Keeping Faith In-Between Times

Study the Scriptures


The Big Picture:
Our final Covenant Reminder is "Study the Scriptures."  Nothing reminds us more clearly of God's covenant than our regular reading and studying of His Word.  Because the Bible is our record of God's relationship to with us, knowing and studying the Scriptures is critical to maintaining a Christ-centered life.
 
Jesus, our Rabbi, often spent time in the synagogues and the Temple studying and teaching on God's Word (for example, Luke 2:46-47, 4:16-21).  Like those who went before Him, Jesus grounded His teaching in the Torah, the Poetry and the Prophets.  Unlike those who preceded Him, Jesus also taught as though He had authority in Himself, not merely by extension of His understanding of Scripture (for example, Matthew 7:28-29).

Dust of the Rabbi:  Covenant Reminder - Study the Scriptures


In the Old Testament, God commands His people to remember and reflect on His word continually.  Even Torah (the Law) was not designed merely for obedience, but for also thoughtful contemplation.  This is true of all of Scripture; while it contains many commandments, the majority of the Bible is not law, but story and poetry.  Part of our work as followers of God, like Moses instructed the Israelites, is to write these stories on our hearts, homes, hands and children (see Deuteronomy 6:1-9).  
 
Jesus spends a great deal of time in the Gospels talking about specific passages of Scripture and frames His purpose on earth as to "fulfill" the law and the prophets (see Matthew 5:17-26).  This phrase, "to fulfill," may have many different meanings.  Jesus fulfills the Law by obeying it perfectly, by giving us a more complete understanding of its real purpose, and by correctly interpreting it.  This has less to do with "fulfilling" prophecies and everything to do with revealing God's purpose for our lives through His commandments.  
 
For us today, continually studying God's word is one of the most important covenant reminders. Our goal is learning who God is and how He calls us to live.  We must remember that Jesus authoritatively interprets the Word for us, and that He is always the lens through which we must read all of God's Holy Scripture.  Do you make daily time to read God's Word?  When you read, do you read in light of the One who has fulfilled it all?

Extras:

All books of Scripture are inspired by God, but all are not equal in significance in our reading of the Bible.  Both Testaments have a set of books that are the core, or foundation, upon which the rest of the Testament is built.  In the Old Testament, that foundation is the first five books, collectively called Torah or "the Law."  In Jesus' day, there were two major Jewish groups (we might call them denominations) who had differing opinions on the Hebrew Bible.  The Sadducees, the more powerful group who controlled the Temple, believed that only the Torah was rightfully called Scripture. The Pharisees, with whom both Jesus and modern Jews identify with theologically, believed that all of the Old Testament was inspired by God.  However, even the Pharisees would agree (as we would today) that the rest of the Old Testament is God's expansion upon the covenant and commandments laid out in the Torah.
 
In the same way, the core of the New Testament is obviously the four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  They teach us the story of Jesus and the new covenant He made with us; the rest of the New Testament is a "fleshing out" of what we first find in the Gospels.
 
However, while both Testaments have what we might call "core" books, all the books of the Bible are inspired by the same divine Author, and therefore they all infallibly teach us who God is and how we are to obey Him.

Know Your Family History

Know Your Family History



Keeping Faith In-Between Times
 
God's covenant with us is the ground upon which our faith stands during the "in-between" times of our calendars and lives.  Our God provides many reminders of His covenant for us: in our adoption as daughters and sons through baptism, in the rhythm and rest that Sabbath provides, and also through our family history.  Reflecting on the lives of our ancestors reminds us that the same Triune God who faithfully guided the lives of our forebears will also keep us in His covenant-love.
 
Scripture spends a great deal of time on genealogies, because knowing our spiritual lineage is essential to understanding our relationship with God.  We can look back to our history and find great heroes (see Jesus' line in Matthew 1:1-17) and know that we can rise to the same heights as our ancestors; we can look back and find great sinners (Matthew 1:1-17 again) and know that we are capable of the same great evils as those who went before us.  Moreover, in Scripture we find that we can be held accountable for the sins of our distant relatives, and also that we receive blessings because of the faithfulness of those who went before us (see Exodus 20:4-6).

