The Way of Change

    This weekend I spend time in San Diego on some business for Shiloh University. While there I attended the Church of His Kingdom. The Senior pastor brought a word on change. It was a pastoral word to his sheep and being good sheep they received it as it was, a word from God. This is a formula for change. The whole service was refreshing to me and my wife who live life in an intense environment, i.e. Los Angeles. San Diego has always been a place of "R & R" for us. We took a ferry ride around the harbor passing right beneath the Midway aircraft carrier. It was a beautiful day. Well, I digress.
     Oh yes, the point I was making was the depth of theology in God's people.  The sheep Sunday morning understood a very basic theological principle, exposing ones heart to the logos, the word, Christ, the Big Bambino, causes change. We are changed by beholding Him.  In this respect we are all theologians. Every person who thinks about God in some part is doing theology. In fact every Christian is a theologian, good or bad. According to Stanley Grenz "Every Christian is a theologian. Whether consciously or unconsciously, each person of faith embraces a belief system. And each believer, whether in a deliberate manner or merely implicitly, reflects on the content of these beliefs and their significance for Christian life."
    Well, I would like to think that every Christian has at some point consciously thought about his/her faith. I know those congregants last Sunday were way into thinking about their faith. In fact I would venture to say that the flock of CHK, has been trained to think about their walk with God. They examined their lives and looked for areas that needed change. Change is not easy. "Reflecting on the content of their beliefs" requires an openness to God who does not change (Mal.3:6a), but demands that we evolve into His image. Paul fortunately gives us the avenue for this transformation in 2 Corinthians 3:18. "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (KJV). The Greek word for changed, or transformed (NIV) is metamorfow, That is right, metamorphosis. Like the butterfly we go from a worm to a beautiful butterfly. The worm has no idea that he will fly, much less be so delicate and drink the nector of beautiful flowers. What a change that is! To go from squirming around in the dirt and making little girls scream, to flying in the air and having people marvel at your beauty, is mind boggling. Only God could do something like that. Really the study of science, life, physical, or theoretical is a practical theology course. It depends simply on your orientation to life. 
     The worm never studied science so he has no idea what he is changing into. Do we? "But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him"(1 Cor. 2:9). Our ideas about who we are going to be can block what God is doing for us and in us. I bet the worm was glad he wasn't asked his opinion about what God was doing. Little did he know. And little do we know. But that is good. All we have to do is open our hearts in faith to the Lord, beholding Him and metamorphosis happens! John  Stevens in His revolutionary sermon called The Course of Change, said this, "How can you accelerate the process of becoming identical with Him? How can you absorb His nature? Efforts to discipline yourself to pray and read the Bible a certain amount every day are good, but they can easily become only a legalistic bondage. It is not how much you read the Word or listen to messages that determines your growth; it is how much you see and partake of Christ in it, how much you are truly exposed to Christ in it." That is the way of change. Exposing yourself to Christ, in the word, in prayer, in your brother and sister of faith, in our own hearts, this is how we transform ourselves. This is the end result of good theology. As Paul the great eccesliastical architech and theologian put it so simply, "That I might know him and the power (dynamite) of his resurrection..." (Phil.3:10).

Jesus, "There's Something About That Name"

Bill Gaither's song "Jesus, There's Something About That Name" is a great song on which to meditate. While I was singing along,  it made me think about the origin of the name of Jesus. What does it mean and where did we get it?  Jesus. The Bible says a lot about that name. But the first hint that I could find as to what it means was found in Matthew the first chapter and the twenty-first verse. In Greek:

te√xetai de… uiÔovn, kai… kale√seiß to; o[noma aujtou: =Ihsou:n` aujto;ß ga˝r sw◊sei to;n lao;n aujtou: a˙po; twÇn aÓmartiwÇn aujtwÇn. "And she (Mary) will bear a son and you will call his name Jesus. For he will save his people from their sins." 

So according to this Greek verse "Jesus" means, if you will allow me to cheat a little, "salvation" in the classical Christian meaning. And that is what Jesus does, Jesus saves us from our sins. Jesus saves. Now the angel was probably not talking Greek, but we don't know for sure. Even if he did speak Greek, we still might want to know where the name of Jesus comes from.

The word for Jesus in the Greek is IhsouV. The Greek NT name is taken from the Septuagint (LXX), which as we know is the Greek translation of the OT done by seventy or so rabbis. This existed before the NT and was used by many of the early Christians for OT readings. Many quotes of the OT in the NT are from the LXX. :-)

How did the Septuagint scholars arrive at =Ihsou:V ? Well you can almost see where English got Jesus just from the transliteration from the Greek, Iesous. And this is the problem. Different languages have different alphabets that may or may not have all the same letters. Hebrew does not have the all same letters as Greek and Greek does not have all the same letters as English. For instance Greek does not have a 'J"  and English does not have an eta or h. And both have many letters that do not correspond to the Hebrew. 

