Reason Me This

When I was a young girl, I had a few favorite TV shows that my Mother allowed me to watch after school. For some reason, Mom understood that I needed to let my brain relax and stop thinking for an hour so I could later do a little homework before bed. Mindless TV is a go-to choice for me. My routine was to arrive home after school, have a snack, watch two or three of my favorite afterschool TV shows, play outside with the neighborhood kids for an hour or two, have dinner, do homework, then bed. My favorite shows… Gilligan’s Island, Batman, The Green Hornet, Kimba the White Lion, Speed Racer and Lost in Space. In Batman, the villain called the Riddler always spoke in riddles and you had to reason the riddle to anticipate what the Riddler was doing. He would say to Batman, “Riddle me this, Batman,” then state the riddle. I loved to figure out what the Riddler was doing alongside Batman while sitting in the den enjoying a Drake's Ring Ding. It’s funny how things impress upon you like “riddle me this” did to me.

Another impressionable thing my Mom did was to answer homework questions like a rabbi. When you ask a rabbi a question, typically he won’t outright answer you and instead leads you in a reasoning discussion so through that process, you actually learn the answer yourself. When you learn something directly as opposed to simply hearing the answer, you understand it better, can recall and apply the learned lesson in your life. The answer means something to you now because you went through the learning process of reasoning. So, when I would ask my Mom how to spell a word, I was greeted with, “Well, how do you think it’s spelled?” I would have to guess and sound the word out phonetically working through the process to spell the word answering my own question. That process was probably the best learning process for me as one of my weaknesses is spelling. Needless to say, I did the same “rabbinical” teaching style with my kids.

As a result of some of these formative events, I enjoy reasoning. I enjoy looking at things and determining issues, opportunities, alternative plans, reasons for doing. Why is this happening? How is this happening? What’s really going on here? Where are the road signs and contextual indicators charting the course? What makes this tick? Where is the solution? Are there one, two or more solutions or courses of action?  This is how I try to approach Scripture when reading so as not to simply gloss over the text thinking the meaning is evident or drawing incorrect conclusions thereby attributing wrong interpretations to God’s character.

When reading Scripture, we forget that Jesus was also considered a rabbi with authority to interpret Scripture. He would not only want us to grasp what He is saying but also to have that lesson impact us at our core reflection to be the catalyst to impressionable and actionable change.  Being a rabbi, Jesus answered questions in a rabbinical style through parables or posing the question back to the inquiring person(s) asking the person to reason the answer. “Show me a coin. Who’s image is on the coin?” “Who do you think I am?” “Suppose one of you has… Do you not…?” When asked a simple question, Jesus many times would answer with a lengthy parable (or riddle) where in that parable, He poses several scenarios laced with contextual details that should have caused the questioning person to reason for the point. In that reasoning process, not only would the person come to the answer but he would also have to reflect on the intent of his own heart and thoughts as they relate to God and God’s truths. The reasoning process should reveal truths about who God is and who you really are. You can almost hear Jesus saying, “Reason me this, Pharisees. Reason me this, Disciples. Reason me this, Rose.”

If we simply read Scripture superficially and not engage with Jesus in His invitation to reason, critically think, chew on His Word and digest it, we are missing the greatest part of learning from Him and one of the most exciting parts of being in relationship with Jesus. After all, Jesus is called “the Bread of Life” and said that “Man does not live on bread alone but on every Word that comes from the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4) Jesus is also spiritual water for those who thirst after God. “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.” (John 7:37) So we are to chew on His Word. Feed our spirits and souls on His teachings. Drink down His teachings. Nourish and refresh our spirits and souls so we can be well nourished on God’s truth, grow strong in our faith in God understanding the lessons so that we can apply them to our lives, living out our faith as a testimony to God thereby glorifying Him and leading other. We are to be in active relationship with Jesus. 

“Reason me this, Rose.” 

While reading the parables in Luke, I came to chapter 16 where Jesus tells the parable of “the shrewd manager.” I have to admit, this parable gnaws at me. It’s one of those parables that seem out of place with God’s character. “Why is this in the Bible,” I find myself asking? And, “Why is Jesus telling this parable to the Pharisees?” It seems understandable but, then again it seems contrary to God’s character thereby being one of those sections of Scripture that seems conflicting with the Bible. I reread it over a couple of days asking God to explain it to me knowing there had to be more to it than what met my eyes. “What are you trying to teach us, Jesus? Tell me what this parable means? Why is the dishonest manager commended and called shrewd? And why are we to act shrewdly with fellow believers? And what about the rich man? Is there something with him, too? Help me understand, please.” Once again, Jesus did help me reason the meaning.

“Reason me this, Rose,” and the reasoning began.
 
I started with what was in front of me: the rich man and his manager who was accused of wasting the rich man’s possessions. The rich man and his manager. The one man was rich and the employer. The rich man’s employee was his manager and he has been accused of wasting his employer’s property. (Reason me this.) First, I noticed that the manager was accused of wasting his employer’s property. Not caught in the act. Not possessing evidence of misusing the property or possessing property. And what was the property, anyway? Food? Money? Land? Animals? Homes and furnishings? People? Then I thought, why would the manager feel comfortable misusing his employer’s property? Was he unsupervised? Was the employer overly trusting? And later Jesus calls this manager “dishonest” (Luke 16:8) so it becomes more reasonable to conclude that this man was worthy of being accused. But, I kept thinking about why the manager felt comfortable misusing his employer’s property and, if he was, he was now confident enough to do the actions visibly. People have now witnessed the actions and brought word to the employer’s attention. Perhaps now the manager was becoming brazen in his dishonest practices. A person only becomes brazen in his actions if he, 1) is confident the actions are acceptable and won’t be called into question, 2) is unsupervised enough that he believes he won’t be discovered or 3) thinks he’s in an untouchable position. So, either the rich man (the employer) was overly trusting, absent or he set a tone that the behavior was acceptable.

Ah ha! The rich man… hey, what about this guy do we know? I went back to the beginning of Luke 16 to see clues about the rich man – the employer. Seeing the parable appeared to be a continuation of the conversation from the previous chapter – Luke 15 – I went to the beginning of Luke 15 to read for context. Sure enough, it appears that Luke 15 and 16 are one conversation; actually, it appears that Luke 14 through 16 are one conversation where Jesus is dining at a prominent Pharisee’s home and taking advantage of the audience there to have teachable moments where Jesus is posed questions and He answers them in parables – riddles – causing the guests at the dinner to reason and reflect. In Chapter 14, there may be a break where Jesus leaves the home of the Pharisee, meets up with His crowd of followers (groupies) and continues teaching in parables but, even if that is the case, it doesn’t change the meaning of or reason for the parable teachings.

The first series of parables begins with Jesus healing a man with dropsy on the Sabbath at this dinner. Have you ever noticed that at these dinner parties Jesus attended, there seemed to be people from the neighborhood who don’t appear to be invited guests to recline at the table but, party crashers there to see Jesus? These “uninvited” dinner guests seem to be allowed to crash the dinner party in order to see how Jesus would react to them, in front of the Jewish leadership so then the Jewish leadership could pin Jesus into a theological corner to question Him. In this case of theological sparing, it’s the presence of a man with dropsy – a man needing healing – at a dinner party, at the house of Pharisee, on a Sabbath. Can you see the set-up? Jesus knows what’s happening, heals the man, then begins to pepper the Pharisees and the rest of the dinner guests and party crashers with parables explaining truths of God while also revealing the intent of the hearts of each person in that room. Each person. Not just the Pharisees but, Luke 15 reveals that sinners and tax collectors have crashed this party and Luke 16 reveals that Rabbi Jesus’s student followers are at the party too. This is a big dinner party!

If we assume that Luke 14 through 16 are one event, then at that dinner party are Pharisees – part of the ruling body of the Jewish religious nation – Jesus, His disciples (maybe more than 12 of them as the 12 were the Apostles), most likely “the help” associated with the host Pharisee, the “party crashers” including the man with dropsy (Luke 14:2) and tax collectors and sinners (Luke 15:1). If Rabbi Jesus is addressing the entire audience with His series of “riddles”, then in each parable will be a character that will represent the heart attitudes of each person in the room. In the case of Luke 16, the rich man and his shrewd manager each have a role in the parable and, the heart intentions of both characters will speak to every person in the room.

So, we must also look at the rich man to see why he is in this parable and what does the rich man say about us. Which brings me back to the tension between the rich man (employer) and the shrewd manager (employee) and the question of why the manager felt confident in wasting his employer’s property? In order to consider the rich man’s position in this parable, we need to read what the shrewd manager did after being confronted by his rich employer. The manager calls all of his employer’s debtors – those the rich man did business with who owe him money – and asks each debtor what each owes his employer. After learning what each debtor owes, the manager takes a percentage off each bill thereby reducing the debt each man owed to the rich man. Then the strangest interchange happens. The rich employer commends the accused employee – the dishonest manager – for his actions calling the employee shrewd. The actions by the employee just placed him in a position that, if the rich man were to fire him from his job, one the grateful debtors may consider hiring him. We also do not see the rich man following through and firing the now shrewd manager. To add to the puzzle, Jesus now calls the shrewd manager dishonest but tells the hearers of this parable to act shrewdly like this manager when dealing with fellow believers. Huh?! Oh my… time to digest and think.

“Reason me this, Rose.”

