If I lose track of someone I
usually have a general idea where to find them…in the tool section of a store,
playing a video game at the mall, or in the fiction aisle of a book store. I
can understand how Mary and Joseph lost track of 12-year-old Jesus on their return
trip from the annual trek to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. However, I
find it surprising that once they got back to Jerusalem it took them three days
to find him. Even in his youth Jesus was filled with wisdom and God’s grace was
on him. When his parents finally located the young Jesus in the temple and
confronted him he asked, “Why were you searching for me?” he
asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house” (Luke 2:49 NIV)?
1 comment:
Gail;
-----When I consulted Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary for the definition of “tsadaq”, the primitive root of the Hebrew term for “righteousness”, I was delighted. I have believed all my life Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and is God as well. I was taught it. But moreover, there always seemed to be a sense of logic about it. If God is perfect and I’m not, if He cannot abide by imperfection and I wish to live, then He has to do something, not me. And if He is the originator of all things, nobody else could help. It has to come from the top, it seems. There is just something sensible about Him sacrificing Himself for me -the very look of love, and the action of what Jesus Himself said was the greatest love -laying your life down for another. So sensibly is God the payment of our debts that denying the Bible as the Word of God just never made sense to me.
-----Yet, accepting the Bible as His Word against what science is saying about it’s being mere mythology without any evidence of the matter one way or another seemed erroneously subjective. Of course, lots of wonderful people assured me that the Bible is God’s Word. But they never showed me how they knew it was. Hindus purport the Bag Vida is God’s Word. Muslims are sure the Koran is. I’ve always understood that lips can form all the words the mind desires, so just because lips move doesn’t mean truth is proceeding forth.
-----Ever since, I’ve been studying not only to show myself approved, but also to be able to give account for the faith in me. I explored both the Bible's and science's claims down every trail of evidence my search crossed, whether that trail be in the sciences, history, psychology, philosophy, mythology, or that interesting concept of synchronicity. Eventually, a couple years ago I could say that the evidence, in its sum total, even when adding in the evidence “science” presents as disproving the Bible, overwhelmingly proclaims that book to be God’s Holy Word. Once again I donned suit and tie for church!
-----Occasionally people have complained that I think too deeply, that I think too much, that I take things too seriously and with too much meaning. Often I’ve been tempted to believe them. But it has always been a practice which just seemed sensible. God is a God of reason. Then how could drawing closer to Him not involve reason and knowledge gained by exploring what He’s made? To me, eyes to see and ears to hear have always kind of meant regarding evidence highly enough to ponder it carefully.
-----Then last week I finally look for the root definition of that one word I’ve taken for granted all my life, that word which secularism loves to trash and impugn: righteousness. According to Strong‘s dictionary of Hebrew, “Tsadaq” is “to be (causatively make) right (in a moral or forensic sense.)” It’s not just a moral thing. Indeed, it is also a forensic thing! Why? Well, maybe because we live in a reality made by Him, therefore maybe what it has to say about Him is right. And since His creation has not a mouth (like Psalms 19 says about the stars, they speak His glory without speech,) then maybe seeing and hearing the truth they say requires pondering evidence: forensics.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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