Be Made New: Relationships
March 24, 2024Pastor Travis Deatherage presented today's message, "Be Made New: Relationships." A video of the message is here.
Pastor Travis mentioned that in Luke 10:27 Jesus says, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and, Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Let's look at the end of that statement: "Love your neighbor as yourself." Where did that first appear in the Bible? Leviticus 19:18b, "love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord." It's the middle verse in the middle book of the Torah.
But what does it mean to love your neighbor as yourself? Is that really possible? If push comes to shove, aren't you to take care of or save yourself first? Prager suggests that a better translation would be "as if he were you" or "who is like you." Actually, it's more like you're both like God - you know - the made in His image thing.
The question boils down to empathy. Do you recognize that the other is like you and have compassion as if he were you? From the opposite point of view, great evil has come from those who do not see others as just like themselves!
And why does the first such phrase say neighbor and later phrases say stranger? I turn to Prager again... Because neighbor is where one starts! The neighbor is far more familiar than a stranger. Goodness starts in the micro (e.g. neighbor) and branches to the macro (e.g. stranger in your country). It's also not "love everyone." That's a platitude that generally leads to naive thinking and ultimately leads to the lack of fighting evil, misplaced pacificism.
Generally speaking, the Torah does not have grand laws, like "Be nice to everyone." The problem with "laws" like that is what does it mean? Truth is, it's basically meaningless. Much better to be specific. Give 10% is much clearer than give charity. Maybe a few big principles are in order, but you get more done with loads of specifics.
One last tidbit... Few people finish the verse when quoting it. It ends with "I am the Lord." What's the significance? Simple, really. This makes it clear that the law is coming from God, and, more importantly, God will know if you've disobeyed - whether anyone else knows or not.
While we're in this area of Leviticus, let's look at the verse before, Leviticus 19:17b which says, "Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in their guilt." Whoops! That sounds like the exact opposite of "don't worry about the speck in your friend's eye." And it is...in a way. However, there are times when you owe it to your friend to straighten them out. Otherwise, the verse is true - you do, in fact, carry some of the guilt for not stopping the sin (or not trying to). Looking at in a different way, you will develop hate in your heart if you don't try to help/correct the situation. If you don't speak up against wrongs, at any level, you take on some blame. One of my favorite quotes, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Edmund Burke is credited with the quote, but it also interestingly similar to Proverbs 24:10-11, "If you falter in a time of trouble, how small is your strength; Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter." It's a fine line to walk, but worth the effort to do it right.
And one last "by the way..." The first part of the verse mentioned above, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind" (Luke 10:27) also comes from the Torah. See Deuteronomy 6:5 - part of the Shema. Amazingly, that link goes to a page where another message about Relationships (in a series on the Book of Ephesians) was discussed!
Bonus
Truth, Justice, and the American Way
A few Family Dinners ago we started with Superman. You know, "faster than a speeding bullet..." Watch the opening sequence for each episode, click here. The key phrase contains the last words spoken in the clip, "Truth, Justice, and the American Way."Truth. EVRYTHING is and must be rooted in the truth. If you don't have a grip on the truth surrounding a given matter, you'll stand no chance of coming to the right conclusion(s). Defining truth includes words like actuality, reality, indisputable, accurate, right, etc. Also included are honesty, sincerity, and truthfulness. It's also wrapped up in faithfulness. As in John 8:32, "the truth will set you free." When not built on truth, foolishness and destructiveness ensue. Truth is not a personal opinion. Truth stands by itself.
Justice. Note that truth preceded justice. Without truth, justice is impossible. Justice includes being personally responsible for what you do, not blaming the influence of others. Justice includes being fair, such as "the punishment must fit the crime. "An eye for an eye" (Lex Talionus, Leviticus 24:20) ushered in this concept to a world fraught with excessive revenge thinking, and usually meant an equivalent/proper amount of money paid to the victim (as it would be utterly impossible to do to the perpetrator's eye exactly the same amount of damage, particularly back then). Justice includes not taking into account irrelevant information such as poor or rich. "Do not favor the poor in a lawsuit" (Exodus 23:3) and "Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great but judge your neighbor fairly" (Leviticus 19:15). Personal charity (not government welfare) can be viewed as an act of justice; leave some of your crop for the poor and travelers (Deuteronomy 24:19).
The American Way. It's printed on every coin and represents the key elements of Judeo-Christian values and, in short, America's values: E Pluribus Unum, In God We Trust, and Liberty. We included this PragerU 5-minute video on the topic: click here.
Bonus2
The Right Religion?
Just about everyone who practices a given religion thinks theirs is the right/true religion. That's somewhat obvious, right? Who would practice a religion that they didn't think was right or at least better or best?
Dennis Prager addresses this in a recent segment of one of his Fireside Chats. The segment on this topic starts at 22:17. The Chat begins here. As always, you'll probably find the entire Chat interesting.
If you skipped watching the relevant section, here's Dennis' summary statement: "Right religion is that which produces good and God-centered people" (regardless of the name given to the higher authority).
Bonus3
Holy Week: Monday at the Temple
Monday of Holy Week is typically when the church focuses on Jesus throwing the money changers out of the Temple. Exactly when in Jesus' time on earth this occurred is not certain, and in fact it may have happened on more than one occasion. There does seem to be agreement that one of these occurrences was early in Holy Week as many Jews were in Jerusalem for Passover which included animal sacrifices at the Temple. See: Matthew 21:12–17, Mark 11:15–19, and Luke 19:45–48.
What I'd like to share was pointed out to me by Dennis Prager (I forget exactly where in all his materials). The Torah established a sacrificial system to be held at the Temple (the construction of which the Torah prescribes in detail) and nowhere else (e.g. not "at home") so that it's done correctly. The purpose was to provide a way for people to "get closer to God." Since many people had to travel great distances, it was much easier to bring money to the Temple and buy the animals to sacrifice rather than bring the animals with them on the long journey.
There was nothing inherently wrong with selling animals at the Temple for purposes of sacrificing them at the Temple, including exchanging currencies if you didn't happen to have the right one. Paying Temple or other taxes was probably the most common reason that currency exchange was needed.
The problem was that the sellers and exchangers had become corrupt and greedy, taking gross advantage of the people in need of purchase or exchange. Doing "consumers" a service for a fair price (including a profit) is not a problem. Taking gross advantage of a situation and making undo profit is the problem.