Jabez, Pain and You

Jabez, Pain and You

by | Jun 19, 2016 | Prayer, Problems

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​The Old Testament character Jabez is perhaps someone you have never heard of, but he was possibly well-known in his day. Jabez is introduced in 1 Chronicles 4 without any background at all – as though he was an individual with whom the readers of the book would be familiar.  But the story of Jabez is an interesting one:

“Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, “I gave birth to him in pain.” Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” And God granted his request” (1 Chronicles 4:10).

The story gives the origin of Jabez’s name and the Hebrew seems to clearly mean “he causes pain.” But there are two possible ways to translate the final part of Jabez’s request to God. The New International version and English Standard Version, for example, translate it like this:

“ … keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” NIV
“ … keep me from harm so that it might not bring me pain!” ESV

Apart from the fact that there seems to be little about this request to make it worthy of recording (the number of people who have prayed to be free from pain is doubtless a considerable one!), these translations ignore the fact that Jabez was given his name because his mother had suffered pain in his delivery and his name means “he causes pain” – not that he was somehow prone to pain.

What makes the Prayer of Jabez so unique is that it seems more likely that he was very conscious of the great pain he caused his mother in childbirth, and sincerely desirous not to cause pain to others.  That leads us to the other possible meaning of the Hebrew in the last part of his prayer which is utilized by a number of other translations – as seen, for example, in the Holman Christian Standard Bible and the New King James Version:

“… keep me from harm, so that I will not cause any pain” (HCSB)
“… keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!” (NKJV)

These translations understand the prayer to be asking God not to keep Jabez safe from evil, but to help him not commit harm or evil; the translations opting for  “that I may not cause pain” seem far more likely to be correct based on what little contextual information we are given.  If Jabez prayed for God’s blessing on his life that he not cause pain to others, then the prayer was certainly a unusual and unselfish one.  It is perhaps especially understandable that God granted his request, and that it was recorded.
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If we are correct in this reading of 1 Chronicles 4:10, it is an unusual prayer indeed.  How often do we pray not to cause pain to others as opposed to praying to be delivered from pain ourselves? It is perhaps a prayer we can and all should pray – and one that, just as in the case of Jabez, God is very likely to answer.

Uprooting the Tree of Temptation

Uprooting the Tree of Temptation

by | Jun 12, 2016 | Overcoming

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Overcoming temptation is a subject of interest to every Christian,as it’s a subject that affects us all. 

We probably know that the Bible contains a number of guiding and  encouraging  scriptures to help us in overcoming, but we may not be aware of biblical analysis of the cycle of temptation and sin that grows from “seed” to burgeoning “tree,” if we let it.  It’s an understanding found in both the Old and New Testaments and one we can apply.
 

The clearest analysis of the growth of sin is found in the first chapter of the Book of James which describes the genealogy or “family tree” of every temptation leading to transgression:
 
“… each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death” (James 1:14-15).
 
If we analyze it, the growing “tree” of temptation that James elaborates can help us understand how we can break sin’s growth before it breaks us:
 
Seed:  “each person is tempted…” – Exposure to temptation
Roots:  “each person is … dragged away by their own evil desire” – Considering the temptation
Trunk:  “and enticed”  – Intellectual acquiescence
Branches: “then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin” – Submission to sin
Fruit: “…sin … gives birth to death” – The eventual result of sin
 
The pattern is a universal one.  We see it as early as the story of the first sin in Genesis 3 when the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” became the focus of Eve’s attention:
 
“When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it” (Genesis 3:6).
 
Dividing up this example of the tree of temptation, we see exactly the same pattern:
 
Seed:  “the woman saw …” – Exposure to temptation
Roots:  “… the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye” – Considering the temptation
Trunk:  “and also desirable for gaining wisdom” – Intellectual acquiescence
Branches: “she took some and ate it” – Submission to sin
Fruit: “when you eat from it you will certainly die” (Genesis 2:17) – The eventual result of sin
 
Once we understand the structure of this figurative tree of transgression, we can see that the only logical place to stop the growth of temptation is at the beginning – by killing the “seed” before the “roots” begin to grow.
  
