Monday, October 2, 2017
568 - Getting the Point
Spirituality Column No. 568
October 3, 2017
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
Getting the Point
By Bob Walters
Our fall weeknight Bible study
taught by Dr. George Bebawi is a thematic look at the Gospel of Mark. So far we’ve done Origins, the Holy Spirit,
and Marriage as Part I of a two-week look at Mark’s Parables. Consider these nuggets from the lectures …
-- A man was severely wounded by an
arrow but would not accept treatment until he asked many questions about who
shot the arrow, who made the arrow, where it was shot from, what kind of a bow,
etc. The man died because he was so busy with the origin of the arrow he never
got the present help that could have saved his life.
The point? Questions are fine, but our help and salvation
reside in Jesus.
-- We encounter many versions of
the Bible and therefore some folks question its truth, integrity, and origins. It’s simple to track, really; plenty of
information is available and today’s versions always go back to the “original
language was Greek.” Right, but most
people recorded in the Bible would have been speaking some form of Hebrew,
Arabic and in the New Testament predominantly Aramaic, not Greek. The Greek
version would vary in clarity and eloquence based on the various writers’ facility
with Greek. Peter, a Semite, would have
been less linguistically elegant than Luke, a Greek.
The point? Jesus is the key, not
the language.
-- What did we lose in the
Garden, and what did we get back in Jesus?
“We” means humanity – all of us, all created in God’s image. What did we lose and then gain back? God’s Holy Spirit, that’s what. One of the great differences in the Old vs.
New Testaments is the absence, presence and involvement of spirits both good
and bad. Note that in the entire Old
Testament, an “evil spirit” is never thrown out, as we constantly see in the
Gospels. In the OT David “played music
to calm the [evil spirits]” not expel them. And notice that the Holy Spirit – the one that
presumably “hovered over the waters”
in Genesis 1:2 appears rarely in the remainder of the OT, and then only in
certain times of crisis and to the prophets.
The Law, it would seem, obviated the Spirit.
The point?
Jesus conquers evil spirits and connects us to God in the Holy Spirit.
-- What of marriage, the church,
the “bride of Christ,” and all the marriage symbolism in the Bible, Gospels and
parables of Jesus? God created man in
His own image because God wanted a marriage relationship with us. We get stuck thinking “Christianity” is about
sin, punishment, slave-like obedience, guilt, God’s wrath, etc. No, as Christians we must think of our
relationship with God as a trusting, wholesome, loving, pure, and eternal
marriage. An interesting note about the
crown and “garment without seams” Jesus wore to the Cross is that they are traditional
ancient garb (a crown minus the thorns) for a Jewish bridegroom. I do see the thorns as our sins and the whole
cloth as God’s purity. That God saw
Israel as “an adulterous nation” also is a reference to God’s desired marriage relationship
with His chosen people.
The point? Relationship, i.e. love,
is what God, Jesus and the Spirit are all about.
Walters
(rlwcom@aol.com) notes that ScriptureText.com, his “go to”
for foreign scripture translation, has the Bible available in nine different
versions of Greek.
Also
…George’s class – free and open to the public – meets at 6:30 p.m. Wednesdays
at East 91st St. Christian Church, Indianapolis.
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