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In the Name of the Lord
Often in the Bible we encounter phrases like “in the name of the Lord” or “in my name,” being used in puzzling way. The phrase “in the name of” is one of those Hebraic figures of speech that Christians frequently misunderstand. What does it mean?
Remember that in Eastern, oral cultures a person’s name was connected with the person’s identity, authority and status. When God caused a major change in a person’s life, he often changed his or her name, to show a change in their identity in society. Abram becomes Abraham, Sarai becomes Sarah, and Jacob becomes Israel. Likewise, when the Bible speaks of God’s “name,” it often refers to God’s authority, power and identity.
The meaning of the Hebraism “in the Name of”
For the sake of. We see this meaning in Matt. 10:41: “He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward.” A prophets is given a message by God that he is to relay to the world. Some listeners reject him and some accept his message. A very few will encourage and support the prophet because they realize God has sent him — because of his identity as a prophet of God. Jesus was encouraging his disciples by saying that God would provide for them, and even provide for those who support their difficult work. Of course this line doesn’t mean that somehow by saying the prophet’s name, a person will be rewarded. The word “name” refers to the prophet’s identity and authority as a man sent by God.
We also hear this in John 14:13 – 14: “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” When we end a prayer “in the name of Jesus” we are really saying, please listen to my prayer for the sake of Jesus, who died for my sins. Because of his sacrifice, we can come before the Lord with our petitions and God will listen. Or, you could say that we are praying with his authority when we pray in his name.
The reputation of. To speak of someone’s “name” can also refer to his or her reputation, as it is used today. We hear it used this way in the following passages:
But I withdrew My hand and acted for the sake of My name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations in whose sight I had brought them out. (Ezek. 20:22)
You shall not swear falsely by My name, so as to profane the Name of your God; I am the LORD. (Lev. 19:12)
To swear falsely is to break an oath made before God, which shows lack of respect for God, and causes others to scoff at the God who has such followers. When God’s followers act sinfully, they bring shame on reputation of God.
Think of the TV evangelist sex scandals and how they harden non-Christians from believing in Christ. That is what it means to “profane the Lord’s name.” In contrast, “to hallow God’s name” is to cause God to be honored because of your actions. Jews still use the phrase “to sanctify God’s name” as meaning to give your life for your beliefs.
The authority and power of. A name can signify a person’s authority and power as well:
Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have taunted. (1 Samuel 17:45)
David came against Goliath, who mocked God, in God’s authority and power, acting as his representative, and God gave him the victory.
Even today in Hebrew “in the name of” can mean “by the authority of.” As I got off the plane on my last trip to Israel, I heard them say over the speakers “B’shem El Al, shalom,” literally “In the name of El Al, peace (greetings).” meaning, “We represent El Al airlines in greeting you.”
Misunderstanding “the Name of the Lord”
Bible readers sometimes so misinterpret this phrase that they violate biblical intent. People think it means that by literally speaking the name of God, they can use it to cause God to answer prayers or confer salvation.
One Christian movement believes that if the phrase “in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” is not used in baptism, then that person is not actually saved. By leaving out any of the three names, it renders baptism ineffective. Some Jewish Roots ministries place a great amount of stress on pronouncing Jesus’ name a certain way. They feel that saying “Yeshua” or “Yahshua” is critical if we want to have power to answer prayers.
This misunderstanding invokes an ancient belief about names that the Bible refuted. In pagan cultures, the way humans interacted with gods was by manipulating them through magical rituals. Pronouncing secret names was used as a way to coerce the spirits to do one’s bidding. The implicit assumption is that gods were finite and can be forced into doing human bidding. By the power of uttering the correct words, people could cause their will to be done.
Unlike in the rest of the Ancient Near East, we find no instructions in the Torah for using sacred incantations or formulas in the Tabernacle. Just as no engraved image could be used to invoke God’s presence, no incantations could be used to manipulate him.
When we pray, we should always ask ourselves whether we are focusing on the Lord or on our words. If we use the name of God (or Jesus) to conjure him up like a genie, this implies that he is merely a spiritual force who responds to coercion. Instead we should realize that he is a gracious and compassionate God who listens to our sincere prayers, and whose heart is moved to respond because of his great love toward us.
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Photos: Nicole Honeywill on Unsplash, Josh Applegate on Unsplash
Giving God Our Best
I have a friend in Baltimore whose business allows him interact often with the Jewish people there. He said that every year for the festival of Sukkot, people would spend $50 or more for a citron, a lemon-like fruit they used in the observance of the harvest of thanksgiving. Some of them sold for as much as $900!
Irritated, he asked why the prices were so high. They explained that the citrons had to be raised in Israel, and then inspected for absolute perfection, and 95 out of 100 were not good enough. Only flawless ones were allowed to be shipped to America and sold for the festival.
Even more amazing is that the people who were buying them were by no means rich, and some of them were very poor indeed! When he asked one Jewish friend why they spent such so much of their meager income on these things, he said, “How can we worship our God with anything less than the very best?”
What an amazing attitude! Is God so important to us as Christians that we would spend our money and time extravagantly on him? Even if buying things to worship him is not our main goal, do we display this attitude about being consumed by a desire to be like Christ, to spread God’s word, and to honor him with our lives instead?
If you think about it, what else would be appropriate? The King of the Universe who set the galaxies spinning and designed our DNA has stooped down to live with us. He has become one of us and suffered and died for our sins. What else but our very lives is appropriate as a response to that?
