Psalm 72 looks ahead to when that will happen:
Endow the king with your justice, O God, the royal son with your righteousness. …The kings of Tarshish and of distant shores will bring tribute to him; the kings of Sheba and Seba will present him gifts. All kings will bow down to him and all nations will serve him. For he will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help.
Long may he live! May gold from Sheba be given him. May people ever pray for him and bless him all day long. May his name endure forever; may it continue as long as the sun. All nations will be blessed through him, and they will call him blessed. (Psalm 72:1, 7-12, 15, 17)
Interestingly, we see the same scene in this Psalm as happened to Solomon. Other kings would come to bow down to this great king, to bring tribute and present him with gifts, including gold from Sheba.
Sheba is at the southern end of the Arabian peninsula, where Yemen is today, about 1800 miles from Israel. Sheba was known in ancient times as possessing great wealth: gold, jewels and spices. Spices don’t seem very precious to us, but in ancient times, some spices and aromatic oils were worth more than their weight in diamonds, because of their rarity and use as perfumes, incense and medicine.
There is yet another messianic prophecy in Isaiah 60 about the restoration of Zion that describes a similar scene. It says,
Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. … The wealth on the seas will be brought to you, to you the riches of the nations will come. Herds of camels will cover your land, young camels of Midian and Ephah. And all from Sheba will come, bearing gold and frankincense and proclaiming the praise of the LORD. (Is 60:1-4, 6)
Here again royalty from Sheba comes, bringing gold and frankincense as gifts to Jerusalem.
This recurring image of kings coming with gifts of fabulous wealth sheds light on the significance of the story of the wise men in Matthew 2:
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.” When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written: “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.’” … On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of frankincense and of myrrh. (Matt. 2:1-6, 11)
The wise men, probably ambassadors from the courts of other countries, wanted to see the messianic king who had been born in Israel, and to pay him homage. We can see why Herod wanted to destroy him–this king would become king over the whole world!
Only Jesus would do it a different way than Herod would. He would humble himself and die to redeem his people from their sins. As the message would go out to the world, people from all nations would repent and enter his kingdom. Gradually, his kingdom would expand, like a mustard seed, until every nation on earth would be blessed through him!
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Photos: Leone Venter on Unsplash, John Romano D’Orazio [CC BY-SA 4.0], Juan de Flandes [Public domain]
The Context of Paul’s Conflict
Paul’s letters to churches have always been a challenge for scholars, since Paul was speaking to the problems that were specific to these churches. Reading them is like listening to one end of a phone conversation. Without knowing the dialogue that has been going on up to this point, it is difficult to decipher what Paul is addressing.
It will help greatly to understand Jewish culture in Paul’s time. Only in the past thirty years have Christian scholars looked at Paul in the light of this information. Before that, theologians relied mainly on Christian traditions about Jews, rather than historical Jewish sources.
Recently there have been many new insights on Paul, and of course much debate. One misconception Christians have had is that the Jews of Paul’s time were trying to earn their way to heaven by gaining merit in the eyes of God. In fact, Jews generally have had a strong sense of their salvation, because of their election as God’s chosen people. The Mishnah (an early Jewish commentary on the Torah) says, “All Israel has a share in the world to come” (Sanh 3:10).
Because of God’s covenant with the nation of Israel, all its members are assured of eternal life, in Jewish thought. (Note that John the Baptist preached against this – see Matthew 3:9.) Jews did spend much time interpreting the laws, but not out of a sense of insecurity. They did so because they felt they should be faithful to this covenant, since they had been chosen to serve God.
Another reason they strictly observed their laws was out of a strong sense of national identity. The Jews were a small minority in the Roman Empire that had gone through much persecution for not adopting Gentile ways. As a reaction to that persecution, they were especially careful to observe laws that separated them from Gentiles. Being circumcised was especially important, because it was what a Gentile proselyte (convert) to Judaism did to show he had come under the covenant of Moses, the Torah.
From the understanding that the Jews alone were God’s chosen people, there was a tendency toward religious elitism. Their picture of Gentiles was that they were degenerate sinners, prone to idolatry, sexual immorality and murder. Jews would not enter a Gentile’s home or eat with one.
The Shock of Gentile Believers
In Acts 10-11, we see that God had to give Peter a special revelation that he was supposed to visit Cornelius the Gentile, because otherwise Peter wouldn’t have done it. God had to tell Peter that what he had declared “clean,” Peter should not declare “unclean.” Other Jews were shocked that Peter had visited him, and even more dumbfounded God had poured out on the Gentile believers the Holy Spirit, the sign of the New Covenant.
This was the controversy at the heart of Paul’s conflict with other Jews too. For the past two thousand years, the Jews alone had been God’s holy people. Now, Paul was actually saying that these filthy sinners, who had never been a part of the covenant of Moses, could be accepted by God. To many, it undermined God’s special relationship with the Jews for Paul to say that a person could be saved apart from their covenant.
To Paul, their insistence that Gentiles be circumcised and become Jews made it pointless that Christ even came. If being Jewish was what saved you, this was not a new gospel at all (Gal 1:7). There had been Jewish evangelists before now who convinced Gentiles to become Jewish proselytes, and this is what they had been preaching up until this time.
