February 16 – March 27, 27 A.D.  Jesus in the Wilderness – The Year of the Lord’s Favor #17

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog , ,

Week 4 ———- Temptation or Test?

Matthew 4:1,2  —  Luke 4:1-2

Is it a temptation, or is it a test?  You have to look at a calendar to know. (Fair warning: This post is background information for the discussion on testing and tempting in the Bible. So it is a little tedious, but bear with me, words are importatnt.)

Words change over time.  For example, “awe” in Old English meant “fear, terror, or dread”. By the mid-1700s, ‘awe’ took on the idea of ‘reverential fear’ or ‘fear with respect,’ a meaning we use today.  Four hundred years ago, two words based on that root had the same meaning: ‘awesome’ and ‘awful’ (which meant, literally, ‘full of awe.’)  But by the early 1800s, ‘awful’ began to take on our present meaning of ‘very bad.’1  ‘Awesome’ went in the other direction and, by the mid-1900s, meant ‘impressive,’ and the early 1980s added the idea of ‘enthusiastic approval’ (thanks, “Valley Girl”).  If you want to know if ‘awful’ or ‘awesome’ is a good or bad modifier, you have to know the date of the writing.  If you read literature from the 1600s (I am talking about you, King James Bible), you had better be willing to do your homework on word meanings, or you might get it backward.

Thus our problem with the word ‘temptation’ in the Bible.  The Hebrew word is ‘nasah’, and the Theological Workbook of the Old Testament says, “In most contexts ‘nasah’ has the idea of testing or proving the quality of someone or something, often through adversity or hardship. The rendering tempt, used frequently by the Authorized Version [King James Version], generally means prove, test, put to the test, rather than the current English idea of ‘entice to do wrong.’”  For example, David tried on Saul’s armor and sword before his confrontation with Goliath, but decided not to use them “for he had not tested them” (1 Samuel 17:39).

Now, let’s look at a verse that could cause some confusion. “And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham” (Genesis 22:1 KJV).  If you read the King James Version with our 21st-century definition of ‘tempt,’ you get the idea that God entices Abraham to do wrong.  More modern translations use ‘test’ to fit our current word use.  For example, the  ESV says: “After these things, God tested Abraham.”   I would hate for someone to get the idea that God wants us to fail when I believe God is doing everything he can to help us succeed.2

In Exodus 17:2, Moses asks the people, “Wherefore do ye tempt the LORD? (KJV).   (The ESV is “Why do you test the LORD?”)  Again, if you read that in 1611, there is no conflict with James 1:13: “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.”  But if you read a 17th Century version of Exodus with our modern definition there is confusion.  In Kohlenberger/Mounce Hebrew, they add to the definition of ‘nasah’: “to test God implies a lack of confidence in his revealed character, thus is wicked.”

In the New Testament Greek, ‘periazo’ is the verb form that carries the modern meaning to test or to tempt (entice to do wrong.)  In most current versions, when the verb is an activity of Satan, it is translated as ‘tempt.’  When used of people it is translated as ‘test’.  In the King James Version, it is almost always translated as ‘tempt.’  This has led to an understanding of the Pharisees as having evil intent when they question Jesus, as they are ‘tempting’ him.  Let me insert my personal opinion here.  Asking probing, challenging questions is how Jewish rabbis have always learned from each other.  If you were in a room where rabbis were discussing a difficult passage of scripture, you might get the idea they were enemies.  But they say that debate with disagreement is the best way to learn. Athol Dickson quotes a rabbi who was having trouble generating discussion about scripture as saying, “Come on, people! Somebody disagree with me! How can we learn anything if no one will disagree?”3 I think the Pharisees were initially testing Jesus to see if he was following a particular interpretation of scripture.  Near the end of his ministry, though, the Bible clearly shows they were trying to trap him.  So when the ESV translates John 8:6 as “This they [the Pharisees] said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him.” Their intent makes the King James translation more accurate as it says, “This they said, tempting him.”  (And yes, I just said the King James translation is the most accurate here.)

It is about this time that my friend Mark, in our Tuesday morning Bible Study, would be commenting that he felt like he had just sat through a seminary lecture or a Grammar class.  (Don’t let him fool you; he is a serious student of the Bible.)  But God’s message to us is composed of words.  We have to cross barriers of translation and thousands of years of language changes to get His meaning, so we do not insert our own. The Bible is worthy of us using all of our heart, mind, and spirit to study it.  We must connect to the scriptures with emotion, intellect, and the Holy Spirit.  Now that we have waded through this word study, we are ready to discuss testing and temptation in the Bible next time.

Please see my Bibliography for recommended books and links to obtain them.

1. As an exception to our modern use of awful having a negative connotation, it has been occasionally used as an intensifier, as in “She is awful pretty.”  That reminds me of how my friends from Boston use another usually negative word, ‘wicked,’ as in “That Lobsta’ is wicked good!”

2. I love to read the King James Version, especially the poetic nature of the Psalms and other songs in the Bible (thanks, W. Shakespeare.)  But I don’t use it to study due to the problems with changing language and because our modern versions have the advantage of better source documents and a better understanding of language and the culture of the day.  It is fine to use, but for study, at least read it in parallel with a more modern translation to help you catch the potential language traps.

3. Dickson, Athol, The Gospel According to Moses (2003)  as quoted in Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus, by Ann Spangler and Lois Tverberg. Spangler’s and Tverberg’s book is an easy read and a great introduction to Jesus as a Jewish Rabbi.

February 16 – March 27, 27 A.D.  Jesus in the Wilderness – The Year of the Lord’s Favor #16

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog , , ,

Week 3 ——- What did Jesus do in the Wilderness?  (Part 3)

Matthew 4:1,2  —  Luke 4:1-2

Some of my best Bible studies began because someone asked me a question.  One of our group with us on this 70-week journey with Jesus asked me, “So what did Jesus do in the wilderness for 40 days?”  That is a great question!  The Bible simply said he fasted.  But as we have learned, fasting is a demonstration that you desire God more than you desire food, so it is not mere avoidance of food but the seeking of God instead that makes it a fast.  So he spent time with God alone as we do, through Bible study and prayer.  As I talked with my friend about this, he said, “Well, I can’t imagine Jesus carrying around a bunch of scrolls in the desert for 40 days, so what did he do?  True. Jesus didn’t own a personal copy of the Scriptures, at least not as we think.

Jesus certainly spent time with the Father in the wilderness.  He didn’t have a Bible to read; he grew up as a Jewish boy in the first century.  The scrolls were in the synagogue, but the Word lived in the people’s hearts.  The first scripture he and all the others memorized was Deuteronomy 6:4 and the following.  This would become the beginning of the Shema, the prayer he would pray every day of his life, at least twice a day.   He would have learned to read with the same primary reader everyone else used then – Leviticus.  Yes, while I learned to read with Dick, Jane, and Spot, Jesus read Leviticus. By age ten, many Jewish boys would have already memorized the first five books of the Bible and then begin to learn the rest.  Exceptional students would continue after 13 years old, and many would know most of the Scriptures and much of the oral commentary. 

Jesus would have memorized most, if not all, of the Scriptures.   All of his words are peppered with scripture quotes.  His response to the devil in the temptations, his prayers, his conversations, his lessons, his words from the cross — all from scripture.

And we know Jesus was an exceptional student.  Remember the story of 12-year-old Jesus in the Temple?

“After three days, they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.”  Luke 2:46-47.

They were amazed at Jesus’ scripture knowledge, so he must have been in that group that had all of the Scripture memorized.  This amount of memorization may sound incredible or impossible to you, but you have to understand the culture that Jesus grew up in.  Look at that passage in Deuteronomy 6:

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.  You shall love the LORD, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.  And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.  You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.  You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

What do we talk about as we sit in our house, as we walk, when we lie down, and when we rise?  Is God’s word our baseline normal conversation, or is it work, sports, or recreation?  Or is there conversation at all?  Is the primary conversation in your home coming from a television speaker? Is family conversation limited to logistics (who is picking up who? Who has what schedule today? Where will we eat?).   Moses said we need to create a culture in our home where God is central, and his Word is our conversation.   What are we diligently teaching our children?

