Shabbat shalom kol beit Yisra'el and Mishpachah and welcome back to the second part on the Scriptures in our series about Unity in the Body of Messiah.

Last week we asked ourselves the question, 'How did the ancients handle Scripture?' and we have been seeing that they did so in ways very different from ourselves and from the Reformers who invented the Sola Scriptura or 'Scripture Alone' doctrine and made that the basis of all their doctrinal and practical authority. We saw how this has led over 400+ years to tens of thousands of different interpretations and denominations with different groupings and alliances based on various 'minimums' of doctrinal orthodoxy. We saw how all of this 'reforming' has led to different claims to doctrinal inspiration and ecclesiastical authority which can't possibly all be right. Do the Lutherans have authority because they can trace apostolic succession (though it's broken in the Danish Church), the Pentecostals because they have supposedly been baptised in the Spirit and speak in authenticating tongues, or the Calvinists because they alone have the correct doctrine, which is that Christ only died for them because God decided even before they were created that they alone would be saved and all the rest would be damned for eternity?

We started exploring the idea that all authority has, in fact, been given to Christ rather than directly to a printed book. We looked at the problem of different languages and how various strange doctrines have historically emerged from the pagan cultures that recast the Scriptures in their own image. We saw some of the peculiar problems that have arisen out of using Latin, Greek and English. We saw that one of the tragedies of all this confusion is that Protestants are starting to return to the Catholic Church their forefathers once so roundly condemned as antichrist. Finally, we started looking at Scripture as a 'portable story' that needs to be carefully unpacked in order for us to rediscover its original meaning and intent, and we saw that Scripture is far more than a compendium of doctrines and practices but a living Story which we are called to continue to 'write' by directly participating in it ourselves.

So it comes as an enormous surprise for most to learn that the 'Scriptures' weren't given as a 'written text' but as something to be SPOKEN. Ours is a text-based culture - almost everyone of you owns and uses a Smartphone and when you're not using that you're using a PC or laptop. You're reading text nearly all the time, and when you're not using digital data, you're reading books. In Bible days books cost a fortune, today you can pick one up, as I did a couple of weeks go - a huge, glossy volume with a hundred or so large, glossy colour photographs of Malaysian nature - for the equivalent of a mere 20 cents! Our world is text- and picture-saturated! But the world of the Bible was completely different - it was a conglomeration of oral- or speech-based cultures. The 'Scriptures', as we call them, were given not to be read silently out of a book of bound paper pages or to be swiped into view with an index finger and read as light pixels on an Smartphone, but to be spoken out aloud. It may sound like an oxymoron or contradiction in terms, but the cultures of the Bible were oral cultures and not text-based. No more than 5 to 20 per cent of the population was even literate. They couldn't read or write. Only the educated élites could.

We are used to curling up on a sofa with our Bibles or Smartphones and silently reading them to ourselves but the ancients gathered in groups around outdoor fires or indoor hearths and an elder of the community would relate the Scriptures, word-perfect, from memory, which had been passed down to him by his elders. They didn't just regurgitate words, moreover. There was a certain cadence to their speech too, and emphases had to be placed in the right places. When these men learned the scriptures, they learned how to speak them rightly too.

Take Genesis which though prose narrative, is punctuated here and there by brief poems (e.g. Gen.49:2-27), and much of the prose has a lyrical quality that uses a full range of figures of speech and other literary devices that characterise the world's epic literature. There are vertical and horizontal parallels in the creation account, macabre puns (Gen.40:19) and other kinds of literary device that add interest and provide interpretive signals. All of this was supposed to be heard. How many times did the Saviour cry out, "he who has ears to hear, let him hear (listen)" (Luke 8:8, NIV), not, "he who has eyes to see, let him read." Indeed:

"Elohim (God) was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached (kerygma - expound, proclaim, herald) to save those who believe" (1 Cor.1:21, NIV - see Kerygmatic Revival).

For thousands of years the people of Elohim (God) heard the Davar (Word) read out and preached to them, they didn't read it themselves. Yet when we see the Hebrew word Davar, the Aramaic word Memra, or the Greek word Logos we usually assume it is the written word of Scripture being referred to when it is first and foremost the SPOKEN:

"In the beginning was the Davar (Word), and the Davar (Word) was with Elohim (God), and the Davar (Word) was Elohim (God)" (John 1:1, NIV).

This was the Davar (Word) as a living, breathing, vibrant, pulsating, energy - the spoken word, not the dead letter slumbering on a written or printed page!

"He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant - not of the letter but of the Ruach (Spirit, Breath); for the letter kills, but the Ruach (Spirit, Breath) gives chayim (life)" (2 Cor.3:6, NIV).

