Exploring the Well

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Find yourself a teacher, and get yourself a friend

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One of the things I tell my children all the time is that they should find a teacher and find a friend.

This originally came about as one of my sons found himself a friend, even though that friend wasn’t always leading him in the right direction; I used this dictum to remind myself that the friendship was the more important thing.

I’ve recently done some more research on this concept, because I think it’s important that I understand it more so that I can apply it more properly, and help my children do so as well.

The full statement is in Mishnah Pirkei Avot, 1:6:

Joshua ben Perachyah and Nittai the Arbelite received the Torah from them. Joshua ben Perachyah said: Provide for yourself a teacher and get yourself a friend; and judge every man towards merit.

R. Joshua and R. Nittai were נָשִׂיא, nasi, a pair of leaders of the Sanhedrin, roughly two centuries before Christ. The phrase “received the Torah from them” refers to the nasim from the previous line in Pirkei Avot (Yosi ben Yochanan, another nasi), and that line in Pirkei Avot has the same construct, all the way back to Moshe.

This construct therefore is asserting R. Joshua’s authority.

Then we have R. Joshua’s wisdom: “Provide for yourself a teacher and get yourself a friend; and judge every man towards merit.”

The Teacher

A teacher is one who is worthy of emulation and provides a measure to exceed.

I want to learn to be like my teacher, to be sure; otherwise, he is not my teacher, and I am not his student. (Perhaps we’re friends?)

Yet I wish to be a student who is able to teach some day as well; I don’t want to equal my teacher, I want to excel beyond him. I want to add to the world, not meet it; I want to grow and challenge, not exist.

Finding a teacher is a great challenge. Finding one who has more wisdom might be easy, as in my case – I’m not very wise – but in addition to wisdom, you should find one who is worthy.

No man is perfect, of course, in faith or in life. Here you must examine your own values and responses, to find a teacher whom you are able to respect.

The Friend

A friend is one from whom you can learn, and whom you can correct.

A friend is more valuable than a teacher, because a friend is able to interact differently; a teacher reproves and instructs, but responds only from that perspective, while a friend allows more of a give and take, where you can have a discussion, and contribute.

A friend allows you to be who you are, and reflects you.

A man with bad friends is a man who needs help. A little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough (Galatians 5:9), which works in two ways:

  • A good man among bad friends (friends of low character) can serve as a light to them, to raise them up.
  • A good man among bad friends is also in danger of being corrupted by those friends.

Therefore, one can have bad friends, yet you should tread very carefully among them, such that you are not being misled by them – and note also that you will share their reproachfulness, which we are to avoid (1Tim 3:2, although this is an instruction for an overseer.)

Yet even this is dangerous and unfortunate. A friend is one with whom you can be yourself, being unguarded and authentic. Yet if you’re warding your heart against poor influences, you’re not unguarded.

Among bad friends, then, you need to rise above and beyond them, drawing them up with you.

Otherwise, you are one with them.

Judge every man toward merit

I love this sentiment.

This statement means to choose the best perception of everyone, until proven otherwise.

As a parent, this is difficult, because a child needs instruction, while judging him towards merit means assuming positive conclusions he may not actually deserve.

Sometimes, after all, the child actually lies, for example, as opposed to the more positive judgement that he “was mistaken in his mind.”

But again, the wisdom is in choosing the best every time it is possible to do so. Assuming the best means you have a joyous heart, seeing the glory of God in everything around you, and it gives those with whom you are something to attain.

It’s your positive assumption of them that sets a bar for them to meet.

And in doing so, you become a teacher, and a friend.

The value of word studies

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When I mentioned Philippians 4:19, I mentioned having done a word study, my first word study focused on the Greek language.

What’s the value of a word study? Should it be how people study Scripture?

Well… my thought is that word studies are a useful tool, but that this tool should be one among many. You shouldn’t feel you have to rely on word studies to learn God’s Will.

In fact, I’ll go one further: if a word study is required to understand a passage, then you’re being informed incorrectly.

It’s one thing to do a word study and add to your enlightenment regarding a passage in the Bible – it’s another thing altogether to do a word study and use that as your sole source of enlightenment.

Different translations have their strengths and weaknesses, to be sure, but nearly every translation in general availability is clear enough to be used for evangelical purposes. (I’m not suggesting that books like the Book of Moron – I mean, Mormon – and other such works are canonical, mind. The Bible says that it’s not to be added to.)

By this I mean that if you’re reading the NIV, you’re not getting a fundamentally different gospel message than if you read the ESV or the KJV. There are certainly differences, primarily in the source texts used, and some use these differences to claim that one translation or another is a false Bible, but I find this spurious.

A minor side point about translations

The NIV, especially, gets blamed as a “devil’s Bible” because it’s “missing verses.” For example, Acts 8:37 is claimed to be “missing” in the NIV… and I find that it’s not quite accurate, for a few reasons.