I was challenged by a friend, Chad, eight years ago after listening to him quote the Sermon on the Mount (while we were standing in that very location by the Sea of Galilee!)  He asked me to consider making scripture memory a part of my life.  Sadly, I knew then that my brain was filled with more song lyrics than scripture.  I had memorized a few verses here or there, but no long passages or whole chapters.  (But I could sing almost every word of every TV show theme song from the 70’s.1)  So I memorized 2 Timothy alongside him.  And three months later, we were done. (Actually, Chad finished 2-3 weeks ahead of me, but hey, I finished.2)  I can not tell you how much memorizing those four chapters has meant to me spiritually.  Those verses came alive to me.  I felt what Paul felt as he wrote them in that prison in Rome.  On a trip there, I planned to recite those four chapters in that dungeon prison where we know he wrote them.  Saying the words, I was so overcome with Paul’s emotion that I broke down in tears (every attempt).  So I failed to recite them in that place, but I succeeded in placing them in my heart.  And once a year, I spend a few weeks with those words that have become my friends to keep the memory fresh.  Sadly, I have failed to get anyone else to join me in a memorization study.  (Maybe one of you will!)

I can not overstate how seriously people in Jesus’ day took the Scripture.  The rabbis felt that study of the scriptures was the highest form of worship.   They said we speak to God in prayer, but God speaks to us in the Scriptures. Shmuel Safrai, in his epic 2 volume set on 1st-century Jewish culture:

“Torah study was a remarkable feature in Jewish life at the time of the Second Temple and during the period following it. It was not restricted to the formal setting of schools and synagogue, nor to sages only, but became an integral part of ordinary Jewish life. The Torah was studied at all possible times, even if only a little at a time . . . The sound of Torah learning issuing from houses at night was a common phenomenon. When people assembled for a joyous occasion such as a circumcision or a wedding, a group might withdraw to engage in study of the Law.”3

Now, call me a ‘Bible Nerd’ (go ahead, I know you already have), but the day someone pulls me aside at a party and wants to discuss a passage of scripture will be a wonderful day!  I love the Word.  I can’t wait to get up in the morning and study.  

I have 50 translations of the Bible, about 20 sets of commentaries, 22 Hebrew and Greek dictionaries, and over 300 books about ‘religion’ sitting in my lap right now (on my laptop), and that’s not counting the almost endless access to other sources and resources available in the internet.  How many Bibles do you have in your house?  We have more access but, sadly, less knowledge.  “These words,” as Moses said, “are to be on your heart,” not your shelf.

So Jesus had the Scriptures with him — they were on his heart, as God instructed through Moses.4  He considered the wisdom of the Scriptures within him.  And we know that he prayed.  Cultural studies have brought us much information as to the prayer life of people in Jesus’ day. 

In the first century, Jesus (and any other practicing Jews) would say the Shema (pronounced ‘shmah’) twice daily, usually in public. ‘Shema’ means ‘hear,’ and that is the first word of the prayer, quoted from Deuteronomy 6:4,5: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.  You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.…”  Jesus quotes this first part of the Shema in Matthew 22:37, calling it the great and first commandment.  

The Amidah is another prayer Jesus would have prayed several times a day.  ‘Amidah’ means ‘standing,’ and the prayer is always prayed standing up.  It has been done three times a day since the first century.5 It is also called “The Eighteen” because it was initially composed of 18 blessings. (A nineteenth blessing was added in 100 A.D.)  The wording today is not exactly as Jesus would have prayed, as the wording was not formalized until around 100 A.D. by the grandson of Gamaliel (Paul’s rabbi).  Some scholars have said that the prayer Jesus taught the disciples bears resemblance to much of the Amidah.6

Besides these formalized prayers, Jews in Jesus’ day often prayed ‘unstructured prayers.’  “An observant Jew recited at least 100 blessings a day”7  In Jesus’ day, these blessings typically began, “Blessed is He who….”.  Sometime after 200 A.D., the rabbis insisted that all blessings should recognize God as “King of the universe.” Hence, the modern blessings begin, “Blessed are you, O LORD, our God, King of the universe.”8  There are blessings said upon opening your eyes in the morning “Blessed is He who opens the eyes of the blind.” — upon hearing tragic news, “Blessed is He who is the true judge.” There is a blessing for everything.  Does this remind you of Paul’s encouragement to “pray without ceasing”?   My small group decided to try to do 100 blessings a day for a week.  None of us succeeded in reaching 100 each day, but we all agreed that this changed our attitude toward life.  Keeping God in every part of our lives and recognizing his provision for everything makes a difference.  Paul also said that we should be “always giving thanks to God the Father for everything.” (Ephesians 5:20)

This is a concise introduction to a very worthwhile topic.  Jesus’ time in the wilderness was spent reflecting on God’s Word and praying to His Father.  If you haven’t read Ann Spangler and Lois Tverberg’s book on Jesus’ Jewish background, you need to.  It is a short, easy-to-read introduction to the world Jesus grew up in.  Reading this book began my study of our Jewish roots, and I could probably footnote this book throughout my writing.  There are much deeper studies, but this book is the best place to start.9

For a moment, imagine you are in the first century.  You have finished your evening meal.  What do you do now?  There aren’t a lot of options.  Netflix is down then; it is between sports seasons, and cell service is non-existent in Jesus’ day.  What would you do?  Our culture has more leisure time than any that came before.  What do we do with it?  Again, I want to encourage you to go into the wilderness sometime in these weeks to understand Jesus better.  Perhaps a more structured prayer time would be beneficial for you.  Maybe it is time to hide some of God’s Word in your heart.  You might want to spend a few days blessing God for everything that happens.  You may not hit 100 a day, but I promise it will change your outlook.

Blessed are you, O LORD, our God, King of the universe, who has given us his Word to instruct us and who listens to heartfelt prayer.

————

Like all Jewish prayers, both of these prayers are full of Scriptures.

The Shema

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6: 4–9)

 So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today—to love the LORD your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul—then I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains, so that you may gather in your grain, new wine and oil. I will provide grass in the fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied. 

Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. Then the LORD’s anger will burn against you, and he will shut the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce, and you will soon perish from the good land the LORD is giving you. Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land that the LORD swore to give your forefathers, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth. (Deuteronomy 11: 13–21)”

(The last section, below, is repeated only in the morning, because the tallit, which carries the tassels, is only worn during daylight hours.) 

The LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘Throughout the generations to come you are to make tassels on the corners of your garments, with a blue cord on each tassel. You will have these tassels to look at and so you will remember all the commands of the LORD, that you may obey them and not prostitute yourselves by going after the lusts of your own hearts and eyes. Then you will remember to obey all my commands and will be consecrated to your God. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt to be your God. I am the LORD your God.’ ” (Numbers 15:37 – 41)10

The Amidah

“(1) Blessed are you, O LORD, our God and God of our fathers—God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob. The great, the mighty, and the awesome God, God Most High, who bestows loving-kindness and is the creator of all. Who remembers the love of our Fathers, and will lovingly send a redeemer for their children’s children, for the sake of your name. O King, Helper, Savior, and Shield—blessed are you, Shield of Abraham. 

(2) You are mighty forever, O LORD, you resurrect the dead, you are great to save. Sustaining the living in loving-kindness, resurrecting the dead in abundant mercy, you support the falling and heal the sick, set free the captives, and keep faith with those who sleep in the dust. Who is like you, master of mighty deeds, and who may be compared unto you? O king, who sends death and revives again, and causes salvation to sprout forth. You are surely believed to resurrect the dead. Blessed are you, O LORD, who revives the dead. 

(3) You are holy and your name is holy, and the holy ones praise you every day. Blessed are you, O LORD, the holy God.* 

(4) You graciously give knowledge to man, and teach mortals understanding. Favor us with your knowledge, understanding, and intelligence. Blessed are you, O LORD, who graciously gives understanding.

(5) Lead us back, our Father, to your Torah; bring us near, our King, to your services, and cause us to return in perfect repentance before you. Blessed are you, O LORD, who accepts repentance. 

(6) Forgive us, our Father, for we have sinned; pardon us, our King, for we have transgressed, for you pardon and forgive. Blessed are you, O gracious one, who multiplies forgiveness. 

(7) Look upon our affliction and fight our fight, and redeem us speedily for the sake of your name, for you are a strong redeemer. Blessed are you, O LORD, the Redeemer of Israel. 

