Tag Archives: Biblical Hebrew

The Meaning of the Word

20 Monday Mar 2023

Posted by in Walking in the Way

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Hello and welcome to Renaissance Woman where, this week, I am exploring another side path I encountered but steadfastly ignored during my study of Isaiah 45:7.

This side path presented itself during my study of the Hebrew word translated as “evil” in the King James Version but “calamity” in the New King James Version.  That Hebrew word is ra spelled Resh (ר) Ayin (ע) and does not necessarily mean “evil” in the way we think of “evil”.  In the word ra, we see the Resh which is a picture of bowing or a bent head, and the Ayin which is a picture of the eyes.  The head is bent to the eyes so those things that are “evil” in a Biblical sense are those things we do because they seem right in our own eyes.  In their study on Psalm 2:11, Chaim Bentorah and Laura Bertone have this to say about ra: “In Hebrew, there are about ten different words with a Semitic root of ra (ר), which is the basic word for “evil”.  However, ra (ר) does not necessarily have to signify something bad.  The Semitic concept of this word is an outside influence that causes us to react in a certain way in which we have little or no control over our actions.”1

As time passes, I am persuaded of the necessity of knowing what the original language behind our English words truly meant.  One such word is “evil”.  The Septuagint translated the Hebrew ra in Isaiah 45:7 as kakos but then translated “evil” (ra) in “The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” as poneros.  These words do not mean the same thing in the Greek although at first glance the difference does appear slight.  George Ricker Berry says “These words may be used with very little distinction of meaning but often the difference is marked.  (G2556) kakos frequently means evil rather negatively, referring to the absence of the qualities which constitute a person or thing what it should be or what it claims to be.  It is also used meaning evil in a moral sense.  It is a general antithesis to agathos.  Poneros is a word at once stronger and more active, it means mischief-making, delighting in injury, doing evil to others, dangerous, destructive.  Kakos describes the quality according to its nature, poneros, according to its effects.”2 (Agathos [G18]: good, benefit, well)

I cannot repeat everything I learned about “evil” during my Isaiah 45:7 study but I will repeat how aware I am that everything I learned in this study only scratched the surface.  There is so much more to be gleaned from scripture regarding the meaning of “evil”.  This is true for so many other words as well.  One such I came across while studying ra and I was astonished as I began to look into its meaning.  That word is rasha (רשע) often translated by the English word “wicked”.

I was looking up ra in Benjamin Blech’s The Secrets of Hebrew Words and found this entry: “רע (ra) means evil.  What does the wicked person do in order to gain acceptance?  He makes central to his very being the appearance of ש (shin), the letter appearing on every mezuzah as the acronym for שדי   (ShaDaY), the name of God.  The reprobate will claim that holiness is central to his being. All of his actions are hypocritically assigned to “holy causes”…the only way to unmask the רשע (RaShA) is to remove his ש (shin), the letter of piety that he uses to disguise his wickedness.”3

I have no doubt that we all have a person or two who readily springs to mind as someone who is rasha or wicked.  Before we start pointing fingers and leveling accusations, I want to share one other entry from Benjamin Blech.  His very next entry on rasha asks the question “how does one explain why someone is wicked” and then quotes the second half of Numbers 15:39: “And that you go not about after your heart and your own eyes, after which you use to go astray”.4 Benjamin Blech then writes:

“The eyes ought not to be our rulers.  Samson followed his eyes to lust after Philistine women.  His punishment, measure for measure, was that he became blind.  Look in retrospect at the רשע (RaShA) and see that backwards we are told the story behind his aberrant behavior: ע (ayin) the eye, became his   שר (SaR), ruler.  A   ישראל (YiSRaEL) is one who remembers ראש לי (LiY RoSh): I possess a head, a mind, and an intellect that must control the desires stemming from sight.  ראש (RoSh) also has the consonants  שר (SaR), ruler.  But central to rule as expressed by the word is the letter א (alef), the One of the universe Who dictates the difference between right and wrong, between what my eyes see and desire, and what my head determines is suitable or off limits.”5

These two entries riveted me because I realized that whenever I read the word “wicked” in the Bible, I was picturing something different in my head than what was meant by the original language.  And, while I can think of one or two people who would fit the Biblical definition of “wicked” I cannot resort to finger pointing.  The roots of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil have penetrated deep into the soil of my heart.  I have both eaten its fruit and produced its fruit in my life.  Even after I knew Jesus and had determined to follow Him I still nibbled the fruit from time to time.  My early following of Him consisted in trying to do right, believe the right things, keep the right rules, and present myself to Him as a good Believer with an absolutely stuffed resume He could be proud of.  I did not know then that even the good I tried to do was evil because I was either doing what seemed right in my own eyes or, at times, doing what another person told me was right.  That person of course knew more than I did so following his/her dictates meant I was safe, right?