In Leviticus and Acts
When the God of the universe decides to live among his people, and every aspect of their lives must change because of it. We see this in Leviticus, as God teaches his people how to honor him in their daily activities and worship. We see it also in Acts, when God comes to live in their hearts, the people are now consumed with a desire to tell the good news to everyone around them.
In Leviticus, the gold and silver of the tabernacle and the many sacrifices cost much of their wealth, and the Sabbath days and years will cost them time that could be spent on growing crops, training armies and building their nation. Could it be that the reason why the early believers in Acts had such amazing passion for serving God was because they were used to thinking in terms of using everything they owned to bring him honor? We also see the same attitude toward revering God’s holiness in Acts as in Leviticus. God explains they should bring only their absolute best to him and live pure lives before him.
We saw twice what happens when humans approach the presence of God without treating his holiness with the reverence it deserves. When Nadab and Abihu, Aaron’s sons, came too close and offered incense in an inappropriate way, they insulted the God who carefully explained how to come near him, and it cost them their lives (Leviticus 10:1-3).
In Acts, when Ananias and Sapphira bring money to Peter and lie about the price of the field, they brought the Lord a sacrifice laced with their own sin! (Acts 5: 1-6) This was amazingly offensive to God, and once again he takes their lives. As God was beginning this new work, it was especially important that his people revered him as God.
Our Inner Attitude
If God teaches us inner attitudes through the external laws that he gave, what is he teaching us from this? That he wants our absolute best, our first fruits of our time and energy, not our leftovers and flawed material. We fool ourselves if we say that God accepts every gift from us, so anything we bring is fine. The widow who brought two pennies gave an acceptable sacrifice because it was all she had, but if a rich man would have thrown in two pennies, it would have been contemptuous and insulting.
It has been extremely rare that God ever shows his holiness and punishes those who abuse it. Rather, God allows us to come to him with halfhearted prayers, sinful self-absorption and hollow promises to do his will, and he patiently works to transform us into people strong enough to live sacrificially for him.
If we really have learned from Leviticus about God’s holiness and glory, and our need to sacrifice our very best for him, it should make us utterly sold out to please him: to spread the gospel, to serve those around us, to do our work well and bring him honor. Then we will be as effective and fruitful as the believers in Acts, who gave everything they owned to him, who were ready to lose their lives for him. That must be our goal.
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Photos: Johann Werfring [CC BY-SA 3.0], Steve Johnson on Unsplash
Leviticus: God’s Way of Teaching
Leviticus is a challenge. To many it is legalistic, filled with bloody sacrifices, and impossible to understand. Some come close to committing the heresy of Marcion, an ancient church leader who said that the God of the Old Testament was evil and created laws just to hold people in bondage. Even though the church denounced Marcion, his attitude has lingered to this day.
If we believe the truth that “the Son is the exact representation of the Father,” we must understand that the same powerful love that characterized Christ is also that of his heavenly Father. The fact that Jesus himself was there helping inspire Leviticus should color our reading of the book!
Taking that attitude, let’s look at some broad principles for how to read the laws of the Torah:
God only teaches what people are able to understand. That means that he spoke in a way that made sense to people 3000 years ago, and he modified his style as people changed over time. In Genesis, God let Jacob marry both Leah and Rachel, and both became mothers of the tribes of Israel. But in Leviticus God gave the law that a man should not marry a woman and her sister, and later the New Testament clarifies the fact that God’s ultimate intention is that one man marries one woman.
God didn’t try to change Jacob and his culture all at once, he did it gradually over many years. This is like a parent who speaks one way to a 4 year old, and another way to a 14 year old. God was patient with his people and knew that humans can only change little by little. (Although we think we can handle all his teaching at once!) If we see what people were thinking at the time, and then what God was teaching them in the language they understood, we can see the purpose and importance of his Torah.
God is teaching inner attitudes by shaping outward action. The word Torah, which we translate to “Law,” has a negative sense to many Christians. But the word in Hebrew actually means instruction or guidance. A teacher is a morah and his/her teaching is torah. It has the sense of pointing, as in aiming an arrow to hit a target. God uses his laws to teach his people who he is, what good and evil is, and how to live life the way it was meant to be lived.
Behind every regulation is a principle of what our hearts should be like inwardly. Parents use that kind of teaching with their children too. Think of the fact that we train our children to say “Please” and “Thank You.” We aren’t just doing that to add another rule to their lives or to conform them to social expectations. As a child learns the habit of “please and thank you,” the attitude of consideration of other’s desires and gifts is also learned.
God teaches great truths about himself to these people by how he shows them to live. For instance, when God tells them to leave the corners of their fields for the poor to harvest, he is teaching them to care for the less fortunate. When he gave them the laws of the Sabbath he was teaching them to trust him to take care of them one day out of the week, they can rest from their own advancement and rest in his care. They also learned compassion for their servants, animals and foreign laborers who unable to rest unless they let them do so. Both of these ideas were radical ideas of that age, in which foreigners were exploited and resting one day out of seven was unheard of.
So what was God teaching them? Of the many things God taught them, the most important was that he is the true God of the Universe, and he is sovereign. The ancient world largely believed in territorial gods that were responsible for the fortune of the peoples who worshiped them. Religious worship was not for the sake of the god, it was to ensure fertility and prosperity of the people.
Idols were set up, and incantations were used to induce the god to enter the idol, and fertility rites used to get the god to cause crops to grow and animals to breed. Behind this is a pagan understanding that gods are able to be manipulated by the power of incantation and magic to obey man’s desire for prosperity. There was also very little thought about the god being moral and decreeing moral laws that we should obey. Their “gods” were to be manipulated into serving man’s needs, but people lived the way they desired.
