Israel

Did Jesus Use Parables to Hide His Meaning?

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

“The sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell beside the road, and it was trampled under foot and the birds of the air ate it up. “Other seed fell on rocky soil, and as soon as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. “Other seed fell among the thorns; and the thorns grew up with it and choked it out. “Other seed fell into the good soil, and grew up, and produced a crop a hundred times as great.”

As He said these things, He would call out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” His disciples began questioning Him as to what this parable meant. And He said, “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is in parables, so that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand. “Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. ” – Luke 8:4-10

Sometimes parables make us scratch our heads, and it can seem that Jesus was using them to deliberately confuse people. But even though they seem strange to us, they were a traditional teaching method that was always used to clarify rather than obscure.

Sower and SoilLooking at this passage in more depth, Jesus is actually explaining why his parables make sense to some people and not to others. Here he tells the parable of the sower – that the same seed that grows well in good soil does not take root on the path, and produces little in rocky or thorny ground. The seed is always good, but the soil of human hearts may or may not be. The reason people don’t understand Jesus’ teachings is not because he is hiding anything. The lack of understanding is a problem with the hearer, not the speaker.

The difficulty is beyond just the ability to understand, but to receive his teaching in order to obey it. In Hebrew, the word for hear, “shema,” also means to “obey.” In fact, almost every time the word “obey” is found in English, it has been translated from “shema.” That is how one can hear, but not “hear.”

Another way he says this is by his quotation from the Old Testament. He is quoting Isaiah 6:9-10, when God commissions Isaiah as a prophet to Israel. God did not send Isaiah to confuse the people with obscure teachings, but to clearly proclaim God’s word to them. But God says to Isaiah at his commission almost sarcastically,

Render the hearts of this people insensitive, their ears dull, and their eyes dim, otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and return and be healed. – Isaiah 6:10

Really, God is not telling Isaiah to confuse the people, but to proclaim the truth, even though God knows his teaching will be rejected by many. Jesus is saying the same thing – that like the prophets he speaks to clarify God’s word, but from hardness of heart, many will not hear or obey him.

Photo: Sts. Konstantine and Helen Orthodox Church, Cluj, Romania.

Meeting God on the Way

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it.” Genesis 28:16

Meeting God on the WayAn interesting pattern emerges as we read the stories of Isaac and Jacob carefully. Both of these men had encounters with God, and interestingly, the encounters usually happened when they were traveling into or out of the Promised Land.

Isaac never actually left the land, but when a famine came, he headed for Egypt to find food. On his way there, arriving at the southern boundary of Canaan, he had a vision from God. The Lord told Isaac not to leave the land and that he would prosper there. Since God had promised to give this land to Abraham’s descendants, it was symbolic of that promise that his son never left the land and lived his entire life there.

Isaac’s son Jacob, however, did need to leave the land to go and find a wife from among his relatives back in Haran. His first encounter with God came as he was traveling out of Canaan, when he had a vision of a stairway to heaven. God said to him, “Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you” (Genesis 28:15). His next encounter was as he was going to cross the Jabbok river on his way back into the land (Genesis 32:24). There he wrestled with God, and God gave him a new name, Israel.

The last encounter occurred when his sons brought him down to Egypt to live with his long lost son, Joseph, who was in a position to provide for their family during the famine. When Jacob got to the southern border of Canaan, he had a vision in which God said to him,

I am God, the God of your father; do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you a great nation there. I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also surely bring you up again; and Joseph will close your eyes. (Genesis 46:3-4)

All these encounters show us that God had claimed the land of Canaan as the particular place where he would dwell with his people. The early patriarchs entered it and left it only with his permission and at his direction. Interestingly, the scenario is repeated when the Israelites were about to enter the Promised Land upon their return from Egypt. An angel of the Lord with a drawn sword in his hand stopped Joshua and told him to remove his sandals for the place where he was standing was holy. (Joshua 5:13-15). Once again God had made his presence known as he lead his people into this, his special land.

Photo: Yair Haklai

Following God’s Blessing

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

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.
– Genesis 49:10

I used to struggle with why we have the stories we do 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 the Bible was a book of simple moral stories to teach me how to live.

Sons of Israel

Actually, the Bible has a completely different purpose. It is actually an epic tale about God choosing a family to become his holy nation, through whom he would send one to redeem the whole world. The goal of the stories is to trace God’s blessing throughout the generations, and understand who is chosen to carry it on to the next generation. Of Abraham’s sons, Isaac received it rather than Ishmael. Of Isaac’s sons, Jacob received it rather than Esau. It was God’s choice each time, and it was usually the less likely person that he chose.

