31 July 2005

Tanakh Study for 31 July 31, 2005

Do not steel.

This commandment seems obvious, and truly it is. If it does not belong to you, do not take it. It is only in modern times that this commandment has become more difficult.

For example, we are now told that a woman’s body, and hence any children within that body are the property of the woman, and no one else’s business, which completely cancels out what St. Paul tells us in the New Testament. When we marry, the woman’s body now belongs to the man, and the man’s body belongs to the woman. Hence if we violate commandment number VII, we are also violating commandment number VIII. This is not the way society thinks today, and so it means as in the first century that Christians and the church are way out of step with modern culture. In fact, after Constantine, one of the struggles of the church was to Christianise culture, without the church being salted by the culture itself. For the most part the church succeeded until the Enlightenment at which time society began salting the church. It is important therefore for us to remember that the church did it once and can succeed again.

Time is another area. When you work and are paid a salary or by the hour to do truly give your boss your time, or do you spend a lot (or even a little) time taking care of personal business. I know personally, I do my best to see that my personal affairs take place during the lunch hour when I am off the clock, not when I am trying to make money for my boss. It is very easy in these situations to say, “Everyone else is doing it.” So what, if everyone else chopped their head off, would you do it too? We not only rob our boss of time and money, but of the respect that he deserves as the man (woman) who provides the paycheque. In my opinion, not to give God a significant part of Sunday (or Saturday if you are Sabbatarian) is also to rob God. It is also important to pray during the day. Daniel prayed thrice per day. The Psalmist says “Seven times a day shall I praise you.” Paul tells us to pray without ceasing. Time comes from God, we need to give some back to him to continue growing in our relationship to him.

We also need to balance our lives and give our spouses and children a certain amount of our time. To not do so would be robbing them.

Income taxes are a sore subject in the USA. Many do not agree with them. Does that give us a right to cheat? I think not. When a Christian cheats, because he bears the name Christian, he is dishonouring our Lord and Saviour, and robbing the honour due his name. Are we not showing God that we do not rust him to provide for us? On the other hand for those of you who vote, is it correct for the government to take from the rich and give to the poor?

There are differences of opinion too on the Biblical tithe. I do not have figures for the USA, but the Church times shows the average offering in the UK is about 2.7%, I suspect in the USA, it is slightly higher. Imagine if all our parishioners tithed the things we could do for the downtrodden. Malachi addresses the tithe. It states that not to tithe is to rob God. I know that when I actively and fully tithe, I do not have money problems, not that I become rich (I do not believe in prosperity Gospel teaching), but that it focuses how I spend my money. It also allows God to bless me in areas, which help my spiritual growth, and helps me to accomplish my mission.

There are other areas, which for us church people are more problematic. I am of course referring to plagiarism and copy write. The church has to spend a fair amount of time making sure that they have permission to use songs and hymns. Now, if the church can afford hymnbooks for the entire congregation this isn’t too much of a problem. If they don’t then it becomes time consuming to track down copy writes and obtain permission. I personally address this problem by using Cyberhymnal for most of our hymns. I mention cyberhymnal and give their URL, plus the name of the composers of the hymn with no further worries because everything on cyberhymnal is in the public domain (http://www.cyberhymnal.org/). Does this mean, that we have to identify the source for our sermons? I think we are safe as long as we identify which thoughts are ours, and which come from other sources. I am not always good about displaying my exact sources, but I do try to at least give the book of the Bible mention it came from someone else besides me.

I might mention anyone is free to use my materials as they wish, just if you print them, acknowledge where they came from.

Other than that, when we display that we are Christians, we should be careful not to walk in sin, for to do so is to rob God of the honour due his name. If you have trouble with his sin, confess it to him, discuss it with a good spiritual friend or presbyter, deacon or bishop, and allow God to deal with it. He is happy to help you conquer sin in your life.

The icon at the upper right is from the Ethiopian Coptic Church. It is a favourite of mine. Unfortunatley I do not have the URL from where it came.

Shalom and blessings in the Name of Yeshua

+Mar Michael Abportus

mjthan@quik.com