Paul’s Opponents
The major concern of Paul’s opponents was that it was necessary for the Gentiles to become Jews in order to be saved, and they did this by becoming circumcised and observing the Mosaic laws. How could God accept them when they were not a part of the covenant he had clearly given? In essence, salvation was dependent upon becoming a Jew, since the Jews were the chosen people.
The emphasis was not so much on legalism, earning their way to God’s favor, like in Martin Luther’s time. Rather it was nationalistic and elitist: only Jews can be saved, therefore, people needed to come under the covenant of Moses to be saved. They needed to observe the law of Moses to be a part of God’s covenant people. Some Judaizers may not even have been believers, but other Jews who told Gentiles that they need to become Jews to be saved.
How did Paul respond? He made two main points. First, it was clear to him that God had accepted Gentiles as Christians because they had been filled with the Holy Spirit when they believed, just as Jews were. The giving of the Holy Spirit was the sign of the New Covenant, and the fact that they had the Spirit meant that they were a part of the covenant. Paul says to the Galatians,
This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? (Gal 3:2)
Here, Paul is reminding the Galatians that they had received the gift of the Spirit when they came to faith in Christ. Now, they had begun observing Jewish laws out of a worry that they needed to be Jewish to be saved.
The phrase “works of the Law” is especially significant. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, the phrase “works of the Torah” was a technical legal term for those laws that marked the boundaries between Jew and Gentile, like circumcision and eating kosher. These laws specifically marked a person for whether he or she was Jewish or not. Paul reminds the Gentiles that they did not receive the Spirit by practicing Judaism, but by believing in Christ, so they should not worry that they need to do that now.
Scholars point out that Paul was in no way rejecting his own Jewish faith or telling the Jewish believers to abandon their covenant. Rather, he tells people to remain what they are, circumcised as Jews or uncircumcised as Gentiles, because in their Messiah Jesus they had been made one.
Sons of Abraham
Paul’s other example to prove that Gentiles could be saved apart from being Jewish was Abraham. Abraham was still an uncircumcised Gentile when God made his covenant with him. God came to him and promised that all nations on earth would be blessed through him.
Abraham was never under the covenantal law God gave to Moses, since God didn’t give it until four hundred years later. Instead, Abraham was considered righteous in God’s eyes because of his “emunah,” faith in God’s promises, and faithfulness in following him.
To Paul, Abraham was the perfect example of God’s grace choosing someone, and them responding in faithfulness. That is what he wants for the Gentile believers: that they become sons of Abraham, showing their faith in God’s love.
Photos: Dimnent Chapel [Public Domain], Domenico Fetti [Public domain], Hult, Adolf, 1869-1943;Augustana synod [from old catalog] [No restrictions]
The Psychology of Idolatry
The Israelites secretly did things against the LORD their God that were not right. They set up sacred stones and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree. They did wicked things that provoked the LORD to anger. They worshiped idols, though the LORD had said, “You shall not do this.” (2 Kings 17:7-12, edited)
To modern Christian readers, it is hard to imagine being tempted by idolatry. This is because we are strict monotheists–we simply don’t believe any other gods exist besides God. However, if we understand the psychology behind the ancient practice of idolatry, we can draw lessons for our lives today.
The Mindset of Idolatry
In the Ancient Near East, people believed each nation had its own gods, and that gods had limited powers and territories. These “gods” controlled the prosperity and fertility of the people that worshiped them. They did not make moral demands, but only expected to be venerated through sacrifices and rituals to grant their favor. A person who became prosperous through devious means was admired for his or her cleverness in gaining the favor of the gods.
The God of Israel, however, insisted on moral conduct and gave the nation many laws to obey. (Normally the king wrote the laws, not the gods.) Besides the fact that it was more difficult to be honest than dishonest, it was very challenging for the Israelites to believe in this strange kind of deity that chose to to be so unlike every other god they knew.
While other nations had gods that inhabited idols, this God insisted they not make idols to worship him. The gods of other nations were human-like, but this God was invisible and incomprehensible. Other gods needed to be fed sacrifices to gain power, but this one did not need their sacrifices for power. The other gods were subject to manipulation to gain their favor, but this God could not be manipulated.
It was hard to grasp the concept that God was utterly greater than the gods of the other nations. The Israelites were probably not sure if their God would win in the contest Elijah set up between the true God and Baal.
When the Israelites worshiped idols, they were committing several sins. Most importantly, they were violating their covenant with God, who insisted that they serve no other gods. Israel’s covenant was often likened to a marriage, and idolatry was adultery to with God. Additionally, worshiping idols required that they abandon the moral laws that God had given them. They engaged in perverse sexual practices, sacrificed infants, and sank to the depths of depravity.
They also showed the world they didn’t believe that God was greater than the gods of the nations around them. God’s intention was for Israel to be a light to teach the world about the True God, but in idol worship they caused the nations to mock God instead.
Modern Day Idolatry
Ancient Israelites wanted the same things we do: prosperity and happiness. They had a choice of obeying God and letting him bless them, or trying to gain their blessing through idolatry. Likewise, many things we want are good, but the means to achieve them show whether we are serving the Lord or serving “idols,” in a sense.
A church can want its congregation to grow, but if it chooses activities because of their popularity rather than their spiritual content, it shows that filling pews has become an idol. Or, a man may feel like the Lord called him to a certain job, but when he starts acting unethically to maintain his position, the job has become an idol to him.
