Repent

Living and loving through the New Covenant; eating and drinking the body and blood of Jesus our Messiah (reading and doing all of His Word). “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31–34, ESV. See also Exodus 20:6; Deuteronomy 5:10; Ezekiel 11:19-21)

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Posted in Daily Living • Faith • Fruit • Healing • Law • Love • Reading

Counseling

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Back in the early ’80’s, I was buying a lot of books on subjects such as Systematic Theology, church history, hermeneutics (translating the bible), and biblical counseling. To round out my studies on counseling I purchased such books as Christian Psychiatry by Frank Minirth (not a good set of ideas) and Psychoheresy by Martin and Deidre Bobgan (excellent). The best book I found on counseling was Competent to Counsel by Jay Adams, an American Reformed (Presbyterian) pastor who passed away a few years ago but had a huge impact in the field of biblical counseling.

I have a lot of respect for Mr. Adams as one of my teachers, even though he never knew me. I learned much through his theology and bible perspectives.  In Competent to Counsel Jay presents the idea that anyone who is saved and knows the bible can counsel more effectively, and with more positive results, than any secular counselor. He contrasts Bible teachings in his nouthetic counseling method (a Greek word that means to admonish, counsel or confront) with the bankrupt beliefs of secular counseling such as Freudianism, Rogerianism, behaviorism (Skinner), or whatever.

The Bobgans over the years have moved away from some of what they originally taught to something they call “soul care” in their book Against Psychotherapy/For the Bible. They disagree with Mr. Adams, which might move them closer to my points in this article. I use some of what Mr. Adams taught, and his basic ideas are present in my own small attempts at counseling. There is a lot more to say on the subject of counseling and the content of these books, but with all of his (and others) excellent insights, he has a blind spot with regard to what was recorded for us prior to the Advent of Jesus.

Even the good leaders like Jay are trained to think that the Church (all of the organizations and para-church clubs) is correct, and any person, opinion, teaching or group that isn’t “Church” is a wrong. Examples of these philosophies of men are such ideas as, the Law has been fulfilled and eliminated by the cross, it’s only for Jews, and we don’t have to do it. Jay gets closer to the commands, but for him the Law is limited to a few of the Ten.

Most church teachers (nouthetic counselors or not) could offer a lot more help to people if they used the whole Bible. It’s not enough just to read the Bible (Luke 6:46-49); we need to do what we read in order to make the reading effective. Teaching and counseling from a few select passages is not a well-rounded approach to living the words of Jesus. The benefits and blessings of the Law as a lifestyle and discipleship process elude them. They also cannot see the use of the Law in counseling, or that the fact that it is missing in much of Church teaching contributes to the need for a lot of counseling. If more teachers taught the whole of the Bible in the first place, the need for counseling would be drastically reduced. It is my firm opinion, born out by much study and personal experience, that much of society’s ills are due to the lack of teaching (and modeling) the whole Bible, including the Law.

Adding the Bible material from before the Advent would help counselees in many, many ways. The Law is God’s version of a 12 step program. One of the biggest factors in this program, in keeping with love and the Spirit, is in admitting that the whole of the Word is objective and absolute truth. Teaching some of it piecemeal destroys the veracity and absolute truth of the Word. It should be taught and applied as a whole faith for, as Paul says, our one body.

The number one question after a person becomes a believer is, “What do I do now?” The stock answer usually given is, “Nothing. Jesus has done it all for you. Just read the Bible and go to church.” It is true that nothing can be added to the sacrifice of Jesus to obtain salvation, which is gained by grace through faith. This answer is lacking, however, because there are lots of things that the believer could be doing to strengthen their faith (and maybe avoid counseling).

Sanctification is what we do after salvation, and there is actually much that helps. The “do nothing” answer misses the wonderful, faith building exercises our Messiah gave His people at Mount Sinai to help “work out” our salvation. The Law gives us nice, concrete things to do for staying in contact with Jesus on a minute-by-minute basis, and to build our faith. Working through the Law with all of our heart, soul and strength is the best lifestyle and discipleship method ever devised, and is unequaled by anything the Church or man ever attempted.

Obedience to all of God’s commands is the path to present our bodies a living sacrifice (Romans 12), work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12), produce the fruit of the Spirit, build up the body of Christ, put off our old self (Ephesians 4:22), and please our Lord and Master. The habits Jesus prescribes in His Laws are effective in counseling because they impact the soul directly and give us concrete actions. They help build faith and produce the fruit of the Spirit, which in turn reinforces our relationship with God and leads us out of problems.

Romans 8:7–8 ESV. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Most know that in order to stop a bad habit we need to replace it with a good habit. Simply trying to stop a bad habit is very difficult, unless we have something better to put in its place. The Law Jesus gave at Sinai, clarified and reinforced with original interpretations and applications by Him as He walked in Israel as a man, gives us those good habits. They are useful for transforming and renewing our minds, so that we may discern the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:3 paraphrased).

The first command of The Law is to love God with all our heart, mind and soul or strength. Love means to speak or act on behalf of someone, even if it doesn’t benefit us (or even if it hurts). Acting on God’s Laws hits us where we live – in our flesh. We are challenged point by point in daily life, deciding whose will is going to win. Do we choose God’s will, or our own? If we choose God’s will as revealed to us through obedience to all of His instructions, we might avoid many of the problems that take us to counseling in the first place. And they can definitely help heal us.

Shalom.

Posted in Balance • Bible • Clean & Unclean • Continuity & Discontinuity • Daily Living • Diet • Faith • Fruit • Law • Love • Paul Teachings • Reading • Sabbath • Worship

Guide to Following the Law

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Malachi 3:16–18 ESV. Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name. “They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.