Many stories are told about the twelve sons of Jacob, because each would become head of one of the twelve tribes of Israel. Interestingly, once again God made an unlikely choice. The very firstborn of the family was Reuben, but he was disqualified because he dishonored his father by sleeping with Bilhah (Gen 35:22, Gen. 49:3). Simeon and Levi are next in line, but they were both disqualified because they destroyed the city of Shechem (Gen. 34:25, Gen. 49:5-7). That is probably why that ugly story is included.

Jacob had his own idea of who should be heir, and he chose Joseph, the first born son of the wife that he loved. That was the source of jealousy and conflict in the family. It was why Jacob gave Joseph the special coat, and why Joseph’s dreams that his family would 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 did this by adopting Joseph’s two sons, Ephraim and Manassah as sons of his own, so that they would become two of the tribes of Israel.

Looking ahead into the future, it’s interesting to see which tribe God ultimately chose to carry on the greatest blessing. He used Joseph to save his family, so he blessed him in one sense. But actually, the ultimate blessing went to Judah, the fourth-born son of Leah, the unloved wife, who became the instrument of God’s redemptive plan. He was the one who would ultimately give rise to Christ. Jacob proclaimed it in an obviously messianic passage, “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.” (Genesis 49:10) This was fulfilled when Jesus, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, arrived on earth!

Photo: Herrad von Landsberg

An Unlikely Choice

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

Then God appeared to Jacob again when he came from Paddan-aram, and He blessed him. God said to him, “Your name is Jacob;You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name.” Thus He called him Israel. God also said to him,”I am God Almighty; be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come forth from you. – Genesis 35:9-11

Throughout the stories of the patriarchs of Israel, we see a recurring theme – that God is utterly sovereign over the choice of each ancestor of Israel. Sarah became pregnant in a semi-miraculous way when she was well beyond childbearing, after many doubts and attempts to help God through human means. Only after God came to visit with the announcement did it happen. And, it was only after Abraham was circumcised, a physical reminder and covenantal sign to show that the children that he fathered were the fulfillment of God’s promise of descendants.

Isaac and JacobThis theme of God’s sovereign choice recurs in the lives of Isaac and Rebekah, when Rebekah also struggles to bear children. Only through prayer was she able to conceive, showing God’s hand in the process. And then God declared that the younger son, Jacob, would be the one He had chosen. If the twins were born only a little differently, Jacob would have been the firstborn and would have been the obvious heir according to the established tradition. Much of the story of Jacob’s life, of his bartering for the birthright and stealing of his father’s blessing would not have been needed. But these stories underline the fact that he was not, by human standards, supposed to be the heir. He wasn’t strong and warrior-like like his brother Esau, the hunter. He wasn’t his father’s choice, which in that society would have made the decision certain. He wasn’t even especially moral, which we see from his scheming ways to get ahead.

God’s grace is certainly at its greatest in the choice of Jacob. But we see later that over Jacob’s life he grows into being a man of faith, when he has grown old and seen God’s sovereign hand over his life. And through him he fathers the twelve tribes of Israel, through which the whole world would be blessed. That should give us great encouragement, that God chooses each one of us, many of us against all the odds and not showing any worthiness. But once he has chosen us, his plans are far beyond anything we could ever imagine.

Photocred: http://collections.lacma.org/node/201263

What Have You Done?

Bruce Okkema
Cain and Abel

by Bruce Okkema

“What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground.” Genesis 4:10

Often more can be said with a question than can with an answer, because the answer can be implied in the question. This is why it is such a highly effective method for instruction. A person can not easily avoid being drawn into the discussion without revealing their own adequacy and position. Here, in the opening chapters of Genesis we have some very powerful questions being posed by the Lord Himself.

Cain and AbelThen the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.” And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate. Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” Genesis 3:9-13

We cannot hide from God thinking that he will not know. He will hold us accountable for our actions and he will be right there confronting the sinful. We are not told that Adam, or Eve, or Cain confess their sins and they are driven from God’s presence. Note also that even though Eve had committed the first sin, God addressed Adam first. He had given Adam the commandment not to eat of the tree (Gen. 2:16), and held him responsible for both of their actions.

There is a repeat of this kind of behavior in the story of King Saul (I Samuel 13). His kingdom is torn from him after he offered the sacrifice himself rather than waiting for the prophet Samuel. When he arrived, Samuel said,

“What have you done? … You have acted foolishly; you have not kept the commandment of the LORD your God, which he commanded you, for the LORD would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not endure. The LORD has sought out for Himself a man after His own heart, and the LORD has appointed him as ruler over His people, because you have not kept what the LORD commanded you.”

From these stories and all the other lessons of scripture, we must realize that God means what he says, and will not overlook what we do.

“Adam, where are you?”
“Eve, what have you done?”
“Cain, where is your brother Abel? What have you done?”

From the very beginning, you can hear these questions echoing throughout all of history. Think about the question, “What have you done?” Hopefully, you will have a positive answer.

