Want to learn? Want to grow? This is for you......

BE A BLESSING AND BE BLESSED! Amen! †

Bobby, you always manage to peak my interest and give me just enough to encourage me to research and dig a little deeper. I honestly was not sure what the Shema or Jesus Creed is when you mentioned it in your post. The more I read and gleaned, I thought I would share it here for others who also might not know.....the rest of the story. 😊 Thank you for always challenging us and for taking us "outside the box."
I learned that Shema is “hear” and that Jesus adds to the Shema, taken from Deuteronomy 6:4-5, the words from Leviticus 19:18….to love your neighbor as yourself. Well, that door opened another as you mentioned the Lord’s Prayer. This is the creed by which He lived and exemplified for us. Similarly, the Lord’s Prayer is based on an ancient Jewish prayer called the Kaddish, but just as Jesus added to the Shema, He also added to the Kaddish. The Kaddish goes like this:

“Magnified and sanctified be His great name in the world He created according to His will. May He establish His Kingdom during your life and during your days, and during the life of all the house of Israel, speedily and in the near future. Amen.”

There are strong similarities of this well-established prayer to the prayer Jesus gave His followers. “Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,” sounds very much like….”magnified and sanctified be your name.” And “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” sounds very much like….”May He establish His kingdom during your life and during your days.” So the first part of Jesus prayer mirrors the Kaddish, but then just as Jesus added something to the Shema, Jesus adds to the Kaddish. And here is what Jesus adds: “Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” What Jesus added to the Kaddish is exactly what He added to the Shema, a call to love others. In the Lord’s Prayer, the call to love others is spelled out in asking God to give us all food….which implies that we help make sure others are able to eat. There is a call to love others as we forgive and as we ask God to deliver all of us from evil and into the fullness of life. The prayer Jesus prays and the prayer He teaches us to pray comes from the Kaddish which is a call to love God but then He adds to the prayer some specifics on what it means to love others. 

So this creed shaped Jesus prayers because it shaped His heart and it shaped His heart because He made an ongoing focus of His life. This creed became the rhythm of Jesus’ life because it was read and prayed and repeated multiple times a day. The way that Jesus and others in His day were formed spiritually was that they read the word of God many times during the day. The Shema was to be recited in the morning and evening. It was to be written on the door posts of the home so people would think of it and recite it as they would go out into the world and then return home. The creed was to be placed in boxes that would be tied to the forehead so that the message would go with them everywhere and remind them of how they needed to live their lives.

One way we can begin to start making the Jesus Creed our creed is by memorizing it and reciting and praying it multiple times a day. I challenge you all to put this creed in a place where you will see it multiple times a day and then every time you see it….say it. Put it on your bathroom mirror so in the morning or evening you will see it and say it. Put it on the fridge so every time you get something to eat you will see it and say it. Put in on the visor of your car so every time you get in and get out you will see it and say it.
This constant repetition is what shapes our hearts, guides our thoughts and gives direction to our decisions and actions. We need this constant repetition because #1 we forget so easily and #2 we are daily bombarded by messages that tell us not to love God but ourselves and not to love our neighbors but ourselves. To break that cycle we need to interject another message. We can be shaped by this message, this Jesus Creed, if we read it and pray it multiple times a day. This is how Jesus’ heart was formed. He said this multiple times a day and He saw it lived out in His family and it became the creed for His life.

So what does all of this mean in our daily lives? LOVE....Love God with all your being and Love others.....Love others through praying for others, serving others, making sure the others, our neighbors - next door and around the world - have shelter, food, clothes, a ride when needed and so on. In other words, because we have, no matter the degree, we are to share with others....show others Jesus by how we live and how we serve. Amen!

BE A BLESSING AND BE BLESSED! Amen! †

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My post above was a reaction to some of the post below written by Bobby Valentine. He always enlightens and challenges.

Drink it all in and Be Blessed!

FRIDAY, APRIL 6, 2018 - BOBBY VALENTINE

"Freaky Friday Theology returns from a rainy Land by the Bay. Last night, around midnight, I had a discussion on becoming better readers of the New Testament and understanding it better from a first century standpoint. As I pointed out last night there is no magical formula for becoming better readers of the NT. It will take work and if you are not willing to invest that then it is for naught. But I want to offer some suggestions that if you cultivate these you will read the NT and Jesus especially far better.

First, we need to recognize that Scripture is fundamentally a product OF and FOR worship. Scripture from the Torah to the Psalms to the Gospels to the Epistles to the Revelation were universally heard and encountered IN corporate worship. Do not approach Scripture merely as a source of information but rather as a vehicle to worship God. Literally pray Scripture. Let Scripture set your prayer agenda. When we read any passage ask the Holy Spirit to pray through to change us so we live the values of the text. If we are not Gathering with God's people, communing in the Story of God with them, Scripture will remain just letters.

Join Jesus and recite the Shema or what has been called the Jesus Creed daily. Cultivate the hours of prayer that Jesus observed (they are the hours of sacrifice at 9, 12, and 3). Pray the Lord's Prayer (memorize it along with the Jesus Creed) daily.