No.  The wicked person is one who covers his evil deeds with holiness and piety.  It may be that contained within the word rasha is the idea that this covering of one’s deeds with holiness and piety is deliberate. This is a word I need to spend some more time with. Whether it is or not, wickedness can be hard to recognize because, while “evil deeds” are those things done because they seem right in a person’s eyes, they oftentimes do appear to be good. Knowing for certain I have turned from wickedness to righteousness can be quite a dilemma but one which has a both remarkably simple and intensely difficult solution.

“Let the peace of God rule in your hearts…Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom…and whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”  I am quoting bits of Colossians 3 verses 15-17 here and the Greek word for “name”, as in “the name of the Lord Jesus” is onoma (G3686).  It means “name” but also “authority, character”.  The Strong’s also has “surname” as a definition.  The word “in” is en (G1722) and it means “fixed position…a relation of rest”.

That’s it.  Rest in Jesus Christ.  Eat of the fruit of the Tree of Life which is Jesus Christ.  Let His life live in and through us.  It is at once utterly simple and the most difficult thing in to do.  There’s a scripture in the Book of Revelation which has often been quoted as something reserved for after this body dies.  The passage is: “Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, ‘Write: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” ‘‘Yes, says the Spirit, ‘that they may now rest from their labors, and their works follow them’” (Revelation 14:13).  I don’t think this scripture is describing a rest that happens after physical death.  I think it’s describing what it means to live the Christian life here on earth while still in this body. Jonathan Mitchell’s translation of the New Testament seems to say as much. Listen to the tenses: “Write: “From the present moment (from this time; from now; henceforth) the dead ones [are] blessed (happy) folks-those continuously dying within the Lord!” “Yes, indeed” the Spirit continues saying, “to the end that they may rest themselves from out of their wearisome labor (travail; toilsome exhaustion), for their works (actions; deeds) are continually following together with them.”6

“I die daily,” Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:31.  We have died in Jesus Christ, were buried with Him, rose with Him, and are now seated with Him in heavenly places.  Even so, there is a law in our members that seeks to draw us away from His life in us and then to lead us onto a path where we declare we are the gods of our lives and can determine for ourselves what is good and evil.  This path is almost impossible to stay off of except we have the Holy Spirit living within us.  He teaches us who Jesus Christ is and teaches us who we are in Him.  By His opening of my eyes I see Jesus Christ, the Tree of Life.  By His working within me, I can recognize the fruit of the tree that led to death.  By His wisdom and the revelation He gives, I know I am dead to sin and alive to God in Jesus Christ.  By His power, I do refuse to let sin reign in my mortal body and can present myself to God as being alive from the dead (Romans 6:10-13). 

2 Corinthians 4:10 says, “always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.”  This is one of those living in the New Covenant paradoxes: living in union with Jesus is wondrous beyond words and each one of us would declare there is no other life worth living, and yet it also intensely painful.  There are times the finger is pointed at me accusing me of wickedness. It cuts the deepest when that finger belongs to someone close.  I have no defense to offer.  I know His Life is in me and I am joined to Him through His Spirit.  Because His peace is alive in me and ruling in my heart I can say, “my conscience is clear but that doesn’t prove I’m right.  It is the Lord Himself who will examine me and decide” (1 Corinthians 4:4, NLT).

Amen.  So be it.  Come, Lord Jesus.    

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982  

  1. Bentorah, Chaim with Laura Bertone, Hebrew Word Study: Exploring the Mind of God, Whitaker House, New Kensington, Pennsylvania, 2019, Page 246
  2. Walker, G. Allen, New Koine Greek Textbook Series Supplements, Berry’s Synonyms, Page 66
  3. Blech, Benjamin, The Secrets of Hebrew Words, Jason Aronson Inc., Northvale, New Jersey, 1991, Page 76
  4. Ibid., Page 77
  5. Ibid., Page 77
  6. Mitchell, Jonathan Paul, MA, The New Testament, Harper Brown Publishing, 2009, 2013, 2015, 2019, Page 629

References

Danker, Frederick William, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New testament and Other Early Christian Literature, Third Edition (BDAG), University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois, 1957-2000

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville Tennessee, 1990

I Have Questions

13 Monday Mar 2023

Posted by in Walking in the Way

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Hello and welcome-or welcome back-to another week and another post on Renaissance Woman.  This week I am going to venture down one of those side paths I did not go down during my Isaiah 45:7 study.  This path presented itself during my study of the Hebrew word bara which is most often translated by the English word “create”.

While studying bara, I had had a video shared with me where the meaning of bara was given as “to fill”.  I had found another video which expanded on that first one by pointing out that the Hebrew word bar meant “son” and thus bara not only meant “to fill” but also “to increase”.  I can’t say any of this is wrong.  The root of the English word “create” used to translate bara is kre and means “to grow”.  Filling, increase, growth…all of these ideas are contained within the word bara.  However, while none of this is wrong, perhaps it is incomplete.

