Man Enough–The book every man and woman in the church should read

This is the most important book I have ever read about Christian masculinity:

(My affiliate links for Amazon products are included in the post. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.)

“Being a man is not dependent on what one does; rather, a man is a man because he is made in the image of God. That’s it. Focusing masculinity on what a man does makes it something to be proved. Masculinity does not need to be proved; it needs to be affirmed. My fear is that this effort to challenge men to find the “wild man” has not produced the intended result. Rather than encouraging all men, it encouraged some men while emasculating and alienating others. In order for all men to be encouraged, a broader understanding of masculinity must be embraced — one that is found not in man himself but in the God in whose image he is created. It must not be separate from femininity, nor should it be positioned as superior to femininity. Rather, a true understanding of masculinity will be one that recognizes the complementary nature of the masculine and the feminine as reflections of the God from whom these characteristics derive their expression.”

“It is time to stop defining masculinity by what men do and start defining it by who men are. It is time to stop pushing men to fulfill a role and start focusing on helping men become human. Rather than focusing on making men breadwinners, warriors, or even better husbands, it is time to focus on encouraging men to be fully human and fully alive. If men can learn to be courageous — and not a “run into a burning house” courageous but a “be authentic about who you are” courageous — then men will be better husbands, better fathers, better coworkers, better neighbors, better friends. Better humans. Embodying characteristics such as vulnerability, integrity, gentleness, and courage will serve men far better in a changing world than forcing them to accept some predetermined role. Perhaps if we embrace the idea that there are many ways to be a man, men might be free.”

“Very few men will say, “I want to be known as a lamb.” But what does it say that Jesus was willing to be seen as a lamb? It seems he is redefining not only masculinity but strength as well. Jesus reveals that what we think is weak is actually strong. If we were to define masculinity by this Jesus, we would have to admit that masculine strength is not the ability to defeat one’s enemies with a show of raw power, but masculine strength that imitates the actions of Jesus is the willingness to lay down one’s life for another — including for the lives of one’s enemies. In a culture where men defend their honor, where they do not display weakness, where they are told to “grow some balls” the actions of Jesus are ludicrous. We’re not supposed to back down from our enemies. We don’t let them walk over us. We don’t go down without a fight. But Jesus inverts all of that and shows us that the way we’re to fight evil is not with fists but with outstretched arms of love. How different might masculinity look if it were modeled after the Lamb who was slain?”

“When we examine masculinity in light of Jesus, and particularly in light of the crucifixion, we see a masculinity that is willing to look weak, willing to be mocked, willing to be humiliated, and willing to be emasculated. This is one reason Paul said that preaching Christ crucified was “foolishness to Gentiles.” How could Jesus be a great man when he so clearly failed as a man according to the ideals of his day? How could he be all-powerful and yet be so clearly weak? Paul answers this way: “The foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.” Paul helps us see that in the kingdom of God, being powerless, tender, and vulnerable is not a sign of weakness but is paradoxically a prerequisite of strength.”

“When men fail to do the courageous work of admitting their limits, they too often turn into either shallow men who still believe their manhood is dependent on material success or bitter men who are looking for someone to blame for their failures. They are still running on the treadmill of trying to prove themselves, hoping to gain just a little ground. Insecure men, because of their failures, will be driven by a compulsion to make themselves appear superior to those around them, bolstering their bruised egos through racism, nationalism, sexism, and countless other -isms. Even religion becomes a means of superiority over others.”

“If we rediscover a costly, sacrificial discipleship that calls men to die and then initiates them into new life in Christ, we will see a resurgence of men in the church. Not chest-thumping, macho men, but men who are confident, vulnerable, teachable, humble, active in the world, and gentle with those around them. Men who are unafraid of conflict and resolute in their ways because they have laid down their desire to prove themselves, died to their natural inclinations, and risen united with Christ. Men who have heard the voice spoken over them: “You are an adopted son. You are man enough.”

