The End of the Commandment

Temple of HerodThey used to have a cooler way to say "A biochem degree is my goal."  They'd say, "The end of my studies is a mastery of biochemisty."  They wouldn't ask, "Hey, I see that Iraq has enriched uranium.  What's their goal?"  They'd ask, "Why have they enriched uranium?  To what end?"

The word "goal" causes us to visualize a target and a moving projectile.  The convention "To what end?" causes us to visualize a series of #1-2-3-4 steps that we take, and a final, impactful #5 result-step that occurs because of our actions. 

I like the "end" construction.

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1Ti 1:2  Unto Timothy, my own son in the faith: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. 1Ti 1:3  As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine, 1Ti 1:4  Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do. 1Ti 1:5  Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned:

Paul is speaking of the Old Testament, Genesis to Malachi, the 39 books written before Jesus was born.  He's speaking of the writings of Moses, and David, and Isaiah, and Ezra. 

He's asking us to ponder, "Why were these 1-2-3-4 steps taken?  To what end?"

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You may have friends who have visited Israel and the Holy Land.  We certainly do.  A popular destination site is the ground of the old Temple of Herod.

Herod had conscriptees carve magnificent blocks of stone out of the surrounding hillside, sculpt them with rims, polish them, and haul them in one piece all the way to the temple site.  Then (apparently) the engineers of the day used shims and jimmied them up, one on top of the other.

A single carved block in the foundationWe can't possibly fathom the work involved.  One of these mammoth blocks of stones was 15 feet by 44 feet by 11 feet.  That's probably larger than your 3-car garage. 

How could workers move this kind of stone around?  It weighed over 1 million pounds!  There is no crane at the Port of Seattle, or in America, that could even begin to pick up a stone block weighing 600 tons.   If President Obama decided he wanted to move a block from Herod's Temple, one city block!, he would need to order the construction of a giant tool for the purpose.  It might need 300 tires on it.

Yet this was only a single block in this mind-boggling ancient construction.

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What was Herod's goal?  Or, he moved these blocks ... to what end?

From Herod's point of view, he went through steps 1-2-3-4 ... ... 999 so that step #1,000 would occur:  Peace between the Romans and Jews.  Herod figured that ancient Israel would feel placated, that they owed Herod something, and that they'd behave.  (He was wrong, by the way.)

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The monoliths at Stonehenge are about 1/15 the size:  the largest weighs 40 tons.  The primitives obviously had some dramatic end in mind.  Nobody is sure what it was.

The Pharoahs of Egypt moved blocks 1/40 the size of Herod's to create the pyramid at Cheops.  That's 15 tons for the large stones -- and that pyramid was itself, of course, an unimaginable project. 

Why?  To what end?  ... so that the Pharoah himself would be remembered forever, I guess.   Did it work?  The pyramids are remembered; the Pharoahs mostly aren't.

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The end of the commandment is faith unfeigned.  If a girl from Wichita, Kansas sat down at the age of eight and studied Genesis-to-Malachi very hard, with a completely open mind ... if she researched and pondered and prayed and went wherever the ideas and facts and study took her ... the Old Testament would cause what to happen?

It would cause her to have faith unfeigned.

She wouldn't talk about believing in Jesus.  She wouldn't chat about it, trying to persuade others and persuade herself.  She would actually be convinced.

Is that really the case?  Well, as a secular liberal who investigated it with the idea of satisfying myself that the Old Testament is one more silly religious exercise in delusion, I can offer that this was my experience.  I talked about the Bible -- and mocked it.  I started pondering it -- and wound up shocked and amazed and, years later, finally delighted by it.

But my own experience is not the point of our article.  The point is that this is the Bible's own statement regarding its design.  As Rom. 10:17 says, talking about the Bible has one result.  Listening to it, that has a different end.

Warm regards,

Jeff