The Name of God - Yahweh

This week we looked at one of the names of God in Hebrew, which is Yahweh. It means “He Who Shall Be” (i am who i am).
In the readings, Jews read the word “Lord” as “Adonai” out of respect for the name of God and the commandment not to take the word of God in vain.
We read the word as "LORD" in all caps.

We started by looking at Exodus 3, where God has just commanded Moses to go to Egypt and to bring his people Israel out of captivity. Moses then asks God what his name is.

13. But, said Moses to God, "when I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' if they ask me, 'What is his name?' what am I to tell them?" 14. God replied, "I am who I am." Then he added, "This is what you shall tell the Israelites: I AM sent me to you." 15. God spoke further to Moses, "Thus shall you say to the Israelites: The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. "This is my name forever; this is my title for all generations

Here God uses the 1st person (I) form, but it gives us the basis for understanding that his character and purpose is bound up in His name. The Hebrew for ‘I am who I am’ is ‘Ehyer asher Ehyeh’ - Yahweh is the 3rd person (he) form and its use in Exodus 34 helps us understand its meaning.

We looked at Exodus 33, in which we discussed God's glory. Moses pleads for God to forgive the people, and asks to see his glory. He wanted to see who God really was, but he asks for too much.

17 And the Lord said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.”
18 Moses said, “Please show me your glory.”
19 And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.
20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.”
21 And the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock.
22 and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by.
23 Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”

Look at Ch 34 where God proclaims his Glory and uses the expression “the LORD, the LORD God – which in the Hebrew is “Yahweh, Yahweh Elohim”. This can be translated along the lines of ‘He will be who He will be in a multitude of mighty ones’ and gives us the understanding that God’s name, character and glory will be fully shown when there is a multitude who live by His name displaying His character in their lives.

God's glory will be seen in full when the kingdom comes.

The Name Of God - Shaddai

ok i'm really sorry but i didnt take any notes, so this is all from a bad memory.

We started off by looking at John 1v1 and how other religions thought that it meant that Jesus was God here, and we went to v14 where it says 'The Word became flesh' which shows Jesus is the manifestation of God's word.

Ruth 1v21 'I went out full and the LORD hath brought me home again empty: why then call me Naomi, seeing the LORD hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me?'
We looked at this verse because it had the mention of 'the Almighty' adn it was such a great way to describe God - The Almighty, and the english of Shaddai is 'Almighty'


Then we looked at Deuteronomy 12 v 3 +4. '3.And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place. 4. Ye shall not do so unto the LORD your God.' Which was showing that there was only one God, and all the wooden images (Asherim) will be struck down with fire.

Also we said that Yahweh meant - I will be who i will be


our homework was to find the last use of the word Shaddai and say what we think it means and what it says about it.

my comment:
Revelation 21:22 'And i saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the lamb'
i think what it is saying here is that ther was no temple because the temple is Shaddai.

The Eunuch by Philip

Last week (Jan 11th 09) we looked at Baptism: John, Jesus and the Apostles. No-one really took any notes as far as I know, but Eilidh took a few at the start so I've put them in this blog.

We went round the table saying what baptism meant:

-Under the water - total immersion

-Symbolic of death and resurrection

-Baptism in order to be saved

-Cleansing of sins

-Need for repentance

The first recorded baptism was the crossing of the Red Sea in Exodus 14. We know this was a baptism because 1 Cor 10 says 'For I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea...'

The first literal baptism is Matt 3:6 'and they were baptised by him (John) in the river Jordan, confessing their sins'.



So... this week we were told to look at the eunuch by Philip (Acts 8) and it seems I'm first so I'm starting off the blog.
It was only after I was looking at the online version of Acts 8 that I realised my Bible (an ESV) had missed out verse 37 - 'And Philip said, "If you believe with all your heart, you may." And he replied, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God." ' and then the eunuch was baptised. He was obviously a religious man because he'd come all the way from Ethiopia to worship at Jerusalem (verse26) and once he'd understood all the fundamentals he asked to be baptised, he knew it was the right thing to do. --I guess it shows that we don't have to know (or can't ever know) the Bible inside out because no-one ever could.