It’s been ten days since I finished the book Man Enough: How Jesus Redefined Manhood (affiliate link) by Nate Pyle and I have to admit that it was one of the most profoundly moving and challenging experiences of my life. As a Bible teacher, woman, wife of thirty-one years, and the mother of two adult men I have had to seriously re-evaluate how I have contributed to the Catch-22 difficulties men face in conservative Western society and even more so in Western Christianity where men are repeatedly inundated with messages of what kind of man they are required to be in order to truly be “man enough” or “masculine enough” to represent Christ and the Church. And the most shocking thing to me was that although I have been teaching for many years how the Sermon on the Mount and the fruit of the Spirit would have looked feminine and wimpy during the first century, it had never occurred to me how stressful it is for men to live within this unbiblical space, effectively and cruelly wedged between the church and culture on one side and the Bible on the other. And I never saw how I was contributing to the problem when I was pushing cultural (as opposed to Biblical) hardline gender roles on men a decade ago.

Imagine being told to be meek, humble, forgiving, gentle, self-controlled, peaceful, loving, kind, non-violent, etc. in the Bible and then being told in popular Christian men’s conferences and books that if you obey these hard directives then you aren’t really a man? That Mister Rogers was a wimp instead of our best modern cultural example of what a Christian man should be in every way that counts? We are a church that has effectively told men that having a penis doesn’t really make them a man–despite using that same argument to prove that transgenders are still men. What’s up church? It’s a very convenient argument when we want to use it, and always to the detriment of the man it is aimed at.

Is the quiet man in the corner reading books, composing poetry, or playing the flute man enough? Is he a real man? Yeah, he is. Is the unmuscular man with fairer features than most also man enough? Absolutely. Is the man who hikes, hunts, fishes, does martial arts, works out, or goes to war more manly than men who don’t? Not a chance. God not only created man but created many different types of men–and most of them don’t look anything like the Avengers, Grizzly Adams, or Mr Universe. Honestly, over the last century, we have really entered into an alliance with the world in forcing a template onto men that very few can measure up to and none should be expected to. Men and women have collectively bullied both men and women based on external expectations that have nothing to do with morality or mature fruit and often stand as a direct contradiction to who and what we are individually called to as unique believers.

Romance novels, Hollywood movies, and High School locker rooms are the wrong places to learn about what makes a man a man. And they are even worse places for Christians to draw their expectations from. We need to give men a break and allow them to be the types of men whom God uniquely created–image-bearers of Himself, who is without physical appearance because He is spirit. It has never been about externals and sports and hobbies–it’s been about being good. A goodness that often stands at odds with what our society values and expects of a “real man.”

Really, it is just the same High School bullying we grew up with, benefitting and crushing the exact same groups. Nothing holy, righteous, or mature about it–just one more facet of friendship with the world.

All Quotes from:

Pyle, Nate Man Enough: How Jesus Redefined Masculinity, Zondervan, 2015

Episode 140: Avoiding ”Torah Terrorism”–a beginner’s guide to not destroying your witness (and your family)

When I wrote The Bridge: Crossing Over into the Fulness of Covenant Life, it was for the purpose of bringing people together who didn’t understand one another. On one hand, we had the burgeoning “Torah movement” of Christians who were discovering the delights of the Sabbath and Festivals, and the benefits of eating cleaner and on the other hand we had their families who were taught that this was legalistic. And no one was really behaving themselves or really listening and so people got needlessly angry and when people are angry, they are very likely to believe the worst about one another. And so they did–and we all forgot that we were saved at the Cross and not when we came to a certain level of knowledge. I gave a talk like this a couple of months back to an online group and I am recreating it from my notes today. My notes will be in the transcript at www.theancientbridge.com but it will not be the usual full transcript.

If you can’t see the podcast link, click here.

So, this is a bit different–no full transcript, I went from these notes and added a lot more so you might want to catch the actual podcast this time around.

