Finding Clarity in Scripture | Losing My Religion (Part 6) | Stephen Feith

Now let's dive into today. If I didn't already mention, my name is Steven, and I'm the Lead Pastor of Madison church, we're all glad that you are joining us. Several years ago, we did a series teaching series at our church about things that Christians commonly believe or commonly say, that aren't actually biblical. It was a fun series that we called bumper sticker theology, because these pithy statements usually end up on the back side of our cars, which is probably where they should begin and end because as we talked about in the series, they just didn't have biblical merit. For example, we said, we say God helps those who help themselves.

It's actually not in the Bible.

A lot of people think that that's statements in the Bible, it's not in the Bible, you don't have to look for and waste your time, although you can. It's not in the Bible. Instead, we just said, God helps those who can't help themselves. Man, after all, that's why Jesus came to earth, we could not help ourselves. And he helped us, we've talked about how, you know, we say, God won't give you more than you can handle. It's what we like to tell somebody who's going through a tough situation, God won't give you more than you can handle, when the reality is, is that God will help you handle all that you have been given, there may be things in this life that you alone cannot handle.

That doesn't mean that God's not out there. It means that we need to lean on God, when there are things that we cannot handle.

Finally, and one of the things that gets under my skin is the phrase, everything happens for a reason. That's also not a biblical statement. You won't find that in there. But instead, we see that God can use everything that happens for a reason. I got it, I heard someone say once it said everything happens for a reason.

Sometimes that reason is you're an idiot, and you do stupid things. That's fair, we can go with that. But that's also not in the Bible. Now, those might be some things that you believe those are certainly things that other people believe that aren't biblical. And there might even be more things that aren't covered in this list that go on bumper stickers that aren't biblical. And so if you want to hear about that series, again, that's on the podcast, you can go ahead and look that up. Now I bring that up, because it is relevant for us tonight, as we're in the series going through Hebrews called losing my religion, we're going to learn tonight, we're gonna get a really great example of biblical interpretation from within the Bible. And that might not sound super interesting to you. But I promise you that it's super practical and applicable to your life. Because when you get those statements of like, everything happens for a reason, God won't give you more than they can handle. It's oftentimes because of a misinterpretation or misunderstanding. We read something, we think we understand it, then we kind of coined a phrase, and we go with it. And then we find out that when we actually look into when we try to interpret the Bible, as it's supposed to be interpreted that oh, wait, that doesn't make any sense. And so tonight, we're gonna get a great example of the author of Hebrews interpreting something. Now, before we go into chapter seven tonight, which if you want to follow along, we have house Bibles out, you can use your smartphones and the words will be on the screen. Depending how the sun is setting, though, might be difficult to see the screen, we're gonna go to Hebrews chapter seven, say we're beginning chapter seven. And while you go there, let me just remind you where we've been the first couple of weeks of this series, beginning in chapter four, verse 14, we are taught and told often that Jesus is this new and better high priest, he's this better high priest for humanity, whereas High Priests back in the Old Testament day would represent people to God, Jesus represents God to people.

And whereas in the Old Testament, it was the priest who could experience God come and see God in the fullness. Now, every single one of us whether you're watching online, or here in the room with us, we can all experience God because Jesus is a new, better high priest. And then we went on a detour.

Beginning in chapter six, the author of Hebrews confronts and warns the original audience, the original listeners, really about their spiritual maturity, and really the lack of spiritual maturity. He calls them infants and, and babies and warns them that if they don't grow up, they run the risk of moving away from God to the point where they don't lose their salvation, but rather, they reject a relationship with God and they reject the salvation that they once had. The lesson in that chapter was that life is not complacent. Our faith isn't about saying a prayer one time 10 years ago, and then just living the rest of our lives as is we are either moving toward God or away from God because God is the God Who moves, God is not standing still. And so if we stand still, we could conclude if God is moving, then even by standing still we are moving away from God. And so the warning was, don't do that move toward God grow in your faith.

And that is very, very relevant to what we're talking about today, because the material is very, very deep. And it can be kind of complicated, and complex. Last week, the author brought up Abraham and how we can be sure that God's promises are trust, worthy, again, brings us to where we go today, the author of Hebrews wants to go back to this concept, this idea that Jesus is the new, better high priest, for humanity. And for those of you who have been just waiting to talk about this mysterious fella named Melchisedec. Well, today is the day you pick a good Sunday to be here.

