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Matthew 7:4
Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye? The seventeenth verse of Leviticus nineteen carries the commandment to rebuke our stray brother. In English it is written in this manner, "You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him (Leviticus 19:17), but I would dare say that much in this verse is lost in translation, so here is a literal Hebrew from it, ‘You shall not hate your brother in your heart but you shall exhort him properly and not bear sin because of him’. The Hebrew is difficult to translate because it carries two conjugated forms of the verb exhort, that is why I added the word ‘properly’. From this verse Jewish sages have derived two commandments; 1-To exhort one’s brother; 2-To not shame one’s brother. Here is how it works. Sages have wondered about the twice conjugation of the verb exhort and have connected it to the last part of the instruction which warns us about carrying sin because of our brother. Here is the commentary of the Baal Shem Tov about it, ‘The double expression teaches us how one should approach the difficult commandment of criticizing others. First (the first expression) reprove yourself! You cannot properly reprove others if you are arrogant and think you are perfect. You must recognize your own shortcomings so that you will feel empathy for the sinner. When he recognizes that you feel for him he is more likely to accept your criticism. After you have examined yourself, then (the second expression) can you go and reprove your fellow’. It is very easy to get carried away in self-righteous indignation about others. Sometimes debates turn into arguments and we forget that the person in front of us is not just an opinion but a person made in the image of God and worthy of dignity. In our efforts to vindicate ourselves in our own eyes or those of others we may win an argument at the cost of shaming our brother through insults or making him loose face. What have we won then? We may have won the dispute but as we lay sin upon him, we also lay it upon our own soul! The interpretation of the Baal Shem Tov of this Levitical instruction falls completely in line with the words of the Master in our attitudes towards other’s weaknesses when He says , Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye (Matthew 7:3-5). How different was the attitude of the Master, instead of shaming and laying sin upon us, he justified us and carried our shame upon Himself. A tall order, but the example we ought to follow!
1 Comment
2 Timothy 3:1-2
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, In Leviticus 19 the first commandment referring to holiness is to ‘fear’ one’s parents. This is not the same commandment as the one in Exodus which says to ‘honor’ one’s parents. Even the Hebrew text reflects this difference. One does not contradict the other but like with God, it represents two aspects of parental relationship. The Talmud teaches that it is because we should honor our mothers and fear our fathers. The mention in Exodus also is different from the one in Leviticus as it is the first commandment with a promise attached to it; it says, ‘"Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you (Exodus 20:12). In its semantic context this commandment is about caring and providing for parents especially in their old age. Paul also used that word to ‘honor’ referring to the support of those who labor to teach Torah in the congregation (1 Timothy 5:17). In Leviticus, the word ‘fear’ is like the one used when referring to the ‘fear of the Lord’, which mainly means to have a wrong disposition towards disobedience. If holiness is to be ‘set-apart’, then, in our western society at least, reverence towards parents certainly sets us aside from mainstream which has adopted very ungodly attitudes towards parents. We often talk about teenagers being unloving and disrespectful towards us parents, but what kind of relationship do they hear us having towards our aged parents, their grand-parents? Do we speak of them with respect and reverence or do we mock them? Do we willingly and gratefully endorse the duty of caring for them or do we complain about it as if it were an unfair burden and throw them in a senior center where they mostly end their days feeling rejected and unwanted? When we speak bad of our aged parents, in front of our children, we must remember that we model in front of the generation that is charge of caring for us. Of course there is the issue of religion: what if my parents are ungodly? I do not see in this commandment an absolution because of parent’s lack of godliness. What if God stopped caring for us because we were sometimes ungodly, which we are most of the time? Sometimes religion and faith differences separate parents and children. When this happens, it shows how little of God people have in spite of their claims of faith. People often disrespect each other because of faith differences but theological differences do not have to keep us from being civil. The sad thing is that sometimes parents in this world are just not worthy of the title ‘parents’. There are those who are mean violent and abusive. Of course, these are different cases, but maybe they are themselves emulating the sample they received from their parents and whereas we are not require to like or be near or in contact with them, we are required compassion and to pray for them. We can also break the vicious cycle by modeling a godly attitude of parenthood to our children. Romans 12:2
