How often do we place ourselves in the role of worshiper without first being a forgiver? Why do we forgive? Why do we worship? Often the answer hovers dangerously close to being “to meet my needs.” Jesus said “first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23-24). This teaching of Jesus gets its roots from the ancient Jews. There is a 10-day period between the Jewish New year and the Day of Atonement. This 10-day stretch of time was to be used by all Jews to seek reconciliation from one another, followed by a nation-wide fast.

The great fast on the Day of Atonement was not to be observed by any person who did not first seek forgiveness from his or her neighbor. Imagine for a moment how wonderful an observance this was, as a magnificent communal experience for all God’s people, when they spent 10 days reconciling all wrongs and bringing the entire nation to a place of peace with one another.

One survivor of the Holocaust is recorded to say, “If you could lick my heart, it would poison you.” This is the extreme, but a good example of the kind of dissention that was to be gotten rid of before the Day of Atonement and participation in the great fast.

First century Jews, including Jesus, placed such a high value on forgiving neighbors that the sages would teach:

“For transgressions that are between a person and God, the Day of Atonement effects atonement, but for the transgressions that are between a person and his or her neighbor, the Day of Atonement effects atonement only if one first has appeased ones neighbor” (Brad Young, The Parables, page 124).

This is also the backdrop for Jesus’ parable, “The Merciful Lord and His Unforgiving Servant” (see Matthew 18:23-35).

The main goal of the Day of Atonement was for all of God’s people to imitate Him as a forgiving and merciful being. God desires that we imitate Him by forgiving one another.

When God created human beings, He created them “in His image.” The word “image” in Hebrew is the same word translated “idol.” God tells us not to create idols, for we are not to go to anything or anyone other than God to have our needs met. Even though God told us not to create any idols, God created many idols; He created each and every person so that He could come to us and have us meet His needs.

One of God’s greatest needs, of which He comes to His images in order to have met, is the need for his children to be reconciled with one another so that they can worship Him with clean hearts.

Forgive first and then come and worship your God.

In His dust,
Johnny

© 2008 Jonathan P. Gainey and Flock’s Diner.
All Rights Reserved

The church is very familiar with the teaching of God’s omnipresence; the idea that God is everywhere. Theologically, a less than thorough understanding of omnipresence can lead a person to run the risk of tampering with a belief in pantheism and/or panentheism.

What does the Bible say about the presence of God in the world?

It is apparent that God cannot co-exist with man directly. God covers himself in a storm cloud when He must be in the presence of man. There is no place in the Old Testament where God is able to stand person to person with anyone without some kind of cover. It is interesting that God does long to be with people despite this exception to the rule of His omnipresence, which inevitably leads us to wonder whether God is truly unlimited in His abilities.

In an amazing book that I am thoroughly enjoying, titled, The Gospel According to Moses, written by Athol Dickson, the subject of God being limited is discussed with very convincing facts and scholarly opinions. Dickson speaks of the kabbalistic rabbis who taught about tsimtsum. (The Kabbalah is a collection of mystical rabbinic teachings.) Tsimtsum, or “withdrawing” is the subject of separation that was required in the creation process. God separated the light from the darkness, the water from the water, the dry ground from the seas, and the day from the night (see Geneis, chapter 1).

Why all this separation? And what about tsimstum with regard to God himself?

The Bible’s understanding of everything is that before anything, only God existed. God filled all that was, because God was all that was. And once the earth was formed, God limited himself in order to make room for His creation. Tsimtsum was required for God to allow creation to exist outside of His own existence (see Dickson, pages 40-41). Otherwise, everything would be God, hence pantheism, or God would permeate everything, hence panentheism.

“This does not mean that there are places where God is not present. It simply means God has different ways of ‘being,’ some of which are universal or omnipresent, and some of which are not” (Dickson, 42).

This year, my wife and I will celebrate our twentieth wedding anniversary. For the first eighteen months, my wife and I only considered ourselves. We had nothing and no one for whom we needed to make room. I was all hers and she was all mine. Once our children arrived, we had to make room for them in our hearts and lives, and with our time and finances. Tsimtsum entered our marriage.

Once God decided to create, He would have to make room for His creation. Why? The answer is “free-will.” In order for creation to fully exist outside of God, God would have to allow for it to make its own decisions.

This subject is very important to me, because it helps me to answer the question: Why do bad things happen to good people? And even more important: If God is so powerful, why do bad things happen at all? The answer has to do with the ability to make a decision. If there were no options, there would be no such thing as free-will. Yet, free-will requires that creation has the option to do evil.

So, why doesn’t God just destroy all of the evil? 

The flood is the result of God imparting His perfect justice on the world. If everyone was punished for their sins, then everyone would be dead…again. God has chosen to limit even His perfect justice in order to impart mercy and grace upon humanity. This may be difficult to accept by many, but once we begin looking into our own lives, we quickly realize that none of us is perfect. And, unless we are perfect, God has no choice but to remove us from His presence, permanently.

This, once again, brings us back to the rabbinic teaching of tsimtsum, and God’s willingness to limit His presence in the world.

In His dust,
Johnny

© 2008 Jonathan P. Gainey and Flock’s Diner.
All Rights Reserved

Hamakom, hagavoah, halashon, hag’vurah, and shamayim were all names used by the ancient people of God in order to avoid misusing the name YHWH (yah-WEH) when having daily conversation or even in teaching. This is still the practice for modern Jews.