You have to breathe to speak, imbue the letter with life - with chayim. And you have to 'tell' it in such a way that it flows with the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit), which turns it into a living story:

"In the beginning Elohim (God) created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Ruach Elohim (Spirit of God) was hovering over the water..." (Gen.1:1-2, NIV).

What you have got to understand is that the Bible was composed - inspired - with their aural (hearing) and oral (spoken) potential in mind, or at least the major part of it. The Bible is, a lot of the time, more like a compilation of Inspired Plays than a Unified User Manual or Theological Reference Book of religious truth, doctrine and rules, though it's both, of course. The revelations in their original form were meant to be delivered by mouth when they arrived at their destination, not the early equivalent of being photocopied or digitised or printed and then distributed hard-copy or on electronic hardware. Members of the local assemblies weren't given their own scrolls, parchments, smartphones or books. And as scholar and preacher Ben Witherington III, who is an expert on the subject of biblical rhetoric, has pointed out:

"...when one reads the opening verses of Ephesians, loaded as it is with aural devices (assonance {repetition of vowel sounds in nearby words}, alliteration {a series of words beginning with the same consonant sound}, rhythm, rhyme, various rhetorical devices) it becomes perfectly clear that no one was ever meant to hear this in any language but Greek and furthermore, no one was ever meant to hear this silently. It needed to be heard" [5].

In other words, our written Bibles were simply surrogates or substitutes for oral speech, which meant that the leaders of the Messianic Community (Church) outside of Palestine had to be literate and good speakers in their natural tongues or else possessed the supernatural gift of speaking in many languages. Though there were undoubtedly some convert Scribes or Torah Teachers, like Tertius and Sosthenes (Rom 16; 1 Cor.1) who most likely contributed their skills, for the most part the leaders of the Messianic Community (Church) were not of that Judean class. Theirs was a Greek world, not a Hebrew one, for whom the Besorah (Gospel) would have to be conveyed in ways the people could understand and relate to. Just try using British humour in America, even though we more-or-less speak the same language, and you'll see what I mean. In comparing Judean and the Greco-Roman languages, customs and ways, a better modern comparison would probably be Chinese to African.

Indeed, it has to be pointed out, that what we have come to call the 'letters' or 'epistles' of the Messianic Scriptures (New Testament) were far longer than the secular letter of their day precisely because they were designed to be spoken. Yes, the biblical epistles sometimes have the traditional openings and closings of regular letters but before long they are sounding like sermons and not something you'd be sent to your home 'through the post'. Indeed, what we inaccurately call 'letters' or 'epistles' are, in fact, discourses, homilies (sermons), and rhetorical speeches of various kinds that the creators could not personally be present to deliver to a particular audience (like the Thessalonians or Corinthians). So instead - and please note this well - they sent a surrogate or someone in their place to read them out for them. Understand also that these documents weren't just handed out to anyone. As you read Paul's writings, it soon becomes plain that the apostle expected either Timothy, Titus, or Phoebe to go and orally deliver the contents in the manner and spirit that the writer expected. The words weren't the only important thing. The way they were to be spoken was also critical so just anyone couldn't read them out.

Remember also that there was no use of upper and lower case, no punctuation, no paragraphing, and no spacing of letters because paper and ink were very expensive in those days. So the one commissioned by the apostle to read them out had to be skilled not only in reading such seamless prose but in placing the emphasis in the right places. Doubtless they would have heard Paul read it out to them first before being handed the written papyrus so they would have known the contents and understood the ways of the writer. And I guarantee the ways of Paul were not easy to get to know! The readers were not mere 'narrators' either, introducing the texts - they literally incarnated them by virtue of being so familiar with them and with the writer of the original words. Can you understand now why Yahweh would call His Son the "Word"? In the same way, like a wife who knows her husband completely, the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) relays the "Word" to Messiah's people today.

Here's the tragedy. We, Christians and Messianics - believers - read our English translations of the Bible silently and we sometimes see more-or-less the same thing but sometimes we see entirely different things and get confused. We read the Scriptures through our own cultural lenses. That is why I appreciate so much scholars and ministers like N.T.Wright who have devoted their entire life to totally immersing themselves in the world of a writer like the apostle Paul, know his language, his mannerisms, his ways, his culture, his environment and who thereby see things which we would otherwise miss. Yahweh sends us such people to help us 'do' Scripture right. The lenses of a John Calvin or a Martin Luther, or a Charles Spurgeon or a John MacArthur, aren't going to get us nearly close enough to the vibrating heart of the original revelator.

