Fall Feasts

In the third book of the Bible, Vayikra/Leviticus chapter 23, verses 23-44 is a description of three special observances that were to occur each year around September/October. The first is often referred to as “The Feast of Trumpets,” and became known as Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. It begins this year the evening of September 18. Ten days later is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, beginning the evening of September 27. Five days after that is the Festival of Sukkot (Tabernacle or Booths), beginning the evening of October 2.

These three observances are intimately connected in that the first two provide intense preparation for the third. In the midst of the busy fall harvest time, the people of Israel were to stop for a day of reflection to remember God. This was to get the people’s attention so that they would be ready a week and a half later for a full day of humiliation and repentance on Yom Kippur. The restoration provided by that most solemn day enabled the people to engage the over-a-week-long celebrations associated with Sukkot.

We fool ourselves into thinking that we can rush into thanksgiving festivities without taking the previous two weeks to get ready first. We are so busy with so many distractions. Yet God wisely knows that he needs to get our attention first by reminding us of things we so easily forget.

A Time to Remember

The Feast of Trumpets was to be “a memorial” (v. 24) marked by “blowing.” Most translations fill in what it was to be blown, even though the passage nowhere states explicitly what instrument was to be used. Traditionally it is the “shofar” (English: ram’s horn). Also, while the act of blowing was to function as a memorial, we are not told what it was we were to remember. The connection of this day with the other days mentioned above allows for a general reminder of the things of God, but the use of the shofar in particular brings to remembrance some key biblical events and ideas.

The Meaning of the Shofar

I am going to share several passages that reference the shofar and provide some suggestions as to what therefore we should remember when it is blown. In most English translations of the Hebrew Scriptures, the word shofar is translated either as horn or trumpet. Horn, of course, is better, since it clearly shows the difference between the use of a hollowed-out animal horn and a man-made metallic trumpet. In each of the following cases, I have replaced whatever English word was used with the original Hebrew word, shofar.

The Covenant on Mt. Sinai: Redemption and Revelation

On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud shofar blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled. Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain.

Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the LORD had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly. And as the sound of the shofar grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder (Shemot/Exodus 19:16-19).

The blowing of the shofar reminds us of God’s rescue from bondage, his commitment through covenant faithfulness, and the gift of his Word.

The Walls of Jericho: No Obstacles Are Too Great for God

So the people shouted, and the shofars were blown. As soon as the people heard the sound of the shofar, the people shouted a great shout, and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they captured the city (Joshua 6:20).

The falling of the great walls of Jericho following the sounding of the shofar reminds us that when we are in God’s will, doing what he wants us to do, nothing can stand in our way.

God Alone Is King: Let Us Boldly Acclaim His Rulership

God has gone up with a shout, the LORD with the sound of a shofar (Tehillim/Psalms 47:5)

As the shofar blast proclaim God’s rule, so should we, boldly and without fear.

God Is Worthy of Praise

Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth;
    break forth into joyous song and sing praises!
Sing praises to the LORD with the lyre,
    with the lyre and the sound of melody!
With trumpets and the sound of the shofar
    make a joyful noise before the King, the LORD! (Tehillim/Psalms 98:4-6)

The shofar reminds us that God is worth celebrating. We make a big deal over far lesser things. So let us make some joyful noise about God!

The Voice of the Prophet: We Need To Speak Up More

“Cry aloud; do not hold back;
    lift up your voice like a shofar;
declare to my people their transgression
    to the house of Jacob their sins. (Isaiah 58:1)

As the voice of the prophet is clear and distinct, the shofar encourages us to not hold back, but to speak up for God and his ways, clearly and unashamedly.

God’s Alarm: It’s Time To Wake Up

Blow a shofar in Zion;
    sound an alarm on my holy mountain!
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,
    for the day of the LORD is coming; it is near (Joel 2:1)

The shofar was used as a practical device to get people’s attention. In this passage it is as an alarm to warn God’s people of his coming judgement. One of the great Jewish thinkers of all time was Moses Maimonides. He was a rabbi, physician, and philosopher in Morocco and Egypt, who lived between 1135 and 1204 AD. What he said with regard to what people should think of as the shofar is blown goes along with this:

Wake up, wake up, sleepers from your sleep, and awake slumberers from your slumber. Search your deeds, repent, and remember your Creator.

