Greetings,
I am now on my journey home after a great week in Bulgaria. We had an awesome time with God’s presence and hungry people in Sofia, Blagoevgrad, and Plovdiv. We held a weekend retreat for around 110 young people and the testimony of God’s presence and the willingness to receive all that God was giving out was wonderful. I just landed in SeaTac, so the blog is a little late in coming out, but we are here.
A common thing in the church globally is that we have segments of the church that believe we must only pay attention to the words that Jesus said, because they must be more important than the other Scriptures in the New Testament. They believe that the writing of the gospels, and the words of Jesus, take a greater authority and priority than anything else in the New Testament. So, we reason, Paul must have been confused. He returned to the law. The apostles were confused, they returned to the law. Jesus didn’t want any of that. When we think like that, we begin to twist Scriptures to our own destruction. Scripture is given at the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and Holy Spirit is God. God inspired the writings of Paul, James, John, Peter, and Jude.
In the writing of Jesus, Jesus said He came to His own and His own did not receive Him. In John chapter 17, He voiced to His Father that He did not pray for the world, but only for those the Father gave Him. He came to the lost sheep of Israel. He came to the Jews, people of the law. But because He was in the neighborhood, people who were not part of the law/temple system were pressing in to receive what He had. A sick woman came to Him and wanted healing, but she was a Gentile and not a Jew. Jesus said, woman healing is the children’s bread. In other words, healing belongs to God’s people and you are not a Jew. She said; Lord, even the dogs get the crumbs. Then Jesus gave her healing. She was saying, even those who don’t know God get the blessings of God because of what He gives. Jesus had a plan to reach all people. As a man He came to His own, through the door of the Jewish people. His ultimate plan was to go to all nations. When Jesus spoke, He didn’t say much in regard to many things that are addressed in the law. The people that Jesus came to understood the law very well. They knew what was wrong and what was right. They had many generations of knowing and attempting to practice the law. They knew what the law said about marriage. They knew what the law said about homosexuality. They knew what the law said about unfaithfulness. They knew what the law said about being abusive towards your wife. But Jesus didn’t teach hardly anything about marriage. He didn’t teach hardly anything about not being masters and slaves. He mentioned being masters and slaves, but the people of the law already knew that God’s people couldn’t be masters or slaves of one another without a way to freedom. They could be in a service of masters and slaves, but a year of Jubilee would return everything back to it original owners. In the law, even bondage ended in freedom. There are many judgements, statutes, and commandments in the law. The people of Israel knew what to do. They knew how to act. Jesus didn’t come to tell them what to do or how to act. He came to tell them who they were. He didn’t need to mention what they already knew. He made an emphasis that what they knew was really a matter of love. If they knew who God was and who they were as children of God, they would be transformed in their hearts and minds and act accordingly. There is a right and there is a wrong, but merely knowing right and wrong doesn’t make one a giver of life. Being a giver of life will always empower one to choose to do what is right.
So, the people that Jesus came to understood the law very well. They knew what was wrong and what was right. But God wanted to also include the Gentiles in His plan. In Genesis Chapter 49, Israel told his sons, come let me tell you what will befall you in the last days. Israel, the man, was old and about to die. He laid his hands upon his sons and he prophesied over them. Peace will come and the true law-giver (Jesus) will come from Judah and Ashur will behold royal dainties. Jesus was born into the tribe of Judah, thus the true law-giver came from the tribe of Jesus. When Jesus was a baby, and they brought Him into the temple to be circumcised, there was an old widow woman named Anna, she was from the tribe of Asher. The tribe of Ashur was complete in holding baby Jesus in the hands of Anna. This was the last day of the tribe of Ashur, when Anna beheld the royal dainty, the royal baby Jesus. Benjamin was given a word. He was the son born of Rebecca as she was dying in his birth. She wanted to name him son of my sorrow, but Jacob, who should have been called Israel, said, no his name is Benjamin, son of the right hand. From that day on Jacob went by the name of Israel, thus Benjamin only knew him as Israel. The day Israel blessed Benjamin he said he would be a ravenous wolf, but then he would plunder the spoil. Saul of Tarsus was a Pharisee of Pharisees that persecuted the church. He was a Benjamite. He was a ravenous wolf to the church. The last day of Saul was the first day of Paul the apostle and he was no longer a ravenous wolf. He was born again and now a new creation in Christ for the purpose of Christ in all things. Now he would plunder the spoil and bring the Gentiles into the church. The tribe of Benjamin would be a testimony to the grafting in of the Gentiles to the Israel of God. So, in Paul’s mission, he was writing to people who had no understanding of the law. He didn’t write to put them under the law, but to teach them principles, patterns, and values that were in the law. He talked about things that Jesus didn’t talk about, because Jesus didn’t need to talk about them when addressing the people of the law. The people Jesus talked to understood them. Paul was talking to people who had no understanding of the principles, patterns, and values that are in the law. I was a Gentile. I wasn’t raised in a culture of a Hebrew knowing the commandments, judgments and statutes of the law. But really those things are very simple. They were about living to be givers. They were a shadow of living to have the character of God, but they were to be done in the character of God’s love. So, we have to look at the words of Jesus and the words of Paul and recognize that they are both presenting the words of God. They are both valid Scripture and all Scripture is profitable for our way of life, to keep us in the path of life, to draw Christ out of us and to aid us in a right relationship with God and man. These things are given so that each of us can be complete and thoroughly equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 3:16, 17 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
The words of Paul are very seldom the opinion of Paul. They are words of God talking through Paul to people who did not have an understanding of Scripture. I consider the writings of Paul as important as the words of Jesus. Not to put me under the law, but to show me what the shadow of the law looks like. What does it look like when I change? What character do I have? When we talk about how we deal with homosexually and other difficult issues like that, we have to consider the writings of Jesus and the writings of Paul. We don’t return to the law and measure anyone by the flesh so that we can judge them by the law and kill them in some way. We have to find the secrets of God that bring transformation to people’s lives. This is a big subject to address, but I have answered the question of why Jesus didn’t talk about certain things? The people He was talking to already knew them. Why did it seem that Paul talked about things that Jesus didn’t talk about? Because Paul’s writings were to people who had no understanding of what to do or how to act. To understand the words of God to us in our lives we must have an understanding of His character, nature, way, power and authority of God. When we know what God is like we are willing to hear His voice in a way that changes us. If not, we hear His words in a way that we expect Him to become like us.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
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