I make it a matter of earnest prayer to ask Yahweh who to go to for such insights because I want to know Paul, I want to know what he meant in what I have to freely admit are hard to understand writings. Golly, if he was hard for Peter and the other apostles to understand 2,000 years ago, what makes us think we're going to have it any easier?! (2 Pet.3:16) I am not content to keep on 'shelving' things I don't understand and I am resolved, implaccably, to empty those shelves just as fast as I can because I can't do my job properly otherwise. And I'm sorry, but I am determined to do my job well and give a good account to Elohim (God) one day for my calling. My goal is excellence as I hope it is yours so that we may do all things right and so be pleasing to our Master.

I want to know why parts of the Scriptures appear to flatly contradict one another. Is it because the Scriptures are uninspired or is it because I am viewing them through the wrong (Western) cultural lenses? I do not accept that the denominational divisions are 'natural' and simply different 'expressions' of the same truth - I am neither atheist nor liberal. Sorry! I no longer accept there are 'essentials' and 'non-essentials', at least not when believers claim essentials are non-essentials. In an age of division, yes, but we no longer have any excuse. We cannot, as the Body of Christ, go on the way we have been. There may have been excuses in the past, but there aren't any longer:

"It was He who gave some to be apostles, some to be nevi'im (prophets), some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare Elohim's (God's) people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ" (Eph.4:11-13, NIV).

We need apostles! Where are the Baptist, Presbyterian, Catholic and Methodist apostles? I don't see them! Oh, I can see Mormon 'apostles', and Pentecostal 'apostles', United Apostolic Church 'apostles', one or two Church of God' 'apostles', and lots of other 'apostles', but they're as disunited and contradictory in their teachings as all the rest. And the last time I counted apostles in my Bible, there were never more than 12 at a time (though people disagree about that too!). (The Mormons have 15, by the way - 3 too many!). Reality check - there aren't any apostles yet (so the Baptists are half right) and when there are, as there must be to bring unity, apostles called as Paul was, they'll be teaching the New Testament doctrine and not be playing doctrinal games. They will have power and signs accompanying them just like the first apostles. But that's for another sermon. Why do Baptists, Anglicans, Messianics (who call apostles by their Hebrew term, 'shlichim') and others need apostles? Because we haven't remotely come to a "unity in the faith" and anyone who claims we have come to a unity in 'essentials' is just playing word games. Who, in any case, decides what the 'essentials' are?! It would take a bona fide apostle to decide that!

Thanks to scholars whom Yahweh has unquestionably called and inspired I can now see that as evangelicals we have often done our biblical history badly. And of course there are going to be contradictions once we start imposing categories from much later Western thought from, for instance, the 16th century (when the Reformation started) or the 19th century (when the liberals and so-called 'Higher Critics' took over). How, for example, can a book - the New Testament - simultaneously teach 'justification by faith' and 'final judgment according to works'? How can it teach that Yah'shua (Jesus) is the 'Messiah' (a Jewish idea) as well as 'Lord' (a pagan idea)? Using the wrong lenses, Western theologians over the last 200 years have rushed to hasty conclusions that lead either to liberalism/atheism or to theologies which are frankly high-sounding 'B/S'. Pardon my French, but cattle dung theology calls for harsh words - thank you, American brethren, for your colourful no-nonsense language! These traditional Protestant theologians, for all their brilliance and linguistic finery, just cannot see how certain categories fit coherently together. And just because they don't fit together - or are being forced to unnaturally fit together - in the 21st century, doesn't mean they didn't fit together in the 1st century. The day of theological acrobatics and gymnastics is well and truly over for this preacher.

I personally have no problem understanding how 'Justification by Faith' (as Paul taught) and 'Justification by Works' (as James taught) are both true. They're two sides of the same coin. I have no problem understanding how we are to live by both emunah (faith) and Torah because I now understand that the Hebrew word for 'faith' - emunah - means active trusting, that is, trusting that leads to action or works. I have no problem understanding that both Levitical-type until death-do-us-part marriage and eternal marriage are true. I have no problem understanding now both monogamy and polygamy are biblical expressions of marriage because those two words, out of which we have artifically created two categories of marriage and set them against each other, don't even exist in Scripture, and so I pass no judgment whatsoever on our African brethren some of whom are 'more married' than others of us in the West. I have no problem understanding that Elohim (God) intends to save - and already has saved - all mankind from hell whilst He isn't saving them all to a singular Heaven or to the same place. That's another false dichotomy we have created out of thin air. I have no problem in understanding that Elohim (God) is both One and Many because He isn't finite like us. I have no problem with any of these things - and more - because Yahweh in His grace has revealed the mystery of what echad means to many of us. That's why we use that word 'echad' all the time! That's why I have no problem accepting that planet earth has both a north pole and a south pole even though such an idea causes flat-earthers to mentally implode because they can only think in two dimensions. We have to think like the Hebrews of old once more because they were closer to Source culturally than we are!

