I’ve been asked by some what hermeneutic is that I use to interpret scripture. If you don’t know what that fancy $10 word is hermeneutic, it’s really just a way of saying what standard do you set when you interpret scripture.
And to many, figuring out the hermeneutic is an easy way to define someone and to put them in a box. If they use a certain hermeneutic that you don’t agree with, then you can discard anything that they have to say. You don’t have to pay any more attention to them.
And the mind of thinking goes that if we can’t agree on these specific elements of interpretation, then we can’t really fellowship together. There’s no common ground that we can come to in that we really shouldn’t even try to spend our time
on fellowshipping because we would end up just arguing more than we would coming together over the things that we might disagree on.
I have a really big problem with this because that question is so loaded that it ends up
causing division. It’s so loaded with people’s preconceptions and with this idea of trying
to box people into something that’s easily identifiable. The problem is that people
are not easily identifiable or easily boxable. We are very complex creatures and there’s
a lot more that goes into a person’s understanding and interpretation of Scripture than simply
some set of standards that they use. Now, in scholarly circles, okay, sure. You have
to have a set of standards. I get that. But for the average layman, much of what the
interpreted scripture is going to be based off of their own understanding, their own
experience, I should say, of life. And that’s something we’re kind of going to look at
today. So we’ve begun to look through these patterns in Scripture, ways of understanding
and looking at Scripture. I guess if you had to box in my hermeneutic, it would be something
along the lines of a thematic view of Scripture, not to say that things aren’t literal, but
that I think that we can learn a lot more from looking at the themes and the patterns
in Scripture than we can from the literal interpretations, because the literal interpretations
are what everybody else is talking about. So looking at these patterns, we’ve picked
up on a couple of keys, some tools that we can put into our toolbox that we can use to
discern some things from Scripture. Genesis 1, we looked at repeated words, how a word
that is repeated over and over in Scripture, specifically in a short section, can point
us to something very important that the text is really trying to get us to see it. It’s
a highlighter. It’s basically the bright yellow highlighter on the page. Last week, we looked
at two different ways. We looked at metaphor, a way of using word pictures to extrapolate
larger ideas, to say an enormous amount in a very small, compact space. Yeshua did this
all the time. The parables, they are metaphorical stories that he used to pack layers upon layers
and meaning into a short story. The next thing we looked at last week was word trains. Several
words used in conjunction, used one after the other, and then seeing that in multiple
places of Scripture and looking at that and allowing that to influence our understanding
of what’s being said in each place, and getting from that picture of the pattern being established.
This week, we’re going to be in Genesis 4, and we’re going to be looking at the story
of Cain and Abel. As we’re doing this, we’re going to look at a new convention, a new way
of extrapolating from the text. Something that I’ve mentioned before, but it’s easy to miss
because it’s not there. Let me explain. Remember that image from the first episode, the image
of the bridge in Central Park. We all know this image to be a bridge. Why? Well, because
we recognize the shape, we recognize there’s a river under it, and we all have experiences
with bridges in some way. But if you really look at the image, you’ll notice that on the
left side, the bridge is incomplete. It’s obscured by something else. Something else is
in the foreground blocking the bridge, and yet in our mind, we know that’s a bridge because
we’re able to complete the image with our own experience.
And so we can use this we can understand that sometimes scripture does the same thing it will obscure certain parts of the story certain parts of a narrative certain parts of commands even
and allow us to insert our own experience onto the page and which can then allow us to interpret one story many different ways based on where we are in life
So that’s what we’re really going to talk about today because the story of Cain and Abel and we’re really going to focus on those 16 verses today the story of Cain and Abel will kind of wrap up chapter four in next week’s video
But that story of Cain and Abel 16 verses we’re all familiar with it there’s a ton that we can learn from it but Cain is introduced and off the screen and four generations gone by the time the chapters ended
And there’s a lot that we wish we knew about the story there’s a lot that is missing a lot of specifics that we aren’t told and using this looking for those missing pieces allows us to take a puzzle view of scripture
Let me explain that we’ve looked at metaphor we’ve looked at word trains with the puzzle view you take the pieces that are there and you assemble them to get a semblance of the picture that’s going on and then you try and figure out what kind of pieces
you can fit in those places that don’t have any information we’ve all put together puzzles at least I’m assuming you put together a puzzle and it’s really annoying when that last piece isn’t there but you know it’s supposed to go there based on what’s around that missing piece
And so that’s what we’re going to do today we’re going to put together this puzzle and what is the one thing that a person has to have when putting together a puzzle awareness we have to have awareness of what’s going on around that missing piece
We have to have an awareness of what the end result is supposed to be we have to have an awareness of the shape of the pieces we have to have an awareness of what each of the pieces is trying to convey what kind of images on those individual pieces etc you can continue on with that metaphor as you see fit
So let’s go ahead and let’s read Genesis 4 and then let’s start to examine the pieces let’s figure out what’s missing from the story and then let’s look to our own experience and see what we can fill in in those missing pieces
