My wrestling match...

So, I have come to some conclusions that I have no contingency plan for. No one prepared me for this and I am a little upset because I think I have been robbed a bit by those who handed information down to me concerning the Scriptures and how they fit together and how I am supposed to understand what I am reading in the Bible.

 First, a little background... around 250 years before the time of Christ, a group of Rabbis got together and translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek. This made total sense because the world spoke Greek at the time and it was a way that the rest of the world could see the tremendous gift that God gave to the world through the writing of what we affectionately refer to as "the Old Testament." This became the standard for how Jewish teachers communicated the Hebrew Bible in a cross-cultural context for 3 centuries.

 This translation - we call it the Septuagint - heavily influenced all the conversations about the Scriptures from that time forward and that has some profound implications for those of us who want to try to understand what the Bible means.

 Paul, who wrote 15 of the 27 books of the new testament, wrote everything we have of his in Greek. Paul was not Greek, he was Hebrew. But he wrote in Greek to help a cross cultural context understand who Jesus is and how we relate to Him.

 Question: Where did Paul learn his Greek? And when expressing theological or biblical truths in Greek, where did he learn what words to use and how to use them? The obvious answer would be that he learned how to talk about God in Greek from the Septuagint.

 On the surface, that doesn't sound all that profound. But dig a little deeper and we are going to see some huge ramifications that may very well push some hard buttons. If the Septuagint is the standard for expressing Hebrew thought in Greek, then it is not enough to do a Greek word study when we read the New Testament. We must also trace that word back to how it was used in the Septuagint and find its Hebrew equivalent because it is there that we understand what reality Paul or any other New Testament writer for that matter is trying to convey. And, when that concept doesn't exist in the Hebrew Scriptures, we often see Paul making words up. He often sticks words together that have never been done before because he is trying to convey an idea that has no basis or understanding in what he has previously studied.

 Quick example: Hebrews 7:18 says that there was an "annulment" of the preceding commands (the Law) because of its weakness and unprofitableness. Annulment is a strong word. In a legal sense, it means that the old Law (Torah) has been done away with. So, if the writer of Hebrews (we will say Paul) understands this Greek word from the Septuagint, then we need to see where it is used, and what is the Hebrew equivalent. The Greek word - "athetesis" - is only used onetime in the septuagint and that is found in 1 Samuel 24:11.

 A translation of the Septuagint says this: And behold, the skirt of thy mantle [is] in my hand, I cut off the skirt, and did not slay thee: know then and see to-day, there is no evil in my hand, nor impiety, nor rebellion; and I have not sinned against thee, yet thou layest snares for my soul to take it.

 The word for rebellion here is the same Greek word. And it translates the Hebrew word "pesha" which means rebellion or transgression.

 My thought: Paul is not trying to say that the New covenant "annuls" the Old covenant. From his understanding of how to communicate theological ideas from the only source for greek that would have given him that ability, he is saying that the Old Covenant created a rebellion that the new covenant can resolve through Christ. It does not, however, undo or annul what the old covenant does. It expands and unpacks it further.

 Maybe this idea has some deeper more profound implications than we originally thought...

Be a Blessing...

We are talking about the blessing this week in church. My conviction is that we are all called to be a blessing all around us. That plays out most in our own homes.

I came across this post and thought I would share. As I think this week about the nature of being a blessing, it has occurred to me that I don't have to be a brilliant father., but a father who takes advantage of little moments.

http://realgreglee.com/2012/03/08/one-thing-i-do-right-as-a-dad-that-you-can-do-too/

One thing I do right as a Dad…that you can do too.

I’m trying to be a great Dad, but it is a learning process for me every day. Some things come instinctively from having a great Dad myself (a HUGE blessing in my life). Other things aren’t so natural.

I think the best thing we have done is create meaningful one-on-one time with the kids. I work a lot of evenings with meetings and I like to get started early in the mornings so we had to be creative. For us, we take advantage of Wednesday mornings. Here’s how it practically works for us:

-Our kids school starts 1/2 hour later on Wednesdays. Not totally sure why, but we use it!

-I work Wednesdays straight through the evening until late, so I don’t go in until 9am those days.

-We rotate weekly the pair that gets to go out for breakfast – one adult/one child. Today was me and Jackson.

-That adult/child pair goes to breakfast from 7:30-8:45am – Kids choose the restaurant.

-The other adult/child pair stays home with kids from the neighborhood who get on the bus with our kids.

-Jenny works one Wednesday a month so we just skip that one. (You can’t get to hung up on making a system work perfectly.)

With me, Jackson usually goes for a cinnamon roll at Panera. Today we talked about baptism and his LifeBuilding Class at church and then drew some designs for how to paint his pinewood derby car (pictured). This is priceless to me.

Abby likes McDonalds where she and I split the “Big Breakfast with Hotcakes” and sit at the same table she picks out. Every. Single. Time. She loves watching the “M” on the butter melt on her biscuit and making me eat the eggs “because they are gross”.

These goofy memories become the stories we tell. The only reason I share it is that I hope you’ll find your own way to do it too. Figure it out. Create the time and space. We get a lot wrong as parents, but we are knocking this out of the park!