Perhaps we should consider that the rich man, just because Jesus suggests that this man has been wronged by his employee, became wealthy by some dishonest ways as well. Perhaps his business practices allowed him to make additional wealth and, if his manager was aware of any alleged dishonest practices, then the manager had a reason to believe his dishonest management practices would be acceptable to his employer or at least overlooked. Mulling over this, within the parable, what clues show that the rich employer may have also been dishonest?

As we reason, keep in mind that the Bible doesn’t condemn wealth. Many people featured in the Bible were wealthy and accepted by God such as Abraham (Gen 13:2), Lot (13:5) David, Solomon (1 Kings 3:13), Job (Job 1:10), Nebuchadnezzar, the woman in Proverbs 31, Joseph of Arimathea (Matt 27:57), and Lydia (Acts 16:14) to name a handful. However, throughout the Bible we see that people wrongly believed that wealth was given to a person because God deemed that person as righteous (or in right standing with Him) and, the reverse, poverty was an indication that the person was not righteous or worse cursed by God. Similarly, good health was seen as proof that the person was considered righteous by God and illness was a sign of being a sinner thereby cursed by God with poor health such as being lame or a leper or blind, etc. If there wasn’t a well-known reason for a specific person to be suffering from poverty or illness or another affliction, then it was assumed that someone in that afflicted person’s family had sinned and the punishment for the sin was being administered to several generations as a result (John 9:2).

However, Jesus spent much time correcting this thought process showing that it is the thoughts and intentions of man and the actions that come from those thoughts and intentions (beliefs, thoughts, will, desires) that deem a person to be a sinner or accepted by God. Wealth and money were to be stewarded well and used to help people. Trust was to be placed in God and His abilities and not placed in wealthy people or the money itself (Luke 12:20). Remember God Himself is actually the creator of all things that we call wealth. Following the creation act, God calls all things He created good. God has heavenly storehouses and treasuries filled with His created good things. He also created civilization, community and the economy. He is the ultimate wealthy being. And yet, when God came to earth to dwell with us in human form – Jesus – and to teach us His truths, God came as a homeless, severely destitute person. Jesus arrived into this world poor and left this world poor. From all indications in Scripture, Jesus never amassed any wealth during His 33 years as a human on this planet. So, if God lived both extremes, then He deems neither existence over the other as an indication of righteousness or cursed.

In the case of this parable, being the rich employer doesn’t mean he was good at heart and had amassed his wealth by being righteous thereby blessed by God. And, if everyone at the time Jesus was teaching this parable wrongly thought that being rich meant you were righteous according to God, and if Jesus was teaching God’s truths through these two parable characters correcting misperceptions, and if some of the Jewish religious leaders (Pharisees) were in the audience, then perhaps the rich man’s appearance in the parable has more to do with the position of the rich man rather than the dishonest/shrewd manager.

Back to the clues: When the rich man calls the dishonest manager shrewd, it’s because the dishonest manager reduced the debt of each debtor by what appears to be an arbitrary amount. So, if the manager was being accused of wasting his employer’s property, why would the rich man appear to commend his manager for reducing the debt of the people who owed the rich man money? Furthermore, why would Jesus tell His disciples to act shrewdly with fellow believers like non-believers act with one another? Yes, it’s getting sticky… unless… unless the manager corrected something that his rich employer was doing dishonestly too! Then that would explain why the rich man commended his employee rather than fire him and have him thrown into jail for confirmed stealing.

Perhaps the amount reduced by the manager to each debtor was a percentage amount. Perhaps it was an interest on top of the debt. If that was in fact the case, then the rich man was violating the Law by charging interest on top of the debt owed. Deuteronomy 23:19-20 says: “Do not charge your brother interest whether on money or food or anything else that may earn interest. You may charge a foreigner interest, but not a brother Israelite, so that the Lord your God may bless you in everything you put your hand to in the land you are entering to possess.”

This harkens back to the truths of God. God doesn’t hate wealth. It is to be used to assist people. And when you assist people with your wealth you can do one of several things. You can just give expecting nothing in return. Maybe you trust that one day, when you need the assistance, someone will do the same for you. Or you can lend someone out of your wealth and allow the person to reimburse you the amount borrowed. Sometimes there may be a good reason to do this. The last option is to lend expecting reimbursement in full plus an additional interest amount to compensate you for the loss of your investment. In the Law such as Deuteronomy 23:19-20, God tells us how to minimally act in acceptable ways. In this scenario, He says not to charge interest to fellow Israelites when lending. What we do with that Law and how it guides our intentions and actions, determines if we seek after the heart of God or not. If we give out of our wealth to assist someone and expect nothing in return, we leave the door of trust open for God to bless us knowing that, when we are in need, He will provide in some way.

In the case of the rich man’s debtors, what did each debtor owe? Gallons of olive oil and bushels of wheat – food items. More than that, these items are also items that are required sacrificial gifts for temple worship. Olive oil was used for food, medicinal reasons as well as for temple worship activities from the lampstand in the Holy area of the temple, to mixing with fine flour for offertory cakes, to pouring onto offerings. Wheat ground into fine flour was used in many of the gifts given at the temple during the required worship times. Plus, if you were ‘very poor’ (a status below just poor) and could not afford a dove or pigeon for a sin offering gift – which was a substitute gift for the poor who couldn’t afford a lamb, goat or young bull – the very poor were allowed to give fine wheat flour for a sin offering gift. Now the rich man’s potential offense has increased significantly.

Perhaps this rich man was at minimal charging interest on top of food items to fellow Israelites. Worse, perhaps he was charging interest on top of food items to fellow Israelites who were also using the food items in their worship activities. Even worse, for the man that owed a thousand bushels of wheat, perhaps he was very poor and was being charged interest on top of what he owed and some of the wheat was being used as a sin offering as well as food. This man would have been in a situation of perpetual indebtedness to the rich man which would have been a form of slavery.

I think we can safely eliminate that the man owing the wheat may not have been “very poor” because the manager was hoping his debt-reducing actions would lead to future employment should he lose his job as the rich man’s manager. I think we can safely deduce that the rich man was simply charging illegal interest to fellow Israelites on top of what was owed.

That debt-reducing action now revealed to the debtors and others within the rich man’s household, who perhaps knew the manager was being accused of misusing property, that the rich man was also being dishonest. Once this rich man’s dishonesty was made known publicly, the rich man could not fire or imprison the manager for any dishonest actions he did without self-accusing. And that is a shrewd action. That is why the rich man called his dishonest manager shrewd. The manager indirectly and professionally exposed the dishonesty of the rich man doing it in such a way that it placed the rich man in a position to correct his behavior too.

This is why I think the manager felt comfortable abusing his authority by using the rich man’s property in a way that was above customary.  If his employer was breaking the Law in such a fashion, then the employer certainly wouldn’t mind if the manager used an animal for his personal needs or ate food from the storehouse designated for the rich man or did something else. The manager felt safe with his dishonesty because his employer was also doing illegal things.

This showed that the wealth gained by the rich man was not a blessing given by God because the rich man was “righteous in God’s eyes”. This showed that the rich man was abusing his wealth at the detriment of his fellow Israelites. And THAT would have stuck in the throats of the Pharisees because they loved money (Luke 16:14) and reasoned that their wealth, no matter how they acquired it, was seen as an indication of being in right standing with God.  Now here is Jesus (God in human form) telling them that they are not in good standing with God. Worse yet, Jesus just told everyone at the party that all fellow brothers and sisters in the faith should expose the wrong doings of other fellow believers when they act like the dishonest manager and the illegal rich man. Ouch!

The Pharisees were wrestling with the taught beliefs of their faith. They wrongly assumed they were in good standing with God because the enjoyed a lifestyle bought with wealth and when this man Jesus showed up doing the things that only the promised Messiah could do, the Pharisees expected Jesus to positively recognize and confirm them for being righteous. And Jesus does the exact opposite. Jesus is saying through this parable to the Pharisees and anyone who thinks like they do that, having an easy life or wealth isn’t an indication that you are in right standing with God. Having blessings from God doesn’t mean He justified the actions that you did in defiance of His standards. In fact, God gives us blessings to, 1) steward it for Him in the ways He called us to steward and, 2) as a test so that through the test we will see where our thoughts and intentions are thus where we stand with God and not deem ourselves deserving or self-righteous. (Matthew 25: 14-30)

Yet this parable isn’t solely about the rich man and Jesus isn’t condemning wealth. The shrewd manager didn’t get off easy, in Jesus’ eyes. Jesus calls the manager dishonest (Luke 16:8) so, what the manager was being accused of seems appropriate. The manager was trusted to act honestly on behalf of his employer – the rich man – and he did not. He took advantage of his employer’s trust so therefor, the manager may have been shrewd but not trustworthy. The manager was most likely part of the illegal practice as he probably issued the interest on top of the debt owed by the borrowers to his employer. After all, how did the manager know what amount to reduce each each when he was looking to protect himself? And what would the manager have been like if he were both shrewd and honest and trustworthy?

This parable is not an either-or conclusion. This parable points to a comprehensive understanding of God and man in relationship with God. Jesus didn’t come to abolish the Law – all 600+ standards of God – but to fulfill them and teach us the correct interpretation. In doing so, He also didn’t say that following the Law directly is the way to be considered righteous by God because God desires that we show mercy and compassion in addition to rules and regulations. Mercy and compassions should guide the actions resulting in following God’s standards.