Physical seeds need the right conditions in order to germinate.  Spiritually we must do everything we can to make sure that the conditions are not in our lives for the seeds of sin to continually grow.  In some circumstances, of course, we cannot help but be exposed to temptation – its potential is present in so much of modern society. But we can prepare our environment to avoid a good deal of it.
 
Gardeners wanting to avoid the growth of weeds regularly use “pre-emergent” herbicides to stop the germination of those unwanted plants, and our regular use of the spiritual “pre-emergents” of prayer, study and other spiritual disciplines can have exactly the same effect on temptation.

But whenever we are exposed to temptation, it is imperative that we kill the “roots” before they take a firm hold.  It is always easier to pull up the small roots of a sapling than to cut down a grown tree trunk, and easier to cut the trunk than to try to cut off every branch.  It is the one unfailing principle that can help us overcome temptation more than any other – the earlier we attempt to end the growth of temptation, the more likely we are to succeed.

Transferring the analogy to actual everyday life means throwing everything we can at temptation the moment it begins to grow within our minds.  That can mean asking God’s help in immediate prayer (Matthew 6:13), putting something else that is attractive but good into our minds to replace the wrong thoughts (Philippians 4:8), or simply getting ourselves into a different environment till the temptation passes (2 Timothy 2:22-24).

​Sometimes, all three strategies are necessary to help us stop the growth of a sin in our lives. But the encouraging thing is that just as there is no tree that cannot be felled, there is no temptation that cannot be overcome if we are willing to attack it – before it grows.  

Galilee and the Galileans

Galilee and the Galileans

by | Jun 5, 2016 | History & the Bible

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“Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali,  the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan,  Galilee of the Gentiles — the people living in darkness  have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned” (Matthew 4:14-16, quoting Isaiah 9:1-2).

​The region of ancient (and modern) Israel that we call Galilee apparently was originally just a small circle of land (the name means “circuit” or “circle” in Hebrew) round the Canaanite city of Kedesh, which was conquered by Joshua and became part of the inheritance of the tribe of Naphtali (Joshua 20:7).   It was in this area that the twenty towns were located that King Solomon gave to Hiram king of Tyre, in payment for the workmen and cedar wood  he supplied  from Lebanon for building the Temple in Jerusalem (1 Kings 9:11).  Perhaps it was then that the area became settled by Gentiles from Phoenicia (Isaiah 8:23), though this may have occurred at a later time, when the Assyrians moved other populations into the area after the captivity of ancient Israel.

In Roman times, and throughout the life of Jesus, all Palestine was divided into three provinces: Judea, Samaria, and Galilee, with Galilee being the largest (Luke 17:11). The area is extremely hilly and rocky, and most people lived in small villages – though the cities such as Tiberias built on the shores of the Sea of Galilee were larger. The Sea of Galilee was, in fact, the central focal point of the whole region.  Also called in the Bible the Sea of Kinneret (possibly from the “harp” shape of the lake) or its Greek form, Gennesaret,  as well as Ginosar and the Sea of Tiberius,  the large lake (today approximately 7 miles wide and 12.5 miles long) was the center of the fishing trade which was Galilee’s main industry. 

Many Bible commentaries give a picture of ancient Galilee as a rustic and socially backwards area looked down upon by Jews in Jerusalem and elsewhere, but modern archaeology has shown that although the Galileans may have had a different accent (Matthew 26:73) and may not have had the education of many of the Jerusalem elites (Acts 4:13), they were nevertheless respected for their thriving commerce.  The whole area of Galillee was known for its beauty, and the Jewish historian Josephus who lived shortly after the time of Christ (c. AD 37 – AD 100)  even wrote that “One may call this place the ambition of Nature.”

The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke,) all give detailed accounts of the ministry of Jesus which was conducted in Galilee.  They tell us that it was there that Jesus chose his disciples and where he taught and performed many miracles in the scattered villages and towns.  Matthew tells us that he did this to fulfill what was said through the prophet Isaiah:

“Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali,  the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan,  Galilee of the Gentiles— the people living in darkness  have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned” (Matthew 4:14-16, quoting Isaiah 9:1-2).

