Wednesday, 14 May 2008

• God’s absolute honest gospel truth

  (according to my candid unassuming opinion)

   

  

   

  I’ve been planning to write on truth for some time now, but I stumbled over some adjectives; namely; absolute, gospel, and honest. 

   

  Absolute is sometimes used to give strong emphasis to truth (it’s a lot like swearing).  At other times absolute is used, not as a word to qualify or describe the noun truth, but as the heading of a theory, perhaps years of theorizing.

   

  Gospel was originally a noun meaning “good message.”  It has come to mean “the teachings of Yeshua the liberating King,” “one of the four books, Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John,” “a set of beliefs,” or “absolute truth.”  When used before the word truth it becomes an adjective much like absolute (it’s not unlike swearing).

   

  Honest(y) began its career as a synonym of truth.  It has also been a qualifier which means: “I swear to God I’m telling you the absolute primitive unmitigated awe-inspiring honest-to-God gospel truth, that is not a lie, and you can Google that.”  Unfortunately it’s been misused so it can also mean: “Since I don’t have adequate resources or time to gather the scientific proof that would back up what I’m about to say I’m asking you to believe me based on the fact that I told you I’m telling you the honest truth.”  You can Google that as well.

   

  Since YHVH God is ubiquitous and omnicompetent the question intervenes: “God’s absolute gospel honest truth about what?”  AAaahhhhh… good question . . . was that retro . . . rhetoric . . . rhetorical?  Good question; I foresaw myself foreseeing to ask that question myself. 

   

  I’m going to clear up once and for all God’s absolute gospel honest truth about the gospel as stated by my candid unassuming opinion.  This is going to be good.  Trust me.  Wars will cease.  Flowers and frogs will appear again where oil was once wont to be spilt…

   

  “Verily,” Yeshua said, looking directly at Nate, “Yes, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man."  

  (John 1.51 ESV)

   

  The following verses contain the phrase “truly truly” they are all quotes of Yeshua who is the liberating King anointed by Yahweh God to proclaim good news and to lead them who would believe, and would help to initiate, that same good news. All 24 of the verses are from the gospel as stated by John and translated by ESV.  Amen, amen” could be translated “honest truth,” as well as “truly truly” or “verily verily.”  It is interesting to me that “amen” is a Hebrew word found here transliterated to the Greek NT.  

   

  So, Yeshua brings us honest truth:

   

  3.3 "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God."

   

  3.5 "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

   

  3.11 “Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony.”

   

  5.19 "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.

   

  5.24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

   

  5.25 "Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.

   

  6.26  "Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.

   

  6.32 “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.”

   

  6.32 “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.”

   

  6.53 "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”

   

  8.34 "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.”

   

  8.51 “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death."

   

  8.58 "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am."

   

  10.1 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber.”

   

  10.7 "Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.

   

  12.24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

   

  13.16 “Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.”

   

  13.20 “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me."

   

  13.21 "Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me."

   

  13.38 “Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times.”

   

  14.12 "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.”

   

  16.20 “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.”

   

  16.23 “Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.”

   

  21.18 “Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go."

   

  Whoa – there’s a lot of truth to all that – Yeshua is a speaker who’s very hard to follow – after he’s spoken many of us disciples find ourselves speechless.  If it were not for Yeshua’s line “whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do,” I might be muted.

   

  The books (very small books by modern comparison) of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John have been dubbed “the Gospels.”  Mark begins his record with: “The beginning of the gospel of Yeshua the Messiah, the Son of God.”  Within those writings it is recorded that Yeshua “proclaimed the gospel of the Kingdom of God.”

   

  And he [Yeshua] went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. (Matthew 4.23 ESV) 

   

  Yeshua answered John’s disciples, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news spoken to them."

  (Matthew 11:4-6 ESV)

   

  When did we begin to imagine that the totally wow message of Yeshua would easily fit on a 3X5, comprehensively documented by a selection of key verses pulled from the context of just one of Yeshua’s disciples letters, written to people in Rome or Galatia in the first century AD?  When did we begin to feel that we could satisfactorily share the good message of Yeshua with a Sharpie on a wall in 61 seconds?  How is it that the savor seems to have been boiled out from all our boiling down?     

   

  John, as Eugene Peterson gives him voice, concludes his version of the good news with: “There are so many other things Yeshua did. If they were all written down, each of them, one by one, I can't imagine a world big enough to hold such a library of books.” (John 21.25 MSG)

   

  I offer, not as a conclusion, but as a new beginning in our understanding of the gospel, the gospel of the kingdom of God is as ubiquitous and hypernymous as Godself; that it won’t completely fit even in the most voluminous thesis, though little blurbs of it may be written here or there.  It must mainly be incarnated, written and read on human hearts, in human flesh.  Yeshua having been the paramount premiere of God’s word fleshed out – and we – Yeshua’s disciples – fleshing the gospel out through a variety of charisma, by – loving, serving, giving, writing, painting, singing, playing, working, finding, saving, helping, gathering, blessing - this gospel to all of us and our environments in every family and nation from our innermost passion that we have from and in Yahweh God in the way of Yeshua.

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