Sermon Tone Analysis

Being The Church

What does the Bible mean by the word Burden?

19Hearken now unto my voice, I will give thee counsel, and God shall be with thee: Be thou for the people to God-ward, that thou mayest bring the causes unto God:

20And thou shalt teach them ordinances and laws, and shalt shew them the way wherein they must walk, and the work that they must do.

21Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens:

22And let them judge the people at all seasons: and it shall be, that every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge: so shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee.

Old Testament

maśśāʾ:

++Physical load

++What a donkey carried (Exodus 23:5)

++Sons of Kohath (Numbers 4:15)

The Hebrew word for burden is maśśāʾ: meaning (physical load)

The Donkey's Load

Sons of Kohath's load was to move the tabernacle from place to place Numbers 4:15

maśśāʾ

++Physical Load

++Psychological and spiritual load

Moses's responsibility to the people Numbers 11:11, 17

++To lift them up to God

++To help them mature in God,

++To make them people of God.

This is the burden of ministry at all levels, starting with the Pastor.

maśśāʾ also speaks of a Psychological and spiritual load.

Hawaiian Word:

++Kuleana means

++"Responsibility"

Definition: “nvt.

Right, privilege, concern, responsibility, title , business, property, estate, portion, jurisdiction, authority, liability, interest, claim, ownership, tenure, affair, province, reason, cause, function, justification…”

Hawaiian Dictionary – M.K. Pukui & S.H. Elbert

maśśāʾ like Kuleana

++Is Active Responsibility

++Take ownership

This week I taught an intervention period at school.

I thought the first thing to do was to understand what an intervention was.

Intervention is an action taken to modify or change and expected outcome.

In this case the program exemplified a level of responsibility or ownership of the success of the students.

(KJV 1900)

25Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

26That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,

27That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

28So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies.

He that loveth his wife loveth himself.

Though the simple meaning of Kuleana is responsibility, Responsibility doesn’t always mean kuleana.

Kueanna is also

++A Privilege

++A Position of delight

++A "Passion"

Your Kuleana

++is not just a duty

++it’s who you are.

maśśāʾ is also found in the writing of the Prophets Isaiah 13-13, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Zechariah have similar sections.

Note some recent translation uses the word oracle instead of burden.

Oracle.

Divine revelation communicated through God’s spokesperson (prophet, priest, or king), usually pronouncing blessing, instruction or judgment.

Walter A. Elwell and Barry J. Beitzel, “Oracle,” Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988), 1592.

The basic concept seems to be that Israel’s sinful actions have caused God to be burdened.

Therefore, in righteousness he is compelled to judge them.

Alan N. Winkler, “Burden,” Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology, Baker Reference Library (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1996), 78.

The New Testament

Greek word is φορτίον (phor-ti-on)

++A necessary load

++The load you have to carry

is a specific load; the freight or lading that has to be borne,

Ethelbert W. Bullinger, A Critical Lexicon and Concordance to the English and Greek New Testament (London: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1908), 120.

(KJV 1900)

1 Man that is born of a woman Is of few days, and full of trouble.

Some trouble we face is

++Of necessity

++Life in a fallen world

(KJV 1900)

33These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace.

In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

Jesus promises peace in the midst of trouble.

(KJV 1900)

28Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

29Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

30For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

(KJV 1900)

15I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.

Second Greek word is βάρος (baros)

++A burden

++Can be transferred to another

++Can be relieved by another

++Carried by another

weight; it denotes the pressure of a weight which may be relieved or transferred; met. the heavy weight of trial or temptation, while

Ethelbert W. Bullinger, A Critical Lexicon and Concordance to the English and Greek New Testament (London: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1908), 120.

The Question:

++Did non-Jewish people have to become culturally Jewish to be a Christian?

The scripture gave them what they needed to decide.

They did not just rely on their own thinking.

James looks to the Scriptures

They did not just rely on their own thinking.

James looks to the Scriptures

++James recognized the Lord's work

They did not just rely on their own thinking.

James looks to the Scriptures

James recognized the Lord's work

++The Lord doeth all these things

James has grasped the very heart of Amos’s eschatological message concerning the nature of the salvation that Messiah brings to the Gentiles.

In so doing, James has replaced a proselyte model of Gentile salvation with an eschatological/christocentric one.