Friends

Hushai the Arkite was the king’s friend.

Running a city is a big job, even thousands of years ago. King David was a great organizer of men, and 1 Chronicles 23 through 27 tells how he established order for temple worship, upkeep, maintenance, security, and how the army was organized. David established Jerusalem to run like a well-oiled machine.

Amidst the many details, assignments, naming heads of families and their progeny to perform all manifest tasks, literally hundreds of names are mentioned, but only one is listed with the glorious name of David’s friend.

Hushai the Arkite was the king’s friend.

The Messiah also spoke of the importance of friends.

“I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends.”

I have called you friends – he said this to his disciples. Great huh? Well, there is no such thing as a free lunch – even two thousand years ago in Galilee.

So what’s the catch?

“You are my friends if you do what I command.”

You mean friendship requires effort?

“And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.”

Sometimes it’s difficult to have friends; sometimes we can’t live without friends. The king of a city needed friends; the King of the universe desires friends. Is the Messiah your friend yet? What are you waiting for?

Copyright © 2013 Andy Madonio – Patriarchs, Philosophers, & Phlip Phlops

One Disciple > 100 Saved

A disciple of the Messiah should meditate on this carefully.  Jesus is speaking in John 6:25-71 about salvation.  In v 58, he says whoever “feeds on this bread will live forever.”  “Live” in this Hebrew context means eternal life in Jesus’ presence, not merely today and tomorrow and forever on this present earth.  We call it being saved in our evangelical vernacular today.

Then Jesus warns the non-spiritual man: “Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?”  In essence, he is telling us that we must rely on him for the vital nourishment of eternal life, and we must do it his way, the way of the Potter, not our way, the way of the clay.

Men do not readily accept the notion of complete reliance on another’s sustenance, provision, and mercy in order to “live forever;” that naturally grates against our independence.  Some in our secular non-spiritual generation are perfectly OK with relying on someone, as long as it is the government.  But the Lord is telling us plainly that the he, and no other, is the one who saves; “no one can come to me unless the Father has made it possible for him.”

At the end of his time on earth, Jesus then makes clear our assignment, telling his disciples, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.”

Oswald Chambers said it this way: “Our work begins where God’s grace has laid the foundation; we are not to save souls, but to disciple them. Salvation and sanctification are the work of God’s sovereign grace; our work as His disciples is to disciple lives until they are wholly yielded to God. One life wholly devoted to God is of more value to God than one hundred lives simply awakened by His Spirit. As workers for God we must reproduce our own kind spiritually, and that will be God’s witness to us as workers. God brings us to a standard of life by His grace, and we are responsible for reproducing that standard in others.” (My Utmost for His Highest, April 24)

“One life wholly devoted” is where things begin to turn upside down.  Discipleship is not to be seen as pitted against evangelism, but it must be the end result, or the end result will be nothing.

Copyright © 2013 Andy Madonio – Patriarchs, Philosophers, & Phlip Phlops

Our Work As Disciples – Part 2

A true disciple longing to walk so close to his rabbi that he becomes covered in the dust of his master desires one thing – to do that which makes his master pleased.  Jesus exemplified this when he said:

“I glorified you on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.”

The question of a disciple then, is “What is the work my Lord gave me to do, and what does it mean that He “gave” it to me?”  In my previous post I looked at what doing his work really means.  Essentially Jesus’ assignments are meant to chip away at the chaos of our fallen world one righteous act at a time.  That is his “work.”

But the fact that he gave it to us is also revealing.  The Greek word Mr. Strong gives us for this word “gave” is didomi.  Since Jesus said it, and since he was Hebrew, he would probably have used the word natan (H5414).  The word picture story of natan is: nun (sprouting seed = life, growth, heir) +  tav (cross = sign, covenant) + nun again.  This Hebrew “cartoon” could be interpreted as saying, “A covenant of life, and a promise of a future.”

The Hebrew word for work (see part 1) was melakah.  The root word of melakah is malak (H4397).  Malak is translated as messenger or angel; someone who bears an important message or runs an errand for the master.  When we do the work he gives us, we are bearing a message for all to read; a message of life, a message of promise, a message with a bright and glorious future.

A disciple controls chaos and reveals his master when he accomplishes the work Jesus gives.  Acting obediently as a malak, a messenger, the disciple is delivering what Jesus gave (natan), a covenant of life and a promise for a future for the entire world to see.

The task you were created to do is important, so important that Jesus gave it to you personally.  Get started disciple!

Copyright © 2013 Andy Madonio – Patriarchs, Philosophers, & Phlip Phlops

Our Work As Disciples – Part 1

I had lunch with a friend recently who stated the desire of a true disciple of Jesus.  His own personal fulfillment hinged entirely on the elusive certainty of doing in life what Jesus wanted him to do.  That touched a cord with me, as the passage of Jesus’ high priestly prayer in John 17 was a recent study topic.

“I glorified you on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.”

What is the “work” my Lord gave me to do, and what does it mean that He “gave” it to me?

Since the New Testament was given to us from the Greek, I started with the word work in Greek – ergon, from which we get the contemporary word ergonomics, describing the scientific study of work.  But since Jesus was a Jew, he would have used a Hebrew word, not a Greek one, so he probably would have used melakah (H4399), which means the principle business or occupation of one’s life; the service we perform in life.

The Hebrew pictures of the letters in melakah work out to be: mem (water = power, chaos) + lamed (shepherd staff = control, guide) + alef (ox = leader, strength) + kaf (open palm = cover, protect) + hey (window = reveal).  This Hebrew word picture could therefore mean, “Chaos is controlled and revealed by the strength of the protector.”

The work Jesus gives us to do for him controls the chaos that Genesis 3 wrought.  Properly doing this work means utilizing his strength, and ultimately revealing his presence in the work to the world.

We bring him glory, and it is revealed to those that need it – the world – when we do the work in his strength.  We actually reign in chaos and effect real repair to our present-day world, and we do it like he did, one simple act at a time.

[Next, what it means that the work was “given” by him for us to do.]

Copyright © 2013 Andy Madonio – Patriarchs, Philosophers, & Phlip Phlops

Listening for What Cannot Be Heard – 2012 In Review

Thank you to all who have stopped by in 2012 and read my work.  It truly means more than you can know.  I write these posts simply because, as a disciple of Yeshua, I am compelled to share them.  I do my best to hear his voice, the voice that at times, seems so elusive.  It is a voice that creates from nothing, calling “things that are not as though they were.”  It is a voice that embodies all power, yet can be so subtle.  It is this same voice that Elijah heard as he waited for Yahweh to reveal himself:

At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there.  Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”  He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword.  I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”  He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”  Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer  silence.  When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

There are days on end when all I can hear from my messiah is what Elijah heard – the oxymoronic human description the NRSV accurately describes as “a sound of sheer silence.”  I believe the phrase “deafening silence” has its roots in this biblical passage.  It is the voice Isaiah might have referred to when he wrote these words:

“This is the way; walk in it.”

Thank you for listening with me as I tried to describe for you the most powerful force in existence, yet one that sometimes cannot be heard.  I will continue to listen, to walk as a disciple where I believe he is leading, and to write it down faithfully, hopefully with even greater discernment in 2013.

God Bless,

Andy Madonio

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