(sorry - just got distracted by a site i just found http://www.ondoctrine.com/10chdelp.htm - what??!)

The Transfiguration (21/12/08)

Sorry for being a little bit late...





The Transfiguration is obviously important - it's in three of the gospels (Matthew 16/17, Mark 9, Luke 9). It's some form of future event, a future vision. From 30AD - day of coming.



Jesus, Peter, James and John his brother had been around Caesarea-Philippia (north of Galilee, by Dan) and six days later Jesus led them up a high mountain by themselves. There are a few possible locations of this mountain - Mt. Hermon (north of Caesarea-Philippi), Mt. Tabor (near Nazareth) or J.Jarmuk (halfway between the two mountains i just mentioned). These are the three that my bible map tells me, but we also thought about Mt. Nebo which is near the Dead Sea.

In Deuteronomy 34, Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mt. Nebo, to the top of Pisgah and the Lord showed him all the land, Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali, Ephraim & Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the western sea, the Negeb, and the Plain (the Valley of Jericho), as far as Zoar. Moses was being shown the land but was not allowed in. (v4 - And the Lord said to him "This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac and to Jacob, 'I will give it to your offspring.' I have let you see it with your eyes but you shall not go over there." )

In 2 Kings 2 it's the last recorded public activity of Elijah. v8 of the chapter is crossing the Jordan, v11 shows they have gone on from there and Elijah is taken from Elisha. That's the region (the land just north of the Dead Sea) where Moses & Elijah were both around at the end of their ministry - and Jesus was there at a potential end of his ministry. Jesus was looking forward, seeing when he is King. This transfiguration was to galvanise (sp?) Jesus to keep going forward - he had his crucifixion coming - to give him courage and strength, and reassurance.

We looked at references for Matt 17:2 - about Jesus' face shining, white clothes, all links with the Kingdom. Rev 1:16 'In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength')
and also Rev 10:1 - 'Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven, wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow over his head, and his face was like the sun, and his legs like pillars of fire'.
Also for the white clothes - Dan 7:9 'As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took his seat; his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery flames; its wheels were burning fire.'

2 Peter 1:16-18
'16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 For when we received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased," 18 we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.'
This could be either Jesus' baptism or the transfiguration - however; at the time of his baptism Peter, Jame & John weren't disciples. Jesus was not in his Majesty during his life, as far as the people were concerned.

We should look at the two other gospel records of the transfiguration, there are some different details.

14th December - More on the Twelve Tribes

Yeah I'm really sorry - you'll know I'm pants at keeping things up-to-date by now!

So. Sunday.

We started off looking at the answers to some of the questions Jamie asked in his last post:

The first one was about when the Assyrians came down and took the Northern kingdom into exile, and what about the other tribes?

Well, looking at 2 Chron 11:16, "And after them out of all the tribes of Israel such as set their hearts to seek the LORD God of Israel came to Jerusalem, to sacrifice unto the LORD God of their fathers." , we find that the the tribes who were faithful to the real God, the LORD God of Israel, came down into Judah to worship at the proper place - Jerusalem, capital of Judah. We find out who those tribes were in 2 Chron 30, when Hezekiah (a good king) is calling for all the faithful tribes to come down and serve at the temple for the Passover. (v8,9 - "Now be ye not stiffnecked, as your fathers were, but yield yourselves unto the LORD, and enter into his sanctuary, which he hath sanctified for ever: and serve the LORD your God, that the fierceness of his wrath may turn away from you. For if ye turn again unto the LORD, your brethren and your children shall find compassion before them that lead them captive, so that they shall come again into this land: for the LORD your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away his face from you, if ye return unto him.") We see then that it really is a plea for the faithful to not just come down for the Passover, but to come down for good. In v11 we find out who responded to this call - "11 Nevertheless some from Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem" along with the tribes already in Judah.

Hope that helped!

