Category: Leadership

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Don’t Take Your Anointing for Granted

Your anointing isn't about you. Don't take it for granted or God will take it away.

There is a pattern woven throughout the Scriptures that people seldom notice, or if they do notice it, they don’t think it applies to them personally. The pattern is this: God gives authority and anointing to people, and when those people despise that gift through disobedience, pride, or complacency, he takes it away and gives it to someone else.

This isn’t a minor theme. It runs from Genesis to Revelation. It’s a warning, and it’s meant for you.

The Sons of Jacob

Let’s start at the beginning.

The eldest son in a Hebrew family normally received the birthright of the firstborn. That meant a double portion of the inheritance and the responsibility of leading the family after the father died. It was a tremendous privilege, and it came with tremendous expectation. The firstborn was trained from birth to be worthy of it. In practice, it didn’t always work out this way.

Jacob had twelve sons, but the firstborn privileges were not handed to any single one of them. They were divided among four sons, and the reason they were divided is instructive.

Reuben was Jacob’s first son. By all rights, the double portion, the family leadership, and the family priesthood should have been his. But Reuben slept with his father’s concubine, Bilhah (Genesis 35:22), possibly in an attempt to take the birthright without waiting for Jacob to die. That single act of moral failure cost him almost everything. When Jacob gave his final blessings in Genesis 49, he said of Reuben: “You shall not have preeminence, because you went up to your father’s bed.” (Genesis 49:4) Reuben wasn’t cut off entirely. His tribe was still counted as Israel and received an inheritance in the land, but he lost his place at the head of the family. He forfeited the position of firstborn by his own choices.

Simeon was next in line. When Reuben disqualified himself, Simeon should have stepped up. He didn’t. When their sister Dinah was violated by the Canaanite, Shechem, Simeon and his brother Levi took matters into their own hands. They tricked the men of the entire city into getting circumcised, and then while those men were incapacitated, they slaughtered every single one of them. (Genesis 34) It wasn’t just Shechem they killed. It was an entire city. Jacob was horrified. He said they had made him a stench to the Canaanites. In his final blessing, he grouped Simeon and Levi together and declared that their descendants would be scattered and divided throughout Israel because of their anger and cruelty. (Genesis 49:5-7) In the final allotment of land, Levi was given individual cities scattered throughout Israel and Simeon was given territory completely surrounded by Judah and was eventually absorbed by the larger tribe.

So the birthright that should have been Reuben’s was broken into three parts, each given to a different son based on merit.

Levi received the family priesthood. This is remarkable when you consider what we just read. Levi had participated in the same massacre as Simeon, and yet his tribe was later chosen to serve God as priests and Levites. What changed? At the foot of Mt. Sinai, when Israel broke the covenant before it was even sealed and worshiped the golden calf, it was the tribe of Levi who stood with Moses and with God. They took up their swords and executed judgment on the idolaters, even when that meant killing their own brothers, friends, and neighbors. (Exodus 32:26-29) God didn’t forget the first sin, but he rewarded later faithfulness. Levi’s tribe demonstrated that their zeal, however misplaced in Canaan, could be directed toward God. Because of that, they received the priesthood.

Judah received the family leadership: the scepter, the authority to rule. Why Judah? He was the fourth son, not even close to the front of the line. But read Genesis 44. When Joseph, whom the brothers still believed was a stranger, threatened to keep their youngest brother Benjamin as a slave, it was Judah who stepped forward and offered himself in Benjamin’s place. He had given his word to his father that he would bring Benjamin home safely, and when the moment of crisis came, he was willing to pay the price with his own freedom. Jacob blessed Judah with the scepter: “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute/Shiloh comes to him.” (Genesis 49:10) Leadership went to the one who proved he was willing to lay down his life for his people.

Joseph–or rather, his two sons Ephraim and Manasseh–received the double portion. This was the economic birthright, the extra share of the inheritance. Joseph had every reason to be bitter. His brothers had hated him, conspired to kill him, thrown him in a pit, and sold him into slavery. He spent years in an Egyptian prison for a crime he didn’t commit. And yet, when God raised him to power and his brothers were at his mercy, Joseph forgave them. He wept over them, saying, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good.” (Genesis 50:20) God rewarded his humility and faithfulness with the double portion, giving it through his two sons who were adopted into the twelve tribes.

Notice what God was doing. He wasn’t following a formula. He was watching and evaluating. He was testing and paying attention to who people actually were and what they actually did, and he was distributing his gifts accordingly.

Saul and David

Fast-forward a few centuries to Israel’s first king.