So you’ve accepted the sacrifice of Jesus and are now saved. You read the New Testament and hear it taught in your congregation. But some of the teachings you hear seem overly complicated compared to what you read. Maybe you’ve begun to wonder why the Old Testament isn’t taught very much, except for some nifty stories and a few Psalms or Proverbs.

In your search for understanding, you’ve begun to see that when Paul says we are “grafted in” to an existing tree (or kingdom) and that there is only one body (Ephesians 4) with one Head, there is still something missing. You see the fragmentation of a multitude of churches, and none of them look like the Body in Acts chapter 2. Perhaps you’re becoming aware that the Church has not replaced Israel and, maybe, just maybe, that The Law is valid still for all believers. Hopefully, you’re thinking you’d like to do all of the teachings of Jesus, including the instructions He gave at Mount Sinai. You wonder what comes next and how His Law fits into your walk with our Messiah and God the Father. This short article is a beginner’s guide to implementing what you are beginning to understand is a beautiful gift from our Father and Messiah for living your new life to the fullest.

As you go, there are a few things to keep in mind. These principles are not ranked in importance because they are all important. The first is that the whole Book is the words of Jesus given to His servants. If He is God in the flesh (and He is), and if He is eternal (which He is) then He gave the Law to His people at Mount Sinai. The first five books are the foundation for all other books, and are built around the Ten Words given to Moses on stone tablets. Any other book or teaching must agree with those five. Other books have been added as God worked with His people to get His message across to sometimes stubborn people, but they all have to agree with the first five.

Another principle to remember is that each man (or woman) has to decide, within the guidelines of the whole, how to implement or apply the words to their own walk. It is very possible for each of us to find our own applications. You might understand something sooner than another person, so practice patience while encouraging one another to love and good works. It might take a while for you to figure out an application, and it might take other people a while too. The point is to keep trying with all your heart, soul and strength, and if you fail then confess and repent.

Galatians 5:22–26 ESV. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

A third principle is found in the fruit of the Spirit spoken of by Paul. It is important to avoid pork and shellfish, observe God’s holidays found in Leviticus 22 instead of those the world favors, not to make vows unless you intend to keep them (or just let your yes be yes), and so on. But remember we do these things because we are already saved and we love the Lord with all our heart, soul and strength, and not to gain salvation. The fruit of the Spirit goes right along with obedience to the instructions of Jesus (Torah means instruction), because obedience to the commands in love includes (and produces) the fruit of the Spirit. All of these things work together to increase our faith (trust and obedience) and connect us to each other and our Lord.

A fourth principle for our newfound life of obedience is that we take all of His Words seriously. His commands are full of life and the more we actually believe He means what He says the more life abundant we will have. If we have a take-it-or-leave-it attitude then perhaps we don’t really trust Him as we should, and some of the blessings of following Jesus will be reduced or missing.

The Law is sort of like a 12 step program for recovering from substance abuse. First, we take God seriously because of who He is. Next, start your application of the Law with simple things, like skipping bacon for breakfast or taking the Sabbath (Saturday) off. As you apply the commands, you will make decisions on a daily basis about His will. As you change your habits, like what groceries to buy, you keep the applicable parts of the Word at the front of your thoughts. If you need reminders, your like-minded brothers and sisters can help.

Resting on the Sabbath is full of blessings. This can be a little more difficult for someone, say for instance, in the medical field, and will take quite a bit of thought to implement. It can be rather strange to switch from Saturday being a day for chores to a day for spending time with the Lord and your family. But if we take the command seriously, like all of His Words, we will reap a harvest of blessings if we don’t give up. More fruit of the Spirit is important here as we wait for brothers or sisters to increase their faith and understanding in application.

Read through the whole Bible regularly and do what you read that applies to you. Keep reading daily, going from front to back and when you’re done, do it again. If you run across a section that doesn’t at first appear to have meaning or is without a seeming application to you, skip it and keep going. The next time you read through the Bible some of those sections will make more sense. As you read and do, our Father and Messiah are building a frame of reference for you to understand more as the frame of reference builds. God keeps adding to your understanding the more you read and do. Taking in His Words and doing them is like eating and drinking the body and blood of Jesus as He says in John 6:53 through 58, with a little explanation in verse 63 that His Words are spirit and life. Keep seeking first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Eat and drink the bread and wine of His Words to feed and sustain your soul. Enjoy.

Posted in Authority • Church • Daily Living • Dogma • Hypocrisy

Hypocrite

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Psalm 26:4–5 ESV. I do not sit with men of falsehood, nor do I consort with hypocrites. I hate the assembly of evildoers, and I will not sit with the wicked.

A hypocrite is one who says one thing but does another. The word perhaps comes from the field of acting, as in those who bring characters to life in movies and plays. Actors speak and behave differently that the characters they portray, in ways that are not the same as their own characters when not acting. Jesus had difficulties with leaders in Israel whom He said were hypocrites. It is apparent that the reason for the label was teaching God’s Word from the Tanakh but not applying it in the ways God intended. Their applications would twist the Word in such a way as to give themselves permission to do what they wanted, while at the same time denying the true meaning. For instance, they taught that instead of honoring father and mother with financial help people could instead give that financial help “to God.”

Mark 7:9–13 ESV. And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban” ’ (that is, given to God)— then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”

Matthew, Mark and Luke all record Jesus as quoting Isaiah 29:13, which further illuminates leader’s hypocrisy.

Matthew 15:7–9 ESV. You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: “ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ”

Jesus likens the hypocrites of His time to plants that the Father did not plant. This is from a comparison of His parable in Matthew 13 about weeds planted by the enemy in a crop of wheat. There He explains that “the weeds are the sons of the evil one.” Then in Matthew 15, as He was responding to the false claim that eating with unwashed hands makes one unclean, He says of the Pharisees that “every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone, they are blind guides.” So we know that those who “make void the word of God by your tradition” are “sons of the evil one” and will be “rooted up.” By these verses, we can also see that modern teachers who make void the Word are also sons of the evil one.

