The Amidah: Approaching God as King and Provider

For the next few months, we will be exploring all the places where the Amidah, also known as The Eighteen, or standing prayers, show up in the New Testament, but first I want to give the context of what these prayers meant in the ancient world. To begin, I happened upon a realization last week that has changed everything for me even though I have been praying them for some time now.

It started with a strange dream about my going back to school – I had a class schedule and from 6:30 to 7:30 three nights a week I saw that I had “music lessons.” That was it, with no accompanying description. So, I went to my bookshelf that first night and grabbed Mowinckel’s Psalms in Israel’s Worship. Decided to read it from the beginning this time and not just pick and choose chapters. The first chapter had a special note that about knocked me over:

In Hebrew, the Psalms are called Tehillim – and Tehillim is derived from the word hillel, meaning:

“the utterance of shouts of joy and exultation arising from an overwhelming feeling of exaltation and strength and pride….implies shouting in honor of somebody.” pg 219 Note:1 (emphasis mine)

The Psalms were an integral part of Israel’s prayer book, incorporated into the Temple service and quoted prolifically in both the liturgical prayers and rituals during the first and second Temple times. The Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls bear witness to the usage of these Psalms in the Temple on specific days and at specific festivals, as do other contemporary writings. It is only in relatively modern times that both Jewish and Christian scholars removed the Psalms from this context with subtitles such as, “Composed by David after his adultery with Bathsheba” when we find no such ancient associations. Indeed, it became a popular pastime to try and guess which Psalms were written by who and what life event to match them up with, as opposed to viewing them with regards to the Temple and its services. But these associations are not in the original text; they are really just legends created by scholars.

That being said, I looked once again at the Amidah prayers with new eyes based on Mowinckel’s note.

Psalms – uttered as shouts of joy, exultation combined with feelings of strength and pride – in honor of God. This clearly fits in with the ancient honor/shame culture of Scriptural times – when honoring a God or a King meant to lavish them with praise for their excellence; laud their achievements; proclaim the height and breadth and depth of their authority. It also meant to present all one’s petitions at their feet as though they and they alone had the ability to open their hand and supply every need.

This is the essence of the patron/client context of the ancient world – where money meant nothing compared to prestige, and money would be freely spent to purchase greater levels of renown. Let me explain:

In the first century (probably back to the dawn of time, really), those who were in need – be they artisans or farmers, people seeking appointment to office or alms – would gather in the courtyard of a great house and petition the lord or lady of that house to supply their need. The great lord or lady was called a patron, or a benefactor, and they graciously extended their hand to meet the need of the petitioner, called a client. Although this was a gift given freely (no I am not making this language up), it was universally understood that the person who received that gift was expected to give back to their benefactor. The artist would dedicate their works; the farmer would return the blessing with food for their sponsor’s table; the man who received a good word and who was placed into a position of authority used it for the benefit of the patron; the beggar did what all of them were expected to do – proclaim the glory and increase the good reputation of the great man or woman who had met their need. In return, the patron, seeing that his gift had not been met with ingratitude, would be very pleased to meet another need in the future and the cycle would continue. This relationship had a name – charis – and in the Epistles of Paul, that is the word translated as grace.

Paul used this specific cultural relationship to explain our mutual relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Messiah Yeshua (Jesus). In it, he described what Jews already knew- God, and God alone is our great patron and Yeshua the Divine Mediator between God and man. The prayers of the Temple and synagogue are spoken in the language and tone of grateful petitioners before their Patron King, Creator of Heaven and Earth and all that is in them, Author of Life, Salvation, Redemption, Forgiveness and All That Is Good. Like the Herald in a royal court, the prayers first address the Patron Sovereign in adoration, and then the audience shifts and the worshipper starts addressing all of Creation, and then turns attention back again to address the Master. I am going to borrow some text from chabad.org to show you what happens in the prayers and how it reflects the honor and royalty of our Great God and King:

As in a true royal court, the petitioner steps forward into the presence of the King and then bends the knee and bows as he proclaims:

Blessed are You, L-rd our G‑d and G‑d of our fathers, G‑d of Abraham, G‑d of Isaac and G‑d of Jacob, the great, mighty and awesome G‑d, exalted G‑d, who bestows bountiful kindness, who creates all things, who remembers the piety of the Patriarchs, and who, in love, brings a redeemer to their children’s children, for the sake of His Name.

