Deeper Truths: A study featuring lessons from Kenneth Bailey’s book,
Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes
A 12-week study from February 2026
Lesson 1: The Lord’s Prayer (pt 1)
Introduction of Hope
Shalom friends, both old and new, that is, real peace be yours in your life in Singapore, in Germany, in the US, and here in Australia. I can honestly wish that for you in a troubled world full of uncertainty and pain, full of anxiety and multinational hostility. In a world often bereft of God and his compassion, how are we to find real peace?
Many of us think that the world of 2026 is like no other time in history. We have CNN and Sky News battling for us to believe their version of truth. There are so many wars and rumours of wars throughout the world. We learned last month that the former Prime Minister of South Korea Han Duck-soo, who served from 2022 to 2025 was sentenced to 23 years in prison for his role in a failed martial law declaration. You might have seen the news in December when 15 Jews on Sydney’s iconic Bondi Beach were massacred while celebrating the Festival of Lights, Hanukkah together. Mexico has its own trouble this week with drug cartels retaliating and battling after the murder of El Mencho Oseguera Cervantes. This week we mark the 4th anniversary of Russia’s latest invasion of Ukraine and the seemingly never-ending war takes a back seat to other important matters like football and Milan’s winter Olympics.
I aver that the earthquakes and violent cyclones, the school shootings and governmental inability to get along is not actually increasing. We simply have more news agencies with a need to find more troubles and pains and share those for the sake of more clicks and keeping folks coming back to learn more about fears and resentments and how bad the world really is.
But that is not what I’m going to teach you about over these next 3 months. Each week, using the book by Kenneth Bailey as a guide, but not as our only information, we will dig deeper into the Jesus of the Gospels and the Jesus who leads us even this day, looking through a glass, sometimes a magnifying glass or a telescope, and sometimes a microscope, to assist us. At some vistas we will pause and ponder; at other times, we will walk carefully and fully, but not linger.
Introduction of how to study
Each week, I plan to conclude with at least five significant takeaways for you from our study. When any of these thoughts trigger your interest to stop longer and dig even deeper or when I recommend a book or article or even a YouTube video, please use a pen or a computer or a crayon, and make sure you write yourself a note. Then in the 167 hours until we meet again here on Zoom next week, do yourself a favour—pause and ponder again. Ask God to show you what he wants you to learn about a facet of the Gospel or an interesting tidbit of biblical information.
Meditation is the word here. But to get to that, you must stop and listen to the data again. You could speak it out loud. Then break that sentence or that thought down word by word. Then ‘chew’ on each word that jumps off the page for you. That’s how we meditate biblically.
I use the example of walking down the footpath near Bras Basah metro station. You smell the bakery nearby. You are drawn to it. Ah, yes, you found it. But that doesn’t do you any good, at least not yet. Then you buy the bagel and it’s now yours. Good job. But you still haven’t taken it in yet. OK, you take a bite. Nice flavour. But it’s still not ‘in you.’ Then you swallow it and now it’s in you. Here’s what I see in that illustration.
The smelling of the bagel is being attracted to the Bible.
The buying of the bagel is when you read from the Bible.
The biting into the bagel is memorizing a phrase or a sentence of the Bible.
The swallowing of the bite—that’s meditating on the Word. That’s when it’s in you.
I’m hoping that each week we will find good information in the text. I’m hoping that you will hear something that will make you desire to be with Yeshua that much more over the next week. And that this information will become life formation in you. I like the old Anglican prayer before the listening to the Word of God which asks God to help readers "hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest" Scripture. It focuses on finding comfort and hope in the Word. May God help us tonight so to do.
Who am I?
You know a little bit about me. Let me take a few minutes to let you in on my history then we will get into the texts for tonight. I am the 3rd (of 3) child of American Jews whose grandparents were all born in Europe, mostly Eastern Europe. My grandparents were poor. They lived in apartments or small houses. By the time my parents married and started having children, World War 2 had just ended, so I’m a baby boomer. We lived in modest, middle-class homes. I had two powerful epicentres of my life: 1) my school life and 2) my synagogue. At each I learned and scholarship was very important to my family. At 13 I had my Bar Mitzvah and since I was a very committed Orthodox Jew, I took my celebration very seriously. I chanted most of the prayers offered on any Shabbat; I read about 3 chapters of Torah and another half chapter of the book of Kings. All in Hebrew.
