Missed It

Hebrews is a book I have studied more than once.  I have translated it from Greek to English at one point, and have used portions of the text in just about every workshop and opportunity I have to speak on the need for us to abide in God’s Word.  That makes this even more embarrassing.

It would be really difficult to count the number of times I have read Hebrews 7:2, but whatever that number is, I missed the word play there and in Genesis 14:18 which in part reads (Hebrew, read right to left, translation is below):

ָׁשָׁלֵ֔ם	מֶ֣לֶךְ	צֶ֙דֶק֙	וּמַלְכִּי־
peace	king of	righteousness	and king of

The writer of Hebrews explicitly says it, I just blew by it for 40 years…  Melchizedek translated literally is king of righteousness when Moses writes his role, the next two words can be translated "king of peace".  So looking at the sequence translated literally it reads, “And king of righteousness king of peace…”

Look at what the text says he brought out.  Ring any bells?

The point the writer of Hebrews is that it was reasonable for Abraham to pay a tithe to the king of righteousness king of peace.  His point is this is either a strong type of Christ or else a theophany, a pre incarnate appearance of Christ.

Either way I missed it.

In our reading and studying the Bible, familiarity can breed missing really good stuff.

Gentleness

One of my spiritual gifts is exhortation.  My personality is driver/driver, high D, high hostile, choleric melancholy or how whatever instrument you are familiar with describes someone who runs over people to get things done.  That has moderated with time but is still purring under the hood.

My wife’s primary spiritual gift is mercy.  She has some of the same personality types that I do but hers are much more influenced by her primary gift.  She has the ability to confront people with difficult issues and they leave the conversation thinking she paid them a complement.

So one of the struggles I have had for years is communicating with people in a way that they can hear what I am saying through my directness and my passion.  It is a prime example of a strength being a weakness.

Some of my reading is in Hebrews now and I was reminded of several passages that need to work on my soul.

• Hebrews 5:12
• 2 Timothy 2:24 – 25
• Romans 1:14
• 2 Corinthians 12:7 – 10

The first two remind me that I am to deal gently with people who are ignorant and misguided.  The second reminds me that one that is ignorant and misguided will not change unless the Lord grants that change.  Because of that, I am not to quarrel – I like quarrels at some level…  But that is not the way God will change or help one who needs help.

The third passage, well the first half of it gives me no problems.  I have challenges with the last half.  I am OK working with the wise, I am not one to suffer fools gladly.  But Paul reminds me that I am under obligation to do so, under the umbrella of gentleness that is required by the first two passages.

So I am weak.  In dire need of some growth.

The good news for me is in the last passage, if I embrace that weakness, Christ will be strong through it.

That is the assignment.  I continue to embrace it.

Out of Your Soul

You know that our Bibles were first written in Hebrew, Greek, and some Aramaic.  If you have worked with any translation from other languages you know that it is impossible to do a word for word translation from one language to the other, the results make no sense.  The word order and syntax of languages differ greatly.

In the translations we have the committees use differing philosophies in their approach to their task.  In the NASB, the version I use most frequently, the committee supplies words not in the original to make the flow of the sentence easier to read.  They put those words in italics so that the reader can identify the supplied words.

In some cases the literal translation of a word or phrase is difficult to render smoothly in English, the committee will often attempt to rectify this with an interpretation of what they consider the intent of the author.  In these cases there is often a footnote with the literal translation of the word or phrase.

This is the case with Colossians 3:23.

It is a passage that I memorized and have used as personal challenge and encouragement since the early days of my journey with Christ.  Jenny and I were reading in Colossians earlier this week and I read this passage out loud – by the way I have discovered that reading out loud seems to give me observations that I miss otherwise and this is a case in point.

I noticed in Colossians 3:23 there were two such literal footnotes.  I glanced at them as I read and the content stopped me.

I checked my Greek text and the literal rendering of the text would read, “Whatever you do out of your soul work as to the Lord and not to men.”  The NASB and most of the other versions render “out of your soul” as heartily.  That is good, but it does not seem to have the weight of working from your soul.

As I have considered that for the past few days, I am rebuked and challenged.  There is much that I do that if I am honest is not out of my soul.  I just get it done.  To work out of my soul seems to call for more.  It seems to suggest that I am doing all that I can with all of my being in that task “whatever” it is.  Further, it is not for my employer, my friend, my neighbor, I am doing “whatever” for Him.

That requires me to live in John 15:5.