I want to mostly talk about the problems with a lot of the teachings and propaganda and mantras and paradigms within the HRM and MJ that I see causing problems

One of the most important things is that people largely don’t read the Bible correctly—we look at what was happening in the Biblical accounts and see things as ideals instead of descriptions. But the Bible, and I was reading Sandra Richter’s The Epic of Eden the other day and she made the point that I absolutely agree with—the Bible isn’t endorsing or canonizing Hebrew or Jewish culture or any other culture. The Bible is critiquing all human culture and shows how God is leading us out of our own worldly kingdoms into His Kingdom. Biblical heroes are also often monsters. They do terrible things. We were never meant to make excuses for them—when we see bad behavior the Bible, being a wisdom text, is inviting and even demanding that we engage viscerally with the story. We aren’t supposed to read it and be unmoved. Sometimes we will be thrilled and at other times we will be utterly disgusted. We will have questions about things that outrage us with no answers given. According to Yeshua, Moses even gave laws that were basically allowances for evil—slavery, and patriarchy, and alternatives to wartime rape. And it’s okay to react to that and even grapple with it as Jacob grappled with the angel of the Lord. If we aren’t struggling with the text then we aren’t really reading it as it was written to its ancient Near Eastern audience. When people coming to Torah aren’t taught that–that Torah is wisdom literature designed to promote critical righteous thinking and to serve as really a training manual for Israel’s judges, it gets misused as a very black and white list of do’s and don’ts with no discernment allowed for when to make exceptions, when to place one instruction before another, when one even invalidates another. Obviously now we see that chattel slavery, which Moses allowed, goes specifically against the commandments to love neighbor and foreigner both. We keep pushing the envelope of love, and we look back with gratitude that the world has come so far from the brutality of the ancient Near Eastern world of Abraham, Moses, and David that a lot of these laws were very avant-garde when they were given in terms of protecting women and children and foreigners and the vulnerable, now horrify us because the Cross has changed how we view everything.
Everyone who has given their allegiance to Yahweh through His Son, no matter what name they call Him by, is our brother and sister. Period. Salvation is about allegiance, not about how much Torah we think is still in play.
If you wouldn’t be willing to die on a cross for someone, don’t be too keen to overturn their tables. Or engage in polemic with them—ie name-calling—because it meant something in those times that it doesn’t mean now. And overturning tables was a prophetic act that only applied to the Messiah, just FYI. When we do it, it’s usually just bad behavior.
Don’t forget your salvation—it’s easy when gaining knowledge (and not yet knowing how to figure out if it is true or not because Torah peeps dish out just as much nonsense as mainstream Christians, if not more) to forget what we know. And what we know is the very real experience of the New Creation, the very real changes in our lives, after we made that decision for Jesus. Although a lot of people scream and shout about not being saved by Torah, their words and actions are the opposite.
No one keeps Torah, some people just keep a few more commandments than other people. And Christians aren’t lawless, they keep more than half (58%) of what can currently be observed (42%). Your average “TO” keeps maybe 8% more. And, sadly, the mainstream Christians who are keeping that 58% are more likely to be keeping the weightier matters of the law than TO peeps. These are mantras—TO and lawless, which don’t apply to anyone. I have found that once people are aware of it, the gulf between us really radically decreases. The Hebrew Scriptures have multiple words for sin—and different levels. The lowest is chattat, meaning an oopsie. You had no idea you were sinning and it wasn’t on purpose, you aren’t in rebellion. The worst is pesha, high-handed rebellion, spit in God’s face while you are purposefully doing something He really hates, like oppressing people. I’ll talk about this more later but God really does differentiate through the Torah, Prophets, and Writings. All sins are not created equal.