I refuse to think like a Greek or a Roman any longer. I refuse to think like a modern Messianic Jew or a modern orthodox Christian. Elohim (God) alone knows how I have sought to learn from them all, and still do, but their categories are sometimes wrong. They are the flat-earthers of the theological world. Their categories don't fit, never have fitted, and never will fit, just like flat-earth 'science' never has worked, doesn't work, and never will work. Wake up! Their inflexible, brittle, mediaeval systems just cause more confusion and more division, and I don't care for division, I can't stand infighting and quarrelling, and I refuse to pretend that everything's just fine and that we just need to accept one another's doctrines and practices 'in diversity' like good politically correct drones. I'm sorry, I refuse! Call me intolerant if you wish, but I refuse to live a lie. And why do I refuse? Because I cannot live with a divided soul or a defiled conscience (1 Cor.8:12). I cannot be at war with my own mind and with my own heart. I believe totally in the Shema - that Yahweh our Elohim (God) is Echad or One (as we discussed last week) - I totally believe that! But I also believe He is Three, that the Ruach (Spirit) is Seven, and I have no problem believing in all three because all three propositions are true. Now the mathematics may cause some Western heads to boil over but tough! We can't squeeze Yahweh's reality into our tiny human bijou bottle-sized craniums and expect to share His large flagons of emet (truth) to thirsty souls.

I drive my Messianic and Evangelical friends and acquaintances insane sometimes because they think I have lost it, that I am a 'heretic', because I refuse to accept their 16th, 19th or 21st century theological categories that have more to do with modern Judaism, Romanism and Secularism than with the world of the apostles! And I really don't care what anyone else thinks anymore (even though their misunderstanding deeply grieves me at times) because I'm free, and it is my task to explain why I am free and to encourage all those who want to get back to the "old paths" (Jer.6:16, NKJV) - the "ancient paths" (NRSV) - to seek for them and find shalom (peace) for themselves rather than that false 'peace' which comes from conforming to an uncritical group-think mentality which teaches them how to mindlessly bleat in unison because it's a mantra that makes them feel safe. Our security is in Yah'shua (Jesus) and His Emet (Truth), not in what other people think about us.

Can I just add here that I am not passing judgment on people, nor am I rejecting people who disagree with me. I hope I - I try to - treat everyone as equals. My invitation is that we simply explore together on an even playing field and learn from one another's encounters with Elohim (God), and agree to disagree with grace - with loving kindness - when we cannot find unity, but not to give up on one another. The 'never-sayers' have in reality ended the conversation. I have dear friends - fellow believers - across the denominational spectrum even if there are others, ironically from the same spectrum, who think I am the devil's right-hand man. That's reality, I accept it. I don't expect to change them any time soon. As Churchill once said, the dogs may bark but the caravan moves on. So we move on.

Here's another thing that makes no sense to the 21st century Protestant mind though Messianics might claim to understand this but only because they have been influenced by the false occult ideas of kabbalism which, I will admit, nearly fooled me once when I studied that doctrine. What you also have to realise is that the Hebrews believed the spoken word possessed power - not just the qadosh, sacred, holy or set-apart names of Elohim (God), however they may actually be pronounced, but sacred words in general. Consider what Yahweh said through the navi (prophet) Isaiah:

"For as the rain and snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My Davar (Word) be that goes out from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it" (Is.55:10-11, NRSV).

How does the Davar Elohim, the Word of God, go forth from His mouth (as opposed to His pen, stylus or printing press)? It goes forth to the children of men by the spoken words of the nevi'im (prophets) and those like preachers otherwise endowed with the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) who speak forth the qadosh, sacred devarim (words) with their mouths. It is not, in the majority of cases, enough to simply pass on a written text, because the Davar Elohim (Word of Elohim) never has its full, authoritative expression until it is spoken. Only the Davar or devarim - the Word or words - of the living and powerful Elohim (God) were viewed as 'living' and 'powerful' in themselves. Understand this! Therefore the human agent of the living Elohim (God) had to have toqef or authority! That is why I said earlier that the Scriptures can never be viewed apart from the people who wrote them and the audiences to whom they were delivered, to which I must now add that we cannot consider them apart from those who delivered them orally either - the Timothy's, Titus' and Phoebe's of the Messianic Community (Church).

As we read the opening four verses of John's first letter, I want you to ask Yahweh to open up to your hearts and receive these words as though you were either hearing the agèd apostle himself (he must have been near 100 at the time) or one of his agents to the congregations and assemblies of his day, and to consider that someone like me - a preacher - could be such an agent to this one, right now, 2,000 years later, so that you may hear these words with the same power and authority as John's audiences did nearly 2,000 years ago. So if you'd like to turn with me to 1 John 1:1-4 in the New King James Version you can follow as I read it to you:

"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Davar Chayim (Word of Life) -- the chayim (life) was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that æonian chayim (eternal life) which was with the Father and was manifested to us -- that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ). And these things we write to you that your simcha (joy) may be full" (1 John 1:1-4, NKJV) [6].