When Jesus gave His sermon on the mount towards the beginning of His earthly ministry (we call it the Beatitudes), He corrected many teachings showing that it’s our hearts and minds – our intentions and thoughts – that indicate our right standing or lack thereof. People in the crowds following Him, who most likely had been excluded from the Jewish faith for breaking its Law, thought Jesus was telling the religious leaders that God wanted 100% mercy and compassion over the Law. Then Jesus says (in Matthew 5:17-20) that He didn’t come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it saying the standards of God outlined in the Law will not disappear until everything God is accomplishing is completed. Jesus was speaking out about being hypocritical. Don’t hold others to standards that you yourself cannot meet. Don’t incorrectly teach God’s truths to justify your actions. Don’t say you’re one kind of person then act like another acting against the standards of the primary person you claim to be.

Looking at the characters in this parable in this manner helped me better understand Jesus’s concluding points in Luke 16: 8 through13. From what I gather, Jesus is saying that we fellow believers are not to allow other fellow believers to take advantage of a situation, misrepresenting God’s truths for personal gain. We are to use what God has blessed us with to benefit others for the eternal sake of others. By doing this you are “storing up treasures in heaven” as opposed to storing up treasures here on earth that will be threatened by theft and calamity (Luke 12:16-21). Jesus said that if you are trustworthy with the little things in life, it’s a good indication that you will be trustworthy with the bigger, weightier things as your guiding, root intentions and thoughts are correct. And lastly, life is not God plus something, in this case money. You cannot well-serve two bosses. You cannot serve both God and money. Or to think of it this way: You cannot profess to be a follower and believer of God and not have that faith impact your life’s decisions and actions. You cannot worship God just one day a week then go off and live your life any way you please. In effect, by living this way, you are serving two masters; 1) God and 2) Life, in this case Money. In both cases – the rich man/employer and the dishonest/shrewd manager – each man allowed their selfish thoughts towards money shape their life’s decisions and actions. They each had the opportunity to have God shape their decision and actions and, until the dishonest manager acted shrewdly, neither acted in a right manner towards the people placed into their lives. Neither managed what God had entrusted each to manage. Because, after all, in God’s economy, the people He created are His valuable treasure worth saving.

And where am I in the parable? I hate to admit that after reasoning, I am now reflecting, questioning myself and will ask God to correct me. Yes, I am a work in progress. I am surely not perfect and these lessons apply to me as well. The point being is that, through reasoning with Jesus, the process exposed in me aspects about myself that need the hand of God to touch, heal and correct. Without this process, I would be oblivious to the things in me needing correction. For that, I am thankful for this process shared with Jesus.

Reason me this.

Truth & Grace

Part 1 – Sticky Dreams

I had a dream several months back and the dream has stuck with me because of what I saw. Since I was a little kid, God, Satan, angels and demons will show up in my dreams. At first these dreams would absolutely petrify me especially the ones where Satan or demons showed up because of how I would interpret the reason for their appearance. Unfortunately, there weren’t people around me that were solidly-rooted-in-the-Word Christians who could tell me God’s truth and explain why the dreams were happening. Instead, I thought these dreams were the result of watching a scary program on TV or seeing a scary movie or from living in Salem, Massachusetts and being exposed to the occult or simply that I was a bad person. Many a good nights’ sleep were lost over the decades because of fear of sleeping; fearing that once asleep the dreams would happen again and this time making the visitation permanent.

Starting in 1983, I had two amazing dreams where the Lord visited for a positive reason bringing an amazing sense of peace and hope. Those dreams were so calming that, honestly, I didn’t want to wake up. I took those dreams as a gift and tried to remember them as I would nightly drift off to sleep telling myself that if the Lord visited me like that before then, He must love me.

When I married Chauncey and had him beside me nightly as my “protector” – outside of ordinary dreams – the spiritual dreams, good and bad, stopped for a time. So, I thought that the dreams were in fact a product of an over active imagination, as I had prayed throughout the years that God would take away my creativity and imagination so that these dreams would stop. It wasn’t until 1995 that I had a visit from two angels during a dream that scared the life out of me causing me to wake up nearly hyperventilating and screaming, “I’m not ready!” realizing I wasn’t ready to meet God. Although the dream frightened me because I realized I wasn’t ready to die, the dream instead shook me into the reality that after my salvation in 1985, I had not grown with God and not lived a life growing with Him. That dream was the catalyst to get me to move from complacency to seeking God. (When I get to heaven, I am going to have to thank those two angels for the reality jolt.)

As my relationship with God over the years has deepened and He continues to share with me more about whom He is, who He is not and who I am in Him, I am able to better accept the dreams and understand them. These are true dreams because they happen when I am sleeping, not like visions that happen when awake. Typically they are scenarios that articulate Scripture and I find the answers to the dreams when I read the relating Scripture. That reality jolt dream in 1995 contained elements of Revelation, a book of the Bible that, at the time, I had not read because it frightened me. (Now, I absolutely love prophecy.) When I finally read Revelation seeing aspect of the catalytic dream in that book of the Bible, that is when I realized I was having specific dreams – the kind promised to believers when the Holy Spirit is with them. (Acts 2:17) "In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.”

Throughout the years, I have come across Scripture that explains what I saw in that dream so I know it was a visitation rather than simply a crazy dream or nightmare. Sometimes in my dreams, there are no visual Scripture scenarios and then I must quickly understand the context of the dreams so I can answer the situation I’m in with Scripture. Those types of dreams are when Satan or a demon shows up in the house and I’m aware the presence of evil is there. My answer? “What is in me is stronger than what is in the world. God is in me and He is sovereign. He defeated you and you know it. You have no place here so leave. You cannot touch me and you cannot touch the others in this house.” (1 John 4:4; John 16:33) Now I am able to wake from the dream, understand what just happened, know God is with me, roll over and go back to sleep. It is so very reassuring knowing the truths of God.

Once again, I had a dream several months back and the dream has stuck with me because of what I saw. I found myself outside in the dark in an open area, with oak trees surrounding me – the size of scrub oaks. I was on an empty cul-de-sac and the road glistened from what must have been a recent rain. There was some light glowing on the cul-de-sac so I could see around the area well enough as if it were a streetlight. Some wicked looking cat passed by me. It had just appeared in front of me and ran almost charging at me. I just remember it being a black cat with skinny, pointy features and the size of an ordinary house cat. Then the cat charged back towards the cul-de-sac away from me, skidded to a stop while spinning around to face me. As it did, it changed in its appearance to a sleek, black, wild cat – fierce like a bobcat – only with a long, sharp tail, pointy ears and it doubled in size. It swished its tail fiercely as if to cut the air around it. That’s when I realized the situation I was in – I was dreaming and Satan was there. As the wild cat prepared to charge me, it changed its appearance once again. This time it became a mangy lion – if you have ever seen the animated film “The Lion King,” the lion reminded me of Scar the evil lion who was more thin and clever than massive and powerful. Again, the lion grew in size when it went from wild cat to lion.

As the lion began to advance, I stood my ground and for some reason, I was not afraid. My feet were planted about shoulder width apart, my hands balled into fists with my arms straightened beside me. I leaned towards the charging lion, opened my mouth and began to scream at the lion only no words or screams came out. I was silent. I was screaming silently. I didn’t tell the lion that God was in me. Didn’t tell the lion, who I now recognized as Satan, to leave. Oddly, I was overconfident about my abilities facing Satan and I was just trying to yell “Shut up!” yet no words were coming out. During this standoff, I realized that I was relying more on my ability than on the truths of God. And yet, just as the lion was about to pounce on me, it skidded to an abrupt stop while trying to back-peddle leaning back to avoid me and shut its mouth tightly out of fear. That’s when I sensed something very big was standing right behind me. Something very powerful was behind me and that is who scared the lion shut. It was God and He was protecting me. He shut the mouth of that lion as I was unable. (Daniel 6:4-27)

"You are I Am" by Mercy Me

What upset me was that I tried to face the lion on my own, in my own confidence. Thankfully, God stayed true to who He is, His promises, His truths and His grace.  What I learned? It’s not up to me to keep the promises of God “earning my spot in heaven.” It’s God’s ability to keep His promises and in keeping those promises, it is not conditional on my ability. God promised. He declared it. So, it will be. (Ezekiel 24:14)

I heard Pastor Tullian Tchividjian say that “The quality of our faith does not save us; the object of our faith saves us.” It’s not my ever growing knowledge of God that is saving me. As I mature in Christ and move from who I am without Him to who I am in Him, I am not saving myself. I am not the one who moves me into maturity; it is not something I can learn and become more adept at with discipline, practice and time. I do not have the ability to take on what only God is capable of doing. It is God Himself that saves me. God Himself that is able to do what God is able to do. And even when my faith is weak or I doubt or I don’t step into obedience or I act as if I can do things only God can do, if a promise comes to pass, it is because God said so. He promised and He doesn’t need me to fulfill that promise. He doesn’t need me… He wants me with Him.

What impacts me is that the dream scenario happened. Perhaps God placed me in that situation, knowing how I would react, so that I would learn this truth about myself as I relate to God; and so I would relearn the foundational truth of God in a way that would stick with me. I need to always be aware that I am not earning my way to Heaven. Although my life is evidence that God exists because God is changing me from a rebellious, selfish, arrogant sinner into a person who reflects the image of His Son Jesus, I must understand that I am not becoming perfect like Jesus with the ability to live more perfectly on my own and without God’s provisions. I am living by the ability the Lord Jesus has shared with me. It’s His ability, His power given to me. So when God places me into situations that are beyond my ability to handle, He also gives me His ability to manage through those situations where, when I come out of the situation successfully, I can only acknowledge God for the reason why I was successful.