Don’t get prideful about the easy stuff, like resting on the Sabbath and throwing the right parties, and eating cleaner. That’s why those aren’t included in the Matthew 25 separation of the Sheep and the Goats but caring for the vulnerable is the only criteria mentioned.
It is important to keep in mind what an image-bearer is and is not. An image-bearer is quite literally a representative of God’s character on earth—the language used actually makes us out to be the equivalent of ANE idols, tselem, which were supposed to be indwelt by the spirit of the deity it represented. The people saw the idol and they were supposed to remember that god or goddess. It’s the things we do in public that show people God’s character, right rulings, justice, righteousness, and generosity. Speaking of fruit—we have to be careful about zeal. Because holy and unholy zeal are juxtaposed in Galatians 5. When we make the grave mistake (and I think almost everyone does it) of neglecting the NT and focusing on the Torah, we can become dreadfully unbalanced and even violent in our speech, actions, and in our faces. And people can’t see the love we are to have for one another because it has been replaced by anger, and anger can grow the wrong kind of zeal. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and anything similar. I am warning you about these things—as I warned you before—that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The law is not against such things. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
The three-year tree requirement (lesson from the fruit tree). Learn, study, and keep your mouth shut. People who have recently made major shifts lack the understanding to rightly divide the new information they are getting. Being a Berean cannot be accomplished by listening to YouTube videos and just taking people’s word for things—if the Bereans had just taken Paul’s word for everything, they wouldn’t have bothered studying.
Anger at the church compromises our discernment and judgment. They aren’t wrong about everything and, in fact, they are right about most things. You know, we are blinded to what we are blinded about. God opens eyes. Folks get ridiculously frustrated just because they preach and people don’t believe them. It doesn’t work that way. One, we have to have credibility with the people we are talking to (or they will be stupid to just take our word for everything) and also, they have to be receptive when we do it, plus, we can’t be behaving like unloving jerks. Speaking the truth in love—it isn’t done with a club or a machete. Pro 28:9 Anyone who turns his ear away from hearing the law—even his prayer is detestable.–>this one gets abused a lot. Hardly anyone would turn their ear from hearing Torah—the only question is how much has a person been conditioned to believe is still in play. This isn’t about rebellion, it’s about blindness and goodness knows we are all blind.
Hebrew is not a unique language—it is very similar to many other languages of that region in antiquity. The idea of “returning to a pure tongue” is Rabbinic and much later than Biblical times. Also, Paleo-Hebrew isn’t a secret language, it’s a font like Times New Roman. This whole idea about the pictographs having meaning was created within the last hundred years because it took archaeologists a while to even figure out that it was Hebrew after they first found it in 1870 and at first they believed it was Phoenician. But the pictures were typical of the early origins of language and represented sounds and not concepts. This means that there are no ancient documents describing any such language, as the font went out of use in the 5^th century BCE when the Aramaic language came to be used.
Calendars and Names. I think there are five or six “Biblical calendars” out there. I know a guy who has actually preached all of them and has condemned as damned and stupid those on any other calendar than the one he is on right now. First, he was on Rabbinic, and then first-sliver, this is about ten years ago and he beat people to death with it. Then some folks preached dark moon conjunction to him and he was all over that and yelling at people. Then lunar Sabbath. Then the Jubilees calendar and now he is teaching Enoch calendar—and he isn’t the slightest bit humbled by how many times he has been “wrong.” He always thinks “Now I have got it!” And he is far from alone. Same thing with Names. I don’t even know how many names our floating along out there. And then there are people who will tell you that if you don’t say the Name exactly right, your prayers won’t be heard—but that’s right out of ancient magic beliefs, the idea that if you say the Name, just so, that you can control the god or goddess or demon and they have to hear and obey you. I have even heard it taught that if you are using Jesus that any miracles you receive are from the devil and not from God!
