I'm in the middle of a Messianic Jewish Bible study called “HaYesod” (Hebrew for “the foundation”). Just as the Bible is the foundation of our faith, the foundation of the Bible is the Torah. It is in this collection of the first five books of the Bible that Moses provides us with God's standards for righteous living, including the Ten Commandments.
I learned that the word “Torah” comes from a Hebrew root word which is basically an archery term meaning to “take aim or shoot”, as in shooting an arrow to hit the mark.
The opposite of “Torah” is “Chata” which means: “to miss” as in to miss the target or miss the mark. Chata is the Hebrew word most commonly translated as “sin” throughout the Bible – used almost 200 times in the Old Testament.
In Judges 20:16, a group of 700 men from the tribe of Benjamin (all left-handed) are described as being so accurate with their slings that “everyone could sling stones at a hair breadth and not miss”.
And in Romans 3:23, Paul uses the same word when he tell us that “all have sinned and fall short of the mark”.
ALL have missed the mark.
The Torah leads us to our mark, our target: to love God and keep His commandments.
So why do we keep missing the target?
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It has been a devastating week for our bloodstained nation. Mass shootings have sadly become a heartbreaking reality within the brokenness of America.
Shootings have become so commonplace that we have grown quite adept at identifying the root cause of each horrific event. Experts, in fact. Even before the bullet-ridden bodies have been removed from the crime scene, we've already herded our partisan sacred cows into their respective fences. Even before the carnage has been washed away, we are pointing our unstained fingers at the indisputable targets of blame:
- A Right Wing White Supremacist
- A Left Wing Anarchist
- An Illegal Immigrant
- A Rogue War Veteran
- A Desensitized “Gamer”
- A Hypersensitive Cyber-bullying Victim
- The Criminal Media
- Weak Gun Laws
- Not Enough Concealed Carriers
- Untreated Mental Illness
- Overtreated Mental Illness
- Conservative Intolerance
- Unlimited Liberal Tolerance
- Racism
- Bigotry
- Prejudice
- Unbelievers
- Zealots
- Poor Parenting
- Progressive Schools
- Trump
A never-ending cycle of blame.
But if each of us is pointing to the right target, then why does the violence continue to escalate? Why does the number of murdered innocents climb higher and higher? Why do the divisions within our country grow deeper and deeper?
Could it be that ALL of us are falling short? Might ALL our pointing fingers be missing the target?
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As Christians, our target should be the Kingdom of Heaven. To aim for anything else is sin.
Sin as old as mankind. Sin against mankind.
Sin against God.
Cain is still slaying Abel.