Hypocrisy has been around for a long time, but perhaps never as popular as in modern times. “Rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition” is a full time occupation for most church leaders. False teachings abound, such as, we can’t do the Law, Jesus eliminated the Law on the cross, it’s old and for a different time, and Israel was replaced by the Church which was God’s goal all along.

Matthew 16:6 ESV. Jesus said to them, “Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”

If you wonder why so many of this ministry’s articles (and books) are about the commandments of God, it’s because there are so many attacks against them by ravenous wolves in sheep’s clothing wearing the mantle of a Pharisee or Sadducee. Their teachings are seductive because they cater to emotion and preach ear-tickling messages only loosely based on God’s Word. Over the centuries, they have slowly developed many traditions that bolster their authority and deny the Messiah that bought them. How do church leaders deny the Messiah? you might ask. By twisting His Words to support false traditions just like the leaders of Israel did so often. Like actors in a play, they say one thing (Bible verses) and do another. Ezekiel summarizes it well, which applies to hypocrites everywhere.

Ezekiel 22:6–12 ESV. “Behold, the princes of Israel in you, every one according to his power, have been bent on shedding blood. Father and mother are treated with contempt in you; the sojourner suffers extortion in your midst; the fatherless and the widow are wronged in you. You have despised my holy things and profaned my Sabbaths. There are men in you who slander to shed blood, and people in you who eat on the mountains; they commit lewdness in your midst. In you men uncover their fathers’ nakedness; in you they violate women who are unclean in their menstrual impurity. One commits abomination with his neighbor’s wife; another lewdly defiles his daughter-in-law; another in you violates his sister, his father’s daughter. In you they take bribes to shed blood; you take interest and profit and make gain of your neighbors by extortion; but me you have forgotten, declares the Lord God.

But don’t think this was just Israel. In most of the prophet’s recordings of God’s Words, you could easily substitute “princes of the Church” for princes or leaders of Israel. The Church (all of it, not just the Catholics) is full of hypocrites. Oh sure, there are some good teachings here and there, and many good works done. They’ve also preached a (partial) Jesus and gone to great lengths to share Him. The core problem is, though, their Jesus doesn’t do what the Father says to do. They mix truth with error or the error would be rejected out of hand. But mixing dilutes the Word and makes followers nutritionally deficient, unable to strengthen their faith to fend off the world’s attacks.

Jesus is recorded in Matthew 23 describing the behavior of hypocrites. Ask yourself if you see this behavior in Church leaders of today. They sit in a seat of authority, but don’t practice what they preach, and do their deeds to increase attendance and clicks. Leaders love places of honor and titles that feed egos. They focus on details of behavior that look holy on their flocks without actually teaching holiness from the Word. Outwardly, they appear beautiful and righteous, but within are full of corruption. As Jesus says, let them be. They are blind guides. Do what they say as long as it follows the recorded word. Don’t do what they do, just follow His Word. Shalom.

Posted in Atonement • Continuity & Discontinuity • Daily Living • Law • New Testament • Old Testament • Reward • Sabbath • Tanakh

Doing

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Matthew 24:45–46 ESV. “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. (See also Luke 12:43; John 13:17)

Jesus gives words of encouragement to His followers, pointing to the time when He returns and finds His servants doing what He told them to do. He is speaking of the people He set over His household, so specifically that means leaders. Typically, feeding is a figure of speech for giving out the food of the Word. But “doing” extends to all of His servants too.

So what are the things we should be doing? Is it simply to have dinner with other members of our household, or is there more? We could include the “golden rule,” that is, treat others as you want to be treated. Or maybe our actions should be helping the poor, taking care of widows, and practicing justice. But is that all the Bible tells us? Well, Zechariah lists a couple more items.

Zechariah 7:8–10 ESV. And the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.”

So far, then, we are supposed to feed each other the Word, treat others as we want to be treated (which might also include showing kindness and mercy to one another), render true judgments, avoid oppression of people who have no defense such as widows, poor, orphans, or sojourners, and don’t devise evil against another in your heart. All those actions certainly are included in a servant’s duties to his or her Lord and Master. They are the practical outworking of redeemed people returning the love Jesus has for us. I have found, though, in other parts of God’s Word addressed to His people, that there are things we can include in the list we should be “doing.”

Isaiah 56:2 ESV. Blessed is the man who does this, and the son of man who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath, not profaning it, and keeps his hand from doing any evil.”

Apparently, he (or she) who “holds fast the Sabbath” (and keeps his hand from evil) is included for the person who wants to be doing what Jesus says when He returns. There are other the tasks included in a servant’s life so that we can be doing what Jesus told us to do when He returns. All of the instructions included are derived from what Jesus gave at Sinai (the Law or first Sermon on the Mount) and places like the (Second) Sermon on the Mount. Fasting on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) for instance is given expanded meaning by Isaiah.

Isaiah 58:6–7 ESV. “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?

Leaders in particular, our so-called “wise men,” have turned the Law of the Lord into a lie, by writings and teachings that reject many of His Laws. Instead, they preach ear-tickling, emotional and sentimental messages that only use God’s Word as a touchstone to launch rants. So they are not “feeding” like they should.

Jeremiah 8:8–9 ESV. “How can you say, ‘We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us’? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes has made it into a lie. The wise men shall be put to shame; they shall be dismayed and taken; behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord, so what wisdom is in them?

