Restless Sabbath

   

                                                             One day, out of the blue, the question hit me: "Should a Christian observe the Sabbath?" I realize this might be a settled matter for many, but for me, it has resurfaced.

Now that it has captured my attention, I feel compelled to address it for the benefit of my family and loved ones.

The term "Sabbath" first appears in Genesis 2:2:

"By the seventh day, God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day, he rested from all his work."

The original Hebrew verb for 'and he rested' is 'Va-Yishbot' {וישבות}, derived from the Hebrew root 'SH-V-T' {ש-ב-ת}, which is also the root of the word Shabbat {שבת}.

This verse creates the notion that God is weary. Why, then, does God need to rest? Let's delve into the meaning behind this.

In contemporary perspectives, the act of "creation" is often seen as the epitome of power, and Genesis 1 is commonly labeled as a creation story. While this holds true to some degree, the author's underlying purpose differs. In Ancient Eastern cultures, the figure who transforms "chaos" into "order" is portrayed as the most potent.

The Genesis author subtly hints at this right at the outset:

"And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep."

The lack of any form, coupled with darkness and void, signifies chaos. For an ancient reader, these images would have triggered connections, priming their mind for imminent action by the One who would bring order to them.

To broaden our perspective, let's examine some contemporaneous cultures. "Enuma Elish", an ancient Mesopotamian creation epic, recounts Marduk's triumph over the elder goddess Tiamat, ushering in order from chaos and ascending as the lord of the gods of Heaven and Earth. This resonates with the theme of order prevailing over chaos in Genesis.

Similarly, the Egyptian god Atum shapes the world out of chaos, symbolized by primeval waters.

This collective evidence leads to the inference that Genesis 1, transcends a mere creation account; it is about imposing order upon chaos.

A great king is also recognized as one who establishes order. When a king assimilates an external territory into his kingdom, he essentially eradicates chaos (represented by barbarians) and establishes the right structure and order (civilized).

The crux of the matter is that, in Genesis' inaugural chapter, the author conveys to readers that Yahweh is the Chief. He does it by showing that Yahweh is the One who brings order to the entire universe. Like a king, He confronts chaos with His words and emerges victorious.

The term "He rested" signifies His triumph. He has orchestrated order and is now assuming His throne. He is the provider, and now His subjects (Adam or mankind) will commence from this state of rest (order), ushering further prosperity and peace into His creation.

The idea of rest presented in Genesis differs from the rest ordained by Moses for the Israelites, known as Shabbath. Unlike the Israelites, who are not initiating a throne, this commandment serves as a reminder of God's providence—the One who imposes order on chaos. It's a day for reflecting on the transient nature of our struggles, remembering how God brought them from slavery and will ultimately grant them eternal rest.

Now, delving into this context, let's explore the fundamental query: Should a Christian adhere to Shabbat observance? The response hinges on whether the laws bestowed by Moses upon the Israelites hold relevance in our contemporary era.

A beacon of insight comes from Paul, who, in his ministry, drew upon a Mosaic law for guidance:

"In the Law of Moses, it is written: 'Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.' Is this directive solely about oxen, or does it extend to us? Undoubtedly, it is intended for us, as written, for those who plow and thresh should anticipate a share in the harvest." (1 Corinthians 9:9-10)

In this context, Paul, as a steward of God's word, contends that those sowing spiritual seeds in the congregation have a rightful claim to material blessings. Citing Deuteronomy 25:4, he anchors his argument in scriptural authority, reasoning that just as God allows an ox to eat while treading, ministers of His word should partake in similar blessings.

What insights can we glean from this example? Although the law was specifically given to Israel, it carries an underlying purpose. While the literal application may not extend to us, the essence or the spirit of the law undeniably holds relevance for all.

Applying this to our current discourse, the authentic purpose of Shabbat is to find repose in God's providence. It's a day for reflection, meditation, and anticipation that God will bring order to the disorder of our sins, mirroring His act of bringing order from chaos in the creation narrative. For those of the Jewish faith, Shabbat is a time to recall how God liberated them from slavery in Egypt—a testament to His transformative power from chaos to order. It serves as a day to acknowledge God's constant presence and affirm our understanding that He holds sovereign control.