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Holiness: God ordained separation. Righteousness: right standing with God through obedience. The two concepts are closely related but different. Caiphas who was a holy man by virtue of his office lacked in righteousness in that his heart was corrupt and full of malicious disobedience. Another person to look at is Samson. Samson was to be set-apart (holy) as a Nazarite from the womb like John the Immerser (John 13:7). This meant that he was not to have contact with carcasses, drink wine or cut his hair. Samson inherited this status of holiness/separation by virtue of the word of God before he was born, but he did not inherit the spirit of obedience without tribulations and suffering (Acts 14:22;Hebrews 5:8). Some of the records of Samson’s life tell us of him drinking wine with the Philistines, handling the jaw-bone of a dead animal as a weapon, eating honey out of the carcass of a lion and finally allowing his hair to be cut. These things would have been alright for any other individual but because of his status of Nazarite they were wrong for Samson and were imputed to him as sins for which he had to repent before regaining his right standing with the Father. While in disobedience, all his effort proved futile and even caused trouble, but when subject to the boundaries of holiness that God had blessed him with, Samson succeeded to deliver his people. It seems that Yeshua Himself was very careful to observe these principles (John 5:19, 30). In Judaism the Messiah is referred to as: the Righteous One. Once we enter the sheepfold of Messiah, we also become holy/set-apart and this holiness/’set-apartness’ is defined by certain rules of behavior. It is like if you were to rent my downstairs’ apartment. You would be set-apart and allowed to live there by virtue of my acceptance, but you would also have to obey the rules of the contract. In the case of a believer, the rules are also clearly defined and they range from the ritual to the ethical. Some of these rules are to revere parents; to keep the Sabbaths; to shun idolatry in all its forms; to respect temple procedures (non-applicable at this time); to tithe; to be honest in business, compassionate of the weak and not pervert judgment (using right weights and measures); to not indulge in gossip and slander; to assist a person in danger; not yield to hatred; to exhort a brother or sister, to not harbor vengeance, to not cross breed, commit adultery or indulge in gluttony; to not practice the occult or prostitution, to rise before the elderly and to love the stranger in the land (Leviticus 19). Some of these seem to be tall order for many of us, but I believe that ‘grace’ refers to the power Abba has given in striving to obey and live by virtue and not by instinct (Romans 1:5). May we avail ourselves of that grace always that as Messiah was to us the image of the Father, we may also show Messiah to this straying world. 1 Peter 1:14-16
As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy." The idea of mankind reaching holiness can be quite a daunting conundrum. First we are told that we are in a constant unalterable sinless state (Jeremiah 17:9), but then we are required to be holy (Leviticus 11:44). Could it be that holiness is not about being sinless? What could or should a man do to attain holiness? Let’s use the Sabbath for example. Why is it holy; why is it sanctified? Does it possess any properties than differs it from the other days of the week? Does the Sabbath day have two suns or two moons? Does creation stops its work on that? Is there some sort of ‘magic’ that fills the air on the Sabbath day? No! The Sabbath day is a day like any other day; it is holy/sanctified on the sole authority of the Word of God who made it holy by His commandment to be holy. The words ‘holy’, ‘hallowed’, or from the Latin root ‘sanctified’ all come from the Hebrew ‘kadosh/kodesh’ which present the idea of being ‘set-apart’ or ‘separated’. The Sabbath day is separated from all the other days of the week solely because of a command that proceeded out of the mouth of the Almighty. It is holy simply because God said so. In the same manner therefore we are separated by the commandments of God. The injunction to be holy is mentioned as the conclusion of the dietary laws in Leviticus eleven. No other reason, health or otherwise is given to us in the Torah for following these food rules but to be holy. I am not saying that holiness is solely in following the dietary laws, but on a general level someone’s culture and even of fellowship boundaries are largely defined by what they eat and how they eat. In the same manner our dietary laws often separate (sanctify) us from society at large who is not always biblically particular about they eat. The solution the holiness conundrum could then be found in the most common of Jewish Hebrew blessings which refers to the Almighty as the One, ‘asher kideshanu bemitsvotav’ meaning: ‘Who has sanctified/separated us by His commandments’. Then, all that makes us holy is not some form of ascetic lifestyle, an ability to extreme self-denial or the performance of miracles, but simply obedience the commandments uttered by the mouth of God., and His commandments are given to us because of His grace and mercy, not because of our works or worth. Simplifying the equation further, we are holy solely because of His mercy and grace. Romans 1:20