James, the brother of Jesus, leader of the congregation in Jerusalem, was not contradicting Paul in the book he wrote. He was not only in line with Paul but also Jesus, who gave all of the instructions we should be doing when He comes back. We are to be “doers” of the Word and not just hearers.

James 1:22–25 ESV. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

Remember that the books of the misnamed New Testament weren’t collected and called such until about 200 A.D., so “the word” James referred to was the equally misnamed Old Testament (see also such Scripture as John 10:35; 1 Corinthians 4:6). Other writings, such as those in the New Testament, had to conform to the Old Testament (a better name is Tanakh or Law, Prophets and Writings) or would be rejected as Scripture. We accept the New Testament as Scripture, but only as it conforms to the Law, Prophets and Writings.

Jesus didn’t start some new thing but stayed true to the words He spoke many times and in many ways throughout history. Our God and Messiah repeatedly called His people to “do” the things He commanded at Sinai instead of just “hearing.” His admonition for His servants to be doing what the Master commanded is right in line with everything He spoke through the prophets time after time. His commands to us are the same as they’ve always been.

Hosea 12:6 ESV. “So you, by the help of your God, return, hold fast to love and justice, and wait continually for your God.”

The phrase “hold fast to love and justice” is one of the many summary statements in the Bible for The Law. The commands given by Jesus at Mount Sinai were the epitome of love and justice, personified and certified by His teaching at the advent and by His sacrifice and resurrection.

Matthew 7:21–23 ESV. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Signs and wonders are not the task of a servant of our Messiah Yeshua. Our task is laid out here by the inverse of His statement to “depart from me you workers of lawlessness.” The clear meaning is that following His Law is not only the will of the Father but also will be the test for entering the kingdom of heaven. A little later in the book of Matthew, He says it again.

Matthew 12:50 ESV. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

There is no special reward for our efforts to follow His will as expressed in all of His commandments (although there are many blessings). Salvation is granted by faith through grace, and following the Law is our lifestyle and discipleship method. We obey all of His commands because we love our God and Messiah and return some of this love by living like He wants us to live. Our Master lived the laws He commanded, and we copy Him as much as we are able with all our heart, mind and strength. When we are done with our labors and have entered into His kingdom, after He has ascended to the throne of David in Jerusalem, we might have some different rewards, but we will have just done our duty.

Luke 17:10 ESV. So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’ ”

Every word God speaks is by definition good, just, loving and holy. The humble servant does not hesitate to follow any of His words because faith is a combination of trust in God and obedience. The faithful person, recognizing God’s kingship and mercy, will happily submit to whatever our king and Master directs.

Don’t be fooled by the teachings of many in the Church who claim that the Church replaced Israel in God’s plans or that the Law has been eliminated by the death of Jesus. Scripture cannot be changed as our Messiah Yeshua said in John 10:35. Since the penalty for disobedience has been paid, there is no fear of death if we don’t understand a law or make a mistake in obeying. What will earn us the second death penalty (the Lake of Fire) is refusing the payment for our sin in the blood of Jesus. He has made us free from death if only we demonstrate our acceptance by obedience to all He commands with all of our heart. If we refuse the blood and try to gain our own righteousness by earning His gift, there is no other acceptable payment for our sin.

Ecclesiastes 12:12–13 ESV. My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.

Shalom

Posted in Authority • Daily Living • Hermeneutics • Hypocrisy • Law • New Covenant • New Testament • Old Covenant • Old Testament • Prophecy • Tradition • Translational Bias

Burden

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Jeremiah 23:33–36 ESV. “When one of this people, or a prophet or a priest asks you, ‘What is the burden of the Lord?’ you shall say to them, ‘You are the burden, and I will cast you off, declares the Lord.’ And as for the prophet, priest, or one of the people who says, ‘The burden of the Lord,’ I will punish that man and his household. Thus shall you say, every one to his neighbor and every one to his brother, ‘What has the Lord answered?’ or ‘What has the Lord spoken?’ But ‘the burden of the Lord’ you shall mention no more, for the burden is every man’s own word, and you pervert the words of the living God, the Lord of hosts, our God.”

God tells Jeremiah about false prophets in chapter 23, and focuses on the term “burden of the Lord” that they used. Apparently, the false ones would use this term when they were prophesying words that God did not give them. In the process, they would pervert the actual words spoken by the Lord, using lying dreams. Real prophets could use the term (see Zechariah) but not people.

The words of the living God they perverted were those of the covenant made at Mount Sinai through Moses as Jeremiah recorded starting in chapter 11. We can apply these statements to anyone who claims to speak for God or who says they teach His Word yet perverts those words into meanings they don’t possess. They don’t have to say “the burden of the Lord” to speak falsely. The burden is “every man’s own word” which means the same as doing (or saying) what is right in their own eyes.

 God says, “Let him who has my word speak my word faithfully” (23:28). If we don’t speak His Word with His meanings or applications then we are not speaking faithfully. To speak faithfully is to speak His Words of the covenant instead of twisting them to dismiss the real meaning. If we do not speak faithfully, we are the burden of the Lord and He will take steps to punish. We may not see a direct connection to our faithlessness but there will be a connection nonetheless.

Labeling sections of His Word as “old testament” and “new testament” (or just old and new) are the start of becoming the burden of the Lord. He didn’t label them thus, and neither should we. His Words are not split up in that way. Teaching that the crucifixion changed that which cannot be changed is another way of becoming the burden of the Lord. Creating a “new thing” called the Church which then grabs authority for itself in changing the Word continues the burden and makes it worse. Other burdens are in splitting the Word into “Jewish” and “Gentile” sections, insisting that if people disagree with the Church they are heretics and cast out of congregations.

