Tag Archives: Kingdom of God

The Beauty of Righteousness

30 Monday Oct 2023

Posted by in Studies, Whole Armor of God

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Hello Readers and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman where, this week, I continue in my study of The Whole Armor of God.

I have not come close to exhausting the subject of righteousness but I have completed enough study that I am ready to move on to another piece of the armor.  Therefore, this will be my last post on the Breastplate of Righteousness. 

As I have studied the word “righteousness” in the English and the Greek and read through various scriptures wherein righteousness appears, I am convinced righteousness is not only a word of action but one of position and state of being.  A bit of review is necessary but taking another look at definitions will show what I mean.  The first definition of righteous in the New World Dictionary is: “Acting in a just, upright manner; doing what is right; virtuous [a righteous man]”. The second and third definitions are: “Morally right; fair and just [a righteous act] 3. Morally justifiable [full of righteous anger].”

Righteousness is derived from the Middle English “rightwise” which means, “on the right side, moving clockwise, rightly (correctly or justly), rightfully, by a rightward path”.  When I looked at the word “right” on its own, I found a meaning that isn’t widely used: right means “straight, not crooked.”  The Greek word translated as “righteousness” in Paul’s description of the Breastplate is dikaiosune (G1343) and means “equity of character or act: justification, righteousness”.  Looking up “equity” in the dictionary, I find it means “fairness, impartiality, justice.” We see here both action and position. There is a set standard, a correct path, and any actions are in accord with that standard.  

I have also found that, within the meaning of righteousness, there is contained the idea that our acts are determined to be righteous by Another.  The fourth definition in the dictionary defines righteous as “[Slang] good, excellent, satisfying, pleasant, authentic, etc.: a generalized term of approval”.  However, if we stop here, we are left with a serious question: who or what have we allowed to determine the standard?  I have spoken to some people who tell me they decide that standard for themselves.  They have their own moral code to which they adhere.  Others I’ve spoken with take solace in the certainty their actions are righteous because they correspond to the standard set by a set of particular religious or cultural tenets.  Still others are certain their actions are righteous because they adhere to the Law of God whether the Law ministered by Moses and preserved for us in the Old Testament or a new Law of believing in Jesus and proving it by actions.

Those of us who know we are in Christ and He is in us do not adhere to any of these standards.  Our standard is Jesus Christ Himself.  Now, this is not a standard we have no hope of ever adhering to imposed on us by a God who knew we were incapable of doing so.  Our lives are not lived with the sick certainty that we must ever fall short of God’s perfect standard because Jesus was sinless and we are not.  No!  Our certainty is 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” 

In last week’s post, I mentioned Jonathan Mitchell using rightwise instead of righteousness in his New Testament.  I like the definitions of rightwise he includes.  Mr. Mitchell renders Ephesians 6:14 as, “and then, entering within (putting on; clothing yourself with) the breastplate armor (cuirass; corselet) of fair and equitable dealing of the eschatological deliverance (or: which is the rightwised relationships of the Way pointed out; the Righteousness; the Justice; also = covenant inclusion and participation)”.  Rightwise is also found in Mr. Mitchells’ rendering of James 2.  Verse 21 says, “made fair and equitable; put in right relationship; rightwised; made a just one; also: = placed in covenant” and  verse 24 says, “from time to time being placed in right relationship with the Way pointed out; progressively made fair and equitable; normally justified; = put in covenant”.

I have also been looking at Genesis 15:6.  The Hebrew word translated as “righteousness” in this passage is tsedaqah (H6666) and is comprised of the Hebrew letters Tzadi (צ), Dalet (ד), Qoph (ק), and Hey (ה).  Robert M. Haralick gives the following meanings to the Hebrew letters:

Tzadi = Righteousness and Humility,

Dalet = Physicality

Qoph = Growth and Holiness

Hey = Power of Being

I see all three components to the definition of righteousness here.  There is position, there is action, and there is being.  There is also a complete picture of who we are in Christ.  Our position is in Him, there is the action of His life being formed in us and our being conformed to His image, and there is our current state of being-as new creations in Christ-being manifested in us and through our actions.

Righteousness is our state of being.  And, it is not in any way a self-righteousness but is the very life of Christ made our very lives by the work inwrought by His Spirit dwelling in us.  Philippians 3:8-9 says, “Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.”