(8) Heal us and we shall be healed, help us and we shall be helped, for you are our joy. Grant full healing for all our wounds, for you, O God and King, are a true and merciful physician. Blessed are you, O LORD, who heals the sick of his people Israel. 

(9) Bless for us, O LORD our God, this year and all of its yield for good and shower down a blessing upon the face of the earth. Fill us with your bounty and bless our year that it be as the good years. Blessed are you, O LORD, who blesses the years. 

(10) Blow the great trumpet for our liberation, and lift a banner to gather our exiles, and gather us into one body from the four corners of the earth. Blessed are you, O LORD, who gathers the dispersed of your people Israel. 

(11) Restore our judges as before, and our counselors as in the beginning, and remove from us grief and sighing. Reign over us, O LORD, you alone, in loving-kindness and compassion, and clear us in judgment. Blessed are you, O LORD the King, who loves righteousness and justice. 

(Note that #12 was only added after 100 A.D. and was not part of the prayer Jesus would have prayed.)

(12) May no hope be left to the slanderers, but may wickedness perish in a moment. May all your enemies be soon cut off, and speedily uproot the arrogant. Shatter and humble them speedily in our days. Blessed are you, O LORD, who strikes down enemies and humbles the arrogant.** 

(13) May your compassion, O LORD our God, be stirred over the righteous and over the pious and over the elders of your people, the House of Israel; over the remnant of their scribes, over the proselytes, and over us. Grant a good reward upon them who truly trust in your name, and assign our portion with them forever. May we not come to shame because we have trusted in you. Blessed are you, O LORD, the stronghold and assurance of the righteous. 

(14) To Jerusalem your city return in mercy, and dwell in her midst as you have promised. Build her speedily in our days as an everlasting structure, and quickly establish there the throne of David. Blessed are you, O LORD, the builder of Jerusalem. 

(15) May the descendant of David, your servant, be brought forth speedily, and may he be exalted through your salvation, for we hope for your salvation every day. Blessed are you, O LORD, who brings forth the horn of salvation. 

(16) Hear our voice, O LORD our God, spare and have mercy on us, and accept in mercy and favor our prayer. For you are a God who hears prayers and supplications. Do not turn us away empty-handed, O our King, when we come before you. For you listen to the prayer of your people Israel in mercy. Blessed are you, O LORD, who hears prayer. 

(17) Be pleased, O LORD our God, with your people Israel and their prayer, and reestablish the sacrificial services to the altar of your House. May you accept the fire-offerings of Israel and their prayer offered in love with favor, and may the sacrificial services of Israel your people be ever acceptable to you. And may our eyes behold your merciful return to Zion. Blessed are you who restores your Shekinah to Zion. 

(18) We acknowledge to you, O LORD, that you are our God as you were the God of our fathers, forever and ever. Rock of our life, Shield of our salvation, you are unchanging from age to age. We thank you and declare your praise, for our lives that are in your hands and for our souls that are entrusted to you. Your miracles are with us every day, and your benefits are with us at all times, evening and morning and midday. You are good, for your mercies are endless; you are merciful, for your kindnesses are never complete; from everlasting we have hoped in you. And for all these things may your name be blessed and exalted, always and forevermore. Let every living thing give thanks to you and praise your name in truth, O God, our salvation and our help. Blessed are you, O LORD, your name is good, and to you it is right to give thanks. 

(19) Grant peace, happiness, and blessing, grace, loving-kindness, and mercy to us and all Israel your people. Bless us, our Father, every one of us, by the light of your countenance, for by this light of your countenance you gave us, O LORD our God, the law of life, loving-kindness, and righteousness, and blessing and mercy, life and peace. May it be good in your eyes to bless your people Israel in every time and at every hour with your peace. Blessed are you, O LORD, who blesses your people Israel with peace.”11

Please see my Bibliography for recommended books and links to obtain them.

1.`        Yeah, you Millennials and Zoomers, it used to be a thing. There are whole songs with lyrics.  “Here’s a story of a lovely lady…” or “Just sit back, and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip…”  Now, with shorter attention spans and more commercials, there is no time to give 30 seconds to a song before the show.  Did you notice that the theme song for “Friends” got shorter and shorter as the series went through the years?

2. Chad Boss is my scripture memory hero.  Chad introduced me to an organization he has been involved with, “Scripture Memory Fellowship.”  Find them on Facebook with that name or at scripturememory.com for resources to start your memorization project.

3. Safari, Shmuel, The Jewish People in the First Century: Historical Geography, Political History, Social, Cultural and Religious Life and Institutions (1976) p 968

4. I am reminded of a preacher I knew, an old retired seminary professor who would say, “Well, I don’t read the Bible much anymore.  I do sit around and quote it to myself frequently.” Thank you, Dr. Marsh. May his memory be a blessing.

5. The Amidah may have been twice a day in Jesus’ time.  Currently, it is three times a day except on Sabbaths and Jewish Holidays when a 4th time is added.  On the Day of Atonement, a fifth time is added.

6. Spangler, Ann; Tverberg, Lois. Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus (2009)  Loc 371, Kindle Edition.

7. Ibid., Loc 1410, Kindle Edition.

8. Ibid., Loc 1590, Kindle Edition.

9. Spangler, Ann; Tverberg, Lois. Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus (2009).  See also Walking in the Dust with Rabbi Jesus (2012) and Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus (2018)

10.      Spangler, Ann; Lois Tverberg. Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus: How the Jewishness of Jesus Can Transform Your Faith . Zondervan. Kindle Edition. 

11. Ibid.

February 16 – March 27, 27 A.D.  Jesus in the Wilderness – The Year of the Lord’s Favor #15

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog , ,

Week 3 What did Jesus do in the Wilderness?  (Part 2)

Matthew 4:1,2  —  Luke 4:1-2

Last time, we introduced the idea of fasting and how it demonstrates our desperate need for God and how we desire God more than even the basic human needs.   Don’t forget that in the Hebrew culture, all verbs are action verbs; for example, love is an action, not a feeling.  James said show me your faith by your deeds.  Fasting is an action we can do to learn our desperation for God and to show our desperation for God. 

Other than this 40-day fast associated with the beginning of Jesus’ mission1, we don’t see Jesus fasting.  In fact, John the Baptist’s disciples ask Jesus why his disciples don’t fast.  Jesus tells them this is the time for a feast because the bridegroom (Jesus) is here.  There will come a time when the bridegroom is gone, and fasting will be appropriate.2  Apparently, Jesus had quite the reputation for feasts and not fasts, and he later tells a group of Pharisees:

“For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’”  Luke 7:33-35

After Jesus has ascended to heaven, we see the church resume fasting (Acts 13:1-3, Acts 14:21-23, and 1 Cor. 7:5).  The Didache (the 1st Century ‘church handbook’) says Christians are to fast twice weekly, specifically Wednesdays and Fridays.3  Jesus gave instructions for our fasting:

“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.  Mathew. 6:16-18

Jesus’ emphasis is not so much that you fast in secret but that you do not do it for the reward of others.

Should we fast?  There is plenty of evidence for fasting throughout the Bible. The only time it was put on hold was the year that Jesus spent with his disciples. Notice that in the passage above from Matthew 6, Jesus says, “when you fast,” not “if you fast.”  In Acts and Paul’s letters, the early church seems to have practiced fasting.  Let me ask you some personal questions.  Do you crave time with God?  Do you hunger for time in prayer when you miss a day of prayer?  Do you look forward with anticipation to your time alone with Jesus, studying the Word? Do you do these things with such fervor that you let nothing stand in your way?  For me, the distractions of this world tend to fill me at times to the point my desire for Godly things is numbed.  That is why I need to fast.  I must remind myself that my Creator is everything, and this world and its pleasures are just part of the creation, like me.  I need to, as Paul said, “discipline my body and keep it under control (1 Cor. 9:27), and fasting is a way to remind myself physically.  Finally, the Spirit drove Jesus to fast.  If Jesus needed to fast, how much more do I?

Last time, I mentioned the more than 20,000 people who have completed a 40-day fast in South Korea.  In Piper’s book on fasting, he attributes the fantastic growth of the churches there to their strong emphasis on prayer and fasting.  

“The first Protestant church was planted in Korea in 1884. One hundred years later, there were 30,000 churches. That’s an average of 300 new churches a year for 100 years. At the end of the twentieth century, evangelicals comprise about 30% of the population.”4

That kind of growth while our U.S. churches are stagnant or decreasing in numbers.  It is time for us to learn a new desperation for God, and fasting is a means to do it.