A lot of what is taught by the HRM and MJ is simply not true but is passionately held to as though it is Scripture and I have taught some of it myself. Hislop, genetic hierarchies, etc. patriarchy, Hebraic vs Greek vs ANE. C&E. Marriages in crisis because not honoring vows to love them when they haven’t changed. And so we get all these memes filled with urban legends, lies, and outright propaganda from nonsense books and teachings that get aimed at Christians over Christmas and Easter that aren’t founded in one iota of archaeological evidence. But people made a lot of money writing books that weren’t researched or documented or footnoted, and sometimes when there are footnotes, they just refer to other books with no footnotes. There’s a reason why the people who really seriously study don’t teach this sort of thing. And why so many ministries have quietly removed these teachings from their repertoire.
Pagan vs cultural. This is a biggie. There is a huge difference between something being idolatrous—which is actually bowing down to and serving another god, on purpose, and giving that god credit for the works of Yahweh—and something being simply cultural. Perfumed oil was placed on the head and feet of idols. It was also done to Yeshua—does that endorse paganism. The Egyptian tree of life was the acacia—does this mean that the paneling in the Holy of Holies and the Ark of the Covenant was pagan? For that matter, the Egyptians also had a portable shrine that looked a lot like the Ark. The ancient world also served their gods with sacrifices, unleavened bread, and hymn singing. Why were they also done for Yahweh? Because they are cultural ways of honoring the divine. It’s what you do with them that decides whether or not they are idolatrous.
Fake names—hurting and angering the Jewish community by pretending to be Jewish and behaving badly online and putting them in danger of being hated even more. There is nothing to be gained in denying who we were when we came to faith and putting on what amounts to airs. And it is a real point of contention with other Christians, who see it as ridiculous and cultish. Our identity is in Christ—if Apollos and Junia, of all people, didn’t change their names when they were named after a false god and goddess respectively, then why do we feel like we need to do it? We can have no greater identity than we have in Messiah. Took me a lot of years to learn that I wasn’t a second-class citizen and I even wrote a book about it, King, Kingdom Citizen.
Don’t call people unclean as an insult—we all have corpse impurity. And all it meant was that you couldn’t go within a certain distance of the Temple or a city. And unclean animals are only unclean as corpses and for food. We can ride them, have them as pets, and we can have pigs on the farm to deal with the trash and all that. Everything is clean for something or another. Clean just means in its proper place or proper state.
Bad scholarship. If you can’t ask questions then don’t listen to someone. If they won’t give you their sources then what they are telling you cannot be credited as truth. Just because something shocked you or gave you a warm feeling doesn’t make it correct—we’ve all been misled by our emotions and our body’s reactions to those emotions. It’s rarely the Holy Spirit endorsing something we hear.
Genealogies and pointless arguments—Titus 3:9 But avoid foolish debates, genealogies, quarrels, and disputes about the law, because they are unprofitable and worthless. 10 Reject a divisive person after a first and second warning.
Truth is that we need to be looking out for people more than we do. In congregations it is easier—we mustn’t dare be so afraid of confrontation that we are unwilling to have a pretty short leash on the people who are new. We need to remove this false idea that they are expected to produce ministerial fruit right away and that is very counter to how churches are traditionally run. You know, we love those new people because they are so excited and energetic, but they are also generally foolish. Not foolish meaning stupid but lacking wisdom and perspective. The OT definition of a fool is someone who doesn’t understand their place—and the place of a new student isn’t to go out trying to teach the world and that causes so many problems with people coming out of mainstream churches and into more of an awareness of Torah