The author of Hebrews first introduces Melchisedec to us back in chapter five, the author says, I'm going to tell you more about that, before going into all of these conversations about Jesus being better and you need to grow up because understanding Melchisedec and how this all works in the letter of Hebrews is imperative. But it does require us to be thinkers, it does require us to dive in and to try to under stand Melchisedec, according to the author of Hebrews was the most kind of superior priest, that he was just as good as it gets here on Earth. Now the author is alluded to this is said the several times already, we talked in the past on how somebody became a priest under like Levitical law, at some point, you had to be born in a certain family, God came and God chose you. And then there were certain rules and regulations that you always had to follow.

Melchisedec on the other hand, is kind of odd, because he wasn't born into that family.

And yet, the Bible, the authors of the Old Testament of Genesis referred to him as a High Priest. So if there was anybody who was kind of not just the exception of the rule, but almost maybe better than everything going on, it would be Melchisedec. And the author is trying to show us that if Walt Melchisedec was the superior priest, they're going to make a case that Jesus is better than Melchisedec. And that's what we're going to dive into with.

First one here, chapter seven, this Melchisedec was king of the city of Salem, and also a priest of God Most High. When Abraham was returning home after winning a great battle against the Kings Melchisedec met him and blessed him, than Abraham took a 10th of all he had captured in battle and gave it to Melchisedec. The name Melchisedec means king of justice. And king of Salem means king of peace, there is no record of his father or mother or any of his ancestors, no beginning or end to his life, he remains a priest for ever resembling the Son of God. So here we are, back to Abraham makes a lot of sense our author's writing to what is thought and believed to be a primarily Jewish audience, trying to convince them that the old Levitical way of doing things with priests and sacrifices is over that we now have Jesus, the one true ultimate sacrifice, but also the high priest. And by going into this passage, they're trying to help convince them the audience of this so we can be assured of this, because remember, if you grew up, Jewish, and you had to memorize the Torah, by the time you were 12, the first five books of the Bible, and then all of a sudden this man this this, this prophet, or is he the son of God comes around named Jesus and he dies and your friends and family said that they saw him after he rose from the dead and, and you're trying to discern, okay, so were we throwing out all of all of the old stuff? And is it all all new stuff? And so they're asking these questions, and the author of Hebrews is trying to take them on a journey to say, no, here's how we can properly understand this. Now.

Melchisedec is mentioned in Genesis and the story that we're hearing about Abraham is found in Genesis 14, we read after Abraham returned from defeating this long K word that I looked up and I just cannot pronounce the save my life and his allied kings, the king of Sodom came to greet him in the valley of Chavez, the Kings Valley Melchisedec, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine he was the priest of the High God and blessed him, Abraham, Abram, Blessed be Abram by the High God, Creator of heaven and earth, and bless be the high god who handed your enemies over to you. Abram gave him a 10th of all the recovered plunder. So that's the story when we You read in Hebrews this other passage when we're talking about Melchisedec, this is what they have in mind. Now, what's interesting is that the author of Hebrews went in and kind of made some extra statements if we're going back and not to give you whiplash here with your Bible, but if we go back to chapter seven, verse three of Hebrews, we see that there's no record of Melchisedec father or mother, the author of Hebrews says, There's no end or beginning to his life. And then he kind of just concludes that he remains a priest forever because of this. So it was an interpretation that the author of Hebrews and reading Genesis knowing Genesis makes us interpretation that Melchizedek is great. But then it was not just that, because we would get that Paul does that authors of the Gospels do that they kind of take from one another. So we get that but what makes this even more interesting is, you'll remember the first time we talked about Melchisedec. It was in chapter five. And it was quoting Psalm 110, which is about Jesus. And we read in Psalm 110, the Lord has taken an oath he will not break his vow, you referring to Jesus, or a priest forever, the order of Melchisedec.

So the author of Hebrews does Brainiac wants to convince his primarily Jewish audience that Jesus is the new and better high priest, and they do it by using the Hebrew Scriptures. All of these Jewish boys and girls are gathering together asking questions about Jesus would not have had the New Testament. They didn't have it. They had this letter, which would have been read out loud. And the author of Hebrews is making a plea and making an argument, a very sophisticated argument that Jesus is great by your own scripture. Because in your scripture, there's Melchisedec.