Our righteousness is His righteousness and it is our breastplate.  The breastplate protected the vital organs with the most crucial organ being the heart.  In Hebrew, heart is lebab (H3824) from the root leb (H3820) spelled Lamed (ל) Bet (ב).  Returning to Mr. Haralick’s book, the Lamed means “Learning, Teaching, Purpose,” and the Bet means “Container.”

Speaking not of the muscle that pumps our blood but of the HEART which sums up who we are, our hearts are the center of our being just as the Holy of Holies was in the center of the temple.  We are now the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in us and was given to us by God (See 1 Corinthians 6:19-20).  From the center of our being, He teaches and guides and instructs us and also convinces us of the reality that we are filled with the fullness of God.

We are the dwelling place of God.  I don’t want to make a rule out of it but we can look at our hearts as being the Holy of Holies where we commune with God.  Such a sacred place is worthy of vigilant guarding and protection and it is protected by the Breastplate of the Righteousness of Jesus Christ.

Hallelujah!  Amen.

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

References  

Rightwise Definition & Meaning | YourDictionary

Holy of Holies | Temple Mount, Ark of Covenant, Tabernacle | Britannica

Guralnik, David B., Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, Second College Edition, William Collins + World Publishing Co., Inc., Cleveland • New York, 1953, 1976

Haralick, Robert M., The Inner Meaning of the Hebrew Letters, Jason Aronson Inc., Northvale, New Jersey, 1995

Mitchell, Jonathan Paul, MA, The New Testament, 2019 Edition, Harper Brown Publishing, 2009, 2013, 2015, 2019, Page 479, 568

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

With Perfect Hatred

26 Monday Jun 2023

Posted by in Studies, Walking in the Way

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Hello Readers and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman where, this week, I am taking another look at the Hebrew word sane (saw-nay) which is often translated in scripture by the English word “hate”.

An interesting passage in Psalm 139 kicked off this study.  I read in verses 21-22: “Do I not hate them, O Lord, who hate You?  And do I not loathe those who rise up against You?  I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies.”  King David appears to be saying his hate is a good thing and something that honors God.  How can this be especially since the words of Jesus in Luke 6 conflict?  “Love your enemies,” Jesus instructs.  “Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you” (Luke 6:27-28).  I do not believe the Bible contradicts itself.  I believe when and if passages appear to contradict each other, it is my understanding that is incomplete.  What then, did I understand about hate?  Was there ever a time when hate might be considered a good thing?  What is meant by “perfect hatred?”

The definition of “hate” in my New World Dictionary didn’t help in my attempt to find an answer.  The English word hate means “to have strong dislike or ill will for, loathe, despite, bear malice toward.”  I read through some scriptures containing the word sane and it did seem as though that definition was accurate.  Consider these passages:

Deuteronomy 19:11: “But if anyone hates his neighbor, lies in wait for him, rise against him and strikes him mortally, so that he dies…”

1 Kings 22:8 (also 2 Chronicles 18:7): “so the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, ‘There is still one man, Micaiah the son of Imlah, by whom we may inquire of the Lord; but I hate him, because he does not prophesy good concerning me, but evil.’”

Psalm 25:19: “consider my enemies, for they are many; And they hate me with cruel hatred.”

Psalm 41:7: “All who hate me whisper together against me; Against me they devise my hurt.”

Each one of these passages, and others like them, appear to bear up the definition of “ill will, strong dislike, malice” and it is obviously not considered to be a good thing. But then, in contrast to each one of these passages, there are others where sane/hate is considered to be a good thing.  Consider:

Psalm 97:10: “You who love the Lord, hate evil!”

Psalm 101:3: “I will set nothing wicked before my eyes; I hate the work of those who fall away; It shall not cling to me.”

Proverbs 8:13: “The fear of the Lord is to hate evil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverse mouth I hate.”

Ecclesiastes 3: 1, 8: “To everything there is a season…a time to love and a time to hate.”

As I have studied the Hebrew word sane, I have found various scholars who say “hate” is not an appropriate choice to translate sane.  A better one would be “reject” or “turn aside.”  I read through the Strong’s concordance listing of scriptures containing sane with that definition in mind and…okay; I can see where that definition might be appropriate.  And yet I am not satisfied.  Few of the passages accurately represented what I think of when I hear the word “reject” in that the ones “hated” were not ostracized or left utterly alone. 

