Hi folks, I hope you are doing ok, we are meeting on Sunday night at 7.3o for our gathering in the upstairs front bar, you would be very welcome to join us. We have had a bit of a break from the book we have been looking at so it is time to dive back into it, this week the title of the chapter is Reimagining God the Jesus Way. I liked the title already even before I read it.
One of the questions that this chapter faces is when is ‘adapting’ crossing the line and turning the ancient faith and making it unrecognisable. Well, if you think about it, The Jesus moment of Christianity is based upon the Jewish and Israelite tradition and history. The New Testament owns that reality and didn’t try to build a wall to separate the two. This step change of the Old and New testaments is an important reality when it comes to adapting. The New Testament writers respected the history that they came from but they also were not bound by it. Explaining what Jesus was getting up to and what was going on needed new language and a new way to think. New wine can’t be kept in old wine skins.
This chapter goes on to talk about the Torah (first 5 books of the bible) and Paul’s relationship to it and how he challenged it and moved it away from the centre and placed God’s plan for the world in its place, in other words, don’t follow the law… follow Jesus! No wonder Paul had such a tough time of arguing his point. Pete says this is highlighted in two laws, circumcision and eating unclean foods. God commanded Abraham to circumcise himself and his son Isaac and other males in his household, and from then that would be an EVERLASTING covenant! (Genesis 17) Now that is serious!!
The same goes for unclean foods, these laws were given in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 and once again were non negotiable. In fact these laws were the distinguishing features between Jews and Gentiles. Paul argued that these were ‘works’ and not the thing that identified them as children of God, now it was about faith in Jesus. This is a radical shift! Paul reimagines the Torah – he is using wisdom to interpret it to be about Jesus. Paul was sure that the death of Christ was not just for Jews, but for everyone! This was revolutionary. But Pete also argues that maybe Paul tried too hard to make Jesus fit into old ways of scriptural thinking, and gives several examples as to how that was played out.
Another huge shift that comes up in this chapter is how God is viewed… Today we talk about God being everywhere… but In the Old Testament we see that although God is heaven and earth is his footstool (Isa 66:1) We also see that the Old testament also has somewhere to live. and the Old testament makes a big deal over it, first it’s the tabernacle – a tent, and we can read loads of instructions about how it was to be built! After this, when the Israelites had settled in Canaan and the Monarchy was established came the temple and again we read about an elaborate structure… with Gold and everything!! All this represented God’s presence and its where sacrifices were made and where God appeared to the high priest once a year. The Temple was a huge deal!
Pete reminds us that Jesus cleansed the temple, turning over the tables, in John’s account of this story the Temple has outgrown its usefulness, and so the consequences with money changers, there is no sacrifice, with no sacrifice – Judaism would need to do something else – and you take that in remember that Jesus and his crew were Jews! This is a major shift, you will remember that when Jesus is challenged by the authorities as to what right he had to turn them over – Jesus says – Destroy the temple, and in three days build it back up again (2:19). Now that must have sounded mad, as Herod was still building it 46 years and counting!! Now we know that John explains that Jesus was talking about his body… Jesus becomes the temple! So money and sacrifice isn’t needed, neither is the tabernacle or the temple! No wonder people accused Jesus of Blasphemy! And then Paul takes this on again to say that the Spirit of God dwells in all believers… So it moves from a structure to a person and to the person followers…
There are other significant things that we don’t have the space to go into, but it pertains to land and gentiles – but basically it’s that they lost their land and in doing so it had huge consequences for the people of Israel. Exile is a huge deal, it threatened everything and yet paved the way for the way Judaism is today and the birth of Christianity. The other area Pete covers is what place the gentiles would play in this, would they need to follow Jewish custom to become beliers in this new way, well we know the answer to that because we are here to tell that tale.
So some questions:
What foods would you put in room 101?
What modern examples of splits can you think of, that eventually re-united?
How has your view of the presence of God changed?
What issues have made you ask new questions of the Bible?
What does the story of Jesus mean for your understanding of God?
Peace, Rob
Image by <a href=”https://pixabay.com/users/mohamed_hassan-5229782/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=4909103″>mohamed Hassan</a> from <a href=”https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=4909103″>Pixabay</a>
Rob Wylie is the founder of BeachcomberFX and guides its leadership team. He has worked in the North East for over 20 years and has vast experience from various roles he has held. He has a passion for Fresh Expressions of Church and Pioneer Ministry as well as beer, beaches and Miniature Schnauzers.
