My Bible training was clearly limited. I didn’t go to Bible school nor am I a professionally trained artist. There, all my secrets are out in the open. While I did take some classes, I never finished college. I preferred to say I graduated from the school of hard knocks and that I am self-taught.
The first part is true, but looking back I can see now that my training was through the Holy Spirit. God has brought really amazing teachers across my path, and I have been honored to sit under their teaching. I am richer for their impartation.
No Roots
I recently had the realization that the church seems to have been stripped of the depth of her heritage. Many don’t seem to consider that not only was Jesus God’s Son, but He was also born Jewish. Sometimes I think we believe that the church started on Pentecost. While the Holy Spirit did descend at that time, the church was based on Jewish Tradition and the majority of Jesus lovers were Jewish. These believers continued to honor and obeyed the Torah (God’s word), observed feast days, and respect their culture and heritage. Jesus wasn’t a rebel bent on creating a new religion. His goal and purpose was to reunite all things to the Father.
It’s been my goal to better understand the context of the culture and language of the Jewish people in an effort to appreciate what I’ve been grafted into. There always seems to be this tension between walking like Christ, slipping into Judaism (the law), or drifting off into my own best thinking. I believe it is possible to navigate this tension successfully if my focus is on Him.
For example, the other day I learned that the original languages of the Bible, Greek, and Hebrew, are profoundly complex pictorial languages with no numbers. So, when you want to write a number you have to use one or more of the letters. When we were kids, we would make up codes based on numbers so we could send secret messages to each other. Maybe you did this too. If you think about it, this seems similar to what God may have done with the Hebrew language. Each letter has a numeric value. In that, words and phrases can have the same value and thereby point to the same meaning – a secret code if you will? The mind-blowing thing for me is that when you begin to compare words with the same numerical value you begin to see their relationship to each other, and the message hidden within the text. I don’t pretend to understand it all and don’t have a desire to ride the groundswell of the Hebrew roots movement, but I’m pretty sure God is much more interesting and complex than we’ve ever thought possible. I really believe there is a secret code, and, to me, it looks like God has been trying to share deeper insight into His heart through word pictures from the beginning.
Some scientists argue that it was impossible for God to speak the world into existence because that theory doesn’t support the reality that life and creation are based in numbers and mathematical equations. We aren’t told exactly what God spoke, but if we remember that the letters have numerical values, it is completely possible that He spoke the math that created the life we are experiencing 😊
Rabbi Jason Sobel, in his book Mysteries of the Messiah, explains, The Bible often uses numbers in patterns, and there is significance to many of these patterns. For example, the first word of Genesis 1:1 is bereisheet, “in the beginning.” The first letter of bereisheet is bet, which has a numeric value of 2. Why is it significant that the first letter in the Bible has a numeric value of 2? Because God created the world in twos. He created heaven and earth. He created light and dark. He created day and night. He created the sun and the moon. He created the sea and dry ground. He created man and woman. The letter bet also represents blessing. Only when these two opposites come together is God’s blessing fully released. [Mysteries of the Messiah, Rabbi Jason Sobel 2021]
Yes, this is a book about art – sort of. My goal is to convey the process I use to get closer to the Father so that I can more accurately paint His heart. Just reading the last paragraph, I’m given a deeper understanding of the very first thing God ever said to us – God’s first recorded words to mankind. Imagine how much more there is to learn by studying this book in its original languages! I get excited knowing that it’s possible to get closer to God’s heart than I ever imagined. By taking the time to seek His original intent, huge missing chunks are revealed, and with that, more of His heart is uncovered. When I allow the Lord to fill in these gaps, I begin to shed doubt. I can see that the family I am grafted into has super deep and important roots and that, I too, have a deeper purpose.
Case in point, after a super rough draft of this book was done, the Holy Spirit impressed upon me that the meaning of the chapter numbers was going to be significant to its overall meaning. If we look at the number one in Hebrew, echad, we see that it refers to God being one. We know that God has three parts (also significant) but that ultimately, He is one. I was reminded of Jesus’ command to us and His prayer to the Father. This prayer asks the Father that we may be one just as the Father and Jesus are one. The goal, to love each other, being one with God and Jesus so that our witness points to the Father.
After the Temple was destroyed, many Jews replaced their daily Temple sacrifices with prayers. Instead of sacrifices, today many Jews now recite this prayer three times a day, Hear O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. My understanding is that in Jewish tradition, anytime something is repeated three times it’s considered to be the maximum. These scriptures speak to the same oneness, the same completion in the trinity, with us and with the Jewish people. All with the goal of projecting our unified front as our witness. Only when we are walking in oneness with Jesus, loving our brothers as our, Gentile, and Jew, can we expect that our witness will be seen by the world as coming from our Father. So, that’s where I’m coming from and where my art comes from. Does this new information raise any questions in you? It does for me!