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Pride Hunting: Identifying pride in your own life and ridding your life of it.

Proverbs 29:23  One's pride will bring him low, but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor.

by Danny Ehinger

What Is Pride?

Pride. I had a native German for a friend and mentor in the electrical field. We met when he was newly arrived. He spoke very little English and we worked together every day. He understood electrical very well and always carried around a translation dictionary so he could communicate with others on the jobsite. We got along very well and after a bit he made me a deal: if I helped him with English he would help me learn electrical better.

We talked during the day while we worked and at lunch. We were gossiping one day about the way others worked and how we cared about our work while most didn’t seem to. I remember saying, “It is like others do not take pride in their work.” He stopped me there and wanted to know what word I had used. He didn’t understand the word pride. I tried to explain it as he looked it up in his dictionary. When he found it, his reaction was memorable to say the least. “No! No! No! Danny this is no good.” He explained that this was not a good word in German. I tried to explain that there was a positive and negative use of the word in English, but he would not have it. No, he told me, it is no good.

I had never really thought about pride, and his reaction to the word stuck with me. Pride had always been mostly negative for me, I mean the sense of the word. I felt many people were prideful in my family and the phrase, ‘take pride in your work’ never really set well with me. I could not think of a reason why, except that pride seemed so negative. I never saw myself as prideful though. Others had called me arrogant and prideful before, but they just didn’t know the whole story, in my view. It was the way I understood pride that kept me from seeing it for so long.

The clearest way to describe what I understood pride to be is to watch Disney’s animated version of Beauty and the Beast, particularly the scene where Gaston sings his ballad. That has always been what I thought of as pride. Pride meant thinking highly of yourself and overestimating your abilities or knowledge. That was not me; I hated myself. How could I be prideful?

Recognizing My Own Pride

No, I had a different problem. I did not know what my problem was, but I would not even consider pride in my life for many years. I wanted to be free from my personal issues, so I sought the truth as much as I could. I would constantly have problems with other people and pride would come up, but I knew that was not the real issue. I had a hard time dealing with people around me and constantly found myself simply dropping issues because I had no solutions and there were none to be had.

I thought nonstop. Before doing anything I would spend countless hours looking at each experience from every imaginable angle and try and figure out every possible outcome beforehand so that, when I was in the situation, I would be able to do the right thing. I get that this may not be bad behavior for a person who is going to do some big thing, but I did it over everything. Everything I did was thought out.

This kind of worked two ways to make life harder for me and those around me. First, I was never with the people I was with at the time. I was thinking about what was coming up. Then when I got to the situation, I knew exactly what to do and why. Others around me had not spent hours thinking about things, so they didn’t know everything that may happen, and they were experiencing things for the first time. This made our experiences different. I knew what was going to happen and it did, while they had a fresh experience and would want to communicate about it. I had already thought about it making me ready to move on while they felt belittled.

As I said this behavior has its place. It is great if I am planning how to complete a job or a raid to capture Osama Bin Laden. However it is not the best behavior for eating dinner, watching a movie, having sex, going out to eat, playing at the park, or any of the things that make life enjoyable. I was living life before I got there and then, when I was there, I was planning how to get through what was coming. It was exhausting.

I was obviously not living with those around me. The real problem was that I could not see it as a bad thing. I was the one in the know; I was ready. I had already solved the mystery in the movie, and I was right most of the time. When you say something and you’re correct it is not being prideful. It is being accurate. Add self hatred to that and I had absolutely no way to ever see my problem was pride. As a Christian, I was all about seeing my issues and dealing with them, but I was not interested in people who didn’t have everything figured out. (You can imagine how many people I was interested in.) I wanted help and answers, and I couldn’t find them, so I was figuring out the answers myself. I learned a lot, but it didn’t really do anyone any good because I wouldn’t take the time to explain myself. You either got it or you didn’t, and I was moving on to the next thing. See ya!

Then I came to a point where I actually made a mistake. I said something obviously wrong, and this time the people in my life stood up. (I say “this time” because it is likely I had made blatant errors before and people in my life couldn’t or didn’t want to stand up to me.) In the discussion, pride was brought in as the cause of the issue.

At the very same time, I was in a controversy with some others, and in this controversy I was not the offender. It was another. These two events were happening isolated from each other but at the same time. In one I was the problem; in the other it was another person, but the issues were the same. In one I was defending myself; in the other accusing another. I was in earnest working to help the other person see his issues and thinking about them while defending myself. At one of the last meetings before I saw, I was looking at the person I was accusing and asking myself, “Am I looking into the mirror?”

I found myself offering correction and being corrected at the same time. Knowing what I have shared about how I analyze everything, imagine what kind of pickle I was in. I was analyzing how I was right and analyzing why I was wrong at the same time. I think about how amazing God is when I think about the situation that He ordained so that I could have my eyes opened. Talk about a stubborn person. I had to start taking my own advice and analyzing myself. I hated who I was. I know that because I hated it when I saw the things I was doing in others. I just never saw that I was doing the very things I hated.

OK, so I saw my error. Friends labored with me for months and a long week or so over it, and finally I saw it. It was obvious. The error, to me, was not the big news. The big news, as far as I was concerned, was that I could make such an obvious error and not see it or acknowledge it. They kept pointing the error out and I kept talking about everything else but the error. It is embarrassing to think about. It is like having a note put on your back and everyone sees it but you. The only difference is that I was the one who put the note on my own back.

Getting Outside of Myself

Shame aside, I was relieved. Even with all my contemplating of every conceivable angle, I still could not see every possibility, and that brought great relief, because that means that every outcome was NOT dependent upon me. Things could happen and, even when they didn’t go well, it was not because I had the capability to stop them and didn’t. I didn’t even have the capability to fully see every outcome. The world’s problems were not because of me. Whew!

I was relieved for another reason as well. Trusted brothers in Christ told me the issue was pride and gave me a little insight that I didn’t have before. I accepted the rebuke and believed that I had a problem. God opened my eyes and I experienced freedom again from the prison of having to know everything.

I am not sure if it was backsliding (trying to figure everything out again) or not but this led me to thinking over pride. I started to tell everyone in my life that I had an issue with pride and asked them, if they saw it , to point it out to me. I didn’t have the first clue as to what it was. Again, the definition I was working with meant to be puffed up, and that meant Gaston, and I was not that. I had low self esteem.

So I started to attack this thing from every angle. This time, however, I included my family. I felt like this was a big deal, I had never had pride explained to me, nor could I find a very good explanation, yet I knew it was a big problem.

A Working Definition of Pride

Months went by. I cannot recall all of my thoughts, and at the dinner table, while discussing it with my family, we formulated a working definition for pride. By working definition, I mean it was something we could use to start identifying pride in ourselves and each other but not totally settled. Pride was being confident about something that you had not proved so this is the definition we came up with:

“Pride is acting and/or depending on an assumption that could be easily verified.”