The true God starts to challenge this in every encounter Israel has with him. He makes a covenant with them that they would obey his laws and not the other way around. He will not be manipulated when they set up the golden calf idol, even though they were trying to invoke his presence through it. He replaces the pagan incantations and fertility rites by giving them detailed instructions on how to make a tabernacle and objects to worship him.
While other cultures had similar forms, a revolutionary change took place: in the middle of the Holy of Holies there was no idol, but rather a chest containing his Covenant as well as evidence of his salvation in the form of manna and Aaron’s budding staff. This amazing concept of an invisible God with moral laws who would save his people was also unimaginable in the ancient world. This was a radical new way of thinking for them.
So as we read Leviticus, the challenge is to find God’s teaching that underlies the ancient laws. Even though we are not under the sacrificial system, and Jesus was the final sacrifice, we can learn from it what God felt was important and apply it to our lives. Because Jesus was the Word of God incarnate, we can tell if we have been learning what God is teaching us if our lives resemble that of Jesus more and more.
Photos: Dimnent chapel [Public domain]
God’s Amazing Replays
In the New Testament, Christians read about the Last Supper, the death and resurrection of Christ, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost and celebrate these foundational events in the life of the church.
I was amazed when I first discovered that each of these events is actually rooted in the Old Testament, and more specifically in the defining events that shaped the nation of Israel. Understanding the relationship of these critical events to the story of ancient Israel is incredibly rich, because it pours new meaning and depth into the New Testament.
The Last Supper and Crucifixion
Jesus’ final meal with his disciples, the Last Supper, occurred at the celebration of the Passover meal (Matt 26:17), which was originally described in Exodus 12. It was a yearly feast to reenact God’s greatest act of redemption in the history of Israel, the freeing of the nation from slavery in Egypt.
This act defined Israel as a nation and showed God’s great compassion for their suffering. Still to this day, Jews who do not know Christ see it as the most obvious time in all of human history that God intervened in human affairs. Isn’t it interesting that God chose this season to intervene a second time in human affairs to save his people? Only this time it isn’t just physical bondage in slavery, but bondage to sin and death itself.
The Seder meal that Jesus ate is still eaten every year by Jewish people celebrating the Passover feast. The ancient Israelites sacrificed a lamb or kid and marked the doors of their houses with its blood, so that the angel of judgment would pass by.
The parallels between Jesus’ blood protecting us from judgment are obvious. The Israelites smeared patches of blood on the top and on either side of the door, then poured the remaining blood in the trench at the foot of the door. Some think they were marking where Jesus’ blood would be — from the nails in his hands and feet, and from the crown of thorns. What a potent image!
Another strong connection between Jesus and the lamb of Passover is Isaiah 53, one of the most powerful passages in the Old Testament about the coming Messiah.
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. … Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand. After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. (Isaiah 53:5-7, 10-11)
When I first encountered this passage long ago, I thought it was from the New Testament. It actually was written over 700 years before Jesus. I was moved to tears when I saw this text on display in the Isaiah scroll found among as Dead Sea Scrolls, which predate Jesus. This means that thousands of years before Christ, God was thinking of the Lamb to come, and then hundreds of years later, God told Isaiah about his plan. Graciously, God even made sure that a copy would be preserved from before Jesus’ birth until the modern day, in order to show us that it was God’s idea, not a later Christian insertion.
The Pentecost – Sinai Experience
In Acts, we also read about Pentecost, where the disciples heard a wind and saw tongues of fire that split apart and then filled them with the Holy Spirit and the ability to speak in other languages. Jews of every nation heard them speaking their own language. Peter then stands up and speaks, and 3,000 are saved that day (Acts 2).
Our traditional reading of that text is that they were in the upper room when this happened. But Pentecost, or Shavuot, is one of the three major festivals which required their attendance, and at nine in the morning, they would have been at the temple with the crowds of Jews from every country who had come to the feast.
The temple is often referred to as “the house,” and still is in Hebrew. So the temple was filled with a sound of a mighty rushing wind, and the vision of tongues resting on them took place in front of thousands of other people. Here in the temple (and not in an upper room) Peter could speak to the multitudes about Jesus.
The feast of Shavuot is a harvest festival that also commemorated the giving of the covenant on Mount Sinai. On that mountain, God came down in fire and gave his ten commandments, and established his covenant with his people (Exodus 19-20). God used that incredibly important experience in Israel’s life to begin his relationship with them, and he replays it here.
The fire that appears that separates into tongues is reminiscent of God’s appearance in fire on the mountain, as is the wind (Ruach) of God’s Spirit. What is fascinating is that ancient Jewish traditions show even more parallels between Sinai and Pentecost. They said that when God came down to Mount Sinai, angels brought “crowns of fire” for every Israelite. When God spoke,
The Divine voice divided itself into the seventy tongues of men, so that all might understand it… All heard indeed the same words, but the same voice, corresponding to the individuality of each, was God’s way of speaking with them. And as the same voice sounded differently to each one, so did the Divine vision appear differently to each.1
Isn’t it amazing that the scene at the temple is a replay of the great scene at Mount Sinai? It fits in perfectly with what God said he would do for his people in the future:
“The time is coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” (Jer. 31:31, 33-34)
On Shavuot of this important year, God poured out his Spirit as part of his new covenant. This Holy Spirit entered the believers’ hearts to guide, convict, correct, give wisdom and enable them to live the way God wanted them to, just as his Torah (Law, or Instruction) did in the first covenant.
