Genesis 6:1-4, Deuteronomy 32:8-9, John
1:1, 1 Samuel 3:1-21, Matthew 7:21-23
There seems to a bunch of us who have “grown up” in this “fringe” community. For me it seems that all I used to want to look into was Nephilim and aliens. I think that was the conspiracy carrot that God put on a stick in front of me. I kept following that carrot anywhere that it’d go. It led me into deeper study than I had ever known, and I had led church small groups before. And that is what led me understand the thing I had always been looking for, anyway: Jesus. That statement needs some unpacking but before I do that I want to say that I am by no means “perfect”. I still lose my temper for idiotic reasons. I still cuss when I’m in a bad mood, or even sometimes when I’m in a good mood. I still go through the same struggles any other human being goes through. The difference between me now and me 5 years ago is that while I may not be Jesus, I’m hanging out with Him a lot more.
So let’s unpack a little of what I meant when I said that I found Jesus. I have “always” been a Christian and I have had a decent understanding of what Christianity is (or, what it has become). And even though I had read all of the Gospels, and I had read Paul’s letters, and from time to time I would read the Old Testament and be able to connect Joseph to Jesus, or something like that, I don’t necessarily believe that I knew Jesus. Truthfully, I don’t really even know him yet. We all have people who we hang out with, but how many of those people know you? I have a lot of friends but I don’t have a lot of friends who truly know me. And that’s how I want to know Jesus.
So how would somebody get to know you that way? They would have to not just hang out with you all the time, they would have to know your story. They would have to know where you came from and how you got to where you are.
How would you go about doing that for Jesus? Well, we learn in the book of John that Jesus is the Word. There’s a silly Greek tradition that says that “The Word” is a Greek philosophical concept, and that’s what John was talking about.
You know what, let’s stop there for a second. That is a perfect example of what I’m getting at. We are 2,000 years removed from the time of Messiah. And we are 4,000 years removed from Abraham and the birth of the Israelite religion. And we’re 6,000 years removed from the birth of the context of it all. And for the last 2,000 years we have been trying to fit the Hebrew peg into the Greek hole. It’s never going to fit, but we keep pretending that it does. When John wrote down, “In the beginning was the Word,” he wasn’t talking about a mystical Greek concept. John was a Jew and was raised as a Jew, not a Greek. In fact, his name wasn’t even John, it was Yohanan. But I don’t want to make this about using Hebrew names. Jesus was/IS a Jew and you’re not going to KNOW Him if you think of Him as thinking with a Greek mindset.
What John was talking about was the “Word of God”. The very same thing that had been talked about all throughout the Tanakh. The Word is a person, and always has been. But what does this all mean? Before the rabbit trail goes too far, let’s circle back. If you want to know Jesus the way only your best friends in all of the world know you, you have to understand the Jewishness of Him. And you have to understand the references to the Word in the Old Testament. And you have to understand the Hebrew culture, since it was God who had taken them as His own. And, even though I’ve really moved away from a lot of the Genesis 6 stuff (not that I don’t get excited about it anymore, I’ve just expanded my field of study to its logical conclusion… Jesus), you really have to understand “the war of the seed” in order to get the history of where Jesus came from.
So how did it all happen that I moved from one station to the next? Well, the obvious answer is that it was a movement of God. I had always believed in the supernatural. And I had always believed that there were other gods, but none of them were God (there are many elohim, but only one of them is Yahweh). And I had always believed that understanding the Jewish nature of Christianity was important. And so, with that base, it only seems natural to move into all that I’ve talked about.
What’s the point of all of this anyway? What’s the point of me harping on getting to know Jesus the way that only my best friends know me? Well, maybe this is just me but if you know Jesus, that’s when He knows you, too. And, in the end, isn’t that what we’re all really trying to do?
There seems to a bunch of us who have “grown up” in this “fringe” community. For me it seems that all I used to want to look into was Nephilim and aliens. I think that was the conspiracy carrot that God put on a stick in front of me. I kept following that carrot anywhere that it’d go. It led me into deeper study than I had ever known, and I had led church small groups before. And that is what led me understand the thing I had always been looking for, anyway: Jesus. That statement needs some unpacking but before I do that I want to say that I am by no means “perfect”. I still lose my temper for idiotic reasons. I still cuss when I’m in a bad mood, or even sometimes when I’m in a good mood. I still go through the same struggles any other human being goes through. The difference between me now and me 5 years ago is that while I may not be Jesus, I’m hanging out with Him a lot more.
So let’s unpack a little of what I meant when I said that I found Jesus. I have “always” been a Christian and I have had a decent understanding of what Christianity is (or, what it has become). And even though I had read all of the Gospels, and I had read Paul’s letters, and from time to time I would read the Old Testament and be able to connect Joseph to Jesus, or something like that, I don’t necessarily believe that I knew Jesus. Truthfully, I don’t really even know him yet. We all have people who we hang out with, but how many of those people know you? I have a lot of friends but I don’t have a lot of friends who truly know me. And that’s how I want to know Jesus.
So how would somebody get to know you that way? They would have to not just hang out with you all the time, they would have to know your story. They would have to know where you came from and how you got to where you are.
How would you go about doing that for Jesus? Well, we learn in the book of John that Jesus is the Word. There’s a silly Greek tradition that says that “The Word” is a Greek philosophical concept, and that’s what John was talking about.
You know what, let’s stop there for a second. That is a perfect example of what I’m getting at. We are 2,000 years removed from the time of Messiah. And we are 4,000 years removed from Abraham and the birth of the Israelite religion. And we’re 6,000 years removed from the birth of the context of it all. And for the last 2,000 years we have been trying to fit the Hebrew peg into the Greek hole. It’s never going to fit, but we keep pretending that it does. When John wrote down, “In the beginning was the Word,” he wasn’t talking about a mystical Greek concept. John was a Jew and was raised as a Jew, not a Greek. In fact, his name wasn’t even John, it was Yohanan. But I don’t want to make this about using Hebrew names. Jesus was/IS a Jew and you’re not going to KNOW Him if you think of Him as thinking with a Greek mindset.
What John was talking about was the “Word of God”. The very same thing that had been talked about all throughout the Tanakh. The Word is a person, and always has been. But what does this all mean? Before the rabbit trail goes too far, let’s circle back. If you want to know Jesus the way only your best friends in all of the world know you, you have to understand the Jewishness of Him. And you have to understand the references to the Word in the Old Testament. And you have to understand the Hebrew culture, since it was God who had taken them as His own. And, even though I’ve really moved away from a lot of the Genesis 6 stuff (not that I don’t get excited about it anymore, I’ve just expanded my field of study to its logical conclusion… Jesus), you really have to understand “the war of the seed” in order to get the history of where Jesus came from.
So how did it all happen that I moved from one station to the next? Well, the obvious answer is that it was a movement of God. I had always believed in the supernatural. And I had always believed that there were other gods, but none of them were God (there are many elohim, but only one of them is Yahweh). And I had always believed that understanding the Jewish nature of Christianity was important. And so, with that base, it only seems natural to move into all that I’ve talked about.
What’s the point of all of this anyway? What’s the point of me harping on getting to know Jesus the way that only my best friends know me? Well, maybe this is just me but if you know Jesus, that’s when He knows you, too. And, in the end, isn’t that what we’re all really trying to do?
I'll leave you with a teaching from Michael Heiser that gives an explanation of the many names of Jesus throughout the Old Testament. So, when you have 3 1/2 hours, give this a watch...
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