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We encourage a Berean lifestyle of self-study of the Scriptures at home.
Episodes
Sunday Aug 25, 2019
Sunday Aug 25, 2019
Hello and welcome to season 2 episode 40 of The Berean Manifesto, brought to you by The Ekklesian House. This is Pastor Bill and this episode is “The Hem of Grace.”
We’re going to start with an event from passages in Matthew 9, Mark 5, and Luke 8. I’ve combined what all three Gospels have to say into one text for you. If you’re following along in one of the three and I say something that isn’t in what your reading then you can flip over to one of the other two to find it.
...When Jesus had crossed over again by boat to the other side, a large crowd welcomed him, for they were all expecting him and gathered around him while he was by the sea.
Suddenly one of the synagogue leaders named Jairus, when he saw Jesus, came and knelt down at his feet, pleading, "My only daughter is dying. Come and lay your hands on her so that she can get well and live." So Jesus and his disciples got up and followed him and a large crowd was following and pressing against him.
Just then, a woman suffering from bleeding for twelve years, who had spent all she had on doctors and yet could not be healed by any but only became worse. Having heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched the end of his robe. For she said, "If I just touch his clothes, I'll be made well." Instantly her flow of blood ceased, and she sensed in her body that she was healed of her affliction. At once Jesus realized in himself that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and said, "Who touched my clothes?" His disciples said to him, "You see the crowd pressing against you, and yet you say, 'Who touched me?'" "Someone did touch me," said Jesus. "I know that power has gone out from me." But he was looking around to see who had done this. The woman, with fear and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. Jesus turned to her and said, "Have courage daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be healed from your affliction." She was made well from that moment.
While he was still speaking, people came from the synagogue leader's house and said, "Your daughter is dead. Why bother the teacher anymore?" When Jesus overheard what was said, he told Jairus, "Don't be afraid. Only believe, and she will be saved." He did not let anyone accompany him except Peter, James, and John, James's brother. When they came to the leader's house, he saw the flute players and a commotion-people weeping and wailing loudly. He went in and said to them, "Why are you making a commotion and weeping? Stop crying and leave, the child is not dead but asleep." They laughed at him, but he put them all outside. He took the child's father, mother, and those who were with him, and entered the place where the child was. Then he took the child by the hand and said to her, "Talitha koum" (which is translated, "Little girl, I say to you, get up"). Her spirit returned to her and immediately the girl got up and began to walk. (She was twelve years old.) At this they were utterly astounded. Then he gave them strict orders that no one should know about this and told them to give her something to eat. But, news of this spread throughout the whole area…
It’s a great passage where we see two miracles that were performed, one by Jesus and the other by faith in Jesus. We’re going to unpack this passage, but to get the full scope of what I’m wanting you to see here we have to start by highlighting this peculiarity we find in Mark’s account here. Especially given the accepted origin of this book actually being the account of Peter, but recorded and translated by Mark as Peter told him what to write since Mark wasn’t actually one of the 12 Apostles that travelled with Jesus.
Whenever a New Testament writer breaks with his style and throws a curveball it should stand as a huge flag that what your reading shouldn’t be taken at face value, but needs further examination. For instance, in the Gospel of John, he goes to great lengths to emphasize that the timeline of Christ’s life wasn’t important, but that the miracles and work of God was what deserved attention. So when reading the Gospel of John and he starts out chapter 12 with, “Six days before the Passover…” your ears should perk up and you should understand that something of specific note above and beyond just a retelling of Jesus’ life is being communicated.
Peter and Mark have done this in chapter 5 verse 41 when while writing in Greek they then choose to record certain words in what would have been the common tongue of Jesus day instead, and then we get a little note from Mark himself, Mark 5:41, “[41] Then (Jesus) took the child by the hand and said to her, "Talitha koum,” then we get Mark’s note, “(which is translated, "Little girl, I say to you, get up").” This word, “Talitha” is a term of endearment that mothers would use when waking up their children. Mark’s translation isn’t exactly wrong when he translates it as little girl since the implied subject of what Jesus is saying is a female child. However, that’s when we go back to asking ourselves why Peter would instruct Mark to write the phrase in the original Aramaic instead of just translating it to Greek. Strictly translated, “Talitha,” means “the fresh” and in common usage it would be the equivalent of calling someone a lamb.