Saul was not a self-appointed ruler. God told Samuel to anoint him. Saul was chosen by God, filled with the Spirit of God, and given everything he needed to succeed. But Saul was proud and impatient, more concerned with what the people thought of him than with what God commanded. He offered a sacrifice he had no authority to offer because he was afraid the army would scatter without it. (1 Samuel 13) He was told to completely destroy the Amalekites, but he kept the best of the livestock and spared the king, because–as he later admitted–he feared the people and obeyed their voice rather than God’s. (1 Samuel 15:24)

Samuel’s response is one of the most sobering passages in the whole Bible:

Because you have rejected the word of YHWH, he has also rejected you from being king.
1 Samuel 15:23

And a few verses later:

YHWH has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you.”
1 Samuel 15:28

That neighbor was David. Not a king, not a warrior, but a shepherd boy, the youngest of his brothers, the one who wasn’t even invited into the room when Samuel came to anoint a king. But God said, “Man looks on the outward appearance, but YHWH looks on the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7) And David’s heart–despite his very real and very serious failures later in life–was oriented toward God. He was a man after God’s own heart. (1 Samuel 13:14)

The kingdom was taken from Saul and given to David because of his character, not his credentials.

Yeshua’s Warning to the Leaders of Judea

Now we come to the text that ties all of this together.

In Matthew 21, Yeshua had just ridden into Jerusalem to enormous crowds shouting “Hosanna to the Son of David!” He had driven the money changers out of the Temple. He had healed people in the Temple courts. And the chief priests and elders were furious. They challenged his authority. He turned it back on them, told them three parables, and then said this:

“Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”
Matthew 21:42-44

This passage is often read as though Yeshua was talking about all Jewish people, as if he was announcing that God was done with Israel and was handing everything over to the Gentiles. That reading is wrong, and it has caused centuries of harm. Read who he was talking to. He was talking to the chief priests and the elders of the people. (Matthew 21:23) He was talking to the political and religious leadership of Judea.

The people who lost the kingdom were not all Jews. God could not reject them as his people because he had made a covenant with them and promised never to break it no matter what they did. The people God rejected were the leaders who had despised their anointing, who had turned the Temple into a marketplace, burdened the people with rules no one could keep, cared more about their position than about God, and plotted to murder the Messiah because his popularity threatened their power.

And who were the new leaders of the Kingdom of God? They weren’t foreigners. They were a new Sanhedrin drawn from among the common people: twelve Jewish disciples of Yeshua, given authority to bind and loose (Matthew 18:18), sent to all the nations with the message of the Kingdom. The same pattern that ran through Genesis ran right through the first century. The people who proved themselves worthy by their fruit received the mantle of leadership. The people who despised their anointing lost it.

The Cycle Repeats

Here’s what you need to understand for today: this didn’t end in the first century.

Pick any era of church history and you’ll find the same pattern. God raises up a movement. The movement brings renewal, faithfulness, fruit in keeping with the anointing. Then it institutionalizes. It accumulates wealth and power and becomes more concerned with preserving itself than with obeying God. The leaders start making compromises and stop confronting sin. They start treating their authority as a personal possession rather than a stewardship delegated by a Higher Power. Eventually, God raises up something new to replace them, often from the margins, often led by people the establishment considers unqualified.

The Reformation. The Great Awakening. The global spread of Pentecostalism. Over and over, God has bypassed the corrupt and the comfortable and raised up the faithful and the humble.

The warning in all of this is personal.

If God has given you authority–whether over a congregation, ministry, family, or community–you do not own it. It is not yours by right. You are only a steward. The authority belongs to God, and he gives it to whom he wills and takes it away from whom he wills. Your title, your ordination, your position, your history, your tradition…none of these things protect you if you despise your anointing.

Reuben had the birthright. He lost it.

Saul had the kingdom. He lost it.

The chief priests had the Temple and the Sanhedrin. They lost it.

What did they have in common? They all took their position for granted. They all let their own desires–their appetite, their anger, their fear, their pride–override their obedience to God. None of them thought they were in danger until it was too late.

Don’t be Reuben. Don’t be Saul. Don’t be the chief priests.

Bear fruit worthy of the anointing you’ve been given, or don’t be surprised when God gives it to someone who will.

“He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate.”
Luke 1:52

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Judged with Greater Strictness

Teachers will be judged with greater strictness.

It’s a good thing to be a teacher of the Word, but not something to be taken lightly. In James 3:1, the brother of Yeshua (aka Jesus) wrote “Let not many become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment.” (NASB95)

To some extent, God wants us all to be teachers. Paul wrote in Romans 15:14 that we are to encourage and admonish one another and in 1 Corinthians 14:26 that the members of a congregation should be encouraged to bring psalms, teachings, and prophecies to share. In Deuteronomy 6:7, Moses told us to teach God’s Law to our children.

The difference between teaching and being a teacher may be subtle, but I don’t think it’s difficult to grasp. We all clean, but we are not all janitors. We all sing, but we are not all singers. I sometimes write computer code in the course of my job, but I’m not a computer programmer.

