I wanted to share with you something I read this morning. John chapter 2 talks about the start of Jesus’s ministry. He travelled to Jerusalem with his disciples for Passover and went to the Temple to find it teeming with salesmen and loan sharks… money changers and livestock galore… Obviously this made him upset so he grabbed some leather strips, and started chasing folks out, turning over tables and yelling that they were making a mockery of God’s Temple by turning it into a commercial profit focused marketplace.
Can you picture Jesus, the guy portrayed in movies in white sheets who moves slowly and methodically with such grace like he’s always in slow motion… flipping over tables and screaming and chasing people out with a whip? What would cause such a passion to arise within Him?
I was reminded of “El Qanna” at this point in my reading. If you haven’t gone through “The Truth Project” at the Creek, you should! It’s a 13 week DVD study course that deals with all sorts of topics, and on the “Who is God?” course, Dr. Del Tackett, who’s name I likely just slaughtered, showed us that very few times does God say what his NAME is.
Exodus 34:14 – “Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.”
The Lord’s NAME is “Jealous”… really? What’s that even mean??? Isn’t jealousy a bad thing? Names mean something. God changes people’s names in the Bible multiple times. A few examples:
Jacob (supplanter) changed to Israel (strives with God) Gen. 32:28
Abram (father of height) changed to Abraham (father of a multitude) Gen. 17:5
Simon (hearing) changed to Peter (rock)
Saul (demanded) changed to Paul (little)
Moses (taken out of the water)
You shall name the child John (God is gracious)
You shall name Him Jesus (Savior)
So if names mean so much… and God tells us his name is Jealous… what does that mean? Is it the jealousy we feel when we refer to the term? Our jealousy says, “You have something I want and I hate you for it.” But the term used in the Bible comes from the phrase “el qanna” or “el kanna”. It is a different thing than the jealousy we know. It is defined as “zeal that rises within us when a covenant is threatened.”
God whose name is El Qanna, is El Qanna!
Let’s put it in a perspective we can understand… When we are in a relationship, would we not do ANYTHING to ensure nothing comes between us? If my wife and I were in a situation where I saw something would come between us… be it an addiction, another person, etc… I would do anything in my power to ensure that doesn’t happen. It would ruin our relationship. This passion would rise up within me and drive me to take action to protect our marriage covenant. THAT is El Qanna. That is the nature of God.
Jesus was filled with El Qanna when he saw the profit focus instead of the worship focus. He was filled with a righteous anger and indignation towards those who had put themselves between God and the people… and he took action.
When you understand this nature of God, you start to realize why he acted so similarly in other cases. Why the Israelites were led into the desert for 40 years for doubting Him, why such calamity hit when they built idols and didn’t trust Him, why they were instructed to not marry outside of their religion… Doubt, Trust, Seeds of other faiths… all things that can grow up and disrupt this relationship God had with his people. El Qanna took action.
And thank God he did… because if it wasn’t for El Qanna, Christ wouldn’t have died for our sins.