‘Adonai or ‘elohim was used when reciting or reading Scripture. Yet, even ‘elohim was not used in conversation.

The reason these other names, literally meaning the Place, the High, the Tongue, the Power, and the Heaven, were used in place of the tetragrammaton, YHWH, was due to a literal translation of the third commandment, which was to never use the name of YHWH in vain.

Until some time around the third century B.C., but definitely up until the exile in 586 B.C. the name YHWH was used regularly. But in the third century B.C. the name YHWH was only spoken by the priests during Temple liturgies.

Until the sixth century A.D. there were no vowels used in writing the Hebrew language. But at that time, due to the deficite of people who were still fluent in Hebrew, vowels were used to help future generations pronounce the words of the Hebrew Scriptures.

Here is where the name Jehovah was accidentally invented.

The scholars of the sixth century, known as Masoretes, are the ones who began using vowels in writing the Hebrew Scriptures. In their attempt to preserve the third century B.C. law of not saying YHWH, the Masoretes superimposed the vowels of ‘adonai into the tetragrammaton YHWH. This was a protection for those who stumbled across the name YHWH in their reading and prevented them from saying the “sacred name.”

In 1516 A.D. an Italian theologian named Franciscan friar Galatinus came across this superimposed “warning” and misinterpreted it to be a name used for God. He then transliterated the Hebrew Y with the Latin equivalent J and the Hebrew W with the Latin equivalent V and presto…JeHoVaH was created.

Remember that as you sing, “There’s no God like Jehovah,” just take out the “like” and you have a more theologically correct song.

In His dust,

Johnny

© 2008 Jonathan P. Gainey and Flock’s Diner.
All Rights Reserved

There are a lot of conversations within the church with regards to orthodoxy, especially in the area of specific doctrines. And we are all aware of the menial bickering over worship styles and carpet colors.

And even worse, while we are all having our little in-house brawls, the world outside the church is finding fewer and fewer reasons to be a part of the immaturity. But there is something much more scary happening within the body of believers. As Christians swagger into meetings with their meaningless opinions that lead to nothing productive, there is an even more sinister problem that has yet to make its presence fully known.

None of us are unaware of the constant decline of faith in the Western world. Evangelicals make it our spoken goal to reach the lost. But what about the found that are becoming lost. It is not just the unbelievers with whom it is becoming increasingly difficult to share the Gospel. The fact is many life-long Christians are beginning to question the very existence of the God they have spent their lives worshiping. And even worse, there is a shocking number of church leaders who are among the most doubtful. And yet, they preach and teach every week as though they are having no issues of doubt.

But, before we become too critical of those who are suffering with this dilemma, let’s consider the hearts of those who are sincerely trying to maintain their faith, but are losing the battle. It is not a simple task to lose one’s belief in God. The constant bombardments of new knowledge and insights within the world of science and technology are stripping away thousands of years of faith. It is not a simple skepticism that is taking pastors and other God-loving Christians to the realms of agnosticism and atheism, but highly educated thinkers and writers who share their doubts and struggles with faith. Those who are losing their belief in God are tormented by the thoughts of “What if?” and “If only I had some kind of proof.”

“Who wants to waste another Sunday at a church singing about a God who doesn’t exist?”

They are truly searching, but there are very few Christians who are prepared to do battle with the highly-educated thinkers who are pounding the world of faith with their eloquent speeches and very convincing studies. “They have proof! Christians only have faith. They have fossils and men landing on the moon. Christians have an empty tomb and Jesus walking on water.”

As science and technology continue to make new advances, miracles and the existence of God are placed under an ever-strengthening microscope, pulling Christians to wonder if God really exists at all.

I am in constant contact with agnostics, and some of them are pastors who ask genuine questions with sincere hearts, and who simply want to know……the truth. Many of them are deeply troubled, and are not prepared to give up their “jobs” just because they have doubts, while they also struggle with their integrity, wondering if continuing to teach in the church is the right thing to do.

Like many, I have been down the road of doubt. Fortunately, I have come out the other side with a deeper belief in God. What’s the difference between me and others. My answer is by no means exhaustive, but I would offer the fact that I’ve been exposed to incredible Christian scholars who have done battle with the secular thinkers of our time. They, like highly educated scientists and philosophers, have studied their subject deeply, and have learned things that most of us have no idea exist in the area of theology.

I am deeply concerned for those believers who are having their faith ripped out of their lives. In most cases, we are pulled away just as any cult may drag away a well-intentioned believer. We want to be right. We don’t want our lives wasted by hopes and dreams that amount to one more Santa Claus or Tooth Fairy hoax that was planted in our minds by well-meaning, loving, and important people. 

This is a serious problem in the church. Agnostics and Atheists are no longer those people who stay home on Sunday. Some of them are preaching in our pulpits.

It’s time that more Christian scholars and teachers spend less energy arguing about the Trinity, the reality of Hell, and whether or not we should have Sunday school. It’s time to spend more time sharing the Living God with a searching world…..of Christians.

“With his mouth the godless can ruin his neighbor, but by knowledge the righteous are delivered” (Proverbs 11:9).  

In His dust,

Johnny

© 2008 Jonathan P. Gainey and Flock’s Diner.
All Rights Reserved