Hindsight

Thanks to Pastor Steve Stahl for challenging us on Sunday not to complicate Jesus message but to simply, “follow” him wherever He leads!

It’s fascinating to me that Matthew presents Jesus as having amazing authority.  There is a constant emphasis in Matthew’s gospel of Jesus supreme power and authority over his created world.  He has supreme authority over:

·      Paralysis and suffering, 8:6

·      Illness, 9:22

·      Blindness, 9:30

·      Disease, 8:3

·      Storms, 8:23

·      Temple worship, 12:3

·      Sin, 9:2

·      Demonic power, 8:31, 15:28

·      Nature, 21:18

·      History 26:64

·      Ultimate destiny of people, 7:21

·      His own destiny, 16:21, 20:17

·      Space, time and the future, 18:19, 28:20

Yet in Matthew 9:9-13 Jesus tells us we’ve been created in the image of God and possess free will and therefore have to choose whether or not we’ll follow him. 

In his book “Renovation of the Heart,” Dallas Willard says he’s afraid of losing his connection to Christ.  He’s not afraid of losing his salvation IN Christ, but losing his connection TO Christ.  Why?  Because every day we get up we have free will to choose how we’ll use that day. 

I have to choose to connect with Christ every single day of my life.

I have to choose to remember Christ every single day of my life.

I have to choose to speak with Christ every single day of my life.

I have to choose to read about Christ every single day of my life.

I have to choose to be aware of Christ every single day of my life.

We’re all followers, the question is, “Who are we following?”  We can follow our parents philosophies, our teachers examples, our siblings attitudes, our favorite celebrities mannerisms or music artists song lyrics, our neighbors actions, our own core beliefs about human nature.  Or, we can follow Jesus and incorporate His words into our lives.

Love your neighbor as yourself!

Turn the other cheek!

If you are asked to go a mile, go two!

Following Christ is simple and very challenging all at the same time.  Thanks a lot Pastor Steve! This week may turn out to be a real turning point in my life.

God bless,

Pastor Ed  

03-19-2012

Hindsight

Last week I wrote my blog about the acrostic complexity of Psalm 119.  In my mind it was a simple riddle easily solved so that 25 people would end up with a free coffee at the GateWay café!  Nobody got it.  The answer to the riddle is that my blog was written as an acrostic!  The first letter of the highlighted sentences spells COMPLEX. (How did Xanthic not give this away?) So if you spent a lot of mental energy on the riddle, I apologize for being so obtuse, go to the Café and get a free coffee on me.  Just say, “I’d like a xanthic coffee please.” 

This week I’d like to discuss the Gospel of Matthew.  On Sunday the message was about Matthew 25, the story of the King separating the sheep from the goats.  It was not a baa’aa’aa’aaad sermon:( 

Someone asked me about the idea of “echo” that I referred to in the sermon when I mentioned that verse 34, “…you who are blessed by my father…” was an “echo” back to the “Blessed are…” statements of the Beatitudes of Matthew 5. 

All ideas and words in New Testament Scripture have antecedents and predecessors in the Old Testament.  Remember, those were the only scriptures they had then. When we talked about Jesus statement 2 weeks ago, “I am the vine you are the branches…” you have to go back to the Old Testament to see what Isaiah 5, and any other Old Testament material, says about vines and branches.  Jesus is teaching in the geographical context of Israel, in the literary context of the Old Testament, in the political context of the Roman Empire and in the religious context of Rabbinic Judaism of 1^st Century Israel.  If we want a clear picture of what Jesus is saying we have to make an enormous attempt at understanding the context.

Furthermore, an idea or word has a context within the particular book in which it’s used.  In this case it’s the idea of being “blessed” by God and how Matthew develops that idea .  He only uses that word 14 times and 9 of those usages are in the Beatitudes.  There is a little cluster of that word “blessed” in Matthew 5:3-12. It’s an interesting word because it doesn’t mean, “please bless me God!”  It’s an announcement of a title that a person has because of the matching condition of their life.

 “Blessed” are the “poor in spirit,”                                                                                                       for their’s "is" the Kingdom of Heaven. 

These are not statements of, “If you do X you will receive Y.”  The second line is not a reward for the first line.  It’s to be understood as a King bestowing a title on a subject.  It’s like Jesus is saying to these people, “I bequeath to you the title, Earl of Nottingham.”  Because you now possess the title Earl you also possess Nottingham.  But, because it’s the 1^st century Israel, “I bequeath to you the title Blessed of God’s Kingdom, and because you possess the spiritual quality of understanding your need of a King, you also are a possessor and owner of My Kingdom!”

If we were to move that idea into 21^st century American educational culture Jesus would have said, “I confer upon you the title Doctor because you possess the knowledge and ability to care for all subjects in My Kingdom.”  Because Matthew has now set the stage for what it means to be a “Blessed” person he can bring his Gospel back full circle and use a major idea from Jesus first paragraph (Matthew 5:3-12) of his first sermon (Matthew 5-7) to complete his biography of Jesus life in the last paragraph (Matthew 25:31-46) of his last sermon (Matthew 23-25.)                                                                  

He finishes where he starts.                                                                                                

He echos in the final sermon, where he started, in the initial sermon. 