All of those who are a part of this new covenant know the Lord, from the least to the greatest. Why? Because the only way to become part of the new covenant is through faith in God through Christ.
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1 Legends of the Jews [213 -215], Louis Ginsberg
An excellent source for more information on this topic is the Faith Lessons Video series and study guide, Set 4, by Ray VanderLaan, published by Zondervaan. He discusses many amazing parallels in these stories.
Photos: Gilabrand at en.wikipedia [CC BY-SA 3.0], Jean II Restout [Public domain]
What is the Kingdom of Heaven?
Jesus spends more of his ministry talking about the kingdom of heaven than anything else. If it was central to Jesus’ message, it certainly should be important to us too! To many, these sayings are confusing and difficult to grasp. Having a knowledge about Jesus’ first century Hebrew culture will greatly clarify his teaching.
Kingdom of Heaven & Kingdom of God
First of all, we read two different phrases in the gospels — “kingdom of heaven” and “kingdom of God.” In Matthew, “kingdom of heaven” is used, while in Mark and Luke, “kingdom of God” is used. This is because in the Jewish culture of Jesus’ day, and even now, people show respect for God by not pronouncing his name. Often another word is substituted, like “heaven,” “the name,” or “the mighty one.”
For example, the prodigal son says to his father, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight.” The son is using the word “heaven” as a reference to God. So, Matthew is preserving the culturally-correct quote “kingdom of heaven” while Mark and Luke are explaining that “heaven” is a reference to God.
The actual words that came out of Jesus’ mouth were probably Malchut shemayim (mahl-KUT shuh-MAH-eem) which was a phrase used in rabbinic teaching in his day. The word malchut is related to the word melekh which means “king.” Malchut is associated with the actions of a king: his reign and authority, and also anyone who is under his authority. Shemayim is Hebrew for “heavens.” A simple way of translating it would be “God’s reign,” or “how God reigns” or “those God reigns over.”
But what does it really mean?
The primary understanding of the kingdom of heaven was God’s reign over the lives of people who enthrone him as king. You might think that God by default is king over everything he created. The biblical assumption, however, is that after the fall and the tower of Babel, the world began to serve other gods. At that point, God stopped being their king. Most of the world did not know God, but the Scriptures promised that one day, “The LORD will be king over all the earth; in that day the LORD will be the only one, and His name the only one” (Zech 14:9).
The question of Jesus’ time was when and how God would establish this kingdom over the world. It was thought that when the Messiah came, the Kingdom of God would arrive all at once with great glory. But Jesus disagrees:
Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20)
Jesus meant that a person is brought into the kingdom of God when the person repents and decides to accept God as his King, and it is something that happens in a person’s heart, not a political movement or visible display of God’s power. He agreed with other rabbis who said that when a person committed himself daily to love God with all of his heart, soul, mind and strength, (by saying the Shema) he had “received upon himself the kingdom of heaven.” In essence, the person had put God on the throne over his life and entered under God’s king-ship.
One of the reasons Jesus preaches about the Kingdom of God is to proclaim the fact that he is the Anointed King (Messiah) and this is his kingdom. The “good news of the kingdom” is that when Jesus, the Son of God arrived on earth, the kingdom had arrived with him. Jesus tells his disciples to go out and heal the sick, and say that the “kingdom of heaven is near,” meaning that it is now arriving on earth, not that it isn’t quite here yet.
The take-home message is that Jesus, the king, has arrived, and he is establishing his kingdom as people repent and follow him. Jesus consistently describes the kingdom in terms of gradual expansion — like a mustard seed or a little bit of yeast that grows and grows. He is describing the community of believers that starts small, and then grows as people from all nations join. This will culminate when every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus is the King!
Note that the primary understanding of the kingdom of heaven is God’s reign over people in this world. Often we interpret it by equating it with heaven itself. This leads us to think that Jesus was always talking about heaven, when he was actually talking about God’s work in people’s lives. It suggests that God cares little about the lives we live now, and that he only cares about getting us into heaven.
Another distortion is to always interpret the kingdom in terms of Christ’s second coming. Certainly when Jesus returns his kingdom will be at its most glorious, and sometimes the gospels do use kingdom to talk about Jesus’ second coming or about his future heavenly kingdom. But much of what Jesus says about his kingdom is about its present reality.
How does this effect how we read Jesus’ sayings?
It is interesting how reading Jesus’ sayings in terms of what God is doing on earth, rather than in terms of heaven, can give new insight on his words. Let’s look at some examples:
Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. (Matt 19:14)
Childlike trust is a model for a believer’s commitment to God. People who are humble, who know they can’t live without God’s care and direction, who approach God as children do their father, are the ones that God really can teach and have a relationship with. Proud people who feel they have everything under control have a very hard time being under God’s king-ship.
For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. (Matt 19:12)
This used to puzzle me — I wondered if Jesus was saying that some have renounced marriage in the hope that they will go to heaven because of it. Rather, he means, some have decided not to marry because of God’s reign over their lives – they believe that it is the God’s will, and they are submitting to his authority.
But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Matt. 6:33)
If you devote yourself to letting God direct your life and doing God’s will, he will take care of your physical needs.
Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. (Matt 6:10)
When we say this in the Lord’s prayer, we often assume that “your kingdom come” means “we are waiting for you to return.” We interpret it as a plea for Christ to come back again quickly. Really, the two phrases “your kingdom come” and “your will be done on earth” are synonymous.
They are saying “May all the peoples of the earth enthrone you as king! May everyone on earth know you and do your will!” Certainly we are joyously awaiting Christ’s return. But this is really a request for God to use us to spread the gospel and establish God’s kingdom on earth!
