Understanding is the
second gift of the Holy Spirit. It may be hard for us to understand
understanding as a gift. Wisdom allows us to know things about God while Understanding
allows us to grasp the essence of the truth about our faith in God. The more we
use our Wisdom, the more we come to Understand how all of this is God’s plan
for us and for humanity.
The Old Testament
can sometimes seem like it has nothing to do with the New Testament. We also
can wonder how the history the people of Israel has anything to do with us
today. If we use the gift of Wisdom and learn about the Old Testament and the
Israelite people, we can come to Understand that they are not a lot different
from us today. They had God lead them out of Egypt, open up the waters of the
Red Sea to allow them to safely cross to the other side. Then God destroyed the
most powerful army in the world at that time with the waters of that same Red
Sea right in front of the Israelite people. Only a few days later, as Moses was
on Mount Sinai getting the Ten Commandments from God, these same people
fashioned a golden calf and began to worship that false idol.
How could they do
that we ask ourselves? In Egypt, where they had been living for the past four
hundred years, the Egyptians had worshipped gods represented by animals and the
things of nature. These Israelites were going back to their old Egyptian ways
when they made the golden calf. God was furious with them, and wanted to
destroy the whole nation, but Moses interceded on their behalf. Some of them
were still destroyed, and only one tribe was allowed to remain priests. God had
planned for each tribe to be a priestly people, but that changed at Sinai.
Why did God have
them sacrifice a lamb at the first Passover - because it was a crime punishable
by death to kill a lamb in Egypt (one of their false gods)? This was a way to
have them break a law in Egypt to close that chapter of their lives. Why were
they forbidden to eat pork – because it was a staple of their diet in Egypt?
Many of the laws for
the Jewish people in the Old Testament seem foolish to us, but if we study
their history more, our gift of Understanding allows us to know why they had
those rules and laws. Understanding allows us to see the parallel between
Abraham being willing to offer his only son to God upon God’s requests as a
test of his Faith to God offering us His only Son for all of our sins hundreds
of years later on the same hill! It is all truly a part of God’s plan for
mankind, but we need the gifts of Wisdom and Understanding to full appreciate
the plan.
No comments:
Post a Comment