28Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
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very comforting words to me right now. thank you.
I was reading about yokes last night. Not in a cook book either. A yoke was a rabbi’s teaching. Rabbi’s had their own style of teaching and if you liked it, then you would take on their yoke. Furthermore, Rabbis also taught their students so intensely, that when the students went on to become rabbis themselves, they carried their former teachers yoke. This way, you could identify with the new rabbi.
Hmmm…I thought it was a picture of two oxen tied together by a “yoke”…The stronger directing the weaker. A strong ox was always paired with a weaker one so that they would not fight for superiority. The one had to lead…the other’s job was not to carry the bulk of the weight of leading, but to walk alongside and help pull the plow.
I didn’t know about this thought, Kevin. Interesting.
Mmmmmmm. That word feels so good when you need it. Great to read it and it always feels new.
hayseed, i am glad you are comforted. i was thinking of you & maggie when i posted this scripture. i really, really love how Jesus always wants to comfort us and tell us its ok cos he’s there and God always looks after us.
kevin, are you serious about the yokes thing? i wanna know more! what do you mean, rabbis had their own style of teaching? it sounds like a cool concept but if they all taught God’s word then how much could their styles or yokes vary? what is a yoke even. i thought it was like the animal yoke. not egg yolk.
diana
maggie, i thought the exact same thing that you thought. you must have beat me to commenting by like half a second. lol
Well they had their own styles of teaching and interpretation. ONe rabbi might go so far as to say that if you more than walking on the Sabbath then you were sinning. While another one would allow running.
We see it spill over in the new testament. John the Baptist had his own followers. Each rabbi had their own school of thought.
You also have to take into consider the Jewish verses the Greek meanings of the word. In the Greek, it meant the “the yoke which beasts” and did refer to the animal as was mentioned by Maggie. You have probably heard Paul say “Do not become unequally yoked.”
However, Jesus was probably speaking in the Jewish context of the yoke, which came to be understood as a Rabbi’s teachings about the torah. Jeremiah 2:20 for example describes Israel forsaking the Torah.
Make sense?
Hmmm. Good food for thought. Thanks Kev!
By taking on his yolk, by accepting God as our Lord and Master, By accepting life as it is and not forcing our ego and will based mind upon it, we can make our soul peaceful and ourt burden easy. When we look at an ox with his yolk on it,it appears heavy , a tremndous burden.
However the spirit of the oxen is gentle and kind
and therefor his burden is made light.
Life is about perception. If our perception is one that accepts what is while gently and lovingly doing our part..no matter the outward appearnce of things, our souls will be at peace and our burden will be light! What more could we ask for?
To me this is saying we need to completely turn over our lives to God and his will not ours, and in this surrender and acceptance of the appearnaces of life no matter what we will find great peace and a light load!
Peace be to you all! Found this discussion board and thought I’d leave a little of what I’ve learned about the yoke of a rabbi. I’ve been reading lots of books about rabbis of the first century to try and get a clearer picture of our messiah Yeshua and his words via their historical context. A rabbi’s yolk was indeed his way of teaching and varied from rabbi to rabbi. Many of Christ’s teachings are better understood in this context. In the synagogues there was only one copy of the Scripture so everyone read from the same copy, however many people were able to speak, in fact all rabbis could share their learning. Unlike in western culture were there’s one teacher they had many from different orders no less. In the New Testament we read of the Saducees, Sages, and Pharisees but there were AT LEAST twenty others, so they’d come to town and offer THEIR insights to Scripture in an informal debate by saying: “You’ve heard it said that” (insert other rabbi’s teaching here) “but I tell you” (insert your own teaching here). All men were to have learned the Torah (Pentuach) by age 10! After that they would PURSUE a rabbi by APPEALING to his yoke, if they couldn’t get accepted they went home and learned there father’s trade ;And this is part of the radical ministry of Yeshua (Jesus for us in the west btw =) he calls his disciples to HIM! And appeals his yoke to THEM, men who were found WANTING by other rabbis, he finds value in to complete the scripture that says he will use the foolish things of this world to confound the wise! He later gives Peter the ‘keys’ to His Church, saying that whatever is ‘loosed’ or ‘bound’ on Earth would also be done in Heaven. I’m coming to a close I promise =) So it was said that the disciples of a rabbi would carry his yoke, so Jesus is saying in essence ‘you can do what I can do’ and we see this in Acts multiple times, the choosing of the new 12th as an apostle, that gentiles could be added to the promise, that we don’t have to be circumsized, etc. and they did so with AUTHORITY! SO in closing as DISCIPLES of Christ we have authority to bind and loose things on Earth in an appeal to our Great Intermediator so that they can be so in Heaven where “two or three gather in” His “Name”! Let us make sure that this being the case we do so in accordance with Scripture, in The Spirit, and most importantly in love.
God be praised and Amen!
With love (read agape) and Shalom (peace)
Your brother in our Adonai (Lord) Yeshua
Luis
I just reread my post and would like to clarify binding and loosing was a rabbi’s way of saying allowing and prohibiting so this is the authority given to the disciples, and by proxy us as apostles of this great rabbi! Because a disciple was to pick up his rabbi’s yoke they were expected to do what their rabbi could do. So much so that Christ says if our faith is as small as a mustard seed a mountain will jump in the ocean. When Simon Peter asks Yeshua if he can come to him on the water it’s his assumptions based on his understanding of what it means to carry a rabbi’s yoke and do what he can do. Jesus doesn’t condemn him at this point indeed he CALLS him! When Peter takes his eyes off his Rabbi, he looks at himself and this is where he and many of us fail, he doubts himself. Jesus rightfully says Ye of little faith, because Christ chose Peter! He sees something in Peter he doesn’t see himself, he LOVES Peter, and He loves you, so I love you=) oh and for more info on these and many other thoughts of the first century I suggest you read Meet the Rabbis by Brad Young, Yeshua by Ron Mosely, and Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell
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