The original journal entry below was written on August 9th, 2009. Today I was reading through Exodus ch. 21 and came across a verse that reminded me of this journal entry: "5 But if the servant plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ 6 then his master shall bring him to the judges. He shall also bring him to the door, or to the doorpost, and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him forever." (Ex 21:5-6)
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August 9th, 2009
After what has seemed like a season of drought this past week with moving, yard sale, and the last day of work, this afternoon the Lord gave me quite a nugget about pierced ears that I have not been able to stop revering over. Before I get to that though, I want to spend a moment tracking how I came to this particular nugget of scripture and understanding.
I finally had a chance to spend quiet time after a morning of trying to fix the pool, my truck, and get cleaned up. I met Lauren for lunch at the hospital and went to the chapel there afterwards. In My Utmost for His Highest (MUFHH), Chambers writes for August 9th, “Common sense is a gift which God gave to human nature; but common sense is not the gift of His Son. Supernatural sense is the gift of His Son; never enthrone common sense. The Son detects the Father; common sense never yet detected the Father and never will. Our ordinary wits never worship God unless they are transfigured by the indwelling Son of God.”
In MUFHH, the verse for today was John 11:41, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me.” This is from the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. I read further, and in verse 43, Jesus “cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come forth!’ " I felt that Christ has been calling me out of the tasks of the day to spend precious time with Him today (and always).
Continuing through the chapter and into ch 12, I reached John 12:8, “For the poor you have with you always, but Me you do not have always.” The cross-reference verse to this is Deut. 15:11, which reads similarly, “For the poor will never cease from the land…you shall open your hand wide to your brother, to your poor and your needy, in your hand.” In reading the whole section of 15:7-11, I feel that I have regained inspiration to be more giving to the homeless of Orlando, and abroad, since my tight budget lately has made me grip what little I have with tight fists. Let's loosen that grip...
Yet the more important point of all this is that I continued to read Deuteronomy through 15:16-17, which I repeated a few times to really grasp what I was reading, “And if it happens that [your slave] says to you, “I will not go away from you,’ because he loves you and your house, since he prospers with you, then you shall take an awl and thrust it through his ear to the door, and he shall be your servant forever. Also to your female servant you shall do likewise.” Wow. WHAT?!
So of course there is no cross-references with verse 17 anywhere in my Bible, so I went to the web to see what more I could dig up. I found a study that pointed out Psalm 40:6 and Isaiah 50:5. They read (respectively), “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, My ears You have opened,” and “the Lord God has opened my ear.”
Now MOST comments and notes on these verses will talk of it referring to hearing in some sense. But what completely changes everything is when you put these verses (which are both credited of Jesus speaking to Father through both David and Isaiah) in relation to the Lord’s instructions on how to mark your servants if they devote themselves to you during the seventh year, the year of jubilee, you can begin to see how God has purposed His Son all throughout his holy Scripture.
By Jesus saying, “the Lord God has opened my ear,” He is truly saying that He has elected to become a servant of the Father forever, because “He loves [Father] and [Father’s] house, since He prospers with [Father],” (Deut 15:16, putting Jesus and Father in the place of servant and master). This is of course shown through the entire life of Christ, right down to the cross. In John 13:16, Jesus says, “Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is He who is sent greater than He who sent Him.” Oh, to have this Servant’s heart inside of our own!
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After further study of the scriptures in Psalms and Isaiah that I referenced, I have found the following information. Many sources state that Psalm 40:6-8 is prophetic of the Messiah, primarily because of Hebrews 10:5-7 where [the author] says that these were words prophetic of Jesus. The word in 40:6 that is translated as "opened" is the Hebrew verb "karah" which primarily means "to dig," so we could direct this more towards clearing out one's ear, as if it were clogged, or to dig out flesh, which would relate it to Deut 15. The NIV actually translates it to "pierced," probably since the same word karah is also used for Psalm 22:16.
Also Isaiah 50:5-6 and other verses within this chapter are highly confirmed as prophetic of Jesus as well, and both Ps 40:6 and Isa 50:5 refer to each other in cross-references.
Since writing this, I have wanted to amend it with the following words of Jesus: "15 No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you." (John 15:15) How does one begin to accept this truth? We are first called by Christ to be servants of all men and women, to become the least of all to gain Life for all eternity, and then when we have humbled ourselves to His servanthood, He surprises us with these words! Imagine the profundity and incomprehensibility of this message from the disciples perspective--especially on the night before Jesus' death, where He would "lay down [His] life for His friends." (15:13) These words echo one of my top worship songs, "Friend of God" by Phillips, Craig and Dean: "I am a friend of God, He calls me friend."
He. is. amazing.
--Josh
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