Once we start using motives God wouldn’t approve of, even if we think we are serving him, we have shifted our service to something else. After all, God demands we act morally, but idols let us act any way we please.
We also act like idolaters when we aren’t convinced of God’s greatness in comparison to other awe-inspiring things. God is not threatened by scientific discoveries, intellectual achievement or medical advances. He is not thwarted when the wrong party wins the presidency. He is in control when the things we fear happen, like our business closes or we get cancer. Like the Israelites who weren’t sure whether God could defeat Baal, we often give voice to our worry that God isn’t truly sovereign over the world.
Many things in our world command respect, and it is tempting to be overawed by them. When we give up on God’s ability to accomplish his purposes because his opposition seems too great, we are shrinking God down to the size of this world. We can hardly grasp that as powerful as the things around us seem, God is more powerful yet.
Photos: Destination8infinity [CC BY-SA 3.0], NASA on Unsplash
How to Be a Disciple
Since Jesus tells us to make disciples out of all nations (and be disciples ourselves), we will be enriched to understand what exactly was expected of a disciple.
The Elijah/Elisha relationship served as a model during Jesus’ time of what was expected of the rabbi/disciple relationship. God told Elijah to chose Elisha to succeed him as prophet, and when Elisha was called, Elisha left everything to live with and serve Elijah. Let’s look at Elijah and Elisha’s relationship:
So he (Elijah) departed from there and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, while he was plowing with twelve pairs of oxen before him, and he with the twelfth. And Elijah passed over to Elisha and threw his mantle on him. He left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said, “Please let me kiss my father and my mother, then I will follow you.” And he said to him, “Go back again, for what have I done to you?” So he returned from following him, and took the pair of oxen and sacrificed them and boiled their flesh with the implements of the oxen, and gave it to the people and they ate. Then he arose and followed Elijah and became his attendant. (1 Kings 19:19 – 21)
When Elisha asks to say good-bye to his family, Elijah’s responds angrily, because Elisha was delaying his answer to the calling that God had given him. Elisha responded by burning his plow to show his total commitment to following Elijah, even over supporting his own family. Compare this with a scene from when Jesus was speaking to a would-be disciple:
Another also said, “I will follow You, Lord; but first permit me to say good-bye to those at home.” But Jesus said to him, “No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9: 61-62)
There are interesting parallels here. A potential disciple asks to delay his commitment to following Jesus for the sake of family, and Jesus informs him that he needed to abandon everything to be a part of the kingdom of God. By alluding to the plow, he is recalling the scene when Elisha makes the same request of Elijah.
Utter Devotion
A disciple was supposed to be utterly devoted to his rabbi, to love him like his own father. The relationship wasn’t about academic learning, like a student taking notes from a teacher. A disciple was supposed to serve his rabbi and emulate him in his way of life, like an apprentice serving a master. We see this in Elisha when it says he became Elijah’s attendant, his mesharet (1 Kings 19:21), who humbly served his needs.
We also learn about how devoted and loyal Elisha was to Elijah. In 2 Kings 2, Elijah ordered Elisha to stay behind when he knew God was about to take him. Nothing Elijah said could make Elisha turn away. Elisha even called Elijah “father” when he saw him go up in a heavenly chariot.
If we see this as a model for disciples of Jesus, it casts light on scenes in the gospels. Peter’s declaration, “I will never leave you or forsake you,” would have been a reasonable thing for a disciple to say to his beloved master, the rabbi. In contrast, Judas’ betrayal would have been unthinkable, even if Jesus had not been the Messiah. When Peter denies Jesus he would have felt terrible, because a disciple would never betray or abandon his master.
We also see this dynamic when Jesus teaches them about service by washing their feet. As his disciples, it was their job to serve him, not the other way around. He was teaching them a great lesson in humility, that the one most deserving of being served is serving himself, while they were busy arguing who is the greatest.
Another thing we learn from Elijah and Elisha was that Elisha’s goal was to be like Elijah, and he asked for the same prophetic spirit Elijah had to be poured out on him (2 Kings 2:9). A disciple didn’t want to just know what his master knows, he wanted to have the same abilities and passion to serve God, too. Elisha served Elijah to see how Elijah lived, and to learn to have the same wisdom in each situation. Ultimately, Elisha became Elijah’s spiritual successor.
This is another parallel between Elijah/Elisha and Jesus/disciples stories. After Elijah is taken up into heaven, his mantle falls on Elisha, and Elisha receives the ability through the Spirit to do miracles as Elijah did. In the New Testament, a few weeks after the disciples see Jesus ascend to heaven, they receive the Spirit and become able to do miracles themselves as well. We as Jesus’ disciples receive spiritual gifts that allow us to continue serving as the first church did.
Through the lens of the relationship between Elijah and Elisha, we see many applications for our own lives as Jesus’ disciples. We are supposed to be utterly devoted to serving and following Jesus, to love him more than our own families and our livelihood. Our goal cannot just be to learn all about him, or treat him as an academic teacher, but to become like him ourselves.
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To explore this topic more, see chapter 4, “Following the Rabbi” in Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus, Zondervan, 2009, p. 51-65.
