Aramaic Word Study – Contemplate – Sevar – סבר  Samek Beth Resh

How You Love God is Between You and Him 

Matthew 5:17: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.”

This is one of those verses that I hear and read constantly and think to myself: “I haven’t the foggiest idea what it means, but I will study it out one day.  Well, I am 71 years old still promising myself that I will study it out.  So today is one of those cold snowy days here in Chicago where I had the expected frustrating day of trying to drive a disability bus and push wheelchairs in half a foot snowmaking it so wonderful to get back to my warm, dry apartment with a bowl of hot chili and cup of tea and relax to a nice evening of God’s Word.  The perfect day to fulfill an age-old promise and figure out what Matthew 5:17 means, at least to me personally.  

What first stands out in this verse is that it appears people had started to think. “Think not.”  Amazing, people were actually thinking in those days. That puts them well ahead of many Christians.  I find many Christians do not think for themselves.  Social media, multimedia which includes television, radio, podcast, streaming and so much more broadcast the thoughts of an elite few who do think and share their thoughts that the average person. The result is that the average person doesn’t need to think at all. All they need to do is pick out the teacher that tickles their fancy and run with their spin on the Scriptures without having to spend the necessary time and resources to search it out for themselves. 

Many Christians do not even read the Scriptures.  Those that do just read them but don’t really think about what they read, they just figure it is enough to read the Bible and God will bless them.  There are a few who do read the Scriptures and study them out, searching through commentaries and Lexicons.  With these resources, they do get much background and can speak intelligently on Scripture.  Fewer still, however,  are those who not only read the Scriptures, take a few moments to look them up in commentaries and resources but then actually sit back on think on them, ponder them, or what we call to meditate on the Scriptures. That takes just too much time in our busy schedules or so we think. 

The word think in Greek is nomisete from the root word nomizo which means to consider. The word in Aramaic is sevar which means to imagine, reason, look for, investigate, search out or contemplate.  People in Jesus’ day were not blindly listening to him preach and teach like most Christians do today when they hear a sermon. They were thinking through what He was teaching and wondering how it applied to what they had been taught all their lives. They were comparing it to their own doctrines and theologies and reaching their own conclusions.  

Notice, that Jesus did not condemn them for sevar, contemplating or thinking. God gave them a brain, and intellect and expected them, as with us, to use it.  Jesus did not say; “Contemplate or think not.”  He said: “Think not that I have come to destroy the law or the prophets.”   In other words, “Good, I have you thinking/contemplating so let me help you along in your thinking process.  You will assume that I have come to destroy the law and the prophets. But that is not the case.”  

Throughout church history, there was always the belief that the average Joe could not understand the complexities of God.  That you needed an elite body of people, scholars and teachers to study the Word of God and then tell the people what it means.  This whole idea of people studying Scripture on their own would result in all sorts of doctrines and beliefs.  There had to be only one doctrine and one belief. During the time of Martin Luther, all truth was found in the hierarchy of the church. It was the job of those that the church ordained and confirmed to be the teachers of God that were allowed to teach the average farmer and craftsman what the truth of God was. 

Martin Luther fought for private interpretation of Scripture.  However, the church outright condemned such a thing.  Why that would produce many churches and not just one true church under the leadership of one Pope. When Martin Luther got his way, that is exactly what happened and now we have hundreds of little denominations and thousands of churches that call themselves independent that have their own spin on the interpretation of Scripture. 

Is that really so bad?  I don’t know, but what I do know is that if I have a private, personal relationship with God, I sure don’t want some preacher with a seminary degree telling me how I am to love God and what that relationship should be like. I had a roommate in Bible College who was engaged to a young woman. She would write to him every day and would go off alone and read that letter over and over.  One day he showed me a letter.  It started off with “Dear Harry,”  I looked at my roommate and said; “Is that it? Just Dear Harry?, not dearest, my dear, or my beloved or my little Har (nickname).  Are you sure she is not drawing away from you, losing interest?”  Boy, my roommate jumped on me like ugly on an ape, grabbed the letter and said: “Don’t tell me what dear means, I know what dear means, I know what dear means when Jenny says dear, you don’t, so don’t start drawing your conclusion.”  

My roommate was thinking for himself, he would not let anyone else think for him when it came to his relationship with the woman he loved.  Perhaps we should consider the same with the God that we love.  Don’t let anyone tell you what your relationship with the God you love should be like, don’t let anyone tell you what it means that He loves you with an everlasting love.  Don’t let anyone tell you that if you don’t attend church, pay your tithe that God doesn’t love you. You meditate on God’s Word yourself, you sevar it, think on it and reach your own conclusion. How you love God, how you show your love to Him, how you worship Him and praise Him is personal, it is between you and Him.

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