Bar is the Aramaic word for “son”.  The Hebrew word for “son” is ben.  Bar in the Hebrew means “beloved, pure, empty, choice, clean, clear.”  The root barar means “to clarify, brighten, examine, select, make bright, choice, chosen, cleanse (be clean), clearly, polished, pure, purify”.  Bar is also used to mean “field” or “grain, in the sense of winnowing”.  All of these definitions are from the Strong’s concordance where I also find an entry for bar defining it as “borrowed from the Chaldean as a title, the heir, son, grandson”.  The Strong’s then says bar corresponds to ben: son.

The Young’s concordance concurs.  Both concordances show several different Hebrew words used throughout the Old Testament all translated as “son”.  Ben is used most often and there are pages of scriptures associated with that word.  Bar is also translated “son” in a few different passages.  But then, bar is also translated as “pure” and “clean” in other passages (See Psalm 19:8, 24:4, 73:1, Proverbs 14:4). 

All of this might just be a matter of interest in studying the Hebrew language if it weren’t for Psalm 2:12.  The King James Version has it as: “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little.  Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.”  The Hebrew word translated “Son” in this passage is bar.  What interests me is that the English word “son” also appears in verse 7 of this Psalm: “…Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.”  In verse 7, the Hebrew word is ben.  I wondered to myself, why are the different Hebrew words translated with the same English word?  The Strong’s Concordance answers this question by telling me in this passage bar is “Son” in the sense of a title.  I checked and didn’t find anything in any of my reference books or any other Bible translation that suggested bar in this passage could or should be translated as anything but “Son”.

I looked up this passage in every Bible translation I have access to and didn’t find much variation.  The Young’s Literal has “Chosen One” in place of “son” and the New English Bible has “king” but the majority of the other translations all have “Son”.  Only two translations had footnotes associated with this passage that suggested there might be more to the standard interpretation.  One is The Complete Jewish Study Bible which states, “Regarding this verse, the Targum says, ‘Those who reject his instruction will incur his anger and perish but blessed are those who trust in his Word’.”  The second footnote appears in The Passion Translation which states, “Or ‘be ruled by the Son”.  The Hebrew word for ‘kiss’ is nashaq and can also mean ‘to be ruled by’ or ‘be in subjection to’ (the Son).  Yet another possible translation of this difficult verse is ‘be armed with purity’.”

I found other glimmers of possibility.  The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon did have “kiss purely, of sincere homage” under the entry for bar but none of this was enough for me to question how this verse has been translated.  And I did want to question it because the verse bothers me. 

“Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little.”  Every resource I have access to are in agreement this is a messianic Psalm and thus I have to ask myself whether this passage is an accurate reflection of the Jesus I read about in the gospels.  That Jesus came to save the lost, received and ate with sinners, and wept over Jerusalem.  He washed filthy feet and died on a cross.  Am I to expect that if I don’t kiss or show proper homage to that Jesus, He’s going to get angry with me and I’ll be left to perish?  That seems to be what this passage is saying and ending the Psalm with “Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him” doesn’t really soften that blow.  Still, I couldn’t find anything that suggested there was any other possible interpretation for this passage and, since I agree with those who are saying we can’t make the Bible say whatever we want, I put all my discomfort with this passage firmly with the Holy Spirit and waited for what He would say.

I waited a while.  I did shift my focus from studying Isaiah 45:7 but my questions about this passage percolated in the back of my mind.  Then came the day when I happened to pick a Hebrew word study book off my shelves and found the last two studies in it were devoted to Psalm 2.  The book is Hebrew Word Study: Exploring the Mind of God by Chaim Bentorah with Laura Bertone and I ask you to imagine my surprise when I read someone else asking the same question I had asked.  Mr. Bentorah writes, “In Hebrew, the word for “sin” is ben (בן).  Only in Aramaic is the word bar (בר )used as son.  This passage was written in Hebrew, so why suddenly insert an Aramaic word?” (Bentorah, 248).  My question exactly, Mr. Bentorah!

He goes on to say that there is a basis for using the word “Son” and capitalizing it to imply a reference to Jesus.  Mr. Bentorah says that, because Jewish tradition teaches this psalm in a messianic context, Christians do have a legitimate basis for assuming the word bar is “Son” with a capital S and implying we are to kiss the Son of God-Jesus.  But then, he goes on to say, “I’m okay with this interpretation, except the idea that Jesus will become angry with us and we will perish if we don’t kiss Him is a little unnerving to me.  Out salvation has nothing to do with “kissing” Jesus. Additionally, Jesus threatening us to submit to Him doesn’t fit His character” (Bentorah, 249).

Mr. Bentorah points out that rendering nashaq as “kiss” is a later, postexilic use of the word and that nashaq, which is derived from an old Akkadian word, signifies a voluntary joining together or a desire to be joined together.  He also points out that if the New Testament attributes Psalm 2 to David (which does seem to be the case in Acts 2:24-26), then rendering the word nashaq as “kiss” postdated David’s time and we ought then revert to the original meaning of the word which is a voluntary joining together.  If we also use the Hebrew meaning for bar which is “purity” rather than translating it by the Aramaic “son”, then command in this passage becomes to embrace or desire purity in our relationship with God.  Mr. Bentorah goes through the other words in this passage questioning why ‘aneph is translated “anger” and “wrath” instead of “passion”.