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To explore this topic more, see chapter 12, “Jesus and the Torah” in Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus, Zondervan, 2009, p. 163-179.
Several references are available for those who want to learn more about the kingdom of heaven in its Jewish context. “The Kingdom of Heaven: God’s Power Among Believers,” by Robert Lindsey, or the teaching series “Our Hebrew Lord,” by Dwight A. Pryor are good places to start.
Photos: Johannes Plenio on Unsplash, Royal Castle [Public domain]
Jesus’ Habit of Hinting
In all that I’ve learned about Jesus through understanding his first century Jewish culture, one of the things that has enriched my study most is learning about Jesus’ habit of hinting to his Scriptures. His words are peppered with quotes and allusions to the Old Testament.
Sometimes his references are obvious, and sometimes only a word or two. But because most of his audiences would have known scripture by memory, when he does allude to it, we can be pretty sure they would have caught it, and that the reference may have been important to his point.
Fifty years ago, many scholars assumed that the audiences in the Galilee to whom Jesus preached was religiously ignorant peasants, perhaps Gentile rather than Jewish. Newer research has revealed that first-century Galilean Jewish villages were very observant. Their residents ate strictly kosher food and often traveled to Jerusalem to observe the feasts. Several well-respected rabbis, whose discussions were on a very high level, came from the Galilee. These teachers traveled from village to village, and many townsfolk would come out to listen to them. As a result, people in that highly religious area were generally quite knowledgeable about scripture.
Jesus participated in these scholarly discussions brilliantly and often pulled together Scripture texts in beautiful ways to make a point. Often we miss this if we don’t have a strong knowledge of the Old Testament. He sometimes quoted just part of a verse and the rest of the passage he was hinting at would have an even stronger message. This was common practice in his day, and is still practiced by Jewish teachers up to the present.
Messianic Hints
Most intriguingly, some of the most powerful statements that Jesus made about his mission as Messiah came through the hints that he made to his Scriptures. For example, we read about a conversation between John the Baptist’s disciples and Jesus in Matt 11:
When John heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent his disciples to ask him, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.” (Matt. 11: 2-6)
On the surface this text is fairly understandable, but underneath there is more going on. In John’s ministry he tells people to repent, because after him would come the one who would bring judgement. He emphasized the fulfillment of prophetic passages like Malachi 3 which say:
“See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the LORD Almighty…Then I will draw near to you for judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers and against those who swear falsely, and against those who oppress the wage earner in his wages, the widow and the orphan, and those who turn aside the alien and do not fear Me,” says the LORD of hosts. (Mal. 3:1-2, 5)
From this passage, many focused on “one who will come,” which they understood as the Messiah who would destroy the wicked and those who oppressed Israel. Sitting in prison, John may have been discouraged and wanting to see Jesus begin to fulfill his role of judge.
Jesus answers John by pointing out the things that he is doing (the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor) that fulfill other passages about the Messiah who is coming:
Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you. Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. (Isaiah 35: 4-6)
And in the very messianic passage about the anointed Messiah,
The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners… (Isaiah 61:1)
By using these passages, he is explaining to John that he is doing exactly what was predicted in the scriptures about the “one who is to come,” and that his ministry is one of healing and forgiveness for those who will listen now, but that judgement would come later. Jesus could be quite sure John knew the reference, and his point would not have been lost on him.
I am the Good Shepherd
Another example of Jesus hinting from his Scriptures is in John 10:11 when he says that he is the good shepherd:
I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep (John 10:11)
We think of the good shepherd as a soft, warm image, and may think of Psalm 23. But Jesus was most likely also thinking of the description of the “good shepherd” in Ezekiel 34 which says:
‘For this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign LORD. I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice. (Ezekiel 34:11-12, 15-16 )
We can hear in this passage Jesus’ parable about the shepherd looking for his lost sheep, and seeking and saving the lost. We can also hear hints of his sayings about judging the flock and separating the sheep from the goats. Earlier in the passage there is also a very strong judgement against the “bad shepherds,” and it is reminiscent of Jesus’ strong condemnation of the corrupt religious leaders of his time:
This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. Therefore, O shepherds, hear the word of the LORD: I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable for my flock. I will remove them from tending the flock so that the shepherds can no longer feed themselves. I will rescue my flock from their mouths, and it will no longer be food for them. (Ezekiel 34:2, 4, 9-10)
After Jesus gets done speaking, once more an uproar starts over what he claims. The people he was speaking to would have recognized his hints to the “good shepherd” of Ezekiel 34, and would have known its rich background and its strong implications. His description of himself as shepherd is much more powerful if you understand the scriptures behind it! They would have known that he was claiming to be the “one who is to come,” the “good shepherd,” the Messiah.
When I first discovered Jesus’ habit of “hinting,” I was surprised by his expectations of his audience, that they knew their Scriptures, our Old Testament. I was convicted too, because I didn’t grow up learning much about it. And relieved, because he was not quoting from some esoteric text lost to us today. The Scriptures that Jesus refers to are already in our hands, we just need to go study them. Many study Bibles today have references in the margins for texts and quotations. I hope that as as you read through the Bible, you will find many new insights as you put Jesus’ words back in the context of the Scriptures he was quoting.
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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 good place to find more articles on Jesus’ habit of “hinting” are the articles found on the Jerusalem Perspective website. “Remember Shiloh” by Joseph Frankovic is a good example of Jesus’ scripture quoting technique.
