Many of us probably don’t realize it, but we understand space, time and matter differently than Jews did in the first century AD. It isn’t that we’ve never regarded space, time and matter similar to first century Jews, but we don’t anymore, not as ‘aggressively’ as they did. As a child, I remember that stores were closed on Sundays, because that was sacred time. Growing up Roman Catholic, we considered the altar, where we knelt to receive Holy Communion, and the sanctuary, where mass was celebrated as sacred places. Even the pews, by virtue of being connected to the sanctuary had a sacredness connected to them, and very little talking was done there, only whispers, usually by a parent to hush a child. Moreover, certain elements used during the worship service were considered sacred, and were used only for worship. Nothing sacred was treated as common, whether time, space or matter.
During the days of Jesus, the Sabbath was considered sacred time, as was the Passover season, which celebrated the presence of God. The Temple was considered a sacred place (space), which is why Jesus overturned the tables of the money changers and cast out everyone, who were involved in common labor, buying and selling etc. Jesus even forbade folks using this sacred ground, as a short-cut to get from one side of the city to the other. The Temple was sacred space, which included the Most Holy Place, the Holy Place and the outer courts, by virtue of their closeness to the House and the purpose of the work done there by the priests.
Matter was also important, when it came to one’s devotion to God. For example, the high priest’s ceremonial clothing was sacred. The Golden Lampstand, the Altar of Incense and the Table of Shewbread, together with the bread, itself, and the Altar of Sacrifice in the outer court were all sacred matter. They had only one purpose, and that was to serve in things pertaining to God and man’s relationship with him.
I remember, as a child, stores were closed for national holidays, like Memorial Day and Independence Day. These days were held in a kind of sacred observance, where in we remembered the high cost of freedom and we gave thanks to God for what he had given us and for those among us, who had fallen to preserve our freedom. Things back then had a sacred meaning. Whereas, today, a national holiday is simply a day off from work, wherein we are able to do whatever we please. Sunday has lost its sense of sacred time, as has our national holidays. Christmas and Easter, also have lost their sense of being sacred, and all time is the same; it is all common time, whatever we call it.
As far as sacred matter goes, nothing seems sacred anymore, whether it is blessing the food we eat or wearing the wedding band, as a symbol of a lifelong marriage. The table talk, we engage in after thanks is offered, has little to do with thankfulness and worship of God, and the rate of divorce is a sad testimony to the sacredness we should but don’t hold in our vows, represented in the wedding ring married folks wear.
Finally, where is the place, vis-à-vis the Temple, we set apart for God in our lives? We don’t want him in our politics, except when it is popular to win an election, but afterward, we don’t want him in our knowledge (Romans 1:28). We don’t want him in our schools, or our places of business. Even many churches have little to say about God, his will for our lives and for our nation.
Space, time and matter, they were important and sacred in the first century AD. Jesus thought so, too! Nevertheless, fewer and fewer folks today consider anything sacred, whether its time for God, things (matter) we use to remind us of God, or whether it’s having a place (space) for God in our lives. Most everything is simply common, vis-à-vis one thing is like every other thing.
Smoodock's Blog 
One response to “Space, Time, and Matter”
Eddie, quite interesting indeed, but I’m sure you would agree that
you’ve gone off on a bit of a tangent here; you’re quite a distance from
the typical bible study themes, but I guess that’s because you are
Smoodock. You have a uncommon talent for stating the obvious thing using
an incredibly large number of words. For the rest of us to try and
figure out your actual thinking on the matter can be quite difficult,
but also fun in an exhausting sort of way; I’m trying hard to limit the
number of words in my response…
I’ve long realized that space and time were handled quite differently
back in the Bible days AND that no one ever thinks about things in that
way… It all started with Nimrod, God’s original favorite manager,
assigned to organize the people into a functioning unit of ANTS,
building out the world the way that God had commanded. And Nimrod did a
pretty good job of it, but made one critical sin by building the Tower
towards “Heaven”.
God did not command Nimrod to keep everyone centrally located around the
greater middle east area and to start building towards Himself. Nope, no
way, God told him to build outward, not upward, to fill the earth, not
to build a space ship away from earth, God never said that, and that was
Nimrod’s sin, he disobeyed God, and all he had to do was obey God and
start filling the earth with harmonious ants working on God’s project,
to FILL THE EARTH; he failed to do his job well.
The current time standard, Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), was invented
around 1601AD and has been used ever since as the primary world time
standard. For instance, the turn of the millennium computer hoax, no one
ever recalls that one, was all about a transition from 32 to 64 bits
within the memory of all computers, the unit of measure for time was
determined to be insufficient for tracking time passed 2001. Bummer, you
would have thought they would have considered all of that when they
designed the dang robot hordes. I have to assume that many of them were
already convinced the world wouldn’t be able to make it that far, passed
the end of the Mayan calendar; they took way too much liberty in the old
measure thrice, cut once rule that typically works better than what they
did – made a mess out of that new tower they tried to build.
However, through all of those years, the time “standard”, GMT, has
remained the same, only the magnitude of time measures increased, within
the minds of our robots. The theory of GMT is that time is a function of
location; I’m on the Pacific Coast at this instance of time, but if I
was standing in Greenwich England, instead of where I am now, the time
would be different. And everyone says, yeah, that’s the obvious thing
that I already know. But do they really understand the implications of
this? Nope, they rarely do, but, based on your Bible research, it seems
you have an inherent understanding about all of this space/time stuff…
At the time of Nimrod, humans were much more integrated because they all
lived within a similar zone of time. For instance, they would all wake
up around the same time, for work, and they would be quite synchronized
while sleeping and dreaming around the same time, day in and day out.
And, Nimrod liked it like that, being in charge can be fun, but God did
not like it, claiming that humans could achieve “whatever they wanted”,
if He let them continue to reach to the Heavens – as a unit, WE were far
more powerful back in the day. He changed that in an instant, forcing
them to separate [ I cannot understand you anymore, your words make no
sense to me ], to start spreading out, like He had already told them,
into more and more time zones around the world [ we only learned about
them recently ], fragmenting our global consciousness into what it is
today… a blend of billions all melded together into one cohesive unit,
ruled by our Christ, not that Lucifer guy gone rouge.
So, it really was the humans of the Bible times, like Nimrod, that DID
NOT understand time, they DID NOT understand locations, they did not
understand what God was doing to them, what He did to us. However, with
our very modern understanding of time and space, our time based
technologies [ all computers understand this, in exquisite detail (
google maps is better at this using these numbers than any human can
achieve, and yet, they are still dumb as a rocks ) ] we can see exactly
how God assembled us into His congregation. But, we rarely see things
the way they really are… just sayin’, and I think that’s what you were
also sayin’…
God Bless,
-Samm