Consider: the NIV translators acknowledge that it’s there, even if the translation doesn’t include the verse inline – because 8:38 is the same no matter what translation you use. So the verse gets a “placeholder” at the very least.

Also consider: I don’t have a single NIV that doesn’t contain the verse! Admittedly, the “main NIV” I have – not my “go-to Bible,” which is an NASV translation – has a footnote that includes the verse as a whole, and a footnote isn’t the same as an inline verse – but it’s still there.

What does this mean? Has the NIV taken away something from the Bible, or added it? Many are anti-NIV because it leaves verses out (of the inline text, I suppose) – but they’re not thinking of why.

I’m not an NIV apologist, per se (okay, maybe I am, since I’m defending it here) but the verses excluded from the mainline content are excluded because there’s some question about which source texts contained what. In general, from what I’ve seen, the older manuscripts contained less than the later manuscripts used to translate the King James Version, and the NIV uses those older manuscripts.

If the Bible is not to be added to, then, I’d suggest that the older manuscripts might even be more authoritative than the newer manuscripts.

The only shift is in conservative preservation of the value reportedly possessed by the KJV. If it’s your reference point as far as what verses contain what, then the Bibles that use older manuscripts would be invalid – because it uses verses added later (because they’re not present in the older manuscripts we have).

But if we’re picking on Bible translations, I’d say the later manuscripts have a weaker position than the older ones.

The key for me is this: does the NIV contain the gospel? Does it contain the gospel in such a way that the whole message is not changed?

The answers are yes, and yes: it contains the gospel, and it does not change the message. At no point does it say specifically something that counteracts the gospel, although there are points of emphasis the later manuscripts contain that can add clarity (Acts 8:37 being a good example of this.)

Back to word studies…

Word studies can provide insight into the further meaning contained in the original texts. For example, Philippians 4:19 uses the word “wealth” (or “riches,” depending on your translation), and I was wondering what it actually meant by the word outside of the context of the verse, so I did a quick word study into it.

The context of the verse doesn’t change through the word study; I didn’t find new meaning in the word study. I established further meaning and clarification of the word, and added just a tiny bit of Greek knowledge, but the word study didn’t do more than glorify God.

Word studies could instruct, I suppose. If you don’t understand a passage at all, a word study could give you the insight you need as a lever to expose for what something was meant.

But in my humble opinion, a word study should enhance, not serve as an underpinning of knowledge; relying on it for primary sources of knowledge yields an interpretation that the Bible is a mystery, that you have to have special knowledge and understanding (and interest) to read it, and that serves as a barrier between you and God.

Further, emphasizing word studies can serve as a barrier between others and God. For example, I rather enjoy word studies when I do them. (Well, when I do them with Hebrew – I dislike Greek!) But I try to be careful when referring to them when I talk to people, because I don’t want to send the impression that someone who’s not done a word study is “less prepared” than I am.

That’s not the case, after all – a believer has the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is no respecter of persons. My approach is not better than or more holy than yours, no matter what your approach is, or what my approach is.

And making it seem as if that’s not the case – e.g., that my way is better – is wrong, and harmful to others.

Shalom.

(Originally published on January 26, 2012.)

Romans 6:1-14: Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ

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The Bible study this week in Romans focuses on the first part of chapter 6 of Romans, a pretty well-known piece of scripture if memory serves. (It was one of the parts of Romans I could quote before I really started getting into the New Testament, which is the best barometer I have for such things.)

It contains an interaction Paul had with a hypothetical question in response to the closing of the previous parts of the letter to the Romans, in what we see as chapter 5, in which Paul says that “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.” (Romans 5:20, ESV).

You see this a lot in Christian circles, especially in affluent circles, where people point out the spirituality of oppressed people in third world countries: “They trust in God and see His work among them! Even in their oppression, they are blessed!”

The problem with this expression isn’t that it’s not true – it’s that it tends to engender a question of why the one offering that expression hasn’t gone to be oppressed themselves, such that they can experience God more authentically.

“Should we not also consider ourselves oppressed, such that we can force ourselves to depend on God all the more?”

…except the answer is, typically, “No, of course not.” We might want the hand of God in our lives, but we are rarely willing to offer ourselves suffering in order to see that hand.

Is that proper? I don’t think so – I think the key is to remember to thank God for our circumstances, even in our pleasant circumstances. We feel guilty that we do little to alleviate the suffering of others, and that’s probably a good thing, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we are to punish ourselves for the riches that God has granted us… as long as we remember that God has granted us those riches.

So: back to Romans 6! Paul offered a statement that where sin was multiplied, grace was multiplied also, creating the question of whether one should sin more such that grace would grow even that much more. (“Grace is a good thing; if sin increases grace, is sin therefore not ‘good’ as well?”)

