If I only had one session, if somebody said: listen, you've got an hour, and I want you to talk about the most important Hermeneutical principle you can talk about, this would be it: Form and Function.
Greek people, people with white skin that come from Europe - they find their origins in a really big, powerful church in Europe, which has big buildings with apostles names named after them - we see form.
We always see form. We were trained to see form; we think in form; everything about us is form. Hebrew people see function. Hebrew people always see function.
Let me give you the most obvious example I can think of. It says this: “God hid Moses in the crevasse of the rock with His hand.” All of us are form-thinkers; so all of us would have images in our head. We'd have a big cave, you have Moses in there; and then primarily the focus of that particular sentence in scripture is the Hand of God; so you have: Moses, a big cave, and God's hand.
Everybody pictures a big giant hand. It’s really big, right; like it's the hand of God, man. But the question is: does God have a hand? The answer is: no, God's a spirit. God doesn't have a hand like we have. Wait a minute, what about: the mighty hand of God; the strong arm of the Lord?
Again, Greek people think form; Hebrew people think function. When a Hebrew person writes something like 'the hand of God', or 'the strong arm of the Lord', they're thinking: what does a hand do?
The image is a form; but they're thinking: what is the function of a hand? A hand holds, a hand comforts, a hand hides, a hand does all of these things; so when a Hebrew person reads 'and God hid Moses in the crevasse of the rock with His hand', they're thinking: what's God doing to Moses in that cave? He's hiding him; comforting him; touching him. The focus is not on the form; the focus is on the function.
Later it says: “and Moses saw the back-side of God”. Form doesn't really work there, does it; because if God's hand is big... God's back-side would be huge! Can you imagine? Whoa, man! What happened? I saw the back-side of God man!
That doesn't work for us! Our 'form' kind of starts messing up; so we have to learn to see function. Moses saw the back side of God; so if we're going to look at that Hebraically, we have to understand: what is the function, of the back-side of God?
What's the function of God's back-side; because that's what Moses saw? You've got to extrapolate that back, and ask yourself questions like: what substance - is there any substance that God is described as, as observable and tangible?
You could say: God is love, God is mercy? God is all these things; but you can't really observe those things. Those are behaviors or verbs; you can't really observe those things. The only tangible substance that I can think of, that God is described as, is light - something you can see.
As a matter of fact it says: “for God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all”. There at least two substances on earth, that have no weight, and yet have force - which is pretty cool.
Physics says that Force equals Mass times Acceleration; so in order to have force, you have to have weight; but there are two things on earth that have no weight, yet they have force. The first one is light; and the second one is words.
Your words carry no weight, but yet they have force; light has no weight, yet it has force. If you focus light down, focussed enough, you can burn through steel. God is described as both those things - that God is Light; and God is the Word.
So God is described as a being, with no definable weight or matter; yet He has infinite force. God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.
Now here's what we know from science. We know that the universe is constantly expanding at the speed of light. We also know from the Bible, that Jesus (or God), is holding the whole universe together; so doesn't it stand to reason, that science would prove, that the universe is expanding at the very speed, of the substance, of the one who's holding it together?
Keywords: Form, Function, form versus function, Hermeneutical, Greek versus Hebrew, Hebraic, word, light, force, Chuck Missler, back side of God,Gethsemane, lamb, pressed, laying on of hands, Malar, impartation,in Jesus' name, deliverance, demons, El Shaddai, hover, hovering, Jehovah Rophe, Jehovah Jireh, Jehovah M'Kaddesh, Jehovah Nissi; Jehovah Rophe, Paleo-Hebrew, Mishcon, tabernacle, glory, dwelt, Shaken, iniquity, Shalom