Photos: Dru Kelly on Unsplash, Peter Mackriell [CC BY 2.0]
The Messiah will Build God’s House
What exactly was promised in the Old Testament about the coming Messiah and how did Jesus fulfill it? While we find messianic hints from the very beginning of Genesis, the place where the promise was explicitly made was during the life of King David. David was faithful to God and earnestly desired to build a house (a temple) for him. Through the prophet Nathan, God gave him this response:
When your days are over and you go to be with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for me, and I will establish his throne forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. I will never take my love away from him, as I took it away from your predecessor. I will set him over my house and my kingdom forever; his throne will be established forever. (1 Chron. 17:11-14)
This passage is foundation and core of all God’s promises the Messiah. The Messiah was to be a “son of David,” a great king who would reign over Israel and would have a kingdom without end. This was partially fulfilled by Solomon, the son of David, but ultimately fulfilled by Jesus, the Son of David.
We see many intriguing parallels between Solomon and Jesus. The triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem that was like Solomon’s coronation (1 Kings 1); the gifts from the wise men were like the adoration Solomon received from the queen of Sheba and other kings (1 Kings 10). Even Solomon’s peaceful reign as king and his wise teachings are rough parallels of Jesus.
The messianic promise to David makes another declaration, that the Son of David would build a house for the Lord. Building the Temple was the high point of Solomon’s reign. For Jesus as well, this will be one of the most important pictures of what his mission on earth accomplished.
What is a “House” for the Lord?
Many Hebrew words have a wide range of meanings, and it is helpful to understand that the word for house, beit, can mean a house, a temple, a family or a lineage, among other things. In fact, in the prophecy to David, God was making a wordplay using two different meanings of the the word beit.
King David had told God that he wanted to build him a “house,” meaning a temple, and God answered instead that he would build him a “house,” meaning a family lineage. In Hebrew both meanings are part of the word beit. So, this gives us a hint that the kind of “house” Jesus would build could be very different than the temples built before him.
Another thing to note is that God had first commanded his people to build a “house” back when Moses built the tabernacle so that he could be near them. God said, “Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them” (Exodus 25:8).
The goal of God’s sanctuary was for him to be intimately with his people. God comes to be physically present among his people when the Spirit came to indwell the sanctuary of the tabernacle of Moses, and in the temple of Solomon.
Jesus and His Temple
Often in Jesus’s ministry he talks about the Temple. He makes the key statement that “I will destroy this temple (house) made with hands, and in three days I will build another made without hands” (Mark 14:58). In the gospel of John, it says that he was referring to his body, in terms of being raised to life in three days.
There is a bigger picture there as well. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection he was building a “house” for God of a different type. He was bringing together a “house” of a family of believers who would become that place where God’s Spirit dwells.
At Pentecost (Shavuot), the Spirit dwelt in the hearts of the believers. The people of the early church would have thought back to the other scenes of the Spirit entering the Temple to dwell there. They realized that instead of dwelling in a house made by human hands, the Spirit of God had moved into a new Temple, the body of believers, with Jesus as the cornerstone. This picture is found throughout the New Testament:
Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple. (1 Cor. 3:16-17)
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? (1 Cor. 6:19)
What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” (2 Cor 6:16)
Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (Eph. 2:19-22)
And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1Pet. 2:4-5)
One thing to note: with only one exception (1 Cor. 6:19), the Temple of God’s people does not refer to us individually but of us collectively, as one body. While we all individually have God’s Spirit living in us, God’s picture is of dwelling with us as a body of people, not just individually in our hearts. We experience God’s presence best not when we are on a mountain alone, but with others who love God and each other.
Now we can see a progression of God’s plan to have intimacy with human beings, who forfeited their relationship with him through sin. First he chose the Israelites, let them use sacrifices for atonement, and dwelt among them in their tabernacle. Then, he had Solomon build the Temple, which was to be “a house of prayer for all nations” (Is 56:7). Finally, through the atoning work of Christ and the new covenant, God comes to dwell in our hearts as his Temple, to achieve his greatest goal of living intimately with his people.
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To explore this topic more, see p. 69 in chapter 4, “Painting in Hebrew” in Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus, Baker Publishing, 2018.
Hearing Jesus’ “Hidden” Messages
Jesus often uses phrases or even single words to allude to teachings in the Old Testament. He could do this because he lived in a biblically knowledgeable Jewish culture. People were familiar with the Old Testament scriptures, because they lived in an oral culture in which people learned the text largely by heart.
Jesus’ culture also had the habit of public discussion about the Bible. Traveling rabbis would teach in each village, and the town’s conversation would revolve around Scripture and the latest teaching. As odd as it sounds to us, many cultures throughout world history have put religion in the center of public culture, so that people are widely literate about religious matters. It has only been in the twentieth century that many societies have become publicly secular, and people ignorant about faith issues.
So Jesus, like others, had a sophisticated teaching style that expected his audience to be familiar enough with the scriptures that they knew the references he was making. By knowing the reference, people would know the entire context and hear more complex ideas behind his words. He wasn’t hiding secret messages — actually, he expected people to catch his allusions. In medieval times, the Jews referred to this technique of hinting as “Remez,” but the practice predated Jesus.
We actually do the same thing today. When a headline says “War in Afghanistan May Be Another Vietnam,” it is assuming that everyone knows the history of the Vietnam War. Without saying anything but the word “Vietnam,” people immediately know the reference and have an emotional reaction to that difficult time in US history.