On one hand, there are people who teach their children, instruct their employees, and share their understanding of Scripture with their peers. On the other hand, there are people who have been gifted by God with the ability to understand a complex topic or a difficult skill and explain it to others.

Consider Bezalel and Oholiab in Exodus 35:30-35, which reads in part, “God has filled Bezalel with his Spirit, wisdom, understanding, and knowledge of all kinds of craftsmanship… He also gave him a heart to teach, along with Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan.” These two men had a special gift for shaping metal, stone, and wood into beautiful objects that glorified God, and they had a desire and the temperament to teach that knowledge to others.

It’s a good thing to want to be a Bible teacher, and I would encourage anyone to study and tell others what they find so long as they are able to do so with gentleness and humility. However, not everyone is equipped for the role of teacher, and this is just as true in spiritual matters as in any other–perhaps even more true.

A spiritual teacher should align with the same criteria that Paul gave in 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9 for elders in the congregations they were organizing:

  • He’s humble and self-controlled
  • His household is in order
  • He’s not a new convert or untaught in the Scriptures
  • He’s not greedy or a womanizer
  • He has a good reputation
  • He’s not a partier or a brawler

I don’t think Paul meant that as a mandatory checklist so much as a set of guidelines, but even so, it’s a high bar. Nor was James trying to scare anyone away from becoming a teacher. Rather he was warning us not to do so lightly. It’s a heavy responsibility.

In v2, James wrote, “If anyone doesn’t stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to control the rest of his body as well.”

Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone is wrong at times, and teachers aren’t exempted. No spiritual teacher on earth knows everything, and so they all inevitably teach some amount of error. However, the consequences of a mistake can be greater for a teacher than for a student. This is why James wrote, “[teachers] will incur a stricter judgment.”

Consider what Yeshua said in Luke 12:48: “From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom is entrusted much, of him even more will be asked.” His point was that if you carry out a divinely delegated responsibility with diligence and faithfulness, there is reward, but there is also a greater spiritual cost if you fail.

It’s true in this world and the world to come, but you can look to the many fallen preachers and evangelists for an example in the here and now. If your auto mechanic tells you to use the wrong motor oil, it could cost him some business and you thousands of dollars. However, if your pastor tells you that English translation X is the infallible Word of God for the English speaking world, will your faith be shaken when you later discover that translation X has a few errors and questionable word choices? If yours won’t, I guarantee you that someone else’s will be.

If a preacher tells you that God wants you to do one thing when he really wants you to do the opposite, then he jeopardizes the spiritual lives of everyone in his congregation. He tarnishes God’s name and gives God-haters leverage against those with weak faith: “Your pastor said this, but the Bible clearly says that. He’s a hypocrite!”

Yeshua’s warning was mild compared to what God said through the prophet in Ezekiel 33:6-9. To paraphrase, “If the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, and the sword takes a single person from among the people, the watchman will pay for that man’s blood. If you don’t warn the wicked to repent and he dies in his sin, I will make you pay for his blood. If you do warn him and he repents, you will not only have saved that man’s life, but you will have saved your own as well.”

Like James, I don’t say all of this to scare anyone away from aspiring to be a teacher. I say it to scare you away from taking this calling lightly. It is a good thing to immerse yourself in the Scriptures, to help others to understand and obey them, and to enhance their relationship with God through that understanding and obedience.

Not everyone should seek to be a teacher of God’s people. In fact, most people should not. But if God is calling you, you can’t ignore him. If you feel the fire that Jeremiah described as burning in his bones if he kept it to himself, you must step forward, and you must treat it seriously.

Be a student of the word first and be diligent. You shouldn’t start teaching even the basics of the faith until you have begun to grasp the deeper, more difficult aspects. If you don’t know where to start, start here: Common Sense Bible Study Essentials.

Submit yourself to the elders of your local congregation. If you don’t have elders or a congregation, go get them. Right now. There are no lone wolves in God’s Kingdom. Listen to those who have proved themselves to be faithful men of God and follow their example. Seek counsel and discipleship as Paul went to James and Peter after his conversion, and be obedient to the Word and the Spirit.

Remember that no one except Yeshua ever gets everything right. You can derive a comforting lesson from James’ words, “If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man…”. Nobody is perfect. I think he was talking about maturity rather than perfection, but it’s also possible that this was tongue-in-cheek, as if to say “If you can do this, you can do anything.” You will teach some error. Fix it when you learn better, and then move on.

