Deeper 16: The 5th Commandment

Exodus 20:12 (HRV):  “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which YHWH your Elohim gives you.”

Does the placement of this commandment grab you the way it grabs me?  I’ve been told that the first four commandments have to do with our relationship with YHWH and the second six commandments have to do with our relationship with His body.  So then, given that the order of these commandments is given by YHWH and they are precisely placed where He wanted them to be, does it cause anybody else to pause and wonder why this commandment comes before, “You shall not murder”?  We tend to think of murder as being “the big one.”  For most of us, it’s the worst sin because it’s so final.  If you steal from someone, you can make reparations.  If you rape someone, you can make restitution and work towards healing.  If you murder someone, there’s no going back. 

So, why?  Why is this commandment first?  Ignoring the fact that this is the first commandment with a blessing attached for now because it's been covered at length by so many others, here are a few thoughts to consider.  (And by no means is this an exhaustive list.)

This comes first here because it comes first chronologically in your life as well.  The first four commandments deal with our relationship with YHWH.  The second six commandments deal with our relationship with His body.  So that makes this the first commandment that deals with your relationship with others, and honoring your father and mother is the first thing you deal with as a child.  So, even though this is fifth in the list, as a practical matter, this is actually the first one the most of us face first whether we are aware of it or not.

Another thing that strikes me is that, while the pattern of the first four commandments are “do not, do not, do not, do” where the active “do” commandment comes last, the second set of commandments begins with a “do” commandment.  Is it possible that this is placed here to connect those two “do” commandments more intimately.  God said that He can be seen in his creation.  The physical world (at least the physical world when working properly the way He set it up and not when the picture is of a fallen man screwing up) reveals Him.  The way He established our physical relationships likewise reveals what our relationships with Him should be like.  The fourth commandment is intended to stress the importance of knowing Him as a lover.  The fifth commandment, in honoring your physical mother and father, stresses getting to know Him as a parent.  He is both and we should not treat the existence of one as therefore eliminating the existence of the other.  Fear is the beginning of wisdom, but love should be the end result of wisdom.  Are these two connected to in some way show that the lower commandment, honoring your mother and father, a picture of reverential fear and respect, leads us to the higher commandment of loving intimacy? 

And lastly, (at least for this blog) I also noticed that in a greatly male dominated society, and with a lot of emphasis on fathers, Father God, etc…  this is honor your father AND your mother.  Again going back to the fact that YHWH has revealed Himself through His physical creation, we have to ask, what does this tell us spiritually?  Is God female as well as male? 

 
“Ruach HaKadesh” is the Hebrew term that is used in the Tanak (Hebrew term for Old Testament) for Holy Spirit.  Actually, “HaKadesh” is the literal translation for Holy Spirit.  Ruach is a feminine indicator.  Additionally, the pronouns used to indicate the Holy Spirit are all feminine in the original Hebrew.  This was mostly changed in translation, but not entirely.  You can still see it in some places where it talks about letting wisdom do HER perfect work in you, and the like.  So does this mean God should be female?

God is not male and He’s not female either.  He transcends our notions of sexuality.  What we need to understand is that both sexes are a picture of him.  We are to honor both our father and our mother.  Spiritually we are to honor ALL parts of who He is, not just the parts we agree with or identify with.  Honor your father AND your mother is, in one way, telling us not to ignore certain commandments because we don’t like where they lead. 

(side note:  I wanted to go into this male/female thing a bit more, but this is getting big enough as it is.  For now I’ll briefly say that from what I can see the female aspects of God were removed in the bible for two reasons:  1) To a degree, it was a male dominated culture that wanted women to feel like scripture supported male dominance, but for the most part it was the fact that; 2) Specific female pronouns didn’t exist in the English language for centuries.  Not until the sixteen hundreds did we begin referring to women as “her” and “she”.  Before that, everyone was “he” and “him”. 

Apologies for issue 2's delay

Hey gang.


I wanted to give you a heads up as to what's going on with issue #2.  Paul's elderly mother has recently hurt herself, so they would appreciate it if you would please lift her up in prayer.  This has caused Paul to spend more time caring for his mother which has delayed any progression in the comic at the moment.