One article I came across said something that struck me and which I have been pondering all this week.  The article is posted on the Light of the World blog and says, “The original Hebrew Picture shows us what Hate does, not how it feels.”  The author quotes Psalm 139:22 and says, “Our English definition of Hate does make it appear that King David Detests, abhors, and Despises, בוז Buz his enemies.”  She then quotes Proverbs 14:21 which says, “But he who despises his neighbor sins; But he who has mercy on the poor, happy is he.”  The author points out, “He (King David) would have known that it is Sin to Despise your Neighbor because it missed the Mark of the Commandment to Love your Neighbor: ‘You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall Love your Neighbor as yourself: I am YHVH’ Leviticus 19:18.  This means שנא Sane cannot include the emotion of Despising anyone.  In context, we see that he parallels Turning Aside, סור Sur, With Hate, שנא Sane, Psalm 139:19.” 

 The Light of the World blog compares Exodus 20:12, “Honor your Father and Mother” with Luke 14:26, “If anyone comes to Me and does not Hate his Father and Mother…”  The author writes, “Apparent contradictions like this one should alert us to our misunderstanding of the original meaning.  With the meaning of Hate being to Turn Aside, it is possible to Honor our parents, while Turning Aside From the lies they have inherited, in order to Obey the Commandments of our Eternal Creator.”

I can see how defining sane as “to turn aside” could work and yet it doesn’t entirely fit especially when it comes to God.  His promise to never leave nor forsake stands and His turning aside never meant utter abandonment.  As I look at the Hebrew letters comprising sane which are ש Sin נ Nun and א Aleph, I see the picture of a fire rooted and emerging from God.  The ש Shin carries the meaning of a process of destruction and consumption until completion.  Hebrews 12:29 states “our God is a consuming fire” and I am convinced the love and hate of God are two aspects of the fire that He is. 

There is an idea circulating that the love of God is this saccharine thing: that He is some ancient drooling entity confined to a celestial rocking chair where He bestows vacant grins on His children and just loves them.  No.  He is alive and passionate and because He loves so utterly and completely, He hates.  Last week I quoted a bit of Romans 2 from the Message and I like how this is rendered: “God is kind, but he’s not soft.  In kindness he takes us firmly by the hand and leads us unto a radical life-change” (MSG).  Hebrews 12:5-6 quotes Proverbs 3: 11-12 saying, “My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.”  There is a dark side to the love of God, for lack of a better word.  Certainly there are experiences that don’t feel all that great but they can be endured because we know He loves us and the consuming fire that He is only destroys those things that would hinder us from growing into His image.  The ש Shin is a comfort here in that the process repeats itself over and over.  In His love and mercy, He doesn’t burn through our lives all at once.  He is, above all things, agape and His lovingkindness endures forever.

As creatures made in the image of God, we are capable of hate and it is right that we are.  Hate burns within us when we see a loved one suffering from a disease or when we see pain and injustice.  Hatred burns within as a “No!  These things shall not be!”  That fire within us burns the apathy out of us and we are roused to take action.  I think hatred only becomes a bad thing when it causes us to sin and fall short of the glory of God.  I think of the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians where he quotes Psalm 4:4; “’Be angry and do not sin’: do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil” (Ephesians 4:26-27). 

It is so important that we realize that God, in his ultimate hatred, cried “No!  These things shall not be!” and that this hatred looks like Jesus. “For God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.  For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved” (John 3:16-17).  What did Jesus do?  “…once, at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself” (Hebrews 9:26).  Jesus Christ is “Himself the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world” (1 John 2:2).  “…For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8) and “through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14). 

The cry of “It is finished” heard from the cross echoes through the ages.  It was the ultimate victory and it is now made a reality in our lives through the processings we experience.  We know these processings are not to utterly destroy us but are necessary so that Jesus Christ present us, The Church, to Himself not having any spot or wrinkle but are presented holy and without blemish (See Ephesians 5:27).  We embrace the consuming fire that He is knowing when He has tried us we shall come forth as gold!

Just as He is so are we in this world.  We have the same mind in us that was in Christ Jesus (See Philippians 2:5) and therefore, because Jesus Christ is alive in us, we love as He love and hates as He hates.  We hate with perfect hatred.  We go out into the world and we make war.  What is crucial to remember is “we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12).  It is also crucial to remember we do not conduct our warfare after the way of this world.  “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh.  For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5).

We seek to know Him as we are known and then, with our confidence in the finished work of Jesus Christ, we take up the full armor of God.

