Category: Applied Theology

Name Above All Names

On By Bp. Justin ElwellIn Applied Theology, Inspiration2 Comments

The Gospel of Exodus opens with the portion of Shemot, meaning names. As it says:

וְאֵלֶּה שְׁמוֹת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל הַבָּאִים מִצְרָיְמָה אֵת יַעֲקֹב אִישׁ וּבֵיתוֹ בָּאוּ

“And these are the names of the children of Israel which entered Egypt with Jacob, each man with his household” (Ex. 1:1).

The portion of Names also records the birth of the future leader and deliverer of the people of Israel, Moses; but there is something unusual in his brother announcement:

“Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months” (Ex. 2:1-2).

What is unusual? Neither Moses, nor his parents are named. Moses is named by Pharaohs daughter only a few verses later, and the Torah later provides the names of the parents of Aaron, Miriam, and Moses: Amram and Jochebed (Ex. 6:20). Why are they absent here?

In the eyes of the Pharaoh and his court, Israel is a nameless, faceless hoard. Perhaps this was how the Egyptians themselves related to them: a mass of people who have overrun their country. It is not until the daughter of Pharaoh adopts Moses that he is given a name: מֹשֶׁה/Moses, from the verb, to pull or draw out.

What do we learn from this?

Moses was not chosen because he was born to the most important tribe, as the Levites were yet attached to the Tabernacle. He was not born of a great house. He was not wealthy and free; rather, he was born under and then hidden from a death decree. He only survived because his mother was willing to send him down the Nile in a bulrush basket. She let him go, and the Lord lifted him up.

To serve the Lord you need not be born of a great house, family name or of prominent parents. Too many today disqualify themselves because of past sin or present circumstance. Yet, in Christ you are born-again into the greatest house, into His name, and now you call the Lord of heaven, Abba, Father, by the Spirit of Adoption (Ro. 8:15).

Moses faced the challenge of his upbringing as well. Yes, he was born nameless, faceless, and in peril; but, he was raised in the house of the Pharaoh. When the Lord called Moses, and ultimately established him as the leader of Israel, do we think there would not have been whispers about Moses? This “Hebrew” Egyptian “now leading us”? We see this now for the second time, as an earlier deliverer, Joseph, the one the Pharaoh of Exodus 1 forgot, was also a Hebrew “Egyptian.”

The Lord used the experience of both Joseph and Moses to rescue His people, but not in their own name.

When Moses went into the court of Pharaoh, he did so in the name of the Lord: the Name above all names. It was not the name of Moses or even Joseph that rescued, but the name of the Lord God.

When Paul is correcting the Corinthians about the divisions among them, he says so powerfully:

“For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? (1 Cor. 1:11-13).

Baptized and then resurrected in the name of Messiah Yeshua/Jesus. Not that of any earl they house or position. Why does this matter? You, dear reader, are not called to serve, go out, or even build up your own name, but His.

Just as Joseph and Moses were raised to the house of Pharaoh, you may graduate from the most prominent university or from the school of hard knocks, but that matters not. What matters is the calling in His name. For it is by His name that we are saved, sent out, and ultimately harvested into His glorious presence.

Do not focus on your apparent lack, but on the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Moses was a nobody of a dying house, but in God’s name, he is remembered as a man of God.

Hear Paul’s doxology:

“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:5-11).

The Name above all names has called you by a new name, one from His House. Remember who you are in Him, and He will position you according to His will.

Be well. Shalom. And Happy New Year.

The Limping Prophet

On By Bp. Justin ElwellIn Applied Theology, InspirationLeave a comment

Jacob has lived in Egypt for seventeen years, and the Lord was with him. As his days become few, he begins to speak into the lives of his sons. The Torah says:

וַיִּקְרָא יַעֲקֹב אֶל־בָּנָיו וַיֹּאמֶר הֵאָסְפוּ וְאַגִּידָה לָכֶם אֵת אֲשֶׁר־יִקְרָא אֶתְכֶם בְּאַחֲרִית הַיָּמִים

“Then Jacob called his sons and said, “Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you what shall happen to you in days to come” (Gen. 49:1).

The words translated above, “in days to come,” means, “in the last days.” There is a rabbinic teaching that says the Lord showed Jacob all that would befall his sons, and how He would fulfill His covenant with Israel. Jacob desired to share this, but was restrained. He shared what he could see in part, but not in full (1 Cor. 13.9-10).

What did Jacob, this limping prophet, accomplish by sharing in part? In Genesis 48 we find Jacob blessing Joseph by demonstrating the “spirit of adoption” (Ro. 8:15). Manasseh and Ephraim were not sons of Jacob, but through the spirit of adoption, they became as his sons, equal to Joseph’s brothers. And by this adoption, Jacob set the fruitfulness (Ephraim) over the forgetfulness (Manasseh). Granting them rights of inheritance in the Promised Land.

But what of Jacob’s sons? The words found in Genesis 49 are prophetic, they are part of the whole. Jacob knew the deep valleys his family would traverse, but to share the fullness of that may leave them hopeless. So the Lord, by His grace, spoke through Jacob in part. And what was the end result?

They have a future.

At times we become so caught up in finding the meaning of a prophetic text, that we miss the obvious: there is a future.

While they are away from the Promised Land, under the protective covering of Joseph, it may seem that Israel’s end is in Egypt. No. As Jacob saw, Israel’s end is with God, but not lost among the nations, but with the nations before the Throne and the Lamb (Rev. 7:9).