How should a Christian celebrate the Sabbath?

To address this inquiry, what better guide than examining the actions of Jesus? Numerous occasions reveal Jesus performing healing miracles on the Sabbath (examples include Mark 3:1-6, and Luke 13:10-17), tending to the needs of the hungry (Matthew 12:1-8), and imparting wisdom within the synagogues.

Jesus proclaimed, "The kingdom of God is here and now." He was bringing God's rest (providence) to people, bringing joy and peace ( order ) into the tumultuous realms of misery and suffering.

As we ponder the essence of the Sabbath in our lives, let's not confine its celebration to a mere day of the week. Every moment is an opportunity to embrace God's providence and, like our Lord Jesus, become agents of joy and peace in a world often mired in chaos. The true celebration of the Sabbath lies not in mere observance but in our daily actions—feeding the hungry, healing the broken, and bringing light to the darkest corners. In this continuous Sabbath, we embody the timeless victory of order over chaos, echoing the Creator's triumph in the very fabric of our existence. So, as we traverse the tapestry of our days, let each step resonate with the eternal Sabbath, a melody of divine rest, and a harmonious rhythm of bringing God's beautiful order into our chaotic world.

How might one find a more meaningful way to observe the Sabbath?

Prologue to Book of John

Recently I got something interesting and beautiful to learn from John's prologue to his book. Quite excited to share this with you. Without further ado, let's dive right into it.

To rightly understand the intention of John, we need some background.

1. Ancient Near Eastern literature is very figurative. They commonly use the personification of inanimate objects, like the lady wisdom in Proverbs 8. In Genesis 1, when God speaks and brings the world into existence, in the Jewish mind, 'Word' is something that is both God and yet distinct from God. The same applies to the 'Glory' of God. In the tabernacle, the 'Glory' of God dwells (Exodus 40:34-38). 'Glory' of God is both God and yet distinct from God. 

Ex nihilo

Many Christian, especially the young earth creationists, confess to the doctrine, creation ex nihilo; that is, God created the cosmos out of nothing.

I am not disputing whether or not God is the creator of everything. I want to tell, that the Bible (especially the book of Genesis) does not teach ex nihilo.

Before we start, we should make sure we understand the meaning of inspiration of the scriptures.

The Bible is inspired writing. The Holy Spirit inspired the human authors, to produce the Scriptures, so as they completely understood what they wrote, and the text made complete sense to them in their context. In other words, the Holy Spirit did NOT zap their conscience, nor did they get into a trance only to wake up and realise, Oh! I wrote something!

If we agree to this meaning of inspiration, then let us begin.

Genesis 1:1-2:

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Genesis 1 clearly states: In the beginning ... the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. Water is surely a thing, and according to the author of Genesis, when creation started, water already existed.

Now, think of this for a minute; the concept, 'nothing' is highly evolved. Even now, we cannot completely comprehend it.

The ancients have no idea even about the number 0. If a shepherd lost all his sheep, he would not say, "I have zero sheep!". He'll rather say, "I don't even have one sheep". The ancient author of Genesis, in no way, would have thought about ex nihilo while being in his senses at the same time.

The purpose of Genesis is not to show how God created something out of nothing but to show that YAHWEH (and not some other god) brought order to an unordered cosmos.

People of the Ancient Near East already had a cosmology. Like the way, we have one (I'd encourage you to read Babylonian and Egyptian cosmology, see bottom of the page for a brief overview). Their cosmology assumes that the sun, the moon, the oceans etc. are gods. These gods then create other gods and bring order to the cosmos through battle or sexual unions. The author of Genesis brilliantly uses the same cosmology to teach his readers that YAHWEH is the creator. The sun, the moon and everything else are not gods. They are only a creation of YAHWEH. The author doesn't even use the commonly spoken names for the sun and the moon (since they were the names of various deity) he simply refers to them as the two great lights.

