Torah is Life

/ Dennis A. Gray / Leave a comment

One of the blogs I enjoy following is that of Dr. Claude Mariottini, Professor of Old Testament at Northern Baptist Seminary. He provides a well educated commentary on a wide range of subjects. This morning he drew my attention to this video and so I present it to you.

It was interesting to me to hear people discussing Torah the same way Christians talk about the New Testament. What struck me about it is that when they talk about Torah they are referring to the first five books of the Bible – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy – what Christian scholars call the Pentateuch. For many Christians however, the Old Testament is considered dry and uninspiring, and so they focus mostly on the New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs. And yet here we have people discussing Leviticus in the same manner we talk about say, the gospel of John. I would suggest there are two things (at least) that we can learn from this observation.

First, the fact that two culturally diverse peoples can gain the same wisdom and learning from both the Old and New Testaments speaks to the universality of God. He is indeed the same yesterday, today and forever. He does not change and those who seek Him will find Him, no matter where they look. Or rather, if I may be so bold, those who seek Him will be found by Him, for He seeks us more fervently than we seek Him.

Second, we need to make sure we don’t neglect the Old Testament in our study of scripture. Many Christians do read the Old Testament, but as a background to the New Testament not necessarily as a guide to living in itself. This is often because there are many who perceive the teachings of Jesus as a replacement for the Old Testament. But this was never the case. Jesus said himself that he had not come to replace the law but to fulfill it. (Matt. 5:17)

So how then can we do this? I have a suggestion. Much Jewish study of the scriptures takes place in conjunction with the Talmud. The Talmud is not a different scripture as many non-Jews assume, rather it is a collection of commentaries that have been made by various rabbis of note down through the centuries. And so it is customary to read the Torah with the aid of these commentaries. Not unlike what Christians do in their Bible studies.

Here’s my suggestion then. Read the Torah, Genesis through Deuteronomy, using the teachings of Jesus, the gospels, as a commentary. That is, as you read the Old Testament, cross reference the teachings of Jesus as they pertain to each passage of scripture. Most good study Bibles will provide the cross references for you. As you read ask yourself these questions: How does Jesus’ teaching shape your reading of the Old Testament passage? How does the Torah passage retain it’s meaning in the light of Jesus’ teaching?

It’s not that profound an idea, I’ll admit, but this video caused me to wonder – we are quick to read the Bible with the aid of a modern teacher’s commentary, but how many of us have read it following the commentary of the greatest teacher of all time?

Until next time…

Shalom.

Where’s the rest of my Armour?

/ Dennis A. Gray / 1 Comment

Went in for my first clinic visit since the surgery today. Doc says he’s pleased with my progress, gave me a physio-therapy requisition to process and then outfitted me with an Imperial Stormtrooper boot.

At least that’s what I think it looks like. Definitely has a Star Wars/Robocop hi-tech geeky vibe to it; which I find much more acceptable than the fiberglass splint and elastic bandage assembly I hobbled out with on the day of my surgery. A front line Stormtrooper rig is white, and Darth Vader’s armour is black, so I figure this gray model must fit in between in the command structure somewhere, perhaps admiral. Rugged construction, foam lining, inflatable air bladders for a form fit, and a stylish shade of gray (most apropos); coolness factor has increased substantially.

However; as with most things, there is a price to pay. Conservatively, I estimate this puppy weighs about three times what the original ‘half-cast’ did. It’s also somewhat warmer and harder to maneuver in. Definitely not looking forward to sleeping in this thing but, I will adapt.

Back on the plus side, it does come off for showers and changing clothes etc. so it isn’t all bad. One thing that does get me is the price – $170 CDN. Not that I don’t think it’s worth it, but I’ve always been mystified about the lack of recycling in the health care field.

Some things are obvious, don’t want people re-using needles etc. That’s a complete no-brainer. But why do I have to take full possession of this boot. Now I realize the foam lining will absorb a fair amount of sweat, so by all means ditch it. But could we not return the boot when done with it, replace the lining, subject the boot to some form of sterilization and give it to the next person in need?

Then instead of charging me the full $170, charge me for liner, add $25 to rent the boot proper for the duration of my therapy, and then return and process it for the next patient. We reduce the number of boots sitting in closets somewhere, with the rental fee create an additional income stream for the hospital for as long as the boot is serviceable, and when multiplied by the number of people who likely need these things province wide, substantially assist our burgeoning health care costs.

As I stated earlier, there are some things in a hospital that should never be reused under any circumstances. But it seems to me that there are a number of areas where proper reuse management could substantially improve the cash flow in our health care system. Frankly, I don’t care if my crutches have been used by twenty other people before me, as long as they are still structurally stable and clean. Why does it appear that these options aren’t being considered?

