Tag: BEMA Podcast

Waiting for the Fullness of Time – the Day of the Lord

What if the Day of the Lord, the Second Coming, is not fixed?

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Marty Solomon makes some bold statements in the 2nd episode of Season 5 of the BEMA Podcast (Episode 192, Telling a Story) (starting about 20 minutes in). He says the early Christians were not wrong to believe the return of Christ was imminent. He believes Christ’s return actually was imminent (and still is) – if only the time was right

Solomon basically believes that Jesus might have returned within a generation or two of his death if the right things developed. He believes that the date was not and is not fixed. This is not how I have viewed it nor how I believe most people view the return of Jesus.

I have always assumed that God has fixed a date for the return of Jesus. It seems to me that this is what is generally taught or assumed. This is why we struggle with Jesus saying no one knows the hour or day of his return – not even Jesus. This is why we wrestle with the message of the imminent return of Jesus that bleeds through the New Testament.

Jesus didn’t return, so can it be possible that they were wrong about that? If they were wrong about that, what else are they wrong about?

Marty Solomon says they were not wrong about the potential, imminent return of Jesus. It could have happened, if only the time was right, if only the right things happened, if only the circumstances were such that his return was appropriate.

This is a radically different view than what I have assumed, but I was intrigued by the thought of it. As I mulled it over, I began to see some some things, and that inspires my writing today.

Continue reading “Waiting for the Fullness of Time – the Day of the Lord” →

Abraham, Faith, and the Hope Deferred

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I ended the article, The Story of Abraham and Isaac Revisited: Here I Am, with a promise to come back to the story of Abraham and Isaac one more time. Recall that Abraham had the intuition to tell Isaac “God would provide” when Isaac asked him where the lamb was for the sacrifice.

We do not know whether Abraham really believed what he told Isaac, whether he was simply being hopeful, or whether he was merely dodging Isaac’s question. We learn in Sunday school that Abraham truly believed it. Perhaps, that is the right answer.

I say that, not because of a Sunday lesson, but because of Abraham’s experience and particularly his experience with God in moments of great doubt and angst. One such moment was described in Genesis Chapter 15. The set up is interesting.

Four kings conspired together to attack Sodom and Gomorrah. They attacked and routed the inhabitants, seizing their goods and carrying off Abraham’s nephew, Lot, and his possessions. (Genesis 14:5-12) Abram (as he was still known at the time) responded immediately with “318 trained men in his household”. He pursued them, routed them, pushing them all the way to Damascus, and recovered Lot and all the goods. (Genesis 14:13-16

Melchizedek, “priest of the God Most High”, pronounced Abraham blessed by “God Most High”, and Abram tithed a tenth to him. (Genesis 14:18-20) After this great victory and blessing from Melchizedek, we read that the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision:

“Do not be afraid, Abram.
    I am your shield [sovereign],
    your very great reward.”

Genesis 15:1

We might expect Abram to be exalting in the afterglow of his decisive routing of the four kings and blessing by Melchizedek, but he wasn’t. Abram appears to be struggling with the lack of fulfillment of the promises God gave him so many years before.

Abram is human. He has held onto the promise, but his faith is waning. The doubts are rising. Though God had just given him an encouraging word, Abram is focused on the unfulfilled promise:

“But Abram said, ‘Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?'”

Genesis 15:2

The text continues with Abram still talking. That means God hasn’t responded, and so Abram continues:

“And Abram said, ‘You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.'”

Genesis 15:3

Finally, God breaks in, telling Abraham that his legacy would come from his own flesh and blood, taking Abram outside to look at the sky and telling him his offspring would be like the stars. (Genesis 15:4-5)

We are told that Abram believed in that moment, and God, who sees the hearts of men and knows the thoughts and the intents of mean’s hearts, credited that belief to Abram as righteousness. (Genesis 15:6) God also reminded Abram that He brought Abram out of Ur to the land Abram stood on to give it to him. (Genesis 15:7)

Though Abram believed, and though God had just given him more assurance, Abram kept pressing:

“But Abram said, ‘Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?’”

Genesis 15:8

It wasn’t for lack of belief that Abram kept pressing God. We were just told Abram believed. In fact, this was the very moment that God credited Abram with righteousness for his faith!

At the same time, Abram was pressing God for something more than a bare promise. Doubt is not the absence of faith, and pressing God for assurance is not a lack of faith. I hear echoes here of another father who cried out for his son when Jesus promised deliverance, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24)

God doesn’t rebuke Abram, and he doesn’t take away the righteousness God had just credited to Abram. In the same vein, Jesus didn’t rebuke the father who asked for help in his believing unbelief. Jesus commended him, and God tells Abram,

“Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.”

Genesis 15:9

If you are scratching your head right now, that is good! God’s response begs for some understanding and insight. Just as Abram pressed God, we should be pressing right now for understanding.

