Love With Action

December 22, 2024

Pastor Patrick presented today's message, "Love With Action." A video of today's message is here on YouTube.

One of the most famous love verses in the Bible, "Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the Lord," occurs smack dab in the middle of the Torah, Leviticus 19:18.

Exodus 34:6-7, "The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, 'The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation." These few sentences describe much of God's love for us, including compassion, grace, slow to anger, and faithful. There's an element of patience as well. The entire Exodus story makes it clear that God's love includes wanting us to be free.

Deuteronomy 7:9, "Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments." This scripture adds the notion of covenant and promise keeping to love.

God's love is protective and guiding. See Psalm 36 and Psalm 23.

And we should return the favor. Deuteronomy 6:5, "Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength."

For more on Old Testament love, see The Old Testament: a love story between God and His people.

Bonus

Oldest Copy of the Ten Commandments



The oldest known copy of the Ten Commandments, written in Paleo-Hebrew, recently sold at auction for $5 million. The tablet dates to somewhere between 300 and 800 A.D. It was un-earthed during a railroad excavation project in 1913 along the southern coast of Israel.

Interestingly, the text omits the 3rd Commandment ("Don't carry the Lord's name in vain") and adds a directive to worship at Mount Gerizim.

Oldest known stone tablet inscribed with the Ten Commandments sells for over $5M.

Bonus2

Biblical Hebrew: No Word "Obey"

For a text that is so often thought of (and rejected) as not much more than a set of outdated laws or demands, the language it uses surprisingly has no word that is accurately translated as "obey." There are translations that end up with "obey" in them, but they've made a choice that isn't entirely accurate. Usually "hear" or "listen" would be more accurate. The word that comes the closest is sh'ma (or shema, שְׁמַ֖ע) which is also the name given to a famous Biblical Hebrew text that starts at Deuteronomy 6:4 and is known as "The Shema."

I recently received an email from The Isaiah Projects that I learned this from and explains in much greater detail. The email was titled "The Oreo Cookie Kingdom Verse." It's an interesting and fun read.

Here are some bullet points from the email:

• The Shema focuses on bringing God's Kingdom to us
• The article translates the obey-word as "internalize."
• God does not want us to have a robotic faith. He wants us to freely choose Him.
• Critical thinking skills and the art of questioning are key to understanding the scriptures.
• You may appreciate the Oreo Cookie analogy.

Bonus3

Christmas Tree Cluster



It's about 2500 light years (1.5 x 10¹⁶ miles; 10 quadrillion miles) away from Earth within our Milky Way Galaxy and is a cluster of young stars. Gas in the nebula is made to appear green. The image has been rotated about 160 degrees so as to appear upright.

All about it: Sprightly Stars Illuminate 'Christmas Tree Cluster'.