So Genesis 4 and Adam knew how about his wife and she conceived and born Cain and said I have gained a man Hashem and again she gave birth to his brother Hevel and Hevel became a keeper of the ground but Cain became a tiller of the ground
And it came to be in the course of time that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to Hashem and Hevel also brought of the firstborn of the flocks and of their fat and Hashem looked to Hevel in his offering but he did not look to Cain
and his offering and Cain was very wrath in his face fell and Hashem said to Cain why is he wrath towards you and why is your face fallen is it not if you do good you are to be accepted and if you do not do good towards the door as a sin he is lying and towards you is his desire
and you must rule over him and Cain told Hevel his brother and it came to be that when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Hevel his brother and killed him
and Hashem said to Cain where is Hevel your brother and he said I do not know am I my brother’s guard and he said what have you done the voice of your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground and now you are cursed from the earth which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand
if you till the ground it shall no longer yield it straight to you you shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth and Cain said to Hashem my punishment is too great to bear see you have driven me from the face of the ground today and I am hidden from your face
I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth and it shall be that anyone who finds me kills me Hashem said to him well if anyone kills Cain vengeance is taken on him sevenfold and Hashem set up a sign for Cain
now is anyone finding him strikes him so Cain went out from the presence of Hashem and dwelt in the land of Nad on the east of Eden
and Cain knew his wife and she conceived in Borhanak and he built the city and called the name of his city after the name of his son Hanukh
and Hanukh was born Erad and Erad brought forth Maguil and Maguil brought forth Methusel and Methusel brought forth Limic and Limic took to himself two wives
the name of one was Adah and the name of the second was Silla and Adah bore Yaval he was the father of those who dwell in tents with livestock and his brother’s name was Yuval
he was the father of those who play the lyre in the flute as for Silla she also bore two volcanoes a smith of all kinds of tools and bronze and iron and the sister of two volcanoes was Na’ama
And lemah said to his wives, “Adan, silah, hear my voice.
Wives of lemah, listen to my words, for I’ve killed a man for wounding me,
even a young man for hurting me. For Cain is avenged sevenfold, and lemah, seventy sevenfold.”
And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Shet.
For Elohim has appointed me another seed instead of Chaval, because Cain has killed him.
And to Shet, to him also a son was born, and he called his name Inosh, then it was begun to call
on the name of Hashem. When looking at scripture, we are trying to find the pieces and to organize
those pieces. And one of the best ways that I’ve found to do this is through the scriptural technique
known as meditation. I’m not talking about Eastern meditation where you sit and you clear your mind
and you empty yourself of yourself, and you simply allow yourself to exist. When the Bible
talks of meditation, that’s not what it’s talking about. Meditation in scripture is a muttering.
It is a speaking of the text under your voice. I’m going to put a Bible project video in the
description. I know, not another Bible project video. Well, here at the beginning, we’re going to see
a lot of Bible project videos on a lot of Tim Mackey, because I think he does a really good job
at the very beginning. When we start getting into other places in scripture, I’m going to start
adding a whole lot of other teachers, a whole lot of other insight. But getting these foundations,
especially in the thematic stuff, I think the Bible project has done an amazing job at figuring
that out. So watch that video and then come back here.
So in that video they make the claim that meditation is reading scripture allowed. And so where do they get the idea that meditation is reading scripture allowed?
Well, I’ll tell you, they get that idea from the Bible itself. The Hebrew word in question that’s translated in meditation is the word hagah. It’s found in multiple places. It’s translated as meditation, but it’s also translated in other ways. For example Isaiah 38, 14, and 59, 11.
Both use this word to describe the sound that doves make, to moan sadly like a dove, that cooing sound.
Isaiah 31, 4 uses that word to describe the sound that a lion makes over its prey. It’s sitting there in front of its prey and it’s kind of growling or muttering to itself as it eats.
Psalm 115 verse 7 uses this word to describe what it is that idols do not do.
If meditation was speaking of sitting and emptying yourself and just being will the idols do that. But hagah is something that idols don’t do.
Psalm 7124 uses the word to speak of what it is that a man’s tongue does, a man’s tongue hagaz.
And so we can understand from this the biblical meditation is not simply reading through the text quickly. It’s not simply reading it quietly or even studying it.
But it is rather muttering it, speaking it aloud continually, going over the same story over and over.
And then doing that over a period of time and asking questions to the text, figuring out what it is and then just filling in the gaps that you find with your own experience.
Before you can fill in those gaps, you got to define the pieces of the puzzle. You got to figure out the pieces, we got to sort them all out, figure out our corners and so on and so forth.
And so, we’re all familiar with the story on some level. And I would bet that as we read through it, many of us have created in our mind a movie of what it is that the story is saying of the events as they occur in the story.
We have assumed motivations. We’ve imported what we currently know in the text and created a more complete story than just these 16 verses can give us.
What is it that Cain used to kill Abel? We’re not told, but many of us probably assume it was a rock.