So, I had a dream and it stuck with me because of what I saw.

Part 2 – If You Don’t Know Truth, How Will You Know A Lie?

“Crouching lions; hidden dragons”

From life to dreams, it’s important that we know truth, real truth and not the world’s version of truth and that truth is God’s truth. He set the truth standard and His standard is called righteousness or right standard. When we know God’s truths then we will know right from wrong, up from down, good from bad and, truth from lies. When we know God’s truth we can also know when it’s Him and when it’s not Him because Satan is crafty and wants to confuse us, trip us up, get us to second guess ourselves so he can deceive us, cause us to fall or cause us to blame God for something that we should be blaming Satan or, in many cases, ourselves. Satan’s goal is to get us to walk away from God permanently, separate us from God and destroy us completely. True evil is rooted in rebellion against God, believing we don’t need God that we are the god of our lives and so, we resent God. That’s true evil and it manifests itself in so many horrific and subtle ways. As arrogant human beings, we want to believe that we can easily spot things that are evil and things that are good. Looking broadly at life, we may all agree that Adolf Hitler is the personification of evil itself and think that when we see things similar to the atrocities committed by Hitler and his leadership, we can say with confidence that those things are evil because it depicts the standard of evil. We may agree that Mother Theresa is the personification of good things or – if there is a God – Godly things. So when we look at similar actions by others, we may agree to call those items good or Godly as they are what we think a loving God would do depicting the standard of good.

But when evil actions are caused by rebellion and resentment – which are the underpinnings of hatred – then evil can be a subtle lie twisting aspects of the truth to its benefit making it “not true” or false. It’s difficult to recognize unless you know the truths of God – who He is and who He is not.

For instance, I am always amazed that the Bible describes Satan and his actions with similar terms describing Jesus. Before his fall, Satan was called Lucifer which means “the angel of light” or “the bringer of light” or “Day Star” or “Son of Dawn.” (Isaiah 14:12) His role was to be the chief angel, reflecting God’s light and in charge of organizing the angelic praise of and service for God. Jesus is called “The Light of the World” (John 9:5) because when truth comes into a false situation, it illuminates the situation so you can see right from wrong, God from not-God. Sin and Satan are referred to as “a crouching lion ready to pounce and devour you.” (Genesis 4:6; 1 Peter 5:8) “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” And the royal description and leadership of King Jesus is described as the “Lion of the tribe of Judah.” (Revelation 5:5) “Then one of the elders said to me, ‘Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.’” We like to think of Satan as who he is after his rebellion – the serpent or the dragon – therefor easier to spot. However, he is sometimes a lion; a crouching lion, hiding his dragon personification.

What we truly must know: “who IS God and who IS He NOT.” Satan doesn’t always appear as Hitler or Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy. Sometimes he appears to be a false-good or subtly-confusing. I always wondered why Eve listened to a talking snake in the garden. Sorry. Even though before the fall, man and animals were not afraid of one another. Man was the God-designated caretaker of the world – God’s paradise garden – and Man was to steward and care for all of creation inclusive of the animals. Yet, snakes just give me “the willies.” Before the fall of mankind, God still visibly walked the earth walking with Adam, sharing a relationship with him. So, if I were Eve, why would I listen to a slithering creature over the gorgeous, glorious, most beautiful God Himself? Unless, Satan was also most handsome. Even though this passage of Scripture describes the King of Tyre, scholars believe it describes Satan before his rebellion (Ezekiel 28:12-15):

“Son of man, raise a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and say to him, Thus says the Lord God:

"You were the signet of perfection,    
full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
You were in Eden, the garden of God;
    every precious stone was your covering,
sardius, topaz, and diamond,
    beryl, onyx, and jasper,
sapphire, emerald, and carbuncle;
    and crafted in gold were your settings
    and your engravings.
On the day that you were created
    they were prepared.
You were an anointed guardian cherub.
    I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God;
    in the midst of the stones of fire you walked.
You were blameless in your ways
    from the day you were created,
    till unrighteousness was found in you.

And that is why Eve listened to Satan. He was handsome and he walked the garden too. Then he twisted some truths spoken by God, stating them falsely, asking Eve if God really meant what He said causing her to second guess herself and most of all, second guessing God. “Are you sure He meant this?” That is why she was deceived. What was Eve’s mistake? Not getting council from her husband who actually heard directly from God – before she was created – what man was not to touch in the garden. And, with God walking the garden and enjoying His friendship with Adam and Eve, she could have asked God for clarification yet, she did not. So really what was in Eve’s heart of hearts that caused her to be deceived when Satan twisted the truth? Did she want to be closer to God? Did she want to be "like" God? Or did she want to be able to "be" God? What is in our own hearts that we choose to listen to things that sound good without verifying that they are good? 

Twisted truth, after all, is no longer truth but lies.

My Heart is Stirred by a Noble Theme - Joy

Support for "Who is this coming?"

The last two years have been a journey to discover within the Word of God, specifically the Old Testament, the Scripture pointing to the identity of Jesus as God Himself as well as to the activities around His second coming whereas Jesus, as a human young man, understood who He is and what He could expect His life to unfold. It's always easier to dismiss these thoughts with, "well, He is God so naturally Jesus would know these things" but, there is a critical reason for understanding this. If Jesus did not know who He is and what His life promised then, He would not have had anything to look towards beyond the cross. In Hebrews 12:2 we read that, because of the joy of the anticipated and expected future, Jesus endured the cross and everything that experience meant. He could not and would not deny God and God's truths, then looking forward to the life after the cross and all that was promised Him, He obediently went to the cross, drinking God's cup of wrath reserved for God's enemies and paying our debt to God. Without knowing His future confidently and truthfully, Jesus may not have chosen to drink the cup of God's wrath on our behalf perhaps choosing instead to walk through the garden and out into the desert to live His life for Himself.

For me, understanding these truths in context and confident ways, helps me really know our Lord Jesus. So, in the end, I can stand firmly and without a doubt as to who God is and who He is not. Through this intimacy, I begin to experience joy in the Lord... the joy that comes by knowing Jesus honestly, truthfully, and completely regardless of the circumstances in my life. Happiness is based on circumstances; joy is based on understanding truth.

During my daily time with God, Psalm 45 grabbed me in a way that encouraged me. Each time I read this Psalm, I became more and more excited about the realities of seeing this future unfold firsthand and sharing in Jesus's excitement for the fulfilling of this promised day. True to my time with God, Psalm 45 also correlated with everything I was reading about the tabernacle construction and worship in Exodus as God was leading Moses and the Israelites to construct a place for Him to meet with His people while He lived with them for their 40-year trek through the desert. Psalm 45 also brought me to Song of Songs 3:6-11 which describes the arrival of the King of Peace. One morning, I re-read my journal entry on Song of Songs 3:6-11 "Who is this coming?" Interestingly, I wrote that when I locate additional Old Testament Scripture supporting what God had revealed to me, I would post it to expound on what God taught me... so here I write.

Since I was reading about the arrival of the King of Peace and the wedding of the Lamb, naturally I was directed to Revelation 19:6-9 and 19:11-16. When all of the passages are read back-to-back, the excitement in my thoughts grow. With all of the portions of Scripture read consecutively, do you see the reason Jesus looked forward, beyond the cross? Do you feel His joy? Are you aware that you will be there, celebrating with Him? I just want to be more joyful because my Lord Jesus is joyful.

Psalm 45

My heart is stirred by a noble theme
as I recite my verses for the king;
my tongue is the pen of a skillful writer.

You are the most excellent of men
and your lips have been anointed with grace,
since God has blessed you forever.
Gird you sword upon your side,
O mighty one;
clothe yourself with splendor and majesty.
In your majesty ride forth victoriously
in behalf of truth, humility and righteousness;
let your right hand display awesome deeds.
Let your sharp arrows pierce the hearts of the king's enemies;
let the nations fall beneath your feet.
Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever;
a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom.
You love righteousness and hate wickedness;
therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions
by anointing you with the oil of joy.
All your robes are fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia;
from palaces adorned with ivory
the music of the strings makes you glad.
Daughters of kings are among your honored women;
at your right hand is the royal bride in gold of Ophir.

Listen, O daughter, consider and give ear;
Forget your people and your father's house.
The king is enthralled by your beauty;
honor him, for he is your lord.
The Daughter of Tyre will come with a gift,
men of wealth will seek your favor.

All glorious is the princess within her chamber;
her gown is interwoven with gold.
In embroidered garments she is led to the king;
her virgin companions follow her and are brought to you.
They are led in with joy and gladness;
they enter the palace of the king.

Your sons will take the place of your fathers;
you will make them princes throughout the land.
I will perpetuate your memory through all generations;
therefore the nations will praise you for ever and ever.

Song of Songs 3:6-11

Who is this coming up from the desert like a column of smoke,
perfumed with myrrh and incense made from all the spices of the merchant?
Look! It is Solomon's carriage, escorted by sixty warriors,
the noblest of Israel,
all of them wearing the sword,
all experienced in battle,
each with his sword at his side,
prepared for the terrors of the night.
King Solomon made for himself the carriage;
he made it of wood from Lebanon.
Its posts he made of silver,
its base of gold.
Its seat was upholstered with purple,
its interior lovingly inlaid by the daughters of Jerusalem.
Come out, you daughters of Zion,
and look at King Solomon wearing the crown,
the crown with which his mother crowned him on the day of his wedding,
the day his heart rejoiced.