I was delighted to be done with the event, for which I’d been training for well over a year. But unlike most of my peers, I continued to learn with rabbis and study the Scriptures and the history and culture of our people. At 16 years old, I became even more devout that my family, switched synagogues so I could attend a more nearby one, with more religious propriety and a higher mechitzah to separate my teenage eyes from the ladies of the synagogue. Not that this stopped me from lusting, but someone must have felt it would be successful.
Then in 1971 at 19 years of age, some bold Jesus people like you saw in the movie a couple of years back called “The Jesus Revolution” shared the Gospel on the streets of Kansas City and within days I prayed the sinner’s prayer to become a “Jesus freak.” My family was shocked when I told them that night. I was kicked out of my parents’ home for the first time ever. But God’s people helped me find a new apartment, then a new job, and a new life in Christ—all within 12 hours. I’m still amazed at God’s eternal supply.
I’m sure over the next 12 weeks I will tell you more of my story, which happened 55 years ago, and then some other stories through the decades. But I’ll leave it there.
As I was invited to be your teacher in these lessons, I was reminded of the words of the man who took over for John Stott at All Souls and also the Langham Partnership in England. His name is Christopher Wright, and I’ve read almost every line of his books for years. He wrote about his scholastic inabilities in the book Knowing Jesus through the Old Testament. He said, “I felt my own amateur status, which needs to be clear…I have been acutely aware that to write anything at all on the New Testament in general or Jesus in particular is like crawling through a minefield under cross-fire. However, with the help of several friends of undoubted New Testament scholarship, I have been bold enough to crawl on, trying to take into account as much of current scholarship as was feasible.” (page x)
His humility is genuine. One day I hope to reach that in my life. But for now, you have me and we together can learn and mark and inwardly digest the words of Yeshua, one story, one prayer, one event, one teaching at a time.
The Bailey Book itself
The book is made up of six parts, in order: (1) the birth of Jesus, (2) the Beatitudes, (3) the Lord’s Prayer, (4) the dramatic actions of Jesus, (5) Jesus and women, and (6) the parables of Jesus. The contents of these parts are in the form of textual studies with cultural-based interpretations. There are thirty-two chapters in all. The author’s style is clear. He first discusses pertinent textual structural and literary features, then provides a commentary on the text under discussion, and concludes each chapter with a clear summary of the salient features discussed.
Tonight, we turn to his chapters number 7 and 8, The Lord’s Prayer: God our Father and God’s Holiness.
The context of the chapter in Bailey is Matthew’s account of the prayer Yeshua taught the disciples to pray. And that account is within a larger account named The Sermon on the Mount. I’m not privy to whether this took place on one occasion or whether it is a compilation of several shorter teaching sessions, but what is significant is how Matthew recorded this. Note the end of Matthew chapter 5 and the beginning of chapter 6. We read in 5:48 “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Then Chapter 6 begins with “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.”
The words of Yeshua are clear—live a holy life, but then immediately we see that our perfect, righteous life needs to be directed correctly. If you want people to notice, you will be able to get their attention, but it’s not what God wants. It is in that context that Yeshua teaches about three actions of righteousness: giving alms (we might say giving to the poor), praying and fasting.
It is assumed that Yeshua wants us, each of us, to give to the poor. He wants each of us to pray. He wants each of us to fast. Those are standard Jewish, first-Century actions of righteous people. Jews back then, and to this day, see those as proper and vital for holy people. By the way this coming Monday is a Fast Day in the Jewish religion, as that evening begins the festival of Purim, the story of Esther and Mordecai remembered around the world.
So within that normalcy of righteousness, Yeshua raises the stakes and amplifies the actions he wants from us. It’s all about the attitude and perspective he wants us to have. Look at Matthew 6, beginning in verse 5: “When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners, so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you,” verse 6, “when you pray, go into your inner room. Close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.”
“And when you pray, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. So do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”
Pray then in this way, “Our Father…”
Let’s stop there.
Some comments on prayer itself. What is prayer anyway? Prayer is acknowledging that there is a God; and you are not He. It is often said, “Prayer is saying You are, and I’m not” to the Almighty. Or “He can and I cannot.” It’s often silent, it’s almost always introspective, but if that’s where you leave it, then you miss the object of our prayers. It is not silent only. One day after Yeshua finished praying, which in itself is pretty cool to ponder, the disciples asked him to teach them how to pray, even as John taught his apprentices. What did Yeshua reply?
“When you pray, say” (Luke 11.1) That means you get to speak, not just think, not just muse, although both of those are excellent to employ in worship. But also you are to say something.