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. The eighteenth chapter of Leviticus is the main chapter defining the rules for sexual conduct. If we set the lifestyle recommendations of this chapter by today’s accepted moral we would find ourselves at odds with the Bible. Actually, these words sound more like the moral rhetoric we would find in what we call ‘backward’ societies, or Islamic countries. Of course we can rationalize by saying, “Oh, but these were different times”, but is that right? Is the Bible right for then, and wrong for today? Is God just “backwards”, not in sync’ with the times and therefore should be ignored? I dare say that at the top of the reasons for modern western social problems is failure to comply with His commandments. Along with outrightly disobeying the Commandments, it is possible to also be what Jewish sages have termed a ‘reprobate by permission’. Here is how it works. Not every action is mentioned in Torah, but what is not mentioned is inferred by the intent of the commandments. For example, pornography, female homosexuality and polygamy are not mentioned or referred to as wrong in the Torah, so those who adhere to strict ‘sola scriptura” (refusing any teaching that is not in the written form of the Bible itself) often conclude that these things are not inherently wrong. Many a Bible teacher strays because of this. These things are only mentioned in the writings of sages and scholars who have studied the Bible and found that these were wrong. This shows that we cannot just study by ourselves. We need the help of those whom God has anointed as teachers and who have understood not only the letter of the Commandment but also the intent. This represented much of Yeshua’s teachings such as in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5,6,7). From killing He helped us understand that the wrong thing was not the actual action of killing but the anger in our heart that was wrong. Same with adultery, he showed us that the intentional looking was wrong, not just the action. The first sign of trying to rationalize the Torah against the voice of the conscience is when we ask “Is it really forbidden in the Word?” We must beware of that tendency. In our modern times we have learned to look at the Father as this ‘lovey-fuzzey chocolate-candy’ person who understands and is not what people have termed ‘under the law’ or a ‘legalist’ (by the way, what is the difference between legalism and faithful obedience?) We picture God as One who ‘understands’ that we are not that bad of a person inside even if we disobey; that He sees the ‘goodness’ and the ‘real’ us and does not really define us by our actions (well, He sees the ‘real’ us alright!). The story of Nadab and Abihu seems to tell us otherwise (Leviticus 10), and Yeshua’s epistles to the seven Asian congregations also seems to give us quite a few stipulations for His personal approval (Revelations 2 and 3). When He comes, He will not judge us by today’s twisted so-called modern concepts of morality, righteousness, or even political correctness, but by the commandments of His Words that we are responsible to know. Hebrews 9:24
For Messiah has entered … into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Each year in the Fall Leviticus teaches about a day of fasting and repentance called: ‘Yom HaKippurim’ or, ‘The Day of Atonements’ (Leviticus 23:26-32).. This day is usually observed by the Jewish people but not by the Christians. On that day in Israel, the whole country stands still. It’s a day of fasting, rest and prayers. All shops are closed and the only traffic allowed is emergency vehicles. Fall in Israel has the most comfortable weather and it is common on the evening of Yom Kippur for people to stroll down for a walk with their children in the middle of the empty highways and streets. The first ordinances of Yom Kippur are given us in chapter sixteen, within the context of ritual purity and on the heels of the incident with Nadab and Abihu. This tells us that Yom Kippur is about purity and atonement in order to approach the Almighty in the Tabernacle or later on, the Temple. Since neither the Tabernacle nor the Temple is present today, one may legitimately ask, ‘What does this have to do with me today?’ Also, the fact that Yeshua is presented as our once for all atonement offering, we may feel that like this ceremony in at this time obsolete. These are legitimate questions, but they may deserve a little more studying. First, the festivals of Leviticus twenty-three were never identified as the ‘Feasts of the Jews’ as is often done in the Gospels, but rather as the ‘Feasts of the Lord’ (Leviticus 23:2, 44). A Jew is technically a descendant of Judah the son of Jacob, so the term ‘Feast of the Jews’ only relates to the fact that these were celebrated in Jerusalem of Judea. All the inhabitants of Israel had to go or send representatives to Jerusalem for these Feasts, and they have been ordained as a perpetual ordinance for those who follow the God of Israel. Ritual purity relates to the fact that we are human, so as long as we are in this physical biological state, we are still impure. The fact that Yeshua died to redeem us from that impurity and even to take our sins upon Him does not negate the fact that we are still today in this dimension of sin and impurity. While we are declared sinless and pure before God through the atonement/covering of Yeshua, our actual experience of reality is one marred with imperfection. To say otherwise is to be oblivious to reality. Also to question the remembrance of the facts that brought us back into relationship with the Father is like a husband asking, ‘If I married her, it seems obvious that I love her; why does she need to hear it again … and again?” Or “Why do we have to bother with anniversaries?” Paul himself mentions about this Yom Kippur fast (Acts 27:9), and he was known for observing the Festivals (Acts 24:14). Again people may have to reconsider what they we have been taught about the relationship of Yeshua’s believers with the Hebrew Scriptures. Ephesians 2:12-13 (C.J.B.).