Revelation 19:6-9

Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting:

"Hallelujah!
For our Lord God Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him glory!
For the wedding of the Lamb has come,
and His bride has made herself ready.
Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear."
(Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.)

Then the angel said to me, "Write: 'Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!'" And he added, "These are the true words of God."

Revelation 19:11-16

I saw the heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. He will rule them with an iron scepter. He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written:

KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.

Walk this Way

Walking with Jesus and walking out 70 x 7

Eleven years ago, my parents after 40 years of marriage, decided to divorce. Although we three kids were well into our mid-thirties to early forties, married and with kids of our own (mine were in high school), the action of my parents impacted our extended family unit. When my immediate family voiced our preference to keep relationships with both my mother and my father, that decision further separated all of us as "camps" of support seemed to be drawing lines in the sand.  Consequently, my husband, daughters and I have been estranged from my Mom, sister & her family, and brother & his family for nine years now. This was very difficult for all of us as my family loved the times we all shared together as I'm sure it was difficult for my father, brother, sister and mother.

There has been some movement over the recent years first with my Mom and then with my brother. Typically I will hear from my brother and Mother around major holidays and my birthday. Through this separation time, I have made certain we remembered and recognized birthdays, accomplishments and recently a wedding. We thought that if we continued to keep a door opened and continued to try to wipe the slate clean, reconciliation would eventually come. My brother and his family are all Christians so I knew it was only a matter of time before God would reconcile us but, even knowing that, after nine years you start to think it won't come soon. 

With my recent birthday, I received an annual letter from my brother. This time between the lines were the words "I'm sorry." Although the rest of the letter ate at me, it forced me to stand on knowing the very truths of God and His characteristics rather than give into the emotions of the letter and all of the stuff in the past now glaring at me in ink on the pages. There was a crack in the fortress of separation and I knew God could use that crack if I was willing. 

However, I confess that I wasn't as willing as I would like to admit to being. The previous week, Pastor Max reminded the congregation that we Christians should have true friends that are willing to tell you the truth when no one else is willing, calling those people "Nathan's" after King David's trusted friend and advisor Nathan. I was going to call and chat with my "Nathan's"  honestly hoping people would say I was justified not to step through the opening in the fortress but, God asked me to trust Him. During my daily time with God, I was in Exodus at Chapter 34 when God started speaking so I sat in 34 the rest of that week as I struggled with forgiveness. Then I had started praying Psalm 46 after talking with one of our church's elder, GW Robinson, about his "be still and know God" challenge. GW had spent a month being still before God and shared with me how difficult it was at first then how truly freeing it was once he learned how to be still focusing on God. In case God speaking through Scripture wasn't enough, my Bible cover case also had Psalm 46:10 on it as a daily reminder. For me, I learned that being still was to vacate my role of control over my life allowing God to lead while also standing firm in the truths of God not allowing emotion to overrun replacing the truth.

So much of Psalm 46 spoke to me especially the part about God ending the wars, destroying the weapons and burning the shields. I felt like God was telling me He would refine me through this test causing me to put down my self-made protection and my weapons to trust His abilities. 

And lastly, the song by Tenth Avenue North "Losing" kept playing in my head.

Chaunce, Lauren and Sarah were my sounding boards that week which I really appreciated, as I continued to struggle between God's truth, abilities, desires and the emotions whirling inside me tied to my brother's letter. The message was loud and clear. It was time to walk in the way of Jesus walking out 70 x 7. (Matthew 18:21-22)  

On Saturday, August 10th (2013), with my brother and his family starting their vacation 1 1/2 miles down the beach from where Chaunce and I were enjoying our day trip, we decided to walk down to say 'hi' not knowing what to expect. We agreed to stay only 30 minutes in case things went sour... we ended up staying 3 hours. There was true forgiveness on both sides for the first time as we all left the past in the past deciding to go forward from "hi!" 

The emotion of what God did hit me at church the next day where I cried through worship and Max's lesson. There are so many big and terrible issues for God to care about and yet He cared about this tiny, insignificant detail - a family squabble turned war turned exile - because He is a God of reconciliation and He is defined by unconditional love!

As always, God teaches, coaches and encourages. He is clear in His messages and intent. What I need to remember is that God is very able, willing and capable to complete these desires of our hearts when those desires line up with His desires; in this case forgiveness and reconciliation. 

Not sure why I don't trust Him more. I guess that is another lesson to be learned with God.

If… If and then

Introduction: I remember several revelations over my relationship with God through Jesus. Those revelations are: 1) God is defined by agapé love; 2) Jesus is the incarnation of God in human form with the authority to forgive sins committed against God; 3) When faced with saving His life, Jesus couldn’t deny God therefor when He chose to go to His execution by torture and a humiliating and brutal public death on the cross, He wasn’t thinking of the people of the world He was saving; He couldn’t deny God and God’s truths so how amazing must God be and how powerful must His truths be for Jesus to do that. In this study about the God-given authority Jesus has, the Holy Spirit connected all of those revelations into a more comprehensive revelation of truth. I am always, always amazed when God does that and does that for me… a nobody, an ordinary person. So, if Jesus said, “You are my friends if you do what I command (to love one another as I have loved you). I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” (John 15:14-15) And, if my understanding of God’s truth is exponentially increasing as I spend time studying God’s Word, yet I am not a Biblical scholar and therefore should not be understanding these deep truths of God. Then I must be a friend of Jesus’s and I can attest to the very fact that my understanding is coming from Jesus through His Holy Spirit because this comprehensive revelation is beyond my ability.

It started when I stumbled over 1 John 5:1-12.

1 John 5:1-12

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves His child as well. This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out His commands. This is love for God: to obey His commands. And His commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

This is the one who came by water and blood – Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. We accept man’s testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God which He has given about His Son. Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe God has made Him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about His Son. And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and the life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

Thoughts:

If Jesus is the very Word of God in human form – in the flesh – then He is the very truth of God; He represents God’s truths in all its standards, righteousness, accuracies, interpretations, abilities and authority.

If we are to love God with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength (will/intentions/desires, thoughts/understanding/wisdom, character/being/personality, human life/ability) and to love Him is to obey His commands (His commands are His truths), then we will know we love God truly and fully because we will be living out our obedience to God’s truths willingly, gladly, by choice and appreciation. And, our ability to live out those truths will increase exponentially because we love God unconditionally and appreciate all He has done and is doing for us.

If God’s truths are summed up by “loving God with all of our hearts, minds, soul and strength” and “loving our neighbor (other people) as we love ourselves,” then we should see Jesus doing just that; Jesus’ life should be summed by loving God and loving others. In fact we see that all over in Scripture as Jesus’s life is characterized by His complete trust in, loyalty to, devotion to and obedience to God. Jesus knew God so well that He could never deny God even faced with public disgrace and brutal execution for crimes He did not commit. We all know that Jesus “laid down His life for others offering His life as a payment for our sin debt to save us from the second death” but, have we really thought about what that meant? Jesus was questioned, tested, and interrogated throughout His life with each time facing a decision: 1) trust in God’s truth, promises and character or, 2) deny God by doing something that benefitted Jesus. Basically Jesus was continually faced with choose God or choose something other than God; acknowledge God or deny God. Isn’t that the true basis of the root of sin? The garden of Gethsemane is the ultimate choice, a choice that was so terrifying that Jesus agonized, crying out to God and sweating blood from the stress. His choice: choose God, follow His plan for the salvation of the world using the trumped up charges that would result in Jesus being publicly humiliated, brutally tortured and executed while being separated from God’s presence or, 2) deny God, walk through Gethsemane out into the wilderness and live his life as Jesus wanted to live it. Jesus wasn’t thinking of us when He went to the cross. No, He was thinking of God. Jesus knew God so well that Jesus couldn’t deny the truths of God – couldn’t deny God – when the circumstances in Jesus’s life were anything but supportive of His knowledge of who God is and what are God’s truths. THAT is loving God completely and unconditionally. And Jesus’s concern for others? He was constantly and continually healing people of their infirmities so each could live a complete life and be allowed to worship God (at that time, at the temple), explaining and re-explaining the Scriptures to people, feeding people when resources weren’t available and raising people from the dead so those people could live life with their loved ones. Jesus did more than say, “I’ll pray for you.” He lived life alongside people sharing in their joys and sorrows, their trials and victories. At the end of his gospel, John wrote, “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have enough room for the books that would be written.” (John 21:25) Jesus’s love and trust for God was so great that it manifested itself into an unconditional and sacrificial love for all others where He used His God-given abilities and authority to benefit others at His expense. That is why Jesus said in John 13:34, “A new command I give you: Love (agapé) one another. As I have loved (agapéd) you, so must you love (agapé) one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples (students/followers), if you love (agapé) one another.” Rose’s interpretation: “This new command from God I give you: unconditionally love one another. Just as I have unconditionally and sacrificially loved you, you must unconditionally and sacrificially love one another. That’s the true definition of love: to love someone completely first, for his/her benefit, and not because that person loved you first or deserves your love. When people see you loving in this way, then they will know you are a follower of mine.”