Why? Well, they’re primitive people, they have rocks, right? But we’re not told. That’s something that we add into the text.
And so the story of Cain and Abel begins in verse 1 and ends later in verse 16
And as we read through it, we’ll notice that very little of what is said is something that is solidly definable.
a lot of what it says can be very confusing especially when you look in the Hebrew if you compare translations against each other the many different ways that some of those verses are translated can leave you really wondering what it is that the original author was trying to get at
so let’s follow the thread of the story and begin to identify those pieces and then look for the gaps
so Cain and Abel are born in the beginning or hava as she is in Hebrew names them Cain gets to name a possession or acquired and hevel Abel is the breath talked two weeks about how Ruach is wind
well hevel is breath from your lungs it’s the wind that comes from inside of you and it’s actually a fitting name because hevel is simply a breath in the story he’s there for a moment and then gone
at some point in their story Cain and Abel they bring a offering to the Lord they bring an offering to Hashem why what’s their motivation for doing so we’re not told
there’s been assumptions made as to what this could mean what they could be attempting to do are they looking for some sort of redemption is that why the blood sacrifice was looked to and the grain sacrifice was not for that repeated by many people who don’t
understand the Torah is it possible that both were brought by Abel but only the grain was brought by Cain it’s a idea that I’ve heard expressed as well that Cain brought his minha his stuff from the field and Abel also brought the minha and then added to it a blood sacrifice
perhaps maybe as we look through the text I will recognize that the word for offering in the text or sacrifice in many translations is the word minha in the Hebrew and if we look at Leviticus 2 we’ll notice that the minha is a bloodless
sacrifice but we know that Abel’s sacrifice wasn’t bloodless I mean he brought of the animal and it’s fat so there was blood somewhere in the process of producing that sacrifice and yet it’s still called a minha minha has a grain sacrifice and if we continue through Leviticus we’ll find that nearly every sacrifice has a bloodless alternative
something that you can bring of the field and give to God even the sin sacrifices have a bloodless alternative so Leviticus 2 is a grain sacrifice grain sacrifices are acceptable they both brought different sacrifices but they’re both called mincha as though they were grain sacrifice so where does that leave us perhaps trying to define the motivation for the sacrifice
isn’t where we should be focusing.
“Perhaps trying to understand what they were attempting to do with the sacrifice isn’t where we should be focusing. Perhaps there’s something else that perhaps there’s a missing piece here that we could focus on, something we could find, fill in and understand and apply to our own lives.” I’ve heard that this sacrifice indicates that the Torah was known in full to Adam and that he taught his children how to carry out the sacrifice.
I’m not sure we can make that assumption unless we take that view of able bringing a grain sacrifice also and a blood sacrifice.
I’m not sure that that’s the way to read the text. And so I’m not sure that this particular verse is the best place to go to try and say that the entire Torah was understood from the very beginning.
Progressive revelation is something that we see how God operates in Scripture. He reveals little bits of himself at time over large periods of time.
And I think that we can understand from that that Adam and Eve probably didn’t have the entirety of the Torah. They were probably just given a small snippet.
And the very beginning that Torah was “don’t eat from the one tree.” And then it grew and grew as time went on. At the end of the story of Noah, more will be added. Don’t eat the blood. Don’t kill men. So and so forth.
And then later on in the story of Exodus, even more is added. And all of that is progressive revelation. And that’s how God works in each of our own lives.
He gives us a little bit of himself and then grows us in that understanding before it reveals more of himself to us.
Anyway, getting off topic there. So let’s continue on. After the sacrifice, Hashem looks to Abel in his sacrifice, but does not look on Cain’s sacrifice.
Okay, so one was accepted and one wasn’t. We’re not told why. After that, Hashem approaches Cain and asks him about his anger.
Number seven specifically, it gets a little interesting because that verse is very hard to translate. It’s very hard to parse in the Hebrew to really understand what it is.
So let’s kind of look at it a little closer and really get a good look at this piece. So it begins with if you do good, you will be accepted.
And immediately we should be considering what is good because they just ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
And so here all of a sudden Hashem is saying, if you do what is good, what is good in this situation? Does Cain know? I don’t know.
We’re not told whether he knows what is good. It seems as though God is saying that you have a choice in this matter.
good or evil and if you do good, you’ll be accepted. But if you don’t do good, what’s this side effect?
Sin is crouching at the door and its desires for you.
Again, something that we saw last week, sin pictured as an animal, this time rather than
a serpent, it’s a crouching animal.
And it’s seeking to exploit some weakness in Cain, to take advantage of that weakness.
The interesting thing in this section is that the sin’s desire, that word for desire, is
Teshukah in the Hebrew, and that is a word that we saw in the very last chapter, Genesis
3.
In the curse that was put on the woman, part of that, and this isn’t necessarily part
of the curse, but part of that was her desire would be for her husband.
Well, that’s the word Teshukah.
This word speaks of lust, the lust of a man for a woman or a woman for a man, or more
to the point in this particular case, the lust of an animal for its prey.