There’s this concept when studying literature called foreshadowing, where the author crafts an event or the words of a character as an insight for the reader about something that is going to happen later in the story. In theology we do the same thing, but we call it types and shadows. The belief is that God maneuvers events to take place in a certain way as a testimony or confirmation of something bigger God has planned for the future. This way after the bigger event we can look back and see that confirmation of God’s work.
I see this in play here where Jairus represents all of Judaism that hadn’t abandoned God and the revelation given through Torah, Jesus represents God (clever that since He is God), the crowd at the beginning of the passage represents the Jews that followed Jesus, the woman with the issue of blood represents the gentiles, the flute players at the funeral represent the Pharisees and Sadducees, with the mourners representing the Jews suffering under the leading of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
Lastly, the little girl represents two different things. When the faithful Jews, represented by Jairus, came crying out to God the little girl represents the dying of, in the hearts of men at least, the religious inspiration given to mankind through the Torah. Jesus turning to follow Jairus back to his house is God sending Jesus to be born. At this same time, or about this same time the mourners are on their way to deliver the word to Jairus that they’ve given up on God being able to help. In this crucial moment of Jesus being rejected by the chosen and the orthodox, the unclean, un-chosen, and un-orthodox reach out in worship and grab hold of the hem of His clothing. Jesus arrives at the house and kicks the mourners and flute players out. We all remember this right? When Jesus made a whip and started beating people and flipping tables and officially rejected the religious leaders of the day from the plan. It goes beyond that though, Jesus took a small contingent of faithful in with Him to resurrect the religious inspiration. Upon Jesus speaking to the girl she then takes on the representation of the Gospel, which is the resurrected inspiration of the Torah resurrected through the triumph of The Resurrected Lamb, Jesus.
That exact moment in time when the woman touched the hem of Jesus garment, that was the beginning of grace for her. She knew it was illegal for her to even be in public with her condition, and the penalty for touching a clean person while in her condition, not to mention one considered a rabbi, was death. Jesus response was mercy. When we first come to God we all know there is a penalty to be paid. We feel it, we feel the weight of it. We, like her, aren't paying a penalty for anything other, really, than for something that happened to us. We were born into this.
Our grace begins at that moment that we first reach out and take hold of the hem of His garment. There’s only one way to God, and when we reach out to Him to start our journey of grace He always responds with mercy.
This is Pastor Bill saying, “Until next time…”
Sunday Aug 18, 2019
Sunday Aug 18, 2019
Hello and welcome to season 2 episode 39 of The Berean Manifesto, brought to you by The Ekklesian House. This is Pastor Bill and over the next 10 minutes or so we are going to be talking about stones; stumbling, mill, and corner.
There’s this event in the Gospels where Jesus is riding a donkey into Jerusalem and a very large crowd spread their clothes on the road while others cut palm branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The disciples began to loudly praise God for all the miracles they had seen saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven!” Some of the Pharisees told Jesus to rebuke His disciples and He answered, “I tell you, if they were to keep silent, the stones would cry out.” Then the crowds, which were there when He called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead, who went ahead of Jesus and those who followed began to shout, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord – The King of Israel! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
That phrase “Hosanna” is the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew words:
H3467 יָשַׁע yâsha‛ yaw-shah' A primitive root; properly to be open, wide or free, that is, (by implication) to be safe; causatively to free or succor: - X at all, avenging, defend, deliver (-er), help, preserve, rescue, be safe, bring (having) salvation, save (-iour), get victory.
And
H4994 נָא nâ' naw A primitive particle of incitement and entreaty, which may usually be rendered I pray, now or then; added mostly to verbs (in the imperative or future), or to interjections, occasionally to an adverb or conjugation: - I beseech (pray) thee (you), go to, now, oh.
This is what the crowd would yell at the coronation of a new Israeli king as he would ride into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey while they cut palm branches and laid them on the ground in the donkey’s path, “Yâsha‛ nâ'.” There was also an anti-Roman militant group in Jerusalem at the time who had taken up “Yâsha‛ nâ'” as the rallying cry for their movement.
