WHAT DOES JERUSALEM HAVE TO DO WITH ATHENS?

David Hume and Immanuel Kant, two controversial philosophers of the 1700’s were so influential at one time that they led people to believe God is so different from man that he couldn’t possibly be known or even communicate with humans. To be able to communicate with God would mean that God would be something less than God. Despite being raised as Christians (Calvinists), a walk through the Hebrew Scriptures might have given them another more realistic perspective.

Long before He opened the Gates of the Kingdom to Gentiles, Hebrews knew that God gave us the Scriptures in order to know Him and to know how to live.  It was clear from the beginning that God speaks and expects that we will know what He’s saying and be able to respond to it.  God breathed life, into Adam nostrils.  Not apes or any other being.  Made in the likeness of God determined our destiny.  God Himself thinks rationally, ordering His thoughts. He plans and follows through by a choice of His will.  He conceives of ideas and uses language to communicate meaning and purpose.

God conceives of and uses language to communicate meaning and purpose.  He has a wide spectrum of emotions – joy to sorrow; anger to peace; love to hate; pleasure to disappointment.  Though He is never confused or out of control. He is creative and He is a spiritual being.

He made us, unlike other creatures, to resemble Himself in all these ways for one reason – relationship, with Him and with one another. The most significant things we can know about Yeshua is His relationship with His Father.  The highest goal for us humans is to be conformed to His likeness – and most of all, in a relationship with His Father.

It is with our shared personal characteristics that we can interact with God.   We can see why they would say that.  The Bible presents God not only as Creator of the Galaxies but everywhere at once, knowing all there is to know.  But had Hume or Kant been Hebrews or Spirit-filled believers  they would have understood that God gave man the ability to think abstractly, plan, rationalize and have creative ideas and are able to follow them through.  And to put His thoughts into spoken and written form, including as an expression of God speaking through man. We learned in the first lesson how God in all that He is chose to speak to man. He did so through one group of people through whom He chose to express Himself to all mankind.  The Bible records the words “God said” 618 times and “the Lord said” 1132 times.  I guess we can say He wants to speak to us!  

 

So, in short, we understand that man is personal because God is personal. We are creative because God is creative. Man is a spiritual being because God is a spiritual being. Of course, God is God and man is man. We have our limitations.  We cannot create something out of nothing.  But who among the creatures is like God?  Only mankind is in His likeness, in His design and plan – all the various kinds of us. 

How Good is God? 

When God created every aspect of the earth, He declared them to be good – ki tov!  Entirely good.  Good in the basic Hebrew meaning has the sense of being complete.  Every part in its place fulfilling that for which God intended it.  The opposite, ra, (rah) which we take to mean evil, means not good, or not complete.  That is, things are not in their place, for the purpose God intended.  If you consider how far we’ve come from  tov in what that would actually mean and how it would play out in our lives and our planet,  you can see how ra is the antithesis of good in every measure and expression of it. Don’t let the fact that these are two small words with few letters keep you from realizing the profound significance of each.  Ra carries with it everything that is not good. God’s warning to Adam was to avoid what would corrupt tov ­– absolute goodness - and give place to ra – all that is not good in any measure.  And so we are still dealing with Adam and Eve’s poor choice today.  Ra is all that is not of God.  It includes the likes of sad, sorrow, grief, sickness, fear, death, poverty, lack, hatred and unforgiveness …..  all, and so much more, can come under the category of ra.  

Apart from everything else, each person is an image bearer of God at any stage of life. Including conception each person is of immeasurable worth. David and Jeremiah knew they were known by God while still in their mother’s wombs.  No matter of race or nationality, gender, physical ability, financial worth or lack of it, of intelligence, of creativity, or education, helpless or able, well or feeble…. All are equally in God’s likeness and of equal value to God.