  
Dust of the Rabbi:  Covenant Reminder - Know Your Family History
 

Who do we come from?  Who are your parent's parents; where did they come from and what did they do?  In our modern world, we have often missed the distinction between learning history and family history.  As a result, we can speak volumes about major figures in Western Civilization, but (for many of us) only a few words about our own family histories.  Yet in Scripture there are clear connections between generations; knowing where we come from is part of knowing ourselves.
 
Now broaden that perspective and consider our Covenant Community family history.  If you have time, look on Sunday at the Charter Document outside the Old Sanctuary.  What does our history tell us about our future?
 
Now step back once more, and look at the history of our ancestors in Scripture.  If God's covenant is sufficient to bring adulterers and murderers like King David and the apostle Paul to Himself, how can we fail to be caught up in and overwhelmed by God's grace and promises?  And, as we see time and again in Scripture, when God confronts us with the evil of our present, we can invoke our ancestor's faithfulness to our credit (see Exodus 32:7-14).  Who are the family members in your life, in our church's life, and in the life of God's covenant people, whose faithfulness encourages you in your relationship with Christ?

Extras:
 
The concept of punishment for an ancestor's sins is a complex one in Scripture: earlier passages such as Exodus 20:4-6 and Numbers 14:18 suggest that descendants are punished for a predecessor's sins; but the prophets who come much later in Israel's history teach quite differently, namely that only "the soul who sins is the one who will die."  In Jeremiah 31:29-30 and Ezekiel 18, this is made abundantly clear.  When Moses and the prophets are read together, they actually compliment one another.  God through Moses asserts that we will be punished in this life for the sins of our ancestors; God through the prophets asserts that we will not be punished in the next life for sins that we did not commit.  In other words, only my sins affect my relationship with God, but sins of my ancestors have repercussions that clearly echo beyond their own lives.  A child born with a chemical addiction received from his mother is not guilty of sin, yet he experiences the results of his mother's disobedience to God.
 
The radical individualism of our modern American culture is very much at odds with any understanding of family history.  Our false assumption of our own independence leads us to ignore both our responsibility for the actions of those who have gone before us, as well as the implications of our lives on those who follow us.

Exchange Money for Treasure

We are bombarded with requests for money.  Our bills have to be paid, the mortgage comes every month, our children's schools constantly want us to either buy or sell something, our alma maters want alumni gifts, and even our radio stations have pledge drives.  We buy popcorn for boy scouts and cookies for girl scouts and donate an extra dollar at the checkout line in the grocery store; we treat our friends to lunch and give money for homeless and hungry strangers on the street.  On top of all of that, we give to churches and charities.

Most of us live very generous lives, and after we've dealt with the non-negotiables like bills and mortgage, we are interested in using our gifts for God's work.  Our challenge isn't wanting to give money to good causes; our challenge is knowing which causes are good.   We need a filter to determine where our hard-earned money would be most effective for Christ.  We don't want to squander what we have on organizations with ineffective management, or unrealistic goals, or a lack of vision.  This desire is both appropriate and admirable.

But there are two places that we are challenged in our thinking about generosity.

Keeping Faith In-Between Times: Bring in the Full Tithe


The idea of the tithe appears in throughout the Bible.  It's the concept that God wants us to give 10% of our income to Him.  We get the first commandment to tithe in Leviticus 27:30-33.
 

"A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the LORD; it is holy to the LORD.  Whoever would redeem any of their tithe must a a fifth of the value to it.  Every tithe of the herd and flock - every tenth animal that passes under the shepherd's rod - will be holy to the LORD.  No one may pick out the good from the bad or make any substitution.  If anyone does make a substitution, both the animal and its substitute become holy and cannot be redeemed."  

In Numbers 18:20-24, God gives the tithes to the Levities and priests, so they can accomplish the work of God.  But there are two additional implications of the tithe that are helpful.  