Mr. Bentorah closes his study with: “By saying that ‘aneph ( אנף) does not refer to anger or wrath but rather to God’s passionate love for us, I know I am trying to put a positive spin on something that is traditionally read in a negative context.  That may be the case” (Bentorah, 252). 

As I said before, every Bible translation is consistent in the interpretation of this scripture.  I am not saying Mr. Bentorah is correct and everyone else is wrong and Mr. Bentorah isn’t saying that either.  What he is saying is that there is valid reason to take a deeper look at this passage, the ancient language it was written in, and to question the interpretation.  It’s okay to ask questions.

There was a recent post on a Biblical Archeology forum I follow that said the Bible had to be taken “as is”.  It is difficult to glean just what exactly someone means by a one sentence post so I can only speak to what I thought when I read it.  I hear Believers declare the Bible is the inerrant word of God.  This is said as if it’s the arguments to end all arguments.  The Bible means exactly what it says and the idea of questioning what’s written there is unthinkable.  Besides, the very act of questioning means you don’t have any faith and without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). I don’t agree.  I’ve found my questions about scripture passages are an invitation from the Living God to enter deeper into relationship with Him.

I love my Bible.  Reading it used to be a chore, a box I would tick to prove I’d done my Christian duty for the day.  Reading it was a chore because I’d finish with this sense of unease that my life was not quite measuring up to the standard set down combined with the certainty it never would.  It’s a great irony that, the closer I have drawn to Jesus and the Father through the Spirit, the more questions I have and the more I delight to read the Bible.  One of the greatest privileges of my life is being able to possess as many copies of it as I like.  And yet, I also never lose sight of the fact that what I possess is a translation.  The translators have done the best they could whether they sought to produce a literal translation or express what they thought the ancient languages were saying.  I agree the Bible is the inerrant word of God because the One who inspired it is inerrant and any interpretation of it is inerrant if the Holy Spirit is the One doing the interpreting.   

There is no relationship on earth that is formed without asking questions and I have not found my relationship to the God who loves me to be any different.  The Bible is a crucial way of getting to know Him.  When I have a difficult passage I present it to Him.  “This passage says this,” I say.  “Is this truly who You are?  Show me.  Help me to know You.”  I have found our God is delighted to answer my questions and draw me closer to Himself.  Does He answer everything at once in the way I expect?  No.  Sometimes His answers have been years in the receiving and I have found He had to teach me other things before I could understand His answer.  Doesn’t stop me asking.   

My precious fellow believers, Jesus Himself says, “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, and these are they which testify of Me.  But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life” (John 5:39:40).  The Life we live in Christ Jesus is one of relationship.  His perfect love casts out all fear and I think that includes the fear of asking questions.

The Bible contains the promise of a day when we will know as we are known.  So ask.  Ask whatever you would.  He is safe.  He loves you.  He will answer you.

Amen. 

inerrant meaning – Google Search

Two Competing Philosophies of Bible Translation | Patterns of Evidence

References

Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

The Comparative Study Bible, Zondervan Bible Publishers, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1984

The Complete Jewish Study Bible, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts, 2016

The New English Bible with the Apocrypha, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, 1970

The Passion Translation, Broadstreet Publishing, Passion & Fire Ministries, 2018

Bentorah, Chaim, with Laura Bertone, Hebrew Word Study: Exploring the Mind of God, Whitaker House, New Kensington, Pennsylvania, 2019

Brown, F., S. Driver, and C. Briggs, The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, Eighteenth Printing, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody Massachusetts, 2018  

Guralnik, David B., Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, Second College Edition, William Collins + World Publishing Co., Inc., Cleveland • New York, 1970, 1976

Peterson, Eugene H., The Message, NavPress, Tyndale House Publishers, 1993, 2002, 2018

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville Tennessee, 1990

Wilson, William, Wilson’s Old Testament Word Studies, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts

Young, Robert, Young’s Analytical Concordance to the Bible, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts

Young, Robert, Modern Young’s Literal Translation: New Testament with Psalms & Proverbs, Greater Truth Publishers, Lafayette, Indiana, 2005

There Is No Substitute

20 Monday Feb 2023

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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Hello and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman where, this week, I am continuing my study of Isaiah 45:7: “I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the Lord, do all these things” (NKJV).

I have not fully plumbed the depths of the meaning of “calamity” in this passage which other translations have as “evil”.  I have no doubt I’ll be looking at the Hebrew ra and the Greek kakos and poneros again in other studies.  I am moving on in the study because I have answered one of my questions to my own satisfaction: when God says, “I create darkness…I create calamity” does that mean neither existed until He created it and thus He is the source of both? 