YAHWEH alone is the creator; everything else is His creation. He doesn't have to battle or mate. His words alone can bring order and life into the cosmos. (This itself is a revolutionary claim for that period of history)

The author of Genesis is correcting their theology using the pre-existing cosmology.

When we use Genesis to argue against modern cosmology, we are only making fun of ourselves. The author of Genesis had no such intention (He is writing from his cosmological understanding for a very different purpose than what we are using it for).

By the way, I am not promoting evolution or anything related to it. All I want to say is that this book is not for that debate.

The book of Genesis (especially the creation story) is a masterpiece. Unfortunately, we are blowing it all away for nothing (pun intended). Let us understand the book of Genesis in the correct context. For what its author meant to teach. That YAHWEH is the ultimate creator and the only sustainer. He brings order and life to the cosmos. He is El-Shaddai; he has no equals.

God Bless!

Pic: Ancient cosmology:

https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/ngier/gre13.htm 

Fish swallowed Jonah? Surely NOT!!

Before you tag me as a heretic, let me state it for the record, I do not doubt even for a split second, on God's ability. Of course, all things are possible with God.

However, the issue here is not about God's ability but it's about the author's intention. What if the author did not write this book as a historical narrative but rather as a satire? So many people today think that the Bible is nothing more than a fairy tale and one of the main reason for that is us. Because we Christians have misunderstood the text and are stubborn to even consider that we could be wrong.

Reminds me of Paul when he said, “they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge"

Anyways, in this article, I want to suggest that the Book of Jonah is a satire, and I'll present some of the many clues from the text that suggests that this is satire and not history.

[Satire - the use of humour, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.]

The biggest challenge today to find the genre of the book is that we can't (at least most of us can't) read in Hebrew, otherwise I wouldn't have to write this article.

The simplest clue in the book is the recurring use of exaggerations and irony, which is very typical of satire. The author through this story wants to bring out the irony that the so-called people of the family of God are least bothered about His will, whereas those who are called gentiles (not belonging to the family of God) are pro-God.

Ok, let's start.

The first line of the book says "The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai". Amittai in Hebrew would mean "My truth", or "Faithfulness". To say in other words, "Jonah son of faithfulness" and guess what! the story will show how opposite of that he is. A witty start.

Now note, the author uses, as his main characters "Jonah - a prophet (representing the nation of Israel), who is supposed to be a spokesperson of God, the best among God's
people" and "Nineveh - the evilest nation in the ancient world, no one can be farther from God than a Ninevite" and then flips what's expected of them. What a cool paradox.

Let's continue; next, the author puts a beautiful contrast, the evil of Nineveh has come "up" to the face of the Lord, but Jonah went "down" to Tarshish and then "down" to Joppa,
then "down" into the Ship. And the downfall of Jonah wouldn't stop until he reaches the down most part, that is the "realm of the dead".

A pause here for general trivia. The people of the ancient world had a three-tire understanding of the universe.
Heaven - dwelling of gods,
Land - dwelling of the men living,

Netherworld - dwelling of the dead.
This may sound absurd to us but for them, this was real and a top-notch scientific understanding. It is very important to time travel, and understand the text from their perspective.

Fine, back to the story, so, our dear Jonah is on a trip to go down and down.

Now the next verse is hilarious. The literal translation will be something like, "now God sent a big (Hebrew "gadol gadol" an exaggeration) storm and the ship was contemplating to break itself into pieces." As if the ship had a mind of itself. But Jonah went "down" and was in deep sleep.

It is so funny yet so deep in meaning. A literal beauty! showing the utter hopelessness of people of God. They have fallen so low and become so insensitive to God that even a huge storm cannot wake them up although an inanimate object is thinking to break into pieces.

The latter part of the story only shows Jonah's further downward journey. There is much we can talk about but maybe not in this article.

The three days and three-nights journey is yet another interesting thing.