It is important to understand the full idea here. It is not prideful to assume. We have to assume many things. We assume that the sun will come up tomorrow. We assume we will be able to walk after a night of sleep. We assume when we post a writing, someone will read it. Life is full of assumptions and we have to assume almost everything to continue to live happily, because it is not in our capabilities to know everything.

It is not prideful to act on assumptions; we do that all the time too. We assume our wife will like flowers. We write letters to people, assuming they care about what we have to say. We stop to see if a person needs help when their car has broken down. We assume people who come to church will drink coffee. We can act on assumptions without being prideful.

The hardest part in the definition is the distinction in the words to “depend” or to “act” on the assumption. What I mean by “acting and/or depending” is that we use the assumption to build upon. I mean we set a foundation upon this assumption and build on that foundation.

Let me illustrate what I mean.

Let’s say I assume my wife will want flowers, so I stop at the store to pick some up. I don’t want to ask her because I want it to be a nice surprise. Not being prideful here. I buy some flowers, her favorite, assuming, again, that she didn’t change her mind since the last time we talked about it. I start to go home and on the way I envision her response, she is going to be so happy, she is going to think I am a good husband and she is going to want to have some alone time latter to thank me.

PRIDE ALERT!!!

See the husband has now built on the assumption, he is now depending upon his original assumption for the rest of his assumptions. The wife is now hopeless unless she can read his mind. He gets home, she just finished with the bills and they have little money. She thinks she is allergic to those flowers now and she just started her period. Needless to say, she is not thrilled about the flowers, and all of his plans have come crashing down. This may be a fight now from what was supposed to be a very kind act.

If the husband had not built on his original assumption he would have come home and gave the gift, listened to the new information from his wife, thrown the flowers out, and went on with the evening. She may have seen his caring heart and, though the situation was a bummer, they now know each other a bit better. I plan to give more examples, but I hope you can see what I mean by ‘acting and/or depending’ on an assumption.

Lastly, what I mean by “easily verified” is that we take an assumption and build upon it when we could, with very little proportionate effort, verify the assumption.

Our world is built upon assumptions and many cannot be verified even if we wanted to. Many things, especially in relationships with others, are easy to verify. For example, you leave for work and though your spouse normally makes your lunch, today there is no lunch for you. You wonder why and decide she is mad at you for something you did. You think that is unfair and you get mad at her for getting mad at you. By the time you get home you have built a case against her, and you let her have it. You fight.

In reality, she just forgot. You could have very easily put off building assumptions upon assumptions until you verified your first assumption. A simple question, “Why didn’t you make my lunch today?” would have allowed you not to worry and fret and fight. Not everything in life is easily verifiable but most relationship issues are. When we choose not to go to the person and simply ask to verify our thoughts and or feelings we are walking in pride.

Pride Hunting

In order for us as a family to help each other see pride we started a game. We called it, “Pride Hunting”. The game worked like this, if you hear someone acting on an assumption that they could easily verify, you shoot them with an imaginary bow and arrow and make the sound of hitting the target. “Swooptttt.” Then the shooter has to explain why he thinks the person is being prideful. He has to show an assumption that is being acted upon. If he cannot, of course, we all get to shoot him. This led to some amazing discoveries. (FYI, we did go through an initial phase of this being fun, then it got a little hurtful and now it is fun again and also more rare as we are all trying not to be prideful.) Here are some examples of what we discovered together.

We discovered pride is not only happening when we are puffed up like Gaston, but rather it was also happening when we got depressed. Mom or dad would offer some form of correction and the child would become sad and sulked. We would ask why they were doing that. The reply was along the lines of, “I feel like you don’t love me,” or something to that effect. We then would shoot them and say, “You’re in pride.” Then we would point out why we said that. They had heard our correction and assumed we gave our correction because, in this case, we didn’t ‘love them’. Then they acted on their assumption (they became sad and sulked) rather than verify it. We then had them ask us about their feelings. “Mom I feel like you don’t love me anymore because of your correction, is that true?”

Mom gets to dispel that idea and replace it with the truth. We see here that self loathing is a result of pride as well.

I struggle with self hatred and depression. Learning from our experiences with the children the next time I became depressed. After I had spent a day in bed and my wife and I were able to talk again, I shared the reasons I fell into depression with my wife, and we spread the situation out and had a long talk about what went on. I brought up all the assumptions I had felt before getting into the pit and found each one was false or just needed some more information. It feels silly as an adult to ask my wife questions about the way I feel. “Honey, when you said this, I think you meant this and this. Is that true?” Rather that verifying the truth I had assumed and allowed my whole world to collapse. What a waste of time and energy. My wife had her things too, and we went through them as well. When we were done, it was like we knew each other better. There was hope.

One of my children was upset with his siblings. He felt like the girls didn’t like him and he was mad at them. We had him ask them. It turned out he was right: they did not like him. His behavior was prideful, however, because he was blaming them for not liking him. They admitted they didn’t like him, and they said why. He was always hitting them or being bossy or changing their games. They had good reason not to like him, but instead of listening to them and working to change, he depended on his right assumption and was angry with them and did more of what they hated. In this case he should have verified his assumption by asking if his feelings were true and then worked to understand how to correct the behavior. This conversation revealed a bundle of pride on everyone’s part.

What we were seeing is that all of our thoughts and feelings need to be verified by asking questions of the people we have the thoughts and feelings about. If we do not verify them, then we certainly shouldn’t build anything upon them.

Let’s look at giving a gift. I talked earlier about when a husband may stop and buy his wife some flowers. The question is how can we give a gift without being prideful? I’m singling out gift-giving because most gifts are acting on an assumption that we do not want to verify because we want it to be a surprise. So how do we pull this off? I think we have to give the gift expecting…..nothing. Even expecting a thank you or a smile of gratitude is building on an assumption and, if that simple assumption of ours is not met, we will be disappointed. I think in order to give gifts freely, without pride, we even need to be ready to have the person we are giving to be disappointed. It is just not fair to assume a person’s response for them. I know I hate that pressure as well.

Another thing that had to go in our home due to the ‘pride hunting’ game was generalizations. We started to realize just how much we generalized, as in “you ALWAYS do that”. Arrows began to fly at the words: ALWAYS, EVERYTIME, EVERYONE, CONSTANTLY, NEVER because they were easy pickings. Those words need qualifiers and we soon learned we needed to stop using them and be more accurate when we exposed things others do that we don’t like. We are now more careful to say things like, “it SEEMS like you are doing that a lot” etc. It is funny, but that little bit of breathing room given, rather than the suffocating generalization, makes a huge difference.

