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Toward a Hebrew Reading of the Psalms

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

How do you read the Psalms? I think a lot of people find them hard to connect with. They are the hymnal of God’s people for millennia, but today we often don’t know what to do with them other than taking the occasional isolated phrase as inspiration for a new praise song.
I think that in regards to the Psalms, there may be real benefit in examining how Hebrew poetry works. There’s a learning curve to reading any sort of poetry; it’s language at its best, so it takes some attention.

The Psalms take you on an emotion journey. Each one starts at one point and takes you to another. The trick is following. Hebrew poetry is suggestive, preferring brevity and ambiguity, whereas our language is propositional, preferring thoroughness of description and precision. That’s why a Psalm can sometimes seem disconnected. Let’s use Psalm 142 to explain:

Psalm 142:1-2 introduce the poet’s emotion:

With my voice I cry out to the Lord;
With my voice I plead for mercy to the Lord.

I pour out my complaint before him;
I tell my trouble before him.

As you can see, each line is meant to be brief. And our English translation has made it longer than in Hebrew. There actually is no “with” at the beginning of the first two lines. The poem literally begins with
My voice, to the Lord I cry;
My voice, to the Lord I plead.
The force of the emotion is precisely in not describing it thoroughly. It’s the minimal expression of a burdened soul.

Psalm 142:3-4 describes the poet’s situation that has given rise to his complaint:

When my spirit faints within me,
You know my way.
In the path I where I walk
They have hidden a trap for me.

Look to the right and see:
There is none who takes notice of me;
No refuge remains to me;
No one cares for my soul.

While verse three begins with a statement of confidence in God, the main force of these two verses is loneliness, and almost despair.

Psalm 142:5 is a transition; it brings the poem back to the very first statement of the poem: his cry to God—and it gives us the content of this cry:

I cry to you, O Lord;
I say, “You are my refuge,
My portion in the land of the living.”

That’s it! That’s his entire cry. Of course, he goes on to pour out his troubles in the next verse, but in verse 5 he is essentially stating his right to do so: God is his refuge! God is his inheritance, so he’s going to make good use of him.

Psalm 142:6-7a are a succession of three pleas, each one followed by the reason for his plea:

Attend to my cry, (1)
For I am brought very low! (reason)
Deliver me from my persecutors, (2)
For they are too strong for me! (reason)
Bring me out of prison (3)
That I may give thanks to your name! (purpose)

This last plea is clearly more hopeful than the previous as it gives the poet’s very purpose for living, for surviving his current circumstances. “That I may give thanks to your name” causes the poet to look beyond his current circumstances and see the purpose for his entire life—and also to hold God to this purpose, calling on him to enable its fulfillment.

Psalm 142:7b is finally a full-blown statement of hope written in the same format at the previous three pleas:

The righteous will surround me, (hope)
For you will deal bountifully with me. (reason)

So the poet has brought the reader from his initial emotion of despair, through current hopeless situation, through his pleas to God, to the final statement of hope, founded on a confidence in God’s purpose for his life.

If I were to rewrite this poem with all the conjunctions and precision that we expect in English it would go something like this:

My voice cries out to the Lord,
My voice pleads to him for mercy
As I pour out my complaint before him
And tell him all about my troubles.

Even though I know that when my spirit faints within me
You are there with me,
Right now all I see is the path I’m on,
Mined with traps all over.
As far as I can see I have no refuge;
No one gives a hoot for my soul!

But yet I still cry to you, O Lord;
And here is my cry: “You are my refuge
My portion in the land of the living.”

Since you are my portion, listen to me!
Because right now I couldn’t be at a greater loss.
Come on and save me if you’re my refuge
Because they are way stronger than me!
Bring me out of prison
So I can have a reason to praise you as I was meant to!
Then the righteous will surround me,
For you will have dealt bountifully with me.

But I’m sure you will agree that this version leaves nothing to the imagination. Indeed, in my attempt to be precise and propositional, I have fundamentally altered the poem’s character. The poem no longer evokes, it explains. It is a closed poem. It is operating more on reason, and less on emotion. Whereas the original stimulates the imagination to enter into the poet’s world by its short and ambiguous but suggestive lines. It makes the reader work a little bit to do so, but also gives the emotional incentive to do so through its minimalist and accessible introduction of gut-level cries. It hooks, and then reals you in to experience its life.

Open your own Bible and give this Psalm another ride. Don’t think too much. Read very slowly, one phrase at a time, and let each phrase sink in. See what cord it strikes in you before moving on to the next. You will likely begin to have some small experience of Hebrew poetry. The more you practice it the better it will get, and you will probably find that the Psalms’ simple genius will begin to shape your own heart’s cry to God.