Divine Scripture is a story - an epic cosmic story - and it is a story that must be told out loud by one operating in the authority and power of the Ruach (Spirit) so that it may be as Elohim (God) speaking His Davar (Word) live. That person could be you. Why does Yahweh give His Davar (Word) as a story per se, and a recounted, related or spoken one at that? Stories possess the power to change the way people think and behave, and it is precisely because stories can influence us to positively change that it may be said to exercise realtime power and authority. Why do you think the Enemy has been at pains to control the airwaves - radio, Hollywood, TV? Politics has never been the same since J.F.Kennedy and Richard Nixon first debated on TV (Kennedy won because he had better screen appeal), or when the communists and nazis turned the radio into an arm of propaganda in the 1930's? Why do you think Elohim (God) sent Yah'shua (Jesus) audibly and visibly into the world? The words He spoke, in private and to crowds, which were repeated and recorded, and discussed, and repeated again, are what we are all about today. He alone directly spoke "the words of eternal life" (John 6:68, NIV) with power and with authority - the rest of humanity can only do so in the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit). Yah'shua (Jesus) has departed from us. That is why ministers must yet go out and speak them again and again, saving souls through the 'foolishness of preaching', and why ordinary believers must repeat them too for the sake of their friends and acquaintances on a one-to-one basis. His devarim (words), recalled by the Ruach (Spirit), written down, and repeated by us in the Ruach (Spirit) once again, carry the very real power to change lives supernaturally. Told as a story, the whole soul may then be gripped and transferred into the New Creation.

Let me give you an illustration as to why the spoken word is so important. A familiar story told with a new twist in the tail jolts people into thinking differently about themselves and about the world. A story told with pathos (exciting pity or sadness), humour, or drama opens the imagination and invites both readers and hearers to imagine themselves in similar situations, offering new insights about Elohim (God) and human beings which enable them to order their own lives more wisely. Yah'shua's (Jesus') numerous parables accomplish just this. For the Scriptures - the Davar Elohim (Word of God) - to have the effect it was designed for it is necessary for us to hear it as it is, and not to chop it up and rearrange it in an effort to make it into something else. Nobody reads just an extract of a novel - they read it from beginning to end. Nobody is content to watch only a short extract of a movie - we want to see it from beginning to end too. Each Bible book was designed to be read through. And on one memorable occasion, which led to great national repentance, the entire Torah was read through following the return from Exile. There is power in the Word!

We need, therefore, to now set the Scriptures within the larger context which the biblical writers themselves insist upon, which is the authority of Elohim (God) Himself. What is 'Scripture' in the 'big view'? It is the story of [the old] Creation, orignally perfect but fallen and dying because of sin, and the New, living Creation in Christ, two diametrically opposed worlds, the one inhabited by demons and unrepentant men living in the shadows, and the other by loyal malakim (angels), saved men in an invisible Garden Paradise from the Future in which Elohim (God) walks and converses with His children in the brightness of His radiant presence. In the former, old Creation, the heart groans; in the latter, new Creation, the heart sings. Last week we saw how the soul struggles in prayer because of these two conflicting worlds; now we are learning why from the Grand Story of Scripture, but it must be told right if we are to grasp it properly.

Within all that, is the story of a [former or old] Covenant and the ongoing story of a New Covenant. When we read Scripture it ought always to be as people of the New Covenant and of the New Creation, as creatures who have been spiritually regenerated in Messiah. What we cannot - and must not - do is read our Bibles as simply a flat, uniform list of regulations and doctrines to be sought out and adhered to. We read the story or narrative in which we ourselves are now called to take part, and we read it out loud, speaking chayim or life into the surroundings of the old Creation. We read it to discover 'the story so far' and we read it also 'how it's supposed to end.' In other words, we live somewhere between the end of the Acts of the Apostles and the closing scene of the Book of Revelation. If we want to understand Scripture, and find it doing its proper work in and through us, we must learn to read and understand it in the light of the overall story, never forgetting that to the ancients who produced the Bible that the living word was the spoken word and the written word was not yet alive. Jot that down somewhere and remember it - it will open up so much of the Scriptures for you!

Please grasp this: you and I are now a part of the living narrative that is the story of Scripture, even if we are not yet named in the earthbound textual edition yet. What you have here in this book is but a snapshot - a photograph - of a book so vast that all the earth could not contain it for its shere volume. If "there would not be room in the whole world for all the books that would have to be written" to contain the "many other things which Yah'shua (Jesus) did [and said]" (Jn.21:25, JBP), then how much bigger would that book be that contained all the deeds and sayings of the qodeshim (saints, set-apart ones) too. Perhaps the unnamed scribe at the end of John's Gospel wasn't exaggerating after all...