Deconstruction

After a while of focusing on this, I realized that this problem in my life had been there for a long time. It is hard to explain but, when God opened my eyes again (as described above), I felt a release from a fear I didn’t know I had. I had a fear of learning. I am not exactly sure how it worked, because I know that I learned stuff, but I felt this release to learn anything I wanted. The fear was gone. I didn’t exactly understand this fear of learning until realizing how much of my life was built upon assumptions.

When you decide to build upon assumptions, the fear that comes with pride is anyone proving your assumptions are wrong. When that happens, you lose everything built on top of those assumptions as well. That means you have to start over again, and starting over can be a painfully embarrassing enterprise. I think that is where my fear of learning came from. Subconsciously I was protecting all of the assumptions that I had been too lazy or selfish to verify. What a crock!

I think this is the reason that, the older people get, the more they refuse to hear anything that might challenge what they “know”. I realized that in my life I needed to allow a process of deconstruction and reconstruction. Deconstruction is the process of digging through past thoughts and feelings and verifying them. It is looking through issues in life and tracing them back to a point of pride. For instance, the way I may feel and think about my father. “Why do I think this way about him?” may be the question I ask. If the answer is because “he did this”, what about him doing that made me feel like I do? This may lead to twenty incidences over 23 years until I get to the actual root. Then, when I get to that root cause for my feelings for him, I can deal with it by sharing my thoughts and repenting or forgiving him. From there go to the next thing that comes to mind.

This may be a long process and some things that come up may not be able to be dealt with directly. The person could be dead, for instance. It seems to me it is still important to go through them and deal with the issues. I believe this type of work is something that takes courage and must be led by the Holy Spirit. I believe this type of work will be systemic and lead to us being healed and to the healing of many who live in the same prison. I also feel this type of thing is what we do when we actually believe “that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Another aspect of depending upon an assumption that could easily be verified is not correcting past wrongs. “Yeah we did that thing way back in high school, but I am sure they are over it by now.” Really? How can we be sure? Are you over the way you were treated? One example of this in my life was when I believe the Holy Spirit brought to mind a cruel thing I did in high school and was able to, through the power of Facebook, apologize.

Programmed Assumptions.

Programmed assumptions are things society teaches us that we accept and never verify. It is amazing how many things we are taught to believe and most never question. One example is how we are taught that the Civil War was fought because of slavery. That is the popular story, and I remember the first time hearing the war was about states’ rights and that slavery was a peripheral issue. These types of programmed assumptions go on and on. We need to learn to verify facts and not build our beliefs upon things we are told.

Floating Assumptions.

This is the last and maybe the most frustrating assumption of all. A floating assumption is putting on assumptions like eyeglasses and viewing the world through them. This is the type of assumption that makes us think about others, “There is no hope for them.” The Word says this, “Do you see a person wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.” Proverbs 26:12

Floating assumptions are likely assumptions we have received from our parents as children or we put them on as a self-defense mechanism. I think racism is an assumption like this. Many church doctrines or other family or social beliefs get put on from a young age, and it literally takes an act of God to remove them. These floating assumptions that we wear like glasses taint all we see and, not only do they go unnoticed, but because there is no contrast to identify them, they are the wearer’s reality.

The truth is I may have one even now, or you might. The only way I know of identifying them and removing them is through relationship with others and a willingness to bear with one another even through ferocious fights. If you are constantly having issues with people and you cannot see the problem, you may have a floating assumption. Removing a floating assumption can be like a drug addict coming down and detoxing. It takes a tough love, a much tougher love than most are willing to endure. I am thankful for those in my life for going through tough issues and I believe there are more to come as Jesus continues to reveal truth and set us free so we can be healed.

Becoming a New Man

My hope in writing this is to simply share a hope that God has given me. I want to expose the evil of pride, share the NEW life that comes from not assuming things and from living in the real world and I want to give you the tools that have helped me overcome this sneaky serpent. As men and fathers we lead by example, if we are prideful we are not at all like our Messiah. I believe overcoming any issue in our lives is an act of God, it is His work and He does His work in the light(in honesty and vulnerability).

You may not think you are prideful, if that is true then you should have no issues investigating to be sure you are not. Ask a friend to be honest with you, ask your father and mother, ask your wife. If they are not afraid of you, they will tell you. If they are afraid of you, you can be sure you walk in pride.

Pride is ALWAYS short lived and has nothing to do with following Jesus. Please turn from pride today.

That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”
James 4:6

A man’s pride will be the cause of his fall, but he who has a gentle spirit will get honour.
Proverbs 29:23

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Welcome to the Wilderness

And you shall remember the whole way that YHVH your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. Deuteronomy 8:2

The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that YHVH swore to give to your fathers. And you shall remember the whole way that YHVH your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of YHVH. Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years. Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, YHVH your God disciplines you. So you shall keep the commandments of YHVH your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him.
Deuteronomy 8:1-6

Israel spent forty seemingly pointless years in the wilderness wandering from one mountain or oasis to another. Forty years of uncertainty, of not knowing where they were going to live, where they were going. No houses, no fields, no real homes. Just tents, long hikes, lots of dirt, and manna….every day, manna.

But there was a point, because God always has a point.

Israel’s unfaithfulness in believing the bad report of the ten spies was the immediate trigger that launched their long journey through the wilderness, but those forty years were essential to developing their national character. It was always part of God’s plan.

God had at least three objectives in taking Israel on the scenic route to the Promised Land.

Self Discovery. Repeated tests, both failed and passed, demonstrated to Israel exactly who they were and how they were completely inadequate to their task without God.

Honeymoon. Forty years in barren landscape with God himself there in the middle of the camp was a perfect opportunity to explore Israel’s relationship with her God.

Education. From the first Passover in Egypt to the respecting of the borders of Edom, Moab, and Ammon, Israel learned what it means to love God and keep his commandments.

We all go through wilderness experiences, periods of testing and uncertainty, as individuals, as families, and even as nations. The key to surviving and ultimately to becoming who God wants us to be is in trusting his plan. Whatever comes, whatever goes, YHVH is in charge. Follow his instructions. Keep his commandments. He will bring you through it.

The wilderness is always unpleasant–it wouldn’t serve its function if it weren’t–but if we love God and trust him with our whole beings, we will be stronger and more mature when we cross the Jordan on the other side.

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Obelisks, Pyramids, and Stars of David

The Return 2020

Some people were very upset that Rabbi Jonathan Cahn and many Torah-observant believers participated in a large prayer event at the National Mall in D.C. on September 26, 2020. The event, called The Return, featured a number of other speakers including preachers, media personalities, politicians, and generals.

Why were they upset? Because it took place near the Washington Monument.