What About Guilt

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

It seems to me that there are two kinds of guilt. The first kind is the guilt of breaking God’s law. It’s like a judge in a court room that says “you’re guilty” whether you actually feel like your guilty or not. You just are because you broke God’s law. The Old testament often talks about this because God would command people to go make a sacrifice in the temple if they had sinned. Then they would not be held guilty for their sin. These sacrifices were a picture of Jesus Christ. He sacrificed himself for all sins that we have done. So it’s covered. Even though you are guilty of sinning God doesn’t hold you guilty; he puts the guilt on Jesus on the cross.

The second kind of guilt is what I would call psychological guilt. When you sin there is a voice in your head that says “that was bad.” It’s a good voice because you’re supposed to listen to it and stop doing what you were doing. But guilt happens when that voice keeps saying it over and over: “that was bad, that was bad, that was real bad.” And before long it starts saying “you’re bad because you do bad things”. When it says starts to say this, you start to feel trapped: “If I’m bad, then all I can do is bad.” Do you see what has happened? That voice–or rather, listening to that voice–has effectively taken the cross back out of your life.

Remember, Jesus actually took the guilt for your sins on himself. But that voice keeps on accusing you! What’s up with that? This voice is telling a half truth. It is true that you are a sinner and that you do bad things, but this does not determine your identity; it has no more power to define who you are because you do not belong to yourself anymore.
You are forgiven. That is what you are. You are in Christ, you are a new creation, you are clothed in righteousness. But this voice would have you think about the old self, the one that died with Christ. That is why the voice of guilt is what we call the accuser, or Satan. Jesus shows us the way to combat Satan: you tell him what God says about you. Some of the best passages for this are Romans 8 and Ephesians 1.

When you tell the accuser that you now belong to Christ and are a new creation, freed from the accusations of your sin, you are not merely playing mind games with yourself in order to promote positive thinking. God’s word has power for salvation. That means it has the power to actually change you. So when you rebuke the accuser and tell him that God’s word says you are forgiven, that same word can change you and your behavior. That’s what repentance is. It is an actual change. God’s truth causes you to turn away from sin and toward the the life of doing what it good. Notice: this change is not what makes you forgiven! You are forgiven when you are made one with Christ: you and I ARE forgiven. The work is done; Christ’s promise assures it. Repentance is tyour response to that truth. If you really receive the forgiveness of Jesus, then you don’t want to throw that in the trash by sinning more! In Romans 6 the Apostle Paul says “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?…Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.”

We see this beautifully demonstrated in the story of Zacchaeus. When the Word of God comes walking by in the flesh and blood of Jesus he immediately receives him saying “Come to my house!” then he responds to that Word with repentance, turning away from a life of fraud by giving half of his possessions to the poor. That was great, but he did one more thing, and it is very instructive for us.

Zacchaeus is now a forgiven man; he is repentant, having turned away from his sin by God’s grace, full of good works. Now when he thinks upon the sins he has done previously he knows that his sin does not just hurt himself, but it also hurts other people. So he does something that we call “making restitution”, or making things right. He says: “If I have defrauded anyone I will restore it four times over.” I repeat, Zacchaeus is already forgiven; this act is not earning his salvation. But the point of being a follower of Jesus is not just being forgiven, but living the good life! That is what Jesus wants for us. The good life is a life of love for others, and you can start with the ones you’ve wronged. You may be sure that the accuser had no power over that man.

So after you have spoken Christ’s truth to the accuser and have turned away from your sin to a life of doing good, the surest fire way to be done with guilt is to go make restitution. Anything less would have you mired in a fog that falls very short of the life Christ has for you. Restitution has many different forms. If you have spoken with anger, tell that person that you are sorry and seek their forgiveness. If you have stolen, go pay it back. If you have acted indecently toward a young woman or man, you go tell them that you have sinned against them and commit to purity. Be very specific. If you have looked at things that draw your mind away from the love of Christ and focused on lust or greed or coveted what you cannot or should not have, then you take your Bible to a quiet place and take a long time to talk to and listen to the True Lover of your soul. I will say it again: none of this will get you forgiven; YOU ARE FORGIVEN! Restitution puts you back in a place to be living free of the accusing lies of guilt. It allows Jesus to take you to more beautiful places.

An Acquired Taste

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

Some tastes are “acquired tastes” as they say. Then there are some flavors that are so universally acclaimed as exquisite, like truffles, or single malt scotch, and yet, nonetheless are not appreciated by many. Some cannot stomach the taste of some foods which are said by many to be the apex of gustative delights

The Pure in Heart

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God

“How does one obtain a pure heart?