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

Scripture notations marked MSG are taken from THE MESSAGE, copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson.  Used by permission of NavPress.  All rights reserved.  Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Quotes in this post are taken from the Light of the World blog at:  Hate (Sane), the Ancient Hebrew Meaning – Light of the World (wordpress.com)

References

Guralnik, David B., Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, Second College Edition, William Collins + World Publishing Co., Inc., Cleveland • New York, 1972, 1976

Haralick, Robert M., The Inner Meaning of the Hebrew Letters, Jason Aronson Inc., Northvale, New Jersey, 1995

Peterson, Eugene H., The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language, NavPress, The Navigators, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 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

No Field Lies Fallow

05 Monday Jun 2023

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Hello, Readers, and welcome to a new post on Renaissance Woman!

I ended last week’s post by asking how did all I had said in that post relate to the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares?  If you have not read last week’s post, A Vast Inheritance, I recommend doing so before continuing on.  If you are ready for my answer to that question, my answer is “Fruit”.  More specifically, the life of Jesus Christ manifested in us His people of which “fruit” in the scriptures is representative.

Let me explain.

First, I must review some bits of Dora Van Assen’s interpretation of this parable which kicked off my study.  Ms. Van Assen points out Matthew 13:35 quotes Psalm 78:2 saying, “I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter things kept secret from the foundation of the world”.  It is her conviction that, in the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares, Jesus is describing what happened in the Garden of Eden when sin entered into the plan of God.  Ms. Van Assen says the wheat in the parable represents the good thoughts and spiritual understanding planted in the mind of Adam by the Spirit of God while the tares represent evil thoughts and carnal understanding sown into the mind of Adam by the Adversary.  Ms. Van Assen goes on to say these two types of thoughts caused a duality within the mind of Adam which led him to fall into a carnal mind.  This dual mind was capable of bringing forth a harvest of a certain kind of man.  Ms. Van Assen stresses that the “battlefield is in the mind!” (See Kingdom Bible Studies article linked below).

I’ve been meditating on this for weeks now and a passage in James came to the forefront of my mind: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.  But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.  For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways” (James 1:5-8).

This has always been a difficult passage for me to understand although I have obeyed the command in it and asked God for wisdom.  I am convinced the wisdom we need is immediately ours, after all it is the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation who lives in us.  And yet, I am also convinced that, in some cases; that wisdom takes time to be fully realized.  Like building a house, strong foundations must first be laid.  That was my experience with this passage.  There have been glimmers of understanding as I have studied other passages and then, during the weeks of this study on The Parable, I came across a teaching by Don Keathley called “You Ain’t Double-Minded”.  I was instantly uncomfortable because that title seemed to be refuting the Book of James but I was also curious.  I clicked the link. (It’s excellent: I’ve linked Part One below)

Within the first few minutes, Mr. Keathley said something that grasped my attention.  He was describing the Garden of Eden and the various trees growing in it, especially the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  He pointed out there was only one Garden.  There were two Trees growing in it but they grew together in the same Garden.  This is the same picture as both wheat and tares growing in the same field and it made me wonder just what “double-minded” really meant in the Greek.

The Greek word used in James 1:8 is dipsuchos (G1374) and means “two-spirited, vacillating (in opinion or purpose), double-minded”.  The word is formed of dis (G1364) meaning “twice, again” and psuche (G5590) which means “breath, spirit, life, mind, soul”.  The Greek Lexicon of the New Testament defines it as “double-headed people who stagger helplessly here and there in their thinking” and “to be uncertain about the truth of something, doubting, hesitating.” 

 I have heard this passage used against those who doubt their belief in God.  The encouragement is to trust your leader and don’t ask questions.  I am convinced this is not what James is saying.  He begins his sentence with “if anyone lacks wisdom let him ask of God”.  A knowing and trusting of God must already be in place before anyone dares ask Him anything and that knowing and trusting is what James is telling us not to doubt. If we carry around false ideas of who God is and do not think He is trustworthy, odds are we won’t ask Him anything at all. If we did, how could we possibly receive anything from Him because, would we even recognize it? It all comes down to which spiritual influences we are allowing to sow seeds in the fields of our minds.  We must take care because there are many false ideas of who God is and many willing and waiting to sow those ideas in our minds. 