Why does the Washington Monument bother them? Because it’s an obelisk patterned after those of ancient Egypt.

Nothing Unclean in Itself

In Romans 14:14, Paul wrote, “I know and am persuaded in the Lord Yeshua that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean.”

We know that he referred to man-made rules, those “fences around fences” designed to keep us from even getting close to sin, such as not eating with gentiles and not eating meat purchased at the market because it might have been sacrificed to an idol. He wasn’t referring to God’s instructions concerning which animals are acceptable as food and which aren’t.

For example, according to Moses, Paul, and Yeshua beef is perfectly acceptable as food no matter who slaughtered it or what prayers they might have said when they killed it. Just make sure the blood was drained and that you aren’t participating in the religious ritual. Pigs are great animals with a divinely appointed purpose. They should be given the same respect that we give the rest of Creation. Just don’t eat them.

Geometric Shapes Are Not Idols

Using the same principle, I believe that no geometric shapes are unclean or idolatrous in themselves. There is nothing sinful in having, making, or employing the shape of a pentagram, hexagram, pyramid, pillar, cross, or any other shape so long as you aren’t using it as an object of worship, as an aid in witchcraft, in a religious ritual adopted from paganism, etc.

Geometric shapes have only such meaning as people ascribe to them. If you believe that a spiral is a representation of pagan goddess and you think of that connection every time you see one, then you shouldn’t decorate your home with spirals. Just don’t go around telling other people that they are sinning because they really like spirals and ascribe some other meaning to them or no meaning at all. [Now insert any other shape you want where I wrote “spirals”.]

Rabbi Cahn didn’t build the Washington Monument, and–unlike the ancient Egyptians–I don’t even think that anyone involved in its construction believed it would help ensure George Washington’s place in the afterlife, even if they (and Washington, himself) harbored inappropriate levels of admiration for and attachment to Egypt’s paganism. It’s just a massive structure intended to inspire awe and remind observers of the man’s great stature among America’s founders. Nobody there was praying or bowing to the Monument.

Progress, Not Perfection

It’s no more a sin to pray to the One True God at the National Mall then it would be to pray in the midst of the pyramids of Giza or in the Parthenon of Athens. Instead of being upset that the organizers of this event didn’t get everything exactly right, praise God that they organized such a massive event in order to worship Him and call the nation to repentance! If you believe that the location or their admiration for George Washington or his Monument is misguided, then encourage them to do better next year without condemning them for this year’s imperfection.

For some of you, this might seem like a strange thing to worry about. “Of course, they’re just shapes with no meaning in themselves,” you might think. Great! However, please be aware that this is a much bigger deal in the minds of some other people and give them the respect and kindness owed to a fellow bearer of the image of our mutual Creator.

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Cold-Case Christianity by J. Warner Wallace

J. Warner Wallace was an atheist and a homicide detective with many years of experience when he decided to apply his professional skills to evaluating the New Testament’s claims about Jesus. Now he’s a believer.

That’s what happens when you follow the evidence rather than your emotions and the orthodoxy of atheist dogma.

The New Testament makes certain claims about Jesus:

  • He was conceived through divine intervention.
  • He was born at a certain time and place.
  • He performed many miracles, including healing, manipulating nature, and raising the dead.
  • He was a popular Jewish teacher for a few years.
  • He repeatedly clashed with the Jewish religious leadership.
  • He was falsely accused of blasphemy and executed on a cross for being a rival to Caesar.
  • He rose from the dead and appeared to many people.
  • He ascended to Heaven.
  • And many others…

While some of these claims can never be proven through evidence one way or another, many of them should have left some kind of trail. The Gospels claim that there were many witnesses to Jesus’ miracles, trials, a crucifixion, and a resurrection. The first century wasn’t completely illiterate, so such remarkable events should have left some kind of historical record that can be examined and dissected in order to discover the real facts, or at least say which claims are more likely to be true than not.

In Cold-Case Christianity, Wallace takes you through the basic logical toolkit of a cold-case detective and applies it to the foundational claims of Christianity. The book is divided into two sections. The first section details ten principles of gathering and evaluating evidence, specifically Forensic Statement Analysis, the art and science of interpreting eye witness accounts and filtering fact from fiction. The second section takes those ten principles and uses them to test the witnesses and documentary evidence of the New Testament.

After reading this book, you will feel entirely justified in ignoring all further historical assertions made by people who claim that Jesus never existed. Nobody’s life is more thoroughly attested by ancient history than that of Jesus, and there is no stronger evidence that a person is historically ignorant than to claim Jesus never existed. By the end, Wallace demonstrates that the historical evidence for the existence of Jesus (aka Yeshua) and for the authenticity of the New Testament (the Gospels in particular) is stronger than for almost any other accepted fact of antiquity.

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After the Sixth Level of Hell…

I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them. Hosea 14:4

…comes Heaven.

Well, hell and heaven on Earth anyway. Maybe not the real Hell and Heaven, but it might seem like it to those who experience it. Leviticus 26 describes seven phases of national existence as they relate to obedience or disobedience to God’s Laws. They only obliquely relate to faith in that faith in God is among his commands.

The Torah is both life and death, depending on how you relate to it. If you obey, it is life. If you disobey, it is death. (In another sense, if you rely for your salvation on your obedience to the letter of the law, then it becomes death again.) The first phase described is of obedience and blessing. Israel is promised an overabundance in every way if they obey God’s Torah.

The next six phases stem from disobedience. Each of these six phases, except perhaps the first and the last, is a seven-fold punishment, complete in itself. Each one represents another chance to repent and return to obedience. Before describing each of phases one through five God interjects an offer of forgiveness:

  • “If you will not hearken unto me…”
  • “And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me…”
  • “And if ye walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken unto me…”
  • “And if ye will not be reformed by me by these things…”
  • “And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me…”

There is no explicit offer of forgiveness (although the possibility is implied) before phase six, which is exile. The last tribes of Israel entered exile in the sixth century BC, and except for a partial reprieve from 531 BC to 70 AD, she has remained in exile until recently. Even now, the return to the land is not total. As before, only a fraction of the people have returned and the current residents of the land are far from penitent. I believe that Israel will remain in exile until “their uncircumcised hearts be humbled,” they accept their punishment for what it is, and they seek forgiveness.

Some of the rabbis teach that Israel was returned to exile by Rome because of baseless hatred and lashon hora or speaking ill of others. Some of them blasphemed the Holy Spirit when they ascribed Yeshua’s power to Satan. Most of them blasphemed Yeshua when they called him a liar, an antinomian, a heretic, and a bastard. The made the same false accusations against the Twelve Disciples and the Apostles who followed them.