And that’s how sin acts.
So here very early on we get this picture of sin, temptation being the slithery, conniving
serpent, but then sin itself, the giving into that temptation being this creature, as crouching
and seeking to devour it prey, to exploit the crack in the door, if you will, and get its
way in and destroy the one who is acting in that sin.
But that animal, picturing sin as an animal, should also get us back to Genesis 1, because
what was the blessing in Genesis 1?
To rule over the animals, to rule over the beasts of the field and the birds of the air,
that was part of man’s charge, right?
So if sin is an animal, isn’t it part of our charge to rule over the sin?
Hmm, so I think that we can get a piece here that we can begin to define and to shape.
And that’s that in Cain, sin was crouching outside of him in some way, and it was looking
to exploit a weakness, and this God looking to one sacrifice over the other gave the opportunity
for sin.
Now Cain has a choice here, he can shut the door and do good, or he can open the door
crack and allow that sin in, and once it gets in, it’s going to devour him, to eat him from
the inside out.
One question I had while going through this is, have I ever only done good?
neither of you. No one has done only good.
So if we’ve opened that door a crack and then where is sin in relationship to us?
It’s in us. It’s been devouring us.
We learn later in scripture that there’s a way to get sin out of you because there is someone else who comes to that same door.
This one doesn’t look for weakness. He doesn’t try to exploit anything inside of you.
He doesn’t try to subvert his way in. He knocks. He comes to the door and he knocks.
If you allow him in then sin must leave.
It’s an interesting idea. Right here, Genesis 4, we’ll get this picture of sin and the door of our own lives that can be exploited by sin or that we can conversely open up to the one that can destroy the sin. Anyway, so Cain then speaks to Abel and he takes him out into the field. Now, there’s an interesting thing here because the field is Cain’s place, right? He works the field.
But back at Genesis 1, the field was also the place of the beasts. And so we get this picture of Cain now. As the sin, the beast is getting inside of him. It’s exploiting that weakness in him. He is then starting to take on that beast’s nature, to become a man of the field, to take his prey into his territory and then to pounce on his prey.
And so Kane takes able to his own territory, his turf and destroys him there.
And that’s I think part of human nature.
We take those that we don’t like, those that we dislike and mistrust
and we bring them on to our turf and we do this in many different ways. We can do that physically
but we usually in this day and age we don’t. We tend to do it more intellectually or emotionally.
I feel pain and so I’m going to take my prey and get them to feel that same pain.
Or I have these awful thoughts and so I’m going to try to get others to think those
awful thoughts. And so we bring others into our territory and destroy them there.
So why the killing? Why is it that Cain killed Abel? Again, I’m missing peace.
I think this piece is particularly profound and there may be something that we can learn from it
so we’ll return to that in a moment. So after the killing, God calls Cain. Hey, where is Abel?
And Cain, someone who has sin and has given into the sin and the temptation,
answers in the same way as parents did in the previous chapter. In verse 3, Adam and Eve
respond, well, we were afraid and so we hid ourselves. But here in chapter 4, Abel says,
I don’t know. He’s not physically hiding himself but he is hiding his own knowledge.
He is hiding his experience from God. In chapter 3, Adam and Eve responded
after they said, so I hid myself. They responded, but this other being made me do it.
It was Adam it was, but the woman you gave me, she made me sin. With Eve it was but this serpent
that you made that put in the garden, he made me do it. Well, in chapter 4, Cain does the exact
same thing. He shifts the blame. He shifts it off of himself by saying, well, am I my brother’s keeper?
He is making an excuse for why he doesn’t need to know, for why he shouldn’t be held responsible
for what happened. But just as in the last chapter, God knows what happened because we can’t hide
ourselves from him. So when they talk about in that first chapter, as we went through the Ephesians,
is that the things that you do have been manifested by the light and God knows them. If they’ve been
manifested, then they are light and God knows them. We can’t hide those things regardless of how
secretly think we’re being. So we get this other piece of making excuses when called out,
because God always knows, right? So God confronts us, our conscience confronts us, other people
confront us, and we make excuses for why it had to be that way. Why is it that I had to commit the
sin? I’ve got my reasons, right? We all have our reasons for why we sin.
and so references made here that continues throughout scriptures something that we also talked about in that Genesis one teaching and it’s that innocent blood cries out from the ground to God and that’s something that we will see all throughout scripture I’m not going to really focus on that right now and there’s some more important stuff later regarding that but let’s recognize that that begins right here his blood cries out from the ground to me and so after all of this a curse is spoken over came.
And again we see a mirroring a parallel to the previous chapter the ground is the first thing cursed rather than in the last curse fruitfulness being difficult now suddenly fruitfulness is impossible and then there’s an exile that takes place the one who sinned is sent away from God’s presence which is to the east right.
One of those metaphors we looked at last week being sent to the east is a picture of being sent away from the presence of God except for in some rare cases where someone is on the east or coming from the east approaching to God.