Some of you might catch how these words sound similar to other words written long before Maimonides, from the New Covenant Writings:

“Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and [Messiah] will shine on you.” Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. (Ephesians 5:14-16)

The shofar, God’s alarm clock, is to alert us as to the nature of the times in which we live. It is so easy to allow cynicism and apathy to lull us to sleep. It’s much easier to go along with the flow, submitting to the pressures of the culture, than to pursue the things of God day by day. As I write this, the world remembers the September 11, 2001 tragedy, which many at the time said was a “wake up call.” But how many of those same people hit the alarm and drifted off to sleep again. Since then the world has experienced alarm after alarm. Eventually it will be too late. Which brings us to the next one.

The Last Shofar: The Coming of the Lord

Then the LORD will appear over them,
    and his arrow will go forth like lightning;
the Lord GOD will sound the shofar
    and will march forth in the whirlwinds of the south. (Zechariah 9:14)

The day will come, when God himself will blow the shofar to signal the return of Messiah to call creation to account, and judge the world. No more opportunities to go back to sleep. No more chances. This is reiterated in the New Covenant Writings. Since it was originally written in Greek, we don’t know if it is referencing a trumpet or a horn, but the connection with the shofar is clear:

I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:50-55)

As the final blast marks the great renewal, the beginning of the age to come, when death and all its effects will be no more. For some it will be a time of absolute dread, but for others the greatest moment of their lives. How can we be assured that we will participate in this great event? The shofar the shows way.

Substitution: Life for Life

He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns.  And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place, “The LORD will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided.” (Bereshit/Genesis 22:12-14)

The Hebrew word here is not actually shofar, but a synonym, “keren.” This reference from the first book of the Bible is foundational for everything else the shofar reminds us of. God’s requirement for the offering of Abraham’s son Isaac was fulfilled through the provision of a ram. All through Scripture the sacrificial system, as established by God, reminded the people that an offering of an innocent animal was the necessary substitute for sin. While this is foreign to most of us today, it is God’s way, all the while pointing the people of Israel to the perfect and final offering of the Messiah on our behalf. His life was accepted in place of ours, so that all who trust in him would enter inherit eternal life. It is no coincidence that among all the things that happened to him during his unjust arrest, trial, and execution, when he was mocked by the Roman soldiers, they placed a crown of thorns on his head. Yeshua, like the ram of Abraham’s day, found himself caught in a thicket, and was offered in our place. Like Isaac, we too may go free.

The shofar gives us so much to think about, but we will not be able to fully appreciate all this unless we are in right relationship with God through the Messiah. By accepting Yeshua as God’s provision, everything else becomes clear. The shofar sound not only will reverberate in our ears, but the fullness of its meaning will fill our hearts.

Watch and listen to the shofar now:

All scriptures, English Standard Version (ESV) of the Bible

This past school year marks five years since I became the developer and teacher of the Bible class at St. Timothy’s Classical Academy. Four of these years, I have been given the awesome responsibility of delivering the graduation speech to the eighth-grade class at the year-end gathering. The weight I felt was far greater this year due to the restrictions of COVID-19. I can only imagine the depths of disappointment felt by the grads, the other students, their families, and staff due to closing the year, watching via Zoom. I so wanted to say something that would make a difference.

What follows is the text of my address from Friday, June 19, 2020. It has been slightly edited it to remove some personal references.

I hope this helps you find some direction and stability in this uncertain time.

*      *      *

At the beginning of the year—No! Three months’ ago no one expected that we would be having a virtual end-of-year “gathering.” But so much has happened since mid-March when it was first decided the school would close for a couple of weeks. I remember talking to Dr. Small at that time. Even then she wondered whether or not schools would reopen. It sounded so strange thinking like that back then. The only thing that was certain was uncertainty. No one really knew what was going on or what was going to happen. I am not sure that now, three months later, even with more things opening up, if it’s any clearer.