I have a volume in my study, in Latin and Greek, containing some of the stories of the earliest martyrs to the faith. They are but a drop in the bucket and I don't doubt the annals of heaven are bulging with such stories. These men, women and children were, and are, the continuing story of the Book of Acts. Perhaps the abrupt 'ending' of that book, having no conclusion, is as Elohim (God) intended. It is an unfinished story, but a comma in the bigger narrative.

Again and again I am reminded of the fact that our present consists not only of the present old, fallen Creation, but an intense shaft of Light coming from Elohim's (God's) future too. In that ray, which never diffuses, past, present, and future all comingle and have no distinction, because in the presence of Yahweh there is no such distinction. In it we do not need to wait for anything to happen, because it has already happened and it is present. So as we read and listen to the gospels, we must remind ourselves again and again - because the pull of prevailing Western culture is so strong that if we don't it will suck us back down into the dualism of 'mind and matter' - that this is the story of how the Kingdom of Elohim (God) was established 'on earth as in heaven', in and through the work of Yah'shua (Jesus), fulfilling Israel's great Story, defeating the power of evil, and launching Yahweh's New Creation.

As we read the letters or epistles of the apostles, we must remind ourselves that these are the documents designed to shape and direct the Messianic Community (Church) of the New Covenant, the people who were called to take forward the work of New Creation by speaking it into life and then manifesting it around them in physical space: "the kingdom of Elohim (God) is within you" (Luke 17:21, NIV), as if through a Stargate from Yahweh's future, so that, as the Amplified Version puts it, it is also "amongst you".

We are messengers, we are Yahweh's human malakim (angels), bringing not only a message from the Future but speaking it, and incarnating it, into life in the midst of a dying world. Thus Paul would say of the Corinthian qodeshim (saints, set-apart ones):

"You yourselves are our letter (epistle), written on our hearts, to be known and read by all; and you show that you are a letter (epistle) of Messiah, prepared by us, not written with ink but with the Ruach (Spirit) of the living Elohim (God), not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts" (2 Cor.3:2-3, NRSV).

So as we read the Book of Revelation, we must not allow the wonderful heavenly vision in chapters 4 and 5 (which I asked you to read last week) to lull us into imagining that is the final scene in the story, as though the narrative were simply to conclude (as in Charles Wesley's glorious hymn) with the redeemed 'casting their crowns before Him', because Revelation 4 & 5 is a vision of the heavenly, spiritual reality, which has already been birthed as a deposit into us now that forms part of the present reality of the New Creation brought forward supernaturally by Yahweh. We must not stop at Revelation 4 & 5 but read to the end, to the final vision of Revelation 21 & 22, the chapters which give final meaning to all that has gone before, and indeed to the entire Bible canon - so please read those two chapters this week, if you would!

When we read the Tanakh - the Old Testament - we must read it the way it itself asks to be read, as the long winding story of how Yahweh chose a people to take forward His plan to rescue His Creation. It is not the story of how Elohim (God) had an unsuccessful shot at calling a people whom He would save from the world, and how this was aborted, forcing Him to try something else. That is a grotesque caricature of the story, a twisting of the true narrative which so many believe, and for which reason they discard the Tanakh (Old Testament). You see, the Tanakh (Old Testament) is integral to, and must therefore be read as a part of, the Christian/Messianic 'story', because Israel does not end at Malachi 4:6! It transitions into new, Messianic Israel! However, we are no longer living in that moment or chapter of the story. The story of the Tanakh (Old Testament) points beyond itself, like a set of parallel lines meeting in the infinitely rich narrative of the gospels and the sudden outburst of new chayim (life) in Acts and the Epistles.

I like Wittgenstein's illustration. He said:

"The Old Testament [should be] seen as the body without its head; the New T[estament]: the head; the Epistles of the Apostles: the crown on the head. If I think of the Jewish Bible (remember that Wittgenstein was Jewish), the Old Testament on its own, I should like to say: the head is (still) missing from this body. The solution to these problems is missing. The fulfilment of these hopes is missing. But I do not necessarily think of a head as having a crown" [7].

I like that analogy because it recognises you cannot discard the body which must bear the head and the crown - we still need the Tanakh (Old Testament) lifestyle of mitzvot (commandments) but it must be disposessed of the old Creation and be entirely replaced by the New Creation in Christ - lock, stock, and barrel. And this is the overarching point that cannot be shrunk, diluted, reduced, diminished or set to one side in any degree: the Bible, as a whole, from Genesis to Revelation, does what it does best when read from the perspective - through the lens - of the New Creation.

