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In this video, we're going to address the question, "Why have stones, rocks, and
mountains become such an important part of the Christian heritage and traditions?"
Now, this question was sent in by Abbie, off of our Facebook page.
Abbie, thank you very much for taking the time to do so.
Now, in short, I don't find rocks, mountains, or stones to be very important to the Christian
faith.
They're mentioned throughout the Bible, but they always have something else going on and
that's what we're going to talk about right now.
Here we go.
My name is Charles Yerkes and I am with simplenotshallow.com.
Where we help you keep it Simple Not Shallow.
Now, in her question, Abbie did mention a few examples that
she was curious about. For instance, Balaam and the donkey going up on the mountain to
meet the king and curse Israel.
Jesus having to be taken upon a mountainside by Satan in order to be tempted.
Moses getting the Ten Commandments on a mountainside.
Jesus later becoming called the foundation, the cornerstone.
And one that she didn't ask, that I also found very very intriguing, is David
referring to God as his rock.
What's up with all these rock motifs?
Well, you know, as I looked through these things through a relational lens of God being
a relational God; and doing some research.
I found that there's a couple basic things that the rocks or stones or mountains tend
to be.
And, as I go through and I reference different passages here answering this, please note,
that I'll list all the scripture I use in the description box below.
That way, if I'm on a role and I forget to mention a particular passage, chapter and
verse, it's listed for you so you can check all this out yourself.
But, I found basically to two or three different uses for stones, rocks, and mountains in the
Bible.
The first is they are simply the location at which something happened.
There was a lot of mountains and rocks around.
For instance, Balaam, he went with the king, the king wanted him to curse Israel, so they
had to survey the Israeli camp. So they had to get up high in order to do so.
So the mountain was simply a location.
The same with Jesus being tempted by Satan.
Satan wanted to show him all the lands that he was tempting him with. So he had to get
him up high where he could look at them all and view what the temptations were.
Just a location.
The same with Moses and Mount Sinai. It was just a location that God chose in order to
give him the Ten Commandments and the laws and the codes of living.
Now, what informs this decision of mine and how I see that, are two things; one in Exodus,
God is talking to Moses.
And he simply tells Moses very directly, "I chose this mountain, I'm coming down on this
mountain in a thick dense fog, and I'm gonna let the people hear the rumblings and our
communications.
To build their trust in you."
His choice of the mountain and how he was going to approach Moses was very relational.
It was for the relationship between Moses and the people.
He wanted their trust to always be in Moses, that Moses was bringing them what God wanted.
Now, at this point, in a couple chapters earlier, we're told that six hun dred thousand men, not counting
women and children, left Egypt, a lot of people.
So, it would make sense that if you want all the people to see this and get trusting Moses,
you have to do it where everybody can see.
Now, if you are the six hundred thousand or so, way in the back, you're not gonna see
somebody that is at eye level way up front.
So, in order for this to happen, God had to choose a
mountain so that the people way in the back could look up at the mountain and see it.
He chose a big thick fog as a presence over the top of the mountain.
Covering the mountain so the people could witness God coming down a meeting with Moses.
And then all the rumblings and then communications.
So, it was just a location that allowed all the people of Israel to witness this; to build
trust.
You know another thing that indicates to me that it was simply a location, with no meaning
whatsoever, just the location that happened to be chosen, is that after this point, Mount
Sinai is never mentioned in the Bible again, in terms of, being important for worshiping
God.
Never does it have to deal with the worshipping of God in any way after this.
In fact, while it is mentioned several more times in the Bible, every time that it is
mentioned it's always mentioned in conjunction with the covenant being given with God. Being
the place that God gave Israel the law, that's it.
It commemorates the place the time when the law was given.
It is the law, the Covenant that is important not the meeting place.
So, it's just a meeting place.
A second purpose that I see that the rocks being used
are as illustrations.
Illustrations of who God is.
For instance, David calling God his rock.
Now, what God, David was meaning when he calls God this rock.
He was referring to a craggy rocky cliff face on which was a mountain fortress.
It was the idea, that this mountain fortress
was not even approachable, much less breach able, by the enemy.
It was up and away, completely safe.
He was calling God his ultimate safety his ultimate protection.
Now, so the rock itself, the craggy cliff face, is not important as a cliff face or
as a rocky fortress.
