Where Are You Going?
January 21, 2024Pastor Patrick presented today's message, "Where Are You Going?." A video of the message is here. The name of this series is "What Everyone Wants to Know."
As is often the case, I chose an Old Testament Hebrew word that connects with the day's message. Today I chose "path." And the path that this word led me down ultimately came to an "I didn't know that!" moment. Stay with me...
Not only was this word used throughout Patrick's message, it occurs in the scripture he used, specifically in Proverbs 7:25, "Do not let your heart turn to her ways or stray into her paths." The Hebrew word is natheeb (נָתִיב). It derives from an old root meaning to tramp, a beaten path. That struck me as interesting in that we do tend to follow comfortable paths, beating them down, over and over. The word can also refer to people who get on paths like travelers or journeyers. It can also refer to a moral path or path of wisdom.
In Jeremiah 6:16, he mentions "ancient paths." These are the God/Moses instructions given earlier. Jeremiah was warning the Israelites to stay on the path prescribed by God. Sadly, they didn't listen, leading to the Assyrian and Babylonian conquests of Israel.
A similar Hebrew word usually means way but is also translated as road, distance, journey, and manner. This word is derek (דֶּרֶךְ). The phrase "the way of the Lord" commonly appears in the Old Testament, beginning with Genesis 18:19, "I have chosen him so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just."
Similar phrases are used throughout the New Testament. The Greek word for way(/road) is hodos (ὁδός). For example, here are John the Baptist's words in Matthew 3:3, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord." The fact that this can refer to a manner of thinking/deciding is clearly found in Acts 18:25, "He had been instructed in the way of the Lord." Jesus uses the idea in John 14:6, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
And finally, from path to way to the way of the Lord we come to this little "I didn't know that" moment... The early church, the followers of Jesus, were called "Christians" (Χριστιανός) in the New Testament. However, they were more often referred to as "The Way" (Ὁδοῦ) as in Acts 9:1-2, "Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem."
Make sure you're on the right path.
Make sure you're going the right way.
Or as Bruce Almighty could have said it, "Be the Way."
Bonus
Know Before Whom You Stand
Tourists on the steps of the Supreme Court building unknowingly asked a sitting Supreme Court Justice to step aside so they could get a good shot of the building. Know before whom you stand.
In 43 minutes, 1097 people in a Washington DC subway station at rush hour in 2007, walked by Joshua Bell, one of the world's great violinists and one of the biggest names in classical music, playing a Stradivarius violin made in 1713. Of those people, 27 of them threw a total of $52.17 into his violin case. And $20 of that was from one person who recognized him. A mere 7 stopped to listen. Know before whom you stand.
"Know before whom you stand" is a phrase often mounted on a wall in a synagogue near the Ark where the Torah scrolls are kept. It's not Biblical but does come from the second-most holy text in Jewish life, the Talmud. Being in a place of worship, it's typically understood to mean focus on God while there; to strive to personally sense God's presence.
Dennis Prager recently mentioned this practice and phrase on his radio talk show. But he took it even farther. He would say it means: "know that you are before God all the time." God is always watching you, and ultimately you will be judged by Him.
Beginning in Genesis 3:10, there are nearly 400 uses of the word fear (yirah, יִרְאָה) and its roots/equivalents (yare'). It's mostly translated as fear, but also as awesome, extremely, and reverence. Dennis would argue it's more of the latter, reverence or awe, maybe "ultimate respect."
Proverbs 1:7, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction."
Proverbs 9:10, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding."
You know that this notion of someone important watching does, in fact, make you behave better. Do you not "straighten up" when you're driving and spot a police car? How about when the boss enters the room? Or the teacher? Back in the day, swearing on the Bible actually meant something as did a little prayer at the start of the school day.
The overall message here is that believers should know that God is always watching, that He expects good behavior, that you are responsible for knowing what that behavior is via the scriptures, and that you should act accordingly. God thinks this matters; you best think it matters, too.
It turns out that Prager's Fireside Chat last week focused on this topic: Episode 324 — One of the Best Arguments for Why God Is Necessary.
Bonus2
Honor Your Ancestors
There are two people on this planet without whom you would not exist, your biological parents. They, in turn, absolutely required each parent set of theirs to exist. And on back one generation at a time this requirement continues.
Most of us know our family names back a couple generations; grandparents, that is. There is a better than even chance you had a relationship with some of your grandparents. But what about great grandparents? Or great, great grandparents? Can you even name them?
Yet without those people, you would not exist. I recently stumbled onto the chart below. Going back just 400 years (a tiny fraction of the nearly 250,000 years homo sapiens have existed), you have over 4,000 ancestors to whom you owe your life. And as the chart points out at the bottom, you should ponder the trials and tribulations of life they surmounted in order for you to ever exist.
Estimates for how many humans (homo sapiens) have ever lived range in the 110 billion and above area. In a very real sense, your having life has depended on everyone that has lived before you, all the way back to Adam and Eve (or however you name the "first" homo sapien).
If 110 billion is roughly correct, about 7% of all humans that have ever lived are alive today!
And homo sapien isn't really your beginning. In reality, it has taken all the 13+ billion years since the Big Bang to get to us today.
This is worth pondering from a gratitude point of view.