Photos: James Tissot [Public domain], Joe Pregadio on Unsplash
All in the Family!
I used to continually struggle with some of the things that seem so foreign about the Old Testament. What is the reason for the endless lists of names? Or, why do we have the stories in Genesis about the sons of Jacob destroying the city of Shechem, or Reuben sleeping with his father’s servant girl? My expectation was that it was going to be a book of simple, understandable stories with morals to teach me how to live.
Genesis has a different purpose and a bigger story if you can get into the minds of ancient the Hebrews. What was the theme that they were developing?
It’s all about family, and inheriting God’s blessing.
First of all, we need know what the ancient Hebrews valued. In this culture, family and heritage was absolutely everything in terms of a person’s identity and goal in life. Becoming the father of a great nation would be like being elected president, an enduring legacy of honor – whereas to be childless was to be cursed and forgotten from history.
Usually, the children took on their family’s profession and spiritual life. It was also assumed that children would take on their father’s personality. If your father was wise, you would be wise, if he was warlike, you were warlike. As a result, explaining who was part of each family is very important to understanding society as a whole.
Family history is important in most traditional and non-Western cultures in the world, even today. A Bible translator from the Philippines told me that for many years, they used a New Testament translation which did not include the genealogy of Jesus in the book of Matthew, since the Americans thought it wasn’t important. As an afterthought they decided to include the genealogy of Jesus at the beginning.
When the Filipinos saw this new text they said, “So do you mean that this Jesus actually was a real person?” Without that genealogy, they had assumed for many years that this was a set of fables told about a magical, fictional hero! In many cultures in the world, a family line is essential to have any identity at all.
So, looking at Genesis we see that because Abraham was faithful, in his culture God gave him the greatest of blessings — to raise up a nation of people from him. Abraham would teach his children to follow the Lord, and a nation of believers would result, ideally. For an ancient person hearing this story, this would be a tremendous epic of how God would honor his covenant to this man who believed and obeyed him. Each time descendants are listed it shows that God has been honoring his covenant.
Bearing God’s Blessing
After establishing a lineage, the next most important thing in Eastern cultures would be to understand the inheritance. In each family it was critical to establish an heir, typically the first-born son. He would receive a double portion of the inheritance and become the spiritual leader of the family, and the rest of the family would serve him. Genesis takes great care to explain in each generation who inherits the blessing: of Abraham’s sons, Isaac receives it rather than Ishmael. Of Isaac’s sons, Jacob receives it rather than Esau. It’s God’s choice each time an heir is chosen to carry on Abraham’s blessing.
If you understand this underlying theme of tracing God’s blessing and establishing who would carry it to the next generation, it makes many stories make a lot more sense. A large amount of time is spent on stories of Jacob’s family, to see what happens to Jacob’s twelve sons, because each will be head of one of the twelve tribes of Israel.
Let’s review who they were:
| Reuben | Leah |
| Simeon | Leah |
| Levi | Leah |
| Judah | Leah |
| Issachar | Leah |
| Zebulun | Leah |
| Dinah (daughter) | Leah |
| Joseph | Rachel |
| Benjamin | Rachel |
| Dan | Bilhah |
| Naphtali | Bilhah |
| Gad | Zilpah |
| Asher | Zilpah |
(Note that in addition to Jacob’s two wives, Leah and Rachel, two more women bear children for him. This was because it was acceptable at that time to have a servant girl bear children for a wife, to build up the family of descendants.)
After the children are born, the primary plot of Genesis revolves around who would receive the blessing, and why one son rather than another receives it. Jacob declares the blessings in Genesis 49 when he gives his last will before he dies. The very firstborn of the family is Reuben. Why doesn’t he receive the blessing? Because he dishonored his father by sleeping with Bilhah he is disqualified as the heir (Gen 35:22, Gen. 49:3). Simeon and Levi are next in line, but they are both disqualified because they were the ones who destroyed the city of Shechem (Gen. 34:25, Gen. 49:5-7).
The reason why the Bible includes the ugly stories about Reuben, Levi and Simeon was not to serve as moral examples, but to show how the actions of the patriarchs influenced God’s decisions about who would bear his blessing.
Jacob’s Chosen Heir
What is interesting is that Jacob had his own ideas of who should be the heir. His clear favorite was Joseph, the first born son of the wife that he loved. That is the source of conflict in the family.
In many cultures a special garment would be given to the heir to designate his status, and that is why Jacob gave Joseph the coat. That is also why Joseph’s dreams that his family will bow down to him made his brothers so furious.
When Jacob was old he gave Joseph the inheritance of the first-born, a double portion of the estate. He does this by adopting Joseph’s two sons, Ephraim and Manassah as sons of his own, and giving each an inheritance. They will both be included in the tribes of Israel, and are sometimes called the tribes of Joseph.
God’s Ultimate Decision
With all these twists and turns, you’ll still be surprised to learn which of the tribes does God chooses to carry his ultimate blessing. He uses Joseph to save his family, so in a sense he blesses Joseph. But, believe it or not, the ultimate blessing goes to Judah, the fourth-born son of Leah, the unloved wife, who becomes the instrument of God’s redemptive plan. He is the one who will ultimately give rise to Christ.
An obviously messianic passage says, “The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs, and the obedience of the nations is his” (Gen 49:10). This will be fulfilled at first when David, of the tribe of Judah becomes king, and then when Jesus, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, arrives on earth!
