“I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.” — Genesis 22:17,18
The Father of Faith
Who is this man upon whom the three monotheistic religions of the world are based? Who is this man called “friend of God” (James 2:23), the one whom we call “Abraham Avinu” (“Our Father Abraham”)? Who is this mere mortal by which the King of the Universe defines Himself?
The One, True, Living God — the God of the Bible — is known as the “God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” He initially reveals Himself to this man Abraham as אל שדי (“El Shaddai“) — “God Almighty” or the “All Sufficient God.” However, His first self-designation, to anyone other than Abraham is that of “God of Abraham” (Genesis 26:24) He identifies Himself in relationship to this one man whom He called out from among his brethren to become the singular person through whom all humanity will be blessed. The Holy One is also known as the “Shield of Abraham,” from His promise to Abraham which states, “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield” (Genesis 15:1). In any case, God has inseparably wrapped Himself up in this man named Abraham.
Abraham is probably best known as the “Father of Faith,” a title which has been bestowed upon him because of how he exemplifies one who is trustworthy in all things. Both Paul and the author of Hebrews refer to him in similar terms. In one instance, Paul refers to him as “Abraham, the man of faith” (Galatians 3:9). In both his epistle to the Romans and to the Galatians, Paul makes the argument that besides the physical descendants of Abraham, all those who trust in Yeshua (Jesus) are considered spiritual children of Abraham because they model Abraham by responding to their calling through faith. Thus Abraham is “the father of all who believe” (Romans 4:11). (more…)
A week ago this past Sunday I spoke at a couple of services at Mt. Vernon Baptist Church here in central Arkansas. My family and I were warmly received and had a very positive experience. I had met the pastor around ten years ago when my design company developed some branding, CD artwork and a website for his evangelistic ministry. Since that time he took on the pastorate where he has been serving for the last four years.
Over the last few months he and I have had an opportunity to catch up, because a good friend of mine has been helping serve at his church. I also found out that he was friends with both the pastor and youth pastor of our church as well. Our discussions lead to us discussing the basic need for the church to have a greater commitment and to be educated in the ways of the Lord. In one word, “discipleship.” They have two morning services to which I was invited to speak. I laid forth my Four Primary Responsibilities of A Disciple of Yeshua (Jesus):
Devotion
Memorization
Imitation
Replication
Here is about three-quarters of my message. Unfortunately, the audio is not the greatest quality (it was pulled from a video from the back of the sanctuary) and it is incomplete. However, it will give you an idea of the things I shared and may raise some questions worth pondering and discussing. It is available both as streaming audio or as an mp3 download. I would welcome any feedback you might have.
Question: What do you think the main problem in the church today is? Ignorance or Apathy?
Answer: I Don’t Know… and… I Don’t Care
I had forgotten about this when I posted my article on Failed Discipleship earlier. It is a prime example of how we have succeeded at creating church members, but failed at creating disciples. Listen to this first-hand, gut-level honesty of a minister explain why they are canceling EVERYTHING at their church due to Lack of Interest:
One day a ten year old boy came home with a note from his teacher. The note said,
“We are concerned that your child is illiterate. Can we have a parent-teacher conference?”
The next morning before school the mother stormed into the class room, slammed the note down on the teacher’s desk, looked her straight in the eye and said,
“I’ll have you know, I was married two years before little Ricky was born!”
That said, I have to call a spade a spade. The plague of biblical illiteracy is upon us. We must “take arms against a sea of troubles, and thus by opposing, end them.” But as long as we accept them, they will exist and persist.
“Americans revere the Bible – but, by and large, they don’t read it. And because they don’t read it, they have become a nation of biblical illiterates.” – George Gallup and Jim Castelli
How bad is it? Here is a list of results from various surveys…
Fewer than half of all adults can name the four gospels
Many professing Christians cannot identify more than two or three of the disciples
60 percent of Americans can’t name even five of the Ten Commandments
82 percent of Americans believe “God helps those who help themselves” is a Bible verse
12 percent of adults believe that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife
A survey of graduating high school seniors revealed that over 50 percent thought that Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wife
A considerable number of respondents to one poll indicated that the Sermon on the Mount was preached by Billy Graham
I’ve personally heard the following:
Is Galatians in the Old or New Testament?
