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A Tried Bride

In Creation Gospel Workbook Five Volume Four (Bamidbar), students are challenged with the following exercise:

Draw a circle on a sheet of paper, but don’t close it. Inside write all the gifts, abilities, and characteristics that you KNOW are completely you. Don’t write what you’d like to be or do, but what you already know describes you. Let the circle sit for a few days or even weeks. Add or remove as necessary. It is okay to consult close friends or family who know you well. When you’re satisfied that what’s inside that circle describes what can be definitively known about you, close the circle.

This simple exercise helps us to explain the problem in the Torah portion Korach this week:

Therefore you and all your company are gathered together against the LORD; but as for Aaron, who is he that you grumble against him? (Nu 16:11)

The leading administrators from the tribes of Reuven and Levi became jealous and bitter against Moses and Aaron. They are influencers of their generation. Moses reminds them that they were each given important leadership roles and service in the Body of the their future Messiah, but for some reason they became angry with Adonai; however, Moses and Aaron were the physical scapegoats for their jealousy. Moses wants to know why they were picking on Aaron. Who was he but an assigned agent of the Holy One? Authority comes from Heaven, not personal ambition or the ability to influence people.

Aaron was a man walking in obedience to his gifts and calling; he was walking in the Way. When a disciple walks in The Way of obedience to Adonai, then he walks in a power of the Ruach HaKodesh that threatens the satan. Aaron was walking in the power of THE NAME. He was operating to the best of his ability in the gifts and abilities he’d been given to intercede for Israel. We saw his Divine gift early in the story when he met Moses and willingly interceded as a speaker for Moses when Moses was still struggling to walk in his own gift of administration…which he’d learned early in the house of Pharaoh, then abandoned for a time while he learned shepherding in the wilderness.

The simple circle warmup exercise above was taken from a rabbi who was teaching on confusion and doubt. It is better to inventory one’s strengths and weaknesses early in a journey than to leave the path littered with ill-fitting armor and unrealistic dreams. In this context, the exercise points out where Korach and his assembly, and we as well, covet and enter spaces and places not apportioned by HaShem.

Once the circle is closed, spend all your effort developing what’s inside it, never what is outside it. This is your portion. If something else will be added later, it will grow from what is inside the circle, not what is outside.

The warmup exercise of drawing the circle is a way of helping disciples avoid doubt and confusion as to their roles in the Body of Messiah, families, work, etc. Every disciple must build the “name” or reputation and deeds uniquely apportioned to him in this world. The writer of Proverbs acknowledges that a Godly balance is desired in the portion:

Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is my portion… (Pr 30:8)

The Father knows how to apportion His gifts to His children. He supplies food and water inside the circle, like the Garden of Eden. The difficulty for most of us is that we don’t want to close the circle. We want to keep our options open so we can be or have more or be responsible for less.

This brings us back to Shavuot and the story of Boaz and Ruth. Once Boaz realizes who Ruth is, he doesn’t react exactly as we’d expect him to. Yes, he invites her to his table, makes sure she gleans more with less effort, and she’s protected in his field. What he doesn’t do is lavish gifts or an all-expenses paid new home and car. Or donkey. He doesn’t woo her with expensive gifts. If he is such a close relative, and we know that from the first time he laid eyes on her he was attracted, why not roll out the red carpet?

Even as she sweats to glean in his field, Boaz and the whole city know this about Ruth’s name, her reputation:

“Now, my daughter, do not fear. I will do for you whatever you ask, for all my people in the city know that you are a woman of excellence.” (Ru 3:11)

Boaz wants to see if she would be content with her portion. Having been Divinely guided to his field, would she be content in it and grow into maturity with him, or would she seek a faster way to the top outside his authority? Would she follow the reaping crowd to new fields? This was the testing of the future bride as the testing of the Bride in the wilderness.

Korach and the other leaders had the potential to build within their assigned positions. Had they applied the energy of coveting Aaron and Moses’ positions into developing their own, imagine what a blessing they would have been to Israel. They failed the test of the Tenth Word:

Tenth Commandment (Exodus 20:17) You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, nor his wife, his man-servant, his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is your neighbor’s [in order to steal it].

Boaz tried Ruth to see if she had any residue of covetousness, a rebellion against her portion. And then, Boaz demonstrates he also follows the principle of authority by refusing to “steal” Ruth from a man who had a stronger legal claim to her and the property:

“Now it is true I am a close relative; however, there is a relative closer than I. Remain this night, and when morning comes, if he will redeem you, good; let him redeem you. But if he does not wish to redeem you, then I will redeem you, as the LORD lives. Lie down until morning.” (Ru 3:12-13)

And Ruth waited for the result. Boaz would do what she couldn’t. Yes, working within one’s circle takes longer, but the result is less confusion and doubt in the Body and Bride of Messiah.

Today we struggle with so many people who are adept with technology beyond their sense of responsibility to the Body of Messiah. They are called “influencers,” and they love to gather a crowd. Because the goal is to influence and gather, not to build and gather, they daily subvert the work of local congregations.

Those congregations provide face-to-face opportunities to explore the Word, an opportunity to follow the model of Yeshua by physically attending a congregation each Shabbat, and by gathering at the feasts. The local leadership knows the sheep by name and reputation: when they hurt, when they need help, and when they triumph.

?They are not driven by a single doctrine, which often contributes to feelings of self-righteousness among those crowded around the influencer. The local pastor or rabbi wants to build and feed the flock on healthy fields and pastures where they can grow within the circle of their portion on a balanced diet, not the Sugar-Pops of the latest “wow.”

Influencers gobble up “likes” and statements of affirmation. Some of them even thrive on negative feedback…I suppose they think negative attention is better than no attention. Attention is their food, a feeling of power. This is covetousness, not of a good gift, but often in order to steal the attention of the flock and plant “grumbles.” Coveting a good thing is a good thing, but not to the point we “steal” from someone else’s place in the Body:

And God has appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues. All are not apostles, are they? All are not prophets, are they? All are not teachers, are they? All are not workers of miracles, are they? All do not have gifts of healings, do they? All do not speak with tongues, do they? All do not interpret, do they? But earnestly desire the greater gifts. (1 Co 12:28–31)

Yes, desire the greater gifts, but allow them to grow out of the circle of gifts Adonai has placed within us. A greater gift must stand the test of the wilderness.

Influencers know how to gather a crowd, but the question is whose authority will they trample and steal to achieve their goals? How many flocks will they scatter?

The attention-gobblers might take a lesson from Korach and his band. The average Israelite may be left standing in doubt, but the Ruach HaKodesh is not confused. The single-doctrine attention-gobblers might even pull people with completely different agendas into the same demonstration or challenge to authority, but Korach’s family and the Reubenites, if successful in their power play, would have soon turned on each other. In the end, they both thought they deserved the authority. They certainly wouldn’t have shared it as they demanded Moses and Aaron do!

The Boaz and Ruth example shows us the discipline of hard work and patience that establishes a spiritual legacy passed on to children. We can be gobbled up by the wilderness, or we can diligently serve the community in the wilderness so that we become a community in the Land of Promise.

A tried Bride.

Circle closed.