And you guys know he's great and amazing and superior. But then we read in Psalm 110, when God prophesize, about the coming Messiah, and says that she will be greater than Melchisedec. And that's who we have in Jesus. The author is making a pretty good case that Jesus is this new and better high priests. Using their scripture, he narrates a story, a theology of why Jesus is greater than Melchisedec. It isn't just Hey, fellas, take my word for it. That kind of bumper sticker theology, the Bible tells me so it's not that at all, he goes into a he or she, they they go into the tacks into Genesis And Psalm and they string together. Why logically, this makes sense. And then we continue reading in verse four.

Consider then how great this Melchisedec was. Even Abraham, the great patriarch of Israel recognize this by giving him a 10th of what he had taken in battle. Now the law of Moses required that the priests who are descendants of Levi must collect tithe from the rest of the people of Israel, who were also descendants of Abraham. But Melchisedec was not a descendant of Levi. He collected a tent from Abraham and Melchisedec placed a blessing upon Abraham, the one who had already received promises of God. And without question, the person who has the power to give a blessing is greater than the one who is blest. The priests who collect tithes are men who die. So Melchisedec is greater than they are because we're told that he lives on. In addition, we might even say that the leaves these Levites the ones who collect the tithe, paid a tithe to Melchizedek, when their ancestor Abraham paid a tithe to him. For all though Levi wasn't yet born, the seed from which he came, was in Abraham's body when Melchisedec collected the tithe.

The point here is pretty simple.

Remember, we talked last week, if you were Jewish boy or girl, man or woman, 2000 years ago, Abraham was one of the legends of faith. Yes, there's Moses.

And there's David. And there's names that come to mind. But don't forget father Abraham, in which all of us if you're Jewish come from and the author says, will remember that according to Levitical law, the entire community of Israel was told that you have to give a 10th a ties to the family of Levi, that's how they got paid as priest because they weren't out farming or doing this. So they needed income to eat and they were providing a religious a spiritual service for the community. And so they did that.

So the author of Hebrews says, okay, so you did this But Abraham actually ties to Melchisedec. And since Levi was Abraham's grandson, isn't that like Levi paid a tie to Melchisedec. So we have this example of how like people are supposed to tie to the Levi family, the Levi family, but at the Levi family was tied into Melchisedec. Well, that that means no to the deck is greater than Abraham. If there was, if that was a question in your mind, we've just established that Melchisedec is greater than Abraham. And we already established that Jesus was greater than Melchisedec.

What we've determined is that everyone is below Jesus, because Jesus is the greatest. That is what the author is arguing here was that Abraham, the grandpa of Levi, this whole special family in which people wanted to be born so they can be a priest of God, so they could experience God. We're told that Melchisedec was better. And Jesus is better off than that. And again, it wasn't take my word for it. It was a concise, logical argument, using biblical texts that they would have honored and were considered sacred to the original audience. And this all ties together because we're going to go more into this as you look ahead to Hebrew as you want to read where we're going to head next week, we're going to talk more about how Jesus is this new and better high priest now that the author of Hebrews finally feels like they've established that we're going to move on to more practical applications. But what do you and I do with this information, these 10 verses today? Well, as I said, when we misinterpret when we misunderstand biblical texts, we sometimes use the Bible, certain passages in the Bible to cancel out other biblical passages will elevate the passages that we like, up here, these are very important.

And then the ones maybe we don't like, or we don't understand what kind of just keep lowering them. I'm just gonna focus on these. But what we see from the author of Hebrews, is that whether it was Genesis, or Psalms, or this text in Hebrews, all of scripture is God breathed and inspired and useful for teaching us and learning and growing. And so to lose our religion as we've been saying, in every week of the series, how do we lose our religion to lose our religion means that we have to align our minds with the biblical texts because the biblical texts are God's word for humanity. And you and I, if you didn't know this, are part of humanity. Therefore, the Bible is God's word to us. No may not be written out. Dear Jeff, dear Briana, in Madison, Wisconsin. 2021. Here's, you know, ya know, you're ever in this situation at work, here's what you should do. It's not quite that specific, it'd be great if it was it is not, but rather we read in God's word, this Old and New Testament, God's will for humanity, again, to which you are a part of. And so we do we expect to hear from God, we want to hear from God and how we begin to hear from God, as by reading the biblical text and understanding it as the original author's meant. And a lot of times we don't, it's so popular, kills me sometimes How popular is we can find a Bible verse for anything for any situation to justify your beliefs about anything, anything. And that's not at all that's weaponizing the scriptures and we're not supposed to weaponize the scriptures against one another.