You should be certain that you are called to teach. I can’t tell you exactly how you will know. Maybe you’ll feel that fire in your heart that won’t let you be silent, burning into your bones. Maybe you’ll be selected and anointed by the elders of your congregation. If you’re not sure, start with the exercises in this article (https://americantorah.com/2018/11/15/six-exercises-to-find-your-calling/) and then go talk to your elders. If you start teaching and someday realize that it isn’t your true calling, be humble enough to admit it and step aside for someone else who is ready.

Finally, trust God’s Spirit to guide and equip you for your task. Just as Bezalel and Oholiab were given skill and a heart to teach, God will provide what you need if he’s called you. Don’t think it will be easy. That fire in your bones won’t always come out in ways that people can understand at first. It takes hard work to refine your message, to learn how to speak to people, to break down the complex ideas that are banging around in your heart so that they come out of your mouth and your keyboard in useful form. Remember that it’s not about earning a name or an income, but about pointing people through Yeshua to the Father.

Listen in on Common Sense Bible Study’s conversation on James 3:1-12.

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Were Andronicus and Junia Apostles?

Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me.
Romans 16:7 ESV

Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellowprisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me.
Romans 16:7 KJV

This verse is the center of a surprising amount of controversy. Note that the English Standard Version says that Andronicus and Junia were well known to the apostles, while the King James Version says they were well known among the apostles. That one little preposition changes the meaning considerably.

Where Andronicus and Junia well-known apostles? Or were they well-known to the apostles? If they were apostles, “well-known” implies that they were on a par with the Twelve Disciples and possibly as notable as James and John. This would be especially sensational, since Junia was almost certainly a woman.

Andronicus and Junia appear to have been a married couple and were probably of the tribe of Benjamin, the same as Paul (See Romans 11:1.), or even more closely related to him. Several Jews are mentioned in this chapter already, but these are the only ones Paul calls his “kinsmen”, so I think this must refer to something more than being fellow Jews.

Paul also calls them his “fellow prisoners”. He implies in 2 Corinthians 11:23, written several years before this letter, that he had been imprisoned on multiple occasions. The only confinement prior to writing Romans that we have certain knowledge of is at Philippi in Acts 16:24, but there is no mention of Andronicus and Junia nor any other believer in prison with him apart from Silas. It’s likely that many significant events of his missionary journeys were not recorded so that they were imprisoned with him somewhere else, or he meant that they shared the experience of being imprisoned but not necessarily at the same time and location. Since Paul says that they were “in Christ” before him, it’s even possible that they were victims of Paul himself during his persecutions of the Christians in Judea and nearby provinces.

The term apostle (apostolos, αποστολοις) doesn’t necessarily imply a position of general or supreme authority. It literally means “messenger” or “deputy” and can refer to anyone who is sent on any kind of mission as a representative of another. Missionaries, messengers, errand boys, and diplomatic envoys can all be called apostles.

There are two questions to answer in this instance. First, were Andronicus and Junia apostles themselves or merely well known to the apostles. Second, did Paul use “apostle” in the more generic sense or did he use it as a title of office for those disciples of Yeshua who had been given special authority over his Kingdom. These questions are linked because the answer to either one likely dictates the answer to the other. As I will explain, either this couple were known to the apostles and Paul used the word in the sense of an ecclesiastical office or else they were well known apostles and Paul used the word in the more general sense of anyone sent on a mission for another. I lean very strongly to the former.

If they were notable among the Apostles, this would imply that they were at least on a par with the lesser known of the original Twelve Disciples, yet neither Andronicus nor Junia are mentioned anywhere else in Scripture. They left no writings, not even any hints that they had ever written anything. They are not mentioned by any of the first century or second century Christian writers and rate only two mentions in the first four centuries of Christian literature:

  1. In his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (c. 246 AD), Origen of Alexandria speculates that they might have been among the 72 disciples sent out by Yeshua in Luke 10. Most of the original Greek has been lost, and this survives only in a Latin translation. Since Origen had only his own personal speculation and no personal knowledge or documentary evidence, this is essentially meaningless.
  2. John Chrysostom wrote in his Homily 31 on Romans, “How great the devotion of this woman [Junia], that she should be even counted worthy of the appellation of apostle”. However this was written 350 years after Paul died, and Chrysostom also asserts in the same writing that Paul had never been imprisoned before, which is clearly contradicted by Acts 16. Considering Chrysostom’s temporal separation from the facts, his factual errors, and his extreme antisemitism, I don’t consider Chrysostom to be a reliable witness.

If they were so notable, why did no one leave any notes about them?

If this were the only evidence available, I would be inclined to conclude that Andronicus and Junia were notable to the Apostles rather than among them, but there is at least one other significant factor.