He bends the knee and bows again as he says:

O King, (You are) a helper, a savior, and a shield. Blessed are You L-rd, Shield of Abraham.

You are mighty forever, my L-rd; You resurrect the dead; You are powerful to save.

This would happen in courtyards all over the world in ancient times as people drew near to pay tribute to their patrons in praise, for the sake of their honor. Now watch the intended audience change to humanity and all of Creation:

He sustains the living with loving kindness, resurrects the dead with great mercy, supports the falling, heals the sick, releases the bound, and fulfills His trust to those who sleep in the dust.

This would also happen in the ancient world – those who received patronage wouldn’t just thank and praise their patron, they would tell everyone about the patron’s greatness and generosity. Again, the audience shifts back to God in adoration:

Who is like You, mighty One! And who can be compared to You, King, who brings death and restores life, and causes deliverance to spring forth!

The prayers, all eighteen sections, go back and forth like this during the Feast liturgies as the Nation gathers to pay tribute to our God and King with one voice, in one accord – speaking to Him and to all Creation. Proclaiming the adoration of the one who has given us so much, speaking with absolute respect, and speaking those praises to the world as well. But there’s more:

After proclaiming faith in God’s abilities, generosity, and promises, we come before Him with every conceivable need that we, as an entire nation, have. We pray for all of us as one people – these are not selfish prayers, but selfless prayers for the common good. These petitions, far from being “gimme gimme” prayers, are proclamations straight out of Scripture of God’s promises and our request that He act on our collective behalf. The Amidah, far from being a series of vain repetitions, acknowledges God as the One who controls absolutely everything – by coming to Him with all of our needs, we are saying that He is all we need. We have no need of other gods before Him, or beside Him. He is our all in all.

This was how one showed respect in the ancient world, and it was a good system – much superior to the one we have today where we so easily forget and walk away from those who been generous to us as soon as they annoy us, or because we can’t be bothered to thank them. The patron/client system was one of absolute loyalty – people in the ancient world would be ashamed not to give back to their benefactor. Not so with us, we feel entitled to take and take and take and so the Amidah seems foreign to us. We don’t know how to properly thank and treat even the mere men and women who have given much to us, and so we look at such prayers to God as excessive.

They aren’t excessive; we are simply stingy with our gratitude. I want you to think about that – because we are not stingy with our requests, just with our thankfulness. Is God our King? Do we treat Him with less attention than we would lavish on a celebrity or traveling dignitary? Can we praise Him too much? Can it be excessive to proclaim the truth about His attributes daily?

Tell me, would a King who hates “excessive” praise be surrounded with angels who cry out “Holy, holy, holy,” 24/7/365 forever? I am thinking the answer to that would be no – although really, how can one excessively praise God in the first place? Such a thing is impossible.

The Amidah and the New Testament I: Long Prayers and Vain Repetitions?

Is there any truth to the accusation that the liturgical prayers of the synagogues amount to the “vain repetitions” and long prayers” or, as other translations render it “many words” or “empty words” which we hear about in the New Testament?

Mark 12:38-40 And in his teaching he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

Matthew 6:5-13 “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you; they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

“And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this:

“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.”

These verses are often spoken in an attack against the Standing Prayers, the Amidah or Shemoneh Esrei (the Eighteen) that we still see today in Judaism. However, some translation problems and missing pieces of context are very troublesome in that regard. Have we been too quick to discount the prayers?

(1) First of all, I want to discuss the Matthew verses – especially the “do not heap up empty phrases like the Gentiles.” I chose the ESV because some other versions use the phrase “vain repetitions” instead. The word in Greek is βατταλογήσητε – meaning “to prattle” – which is itself defined as “to talk in an inconsequential way.” Older translations like the KJV say “vain repetitions” but we have a problem, because it is not supported by the word choice, nor the text and it is frankly ridiculous to presume that the translators were attacking all formalized prayer because, at the time, Protestants prayed out of formalized prayer books – just as Catholics and Jews did. No, the repetitions are not the problem – the vain nature of them is the problem.

