The First Principles

Back on July 10, I posted a daily devotional from Days of Praise, published by the Institute for Creation Research, titled The Oracles of God. There was a verse shared in that devotional that has been kicking around in my thoughts.

Hebrews 5:12 (New King James) For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food.

In that devotional, Henry M Morris concluded that the 5 books of Moses, known as the Torah, were the "oracles of God." I have looked up the word oracles in Thayer's Greek Definitions; here's what it says:
1) a brief utterance, a divine oracle (doubtless because oracles were generally brief)
1a) in the NT, the words or utterances of God
1b) of the contents of the Mosaic law.
So for the purpose of this post, I am defining the oracles of God as the Torah.

Okay, so if the oracles of God are the Torah, then what are the "first principles" of the Torah? Paul says here that we need someone to teach us again the first principles of the oracles of God.

I think that the very first principle of the Torah can be found in Genesis 1:1: "In the beginning God..." It all begins with God, with belief that He is. I think that another first principle is that He created the heavens & the earth, the seas, and all that in them is.

Another surely can be found in Genesis 3:15 (Amplified): And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her Offspring; He will bruise and tread your head underfoot, and you will lie in wait and bruise His heel. [Gal. 4:4.]

Exodus 20:2 speaks of another: I am the Lord your God, Who has brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. This is followed by the rest of what we've come to know as the Ten Commandments, from Exodus 20:3-17 (Amplified): You shall have no other gods before or besides Me. You shall not make yourself any graven image [to worship it] or any likeness of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; You shall not bow down yourself to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me, [Isa. 42:8; 48:11.] But showing mercy and steadfast love to a thousand generations of those who love Me and keep My commandments. You shall not use or repeat the name of the Lord your God in vain [that is, lightly or frivolously, in false affirmations or profanely]; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain. [Earnestly] remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy (withdrawn from common employment and dedicated to God). Six days you shall labor and do all your work, But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, your daughter, your manservant, your maidservant, your domestic animals, or the sojourner within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it [set it apart for His purposes]. Regard (treat with honor, due obedience, and courtesy) your father and mother, that your days may be long in the land the Lord your God gives you. You shall not commit murder. You shall not commit adultery. [Prov. 6:25, 26; Matt. 5:28; Rom. 1:24; Eph. 5:3.] You shall not steal. [Prov. 11:1; 16:8; 21:6; 22:16; Jer. 17:11; Mal. 3:8.] You shall not witness falsely against your neighbor. [Exod. 23:1; Prov. 19:9; 24:28.] You shall not covet your neighbor's house, your neighbor's wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's. [Luke 12:15; Col. 3:5.]

Here's another from Leviticus 19:18 (Amplified): You shall not take revenge or bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. [Matt. 5:43-46; Rom. 12:17, 19.]

And yet another from Deuteronomy 6:4-5 (Amplified): Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord [the only Lord]. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your [mind and] heart and with your entire being and with all your might.

The appointed times or feasts of the LORD and the Tabernacle with all of its furnishings & fittings are surely part of those first principles, too, as they foreshadow the Messiah and teach us of His salvation.

Even though I have been following the LORD for over 30 years and have been reading & studying His Word daily for over 20 years, I still have a great deal to learn. As I have applied myself to reading & studying His Torah over the past couple of years, I have been made very aware of how little I actually know about those first principles of the oracles of God. It is exciting to study His Word knowing that I still have so much to learn!

My heart echoes the writer of Psalm 119:1-6 (Amplified): BLESSED (HAPPY, fortunate, to be envied) are the undefiled (the upright, truly sincere, and blameless) in the way [of the revealed will of God], who walk (order their conduct and conversation) in the law of the Lord (the whole of God's revealed will). Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are they who keep His testimonies, and who seek, inquire for and of Him and crave Him with the whole heart. Yes, they do no unrighteousness [no willful wandering from His precepts]; they walk in His ways. [I John 3:9; 5:18.] You have commanded us to keep Your precepts, that we should observe them diligently. Oh, that my ways were directed and established to observe Your statutes [hearing, receiving, loving, and obeying them]! Then shall I not be put to shame [by failing to inherit Your promises] when I have respect to all Your commandments.