The Word

 I wrote this back in 2016. You can find the article here.

” In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” – John 1:1

This Saturday I was watching this experiment designed to show the way a human brain functions when it comes to reading words. I’m not sure to what extent that works in all languages, but in English, if you keep the first and the last letter of every word, regardless of how you mix the letters inside, it will allow the mind to actually make sense of the words, or interpret every word it reads.

As I was watching this, it came to mind the fact that Yeshua said He is the Alpha and Omega (A Ω  first and last letters of the Greek alphabet), or Alef and Tav, ( א  ת first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet). I understood that whether it’s a word, a concept, an idea or a theory, if it begins and ends with Yeshua, then things make sense even if they seem chaotic inside.

Many times I struggle to utter the right idea concerning a concept that I think I grasped about Adonai and I am not always successful to get everything exactly right every time and as I grow I see that I’ve misplaced one letter, still I know that if I keep the first and last letter in place, it makes sense. I may be misspelling in every single language that I try to write in and sometimes I’m convinced that that’s how it’s spelled, but even when I’m wrong, whoever wants to understand, understands. Sometimes I may not be able to express every thought or concept in a flawless theology, but if He is the beginning and the end of every word, then it can be understood even if it needs a spell check.

I thought about Yov (Job) and how he began with every word spelled exactly ‘right’, metaphorically speaking. Everything made sense. Things were simple. He had only one theory guiding him: If you are a righteous man and try to do good and if you fear HaShem (God) and seek to do His will, then the result can only be good; you have nothing to fear because no evil shall befall you and no harm will come to you and yours. Simple. Until all the horrendous things happened to him and his family and all that was left of his theory was a pile of jumbled letters. And it took him a while to make sense of it all. When I read about how he had sat and analysed everything, it almost seems like he was trying to put back together a puzzle that has been scattered by the wind everywhere. If you’re trying to solve a puzzle you first have to find all the outer pieces, those that make out the perimeter of the puzzle, those that define its limits.

If you try to define a certain situation when the accuser keeps asking, ‘where is your God? And if He is, doesn’t He care that you’re about to perish?’, then you have to start with the Beginning and finish with the End, as retarded as that sounds. Every explanation that you want to give yourself must start with Yeshua and end with Him, otherwise nothing will make sense.

There are high chances that maybe you won’t reach the right conclusion concerning the ‘why?’, but as long as your thought ends with ‘even so, He is still my God’, then you have nothing to worry about.

Sometimes it so happens that everything you know about Him is tested. And it happens that you end up with a lot of your theories either dead or crippled, but as long as you keep the first and the last letter in place, it’s OK, breathe!

Just because all your letters are jumbled, it doesn’t mean it’s unintelligible. It only means that you’re about to find out that Adonai gave you the strength and wisdom to read situations as if they’re spelled right and that’s because He has placed Himself and the beginning and the end of every word. 

Bat Melech בת מלך

 Cristina כריסטינה

Vessels of gold

 I started listening to, The History of the Church of Christ, Century 3, by Joseph Milner. I highly recommend the book. It is well written and the author's commentaries that accompany each character he deals with, are instructive. Although he is moralistic at times, which is not the best trait in a historian, he was also a Christian which entitled him to his remarks that will enrich one's understanding of the subject at hand.
Anyway, this is not a book review. The reason for writing this blog entry is this quote, found in the beginning of chapter 16:

“It has been already mentioned that Cyprian heard about the death of Sixtus, Bishop of Rome, a little before his own martyrdom. In pursuance of the cruel orders of Valerian for carrying on the persecution, he had been seized with some of his clergy. While they were carrying him to the execution, Laurentius, his chief deacon followed him weeping and said, 'Wherest thou goeth father without thy son?' Sixtus said, 'You shall follow me in three days.'
We may suppose him to have been possessed with the spirit of prophecy in saying this because we are certain that miraculous gifts were of by no means extinct in the Church but perhaps the declaration was not out of the reach of common sagacity from the circumstances of affairs.
After Sixtus' death the prefect of Rome, moved by an idle report of the immense riches of the Roman Church, sent for Laurentius and ordered him to deliver them up. Laurentius replied, 'Give me a little time to set everything in order and to take account of each particular.' the prefect granted him three days time. In that time Laurentius collected all the poor who were supported by the Roman Church and going to the prefect said, 'Come behold the riches of our God! You shall see a large court full of golden vessels!' The prefect followed him but seeing all the poor people, turned to Laurentius with looks full of anger. 'What are you displeased at?' said the martyr, 'The gold you so eagerly desire is but a vile metal taken out of the earth and serves as an incitement to all sorts of crimes. The true gold is the Light, whose disciples these poor men are. The misery of their body is an advantage to their souls. Sin is the true disease. The great ones of the earth are truly poor and contemptible. These are the treasures which I promised you to which I will add precious stones. Behold these virgins and widows, they are the Church's crown. Make use of these riches for the advantage of Rome, of the Emperor and yourself.'
Doubtless, had the prefect's mind been at all disposed to receive an instructive lesson, he had met with one here. The liberality of Christians in maintaining a great number of objects and looking for no recompense for that which shall take place at the resurrection of the just while they patiently bore affliction and rested humbly on an unseen Savior, was perfectly agreeable to the mind of Him who bids His disciples in a well-known parable, to relieve those who cannot recompense them. And glorious was the scene, at a time that the rest of the world was tearing one another in pieces, and philosophers aided not the miseries of men in the least, but as the persecutors would not hear the doctrines explained so neither would they see the precepts exemplified with patience.
'Do you mock me!' cries the prefect, 'I know you value yourself for contending death and therefore you shall not die at once!' Then he caused him to be stripped, extended and fastened to a gridiron and in that manner be broiled to death by a slow fire. When he had continued a considerable time on one side, he said to the prefect, 'Let me be turned, I am sufficiently broiled on one side.' And when they had turned him, he said, 'It is enough, you may eat.' Then looking up to heaven, he prayed for the conversion of Rome and gave up the ghost.”