So then, how should we fast?  This is between you and God.  Seek His input, for, after all, submission to his will makes it a fast.  By the original definition, a fast was abstaining from food, but it has become very popular for Lenten fasts to be from certain other pleasures like the internet, social media, television, or a particular food like chocolate, meat, etc.  That may be an excellent place to start, but I only learned that desperation for God by fasting from some of the more basic physiological needs like food, sleep, or shelter. How do you fast from shelter?  I am glad you asked.  Contact your local homeless ministry and find out if you can volunteer to stay overnight with some people who have no homes in their shelter.  I have spent a few nights sleeping on a 4-inch mat on the floor with some of our “neighbors without homes” in our local Room in the Inn program.  You are putting your service to God ahead of and in place of your love for a comfortable bed and home for a night.   It is a fast if done with the proper attitude and as a way of seeking God.  If you aren’t seeking God, then you missed the point. 

You must also be in obedience to God in other areas, or your fast will not be beneficial.  

Look at Isaiah 58.  God instructs Isaiah to scream at the top of his lungs:

“Declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins. Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways as if they were a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the judgment of their God;”  Isaiah 58:1-2.

Many are living in disobedience, yet they pray daily for God’s help and go to worship “as if they were a nation that did righteousness.”  Ouch!   They were going through the motions of ‘church’ but were living lives of sinfulness.  They were even fasting for God to answer them, but God did not answer despite their fasting.  So they ask God,

“‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not?  Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’”  Isaiah 58:3a.

So God answers and tells them fasting is useless if they are living lives of disobedience. 

“Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure, and oppress all your workers. Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist.  Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high.” Isaiah 58:3b,4.

God says, “You call that a fast?  You think that is acceptable to me?” (Is 58:5 my paraphrase). So then God tells them what kind of fast he wants from them:

“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?  Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh [people]?”  (Is. 58:6-7)

God wants them to fast from wickedness.  Let me paraphrase it: ’Take a break from sinning, stop oppressing and exploiting people; it is worthless for you to deny yourselves food and not even share the food you have not eaten while fasting with the hungry around you. You have an extra bedroom and a closet full of clothes, and yet your neighbor is homeless and poorly clothed while you hide out from your suffering neighbor in your fancy house.’

God makes it clear that he could care less for our fasting if we aren’t living according to his precepts.  But then Isaiah has good news for them if they will repent and do what he asks (and I’ll let Eugene Peterson paraphrase this time):

“Then when you pray, GOD will answer.  You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, ‘Here I am.’  “If you get rid of unfair practices, quit blaming victims, quit gossiping about other people’s sins,  If you are generous with the hungry and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out, Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness, your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.  I will always show you where to go. I’ll give you a full life in the emptiest of places—firm muscles, strong bones. You’ll be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry.  You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past.  You’ll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again.”  Isaiah 58:9-12 The Message.

Have you ever felt like your prayers were bouncing off the ceiling?  Have you ever fasted and wondered why God wouldn’t respond?  Have you ever felt like your ‘worship’ was empty?  Then Isaiah says that it is time to check your obedience meter.  As Malachi noted, you can’t buy off God with money or impress him with your fasting or singing if you ignore everything he asked you to do.  Take a fast from disobedience first.  The waters of repentance are still flowing, and Jesus and John the Baptist are still calling.

Jesus is fasting in the wilderness. Have you taken the time to journey outside by yourself this week?  Let’s skip a meal, take a hike, and commune with our Creator.  Food is good!  But God is better!!!

Please see my Bibliography for recommended books and links to obtain them.

  1. In Acts 13:1–2, we see another example where fasting is associated with discernment for mission.
  2. Matthew 9:14-16.  This also suggests that when we are present with Jesus after that day, there will be no more fasting.
  3. Didache, 8:1, in Apostolic Fathers English
  4. Piper, John, “A Hunger for God: Desiring God through Fasting and Prayer” (2013) Location 1088, Kindle Version.

Bibliography — Recommended Books and References

David Chupp Bibliography

Resources will be added as we go. (As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.)

The Chronological Gospels: The Life and Seventy Week Ministry of the Messiah. By Michael Rood.
This book is what we are using to go day by day in Jesus’ ministry, based on Rood’s research
on timing. There is a section that describes how this timing was determined as well as astonomical
data that determines the dates of Jewish Festivals. An important resource for our study.
The Kindle version is available on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/48FRM6y
The printed version is available on Micael Rood’s website https://roodstore.com/collections/books-bibles

11: Indispensable Relationships You Can’t Be Without. By Leonard Sweet.
People you need in your life, based on Bible characters. Available in Paperback, Kindle, Hardback here: https://amzn.to/3x8MbZd

A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. By Eugene Peterson.
This book gives you the flavor of the Psalms sung on the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. A great book on discipleship. Peterson paraphrased these Psalms, which led him to paraphrase the book of Psalms and then the entire Message Bible. Available in Paperback, Kindle, and Audible here: https://amzn.to/3vHEKrF

The Hebrew Gospel of Matthew. By George Howard.
This has the Hebrew text of Matthew alongside Howard’s English translation, followed by an
analysis of the text. This is geared more toward scholars, and a knowledge of Hebrew makes
this resource most valuable. Available in Paperback here: https://amzn.to/433gOLM

How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels. By N.T. Wright.
Jesus said the gospel is the coming of the Kingdom of God. (Luk3 4:43). Wright
makes it clear how we have misunderstood the idea of the Kingdom.
Available in Paperback, Kindle, and Audible here: https://amzn.to/48JcpPk

A Hunger for God: Desiring God through Fasting and Prayer. By John Piper.
The best book I have found on fasting. A life-changer.
Available in Paperback, Kindle, and Audible here: https://amzn.to/3V0zslt

Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence: The Hebrew Power of the Priestly Blessing Unleashed. By Nehemia Gordon, PhD. The story of how the name of God was hidden in our Bibles, and how we need to proclaim it, from a Hebrew scholar who is a Karaite Jew.
Available in Paperback or Kindle here: https://amzn.to/43Azoer

Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus: How the Jewishness of Jesus Can Transform Your Faith. By  Ann
Spangler and Lois Tverberg. A great introduction to Jesus’s Jewish context.
Available in Paperback, Kindle, and Audible here: https://amzn.to/433RiWA

Walking in the Dust of Rabbi Jesus: How the Jewish Words of Jesus Can Change Your Life. By Lois
Tverberg. A good sequel to the one above.
Available in Hardback, Paperback, Kindle, and Audible Here: https://amzn.to/432NYLu

February 16 – March 27, 27 A.D.  Jesus in the Wilderness – The Year of the Lord’s Favor #14

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog , , ,

Week 3 What did Jesus do in the Wilderness?  (Part 1)

Matthew 4:1,2  —  Luke 4:1-2

And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was ________.  Mathew 4:2

This is not a challenging crossword puzzle clue.  Sometimes, I think I am hungry if I miss one meal.  Sometimes, I think I am hungry right after a meal.  But fasting for 40 days is another level.  Some people want to point out that the 40 days is more of a symbolic time in the Bible.  But you must pay attention when the Bible says, “40 days and 40 nights.”  Using the ‘days and nights’ terminology denotes a specific time.  (This will become important when we discuss the sign of Jonah in 2025.)  

In his book on fasting, A Hunger for God: Desiring God through Fasting and Prayer, John Piper begins his preface, “Beware of books on fasting.”1 While this may not be the best book marketing slogan, I have to agree.  There are thousands of books on fasting.  Pretty much every religion has a form of fasting.  Then there are political fasts (as in Ghandi’s) and medical fasts.  Medical fasting has become much more popular in the past several years, with intermittent fasting for weight control and general health.  What happens medically in a fast is much more complicated than we first realized.  The interplay of a host of hormones (especially ghrelin and leptin) is beyond our current understanding, as the reactions of those hormones to fasting are not always predictable and are influenced by many other factors, for example, sleep.  And while we are talking medicine, despite what the internet says, a 40-day food fast (still consuming water) is not impossible for a healthy person.  In South Korea, over 20,000 people have completed a 40-day fasting prayer retreat.2   (That said, consult your physician before doing extreme fasting or any fasting if you have any medical problems.)