And what followed that line was the Lukan account of the Lord’s Prayer. Fascinating isn’t it, that we title it “The Lord’s Prayer.” When it should really be called “The Disciples’ Prayer” We should reserve the Lord’s Prayer to be the label for what took place in Gethsemane just before the Crucifixion. But we don’t need to fight every battle, do we?
Yeshua in the Sermon on the Mount contrasts prayer by the disciples with prayers by others. First the very visible Jewish leadership who he says are hypocrites. He characterizes them as showy, loving being noticed by others, taking prominent seats inside or public displays, SO THAT THEY MIGHT BE SEEN BY MEN. To contrast what Yeshua wants for his people, he says to go ultra secret. Go into your room, even the inner room, close the door to prevent anyone from seeing you. Pray in secret. Even though Yeshua taught in Aramaic, we have this in Greek. The Greek word is krypto, like your favourite word puzzle, or Superman’s debilitating chemical force, it is so secret that no one would know it. The point is clear and exaggerated. Don’t be showy; be willing to be unseen. Human praise is at best insignificant. But is that all there is?
Not at all; it’s only the first of several points.
Next, Yeshua teaches about the formulas used or the badgering of God by long prayers. Kenneth Bailey makes that point loud and clear on page 93 of our text. He quotes Ecclesiastes and says, “Let your words be few” (Eccl. 5.2)
Now one of the things that you will find throughout Bailey’s book is his commitment to finding meaning in the STRUCTURE of the thing he is studying. Let me explain. And then let me give you my view on that.
When Bailey talks about the birth narrative of Yeshua or parables or a prophecy in Isaiah, he will often discuss line by line, almost like we studied in English classic classes. Take a Shakespearean sonnet vs a Petrarchian sonnet. Is the rhyme sequence ABBA or ABAB? I remember chatting with a pastor here in Sydney about Kenneth Bailey, and he said something like this, “I like what Bailey does with the information about structure, but don’t forget it’s not the structure that informs us, it’s the Bible itself, specifically all that went before that is more important.”
I like that. Perhaps you have written a song or a poem, when you write a sermon or a lesson, perhaps for children or youth, you probably have some initial ideas and some words that work together. But the algorithm of structure which you want to employ should never outweigh the actual words of the poetry. The rhythm of the drumbeat should never outweigh the words of the song. How you say something matters, to be sure. But WHAT you say is seriously what will remain.
Think about the psalms. We have many superscripts in the Bible, “For the choir director.” or “A maskil of the sons of Korah.” Or “A psalm of David” or the odd one like Psalm 34, “A Psalm of David when he feigned madness before Abimelech, who drove him away and he departed.” When there is a “Song of Ascent” I’m pretty sure there would have been a melody and perhaps percussion involved. But we today, now thousands of years later, are not privy to what that sounded like. That’s both disappointing and informing. It’s your words which will remain, long after you are gone. Let us keep them clear and clean; let us speak truth and then when those ‘songs’ or ‘poems’ or lessons are left, we will be glad in God. Amen?
All that to say, I appreciate Bailey’s evaluations of the structure on so many levels, but it’s not the most significant or relevant item to notice.
Remember, it is God’s Word and God’s heart which inform the words of Yeshua. Both all that has gone before and been written before, and what Yeshua saw the Father doing, that’s what inform him in his life and ministry. (John 5.19)
Back to prayer. I love that Pastor Joyce and the committee which invited me to speak with you wanted to start with the chapters on the Lord’s Prayer. We see God’s heart through the words of the Saviour here. And that it is Aramaic has some bearing, but not too much, on the prayer itself.
A word, if I might, for some of you who want to know the ‘original’ meaning of a word, usually in Hebrew or Greek. And you find the Strong’s Concordance of the Bible and now you are dangerous. You find a word like ‘shalom’ or ‘baruch’ and all the meanings of the words come into play. Shalom meaning peace or wholeness, even completion, or in use when doubled, we read in Isaiah ‘perfect’ peace. (26.3) Now with all those alternate possibilities, you and Strong’s come up with new renderings, new meanings, and here’s when it goes wacky, “all the other translations get this wrong…” and you make a new Bible to suit your latest thinking. Listen, there are thousands of more intelligent, more aware of ancient languages than you or me, more accomplished biblical technicians who have another meaning they ascribe to a text. Humility demands we listen. Self-awareness requires us to admit what we don’t really know.