Or, when we refer to a government scandal as “Travel-gate” or “File-gate” we are subtly alluding to the Watergate scandal. Just by adding that half word, we hint that the issue is a major White House scandal that will cast a shadow over the presidency. Even in the last sentence, you need to know which white house I am talking about! These allusions are a way of quickly referring to common cultural knowledge.
We can find many, many of these in the gospels. Here’s one passage from Mark where Jesus uses this technique:
He entered the temple and began to drive out those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves; and He would not permit anyone to carry merchandise through the temple. And He began to teach and say to them, “Is it not written, ‘my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations‘? But you have made it a robber’s den.” (Mark 11:15 -17)
Jesus is using two quotes from the Old Testament prophets about the Temple. One is “my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations” which comes out of a text from Isaiah 56:
Also the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD,
To minister to Him, and to love the name of the LORD,
To be His servants, every one who keeps from profaning the Sabbath
And holds fast My covenant;
Even those I will bring to My holy mountain
And make them joyful in My house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on My altar;
For My house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations. (Is. 56:6-7)
The other comes from Jeremiah 7:
Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery and swear falsely, and offer sacrifices to Baal and walk after other gods that you have not known, then come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—that you may do all these abominations? “Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your sight? Behold, I, even I, have seen it,” declares the LORD. “But go now to My place which was in Shiloh, where I made My name dwell at the first, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel. (Jer. 7:9-12)
Both of the passages share a common subject — God’s “house,” the Temple — in fact, in some ancient texts, both passage use the exact phrase “my house.”
Rabbis would look for an exact word match in order to link two texts together. This technique was called gezerah sheva. Another example is with the two texts “You shall love the Lord with all of your heart…”(Deut. 6:5) and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev 19:18). When they are quoted together it is because the word “Ve’ahavta” (You shall love) is in common between them. Rabbis would assume that one passage would shed light on the other, or would combine the two to teach a new thing.
So what is Jesus saying about the Temple in the passage in Mark? If we just read the surface meaning, Jesus says that the Temple is supposed to be a place where people pray, not a place where people do business, and maybe unscrupulously too. The Isaiah passage, however, describes God’s greatest goal for the temple: that it would be a place of worship not just for Jews but for all the nations of the world.
The Jeremiah passage describes the worst possible abuse, where people are being openly wicked, and then fleeing to the temple because they figure God would protect it from destruction. It says that he let the temple be destroyed at Shiloh, and then threatens God would do it again if they didn’t repent.
Some think Jesus was particularly angry that the sellers were crowding the Gentiles out of the court of the Gentiles, the area of the Temple where foreigners could worship the true God.
However, the message may be even stronger than that. It is known from Josephus and other ancient historians that the Jewish temple authorities were deeply corrupt in Jesus’ time. They profited from the sale of sacrificial animals, extorted pay from the other priests, and had people who opposed them killed. Several of Jesus’ sayings were about the destruction of the Temple because of its corruption, and in Mark 14 we read his prediction that the Temple would be destroyed.
Jesus is very likely using Jeremiah 7 to hint that the selling in the Temple is only one symptom of great corruption that would ultimately lead to God’s judgement. “Den of robbers” doesn’t just refer to the sellers, it refers to the wicked temple authorities.
Since we know that we put cultural “hints” in our own conversation, we should expect that Jesus would in his words too. Certainly by learning more about his first century culture we can understand Jesus better.
We should take joy to see that the source of Jesus’ “hints” is something that we already have at our fingertips — the Old Testament. This should challenge all of us to learn the Scriptures he read, if we want to understand Jesus and follow him.
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To explore this topic more, see chapter 3, “Stringing Pearls” in Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus, Zondervan, 2009, p. 36-50.
A major reference for this article is “Remember Shiloh,” by Joseph Frankovic.
Photos: James Tissot [Public domain], Berthold Werner [Public domain]
An Amazing Mountaintop Scene
Toward the end of Jesus’ ministry we find an odd scene. Jesus and a few of the disciples go up on a mountain, and Jesus’ face and clothes become brilliant. Both Moses and Elijah appear and speak to him, and God’s voice is heard speaking from a cloud. Mark describes it this way:
Six days later, Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John, and brought them up on a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them; and His garments became radiant and exceedingly white, as no launderer on earth can whiten them. Elijah appeared to them along with Moses; and they were talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three tabernacles, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” For he did not know what to answer; for they became terrified. Then a cloud formed, overshadowing them, and a voice came out of the cloud, “This is My beloved Son (in whom I am well-pleased – Matthew), listen to Him!” All at once they looked around and saw no one with them anymore, except Jesus alone. (Mark 9:2-8)
This scene is called the “Transfiguration,” which refers to Jesus’ change of appearance to a glorified state. The account here overflows with ideas and imagery from the Old Testament. Knowing the characters involved and the echoes of earlier biblical scenes will shed much light on this passage.
Why were Moses and Elijah there?
Among the Jews, Moses has always been regarded as the greatest leader in their history. He redeemed them from slavery in Egypt, did miracles for them, mediated their covenant with God, and gave them God’s word. Yet they noted that Moses had said that one was coming after him that even greater than him:
The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him! …The Lord said …”I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him. If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account. (Deut 18:15-18)
It was understood by Jews in Jesus’ day that the coming Messiah would be “the prophet greater than Moses.” Moses’ presence on the mountain is a hint that Jesus is this prophet like Moses. Interestingly, Jesus also redeemed his people, did miracles, established a new covenant, and gave them God’s word! So indeed, he is like Moses, only greater.