So I am attempting to say something helpful to you five as you get ready to start a new chapter of your lives, when we don’t know what that chapter is going to look like. Having not had the opportunity to chat with you these past few months, I don’t know where each of you are at with what’s been going on or how you are thinking about your future. Yet, I am pretty sure that you all pictured a very different departure from St. Timothy’s. Perhaps one or more of you are greatly disappointed with how this has all turned out. Dashed expectations, be they big or small, can deeply affect us.

In the Book of Proverbs, chapter thirteen, verse twelve, King Solomon writes: “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” According to Solomon, deferred hope, delayed expectations, in other words, are sufficient to make us heartsick—really sad and discouraged. How much more heart-sick might dashed expectations make us? We all naturally look forward to things. Most often we don’t know we are doing it. We normally orient our lives towards what we anticipate is coming in the near or distant future, whether it be breakfast when we wake up or what a St. Timothy’s graduation is supposed to look like.

Sometimes, we can get our hearts so firmly set on something that, if it doesn’t happen or doesn’t happen in the way we picture, our hearts can break. I don’t know about you, but I have had my share of disappointments in my life. Don’t get me wrong, I have also been richly blessed and have often been wonderfully surprised by God’s goodness (good surprises are a different kind of not experiencing what’s expected, but that’s a different topic).

Yet, I am bit embarrassed to say that despite God’s goodness to me, I find myself at times still feeling the sting of past disappointments. One painful memory I have never been able to fully shake might sound silly to some, while others will completely understand. I was about ten year’s old. The year, 1968. The dinosaurs had recently gone extinct—kidding! Seriously, I had just recently got into hockey—remember hockey? Through a relative I was given tickets, really good seats, to see my very first game at the Montreal forum. However, when I woke up that Saturday morning, I had come down with a cold and my mother wouldn’t let me go. As I said, this all might sound silly to some of you. You may be thinking, “Why would he share something from fifty-two years ago, from his childhood, about a game?” It’s because those childhood experiences, and how we deal with them, can affect us for the of the rest of our lives. I have learned that unless we learn to deal with disappointment well, beginning when we are young, it can ruin our lives.

One of the ways people learn to cope with disappointment, dashed expectations, is by never getting their hopes up. But that’s a symptom of the heart sickness Solomon describes. They go to bed at night expecting the sun will rise the next morning, but with regard to the kind of opportunities and possibilities that fill us with intense longing, it’s easier to pop those bubbles before they get too big, lest they blow up in our faces, because the pain of disappointment is too difficult to bear. Expect nothing and you won’t be disappointed.

Is this the new normal for the COVID-19 generation? I hope not. I don’t believe for a second that this is how we are to deal with the current, or any other, time of uncertainty. While it is good to learn not to have unreasonable expectations, God made us to be his instruments of positive change in the world. That requires hope: a hope that copes well with uncertainty and dashed expectations.

I would like to share some guidance from the Bible that I believe can help us all to not only cope in uncertain times but thrive. I am going to read three verses about Abraham from the New Testament letter to the Hebrews. The letter to the Hebrews is a letter of encouragement to a community of 1^st century Jewish Jesus followers, who were having to deal with their own time of uncertainty. The pressures they were facing were starting to get to them. As a result, they had become afraid of being too public about their faith. The writer of the letter urges them not to give into their fears or to lose touch with the truth and reality of God they had powerfully experienced in Jesus. In this part of the letter, the writer provides somewhat of a biblical faith hall of fame: people of the past, who put their lives on the line for the one true God in spite of whatever was going on around them. Sixteen people are mentioned by name plus many more nameless ones.

Considerable attention is given to Abraham, which is fitting because the Bible regards him as a prime example of what it means to be a person of faith. I am reading Hebrews, chapter eleven, verses eight through ten:

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

Verse eight tells us that Abraham “went out, not knowing where he was going.” Sounds like someone who went on a journey with no plan, no map, no expectations, no disappointments as if he walked aimlessly about as if that’s what it means to be a person of faith, which is exactly how many people, some Christians included, think of faith. Faith to them is blind, shutting our eyes and minds to everything around us in order to somehow connect with God and the spiritual dimension. In a time of uncertainty as the one we are living in right now; such an approach may be appealing. Since we can’t seem to get a handle on what is going on, why try? Disconnect from everything and just believe (whatever that is). Whatever that is isn’t anything close to what Abraham could relate, because that’s not faith as far as he and his experience of God and life were concerned.