The Knowledge of the nature of God is what I believe is represented by the wheat and the tares.  My studies have brought me across some interesting facts about the darnel which is believed to the tare mentioned in Jesus’ parable.  The seeds of the darnel are poisonous.  Small quantities do actually have some medical benefit and have been used internally to treat dizziness, insomnia, and stomach problems and externally as a poultice to treat skin problems like shingles and ulcers.  The official name of the darnel, L. temulentum comes from a Latin word for “drunk” and, although bread made with darnel seed mixed with wheat is bitter to the taste, both bread and beer have been made with darnel deliberately included to give a special kick.  It’s a dangerous seed to play with though consumption of the darnel in greater quantities causes some of the same symptoms it has been used to treat and can be deadly.  It is a soporific poison causing a sleep that results in death.  It can also cause convulsions leading to death.

The seeds of the darnel are almost indistinguishable from wheat in seed form.  No one deliberately sows darnel in a wheat field and its presence in the field is often not known until the stalks produce fruit.  Then, the wheat and tares are so clearly distinguishable one from the other that a child can go into a field and separate one from the other.  When Don Keathley’s message got me thinking about the Garden of Eden, I remembered the lie used by the Serpent to deceive Eve.  It wasn’t encouragement to lie or cheat or steal or murder or drink or smoke cigarettes or anything else deemed a “sin” by various religious denominations.  The lie that brought sin into the plan of God was to believe a wrong thing about God.  The lie suggested He wasn’t trustworthy and that humankind was better off determining good and evil for themselves.  This same lie is present with us today and such false ideas about God are often difficult to discern because there is a touch of truth to them.   

A passage I’ve quoted portions of in a couple previous posts is 1 John 5.  The last verse of Chapter 5 and thus the entire Epistle, is “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.  Amen.”  Jonathan Mitchell’s New Testament renders this verse as, “Little children (born ones) keep yourselves in custody (or: guarded)!-away from the idols (the external appearances; the forms; or: = false concepts)!  Going back to the passage in James, “such a man is double-minded, unstable in all his ways.”  Keeping false ideas of God in our minds might feel good and even exciting but their fruit is death.

How do we guard ourselves from false concepts of God when the wheat and the tares in seed form are indistinguishable from each other?  How do we know whether or not the ones we are listening to are false teachers?  Jesus answered this in Matthew 7:15: “You will know them by their fruits.” 

An article I found on the Jewish Virtual Library says the darnel seed, while harmful to humans, is not harmful to birds, especially doves.  I tried to verify this with other articles and, while I did find a few that mentioned the seeds not being harmful to birds such as ducks or chickens, the original article (quoting the Mishnah in Kilayim) is the only source stating specifically the darnel seed is not harmful to doves.  I still found it interesting because it is the Holy Spirit is often represented as a dove in the Bible.  This thought brings me such comfort because, no matter how many times tares have been sown into the field of my life, they have not harmed the Spirit within me nor hindered His work in any way.

There have been many times when I have found myself in a situation where the seeds sown in the field of my life have been a mix of wheat and tares: false concepts of God that appeared to be the truth and I could not separate between the two.  At first, I could not distinguish between the fruit either and I ate of mixed bread.  There was euphoric moments I thought were proof of the moving of the Holy Spirit but these moments were always mixed with bitterness.  As I have continued to be guided by the Holy Spirit and have tasted His fruit, which is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control-I quickly became able to distinguish the fruit of the tares from that of the wheat.

That is, of course, not good enough.  No field lies fallow and discerning what type of fruit is growing in the field does nothing to increase either the health of the field or the field’s yield. I want there to be no tares at all sown in the field of my life but the fact remains the seeds of one are almost indistinguishable from the other: I cannot prevent tares on my own.  No matter: the seeds of the tares do not harm the dove who is the Holy Spirit.  He is the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation lavished upon us by a God of Love who pours out His Spirit even before we ask.  We ask knowing our God, trusting in His love, and assured that what we ask for is ours already.  He is our guide within and He alone reveals to us Jesus who is the Face of God. The Holy Spirit is the only way to distinguish the seed of the wheat from that of the tare.

He guides us into all Truth and we can trust that the One who began a good work in us will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.

Hallelujah!  Amen. 

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

References

KINGDOM BIBLE STUDIES: THE FIRSTFRUITS, THE HARVEST, AND THE VINTAGE by J. Preston Eby (godfire.net)

What Does Tares Mean? Bible Definition and References (biblestudytools.com)

Tares – WebBible Encyclopedia – ChristianAnswers.Net

Tares (jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

Darnel Ryegrass Plant Care & Growing Basics: Water, Light, Soil, Propagation etc. | PlantIn (myplantin.com)

A Short Summary on our Botanical Knowledge of Lolium Temlentum L.