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Photos: BL King’s 395 [Public Domain], Dulwich Picture Gallery [Public domain], Owen Jones [Public domain]
The Good News Starts in Genesis
Christians usually focus on the story of the physical creation when they read the first few chapters of Genesis. We miss the fact that these critical chapters are teaching revolutionary truths, which to us seem so basic we can hardly think in any other terms. Yet until Judaism and Christianity brought them to the world, they were not a part of mankind’s thinking. Not only are they important, they are wonderful news once you think about it!
We need to understand how utterly unique the biblical account is compared to all other creation stories, and what the differences say. Most creation myths from the ancient world revolved around the wars and sexual relationships of human-like gods and goddesses. As they imagined it, various parts of creation (like the sky, the earth or the sea) were formed through the sexual acts of the gods or by one god slaying another and dismembering the body.
Humankind was created to be the slaves the gods, to relieve them of daily drudgery. In the Ancient Near East, gods were assumed to be limited in power and not interested in morality, just how to gain power over the other gods. Humans appeased their anger through magical incantations and religious ceremonies, but they didn’t atone for wrongs done to others. it was fine to be quick-witted, devious and underhanded because the gods simply didn’t care.
The assumption of the Ancient Near East was that the world was arbitrary, unpredictable and cruel. Humans had no guarantee that their lives were meaningful in any way. This dismal, pessimistic worldview pervades the writings of these societies.
In contrast, the Genesis account of creation offers tremendous hope. Here are some of the wonderful things it says:
- One eternal God created everything and is apart from the creation. Because God is all powerful, he sets a universal standard of ethics that applies to all humanity. He is the foundation of all good and he cares about what is good, and is concerned about humanity. What good news compared to the immoral, unconcerned pagan deities!
- Not only does God care about what is good, he created the world very good. His creation (including humanity) is a wonderful thing, and even when marred by sin, it will ultimately redeemed for a great purpose. This should make us optimistic about our existence.
- Man is uniquely precious. He is made from dust like the rest of creation, but he alone receives the breath of life from God himself. We are made in the image of God, and are related to him in a unique way. Because of that, God is our kinsman-redeemer, our protector and savior.
Later in Genesis we read about the Fall and how mankind quickly slips into depravity — first the murder of Abel by his brother Cain, then Lamech who would kill a man for wounding him (Gen 4:23), then the entire wicked generation of the flood (Gen. 6). A little bit of rebellion grows and grows until it permeates the whole human race. Salvation will come later through Christ, but the hope for the world ultimately begins back in Genesis, as we see the character of the God who created us and look forward to what he will do to redeem us.
_______________________________________________________________________
For more on this topic, read Understanding Genesis: The World of the Bible in the Light of History by Nahum Sarna.
Photos: Michelangelo Buonarroti [Public domain], Lucas Cranach the Elder [Public domain]
Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus
by Lois Tverberg
© Baker Publishing, 2018, Paperback, 288 pages
List Price: $16.99 US
Price: $12.99
The Bible is an Eastern book. We see it through the colored glasses of Western culture. Much is lost. What lies between the lines, what is felt and not spoken, is of deepest significance.
(From “The Cross and the Prodigal,” by Kenneth Bailey)
One of the biggest obstacles to understanding Scripture is failing to appreciate its Jewish, Middle Eastern context. Combining careful research with engaging prose, Lois Tverberg equips her readers with tools to transport themselves across the cultural divide between West and East, between our world and that of the Bible.
Tverberg highlights cultural ideas that are lost on modern Westerners, allowing us to read the Bible through the eyes of its original audience. She explores how Jesus preached and made bold claims to be the promised Messiah in a very Jewish way. By helping readers grasp the perspective of Jesus’ first listeners, she equips them to read the Bible in ways that will deepen their understanding and enrich their lives.
The book explores questions like:
• What cultural differences get in the way for us in the modern, Western world?
• How does a lack of grasp of Jesus’ Jewishness cause us to misunderstand his words?
• How can we read the Bible more Hebraically?
• What tools do we need to read the Bible more as a native?
View/download the press release.
Read an interview about the book on BibleGateway
Reading The Bible with Rabbi Jesus
Table of contents: (with excerpts at OurRabbiJesus.com)
1. Opening the Bible with Jesus
I. Repacking My Mental Bags
Tools for the Journey
2. Learning to Be There
3. What does “Christ” Mean, Anyway?
4. Painting in Hebrew
II. How the Bible Thinks
Big Picture Ideas That You Need to Understand
5. Greek Brain, Hebrew Brain
6. Why Jesus Needs Those Boring Begats
7. Reading the Bible as a “We”
8. Like Grasshoppers in Our Own Eyes
III. Reading About the Messiah
Seeing Him Through Hebrew Eyes
9. Memory Is Critical
10. Moses and the Prophets Have Spoken
11. Reading in the Third Dimension
12. Jesus’ Bold Messianic Claims
13. When the Words Catch Fire
Appendices:
A. Books of the Tanakh
B. Thirty Useful Hebrew Words for Bible Study
C. Bible Translations for Word Study
~~~~
“In her delightful style, Lois Tverberg engagingly leads us across cultures to begin to envision a different worldview, a worldview more consistent with the world of most of Scripture. In so doing, she brings alive texts of Scripture from the inside.”
— Craig S. Keener, Professor of Biblical Studies, Asbury Theological Seminary; Coauthor, NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible
(Read more reviews at the link.)
Download a sample chapter (pdf)
Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus is available for ($16.99) $12.99.
($16.99) – $12.99
Faith in Doubtful Times – Learning from the Fall Festivals
Lois Tverberg
(Editors note: This article was written and published in September of 2001, following the tragic events of 9/11.)