Or at the very least give me a chance to buy the rest of the armour.

Till next time…

Shalom.

New Orientation Video from RtCC

/ Dennis A. Gray / Leave a comment

Many of you know that I rode in the Ride to Conquer Cancer last year. Well I’d like you to know that I’m riding this year as well. This year I’m proud to be the captain of Team Kortright, a group of friends from my home church that have chosen to ride with me in support of a great cause.

For details on the ride you can visit The RtCC Home Page.
To support me in the effort go to my RtCC Page.

In the meantime please check out this orientation video, featuring a familiar face.

Thanks Everyone!

Shalom!

Presidential Legacy

/ Dennis A. Gray / 1 Comment

Okay, this Barack Obama thing is really starting to get a little weird. Check it out..

What does it mean when other countries are getting as excited about the election of an American president as America does? And what does it say for George Bush’s legacy as president when so many around the world are excited about his replacement? How does a person look back on his life or career and walk away knowing no one is sorry to see him go. It reminds me of another world leader I read about once.

And the Lord stirred up against Jehoram the anger of the Philistines and of the Arabians who are near the Ethiopians. And they came up against Judah and invaded it and carried away all the possessions they found that belonged to the king’s house, and also his sons and his wives, so that no son was left to him except Jehoahaz, his youngest son. And after all this the Lord struck him in his bowels with an incurable disease. In the course of time, at the end of two years, his bowels came out because of the disease, and he died in great agony. His people made no fire in his honor, like the fires made for his fathers. He was thirty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem. And he departed with no one’s regret. They buried him in the city of David, but not in the tombs of the kings. 2 Chronicles 21:16-20 ESV

Jehoram, son of King Jehoshaphat of Judah, was 32 years old when he became King of Judah, and he reigned for 8 years (about 851-843 BC). Jehoram was an evil king. After becoming king, he killed all of his brothers, and many other leaders of Israel and renewed pagan worship in Judah. He constructed idol shrines in Judah, and compelled his people to worship them. Then Elijah the prophet wrote him a letter describing Jehoram’s sins and explaining the punishment that would befall him. He didn’t listen.

As was often the case when Israel or Judah ignored God long enough, the Lord stirred up the Philistines and Arabs to attack Jehoram. They did a thorough job carrying away everything of value in the king’s palace, including his sons and his wives. Only his youngest son, Jehoahaz, (Ahaziah), escaped. Shortly after that Jehoram was struck down with the incurable bowel disease. He was dead in two years, and was buried in Jerusalem, but not in the royal cemetary.

Now Israel and Judah both had a lot of bad kings, but Jehoram is the only one about which the Bible says no one cared that he died. It makes one wonder how bad a leader has to be to garnet so little compassion upon his demise.

Now I’m not saying ol’ George W. is as bad as Jehoram. But I do find myself curious about what is going through his mind right now. To be fair, I don’t think he set out to be a bad president. I don’t think he is the evil war monger he’s often painted to be. I’m sure he did what he thought was the right thing and whether any of it was right or not I’ll leave for history and God to judge; it’s not my place and I can’t imagine what I would do in his place. (It’s why i have no political ambitions.)

But I will continue to pray for him, as I will pray for his successor, because it cannot be easy to leave a career, knowing you’ve done the best you thought you could and also knowing what seems like the entire world thinks you screwed up. I’m sure there is a great deal of pain and soul searching in his future. And I do genuinely hope he is able to come to terms with what he discovers about himself. But it will not be easy, and for that reason he has my compassion.

A lot of paranoid people think the world hates them; soon to be former President Bush has no need to be paranoid, the world does.

Until next time…

Shalom

On a Leg and a Chair.

/ Dennis A. Gray / Leave a comment

Well, it’s been two days and I think I’m starting to adapt. Most of yesterday I struggled to get from the chair to the bathroom to the dining room table where my computer is set up on crutches. I hated it!

Oh it was tolerable enough with Roberta around to get things for me, but she will be gone 12 hours a day starting Monday, so I needed to think of something else. So I tried using a roling office chair my friend Rachel gave me, and it seems to be doing the job. I get around for the most part and my bad foot never gets any weight put on it as per doctors orders. It is still a drag though.

Fortunately, a pleasant distraction arrived to help take my mind off things – my good friend David. David lives in Goderich and had a day or so off work and knowing of my situation decided to come down and pay me a visit. He stopped in just before supper last night and we had a great time eating, talking and watching on old sci-fi movie on DVD.