Hosea has a lot to say about priests and prophets who destroy people for “lack of knowledge,” which is the “law of your God.” He doesn’t use the term “burden,” but it’s clear that God has the same issue of a burden as described in Jeremiah 23 (and other places).

Hosea 4:6 ESV. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.

The burden in Hosea is the same people who pervert the Word of the Lord delivered by Moses spoken of by Jeremiah. The leaders of Israel are the ones who are supposed to be living and teaching God’s Word and were failing to do either. They became the burden, and led the people of Israel to become a burden also.

It’s not just the priests and prophets of way-back-when either. Anyone at any time that teaches us to forget the Law of our God fits right into the category of burden. People are still destroyed for lack of knowledge of the Words of God, as those words are perverted into ear-tickling messages of peace when there is no peace without all of His words and His exact meaning.

Jeremiah 8:8, 11 ESV. “How can you say, ‘We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us’? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes has made it into a lie…They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.

Jesus had much to say to the scribes (lying pens) and other hypocritical leaders of the Church. Yes, I know I’m conflating the Jews with the Church but it’s obvious they’re the same lying organizations. Jesus calls “traditions” that contradict His Words as false, which puts them in the same category as “burden.”

Matthew 15:3–6 ESV. He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,” he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God.

You can also refer to Luke 7 for a second view of these types of conversations.

Mixing false traditions with the actual Word of God is another way the lying pens of the scribes turn His Words into burdens. Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:2 and 2 Thessalonians 2:15 says something about traditions he delivered to those people, but we have to go by the rest of his words also as he shoots down traditions that only vaguely resemble God’s traditions.

Colossians 2:8, 18 ESV. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ…Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels…  

Human tradition which follows the elemental spirits of the world are to be avoided, just like we avoid the false teachings of rabbis, pastors and priests. Not all of these leaders speak only lies, but mix a little of God’s Word with a whole lot of burdens never taught by our Messiah Yeshua or our Father in heaven. We are encouraged to ignore those that depart from the Truth. Shalom.

Posted in Balance • Blessing • Comfort • Daily Living • Gospel • Jesus • Promise The

Thorns and Thistles

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As Adam and Eve were relocating anywhere but the Garden of Eden, in Genesis chapter 3 God delivers the curse He had warned Adam would result from breaking the dietary command about the wrong fruit.

Genesis 3:17–19 ESV. And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

A curse at its root is a withdrawal of God’s help or presence. He is the source of life and the One who causes the distribution and growth of seeds. Instead of helping that process, He withdraws, resulting in increased labor to get fed. Thorns and thistles will infest crops along with reduced crop yields (because of the interference of thorns and thistles). A verse that helps us understand this is in Ezekiel.

Ezekiel 5:11 ESV. Therefore, as I live, declares the Lord God, surely, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations, therefore I will withdraw. My eye will not spare, and I will have no pity.

In other Scripture, we are told that Israel was experiencing the curse parts of the Sinai covenant because they did not hold up their end of the bargain and broke it. If we don’t want any part of God then He simply says “okay” and departs (although there is wrath in there also). The downside to this is He is the source of life, so when we depart from Him, even a little bit, we choose death. Believers honor His covenant way of living and follow it from the heart as a small way to return the boundless love He has for us through the death and resurrection of His only begotten Son Yeshua our Messiah. Each commandment we make a part of daily living brings Him more fully into our lives one step at a time as we walk in the light.

A young man I knew once asked me if the “thorns and thistles” part of the curse was only for farmers. I assured him that thorns and thistles are not just plants, but they also represent all of the trials and difficulties we experience in life (“in pain shall you eat of it”). Humans in general will work very hard by the sweat of our brows, according to this curse or withdrawal, but in addition will experience pain and suffering. Other words for trouble in our lives are nettles (as in Hosea 9:6 “nettles shall possess their precious things of silver, thorns shall be in their tents), dry branches, nets, pits, snares, sepulchers, tombs, poisonous weeds, wormwood and so on.

Believers live in a wrecked world with large populations that reject the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, so we are subject to all kinds of bad experiences due to that rejection. Sometimes the thorns and thistles trouble us even when it’s not through our direct fault. The deceiver is still trying to unseat our Father from His throne and his plots and plans have the side effects of sin and death in large measure. Jet planes and cars exhaust pollutants, chemicals foul the ground, food is lacking nutrition, people eat unclean food on a regular basis, and so on. We might have health issues that come from lifestyles that are terrible, such as abuse of alcohol and drugs. My birth mother (I call her the egg donor) smoked cigarettes during her pregnancy with me, and I have lung issues and asthma that probably come from that practice.

We can pray that God keeps us safe and heals us when we are afflicted, but we still suffer thorns and thistles which might be coming from others. No matter how carefully we drive or how observant we are in avoiding accidents, someone can still crash into us. We avoid illegal drugs but we can be affected by those who use them. The medical establishment constantly bombards us with fallacious information and coerces us by fear into taking treatments or vaccines that do way more harm than good. Government burdens us with unnecessary regulations and heavy taxation while sending our confiscated hard-earned money to foreign countries who hate us. Yes, thorns and thistles are sadly much more than merely unwanted plants.

We know God is still around and active in our lives to a certain extent. Even unbelievers experience rain and sunshine on a regular basis, as well as pain and suffering, even if they aren’t farmers. Our Messiah Yeshua isn’t on the throne of David in Jerusalem so His absence is a big reason for the lack of God’s full blessings on the earth. If He were rightfully enthroned, we would see many blessings returned to us. In the meantime, we work and sweat to get our bread, and the pain and suffering are right there as we do.