But didn’t we read, “he didn’t know where he was going”? That’s true, but it’s not like he didn’t know where he was going. It’s that, he didn’t know where he was going. Actually, it’s all a lot more logical than you might think. You see, according to Genesis 11:31 (often people start the story of Abraham with Genesis chapter 12 even though he is introduced in the previous chapter), we read in Genesis 11:31 that Abraham knew where he was going. It’s there we read he had started on a journey from his hometown of Ur in ancient Mesopotamia/modern Iraq, along with his father, his wife, and his nephew. We are told: “They went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran [that’s about halfway there], they settled there.”

Only after Abraham’s father dies in Haran does he continue the journey with the others. It appears that the journey was originally initiated when God spoke to Abraham while they were back in Ur. God had told him what would happen if he took this journey, including becoming a great nation that would bless the whole world and that this great nation would one day possess the land to which God called him to go, the Land of Canaan. That’s what Abraham knew. What he didn’t know was: everything else. He didn’t know what would happen along the way or that he wouldn’t see what God promised him in in his lifetime.

So, he knew where he was going, but he didn’t know how things were to work out. And even as they did, it was nothing as he would have expected them to. All this occurring in a foreign land. The Bible’s great example of what it means to live by faith was an immigrant called by God to live his senior years in a strange and hostile land, an experience many people understand. He lived with uncertainty upon uncertainty. Yet, he knew two things for sure.

First, he knew the general location of where he was to go. Second, he knew God. And knowing God enabled him to place his expectations, not in his circumstances, but in God and his word to him. As we read: “For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.” That’s to say that he placed his hope not on the temporary successes that the world has to offer, but on the things of God that last forever.

Didn’t Jesus say in Matthew, chapter 6, verses nineteen through twenty-one:

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

The things of this world are temporary. They are by nature uncertain, unreliable. COVID-19 didn’t change anything. It only exposed the truth about the nature of our broken world.  The postponements and cancellations have caused us a lot of grief, but at the same time, they have provided us with a much-needed reality check. What have we set our hearts upon? We were made for greater things than the unreliable, uncertain temporary trinkets the world offers.

St. Timothy’s is a school that has sought to teach you the things that truly last, that really matter, that you can count on. No matter what happens, God’s goodness, God’s truth, and God’s beauty can always be found within his creation. Graduation gatherings and other ceremonies, whether we meet in a building or have to find other ways to connect with one another, the God of Abraham is way bigger than our routines and our expectations. Looking to him, focusing on what he says is important: loving him and loving one another, learning to tell the difference between what is good and what is bad, what is true and what is false, that there really is goodness, truth and beauty in the world he made, will keep us from setting our hearts on what’s uncertain in life and enable us instead to build our lives on what God is building, an everlasting city where no one will experience disappointment ever again.

For more information about St. Timothy’s Classical Academy, click here.

Are you going crazy?

Never before in the history of the world has everyone everywhere been united in the exact same experience: We are all going crazy! Perhaps you have seen the list of twenty-five items that illustrate how our feeling crazy isn’t so crazy. This list is popping up all over the Internet, but as far as I know, the author is unknown.