The one exception is that those physically defective in any way were not permitted into the inner court of the temple.  But that was a prophetic picture of the holiness that would be required of Messiah and the holiness He would accomplish so that each of us would be able to come into God’s presence having been made holy by His blood and taken down the middle wall of partition – in any measure of alienation.  Paul made sure his gentile disciples understood this in an even greater measure: No male or female, no Jew or Greek, no slave or free.  Indicating  no color, creed, race, abilities, intelligence, health….  This was Paul’s understanding of what God’s egalitarianism defined to Israel in Torah. Not even the priests were to have greater sway over the people financially in that they couldn’t own property. The king, required to write 2 copies of Deuteronomy (the recounting of the commandments) each year, was meant to keep him as accountable to God as any other Hebrew.  Example: Samuel holding David accountable for Uriah’s death and his infidelity with Bathsheba.  He was not above it.

What happens to a culture that fails to recognize the unique basis of human worth?  

In Israel, each child is treasured as a gift from God parents  as having great value and parents are charged by God with the responsibility for raising their children in His ways.  But in Sparta, when a baby was born he is evaluated by virtue of the inspection and approval of the city council.  If he is small, even if he is healthy, he is deemed unfit for life. The highest standard of strength must be maintained for a Spartan male. If he is regarded as unfit for the standard, he is taken to a high cliff and tossed over the edge. His helpless wail ended quickly. Then silence and his little life was over. 

At 7 years old the Spartan boy was taken from his parents to be brought up by the State under the most critical forms of discipline.  All for the State. Any forms of cowardice was a disgrace. At 12 he then slept in the open air on a bed of broken rushes from the river bank. Underclothing was not allowed and he lived in the same garment for one year.  Nothing was to be comfortable to create in him a ‘Spartan’ individual. These young men often became the homosexual objects of older man.  At age 30 he would be admitted to the rights of a citizen, and allowed to dine with the elders in the dining hall.

Girls trained through running and wrestling.  Plutarch told of women being bold and masculine, and overbearing to their husbands.  Even so, it was a crime not to marry and husbands were encouraged to lend their wives out to other men who were especially strong so that they would have strong children. Yet, every child was subject to its father’s right to infanticide.  The right of the State meant the interest of the State provided the sole basis of human worth and more values.  The State sets the standards of value – to be good was to be brave and strong, for the good of the group as a whole. The individual value was minimized and insignificant.

Sparta sough to eliminate the weak. Athens, on the other hand, based their value, including of their infants, on the basis of what might appear to threaten “the good life.” A baby or child appearing to be weak in that they might need special care would interfere with the parents “good life” and were so done away with.  As a safeguard against overpopulation or depleting of nature resources, a child who was deemed unfit were exposed to the natural elements by being put in a large earthenware vessel and placed in the temples of their gods.

Extreme limitations of the family size was one of the outstanding social marks of ancient Greece. Statistics of one family in twelve have only two sons and no daughters made the death rate higher than the birth rate. No society can survive on such statistics – with no second generation.  The same fate was considered one of the causes of the Fall of Rome as well including that Rome placed such a high value on the military that the majority of men were in the army where homosexuality was the norm, older men paired with younger men. With this and the infanticide, there was not enough in the next generation to fight their battles, making them vulnerable to loosing in battle.  Such information is critical.  It is meaningful that we keep these things in mind as our own culture leans toward some of these same values of infanticide and increased and national or state-sanctioned homosexuality.  Neither of these concepts have ever died. They keep reappearing on the stage of human history, in different cultures, in different locations and different times. Are we now one of those times and locations?

A Few Things To Ponder:

Greece, and subsequently Rome, saw man as the measure of all things. But you can see why Athens and Jerusalem could in no away co-exist.  Here are a few things to give some thought to:

• How does that reflect the relationship between the church and the world? How are we to navigate through these challenges
• How does man being made in God’s own image affect our position of accountability for our choices and actions?
• If we are image bearers of God, how might that reality affect the way we relate to others?
• Was God’s Hand in Creation a one-time event? Or is it a continuing action even into the present? 
• Is an Atheist (say, a Greek) as much a person of faith as a Believer?

