I am built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone. Ephesians 2:20 because you have been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. Our faith is built upon the teaching and insight of the apostles and prophets. Prophets are the mouthpieces for God. They don’t necessarily tell the future – they speak what God tells them to speak. This provides a solid foundation that won’t bend or crack and isn’t weak. With Yeshua as the cornerstone, that means the most important stone is eternal and infallible. We can be sure that what He says, teaches, and stands for it true and reliable and strong. Build upon the Word of God and the house that is built will be strong in the storm. That’s why it’s important to learn and study about God’s commands in Torah and about Yeshua’s teachings. Their words are Truth, and what better place to start than the truth.
How do you deal with something that people don’t believe exist. Or that you’ve seen and heard, but people think aren’t really there. I’m not talking about ghosts. My family, unfortunately, is dealing with darker things that hang on with tentacles and growl in the dark. How do you address something that the Bible hardly talks about? How do you fight something that you aren’t even sure you understand? Have I mentioned how much I love the fact that I can now go and research all this, from a Hebrew view, no less!
Psalm 119: 11-12 Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You. Blessed [are] You, O LORD! Teach me Your statutes. Part 1 The first part of this verse is a verse I hear all the time. It’s one children learn when they’re in kindergarten. Today it means to memorize a verse out of the Bible, but when it was written thousands of years ago there weren’t many written copies of Torah floating around. Each king was required to write out a copy of Torah, partly so that they would have their own copy (remember, no printing presses) and partly because when I write things down I tend to remember them better. The western world today is both blessed and cursed by our printed words. It’s awesome to be able to look up things in the Bible at the drop of a hat. I need to know something, and I have instant access via my phone, or via my printed Bible (usually there’s more than one running around). But the down side is that we don’t memorize anything anymore. When I was in school I used to have to memorize things like poems and little sayings and rhymes to help me remember things, like prepositions or states (remember those?). With the advent of the Internet, I don’t make my students memorize anything because they can just “google it.” Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the Internet, but we’ve definitely lost something valuable since we’ve stopped having to memorize things. Anyway, Biblically, Torah was transmitted from person to person through speaking. Rabbis learned by listening to and copying the lives of their Rabbis. In Torah school students memorized Torah by reading it. And every week Torah was read in the synagogues. Each holiday celebrated Torah. And temple sacrifices kept Torah at the forefront. At least, that’s how it was when it was done correctly. The point is that people wrote it in their hearts by hearing it out loud. By speaking it. By living it. And because Torah was something they did (instead of just another fact crammed into their head), it was something they lived and breathed, hiding in their hearts for quick and easy access was a way of life. Part 2 The second part of the verse asks YHWH to teach me Your statutes. The word for teach means to train/instruct/exercise in. It’s not about learning facts and storing them up in my mind. It’s about practicing them in my life. It’s about doing them. They’re exercises for my life. Sometimes they’re easy, and sometimes they require discipline (both mental and physical). Both of these verses hit home for me. I keep saying that I will memorize scripture, but I’m so bad at it that I don’t know where to start or even the best method to start with, nor do I know particularly what to memorize. And training is hard. It’s tiring. A part of me feels like I’ve been in training for so long and the race is even longer. But, for whatever reason God has brought me to this point and brought me to this place, where I’ve learned more about Him and His people than I ever thought there was to know. Ignorance isn’t an excuse. So, my question for myself is, will I step up and do what He asks? Will I learn the lessons and hide His word in my heart, learning to think differently and act differently? I want to, but I’m not entirely sure how. Perhaps that’s part of this hunt now, too. For more reading about this topic by Skip Moen, check out this post. Read more>>>
Psalm 119:4-8 You have commanded us To keep Your precepts diligently. 5 Oh, that my ways were directed To keep Your statutes! 6 Then I would not be ashamed, When I look into all Your commandments. 7 I will praise You with uprightness of heart, When I learn Your righteous judgments. 8 I will keep Your statutes; Oh, do not forsake me utterly! This is another example of the ABCBA structure! I’m running out of time this morning, but it’s there! The centerpiece: 6 Then I would not be ashamed, When I look into all Your commandments. (The rest of the verses tell how to keep from being ashamed when I realize how poorly I am able to keep God’s commands.) The “Book ends”: You have commanded us To keep Your precepts diligently. and 8 I will keep Your statutes; Oh, do not forsake me utterly! (He commands, and I obey) The climb and how to get there: 5 Oh, that my ways were directed To keep Your statutes! and 7 I will praise You with uprightness of heart, When I learn Your righteous judgments. (A prayer to be solidly established in keeping God’s ways, as well as to learn His right decisions, which leads to praise – I have an upright heart because I keep His statutes) So, knowing and being obedient to do what God commands leads me in His way of living and lets me praise Him with an upright heart. He will not forsake me!