Michael Burer published two papers on the use of episemos (notable, επισημος) in ancient and medieval Greek literature. The first paper, with Dan Wallace, titled “Was Junia Really an Apostle?” analyzed “a few dozen passages” that seemed most relevant to the circumstance described in Romans 16.[1] The authors concluded that, “The collocation of επισημος with its adjuncts shows that, as a rule, επισημος with a genitive personal adjunct indicates an inclusive comparison (‘out-standing among’), while επισημος with (εν plus) the personal dative indicates an elative notion without the implication of inclusion (‘well known to’).” In other words, when episemos is in the dative case and includes en (επισημοι εν), as in Romans 16:7, it always means “notable to” and not “notable among”.

The second paper, titled “ἘΠΙΣΗΜΟΙ ἘΝ ΤΟΙΣ ἈΠΟΣΤΟΛΟΙΣ In Rom 16:7 As ‘Well Known To The Apostles’: Further Defense And New Evidence”, examined more than 100 additional passages when it became clear that the primary objection to the first study was the limited number of source texts.[2] This second article concluded that “Seventy-one new texts demonstrate that Paul could have readily used επισημος plus the genitive to show that Andronicus and Junia were “notable among the apostles.” Thirty-six new texts, all but one of which parallel Rom 16:7 exactly in grammatical structure, provide further evidence that Paul intended επισημοι εν τοις αποστολοις to mean that Andronicus and Junia were ‘well known to the apostles.’”

Although I am not a Greek scholar by any conceivable metric and many actual Greek scholars disagree with me, it seems to me that Paul was almost certainly not calling Andronicus and Junia apostles. Rather, they were both well known to the Apostles, probably because of their maturity in the faith and willingness to endure persecution for the name of Yeshua.

This also leads me to conclude that Paul was using the term “apostle” to refer to those men in the most respected and authoritative positions in the first century community of believers: those who had known Yeshua personally and possibly their closest disciples. This would include the Twelve Disciples, Paul, and possibly those who remained of the Seventy-Two Disciples along with well-known men like Timothy and Barnabas.

I don’t believe that Paul always used the term in this sense. The word apostle can refer to any person who is specially commissioned by another to carry out a mission or relay a message. In this broader sense, every prophet and missionary is an apostle of Yeshua, and I would not object to calling Andronicus, Junia, Phoebe, Prisca, and Aquila “apostles”. As when he uses law (nomos), we have to use contextual clues and common sense to tell us when he means it narrowly (the Law and the Apostles) or broadly (law and apostles). If Paul considered this couple to be among the Apostles, in the narrower sense, then this verse could have a major impact on the debate concerning the role of women in positions of ecclesiastic authority, but that interpretation doesn’t appear to be supported by the text.

[1] Michael H. Burer and Daniel B. Wallace, “Was Junia Really an Apostle? A Re-examination of Rom 16.7,” New Testament Studies 47 (2001): 76-91.

[2] Michael H. Burer, “ἘΠΙΣΗΜΟΙ ἘΝ ΤΟΙΣ ἈΠΟΣΤΟΛΟΙΣ In Rom 16:7 As ‘Well Known To The Apostles’: Further Defense And New Evidence,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 58, no. 4 (2015): 731-55.

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A Heart to Pray and A Mind to Work

Daniel Botkin, A Heart to Pray and a Mind to Work

Recently I asked a group of congregational leaders about their biggest concerns and challenges. Their responses didn’t surprise me.

  • How can we teach on controversial topics without stepping on too many toes? What really matters and which topics can be safely avoided?
  • How do we handle false doctrines and the general craziness that people pick up on the Internet?
  • How should we handle conflicts and troublesome members?
  • What do we do when we’re accused of wrongdoing? What do we do when we are actually in the wrong?
  • How can we promote a spirit of gratitude and faith in our people?
  • How do we manage expectations and integrate people with different levels of faith and relationship with God? How do we find a place for everyone who wants to serve?

Every congregation faces these questions (and many more) at some point. If you’re doing God’s work on earth, you can’t expect the enemy to ignore you. He will take notice and start probing for weak points he can use to attack you and undermine your ministry.

As Messianic and Hebrew Roots congregations multiply and grow, we are facing more crises of leadership than most other believers. We are treading “new” ground–at least in today’s culture–of the old paths. Our people are struggling with the bitterness of realizing they have inherited lies, and they often lash out at their fellow heirs rather than at the original father of those lies.

“If you feel any anger or bitterness toward Christians, understand this: Chances are, you were not deliberately lied to. Chances are, your former pastors and teachers were good men who loved the Lord and sincerely believed the erroneous doctrines that they taught you. Chances are, they were simply misinformed by the misinformed leaders who taught them, and those misinformed leaders had been misinformed by the previous generation of leaders. So put away any anger and bitterness you have toward Christians. Direct your anger toward the Devil, the deceiver who persuaded them to believe the misinformation.”