My wife recently got a second-hand replacement PC for her old dying laptop but it didn't come with a cam so I had to dig out a really old spare one for the time being. When she used it for the first time recently as we were talking to family online she not only looked different - hazy, in fact - but she sounded completely different. If I had only known her using that old cam, I would not have recognised her voice meeting her for the first time in real life. This is perhaps not the best illustration but it makes the important point that the type of lens you view life through - or the microphone you listen to life through - very much alters your perception of reality. Looking at the Scriptures through the lens of the old Creation, or through some combination of the old and New Creations, will result in a whole spectrum of different interpretations. These different interpretations are what lead to different denominations with different theologies, different sets of commandments, different church constitutions, different creeds, different missions and indeed different experiences, sometimes radically so. And so long as there are people who choose to view the Bible through these different lenses, there will always be these denominations, and the confusion will persist - inevitably - and all the best will in the world won't change a thing.

You see, the Bible was designed not only to tell us about the work of New Creation, as though from a detatched perspective; it was designed not only to provide us with new information about Yahweh's fresh, resurrection life (about which theologians and Bible teachers can wax eloquent until the cows come home), but actually it was designed to catalyse or foster the work of New Creation in every location where people read or hear it, and who define themselves in terms of the Yah'shua (Jesus) they meet in it, and who allow it - above all else - to shape their lives. The Bible, then, is not only the record of the story of Creation and New Creation, but is now primarily, through the continuing work of the Ruach (Spirit) who inspired the flesh-and-blood men who wrote it, an instrument of New Creation in human lives as it is translated from ink-and-paper into a voice that is spoken, which then sets in motion the wheels of activity in this very physical sphere which will one day be the receptacle of the New Jerusalem with which it will combine fully as a single, glorious sphere of permanent existence, becoming the very centre of the whole Cosmos.

Again, let me repeat, the Bible is not simply a list of true doctrines, or a collection of moral and ethical mitzvot (commanments) defining the lifestyle of Yahweh's people, even though it necessarily contains plenty of both. The Bible is not simply a record of what various people thought as they struggled to know Elohim (God) and follow Him, though it is that as well. It is not simply the record of past revelations, as though what mattered were to study such things in the hopes that one might have a revelation for oneself, though such a revelation is available. It is the Book whose whole narrative is about New Creation, about resurrection living, so that when the gospels each end with the raising of Yah'shua (Jesus) from the dead, and when the Book of Revelation ends with new heavens and a new earth populated by Elohim's (God's) people risen from the dead, this should not come as a surprise, but as the ultimate fulfilment of what the story had been about all along.

'New Life' is the tell-tale sign, isn't it, not dead theology or commandment-keeping alone. You can be a commandment-keeper and know a fantastic amount of theology and be spiritually dead. Your gnosis or knowledge of emet (truth) won't save you without New Life, nor will your legalistic satisfaction in doing good alone. Remember that piety does not always translate into morality. There are a lot of very pious - that is, devout - religious but highly immoral people. 'Resurrection' isn't just about the future raising to new physical life in an immortal state, vitally important though that is in the overall story, because the future is on a perfected earth, not in some whispy heaven full of disembodied spirits - resurrection is also about inner transformation, spiritual regeneration, a new birth, newness of life, a NEW CREATION, which is currently the only visible part of Yahweh's Future manifested in the present through authentic talmidim (disciples). So for us, as believers in this life of the continuing-for-now old Creation, that New Creation Life is the most important thing, more important than getting all your theological formulations right. To be filled with chayim (life) is the only way Yah'shua (Jesus) is revealed through His talmidim (disciples) to a dying world in desperate need of Him.

A few years ago I was sitting in a Baptist Church listening to a stand-in minister teach theology. It was doctrinally accurate, as far as I could tell, but his words were as dead and useless as a box of old bent rusty nails. There was no chayim (life). I started dozing off. A minister's wife tried to radiate enthusiasm but it was an act, no doubt well motivated to give the poor man who had been put on the spot some moral support. I have also been in charismatic meetings where there has been something resembling 'life' but which was just a psychic, fleshy performance, with leaders trying to generate some 'spirit' through hyped up emotions. That's just as bad. You cannot 'manufacture' the spirit: you're either born again or your dead in the old Creation still, no matter how religious you are and no matter how much you quote the Scriptures. I lived for 15 years in Oxford listening to academics pontificate. For four of those years I listened to them 'talk Bible'. How many of them were spiritually dead, I cannot say, because I was spiritually dead until Yah'shua (Jesus) gave me New Creation Life in 1977 when I finally committed and surrendered my life to Him.

