The Life You've Always Wanted: Intro
January 29, 2023Pastor Patrick presented today's introduction to our next series, "The Life You've Always Wanted." A video of the message is here.
This is TimberCreek's week of fasting (Jan 30 - Feb 5). Pull some weeds. Plant some seeds. What will you fast? What will you pray for? What does God want for you?
[Conversation Starters will begin again NEXT WEEK with the start of the next official life groups session.]
I loved Patrick's reference to "the land in between." I kept thinking that the Israelites in the time of Moses must have had all kinds of ideas about their land in between - between a life as a slave and life as free people. In a way, they were quite lucky. God told them directly what to leave behind and what to embrace in the Promised Land. Today, our lists of weeds to pull and seeds to plant are not as clear. Maybe that's why we need to let in the Holy Spirit more. But I get ahead of the game...
Let's look at the word fruit, as in fruits of the Spirit. In the Old Testament, fruit or fruitfull usually refers to literal fruit produced from the vine, the tree, the land, etc. But it also, and firstly, refered to progeny, "be fruitful and multiply," as in reproducing many offspring now and down the line. But the most interesting OT reference to fruit of the vine is in Isaiah 11:1, "Then a shoot will spring up from the stump of Jesse, and a Branch from his roots will bear fruit." Here, Jesus is the ultimate fruit. G. K. Beale suggests that Paul's fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22) harken back to Isaiah's suggesting that in the new creation, the spirit would bear fruits of God's attributes such as righteousness, patience, peace, joy, holiness, and trust in God (Isaiah chapters 32 and 57). Beale also points to Joel 2:28-32.
It's interesting to note that in the Greek, Paul's use of the word fruit is in the singular, not the plural fruits. This suggests that Paul's list contains attributes of one thing, a unified whole, the fruit of the Spirit. It's a package deal.
In TimberCreek parlance: "That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither — whatever they do prospers" (Psalms 1:3). Generally speaking, one good way to judge a religion is by its fruits. We are striving to be good fruit of religion by tapping into the fruit of the Spirit.
When looking up "weeds" in the Torah, among what we commonly think of as weeds, unsightly and blocking progress or beauty, we also find the notion that weeds can be poisonuous to other living things. Enough said.
There are references to fasting in the Torah, none of which use the word fasting. Here are three about Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement (Lev 16:29-31; 23:26-32; Num 29:7). Instead of the word fasting, a phrase is used that was understood to mean fasting in such a context, "afflicting one's soul." Fasting here is part of a cleansing activity; a bit like detoxing.
Another reference is in Exodus to the miraculous fasting of Moses over a 40-day period on Mt. Sinai (Exodus 34:28 and Deut 9:9). No word for fasting is used, but Moses is described as not eating or drinking for 40 days.
An actual word for fasting (tsoom) as we know it finally appears for the first time in the Old Testament, in Judges 20:26. This is part of an interesting story where the Israelites fast before going into battle against the Benjamites, a tribe of their own, because of a rape commited by a Benjamite.
Having jumped a little into the Old Testament beyond the Torah, I've added a high-level view of the entire Old Testament content: here.
Bonus
Look upon your Fear
In Numbers 21: 4-9, a sub-story is told of God sending serpents to kill the Israelites by being bitten. The people ask Moses to intervene, so he asks God what to do. God has Moses build a bronze serpent and instructs the people to look upon it, and when they did, they lived.
It is clear from ANE documents that the wilderness was crawling with venomous snakes. So it wasn't so much that God sent them, but rather that God lifted (temporarily, it seems) His protection of the Israelites from the all-too present dangerous snakes. As far as we know, the Israelites never recognized God's protection, but when that protection was gone, they riled up. When good happens, do we ask "why me?" Rarely. We usually ask "why me?" when bad happens.
Another interesting point here... To get over a fear, look upon it. Face it. Jordan Peterson tells a story of curing a woman's fear of elevators by making her observe one from a distance, then a few steps closer, then closer again until she was no longer afraid of them. Want to get over a fear? Look upon it. Face it. This goes for both irrational (like the elevator story) and rational fears (e.g. fear of "snakes" at work that do exist that would fire you for not agreeing with them).
By the way, the Hebrew word saraph used here for serpent means "fiery" at its roots, so more like "fiery serpent." It probably relates to the burning sensation of a poisonous bite. The same root goes to seraphim, "fiery angel."