Bearded Darnel – Medicinal Herb Info

Bearded Darnel – Medicinal Herb Info

 You Ain’t Double Minded – Don Keathley – YouTube

Danker, Frederick William, Walter Bauer’s A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Early Christian Literature, Third Edition, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1957, 2000

Green, Jay P. Sr., The Interlinear Bible, Volume 4, Authors For Christ, Inc., Lafayette, Indiana, 1976, 1985

Mitchell, Jonathan, The New Testament, Harper Brown Publishing, 2019

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

A Vast Inheritance

29 Monday May 2023

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Welcome, Everyone, to this week’s new post on Renaissance Woman!

I had thought He Loves the World would be the last in my current study on the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares and would also serve as a good segue into my study on the Full Armor of God.  And yet, when I looked at my notes, I found I had more to say.  Therefore, this week I am continuing my look at the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares and Jesus’ explanation of the parable as found in the 13th Chapter of Matthew’s Gospel.

Last week I looked at the Greek word translated “world” in Jesus’ words: “The field is the world.”  That word is kosmos and I shared a few passages of scripture where the word kosmos occurs.  One such passage was 1 Corinthians 11:32 which says, “But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world (kosmos).”  The Apostle Paul is speaking specifically of the Lord’s Supper when he writes this but I do want to take a look at the ideas of judgment and condemnation within the context of other scriptures.

The main interpretations of the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares say the Wheat and Tares represent two different types of people who are being left alone to grow together-either within the church itself or the world-until some future day when the tares are gathered together to be burned in the furnace and the wheat is gathered into the barn.  Sometimes declared but always inferred is some far off day of judgment where unbelievers are condemned and believers receive their reward.  My biggest problem with this is that the Nowness of our day to day lives is utterly ignored. 

Let us consider John 3:18-21 which says, “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.  And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world (kosmos) and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.  For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.  But he who does the truth comes to the light that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”

This is not a passage I have ever heard a sermon on nor do I hear it quoted by fellow believers.  The message is clear.  Those who do not believe are condemned already.  The words Jesus spoke were true for everyone who listened to Him then and they are true for us now.  And, we are not left to wonder what He meant by condemnation: “and this is the condemnation, that light has come into the world and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.”

There is an echo of this statement later in John’s Gospel in the record of Jesus’ conversation in the upper room before his betrayal and crucifixion.  Speaking of the Holy Spirit, He says, “And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged” (John 16:8-11).  There is a “not yet but in the immediate future” idea to these words of Jesus because the Spirit was not yet given because He had not been glorified (See John 7:39).  That future Jesus was referring to was NOW during the day of Pentecost.  Peter quotes the Prophet Joel in Acts 2 saying “I will pour out of My spirit on all flesh”.  The Spirit has been poured out, continues to be poured out, and the time to which Jesus was referring began then and continues into our now.  The Holy Spirit is here and now the very presence of God on the earth and He is convicting the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. 

Sin, righteousness, judgment, condemnation…all of these are concepts deserving of devoted studies.  The point I am attempting to stress is the truth of Now.  So much of what I see and hear coming out of Christendom pushes everything off until some far off future.  This is only possible because of the marginalization-and in some cases outright denial-of the active presence of the Holy Spirit in the newness of our lives.  There is a circulating doctrine that the activity of the Spirit has ceased.  Any gifts were merely to authenticate the ministry of the Apostles and, once the Bible was completed, there was no more any use for them or, indeed, the Holy Spirit Himself (See article linked below).  I suppose that is why the best some denominations have to offer is a promise that, if you believe in Jesus now; you get to go to heaven when you die.

Does the Bible really say that?  I haven’t been able to find a passage issuing me that promise.  What I have found is 1 John 5:10-12: “He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son.  And this is the testimony; that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.  He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.”  This sounds like a Now promise to me: not one I have to wait until some far off second coming nor experience physical death before I can claim it.

There are also passages like 1 Peter 1:3-9 which says, ““Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.  In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious that gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love.  Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith-the salvation of your souls.” 

This passage-and others like it-do speak of a future date of perfection, fullness, receiving a body like His, the restitution of all things, an inheritance reserved in heaven, etc.  It’s obvious we don’t have everything promised now because how many of us are walking around in bodies that can’t die?  I do agree there is so much yet to come but that doesn’t mean we stagnate now.  We believers are not a group of thumb-twiddlers waiting for some far off day when ZAP! Fullness of God is ours.  Our inheritance might be reserved in heaven but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t already exist in its entirety and, I would point out, we are of One Spirit with Jesus Christ and we are seated with Him in Heavenly places.  Who is to say this inheritance is not ours now to appropriate and enjoy?