In the past couple weeks, I have been reminded of an image from one of the traditions of Sukkot, the feast of tabernacles, that will be celebrated next week. God tells his people to build booths and live in them for seven days, in order to remember how he brought them out of Egypt and kept them safe in the booths they lived in. This was to remind them of how God took care of them so that their feet did not swell and their clothes did not wear out. To this day, Jewish people have observed the tradition of building a sukkah.
In order for people to get the sense of dependency they had while wandering in the wilderness, they established regulations for the booths. The booths should be made out of impermanent materials, cannot be entirely enclosed on all four sides, and at least one star should be visible through the branches used to cover the roof.
It is also traditional to fill the booth with harvest images — such as fruit and vegetables from the garden, to remind one’s self of the abundance of God’s blessings during that year. They are supposed to live in them, or at least eat their meals in it as if it was their home.
As you sit in one of these rickety little booths and see the sky through the branches and feel the wind blow through the walls, you have a strong sense of your own insecurity and lack of protection from the elements.
That is exactly the point: that our security doesn’t come from the strength of the walls that we build around ourselves, it comes from our protection by the Lord. Ironically, at the same time a person feels insecure, there is also a feeling of being overwhelmed with the abundant blessings of the harvest he has given. It is a potent experience of what following God is like — feeling radical insecurity but blessed at the same time. That is what I’ve felt like lately.
The tragic national events of the last couple weeks have made my house feel like a sukkah. My sturdy brick house suddenly seemed as if I could see the stars through the roof and feel the wind through the walls.
When the Twin Towers fell it seemed like the security of living in the United States fell with it. It seems only a matter of time until more tragedy occurs. On top of that, the economy that is worsening is making life difficult or even desperate for many businesses and people who have lost their jobs.
It is hard in a situation like this not to feel abandoned or unloved by God. Indeed, our spiritual ancestors, the Israelites, cursed God in their booths and accused him of bringing them out of Egypt in order to destroy them. They longed for cucumbers and melons and forgot the slavery altogether.
Questions about God’s character frequently arise — is God really good? Does he really have our best interests in mind? Why does God let adversity plague us? How can we really be sure that God is loving and not dispassionate and cruel?
The Lord spoke to me about this about a year ago when I had been asking these same questions. For several days it rained without stopping and my basement flooded, and kept filling with water for weeks. One day I told a new friend of mine, Mary, who told me to mention it to her husband Bruce, a man I hardly knew. I expected that he would give me the number of a plumber. Instead he said “It looks like you need to have a sump pump put in — I’d like to help you with that.”
It turned out to be the world’s most horrendous project. He and his brother-in-law worked on it for weeks at great time and expense to themselves. Every time I came downstairs I was speechless at Bruce’s generosity and good will. I had never met a person of such character who would sacrifice so much of himself to help another he hardly knew. During this time we started talking about working together, and out of it began the ministry of the En-Gedi Resource Center.
I know Bruce didn’t realize the Lord was speaking to me through his actions. God was saying behind it, “Can’t you see my character, Lois? Bruce is a good man, willing to sacrifice a lot to help another he hardly knows. Kal v’homer — How much more did I sacrifice for you when I suffered for you?”
What hit me is that the truest test of a person’s selfless goodwill and love for another is what he is willing to sacrifice of himself for the other. Because of that, the suffering of Christ has once and for all exonerated God from accusation of being evil. God could make us happy and wealthy, but it wouldn’t say nearly much about his love and good intentions toward us as when he himself suffered for us.
I think of Romans 5:8, which says “But God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Along with that, when he “tabernacled” among us, he felt the same insecurity that we feel.
Another thing I realized is that if Jesus and his Father are one, the sacrificial love of Jesus must be an exact reflection of the love of his Father in heaven. I’m not sure all Christians are convinced of this, because of their suspicion of God as he has revealed himself in our Old Testament. I hear things like “I think the story of the sacrifice of Isaac shows that God is a child abuser!”
If we are convinced that Jesus and his Father are one, how can we level that charge? Would we call Jesus a child abuser? Jesus himself says in John 5:19 “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of himself, unless it is something he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.” Seeing God through the lens of Jesus must make us know that every possible charge of evil against him must be false even in the most difficult stories. We need to re-read difficult scriptures in the light of Christ.
With this thought, I see an irony in another Jewish tradition that comes at this time of year, called Simchat (“sim-KHAHT”) Torah, meaning “Rejoicing with the Torah.” Right after the feast of Sukkot is over, the the Torah scrolls are rewound back to the beginning and the next year’s reading cycle begins at Genesis 1:1 again.
This is an occasion of much rejoicing, and the object of their joy is the fact that God gave them his word, the Torah. They literally dance around the synagogue with the Torah scrolls praising God for the Scriptures. Why is it that they are so radically convinced of God’s goodness even in the passages that Christians find most difficult?
I think this is partly because they have understood the biblical culture better than Western Christians who find them so foreign. As I’ve studied the Torah, I’ve found the loving kindness of God in the books I have avoided, and this has deepened my understanding of the faithfulness of my Father in heaven.
Both the lesson of the Sukkah, God’s protection in the desert, and Simchat Torah, rejoicing in his Word, help answer the insecurity I feel at this time of worry and adversity.
I’m convinced, beyond a shadow of a doubt, of the goodness of God, even when it is hidden in difficult times or terrible events or even hard texts. His protection in the desert, his giving of his Word, and his very own sacrifice for us finally answer that question once and for all.
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Photos: RonAlmog [CC BY 2.0], Gady Munz Pikiwiki Israel [CC BY 2.5]
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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