Intimate Friendship

Intimate Friendship:

The Jews of Jesus’ day had been under the heavy yoke of the religious leaders (Pharisees primarily) for a long time. During the 400 years between the close of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and Jesus’ Advent that first Christmas morning God had been virtually silent; apart from revealing Himself to people like Mary, Joseph, Elizabeth, and Zechariah.

As we discussed a few days ago in the “Got Authority?” blog post, the people recognized the contrast between Jesus’ teaching and that of the Pharisees. The Teachers of the Law primarily taught/enforced the “Oral Law,” which is what Jesus rejected in saying to them in Mark 7:9, “You completely invalidate God’s command in order to maintain your tradition!”

Oral Law, i.e. the synthetic traditions created during that 400 years of silence, was created by Jewish leaders in what is commonly referred to as a “hedge” around the Law. Israel had lost everything near-and-dear to them because of their perpetual idolatry, rebellion, and rejection of God throughout their history. When the Babylonians conquered the Southern kingdom of Judah in 586 B.C., they lost their land, the kingship, the temple, and the priesthood.

Their response was not simple obedience under the gracious yoke of exile and divine punishment, but rather synthetic developments in an effort to establish social, religious, and historical credibility. So they created countless rules and regulations for every facet of life in an effort to avoid “breaking the Law.” Then they attributed those rules and regulations, which cannot be found anywhere in Scripture, to some secret “Oral Tradition” handed down from Moses himself.

One might ask, “So who ensured the fidelity of this ‘Oral Tradition?’ throughout Israel’s history?”

That’s a great question. In 2 Kings 22 we find out that the temple and God’s Law had suffered such gross neglect that no one - not King Josiah (c.640 BC) or even the priests - knew anything about the Law or its contents. After 60 years of rebellion under kings Manassah and Amon, Josiah initiated reform in Israel. The Law was eventually found in the abandoned temple and Josiah said, “The Lord must be furious with us because our ancestors failed to obey the words of this scroll and do everything written in it about us.”

Regarding the duration of neglect Alexander MacLaren notes, “For how long we do not know, but the fact that it had been so carelessly kept is eloquent of the indifference of priests and kings, its appointed guardians. Lawbreakers have a direct interest in getting rid of lawbooks.”

From the time of Moses’ leadership (c.1450 BC) the nation of Israel was continually chastised by God for their rebellion. They were exiled in the wilderness for 40 years for that very reason. Throughout Joshua’s leadership they continued their idol worship and rejection of God. Throughout the entire period of the Judges Israel’s rebellion escalated, which is summarized in the statement, “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit in their own eyes.”

When we come to the book of Samuel we read that Israel blatantly rejected God’s sovereign leadership: “But the people refused to listen to Samuel. "No!" they said. "We want a king over us. That we may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles.” The kingship quickly decayed, Israel continued to worship idols and adopt the vile practices of the nations around them until Israel’s king Ahaz even sacrificed his son in the fire to pagan gods.

Since written Scripture clearly identifies the pervasive extent of Israel’s depravity and licentiousness, and the written Word was completely neglected and forgotten for HUGE chunks of Israel’s history - how then could “oral traditions” supposedly attributed to Moses have been faithfully and accurately preserved for approximately 1,000 years? Furthermore, why is there no mention of these “oral traditions” by Moses in the written Word if they are supposedly equally authoritative?

The answer is simple. It’s all poppycock.

When Jesus came on the scene the religious leaders were more concerned with position, status, recognition, and security than with intimate friendship with God Almighty. They had Scripture memorized, but it was their “traditions” that served as the filters through which Scripture was interpreted and their lives were governed.

Jesus disrupted all that. Right off the bat people recognized that Jesus taught with authority, which was a stark contrast to the hypocrisy of the religious leaders (Mark 1:22). Rather than recognizing Jesus as the anticipated Messiah and Son of God, they accused Him of doing the miraculous by the power of “Beelzebul” (2:22). He was rejected in His hometown “So they were offended by Him” (5:3). He pointed out the errors of their “traditions,” which really set them off (chapter 7). Eventually they’d had enough and “The chief priests and scribes were looking for a treacherous way to arrest and kill Him (Jesus)” (14:1).

It was not the religious leaders, His disciples, or the crowds privy to His miracles that recognized who Jesus truly was. No. It was the most unlikely candidate - a Roman soldier, a centurion. “When the centurion, who was standing opposite Him, saw the way He breathed His last, he said, ‘This man really was the Son of God.’”

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Psalm 25:14 reads:

“The Lord counsels those who honor him;

   he makes his covenant known to them.”

The word “counsels” is sometimes translated “intimate friendship,” so that it reads something like this: “The intimate friendship of the LORD is with those who fear him.”

The “fear of the LORD” is not the kind of fear we experience after watching a horror flick or when a friend jumps out from behind a bush to terrify us. No. the “fear of the LORD” is a transcendent gift of awareness of who God truly is. Not a religious figurehead, not a mystic force, not a distant, stuffy, angry, vengeful deity, but rather the loving Holy Trinity as revealed throughout Scripture from beginning to end.

Like the nation of Israel throughout the Old Testament, and the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, we continually avoid authentic relationship with God and intimate friendship in lieu of synthetic substitutes: church on Sunday, quiet times, Christian radio, podcast sermons, Beth Moore studies… none of which are “bad,” but none can replace authentic intimate friendship with Jesus.

Israel rejected God’s sovereignty so that they could be like all the other nations of the world - selfish pursuits evaporating into nothingness. Are we any different?

What do our “traditions,” priorities, and life-goals reveal about our desire for intimate friendship with the One who stepped down from heaven to rescue us from the muck and mire of our rebellion?

Mark’s gospel concludes in 16:8 with “And they said nothing to anyone because they were afraid.” So how did the gospel of Jesus spread?

Go back and read Mark chapter 5. Jesus healed a demon-possessed man, but refused to let him accompany Him saying, “‘Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.’ So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.”

It’s not the TELevangelists or mega-church pastors who have the most profound impact on the kingdom of God. It is the unlikely few who have a truly an “intimate friendship” with God - those, like the healed demoniac and centurion - who, by grace, truly recognize God for who He is and thus become obedient and privy to His divine counsel.

It is to these whom God fulfils His promise: “Through you all the peoples of the earth will be blessed.”

Blessings,

-Kevin M. Kelley

aMostUnlikelyDisciple.com