The proof that we love God will be seen by our ever growing obedient life – our ever sanctified life being changed into the image of Jesus who is the very truth of God, God’s commands, standards and righteousness; He embodied loving God fully and completely while loving others at the priority level of loving and caring for Himself.

If God said for us to acknowledge Jesus as His very Son and to listen to Him, and if Jesus is the truth of God, the command of God, the authority of God and that truth and authority said Jesus is the only and direct way to gain access to God, be connected, restored, reconciled to God, then we are to believe that is the truth, that is the only way, that is the promise with the authority to be kept and we are to follow Jesus if we want to be connected to God.

And if Jesus said for us to take His teaching upon ourselves, learn from Him, follow His lead, believe His teachings as accurate and truthful, and that His teachings were not burdensome. And if the teachings are God’s commands and if Jesus as the authoritative interpreter of God’s commands said, all of God’s commands can be summed up under 1) loving God completely and unconditionally and, 2) loving others unconditionally and sacrificially as you love yourself, then we are to view our lives as living out 1) loving God unconditionally and completely and, 2) loving others unconditionally and as a priority with ourselves.

And if Jesus said there is no greater example of loving unconditionally than to lay your life down for someone who doesn’t deserve it – laying aside your personal gain to place an underserving person as a priority in your life – then this is how deep our love should be growing into; this is what our sanctification should look like in our lives as God changes us into the image of His Son Jesus.

We are to love God’s commands by loving His truth, by loving Jesus and accepting Him as God’s Son, His authority, following Jesus, His teachings and leadership; getting to really know Jesus and increasingly believing He is who He said He is. Our love for and belief in Jesus should be manifesting itself into a physical life of loving God unconditionally, in the truth of that authority, interpretation, completely and placing other’s needs, lives, betterment as a priority in our lives, whether the other people deserve it or not.

Forgive us Lord, of our sins, as we forgive those who committed sins against us – as we forgive those who have hurt us. I should be moving towards forgiving people completely because God forgave me. Out of my love and appreciation for God, out of my love for and understanding of His truths, out of my belief in and acceptance of Jesus as the living authoritative representation of God’s truths, my life should then exhibit the ability to do the same for others as a disciple maker, as a coach, as a sister, and as a servant.

If Jesus was ordained at His baptism by God the Father and by John the Baptist (a rabbi with smekihah), then Jesus was ordained as a rabbi with smekihah having the authority to interpret and teach scripture which is God’s Word and Truth. At His baptism, we also learn that Jesus is in fact the Son of God when God Himself declares, “This is my Son whom I love; with Him I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17) In this culture, the eldest son was the official representative of the father in business and life. When an eldest son was sent to represent the father in a transaction, it was viewed as if the father was present himself. Whatever the son negotiated and agreed to was considered to be the authority and will of the father.  (Matthew 21:33-41) And we also learn that Jesus is the promised lamb of God when John declares that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world and who will baptize people with the Holy Spirit. (John 1:29-34) John states this because God told John that when he saw the Holy Spirit descend in the form of a dove and stay upon a certain man, that man would be His Lamb, the Promised One and the very Son of God.

After His baptism where Jesus is declared the Son of God, ordained as the One with God’s authority to explain His Word, Jesus is led by the Holy Spirit into the desert to fast, pray and focus on God. (I do not believe Jesus knew the timeframe of the fast. Had He known the timeframe of the fast then the exchange with Satan isn’t as powerful as it truly is illustrated.) When Satan shows up to question Jesus, he questions Jesus’s status as THE Son of God. He questions Jesus’s ability and authority to explain God’s truth. Satan tried to get Jesus to deny or contradict God; contradict God’s statement about Jesus and God’s authority to rule. However, Jesus is steadfast in His loyalty to God and rather than prove to Satan that He is THE Son of God by turning a rock into bread to end the fast, Jesus correctly interprets the truths of God and waits for God to end His fast. “Man does not live by bread alone but by the very words of God.” Rose’s interpretation: My status as Son does not exist by my physical conditions here on earth. My status as Son is not defined by my state of physical hunger. My life exists to follow and represent God and I’ll wait on God to tell me what to do next.” When Satan tried another approach asking Jesus to throw Himself off of the temple quoting scripture saying God won’t allow Jesus to be hurt as Satan twisted God’s words trying to get Jesus to second guess Himself, Jesus responds by quoting God’s Words accurately and truthfully saying we are not to test God (Matthew 4:7) meaning we are not to force God’s hands or force Him to react to us as that subverts God’s authority placing Him below us. Satan lastly tries to persuade Jesus to subject Himself to Satan’s authority and not God’s of which Jesus replies by telling Satan to go away and that we are to place God first as the authority in our lives. Circumstances in our lives do not determine God’s authority, truths and priority in our lives; we are to love Him unconditionally. It should be noted that God ended Jesus’s fast after that exchange with Satan.

After the desert experience, Jesus now starts His ministry with preaching – teaching, explaining and interpreting God’s Scriptures with, “You have heard it said but, I say…” This would have been a clue that Jesus was a smekihah ordained rabbi with the recognized authority to explain God’s truths otherwise Jesus would have acknowledged the smekihah rabbi He followed such as Hillell; “You have heard it said but, Rabbi Hillell says…” However, Jesus does acknowledge where His interpretations come from when He says, “I don’t do things on my own but speak just what my Father has taught me.” (John 8:28 and 5:19-20)

Jesus also calls his students as a rabbi with authority inviting them to learn from Him. After hearing Jesus teach with authority and, being a Jewish boy or young man who never was invited to study under a rabbi which was the ultimate honor for a Jewish boy, when Jesus makes the offer to follow Him and when His disciples heard His authoritative teachings, each quickly accepted the invitation.

At the beginning of His ministry, we see Jesus healing the sick. Because Jesus was reconciling a people to God His Father, restoring the right relationship between man and God, He was keen on what separated people from worshipping God. Those who were sick, diseased, lame and, naturally, demon possessed were prohibited from worshipping at the temple. Because the essence of temple worship was seeking God for the forgiveness of sins and to be in fellowship with God, if a person was prohibited from worshipping at the temple, then the person was not able to seek forgiveness from sins therefor, Jesus heals the many people removing the impediment between each of them and God.

We next hear Jesus’s major teachings when He spoke to His disciples and the crowds from a mountainside in Judea explaining a volume of Scripture in a scene we call the Beatitudes. (My entry on Mathew 4:17 through 7.) In all of this teaching, we learn of Jesus’s intimate knowledge with God’s commands, character, truths as Jesus plainly explains the Law to everyone in earshot. The base of His teachings was love God unconditionally and sacrificially and love others unconditionally and sacrificially as God has loved us. Everything comes down to heart, will, desire and thoughts manifesting into actions proving your relationship with God rather than precisely following religious established rule to please God with your perfection. People were amazed at His authority to teach.

And now we come to the paralytic man and his four friends who carry the man to see Jesus to be healed. This is the story that tripped me up two years ago when I realized that Jesus did only what God is allowed to do – forgive sins – and I thought how did Jesus know He had the authority to forgive sins like God? We know the story; the four friends can’t get their paralyzed friend into the house to see Jesus because of the crowd in the house. So the friends carry the man to the roof, dig open a hole in the roof of a house not their own and lower their friend through the hole down to Jesus. What a scene already as ceiling bits and pieces must have been falling onto the people below as the four friends dug away intent on helping their friend! Then Jesus does something different; He doesn’t heal the man first. No instead, Jesus forgives the paralyzed man’s sins, an action only God Himself can do. The teachers of the Law (Scribes) were there evidently learning from smekihah rabbi Jesus. Seeing this, the Scribe think to themselves (and rightly so, if Jesus wasn’t the Son of God) “Blasphemy! Only God can forgive sins committed against God!” Then Jesus answers the Scribes’ concerns without them uttering aloud their accusation of blasphemy – which should be clue #1 that Jesus answers a silent accusation only thought of and not uttered aloud – although what Jesus just did anyone could be thinking blasphemy so you could shrug it off as an obvious guess. Jesus answers the Scribes saying which is easier; to forgive (this paralyzed man’s) sins or to tell this (paralyzed) man to get up and walk? He goes further by explaining that the Son of Man (Daniel’s dream of the Messiah) has the (God-given) authority on earth to forgive sins, (saying now to the paralyzed man) get up and walk. When the man walks, he becomes the confirmation that Jesus is in fact the promised Messiah, the Anointed One of God, the Son of God. Jesus declares and proves Himself to be the Son of Man from Daniel’s vision (Daniel 7) where God Himself gives the Son of Man all of God’s authority, glory and sovereign power. (Son of Man will be worshipped by all nations – not just Israel – and His kingdom will be everlasting.) What a statement. The Scribes knowing the scriptures of God verbatim, having memorized the entire Law and the Prophets, would have immediately recognized the title Son of Man; would have immediately known the authority given to that Son of Man.