One more general trivia, how much time do the ancient people believed it take to travel from the dwelling of the living to the dwelling of the dead? You guessed it! 3 days and 3 nights.

Ok, back to the text, now comes the beautiful prayer of Jonah and God giving him a second chance.

And this time Jonah goes to Nineveh and says "40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown (Hebrew - haphak)". Jonah uses the word "Haphak" which is a very interesting word, it could mean "to overthrow" or it could mean "to transform" (like you haphak my sorrow into joy). Our Jonah is still not completely obedient, is he? He didn't mention repentance and used a confusing word to proclaim God's message. The author wants the reader to see how stubborn we can be, and this is right after that beautiful prayer in chapter 2..!!

Let's move on, Nineveh was gadol gadol (huge) and it takes 3 days to travel across the city. We know now from the archaeological surveys that no city in the ancient world was so big to take three days to travel across. And of course, more than us the author knew it better. And he uses this pure exaggeration device to enhance the beauty of his plot.

Now the paradox that we spoke about earlier, Jonah was running away err... down, from obeying God but look at Nineveh, they obeyed and repented promptly even when the message was quite cryptic. And not just the king and the people but even the cattle repented. Isn't that hilarious.

Come on now, the author very well knew that animals don't repent, what else can be a more persuasive argument that this is a satire!

Finally, the story ends with a beautiful message, Jonah was sad that God was merciful to gentiles but the author wanted the reader to know that God is a God of all creation and not just a selected few. He cares for everyone whom He created.

No wonder Jesus said "no sign will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah", was this reference to Jonah just about the 3 days and the 3 nights in the dwelling of the dead? Or was it a clever hint that God is now inviting gentiles too into his kingdom? The kingdom of Messiah!

This article is in no way comprehensive but I hope that after reading it, you no longer have to break your head studying the possibility of a man surviving in the belly of fish or fighting against the archaeological findings that there were big cities in the ancient world.

You see none of it was the author's intention. Amid our wrong understanding and the attempt to prove it right, we have lost the humorous yet beautiful message of the story.

God bless!

Edit:

This is not to suggest that Jonah was not a real person, Jonah was indeed a real person as documented in 2 Kings 14:25-27 (which is a historical document). When it comes to the book of Jonah; as it goes with most satires, the author uses real people, real places and real issues to create a literary work that can be potentially fiction.

The Church & the Eternal Plan of God

 The Bible tells us that the Church is the eternal plan of God and that through the church God's manifold wisdom is displayed to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 3:10-11). But how exactly? 

Christians often think of the church as some entity that God had in mind to bring into existence in 1 Century AD. But I believe that may not be entirely true, rather it was God's day 1 plan.

In fact the word Church (greek - Ekklesia) use to refer to Christians in the New Testament, is the same word that was used to refer to an Israelite assembly in the Old Testament.

Let us dig a little deeper to see what I'm talking about.

 

Creation

 

The author of the book of Genesis explains the purpose of creation and how humans play a vital role in God's purpose behind creation. 

 

God created the world in six days and on the sixth day, He created the first humans. God assigned humans to rule over everything that He created. God made the humans in His own image so that they can take care of His world appropriately i.e. man has to rule with love, kindness, justice, self-sacrifice and other virtues that are characteristics of God Himself. (Genesis 1:26-27)

 

God then created a beautiful Garden, Eden. Eden was special because it was a place where God dwells. (Not to say that God isn't present in every other place but this place was something different because it's a place where 'God loves to dwell'). Now, the first humans were supposed to multiply and fill this earth with people who are all in God’s image. (Genesis 1:28). To put it in other words, it was a mission of humans to make the whole earth a dwelling place for God, a place where God loves to dwell. The whole world should be made into an Eden.

 

But alas! Humans doubted God's intention and everything fell apart. Not only the first humans failed but the ones who came after them made it even worse. A glance at the current affairs will show us how horrible a place we have eventually made this earth. Far from the Eden that God wanted us to make.