We know it's been a long wait from episode 1 to episode 2, and we apologize for that.  But we do want to encourage you by letting you know that we're not going anywhere.  It is not our desire to quit this project, and we won't walk away if Satan throws us curveballs.  In fact, we take heart in knowing we've got something he considers worth attacking. 


So, sorry for the delay and thank you for your understanding.


Scott

Deeper 15 - The 4th commandment

Exodus 20:8-11 - “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it set-apart. Six days shall you labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a Sabbath unto YHWH your Elohim, in it you shall not do any manner of work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your man-servant, nor your maid-servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger that is within your gates; for in six days YHWH made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested on the seventh day; wherefore YHWH blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.”

 

                First of all, calling Sunday the Sabbath violates scripture in and of itself.  The physical Sabbath day that YHWH established at the time He first spoke those words to Moshe/Moses and the Israelites was equivalent to our Friday night at sunset to Saturday night at sunset, and since YHWH commanded us not to add to or subtract from the scriptures in any way, Sunday as the Sabbath is a violation of this commandment.  The Sabbath is not Sunday, and it’s not even Saturday.  It was changed by the Pope, but it was never changed by God.  And those who have tried to change it “back” to Saturday are closer, but also incorrect.  In fact, I have not personally verified this, but according to some reports the hierarchy of the Catholic church considers most Protestants to be under their authority for this reason.  They know that they changed the Sabbath day to Sunday and not God, and so, when Protestants worship on Sunday, they know that Protestants are obeying their rules and not God’s and thereby acknowledging the Pope’s ultimate authority. 

 

                BUT, this is all ancillary information added to help reveal that we have a tendency to change what God gives us for new rules created for selfish reasons.  I am not worried about the actual physical day because it's irrelevant.  Because the physical rules God set up in the Old Testament were representatives of spiritual truths, we need to understand that the physical day was a representation of a greater spiritual truth. 

 

On a physical level, yes it’s true that your physical body benefits from a day of rest, but your spirit-man is unaffected.  Yes, you can use that day of rest to train and strengthen your spirit, but the physical day of rest in and of itself accomplishes nothing spiritually.  The physical Sabbath represents a spiritual truth.  So what is that truth? 

 

The first four commandments deal with our relationship/marriage with God directly while the last six deal with our relationship/marriage with His body.  The first four commandments follow this pattern:  Do not, do not, do not, and do.  The fourth commandment is the only one of the first four commandments that is an action and not an avoidance.  In this marriage with God, we can’t be considered loving spouses if we never betray, never turn, never avoid our duty, and yet never care.  Imagine if I never committed adultery on my wife, if I never kept any good thing from her, and I never physically or mentally abused her, but I also never actively loved her.  What if I never cared to be with her?  What if I always avoided contact with her?  What if I never told her how special she was in any way?  Would that be a healthy, loving marriage?  No. 

 

The Sabbath was designed to give us a time to be in His presence.  It was, in essence, a scheduled date night.  It is to us now a picture of telling the world to get lost because we love Him and we want to spend some intimate, quality time with Him.  That is something we can do any time of any day.  We are not limited to Saturday, Sunday, Wednesday night bible study, or whatever.  In fact, you’re breaking the Sabbath if you are going to church every single Sunday/Saturday/whatever-day of your life, but you’re not doing it out of love for Him and a desire to be with Him, but merely out of a sense of duty. 

 

And, as a side note, it’s worth pointing out that the Sabbath is a prophetic picture of the seventh millennium when we will rest from our labors and He will rule on the earth.  We're not going to get into that in any detail right now, but I mention it because it is another important aspect of YHWH that the Sabbath was meant to reveal.


Scott Snyder
edgiscript3@yahoo.com

Deeper 14: The 3rd Commandment

Exodus 20:7 (HRV) - “You shall not take the name of YHWH your Elohim in vain; for YHWH will not hold him guiltless that takes His name in vain.”

 

Exodus 20:7 (KJV) – “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.”