It is possible that the KJV translators had an anti-semitic or anti-Catholic agenda here, and given the times, I would not be shocked if this was the case as they already showed their hands in their very selective translation of ekklesia negatively as synagogue and positively as church. These were, after all, men of their times as are all translators.

(2) What is being attacked here – the prayers themselves? No, the intentions and heart condition of the person who is praying! Don’t read over the caveats, “For a pretext” and “that they may be seen by others” and the implication that they are only praying when in public – that when alone in their room they do not pray and would not bother to pray if alone. Someone who is truly devoted will pray whether they are at the synagogue or home alone.

(3) Are the phrases in the prayer books (whether Jewish, Catholic or Protestant) “empty?” Well, if they are taken from Scripture the answer is “Absolutely not!” Having never actually prayed out of a Catholic prayerbook or the Protestant Common Book of Prayer, I can’t speak to those, and it is beside the point as well as off topic (please, please no diatribes against them in the comments), but I can speak to the Amidah.

There are no empty or careless words in the Amidah prayers – they are taken from Scripture, inspired by Scripture, and repeat the promises and admonishments of Scripture. The Amidah Prayers pretty much speaking God’s own words right back to Him in praise and petition.

(4) The Amidah prayers are spoken silently, under the breath, and so no one should be able to make a show of praying them – that’s the point of them, they are private, and yet corporate, all at once. No extra points for sounding super spiritual and emotional while praying.

(5) The “Lord’s Prayer” is, in and of itself, a short version of the Amidah, the Standing Prayer. It would have provided a way for the Am Ha’aretz to pray three times a day without reciting the entire long version of the prayer – and quite possibly getting into trouble at work because many Jews in those days were slaves. If we are going to attack prayers that are by their very format repetitive – we would naturally have to start with that one as more people repeat that prayer than any other in the Judeo-Christian world. If we hold that prayer to the same standards that have been used against the Amidah – then we can’t pray it in public, or with others, or in our assemblies – in fact, we can only legalistically do it alone in a room with the door closed. Do we truly think that Yeshua (Jesus) was telling people to only pray that prayer in a room alone with the doors closed or was He making a larger point here?

I submit that He was, in fact, making some grand statements –

“Don’t just prattle on and make God listen to it and think that because you are praying in an “organic” manner that God will hear you. God already knows what we are thinking – when we pray, it needs to be more about Him than about us.”

“There is a time for pouring out your heart to God and a time for acknowledging Him as King and God corporately (with one voice) and privately. Both are necessary to our spiritual life.”

“Don’t pray in order to look impressive, just don’t.”

“If you are only willing to pray when other people are around, well, that’s just messed up.”

Pornography and False Repentance

Yes, I am going there. I was a pornography addict from the ages of eight until twenty-nine when I came to Messiah, at which point I gave up all pornographic materials, struggled minute by minute in my thoughts for another four years before I was released from those. Then sadly, for about ten more years, although I would never watch or read anything even remotely sexual, I had an overactive fantasy life in my head during times of stress before vowing by the Name of YHVH never to consciously do it again – so yes, I do get to address this. Yom Kippur is almost upon us, and this is an important topic that plagues the Body of Messiah – especially those in the ministry.

If you have never heard my testimony, it is here.

A video presentation of this, plus some new material is available here.

My problem was very typical – partial repentance. Don’t get me wrong, the bonfire of all the porn in my Idaho backyard took enormous willpower and a love for what is right. What I didn’t have was enough love to give up the most potent form of porn, the fantasy life. Honestly, I felt that I deserved to experience that rush of emotions, the endorphin drugged state that any porn inspires. This was about entitlement – it was always about entitlement. Make no mistake; pornography is the cheapest addiction there is – you need nothing except an active imagination, although generally, that isn’t enough. In my case, it had to be enough because I had no more willingness to look at the filth I had once wallowed in. I didn’t want God to be looking at it through my eyes. I convinced myself, however, that I had every right to feel those feelings when I was stressed out, or sad.