So, back to my original quandary, how did Jesus know He had the authority to forgive sins which is something only God Himself could do? When we go through a marriage ceremony, we know we’re married. When we go through a graduation ceremony and “walk” having our degree bestowed upon us, we know we’ve graduated. When we are sworn into office by a judge or pastor, placing our hand on the Bible and reciting to uphold the constitution in front of witnesses, we know we’re now the seated official of that office. It is the same with the ordination of Jesus conducted by John the Baptist and God while witnessed by all of those present at the Jordan River. Baptism then was not only a type of washing ceremony where temple priests would symbolically purify themselves by washing themselves. And for we believers, Baptism now is a public symbolic profession of our faith as we relate to dying and being buried in Christ, as we are submerged under the water, then rising with Christ to walk in new life as we come up from under the water; we have been publicly placed into Christ and His promises. (Click here to listen to a great explanation of Baptism "Going Public" by Andy Stanley) Baptism then was also an initiation ceremony where a person was joined to something or conferred. Baptism means you were "put into something." Jesus was placed into several roles of responsibilities. Jesus was joined to the human race to be the sacrificial Lamb of God for the sins of the entire human race – as one man Adam brought sin into the world, one man Jesus would take away the sins of the world. He was also conferred as a premier rabbi – a rabbi with Smekihah, the authority power or right of deciding the Law or of interpreting, modifying, or amplifying, and occasionally of abrogating it, as vested in the Rabbis as its teachers and expounders. Smekihah rabbis were considered to have the true interpretation of the Law as "the tradition of the Elders or Fathers" in direct line from Moses. At the ordination ceremony of Jesus, God Himself verbally recognizes Jesus as His very Son thereby having the intimate relationship and recognized authority to represent God. Also at the ordination baptism is the Holy Spirit being given to human Jesus bestowing the God-given abilities and power to represent that God-given authority. (Matthew 3:13-17) That is how Jesus knew He had the ability to represent God in the matter of forgiveness of sins – sins committed against God. It’s also why Jesus insisted John baptize Him to fulfill all righteousness – He could not go forward representing God without being publicly conferred to do so. And if Jesus knew the truths of God so well, knew God so well, is the very living truth of God as well as being God’s elder, first born and only Son of God. And if Jesus, through His baptism ordination ceremony knew that God gave Him all of His authority approving Jesus to represent Him to the world. And if Jesus knew the heart of God was to forgive and reconcile a people to Himself saving His people from certain determined destruction due to the sinful nature of this people. Then Jesus would have known that God wants to forgive our sins committed against Him, He wants to restore us back into a right relationship with Him and Jesus had the authority to act on God’s behalf in that manner and matter thereby forgiving sins committed against God by we the people.

In 1 John 5 versus 6 through 12, the Apostle John explains this recognized authority when he says (in verses 6 through 8), “This is the one who came by water and blood – Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.” Which means that the water testifies to the baptism confirmation of authority of Jesus to represent God Himself in expounding upon God’s truths and standards; the blood testifies to the sacrificial responsibility of Jesus as the Lamb of God and to the priestly duty of Jesus when He offers His blood atoning sacrifice for sins in the Holy of Holies at His crucifixion; and the Holy Spirit by descending upon Jesus in bodily form at His baptism acknowledging Him as the only and promised Son of God while providing human Jesus with God’s divine powers and abilities; and finally the Spirit is then given to us who believe that Jesus is who He says He is where the Spirit now resides with us, teaching us the truths of God and pointing towards Jesus as the fulfillment of all of God’s promises – the water, the blood and the Spirit testify and all are in agreement.

After His resurrection and before His ascension, Jesus reiterates the truth of His authority to His apostles, His disciples and to us who believe Him and follow Him. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:18-20) Meaning: The final body of teaching from God, that authority to explain God’s truths, is Jesus’s authority alone and that authority extends through all of creation in heaven and on earth. So we are to make students of this teaching conferring people into the relationship with the triune God teaching them what Jesus taught us. There is no other God-given authority to explain God’s truths than Jesus. There is no other person recognized to represent God by His authority. No other avenue to God but through Jesus. Jesus is it.

As John says in the opening of his gospel, Jesus is THE very Word of God. Jesus is the very representation of God’s truths, His commands, His character and His agape’ love. He is the living example of God’s truths and He was also the one ordained and sent by God to explain His truths and God said it pleased Him. As a result, Jesus is God in human form. (John 1)

So for me to apply these truths I must reason these truths into action. If I say I love Jesus and accept Him as God’s living truth, accept Him as my savior being the sacrificial payment for my debt to God, and accept Jesus as the ruler of my life as Lord. And if a true loving relationship is defined by knowing a person, really getting to know Him. And if Jesus said that a life of living out God’s commands to love Him completely and to love others as you would care for yourself and that love is defined by being unconditional and sacrificial based on God’s truths rather than your benefit. And if those truths are spelled out for us in God’s Word and if Jesus really does teach us those truths through the Holy Spirit increasing our understanding so we accurately interpret the truths in our lives. Then we cannot live a life void of time spent in God’s Word daily or frequently. How are we to have an ever deepening relationship with God without really knowing Him?

And typical of my time with God (being taught His truths as explained by Jesus Christ through the revelation of the Holy Spirit), He confirms the lessons through the teaching pastors I listen to throughout the week. Max Wilkins, Dr. Stephen Davey, Bob Coy and Andy Stanley all taught lessons around this revelation. And here is one broadcast lesson by Dr. Stephen Davey which truly confirmed some of the revelations learned. Wisdom of the Heart: Buying Heaven with Make Believe Money

And here is a new favorite song by Flame with LeCrae that was playing regularly on my iPod during this lesson learning time: Flame “Joyful Noise”

Supportive thoughts while learning this overall lesson:

The Word of God = God's authority. God is the ultimate authority to rule. Forever.

If the Word of God is God’s very truths, His authority, His commands, His standards, His character, His promises and His abilities, then the Word defines who God is. To us, the Word exists in the form of the Scriptures in the Bible.

If you love the Word of God and you consume it daily – devouring it – reading the Word gives you pleasure and you are satisfied, then you are feeding on the Word of God and it is nourishment to your soul giving life to your soul by feeding your soul.

If Jesus is the Word of God in the flesh – in human form – then He is the physical representation of God’s character, truths, His authority, His commands, His standards, His promises and His abilities. If Jesus was ordained with the authority and sent to represent God to the world, defining God, then Jesus has the authority to explain God’s truths and to interpret God’s commands.

If God says that the blood of someone or a sacrificial animal is the essence of a person’s or animal’s life, and if God says that the blood given as a sacrifice – given on your behalf because you cannot give your own blood without dying – can atone for your sins against God (your inability to live by His standards), and if breaking those standards results in being separated from God eternally and paying the penalty of a law breaker, then that person’s blood can provide you atonement for your sins, can provide mediation for breaking the law, and extend your life.

If you read the Words of Jesus – taking into yourself His Words, consuming His Words – His explanation and interpretation of God’s truth, and you believe that Jesus is the Son of God, then you are consuming God’s Words and truths and those Words are nourishment to your soul. You are feeding on the flesh – the life – of Jesus. This is why Jesus says He is the bread of life.

If you believe that the blood of Jesus – His life – was given as a sacrificial offering on your behalf to atone for your sins – to pay the mediation required for your law breaking actions, a cost you could not afford to pay without dying yourself – then you are drinking in His blood by consuming that truth.

Reading His Word and taking into yourself the belief that Jesus’s blood paid your sin penalty to God is what is described by Jesus as eating His flesh and drinking His blood. You are consuming this information. You are drinking in this reality.

If God says no other authority exists to represent God and interpret His Word than Jesus Himself, then Jesus is the ultimate authority and only avenue to God – the only way to God. Jesus is the truth and the life.

If light reveals the path, therefor the direction, and reveals the truth about something and someone by exposing it in the light so the details can be seen clearly and examined. And if darkness hides the path, therefor the direction, hiding the details and obstacles, so something or someone cannot be examined clearly. If God and Jesus are described as light and in them exists no darkness, then God and Jesus are revealing of the way to go, the truth to follow. With Jesus, we can see the truths of God. With Jesus we can see the way to God so we can have a relationship with God through the ability of Jesus to direct our way to God.

Jesus later confirms that fact being the very heart of God taking the forgiveness of sins even further telling all of us that we also have that ability when Jesus tells us that we are to forgive the sins of the people who have sinned against us and that God will in turn forgive our sins that we have committed against Him using the same measure of compassion for us that we showed others. (Matthew 6:12, 14-15) So we too have been given the authority to forgive the sins of others against us and we have been commanded to do so. Now we are to represent Jesus in this world we live – not be Him but, represent Him – and we have been given the Holy Spirit, at the time of our rebirth, to do so.

John 1:1-18

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not that light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him. He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him. Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God – children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John testifies concerning Him. He cries out, saying, “This was He whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because He was before me,’” From the fullness of His grace, we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made Him known.

John 14:6

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know Him and have seen Him.”

John 14:15, 23-24

(Jesus said) “If you love me you will obey what I command.”

Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teachings. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey me teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.”

Daniel 9:4

O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant of love with all who love Him and obey His commands…”

Psalm 119

Matthew 11:25-30

At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those the Son chooses to reveal Him. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke (teachings) upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Mark 11:27-33

They arrived again in Jerusalem, and while Jesus was walking in the temple courts, the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders came to him. By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you authority to do this?” Jesus replied, “I will ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. John’s baptism – was it from heaven or from men? Tell me!” They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From men’ …” (They feared the people, for everyone held that John really was a prophet.) So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.” Jesus said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.”

Matthew 7:28-29

When Jesus finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at His teachings, because He taught them as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.

Matthew 28:18

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”

Daniel 7:13-14

In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power: all peoples, nations and men of every language worshipped him. His dominion (supreme authority) is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

Matthew 4:13-17

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John tried to deter him saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented. As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on Him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, with whom I love; with Him I am well pleased.”