 

Well, it’s pretty obvious what the difference is between the King James Version and the Hebraic Roots Version.  The KJV has replaced the name YHWH with LORD in all caps.  This does change the meaning of the verse and helps to insinuate that “God” is His name instead of His title.  But, I covered this in my July 16, 2013 blog “Deep Calling Deep 2: YHWH” and went into greater detail in the following two “Deep” blogs, so I’m not going to rehash that here. 

 

(And, since we’re talking about the name of God, I’d like to mention that it has not been the convention to capitalize pronouns referring to God from the inception of the English language.  It’s a comparatively new rule and did not exist in the days of King James.  Some people have asked why I do not capitalize “He” and “Him” all of the time when referring to God.  When I’m quoting a bible verse, I don’t do it because they didn’t do it.  If I don’t do it in my own text, it’s considered a grammatical mistake currently, but I probably made the mistake because I’m reading and analyzing scripture that does not follow that convention as I’m typing, so my mind is in that place.  I apologize for any confusion.)

 

(Additional side note:  The letter “J” was added to the English language in the 1400’s replacing the letter “Y” in many words.  This is one of the reasons why English bibles use the name “Jesus” instead of “Yeshua”.  Also, the feminine pronouns “her” and “she” and the like did not always exist.  Originally, both sexes were referred to as “he” and “him” and so on.  This is one of the reasons why the Holy Spirit, which is always treated as feminine in the original Hebraic texts, is erroneously treated as masculine in English texts.  So, if nothing else, you got a little extra history concerning the English language.)

 

Using the name of God as a swear word is not what this verse is talking about.  It is no coincidence that the ten commandments come after the marriage covenant began.  The ten commandment are, essentially, our wedding vows.  And the first four commandments in particular, deal with our relationship with God. 

 

We need to understand this in the context of marriage in order to properly understand what this commandment is telling us.  This verse has to do with our union, or rather our not entering into a false union, with Him.  Imagine it this way.  If my wife married me, or in other words took my name, with no intention of fulfilling her marriage commitment to me, her marriage vows would have been hollow and worthless.  If she only wanted what she could get from me but slept with other men and didn’t care at all about her responsibilities as my wife in any way, the marriage would be a sham.  If she didn’t love me and didn’t really want to be with me, then she would have taken my name in vain.  She would be known by my last name and not her maiden name, but she would not really be mine. 

 

When we claim to be His, when we take His name, call ourselves “Christian” and make the claim that we are one with Him, and then live for ourselves and do not fulfill our part in this relationship, we take His name in vain.  It’s an empty, hollow thing.  It’s selfishly based and means nothing. 

 

“The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips then walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle.  That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”   --  Brennan Manning  (The quote can be found at the beginning of DC Talk’s song, “What If I Stumble?”)

Scott Snyder

edgiscript3@yahoo.com

Deeper 13: The 2nd commandment

20:4-5a (HRV) “You shall not make unto you a graven image, nor any manner of likeness, of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down unto them, nor serve them;”

 

This used to be a confusing commandment for me because I saw no real difference between this and the first commandment of having no other gods before Him.  After all, if you’re not worshipping any other gods, then you’re not going to make any graven image to another god, so why did YHWH feel the need to include this commandment? 

 

Because there is a difference.  This commandment doesn't mean what I first thought it meant.  While the first commandment says that you will worship YHWH and YHWH alone, this commandment essentially says that you will not put God in a box.  You will not limit him to anything you can see and understand, and then call that God. 

 

We need to see this commandment from the viewpoint of the people of the world at that time, because YHWH was giving them this commandment in a way easy to understand to them.  The people of the world were making images of their gods all the time.  It gave them a way of feeling like they could understand their god by defining the characteristics of their god in an easy to recognize way.  This is what YHWH was telling us not to do.  You have no right to define Him according to your preconceptions about who God is or should be.  He is not limited to what you can comprehend.  He is, and always will be, so much more.  By limiting him to what you can understand, you are placing yourself in a position of being able to decide who God is and is not.  Even if what you do understand is a correct piece of God, it’s a small piece of God and not a true complete image of Him. 