But we are talking about religious fasting, as seen in the Old and New Testaments. What does fasting accomplish?  How does not eating make a difference from God’s perspective?  After Jesus fasts for 40 days, he is tempted by the accuser to use his power to turn stones into bread, and he answers with a verse from Deuteronomy 8:3: “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” But you can’t eat the Bible like bread if you are hungry.  So, how are we to understand this?  The idea is that there are more important things in life than material provision, and that includes food.  That goes against everything I learned in my college Sociology class.

Abraham Maslow is a humanistic psychologist who is most famous for his “Hierarchy of Needs,” which is frequently pictured as a pyramid in which the base physiological needs (food, water, air, shelter, clothing, sleep, etc.) must be met before a human can consider meeting any other needs (Safety, then Love/Belonging, then Esteem, and finally Self-actualization).  According to Maslow, it isn’t easy to consider any relationships or intellectual/occupational achievement until you satisfy your basic physiological needs.3   For example, it is hard to think about doing better at your job if you are homeless or hungry.  That makes a lot of sense and is something we see frequently in our homeless ministry.  But followers of Jesus need to add a new level to Maslow’s pyramid to make it consistent with the Bible.

 

To Maslow, the physical preservation of life is the most critical need (air, food, water, shelter, clothing, sleep).  The Bible is very clear that these things should not be our highest priority, as evidenced by these scriptures:

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?…  Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’   For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.   But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.   Matt. 6:25, 31-33

But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. Acts 20:24

O God, You are my God;  Earnestly I seek You;
My soul thirsts for You;     My body longs for You
In a dry and weary land    Where there is no water. 
I have seen You in the sanctuary,   Beheld Your power and Your glory. 
Because Your love is better than life,   My lips will glorify You. 
And in your name, I will lift up my hands.   Psalm 63:1-4

Jesus is very clear about what we are to seek first, and it is not food or drink or clothing.  Paul said life had no value aside from the ministry he had.  Even though the psalmist of Psalm 63 is in the wilderness (“a dry and weary land where there is no water”), he said that rather than water, what he thirsts for is God’s covenantal love, which is better than life itself.

What about breathing?  Breathing is a particular case.  You can’t fast from breathing (not for long).  What does the Bible say about breathing?

Genesis tells us that “God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature”  (Genesis 2:7).  We are just dirt until God breathes life into us.  We are lifeless without God’s breath/spirit within us. The Hebrew word ‘ruach’ means ‘spirit,’ ‘ breath,’ or ‘wind.’ See how the Scriptures discuss this presence of God’s Spirit that gives us our life:

…as long as my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils…   Job 27:3

Thus says God, the LORD, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it:    Isaiah 42:5   

Remember, on that resurrection Sunday evening, Jesus suddenly appears in the room with the disciples and tells them:

“Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.  John 20:21-22

If you don’t understand the significance of ‘the breath of God’ in the Bible, you might have found it odd that John mentions Jesus breathing on them.  But this breath of God brings life from death and new life to all as in creation, as in Ezekiel 37:9, where the prophet is told to speak, “breathe into these slain [the dry bones] that they may live,” and at Pentecost when the ‘ruach’ (Spirit) comes in like a ‘mighty rushing wind’ (Acts 2:2).

God’s presence is the very air I breathe.  I may not live long without air, but I am not genuinely alive without God’s Spirit within me.  Several old hymns contain this concept (“Breathe on Me” and “Breathe on me Breath of God”).  Michael W. Smith wrote a song in 2001 that you have probably sung many times without realizing it was about the idea of fasting.   

This is the air I breathe.
This is the air I breathe.
Your holy presence
Living in me.
This is my daily bread.
This is my daily bread.
Your very word
Spoken to me
And I… I’m desperate for you
And I… I’m lost without you.4

This is more reflective of our hierarchy of needs.

Are you desperate for God?  Do you hunger for him?  Do you thirst for him?  Is your need for God greater than your need for food, water, shelter, clothing, sleep, or air?  Maybe you don’t feel that desperation for God right now.  This is something I didn’t understand for a long time. And perhaps that’s where you are today.  I want to challenge you today to realize that deep need for God more than anything else.  It will change your life.  How do you begin to understand this?  I discovered my desperate need for God only when I began to decide to give up some of these ‘basic needs’ for a time and seek God instead.  And this is what I learned by fasting.

Have you ever been at a restaurant, looking forward to that great dish you ordered, and realized that you stuffed yourself so much on the salad and appetizers that you had no hunger for that wonderful main dish?  Piper says our hunger for God is underdeveloped because we fill ourselves with desires for other things.5  Mark’s Gospel tells us about Jesus’ explanation of the parable of the seeds scattered among thorns that “the desires for other things enter in and choke the word.”

“It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It is not the X-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of triviality we drink in every night. For all the ill that Satan can do, when God describes what keeps us from the banquet table of his love, it is a piece of land, a yoke of oxen, and a wife (Luke 14:18-20). The greatest adversary of love to God is not his enemies but his gifts. And the most deadly appetites are not for the poison of evil, but for the simple pleasures of earth. For when these replace an appetite for God himself, the idolatry is scarcely recognizable, and almost incurable. Jesus said some people hear the word of God, and a desire for God is awakened in their hearts. But then, “as they go on their way they are choked with worries and riches and pleasures of this life” (Luke 8: 14).”6

Fasting is a test to help us see which desire controls us and what is more important to us, the Creator or the Creation.  We have already noted the parallel between Jesus’ 40-day testing in the wilderness and Israel’s 40-year testing in the wilderness.  They both were led there by God and were led to hunger.  Israel fails the test by doubting God and even assigning evil motives to God.  Jesus passed the test, refusing to go outside God’s will and breaking his fast ahead of God’s plan.  How about you?  Jesus is in the wilderness.  I pray that the Spirit will drive you there for a time to fast, pray, and better know yourself and your Creator.

We will continue this overview of fasting next time.

Please see my Bibliography for recommended books and links to obtain them.

  1. Piper, John, A Hunger for God: Desiring God through Fasting and Prayer (2013) preface, Kindle Edition.
  2. Wesley Duewel, Mighty Prevailing Prayer Grand Rapids: (1990), p. 192.
  3. Maslow later restated his theory and accounted that people did not necessarily move strictly from one tier to another and could simultaneously work on aspects of multiple tiers of the pyramid.  
  4. Smith, Michael W. “Breathe” 2001.  Another popular chorus exhibiting this idea of fasting is “As the Deer” by Martin Nystrom in 1984. (Based on Psalm 42).
  5. Piper. Loc 660, Kindle Edition.
  6. Ibid. Loc 67.

February 16 – March 27, 27 A.D.  Jesus in the Wilderness – The Year of the Lord’s Favor #13

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog , , , , ,

Week 2 Going where you don’t want to go

It is getting time for the evening meal, and you don’t want to eat at home.  Then comes the classic question, “Where do you want to eat?” with the classic answer, “Anywhere is fine with me.”  This must be very common because all across the country, restaurants have sprung up with names like “Anywhere,” “Anything’s Fine With Me,” “I Don’t Care,” and, of course, “It Doesn’t Matter”1.  When we have a group deciding on a restaurant, and no one has a preference, we then do eliminations: for example, ‘I ate at Applebee’s last week, so not there’ or ‘I don’t feel like Italian food tonight.’  This seems to be more productive.  Sometimes it is easier to know where you don’t want to go.

There is some discussion in the commentaries about whether Jesus fasted for 40 days and then was tempted or if he was tempted the entire 40-day period and then had the final three temptations that Matthew and Luke discuss.

Mark 1:12-13   The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.

Our English version seems clear that Jesus was tempted for the entire 40 days, and the Greek version even more so.   Matthew and Luke then record the 3 specific temptations, but Mark does not.  It’s not hard to imagine 40 days of temptations.  We are told to expect trials and temptations.

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.  1 Peter 4:12

We are told that this is the norm.  God told Cain that “sin is crouching at the door”.  Peter says, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8).  We are surrounded by trials and temptations — that is the fallen world we live in,

So the Spirit “drove him out into the wilderness”.  The Greek verb is very forceful.  ‘Ekballo’ means to ‘throw out’.  This is the verb used when Jesus drives out the moneychangers in the temple, or when Jesus ‘cast out’ demons, or when Stephen is ‘cast out’ of the city and stoned.    It is the same as when the people in his hometown of Nazareth throw him out of town and then take him to throw him off a cliff.  This was not a friendly suggestion to Jesus by the Spirit to go to the wilderness.  This was no gentle nudge.  The Spirit forced Jesus to go where he did not want to go.

