My Big Fat Greek Problem

The great philosopher Aristotle is quoted as saying, “If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development.” Stated some 350 years before our Lord walked upon the earth, the foundational wisdom in this statement is still relevant today. I normally don’t put a lot of stock in Greek philosophers because I have my hands full trying to understand biblical wisdom. But in this case I find it ironic that a Greek mind would tell us something so important to our faith. Ironic because it is the Greek mindset that has led us away from the beginnings and development of scriptural faith. Let me try to explain.

I am sure that we all understand that the Jesus we see in pictures, movies, and murals is not the Jesus of scripture. He was not a white man. He did not have long hair. He would not have resembled anything we probably picture in our minds. He certainly did not walk and conduct himself within terms that we are comfortable with. Instead:

• Jesus was Jewish
• Jesus was a Jewish Messiah sent to lost sheep of the House of Israel
• Jesus was raised in a Jewish home that faithfully practiced the Jewish faith
• Jesus was circumcised the eighth day according the Torah (five books of Moses a Hebrew)
• Jesus lived in a Jewish homeland called Israel
• Jesus was from the richest area of Jewish faith in Israel called Galilee
• Jesus was educated by learning Torah as a boy
• Jesus participated in the Jewish feasts as a boy and as a rabbi later in life
• Jesus wore Jewish attire including a Tallit (outer shawl or cloak) Tzitzit (four tassels on the corners of the Tallit) and Tefillin (two straps with boxes worn on the forehead and the left arm near the heart) Each piece a reminder of Torah and essential to the prayer and devotional life of a Jew.
• Jesus observed the Jewish Sabbath
• Jesus was most comfortable with and best received by the Pharisees with who he engaged in debate
• Jesus taught mainly Torah and apart from the Tanakh (Moses, Prophets, and Writings) he had nothing to say
• Jesus’ disciples were all Jewish – 11 from Galilee and Judas from Judea
• Jesus trained his disciples in Torah (his yoke being his interpretation of it)
• Jesus commanded his disciples to go and do the same with Torah in making disciples
  

These are our beginnings and the development of the Christian faith. Do we understand them? This is not exactly true. Actually the beginnings of our faith go all the way back to Abraham who was the first human being that God titled with “Hebrew”. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Twelve Tribes, Moses, David, Elijah, and Elisha were all Jewish. From Moses onward, these patriarchs form the foundation of our faith in living out the Hebrew way of life as defined by God in Torah. Hebrews 11 displays them before us in their acts of faithfulness and Hebrews 12 tells us that these are the ones who constitute the great cloud of witnesses that we now walk before in our faith journey. In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul tells a gentile church, that “our fathers” experienced the very salvation and baptism we do and serve as our example. In doing so he emphatically states that a Jewish Israel is our heritage as Gentiles now in Jesus. In Galatians 3, Paul tells us that if we are in Christ, we are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to his promise. Do we understand these beginnings and this sovereign development that God chose to do his redemptive activity within?

Do we understand that some thirty years following Christ’s death on the cross that a zealous Pharisee named Rav Shaul, (Apostle Paul) himself a disciple of the great Rabbi Gamaliel, shares with his beloved disciple Timothy to “continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” These writings from his childhood were the Hebrew scriptures of the Tanakh (Old Testament) and that they were to make him wise in the salvation of Jesus. There were no “New Testament” writings to which Paul could have been referring to. And do we understand that it is these scriptures that the great passage that ensues about inspiration alludes to in “All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable…” Is it possible that the great Hebrew writings and Jewish practices actually have a place in a Christian world beyond stories, allegories, and bits and pieces of wisdom? These are our beginnings and our development that we should observe and understand.

The church labels 78% of its Bible as “Old Testament” implying that it is out-dated and irrelevant. The God of this Old Testament barely resembles the God that is worshipped in most congregations today. In fact most of us breathe a sigh of relief as we deem the Hebrew stuff as non-binding upon us as believers. That nasty law and that angry God have been replaced by grace and a loving Heavenly Father. But is that our beginnings and is that our development? What do we observe and what do we understand in its place? In displacing our roots, ignoring the olive tree we’ve been grafted into, and virtually celebrating our ignorance of all things Jewish from scripture, we have succeeded in creating a whole new faith. It bears little resemblance to the one we read about from our 22% of remaining text. What have we replaced it with? In short we have traded a Hebrew heritage rich in scriptural treasure for a Greek mindset of spirituality and thought. I hope to write more on this later.

I am not suggesting that we convert to Judaism, but I am suggesting that we embrace our beginnings and treasure our development in order to gain insight into the authentic faith brought to us by Yeshua Mashiach, the Hebrew equivalent of Jesus Christ. I am suggesting that the 78% that we consider “Old” is actually the key to understanding the 22% that we believe to be true. And I am strongly suggesting that we are clueless regarding that which we do believe as Christians without understanding the Hebrew framework that it rests upon. I also think that a Greek philosopher was warning us about the consequences of allowing his own Greek world to supplant the beginnings and development of our historic Hebrew faith.