Thankfully, the thorns and thistles will not continue to afflict us. When our Messiah Yeshua returns and is seated on His rightful throne on earth, God will again visit us fully and paradise will be had once again. Lambs will frolic with lions, cobras will not bite, He will “answer” the ground and it will grow food in abundance, and we will see how it could have been if we had not turned our backs on Him from the beginning.

Isaiah 11:6–9 ESV. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

The return of our Messiah as Lord and King on the earth will be the end of thorns and thistles (and the other weeds) as God reverses His withdrawal. Jesus is God, so of course His presence “in the flesh” so to speak will mean blessings not seen since the Garden of Eden. Israel will be regathered and their blessings will be our blessings also.

Isaiah 12:2–6 ESV. “Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.” With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. And you will say in that day: “Give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the peoples, proclaim that his name is exalted. “Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously; let this be made known in all the earth. Shout, and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.”

Shalom

Posted in Israel

Israel

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The children of Abraham and Jacob, he who was renamed Israel by God and which name is also applied to their descendants, are mentioned thousands of times in Scripture, not always in a complimentary way. As a group or nation, they have turned in some of the best and worst behavior in all of mankind. At various times they were disciplined for turning their backs to Him who rescued them from Egypt, even to the point of removal from the Promised Land and divorce.

However, consistent with His promise to Abraham (Genesis 12:3), God has also designated them as His “am segullah” or treasured people (Exodus 19:5, Deuteronomy 7:6 (and others), Psalm 83:3) and made many promises to protect and ultimately save the nation (Isaiah 43:1 and others). Israel is God’s “line in the sand” for the Deceiver and anybody else who defies God’s plans for His kingdom. They represent man in general and showcase God’s love and compassion, especially when they don’t follow Him like they should. When they cling to God in the best way, they give all people hope for their own salvation.

Deuteronomy 9:5 ESV. Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out from before you, and that he may confirm the word that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

Israel is not under God’s protection and love because of anything they do or did, but because of God’s promises, character and care for all people. God’s promises will not fail, as we see in the modern example of Israel regaining the Land. No other nation or tribe or tongue in history or on earth has seen the same type of chastisement and been “born again” as has Israel. God is always there for Israel as He is for any other person or group that loves Him with all their heart, soul and strength.

Romans 5:6–11 ESV. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Believers have the same track record as Israel, but God still sent His only begotten Son to shed His blood for us who were lost. It spite of all our failings God loves us and is waiting for us to love Him back. If people condemn Israel, they condemn themselves.

God says Israel (or Jerusalem) will be a “cup of staggering,” a “blazing pot” and a “flaming torch” for all the surrounding peoples, and they shall devour them to the right and to the left (Zechariah 12). We are seeing the beginning of this in our time. Jerusalem is vexing the entire world and causing most of countries to stagger with alarm and hate at the “Jewish problem.” As all the nations led by Gog gather to crush Israel in the latter days, God’s wrath will be kindled and the armies will be wiped out.

Ezekiel is told (Ezekiel 37) that the two parts of Israel that separated themselves long ago will be joined together into one again. This also we have begun to see in modern times because most Israelis cannot tell which tribe they are in. They all are considered, and consider themselves, one people. However, in Ezekiel’s vision of the millennial temple (Ezekiel 48) the twelve tribes are listed again for the purpose of dividing their inheritance in the land, and in Revelation chapter 7 12,000 from each of the tribes (Dan isn’t listed and Levi is included which is unusual) are sealed. So God still knows who is in which tribe even though they have been united into one nation.

Believers don’t support Israel because of anything wonderful they’ve done. We don’t stop supporting because of dumb mistakes and a tendency to ignore God. We support Israel because God asks us to support them. He asks this because we should recognize the God is working through them as a sign of His love, care and concern for all of His people. We pray for their help and protection because it is our help and protection.

Psalm 122:6–9 ESV. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! “May they be secure who love you! Peace be within your walls and security within your towers!” For my brothers and companions’ sake I will say, “Peace be within you!” For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good.

Israel has done many stupid things, such as disarming their citizens, making the October 7th 2023 terrorist massacre much worse than in could have been, or signing so-called peace agreements with their avowed enemies. We pray that God will not hold their stupidity against them, in the same way that we pray He doesn’t hold our own stupidity against us.

Ezekiel 37:28 ESV. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel, when my sanctuary is in their midst forevermore.”

Most Israelis think that they have reconstituted modern Israel by their own hand, and do not give God the honor and worship He deserves. So we can pray for their peace, bless them as we are able and willing, but recognize that they are still stubborn, stiff necked people who are due for a wakeup call from the Lord of Hosts. However, nations that are against Israel are against God, and God will require it from them.

Shalom

Posted in Church • Daily Living • Law • New Covenant • Old Covenant • Promise The

Covenant

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The word “covenant” is mentioned in the ESV Bible about 325 times. Sometimes it refers to the rainbow after the flood (Genesis 9:13), sometimes to the Abraham covenant in Genesis 15 and the confirmation of the covenant by circumcision in Genesis 17. Other times it is referring to a covenant between two people such as Abraham and Abimelech (Genesis 21). Sometimes too, there was a covenant even when the word isn’t used, such as the covenant in the Garden between Adam and God for avoiding one particular fruit (and thereby avoiding death). But mostly it’s the covenant made between God and Israel at Mount Sinai.

A covenant is a legal agreement with stipulations for performance by each party and penalties for breaking it, like a contract. However, if there are no stipulations for one party, then it is a “promise” because there is no legal enforcement for that party. For instance, the rainbow covenant with Noah after the flood not only doesn’t have any penalties for God if He didn’t perform His part, there is no way to enforce penalties on God anyway. He just said He would do something, and put His bow in the clouds as a sign of His commitment.

