The Christian Bible contains most of the writings in the Tanakh. Christians call this the Old Testament part of our Bible. It is followed by the New Testament which covers Jesus’ ministry as a rabbi living in ancient Israel. Also it contains the writings of several first century Jewish converts during the formation of the church. There is a Hebrew to English translation here.
Christians consider the Tanakh/Old Testament to be the living word of God. We believe God to be unchanging and eternal. The creator of all that exists. The God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob. The God who brought ancient Hebrews out slavery into the promised land of Israel. We study the Old Testament to understand how God revealed himself to and related to people in the ancient world. We also believe Jesus to be the Jewish Messiah and the Prince of Peace. I write these things in hope that you will allow me to discuss Jewish beliefs and the relationship between God and Israel in ancient and modern times.
When Jehovah brought the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt, Moses was Jehovah’s prophet or spokesperson. Before the Hebrews entered the promised land, Jehovah gave Moses specific instructions or commands concerning the people’s behavior and the rewards or consequences of their behavior. In Deuteronomy 28, God list the blessings for obedience and the curse for disobedience. The blessings sound wonderful, but the curses are terrifying.
In Deuteronomy 30:19-20 God says,
19 This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
For me this is one of the most difficult task God gives. To choose. He says we are able to choose rightly. He says he has given us something that is not to hard for us. He says these things over thousands of years. Yet for thousands of years both Christians and Jewish people continue to choose poorly. We believe what we do is right and good. But when looking back through history both Jews and Christians have gone to war, persecuted others, rejected God’s good commands, and chosen the evil simply because it satisfies us.
The easy choices to overlook are the ones where we hurt ourselves. We overeat, refuse to exercise, drink alcohol, smoke, use drugs, drive recklessly, act promiscuously and on and on. We hurt ourselves. But we also hurt others when we ignore their pain and suffering. We become so busy stroking our egos or building our bank accounts that we do not notice the hurting people around us. We keep walking and pretend that it is someone else’s problem not ours. But God never rewards anyone in the Bible for self-indulgence, apathy, carelessness, or the desire to benefit from someone else’s suffering.
The question is how do we change? How do we give up our depravity? How do we become what we do not know how to be. Why would God say he has given us rules that are not to hard for us when so many people through out history fail miserably?
God answers my questions in Deuteronomy 6:3-4
Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you. Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
We must learn to trust God more than we trust ourselves or anyone else. We must put God first in our lives. First before anything else. This begins with choosing to make time to be alone with God. Just me and God, Just you and God. Make time to pray and read the Bible. Make time to commit yourself fully and completely to learning who God is and what he does. The Tanakh/Bible is the living word of God. Sometimes when we read the Tanakh/Bible alone and humble pray to understand and learn from it, we can feel the very breath of the Almighty flowing over us.
In Isaiah 9:6 God says through Isaiah, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
Christians believe this is prophesizing the coming Messiah. The one who will finally bring peace to the world and rule the world as God the Father wants it. Christians believe Jesus is the Messiah. The King of Peace. Even though many people claiming to be Christians do horrible evil to others, there are some of us who are different. We see Jesus as the truth of God. The great physician. The only one who can bring peace into the human heart. Jesus is our God the same as Yahweh and the Holy Spirit are our God. They are one. Thress different personalities yet still one. Jesus is our friend and our Lord.
After Jesus was crucified dead and buried, he was raised by the Father from death to eternal life. He now sits a the right hand of the Father. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to walk the earth and to live inside the hearts of followers of Jesus. The Holy Spirit lives inside us to give us a small part of God’s power so that we can change. We can become people of love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Following Jesus is not an act of learning and obeying rules. It is communion with the Holy God. It is a life with God’s power living inside us and leading us day by day to change from belonging to the ways of the world to following the ways of God. This is not an intellectual experience. This is closer to failing in love. This is a close intimate relationship with the great I AM. This an experience that must be lived and seen. It cannot be explained.
Christians believe that God is only able to speak the truth. If God speaks it, it must be true. In Psalm 25:5, it says, “Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.” I do not expect you to simply believe me. I would not believe a stanger of another religious background to simple take their word for the truths they speak. I am too skeptical of the things of this world. To committed to my life experiences.
Today, I ask you to pray to the God of Abraham, Issac, and Joseph. To ask the Great I AM. What is His truth? Who is this Price of Peace that Isaiah spoke about so long ago? Do the people of Israel want peace and the blessings of their God? Not the peace which has been offer so many times to the middle east since 1948. But a peace that only God can bring about. A lasting peace. An eternal peace. Is this Jesus the Prince of Peace?
Isaiah 45:18-19
18 For this is what the Lord says—
he who created the heavens,
he is God;
he who fashioned and made the earth,
he founded it;
he did not create it to be empty,
but formed it to be inhabited—
he says:
“I am the Lord,
and there is no other.
19 I have not spoken in secret,
from somewhere in a land of darkness;
I have not said to Jacob’s descendants,
‘Seek me in vain.’
I, the Lord, speak the truth;
I declare what is right.