Inside Israel's Heart

The Bible reads differently when you're in Israel. Today I read about David hiding from Saul in the mountains, in the forest, in a field with Jonathan, or clamoring down a mountain with his men intending to do Nabal in until Abigail, coming down the other side of the mountain, caught up with him and saved his life and his destiny in God with her wisdom. Israel has lots of mountains, and great vistas to be seen from them or of them. Today Jody and I took another hike on portions of the trail that goes all through Israel. It would take 2 months to hike it all.

Some areas are sort of steep - going down is, needless to say, much easier than going up. I can feel myself growing stronger with each hike. After reading the portions of Scripture mentioned above, I felt like I was walking where David might have. At least I could "feel" what it must have been like on the trails for him. It's beautiful territory but the fact that this is where it all took place, makes the stories different. They don't feel so much like stories of way back when and over there when you're here. I know what it sounds like now to tramp down rock strewn mountain paths.

There's a constant welcoming of people. Hospitality is a way of life here. Last night 17 people came to 'our' home from a visiting group from all over America. They are a group called Hands to the Land, who come to be of help to Israel. They came last night for a concert of Alyosha's music followed by a time of refreshments and mingling. Somehow they all fit into the living room, plus the grand piano,though it's not a very large home. They welcomed the opportunity to be in the home of Israelis. What sweet people they were.

On Friday night, for Shabbat, we have 24 people from Germany coming for Shabbat dinner who are in the Land on some mercy mission. This week we will be accompanying them while visiting Holocaust survivors to bring gifts, love and joy and to let them know they're still cared about and haven't been forgotten. That from German believers, as I said in a previous email, who are intent on making up for what pain and sorrow Germany brought upon Jews. Every year a group comes from Germany for that purpose. It would seem a spirit of reconciliation is upon them - to which I say, Amen.

I had one really genuine Israel experience a few days ago. I went to a funeral, well actually a memorial service taking place a few months after this man died, when they put the stone on the grave. The man died of a physical condition but really of a broken heart. Why? Because his daughter was murdered by 2 Palestinian men while out walking one evening. The daughter was an adult and had her own daughter who was of course there with her grandmother.  Many others gathered around the grave. When I first entered the cemetery I felt a sense of grief that was almost palpable. But when we got to the grave site a different feeling impressed me, one of a people bound together to survive, to be strong in the midst of sorrow.  Death is not new to them.

The daughter of the murdered woman is around 16-18 years old. She is also the granddaughter of the deceased. She was wrapped in the arms by another woman but it wasn't clear who was holding who up, as both seemed to need support. I was told that K, the older of the two, was the survivor of another Palestinian attack in which she and a friend were grabbed and stabbed numerous times. K has a small knife which she was able to pull out and used to slice into one of the Palestinians. K's friend died but despite 19 knife wounds, K lived and was able to give the knife to the police who were able to obtain a DNA specimen that somehow enabled them to capture the Palestinians who are now in jail for murder.  It was at the trial that K met the mother and father of the first mentioned murdered woman. They adopted each other and K became like the daughter they lost to the parents and quite close to that woman's daughter whom she was now holding on to.

The experience of being there, hearing them say the prayers in Hebrew that are always said at Jewish funerals was both familiar and foreign to me. The prayers are a praise to God, but in America most Jews don't understand enough Hebrew to know what it says, though Hebrew is used for prayers. But here in Israel, they know the words give glory to God even in the shadow of death. While most Christians would tend to think that without Yeshua these people wouldn't sense God's strength, His presence, or even His joy. But for those who have faith in God, they give him praise and sing His praises, often with great fervor and/or joy, and they speak of trusting in Him, sometimes more than Christians do as their need for Him is great. But then, after all, the whole Tenakh (O.T.) is filled with Jews giving praise to God. Why would then not now?

After the memorial service, we all went back to the home of the wife and in typical Jewish fashion, there was a lot of food. I have to add that the house was filled with Israeli art which was inspiring to me. All Biblical. Israel is about the Bible, no matter what level of faith one has.

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