The worst part was the mental gymnastics I would go through to justify it beforehand, “I know this is wrong, and I will repent afterward, but I need this. I need to feel this right now.”

That right there is the difference between merely feeling guilt and having any intention of repenting. I had no intention of repenting! I sinned willingly, with forethought and self-justification – all the while knowing it was wrong and I simply planned to beg forgiveness later.

I felt guilty, but I wasn’t truly sorry because part of me felt entirely justified. I had no intention of turning away from it, I simply begged forgiveness and said I was sorry to alleviate my guilt. I didn’t love God enough or trust Him enough to believe that I could live without that perversion running around in my head from time to time.

Make no mistake – there is more false repentance associated with pornography addiction than with any other sin. People want to be free from the guilt and torment, but not from the pleasure.

I don’t know what changed, but one day I did feel repentant – repentant but still too weak to resist on my own. I did my most drastic thing – I swore an oath by the Name of YHVH. It was the first time I had ever done such a thing – and at every point of temptation I had to ask myself, “Am I willing to drag His name through the mud and make it worthless just so that I can feel the endorphins?” Praise God, no, I was never willing to do that. I wasn’t willing to break the second commandment even though I had been willing, in my mind, to shred the prohibition against adultery. As time went by, I found that I really didn’t need those fantasies at all – I haven’t died from endorphin deprivation all these years later.

Whenever we do something, after justifying it to ourselves with the intention of repenting afterward, that is not repentance – that’s simply what we do in order to avoid the discomfort of feeling guilty. Really, not only is it self-deception, but it’s just a different sort of drug to make ourselves feel better. Do we want to justify gossiping, or holding a grudge, or whatever pet sin we have cloaked in “I have a right to do this because…” – we need to see it for what it is. Repenting afterward is nothing if we sinned with that plan of action in mind, just so we could feed our flesh, and experience something forbidden – true repentance means that we stop with the justification beforehand because it is a grave insult to God. Don’t get me wrong, that guilty feeling is usually a good thing – unless we shut it down or divert ourselves from having to deal with it. Then that guilt becomes a form of condemnation sending us deeper into sin – because we have been warned by the Spirit.

True repentance is hard. It is much easier to admit we were wrong and say sorry later after we did exactly what we wanted in the first place. Saying sorry is a small price to pay – and meaningless in this situation. Stopping, turning around and walking in a new direction is hard. Have you ever heard that it is easier to ask forgiveness than permission? Easy isn’t usually right, and oftentimes it is a presumptuous sin.

All that is to say, if you keep lapsing back into pornography, check out the validity of your repentance. Did you repent simply in order to make yourself feel better? If so, then the deep root of the problem is a focus on self, and I would wager it has its tendrils wrapped around every aspect of your life. I have never met an addict, myself included, who wasn’t self-absorbed – I still fight that. You have to be willing to deny yourself – pleasure, comfort, solace, excitement – and with women, generally the feelings of love and safety that we incorporate into the fantasies. We have to learn to sometimes be alone, sad and stressed out so that we can find and root out the real issues driving us towards the drug.

I am completely free now. It was difficult, nothing has ever been more difficult, but God helped me. I had to fight and fight but in the end, the self-control I exerted was met with divine help. It was worth it. He didn’t leave me to fight alone, but He didn’t sweep the issues away like magic either. Repentance and redemption are a team effort – but our repentance has to be more than a relief valve for well-earned guilt.

Rosh HaShanah and the Barren Woman

The period from Tishri 1 to Tishri 10, Rosh HaShanah (or Yom Teruah) to Yom haKippurim, is identified with the Coronation/Enthronement of God as King as well as with righteous judgment and enactments of vindication and restoration. We see this nowhere so beautifully as in the Scriptural readings of Rosh HaShanah; the stories of the birth and life of Sarah’s only child in Gen 21 and 22, and in the Haftarah reading of barren Hannah’s cries to the Lord and subsequent deliverance. Both of these rich histories contain God’s vindication of their honor, of Sarah’s before Hagar and Hannah’s in sight of the perennially fertile concubine Penninah in I Sam chapters 1 and 2.

