{"id":1436,"date":"2014-05-15T20:31:53","date_gmt":"2014-05-15T20:31:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/?p=1436"},"modified":"2014-05-17T18:42:01","modified_gmt":"2014-05-17T18:42:01","slug":"anointing-oil-an-ancient-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/anointing-oil-an-ancient-practice\/","title":{"rendered":"Anointing Oil: An Ancient Practice?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brooke Keith<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, \u201cThis shall be a holy anointing oil unto me throughout your generations.\u201d
\nExodus 30:31-32<\/p>\n

Anointing oil<\/a> as an act of prayer and faith is a practice that is deeply rooted in the legacy of Israel and its people. Moses anointed the tabernacle, consecrating it and all inside to God. Samuel anointed David in his journey to becoming King. Jesus Himself and His closest twelve reached forth their hands to heal the sick and preformed great miracles.<\/p>\n

But despite the deep and holy history of anointing oil, the question is posed time and time again- is this ancient form of blessing just that… ancient?<\/p>\n

\"anointing-oil\"<\/a>

anointing-oil<\/p><\/div>\n

Our modern world moves forward. Tradition is lost. We find new ways to do old things. Technology from just months ago already deemed outdated and tossed away for new editions. This is the plight of the human spirit. As a world, as a people, we are all determined to move forward, go higher, dream bigger, to rewrite the old and create in its ashes a new thing.
\nIn addition to our quest to upgrade the old is the quest to make sense of it all. Job was a prime example of a man determined to make sense of his life and everything in it. Job was a faithful man who trusted God in all things. But after the loss of his wife, children and livestock… after he had been stricken with an illness and painful sores broke out all over his body he found himself asking God what we all do from time to time. \u201cWhy? God, help me make this all make sense.\u201d
\nBut God comes back and answers Job in a way that he probably never expected. A modern re-telling might look a bit like this. \u201cJob, do you know how I formed the world? What it took to get those trees to grow down and up all at once? What the heartbeat of the ocean sounds like? Were you there when I hung the stars in the sky one by one? I\u2019d love to tell you why… But I don\u2019t think you could ever understand. You\u2019re just gonna have to trust me, Job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Job\u2019s question was complex, it is much like the question that leaves many wondering if anointing oil has lost its place in our world today. Did using oil to anoint someone even make sense? Weren\u2019t words enough? What could oil possibly do to change things? Perhaps that was just it. Oil didn\u2019t change things. Not the oil itself. Instead, it was the complete and utter relying on God that did. The act of pouring oil on someone\u2019s head seemed so out there that you\u2019d have to be greatly obedient to God to even try it. The secret was in the obedience. The secret was in the action of saying \u201cI trust you so much I\u2019ll do this thing that seems so strange. I\u2019ll trust you, Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even in a world that is constantly moving forward, the history of the Bible beckons us to return to Israel, not by physical journey but by the breaking open of the oil and the pouring out of our hearts. To do so in obedience, to do so even though we can\u2019t make sense of why except that we have some-kind-of-faith in the God of Moses, in the power of Jesus, that we can\u2019t help but trust in His promise.<\/p>\n

Ancient?\u00a0 Yes.<\/p>\n

But Webster\u2019s Dictionary defines ancient as this… \u201cHaving existed for a very long time.\u201d And that\u2019s exactly what our God has done, alive since before the dayspring of time, the same yesterday, today and forever. Not \u201cI was\u201d or \u201cI will be\u201d but I AM, God never changes and it\u2019s only in this constant state of ancient beauty, in trusting God with the things that don\u2019t make sense, imploring Him to come to us and bless all that we need, it is these things that move us forward. It is the unchanging character of God that changes us.<\/p>\n

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By Brooke Keith \u201cAnd thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, \u201cThis shall be a holy anointing oil unto me throughout your generations.\u201d Exodus 30:31-32 Anointing oil as an act of prayer and faith is a practice that is deeply rooted in the legacy of Israel and its people. Moses anointed the tabernacle, more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1437,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,49],"tags":[200,198,135,625,125,199],"class_list":{"0":"post-1436","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-biblical-spiritual","8":"category-featured-stories","9":"tag-anointing","10":"tag-anointing-oil","11":"tag-israel-news","12":"tag-israeli-news","13":"tag-news-from-jerusalem","14":"tag-temple-oil","15":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1436"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1453,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436\/revisions\/1453"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}