Continue reading “Abraham, Faith, and the Hope Deferred” →

Enough Is Enough: Entering into God’s Rest

God’s work has been finished since creation, but that doesn’t mean His purposes are accomplished, yet

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I am listening to the BEMA Podcast with Marty Solomon and Brent Billings as they work their way through Genesis applying a more Hebrew, eastern approach to understanding and interpreting scripture. I have talked about these things in previous articles, so I will not rehash.

One of the observations made in the story of creation is that God rested on day 7. The theme of God resting can be followed throughout scripture, especially in the law of the Sabbath rest.

The writer of Hebrews says that the nation of Israel would not enter His rest because they hardened their hearts “in the rebellion” in the wilderness when they “tested and tried” God; rather, they went astray in their hearts and did not know God’s way. (Heb. 3:7-11) From these statements, we understand that God withholds His rest to those who harden their hearts, test and try God, go their own ways and do not “know” God’s ways.

In Hebrew thinking, to know God’s ways is not just an intellectual thing. It’s an experiential thing. To know is to connect personally with and to experience. Knowing is not just intellectually grasping, but becoming personally intimate with something.

God promises us that we will enter into His rest if we do not harden our hearts, if we do not test and try Him and do not go astray, but know (experience, become intimate with) God’s ways. (Heb. 4:1-2) God desires for us to enter His rest.

One conclusion a person might draw from the story of creation is that God knew when to stop creating. He knew when to rest. He knew when enough was enough, and He invites us likewise to know when enough is enough: to rest.

God’s work has been finished since creation (Heb. 4:3), but that doesn’t mean His purposes are accomplished, yet. We know, for instance, that He subjected creation to futility (mataiotés – vanity, emptiness, unreality, purposelessness, ineffectiveness, instability, frailty….”) in hope. (Rom. 8:20)

If He subjected creation to futility in hope, He did it with the expectation and purpose that the hope would be fulfilled and accomplished. The hope is that “the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God”. (Rom. 8:21)

This suggests that God may have been done with His works when he rested, but His purposes were not yet accomplished. Gods rest prior to the ultimate accomplishment of all that He purposed is part of the story. There is more to the story then simply the creation.

The creation was intended for a purpose that is yet to be accomplished, and our freedom and glory is needed to accomplish that purpose and to liberate creation from its bondage to decay! But what is that yet unfulfilled purpose?

Continue reading “Enough Is Enough: Entering into God’s Rest” →

How Does the Tower of Babel Fit into God’s Plan for People to Love Him and Love Our Neighbors?

Our frustration, toil and separation from other people are not contrary to the purposes of God, but part of the plan.

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The story of the Tower of Babel is included in Scripture for a reason, right? So, Why is it there? How does the tower of Babel fit into God’s redemptive plans and purposes?

These are questions we should think to ask. In fact, Scripture is designed, according to Hebrew thinking, to invite us to ask questions.

Western thinking might assume that we just take things on faith and don’t ask questions. Or the opposite: take it at face value and dismiss it when we find problems (“contradictions”) in the text. The biblical texts, however, are inherently Hebrew (“eastern”) in their assumptions, and we lose something if we do not understand that.

God wants us to seek Him, and that includes asking questions of Scripture, wrestling with it, and finding answers to our questions. We don’t exhibit a lack of faith when we find “problems” in Scripture and ask questions. Our faith propels us forward to wrestle with the text and seek answers through study, prayer, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

We can hold to a high view of Scripture and admit there are “problems” in the text. Those problems can lead us to some real gems in the answers they reveal.

God desires us to seek him and find him, as Paul says to the philosophers in Athens. (Acts17:27) Jesus, of course, promised that those who ask, seek, and knock will be answered, will find, and the door will be open to them. (Matthew 7:7) Faith is evident when we use the problems we see as the springboard to seek answers.

I recently wrote an article on the Tower of Babel story exploring some of the questions it invites us to ask, and trying on answers that are suggested by a more eastern (Hebrew) mindset than most westerners might be adopt.

One question we might ask is: why is the story there to begin with?

We might assume the story is simply an explanation for how people became scattered all over the world in different language groups. If that is all we get out of the story, though, we miss the most important meaning. If we stop there, and assume there is no more to the story, we may be missing the most important part of the story!

A Hebrew (or eastern) mind always asks, “Why?”

I resonate with this basic practice incorporated into the BEMA Podcast because of a Jewish professor I had in college. He explained one day the difference between the western and eastern approaches to Scripture. He illustrated it with the following example.

If the universe consisted of a chair in a room, people with western minds and eastern minds would approach the room differently. The westerner would measure the height, width, depth and mass of the chair. He would weigh it and measure the distance of the chair from the walls and the ceiling. The easterner (the Hebrew) would start by asking, “Why is the chair here?”