1. Basically, you can’t leave the house for any reason, but if you have to, then you can.
2. Masks are useless, but maybe you have to wear one, it can save you, it is useless, but maybe it is mandatory as well.
3. Stores are closed, except those that are open.
4. You should not go to hospitals unless you have to go there. Same applies to doctors, you should only go there in case of emergency, provided you are not too sick.
5. This virus is deadly but still not too scary, except that sometimes it actually leads to a global disaster.
6. Gloves won’t help, but they can still help.
7. Everyone needs to stay HOME, but it’s important to GO OUT.
8. There is no shortage of groceries in the supermarket, but there are many things missing when you go there in the evening, but not in the morning. Sometimes.
9. The virus has no effect on children except those it affects.
10. Animals are not affected, but there is still a cat that tested positive in Belgium in February when no one had been tested, plus a few tigers here and there…
11. You will have many symptoms when you are sick, but you can also get sick without symptoms, have symptoms without being sick, or be contagious without having symptoms. Oh, my..
12. In order not to get sick, you have to eat well and exercise, but eat whatever you have on hand and it’s better not to go out, well, but no…
13. It’s better to get some fresh air, but you get looked at very wrong when you get some fresh air, and most importantly, you don’t go to parks or walk. But don’t sit down, except that you can do that now if you are old, but not for too long or if you are pregnant (but not too old).
14. You can’t go to retirement homes, but you have to take care of the elderly and bring food and medication.
15. If you are sick, you can’t go out, but you can go to the pharmacy.
16. You can get restaurant food delivered to the house, which may have been prepared by people who didn’t wear masks or gloves. But you have to have your groceries decontaminated outside for 3 hours. Pizza too?
17. Every disturbing article or disturbing interview starts with ” I don’t want to trigger panic, but…”
18. You can’t see your older mother or grandmother, but you can take a taxi and meet an older taxi driver.
19. You can walk around with a friend but not with your family if they don’t live under the same roof.
20. You are safe if you maintain the appropriate social distance, but you can’t go out with friends or strangers at the safe social distance.
21. The virus remains active on different surfaces for two hours, no, four, no, six, no, we didn’t say hours, maybe days? But it takes a damp environment. Oh no, not necessarily.
22. The virus stays in the air – well no, or yes, maybe, especially in a closed room, in one hour a sick person can infect ten, so if it falls, all our children were already infected at school before it was closed. But remember, if you stay at the recommended social distance, however in certain circumstances you should maintain a greater distance, which, studies show, the virus can travel further, maybe.
23. We count the number of deaths but we don’t know how many people are infected as we have only tested so far those who were “almost dead” to find out if that’s what they will die of…
24. We have no treatment, except that there may be one that apparently is not dangerous unless you take too much (which is the case with all medications).
25. We should stay locked up until the virus disappears, but it will only disappear if we achieve collective immunity, so when it circulates… but we must no longer be locked up for that?”

     *     *     *

One of the ways I have been keeping my bearings is that in my daily Bible reading journal, I make a note that (to me) is like Captain Kirk’s Star Trek log (e.g. Captain’s log. Stardate 4513.3.). I have been counting my COVID-19 days from the first Sunday our church building was closed, March 15. That makes today (April 21, 2020), “C19 Day 38.”

Disoriented

To be fair, calling how I feel “insanity” isn’t truly accurate, though I am happy to leave that judgement to you. What I think I am actually feeling (as you may be too) is disoriented. Not only is the current virus strain novel, so is everything that that goes along with it. It’s no wonder government directives on how to best navigate the situation are contradictory, no one really knows what’s going on, where it’s going, or how long it will last. Are we doing enough or too much? How can we be sure?

You may be bored out of your mind; you may be busier than ever. You may get to the end of the day and feel guilty for not accomplishing anything but can’t think of what it was you should have done. And since we are living with 24/7 connectivity, we can’t stop: Let’s take a break from our Zoom calls, and watch some Netflix…but, first I need to get caught up with my Facebook, Instagram, and Tik Tok. Then perhaps I will do my online fitness class for the first time in two weeks. What? It’s 1 a.m. already! Excuse me while I wash my hands. Why do I have Happy Birthday stuck in my head all day long?

Forgetting the Big Picture

I lost it the other day. Am I the only one? I was so overwhelmed with being busy and seemingly having nothing to show nothing for it, I was dumping on my wife. Then she said something that I really didn’t want to hear at the time. It was something to the effect of losing sight of the big picture.

Hey, I’m the Big Picture guy. Haven’t you been to my seminar? What are you talking about?

But she was right. I had become so focused on the details of life – well, actually not. The details themselves had become fuzzy, out of context. I couldn’t see how anything fit anymore. I was just trying to get stuff – whatever stuff – done, that the stuff itself had become meaningless. And why? I lost sight of the big picture.