Yom Kippur Basics

We are now heading into the last of the official Feasts for which I have not yet written a “basics” blog–Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year and since it is coming up next week (2020–September 27th at sundown through the 28th at sundown on the Rabbinic calendar this year–not on my husband’s birthday, like last year) it is high time to tackle it. As far as Yom Kippur goes, there are pretty much three main questions I get:

(1) Why do we need a day of atonement when Messiah already atoned for us?

(2) What does it mean to afflict ourselves, we can do it without fasting, right? What if I just promise to just sit around and feel really guilty about my sins?

(3) What if I can’t fast for medical reasons?

Before I answer those three questions I am going to post the “Yom Kippur” verses from the Torah.

29 “And it shall be a statute to you forever that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict yourselves and shall do no work, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you. 30 For on this day shall atonement be made for you to cleanse you. You shall be clean before the Lord from all your sins. 31 It is a Sabbath of solemn rest to you, and you shall afflict yourselves; it is a statute forever. (Lev 16 ESV)

26 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 27 “Now on the tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. It shall be for you a time of holy convocation, and you shall afflict yourselves and present a food offering to the Lord. 28 And you shall not do any work on that very day, for it is a Day of Atonement, to make atonement for you before the Lord your God. 29 For whoever is not afflicted on that very day shall be cut off from his people. 30 And whoever does any work on that very day, that person I will destroy from among his people. 31 You shall not do any work. It is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwelling places. 32 It shall be to you a Sabbath of solemn rest, and you shall afflict yourselves. On the ninth day of the month beginning at evening, from evening to evening shall you keep your Sabbath.” (Lev 23, ESV)

I obviously left out the verses pertaining to the Yom Kippur sacrifices/offerings because, well–no Temple. This is a basics blog–it deals with our responsibilities to God and one another and not the intricacies of the Yom Kippur sacrifices and their spiritual significance and all that. So, no scapegoats here.

Now that the preliminaries are over with, let’s get to the basics from the verses listed:

Statute forever. Tenth day of the seventh month. No work. A solemn rest. Afflict yourselves.

This day is spent in total fasting–no food, no water, no comforts, no entertainment. It is spent in prayer and petition and in recognition that we are only forgiven by the grace of God. This isn’t an earning of forgiveness, but an acknowledgment of God’s authority and goodness–it is true repentance as symbolized throughout the ages in the Biblical text. Even the Ninevites knew how to please God through fasting-centered repentance. We humble ourselves because He deserves for us to acknowledge how inadequate our witness is in the world–and by refusing to partake in the very blessings that are a gift we do not deserve. After two thousand years, there shouldn’t be any tribe or tongue that has not heard of the Savior, but there are so many unreached peoples that we ought to be ashamed of our lack of passion (and compassion) in this area. People are dying without Him while we argue about stupid stuff and eat three square meals a day and gorge ourselves on entertainment and comforts of all sorts. Folks have money for superfluous essential oils and Netflix but seemingly none for the needy. We have plenty of reason to repent and be humbled.

Of course, this commandment was written to people who were living under a constitutional theocracy–which means that they had God as their King, and He ruled according to the commandments given in the Torah (the five books of Moses: Genesis through Deuteronomy). This means they had no excuse whatsoever not to stop working, absolutely nothing barring them. They answered only to God and to the judges set up by Moses. By the first century, things were more complicated. So many Jews spread throughout the Roman Empire were slaves and their masters had absolute power over their life and death. They had not lived under a system that fully supported the celebration (yes, celebration) of Yom Kippur for many hundreds of years–except within the Holy Land. Likely those slaves kept neither Sabbath nor Yom Kippur nor the Feasts as they were commanded in Scripture. This was and is the consequence of living in Exile–which Moses warned the Israelites about during his own life–that they would be forced to live under the laws of other nations as part of their punishment. That they would be forced to serve masters other than God. Nehemiah 9 includes a prayer where this fact is lamented–that even living in the Land, they were not free.

And today we are in exile as well. We have restrictions on our lives because Messiah is not yet ruling and reigning here on earth. If He was then we could celebrate God’s festivals without restriction. That we have restrictions now is one of the reasons we mourn on Yom Kippur, and repent, and long for His return to us so that we can be fully commandment-keeping people in the world He created. So, just let me say that I know people sometimes have severe work restrictions and especially young people just starting out with no vacation (or not enough vacation) and no sick days (or maybe they just aren’t willing to lie and call in sick on a day of repentance). And if you absolutely cannot get out of working that day then please do what you can do. Don’t just give it up and live it up that day. There is something you can do–there is always something. We can always honor God, even if our methods are curtailed by circumstances.

