My renewed interest in studying covenants started with a Greek dictionary. Typically, I would define covenant as “a binding agreement between two parties,” which is a very basic description of the Hebrew word berith (H1285). For the New Testament, though, Spiros Zodhiates says diatheke (G1242) refers to “the disposition which a person makes of his property in prospect of death, i.e. his testament” and shows “a unilateral demonstration of the will of the testator.”
I’ve always been confused by the discussion about testaments in the book of Hebrews because it didn’t all line-up with my idea of covenants. Do we enter covenant with God as a mutual agreement, or are we benefactors of God’s unilateral will (whether we want it or not)? And how, exactly, do we become partakers of this covenant? After 3 weeks of study, I realized the answer is a little bit of both and that clarity for this question is found in Jesus Christ (that should have been obvious, right?) Read more →
I was in Michigan over the weekend for Last Day of Unleavened Bread and the Sabbath, heard some thought-provoking messages, and had some interesting discussions. One of these messages (and related discussion) touched on the role physical actions play in our Christian walk.
By itself the message I heard would have prompted many thoughts on the subject, but taken together with a book I’ve been reading it’s quite a chunk of spiritual meat to chew on. I’ll probably write more about this topic when I’m not functioning on ~5 hours sleep and a chocolate hangover, but those are my thoughts right now.
Blocking the Light?
In the message I’m referencing, the speaker talked about Passover symbols (foot washing, bread, and wine) and said “the physical acts are irrelevant” but we keep them because they’re good reminders. That wrinkled my eyebrows a bit, but I thought I’d keep an open mind and hang in there to see where this went.
It went to Colossians 2:16-17: “So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.” He took this and defined shadow as the absence of light, and then called the holy days that we were gathered to keep “blocked light.” The next place he took the analogy was back to the Passover, asking, “Why would Jesus partake of a shadow that’s blocking the light?” The message then jumped to saying that since “He wouldn’t do something like that” the words must function on another level, as in Luke 22:18 referring to our communion with the kingdom of God inside us today rather than an actual event in the future.
Obviously I’ve oversimplified his points, but you get the basics of what I want to cover. The crux of his message rested on the idea that “the physical acts are irrelevant.” That led to talking the implication that because holy days, sabbaths, etc. are described as “shadows” they may distract us from living in the Light. But the word for “shadow” in the Greek can mean two different things, much like it can in English. You have the physical absence of light in the sense of “darkness and gloom,” and you have the metaphorical sense. For the Greek word skia (G4639), that means a foreshadowing of a full and perfect image not yet seen clearly. You have to infer the meaning from context. And when the context is discussing Sabbaths that are a key part of God’s covenants and saying that they point to Christ, I have to go with the metaphorical meaning as most likely.
Embodied Liturgy
Then on the other side of the spectrum we have the book I’ve been reading called Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation by James K. A. Smith (between this and Fill These Hearts, I’ve been reading a surprising amount of truly fascinating Catholic theological works lately). I haven’t yet finished this book and it’s a deeply academic text that defies easy summary. One of his main points, however, is that humans are primarily lovers (“I love, therefore I am” rather than “I think/believe, therefore I am) and that we require embodied liturgies to aim our desires in a correct direction.
While my church does have many physical things we do as part of worshiping God (like resting on the Sabbath day, the Passover symbols, and water baptism) this particular view of physicality in worship was new to me. He seems to be prioritizing physical acts of worship over learning theology and understanding doctrines, which makes me uncomfortable, but the idea of doing what God tells us to just because He says so before we understand why does make sense. I also find the argument that we should engage with God on every level — including emotional — very compelling, especially in light of the many scriptures talking about the role of our hearts in our walk with God.
Balance
I’m thinking something between these views is probably closest to right. Yes, the physical isn’t the main point because it’s largely there to teach us more important spiritual lessons. Focusing too much on physical is one of the things that got the pharisees in trouble — you need to have a right relationship with God or it doesn’t matter how good you look on the outside or how closely you keep the letter of the law.
Still, the physical is vitally important. God created us as physical beings full of desires that He tells us to direct toward Him. If the physical didn’t matter, God wouldn’t spend so much time telling us what to do and what not to do. The state of our hearts is of paramount importance and we’re supposed to control our thoughts, but that results in physical actions. And if we’re in a right relationship with God, we’ll be walking in Jesus’s footsteps (including the physical things He did, like Passover) and keeping His commandments.
What about you? any thoughts on the role physical actions should (or shouldn’t) play in our Christian walk?