I suppose that’s one advantage of what’s going on right now. If things were the way they normally are I wouldn’t have been home to visit with David; instead I likely would have been out and about doing something somewhere. This situation has certainly caused me to slow down. As I mentioned earlier, I had been looking for a way to do just that, to find more time to write, to read, and to get a few other things done. It makes me wonder if I was so busy, so obsessed with all the tasks I needed to perform that this was the only way God could get my attention. That seems rather extreme, but then Israel wasn’t far different.

Time and again in the Bible we find Israel ignoring God to the point where the only way He can bring them up short enough to listen for a while is to have some other nation drop in and conquer them. Then of course, they spend more time wailing and complaining then listening, but eventually they clue in, get their act together, and pay attention. Then God puts the other nation in its place and Israel is fine for another generation until they decide they know better than God and follow the same destructive pattern of behaviour.

There’s no denying that I do have a hard time slowing down and focusing, even though prayer and meditation are part of my routine. But is it reasonable to imagine that God would allow such an injury to take place just to get my attention, or am I just reading something into the situation trying to find some meaning that will make it less agonizing?

I mean, if this accident is entirely the result of my own stupidity, then I have nobody to blame but myself. But, if it is the maneuverings of divine providence, then it’s not entirely my fault. God did this to get my attention, in fact, in some bizarre way it is an answer to prayer and I am completely off the hook for not looking where I was going and falling down that stupid hole. Wouldn’t that make this a good thing?

Truth is, I’ve had a few people tell me that is exactly what is happening and I should regard this situation as a gift from God, sent by Him in answer to my needs. Frankly, I don’t buy it.

You see, while it’s true that God is all about forgiveness, the scripture makes it clear he’ also about taking responsibility for our own actions. He didn’t let Moses off the hook; his rebellion kept Him from entering the promised land. He didn’t cut David any slack; his disobedience cost him a son and kept him from fulfilling His dream to build the temple. Moses, David and many others all eventually learned from their experiences and were blessed by God in what they did; but forgiveness was never a blank cheque. They all had to live with the consequences of their actions.

That’s why some non-Chrsitians have a hard time with the idea of forgiveness. They see it as some kind of cosmic ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card and to them it’s just wrong that people who do bad things don’t have to pay the price. Unfortunately some Christians look at it that way too and that does a disservice to God and His message.

Forgiveness does not mean you don’t have to face the consequences of your actions, it means you want have to pay the price for what you did beyond those consequences. There is a commoon feeling among people in general that if what you have done is bad enough you should have to pay for it over and over and over again. That there is no amount of suffering that will balance the books for what you have done. They want the sinner to suffer not just once, but always, and for the rest of their lives, because that’s the only way they can see justice being done. Because to them justice means balancing the books, and eye for an eye.

But God’s Justice is a little different. God’s justice recognizes that in the sum of all things it is impossible to balance the books. We will never, no matter how hard we try, manage to achieve justice because even an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth doesn’t make things right. It just makes us feel better because revenge is sweet and since it’s sweet it is the most incidous form of comfort food. Because revenge makes us think we have justice because the books appear to have been balanced, but in reality we’ve just been given a candy that makes us feel better because we got someting out of it.

That’s why God’s justice is different, because it’s about paying the immediete unavoidable consequences of what we do, without making us the victims of revenge. Forgiveness wipes the slate clean, so that instead of falling prey to revenge, we can like Daivd, learn from our mistakes and go on to be a blessing to others.

Because we also need to realize that the victims of revenge are not just those who commit the sin, but those who seek revenge are also it’s victims. Because like comfort food revenge does not deal with the problem, it just make us feel better and distracts us from the problem, so it never gets dealt with properly. You see, forgiveness is the remedy not just for the sinner, but for those who have been sinned against as well. It purges us of the pain we feel that causes us to never be satisfied. That pain is why justice never seems enoough and revenge appears as the only answer. For both sides forgiveness is the only solution.

By now I’m sure some of you are thinking, “Dennis, how did we get from you falling down a hole having more time to write, to pondering the varities of justice and revenge? Man isn’t that a bit of a stretch?”

Well, yes, I suppose it is. But that’s what happens when you give a guy time to think and to ponder. And yet it’s not that big a stretch either because the nature of justice and forgiveness is at the root of how God works. It would not be just for God to inflict pain solely for the purpose of teaching me a few things. Israel’s perils were a direct result of their choosing to violate a covenant that they made with God at Mount Sinaih, the attacks by other nations were never random.

So my current situation is not God’s doing. I don’t believe that for a second. However, just as with Israel, God is not above using my stupidity to His advantage. I didn’t see the hole, now I’m here; and so is God, and while He forgices my stupidity he’s not above taking advantage of the situation. I’m sureHe has a few things he wants to draw to my attention while He has it. The question is will I quit complaining about the inconveniences of my current situation long enough to listen to what He has to say?

I pray that I do. Until next time…

Shalom.