Ecclesiastes to Malachi: 19 More Clues from the Old Testament

How much is a talent? A mite? A “piece of silver”?

     When we read all these strange units of measurement in the Scriptures, we often don’t know what they are. We miss the real power and dynamics of the story. For instance, I might buy a can of cola in Canada for one dollar but in Mexico I may have to pay 10 pesos—is that a good price or a really bad one? I need to know the conversion factor.

     When we dig into the stories Jesus told, or events in His life, we still need those conversion factors. Look at the shepherd who loses one sheep. (Matthew 18:12). Out of 100, that’s only 1%. But what is the value of a sheep (aside altogether from his duty to keep the flock intact)? I looked up the current selling price of a sheep —about $300. Definitely worth a bit of trudging through the wilderness.

     Then there is the woman with ten silver coins (drachmae or denarii), who lost one of them— how much was that, supposing a salary of $30,000? One denarius was about one day’s wages so calculating 300 working days per year, that is $100. Again, worth sweeping the floor for. (Luke 15:8)

     While the Lord was at the temple, He watched a woman put two mites into the collection box—all she had to live on. (Mark 12:42) We might put $5 or $10 or $20 into the collection and think nothing of it. What did she have? Her two mites (or lepta) were worth only one sixty-fourth of a denarius! She had $1.60, and she gave it all.

     Another example might be the ruler who gave his three assistants five, three, and one talents (i.e., bags of money). The NIV footnotes indicate that a talent was “about 20 years of a day laborer’s wage”, so that means $3,000,000 to the first servant and $600,000 to the third. The first and second servants were committed to their master, worked hard, and doubled their money (to six million, in the first case).

     Finally, look at what Judas got for his treachery—30 pieces of silver. (Matthew 26:15) Sometimes we think it was a pittance—30 quarters or even 30 silver dollars. But this was the value of the life of a slave if someone’s ox gored him to death. (Exodus 21:32) These pieces were possibly staters, so 30 of them would represent four month’s wages. So, in terms of our $30,000 salary, Judas got $10,000.

     We should take it to heart that these stories, whether involving $6,000,000 or $1.60, all seem to have the common threads of personal integrity, and faithfulness to the Master (or lack thereof). “If we are faithless, he remains faithful.”

“In this world we are like Jesus”

     1 John 4:17

     We wish we were. We want to be. John seems to give us the benefit of the doubt that we are. But just how would this show through in practice? Scanning back through John’s letter, here are a few characteristics of Jesus “in this world”:

·    He walks in the light. If we do this, we have fellowship with one another; and we love our sister and brother. 1:7; 2:10.

·    He loves his Father. If we live as Jesus did, we know we are in him. 2:5.

·    He does the will of God. If we do this, we will live forever. 2:17.

·    He is righteous. If we do what is right, we know that we have been born of him. 2:29; 3:7.

·    The world does not know him. So it doesn’t know us either. 3:1.

·    He is pure. We should purify ourselves. 3:3.

·    In him is no sin. We must not keep on sinning. 3:6.

·    He laid down his life for us. We ought to lay ours down for our brothers and sisters. 3:16.

·    He loves us. We must love our brother and sister. 4:19.

     The writer of this letter, the apostle John, seems to have been the sweetest, gentlest of all the apostles. He was very specifically “the disciple whom Jesus loved”, he is the one to whom Jesus entrusted his own mother, he is the only one who lived to a great old age and died a natural death. Somehow advice from a man like this, a “gentle” man, seems easier to take—we really want to be like Jesus out of love.

The Sea of Galilee...a Geography Lesson

        Although Galilee is called a “sea”, it is, in fact, fresh water. As far as size goes, Galilee is less than one quarter the size of Lake Simcoe (744 km²) in Ontario. At minus 696 feet, it is “the lowest freshwater lake on Earth.”  For you geology buffs, note that Galilee, the Jordan River, the Dead Sea, and the entire Arabah, the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea are on the edges of two tectonic plates (the African and the Arabian) slipping in opposite directions to each other and, in some areas, spreading away from each other (and causing several earthquakes mentioned in the Old Testament).

     The Sea of Galilee (Matt.4:19; 15:29), about 60 miles northeast of Jerusalem, figures so strongly in the story of Jesus that it’s worth learning a little bit about it. For instance, it has several other names in scripture too: Sea of Chinnereth (Num.34:11; Josh.12:3; 13:27), Lake of Gennesaret (Luke 5:1), and Sea of Tiberias (John 6:1; 21:1). The box shows a few statistics taken from Wikipedia:

Lake type	Monomictic [the waters mix completely once per year]
Primary inflows	Upper Jordan river and local runoff
Primary outflows	Lower Jordan River, evaporation
Catchment area	2,730 km2 (1,050 mi2)
Basin countries	Israel, Syria, Lebanon
Max. length	21 km (13 mi)
Max. width	13 km (8.1 mi)
Surface area	166 km2 (64 mi2)
Average depth	25.6 m (84 ft)
Max. depth	43 m (141 ft)
Water volume	4 km3 (0.96 mi3)
Residence time	5 years
Shore length	53 km (33 mi)
Surface elevation	-212.07 m (-695.8 ft)
Islands	2

        But statistics are dry; statistics are dull. What life-stories do we know about people around the lake?  