Elijah was the greatest of all of the prophets of Israel, preaching to the northern kingdom to repent and to follow God and not the Baal idols. He is a part of another well-known messianic prophecy from Malachi that says:
Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD. He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers… (Malachi 4:5-6)
It was commonly assumed among the Jews that when the Messiah came, Elijah would come first to tell people to repent and to announce the Messiah’s arrival. In the next verses in Mark the disciples even ask about that, and Jesus says that John the Baptist had come in the spirit of Elijah to fulfill that mission. Still, the presence of Elijah on the mountain hints to the fact that Jesus is the one that Elijah was to proclaim.
The Law and the Prophets
The presence of Moses and Elijah also has another meaning. In the early synagogue, two portions of the Hebrew Scriptures were read each week, one from the Torah (Law) and one from the Prophets. Moses was the representative of the Torah (law), often called the “books of Moses.” Elijah represented the “Prophets,” the books of the scriptures that included many prophetic writings.
Together, the two figures hint at the idea that the “Law and the Prophets” are pointing toward Jesus as the coming redeemer. Moses and Elijah were speaking with Jesus about his coming death (see Luke 9) suggesting that Jesus’ sacrificial atonement is the culminating event of all of the Scriptures.
God’s Words from the Cloud
The words God speaks from the cloud are likewise significant. Each phrase comes from a messianic passage in Scripture.
- “This is my son” comes from Psalm 2, which is about the “Anointed one” (messiah in Hebrew), the one who will rule over the nations.
- “In whom I am well-pleased” (found in Matthew’s version of the Transfiguration scene) is from Isaiah 42, in another messianic passage about God’s chosen servant.
- “Listen to him,” is a quote from Deuteronomy 18 about the prophet greater than Moses.
Even though these passages are short, they were distinctive and recognized as messianic allusions. God was actually using the same “hinting” technique that rabbinic teachers used! Intriguingly, God chose one passage from the Law (Deuteronomy 18), one from the Prophets (Isaiah 42) and one from the Writings (Psalm 2) to show that Jesus was the one anticipated throughout all of Scripture.
Encounters on a Mountaintop
In yet another intriguing parallel, Moses and Elijah both have experiences where they encounter God on a mountain top. In Exodus 33, God tells Moses to stand in a cleft of rock on Mt. Sinai, and God shows him his glory. Moses remains there 40 days afterward.
In 1 Kings 19, Elijah also ascends a mountain — Mt. Horeb, which is another name for Mt. Sinai. At first he feels a strong wind and then an earthquake, and then finally encounters God as a still, small voice. He also stays there 40 days.
At the transfiguration, Moses and Elijah were experiencing God’s presence and glory once again, as they saw the fulfillment of God’s plan in Christ!
Future Scenes of Glory
The Transfiguration scene contains echoes of prophecies in both the Old and New Testament that describe Christ in his final glory:
Now above the expanse that was over their heads there was something resembling a throne and high up, was a figure with the appearance of a man. Then I noticed from His loins and upward something like glowing metal that looked like fire all around within it, and from His loins and downward I saw something like fire; and there was a radiance around Him. As the appearance of the rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the surrounding radiance. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. (Ezek. 1:26-28)
and
Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands; and in the middle I saw one like a son of man, clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and girded across His chest with a golden sash. His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire. (Rev 1:12-14)
This scene in Mark gives us a glimpse of the future glory of Jesus. Even though the next few weeks of his life will be Jesus’ greatest rejection and suffering, his disciples see that the man they have been walking with is the one that all of the Scriptures are looking for. Someday we will all see Jesus in this glorified way, when he comes again.
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Carl Bloch [Public domain], Lawrie Cate [CC BY 2.0], Berthold Werner [CC BY-SA 3.0]
A Judge as a Savior?
In the book of Judges we read the history of the Israelites right after they move into the land of Canaan. When they fell into idolatry because of their Canaanite neighbors, the Lord allowed them to be oppressed until they cried out to him, and then he would raise up a judge to save them from their enemies.
These judges would sometimes act as rulers by making decisions in court, but often they did not. The term “judge” referred to heroes like Gideon or Sampson who won battles that freed the Israelites from foreign oppression.
At first I found it very odd that the term “judge” could be used to describe a savior or a hero. I thought of the word “judge” as the very opposite of “save.” Didn’t Jesus say he came into the world not to judge it but to save it (John 12:47)? But reading more of the Old Testament, we find that often the words “judgment” and “salvation” are used as synonyms:
From heaven you pronounced judgment, and the land feared and was quiet — when you, O God, rose up to judge, to save all the afflicted of the land. (Psalm 76:8-9)
For the LORD is our judge, The LORD is our lawgiver, The LORD is our king; He will save us. (Is. 33:22)
So how can a judge be a savior? A key can be found in the fact that the word for “judgment,” mishpat in Hebrew, is also the word “justice.” If we look at a judge from the perspective of the guilty, we see him as one who punishes; but if we look at a judge from the perspective of a victim, the judge is one who brings justice.