But that picture of east is kind of a picture of exile and that’s something that we can recognize all three scripture where was it that Israel was taken when they went into exile went to Babylon to the east and to Assyria to the east so on and so forth.
And so once again after all of this after Cain has slaughtered his own brother.
What is it that we see about God same thing we saw last chapter we see his grace his kindness his patience and his justice all an equal measure and all of them bestowed upon Cain.
What should Cain have received from God for killing his brother he should have received death right.
But that’s not what he gets he gets exile but then exile and death and the descriptors are pictures of each other the exile is the metaphor for death.
And then the rest of the chapter is that downward spiral that follows as the nature of Cain begins to get solidified in the following generations from the one man who killed his brother to a society where death has been industrialized.
And with these pieces we kind of get a larger picture right let’s put them kind of together.
So if we put them all together and assemble them in order we will recognize that this story in chapter four is a repeat of the story in chapter three.
It’s just a different characters slightly different connotations slightly different things under discussion.
There was a temptation that arose it was beastly seeking to devour its prey its victim the tempted gives into that temptation and pursues the path that leads to death.
God then confronts the perpetrator and that perpetrator shifts blame saying well it’s not my fault that this occurred in essence it’s your fault.
I mean who was it that didn’t look to Cain’s sacrifice it was God after all right so it was God that precipitated this whole thing.
And what was it that Adam and Eve said well is that woman you gave me for that serpent that you made.
Regardless of all of that, God knows and he’s not going to allow a person to go and punish. His justice cannot allow that, but his mercy and his grace do allow for the possibility and the potential of reestablishing relationship.
And so he pronounces a curse and that curse follows two patterns, fruitlessness and exile.
Both of those are pictures of death.
Unable to bear fruit. What kind of tree is unable to bear fruit? What kind of plant doesn’t bear fruit? It’s a dead plant.
and exile being sent away from the presence of God.
There’s some peace missing as we consider all of this.
What was Cain’s motivation for killing Abel?
I’ve heard a lot of teachings on that motivation,
but I’m not sure that they hold water after recognizing that both sacrifices are called ninka.
I think that if we discover this piece, it can help us to find the right piece to fit in place.
So if we examine the stories of chapter 3, chapter 4, back to back, we’ll notice that there was a piece present in the last chapter that’s missing in this chapter.
And examining these similar stories can then help us to recognize the missing piece so that we can then import it into this puzzle.
And I think it’s here that we can find some real true depth to this story.
So the piece that we are missing, I think, to catch a glimpse of it from chapter 3, verse 6, Genesis 3, verse 6, that we looked at last week, that pattern of temptation.
Because Cain was tempted. We’re not specifically told that he was tempted. We’re told that God didn’t look to a sacrifice.
But then we’re also told that if you do good.
So there was something that Cain saw that then caused him to begin in his own mind to roll over in his mind, perhaps subconsciously, but to begin to define for himself what’s good and what’s evil on his own terms.
He saw something. He then took something. That was not part of his domain. He took from the realm of life and death, and he gave death to his brother.
is that perhaps what verse seven is trying to say is trying to get us to look back at
that pattern of temptation. But what was it that Cain saw? What did he recognize in his
own life that led to this outcome? He saw Abel was accepted. He was not. And I think
that’s something that we have all experienced in one capacity or another.
Why is it that in our world it seems as though God looks on some people favorably and on others he doesn’t. Why is one man made rich and the other poor? Why is one man healthy and the other sick? Why is one person talented and another person has no talents? Gifted, intelligent, handsome, witty, brave, etc. We can fill in anything we can use to define humans here.
And we can consider why are some people given certain gifts and other people are not. Why is it that God looks to bless and benefit some and others it seems as though he’s so far away missing?
What was it that came defined as evil?
God favored his brother over himself. In his own mind, that was evil. That was wrong
because it was an offense against him.
I think the question that we should be asking in this chapter is not why did God look to Cain and not to able as though we can discern how to gain God’s favor. I think that’s the wrong question. It’s the wrong place to go. Rather, I think that the missing piece that’s kind of alluded to here is pointing out Cain’s reaction to this reality. How do we react? How do I react when someone else out in the world is blessed?
And I’m not. How do I react when someone else gets that thing that I want for myself?
Oh, that’s such a difficult thing!
But verse 7 tells us, if we do good, regardless of the circumstances, regardless of whether or not God looks on us with favor, or seems to be looking on us with favor, I should say, will we not be accepted before Him?
But what is good though? Is it the moral path? Is it the right and wrong? Or is doing good seeking that path of life, the path that will keep his brother alive?
The path that is opposed to the path that leads to the death of someone.
The fact is we’ve all kind of been faced with this at one point or another. We’ve all been faced with this ideal of what we ourselves either wish to be or what we ourselves should be.
And it’s part of human nature that when we are faced with that, when we see that, we tend to grow envious of that other
Because it’s we who want to be blessed, and so we think that if only that other was gone from the picture, then perhaps, perhaps the blessing that’s on them might transfer to us
If we simply just remove them from the picture, I mean at best, we might be the recipient of that blessing and at worst, at least we won’t have to stare at our own missed potential
Our own desires fulfilled in someone else
So what do we do in that circumstance?