However, the portion of this passage that really pertains to this episode is when Jesus says, “if they were to keep silent, the stones would cry out.” This isn’t the only time we see this type of sentiment in the Gospels, in Matthew 3 John the Baptist is preaching repentance and baptizing people in the river. This message cuts crosswise of everything that the religious leaders were teaching and undermines thousands of years of ceremony. John was teaching that ALL should repent and turn to God to prepare for the arrival of the Messiah. The religious line of the day was that gentiles couldn't repent and turn to God, for no other reason than that they were born gentile. And Jews, well, they didn't believe they needed the repentance that John was preaching because of the yearly sacrifices covering sin and because they were descendants of Abraham and heirs of the covenant that God made with Abraham.
Now the Pharisees and Sadducees were two groups who historically were in constant contention about the finer details of Jewish theology, but both agreed that John and Jesus were off base. John sees some well known members of each group get in line to be baptized and he openly rebukes them, "Matthew 3:7-9 [7]..."Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? [8] Therefore produce fruit consistent with repentance. [9] And don't presume to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I tell you that God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones.” That word “stones” in both scriptures is the Greek word:
G3037 λίθος lithos lee'-thos Apparently a primary word; a stone (literally or figuratively): - (mill-, stumbling-) stone.
A stumbling stone is pretty self explanatory, there’s a stone in the dirt of the path and it trips you. A millstone is a large round stone that rests in a shallow basin with a rod through it to a center kind of like the wheel on a car, but with a rod sticking all the way out. And that rod is connected to a vertical rod. It's set up so that when you push the horizontal rod the stone rolls around the circle of the basin. You throw grain or whatever you want to crush in there in the path of the stone, and as the stone rolls it crushes it. In both these scriptures, the reference is the un-orthodox and the Gentiles.
To the point of view of the Pharisees and Sadducees, the Gentiles and anyone who didn't agree with their ultra-orthodox interpretations of the law was considered a stumbling stone - tripping up the faithful, or a millstone grinding away at the truth. Isaiah prophesied about these two groups and their relationship to Jesus in Isaiah 8:13-15 read, ”[13] You are to regard only the LORD of Armies as holy. Only he should be feared; only he should be held in awe. [14] He will be a sanctuary; but for the two houses of Israel, he will be a stone to stumble over and a rock to trip over, and a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. [15] Many will stumble over these; they will fall and be broken; they will be snared and captured.”
When John says, "God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham," and when Jesus says, “if they were to keep silent, the stones would cry out,” you should get a mental image not of John or Jesus gesturing down into the edges of the river or the road where there were physical stones on the ground, but know that they are talking about you and I.
I am a stone that they were talking about there. Most of you are stones that John and Jesus were talking about there. Not born an orthodox Jew, not legally qualified to walk in the blessings of Abraham. But God... But Jesus... Through the redemptive work of Christ; I have been, you have been, or could become. We have been raised up to the status of Children of Abraham. We have been raised up to heirs of the covenant that God started with Abraham that was finished through Christ on the Cross.
This whole concept goes a step further when we consider Psalm 118:19-24, “[19] Open the gates of righteousness for me; I will enter through them and give thanks to the LORD. [20] This is the LORD's gate; the righteous will enter through it. [21] I will give thanks to you because you have answered me and have become my salvation. [22] The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. [23] This came from the LORD; it is wondrous in our sight. [24] This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” That stone, the one that the builders rejected, that’s Jesus. The builders there being the Jewish religious leadership during Jesus time.
We know this passage is about Jesus because Jesus is quoted as referencing Himself using this passage in Matthew 21, Mark 12, and Luke 20 after telling the parable about a landowner who planted a vineyard and entrusted it to farmers to care for. The owner sent multiple servants to collect the fruit from the vineyard and the farmers abused and killed them. Finally, the landowner sent his son thinking they would surely respect him. The farmers seized the son, threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. You’re intelligent people, but I’m not going to assume you caught all the hidden references there. The Landowner is God. The vineyard is the divine inspiration of God given to mankind in the Torah; Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The farmers are the biological descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who rejected and slaughtered the prophets sent to them. Then doing the same to the son of the landowner, the son of God, Jesus. In Matthew 21:43-44 Jesus lays it out for those rejecting Him, “[43] Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruit. [44] Whoever falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will shatter him.”