Daniel Botkin, A Heart to Pray and A Mind to Work

Our tendency to blame our fellow victims rather than our mutual enemy, leads many of us to reject authority, to reject all teachers and scholars, to strike out on our own as lone theological wolves. But we aren’t supposed to be wolves, whether lone or in a pack. We are a flock, and like every flock that wants to survive, we need shepherds, and we need each other.

I first met Daniel Botkin at a conference of Torah observant believers in Dallas, Texas. I attended his lecture on leadership in the congregation, and–the first chance I could get–found him in the merchant hall and bought his book, A Heart to Pray and A Mind to Work.

As I began to read it over the next week, it immediately struck me as a vitally important work in the community of Torah observant followers of Yeshua. Botkin has more knowledge of the Scriptures and more experience in congregational leadership than the vast majority of us will ever have, and we need to take full advantage of the wisdom he has to offer.

I believe that what we are doing in this Torah movement is right. We are shedding centuries of lies and rediscovering the biblical roots of our faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but the way back is treacherous. The Enemy doesn’t want us to make it, and he will do everything in his power to keep us distracted, divided, and off course. We need help to stay out of the ditches and swamps that lie on every side. We need common sense guidance on spiritual leadership, and I believe Botkin’s book is an important part of that guidance.

So I offered to narrate it and make it available as an audiobook. I’ve never done anything like this before, and it turned out to be a much more difficult task than I had anticipated. I’m not a voice actor or professional narrator. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever set foot in a professional studio. (I recorded in my bedroom closet with a usb microphone and a cheap laptop!) I’m sure the task could have been done better by professionals, but the professionals just weren’t going to do it, and this book needs to be available from as many retailers and in as many formats as possible.

In the interest of full disclosure, I didn’t do all this work for free, but I’m not making a bunch of money from it, either. My share will probably come out to around $1 per audiobook sold. The bulk of the revenue goes to pay for the servers and bandwidth at the various audiobook retailers, and most of the rest will go to support Daniel Botkin’s ministry.

If you are as tired of the bickering and controversy as I am, consider buying either the paperback or the audiobook. Botkin’s website (GatesOfEden.Online) has links to purchase the paperback of A Heart to Pray and A Mind to Work as well as others of his books. I’ll post links below to various audiobook retailers as they add it to their catalogues over the next few weeks.

Audiobook retailers carrying A Heart to Pray and A Mind to Work:

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Men Who Fear God: Yitro’s Rules for Leadership

Jethro's qualities of leadership

Moreover, look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe, and place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens.
(Exodus 18:21)

In this passage, Jethro (Hebrew: Yitro) had observed Moses working himself to death by attempting to address every complaint of the millions of Hebrew refugees by himself. He wisely suggested that Moses needed some help and gave some specific instructions on how to select his helpers. His instructions were essentially the same as those Paul gave to Timothy and Titus many centuries later:

Therefore an overseer must be

  • above reproach
  • the husband of one wife
  • sober-minded
  • self-controlled
  • respectable
  • hospitable
  • able to teach
  • not a drunkard
  • not violent but gentle
  • not quarrelsome
  • not a lover of money
  • manage his own household well
  • keeping his children submissive
  • not a recent convert
  • well thought of by outsiders

(From 1 Timothy 3:2-7)

…able men… These men were to be “able” or chayil. They must have proven their ability by success in business, community, family, and war. They should be men of both knowledge and ability. They don’t need to be supermen, but their families should be well ordered, their businesses more successful than not, and their personal finances in order. Untried men should not be placed in positions of authority.

…men who fear God… Ability alone is not enough to make a great leader of God’s people. He must also be a man of God. He should have high personal standards, a healthy prayer life, and not embroiled in sordid controversies. There are many fine atheists and agnostics in the world–at least by the world’s standards–but they are not qualified to lead God’s people.

…who are trustworthy… Not men who are apt to deceive their way into office. The pathological dishonesty of the vast majority of modern politicians is obvious to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear. They lie and they lie and they lie, bolder every year, yet they remain in office. That we continue to elect such men and women into leadership is proof of the old adage: We get that government which we deserve.

…hate a bribe… Offices with power are rife with all sorts of opportunities to advance one’s own interests. It is a good thing to desire to lead God’s people, but not to desire it overly much. Remember Yeshua’s words: The first will be last, and he who would lead must serve. Any system resembling a democracy, unfortunately, must favor dishonest seekers of power and fortune.

There are no perfect people in the world. Everyone has flaws. Everyone has weak moments when we make poor choices, set a poor example, and think terrible thoughts. But it’s one thing to be flawed and something else entirely to be a liar, a thief, or a murderer.

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A Review of Yehuda Avner’s The Prime Ministers

The Prime Ministers isn’t a comprehensive history of Israel. It’s a collection of vignettes concerning an insider’s interactions with the country’s prime ministers up through Menachem Begin. It’s a very personal account that focuses on the personalities rather than the events.