Wind and Water

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. – Genesis 1:2

There is 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 God’s first acts of creation is the separation of water from water. This picture is a theme that recurs over and over in the scriptures, every time God starts something new.

There is a little of a poetic motif there, because 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, so when God parts the waters by a great wind it is a picture of God in the act of creating.

wind and waterWhere do we see this? First we see it in Genesis 1:1 of course, but only a few chapters later, after the flood destroyed all of life on earth, we read in Genesis 8:1-3 that God caused a wind (ruach) to pass over the earth, and restrained the waters of the deep (Tehom), and the flood waters receded, giving the world a new, clean beginning.

We next see this 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. Later, as they pass through the river Jordan, once again God was parting the waters, and in a sense, re-creating them as his people and cleansing them of their sin in the desert. After their entrance into the land they took on the covenant again, just like they did at Sinai, and made a clean beginning as God’s people.

There is one more place significant scene in the Bible when we see this imagery of God at the waters – at 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.

Photocred: Jacques Joseph Tissot

reading the bible

If you’d like to learn more about how Hebraic imagery is woven throughout the Scriptures, see pp. 210-212 in ch.11, “Reading in the Third Dimension” in Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus.

Living Water

Ed Visser

by Rev. Ed Visser

En Gedi WaterfallMy people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water. – Jeremiah 2:13

“Drink lots of water,” we were told. “Sip it constantly, 3 – 5 liters a day.” It didn’t take long to discover why. Israel is a desert culture; nothing is more precious than water. Maybe that’s why Bible authors often use water imagery — even for God!

Early on our trip, we sat by one of the sources of the Jordan River at Dan. Here there are 17 spots where the water comes out from Mount Hermon in springs, joining together to form a rapidly flowing river. The Jordan flows south into the Sea of Galilee, then it continues south until it empties into the Dead Sea.

In Jeremiah’s prophecy, God uses the spring as an image for himself. And for good reason. A spring produces water year-round, while all other water supplies are temporary or seasonal. Throughout the desert one can see hundreds of wadis, large and small, which flow with water Qumran broken mikvehduring the rainy season, but are dry riverbeds the rest of the year. To keep a steady water supply when not near a spring, people constructed cisterns from rock, plastering the insides. But these held tepid, often polluted water, when they were in good repair. …

Cisterns were useless, of course, when cracked from heat or usage. Springs, on the other hand, produced “living water” — water directly from the hand of God. Regardless of the season or location, the spring brought life in a “dry and weary land.”

Similarly, God is “living water” for our lives, much more like the spring at Dan, the headwaters of the Jordan, than the end of the Jordan, the Dead Sea. The water at Dan was fresh, cool and clean; we even drank from them. But drinking any quantity of the Dead Sea waters would cause rapid illness and even death.

God is also a constant spring, not a seasonal wadi. Yet his people have not only left him, the living water, but they’ve also forsaken him to build their own cisterns. Spiritually they’ve carved out a reservoir which they can control. Sometimes we develop a “cistern relationship” with God. We try to get along without Him, do it our own way, until we get dry and need refilling. Even a short time in the land will convince you how ludicrous it is to forsake “living water” — life itself!

The Land Between

Ed Visser

by Rev. Ed Visser

The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. – Genesis 12:1

“Israel was sandwiched between the superpowers to the north and south, and very often they were lunch.” That cleverly-phrased statement by Wink Thompson, one of our teacher-guides in Israel this summer, sums up a crucial truth about the land and history of Israel. The land in which God placed his people was, and still is, a land between.

LandBetween

Israel is a land betwen the Mediterranean Sea to the west and the Arabian Desert to the east. Both proved difficult for travel. Early ships were not made to survive the raging sea, and people were not made to bear the intense heat and dryness of the forbidding desert. Israel, then, served as a narrow land bridge between these areas.

But a land bridge for whom? Most of the dominant nations grew up around rivers. Around the Tigris and Euphrates to the north, Assyria, Babylon and Persia became powers. To the south, the Nile River became the source of life for Egyptians. North and south needed each other’s products to survive. So Israel became the land bridge for trade between the main nations of the world.

Kings soon realized that if you control world trade, you could rule the world. And to do that, you had to rule Israel. For most of its history, Israel has been a land under occupation. Today, for one of the few times in history, Israel is actually an independent nation. Yet Israel remains a land between. In the northern Golan region, we traveled right near the Syrian border (watch out for mine fields from the 1967 war!). At Dan we could look into Lebanon. From Masada the hills of Jordan were very clear across the Dead Sea. To the south, Egypt looms large.

So why did God lead Abraham and Moses to this land? Two divine reasons stand out:

  • The land between tests your faith and reliance on God.
  • The land between gives you an opportunity to influence the world by your faith as they pass by.

