Not To Confuse My Shemitah With My Shekinah, But ...

... does it just seem some Christians WANT to make enemies because they love to tell other people what to do? Granted, I don't agree with what seems to be the latest fashionable bodily mutilation (something about putting a lens beneath your lower lip so you can see the wearer's bottom row of teeth) and it's not something I would want to do myself, but how does sparing the time to express disgust at that advance "the cause of Christ" -- that is, preaching the gospel to everyone? For the full version of the Great Commission, please see Matthew 28:18-20 in the New Testament; your acceptance of the Good News is not required, but my presentation of it however and whenever I can is.

And I say this BEING a believer in and follower of Jesus Christ -- the term Christian only appears in the Bible three times, so at this time in my life I use it sparingly -- as my Lord and Savior! And that is never a digression! Also I've been reading over the last week about this Jewish calendar year (for which year, see last week's entry "5775") being a Sabbath year, a year of rest, for the land itself. Deuteronomy 15:1 through 16:17 detail the conditions of this shemitah or "remission" of working the land, of personal debt, and setting the servants free. I wouldn't mind that myself, alas, it's Hebrew-only; if you're an alien or wanderer among the Hebrews, you still have to till, pay up, and serve.

In English, shekinah is most often used as an adjective as in "shekinah glory", but the original Hebrew word means "dwelling" or "settling" and is used as far as I can see in exclusive reference to the LORD. (So you and I cannot shekinah, and there's only a few who are Shakira.) It's first referred to in the Old Testament in 1 Kings -- read that "First Kings" -- 8:10-12 after the priests during King Solomon's reign had brought the ark of the covenant into the holy of holies in the newly-finished Temple at Jerusalem. And this Glory, this Dwelling, this Shekinah so filled the place that the priests had to get out! The LORD didn't need a house on earth, but the Hebrews knew He was with them.

It feels like I have the makings for an awesome Ensign -- the Friday devotionals I write that appear here -- but that really wasn't my point. And I'm sure parts of my ignorance of Jewish (important distinction here: Jewish is neither valid as a descriptor nor Jew as a metonym until the second half of the 8th century B.C., concurrent with shortly before Israel was smashed by Assyria for the last time in 722 B.C.) history and culture and custom will not be held against me. Amended, yes. Corrected, yes. Influenced, yes. Just don't do it in the text of this post; like Theodore Roosevelt, I will accept criticism of my style, but I won't stand for tampering.

I thank God not only upon my remembrance of you (that's in Philippians 1:3, but I DO thank you too) but also that dwelling in eternity with Him is not contingent on my or your passing a graduate exam in Hebrew ritual and vocabulary! Just "God be merciful to me a sinner" (Luke 18:13, from Jesus' parable of the Pharisee and the publican). We say this and acknowledge He's God and we're not, we ask for mercy because we don't want to go to hell yet we know we deserve it, and Jesus bears all our sin, now and forever, when we admit we've sinned and separated ourselves from our fellowship with our Creator.

Or as my son Jeffrey once said after I read him this story:

"Lord, have mercy and that's it?"

Yes, son. That's it.

David