Hindsight

Compressed into one message that was focused on the 6 memory verses of our “40 Days in the Word” series, I noticed three of those memory verses came from Psalm 119. This chapter is a witness to the complex supernatural origination of the Word of God.  Let me give you some information concerning it:

Only Psalm 119 is composed of 176 verses and therefore is the longest chapter in the Bible.  We don’t think of that as very significant.  You have to put yourself back in the time of David when paper was extremely expensive and copying was laborious. So you had to have a really important reason to write something that long.  The theme of this Psalm is the value and vital importance of the Word of God.  The longest chapter of the Bible has the most important theme of the Bible written in thankfulness to God! 

Many have noted that Psalm 119 is an acrostic poem that follows all 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet.  So, the first Hebrew letter of the first Hebrew word in all of the first 8 verses (119:1-8) of Psalm 119 is an Aleph.  Then in Psalm 119:9-16 the first letter in all of the first words in each line is Beth and so forth all the way through the entire Psalm!  22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, 8 verses each equals 176 verses. It is a very complicated Psalm!

People might say, “That doesn’t sound that complicated?!”  You need to remember Psalm 119 is written totally in poetry.  It took great skill to write Hebrew poetry.  The goal was not the rhythming of words like Americans attempt in little poems like Mary had a little lamb.  Hebrew writers felt the most important skill in writing poetry was “syllable” usage and economy.  Hebrew poetry is a lot like Japanese Haiku.  The Hebrews used every literary device in their arsenal to create poems that were 8 syllables per line or 16 syllables per verse. In analyzing Psalm 119 there are 355 lines (2 lines per verse) and 2,861 syllables, their division yields an average of 8.05 syllables per line or 16.10 per verse!!! 

Lame students of the Bible say, “That still doesn’t sound that complicated?!”  So, let’s add in the fact that the writer used 10 different words for the Word of God through these 176 verses: precept, decree, law, word, statute, utterance and saying, path, way, ordinance.  Two of these words, in Hebrew, have 1 syllable, two have 2 syllables and the other six have 3 syllables. The poet took these 10 words, used each one between 19 and 25 times, and interspersed them 203 times with such a masterful touch that children would memorize and sing Psalm 119. 

Even some continue to say, “That just doesn’t sound that complicated?!” So the author, to make sure the reader understood his devotion, used the name for God 22 times, exactly the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet. 

Xanthic coloring in this article stands out if your still saying, “That doesn’t sound that complicated?!”  REALLY?!!! Even when Psalm 119 has been called the greatest poem of the Near Eastern World! (Come see me on Sunday morning and I’ll give a GateWay coffee coupon on to the first 25 who catch it!)

3-5-2012

HINDSIGHT

I want to explain further what I talked about yesterday in terms of finding the point of a story in the middle of the story. I told you Jewish people, in the Old Testament and through the first century AD, told stories in a bell shaped curve. 

The first thing you have to do is be OBSERVANT, sounds like one of the 4 steps of Bible Study doesn’t it?  The reason you have to be observant is that you have to look for word repetition.

Let’s take the sermon Jesus gave in John 14-16.  Notice that I’ve arranged the material in a pyramid to try and demonstrate the bell shaped curve.

                                                15:8 glorify Father

                                        bear fruit & prove discipleship

                        abiding in Jesus 15:1-7            loving like Jesus 15:9-17

                   Jesus known 14:22-31                              Jesus unknown 15:18-16:4

            Jesus promises H.S. 14:15-21                        Jesus promises H.S. 16:5-16

      Jesus goes to Father 14:2-14                                         Jesus goes to Father 16:17-32

Believe and don’t be troubled 14:1                                              Even tho troubled, peace 16:33

What does this tell me about my Bible?

#1.  It was carefully constructed by God through the supervision of the human authors so that what they wrote was the Word of God.  The Apostles and authors were obedient servants of the Lord when it came to recording His message for His people.

#2.  It takes time to understand the Bible!  As you read these three chapters again and again you’ll start to see more connections.  This IS NOT a secret formula but a normal way of writing and speaking for Jewish people throughout the Old Testament era and into the early church.

#3.  God and Jesus Christ are ALWAYS the center of the conversation!  Jesus great concern through this whole passage is that He would glorify God with every atom and DNA particle of His being.  How He represented God and honored his name was the primary concern of his life.  He saw the very mission for which He was sent as including suffering, pain, discomfort and what some would call tragedy 

#4.  Abiding in Christ can help me with my perspective when trauma comes.  I won’t and don’t get all the answers for “why?”  But the connection with God to wade through trauma is available in abundance and is promised to be delivered by His Spirit.