God still places us in a land between as we confront our culture and its influences. And he gives us the challenge of complete reliance on him, as we seek to witness to our culture about the true God who rules the world.

Idolatry of Dan

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

Jeroboam thought to himself, “The kingdom will now likely revert to the house of David. If these people go up to offer sacrifices at the temple of the LORD in Jerusalem, they will again give their allegiance to their lord, Rehoboam king of Judah. After seeking advice, the king made two golden calves. He said to the people, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.” One he set up in Bethel, and the other in Dan. And this thing became a sin; the people went even as far as Dan to worship the one there.  – 1 Kings 12:26-30

When we went to the northern area of Israel, we visited Dan, a large city where much archaeology has been done. It is amazing that one thing that has been uncovered is an altar and Temple that were probably used for idol worship for thousands of years.

Dan High Place

Throughout the biblical story, the city of Dan has been prone to idolatry. When the Danites first moved into the area, they coerced a idolatrous priest to set up his graven images there as their gods (Judges 18:30). Later, Jereboam built a shrine with two golden calves to persuade the people to worship there, rather than in Jerusalem (1 Kings 12:26-30). Later Ahab and Jezebel were there, who established Baal worship in much of the northern tribes.

To our modern ears, 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, so idolatry seems pointless. In the ancient Middle East, however, people believed that many small, territorial gods existed that controlled prosperity and fertility of the people, but did not make moral demands on them – only that they be worshipped to grant their favor. These small gods were not all powerful – they actually were subject to spiritual forces beyond themselves, so that a person could manipulate them by sorcery and incantations. A person who became prosperous through devious means was admired for his or her cleverness in coercing the gods to do his will.

In contrast, the real God, YHWH, rejected all sorcery and insisted on moral conduct, and that he is God over all. The Danites (and all of Israel, at first) were used to manipulating their gods to get their favors, rather than asking God what he wanted. The golden calves at Dan and in the Exodus were not idols to other gods, but God objected to them because the people were treating him, the Lord of the universe, like a small, territorial god that they could manipulate. The Danites ignored that he had set up his own house of worship in Jerusalem, and given instruction on how worship should be done. By setting up another altar and using idols, they were defying his express orders to do their own thing.

We can look at ourselves in this picture and ask ourselves if we treat God like the Lord of the universe, or use our prayers to get him to do our will. Do we ask what he wants done and then go do it? Do we hold our conduct up to what his word says? Or do we have our own agenda and use our prayers to ask God to get things done for us?

Altars of Sacrifice

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

You shall eat in the presence of the LORD your God, at the place where He chooses to establish His name, the tithe of your grain, your new wine, your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and your flock, so that you may learn to revere the LORD your God always…You may spend the money for whatever your heart desires: for oxen, or sheep, or wine, or strong drink, or whatever your heart desires; and there you shall eat in the presence of the LORD your God and rejoice, you and your household. -Deuteronomy 14:23, 26

This summer we visited the temple of Arad in southern Israel, which was built exactly according to the specifications of Solomon’s temple except on a smaller scale. The one feature that is full-sized is the sacrificial altar, which is made out of stones not cut by human hands, as is commanded in Deuteronomy 27:6. The stones still have a slight red tint where blood was poured on them. It is fascinating to think that this temple may have been used in worshipping the God of Israel.

Arad Altar

One question that we as modern Christians have is why ancient peoples used sacrifice in worship. It has been a traditional practice for millennia, so when God gave Israel regulations about it, he was not introducing a new idea to them. In fact, animals were not eaten unless the blood was offered to a god by pouring on an altar or on the ground, so in essence, any time meat was eaten, a sacrifice was made (Deut. 12:15).

Sacrificing an animal from one’s flock was a concrete way to show loyalty or love to God. In ancient times when food was less abundant than it is now, people had a continual concern about having enough food to feed their families. To give an entire animal to God was an expensive gift, reducing what the people had for their own basic needs. It was also an acknowledgement that God was the source of the animal in the first place.

We tend to assume that sacrifices were all for atonement for personal sin, but that is not really true. Often they atoned for ceremonial impurity that comes from necessary events in life, like having a baby, or touching a dead body, etc. This type of “uncleanliness” was not equated with sin, but yet it had to be removed to enter the presence of a holy God. The point of all worship was to come near to God. By feeling close to God, the worshipper knew they could bring their needs to an attentive God.

One of the ways that an ancient person came near to the presence of God was through a fellowship offering, in which the family ate some meat of the animal after it was sacrificed, as if God had invited them to eat at his table and was sharing his dinner with them. An essential aspect of the worship was the eating of the food, not just the death of the animal. The Passover sacrifice was of this type, and the Lord’s supper, by being based on the Passover meal, is of this type too. The next time we take communion, we can think back to the long history of coming into God’s presence through sacrifice, and through Christ’s sacrifice, we can too.