Proverbs 2:1-5
My son, if you receive my words, and treasure my commands within you,
so that you incline your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding;
yes, if you cry out for discernment, and lift up your voice for understanding,
If you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures;
then you will understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God.
I am going to cut and paste a post my husband made this morning to a Bible discussion forum in which we have participated for quite a while. You may not know what in the world he is talking about, but I'm including it here because I felt when I read it that he expressed so well what we are feeling as we re-examine many of our life long beliefs. We feel excitement about discovering things that seemed hidden to us for so long. We feel shame and embarassment for not having seen these things long ago. We feel puzzlement. We feel afraid -- perhaps --- of what other believers will think of what we are beginning to believe. Again there is excitement about many things coming together that never made sense before because we were trying to fit them into the box of what we had always been taught and believed. I suppose you will find in later posts here more about the things that we are currently trying to understand and put together and determine to the best of our ability and with the help of God what is true. I just want to know what is true. Below you'll find Jack's post.
______________________________________________________________
I think that Jesus' ministry was very narrowly focused and extremely cogent. Yet the exact meaning or importance of many of his sayings is unclear to this generation because of our haste to rush past the "Old Testament" in order to read the "New Testament".
As a result, because we fail to perceive the eschatalogical fabric from which Jesus' ministry was sewn, we are left to glean from his words the morsels that we DO understand---or that we THINK we understand. And failing to see the fullest extent of their interrelation, we make the mistake of considering at least most of his words merely as a collection of good sayings--much as the Proverbs.
We think he was profound---even that he was TRYING to be profound. We think that he gave mysterious answers at times---askew from the questions which were put to him. We even think that he gloried so much in being misunderstood that he deliberately gave ethereal answers when he could have answered straight-forwardly.
But if we were keen on the Law and the Prophets, we'd know better. We'd recognize so many of his sayings that we'd come to see him as the utter and unmistakable fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets.
He wore more than one hat, so to speak, and yet this generation is obsessed with the "Savior" hat and the "sacrificial Lamb" hat. And so these two aspects of his ministry are glorified to the exclusion of several equally-important facets of his work. We fail to see him as the quintessential Jewish prophet. We fail to see him as the mighty judge who would pour out his wrath on unrepentant Judea just 40 years after his ascencion. And we fail to understand his directives to the apostles in light of the needs of this very special 40-year period; we act as if they were apostles only for our generation, and as if everything they said was meant primarily for us. We mistake Jesus as having issued the New Covenant in his earthly sayings, though this task was assigned instead to his apostles for after his ascension. And this generation even sets the apostles against Jesus on account of the fact that they said some things he did not say, missing the fact that they were speaking his very words through inspiration---teachings that he had promised were yet to come.
We also fail to understand the fashion in which the transition in covenants was made. We like to think that the Old Covenant was shut down either at the cross or at Pentecost, but this is wrong. And we like to think that the New Covenant was fully established either at the cross or at Pentecost. But this is wrong, too.
Further, we fail to understand the spiritual significance of his return in 70AD. We miss what happened when "we will all be changed" "in the twinkling of an eye". We miss just what the world was like back then, and how it is now different in his "presence" (PAROUSIA). We miss that the "New Jerusalem" is the fulfillment of "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven", for we have come to view this clause of the Lord's Prayer as just another in a list of unrelated spiritual morsels. And the effect of this misunderstanding is to reduce that clause to a mere platitude that has no real place in our Christian experience. We view it as a nice idea---even as wishful thinking----but not as a prophecy of how things were to be---not as a mandatory way of life for the faithful.
Where last year I was frustrated at what information is missing in the text, this year I am frustrated at how much remedial work I have to do in order to understand the roots of the Messianic and Apostolic teachings in the Law and the Prophets. I still suspect that some of my ecclesiological questions will remain unanswered. But I expect to learn a great deal by gleaning these teachings in light of their roots in the Old Covenant. What I am finding so far is a body of teaching that is stunningly cogent and narrow and to the point. And I expect to find more and more of this.
Where the Jesus of this generation is vague and ethereal and mysterious---even obtuse---- I am finding him to be exceedingly relevant and specific. Even many of the parables are impressively specific as to their elements. That is, many of the parts of the story we thought were just made up for the sake of putting his teachings into parable form are actually correlated to the prophecies he is uttering.
But we have missed this because we have misunderstood Jesus' ministry as being primarily for us. Just as we have missed his second coming, and pretend that it is yet to come. And even when we begin to admit what happened in 70 AD, we try and try to view it as an ancillary event that pales in comparison to the "second coming" that is expected by this generation----as if all the hubbub in the gospels and epistles about him returning was skipping past this incidental visit in 70 and pointing instead to some future event thousands of years removed. We like to pretend that this is the case----that all the excitement for this indeterminate return was preached in that generation to people who would never see it. And we pretend that the apostles were wrong---even that the Lord himself was wrong. And so we stumble all over ourselves, denying that the Lord knew what he was doing, while still trying to consider him the worthy Lamb.
And never do we consider that if the Messiah were indeed expected with such great eagerness and fervor for a return thousands of years hence, that a short and incidental return in 70 would have generated immeasurable excitement amongst the believers. Instead, we do our best to discount the judgment of Israel as mostly irrelevant to us.
And this is because we do not understand the Law and the Prophets for lack of trying.
If the Jews were condemned for missing the first coming of Jesus, how great is the consequence of this generation having missed the second coming?
Certainly some consequences of this are seen in the very low character of "The Church" today---in its inattention and distraction, in its incorrigibly false teachings, in its dull ignorance, and in its braggart self-assurance. And in how this generation is not even looking to the text for answers, but rather, to "The Church". And it does not even WANT the answers in the text, for it is not interested in asking those questions.
If it was an abomination for the Roman general to enter the Holy of Holies and to remove the menorah, is it any less abominable that "The Church" has set up its own institutional throne just in front of the Throne of Christ, and has sat with its back to Him, holding court with the world as if it were his authorized lieutenant?
Jack
No comments:
Post a Comment