 

YHWH is not definable by any standard of ours.  Yes, He gives us explanations of Himself in small bits and pieces so we can slowly grow in understanding of who He is, but He is not limited to what we see or know.  He merely compares Himself to things we can see and know in order to assist us in the process of understanding.  He is bright like the sun, but He is not the sun.  He is as gentle as a lamb, but He is not limited to being only a lamb.  He gave us physical examples to help us understand aspects of Himself, but He is not limited to those aspects.  We need to allow Him to define Himself.  We cannot tell Him who or what He is like.  When we make a physical graven image, or, translating that into modern ideas, when we place a religious system around Him that defines exactly how He acts and what He looks like, we define God and thereby claim some sort of authority or control over Him. 

 

We break the second commandment when we establish a religious precedent of our own or create our own rules about who He is and how He acts.  God said that we were not to add to or remove one jot or tittle of what He gave us.  "Jot and tittle" translates literally into "Letter and punctuation mark."  Most people understand that God told us not to do that because what He gives us is perfect, and obviously any changes we make to it make it imperfect, but another reason is because if we say that we have the ability to define, or redefine, God, and then bow down to that image of who He is, we may claim that we’re bowing down to Him, but we’re really bowing down to ourselves. 

 

I know of several people who do not take photographs because they feel it’s breaking the second commandment.  There are others who feel that artwork of any kind, whether it’s drawing, sculpting, engraving, or doing what Paul and I are doing by making this comic is breaking the second commandment.  This is not what the second commandment is forbidding us to do.  Take your photo.  Carve your sculpture.  Draw a picture from your own imagination.  These are not evil actions.  The impetus of this commandment is “Do not limit God by your own limited and faulty understanding of His reality.”  In short, if I draw a picture of an eagle and say that it's a wonderful creation of God's, that's ok.  If I draw a picture of an eagle and say that that's God, even if I have true reverence in my heart for Him, that's wrong.  I've limited YHWH to the mere attributes of a single creature. 

 

Exodus 20:20 (HRV)  (In the NKJV this verse is 20:23)  “You shall not make with Me—gods of silver, or gods of gold, you shall not make unto you.”

                 

Exodus 20:22 (HRV)  (In the NKJV this verse is 20:25)  “And if you make Me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stones; for if you lift up your tool upon it, you have profaned it.”

 

In conjunction with the second commandment are these two verses later in Exodus twenty.  We are not to make gods WITH Him.  This means that making false gods doesn’t necessarily mean we think we’re turning from Him.  We can believe that we’re doing it in conjunction with Him and that it has His blessing and still be wrong.  If we redefine God according to our own system of beliefs, we have created a false god, even if we name it Jesus and say that we did it for Him.  We are not to shape Him, He shapes us.  We are not to use our “tools” on Him.  If he gives us a "stone" to work with, then that's the stone He designed to use in that way. 

Human history is littered with religious leaders, whether they call themselves Jewish High Priests or Catholic Popes or Protestant Pastors, altering what God has given us about Himself because they didn't approve of the way He wanted things done.  The child always wants to change the parent's wishes because the child is selfish.  Sometimes we put our "tools" to His "stones" because we're are deceived into thinking it's His will, but usually we know that we simply don't like what He has said and we want to redefine it.  

YHWH's worship, instructions, details about Himself, and everything He's given us is of His design, not ours.  We are not to adjust it according to our whims, desires, or limited understanding.  Doing so gives us a faulty understanding of who He is and severs our connection with Him in some way.  Is that really what we want?

Scott Snyder

edgiscript3@yahoo.com

Deeper 12: The First Commandment

20:3 (HRV) “You shall have no other gods before Me.”

 

Most of the interpretations of this scripture revolve around creating a hierarchy of what’s most important in your life and making sure to put God at the top of the list; God, family, country, and so on.  I grew up believing that, as long as I began with “God” when reciting any list of what’s most important to me, I was obeying the first commandment. 