The covenant with Israel at Sinai did have stipulations for both parties. Israel was to follow the terms of the covenant and receive blessings, or break it and experience curses. In exchange, God would be their God and Shepherd, leading, protecting and blessing them in every way. By that point, God had already demonstrated His abilities in saving, protecting and blessing Israel in many powerful ways. All Israel had to do was stay on the path and do what God had laid out for them. He would live in their midst and blessings would flow as they followed all the terms of their side of the covenant. However, they refused many times and in many ways, leading to the curses warned about by God and their ultimate expulsion from the Land.

Before allowing Babylon to defeat Judah (the ten northern tribes called Israel had already been defeated by the Assyrians about a hundred years before) Jeremiah is told by God that the banishment would last 70 years and that there would be a new covenant between Him and Israel.

Jeremiah 31:31–34 ESV. “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Ezekiel, a contemporary of Jeremiah, also speaks of this new covenant (Ezekiel 11:19) along with giving the united Israel a heart transplant (also 36:26) and a new spirit. Part of this new covenant includes the God’s Laws written on the new heart, and all will obey. Jesus tells His disciples during the Passover dinner before His crucifixion that one of the cups of wine they share is the realization of this new covenant.

Luke 22:20 ESV. And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

The phrase “new covenant” used by Jesus here is καινὴ διαθήκη (transliterated kainόs diathēkē) meaning literally a refreshed agreement. Perhaps we could even use the more modern “new and improved” phrase. It is not new in the sense of something that hasn’t existed before and is now newly created. Jesus was referring to Jeremiah (notice He didn’t have to explain it to the disciples) and the power of His blood to write His Laws (including those given by Him on Mount Sinai) on a new heart of flesh.

The “new thing” called The Church, created by imagination about two to three hundred years A.D., has hijacked the application of the new covenant for itself, but has made it mean something other than what our Messiah intends. The Church of course is all the groups and organizations claiming to be part of this new thing, not just one particular group. Their interpretation of the new covenant is anti-Jewish (though God says it is between Him and Israel) and completely ignores the texts that speak explicitly of the terms. Their leaders say that the death of Jesus eliminated the Law and they don’t have to follow God’s Words anymore. In place of the Law, they have created all sorts of vague, ear-tickling and feelings-based guidelines focusing on doing what is right in their own eyes rather than the literal Law written on a new heart of flesh.

The New Testament, falsely named by the Church, is neither a covenant nor the new covenant. None of the collected books use the term “new covenant” except for the words of Jesus (also recorded in 1 Corinthians 11:25), an application by Paul in 2 Corinthians 3:6 to believers as ministers of the new covenant, and several mentions by the author of the book of Hebrews quoting Jeremiah. Hebrews speaks of the “old covenant” being obsolete, not because the Law was eliminated (Jesus said Scripture cannot be broken John 10:35) but because it was on the outside chiseled on stone tablets, instead of on the inside written on a new heart of flesh.

Believers enter in to this new covenant and are given a heart transplant in order to follow all the instructions of our Father and our Messiah in love and spirit. Jesus died a horrible death and was resurrected as the ultimate and defining act of love. Accepting His sacrifice and His lordship is to become part of His household and kingdom along with living exactly as He directs with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. If we falter, we have an advocate in heaven who intercedes for us, so we confess our failure and work out our salvation with fear and trembling. All praise and thanks to the One who has set us free from sin and death to serve the God of light, life and love.

Shalom.

Posted in Church • Daily Living • Hypocrisy • Judaism • Law • Political • Tradition

Cultural Appropriation

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A phrase that is thrown around quite a bit in the last few years is “cultural appropriation.” It means to take something such as a tradition or food or a style of dress from a different culture other than your own, and use it or practice it as if it belongs to you. It is used as a negative.

Cultural appropriation can be as simple and inoffensive as using a Yiddish word or eating Mexican food. Or it can be more involved (and to some more offensive) practices such as hair styles with dreadlocks or dressing with lederhosen or a dashiki. You might be thinking, “The Church has members that wear sombreros or celebrate Cinco de Mayo and are not Mexican, but so what? That’s hardly cause for alarm.” Except a hat or a holiday are not the types of cultural appropriation this article (or video) is about.

The Church, unfortunately, is guilty of culturally appropriating in a big way. By Church, I mean all the groups (associated with each other or not) that claim to be “partisans of the Christ.” They may have different styles of a service and some differences in their so-called “statements of faith,” but they are essentially all the same. They are all built on the same basic framework of cultural appropriation. Let me explain further.

Way back when (about a hundred years after the apostles were all dead – wasn’t that convenient), those who called themselves Christian decided, through a long process, to reject the bulk of the Bible as applying to them. They “transitioned” away from what the world told them were Jewish things. Church fathers created a new thing called “the Church” and said that it was God’s intended goal instead of Israel, because “the Jews” crucified the Messiah (it was the Romans with Jewish leader incitement). Then, in keeping with that split decision, they deliberately mistranslated the parts they appropriated in order to justify their decision to create the new thing.

These and other philosophies of men contradicted Paul’s declaration in Ephesians that there is only one Body, one Faith, and one Messiah. But the church fathers kept using cultural appropriation to develop the new thing anyway. In the process, they built a false god they call Jesus but who barely resembles our biblical Messiah as they chose those parts of the Bible they liked and discarded the others. Like Jeroboam with his replacement golden calves (2 Kings 17), the Church has appropriated a little bit of the biblical Jesus to create a false idol who preaches against God’s unbreakable covenant (John 10:35).

On the contrary, the whole message of the real Jesus is right in line and a continuation of the whole message of the Father, including what they call The Law. “And Scripture cannot be broken.”