… You were estranged from the national life of Isra'el. You were foreigners to the covenants embodying God's promise. You were in this world without hope and without God. (13) But now, you who were once far off have been brought near through the shedding of the Messiah's blood. We are in the ninth century BCE. Joram the son of Ahab rules in a Samaria besieged by Ben-Hadad the Aramean king. This is the same Ben-Hadad who sent Naaman to Israel to be healed of leprosy (2 Kings 5). During a siege people living in villages and encampments around the city took refuge within the walls inside. Not all the people though as according to the Torah, lepers had to live in special quarters outside the city (Leviticus 13:46), and even in a case of siege, they were not allowed inside. Once all the people were in, all the invading armies had to do was to cut off food and water supplies. Famine and starvation followed and the city fell like a ripe fruit. The siege induced famine in Samaria was desperate 2 Kings 7). Prices sky-rocketed and as was prophesied, people cannibalized their young trying to survive (Deuteronomy 28:53). Outside the gate were four lepers literally caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one side a city that rejected them, on the other side the Syrian armies. Some people have suggested that those four lepers were Gehazi, Elishah’s servant who contracted leprosy by lusting after Naaman’s rewards (2 Kings 5:27) and his four sons. One day these lepers said to themselves, "Why are we sitting here until we die? If we say, 'Let us enter the city,' the famine is in the city, and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we die also. So now come, let us go over to the camp of the Syrians. If they spare our lives we shall live, and if they kill us we shall but die" (2 Kings 7:3-4). So they arose at twilight to go to the camp of the Syrians. But when they came to the edge of the camp of the Syrians, behold, there was no one there. … And when these lepers came to the edge of the camp, they went into a tent and ate and drank, and they carried off silver and gold and clothing and went and hid them. Then they came back and entered another tent and carried off things from it and went and hid them. Then they said to one another, "We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news(same word used in Hebrew for Gospel: Besora). If we are silent and wait until the morning light, punishment will overtake us. Now therefore come; let us go and tell the king's household" (2Kings 7:5-9). Lepers are the disfranchised of society and this story reminds of the Master’s special concern for lepers. Crossing Samaria on His way to Jerusalem ten lepers cried out to the Master saying, "Yeshua, Adon, have mercy on us." We are all lepers in the sight of God and as the four lepers in our story, we have cried to the Son of David for help and found the good news of God’s victory over the enemy of our soul. We are now responsible to share it with all, even with those who showed no mercy to us. John 3:3
Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God. Finding connections with an ostracized declared-clean leper, we follow his path of rehabilitation in the presence of the Almighty and amidst the community. One of the last stages is immersion, commonly called in Greek: baptismo. Our sages have always understood ritual immersion as an illustration of being born-again. The whole idea was an illustration of returning into the maternal waters in order to be reborn. In a sense, this pronounced clean leper shaved from head to toe looked like a new-born baby and was going to immerse in baptismal/rebirth waters (Leviticus 14:9). In ancient Israel, the idea of the born-again ritual immersion was used as a mode of proselytization, for people desiring to become Jewish. The idea is that they went in the water as gentiles and came out the other side reborn as Jewish, as ‘members of the commonwealth of Israel’ (Ephesians 2:12). When Yeshua therefore tells Nicodemus, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God (John 3:3)," He actually tells the great teacher of Israel that unless he goes through a procedure of conversion to Judaism, he cannot be a part of the Kingdom of God. That explains the shocked teacher’s answer, ‘"How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born (John 3:4)?" By this he meant, ‘How can I convert to Judaism if I am already Jewish? To which Rabbi Yeshua wisely answers, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit (John 3:5-6), or in other words, “It is not enough to be well bred; you must also have an immersion of repentance from sin!” This was the reoccurring theme in both John the Baptist and Yeshua’s teaching (Matthew 3:9-11). Peter compares the Great Flood as a baptism of the whole earth, and Paul speaks of the crossing of the Red Sea as the baptism of Israel (1 Peter 3:20-21;1 Corinthians 10:2). We have to be reborn in order to enter God’s new world! As the season of Passover approaches, as we think of our forefathers (biological or by adoption) crossing the Red Sea, may we also put away the old leaven of the old worldly culture. May we think of all the ways we can leave the ‘Egyptian’ behind and enter the Promised Land of His will and Kingdom as new reborn creations for His glory! Mark 1:41