Well, a simple sexpiration of human nature will reveal that it is human tendency to tear down the ones who reveal our own shortcomings to us
The fact is that in those that God seems to be blessing, He provides for us a picture of what He desires for us to grow into
But we’re simply not there yet, or what that picture is, is in some way foreign to us, and we’re not sure that we could ever get there
So what do we do when we face a circumstance? Do we tear it down and attempt to put ourselves to plant that person?
Do we attack that ideal? Do we try to get rid of it so that we simply don’t have to look at it?
We don’t have to face it. We can continue on in our ignorance because, you know, ignorance is bliss, right?
And obviously bliss is what we should all be searching for.
Or do we allow ourselves to think that we are the one who is good, and that other, that one who is favored,
that one who is different is somehow the evil one, the one that should be destroyed, the one that is bad.
And it’s so doing, defying good and evil on our own terms, always with us being the good.
So when this happens, how do we react?
We can do all of those things I just mentioned, or we can choose to let go of our own pride
and realize just how misplaced that pride is.
We can choose life and growth through the process of pain and heartache.
We can allow our ideal to mold us, to teach us what it takes to reach where they’re at.
If we do do it, if we choose the path of life, if we choose that painful path of growth,
because let’s face it, growth is painful.
We can look at that ideal, we can look at that thing that we should be,
and rather than trying to tear it down, we can strive to replicate it,
strive to reach it, to work towards that goal.
I could go on with this, but let’s look at some examples of this very thing
occurring in Scripture.
Now, looking at all of this, we could very easily turn to the prophets
and look at the number of times that one of the prophets pointed out the evil in Israel,
and Israel destroyed them for it.
We could look to the ultimate prophet, the ultimate example,
that ultimate ideal of what we all should be in Yeshua.
We’re all familiar with those stories, of the people coming and declaring
that there is something wrong, there’s something missing.
The people who have been favored by God, who speak the words of God,
and the human nature, as described in the stories of Israel,
and as we see in our own reality, is to tear it down, to destroy it.
But there’s another example, and I think this other example can really really help us to sink our teeth into something something really profound. So we’re going to turn to the New Testament, the early church. The early church was facing a problem early on an axe. There were two types of believers early on an axe. There were the Jewish believers and there were the Hellenist believers, the Greek believers.
And Torah tells us, the Bible tells us, that we are to care for the widows and the orphans. And so the church was attempting to live this out in their own community, to care for the widows and orphans in their midst. But unfortunately, the way it was actually being carried out, it wasn’t being very successful.
The orphans and the widows of the Hellenized congregations were not being looked after. The widows and the orphans of the Jewish congregations and the proselyte congregations were.
And so the apostles, the disciples were summoned together to discuss the solution for the problem. How can we make sure that everyone is cared for both through Jew and the Greek?
So we enter into the story in Acts chapter 6 and Acts chapter 6 verse 5. We read of some men who were chosen.
And so the verse says, and in the word please the entire group and they chose Stefanos or Stephen, a man filled with faith, belief, and the Set-apart Spirit or Holy Spirit.
In Philip, in Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolias, who was a convert from Antioch. One of those men was Stephen or in the Greek Stefanos.
It’s very highly likely that he was a Greek convert. Maybe not Greek specifically, but someone from another nation, someone who had been Hellenized.
He does have a Greek name, but in this verse he specifically called out as being full of faith and the Holy Spirit, this guy with the Greek name.
So you continue reading on, and just a few verses later you find out things are just very quickly wildly go out of control.
In verses 8 through 9, it says, “And Stefanos, again, filled with faith and power, he did great wonders and signs among the people, but some of those of the so-called congregations of the freedmen, the Cyreneans of Alexandria, Alexandrians, and those from Killikia and Asia, rose up and began disputing with Stefanos.”
So again, Stefanos, filled with Holy Spirit, and faith. If we take our cue from episode 1, we’ll recognize that the repetition of those words should point something out to us, right?
Stephen, doing signs and wonders, and someone doesn’t like it. Who isn’t?
Well, it’s the freedmen, which apparently in the research that I’ve done was composed of diaspora, Jews, and Jewish converts, people who had once been Greek and had taken on the Jewish lifestyle, fully buying into the traditions of the elders, of the rabbis.
and there’s only one thing that scholars seem to agree on when discussing this congregation
and it was that this congregation was a Greek-speaking, Hellenized congregation.
The question I have was Stephen, perhaps formally, part of this congregation.
Perhaps it was his former brothers who were making the accusation.
We don’t really know.
We can’t know for sure, but it helps us to make at least a small connection, but we don’t
even need that connection to see the connection to Genesis 4 here.
So Stephen filled with the Holy Spirit, filled with faith.
If we steep it in the language of Genesis 4, Stephen was looked upon by God and his brothers
saw that Stephen was favored by God and so what was their response?