As we have discussed, the wilderness is not a place many would choose to go.  On a trip to Israel in 2016, the bus stopped at the edge of the Judean wilderness, and we were instructed to go off by ourselves for 40 minutes.  It was oppressively hot and dry.  There were no trees, no shade, almost no vegetation, and no signs of water.  40 minutes was long enough.  I could not imagine 40 days.  And in Jesus’ day, it was dangerous.  Mark tells us, “he was with the wild animals.”  That seems an odd detail to throw in a short passage.  That area used to be home to large and small predators.  (We were told the large ones (like lions) were no longer there.)  But this is not a place you choose to be day and night alone. I wonder if Mark was painting the wilderness as an anti-Eden place — Eden was a place of abundant vegetation and fruit of all kinds, the wilderness was desolate.  Eden had abundant water, “there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground” such that a river flowed out of Eden, but the wilderness was dry.  The animals in Eden came to man without fear, but the animals in the wilderness are “wild.”2  But both were a place of testing and interestingly, Adam and Eve’s temptation was about something to eat, just as the first of Jesus’ temptations by the devil.

No one would choose to go to a place of testing, with an encounter with the devil after 40 hard days.  Jesus was forced there at the beginning of his ministry.  He will be forced to go somewhere else he doesn’t want to go at the end of his ministry.  

Matt. 16:21   From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 

In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus is “greatly distressed and troubled.” He prays and asks if there is any other way to accomplish God’s plan of redemption.  The way of the cross was not the way anyone, including Jesus, would want to go.  But praying in the garden, Jesus makes a choice that Adam and Eve should have made. 

God asked Adam and Eve, “Will you be obedient to me about the tree?”

“Will you follow my will or your own will?”  Adam and Eve fail at the tree of discerning good and evil.

God asked Jesus, “Will you be obedient to me about the tree?”

And Jesus answered, “Not my will, but your will be done.

  Jesus is obedient about the tree.

“They put him to death by hanging him on a tree”  Acts 10:39

God sent Jesus somewhere he didn’t want to go, as he did other Bible characters.  Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh, Moses didn’t want to go back to Egypt, Ananias didn’t want to go pray for Saul.  Abraham left his home, having no idea where he would end up. And then there is Peter.

 Jesus tells Peter, “When you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go” (John 21:18). Then Jesus gives Peter the same instruction he gave him at the beginning, “Follow me.” I have been to Rome and have seen the spot where, 34 years later, Peter was led, a place where his arms were stretched-out and nailed to a cross. Peter had learned to be obedient, to be faithful to go somewhere he didn’t want to go.  I believe at some point in all of our lives, God will ask us all to go somewhere we do not want to go.  It may be to minister to an enemy or to people who don’t like you; it may be leaving your home to unknown places, or it may be to a place of desolation or testing. It may be to martyrdom. 

Jesus followed God in everything, even to desolation and death.  

The one who restores our soul may lead us through paths of righteousness that look to us like the valley of the shadow of death. There are some dark valleys in this world.  Some of you have walked in the valley. Some of you are walking there now.  There is the valley of pain; there is the valley of depression, the valley of despair, the valley of illness so severe it is the shadow of death, the valley of grief over a loved one.  We all will walk through those valleys — places we don’t want to go.  And on that day, may Jesus remind us:

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

There they are, the most common command in the Bible (“Do not fear.”) and the most common promise in the Bible (“I will be with you.”).  They are inextricably linked.  As God told Joshua before they entered the land:

Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”    Joshua 1:9

The same promise is given to the disciples right after Jesus tells them to go into all the nations.  Jesus’ last words in the gospel of Matthew:

And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.  Matthew 28:20

Jesus willingly went into the wilderness and willingly went to the cross with no fear, knowing God would be with him.  God promises to be with us in the deepest, darkest valleys of death, comforting, healing, and feeding us with cups running over with goodness and mercy. 

Jesus continues to say, ‘Follow me’.  If we follow him, we know he is there with us.  And if we follow Jesus, we are sure to end up going somewhere we would have never thought about going.  But we will never go alone. Are we willing to go where we do not want to go?  Have you been to the wilderness this week?

1. I have heard the “It Doesn’t Matter Family Restaurant” just below Montgomery, Alabama is a great place.

2. Talking about the ‘wild animals’ in Mark, Skip Moen said, “This sinful world into which Jesus enters to accomplish his mission is less like a pristine garden and more like Jurassic Park.”  Yikes!

Step by Step with Jesus #1 – From the Jordan to the Wilderness

David Chupp Step by step with Jesus ,

So this section is for those who want to “follow with their feet” on our 70-week journey with Jesus.  I hope to be able to track Jesus’s movements over his ministry and give you my best estimate of how far he traveled and, hopefully, some information on the places he went.  We will just have to see how this goes.   I haven’t been able to find anybody who has done this before, so we will just do the best we can.

We did have several weeks of discussion on John the Baptist as a prequel to our 70-week study, and I mentioned that Jesus, prior to his February 16th baptism, would have traveled the 80-mile journey from Galilee to the Jordan River near Jericho.  But our walking time begins now.

In The Year of the Lord’s Favor #12, I gave you this information:

For those of you who have elected to follow Jesus with your feet, there is no way to know how much walking Jesus did during these 40 days.  Depending on which part of the wilderness Jesus went to, he either had an 8-mile hike to the west from the river to the ‘traditional’ area, or 12 miles if he went to the wilderness east of the Jordan (both paths up in elevation 1000-2000 feet).  To better understand Jesus’ experience in these times, try doing your usual exercise routine in isolation.  If the local gym is your usual place, do some trail hiking alone.  Pray for the spirit to lead you (or drive you).  Spend this time alone with God, being aware of any testing coming your way and preparing your heart (and legs) for some Jesus-style walking in the coming year. 

So to get to the wilderness (the traditional area west of the Jordan you see in red here), you have 8-12 miles.  How much did Jesus walk each day these 40 days?  We have no information on this.  So I’ll leave you on your own until near the end of March.  But if you want to be ready to keep up with Jesus later,  I would recommend putting in an average of 2 miles a day.  It is, of course, your choice how you log your miles (treadmill, elliptical, hiking, etc.)  My personal goal is to try to emulate Jesus’ steps as much as possible.  So for the wilderness miles, I hope to get out in whatever wilderness I can find, alone, spending time with the Father.

The Judean Wilderness according to Wikipedia:

“The Judaean Desert lies east of Jerusalem and descends to the Dead Sea. The Judaean Desert stretches from the northeastern Negev to the east of Beit El, and is marked by natural terraces with escarpments. It ends in a steep escarpment dropping to the Dead Sea and the Jordan Valley. The Judaean Desert is characterized by the topography of a plateau that ends in the east in a cliff. It is crossed by numerous wadis flowing from west to east and has many ravines, most of them deep, from 1,201 ft in the west to 600 ft in the east.”

An escarpment is a long steep cliff.  Knowing that the wilderness is full of these will become an important fact to understanding a verse later on.

A wadi (in this area) is a dry ravine with steep sides that has water only with rain and typically causes flash floods.

It would be very helpful for your understanding to be able  to draw a rudimentary map of Israel.  Instructions for this are found in “The months before Jesus’ ministry begins.  Winter, 27 AD #2”.  The blue line in my map here represents Jesus’ 8 mile trek into the wilderness from the Jordan River.

Jesus began his trek from the banks of the Jordan River, not far from the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth.  So he would climb up in elevation from the Jordan at 1250 feet below sea level to the wilderness at 1000 feet above sea level.

On your walk west from the Jordan, you will pass by the city of Jericho, one of the oldest cities in the world with the oldest known defensive wall.  It was the first city taken by Joshua and the children of Israel (Joshua 6).  Jericho was known as the ‘city of palms’ and, in Jesus’ day, was considered an ‘oasis city’ at the edge of the Judean Wilderness, always lush due to the many natural springs.  Herod the Great built a huge palace there with sunken gardens, swimming pools, and a bridge that spanned the gorge of the wadi.  (Herod’s land in Jericho was taken from him by Marc Antony and given to Cleopatra as a gift, so Herod had to lease the land from Cleopatra for his palace.)

