As a child, I enjoyed peering through my kaleidoscope at the colorful fragments of glass as they shifted and formed beautiful mosaics with the subtle turn of the lens. What began as a jumbled mess of glass pieces turned into something incredible—once the focus shifted.
As 21st Century Christians, we live in multi-cultural communities where our diverse denominational viewpoints can often resemble those fragments. How do we come together to form something beautiful—something that makes sense of the fragmented pieces of the hopes, dreams, wishes, and beliefs we all carry?
In order for us to come together in agreement we must first find a place of commonality. We can do this by going back to the beginning when Jesus actually walked and talked on this earth.
Years ago, I contemplated what it must have been like to live “in the beginning” of what became known as Christianity. It was in the 1st Century that Yeshua was actually here, dwelling among His people. The very Face and Voice of God Himself. I imagined myself living in His time and culture, listening to Him recite and explain the Holy Scriptures in His native tongue of Hebrew. How impactful it would have been to hear Him expound on the compelling Words of God in His multi-faceted ancient language—a language filled with Jewish allegories and humorous Hebraic idioms.
It was then I had a revelation that changed my whole focus on Yeshua, and I instantly knew how to turn the kaleidoscope of faith. I realized that if we really want to know Him in His true context we must put away much of the Churchy Greco-Roman traditions we grew up with. The perfect Jewish walk of Yeshua has faded from formal Christianity. He was not as a westerner from America or Europe. He lived in first century Israel, He frequented Jerusalem, and spoke from a perspective that would seem foreign to westerners today. He was a Middle Eastern teacher of God’s First Testament Scriptures and He spoke in Hebrew and Aramaic. We can’t force the 1st century Jesus into our modern culture, but we can definitely learn from His rich worldview, culture and traditions.
Do we actually understand His theology – His colorful explanations of Torah’s Scriptures? Can we even understand His Words as the Hebrew speaking Jews of the 1st Century did?
Teach us Your Ways Lord! You are the Promised Seed! Grow these organic seeds of Your Word into our hearts today. May they manifest in good fruit that will be holy and pleasing unto You.
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17