Imagine a woman is abused by her husband, and the police arrive and arrest him. When her husband is put in prison, this act of judgment is salvation for her from her abuser. So these “judges” who act as saviors in Israel were those who brought justice — who set things right after people have been suffering because of injustice. They saved the people of Israel by freeing them from those oppressing them.
That is why the word judgment and salvation are often linked. When God saves the ones being wronged from those who are wronging them, he is both judging and saving at the same time — bad news for one side, good news for the other.
This has made me revise my picture of God. I used to think of God as evil when he judged sin, and good when he was merciful. I imagined that any kind of anger at sin was wrong, so Jesus would have just smiled and talked about love even when a person had swindled the elderly out of their last dime, or beat their children, or blew up large buildings full of people.
This is perverse! Because God loves the people who have been victimized by sin, he is angry and will bring the guilty to judgement at the end.
It is out of his love for the guilty that he is merciful and desires to forgive. God is good both when he is just, and when he is merciful.
So how does this fit with what Jesus said, “I came not to judge the world, but to save it”? Here we see that God has come up with a shocking, amazing answer to the problem of sin that even exceeds the good he would do by being perfectly just.
The key is atonement and repentance. Through Jesus’ atonement, he made it possible for sinners to be saved by repentance rather than be condemned in God’s future judgement. Jesus says that he himself will stand in judgment at the end of time, but he has come to atone for the sins of any who would repent and follow him.
God would rather have an abusive husband transformed into a loving husband than to sit in jail. He would rather have a terrorist find Christ than to just be caught and punished. In this way, he can both stop the damage of sin and bring redemption to the life of the sinner.
Because we all are sinners, he bids us all to repent and to find new life following him. Only through Jesus’ atoning blood and the work of the Spirit can lives be cleansed from sin and be transformed to reflect his love.
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Peter Paul Rubens [Public domain], Wesley Tingey on Unsplash
New Beginnings, Again and Again
The Hebraic, Eastern teaching style of the Bible often used imagery to explain theological truths. We can have a much greater understanding of the stories of the Bible if we look beyond the immediate events to see the patterns that keep coming up over and over again. For instance, consider this scene at the parting of the Jordan in the book of Joshua:
When the people set out from their tents to cross the Jordan with the priests carrying the ark of the covenant before the people, and when those who carried the ark came into the Jordan, and the feet of the priests carrying the ark were dipped in the edge of the water (for the Jordan overflows all its banks all the days of harvest), the waters which were flowing down from above stood and rose up in one heap, a great distance away at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan; and those which were flowing down toward the sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, were completely cut off. So the people crossed opposite Jericho. And the priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood firm on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan while all Israel crossed on dry ground, until all the nation had finished crossing the Jordan. (Joshua 3:14-17)
If we just read about the parting of the Jordan without thinking about any of the rest of the Bible, we miss 90 percent of what is going on. What other stories are reminiscent of this? The first thing that comes to mind is the parting of the Red Sea forty years earlier. In both instances it is clear God is present: before by the presence of the pillar of fire, and now by carrying the ark in front of them, which signified his presence as if he was walking ahead of them into the Jordan.
One interesting difference is that before, the people stood back while the wind blew to part the water, but this time God required them to set foot in the swollen river waters of the Jordan before he parted the river. Before, he did the miracle to give them faith, but now he required their faith to do the miracle. The steep banks of the flooding river Jordan would surely have swept them away, just as the Egyptians would have killed them before, but this time the fear was in following God, not in lingering behind. This was a test of whether they had learned what they spent forty years in the desert taking lessons on — how to trust the Lord.
A New Creation
Beyond the parallels to the Red Sea crossing, we also see a really fascinating theme that runs through all of the Bible: the picture of God beginning a new creation. Genesis begins the story of creation with the Spirit of God “hovering over” the deep (tehom,) and one of his first acts of creation is the separation of water from water.
This imagery recurs over and over in the scriptures, every time God starts something new. There is a poetic motif in that the word for “the deep” is Tehom, which was symbolic of chaos. It is a picture of God conquering evil and chaos to bring order and a beautiful new thing into existence. The word for Spirit in Hebrew is ruach, which also means wind or breath. When God parts the waters by a great wind, it is a picture of God in the act of creating.
Where do we see this? First we see it in Genesis 1:1 of course, but only a few chapters later we see it again after the flood destroyed all of life on earth. In Genesis 8:1-3 God caused a wind, ruach, to pass over the earth, and restrained the waters of the deep, tehom. The flood waters recede, giving the world a new, clean beginning. This is also an image of cleansing too, as the world is cleansed of all of the evil that had been done because of the wickedness of mankind.
The next place this image occurs is in the parting of the Red Sea, as the wind, ruach, blows to separate the waters so that the Israelites can pass through. This marks the beginning of God’s new nation of Israel, who now would have their own sovereignty and identity as the people of God. Interestingly, the Israelites fall into sin, just as Adam and Eve did after God’s first act of creation, and judgment comes from God just as it did to the generations after Adam with the flood.
Looking back at the parting of the Jordan, we see that as they pass through the river Jordan, that once again God is parting the waters, and in a sense, recreating them as his people and cleansing them of their sin. It is then that they take on the covenant again, just like they did at Sinai, and make a clean beginning.