Moved with pity, he (Yeshua) stretched out his hand and touched him (the leper) and said to him, "I will; be clean." Rabbi Yeshua touched the leper, declared him healed and therefore cleaned, then told him to go through the purification process as instructed by Moses (Mark 1:41-44). Doing so, Yeshua purposely made Himself ritually unclean thus fulfilled the Messianic hope, the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6). The ritual to declare a healed leper cleansed is very mystical and the Torah does not give us any explanation to help us understand it. We are therefore left to define it by association. The ritual required that a bird should be killed over a vessel of water thus creating a blood and water mixture. Another live bird was tied up with a scarlet yarn and bound with hyssop to a cedar wood board. The entire package was then dipped into the clay pot of blood and water. The priest then sprinkled the leper seven times with the blood and water mixture, then released the live bird who did not need any more encouragement to quickly flee the scene. It was not finished. The priest then had to shave the healed/cleansed leper from head to toe and anoint him with the same markings as those of a priest. It is only after our now shaved and anointed man went to offer the required offering at the Temple that he was restored to full fellowship in the community (Leviticus 14). Looking at this whole ritual, it is hardly possible to miss the messianic symbolism. The live bird tied to a piece of wood with a tie of red (blood) yarn then dipped in a vessel of blood and water of a dead bird (Messiah shed blood and water from his side after His death), and then released to fly to the heavens, speaks so clearly of the death and resurrection of Messiah. This event creates in us a rebirth represented by the totally shaved man, and an anointing into the priesthood call promised through of Moses seen in the particulars of the oil application. Biblical leprosy representing death, corruption and sin, the issue of the leper is therefore a good illustration of how we are to God in our unredeemed state. Yeshua, as he touched the lepers took upon himself our sins and iniquity. The Messiah became a leper as the Talmud points out. He then subjected Himself to stripes and his bloody body was tied to a wood from where he died shedding blood and water to finally rise and ascend to the heavenlies where He sits, interceding for us at the right hand of His and our Father (Luke 24:26). Luke 2:22
And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. In the twelfth chapter of the Book of Leviticus we are told that, 'If a woman conceives and bears a male child, then she shall be unclean seven days. As at the time of her menstruation, she shall be unclean. And on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. Then she shall continue for thirty-three days in the blood of her purifying. She shall not touch anything holy, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying are completed’ (Leviticus 12:2-4). Luke ties this verse to the birth of Messiah when he says, ‘And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord’ (Luke 2:22). Miriam therefore came to make an offering at the end of the days of her purification as was prescribed by Moses and that is when she meets Simeon (Luke 2:25). Luke actually makes sure to tell us how Miriam and Joseph did everything according to the Levitical process. It is important here to note that even though most Biblical texts relate to Miriam’s post-natal state as ‘unclean’ and therefore having to present an offering at the Temple; her condition has nothing to do with moral deficiency or spiritual unworthiness. A woman giving birth actually is at the height of her godliness and righteousness before God. What the Torah refers to as the ritual unclean state is solely the reality of being human and therefore impure before. This ritual uncleanliness is solely Temple related. We are told in the Gospel of Luke that ‘when the time came for their (Miriam and Joseph) purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought him (Yeshua) up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, "Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord") and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, "a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons."’ (Luke 2:22-24). We see in Luke’s rendering of the story that Miriam and Joseph brought "a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons."’, and that is because they could not afford a lamb (Leviticus 12:6-8). Little did young Miriam know, oh how little did she know that whereas she could not afford to bring Lamb to the Temple for her purification, she actually brought to God the ultimate Lamb who would end up purifying not only her, but the whole world with her! |
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