Father
God as Father… this is shocking to First Century Jews. Avinu in Hebrew. Abba in Aramaic. An intimate very personal sounding relative. Like in modern English, ‘daddy’… it’s just not the way Jews in Israel in those days would have approached or related to God.
Bailey picks that up and shows us on pages 96-97 that a metaphor and a simile are useful in discussing God as Father, but NEVER is he addressed like Yeshua shows us in the Lord’s prayer.
Don’t confuse modern Judaism with ancient Judaism. Moderns ascribe Fatherhood (and in the liberal Jewish world, sometimes titled Reform Judaism, also Motherhood) to God and make him intimate with us. But I dare say this is very different than the reality of First Century Jewish people. In fact, modern day Judaism is as close to biblical Judaism as Mormonism is to Christianity. They might use similar vocabulary like Bible or elders or church, but it’s not the same by any stretch of the imagination.
The book of Numbers, specifically in the Balaam story, uses this phrase “God is not a man that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?(Num. 23.19)
The obvious information the hireling prophet Balaam is communicating to Balak and anyone else who is listening is that God does what he says he will do, and nothing can stop him. He is not a man, means in that sentence, that he won’t mess up and have to fix things later. He does what he says he will do. Full stop.
That includes cursing the Jewish people. But I remember this verse was part of my teenage Jewish training against Jesus being God. The key in biblical interpretation is ensuring you stay within the scope of the narrative, which when I was a teenager, I did not do.
Similarly Bailey shared Hosea 11 where we read, “I am God and not man...I will not come to destroy” (vs. 9) That tender loving Father image (also from earlier in that chapter) is so helpful.
I love the verse in 1 John which says, “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are.” (3.1)
On my phone is a wallpaper. It’s the image from the Hermitage in St Petersburg, Russia of a famous painting by Rembrandt. Tim Keller and Henri Nouwen wrote about the Prodigal God and Nouwen wrote the book, Return of the Prodigal Son about the famous scene from Luke chapter 15. The lost coin, the lost sheep, and finally the Lost Son.
Listen to these words Yeshua used to describe the lines the Lost Son practices saying before returning home:
“But when he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have more than enough bread, but I am dying here with hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your hired men.”’ (Luke 15.17-19)
Yeshua was teaching to a crowd of folks but look how Luke describes who they are: “Now all the tax collectors and the sinners were coming near Him to listen to Him. Both the Pharisees and the scribes began to grumble, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” (Luke 15.1-2)
So when Yeshua teaches about the Prodigal Son and his Father, he is giving a lesson to the tax collectors and sinners. His is a ministry of love and grace.
Philip Yancey wrote my favourite book besides the Bible back in 1997, he published What’s so amazing about grace. The opening story is powerful
(READ—“church? Why would I ever go there?...)
But God is our Father and he is ever reaching out to bring us to himself.
That’s who the Father is.
BUT WAIT, there’s more. He is OUR Father. I don’t know about you, but I love gathering with God’s people. I enjoy singing in church. I like men’s Bible studies and fellowship groups. I even like playing pickleball with other believers. 70 times in the Newer Testament the phrase “one another” is used. You really can’t miss this. We need one another in our attempt to know God as Father. We are each not an only child. We are a family.
Bailey shows us this on page 101, “The Lord’s Prayer affirms the critical role of the community in which this title, Father is used. “The worshiper is obliged to look down the pew and across the world and see brothers and sisters in every land. Only in the unity of the family of God is the title, “Our Father” legitimately invoked.
Too many Christians have isolated themselves from the Body of Christ. We owe it to ourselves and to the others to be with them, to pray with them, to confess with them… He is Our Father.”
Who art in heaven
Then Yeshua makes the intimate and communal opening phrase into a conundrum. “Who art in heaven.” It stands to reason that intimacy and distance are usually not related. Oh, of course, ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ says the poet, but when most of us think in terms of closeness in relationships, we think of closeness in geography and distance as well. If God is in heaven, even the heavens, then how can he be with us?
Of course, the Psalmist wrote “Whom have I in heaven but Thee, and besides Thee I desire nothing on earth.” (Ps. 73.25) The location of heaven is never clarified, but wherever it is, that’s where Asaph, author of Psalm 73, imagines God to be. And most children in your Sunday school class or in your neighbourhood would answer “God is up there” whilst pointing to the sky. So the imminent God is transcendent, and therein is the rub. How can he possibly do that unless He is triune and by his Spirit, he does this. We will hear again about the ‘now and not yet’ Kingdom, and this is a prime introduction to that theme.