First, the passage in Leviticus above says that the tithe is "holy to the LORD."  In other words, it belongs to God.  This is a shift in how we think about our generosity.  The first 10% of earnings in the Old Testament did not really belong to the Israelites.  That wasn't income that they could distribute as they chose; it was God's money BEFORE they gave it to him.  (See Malachi 3:8-12, where God describes keeping the tithe as stealing from Him).  This is why the Israelites had "tithes and additional offerings."  The additional offerings were from the 90% that belonged to them, and could be distributed as they saw fit.  This 90% could be used to feed the family or to feed the poor, to build a house or to build the house of God.  But the 10% wasn't their money to give.  It was already God's money, and a sign and reminder to the Israelites that all they had came from God as a gift.  

Second, the tithe is often connected to the idea of "first fruits," the first produce of a harvest.  The Israelites were encouraged to bring their first fruits to God; in other words, to give to God first, and their other concerns second.  Those "other concerns" included things like bills, mortgage, school, etc.  While we tend to reverse this trend, and give to God whatever is left after the non-negotiables, Jesus would have learned that giving to God was the first and most important non-negoitable in his financial life.

Extras:
 


There is considerable debate about the tithe in the Old Testament.  While the vast majority of references match with the Numbers 18 reading above in concluding that the tithe goes to the Temple and the priests/Levities, there are several passages in Deuteronomy that describe something different.

Deuteronomy 12:5-28 describes another use of the tithe - for a great annual celebratory meal in Jerusalem.  And Deuteronomy 26:12-15 describes a third use of the tithe, where 10% of all income is stored up over a 3 year period, and then distributed to the "Levite, the foreigner, the orphan and the widow."  

Because of these passages in Deuteronomy, some believe that the celebratory meal in Deuteronomy was only a portion of the tithe, eaten as worship, before the rest was given to the Temple.  There are others who believe that the Israelites actually gave 23.3% of their income annually, instead of 10%!  

Practice Holiness

Keeping Faith In-Between Times
 
Our spiritual history reveals that we are nothing if not a forgetful people.  We forgot our God's commands and made a golden calf to worship; we forgot Jesus' promised resurrection and fled when He was betrayed.  We need reminders of our relationship with God and of His covenant with us.  One of the most powerful reminders of God's covenant comes when we follow our Rabbi in the practice of holiness.
 
Being holy, meaning "set apart", was an essential aspect of the Old Covenant.  In fact, the purpose of the Old Covenant, other than preparing us for the Messiah, was to make our ancestors a holy people.  In Exodus 19:5-6, as God speaks through Moses to the people of Israel, He says, "Now, therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples.  Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation."  
 
The laws of the Old Covenant are many and various, regulating every aspect of the life of the people of Israel.  And yet, far from being a burden, these very laws were God's gift to His people; for it was through obedience to God's commandments that His people were to be set apart from the rest of the world.  Jesus, our Rabbi, perfectly kept the Law; but He also revealed that practicing holiness means being set apart for the purpose of entering in.  

Dust of the Rabbi:  Covenant Reminder - Practice Holiness
 

Many modern readers of the Old Testament divide the commandments in the Torah into two sections: moral laws and ritual laws.  However, the Bible itself makes no such distinction.  The purpose of both the moral commands and the "ritual" commands is the same - to make the people of Israel "holy" or set apart from the other people and nations of the world.  These commands were a constant reminder to the Jews (including Jesus) that every aspect of their lives was part of their covenant relationship with the Lord, from worship to sex to money to clothing to food to daily work.  We also need these reminders, for it is too easy for modern Christians to create a false separation between the "moral" and the "ritual."  
 
Jesus Himself kept both the moral and ritual laws, but often used the holiness laws to reveal that true holiness comes from a relationship with Him rather than obedience to rules.  This passage in Matthew 9:18-25  is an excellent example.  Both the story of the woman with a discharge (Leviticus 15:19-20, 25) and the story of the dead daughter (Numbers 19:11-13) are instances where, under the Torah, Jesus would have been "ritually unclean" (for touching a bleeding woman and a dead body).  Amazingly, instead of Jesus becoming unclean by touching them, they become clean by touching Him - even if it requires that they come back to life!  
 
Jesus does not remove God's authority over our lives; rather, He gives meaning and purpose to our holiness.  We practice holiness in our lives so that we can share it with those who need it most. In the Old Testament, uncleanness is a communicable disease.  In the New Testament, cleanness is catching.  Are you living the life of faith with enough holiness that you are infectious to those around you?