There are countless stories of the bravery of believers in the face of torture and death. The one above made me think of Paul's passage in 1 Corinthians 1:27-29

“But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.”
Believers now boast of their great knowledge and understanding of Scriptures, but have lost so much of their fire... or maybe I'm the only one. I don't wish to be one of those that moan at the state of things in their generation, because the last thing I wish to be is a cliché. I think I am sad for myself mainly. I feel ashamed that believers with little to no comfort, little to no knowledge concerning the Scriptures, have believed this Gospel to the point where they beted their very lives on it. I can barely drag my feet and consider it a trial that someone offends me with their words...

Lord, You who knows all things, who sees all things, my precious Jesus, my only hope, You are worthy of all my loyalty and obedience. You're worthy of a wholehearted resolve not just scraps from me... Forgive me, for my stinginess, my generous Lord. I'm slow to learn and slower still to practice, but increase Your grace for me and help me see. Don't let me delude myself that I am good enough... Lord, You're worth my all. I want to make so many promises, but you know my fickle heart will stumble and be distracted by something else in a matter of minutes. But, You, recorder of my tears and prayers, record that it is not all the same to me whether You're pleased with me or not. You know all things, You know I love You, Lord. Help me...

by Cristina Pop

Salvation is from The Lord

My sister and I have this little tradition where every Monday, we take Monty, we go for a walk and we vent. About anything and everything under the sun. Today she was trying to let me speak at my own pace because she could tell I was struggling to articulate things. And let me tell you, if I ever have problems to put into words whatever is bothering me, it means that my brain is fried. So we kept on walking and suddenly I just felt it burst out of me, 'I feel like Gideon!' like of course that made perfect sense. My sister, bless her soul, nothing fazes her when it comes to me but I felt the need to elaborate a little. 'I sow and work the ground and come harvest time Midian keeps coming and stealing everything I have. Now I'm like Gideon reduced to threshing wheat in a wine press to hide it from the Midianites. And I'm tired of things always being taken from me!' Apparently I don't know how to vent like a normal person, yet my sister tried her best to reason with me and give me a more balanced perspective. I think it worked, but I got stuck on Gideon.
Judges 6. As per usual, Israel doesn't obey God, and He gives them up into the hands of Midian. The Midianites treat them so harshly that the children of Israel run every time to hide into the mountains and the caves. Everything that the Israelites worked for was robbed, stolen or destroyed. They remember they belong to God, and they call out to Him to help them and God sends them a prophet to let them know their transgression, without any promise for salvation (Judges 6:8-10). Then God Himself goes to find them a hero. He finds Gideon. “Now the angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth at Oprah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press to hide it from the Midianites.” (Judges 6:11) I don't know how long the angel sat there watching Gideon but suddenly he makes himself known and greets the hero, “The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor.” (Judges 6:12) Gideon is in a fowl mood. “And Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.” (Judges 6:13)
Only someone that has spent an entire lifetime working on himself can understand Gideon's frustration. You spend years and years sowing The Word of God into yourself, developing every little part of yourself and try to turn every flaw into a quality only to have 'Midianites' come every time you're about to enjoy a harvest and steal all your hard work and leave you empty-handed and confused, 'what just happened? Wait, is God even with me? If so why doesn't He send help?' And it builds and builds until you get to a point that surpasses anger and goes straight into reckless rebellion. God Himself could stand before you and you still wouldn't guard your tongue. I wouldn't advice that course of action but it's certainly understandable. Gideon had just about enough, so he doesn't feel wise or cautious. He's rude and in danger of being evaporated where he stands, but he's tired of being scared, so he speaks his mind. Instead of seeing offense in Gideon's words, the angel sees fuel for God's purpose. And the LORD turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?” And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” (Judges 6:14-15)
I love God's sense of humor. I mean only He can find the most disillusioned human in Israel, who's also a coward with an attitude, who probably needs saving more than anybody else and tells him, 'with this might of yours, go save Israel'. And against all odds, Gideon goes and does just that.
My lesson from this story? Nobody is coming to save you. You can grumble all you like at the injustice of things. You can be disenchanted with God for not doing something for you until you're blue in the face. You can hate the Midianites and vow 'this is the last time they steal from me!' and then go and think of ways how to hide your supplies. You can continue to be small in your own eyes and in the eyes of everyone around you while your ego can defy God Himself. Nobody is coming to save you. You're it. Take that anger and whatever bitterness drives you and burn it down. If it refuses to burn pray until it ignites or find a sister to vent to. That can do wonders. You're the hero disguised as a coward into your own life movie. Even if you're a coward like Gideon who feared people so much that he destroyed their idols at night, so they wouldn't know it was him, you can still save yourself. If you have time and energy to spend on meditating on the injustice of your situation, you have the time and energy to follow after God and let Him guide you into your salvation. (I am not talking about salvation from sin, just in case that needs clarifying.)

By Cristina Pop