I thought I had a pretty good grasp of covenants. Studying this subject for the past three weeks, though, has taught me the truth of Paul’s words: “if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know” (1 Cor. 8:2). Covenants are so much deeper, so much more entwined with the plan of God than I’d previously realized. And so I went back to the beginning to review covenants (today’s post) before diving deeper into the subject (next weeks’ posts).
The relationships God establishes are consistently described through scripture as covenants, so to understand how God relates to people we have to study the principles of godly covenants. Hebraic understanding of covenants in the Old Testament forms the basis for understanding what a covenant between God and man involves. We need to understand that before we can even begin to get into the New Testament because Christ’s covenanting work (and the NT writers’ discussions of that) grew out of the covenants recorded in the Old Testament.
Signs of Covenant
If you read anything on covenant history in Biblical times, you’ll learn that covenant agreements involved the establishment of a relationship between two parties, an agreement on terms/promises, and sealing the covenant with some sort of sign. For the covenant with Noah, this sign was a rainbow (Gen 9:13). For most major covenants, though, the sign involved blood. Read more →
While some churches might question whether or not the Passover is relevant to modern Christianity at all, the question in the churches I’ve been associated with has been whether Passover should be observed on the 14th or 15th of the Hebrew month Nisan/Abib. We’re convicted of following Jesus Christ’s example of taking the Passover (see last week’s post), but are haunted by a question of when.
Timing Passover is complicated by the fact that the Hebrew day begins at sundown, which means traditionally the Jews could kill the Passover lamb on the 14th, but eat the meal on the 15th that evening. If you look at a Hebrew calendar, you’ll see that this year the 14th of Nisan falls on Friday, April 22. That means the 14th actually begins at sunset on Thursday and ends on Friday evening.
This post is going to be a bit more of a technical deep-dive than usual. I almost didn’t share it, but the question of a 14th or 15th Passover is one you’ll run into if/when you start keeping Passover. I wanted to re-study the topic for myself, and thought some of you might find it interesting as well. I’ve been keeping Passover on the 14th since I was baptized in 2008, but it’s always a good idea to take a second (or third) look at your assumptions to make sure they line up with scriptures.
When trying to answer the question of when to keep Passover, we often go to sources outside the Bible such as oral and written Jewish tradition and historical writings from the time of Jesus. While those can be useful, the most important question when tackling a subject like this is, “What does the Bible say?” We have to start with all the information God gives us directly in scripture and then see what other sources can add. If those sources contradict the inspired word of God, then they’re no good.
The Command
Let’s start with the very first Passover in Exodus. Pharaoh has refused to “let my people go” through 9 different plagues and the final plague, death of the firstborn, is eminent. Before that plague hit Egypt, God delivered instructions for what the Israelite were supposed to do so the plague would pass over them. Read more →
Happy New Year! Today is the first day of the Hebrew month Nisan (also called Abib), and the first day of the sacred year on the Hebrew calendar (Rosh Hashana starts the civil year). This means Passover is exactly 14 days away. As we draw nearer this important holy day, I wanted to shift our focus onto why Passover is so important for Christians today.
As I started thinking about reasons to keep Passover, I realized I’d either have to make this a series of posts or be much more concise than the subject deserves. Instead of a series (though there will be other Passover posts coming up), I decided to just write a brief overview of some reason to keep Passover and then invite you to join me in exploring them further. If this post inspires any of you to study Passover, I hope you’ll share your thoughts in the comments. And if you write a blog post about Passover, please share a link here so we can all read it.
Exodus chapter 12 describes the events of the first Passover in Egypt, when the children of Israel were protected from the plague that killed all Egyptian firstborn. After delivering instructions specific to that Passover, the Lord reveals that Passover celebration will continue forever among His people. Read more →
What should your heart be set on once you give your life to the Lord? Is it keeping the commandments? going to church? an active prayer life? acts of service? Those are all good things, but they should be a side-effect of our primary focus. In other words, they’ll happen because we want to keep the Law, fellowship with other believers, pray, and serve when our hearts are in the right place.
In Christopher West’s book Fill these Hearts, he quotes mid-twentieth century artist and writer Caryll Houselander as saying, “If instead of using the expression ‘spiritual life’ we used ‘the seeking,’ we should set out from the beginning and go on to the end with a clearer idea of what our life with God will be on this earth” (56). Our conversion isn’t a static state. It’s a continuous search for closeness with God. Read more →
Like An Anchor 