Jesus also says of the Holy Spirit that, when He comes, He will both “honor and glorify Me, because He will take of (receive, draw upon) what is Mine and will reveal (declare, disclose, transmit) it to you” (John 16:14, Amplified).  What is the “mine” that Jesus is speaking of? Let us read verse 15 also: “Everything the Father has is Mine.  That is what I meant when I said the He will take the things that are Mine and will reveal (declare, disclose, transmit) them to you” (Amplified).  Wow!  If that is true, and I would not dare call my Savior a liar, then just what are the limits to how we can live now?  What if there aren’t any?

You may be wondering how all of this relates to the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares and, to answer that, I need another post.

Until then, let us not be robbed of what is ours now but may the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation, in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, open the eyes of our understanding that we may know the hope if His calling, the riches of the glory of His inheritance in us, the Saints, and the exceeding greatness of His power towards us who believe.  May we understand that He is light and life.  In Him, we have eternal life and we have it right now.

To be continued…

References

Understanding Cessationism from a… | Zondervan Academic

Greek Tenses Explained – Ezra Project

Hellenistic Greek: Lesson 9: The First Aorist

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

He Loves the World

22 Monday May 2023

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Hello Readers!  Welcome to the start of a new week and a new post on Renaissance Woman.  I am continuing my study of the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares and Jesus’ explanation of said Parable.  Both are found in the 13th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel. 

There are two mainstream interpretations of this Parable and the Explanation.  These interpretations say the Wheat and the Tares represent Believers and Unbelievers who are left to grow together until Jesus returns.  Then the Wheat People/Believers will go to heaven and the Tare People/Unbelievers will go to hell where they will experience eternal torment.  These two interpretations differ from each other only in the respect that some say the Wheat and Tares are side by side in the church pews every Sunday while others say the Wheat and Tares grow together in the world.

I’ve shared in previous posts why I don’t think the wheat and tares in the parable do represent two different groups of people.  My main point has been that the wheat and tares never convert each other.  It is not possible for the wheat to become tares nor for the tares to become wheat.  Since the call of both of John the Baptist and Jesus was to Metanoia! Change your mind!, I agree with a third interpretation of this parable and its explanation.  Rather than two different groups of people, the wheat and the tares represent thoughts planted in our minds through spiritual influence meaning they are inspired by God Himself or the enemy.  The reason I am inclined to this third interpretation is because, as I studied both the parable and the explanation, I found the clincher in Jesus words: “The field is the world.”

Reading Jesus’ explanation in the King James Version can be confusing as Matthew 13:38-40 says; “The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.  As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.”

I’ve already shared how the Greek word translated “world” in verses 39 and 40-the harvest at the end of the world and so it shall be in the end of this world-is aion which means “age”.  The Greek word translated “world” in verse 38-the field is the world-is kosmos.  Without knowing the different Greek words and their meanings, I can understand how the interpretations of wheat and tares growing together in the world until the world ends arose.  It’s obvious to any thinking mind the world has not come to an end so Jesus must be talking about some far off future date.  Other translations have chosen to use “age” in place of world in these passages but I don’t find it’s had much of an effect on how this parable and Jesus’ explanation is interpreted.  I find understanding the difference between aion and kosmos is crucial to understanding this parable and its explanation.  Again, I’ve covered aion in previous posts so encourage anyone interested to read those.  This week, let us look at kosmos.

The Strong’s Concordance defines kosmos (G2889) as “orderly arrangement, decoration, the world (in a wide or narrow sense including its inhabitants) adorning, world.  Kosmos is related to the verb kosmeo (G2885) which means “to put in proper order, decorate, adorn, trim (to snuff a wick)”.  The Greek-English Lexicon defines kosmeo as “to put in order so as to appear neat or well organized” and “to cause something to have an attractive appearance through decoration, adorn, decorate”.  Indeed, kosmos is translated as “adornment” in 1 Peter 3:3.  The word kosmos has a variety of nuances, especially when translated as “world” and the context in which kosmos appears must be carefully considered.