Yet another beginning
There is one more significant scene in the Bible when we see this imagery of God at the waters: the baptism of Jesus. Here the heavens are parted (reminiscent of the waters being parted) and we see the Spirit of God “hovering” over, in the form of a dove, just as it hovered over the first waters of creation.
Here is God’s new creation, God on earth in the form of the Son of Man. Interestingly, the next scene after his baptism is the temptation in the desert, like the temptation of Eve, and the Israelites in the desert, right after their “creation.”
Whereas as both Eve and the Israelites sinned, Jesus triumphed over sin, showing that he is God’s final and perfect creation, God himself in the form of a man.
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Photos: Dimnent Chapel [Public Domain], Giga Khurtsilava on Unsplash, ferdinand feng on Unsplash
Paul, the Gentiles and the Jews
At the end of Acts 21, we encounter a text that is important for reading the rest of Paul’s letters. Paul will spend the rest of his career discussing how the Gentile believers relate to the Jews and the Law that God had given them. Let’s look at a text that shows some of the controversies that were going on and how Paul responds:
The next day Paul and the rest of us went to see James, and all the elders were present. Paul greeted them and reported in detail what God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry.
When they heard this, they praised God. Then they said to Paul, “You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the law. They have been informed that you teach all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn away from Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or live according to our customs. What shall we do? They will certainly hear that you have come, so do what we tell you. There are four men with us who have made a vow. Take these men, join in their purification rites and pay their expenses, so that they can have their heads shaved. Then everyone will know there is no truth in these reports about you, but that you yourself are living in obedience to the Law. As for the Gentile believers, we have written to them our decision that they should abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality.”
(Acts 21:18-25)
First of all, note that thousands of Jews in Jerusalem believed. The Greek word here is related to “myriads,” which often is translated “tens of thousands.” So there was a very large group of Jewish followers in Jerusalem, one of the areas where Jesus had encountered much opposition.
While it’s difficult to guess the number of Jews who believed in Jesus, an estimate of 10% has been considered reasonable, given the response in Jerusalem. This would mean that there was actually a large favorable response among Jews to Jesus, and that they did not entirely reject Jesus as Messiah. Tensions between Jews who believed and those who didn’t became worse and worse over time, and this is reflected in their persecution of the early believers. Later, as more Gentiles entered the church, the church became more hostile toward the wider Jewish world. Soon it encouraged Jewish believers to leave behind their religious beginnings.
The Jews who did become followers of Jesus were “zealous for the law.” This is a positive statement from James, showing that since they became Jesus’ disciples, they were passionate about observing the Law as Jesus did. Jesus lived perfectly according to the law, and he summarized it with two statements — love the Lord with all of your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself. It seems that Jesus’ disciples would have done their best to follow his example. However, they also believed they are under the New Covenant of forgiveness through Jesus’ atoning death. For them, this does not make them less interested in living the way God said he wanted.
Later in the passage, they discuss the fact that even though believing in Jesus has made the Jews more observant of the Torah, the church has decided that it is not necessary for the Gentiles to observe every stricture of the Torah. This has created quite a controversy, and rumors are flying that go beyond the truth. If Paul has told the Gentiles they don’t need to become circumcised Jews, has he been discouraging Jews from observance too? Of course not. He just needs to show the believers in Jerusalem that he has not tried to undermine God’s laws, and still faithfully observes them himself.
This whole text may surprise readers who have believed that Jesus and Paul preached a gospel that negated and disparaged God’s laws. In contrast, they are both careful observers of the Law, and have a positive view of the commandments God gave. Since Jesus summarized the law by saying it taught us how to love God and love other people, how could it be bad? Yet it was not necessary for the Gentiles to observe it as they did.
Israel had been called out as a nation and commanded to be separate from Gentiles on Mt. Sinai. Now, it will be a huge question for them of how God wants Jewish believers to live together with those who are not under his first covenant, but now together with them under the new covenant God made through Christ for the forgiveness of sins. That will be much of what the rest of the New Testament addresses.
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To explore this topic more, see chapter 21, “Requirements for Gentiles” in New Light on the Difficult Words of Jesus, En-Gedi Resource Center, 2006, p. 141-44.
For a more detailed treatment of this discussion, see my three part article, “What it Means to Fulfill the Law.”
Photo: Dimnent Chapel [Public Domain]
We’re pleased to be able to share this difficult-to-find classic by Brad Young. Check it out!
The Jewish Background to the Lord’s Prayer
by Brad H. Young
© 1984, Gospel Research Foundation Inc.
Softcover, 46 pages, $8.99
- Explore the Jewish roots of the Lord’s Prayer
- Learn how the Dead Sea Scrolls, rabbinic literature, Jewish prayers, and worship breathe fresh meaning into the revered words of the Lord’s Prayer
- Understand Jesus’ powerful prayer better in the light of Jewish faith and practice
Dr. Brad H. Young (PhD Hebrew University, under David Flusser) is the founder and president of the Gospel Research Foundation in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He is emeritus professor of Biblical Literature in Judaic-Christian Studies in the Graduate School of Theology at Oral Roberts University. Young has taught advanced language and translation courses as well as the Jewish foundations of early Christianity to graduate students for over thirty years.
Check out what else is available from the En-Gedi Resource Center bookstore too…
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