These women and these particular children tell us the grand story of our King and how He works, not through those to whom the world would like to ascribe honor, but often in direct opposition to the world’s ideas about who is and is not blessed and worthy.

(Being barren myself, life in religious spheres was rather like one of Dante’s fictional levels of hell. People say insanely cruel things in ignorance – and sometimes even on purpose. I smile to myself now, however – all those years ago and even after the wonderful adoption of our sons, while enduring those comments – I had a dream that my husband and I would have 100 children, none of them biological. I wondered how it could happen even up until about a year ago, and now I minister to children from all over the world through books and videos. The world does not see as God sees.)

Women who have children often take it for granted that it is some automatic badge of God’s favor; yet what percentage of fertile women were mentioned in the Bible (associated with their children) by name, and how many barren women are called to our attention? Do we hear about the righteousness of David’s mother, do we even know her name? No. We do, however, all know the name of the woman who would be vindicated through the birth of the prophet who anointed him as king. Was it not barren Rachel’s son Joseph, and not Reuben, who saved his people?

Sarah, Rebekkah, Rachel, Samson’s mother (pretty sure her name was withheld to protect her virtue because dang, that boy..), Hannah, and Elizabeth – all were barren. These were women who are remembered and who gave birth after all hope was lost, and not to normal kids, but instead to amazing men of God. Only David’s wife Michael, out of all the women in Scripture, was cursed with barrenness after mocking her husband – whereas we see that Jezebel never had need of a fertility doctor, or Athaliah for that matter and she killed all of her children!

To drive the point home that more is not always desirable and that worldly standards of honor are relative and sometimes deceptive, take a look at the end of the Scripture reading in the portions about the birth of Isaac. In Genesis 22, we see the fecundity of Abraham’s brother Nahor in league with his wife and concubine. Together these three had twelve sons, only one being notable, but not for the usual reasons that a son is counted as notable. One of the sons became the father of the Matriarch Rebekkah. From Abraham sprang many great nations from relatively few, and from his brother Nahor sprang a granddaughter who would become Israel’s mother. I am confident that, given a choice, he and his wife would rather have given birth to a son who would be noted for more than siring a girl – times being what they were.

Is this to say that barren women are somehow superior to the fertile – certainly not, that would be silly – but I am saying that the actions of our King tell us that we cannot judge the value of a woman by whether or not she bears children young – or at all. The picture painted through these carefully chosen Scripture readings is larger than simply childbearing – this is about the fruit that a woman bears and the vindication that comes as a result of it. We will all be judged and will be rewarded according to what we produce, by the King who has written all of our actions in His Book of Remembrance. That of fruit can be generated in youth, for certain, but age is no barrier – sometimes the best first fruits come from a presumably barren and shameful tree.

A fertile woman might bear ten wretched children (just ask Haman), and a noble woman may produce only one, or none – as in the case of the prophetess Anna who was day by day at the Temple (Luke 2:36-38).

It is the desire of our flesh to look at whatever we have, whether it be a lot of kids, money, worldly success, popularity, etc., as a sign of God’s favor. The truest sign of God’s favor, however, is to be found in the good fruit He allows us and inspires and alters us to produce – starting on the inside. Without Him, there is no acceptable fruit. Sarah was probably barren for over 70 years, Rebekkah for 40 years, and so on and so on. I am sure they tried, but unlike the other women around them, they could not just place their faith in their flesh to produce that fruit. Make no mistake – finding out that we cannot place our faith in the flesh is a positive thing that few people in this life truly realize. We have been called to the same kind of life – we can’t just go through the motions in our flesh and call it good, no matter how amazing the result looks from the outside. To produce something excellent, we must see ourselves as barren trees in need of that divine intervention.

These women had to live by faith, and not by flesh – and they showed us the way. They had to wait on God’s timing and pruning to produce, not just ordinary fruit, but exceptional fruit. It is a model for every one of us, male and female; to produce something that is mature and good takes time and, generally, a lot of anguish. It won’t happen just because we want it to, or when we want it – impatient flesh is how you get an Ishmael or the forgotten children of Penninah, not an Isaac or a Samuel.