Most of the Jewish leadership is still guilty of those same things, but that is changing. Many rabbis are beginning to back away from those accusations and to realize they treated their Messiah unjustly. Many of them are even beginning to realize that he is their Messiah.

Every eye should be turned toward Jerusalem, because Israel is being drawn back again. Judah is looking again at Yeshua, and Ephraim is finding him and remembering Torah.

The cycle began with obedience and blessing followed by six levels of hell on earth, but God prophesied another level, one of repentance and forgiveness.

I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them. I will be like the dew to Israel; he shall blossom like the lily; he shall take root like the trees of Lebanon; his shoots shall spread out; his beauty shall be like the olive, and his fragrance like Lebanon. They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow; they shall flourish like the grain; they shall blossom like the vine; their fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon.
Hosea 14:4-7

This eighth phase of this cycle, the restoration of the people of Israel (not the State of Israel!) and the return of Messiah Yeshua, may be approaching soon: A new beginning in greater obedience and greater blessing. May it be so!

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Does God’s Law Ever Change?

Covenants, priests, plants, and pigs... Does God's Law ever change? Is Torah study for Christians?

All laws are an extension of the lawgiver’s character. God’s character never changes, therefore his Law has always existed and can never change.

Yet, we have God telling Noah that he can eat animals and telling Moses to set up a national priesthood for Israel and restricting all sacrificial worship to a single location.

Clearly something changed. What gives?

House Rules

Your mother likes a clean house and she has rules to keep it that way: Take your muddy boots off before you come inside. Don’t eat on the sofa. If she lived in the city, her instructions might include leaving your raincoat and umbrella by the front door. If she lived near a river in the wilderness, she might say to clean your fish and game outside and away from the house and not to leave trash where it might attract bears.

These are your mother’s house rules, but, as you can see, the specific rules she chooses to spell out might be different, depending on circumstances. If she replaces her wood burning stove with a gas fireplace, some of the rules are going to change because the things that the rules governed have changed.

But Mom’s character hasn’t changed, only the circumstances into which her character is expressed have changed. The specific rules she spells out are instructions for aligning your actions with her character in a specific time and place–her torah–so they might shift somewhat over time. However, Mom’s character dictates that many of those rules are going to be constant across all circumstances. Don’t spit on the floor. Say please and thank you.

God’s Law Is an Expression of God’s Character

God’s Law and instructions are similar. The rules he gave Moses are an expression of God’s character in a specific set of circumstances. If God gave them today, they might talk about coveting your neighbor’s car instead of his donkey. That doesn’t mean that his Law changes, only that how it was expressed might have been different if it had been given at a different time, to different people.

This is confusing in part because God’s character is too huge, too complex to explain to us in a list of rules, so we have a list of rules, plus lots of stories of how he has interacted with people over time. One thing we can learn by reading the stories in the Bible is that the relationship between man and God requires a priesthood. We are tainted by sin and direct exposure to his presence would destroy us, so we appoint mediators, build altars, and offer sacrifices to facilitate approaching him. (How exactly sacrifices and priests accomplish that is another topic.)

Changing Covenants and Priests

In the patriarchal era, the head of the house or one of the sons would act as the family priest. When God made a covenant with the nation of Israel, that covenant required a national altar and priesthood. Enter the Tabernacle and the Aaronic priesthood. The New Covenant that was hinted at throughout the Torah and made explicit in Jeremiah 31 requires yet another priesthood. In the New Covenant, God’s Law is written on our hearts, and our relationship to him is mediated by the Priest-King Yeshua (aka Jesus).

When Jeremiah said that God’s Law would be written on our hearts, he didn’t mean that the words God gave Moses at Sinai would be literally carved into our flesh, of course. He meant that the principles on which those words were based would be implanted in our minds and spirits so that we would know God’s character instinctively. Nobody will ever need to explain God’s rules to us, because we will simply know them, just as we instinctively know the rules of our own earthly father whose character we have studied since we were infants.

This writing of God’s character, his eternal Law, on our hearts isn’t an instantaneous event. It’s a process that has taken two thousand years so far and will likely never be complete until our Priest-King Yeshua returns to reign in person. There is still so much we don’t understand and even very much that we have forgotten! Clearly we still need to be taught how to behave in God’s kingdom.

As God and Moses carved the Ten Commandments into the stone of Mount Sinai with the fiery presence resting on its head, God, through the Holy Spirit, is now carving his character into us. In a sense, Yeshua’s disciples became the new Mount Sinai in the upper room at Pentecost, with the fire of God resting on their heads too.

In the Sinai Covenant there is a hierarchy within the priesthood. There is one high priest who is the only one authorized to perform some functions, such as entering the Holy of Holies at Yom Kippur. Then there are the sons of Aaron who have some other special duties, such as offering sacrifices on the altar. There are also the Levites, who serve various functions around the Temple and across the nation, but don’t offer sacrifices. Finally, the whole nation of Israel is intended to be a priesthood to the world. In the New Covenant there is also a hierarchy, with Yeshua as our High Priest and every believer acting as a lower sort of priest to the whole world.

These changes in priesthoods don’t represent a change to God’s eternal Law, because they are all in alignment with his eternal character. Rather they represent the application of his Law within the circumstances of a specific covenant.

Changing Dietary Regulations

Another “change” that often confuses people is in our diet. In the Garden, God gave Adam the plant kingdom for food. The plain text says “every plant”, but clearly God didn’t mean every green thing because he explicitly forbade eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. After the flood, God gave Noah the animal kingdom for food.

Did God change his mind about what we could and couldn’t eat?

I don’t think it was that God changed his mind, but that our circumstances had changed so much that a change in the rules was necessary simply to allow life to continue. The Scriptures show that something materially changed in our quality of life after the flood. Lifespans decreased dramatically each generation until we reached a plateau of about 70-90 years. Whether this was due to genetic deterioration caused by increased solar radiation or some other factor is beside the point. However it happened, we are not nearly as healthy as those who lived before Noah’s flood.

I believed that God recognized that if we were going to survive at all, we had to add meat to our diets. Plants alone were insufficient for sustaining the human race, and God’s character dictates that the preservation of life must trump many other considerations. He didn’t change his mind about what we could eat. The principle on which his instructions were based was always to give us what we needed to survive.

No explicit instructions as to which animals could be eaten and which not are recorded in the text of Genesis, so it’s not entirely unreasonable to assume that God gave Noah permission to eat every animal that exists, but I’m convinced that’s not correct. When God told Moses what animals the Israelites were not allowed to eat, he didn’t just say “Don’t eat these.” He said that they are abominable (Deuteronomy 14) and that Israel is also to consider them abominable or detestable (Leviticus 11). Not eating forbidden animals is an important part of being holy, just as God himself is holy (Leviticus 11:44).