 

Israel

 

Just because humans didn't do what they were supposed to do, doesn't mean God will give up. In fact, He already had a solution in place. 

 

He called Abraham and his children to be His partner, the nation of Israel. Israel was now the new Eden, and God dwelt in their camps. (tabernacle (exodus 40:34-38) and then the temple (1 Kings 8)). They were to rule the way Adam and Eve were supposed to rule. But what's obvious from history is that Israel too failed. And not just failed but ended up into exile as a punishment for their great transgressions.

 

The Messiah

 

God's desire to make the whole earth, an Eden, looks far from a reality. Moreover, Israel seems to be the last nation that can restore things. 

 

Has God failed?

 

No, may it never be! Yes, the whole world will be Eden and yes, it will be through Israel. None of God's plan will be thwarted. 

 

Jesus lived his entire life in submission to God. He was obedient to God even unto his death. God's characteristics were manifested in every facet of Jesus' life. He was a king; yet He ruled like a servant, being humble, loving, kind, just and self-sacrificial. He is the true human, the exact way man was supposed to be when God created them. He taught this same lifestyle to his followers. And His message was preached to the ends of the earth. There are followers of Jesus from every tribe and every nation and they are together called the Church, and God dwells in the Church (2 Corinthians 6:16).

 

So, God’s desire to make the whole earth Eden, a dwelling place for God was finally accomplished by Jesus, the true Human; and He was a Jew too, the true Israelite. And I'm convinced that this is what Paul means when He says Church was the eternal plan of God. 

 

The church displays God's characteristics when they live according to Jesus’ instructions, they have filled the earth and God dwells in them. And thus they display God's manifold wisdom. Whereby God fulfils his plans even when everything seems to be going against it. 

 

The second coming

 

Christ has fulfilled God's desire, however, the evil still exists in the earth and earth is not exactly how Eden was. That is what God will accomplish when Jesus returns. He'll judge the World. He'll eliminate the evil and new heavens and new earth will be created. The church will get a glorified body and all things will be made new. And this is the hope in which, we the followers of Christ, live. Looking forward to the day when this too will be fulfilled, like the way everything else He has accomplished. 

 

The whole earth as Eden, where God loves to dwell! 

Baptism – What good is it for?

 In Matthew 28:18-20, Jesus commanded His disciples to baptize and to teach the new believers. This should remove every doubt about the question, “Is baptism necessary”? Every command of our Lord, is our duty. Even if we do not understand anything about Baptism, we must still do it, because our Lord commanded it. His command ought to be a sufficient reason for us, to obey.

 

But then one might wonder, what is the significance of this ritual? What happens when someone takes Baptism? Is baptism required for forgiveness of sins? If faith saves you, then why Baptism? Should children be Baptised or only adults? 

 

These are few of the many questions that we struggle with. Answer to these questions may not be necessary, after all obedience is what counts, but it definitely is important. 

It is important because, it makes you stronger in your faith; it answers why you believe what you believe.

 

Before we start our investigation, something crucial to note:
Every time the word “baptism” is used in bible, we shouldn't always associate it with the rite of water baptism. The word baptism, in Greek, simply means – to immerse, to dip or to dye. Thus, whether or not the author used the word baptism as a rite, should be undersood from the context.
Example: in Septuagint Old Testament, 2 Kings 5:14, Joshua 3:15, Leviticus 11:32 and in New Testament Luke 11:38, Mark 7:4 etc, the word baptism is used and in these passages it clearly does not mean, the rite of water baptism. Romans 6:3-5; is another passage where we cannot be completely sure, whether Paul is using the word baptism as a rite or otherwise.

 

For our study today, I have chosen, Colossians 2:11-12.
In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self, ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

 

I chose this passage because, in my understanding this is the clearest passage about the rite of water baptism.

 

Paul in this passage makes a clear analogy between circumcision and baptism. This connection is important, and understanding circumcision and what it meant for the Jews, will throw light on our understanding of Baptism.