Wasn’t Jacob the guy who got swallowed by the whale?
That’s a book of the Bible?
ALL of the disciples were Jewish?
And many more, that I can’t remember at the moment (and some which are too embarrassing to share).
Conclusion: #FAIL
Let’s face the facts: “Increasingly, America is biblically illiterate.” (A quote by George Barna.) And people like George Barna tend to blame churches, pastors and youth pastors. But is it really their problem? Isn’t the problem the mothers and fathers of the children, who are commissioned to teach their children (read the book of Deuteronomy — Book #5 in the biblical lineup, in case you need help — it’s a constant theme) the Bible and biblical values? We have not only failed on a personal level by not engaging the biblical record ourselves, but we have failed the generations of our children, grandchildren and all future generations.
Segue…
We have a breakdown in the process of discipleship. In order to be a true Disciple of Yeshua (Jesus), we must imitate him. But in order to imitate him, we must know his life and message. In order to know his life and message, we must understand his teachings. In order to understand his teachings, we must have a very good understanding of the Bible he used: the Tanak (a.k.a. the “The Old Testament.” And in order to properly understand the Tanak, we must first understand God’s initial self-disclosure to humanity found in the Torah (or the “Pentateuch” — Genesis through Deuteronomy).
Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr (president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) sums it up quite well by saying:
We will not believe more than we know, and we will not live higher than our beliefs. The many fronts of Christian compromise in this generation can be directly traced to biblical illiteracy in the pews and the absence of biblical preaching and teaching in our homes and churches.
Again, this requires effort to correct.
“A person wants to become a scholar and a leader overnight, and to sleep that night as well.”
—Rabbi Yaizel of Navorodock
If we expect to be good disciples sheerly by osmosis, we are sorely mistaken. It requires an investment.
Start your investment today, so that you will have dividends you can enjoy tomorrow.
While studying FFOZ’s Torah Club volume 4, Chronicles of the Messiah (a year-long, weekly commentary on the Gospels), this morning, I came across a few things I would like to share in regard to Yeshua’s Parable of the Soils. While this is typically known as the Parable of the Sower, I think his emphasis is more on the different types of soils than the sower. The sower and the seed are the same in every instance. It is only the different soils that affect how the seed is received.
First, a word about parables:
”Christian readers sometimes misread and misunderstand the parables of the Master because they assume that they contain deeply symbolic, secret, esoteric, mysterious truths. Christian teachers enjoy extracting unanticipated and hidden meanings from the parables of the Master, but such interpretations are ordinarily farfetched and far removed from the simple intended meaning. The rabbis did not use parables as riddles. They used them as illustrations.” 1
We have to be careful in our interpretation of parables in that we don’t want to “over read” them and “super spiritualize” them as was often the case with the church father Origen. Our job is to catch Yeshua’s intended singular portent, and then apply that principle to our lives as his disciples. With this in mind, I would like to give you a list of how Daniel Lancaster interprets the symbolism in this popular parable:
Symbol
Meaning
Seed
the message of the kingdom, i.e., “Repent, the Messianic Era is at hand”
Path
the disciple who cannot receive (or understand) the message
Birds
Satan
Rocky Soil
the disciple who begins to repent but gives up quickly under pressure
Weedy Soil
the disciple who begins to repent but becomes distracted by the business of life and materialism
Good Soil
the disciple who obeys, repents, and submits to the kingdom with perseverance
Abundant Crop
good deeds, acts of righteousness (mitzvot)
Meaning
Only those who obey the message of the kingdom of heaven and persevere in it will endure to produce fruit for the kingdom of heaven.
;
Where has the seed fallen in your life? What kind of crop are you producing?
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