Don't be fooled by the liberals. Elaine Pagels and other theologians were active during my Oxford days, busily promoting the Gnostic scriptures from Nag Hammadi [8]. They made a lot of noise, claiming that 'other' gospels had been excluded from the New Testament because they threatened the power base and control of the first Christian leaders, and that Paul taught that we are being 'renewed by knowledge' (Col.3:10) [9]. But the real reasons these 'gospels' were excluded from the earliest canons was not because they were allegedly 'exciting' or 'subversive' but "because they had stopped talking about the New Creation and were offering a private, detatched spirituality instead" [10]. The flurry of excitement in those 'lost gospels', when I was living in Oxford, was not because they were a discovery of genuine, lost Christian scriptures (they were counterfeit), but because of the desperate liberal attempt to discredit authentic Christianity and turn it down a dead gnostic road. You see, New Creation is far more demanding - though ultimately far more exhilarating - than gnostic escapism, quite apart from the fact that there is no salvation in Gnosticism anyway because it is Satan's Tree-of-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil - or Tree-of-Death - counterpart to the Tree of Chayim (Life).

I am so looking forward to the time when I can sit down and talk tace-to-face with Yah'shua (Jesus) on the Millennial Earth the way Adam spoke with Yahweh in the Garden of Eden. And not just Him, but so many of the qodeshim (saints, set-apart ones) I'm looking forward to conversing with. Will we have written Scriptures then? I imagine so, but the spoken Scriptures will be so much more important and they'll be so much bigger than our printed Bibles! We'll have their authors to converse with too, just as you and I talk together in relaxed fellowship.

I realise not everyone shares my beliefs about the Millennium or much of what I have been saying generally. Most people these days are too lazy to dig deep - David Pawson calls them 'pan-millennialists' because, he says, "they believe that everything will pan out all right in the end, whatever we think now" [11]. I don't agree with them - for one, because I don't believe all believers will be in the same place in the resurrection, and secondly, because hope is as integral to the Christian/Messianic life as emunah (faith) and ahavah (love). And as Pawson remarks, "what we are sure will happen in the future profoundly affects our behaviour in the present". Unity, therefore, is important - very important - "and our hopes for this world are crucial" [12]. Hearing the Bible story correctly is therefore essential to shalom (peace) in our marriages, families and congregations. Doctrine becomes important, the lifestyle we live becomes important, and our whole vision becomes important or we will not meet Yahweh's Future in the here-and-now on the same page, and division will continue. And that is one reason why all my ministerial life I have fought hard against false doctrine and false spirits. I want unity! But I am also realistic. Two worlds in collision - an old Creation world and a New Creation world - do not produce unity but conflict. Therefore there must be a clean separation, a final exodus and a final gathering as we've always taught.

Next week we shall be changing subject from the Scriptures and looking at the importance of Holiness to Christian unity. Join me then for what promises to be a blessed exploration! And may Yahweh bless you all.

Endnotes

[5] Ben Witherington III, New Testament Rhetoric: An Introductory Guide to the Art of Persuasion in and of the New Testament (Cascade Books, Eugene, Oregeon: 2009), p.2. In actual fact, this constitutes strong evidence that some of the Pauline epistles, at least, were not written originally in Aramaic or Hebrew but in Greek, the lingua franca of the eastern part of the Roman Empire. I remain open-minded on the subject. Certainly I don't believe the Gospels were written originally in Greek, with perhaps the exception of Luke.
[6] Or in a more mdoern version, "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched - this we proclaim concerning the Davar Chayim (Word of life). The chayim (life) appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the aionian chayim (eternal life), which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ). We write this to make our simcha (joy) complete" (1 John 1:1-4, NIV).
[7] Ed. G.H.von Wright et al., trans. Peter Winch, Culture and Value: A Selection from the Posthumous Remains (Blackwell, Oxford: 1998), p.40e, as cited in Tom Wright, Surprised by Hope (SPCK, London: 2007), p.328
[8] Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (Random House, NY: 1979)
[9] In reality, Paul is here talking about having already died to the old self and already having received the image of Messiah. The qualitative change in identity is already established, it's not acquired by studying for more knowledge. Gnostics believed that getting a knowledge of self was the means by which one obtained a knowledge of God (chapter 6 of her book). All the believers have to do is bring their behaviour in line with the new reality (Rom.6:6; Eph.4:24).
[10] Tom Wright, ibid., p.296
[11] David Pawson, Unlocking the Bible: A Unique Overview of the Whole Bible (Collins, London: 2007), p.1333
[12] Pawson, ibid., p.1333

Acknowledgements

[1] Tom Wright, Surprised by Hope (SPCK, London: 2007), 'Reshaping the Church for Mission', pp.245-303
[2] N.T.Wright, Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today (SPCK, London: 2011)