My study has shown me that answer is no.  The Hebrew word bara translated as “create” does not mean “to make something out of nothing” and, in some passages where the word is used, it cannot possibly mean that as those “creating” are doing so out of something that already exists.  There is no reason to apply the “make something out of nothing” meaning to this passage in Isaiah and I have found it borne out by many other passages in the Bible: God is not the source of darkness nor evil.  However, He is found inside the darkness that is mankind’s resulting state after eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  I also find calamity, badness, and circumstances “injurious to happiness” (which are all better definitions of ra then “evil”) are used by God to instruct and correct His people and to bring about His will.

Which does, I think, raise another question: is our God a trustworthy God?  Of course every Believer cries a resounding “yes!” but let’s pretend we don’t know God.  Our eyes have not been opened by the Holy Spirit to see Him as He really is.  Let’s pretend we do not know the Father in the face of Jesus.  Is the same Lord who says, “I, the Lord, do all these things,” One who can be trusted?  The second part of Isaiah 45:6 says, “I am the Lord, and there is no other; there is no God besides Me.”

I think that, to a one, every Christian would agree there is only one God.  And yet, I do not see that belief upheld by what I hear Christians saying and what I read in the books they are writing.  Christians really do believe in two Gods.  There’s the one God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob but then there’s His opposite.  Perhaps that god only warrants a little ‘g’ but he is as omnipotent as God, and is in many ways more powerful than God.  God had a plan you see, and the little ‘g’ god came and messed it up in the Garden of Eden so badly big ‘G’ God is salvaging what He can.  Little ‘g’ rules the underworld and will have untold numbers of the people of God enslaved in his domain where he will torment them for all eternity.  Sound familiar?

This is not a post on the existence of hell or even the meanings of the words translated “hell” on the Old and New Testaments.  I am going to take a moment to point out a few matters of interest.  The word for “hell” in the Hebrew is sheol (H7585) and is translated as “hell” in various passages in the KJV.  It is translated an almost equal number of times as “grave” and then three times as “pit”.  There are three words in the Greek translated as “hell”: geenna (G1067) though most of us are more familiar with the words Gehenna or Hinnom or Ge-Hinnom, hades (G86), and tartaroo (G5020).  Hades is also translated once as “grave” in 1 Corinthians 15:55 (though two different Greek words are used for “grave” in other passages) and tartaroo only appears in 2 Peter 2:4. 

“Doesn’t matter”, I hear my Christian brethren say: the words all mean the same thing.  I put it to you they cannot possibly mean the same thing.  Open your concordance to the entry for “Hell” and look which Greek words are associated with “burning” or “fire”.  To a one, that Greek word is geenna.  Even James 3:6 has geenna rather than hades.  Then, take a look at Revelation 20:14: “Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire.  This is the second death.”  It does not make sense that hell, which is a place already on fire according to the words of Jesus Himself, would be cast into the Lake of Fire.  Those same believers will insist hell is a place of separation from God forever with no hope of escape but then one has to consider these passages (quoted from the KVJ):

“For Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell” Psalm 16:10

“…Thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell” Psalm 86:13

“…if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou are there” Psalm 139:8

“The way of life is above to the wise, that he may depart from hell beneath” Proverbs 15:24

Again, this is not a post arguing for or against the existence of hell.  What I am saying is how extremely important to heed the words of Paul: “Test everything.  Hold fast what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21).  When I began questioning what I was being taught from the pulpit, looking up the passages that described the hell I was so afraid I’d go to if I ended up backsliding, I found much of what I was told was NOT AT ALL backed up by the Bible.  I recently read an article where the author quoted Gleanings from Gussie by Patricia “Gus” Nolan Savas where she writes, “whereas many Roman Catholics worship their religion, many Protestants worship the Bible” (Savas, xiii). I also recently heard the term “Bible Preach”.  As I am always looking for Christians to say something along the lines of “Holy Spirit lead, teach, comfort, interpret, and guide”, this did not set well with me.  And yet, since the majority of Christian denominations have sidelined the Holy Spirit and pay Him little more than lip service, “Bible Preach” is the best they’ve got.  Very well then, let your Bible Preach.

Ask questions.  Look these passages up for yourself.  See if what you are being taught is the truth.  Does the Bible really teach this destination theology, i.e. you’ll either go to heaven or hell when you die?  Or, does it teach us of the fruit-filled and fruit-bearing, overcoming, peace in the midst of tribulation life we have in Jesus Christ right this moment through His Spirit dwelling within us?  When you’ve done that, look up the passages that mention the Holy Spirit and see if what you’ve been told about His vanishing from the world the moment the Biblical canon was finalized can possibly be the truth.  When you’ve done that, ask Him to open your eyes to the truth that only He can tell you.  Ask Him to guide you into all Truth, the truth that is Jesus Christ alone. 