Noah knew which animals were clean and which were unclean as offerings to God, which means that God considered those unclean animals to be detestable at the time he told Noah he could eat of the animal kingdom and still does today. God’s character doesn’t change.

On the other hand, if you were faced with a choice between eating pork or starving to death, then by all means, eat the pork. This too is consistent with God’s character. Remember what Yeshua said about healing and rescuing animals on the Sabbath. The preservation and restoration of life supersedes most other considerations.

God Never Changes

God’s character–and therefore his deeper, eternal Law–doesn’t change, but how he interacts with us and what instructions he gives us sometimes do change based on changing circumstances.

Priests are mediators between God and men within the context of a covenant. A different covenant requires a different priesthood and this shift is entirely within the character of God and consistent with his Torah as expressed in the first five books of the Bible.

Idolatry, murder, fornication, and theft are clearly contrary to God’s eternal character independent of any covenant, so they will be wrong in all times and places. Despite what you might have been mistaught about these topics from Bible verses taken out of context, eating unclean animals and laboring on the Sabbath are also wrong in all times and places, except where it is necessary to preserve or restore life and relationship with the Creator.

There is a temporal law, the expression of God’s character in a time, place, and circumstance, and there is an eternal law, which are the principles that extend from the unchanging nature of God himself. Whenever it appears in Scripture that God has changed his Law, consider three things:

  1. Could I be misinterpreting what the Scriptures are teaching?
  2. Is this actually a change in God’s Law or merely in the application of his Law to a different circumstance?
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The OTHER Proverbs 9 Woman

Four characteristics of Folly from Proverbs 9:13-18

A few weeks ago I dissected Proverbs 9:1-6 and Solomon’s personification of wisdom as a woman who plans ahead, diligently and efficiently carries out her plans, and then shares her bounty with all who are willing to follow her example.

The last part of Proverbs 9 describes her opposite, the woman Folly.

13  The woman Folly is loud; she is deluded and knows nothing.
14  She sits at the door of her house; she takes a seat on the highest places of the town,
15  calling to those who pass by, who are going straight on their way,
16  “Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!” And to him who lacks sense she says,
17  “Stolen water is sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.”
18  But he does not know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of Sheol.
Proverbs 9:13-18 ESV

As with the case of Wisdom, the description of Folly reveals a lot about her character that isn’t explicitly laid out in the text.

Folly Opens Her Mouth

Whoever restrains his words has knowledge, and
He who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding.
Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise;
When he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.
Proverbs 17:27-28

Folly is incapable of verbal restraint. She loves to tell about her adventures and conquests, the record-breaking fish that got away, and the sure-fire system she has for beating the stock market. Nevermind that she has nothing to show for all her accomplishments and schemes. She could if she wanted to…

What’s more, she believes her own nonsense. She has told her lies so many times that she has lost the line between fact and fiction. Her entire life has become “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Where the prudent keep silent, Folly speaks. Where the wise ask questions, Folly declares. Where the knowledgeable admit their ignorance, Folly unwittingly advertises hers.

Folly Takes the Easy Way

In contrast to Wisdom, who planned and built her own house, then busied herself in preparing a feast, Folly merely sits in the door of her house. We have no indication that she built it or contributed to it in any way, only that she occupies it.

And not only the door of her house, but the high places of the city. Unlike Wisdom who sends her servants (or goes herself) to the highest places (al gaphi maromi), Folly takes a seat in the high places (al kise maromi), possibly referring to places of honor in pagan temples and shrines. But wherever she goes, whether at home or the high places, Folly takes a seat.

Folly Is Disruptive

Where Wisdom called to the simple and then waited for a response, Folly seeks out people who are already on a mission, who are “going straight on their way”, in order to distract them. She yells at them, confuses them, makes them forget their purpose.

To what end?

Envy and resentment. She can’t stand that other people are accomplishing things, working hard, providing for their families and futures. She can’t see beyond her own failings, so she thinks that anyone with wealth must have stolen it. She would be wealthy too if it weren’t for all those rich people taking everything for themselves. The Haves are her enemy. So she throws a verbal stumbling block into the path of those who might otherwise be productive and pleasant neighbors, dragging them down to the floor with her. Folly loves to watch you fall.

Folly Corrupts

Once she has the attention of gullible people, she isn’t content to see them wasting time and floundering in life. Misery loves to see herself in everyone around her, and Folly is her sister. She wants to corrupt them and watch them rot.

Folly’s primary tools are jealousy and easy gain. She believes that the rich didn’t work for their luxuries, so why should she? A house without building, bread without plowing and sowing, and water without digging. Why work hard yourself when you can live off the hard work of some other sucker? She seduces the weary, the simple, and oppressed, who might otherwise be gainfully employed, to join in her sloth and theft, because they are vulnerable and easy targets. She knows that her bread and water doesn’t compare to the feast set out by Wisdom, but she also knows that, to a man with sore feet and a bent back, that morsel of bread on a doorstep now seems more appealing than a sirloin in a palace later.

Folly Is Death

What Folly has never learned and what she often prevents her victims from discovering until it is too late, is that nothing truly worth having is easy. Real wealth that enhances life rather than destroying it takes time. Houses and families and legacies aren’t built by decree. Riches gained without effort, whether through theft, gambling, or sudden inheritance, are corrupting and tend to evaporate as quickly as they came, as often as not leaving their possessors in a worse position than before.

Once you begin to eat the bread and drink the water of Folly, no matter how good it tastes today, you become mired in the quagmire that surrounds her house. The longer you remain, the more difficult it will be to escape, and eventually even the bread and water runs out.

“Who is simple? Let him turn in here.” And as for him who lacks heart, she says to him, “Stolen waters are sweet, And bread eaten in secret is pleasant.” But he does not know that the dead are there, Her guests are in the depths of She’ol.
Proverbs 9:16-18 TS2009

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Authority and Separation of Powers in Israel

Authority and Separation of Powers in God's Israel

The Book of Numbers

Numbers, numbers, numbers. This is one of those sections of the Bible most of us skim over if we bother to read it at all. Apart from a few historians, who really cares how many fighting men were in the tribes of Gad and Simeon? Who cares about the names of the census takers?

Well, I admit that it all seems a little obscure, but, as I’ve said before, every detail included in the Torah was included for some enduring reason. There is peshat in every word of the Torah, remez in every passage, drash and sod in every name and number. (See here for an explanation of the four levels of Jewish exegesis.) As pointless as it might seem to the casual reader, there is meaning in the Bible’s long lists of names and numbers.