They took him onto their own turf and they put him to death.
Sound familiar?
But Stephen does something more than what we see here in Genesis 4.
Stephen gets the chance to defend himself and in Acts 7, his defense is laid out and
full and it’s absolutely brilliant.
He does such a good job of melding together the course of Israeli history and using it
to point out the Cain nature of Israel to destroy those who are favored by God and
those who are revealing their own faults within themselves.
And at the very end of the chapter we read in verses 54 through 55 and hearing this,
they were cut to their hearts and gnashed their teeth at him, but he being filled with
the Holy Spirit looked steadily into the heaven and saw the glory of God and Yeshua standing
at the right hand of God.
So once again Stephen had described as being filled with the Holy Spirit.
So if we look to the same thing as we did in Genesis 4, what was the response of those
who were not favored?
They were cut to their hearts to their hard, uncircumcised hearts.
So if you turn back to Acts 7, 51, Stephen even calls them those with uncircumcised hearts.
So Stephen, this upstart, this younger brother, he’s telling us that we are wrong?
Not necessarily even telling us.
He’s demonstrating through works of power, through miracles.
He’s demonstrating that God is looking on him and he is not looking upon us.
Religious folk, people who we have taken on Judaism, we’ve taken on the traditions of
the Father, we’re right.
Isn’t that how most of us act?
We’re right.
Look what I have done in my life to make myself right before God.
But what he’s saying, it doesn’t conform to our own opinion of ourselves.
It doesn’t conform to our own doctrine, our own teachings.
If he is right, we have too much to lose.
So it’s best not to think about it, it’s best to simply discard what he is saying in order
to protect our status, our honor, to protect the status quo.
And that’s a pattern that’s repeated off the scripture.
As I said, the prophets are filled with this type of story and Yeshua at one point laments
over Jerusalem in Luke 1344 by saying Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning
those who are sent to her, how often I wished to gather your children together the way a
hen gathers with chickens under her wings, but you would not.
He’s saying, I have sent countless Abels into your country to reveal your shortcomings
and you, your cane nature, has killed them all.
We never seem to learn, we as humans. How often have we ourselves done this? I know that there have been times in my own life as I look back where I have done similar things.
The way that many of us treat each other on social media tells me that perhaps many of us still haven’t learned this lesson.
But there’s something else here that I think we can wrap our minds around, and I think that it can help us to grab a fuller picture of something that is really profound.
So, Stephen’s defense in Acts chapter 7.
It’s profound, it’s brilliant, it’s genius, and it is full of errors.
Don’t throw stones at the screen just yet, hear me out.
Stephen, filled with faith, man of the Holy Spirit makes errors as we perceive errors to be, right?
How is that possible? He is inspired by the Holy Spirit.
But if you actually look through Stephen’s speech, I’ve counted seven errors there, as we account for errors.
Let’s go through those real quick. In verse 4 Stephen states that Abraham moved to Canaan after the death of his father.
The problem with this is if we turn back to Genesis 11 and 12 and do a little math, we find out that Abraham moved to Canaan when Tara was 145 years old.
But that Tara lived to 205 years old.
In verse 14 Stephen says that Jacob went down to Egypt with 75 people, but if we go to Genesis 46-27, it states that 70 went down to Egypt.
In verse 16 Stephen says that Jacob was buried in Shechem in the tube that Abraham bought in Genesis 23.
The problem is that the cave of Mach-Pala that’s near Hebron, according to Genesis 23.
Shechem is in the northeast of the country of Israel, and Hebron is slightly south and west of Jerusalem.
They’re far apart from each other.
In verse 23 Stephen claims that Moses was 40 when he left Egypt, but where is that written?
This is the only place in all of Scripture where we find an age for Moses at that time.
And then later in verse 30 it says that Moses was in the wilderness 40 years before seeing the burning bush. Again, where is that written?
It seems as though that’s an assumption based on that first, potentially faulty, number of the age of Moses when he left Egypt and the age of Moses when he died after 40 years in the wilderness.
And then in verse 38 and later in verse 53 Stephen says that it was an angel that met Moses on Mount Sinai, not God himself, not HaShem himself, but an angel rather, and it was an angel that gave the Torah.
Each of these instances would seem to be an error, according to our sensibilities of what constitutes an error.
To many, today on Facebook if he was to make these claims he would be labeled a heretic, and he would be stoned and cast out.
Yeah, he was, wasn’t he? This may be difficult to accept, but think about this for a second.
Being inspired by the Holy Spirit doesn’t require absolute accuracy on secondary matters.
Hear me out before passing judgment. If at the end you feel that you can cast stones, so be it.
We have this man, Stephen, under the influential Holy Spirit, inspired by God,
just as all of Scripture is inspired by God, and yet he makes errors according to our understanding
of errors. Perhaps instead of throwing Stephen under the bus or simply not addressing this
as the cane part of us wants to just not look at this, because it might force us to change
our view on some things. Perhaps we need to recognize that our definition, our modern western
definition of what constitute an error, may not fit Scripture.