Test everything.  Hold fast what is good.  The Greek word for “good” in this passage is kalos (G2570).  The Strong’s concordance defines it as “beautiful, good, valuable, virtuous, worthy”.  The Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament goes a bit deeper.  While its definition for kalos does contain “beautiful-being attractive in outer appearance” it also defines kalos as “pertaining to being in accordance at a high level with the purpose of something or someone” and “morally good, pleasing to God, contributing to salvation.” I also hear the accusation made that those who are questioning and refuting are choosing only those scriptures that they like or make them feel good.  I don’t doubt some are but I do not allow accusations and mockery to stop me from working out my own salvation with fear and trembling (which is not describing terror of God!).   

Knowing our God, living in vital union relationship with Him is a matter of life and death and that not reserved until after our body dies but life and death right this moment.  Just because someone tells you who God is or writes a book or has a vision, does not mean what they are saying, speaking, or seeing is the truth.  Test everything.  Hold fast what is good. If the underworld we’ve been taught to believe in is not upheld by the Bible, there needs to be a thorough look at the idea of a little ‘g’ god of evil.  Which I intend to do next week.

References

Danker, Frederick William, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, Third Edition, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinios, 1957,2000, Page 504-505

Savas, Patricia Nolan, Gleanings from Gussie, CSN Books, San Diego, California, 2009

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990

Walker, G. Allen, Koine Greek Textbook, Volume IV-V, 2014-2017

Saved to the Uttermost

06 Monday Feb 2023

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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Hello and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman!

As I continue my study of Isaiah 45:7, and specifically my study of the word “evil”, I wonder about the role of Satan in the existence of evil.  There are a couple of scripture passages I’ve shared before that are worth taking another look at.  The first is in Galatians 5 verses 19-21 where the Apostle Paul writes, “Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like…”  The second is Jeremiah 17:9 which says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it?”  My study has made it clear to me that it is mankind and not God who is the source for those things I think of when I hear the word “evil”.

And, I say again, that “evil” isn’t the best translation for the Hebrew word ra.  Bad and calamity are better choices although my personal favorite drawn from the Strong’s concordance is “injurious to happiness”.  It is also important to remember that the Hebrew word bara, often translated as “create”, does not necessarily mean “to make something from nothing.”  My study of both the word and its usage throughout the Old Testament has caused me to settle on a definition of “to cause something new to come into being and grow towards an intended purpose”.  I can see God doing exactly this throughout the Old Testament as He deals with Israel. 

It is interesting to note that when God does bring calamity upon His people, He isn’t the source of it as in He brings something entirely new into being in order to bring about said calamity.  Two examples are when He uses nations already in existence: the Northern Kingdom being taken captive by Assyria (See 2 Kings 17) and Judah being conquered by Babylon (See 2 Kings 254 & 25).  This is fascinating to me because there is no record of Assyria being aware they were a tool used by God.  No doubt they were certain their god had triumphed over the God of Israel.  The Book of Daniel does record the fact that the Kings of Babylon were aware the God of Israel was a living God but they never did come to serve only Him.  Something else interesting to note is that fact that, while God did use these nations to bring about calamity on Israel, He also kept the promise He made to destroy them.  There is nothing but ruins to bear testament to the fact the kingdoms of Assyria and Babylon ever existed.  Truly, “the kingdom is the Lord’s and He rules over the nations” (Psalm 22:28) and that the God of Israel “makes the nations great and destroys them; He enlarges nations, and guides them” (Job 12:23).

It is clear to me those things we call “evil” are sourced in the flesh.  Our God is certainly a God who knows good and evil (See Genesis 3:22), is a present God (at hand!) and will use whatever or whoever is at hand to bring about His purpose in the microcosm of our lives and the macrocosm of the world around us.  What about Satan?  Isn’t “the devil made me do it” a viable excuse for some of the things we human beings do?  I cannot see that it is.  There are too many scriptures to list here but I encourage all of you to look up how many times the words “repay according to your deeds”, “reward according to works” or some variation of the same appears in scripture.  We human beings reap what we sow.

And yet-the Book of Revelation calls that serpent of old a great dragon “who deceives the whole world” (Rev. 12:9).  Ephesians 6:12 speaks of principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness, and spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places. 1 Peter 5:8 says we have an adversary who “walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.”  The Bible makes it clear we have an enemy whose wiles ought to be respected-because he’s been deceiving a long time-but I can see nothing in scripture that tells me this enemy ought to be feared in any way. 

Consider Luke 10:19 where Jesus says, “Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.”  Consider also Romans 16:20: “And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly.”  Jesus has defeated every foe, including and I should say especially Satan, and His living in me means His victory is mine.  Be afraid of a roaring lion?  What for?  Our savior is the Good Shepherd and He is the one who is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him (Hebrews 7:25).

There’s a brief passage in Amos 3:12 which never ceases to fascinate me when read in the light of Hebrews 7:25.  This passage is “…as a shepherd takes from the mouth of a lion two legs or a piece of an ear…”  There’s a footnote in the Archeological Study Bible which states, “a piece of the sheep was saved to prove to the owner that it had been eaten by a wild animal, not stolen by the shepherd” (Page 1450). 

