Home for the Holidays

December 29, 2024

Happy New Year!

Pastor Patrick presented today's message, "Home for the Holidays." A video of today's message is here on YouTube (starting at 10:48).

The last topic Patrick addressed was the next sermon series at TimberCreek starting next Sunday: Watch Your Mouth. He referenced Psalm 19:14, "May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer."

My Dad was a Presbyterian minister. And I came to memorize that Psalm verse early on as he would often begin a sermon by praying that verse. It was one of my very early memorized verses.

I thought I'd focus today on the second phrase, "meditations of my heart." The first phrase, "words of my mouth," is similarly understood today the same way it was in the ANE (Ancient Near East). However, the second phrase is considerably different depending on whether you're thinking as a modern or as an ANE-er.

Today, meditation often suggests the clearing of the mind, having no thoughts at all for a period of time, a cleansing of sorts. That is not Biblical meditation. Biblical meditation is filling your mind with Godly thoughts, Godly teachings, Godly wisdom, etc. These latter "thinkings" are what you should be doing and teaching your children when you get up, when you walk along the way (all day), and when you go to bed (Deuteronomy 6:7).

The word translated as "heart" in Psalm 19:14 does not mean today what it meant then. Back in the ANE, the heart was the seat of thinking, what we would consider the brain today. The kidneys were the seat of emotions.

So, a better translation using modern language to translate the meaning in the ANE would be "words of my mouth and the thoughts of my mind."

To fully appreciate the rest of Psalm 19, here's a summary:

Verses 1-6: Beauty of God's Creation.

Verses 7-11: God's revelation in scripture.

Verses 12-13: God's Holy Spirit reveals our sins and calls for repentance.

Bonus

History of New Year's Eve Ball Drop at Times Square

Biblical translations aren't the only meanings that have transformed over the years. Take the New Year's Eve ball drop at Times Square. How did that come to be a countdown to the new year?

Turns out, the original ball drop relates to a time not so long ago when timekeeping was much more difficult. Church bells were among the early ways to keep time. But people doing navigation, e.g. ships on the water, needed something a little more accurate.

The "time ball" was created by a British ship captain, Robert Wauchope, in 1829. Shore-based balls would be dropped in a timely manner and could be seen by ships at sea for a relatively accurate time reading by which they could reset their onboard chronometer.

More from InterestingFacts.com: "Time balls emerged as a timekeeping feature throughout the world, though evidence of them is hard to find today. The U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., installed one in 1845, which would later help history record the precise time of Lincoln's assassination; it dropped daily through 1936. But the time ball's reign was short-lived. The devices fell out of fashion by the 1880s, thanks to the availability of self-winding clocks. The concept would eventually be co-opted by The New York Times in 1907, when the newspaper's formerly explosive New Year's Eve celebrations were barred from using fireworks. Organizers took a chance by looking back at the time ball's influence, and decided a lighted midnight drop was the perfect way to honor the occasion."

Pictured above: The Boston Time Ball on the roof of the Equitable Life Assurance Society building, at the corner of Devonshire and Milk Streets, Boston MA in 1881. The caption and text on the image is: "Boston Time-Ball Plate No 2, Heliotype Printing Co. Boston." Photo credit: Winslow Upton and William Babcock Hazen (editors) - "Information relative to the construction and maintenance of time-balls," United States War Department, Washington, D.C. 1881.

So how is all this Biblically significant? I guess it's not directly, but it is clear that time and timing are important in the Bible. Many festivals and rituals are time and/or date/season based. As mentioned above, when to do things such as teach your children Godly wisdom is prescribed (as in Deuternonomy 6:7).

There are many "appointed times" in the Bible. For examples, see: What are the Lord's appointed times (Leviticus 23)?

Ecclesiastes 3:1, "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens."

Psalm 104:19, "He made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows its time for setting."

Proverbs 6:6-8, "Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest."

Bonus2

Behavior is More Important than Feelings

The Torah makes this clear in many situations. One such situation is when God rebukes Aaron and Miriam for speaking against Moses. The story is in Numbers chapter 12. The key verse in regard to the current topic, behavior over feelings, is in Numbers 12:9, "The anger of the Lord burned against them, and he left them." God's chastisement was clear and simple, and punishment was involved as well.

In his newly released Rational Bible: Numbers, Prager notes that had the character of God in this story been played by a modern therapist, the focus would have been on Aaron's and Miriam's feelings, not what they did (complain publicly about Moses).

By the way, complaining falls under the "words of your mouth" category discussed at the top of this page. God clearly does not like complaining.

The story also has an interesting translation element. Numbers 12:13 is often translated as "So Moses cried out to the Lord, 'Please, God, heal her!'" (NIV). Scholars have argued over whether this was a terse, heart-not-in-it-fully request by Moses for God to "fix" the white-scale punishment placed on Miriam -or- as a simple and beautifully put petition to God on Miriam's behalf. In this case, the literal translation proves helpful, which is "God, please heal her, please." That clearly suggests a heartful plea.

See pp. 127-140 of Prager's Rational Bible: Numbers for his complete commentary on this chapter of Numbers.

Photo credit: ComeThirstyMinistry.com