We're supposed to ask what did the original author and 10 What did God when he was speaking through the original author intent for people? And how were they supposed to interpret it?

And so an idea I want you to capture is that scripture interprets scripture, Scripture doesn't cancel itself out. If there's ever a contradiction, or it seems like a contradiction in the Bible is probably our misunderstanding. We need to look at it. We look at other passages in Scripture to help us understand maybe what is going on here. Why doesn't this make sense to me? And I want to give a very practical application of how we can interpret and use scripture to interpret Scripture for a topic that is very sensitive, highly content, not contagious, but highly controversial in Western societies, and is a topic that was brought up in this very passage, so we're not even going far away. But let's talk about the ties because we read that Abraham ties to Melchisedec and again, we don't like talking about money. anywhere really, in the West, it's kind of personal, private. We definitely don't like talking about it here makes us nervous. And perhaps in your background, you have a church background you grew up in around the church, and the only time they ever talked about money was when they needed it.

And I want to tell you right now that our accounts are better than they were a year ago, they were better than they were two years ago. We are not having a hard time paying our bills. I don't want anything from you as a result of the conversation that we're going to have in the next five minutes. If you're watching or listening online. I don't want anything from you.

Honestly, I'm setting this up because it's something that we want for you. And it's something that we believe God wants for you. And so I just want to put that out that this isn't meant to be manipulative, but let's talk should we or should we not ties? Are there circumstances in which you shouldn't tie there that you don't have to ties?

Well, let's look at it using the interpretive process. First, we read in Genesis that Abraham gave a tithe to Melchizedek. So in the very first book of the Bible, we actually see somebody tithing before God has ever told anybody to Ty's interesting, somebody is tithing before we ever read that you are supposed to. But then it does get explicit, we read that the people of God were instructed in numbers 1821 26 to 29, that they were to give 1/10 of whatever they made to the Levitical priest. Now, they were an agricultural society. So sometimes I would be currency, little gold, little silver, whatever it might be. And other times it might have been 1/10 of your harvest. If that was your currency, you trade it in corn or beans or whatever else they were growing in the Middle East.

It could have been animals from your livestock cattle. But whatever it was, we were told that they are to give 1/10 of what they have, it was the currency of their time that they made. And this is not to be confused with the sacrifices they made for their sins. Okay, so there was the tithe, we give 1/10 of whatever we have to the priests, but then there was also an extra sacrifice to make me right with God. Now this goes on for 1000s of years, you can keep reading on and off that people are tithing and that's going on.

But we do get to the point where we get to Malikai. And we read that the community has stopped.

They're not tithing anymore.

Maybe God doesn't care. Right?

Maybe we can stop there are circumstances in which we don't need to Malikai rebukes people for doing that. Actually, God speaks through Malikai to the people and rebukes them actually calls it theft. He says you God says you are stealing from me.

When you keep 1/10. When you don't tithe you are stealing from me. And on the flip side, little interesting for you. The only time in the Bible you are allowed to test God is when it comes to giving. Testing God.

We're told all over the Bible talks about good interpretation.

All over the Bible. We're told you're not supposed to test God.

But we're told the Malika that you can test God when it comes to your finances when it comes to tie then what's that mean?

Tithing is the exception to testing God. God says, Go ahead, dare me. Well, maybe this was just an Old Testament thing.

Right? The Old Testament and author of Hebrews is saying that we're not under the Levitical law. And so that certainly that doesn't mean tithing. Maybe Matthew 23, verses 23 to 24.

Matthew 23:23–24

Jesus commands, he actually complements the Pharisees. Did you know that was in the Bible?