John 10:34–38 ESV. Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken— do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”

Instead of culturally appropriating a few pieces of the Word to build a non-Jewish organization with a savior that only vaguely resembles the biblical Jesus, believers enter into the existing eternal kingdom of our Messiah by grafting. Grafting is the process of connecting parts of different trees or plants together. We are connected to the existing olive tree of God’s kingdom, as Paul put it in Romans 9 through 11. We become part of the body of Christ and live in His house where His loving rules or instructions are life and discipleship. We do what is right in our Father’s eyes.

Groups that are part of the Church and are called Messianic say they believe in Jesus as the Messiah, but also want to follow standard Jewish traditions. In other words, they are also “culturally appropriating,” from Judaism. Many in these groups are actually of Jewish descent, and wanting to keep the traditions is perhaps understandable (although much of Judaism is, like the Church, not biblical – see: the gospels). However, the philosophies of men in the Messianic section of the Church (yes, they are still part of the Church) promote the idea that somehow Jews know the best in how to follow God. So, many of the so-called Messianic congregations try to incorporate as much “Jewish” theology and practice as they can.

The problem is, according to the Bible, most of those in Israel in general have always been just as stiff-necked and stubborn as the Church when it comes to ignoring God’s plain instructions and making up things outside the Word of God. They also culturally appropriated from the nations around them, including their idols. It’s why they got booted out of the Land several times. It’s also the reason they and the Church are part of the “Great Prostitute” of Revelation 17.

The culture that believers desire to appropriate is God’s. His culture is laid down for us all through the Bible and includes what some call the law, given by Jesus, clarified and reinforced by the teachings of the apostles. The whole of Scripture is given to believers for a lifestyle and discipleship method. At Sinai, God (Jesus) set up the instructions for the way He wanted His kingdom to operate. On the arrival of Jesus in the flesh, He clarified the instructions He had already given, clearing away the trash of men’s wrong interpretations and opinions obscuring the plain meaning. It is a flat-out lie that Jesus “fulfilled the Law” and terminated it.

All nations will be judged for refusing to “culturally appropriate” all of God’s Words, including what some negatively refer to as The Law or the Law of Moses.

Jeremiah 25:15, 26-27 ESV. Thus the Lord, the God of Israel, said to me: “Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it…all the kings of the north, far and near, one after another, and all the kingdoms of the world that are on the face of the earth. And after them the king of Babylon shall drink. Then you shall say to them, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Drink, be drunk and vomit, fall and rise no more, because of the sword that I am sending among you.”  

Shalom.

Posted in Daily Living • Humility • Marriage • Paul Teachings • Women

Washing

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Ephesians 5:25–28 ESV. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.

What does Paul mean by directing husbands to wash their wives with the Word? He tells believing husbands to love their wives as Christ loves His congregation (the word “church” is only used in translations) and follow His ways with our wives in a similar fashion. One of the ways we do this is by washing our wives with the Word as we are washed. But if all of us are already washed with the Word, then why are we directed to wash our wives in the same way? One of the possible meanings is given us by the Christ when He washed the disciple’s feet.

John 13:10 ESV. Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.”

John 15:3 ESV. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.

So even though we all have been “cleansed by the washing of water with the Word” in our initial salvation, we still need occasional cleaning with the Word and repentance. When we sin, we need repentance and cleansing with the Word. Jesus told the disciples that they were clean but just needed a little touchup. The word “wash” is used a great deal in the Bible, and mostly means to bathe the body or garments. A few times, it means to cleanse the heart. For instance, Jeremiah uses it to encourage washing the evil from the heart.

Jeremiah 4:14 ESV. O Jerusalem, wash your heart from evil, that you may be saved. How long shall your wicked thoughts lodge within you?

There’s also washing of wounds and washing the body for burial. Pilate is recorded as washing his hands of the crucifixion of Jesus, attempting to imply he was guiltless. Baptism is said to wash away our sins in Acts 22:26 through identification with the death and resurrection of Jesus. Paul illuminates this idea further in his first letter to the Corinthians.

1 Corinthians 6:9–11 ESV. Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Washing a wife with the Word sanctifies her in a manner similar to baptism. Apparently, husbands are tasked with study and application of the Word to their wives (and one assumes children). Of course, the husband ideally would be applying the Word to his own life first. This structure reverses the events in the Garden of Eden, where Eve bit on the arguments of the serpent and “washed” her husband in her word, which resulted in the Fall of both of our parents.

It’s a spiritual action to wash my wife with the Word. I wash, and then I help wash her as she needs it. We might even compare it to washing the disciple’s feet in humility as shown to us by Jesus. As we read through the Bible, I regularly explain the meaning of a text (or what I think is the meaning) and possible applications to her. She shares her insights with me also. We have conversations on a daily basis as we work our way through another stretch of Bible reading. We read at different rates but we still go through the Bible once a year, discussing parts as we go.

Hebrews 4:12–13 ESV. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

I’ve studied college level books a little more than my wife, so I help her with different perspectives and word definitions gained from my studies, which improve her understanding of some difficult parts. This, I think, is part of washing my wife with the Word. Of course, the more we read and the more we do what we read the more we change to conform to God’s will. It’s not just reading a few words here and there, like after a church service where the message is almost immediately forgotten by lunchtime.

1 John 2:3-6 ESV. And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

Together we remind each other of God’s Words as we seek applications of it in daily living. God’s commands, actually given by and amplified by Jesus, help us with our transformation from sinful people into the image of the Christ (Romans 8:29). As we wash our wives with the Word, we participate with the Holy Spirit to change each day and be more like our Messiah and Savior. Washing also doesn’t help much unless we actually do what we read, so washing our feet, so to speak, helps each of us clean off and improve our practice, transforming and renewing our minds to avoid being conformed to the world.

Romans 12:1–2 ESV. I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Shalom.