It is only important in describing the strength and the security that God
provides to David.
Now here is something very super fascinating, so, even as David is not actually calling
God a mountain fortress, an actual physical rocky cliff mountain fortress, what if
the protections he's assigning to God are also more than merely physical.
Now here's where this gets very relational.
See, I find in Psalms 23, you know this is where David is talking
about walking through the valley of the shadow of death fearing no evil.
See, he's walking through the valley, he's not been kept away from it, he's not been
taken around it or over it.
He's not in some cosmic safe space; he's right in the middle of the valley where all the
evil is flying at him.
And yet, he says I will fear no evil because you God are with me.
He doesn't fear because he knows who is walking beside him.
He knows that the one walking beside him has his
back; something very profoundly relational.
Now, Jesus also opens us up a little bit in the book of John.
Where he says to his disciples he's talking to his disciples, he says, fellas, in this world
you're gonna have troubles.
But cheer up, I've overcome the world.
Do you hear what he's saying?
He's saying fellas, in this world, yeah you're gonna take a beating.
It's coming. But be of good cheer.
Take heart, we will overcome it together.
Wow, how much trust do you have to have in order to know a beatings coming but not having
your world rocked by it?
See what I did there?
World rocked by it… yeah.
Anyway, also I have this opened up a little bit by Paul in 2 Corinthians.
You know, Paul here is talking about how, when viewed through eternity, our life
in the eternal, after we're dead and gone, after this current life is over, that all these
light and momentary troubles we're facing are not going to be more than a faint memory, if that.
What we're going to have then far outweighs what we're going through now.
Now, what's interesting is what these little light and momentary problems of his were?
You know we get upset if we run out of food in the refrigerator or if the AC
goes off for a little bit.
But what Paul's talking about is: he was imprisoned, he was flogged severely, he met death time
and time and time again, he was whipped with a punishment called forty minus one lashes,
which is a whipping that literally takes the skin off
your back, he was beaten, and that happened five times, he was beaten with rods three
times, he was shipwrecked, he was stoned, a third use of rocks by the way not weed,
and he and he was left adrift at sea one time for a night and a day floating on the sea.
Now these are all light and momentary.
So it seems that God was protecting him, not from these physical harms not from these physical
dangers, but through them.
A very profound difference.
It seems as if David's rock is really more interested in who you are and protecting you
at that level rather than mere physical protection; which he may provide as well.
But he's more interested in the who and with establishing the relationship that allows
you to take the beating and not worry about it, to take the beating and know that it's
going to be worth it.
Because there's something more coming, very profoundly relational.
Which you know also ties very well into Jesus being the cornerstone.
You see, when Bible mentions Jesus being the cornerstone.
It's not making so much out of the rock.
The rock and the foundation, in itself, is not important to Christianity.
But, it's what those are representing, in terms of Jesus.
See, when we think of a house we know that with a foundation that is strong, the house is going
to stand up for a long time. But, if the foundation starts to crumble and becomes
weak, the walls start to crack, the doors don't open, windows will not open and sometimes
a glass will break.
So, at one point, the whole house will fall down
if the foundation is not fixed.
And so, what they're doing is, they're saying that Jesus is the foundation of a relationship
with God.
You know, as Jesus is the only one who makes that
relationship possible, he is the one and true only foundation upon which the healthy vibrant
vital relationship can be built.
Everything else is a weak relationship.
If you don't build it on Jesus, you're trying to build it on rules, regulations, traditions,
and in other words you're trying to build it on mere religion.
And you're also going to crack and eventually that's gonna leave you with a house collapsing
in on itself.
Because there's nothing there to truly support a relationship. And you'll be left without a home, with no relationship,
nothing really to believe in.
So, once again, the stone itself isn't important.
It's what the stone is illustrating.
What the concrete object is helping you understand about the abstract and relational object, Jesus
Christ.
So, Abbie, I hope that answered your question or at least gave your mind somewhere to
travel as it thinks about it.
Now, if you also have a question that you would like me to address or a topic just to
chat about please tell me.
Like Abby did on my Facebook page or you can leave
it on Twitter, Instagram, or down in the comments section below; novel idea.
And I'll get to it as soon as I can.
And, if you like this video, please click the like and the subscribe button.
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Thank you.
And until next time click like, click subscribe, and I'll see you then.
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