 

But that’s not what this verse is all about.  The words “before me” don’t refer to having the highest place on a list, but rather it refers to location as in the sentence, “Bring the children before me.”  The first commandment could be translated, “You shall place no other gods in My face,” or “You will not bring any other gods into My presence.”  The fallacy of the list idea is that it creates an illusion that if we give God a piece of our time, we can enjoy our other pleasures as we see fit.  But imagine how my wife would react if I brought home a prostitute for an hour and, after listening to my wife's protests, I told her that it was ok to spend my time with the prostitute for just an hour because I spent three hours with my wife that day which proves my wife is still more important.  How well do you think that logic would go over?  Yet that’s the logic we bring to God with the “list” mentality. 

 

Jesus said that the commandments hinge on two things, and the first of those two is that we are to love God with everything that we are.  The first four commandments are, essentially, breaking this down into more easily definable pieces.  So, really, we are just being told to love God, but in case we’re not sure how to define that (since many people define “love” very differently) we’re given a more specific set of guidelines as to what that means.  The first commandment is a matter of focus.  I want to love God, but how do I do that?  By giving Him my attention at all times.  By keeping my eyes and ears focused on Him and what He wants.  When I walk away and do what I want to do, even if I tell God He can come along if He wants, or even if I say I’m doing it for Him, I’m following the desires of something else and therefore I’m worshipping another God.  And when I do that, I’m placing that god in His face and calling it good.  In fact, in my delusion, I may even be calling it God’s will. 

 

Does this mean I can’t enjoy anything else?  Does this mean I can’t go for a ride?  I can’t watch the ball game?  I can’t enjoy that meal?  I can’t even spend time with my family?  No.  And yet, yes.  It all comes down to where our real passion and focus lay.  If I am truly loving God with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength, then He is going to return that with His perfect love.  That perfect love flowing through me is going to grow, and as He tells me to go, I am going to reach out to everyone around me and love them with the love that God is giving me.

 

But if my job, my possessions, my religion, or even my family is an idol that I hold sacred, and I'm spending time with them based not on what God wants from me, but what I've decided is best for me, then my time spent with those things is time spent worshipping those idols.  I'm effectively sticking them in God’s face and telling Him that they're more important at the moment.   This is why we’re told at different times in the bible that if you put your hand to the plow, but turn back to your father or mother, you’re not fit for the kingdom.  Or we’re told that we need to be able to give up our spouses and our children for His Name’s sake.  These sound harsh unless we realize that God loves those that we claim to love far more than we can even imagine, and that He knows that unless we love them perfectly through Him, our love is, at best, an imperfect deception of what love should truly be. 

 

If we have entered into this marriage and called him Lord, then this is his first commandment to us:  Look deeply into His smiling eyes and concentrate on His loving words without breaking your concentration.  (And to the guys out there who feel weird about that, just gender flip it.  God’s not man or woman, but that discussion's for another day.)  Don’t bring another love into this marriage and call it acceptable, because He is a jealous lover and wants us all for Himself.  He will not share us in the same way we wouldn’t share our spouses with other lovers. 

 

It’s simple, really.  All YHWH wants is all of you. 

 

Scott Snyder

Edgsicript3@yahoo.com

Sorry for the delay

I wanted to update you on our progress and apologize for the delay in getting the next issue out.  We were hoping to have it out sooner, but miscalculations on timing and unexpected delays in our personal lives, such as illness and body and household appliances, have slowed us down. 


In order to help out I'm in the process of learning the program that will allow me to add the text, dialogue balloons and such to the comics so Paul can focus on the art.  This should speed things up in the long run, but for now I'm still in the process of figuring it out so things are moving slowly. 


So for right now all I can tell you is that we were originally shooting for the end of 2013, and then we moved it to early February.  Now we're kind of shooting for ASAP.  So I apologize once again for the delay.  I'm going to add another "Deeper" blog in the next couple of days, and I'll add the second prologue to my story over on Gorillahead in the next week, but I know that most of you reading this are looking forward to the comic primarily.  I can tell you this.  Paul has sent me the first several pages of issue 2 for viewing and all I'll say is that you're really going to like what's coming. 


Thanks for checking in.


Scott
edgiscript3@yahoo.com