We as Christians, heirs of His mantle are the stones who are the descendants of Abraham. Like Christ, we are, “a stone to stumble over and a rock to trip over,” we lead people to The Stone that breaks their walls to pieces and sets them free.
This is Pastor Bill saying, “Until next time…”
Sunday Aug 11, 2019
Sunday Aug 11, 2019
Sunday Aug 04, 2019
Sunday Aug 04, 2019
Hello and welcome to season 2 episode 37 of The Berean Manifesto, brought to you by the Ekklesian House. This is Pastor Bill and over the next 10 minutes or so we are going to finish up our Armor of God series with the final piece of the armor. What is, in my opinion, the most important piece, and when talking about the Armor of God the piece that is left off of most lists; persistence of prayer. It’s Ephesians 6:18 “[18] Pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request, and stay alert with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints.”
For me, prayer is a very private, intimate, expression of my faith and an act of worship. Though, I rarely pray outloud in public, prayer occupies my time more than anything else I do. I guess “occupies” isn’t really the appropriate term since prayer continues while I’m doing life. Washing the dishes while praying, driving down the road - praying, writing this podcast - praying, my deep is constantly reaching out to The Deep.
In his commentary on the armor of God, R.A. Finlayson emphasizes the importance of prayer to the armor saying, “We are (to think of prayer as) that which conditions the right use of the whole armor. Without prayer we cannot gird ourselves for the conflict, but are cumbered as with loose robes. Without prayer we cannot have that purification of motives, that rectification of life, which the conflict demands. Without prayer we cannot have swift-footedness in carrying the gospel. Without prayer we shall not have faith to ward off the enemy’s darts. Without prayer we shall not be able to lift our head in the assurance of our salvation. Without prayer we shall be unskillful in the use of the Word. Constant use and prayer, then—that will keep the helmet from being dulled, the sword from being rusty.” According to Finlayson, prayer is not only the most important piece of the armor of God but without it, the armor is made ineffectual.
When we talk about prayer there’s a certain level of unknown that most people struggle with. It’s understandable given how unnatural it feels at first to talk to someone you’ve never met, can’t see, and is so fundamentally different than us that His full nature is unfathomable for the human mind. However, we can’t allow the unease of the flesh to lead to doubt. James 1 tells us that when we ask God for something we should do so, “[6] ...in faith without doubting. For the doubter is like the surging sea, driven and tossed by the wind. [7] That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord, [8] being double-minded and unstable in all his ways.” The upside there being if we find a way to overcome our doubt of God then we are no longer being double-minded and unstable in our prayers.
It’s also important, as Jesus illustrates in Luke 18, to make sure that our faith isn’t in our own righteousness with our prayers only emphasizing that point. In Luke 18:10-14 He says, “[10] "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. [11] The Pharisee was standing and praying like this about himself: 'God, I thank you that I'm not like other people-greedy, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. [12] I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of everything I get.' [13] "But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even raise his eyes to heaven but kept striking his chest and saying, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner!' [14] I tell you, this one went down to his house justified rather than the other; because everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted."
In Matthew 6 Jesus advises “[6] But when you pray, go into your private room, shut your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. [7] When you pray, don't babble like the Gentiles, since they imagine they'll be heard for their many words. [8] Don't be like them, because your Father knows the things you need before you ask him.”
Speaking to the persistence of prayer, in Luke 18, Jesus tells us another parable “[2] "There was a judge in a certain town who didn't fear God or respect people. [3] And a widow in that town kept coming to him, saying, 'Give me justice against my adversary.' [4] "For a while he was unwilling, but later he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or respect people, [5] yet because this widow keeps pestering me, I will give her justice, so that she doesn't wear me out by her persistent coming.'" [6] Then the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. [7] Will not God grant justice to his elect who cry out to him day and night? Will he delay helping them? [8] I tell you that he will swiftly grant them justice. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
It’s really not that complicated. It’s really this pretty simple thing.
Prayer should be private, humble, consistent, without doubt, and most of all persistent.
This is Pastor Bill saying, “Until next time…”