Second, if we want to approach NT texts like a person in AD 40 or 55 or 66 then we must first become serious readers of the Hebrew Bible. Not one, no not one, disciple of Christ had a copy of the New Testament in the first century. What they did have was the Hebrew Bible, principally through the Greek translation known as the Septuagint (LXX). Most today also encounter the Hebrew Bible through a translation. I simply cannot stress enough the importance of the First Testament in reading the NT. The point of reference for everything was the Hebrew Bible/LXX. When the Bereans checked the Scriptures it was not Matthew, Mark, Luke and John or Acts or Romans but it was Genesis, Exodus, Psalms, Isaiah, etc. Read it daily. Yes every day.

When we are reading the "New Testament," we need to think in terms of the unified Story. Our gut response is that there is continuity between the so called "Old Testament" and "New Testament" rather than discontinuity. I recommend a book like "The Drama of Scripture" (Bartholomew & Goheen). Intimate acquaintance with the Hebrew Bible, its values, its "theology" and its worship will go a long way toward helping us hear, and see, as a disciple in AD 66 did. Recall that no one in AD 66 ever heard of something called "the Old Testament." It would be another hundred plus years before that happened. They just knew "the Scriptures" which are Genesis to Malachi. Now this will take time but it is worth it.

Third. Cultivate the habit of reading the Psalms routinely and regularly. It is difficult to exaggerate the influence of the Psalms on Jesus and the Way. I read the Psalms from beginning to end every month. If you read an average of 4 to 5 Psalms a day (except for Ps 119) you will go thu the book every month and it takes 15 or so minutes every day. You can use the Psalms during one of the Three Hours of Prayer mentioned below.

Fourth. Become familiar with the biblical calendar and the Temple. For years, I literally was in the dark on how deeply embedded the calendar is in Scripture - in BOTH Testaments. What is the Sabbath, Passover/Unleavened Bread, Tabernacles, Weeks/Pentecost, Purim, Dedication, Day of Atonement. Biblical writers simply assume we know this stuff just like we know "St. Patrick's Day" comes with four leaf clovers, the Irish and green in our culture. I confess that I simply never paid any attention to this, precisely because I did not read the NT as a person would in AD 40, 55 or 66.

Fifth. Read the books of the Apocrypha. Yes read them. The Apocrypha is primarily a Protestant term but it refers to a body of literature that was part of the LXX. This literature is amazingly valuable for cultivating eyes to see and ears to hear as disciples did in AD 40. We suddenly see their prayers, their hymns used in worship, the struggles of faith, examples of great faith. Contrary to much popular opinion the early disciples did in fact know this literature and the NT writers even allude to various stories in Tobit, Maccabees, Sirach, Wisdom of Solomon and the like. But our point is this, to read the NT as a person did in AD 40 we have to, as best we can, try to see and think like they did in AD 40. The Apocrypha is, after the Hebrew Bible itself, one of the most helpful sources for becoming a better student of the NT writings themselves.

Sixth. Accept the fact that the NT was written by Jews and out of a Jewish worldview. Just accept it because it is a fact. While Paul certainly knew Greek philosophy, the primary point of reference for every page of the NT is the Jewish world. Take seriously the truth that Jesus is (not was) Jewish. All the NT writers are Jewish. The only possible exception to this is Luke. And, frankly, there are a number of scholars that believe the author of Luke-Acts if not actually Jewish was likely a proselyte. Contrary to much popular mythology Luke is every bit as "Jewish" in its orientation as Matthew ever dreamed. We miss it because we do not "hear" and "see" as did a disciple in AD 60. To get into this Jewish world view we need the Hebrew Bible, the Psalms, the calendar and the Apocrypha.

Seventh. One of the most helpful books I have ever read was Oskar Skarsaune's "In the Shadow of the Temple." I just believe that every student, who wants to be a teacher with the correct glasses for reading the New Testament will devour Skarsaune. Jacob Jervell's Luke and the People of God is another book that, if meditated upon carefully, will make one a far better reader of the New Testament.

Eighth. Biblical theology is not merely about thinking but about living. Therefore if we are to be better students of the New Testament and its Hebraic doctrine then we must practice it. Visit widows. Serve in a soup kitchen for the homeless. Care for the alien. Find ways to serve as Jesus's hands and his feet.

As I stated before this will take time and it will take a disciple's mindset. But approaching the text prayerfully and "worshipfully" and within the context of the community of faith is simply essential. Cultivating the hours of prayer and becoming intimately with not only the basic story of the Hebrew Bible but its values and worldview is the one the disciple had in AD 55. Psalms, the Temple and Apocrypha are important. Live what you read. And reading the three books I've mentioned will indeed bear much fruit.

This might sound like a lot of work. It's really not but it will take time and "just doing it." Most of it is simply dealing with the volume you already have in your hands. The three books I've mentioned can help with the big picture and even some details. Now in my opinion, and that is what it is so take it for what it is worth, the person who believes him or herself called to be a teacher of God's people then this approach to Scripture should just be demanded of them."

Let's get started.
Shalom.