Now we were talking about where "Jesus" originally comes from. It is felt almost with certainty that the Angel said Joshua or Ao¢Uvwøh◊y or the more correct term yeshua(h). This second name yeshua(h) is transliterated. The "ah" at the end is the short name for God. It is like when we say hallelujah or more better halleluyah, which means "praise God". The "yah" is short for Yahweh. Yah is God's nick name. :-)   It is the same in Elijah's name. It means "God is Yahweh". Well, Yeshua(h) means "Yahweh is salvation".  Now follow this next part.

Since Greek does not have the Hebraic y or "y" it has to go by the sound that is made. The sound of "y" is sort of the Greek iota eta or Ih. Then the Hebraic v is like "sh" which Greek does not have either, but it does have "s" sound. So so far we have Ihs. The "u" sound is under the  v. It is the 3 little dots. This is the Mesoretic voweling and it means "U". And finally the Ao is the "ah" sound. But you say that Jesus does not have the "ah" sound. That is correct. Oddly enough it was left off. So we have "salvation" and not "Yahweh is  Salvation". Did the early Septuagint scribes mean to leave off the final "ah" on IhsouV? Did they not want to give it a totally Jewish slant? I don't know. The angel said "because he will save his people from their sins?" He did not say " Yahweh is salvation who shall save his people from their sins." 

 I do have one more thought. The Jewish names do not have "us" on the end as far as I can find.  Who does? Greek and Latin names do. For example the mythological god  Αχιλλευς is Greek and the Latin is  Achelous. Here is the jump. Maybe the name was Hellenized or Latinized by the early writers?

However we want to spell it or pronounce it, it is still the name above all names. It is so powerful that to voice it in context of a relationship with our Lord "has power on the lips of the most humble saint that is greater than the most powerful demon"(JRStevens).  

Bill Gaither is right "There is something about that name."

Keruzon ton logon

To Martin Luther there were few things that he held to be sacramental. One of these things was preaching. Actually communion and preaching he felt were the two sacramental offices of the church. Granted he was responding or reacting to the Catholic Church which had not a few sacramental offices and at that time were abusing a good many of them.  But Zwingli, Calvin and Hobbs all felt that preaching was a major important indispensable part of the Christian community.


Examining the scriptures I find that kerusso Greek for preaching, is found sixty times in the NT. That is more times than the word "salvation". On closer reading we find amazing usages of the word.  Many times in the NT it records Jesus preaching to the people. In Matthew 4:17 we see Jesus preaching and again in Mark 1:14, John is thrown into prison and Jesus is preaching the kingdom of Heaven. In Matthew 10:7 and Mark 3:14 Jesus is sending forth the disciples exhorting them "to preach". The scriptures record the command form of the verb, imperative of the word, keruzon. We see this in Mark 16:15 when Christ was commissioning the disciples to go into all the world and yes, preach. Again in Matthew it is preaching of the kingdom of God in all the world that precipitates the ending of the age. 
So why is preaching soooo important. It can be soooo boring. I know I've listened to myself. And we have listen to others or not, like our mothers and wives and again I said "or not". But there seems to be plenty of it going around. So I guess by how much it is used makes it important?


But there certainly is another reason it is important. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by a word from God (Romans 10:17 ). And in another place Paul said "...how shall they hear without a preacher?" (Romans 10:14). Preaching the living word creates faith in the heart of those who hear. But why has God chosen this way to communicate? Because God wants to communicate with His creation. He wants to live in community and in communication. Remember the reformation fathers ...and Hobbs : ), believed that preaching was in dispensable to the community. God not only by a word created all things, he by a word became flesh and lived with us in community. He wants to be Immanuel, God with us. Talking to us, living with us, and loving us as our Father, His word in and among us. 


Preaching becomes one of the main vehicles for creating this communication within the community.
There are those who want to down play preaching. There was a movement in '30s to put a moritorium on preaching in the Catholic Church. A mother of five, Helene Froelicher, declare "no". She said preaching was Reformatio Sacrae Eloquentiae.  This began a movement to put more emphasis on preaching. What timing was that! At that same time, Hitler was showing all the world what preaching has the power to do. The  force of the tongue put to destructive use. James was right. It can set a whole world aflame! If that is the power it has with Satan what power does hit have with God?  Paul said "it is the power of God!" (1Cor.1:18). The speaking of the Word of God created all things, it can save all things. Paul exhorts Timothy to preach the gospel in season and out of season. And applying that to himself in 1Corinthians 9  he says "Woe to me if I preach not the gospel of Jesus Christ." 


John Robert Stevens in his book entitled Living Prophecies  said "for this is the day that the word of the Lord shall come in creative power from the lips of the humblest saint."  We are living in the days when the word of God is going to be spoken, preached, by humble saints and His Kingdom will come. The fulfillment of our Lord's prayer, "Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, On this earth...." The power of God is returning to you and me. Paul said it to the Athenians, "the word is near you, even in your mouth".  Paul in Corinthians 12 said again,"let everyone prophecy".  We should be speaking the word with all boldness. It is how the new age is going to come.