Who is our God?  Is He the one who has come to seek and to save what is lost but will settle for two legs and a piece of an ear?  Is that the story of the One who is risen from the dead and ascended to the right hand of the Father?  Would all authority in heaven and earth have been given unto Him if He’d presented pieces of His sheep and said, “I’m sorry, Father, I tried”?  Of course not!  David describes himself as a shepherd who, when a lion or bear took a lamb from the flock, he went after it and struck it, delivering the lamb from its mouth (1 Samuel 17:34-35).  We have an even greater Shepherd who returns with His lamb and says “rejoice with me for I have found my sheep which was lost!” (Luke 15:6)  He need not settle for pieces of his sheep because He is able to save to the uttermost.

I was going to call this post “Ain’t No Bite Marks on Me” because that is the truth.  I have been rescued and my wounds have been treated with oil.  My Rescuer is, was, and shall be speaking to me and I have learned to know and love the sound of His voice and another I will not follow.  My Shepherd has told me I am more than a sheep.  I am a Called-Out One.  I no longer walk in darkness but in His marvelous light.  I am a member of His body.  I am a member of His church, cleansed and sanctified by the washing of water by the word.  He presents me to Himself glorious, without spot or wrinkle.  Or bite marks.

This is my identity.  This is your identity.  We do not need to fear anything: not any evil human beings might do and not any stratagem of an already defeated enemy.  We live within the beating heart of the God who is Love.  There is no fear in His love because His love is perfect and casts out all fear.  We may find ourselves walking through the valley of the shadow of death but we need fear no evil for our God is not only with us but IN us.  We are in Christ therefore we are new creations.  The old things have passed away and Behold!, all things have become new.  We have been saved to the uttermost!

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

NIV Archaeological Study Bible, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2005, Page 1450

Safety in Numbers

30 Monday Jan 2023

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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Hello and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman!

I almost didn’t post this week.  Last week was fraught with difficulty and I wasn’t able to complete the studying I had laid out as thoroughly as I would have liked.  Perhaps I will have done by next week.  I was going to skip a week but then I came across a quote in a book by Don Keathley and, since it did relate to my current study of Isaiah 45:7, I am going to both share it and expand on it.

The quote is: “You are relieved of judging anything and anybody at any time as good or evil.  Be still and simply respond to the voice within.  Be as Jesus is only say what you hear the Father say and only do what He shows you He is doing.”1

There is such an incredible freedom in no longer eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil but eating from the Tree of Life that is Jesus Himself.  What liberty I have in the Spirit!  I no longer do what seems good in my own eyes nor do I determine what others do to me as good or evil.  I am learning to think in terms of “life and not-life”.  This doesn’t mean I live in some sort of imagined Holy Spirit ivory tower where, whenever evil things happen to me, I pretend they are NOT happening because “God is in His heaven and all is right with the world.”2  All due respect to Robert Browning but I don’t know of anyone who can look around right now and say a statement like that has any truth to it.  Neither was this statement true closer to home.  All is NOT right in my world.  Last week was difficult both emotionally and spiritually.  I had to deal with difficult people and I am fairly certain those same people thought it difficult to deal with me.

Why?

One answer is, while I am no longer eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, many others still are.  They are both determining for themselves what is good and evil and then judging my behavior according to those standards: I am not doing what they say is “good” therefore I am evil.  Perhaps you have experienced this yourself.  And, perhaps you are like me: a people pleaser.  I don’t want people to be mad at me and neither do I want people to dislike me.  But, when I began eating from the Tree of Life and fixing my eyes solely on Jesus, this new lifestyle meant that I truly did only those things I saw the Father doing.  There is a quote I’ve seen floating around and I do not know who to attribute it to.  The quote is “It might look like I’m doing nothing but on a cellular level I’m really quite busy.”  In order to only do those things I saw the Father doing, I had to know what the Father was doing.  In order to know what the Father was doing, I had to live as a sheep that knew only my Shepherd’s voice and, in order to do that, I needed the Holy Spirit to teach me how to know that Voice in the midst of countless others.

There is an interesting piece of scripture.  It’s one tiny sentence but there is limitless treasure to be mined from it.  It’s Exodus 33:11: “So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend.  And he would return to the camp, but his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle.”  Isn’t that amazing?!  Here are two entirely different relationships two men had to the Lord.  The Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend and that is wonderful.  Joshua however, did not depart from the tabernacle so he stayed immersed in the Lord’s presence.

I wonder how many times members of the camp grumbled against Joshua.  No doubt there was plenty to do and Moses was just one man.  And, there was no denying he was getting old and that lazy servant of his was young and able bodied but was he out helping Moses?  Noooo.  Joshua was not departing from the tabernacle and what could he possibly be doing in there that was more important than meeting the immediate needs of the camp?