Let us consider a few such passages and substitute back in the Greek. 1 Corinthians 11:32 says, “But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the kosmos.”  Galatians 4:3 says, “Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the kosmos.”  1 John 5:19 says, “We know we are of God and the whole kosmos lies under the sway of the wicked one.”  Reading these passages does not give one a positive sense of the world/kosmos and this is reinforced by 1 John 5:4 where those who are born of God are described as those who “overcome the kosmos.”  Kosmos does not seem like a very good thing at all and, bearing this in mind, I can understand why the parable and explanation are interpreted the way they are.  If the field is the world/kosmos then it is condemned along with the tares and the wheat people are thus plucked from the field and safely gathered into the barn.  I understand the why of the interpretation but I don’t agree with it because kosmos appears in so many more passages.

John 3:16-17: “For God so loved the kosmos that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting (aionios) life.  For God did not send His Son into the kosmos to condemn the kosmos, but that the kosmos through Him might be saved.”  John 4:42: “…we know this this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the kosmos.”  John 6:33: “For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the kosmos.”  2 Corinthians 5:19: “…God was in Christ reconciling the kosmos to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them…” and finally 1 John 2:2: “He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole kosmos.”

There are so many other passages containing kosmos and I don’t have the space to quote them all.  I encourage everyone to get a good reference and look up the passages for yourself.  I have the New Koine Greek Textbook because it lists every instance of a Greek word, regardless of how it has been translated in English.  I find the Strong’s Concordance to be invaluable but it is tied to the King James Version of the Bible so only those passages where kosmos was translated “world” were easily searchable.  I do hope the few passages I have shared reveal to you, as they did to me, that when we return to the parable and its explanation, it is obvious the wheat and the tares are not describing people in the sense that the Wheat represent believers and the Tares unbelievers. The field is the kosmos.  Jesus did not give Himself for wheat and tares: He gave Himself for the field. 

Now, I do accept the wheat and tares represent people in the sense that who and what we allow to influence our minds i.e. planting seeds which grow to fruition, do determine what sort of people we are because, paraphrasing Proverbs 23:7; as we think in our hearts, so are we.  Yet I do believe the wheat and the tares are describing the thoughts of God and the thoughts sown by the devil.  Mark 8:33 records Jesus saying to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”  The New English Bible renders this as, “‘Away with you, Satan,’ he said; ‘you think as men think, not as God thinks.”  This is just one passage but it shows our minds are capable of hosting thoughts that stem from different sources.

Our thoughts are so important.  It is crucial that we are vigilant and take great care just who we are allowing to sow into the fields of our minds.  However, just because we have had moments where the fruit of our lives have been tares mixed with the wheat does not mean we are condemned to have both continue to grow inside of us until some far off future time when Jesus comes back to earth.  The word Paul uses is aion but his message in Romans 12:2 is the same: we ought not to be conformed to this world but are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.  Jesus Christ is the consummation of the ages and, because we are in Him, we are being transformed into His image.  We undergo several “harvests” and each one is an opportunity to recognize any tares that might have grown and just who sowed them.

 The fire is already kindled in the earth and we can consign our tares to it and trust our fields will only yield wheat.  Perhaps the occasional tare sneaks in from time to time but that does not change that Jesus is the savior of the world and, “For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14).  The 10th Chapter of Hebrews goes on to quote Jeremiah 31:33: “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them.”  This echoes the promise given in Ezekiel 36:24-28.  His Spirit is in us.  The day of a new heart and mind, a healthy field, good ground, is now. 

I do not say there is not an experience of processing.  There is and this transformation into His image is from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3:18).  The truth remains we are being transformed and His image is clearer every day.  Let us not look at other people as wheat or tares but let us look at them as a precious field for which Jesus shed His blood and has sown the good seeds of His life.  Let us not look at ourselves as those with no other option but to have wheat and tares growing together in the fields of our lives.  Let us not stagnate.  Let us instead, keep our hearts with all diligence and trust His word is true: We are those who are born of God therefore we do not sin but we keep ourselves and the wicked one does not touch us (1 John 5:18).

What a glorious promise!  Believe it!

Amen.

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

References

World – Kosmos (Greek Word Study) | Precept Austin 

Matthew 13 – Barclay’s Daily Study Bible – Bible Commentaries – StudyLight.org

KINGDOM BIBLE STUDIES: THE FIRSTFRUITS, THE HARVEST, AND THE VINTAGE by J. Preston Eby (godfire.net)

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

The New Testament in Four Versions, Christianity Today Edition, The Iversen-Ford Associates, New York, New York, 1963

Danker, Frederick William, Walter Bauer’s A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Early Christian Literature, Third Edition, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1957, 2000

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