We forget how much we depend on the big picture – any big picture – to cope with day-to-day life. From when we get up to when we go to bed, we (usually unconsciously) relate the details of life to our understanding of life itself. Whatever big picture we have, it is what drives us, rewards us, condemns us. It’s our metanarrative (the grand encompassing story that informs every other story of our lives) that provides our standards, values, and goals. It’s what makes us feel good or bad about ourselves.

Whether your metanarrative is right, wrong, or a mixture of the two, the current crisis has likely obscured it if not yet destroyed it. How you have made sense of the world until now, doesn’t make sense any more. Those of us who claim to have a well-delineated worldview may think that we are immune to losing focus. But a crisis, be it a typical personal one or a unique global one, tends to challenge our assumptions and expose both the weaknesses in what it we claim to believe and our ability to believe it.

Perhaps your worldview is that there is no big picture; that life is meaningless and disjointed. You do what you do because it’s what you feel like doing at the time. Goals and routine are nothing more than practical conveniences to suit your personal preferences. If that is the case, then the current crisis is forcing you into a metanarrative. You don’t get to control you own story anymore. You can strive as much as you like to get control of the steering wheel of your life, but other forces are driving you now. Despite your denying the existence of any grand meaning and purpose, you too are disoriented.

God’s metanarrative

Once I had accepted that I had lost perspective, I began to imagine how the current confusion could fit into God’s metanarrative as I understand it from the Bible. It really helped me to remember that:

• We live in a world created good but gone bad due to human rebellion against God.
• Since then, God has been at work to renew his creation and invites his human creatures to join him in that process.
• The Bible alone provides us with God’s revelation of his plans and purposes so that we can live effective, godly lives.
• Godly, effective living must be rooted in reconciliation with God through faith in the Messiah.
• Our troubles, big or small, should not distract us as we rely on God to direct us and sustain us through the process of his plans and purposes.

And there’s always this one:

• It’s not about me.

Clarity restored

Being aware of God’s metanarrative doesn’t automatically resolve our disorientation. It takes a purposeful act of the heart and mind to connect ourselves and our situations to the truth of life from God’s perspective. However, we cannot make that connection unless we have a grasp of God’s perspective, his epic story.

Tragically, even people who read the Bible regularly fail to grasp the big picture of God’s epic story. That is due to either the tendency to read the Bible in disconnected chunks or to view it through one of many skewed filters imposed upon it, or both. You may have heard me describe the big picture of the Bible’s story as: “God’s rescue operation of the creation through Abraham and his descendants.” It is once we grasp this that the details of the Bible begin to become clear and we can discover our place in God’s plan.

No crisis, be it global pandemic or localized disaster, undermines the depth of meaning waiting for us to discover in the Bible rightly understood. It’s not too late to discover or re-discover God’s epic story and our role in it.

New! God’s Epic Story Seminar Online

Given the current crisis, I am offering my “God’s Epic Story” seminar online for the very first time.

God’s Epic Story takes you on a tour of key biblical passages that outline the unfolding of God’s plan in such a way that unveils the Bible’s Big Picture. Over the course of this seminar you will…

• Understand our world from God’s perspective.
• Discover how the centrality of Israel in God’s plan integrates the whole Bible and provides a foundation for all of life.
• See how the coming of Jesus as Israel’s Messiah is the fulfillment of Old Testament expectation and enables us to truly know God and live life the way he intends.
• Realize that the Gospel is much more than an individualistic spiritual experience; it is an invitation to be part of God’s transformational, world-wide mission.

Format: Weekly live one-hour presentation followed by Q&A.

Start Date: Wednesday, May 6, 2020 at 7 p.m. Eastern Time

Duration: 10 weeks

Cost: Free (donations appreciated)

Registration: To register, fill in this form. Further details will be sent to you by email.

Subject to registration minimum.