Psalm 44:1 For the choir director. A Maskil of the sons of Korah. O God, we have heard with our ears, Our fathers have told us The work that You did in their days, In the days of old. Our fathers have told us. That is one of the most critical roles of a parent or grandparent… to tell our children of the Work God has done in our days, in our life. Hearing stories about God’s great faithfulness, provision, mercy, and love is so powerful. I think of how often I am inspired or encouraged to hear what God’s been doing in the lives of other people. Granted, sometimes I’m a bit envious… but it reminds me that He is working and moving in the world around me, and that’s something I need to be talking about with my children. It’s a challenge, though, because everything I’m learning is giving me s bigger and slightly different understanding of the things I read in the Bible. It’s richer, and probably controversial to some. And these are the things I would tell my children. I want them to dig deeper than the words on the surface, and listen and learn. I want them to understand the richness and significance of what happened in the Garden, about the covenant that God made with Himself (Abraham was asleep, remember?) that was sealed by the blood of Yeshua providing me peace and restoration with God, about the importance of remembering context. I want to pass to them a yearning for more, to never stop looking into the Word of God, to never stop seeking His face and His relationship, and to never be satisfied with where they are but always stepping faithfully in His purpose. That’s what this verse is about – the legacy we leave. It’s not about the money we leave or the worldly education. It’s about reminding my children again and again of the faithfulness of God in my life, because when we look back we remember all that He’s done and I can use that to stand in faith that He is reliable and true, and He will continue to be faithful, no matter what the circumstances look like.
Psalm 1:3 (NASB) He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams [fn] of water, Which yields its fruit in its season And its leaf [fn] does not wither; And in [fn] whatever he does, he prospers. See that word in italics? Do you know why it’s in italics? I didn’t. I figured it was an emphasis or something. It really means that the word isn’t actually in the Hebrew Bible…. that the word was added later during translation. What the heck?! That’s what I learned yesterday. Apparently this isn’t all that uncommon. In fact, it happens all over the place. In the NIV, in the book of Romans, there’s a word that’s in the Hebrew Bible that is completely left out of our Bible! A word “submit” is also added to that verse where it talks about wives submitting to husbands (that’s a whole other topic, but if you get a chance, and you haven’t already listened to Living the Biblical Worldview, listen to Skip Moen’s talk on the Role of the Ezer). I didn’t know that?! I always assumed that what I read was what was written… but when I looked at the Hebrew translation that the website provides, sure enough, there was no “firmly” anywhere in Hebrew. To be honest, I’m a little skeptical about how they get these long phrases out of one word. For example, from the Hebrew word for “tree” they get “He shall be like a tree.” Um, maybe there’s something that they don’t explain about the words when you look up the definition. Okay, before you start freaking out about the inerrancy of the Bible and all that (kind of like I did), I should probably note that most scholars, including Skip Moen, agree that most of the Bible is relatively accurate in its translation. But there are some places, for one reason or another (some political, some unknown), that words have been added because “that’s what Paul meant” (Really? How do you know?), or removed. I didn’t know that! I’ve also found that you’ll only find these italicized markers in the New American Standard Bible (at least that I’ve noticed so far). In the NIV you get no indication that anything is other than what is written. So, while I firmly believe that God’s word is perfect and is “breathed” by Him into the hearts and minds of the writers, I will read a little more carefully to avoid the bias and politicism of the translators. Man! More and more, I wish I knew Hebrew! How cool would it be to read the Bible in its original language (at least the Old Testament)! And, even if there are little bits and pieces that have been conveniently inserted or removed, God can still use it. He does still use it, and He still accomplishes His purposes despite the many areas of our beliefs that have been twisted by people like Constantine. Our God is still bigger than all that!
2 Corinthians 1:21 It is God who gives us, along with you, the ability to stand firm for Christ… I’m having a day, or series of days, where nothing really jumps off the page at me. I read lots of things that I’ve read before or that are things that I know about and believe. It just feels a little blah. However, that’s me, not God’s Word. I think that’s one of the hard things about having read something before. It’s easy to read it and think “I already know that.” But God is renews every days and each morning there is more to know. Sometimes I’m just a little slow. Anyhow, this is the verse I focused on today. It was a good reminder that sometimes it takes God’s strength to stand firm. I teach in a public school, and many of the people I work with either don’t believe in God at all or think of him as an abstraction. I’m good friends with some of them, and yet I’m often surprised at the things they support (like trying to get the ad with Tim Tebow and his mom taken out of the Super Bowl). I tend to just lay low and try and live well. But if it were to come to it, I hope God would give me strength to stand firm in my convictions and speak out for what I believe. I’m not good at speaking my mind. Just ask John. But I’m learning. Slowly.