It is a great encouragement in the battle against Greek thinking to draw contrast with the uncomplicated (though challenging) life of faith resulting from a personal walk with God.
We might draw up a two-columned table laying out qualities that typify the heritage from Greece alongside those of the biblically Hebraic way of life. In a way, this too would be a Greek approach to the issue – categorising and organising things according to the logic of our own minds. What a deception that would be! So let us be careful in how we respond to our call to a walk of faith, especially since we have been brought up within a Greco-Roman world.
Walking with God
Yeshua calls us to a walk with him, typified by the lives of faith of those who walked with God described in the early chapters of our Bibles. Enoch is a wonderful example (Gen 5:18-24). He “walked with God and was no more”. But Abraham is our main model. His journey from Ur to Haran to Canaan represents a walk away from a prominent city of his day to an unknown place, trusting in God to fulfil the promises of the covenant that God had made with him.
Earthly city: Abraham left Ur to pursue a walk of faith in God. Ur is thought to be Kasdym in Iraq, south of Babylon, excavated by the archaeologist Woolley in 1927. It was built a few hundred years after the Flood, a wealthy city of around 24,000 people. There was a large Ziggurat and people paid taxes to the moon god Nana. In leaving Ur, Abraham left behind (Gen 11:26-12:5) a typical worldly city, a precursor to those of ancient Greece and Rome (and many of our modern-day cities), to walk with God.
What are the characteristics of a walk with God? Study the whole of Abraham’s life, the struggles as well as the goals. He was counted as a friend of God. How many friends does God have today who have formed their worldview around trust in him and fellowship with him, rather than around the beguiling power of humanity on its own? A Hebrew is one who crosses over from the world of humanism and false gods to the Kingdom of the One True God. The challenge is not to find strength in human intellect, but to follow God’s leading.
A Hebrew is one who crosses over from the world of humanism and false gods to the Kingdom of the One True God.
Walking by the Spirit
In Judaism we find a codified form of this walk, called halakhah. This is a codification of the interpretations of the rabbis based on the written Torah and the Oral Torah, called the Mishnah. The Mishnah and its commentary (the Talmud) comprise the foundations of Jewish Halakhah: rulings based on the teaching of God.
The Hebrew word halakhah means ‘walk out’ and the teaching of Judaism seeks to codify the obligations mankind has to walk out God’s commands. This principle has been strong in the lives of many Jews over the years but it too can build a worldview based more on human reason and effort than on a personal walk with God in relationship and friendship.
Yeshua opened the way to an intimate walk with God and Paul explored this as a walk by the Spirit (Rom 8). This is the true halakhah (walk of faith).
Walking in Wisdom
This walk is motivated by the direct inspiration of God, who personalises it for each of his disciples.
In this spiritual walk, the Book of Proverbs gives three key contributions. They are knowledge (Yada), understanding (Havenah) and wisdom (Hochmah). The knowledge is the same as is spoken of in relation to Adam ‘knowing’ his wife Eve; it is relational, not simply mental. In turn, understanding is based on this knowledge of God and forms the Hebraic worldview in our minds.
Wisdom is the manifestation of the impulsion of the Holy Spirit in our daily walk. This wisdom from on high, the revelatory wisdom of God, is contrasted with the wisdom of the world that forms the Greek worldview. James is unambiguous that the world’s wisdom is demonic and that coming from God alone is the only true wisdom (James 3:13-18).
Solomon, in Proverbs 8, values this kind of wisdom higher than rubies – as the highest thing to be gained in our earthly lives. Is it a coincidence that Proverbs also says that a good wife is worth more than rubies (Prov 31)? Does this help us to understand the kind of relationship that Yeshua seeks with his people (Eph 5)? Our human relationships, most intimate in marriage and family, are paralleled with our Saviour's intended walk with all his people.
This is life, not intellectual logic! God teaches us through experiences into which he leads us, rather than in a classroom. This is education from a biblical perspective – the foundation of Yeshua's discipleship.
Yeshua opened the way to an intimate walk with God, which Paul explored as a walk by the Spirit - the true halakhah (walk of faith).
Walking by Faith
Another relevant Hebrew word is amunah (echoing the word ‘Amen’ that we use in prayer). Amunah is the word for ‘faith’, the trusting agreement with God for each step on our walk – far different from the earthly logic that frames our decisions entirely according to the patterns of a humanistic worldview.
To aid our walk of amunah, we have been given the entire Bible, a testimony of God’s covenant purposes borne out in relationship with his people, as our aid to prayer and outworking our own walk with him. The ministries of Ephesians 4 and the spiritual gifts of 1 Corinthians 12 are also given to us to help one another mature and build up the community of faith.
Walking in Humility
The difference between this Hebraic walk of faith and the Greek walk of human logic and philosophy is illustrated by their differing responses to suffering and life in this fallen world, as visible in the Book of Ecclesiastes.
To some readers Ecclesiastes seems to present a rather pessimistic view of life, in agreement with much of Greek philosophy that good and evil happen at random in this world and with no respect for individual piety. Yet its long discourse eventually concludes (Ecc 12:9-14) that the whole goal of life, for all who live on earth, is to learn to trust God. The rest is circular logic – like the clouds that form rain that goes into rivers and seas and evaporates to become clouds again – endless cycles of logic bound completely into the world around us, without access to the Kingdom of God.
Micah 6:8 is a similar indicator of the walk that is God’s plan for us: “He has shown you, O mankind, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
We are invited to abide in Jesus and he in us (John 15; Rom 13:14), experiencing the outflow of God's wisdom from on high and not being bound by that which is reasoned through our intellect. One might well ask whether a Greek worldview has influenced elements of some religious frameworks of what is called Christianity or Christian theology. How far has humanism crept into and warred against the life of faith offered by our Father in Heaven? We will consider this next time.
This article is part of a series contrasting Greek and Hebraic worldviews. Click here to read previous instalments.