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One of the most misunderstood concepts in the Bible is what is commonly referred to as “the Law.” Without a truly authentically biblical grasp of the meaning and place of the Law, we will never be able to engage Scripture as God intends. What the Law means, its purpose, and its relevancy if any, in the life of the believer in the present day has been controversial through the centuries. Some believe that the “new” in New Covenant necessitates a complete break with anything that comes before, especially if it has Moses’ name associated with it. On the other extreme, there are those who claim that if it’s anywhere in the Bible, then it must have direct application to us today. Both of these oversimplify the God-designed complexity of Scripture, thus preventing us from fully experiencing it as we should.

When Paul wrote, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17), he had the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) in mind. We know this since the New Covenant Writings (New Testament) were in its earliest stages of development. Paul here asserts that not only is Hebrew Scripture divinely inspired, it has been designed by God as our equipment for effective godly living. Any theological, philosophical, or practical approach that aims at disconnecting us from this section of Holy Scripture, cuts us off from God’s essential communication to us.

The Law as Negative?

But doesn’t Paul refer to the Law in negative terms, dissuading his readers from submitting to it in any way? For example: “Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed” (Galatians 3:23). This and other passages depict the Law as relevant for only a time. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews apparently agrees: “In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away” (Hebrews 8:13). This seems to be in line with Yeshua’s own teaching, whether the six times in the Sermon on the Mount, when he says “You heard it was said, but I say to you” (Matthew 5:21-48), his teaching on the greatest commandment (Matthew 22:35–40, Mark 12:28–34, Luke 10:25-28), or the new commandment (John 13:31-35).

How can Paul assert the usefulness of the Hebrew Scriptures, while at the same time appear to call his readers to distance themselves from it? This apparent contradiction is resolved once we understand the breadth of the Scriptures’ teaching on this matter.

Translation Issues and Word Usage

We will begin by looking at the Hebrew and Greek words normally translated into English as “law.” Then we will discuss the relationship of law to the concept of covenant. While confusing at first, I am sure that the closer we look, the more straightforward this will become. My hope is that you will discover how Hebrew Scripture, including the Law, functions within a New Covenant context.

One of, if not the, reason why this subject is confusing is that the term for “law” in both the Hebrew Scriptures and the Greek New Covenant Writings is used in different ways in different contexts. The term “law” in the English Bible is a translation of the Hebrew word, “torah.” But torah actually means, “direction” or “teaching.” The reason why English Bibles use law is because the earliest Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, called the Septuagint (often referred to as LXX), used the word “nomos,” meaning, as you might guess, law. The Greek word nomos and English word law are not completely wrong. Law is a normal word for rules and directions, whether they be humanly derived or divinely inspired. However, it isn’t the most helpful in that it tends to give the impression of a cold legal code, while God’s torah is far more dynamic and engaging. As it is embedded within the story of Israel, we are meant to understand God’s directives as part of real-life experiences, thus providing the reader, then and now, with more than a list of rules, but rather an extensive understanding of life. This is why it is better to take “torah” to mean more than simply law, but rather God’s instruction.

Just as it is common to refer to a collection of laws as “the Law” so, the word torah, depending on context, may be a reference to a particular directive or the whole collection, the Torah. Another use of Torah as a collective term is how it acts as a title for the first five books of the Bible. That’s because these books are associated with the giving of the Torah (beginning with Genesis as a sort of prologue, followed by Exodus through Deuteronomy).

Because the word “torah” means direction or teaching, not simply legal statements, any correct understanding of God’s directives, in part or as a whole is also torah. So, in the broadest sense of the word, torah refers to all that God has revealed throughout the entire Bible as well as legitimate interpretations. That doesn’t mean every aspect of God’s torah is applicable to every person in every place at every time. We will look at how to approach this broad understanding of torah shortly, but first, we need to note one more key usage of the word that will make all the difference to this discussion.

Torah as Covenant

God’s Torah was given to Israel within a covenantal system at Mt. Sinai. Such a covenant functions as a national constitution, a high-level control system within which the details of life are stipulated. Because the covenant is the system within which torah functions, the covenant is also called Torah.