There were some slow parts. (It’s a history, so you have to expect that.) But overall, this was a fantastic book. I loved it, especially the last half that focused on Menachem Begin. If only every world leader could have the kind of character, kindness, and realistic idealism that Begin possessed. The author’s portrayal of some of the biggest characters of the latter 20th century filled them out and made them more real to me. Carter, Reagan, and Shimon Peres dropped a couple of notches in my estimation, while Kissinger, Thatcher, and Begin all rose.

I’ve been reading a lot of biographies lately, and this book underscored a commonality I’ve seen among the great men and women of history. They’re just regular people with all the same flaws and motivations as the rest of us. There are a few things that set them apart: personal discipline, a clear vision, and the drive to make that vision real. If you can put those three things together, you can make things happen.

The Prime Ministers by Yehuda Avner

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Created to Become Unequal

Leviticus 21:1 And the LORD said unto Moses, Speak unto the priests the sons of Aaron, and say unto them…

On some sense, I am sure that everyone is created equal, but I have yet to define what that sense might be. From birth we are all different. Some are stronger, some are hairier, some have different parts, and those differences confer varying responsibilities and powers.

God holds the physical descendants of Aaron to a higher standard than he holds the rest of us. For example, he deals with their sexual immorality much more harshly. The daughters of Aaron must remain virgins until married. If they don’t, the penalty isn’t just stoning. It’s burning.

Aaron’s sons are held to a higher standard than his daughters. Emor gives a short list of things that a priest may not do that other of God’s people may:

  • Touch the corpse of anyone who is not an immediate relative.
  • Shave his head or disfigure his beard.
  • Marry a woman who has sex outside of marriage or who has been divorced.
  • Drink alcohol while serving in the sanctuary.
The High Priest has an even higher standard than that. He may not
  • Touch the corpse of even immediate relatives.
  • Marry a widow or any non-virgin.
  • Leave the sanctuary while performing the duties of his office.
  • Bring anything unclean into the sanctuary.

Paul alluded to this same concept when he told Timothy and Titus his standards for Church leaders. He never intended those lists to be taken as absolute laws for all believers. (Or even for all church leaders, for that matter! They aren’t priests serving in the Temple, after all.) He was illustrating how good leaders must have a different code of behavior. There is no sin in preparing and burying a corpse nor in having a rebellious child, but God said that his priests shouldn’t do those things.

That God’s standards for some people might be different than his standards for others only surprises the inheritors of the so-called Enlightenment. Many good things have come from the philosophical and theological revolutions of the past, but some things have also been lost and corrupted.

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What Killed Ted Cruz’s Presidential Campaign?

Nails in the Cruz campaign coffin:

1. Primary marketing shenanigans.
2. Glenn Beck’s lunacy.
3. Endorsements from Bush, Graham, et al.
4. Delegates shenanigans.
5. Collusion with John Kasich.
6. Carly Fiorina VP pick.

Much of this was SOP for political campaigns of the last 20 years, but taken as a whole in this particular election cycle, it’s almost like failure was planned.

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Higher Standards for Higher Position

Character in leadership matters.
I mean to make myself a man, and if I succeed in that, I shall succeed in everything else. -James A. Garfield

God commanded the people of Israel to be holy, set apart from the world for a special purpose. He wanted them to live to a higher standard, to be a beacon to the whole world, pointing every other nation to the Creator. If the people of Israel were to be holier than other nations, how much more was the High Priest of Israel to be holier than other priests?

The Levitical High Priest has a number of restrictions on his behavior that other Israelites do not, things that would not be a sin if he were not High Priest. All of those restrictions are intended to protect his ability to serve the nation. The precise relationship between the restriction and his effectiveness as High Priest might not be obvious at first glance, some less so than others. For example, it’s not a sin for a man to marry a widow, not even a king. It’s not even a sin to marry a foreign woman so long as she worships the God of Israel. The High Priest, on the other hand, may only marry a virgin of the people of Israel. He may not marry a widow, divorcee, a woman of “loose morals,” nor any foreign woman no matter her faith or exemplary character.

People today see such rules as irrelevant or even backwards. What difference does it make if a national leader’s wife has a “history”? If you are serious about living by God’s rules, you can probably think of a number of reasons it might matter. There is an enormous gap between the people who see value in morally impeccable leadership and those who want their leaders to be just like them.

The problem here is cultural and, more importantly, it is spiritual. You and I can see why it matters that our pastors or Presidents be above reproach. Other people obviously cannot. They believe that if he makes the right promises, says the right words, and looks good on camera, then he must be qualified for the job. If his skin is like mine or if he’s liked by people like me, then he must understand me, represent me. Right?