In my previous article, I discussed how the story is a chiasm (a type of poetry). A chiasm puts emphasis on the middle verse. In this story, the emphasis falls on the people’s desire to “make a name for ourselves” because “otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the earth”. (Gen. 11:4)

Why were they concerned about being scattered? Why does God care? What is God doing in confusing their languages and scattering them?

For starters, God does not break into the story, yet, when they are making bricks. We might assume, therefore, that God isn’t threatened or concerned about their development of new technology. He doesn’t break into the story until they say they are going to build a tower to make a name for themselves.

We also need to be mindful, always, of context. The context here is that people are moving away from God, away from his plans. (Moving east.) God wanted them to multiply and fill the earth, but they wanted to put down roots in the plains of Shinar (Babylon), lest they be scattered, and build a tower to exalt themselves.

God’s plan was to have them “multiply and fill the earth”. This was the instruction from God to Adam and Eve. The people who built the Tower of Babel didn’t want to do that. They didn’t want to be “scattered”. They resisted, and they put down roots when they should have been filling the earth.

Building a tower to make a name for themselves, in this context, means wanting to pursue their own plans to achieve their own ends. The concern about being scattered suggests they knew they were doing their own thing contrary to God’s plans for them. They might have feared being scattered because it would disrupt their plans to exalt themselves.

Maybe they thought God couldn’t scatter them if they built a fortified tower. Maybe they were trying to make God deal with them on their own terms, in a location they established, by a structure by which they thought they could ascend to God and control where God met with them.

Of course, God did exactly what they feared, and scattered them a against their wishes by confusing their languages.

But why? Was God threatened by them?

Um…., no. God is sovereign. He created the heavens and earth, and He created these people. They were no threat to Him. So why did God scatter them?

I believe the answer lies partly in the fact that they were pursuing their own plans in exultation of themselves. God had other plans, and God frustrated their plans that were not in keeping with His plans.

That might all seem arbitrary unless we keep asking questions and seeking answers. Why were the peoples’ plans something God couldn’t abide? How did the peoples’ plans interfere with God’s plans?

What were God’s plans?

Continue reading “How Does the Tower of Babel Fit into God’s Plan for People to Love Him and Love Our Neighbors?” →

East and West Meet at the Tower of Babel

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I have been listening to the BEMA podcast. I highly recommend it. As defined on the website, “‘BEMA’ (or bimah) is a Hebrew word that refers to the elevated platform in the center of first-century synagogues where the people of God read the Text.”

The early Christians knew their Scripture. They built their lives around it. They devoted themselves to it, and to prayer, and the apostles reaching, and to fellowship and shared meals. (Acts 2:42) The bema in was where early Christians gathered in first century synagogues before they were persecuted and scattered.

The BEMA podcast attempts to approach Scripture the way easterners would have approached Scripture – the way the early Christians in the Middle East would have approached Scripture. The idea that Hebrew people were more “eastern” in their thinking was first pointed out to m by my Jewish professor in college over 40 years ago, so following up with that concept intrigues me.

Christianity quickly became westernized, but the origins of Christianity are eastern, growing out of the Hebrew culture and scriptures. For that reason, we would do well to gain some new perspective from a more eastern way of thinking. I encourage you to listen to the first couple of episodes of the podcast linked in the opening paragraph if you want an introduction to an “eastern” perspective of the Bible.

Reading the first 11 chapters of Genesis from an eastern, Hebraic perspective, opens up new insights. Not the least of which is the genre of literature these chapters represent. They are poetry. They are written in chiasms with intricate organization and emphasis that is found in the structure of the chiasms.

The Tower of Babel story is one of those chiastic passages in Genesis. The story actually begins in the Hebrew with the last verse of Chapter 10 (as it is organized in English Bibles), and it goes like this (ESV):

These are the clans of Noah’s sons, according to their lines of descent, within their nations. From these the nations spread out over the earth after the flood.

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

They said to each other, ‘Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.’ They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.’

But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.’

So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

Hebrew has no vowels, only consonants. Rather, vowel signs are placed over the consonants to denote where breaths should be taken for anyone reading Hebrew out loud. 

The consonants in this chiasm are repetitive: N, B, L, H; then H, L, B, N in reverse. There is a front half and a back half to the structure. The middle of the chiasm is verse 11:4, which I have emphasized by bolding it.

The verse in the middle of the chiasm is where the emphasis lies: the peoples’ concern about being scattered over the face of the earth. They didn’t want to be scattered.

Why not? That’s the question we should be prompted to ask according to the emphasis we find built into the structure of that story.

I am not sure I can do any justice to the layers of meaning and the questions that arise in these verses in a short blog post. I can only scratch the surface, but here goes….

Continue reading “East and West Meet at the Tower of Babel” →