So far we have seen that Torah can be a particular human rule, good or bad, or it can be a directive of God. It can be used in a collective sense as a way to refer to all of what God instructs, be it the specifics through Moses or the full body of scriptural teaching and interpretations. Torah is a way to refer to the first five books of the Bible. And finally, it is intimately associated with the system or covenant within which God revealed his instruction to Israel.

The New Covenant Writings are aware of all these uses (I provide one example per use here; for a thorough word study, see https://biblehub.com/greek/3551.htm). Like Hebrew, the Greek word nomos can mean laws in general, humanly or divinely derived (Romans 3:27); God’s directives as given by Moses (Matthew 5:18); the books of the Torah (Matthew 7:12); God’s timeless directives (James 2:8); or the Sinai covenant (Galatians 3:23).

Paul’s concern over not being “under the law,” has to do with Torah as covenant. This is similar to regarding it as obsolete in the Book of Hebrews. Both writers are addressing for different reasons that there has been a change of the system governing God’s instruction. Hebrews clarifies this by stating: “For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law (nomos/torah) as well” (Hebrews 7:12). The Levitical priesthood was a core constitutional component of the Sinai Covenant. The change in priesthood from the descendants of Moses’s brother Aaron to the eternal priesthood of the Messiah radically transforms the covenantal system.

For Paul, this covenantal change had enormous implications for his God-given mission to the non-Jewish world. The Sinai Covenant constituted the people of God exclusively as natural Israel. The New Covenant as promised by Jeremiah (see 31:31-33) and instituted by the Messiah allowed for the God of Israel to be fully embraced by the nations without submitting to an Israel-centric system.

Torah and New Covenant

The reconstitution of the people of God under the New Covenant doesn’t dismantle natural Israel as some might think, however. Israel as a distinct nation was eternally established by God through his earlier covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. What’s changed is that the intimacy with God which Sinai sought to bring about but failed due to Israel’s unfaithfulness is now available to all nations through the New Covenant as established by the Messiah.

This helps us to understand what was going on in Acts chapter 15. The controversy over whether or not non-Jewish believers in Yeshua had to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses was a covenantal question. In those early days of the Messianic community, some thought that there was to be absolute continuity with the Sinai Covenant. They didn’t yet understand the full implications of constitutional change. It would be years before the change of priesthood spoken of in Hebrews would be vividly demonstrated by the destruction of the Temple and the end of the Sinai sacrificial system. Still, Paul demonstrated with agreement from Peter, James, and the others, that with the dawning of the Messianic age in Yeshua, the truth of God and his instruction (torah) could be exported to the nations without making non-Jews subject to the old Sinai Covenant.

This meant that Jewish and non-Jewish followers of Yeshua would grapple with God’s inspired written word (the Hebrew Scriptures exclusively in those days) within the New Covenant system. It would necessitate determining what of God’s directives were universal and timeless, which ones, if any, were for Jewish people only, and which ones were rendered obsolete by the change of covenant. The New Covenant Writings help in this regard but provide no easy formula. They help because we see the implications of the teaching of Hebrew Scripture throughout (even though many readers are not aware of this). And yet, there is no clear indication, contrary to what some may think, as to how to classify God’s directives into ancient Israel only vs. relevant to the worldwide New Covenant community. This means each generation and cultural context needs to discern by careful study and the help of the Holy Spirit how the Hebrew Scriptures speak to us today. But that they do, there is no doubt.

Jeremiah captures the essence of torah’s continued relevancy in his prophesy of the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-33). While the New Covenant was not to be like the old one, under the New Covenant, God would cause torah be internalized. Not only would this result in his people having passionate willingness to obey God’s directives, his directives themselves would be understood to the depths of their intent. This is what Yeshua was preparing his followers for when he said, “You heard it was said, but I say to you” mentioned above. He wasn’t contradicting God’s directives as revealed in the Torah. He was contradicting popular thought by providing God’s own perspective on his word. God always intended his word to be followed from deep within our beings. Under the Sinai Covenant this wasn’t possible because sin (that which twists human beings away from God) had not yet been dealt with. It would take Yeshua’s sacrifice and overcoming of death to open the way to a new system within which God would be intimately known and his instruction (torah) to be followed from the heart.

Scriptures taken from the English Standard Version