Here is a bit of drash from B’midbar (Numbers 1:1-4:20)…

The Authority to Count

The right to count, number, and name a thing is derived from authority. You do not have authority over your neighbor’s possessions, therefore you do not have the right to see his bank statement, name him or his children, or inventory his collection of rare coins. The exact measure of his strength, his family, and his wealth are none of your business. However, God owns everything, and everything is God’s to count.

In Numbers chapter one, God ordered Moses and Aaron to count the fighting men of twelve of the tribes of Israel. However, they weren’t to do it on their own. God chose one man from each of those tribes to count along side them. They were not allowed to initiate their own count, but could only do so at the command of God. Remember what trouble David got the nation into centuries later when he took a census of Israel’s fighting men. The implication is that the army did not belong to any human leaders. It military might of Israel is God’s alone and any human command is only delegated by him.

The tribe of Levi was not counted by the tribal leaders, but by Moses alone, who was God’s personal representative. Earlier, God had required the firstborn males of the nation to be dedicated to him. Rather than form another pseudo-tribe out of those men, he allowed them to remain in their tribes and took the entire tribe of Levi for himself as a substitute. They were separated out for service to God, and so could not count as an asset of the nation. This is why the twelve tribal leaders could take no part in counting them.

The Structure of Government

Those twelve men were not elected by the people, appointed by Moses, nor approved by any human agency. God chose them for their character and informed the nation of their identity, no paperwork required. Echoing Paul’s criteria for church leaders, they were already leaders among their people, whether by reputation, age, or some other currency. Together with Moses and Aaron, they formed a counsel of tribal chiefs of fourteen men.

Eventually, the government of Israel would be divided into three defacto branches, much as that of the United States. The three branches were the tribal chiefs headed by both Moses and Aaron as mentioned above, the executive-judiciary embodied by the sanhedrin and the system of judges headed and appointed by Moses, and the Levitical priesthood headed by Aaron.

Moses served as president and commander-in-chief, with a great deal of discretionary power. After Moses’ death, Joshua, as senior member of the senate, took his place as the executive. That role came to be known as the Judge of Israel and was never hereditary. Its holder was chosen from among the tribal chiefs until the accession of King Saul.

Notice that not one of the high officials of Israel was elected. The judges, priests, and kings were all appointed. The local judges and officials were to be selected by the people, but God didn’t specify a method of selection. Overall, God does not appear to be a great proponent of pure democracy, despite the preaching of our modern day republocrats.

The Limits of Our Delegated Authority

Israel’s rulers were not democratically elected, but neither were they autocrats. They were not allowed to count the nation or even the army without God’s blessing. They could not change borders, confiscate property without cause, or unseat one another. The nation belonged to God and limited authority was only delegated by him for periods of time.

When we count our income, we count God’s income. When we name our children, we name his children. He has made us to be stewards. Like Moses who was denied entry to the Promised Land, David who brought a plague on the people, and the Israelites who were cut off from the land, we will be held accountable for our treatment of his people and assets. God will evaluate our every act and how we used his resources in his name.

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The Proverbs 9 Woman

Four characteristics of Wisdom from Proverbs 9:1-6

In Proverbs 9:1-6, Wisdom is personified as a woman and contrasted with Folly, which is personified as another woman in vs 13-18. (Check out this post on the literary structure of Proverbs 9!) Solomon described Wisdom as building a house, preparing a meal, and inviting guests to join her. We can learn something about wisdom from that alone–She is a builder, a provider, and a generous host–but Solomon gave us important details that add significant depth to this picture.

1  Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn her seven pillars.
2  She has slaughtered her beasts; she has mixed her wine; she has also set her table.
3  She has sent out her young women to call from the highest places in the town,
4  “Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!” To him who lacks sense she says,
5  “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed.
6  Leave your simple ways, and live, and walk in the way of insight.”
Proverbs 9:1-6

Wisdom built a large and elaborate house and prepared a feast from her own livestock and probably also from her own vineyard. She had servants and sent them out to invite strangers to come and share in her great bounty and to learn from her example.

Wisdom Built Her House

Nobody builds a house in a day. They don’t come pre-assembled by mail order…at least they didn’t in 900 BC. Houses take time, resources, and a lot of hard work. Most people when the Proverbs were written built their own houses from straw, mud, or stone, and usually only large enough to protect their immediate family and a few animals from the elements at night. A corner for cooking and eating, an alcove for sleeping, and a little floor space for the ten children. Only the wealthy could afford the time and money to build anything larger and more elaborate than a few walls and a thatch roof.

The house of Wisdom is different. Her house is more than a dirt floor out of the rain. From this passage we can deduce some interesting details:

Her house is large enough to accommodate seven pillars, numerous servants, and a crowd of guests. Wisdom didn’t buy or inherit her house. She built it herself. She selected the site, drew a floorplan, purchased or collected the materials, and managed or executed the construction from start to finish personally. She had a furnished dining area and sufficient storage to hold dishes and platters for a large feast. The rest of her house was also artfully finished in detail. It wasn’t just a utilitarian space for sleeping and eating. The number seven indicates completeness, perfection. She didn’t stop building when her house was a cover for her family and a number of guests, but kept working until every detail was complete.

Wisdom Prepared a Feast

Living in modern America, there is a great distance between us and the source of our food. Most of us have no idea how our food is made or even what it is made from. Corn starch, unsulphured molasses, baking soda, salt… Oh, there’s one I can identify. I know what salt is, but what part of corn does corn starch come from? Unsulphured molasses…does that mean most molasses is sulphured!? And what exactly is molasses anyway?

Michael Pollan wrote a great book called The Omnivore’s Dilemma (affiliate link), in which he traced several meals, including one from McDonald’s, from their original sources in fields, pastures, and quarries, through factories, distributors, and kitchens, and finally to the American dining table. Our food today takes a surprisingly complicated and disturbing journey before it reaches our plates, but it wasn’t always that way. Most people throughout history ate whatever they or a neighbor grew or hunted, and that was that. Ultimately, the American pantry reveals as much about us as it does about what we eat.

Solomon’s sparse description of Wisdom’s table also reveals more than what she served.

Wisdom owned livestock, and rather than buying meat at the market, she killed and butchered her own animals for the feast. Not just one animal, but animals, plural. Whether these were small as birds or large as oxen, we can’t tell, but in either case she was expecting a significant number of diners. She purchased or grew spices and developed sufficient skill as a vintner to prepare her own mixed wine. Finally, Wisdom’s feast was prepared and ready before it was needed.

Wisdom Sent Her Servants

Even in cultures with a slave-based economy, most people aren’t slave owners. Most of the people who have lived in this world did not have servants of any kind. In Proverbs 9, Wisdom had at least two servant girls and probably many more. She had livestock, a garden, a vineyard, and a large house, so she probably also has a number of men in her employ.