He complements them, because they were tithing. He says you should ties. It's not the most important thing Jesus goes on to say he says things like loving justice and mercy. Those are greater. But he says, You Ty's awesome. And then in Acts, we see that people are selling all of their possessions and giving everything to the local church, they're selling their cars, their houses, okay? They didn't have cars, but they're selling what they have, and giving it to the community. And so when we look at the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, Old Covenant to New Covenant, before Jesus, during Jesus, after Jesus, we can include conclude safely, that the Bible consistently teaches the people of God. And if you're watching or listening online, or you're in the room, and you're like, I'm not a Christian, I don't I don't have faith, or I don't know what I believe you're off the hook.

Great, because this is specifically for the people of God, that we could conclude we're supposed to give anywhere from 1/10 of what we make to 100%. That's kind of the biblical mandate. See an X they're given 100% We see in other places they're giving 10% We're not told that anything in between is is wrong. We're just this is it. This is and it was given to the local church, whether that was back in the Levites day and they're giving it to their local priests, or an X they were giving it to their local congregation if they were in Jerusalem, or they were in Greece. There were some Where else are in we see in Jesus's time there at the local temple, bring in their tithe. And so we're taught from 1/10 to 100%, we bring it to the local church.

And there is no biblical exception to giving back to God, it just doesn't show up in the Old Testament, New Testament, He doesn't say, you can give once you make a six figure salary you can give, once you pay all your debt off, you can pay once you feel secure about it, or, you know, if you don't feel like at this time or the new, you know, you got a chance to buy PlayStation five, like, you know, holla, you gotta get that we're not we don't read anywhere that there's an exception to this now, will your financial advisor agree with me right now?

Probably not. I'm assuming that they're maybe not a believer.

But if your financial advisor is a believer, and they've come and studied this themselves, I think that they would agree with me.

And I think that the lesson is, when we talk, even going back into Malikai, and talking about a good interpretation. You want to keep 100%? And maybe have God saying you're stealing from me?

Or do you want to have 90%? And have God say, watch what I'm about to do? I'm going to open up have it. Now, does that mean that you shouldn't be generous to nonprofits? Like we talked about Project rescue specialists? No, go ahead. Do it. That's awesome. What we see in the interpretive process here is that God asked, 1/10 be returned to the local church and then 90% What you do with the rest of it, you have a lot of discretion. There's other passages in the Bible. Now, let's contrast this biblical process with eating of meat. You might recall in Leviticus that there were a lot of things that Jews could not eat, like pork and some types of fish. They weren't allowed to eat it. It was against liberal political law. And then we read an axe that Peter has a dream after he has not been eating with Gentiles. The Gentiles are eating pork, they're, you know, they got bacon, everything bacon shakes, bacon, you know, everything and, and Peter's not eating with them. Paul kind of calls him out for that says, hey, you shouldn't be like that.

But you know, Peters, a good Jewish boy. He's like, No, this is what's in Levitical law, we can't do this. And then Peter has a dream, in which he sees all of these animals he's not supposed to eat. I mean, all of them. And God says, Go ahead, Pete. Dig in. Try the ribs.

gonna blow your mind. There's a different example. Then. We see in the New Testament, then we're talking about the interpretive process. We're back in the Old Testament, the Old Covenant, you're not allowed to eat these foods, but then we see God come back and say no, actually, now you can. So there will be situations in which you're like, Well wait is it was wrong in the Old Testament, but it's okay.

Now, something like tithing just happened to be consistent, something like meat ended up changing. And so I think it may not be tithing for you. That was just the example I was in Hebrews. It's easy to flow into.

But as you read the biblical text, what area of your life?

Have you may be misinterpreted?

Or maybe are intentionally not interpreting? What part of your life do you need to align with God's Word with God's will for humanity? Because again, you're a part of humanity. What part of it? Do you need to die to yourself and submit to God? Is it with your finances? Or is it with your relationship? Your relationships? Is it with your work, your career, your vocation? Is it something with your attitude, a discipline, lack of discipline? But as we read the text, not just Hebrews, or if you're in our revelation group, not just in Revelation, but as we read the text, and we say scripture interprets scripture, and we look for God to speak to us. If we really want to lose our religion. Then we come to the biblical text and we say, Not my will, but Your will. And God help me to understand that