Of course, not. Skin color and pretty words have no relationship to a man’s ability to lead, let alone his ability to keep from embarrassing his people in front of the entire world.

Character matters. Experience matters. An understanding and love of American ideals of liberty and faith in God matters. If a man wants to be the pastor of your church or the leader of your nation, his past needs to be a completely open book. His character and resume must be exemplary. His family must be respectful and respectable. If a man hides his past, he should be immediately rejected for any significant position of spiritual or political leadership. If his family is in shambles, his reputation in tatters, no further consideration need be given. He is not worthy of our trust as a people.

We are Americans, and we are Christians. Our leaders must be too. Without reservation.

We are commanded to be a holy people, lighting the way to God for all other peoples. If we hold ourselves to a higher standard—and we absolutely should—how much higher should be the standard of any man who would be our leader?

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Resolving Conflicts in the Family and Nation

Moses teaching the people of Israel.

In his comments on Matot this week at Aish, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks highlighted the conflict between Moses and the tribes of Reuben and Gad, who wanted to settle on the east side of the Jordan instead of on the west with the other tribes. Although the narrative in Numbers 32 is probably very condensed from the actual events, Rabbi Sacks points out how the story illustrates good conflict resolution strategy:

The negotiation between Moses and the two tribes in our parsha follows closely the principles arrived at by the Harvard Negotiation Project, set out by Roger Fisher and William Ury in their classic text, Getting to Yes.(2) Essentially they came to the conclusion that a successful negotiation must involve four processes:

  1. Separate the people from the problem. There are all sorts of personal tensions in any negotiation. It is essential that these be cleared away first so that the problem can be addressed objectively.
  2. Focus on interests, not positions….By focusing not on positions but on interests, the question becomes, “Is there a way of achieving what each of us wants?”
  3. Invent options for mutual gain….the two sides usually have different objectives, neither of which excludes the other.
  4. Insist on objective criteria. Make sure that both sides agree in advance to the use of objective, impartial criteria to judge whether what has been agreed has been achieved….

Moses does all four. First he separates the people from the problem by making it clear to the Reubenites and Gadites that the issue has nothing to do with who they are, and everything to do with the Israelites’ experience in the past… The problem is not about this tribe or that but about the nation as a whole.

Second, he focused on interests not positions. The two tribes had an interest in the fate of the nation as a whole. If they put their personal interests first, God would become angry and the entire people would be punished, the Reubenites and Gadites among them….

Third, the Reubenites and Gadites then invented an option for mutual gain. If you allow us to make temporary provisions for our cattle and children, they said, we will not only fight in the army. We will be its advance guard. We will benefit, knowing that our request has been granted. The nation will benefit by our willingness to take on the most demanding military task.

Fourth, there was an agreement on objective criteria. The Reubenites and Gadites would not return to the east bank of the Jordan until all the other tribes were safely settled in their territories. And so it happened, as narrated in the book of Joshua…

The history of Israel (and every other people, really) demonstrates that a nation is an extended family with a common history, language, religion, & culture. The makeup of a family, like that of a nation, can change over time, but the family only remains so long as those things which define it as a family remain. Without the cement of common ideals and a common mission, you can’t have a family.

Like a national leader, a father must spend a great deal of time and energy resolving conflicts in the family. If he is to be successful, he must decide what really matters and what doesn’t. Since each family is different, with its own quirks and challenges, I can’t tell you exactly how you should govern your family or what specific things you should prioritize. However, I can speak to some things that are common among all families.

A father must keep his family’s first principles in mind, those things which define them as a family: blood, faith, mission, etc.

Everyone in the family must be related by blood or covenant. If anyone is free to walk away when things aren’t going the way he prefers, then he can’t be considered real family.

Everyone in a family should subscribe to the same religion. There can be differences of opinion, of course, even of expression, but the basic tenets of faith must be essentially the same among all individuals, or the family will experience serious trouble in time.

Everyone in a family should be working toward a common goal. Remember that Jesus said “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” It’s true of churches, commercial enterprises, nations, and families. Each person must have their own personal missions and aspirations, but they cannot be at odds with each other. If a father’s mission is to teach responsible life skills to inner city children, his wife’s mission cannot be to keep those same people dependent on government handouts in order to use them as political pawns. Or, rather, those cannot be their missions if they desire to remain a family.

Conflicts in themselves are not bad. Like all of life’s challenges, they are the exercises we need to develop relational and spiritual strength. So long as each member of the family is willing to place the needs of the family above their own needs, almost any conflict can be worked out to a favorable resolution.

Conflict is part of God’s plan. Resolving conflicts in the family is an essential element of familial–and therefore national–maturity and cohesiveness.

Fathers, remember your family’s first principles. Remember your covenants. Remember your mission. Remember God.