Here is a 3 minute youtube video with some good information and pictures. (This does greatly overestimate the water sources, but oases make the best pictures.)

February 16 – March 27, 27 A.D.  Jesus in the Wilderness – The Year of the Lord’s Favor #12

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog

Week 1 –Why the Wilderness?

“Matthew 4: 1-2—Mark 1: 12-13a—Luke 4: 1-2”

After Jesus’ baptism, Mark tells us he “immediately” was driven into the wilderness where he would be 40 days. All 3 gospels add the reason for this trip: “to be tempted by the devil,” and Matthew and Luke also add that he fasted for 40 days.  After 40 days, Matthew and Luke tell us Satan tempted him with three specific temptations.  

Since we are following Jesus in ‘real-time’, we have 40 days to consider all the aspects of this period that only gets a few verses in each Gospel. Here are the questions we will consider over the next 40 days:  Why was Jesus “driven by the Holy Spirit” to the wilderness for 40 days, and why do we need the wilderness?  Testing or tempting, what is the difference?  Why did Jesus fast for such a long period?  What place does a time of isolation and fasting have in my Christian walk?  What did Jesus do out there for 40 days?  Who is this ‘devil’ that is tempting Jesus?

For those of you who have elected to follow Jesus with your feet, there is no way to know how much walking Jesus did during these 40 days.  Depending on which part of the wilderness Jesus went to, he either had an 8-mile hike to the west from the river to the ‘traditional’ area, or 12 miles if he went to the wilderness east of the Jordan (both paths up in elevation 1000-2000 feet).  To better understand Jesus’ experience in these times, try doing your usual exercise routine in isolation.  If the local gym is your usual place, do some trail hiking alone.  Pray for the spirit to lead you (or drive you).  Spend this time alone with God, being aware of any testing coming your way and preparing your heart (and legs) for some Jesus-style walking in the coming year.

The wilderness.

First of all, we need to recognize the significance of 40 days in the wilderness, paralleling Israel’s 40 years in the wilderness.  If you want to read about Israel’s time there, most of that story is in the Bible book titled “In the Wilderness.”  Okay, so in your English Bible, the name of the book is “Numbers,” but in the Hebrew Bible, it is “Ba Midbar” or “In the Wilderness.”   (By the way, “Numbers” sounds like a book my accountant would be interested in, but certainly not me.  “In the Wilderness” sounds like a title I would pull off the shelf.)

Israel was in the wilderness of the Sinai peninsula for 40 years.  If you look at a satellite map of Egypt and the Sinai peninsula, you will be impressed by the tiny line of green vegetation in a narrow strip alongside the Nile, and then everything else is brown.  No vegetation.  No life.  Back in 2016 I hiked up a mountain near the Valley of the Kings in Egypt and saw this for myself.  There is green alongside the Nile and then one step over, it is desert.  From the most lush land with the most fertile soil in the world to a wasteland in one step.  When you lived in Egypt in ancient times, the desert, the wilderness, was where you went to die.  Nothing was there except death.  When Pharaoh kicks the young man Moses out of Egypt for killing an Egyptian, it is a death sentence. No one was expected to survive the wilderness.

The Israelites leaving with Moses understood this. Only the severity of their enslavement and their faith in the provision of God would embolden them enough to step out of Egypt to a land of death.  Remember that God didn’t lead Israel on the more direct route to Canaan.  They could have traveled Northeast along the Mediterranean Sea to the promised land and arrived there easily in a few weeks along a well-traveled route.  But they needed the time in the wilderness. They had lived for generations as slaves, working under great difficulty, but depending on their Egyptian masters to care for their needs of food and shelter.  No one ever thirsted in Egypt.  They didn’t even depend on rain, for the Nile was always there. This country knew no drought until God turned the Nile to blood as a plague. They had much to learn about God’s laws, worship, and how to depend on him.  God’s deliverance got them out of Egypt, they needed the wilderness to get Egypt out of them.

They entered after the miracle of God parting the Sea of Reeds.  They saw Egypt’s army drown there, and then they headed east into the wilderness.  Then, they understand that the wilderness will be a time of testing for them.  They hunger, they thirst, they whine and complain.  “Why did you bring us out here to die?  We had plenty of food to eat and an abundance of water in Egypt.”  God intervened for them repeatedly, giving them water from the rocks, raining food from the sky, sending quail, leading them to oases.  They met God at Sinai and saw his presence in fire and cloud.  He trained them in the law and worship.  He healed their diseases and kept their shoes and clothing from wearing out.  Still, it wasn’t enough.

Deut. 8:2-3  Remember the long way that the LORD your God has made you travel in the wilderness these past forty years, that He might test you by hardships to learn what was in your hearts: whether you would keep His commandments or not. He subjected you to the hardship of hunger and then gave you manna to eat, which neither you nor your fathers had ever known, in order to teach you that man does not live on bread alone, but that man may live on anything that the LORD decrees.

Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, in Bewilderments: Reflections of the Book of Numbers, says, “The book of Numbers is a narrative of great sadness, in which the midbar, the wilderness, swallows up all the aspirations of a generation—people who experienced the Exodus, the Revelation at Sinai, and the creation of a sanctuary for God.”  Of the hundreds of thousands (or millions) of adults who witnessed the ten plagues, crossed the parted waters of the sea, and witnessed Sinai, only two survived to enter the promised land.  Every other adult died in the desert, a victim of faithlessness, having chosen at Kadesh Oasis to follow the majority report and refuse the promise of God to enter the land there.

God had them go through the wilderness to learn to be separate from Egypt.  He wanted them to see the uncertainty of basic necessities (food, water, shelter, etc.) and learn dependence on him. Sometimes, God has that same lesson for us.  We have to do without to learn to trust him as our provider.  We need times of solitude to learn loneliness to know God as our friend.  We need to know fear to understand that we can cast our cares on him.  We need to be weak to learn of his strength.  Paul said it this way:

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.   2 Cor. 10:9-10

This is one of the reasons Jesus said it is hard for a wealthy person to enter the Kingdom of God.  With enough resources, we can continue to fool ourselves with the illusion of self-sufficiency.  Nebuchadnezzar was the king of Babylon, and for a while, he thought, the king of the world.  He said, “There is great Babylon, which I have built by my vast power to be a royal residence for the glory of my majesty!”  Read Daniel 4 to see how God humbled him in a significant way.  Peter did not recognize his weakness and told Jesus there was no way he would ever deny him.  The Bible is full of these stories.  The first story in the Bible after Creation is about the lie from the serpent that Adam and Eve believed that they could be like God and would no longer need God to tell them what was good and what was bad.  People still buy into the lie of self-sufficiency every day.  We still need the wilderness.

Israel passes through the waters of the sea into the wilderness to be tested. Jesus passes through the waters of the Jordan and is sent into the wilderness to pass the test that Israel failed.  He is showing us how to be the people God designed us to be by becoming totally dependent on him.  We need the wilderness.  Find some time in these 40 days to be alone with God there.  Learn of your weakness so that you may know Him as your strength.  The wilderness may show up in an odd place.  (Read my blog from the past that I reposted yesterday, “The Day of My Fear,” about a wilderness moment I had ten years ago that day.)

The Day of My Fear

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog

Note:  Today I resurrected this post from my old blog as it is the 10 anniversary of this ‘day of my fear’.  Tonight I will celebrate with some dear friends.  God is good,

Psalm 56:4

When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me?

When I am afraid — the Hebrew is “yom eera” which means ‘in the day that I fear’. Have you ever had a day you remember as ‘the day of my fear’? You may have had several of them. You may never have been in enemy territory alone like David in this psalm, but there may have been times when you have feared for your life, or for something more important. The tense of the Hebrew verb, ‘fear’, notes that the action of ‘fearing’ is incomplete. It is recurring and unfinished. It is not one day, but one of several or many.

A year ago this month I found myself lying on a stretcher by myself in a hospital. I was there by choice. I had decided to donate a kidney to a friend. (Actually I am sure that Yehovah decided, and I was merely obedient.) It had been about 9 months from the decision to the day of the transplant, full of many tests and work-ups. Throughout the whole process, I never had any doubts that I was doing what I was called to do. I had never known any fear. I was confident. But on the morning of the surgery, they called me back to a room alone. I had my wife and several friends there to support us that morning, and I expected that they would allow my wife at least to be with me until time to go back to the surgical suite. But they wanted me alone. They gave me one more chance to “back out” saying that if I decided to not go through with it, they would just tell everyone that this morning’s tests revealed I couldn’t be a donor. But I had no doubts and no reservations. So they placed the IV line and left me there. Alone.