Yet why did Jesus spend so much of his earthly life in Galilee?  It would have been possible, of course, for him to have grown up anywhere in Judea and to have simply travelled to Galilee to complete his prophesied work there.  Most scholars feel that because Galilee was relatively distant from the political and religiously volatile situation in Jerusalem, Jesus’ ministry was more likely to thrive and survive in the more out of the way area.
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But there is perhaps another reason why so much of Jesus’ ministry was completed in Galilee – and that was the nature of the Galileans themselves.  The common stereotype that paints the Galileans as unsophisticated  and “backwoodsy” fails to take into account an important trait for which they were well known.  The Jewish historian Josephus also wrote of the Galileans that they were “fond of innovations and by nature disposed to change, and they delighted in seditions.”  The latter charge, that they were fond of political seditions, was seen in the revolt against the Romans led by Judas of Galilee in  AD 6 and mentioned in the New Testament (Acts 5:37). 

However, the fact that the Galileans were socially and temperamentally inclined to innovation and change meant that they were doubtless far more receptive to the seemingly radical new teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.  Far less constrained in what they believed than the tradition-bound Jews of Jerusalem, the Galileans (apart from Jesus’ own family and those who had known him as a child – Matthew 13:54-58) may have been more open to the message of the Gospel than any other group in ancient Palestine.  It was among the Galileans, as Isaiah prophesied, that the light that was to come shone most brightly. 

The Most Effective Swords

The Most Effective Swords

by | May 29, 2016 | Warriors of the Way

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​​“May the praise of God be in their mouths and a double-edged sword in their hands” (Psalm 149:6).
 

​Several verses in the Scriptures utilize the spiritual metaphor of a sharpened sword. Most famous, of course, are the words of the apostle Paul in Ephesians 6:17 which directly liken the word of God to a sword.  It’s a simple but effective metaphor that brings to mind the powerful ability of a warrior’s blade to accomplish his purpose – whether defending good or destroying evil. But it’s also an analogy we can profitably think about in terms of how the best swords are made.

Eventually, sword masters discovered that they could make the most effective sword blades through a process of fusion.  Earlier sword blades had great disadvantages.  If they were made of hard metal, they would sharpen well and hold a keen edge, but they shattered easily in actual combat. If they were made of soft metal, they would flex in combat and not shatter, but they would not take or hold a good edge and soon became blunt and unusable.

The sword masters solved this problem by creating swords made from both hard and soft metal – paper thin laminations of soft and hard metal that were successively fused together through skilled craftsmanship until blades were produced that had great flexibility but that also retained a deadly cutting edge.

Something like this holds true of the principles we find in the spiritual “sword” that we are given to use. Time and again the Scriptures juxtapose qualities that seem to be opposite, yet both are needed to make us effective.  Consider just a few examples of opposites fused in the Bible, and how we might apply them:

Justice and Mercy:  “…Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another” (Zechariah 7:9).  Punishment should take into account circumstances as well as attitude.

Letter and Spirit: “You should have practiced the latter [Spirit of the Law], without neglecting the former [Letter of the Law]” (Matthew 23:23).  We should follow the spirit of the law without making it an excuse not to follow the letter when that is appropriate.

Truth and Love:  “Grace, mercy and peace from God … will be with us in truth and love” (1 John 1:1-3). We should tell the truth, but need not do it in ways that unnecessarily hurt others.

Correction and Encouragement: “Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage” (2 Timothy 4:2).  We should always correct with encouragement to do better.
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In all of these examples and in many other situations, the Scriptures show us that while all of the qualities mentioned in such pairs are important, taking only one approach or the other can be problematic or even wrong.  In so many cases we need both of the seeming opposites to live and to serve as we should.  It can help us to achieve real growth to look for pairs like these as we study the Scriptures, and to meditate on how we can make sure we are developing in both areas.  It is the combination of metals of opposite characteristics that makes effective swords – and it is often the fusion of complementary spiritual truths that makes the word of God such a powerful sword of the Spirit.