Next question Jamie'd asked was whether there were 14 tribes - different lists missed out and included different tribes...! So we looked up all the lists of the tribes we could find, and put all alongside each other in a spreadsheet. I've copied it so you can see our big list. Hm ok I haven't - copying it didnt work. I have no idea how to attach it... aha hold on: I THINK it's worked... (thanks to Kirsty for filling it all in by the way!). Yeah I'm pretty sure there aren't 14 tribes, but guys I really need your help figuring out what we're supposed to get from this! Sorry Uncle Norman, I'm um floundering here..! My excuse? I was kind of coming down with the whole bug thing that morning... and was kind of sleepy, and hadn't been there last lesson. So come one guys, help!

Ok mum's helping me =P.

Right, so Kirsty - about the nine and half tribes when it lists 12, that was because 2 and half tribes (Reuben, Gad and half of Manasseh) decided not to live actually in the Promised Land - they stayed on the east side of the Jordan.

Yeah I'm sorry but I'm not sure what I'm meant to be doing - I hand over to you guys - please please help!

The Twelve Tribes of Isreal - Genesis 49

So this week we looked at the twelve tribes of Israel.

These were: Reuben, Simeon, Judah, Zebulan, Isaachar, Dan, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Benjamin, Ephraim and Manasseh.

Firstly we talked about Ephraim and Manasseh, and how Ephraim was given the firstborn even though he was the second son(Gen 48 v 8 - 20) The tribe of Ephraim became the largest of all the tribes.

It's interesting that there's slight differences in some places, concerning the tribes. The 12 sons of Israel were the original 12 tribes. Reuben lost his rights as firstborn by defiling Jacob's bed(Gen 49 v 3-4) In Reuben and Joseph's place, Joseph’s two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, became tribes of Israel(Gen 48 v 5-6) In some other lists of the twelve tribes of Israel, Levi is not mentioned, presumably because the Levites were told to serve at the temple and therefore were not given any land of their own in Israel.
At this point we looked at Exodus 32, where we see the Levites loyalty towards God, in which they were rewarded with the spiritual service lost at that time by the firstborn of the other tribes.

We also briefly looked at the lost tribes of Israel. After Solomon's death, the Hebrew nation split into two kingdoms. The tribe of Judah, Simeon, Levi and Benjamin formed the Southern Kingdom, and the other tribes made up the Northern Kingdom of Israel. The Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom and sent the tribes into Exile, so what happened to these tribes? Anyone know?

At the end of class we looked at another list of the twelve tribes, in which Joseph is listed as a tribe, along with his son Manasseh. Ephraim and Dan are both missing from the list.
Every list in the Bible contains Simeon, Judah, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Manasseh, Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin. To add to those nine tribes, there were Ephraim, Reuben, Joseph, Dan, and Levi. So were there 14 tribes then?

It's an interesting topic, i would be interested to see what other people's opinions are on this.

Continue of Nehemiah and other discussion

well this week i found out i was doing the blog at the end of study group so i only got a few notes, but i rememebered most of it i think.





We started by taking a little about Nehemiah from last week, and how Nehemiah was so upset because Jerusalem' s wall was broken. Nehemiah 1 v 1-3 '1.The words of Nehemiah the son of Hacaliah. Now it happened in the month of Chislev in the twentieth year as i was in Susa the capital, 2. that Hanani one of my brother, came with certain men from Judah. And i asked them concerning the Jews who escaped, who had survived the exile, and concerning Jerusalem 3. And they said to me, "the remnant there in the provence who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. the wall of Jeruaslem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire." ' Nehemiah had the opportunity to go back to Babylon, he had a great life there, yet he stayed in Jerusalem. He was motivated to pull everything back together.

We were talking about the water cycle and how the seas were the nations, the sun was the knowledge of God which was the son Jesus. The clouds (top left) were the clouds of witnesses, which were all the people from Hebrews 11 which is about faith, those people will be in the Kingdom. Hebrews 12 v 1 'Therefore since we are surounded by so great cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.'

Then we went on to talk about Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel because it linked with the water cycle as we looked at the different nations and the timeline. We find out what Nebuchadnezzar is like as a person, in other books he is just known as King. In Daniel we get to see the personal side of him. Daniel chapter 4 was written by Nebuchadnezzar and we compared this to modern times, and it would just be like Saddam Hussein writing a book of the Bible (if he wasn't dead)

i couldn't really remember the rest of what we talked about, sorry.