The Heart of the Word

What follows, I have realized, is my method of Bible study, a way to focus my disjointed thought process. I have noticed when I have what I think is an interesting revelation, while trying to put it down in a readable format, many times it turns out to be nothing or childish, or wrong a lot of the time. I have started many, many rough drafts and lost steam at some point with them. Not to say that if I finally push the publish button it is outstanding or earth-shattering, or even correct, sometimes I hit the publish button just so I can quit running it over in my head when I am trying to do other things.

I believe that God is forever, eternal, unchanging

And Jehovah descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of Jehovah. And Jehovah passed by before his face, and proclaimed, “Jehovah! Jehovah, a God’ full of mercy and grace, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness and truth, keeping lovingkindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin; but that will by no means clear the guilty, ” (Exo 34:5-7 ASV)

One day it hit me listening to the radio, a pastor was preaching to his congregation and he spoke disparagingly about the “Law” He was scoffing at God’s Word. I realized that I hear pastors do that a lot and I wonder what they are thinking about.

Law = Nomos = Torah = Pentateuch = Books of Moses

Many years ago, I wrote about my first real Bible study and my struggle with the word “Law” and it’s connotation, that post is one of the most popular Google search hits we have, so I guess I am not alone in my wondering.

Is the “Law” the core of the Bible?

What hit me the other day, listening to the radio, is that the first five books, those which God related to Moses, “face to face”, those five books that the preachers are referring to in a sneering way, ridiculing even, they are the very core of our knowledge of the creator of the universe. God spent forty years with Moses giving His Word to us and now people who call themselves His ministers, His servants belittle and laugh at what He told us?

I think that the other books in the Bible may be simply commentaries on the first five books! All the books that follow the Law, that come after the Torah, tell us about people forgetting what God told us in the books of Moses or many stories tell us of the realization of some of the prophecy in first five.

God’s instruction manual for life

People like to call the Bible the “manual of instruction for life”, those instructions are in the Law, I believe that Jesus came to reiterate what He had already told Moses.

We read throughout the other books of the Bible, different authors referring to God’s original instructions to Moses and quite often they are referred to by God Himself when He is at His angriest. We only have one place to go to find out what the instructions are, the Pentateuch, the “Law”

Thinking outside the box

I am writing this only to share what I feel, this is not a rant, I am not screaming and I am really not judging, I am struggling to think outside the box.

I don’t think I am better than these Pastors, I feel bad, I wonder if they spent so much effort in college learning what man thinks about God’s word that they have forgotten their first love.

The Love Song to God’s Law

There are too many verses in the Bible that I could put here to illustrate what I am thinking, so I will just share a few.

The longest chapter of the Bible, Psalm 119 has been referred to as “The love song to God’s Torah”, the first verse:

Aleph. Blessed are they that are blameless in the way, Who walk in the Law, the Torah of Jehovah.
(Psa 119:1)

In Proverbs, Solomon says:

Those who forsake the Law, praise the wicked, — but those who keep the law, strive against them.
(Pro 28:4 ESV)

In Isaiah, God tells us what “law” is, and how He feels when we reject it:

Because they have rejected the law of Jehovah of hosts;
despised the Word of the Holy One of Israel.
On this account, the anger of Jehovah has burned against His people,
He has stretched out His hand against them and struck them down.
(Isa 5:24-25)

Daniel Prayed:

As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us: yet have we not entreated the favor of Jehovah our God, that we should turn from our iniquities, and have discernment in thy truth.
(Dan 9:13 ASV)

Jeremiah tells us God said:

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith Jehovah: I will put My Law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people:
(Jer 31:33 ASV)

The last book in what is referred to as the Hebrew Bible ends with this by Jehovah on His Law:

“Remember the Law of My servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of Jehovah comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”
(Mal 4:4-6)

And when God came to speak in person, Matthew tells us He said:

“Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. “For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. “Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. “For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.“
(Mat 5:16-20 NASB)

How can any pastor, anyone, speak ill of God’s Law when Jesus said” “Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven “

Then after we crucified God, after we killed Him, Paul calls “lawlessness” the opposite of righteousness and equates it with darkness and unbelief

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?
(2Co 6:14-15 ESV)

The Law of Gravity

In the years since I wrote about the connotation of the word “Law” a person commented on the original post mentioning “the law of gravity” That is a connotation I really like.

I think that the Law of God is like the Law of gravity. God’s Law is Truth. Any laws that men write, any realities that men invent, if they aren’t in line with what God told us, they are not truth, they are lies that man wants to worship instead of God’s Truth.

There shall be one Torah, it shall be both for the native, and for the stranger who sojourns among you.”
(Exo 12:49)

One last thought

I heard the Pastor on the radio in September of 2018, that is when I started thinking and writing about this. Today is August 26, 2019, I finally decided to push the ‘publish’ button because the other day I heard another of Solomon’s proverbs quoted: