Can we do תפילות prayers for:
Mike Clayton and his ministry?
That also through them The האור Light, רפואה The Healing and The ואהבה Love of ישועת יהוה Yeshuath YHWH may come back to הארץ The Land of Israel?
 | | January 28, 2011 |
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TEACHING THE HEBRAIC PERSPECTIVE OF FAITH IN AND OBEDIENCE TO THE ONE TRUE GOD
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Mishpatim
"Judgments"
Exodus 21:1-24:18
Jeremiah 34:8-22; 33:25-26
*Archived teaching from 2010*
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| Torah Commentary |
Mishpatim
"Judgments"
Exodus 21:1-24:18
Jeremiah 34:8-22; 33:25-26
Trust and Obey
Fifth Sunday Singings are a distant memory of my former church life, a night in which the congregation directed the service by vocalized requests from the hymnal. After dear Brother Smith predictably shouted out the number of his favorite song and as we sang the last beat, Sister Jones would shout out another number. And so the night would go. Without fail someone would call out the number to the song, "Trust and Obey." Please don't get me wrong, but as much as we enjoyed singing many of those songs on a special night, I look at scripture today and see that the words of many of the songs did not line up with scripture as closely as we might have thought. "Trust and Obey" was one of them.
In this week's readings we find the Hebrews gathered around the mountain to receive the words of Torah. The lightning and thunder must have been awesome. Simply awesome. No doubt more than just the hair on the back of your neck stood up. The assembly watched as young men offered burnt offerings to Yah. They listened intently as Moses read the words he had received. They watched as the blood was applied to the altar. All of a sudden the cry of the people went forth as one voice, "We will do and we will obey." With that statement, Moses took the remaining blood and sprinkled it on the people to seal the covenant of marriage.
Now just what does a Sunday Night Singing and the events of Mount Sinai have in common you ask? As Eddie Chumney would say, "Everything!" The two events clearly show two distinct mindsets which prevail in our world today. They compare the clash of a Greek mind and a Hebrew mind. It is the difference between trusting and doing. Do we "trust and obey" or do we "do and obey?"
The Greek mind loves the word "trust." It is a non-action word which can be pondered while sitting with a cup of coffee and swinging on the porch swing. As we sip and swing we can simply think of how much trust we have developed in our mind. To put obedience to this trust we simply go out and act on whatever thoughts we have developed while sitting on the swing. We in essence then go through life, "Trusting" that we are doing the right thing. It is in many ways very similar to hoping for change. Maybe things will work out and maybe they will not.
In contrast the word "do" is an action word. We simply cannot do something while doing nothing. It is a word which calls for us to put down the coffee cup and get up off the swing. To do and obey means we must have some instructions on which to base our actions. When do and obey are carried out in their correct context, they come with parameters and guidelines, which we have been given in His words of Torah. Obedience through the action of doing then brings forth a trust we never would have known while on our swing merely thinking of trusting.
Maybe you can say this is all a play on the semantics of words, but I think not. Through experience I have found that the actions of "doing" Torah have brought forth a trust that the words to a song just were never able to bring. The actions the Torah requires of me have resulted in a faith, a trust and a relationship that reveal to me that my previous life and lifestyle were very similar to life on a porch swing. The obedience that has come through doing the instructions of Torah has brought forth a depth of trust I never knew in the words of a hymn. Torah has put living flesh on what I now see were dry bones.
Life has changed so much and in so many ways since the days of the Fifth Sunday Singing. The trust that I now have through seeing Him at work in my actions of doing means so much more than just the words to a melody I once knew. The actions brought forth in Torah have caused me to change almost every aspect of not only life, but also the way I look at life. Oh, I am still trusting, but the level which I do so today is no longer in the passive of the porch swing, but rather is being proven out on a daily basis by hands on doing. p> Shabbat Shalom,
Mike
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