Suffice it to say there is a measure of optimism here, and it reminded me of Robert Browning’s famous poem. “Pippa’s Song” which ends with "God's in his heaven; all's right with the world.” It represents a naive or optimistic perspective that despite personal hardships or worldly chaos, a higher power maintains ultimate order and goodness.
Holy is his name
The prayer continues with “Hallowed be thy name.” This is a prayer, a petition for someone or everyone to take God’s name, not in vanity, but in honour. It’s the opposite of the 3rd commandment of not taking the name of the Lord in vain. The Kaddish, the Jewish prayer most often associated wrongly with dead people, begins with these words, “Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei raba” (Magnified and sanctified be his great name). Such a similar sound to the Lord’s Prayer. Yitkadash, sanctified. Or in the words of Yeshua, hallowed be. If there were a listing of words that might be identified with God, asked of people outside a movie theatre or shopping centre, I imagine holy would be among the top 5.
And this is a key part/ aspect of the prayer. It’s a petition that God’s name be holy among others. In other words, yes, he’s holy in himself, but can his name become hallowed?
Bailey zooms in on the passage in the prophet Ezekiel. He helps us see the structure ABCABC (see page 108), but again and more importantly, we must highlight the reality that God is to make his own name holy. And how does he do that? By making us to represent him on the earth, by our living a holy life, and bringing others to know him.
“Let them praise Your great and awesome name; Holy is He.” (Ps 99.3) Or then the inverse is found in Ezekiel. “As for you, O house of Israel,” thus says the Lord GOD, “Go, serve everyone his idols; but later you will surely listen to Me, and My holy name you will profane no longer with your gifts and with your idols.” (20.39)
What we do, therefore is what either sanctifies or maligns (profanes) the name of the Lord. When we ask God to make his name holy, it is a statement of our own surrender to him, in faith, that his life will shine forth in us and through us.
Here’s how it works. We actively admit our own inabilities and honestly surrender our lack AND our supply to the One who has it all under control. When we are weak, then we are strong. (2 Cor. 12.10)
Bailey asks the question, “Can love and holiness come together?” For that, I recommend the book that was published during COVID-19, by Dane Ortlund of Chicago. The title is Gentle and Lowly. The core message of the book explores the character of Jesus, specifically focusing on his "gentle and lowly" heart as described in Matthew 11:29. It aims to comfort Christians who feel that God is perpetually disappointed or frustrated with them due to their sins and failures. The theological basis that Ortlund argues is that the "deepest heart" of Jesus for his people is one of tender love, mercy, and compassion, rather than reluctant saving. The book heavily features insights from Puritan writers, such as Thomas Goodwin, John Bunyan, and John Calvin.
For years, even decades, I got it wrong. Ortlund helped me see it clearly. When we read of Jesus being a mediator between God and man (Read Galatians 3), I used to think that God the Father was the Angry, Olympic score-keeping Deity, the Disappointed God who almost gave up on me. And I thought that Jesus was a go-between, saying something like, “Come on, Dad, let’s give Bob one more try.” And I would barely sneak across the line.
But that’s not it at all. Yeshua mediates God’s love to us. He longs for us to know God fully. He is the image of the invisible God. Everything I know about the Father, I see in Yeshua. He is pleading with me to rest in the Father’s love. He mediates the mercy and grace, the Gentle and Lowly one offers himself for me, day after day. He ever lives to make intercession for us. (Hebrews 7.25) Interceding, like Aaron with censers sparing the people of Israel (Numbers 16.46-49) after almost 15,000 people died in rebellion.
Yeshua is not arguing with the Father on our behalf; he’s arguing with us to join him in the Father’s love.
Now the painting of Father embracing the prodigal son which hangs in Russia’s Hermitage makes sense. Now God’s grace makes sense. Now love and holiness can come together!
“The cross is God’s perfect resolution to this agony,” as Bailey says.
Five Final Summary Thoughts from tonight:
1) God is the reason we live and move and have our being and he longs to be with us, tonight in Singapore and some of us in Australia, and wherever you are.
2) God is our Father, not only mine only, but ours. We are in community together with God as our Father, not our Guru or Shaman. It’s a personal relationship but not a private one.
3) The cross is God’s perfect resolution to the agony of a loving Father separated from a sinful humanity.
4) It is God’s Word and God’s heart which together inform the words of Yeshua
5) Prayer is acknowledging that there is a God, and you are not He.
No comments:
Post a Comment