The servants of Wisdom weren’t harshly used, but honored and trusted helpers. She sent them out to the city to invite guests, which required that they be courteous and pleasant. She trusted them to execute their mission with gladness, not resentment, which means that they also loved and trusted their mistress.

Wisdom sent her servant girls to the highest points in the city (or she went herself, depending on your translation) because she didn’t waste time and effort. She had no need to confront every stranger on the way because she knew that those who were ready to heed her call would hear it and respond.

Wisdom Shared Her Table

When I was a kid, my parents often invited people to join us for Sunday dinner. These weren’t just people from church, but also the elderly, the lonely, and people who were too often ignored by the world. Sometimes they even invited people to live with us while they sorted out life’s inevitable troubles. Wisdom went far beyond that, inviting a crowd of total strangers to come to her feast.

However, Wisdom’s feast wasn’t intended to fill the belly, or at least that’s not all it did. Wisdom’s food and drink was personal transformation. She invited the simple to grow wise, the foolish to learn how to live, and the lazy to learn industry. Wisdom’s table was reserved for those who wanted to become something more than they were. To eat with her was to experience the full gamut of joy and pain, because it is only through overcoming pain that we become wise and find true joy.

Four Characteristics of Wisdom

Like many great teachers, Solomon didn’t spell out every lesson. A close look at his brief description of Wisdom in Proverbs 9:1-6 reveals four distinct characteristics.

  1. Wisdom is strategic. Her plans are long term and exhaustive, clearly envisioning the detailed end results of her labors before she even begins.
  2. Wisdom is diligent. She doesn’t cease from her labors until her job is done. Her house isn’t complete until the walls are painted and the pillars and cornices are carved and fixed. She is not afraid of hard physical labor and doesn’t cut corners that might negatively impact the end result.
  3. Wisdom is efficient. She multiplies her efforts by delegating tasks to trusted servants and applies the most effort on those tasks that are likely to have the most impact.
  4. Wisdom is generous. God doesn’t grant wisdom for our personal benefit, but to enrich his kingdom on earth. Wisdom freely shares what she has received, desiring the same richness of life for everyone whose heart is ready to receive it and who is willing to devote the necessary effort.

Solomon heard Wisdom’s call and joined in her feast. He spent many hard years, making both bad and good decisions, transforming himself from a young man with a good heart into the wise king we remember from the Bible. He set a table for us in his writings–the Proverbs, Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes–and he continually invites us to join him. Since he prepared such a rich feast, we don’t have to make all the same mistakes he did. We have only to heed his call, sit down at his table, and set ourselves to the hard work of applying his words.

That’s not to say that studying the Scriptures will keep us from making mistakes. We have our own lives to live, our own mistakes to make, and there is no real growth without adversity. But remember that Wisdom is efficient. She learns all she can from the mistakes of those who went before. There’s no sense in replowing ground in which seeds have already been sown.

Solomon began Proverbs 9 with a description of Wisdom, but ended it with a description of Folly. Next time, I’ll take a look at vs 13-18 and some big mistakes to avoid.

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Is the Law Impossible to Keep?

Is God's Law (Torah) a yoke that neither our fathers nor we are able to bear?

When Peter asked the Pharisees, “Why do you tempt God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples, a yoke which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?” in Acts 15:10, he was not talking about God’s instructions as given by Moses. He was talking about the traditions and the rules which the rabbis had built up around the written Torah.

Moses told the Israelites,

The secret things belong to YHWH our God, but the revealed things belong to us and to our sons forever, so that we may do all the words of this Law….For this commandment which I command you today is not hidden from you, neither is it far off. It is not in Heaven, that you should say, Who shall go up for us to Heaven, and bring it to us, so that we may hear it and do it? Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, Who shall go over the sea for us to the region beyond the sea, and bring it to us, so that we may hear it and do it? But the Word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, so that you may do it. Behold! I have set before you today life and good, and death and evil, in that I command you today to love YHWH your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, so that you may live and multiply. And YHWH your God shall bless you in the land where you go to possess it.

Deuteronomy 29:29,30:11-16

Peter did not call Moses a liar and neither did Paul or Yeshua. It is not too hard for us to keep God’s commandments.

Most of the Torah is very simple. It can be summed up in ten statements or even in only two. Leviticus 19 (the beginning of the Torah portion called Kedoshim, or holy ones) begins with another summary of the law: Be holy for I am holy. “Holy” means separate or different. Moses followed that summary with another summary:

  • Be respectful of your parents.
  • Do not employ idols.
  • Express your gratitude. Don’t fake it. Don’t make a show of it.
  • Leave a little extra for the poor and the traveler.
  • Don’t steal, cheat, or lie.
  • Don’t take unfair advantage of others.
  • Don’t punish the rich for being rich.
  • Don’t gossip.
  • Don’t retaliate, and don’t hold a grudge.
  • Love your neighbor as yourself.

These rules aren’t entirely unique to the Torah. Except for the part about idols, they are pretty standard religious fare. (As far as I know, only the Abrahamic religious traditions prohibit the making and use of idols.) Other than the rules themselves, there are two vitally important things to understand about being kedoshim to God.

  1. God doesn’t care all that much about ritual or prayer or self denial. All those things have their place, but what’s really important is love. Not feelings, but real, active love.
  2. It isn’t the content of our rules that separates us from the world; it is their source and our obedience to them.

We know from Ecclesiastes 7:20, Romans 3:23, and 1 John 1:8 that nobody except Yeshua ever managed to live a sinless life. Eventually, everyone gossips. Everyone lies. Everyone steals. Everyone hates. So what did Moses mean when he said that God’s commandments are not too hard for us to keep?

He meant at least three things:

  1. God’s instructions aren’t difficult to understand. You don’t need a theology degree to implement them. They require wisdom to apply, but the words and meaning are simple enough for iron age shepherds and farmers.
  2. God’s instructions aren’t onerous or oppressive. He didn’t give them to punish anyone or to make anyone’s life more difficult. They are the basic owner’s manual for human life and society, and those who live by them will live more joyful and fulfilling lives.
  3. Even though we aren’t capable–as mere humans–of keeping the Law perfectly, we are still capable of keeping it as a consistent lifestyle. Remedies for failure are built into the Law itself, so keeping it doesn’t have to mean never failing in any point. Remember that not every commandment applies to every person, and I am NOT talking about keeping the Law to earn salvation. I am only talking about keeping it to honor God.

The “yoke which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear” is not God’s Law, also known as the written Torah. God’s Law teaches us what it means to sin and also what it means to love, for all of the Law is fulfilled in these two commandments: Love YHVH your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.

If you keep the two greatest commandments, then you keep all of the Torah, and if you keep the Torah as God intended it to be kept, then you also keep the two greatest commandments. They are, after all, direct quotes from the Torah.