Now, to the questions:

(1) Why do we need a day of atonement when Messiah already atoned for us?

This is a common question and it is very simple to answer. Yeshua/Jesus bought our salvation and atonement as individuals on the Passover when He was crucified. That part is done. Now, we are obligated to live with Him as our Master, obeying Him and walking as He walked–which, of course, is obeying the Torah at such a deep, self-sacrificing and honest level that it makes the written commandments of Exodus through Deuteronomy look like child’s play. Yom Kippur, which is short for Yom HaKippurim (Day of the Atonements), is a day for National, not individual, atonements. We, as the Body of Messiah, have not lived up to our calling to walk as our Savior walked. We have shamed God, we have fallen short, we have not done all that we could do either for Him or others. We stand as shameless accusers of the brethren and gossips in our online witness and terrible critics. Frankly, we owe Him a corporate apology and need to ask His forgiveness for how we have represented Him, for our corporate sins and for our corporate ommissions, for failing to complete the Great Commission, for falling away from keeping His commandments, for cooperating with or ignoring or even supporting abortion instead of working to eradicate it, for serving money instead of Him, etc. We got some splainin’ to do. Yom Kippur isn’t about salvation, it is about owning our failings as a worldwide Body and asking to have our collective slate wiped clean. This day isn’t about “his” failings or “her” failings or “their” failings, but ours. We are all in this together and that is one of the most important lessons of Yom Kippur.

(2) What does it mean to afflict ourselves, we can do it without fasting, right? What if I just promise to just sit around and feel really guilty about my sins?

The word translated into English as afflict is T’annu, and the lemma, “ayin nun heh” ענה means a whole bunch of unpleasant things: to be wretched, emaciated, humiliated, oppressed. It is a verb and not a noun, this is an action and not a state of being. Although it is also a day that brings great joy because it marks important transitions in the shemittah and jubilee cycles and a release from slavery, the day itself sees us behaving as servants who are being disciplined, yet have come to trust in our Master’s goodness and forgiveness. The question is, does a servant under discipline go boldly to his master’s pantry while taking a day off of work and begin eating as if it was a normal day? Let’s look at where the verses with this word show up:

Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from him a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our goods. (Ezra 8:21, ESV)

That reference to humbling ourselves is t’annot, the plural version of the verb t’annu—and here Ezra says that he declared a fast so that they would humble/afflict themselves. Clearly, here t’annu is associated with affliction through fasting.

The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the Lord! May your hearts live forever! (Psalm 22:26, ESV)

Here, affliction is contrasted with a future state of eating and being satisfied.

‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?” (Is 58:3, ESV)

Again, same root word and here we have the added bonus of what is referred to in ancient writings as a parallelism. In parallelism, which is very common in ancient writings, you get two phrases that say the exact same thing two different ways—equating the two concepts. Both lines say the exact same thing—we did X and you didn’t notice. In this case, X is described in two ways—by fasting and humbling themselves, this equates the two concepts. Fasting is equal to humbling oneself which is another translation of the same root behind affliction.

And you don’t even want to know how often this word shows up in Job–it means real suffering, not just imaginary suffering. Fortunately, all we are being asked to do is fast, so it really is just symbolic suffering, depending on how enslaved we are to our appetites. Almost no one actually NEEDS to eat and drink every day. We just want to.

(3) What if I can’t fast for medical reasons?

Then don’t fast. Just don’t make a big deal about it or try to invalidate the commandment. I have seen people do that and it just boggles my mind. Trust that God understands, but don’t try to haul people who can do this into sin because you feel uncomfortable or condemned. Leave everyone else alone. It is still a national requirement for those who can do it, regardless of whether you can or think you can or whatever.