Can we at least, at least perhaps admit that just maybe we don’t understand what it means
to be inspired by the Holy Spirit, can we at least agree on that?
You see the thing is, since the Enlightenment, the assertion has been made by many of those who oppose God
and who oppose His Word, that if there’s even the slightest inconsistency in Scripture that it invalidates the entire thing
and unfortunately, us believers, we’ve bought into this lie. We’ve sunk our teeth into it. We have made it part of our doctrine.
But the example of Scripture is that even those operating under the influential Holy Spirit do so with their own understanding of the world and how it works.
Because you see, Stephen’s heirs didn’t come from nowhere. They come from a place that we can trace. We can find the source of each and every one of those heirs that He made.
You know where they are? They’re in Samaritan Pentateuch. The books of Moses that were rewritten by the Northern Kingdom after the split of the kingdoms in 1 Kings 12.
The Northern Kingdom made changes to their Torah in order to correct errors or to legitimize their own traditions or to provide additions that they felt supported their own claim to being Israel.
So Stephen was an heir of his understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures. He had errors in his specific way of beliefs, and the crazy thing is the Holy Spirit did nothing to correct those errors.
Think about that for a second. What was it that the religious, the Sanhedrin, did to Stephen? They would have recognized that He made errors. So what was their response?
You don’t know Scripture like we do, and yet you claim to have authority. You’re out there working in authority. How dare you do such a thing. You’re a heretic. You’re dangerous. We have to do away with you.
These errors pinned him as an outsider. They pinned him as a hated Samaritan. And I find it highly likely that as soon as he started making errors like that, they disregarded everything else he had to say.
One single error in their estimation made him a heretic. He obviously had no respect for their Torah. He was willing to accept changes. He did not know what they knew to be correct.
And so it became easy for them to simply disregard him as somehow less than human. They attacked. They vilified and they sentenced him to death.
On the flip side though, the Messianic community, the apostles that Stephen was part of, that group that was joining together in its infancy.
Did they know that Stephen was incorrect in some of his dogma? Some of his understanding of how things worked, how things played out?
Did Stephen think that the earth was perhaps a different shape than them?
Did he perhaps work on a different calendar? Did it matter? That’s the key. Did it matter to the apostles? Did it matter to the Messianic community? No! He was chosen as a leader. Why? Because he had the fruit. Not because he knew everything that was right. Not because he had all sorts of knowledge. He was chosen because he had faith and because he had the Holy Spirit.
The minutia, the specifics didn’t matter. He was a brother. Who was it that the minutia and the specifics mattered to? It mattered to the religious leaders. It mattered to those who had something to protect. It mattered to those who knew their Bible, who knew what it said. It mattered to hypocrite’s, who argued over the jot and the tittle, and they forgot.
Not things like mercy and compassion. To men who relied on their own understanding and who held their own interpretations as the one and only interpretation.
do we do this in our own lives? I know I used to and I still struggle with it at times.
But perhaps it’s something that you can ask yourself is do you do this?
Do you go to a teacher and ask them they’re hermeneutic?
Do you go to a brother and ask them their pronunciation of the name?
What calendar they follow?
Do you go to someone and say are you one house or two house?
Or are you even better yet?
Are you replacement theology?
Oh, I bet that hit a lot of people right there.
Are you replacement theology?
How dare you!
and we toss them off as something less than human
even though they believe in the messiah
even though they keep the vast majority of his Torah
You see the thing is we have to be willing to allow differences in interpretation in our communities.
We have to allow the scripture to be what the scripture is, which means that it is different to each person based on where they are in life.
, we have to look only to the things that scripture affirms. Those things that are being affirmed, those are the things that the Holy Spirit really wants us to catch a hold of. Everything else is debatable. What was it that made Stephen’s defense so absolutely brilliant? It was the things he was affirming. It was the point he was making, not the specifics.
Specifics got him killed. Specifics got him judged by the religious. And so perhaps now we get a clear picture of which Genesis 4 was trying to say what it’s trying to do. Perhaps we can see that it’s not trying to tell us the motivation for the sacrifice. Perhaps it’s not trying to tell us about why it is.
That God chose one and not the other. Perhaps the whole point that Genesis 4 is the reaction. The reaction when someone else is different. The reaction when someone else seems to be favored by God.
and we ourselves, even though we’ve given of what we have to God,
he seems to be looking away.
What do we do in that situation? How do you react?
I don’t do so well but as I’m training myself to seek the things of life, as I’m training myself to start asking the question of life versus death as opposed to good versus evil.
Maybe I can do better. Maybe you can do better. Maybe we can all do better. Maybe we could take a page from Paul’s book and know one thing. What is it that Paul says? I have determined to know only one thing. And that is Messiah crucified.
That’s it. Can we come together on that? And let the rest be what it will be?
If we can do that, I think we’ll take a huge step towards unity in the body of Messiah.
Shalom