In that moment it struck. Fear. My mind started racing. In medical school, I had seen many surgeries go wrong. I had seen a man never wake from an elective surgery. I saw a young woman die on the table during a very simple procedure. I saw a middle-aged man have a severe reaction to anesthesia and never make it to the first incision. Alone in that room, fear washed over me like waves of the ocean for what seemed like forever, but was actually only about 5-10 minutes. And then it ended. Yehovah reached down and brought peace to my quaking mind. He asked me if I trusted him. “I’ve got this” was the message I received. And for the next 15-20 minutes, alone in that room, I had a time of worship. A good friend had sent me an email that morning with his prayers and a link to a music track. I had decided after reading his mail to purchase the song, went to iTunes only to discover that my daughter (who shares my account) had already bought it, so I downloaded it. I still had my phone with me, so I set that song on replay. It was “Oceans — where feet may fail”. The lyrics are below. They say it all. God is good.

In the ‘day that you fear’ I pray that you will have friends praying for you as I did. Remember that the ‘day of fearing’ is recurring and unfinished. You may have many days of fear. I have seen myself in the day of fear, and I would never describe myself as brave. But our God is faithful. For that reason you can be strong and courageous in the midst of that fearful day.

You call me out upon the waters
The great unknown where feet may fail
And there I find You in the mystery
In oceans deep
My faith will stand

And I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise
My soul will rest in Your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine

Your grace abounds in deepest waters
Your sovereign hand
Will be my guide
Where feet may fail and fear surrounds me
You’ve never failed and You won’t start now

So I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise
My soul will rest in Your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine

Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Savior

February 16, 27 A.D. Sabbath (Saturday) In the Jordan River -The Year of the Lord’s Favor #11

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog ,

February 16, 27 A.D. Sabbath (Saturday) In the Jordan River -The Year of the Lord’s Favor #11

Week 1 The Baptism of Jesus, part 2 –

Matthew 3: 13-17—Mark 1: 9-11—Luke 3: 21-22

In our first discussion (If you missed it: The Year of the Lord’s Favor #1), we discussed how all the prophets, after the exile in Babylon, looked forward to a time when God would come as he promised. Remember this scripture we discussed?

Mal. 3:1 “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts. 

We have seen the messenger come as John the Baptist. He has prepared the way by preaching on the coming Kingdom of Heaven and the need to repent and bring fruit. Then, Jesus showed up and requested baptism by John. Last time, we looked at the why of Jesus’ baptism. Now, we will look at what happened at the time of his baptism.

Matthew 3:16-17 And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

As Jesus emerges from the water, “behold, the heavens were opened to him.” We need to understand what this moment meant to John. At this point, John is sure  400+ years of prayer are being answered because he knows the words of the prophets. Isaiah 64:1 is another of the passages, like Malachi 3:1 above, that looked forward to the time when the Lord would return.  

“Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence.”  Isaiah 64:1

Isaiah is looking backward to the time when God descended at Sinai, and the mountains quaked, “when you did awesome things” (Isaiah 64:3). He is looking forward to the time when God would come and do extraordinary things again. At this revelation to John, he sees the wish of the people voiced by Isaiah come to pass. He sees the heavens open, and God’s Spirit descends. And Jesus will certainly do awesome things, but the earthquake will only come when his sacrifice for us is complete (Matthew 27:51).

Then John “saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him [Jesus].”1 Have you ever watched as a bird lands or feeds their young, that for a moment they hover? The second verse of the Bible, Genesis 1:2, says, “The Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” That Hebrew word for ‘hovering’ is “merachafet,” which means ‘fluttering’ or, as the rabbis describe it, “even as a dove hovers over its nest,” linking it to the dove that heralds the re-creation of the world after the flood in Genesis 6 (a de-creation and re-creation event). So it is appropriate for John to describe the Spirit of God descending like a dove on Jesus, for his baptism heralds that God is about to do something new again. At this point, John is sure that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah, as he later relates:

John 1:33   I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’

Then, a voice with a message hyperlinks to three Old Testament scriptures.

1. “This is my son” – This phrase is a reference to the third stanza of Psalm 2. The end of the second stanza of Psalm 2 introduces the Davidic king, the Messiah, who speaks in verse 7:

 “I will tell of the decree: The LORD [Yehovah] said to me [the messiah], “You are my Son; today I have begotten you.” Psalm 2:7

2. “with whom I am well pleased” – This is from another known messianic passage in Isaiah.

 Isaiah 42:1 Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.

3. “my beloved son” – Though in the days of Jesus, this was not recognized as a messianic illusion,  looking back, we now readily connect this story to the crucifixion of Jesus. God asked Abraham to be willing to “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love” and sacrifice him. Arriving at the site of the sacrifice, Isaac asks his father. “Where is the lamb? and Abraham answers, “God will provide the lamb.” The willingness of Abraham to give up his beloved son, Issac’s desire to be obedient to his father and lie down on the altar to be bound2, and the divine provision of a lamb to be a substitute sacrifice for Isaac — these three things shout to us a foreshadowing of God providing his beloved son as a substitutionary sacrifice for us. John sees Jesus as that sacrificial lamb as he later says, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29)  

God had already fulfilled the sign of the Messiah that he had given John at his calling. Then to confirm it, God speaks the words known to refer to the Messiah. There can be no doubt in John’s mind that before him is the long-awaited one.3  

Luke sees this baptism as his anointing to begin his ministry, and Jesus says as much, reading from the Isaiah scroll in Luke 4:18, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me…” Remember that ‘Messiah’ (which the Greek translates as ‘Christos’ or Christ) means ‘the anointed one’. Jesus, as the anointed one, must have a time of anointing, and many see his baptism as his anointing for service. Near the end of his ministry, we will speak of another anointing (April 23 of next year).4 

From this point on, readers of the Gospels must be sure of Jesus’ position as the Messiah. John the Baptist is also sure, though he will ask his disciples to seek further evidence when he is imprisoned. Other people in the first century will come to this conclusion slowly over the next year, and sadly, many will reject Jesus as the Messiah.

Today is a good day to remember your baptism. I pray you have entered the waters of repentance with Jesus and have risen as a new creation. This morning, I pray for you. I look over the list of 50 subscribers to this blog and pray that God will open the heavens for you and show you His glory as he did at Sinai, as he did for John on this day, 1997 years ago. I read Isaiah 64:1 and hear the people begging God to “rend the heavens and come down.” God promises he will open the windows of heaven for us if we are his obedient children (See the rest of Malachi chapter 3 that we quoted the first verse of above. And don’t think it is all about tithing — read all of Malachi— you can’t buy God’s favor —it is about obedience.) And if you don’t know Vertical Worship’s song from 2012, “Open Up the Heavens,” then pull it up and let that be your prayer and worship this morning (link below).5 Jesus is still on the mission that he began 1997 years ago on a Sabbath in the river Jordan — a mission to fulfill our righteousness and reconcile us to the Father. “Show us your glory, Lord.”

David

1.    Who saw the heavens open and Spirit descend, and who heard the voice from heaven? John bears witness that he saw it in John 1:32. Other than that, we do not know. Luke tells us that others were baptized before Jesus but did not specify who saw the heavens open and heard the voice. Matthew is not specific.

2.    Despite the Sunday School pictures of Isaac as a young child at the time of this story, he was already a grown man and could have easily overpowered his over 100-year-old father if he wanted to. But Isaac allowed himself to be bound and placed on the altar. The rabbis have emphasized Isaac’s obedience, and this section is often titled “The Binding of Isaac.”

3.    Though John is convinced of Jesus as the Messiah here, we will see him have some questions (doubts?) when Jesus’ ministry does not align with exactly what everyone in that day pictured the Messiah would be.

4.    There is much precedence for multiple anointings in the Old Testament. David was anointed on three occasions (1 Samuel 16:13, 2 Samuel 2:4, and 2 Samuel 5:3).

5.    “Open Up the Heavens” https://www.youtube.com/