 

We know clearly that circumcision did not save anyone (Paul talks about it in Romans 2); Jews circumcised their kids, thus Judas most likely was circumcised yet he was not saved, we know many Jews were apostate, we know that Israel’s disobedience was the reason for their exile. Circumcision had no salvific benefit however, it was a sign of covenant (Genesis 17:11, Romans 4:11), it brought the person into a covenantal relationship with God. Covenantal relationship is the key here, it means that the person is in God’s family and has access to all His oracles and promises.

 

When a man and a woman gets married, they enter a covenantal relationship with each other. Now love is the one which initially brought them together and keeps them together. But marriage is a covenantal rite, during which they bind themselves with each other; for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.

 

In the same way, faith is the one that brings us to God and keeps us with Him, but baptism is a covenantal rite which binds us with God. When this covenant is made, we become one with Christ (His body)

 

Now, one may argue that circumcision was done for infants, so baptism should be done for infants too!

 

Not really! first of all, Paul relates baptism to spiritual circumcision (a circumcision not performed by human hands); spiritual circumcision applies to adults (people who can understand its true meaning).
 More importantly, circumcision was ethnic in nature and therefore applies by birth, baptism is not ethnic.



 

What if someone is already baptised as infant, should he be re-baptised?
Again, the answer is NO. Once someone has entered a covenantal relationship with God, he need not enter the covenant again. God honours the covenant that He makes, even if man doesn’t. Consider someone who got married as a child. Once they grow up and want to continue with the marital covenant that they made unknowingly, they need not get married again.

 

So, to conclude, Baptism is a wonderful rite, that binds us with Christ. It is a sign that confirms to us that we belong to Christ and He to us. He is faithful to the covenant even when we are not. As Paul said, “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord". We are one!

 

---

P.S. https://www.lexico.com/definition/covenant

I'm "The" Way

One question that people often ask, specially in India, when you tell them that you must put your faith in Jesus and change your lifestyle, then God will forgive you of your sins, is that:

"Why only Jesus? If I don't put my trust in Jesus, then will God not forgive me? This isn't fair!"

Lets look at Revelation 20, starting at verse 11.
Revelation 20, is a prophesy of a day which is going to come, when God will judge everyone who was ever born.

11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them.

12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened.Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.

13 The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done.

14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death.

15 Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire. 

Verse 13 is the key verse (see the line in Bold). So, the answer to the question that people often ask, is "NO, you don't have to put your trust in Jesus, God will judge everyone based on their deeds."

As much as this sounds fair, let me assure you that it is in fact a very very very bad news.

Mathew 5 verse 48 (also 1 Peter 1: 15)

⁴⁸ Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. 

This verse simply means that your deeds 'must' be as perfect as God is perfect.
Now anyone who ever had a perfectionist spouse, can immediately understand the intensity of this demand :)

For others, let me explain.

Bible says, God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.  (1 John 1:5b)

If you consider a white sheet of paper as an example of being perfect, then a single tiny dot will make it imperfect. Similarly any sin, howsoever small, will make your deeds and therefore you, imperfect.

And by the way, this example was a little too generous one. In reality, our sheets not just have one or two small dots but it is filled with dots, to the extent that its like scarlet or crimson (Isaiah 1:18)

Psalms 130 : 3 says,

³ If you, Lord, kept a record of sins,
    Lord, who could stand?

When God judges us according to our deeds, none of us can stand justified. Absolutely none!

That is why we need Jesus. He is the only one who never sinned, the only one who was obedient to God even unto death, the only one whose sheet is completely white and without blemish, and he is the only one who took the punishment on behalf of all those who'll put their trust on him.

And those who put their trust in Jesus, they'll be judged NOT based on their own deeds, but on the basis of Jesus' deeds; and will therefore be saved.

So then, this is God's offer, this is His second chance to all of us who are helpless to save ourselves,

"Whosoever, puts their trust in Jesus, and change their lifestyle, will be forgiven, for Jesus' sake."

Let us therefore, beloved, be wise; and accept God's offer before its too late; because Jesus is "the" way...!!!