        Way back in Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua, the slopes east of the sea of “Kinnereth” were to be the eastern boundary of the nine and a half tribes, and the western boundary of the two and a half tribes (Reuben and Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh). This is where the history of the name Gad-ara comes from, where Jesus let the demons go into the swine.

        Moving into the New Testament we read in Mark 1:16-19, “As Jesus walked beside the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake…When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets.”

        This is the lake where our mind’s eye can see Him as He sits in a boat to speak to His audience along the shore at the water’s edge. We see Him calm the storm and the waves. We see Him walk on this water. We see Him direct His disciples to a miraculously huge catch of fish. And this is where, after His resurrection, He prepares fish on a fire of coals, feeds His disciples, and three times asks Peter to feed His sheep.

        Many of us will never “walk where Jesus walked”, in a physical sense, but we can still take His words to heart: To the disciples working on their nets, He said, “I will make you fishers of men.” From the boat, He said, “…other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop...”  In the storm He said, “Peace, be still.” From His sure footing on this very sea, He said, “It is I; be not afraid.” After the failed all-night fishing trip, He said, “Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find.” And on the beach of Galilee He said, “Come and dine.”

        What more can we say? Let’s fish for men and women for Christ. Let’s produce a good crop for Him; let’s be at peace and unafraid. Then we know that He will come in and commune with us, and we with Him.

Ì

Christians in Rome: "Proclaiming the Gospel Without Fear"

     When the apostle Paul arrived in Rome in the spring of 60AD, after his shipwreck and his winter on Malta, he had already been in communication with the believers through his letter (“Romans”, dated 56AD). When Paul wrote later on, blessing the Roman believers for “proclaiming the gospel without fear” (Phil.1:14, from Rome in 61AD), even he couldn’t foresee the torment that was coming. After two years under house arrest, he was released in 62AD. He continued his missionary work away from Rome but in July, 64AD a tragic fire destroyed   two-thirds of Rome (with a population at that time of two million) and Nero blamed the Christians for causing it.

     When my wife and I were in Rome in 2012, we toured St. Peter’s. One of the most poignant stories our young Italian guide told us was of Nero’s “garden parties” not far from where we stood. She described how he “lit his garden parties with the burning carcasses of Christian human torches.”  Christians were tied to poles around his garden, covered in tar and pitch, and set alight! She told the story so well that I could feel the shock of it. Were some of them the believers whom Paul commended in his letter? We know Priscilla and Aquila escaped because Paul mentioned them in his second letter to Timothy at Ephesus in about 66/67AD. But was Phoebe in the group? How about Andronicus and Junia? Tryphena and Tryphosa and Persis? Were Nereus and his sister made into human torches? (See Romans 16).

     The letter to the Romans is full of gospel verses like 3:23, 6:23, 10:9, but after this brutality probably the key quotation is 8:18—“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” Paul, himself, came to his earthly end on the beheading block of Nero in Rome in 67/68AD.

     Maybe some of these very names are people whom the apostle John saw under the altar, in Revelation 6:9-11:— “the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained.” Terrible things have been done!

     Let us, therefore, pray for Christians around the world who face martyrdom even today. May they, like Paul, even though writing in his final days from the Mamertine dungeon in Rome still say, “Fight the good fight, finish the race, and keep the faith!” (2 Tim.4:7).

         Ì

20 Clues from the Old Testament

"Pascal's Wager"

     Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, philosopher, and Christian theologian. Some of his quotes are so outstanding that we still hear them today, for instance:

· “There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.”

· “In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.”

· “The heart has reasons that reason cannot know.”

· “Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.”

· “I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.”

· “Faith is different from proof; the latter is human, the former is a Gift from God.”

        But what was Pascal’s “wager”? And what was a Christian doing “wagering” anyway? In fact, Pascal wasn’t placing any bets, he was balancing Christianity against unbelief. One form of his evaluation says, “If you gain, you gain all. If you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then, without hesitation, that He exists.”

        To explain a little further, Pascal is saying that if you believe in God you’ve covered all your bets—if there is a hell, you’re safe, and if there isn’t, it doesn’t matter. But there is more. How do you establish yourself on “God’s side”? Mental assent to the wager is not enough because it should be blindingly obvious to everyone.

        The Apostle Paul said, ‘If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.’ (Rom.10:9). Jesus himself explained: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Mat.11:28). And the end result will be, “I know my sheep and my sheep know me.” (John 10:14).