It did not look like Joshua was doing very much from those outside, but on a spiritual level, both he and the Lord were very busy.  Joshua was being prepared for a unique position within the people of God and so are you and I my fellow believer.  It might not look like we’re doing very much, but on a Spiritual level, both we and the Lord are very busy.  I’ve written about it before but the Hebrew word for wait as in “wait on the Lord” (Ps. 27:14) or “they that wait upon the Lord” (Is. 40:31) is qavah (H6960) and means “to bind together”.  It might look like we are doing nothing, but this waiting on the Lord is anything but passive.

And yet, we have an adversary who “walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet. 5:8).  That Serpent of old is revealed as a dragon who “deceives the whole world” (Rev. 12:9).  How can we be certain we are not being deceived?  I encourage you to take some time and check out how many times the words “in Christ” are used in the New Testament.  We can trust that our God WANTS us to know Him and isn’t looking to pull a fast one on us.  The apostle Peter quoting Isaiah writes, “’Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame’(Is. 28:16)” (1 Peter 2:6).  We have the absolute trustworthiness of our God revealed in Jesus.  Trust in Him and we will not be put to shame.  By no means!

But still, “Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14) so how can we be really really sure the voice we are hearing is truly the voice of our Great Shepherd the Lord Jesus Christ?  I am not going to share the process through which I have come to know the guidance of the Holy Spirit and discern the voice of Jesus Christ and the will of the Father.  Take any ten believers and you’ll find ten different workings of the Spirit.  There are a few things I think are universal experiences though and the first is follow your peace.  The peace of Jesus Christ rules in our hearts and we can’t go wrong following our peace.  That doesn’t mean the things we are given to do are easy or even always that pleasant but 100% of the time I’ve had a deep calm peace about doing them.

This is in contrast to the uncomfortable stressed out feeling that comes directly on the heels of being shown what to do by the Spirit.  I can tell you my experience has been that the tactics of the enemy have not changed since that first “Hath God said” the Serpent uttered to Eve.  Again, 100% of the time, the call to disobedience has boiled down to “Hath God said…?” Not always in those exact words but that I have found that same hiss of the Serpent under every argument against doing what I know I see the Father doing.  There are also the guilt words, as my mother calls them, of “should”, “ought”, and “must”.  Whenever someone comes at me using those three words, I cling ever tighter to the cornerstone that is Jesus and listen for His voice.

One last thing: strong emotion does not necessarily equate to a moving of the Holy Spirit.  I was privileged to have an experience with my family in the last few weeks.  We participated in a supposedly ‘spirit-filled’ situation and there was no denying we laughed and cried.  There was overwhelming emotion and, when the experience was over, we wanted to have it all over again.  However, in the following days, I began to realize that strong emotion was all it was.  There was no answering from the Holy Spirit deep within my spirit.  I kept that realization to myself until my mother mentioned she too thought the experience was all emotion.  Does that mean it’s bad and no one should have participated?  Of course not!  I believe Romans 8:28 is true and God works in all things for the good to those who love Him.  What I am saying is test everything and just because a group of people are insisting something is Spirit-filled doesn’t mean it is.

This might mean you feel like the only person seeing something different from the rest of the group.  There is a perceived safety in numbers: if they are seeing/saying/doing it, then it must mean I am safe if I also see/say/do it.  No.  There is such freedom in Jesus Christ and the fruit of the Spirit is a very real way of life.  The joy of the Lord is alive in us through the Holy Spirit and, while it is our strength, it should not be confused with happiness.  Hebrews 13:12-13 states, “Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate.  Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach.”

When the Spirit opens our eyes to the hope of our calling in Christ Jesus and the richness of His inheritance in us, there is no unseeing it.  We have been called out of darkness into His marvelous light and, once we taste the reality, there is no falling for the counterfeit.  It is painful to see what someone else does not see and to be written off as deceived or worse, evil.  It is sometimes lonely outside the camp because we don’t always see the others also outside the camp.

It is not possible to be alone here.  I have another quibble with the great Robert Browning.  Our God is only in His heaven in the sense that “He is before all things and in Him all things consist” (Colossians 1:17).  I came across an exhilarating passage while conducting my study on “evil” and it’s found in Jeremiah 23:23-24: “’Am I a God near at hand,’ says the Lord, ‘and not a God afar off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places so I shall not see him?’ says the Lord; ‘Do I not fill heaven and earth?’ says the Lord.”

Our safety is not in what a great number of people believe is true, our safety is Jesus Himself.  He is at hand.  He is not up or over or afar off.  It is true that he is before us and around us and behind us and with us.  Best of all, He is IN us.  Do not be deceived away from this great truth: the being of God cannot be separated and so, because the Holy Spirit lives in us, so does the Lord Jesus Christ.  Because He is in the Father and the Father in Him, the Father is also in us.  We can know and do only what the Father is doing.  Oftentimes, what the Father is doing is not at all what others would have us do. Don’t worry if your holding fast to the cornerstone does require you coming outside the camp.  I’ll see you here.

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

  1.  Keathley, Don, Hell’s Illusion: Exposing the Myth of Hell, 2022
  2. 718. Pippa’s Song. Robert Browning. The Oxford Book of English Verse (bartleby.com)