The apostolic letter to the Hebrews (the “Jews”) begins by saying: “At many times and in many ways, God spoke long ago to the fathers through the prophets. In these last days He has spoken to us through (the) Son … through Whom He created the universe (and Who was) the imprint of His being.” In John 14:9 and 10:30, Yeshua affirmed that He was indeed the revelation of God to mankind. In John 1:1 and 14, the Holy Spirit explained through John, “In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God and the Word was God. … The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.”

So it’s no challenge to understand that one method God used to explain His messages, delivered through the prophets over the ages, was by Yeshua amplifying them for us. Being God Incarnate, Yeshua could freely and fully illuminate the meaning of the words that His own Spirit had dictated to the various prophets.

That is why we sometimes find that Old Testament scriptures are explained by New Testament references, sometimes paraphrased by Yeshua or the Spirit of Yeshua though the apostles. On the other hand, sometimes the Old Testament context and usage of a passage helps us to grasp the full significance of it being cited in the New Testament. This comparison of “old” and “new” revelation has helped me greatly as I pursue a better understanding of scripture.

I have learned a few things over the past year about the Jewish method of Biblical exegesis – a process called Pardes, which is really an acronym (PaRDeS) for Peshat, Remez, Derash and Sod. I find it interesting and not incompatible with the paths I had used before to pursue the understanding of scripture. The Peshat is the surface / straight / literal meaning of a text. The Remez is the allegoric / symbolic meaning beyond the literal, and is hinted at by the literal meaning. The Derash (from the Hebrew word for “inquire” or “seek”) is the meaning that can be discovered through comparison of similar occurrences. Finally, the Sod is the “secret” / “mystery” or esoteric / mystical meaning, as given through inspiration or revelation. Peshat is the base meaning;  Remez, Derash and Sod comprise the “extended meaning”. I found reassurance in the existence of a rule saying that the extended meaning must never contradict the base meaning. Sound familiar? God does not contradict Himself – even if an angel from heaven (with a presumably elevated level of “inspiration”) should try to promulgate from a passage a revelation that disagrees with the plainly stated Peshat. I refer you to the first part of the following article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardes_%28Jewish_exegesis%29 .

Letting God explain Himself through His written word is sometimes a slow process, because the Bible was dictated and written down over centuries, so long ago and so far away. All of this recording, and our attempts to understand the written word, have been set in a post-Babel language context, so there seems to be a lot “lost in translation”. God is not and was never an inept communicator*, but in our human hearing, note-taking, transcribing, translating, comprehension* and relating what we understand of a plane that is higher than ours, mankind has sometimes been inept. I thank God so much for those saints* who sacrificially* spent huge portions of their lives in work that now helps* us to understand God’s written word better than we could on our own. The labors of Divinely* inspired translators, researchers, archeologists, linguists, teachers and communicators now combine* to help us draw explanations of scripture, from scripture, with the use of cross-references, concordances, commentaries and comparative translations. All this can help us to reclaim* much of what was lost in translation, and to avoid the trap of applying “private interpretations” (2 Peter 1:20) to God’s holy word. Have I forgotten to mention the most important Helper and Guide in our quest for understanding of scripture? No. I have only left Him unnamed until now; but those mysterious asterisks sprinkled in the text above are my indicators of the Holy Spirit’s thread of influence from start to finish of this pursuit of understanding. The Holy Spirit, one of Whose roles is to lead believers into all truth (John 16:13), first produces the desire in us to understand God’s word, and then guides the yielded in the diligent pursuit and communication of truth. The Holy Spirit even grants revelation that helps us to personalize the scripture, while protecting the yielded from falling prey to private (self-serving) interpretations and strange “winds of doctrine” (Ephesians 4:3-15) in our pursuit of understanding.    (To be continued…)

I love comparing scripture with scripture; that is, Bible verse with Bible verse, translation with translation. Then, I use commentaries on the historical, social and religious contexts to understand what the scripture was originally communicating and how it can sensibly be applied today. In that way I am able to understand much more of God’s word and what He is saying to me – a Gentile, a woman, a Christian living in a largely ungodly society, a sibling and extended family member, a wife, a mother, an intercessor and spiritual sibling, an employee and co-worker, a Bible-lover, people-lover, and devil-hater. (To be continued…)

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I’m very glad that my parents taught me obedience. That training has helped me to obey God. To obey, you first have to listen and make mental notes of the instructions given. [Remember, I’m speaking about obeying God – not a human being who is subject to changes of heart, after which he/she may not even remember or honor what he/she told you to do. But that’s an aside.] The real reason for my post is to remind Believers that Yeshua (“Jesus”) gave instructions about how we should pray: to the Father in Yeshua’s (/Jesus’) Name. This was for requests as well as thanksgiving. See John 15:16, 16:23, 14:13. Inspired by the Spirit of God, the Apostle Paul elaborated on the topic, teaching in Colossians 3:17,  “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the Name of the Lord Yeshua, (even) giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”

With all of that instruction, I really don’t understand how some Christians can “pray” without even referring to Yeshua’s (/Jesus’) Name. I hear prayers that are like the reading of a long wish-list placed before God – apparently in the name of the wisher. I also hear prayers that sound like a list of instructions that we are giving to God about what He must do for us. Perhaps God receives it differently from people who don’t know better, but to me these prayers sound like someone saying, “Lord, this is your to-do list, your marching orders from me today. Amen. Let it all get done.”

Our parents taught us to say “please” when asking someone for something. Yet we feel we can give God orders and demand compliance from Him – without either that common courtesy we learned as children, or without obedience to God’s own specific instructions. It pains me to hear those prayers, because I know that many of them will just bounce off the ceiling. Bouncing back to us and echoing in the ears of witnesses, these prayers might satisfy our senses and egos, but will they get the response from God that we have asked for? I suspect not; that’s why it pains me to hear people glibly rattling off, offering up and putting their trust in such prayers.

If your parents were good teachers, then in training you to say “please” they would not have given you what you asked for, until you followed their simple instruction. Well, take a hint – God is an excellent parent and teacher. He is not about to contradict or annul His own instructions to please someone, to make someone feel like His handler, or to encourage “faith” in self-based prayers.

A striking Biblical example of doing all in the Name of the Lord is cited by Yeshua’s half-brother Judah in Jude verse 9, reminding us that even “Michael the (mighty) archangel, in contending with the devil… did not (simply) bring against him a reviling accusation, but said “The Lord (not just I, the mighty archangel) rebuke you!”

Who is “the Lord”? Philippians 2:6-11 answers that question for the Believer. Verses 9-11 specifically identify Him as the One Who has been given “the Name that is above every (other) Name, that at the Name of Yeshua (/Jesus) every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue profess that Yeshua HaMashiach is Lord – to the glory of God the Father.”  No wonder He told us not to waste our breath, but to pray to the Father in that Name!

At boarding school we had chapel devotions each morning and each evening. One of my favorite hymns from that time began: “New every morning is the love/ Our waking and uprising prove,/ Through sleep and darkness safely brought,/ Restored to life and power and thought.”  For me, that restoration to life and power and thought often comes with a reopening of the conversation with God. Very often I wake up already hearing His opening lines. Yesterday morning He was saying to me as I awoke, “You know, when people think I haven’t answered their prayer they are so totally wrong. Do you realize that many of their prayers were already answered long ago in My word? They either want Me to keep repeating Myself, or to contradict Myself.”