Extras:
 
Jesus does alter some of the Old Testament laws.  For example, in Mark 7:14-23 Jesus explicitly frees us from obeying the Old Covenant's laws about dietary restrictions.  However, this is not to suggest that what we eat does not relate to our life of faith!  For the Christian, holiness means not avoiding "unclean" animals, but rather considering what we eat, where it comes from, how it is produced/raised, what it's effect on the earth and on other people is, etc.  Consuming so much beef that rain forests must be clear cut (thereby damaging the air we breathe), using massive industrial farming that pushes small farmers out of business and utilizes dangerous chemicals, horrific mistreatment of livestock - are not these issues that we Christians should consider as part of our holiness each time we sit down to eat?  Perhaps the greatest tragedy of our freedom from the Law's commandments is the false distinction we imagine between the parts of our lives that are relevant to God and those that are irrelevant.  In Christ's kingdom, every aspect of our life is part of our relationship with God.

Remembering God's Covenant

Remember God's Covenant


Keeping Faith In-Between Times

It's been a busy Fall at CCPC!  Over the last five weeks, we've been Getting in the Rhythm of Jesus by celebrating three major Hebrew Holidays mandated by God through Moses and celebrated by Jesus: Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year), Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), and Sukkot (the Festival of Booths).  Now we enter into a stretch of the Jewish calendar year that is simply "ordinary time."
 
In the midst of the holiday season, it is much easier to keep our lives focused on God.  But how do we maintain that closeness with God during the ordinary time, the "in-between" time that lacks the special reminders and celebrations of the holidays?  This is the focus of our next section of our Dust of the Rabbi series: Keeping Faith In-Between Times.  


Dust of the Rabbi: 
Remember God's Covenant


For Jesus, as for all our Jewish ancestors, keeping faith primarily meant remembering the covenant made between God and His people Israel.  In Scripture, a covenant is an agreement between two parties (one of whom is usually God) that includes a promise of future behavior.  Some covenants in Scripture are unilateral promises from one party to another.  The first covenant in Scripture is of this type: God covenants with Noah, and all living creatures, never to again send a flood to destroy all flesh.  God makes a similar covenant with Abraham in Genesis 12, promising that He, the LORD, would make Abraham into a great nation.
 
The other type of covenant in Scripture is the conditional covenant, where one party's obligation to fulfill a promise is conditional on the other's behavior.  God's covenant with the nation of Israel, mediated by Moses, is such a covenant.  God states that "if you follow my statutes and keep my commandments and observe them faithfully ... I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you will be my people."  "But if you will not obey me, and do not observe all these commandments, if you spurn my statutes and abhor my ordinances, so that you will not observe all my commandments, and you break my covenant, ... I will set my face against you."  (Read all of Leviticus 26 for context).
 
For a faithful Jew in biblical times, as for Jesus, keeping faith in-between times meant remembering the covenant that God made with His people, and following and obeying the laws He set before them.  These laws and commandments were not seen as a burden; instead, they were the tangible reminders that God chose Israel, from amongst all the nations and peoples, for this extraordinary honor. 

Extras

Read this Sunday's OT passage, Exodus 24:1-18, and then read Matthew 26:20-30.  Notice the parallels between the institution of the Old Mosaic Covenant and the New Covenant of Jesus Christ.  Both invoke the language of covenant, both are established in blood that is transmitted to the people, both are connected to meals where God is supernaturally present and visible, and both are made with communities rather than individuals.  And yet the New Covenant is markedly more powerful than the Old, for God is not merely present but incarnate, and the blood offered is not that of animals but that of the God-Man Himself.  Even in the most important event of the Old Testament, we can clearly see yet another instance of the Old Covenant foreshadowing Jesus' ministry.
 
 Our bible is divided into the Old Testament and the New Testament.  The word "Testament" is a synonym for "Covenant."  Our Bible is divided into those books that primarily refer to the establishment of the Old Covenant with Israel through Moses, and those books that refer to the New Covenant with the church through Jesus.