Matthew 17:1-5

After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters – one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased. Listen to Him!” When the disciples heard this, they fell facedown to the ground, terrified. But Jesus came and touched them. “Get up,” He said, “Don’t be afraid.” When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.

Rose’s interpretation of Hermeneutics: If A = B and C = B, then A relates to C by this overall explanation. It’s an “If this is that, and this is that, and this is that, then all of that relates in this way.” So Jesus, understanding God’s truths so clearly and with the authority to interpret those truths vested on him by God Himself and confirmed by John the Baptist (also a semikhah ordained rabbi), interpreted the Scriptures with authority to do so and accurately as testified by God; “This is my Son whom I love and with whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him!” Then Jesus explained the finality of that God-given authority after his resurrection when he said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

God said that Jesus is in fact His Son, that He loved Him and that He was exceptionally pleased with Jesus’s representation of God to men. He told us to listen to Jesus, with an exclamation point! Jesus said that God made Him the ultimate authority in God’s kingdom and on earth when it came to explaining God’s truth. Jesus is it! There is no one outside of Jesus to explain the truths. And Jesus said that God would send us His Holy Spirit to teach us those truths – Holy Spirit is the facilitator of Jesus’s explanations of the truth. So we are to become students of Jesus through the Holy Spirit then teach others to become students of Jesus through the Holy Spirit. Then they should do likewise until everyone has heard from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth. No one else has the God-given authority to interpret truth on their own, without it being taught by Jesus through His Spirit. And all understandings should line up with Scripture. If the teaching does not line up with Scripture, then the teaching is false and the teacher is false at most or misguided at least.

Semikhah = leaning on the hands (to press on with hands) to ordain a rabbi making him an authorized representative of God to interpret scripture by giving advice and judging. Semichut. Semicha Lerabbanut. “Shmeh-ee-hah”

Jewish encyclopedia article on authority rabbinical

The power or right of deciding the Law, in dubious cases, or of interpreting, modifying, or amplifying, and occasionally of abrogating it, as vested in the Rabbis as its teachers and expounders. In Biblical times the Law was chiefly in charge of the priests and the Levites; and the high court of justice at Jerusalem, which formed the highest tribunal to decide grave and difficult questions, was also composed of priests and Levites (Deut. xvii. 9, 18; xxxi. 9; xxxiii. 10; Jer. xviii. 18; Mal. ii. 7; II Chron. xix. 8, 11; xxxi. 4). In the last two pre-Christian centuries and throughout the Talmudical times the Scribes ("Soferim"), also called "The Wise" ("Ḥakamim"), who claimed to have received the true interpretation of the Law as "the tradition of the Elders or Fathers" in direct line from Moses, the Prophets, and the men of the Great Synagogue (Abot i. 1; Josephus, "Ant." xiii. 10, § 6; 16, § 2; x. 4, § 1; "Contra Ap." i. 8; Matt. xv. 2), included people from all classes. They formed the courts of justice in every town as well as the high court of justice, the Sanhedrin, in Jerusalem, and to them was applied the law, Deut. xvii. 8-11, "Thou shalt come . . . unto the judge that shall be in those days, . . . and thou shalt do according to the sentence which they . . . shall show thee; . . . thou shalt not decline from the sentence which they shall show thee, to the right hand, nor to the left." This is explained thus: Whosoever the judge of those days may be, if he be recognized as competent and blameless, whether he be a Jephthah, a Jerubbaal, or a Samuel, he is, by virtue of his position as chief of the court of justice, invested with the same authority as Moses (Sifre, Deut. 153; R. H. 25ab). Even when they decide that left should be right, or right left, when they are mistaken or misled in their judgment, they must be obeyed (R. H. 25a). Heaven itself yields to the authority of the earthly court of justice as to the fixing of the calendar and the festival days (Yer. R. H. i. 57b; compare also Mak. 22b).

The power of the Rabbis is a threefold one: (1) to amplify the Law either by prohibitory statutes for the prevention of transgressions ("gezerot") or by mandatory statutes for the improvement of the moral or religious life of the people ("taḳḳanot"), and by the introduction of new rites and customs ("minhagim"); (2) to expound the Law according to certain rules of hermeneutics, and thereby evolve new statutes as implied in the letter of the Law; and, finally, (3) to impart additional instruction based upon tradition. But the Rabbis were also empowered on critical occasions to abrogate or modify the Law (see Abrogation of Laws and Accommodation of the Law). In many instances where greater transgressions were to be prevented, or for the sake of the glory of God, or the honor of man, certain Mosaic laws were abrogated or temporarily dispensed with by the Rabbis (Mishnah Ber. ix. 5, 54a, 63a; Yoma 69a; compare also Yeb. 90b).

Abrogation of Laws: Jewish encyclopedia articles on abrogation of laws

In Deut. xiii. 1 (xii. 32, A. V.) Moses is described as saying: "What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it." Taking this injunction literally, the Sadducees, and later the Karaites, rejected the rabbinical development of Judaism, as additions to and modifications of the Mosaic laws. But the injunction could not have meant that for all future time, without regard to varying circumstances, not the least alteration or modification should be made in the religious and civil laws established for the people of Israel.

Rabbinical Authority.

The ancient rabbis claimed authority, not only to make new provisions and to establish institutions as a "hedge" for the protection of the Biblical laws, but under certain circumstances even to suspend and to abrogate a Biblical law. They derived this authority from the passage in Deut. xvii. 8-11, in which mention is made of a supreme court consisting of priests, Levites, and "the judge that shall be in those days." Doubtful questions of law were to be brought before this court, and unconditional obedience to this supreme authority in all religious, civil, and criminal matters is emphatically enjoined in the words:

"According to the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do; thou shalt not depart from the word which they may tell thee, to the right or to the left."

In reference to this, Maimonides teaches in his celebrated code "Hilkot Mamrim," i. 1: "From the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, law and decision should go forth to all Israel. Whatever it taught either as tradition or by interpretation according to the hermeneutic rules, or whatever it enacted according to the exigencies of the time, must be obeyed."

Jewish virtual library on judaica

HERMENEUTICS, the science of biblical interpretation. The rabbis saw the Pentateuch as a unified, divinely communicated text, consistent in all its parts. It was consequently possible to uncover deeper meanings and to provide for a fuller application of its laws by adopting certain principles of interpretation (middot; "measures," "norms"). There are three formulations of such principles: the seven rules of *Hillel (Sifra, introd. 1:7; ARN¹ 37, 55; Tosef., Sanh. 7: end); the 13 rules of R. *Ishmael (Sifra, introd. 5); the 32 rules of R. *Eliezer b. Yose ha-Gelili (chiefly aggadic and generally considered to be post-talmudic). The indications are that the rules are earlier than Hillel (who lived in the first century B.C.E.). It is debatable whether (as suggested by the 12^th-century Karaite author Judah *Hadassi) any Greek influence can be detected, though terminologically some of the rules have Greek parallels. R. Ishmael's rules are basically an amplification of Hillel's, so that the best method of studying rabbinic hermeneutics is to consider each of R. Ishmael's rules in detail.

The Thirteen Rules of R. Ishmael

(1) Kal va-ḥomer (more accurately kol va-ḥomer): an argument from the minor premise (kal) to the major (ḥomer). The Midrash (Gen. R. 92:7) traces its use to the Bible (cf. Gen. 44:8; Ex. 6:12; Num. 12:14 – not explicit but see BK 25a; Deut. 31:27; I Sam. 23:3; Jer. 12:5; Ezek. 15:5; Prov. 11:31; Esth. 9:12). The following two examples may be given: (a) It is stated in Deuteronomy 21:23 that the corpse of a criminal executed by the court must not be left on the gallows overnight, which R. Meir takes to mean that God is distressed by the criminal's death. Hence, R. Meir argues: "If God is troubled at the shedding of the blood of the ungodly, how much more [kal va-ḥomer] at the blood of the righteous!" (Sanh. 6:5). (b) "If priests, who are not disqualified for service in the Temple by age, are disqualified by bodily blemishes (Lev. 21:16–21) then levites, who are disqualified by age (Num. 8:24–25), should certainly be disqualified by bodily blemishes" (Ḥul. 24a). Example (a), where the "minor" and "major" are readily apparent, might be termed a simple kal va-ḥomer. Example (b) might be termed a complex kal va-ḥomer. Here an extraneous element (disqualification by age) has to be adduced to indicate which is the "minor" and which the "major." Symbolically the two types can be represented as SIMPLE: If A has X, then B certainly has X. COMPLEX: If A, which lacks Y, has X, then B, which has Y, certainly has X. Schwarz (see bibliography) erroneously identifies the Aristotelean syllogism with the kal va-ḥomer. First, the element of "how much more" is lacking in the syllogism. Second, the syllogism inference concerns genus and species:

All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Therefore Socrates is mortal.

Since Socrates belongs in the class "man" he must share the characteristics of that class. However, in the kal va-ḥomer it is not suggested that the "major" belongs in the class of the "minor" but that what is true of the "minor" must be true of the "major" (Kunst, in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 10 (1942), 976–91). Not all of the thirteen principles are based on logic as is the kal va-ḥomer. Some are purely literary tools, while the gezerah shavah is only valid if received through the transmission of a rabbinic tradition