Progressive knowledge

As you know, when we learn anything, we make mistakes.  When you started using a computer you probably had the horrible experience of losing something you had taken ages to type!  You may have had the wrong idea that a computer is better than the human brain, until you found it giving you some very unhelpful commands.  Gradually you got to understand the computer better and learnt how to save documents properly and create back-up discs as an extra precaution.  So you went on learning a step at a time.

In the same way, ever since the Fall when the human race first rebelled against God, people have had wrong ideas about him and it was only by a step at a time that they got their ideas right.

Animism

In fact, it took even the Jews a long time to learn that there is only one God.  At one time, as in some parts of the world today, they thought that every clump of trees, and especially every evergreen tree, had a spirit in it which made it grow and kept it alive.  Of course, if it were an unusually big tree it must be the home of a very powerful spirit.  In the same way spirits were supposed to live in other things too, such as rivers or caves or large rocks.  They believed that the spirit owned, and was lord or Baal of, the district in which he happened to live.  So when a tribe settled down and built a village nearby they took him for their god.  After a time they would set up a stone pillar or wooden post for the god to live in instead of the rock or tree.  Later on they carved a face or body from the stone or wood and made an idol of it, like the idols we see if we go to a museum.

Each tribe, then, had its own special god who was supposed to look after his people in time of peace and fight against their enemies in time of war.

Polytheism

The Jews, like other peoples, also believed at one time that there were many gods, though they thought that the God of Israel was the most powerful of them all.  You may remember that when the Israelites escaped from Egypt across the Red Sea, Moses sang a song of thanksgiving to God which shows how he thought that the Lord God of Israel was the strongest among many gods.  “Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods?  Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in splendour, doing wonders?” (NRSV, Exodus 15:11).

Monotheism

Years after they had settled in Palestine they began to realise that the gods of the other nations were not gods at all.  They were but lifeless pieces of wood and stone.  “For all the gods of the peoples are idols”, wrote the Psalmist, “but the Lord made the heavens” (NRSV, 96:5).  So they learnt that there was only one God, who made the sun and moon and stars, and that he was God, not only of the Jews, but also of all the nations of the earth.

Thus it happened that at the time of Jesus, the Jews were the only nation which had learnt that there is only one God, the Living God, and they took great care never to forget it.  Every Jew used to recite twice a day a verse called the Shema from the Book of Deuteronomy.  ‘Shem’ means ‘Hear’ for the verse begins, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord” (6:4).  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (NRSV, 6:5).

They also had the verse written down on pieces of parchment.  One of these pieces was kept near their front door in a wooden or metal tube which they touched, as Jews do today, on going in and out to remind them of the Shema.  In addition, they wore a leather case containing the Shema on their left arm and another was bound to their forehead.  If we look at verses 8 and 9 of Deuteronomy we shall see why they did this: “Bind them (these words) as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (NRSV, 6:8,9).

The Fatherhood of God

Every service in the synagogue began with the singing of the Shema and of course Jesus and his disciples, besides saying it twice a day, used to join in every time they went.

But Jesus taught something more about God than the Shema, and that was this: not only is there one God but he is our good Father and we are his children.  So now we know, not only that there is one God, but that he is our Father who loves us and cares for us always, and that he has made us for himself, to know, love and serve him in this life so that we can be happy with him for ever in the next.

SUMMARY

1. The Jews learnt the truth about God little by little.

2. At one time they thought there were many gods, each tribe having its own.  Then they thought that the Lord God of Israel was the most powerful, and afterwards they learnt that he is the One only God who has made Heaven and earth.

3. Jesus taught us that God is our good Father who loves us and cares for us always, and we are his children.