“By believing in Jesus Christ and so that your sins may be washed away by his blood.

“Why is it that such people will see God?”

“Because Jesus is the one who brings us to God.”

“What does it mean to ‘see God’?”

“There are two promises in this statement, which are actually one promise with two fulfillments. The first promise is that those who are pure in heart, that is, those who have been washed with Jesus’ blood, will be with him forever. This is God’s plan for the fullness of time, to present everyone blameless before God to dwell with him forever.

The second promise is really the same one, but is fulfilled even right now. There is so much evil in the world, and our own minds are so shaped by the sinful desires of the flesh, that we are prone to regard everything with selfishness. But when we belong to Jesus we know that everything belongs to him, and so everything belongs to us through him. So we learn how everything is to be used by looking at how Jesus uses it and how he teaches us to us it.”

“So what does that have to do with seeing God?”

“Well we have physical eyes, and God is spirit. So we see God by getting spiritual eyes. That’s what it means to be pure in heart. To see the things of this world with spiritual eyes. When we do that we see God and enjoy him in his creation.”

“For example?”

“Well, take anything that people are bound to abuse. That thing is intended for a good purpose, but it is missused. The easiest way for a person to become impure is to think selfishly. One of the easiest sins to commit is sexual sin. People think that chastity is a hard rule. But in fact sexuality is one of the greatest gifts from God for our enjoyment. But like everything, it has to be in is rightful place to be good and useful and thoroughly beautiful. God explains in scripture that the image of marriage and sexuality are a picture of god’s love for his church, giving himself to her that she might produce the fruit of life in this world. So sexuality is an awesome gift to marriage as a way for people to see God through their own bodies, to see him as a God of love and pleasureable communion. So in this way if someone is pure in heart, then they have spiritual eyes to see God in sex. But impure eyes would see it as a means only for physical pleasure; this would be selfish eyes that are of the flesh and they would not see God.”

“So really the promise ‘blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God’ is a promise both for this life and the next!”

“Yes, and this applies to every area of life. If we find that there is a law that is burdensome to us, or a rule or moral that we would prefer not to have, then we are not seeing with spiritual eyes. But if we are pure in heart, we see that all of life is a way to see God through our relationship to Jesus Christ and his creation. This is what it means to say that the law is fulfilled in Christ, or that Jesus has “done it all”. This doesn’t mean we stop doing good, on the contrary! It means we get his heart, his pure heart, to love seeing God in everything we do.”

The Body of Christ

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

When the Apostle Paul rebukes the Corinthians for their lack of love in I Corinthians 11:17-22, he is attacking a church-wide problem; he is attacking a collective sin. When he says that “each one ought to examine himself” (v. 28) we are to take this command as being given for the purpose of the unity of the church, and not just the repentance of individuals for various sins. He says that “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (10:17) in order to reinforce that taking the bread and cup is a matter of communal identity. That is, when we all, as individuals, share of the bread and cup, we are made a part of Christ Body in the world, which is unified throughout all of time by his Holy Spirit.

It is true that we go to the Lord’s Supper to receive, personally, a gift from Christ. But let us understand the gift. The gift is that we are made to be participants of God’s plan in all of history to bring about one entity, a union in and with Christ, referred to as his “body”. This is the plan for salvation; to unite all things in Christ. Salvation from sin is necessary because sin stands in the way of this unification.

Because the bread and cup is the gift of Christ’s own self, it indeed delivers of necessity forgiveness of sins to those who receive it in faith. But the Lord’s Supper reaches beyond forgiveness of sins to bringing about what Christ was sent to accomplish. The bread and cup create of those who participate a living fulfillment of God’s plan; it is the founding and sustenance of his true body in time for eternity.

So as we partake of the bread and cup, even as we examine our hearts individually, our understanding also should reach beyond our individual hearts to the state of the church as a community, locally and the world throughout. The same questions we apply to our heart concerning sin, pride and divided relationships in order to repent and receive the sacrament joyfully are the same questions that we are to ask of our congregation and the world-wide church as we ingest the true and eternally life-giving body of Christ.

Sermon Notes Pentecost Sunday

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

The ghost that moves in rushing wind and fire

Alighting on the heads of those who wait,

To Move tongues of those who still aspire

To heavn’ly life, who fear no earthly fate

(For life of flesh and blood has lost its charm

Since Man the First was cast from Eden’s gate

And Christ’s own body nailed

Maundy Thursday

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

I Kings 19:9-18

“[Elijah] came to a cave and lodged in it. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He said, “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.” And he said, “Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He said, “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.” And the Lord said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus. And when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael to be king over Syria. And Jehu the son of Nimshi you shall anoint to be king over Israel, and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah you shall anoint to be prophet in your place. And the one who escapes from the sword of Hazael shall Jehu put to death, and the one who escapes from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha put to death. Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.””