We don’t know if Paul was literally asked this question or not. He may have been, but the form of Romans is as a letter, not as a series of responsum. Paul was a thorough and rather nitpicky thinker (I don’t have any experience with this, personally! Oh, wait…) and more likely anticipated the question as a logical extension of his previous wording, so responded to the potential question.

And what was the response? The response goes back to a condition, a status. Paul says in the first part of Romans 6 that we are dead and raised with Christ:

5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. (Romans 6:5-7, ESV)

We are united with Christ in His resurrection, and united with Him in His death as well.

The metaphor is one of baptism: baptism, or the mikveh (מִקְוֶה), is given as a picture of death to what wasis.

It’s a transition: the mikveh is a transition from impurity to purity. Baptism is a transition from a former state to a new, pure state. We enter the water as Yona did, in defiance of God and dying in our sin, to enter the great fish, the דג גדול, which symbolizes death. We leave death behind, and enter a new life of obedience.

(A crucial difference is that a mikveh is a continual immersion; an Orthodox adherent to Judaism undergoes a mikveh regularly, and women use it based on their menstrual cycle, as it’s part of the purification post-menses. Few Christians undergo repeated and/or constant baptism. Your mileage may vary on the metaphor’s appropriateness; personally, I see the mikveh as part of repentance.)

So Paul constructs the picture of death and life, with life freeing us from the bonds that held us before our deaths to our old selves: as those bonds are sin and the result of sin, we are to act as if we are no longer held to our sinful natures.

Does that mean we never sin? No. Yet it means our master is Christ, and we should strive to let Him lead our lives, repenting our trespasses and living in such a way that we honor Him, and not sin.

Inreach

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We actually did not do our regular Romans study last Friday night. We had initially planned to have a regular small group get-together, with music and a study on Romans 6, with a few minor changes as three of the teens in the group (some of our kids) are out on a missions trip, but my wife and I had been discussing doing something a little different…

One of the decisions made early in the life of the small group was to focus on studying the Bible, and to let bonds within the group form organically. People would gravitate to each other given time, and with a limited number of connections, people would naturally form ties to everyone, creating a strong (and natural) group.

However, that’s a very slow process – and without constant presence, it’s even slower. (It’s more time than it could be, when you meet for a few hours every week… but it’s nowhere near the time given to, say, kids in grade school. They have hours every day that they can use for this kind of thing.)

So we thought we’d skip the music this week, and use the time (normally twenty minutes or so) to do an inreach, a chance for us to really focus on getting to know someone in the group.

What we set off to do was pretty simple: we’d put all our names in a hat, and draw one at random; that person would then give a short testimony about themselves, and then the whole group would ask them questions. The idea was that everyone would get to ask a question, and the person could answer as they chose, hopefully with an open heart so we could get to see that person for who they really are, without all the armor we normally wear.

It didn’t quite work out that way; I’d originally envisioned people going around the room clockwise, because that way everyone knew they’d have a turn (and they would have to value their turn). Everyone was able to ask questions, but it was rather random and undisciplined.

That said, it went well. It’s interesting seeing the things someone things are the crucial events and factors in their own lives; sometimes you get to peek under the hood to see not who they think they are, but who they really are. That’s where you can actually find someone’s heart and connect with them.

That’s where you really get to know them and not the façade they put up for others.

For one example question, “What’s your favorite color?” It’s green, with blue being a close second. But this is a fairly revealing answer, even though it’s a trivial question!

It says I’m the kind of person who has a favorite color. Perhaps this indicates a certain immaturity on my part, or a childlike demeanor in some ways. (I’m pretty dour; “childlike demeanor” might apply to some stratae of my personality, but certainly wouldn’t be a generic description… unless you were used to really sarcastic, dour kids.)

But just like an infomercial, there’s more: why green? Why is blue a second-favorite? What about those colors attracts me to them? Considering that blue is the Jewish color representing divinity, why is blue my second-favorite? Why wouldn’t it be my favorite? (It’s because I prefer woods to sea and sky, although I definitely love open water.)

That’s just a simple throwaway question, of course. What do you think will happen if someone asks something like “What do you consider to be your greatest struggles in life?”

Of course, some people will dodge some questions, not being open or vulnerable enough to address them… and that’s all right. The whole point of this exercise is not to force someone to be open or vulnerable; it’s to create an opportunity for future transparency.

Sometimes the knowledge that someone is unable or unwilling to talk about something is just as relevant as what they would say about that subject if they were willing to speak.

One last suggestion I’d like to add: let the person speak on their own. If you know someone well, feel free to ask a question that answers something you are interested in – but don’t spend your time guiding the person down a line of thought. It’s their turn to speak as they wish, and modifying their time for them focuses the attention on you, rather than them, even if they’re doing all the answering… let them drive themselves, because otherwise people see them through a reflection of your interests, and that’s not the point.