Jacob’s words, as opaque as they are, relay life, hope, and covenant fulfillment. As Jacob prepares to rest, he prepares his sons for life without him, while safely in the care of the covenant Lord.

How deep and dark the valleys of life can be (Ps. 23:4)? But what is the promise attached to Psalm 23:4? “I will fear no evil. For You, the Lord, are with me.” You, Lord are with us: Emmanuel.

At times it can see that we are lingering in Egypt, a foreign land, separated from the promises of God. But in those times, we need to remember that, as with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, we, as they, may graduate “in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth” (Heb. 11:13). If this be our end, is He unfaithful? Heaven forbid! We are caught up in a greater promise, and a greater end.

This limping prophet, Jacob, died in a foreign land, but rested in the promise as he spoke God’s promises into his son’s lives. And as Joseph himself would prophesy at the end of His life, “Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here” (Gen. 50:25).

“God will surely visit you,” and take you from this land, as He promised Abraham (Gen. 15), and when He does, take me with you. Did they? Yes: “As for the bones of Joseph, which the people of Israel brought up from Egypt, they buried them at Shechem, in the piece of land that Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for a hundred pieces of money. It became an inheritance of the descendants of Joseph” (Josh. 24:32).

This limping prophet spoke life when life was far from perfect. All of us who have done some God wrestling limp after He touches us. What do we do with the limp? We rely on Him, and speak life into others. The slowness of the walk and the reliance on His Word causes us to see life, past, present and future, differently. We see it in light of Him. The finish is yet ahead, but we speak life to those along the way to it.

Being a limping prophet isn’t disqualifying, as a matter of biblical fact: it is the sign of qualification in living relationship with Him. How then do we walk? Leaning on the everlasting arms of the Yeshua/Jesus, Who is with us “even to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20), even as He was in Egypt with Jacob as he spoke of: “the last days.”

Be well. Shalom.

Mean Estate

On By Bp. Justin ElwellIn Applied Theology, Inspiration1 Comment

Luke 2:8-20 recounts the opening of heaven to shepherds “keeping watch over their flock by night.” Myriads of angels appearing above singing “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased” (Lk. 2:14). Responding to what they have received, they make their way to Bethlehem, and witness the miraculous. Having seen this sight they return to their flock “glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told to them” (Lk. 2:20).

If you or I were to write an account of the birth of the Savior of humanity, we would not set it in unflattering, and desperate surroundings. Born in temporary accommodations, as there was no room in the house, Yeshua/Jesus is laid in a feeding trough. Choirs of angels do not appear over the newborn Child, kings, religious and civil leaders did not come to greet Him, and the magi would arrive much later.

The newborn Lord appeared to the lowest: a teenaged couple, unnamed attendants, and to shepherds. Authors of the times would hesitate to include the detail of shepherds. They were socially ungraceful, smelly, and rough around the edges: yet, heaven announces the birth of the Son of God to these social outsiders.

In the classic Christmas hymn What Child is This, in the second verse we read: Why lies He in such mean estate, where ox and lamb are feeding? Good Christians fear, for sinners here the silent Word is pleading.

The phrase “mean estate” beautifully captures the scene, while it may seem strange to modern ears. This is an Old English manner of referring to the insulting, unflattering, uncomfortable circumstance that Messiah was born into:

He wasn’t born in a mansion, He would grow to build one.

He wasn’t born to kings or governors, He was born for them.

He was born among and for those who recognize their poverty, and their own “mean estate” in sin.

In Luke 2:10 the angel announces, “Do not be afraid! For behold, I proclaim Good News to you, which will be great joy to all the people.” “Do not be afraid,” why? When angels appear it was a terrifying event, but not here. How do the Gospel authors affirm this announcement of good news “to all the people”?

In Matthew 1:1-17, he gives an account of the forbearers of Yeshua, His genealogy. In doing so, he includes many of the great names in Israel’s history, and he traces Yeshua back to Abraham. He is clearly writing this account for Jewish ears. Yet, he includes the names of three women: 1) Tamar, who tricks her father in law in order to press her right; 2) Rahab, a wealthy prostitute in Jericho; and 3) Ruth, a faithful Moabitess, a people excluded from inclusion in Israel. While these women would have been known to Jewish audiences, Matthew is pointing to something.

In Luke 3:23-38, the physician and historian Luke includes a genealogical record of Yeshua as well, but unlike Matthew who traces Yeshua back to Abraham, and the calling of a chosen people, Luke traces Yeshua back to Adam, as Yeshua will be the second or final Adam as Paul teaches.

Matthew for the Jews is laying a missiological statement of the coming Messiah in fulfillment of Abrahamic promise, showing the catching up of the faithful from the nations as well – lowly women, in this instance. For Gentiles, Luke is showing that Messiah was not only born as the greater promised Son and Lamb for Abraham, but also as the Savior for all people as the final Adam.

Can you find yourself in any of these people? The faithful among Israel? Rejected or outcast women? A fallen sinful man? Then recognize that Messiah was born in that “mean estate” for you, for me, and for all people. He became as the lowly in order to reach the lowly, in order that in Him, the Savior – the Risen Lord – we might become overcomers seated with Him in heavenly places.

For those celebrating: Hag Molag Sameach. Merry Christmas.

Be Well. Shalom.