It is a very frequent feeling in ministry: abandonment. Exhaustion at the seemingly endless tasks, discouragement that there is no apparent fruit from our labor. It is easy to stick it to God, and ask him why he isn’t faithful. It is also easy to become self-absorbed and wonder what we’re doing wrong, what’s wrong with our methods, or perhaps we just “missed our calling” and are doing the wrong thing.

Elijah may have felt any or all of the above, and so he went and hid in a cave, nursing his wounds. But God did not ask him “what’s wrong?” But rather “What are you doing here?” Clearly, there was more work to be done, but Elijah was at his wits end.

When Elijah shared his woes with God as we often do, God does not seem sympathetic, but only tells him to go stand on the mountain. Perhaps Elijah wanted to see God bring down more fire from heaven as he had done on the mountain only a few days previous, and consumed an altar and its sacrifice. This is our expectation anyway. When we pour our efforts into his service we expect results. It’s like an exchange, we do our part, he does his and when we don’t see the results we think our efforts merit, we are tempted to complain at God that he is not moving. He’s not keeping his side of the bargain.

As with a student who can’t seem to get his lesson, God sighs and says, “Go stand on the mountain.” There God delivered what Elijah wanted; fire, hurricane winds and earthquake, but God was not in them. They were brought by God and demonstrated his power, but he was not in them. God shows many signs by his power. He works miracles, he commands all the powers of nature, but such things do not bring us closer to him. To receive God himself takes a humble and repentant heart, realizing that we have nothing to offer him, and nothing to demand of him. Or works are as filthy rags, and all our efforts are as useful as the dances of string puppets. What God seeks is a people that will be devoted to listening to him. To see God’s judgment and power we may gaze at his miraculous works, to know him we must cultivate the art of listening. Why should he come in the still small voice? Because in order for us to hear it we must shut up the clamor of our own sinful hearts. We have to set aside self-pity and self-righteousness and cover our faces with our cloak and go stand at the opening of the cave and listen.

When Elijah did this God asked him the same question he did before and Elijah gave him the same answer, but this time God revealed to Elijah his plan. The kings who sought his life would execute God’s will apart from Elijah’s work, and apart from Elijah’s great prophetic knowledge God had already set aside seven thousand people who were devoted to him. Elijah didn’t see results because the results belonged to the hidden God who speaks with a still small voice! The results that God sought was the humbling of Elijah, as he set aside time to come out of his little world and listen to his God.

As Jesus told his befuddled disciples when they were not able to cast out a demon “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.” Jesus shows us what sort of a relationship God desires with those who minister his word. Jesus always sought the quiet Gethsemane. He went to the mountain not to hide in a cave, but the listen to his father in prayer. So in the midst of our exhaustion he asks of us “Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.” But as we groan and turn over, we do not know that he is already taking the burden of our failures upon himself, for tomorrow he will be crucified.

Jonah

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

Where might be found the presence of divine

There found is calling burdensome to me.

What he would have beyond the pow’r of mine

Has driven far upon the pagan sea

This heart from love and tender conscious faith

Unto that fiery sermon of the deep,

Unto the very throat which right portrayeth

Mine own engorging habits where I sleep

Unknowing quite the storms which rage without

On me and on those of like fearsome plight

Unknowing or unwanting but to doubt

The worth of other man in heaven’s sight.

Now fall from God of earth and sea and land

On all who sin what mercy’s willed ‘forehand.

Baptism, Illustrated Edition

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

Jesus baptism is ours. To understand our own baptism we have only to look at that of Jesus for its illustration and explanation.

The Law and Prophets all spoke of the coming redemption of Israel, the Savior of Israel. For her sins God provided a sacrifice. As Isaac, in whom all of Israel was represented, was saved by the death of the sacrificial lamb, so all of Israel in her vast numbers were covered by the blood of lambs at the Passover. Both of these events illustrate how Jesus, as the Lamb of God, himself covers Israel.

In addition to being the Lamb, Jesus is also the high priest who represents the people. In him is all of Israel, for he is the seed of Abraham. All who believe in him are the children of Abraham by faith. In Christ is both Israel, and her sacrifice. For what did God demand but Israel herself as a living sacrifice. This relationship is typified by the Sabbath day, where his people are his and his alone, enjoyed by him (his “rest”).

When Jesus goes to the waters of baptism he is uniting these two images, that of Israel, and that of Savior of Israel. He is baptized by John, the last and greatest of prophets. John called the people to repent of sins. Jesus had no sins of his own, yet he identified with the people as their representative head