Adonai ~ Master

The focus this week in Bible study was God’s name Adonai, Master.  You may not remember reading this name in Scripture but it is found over 300 times in the Old Testament.  Whenever you see ‘Lord’, it has been translated from the Hebrew Adonai and means lord, master or Sovereign. (Take note, this is different from ‘LORD’.  When you see lord in all capitals, this is translated from Yahweh or Jehovah. We will be studying this name of God next week.)

What I Learned from the Homework

The homework this week focused on giving us a Biblical view of the master/slave relationship. History and our own live experiences many have a caused a skewed view of this relationship which we will find is not what God intended at all.  We studied God’s perspective on the subject by looking at Psalm 86. This Psalm gives us further insight into the master/slave relationship. Before continuing, please read Psalm 86.  As you read, keep in mind that the Lord is our Sovereign Master and we are His servants. Within the context of this Psalm we learned who the Master is, what He does, and what our response to the Master should look like.

Master  

Who He Is: In verse five, we are given a list of God’s qualities, “You are forgiving and good, O Lord, abounding in love to all who call on You”.  We learn more about the Master in verse 15: “But You, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness”.

What He Does: “For You are great and do marvelous deeds; You alone are God” (Psalm 86:10). In verse 16 we see how God acts towards His servant:  “Turn to me and have mercy on me; grant Your strength to Your servant and save the son of your maid servant”.  We then see at the end of verse 17, “for You, O Lord, have helped me and comforted me”.

Servant

The homework approached the servant’s role in the relationship a bit differently.  We studied his response to the Master.  We see the servant’s response to the Master in the following verses: “Among the gods there is none like You, O Lord; no deeds can compare with yours. All the nations you have made will come and worship before you, O Lord; they will bring glory to your name. For You are great and do marvelous deeds: You alone are God” (Psalm 86:8-10).  How readily the servant praised the Master!!

What I Learned in Class

Today when Janet taught she stressed that God is our Sovereign Lord. As our Lord, we must show Him reverence. This means that we do not go to Him just when we are in need. We go to Him with our worship. Janet pointed to some beautiful words of worship found in Psalm 8:1 “O LORD (Yahweh), our Lord (Adonai) how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set Your glory above the heavens” (emphasis added).

God is our highest authority.  All of us submit to one authority or another but no one’s authority supersedes that of Adonai, our Lord. Over the course of our lives we may have had a person in authority over us that misused their position but Janet cautioned us that we cannot use our experiences with human authority as a frame of reference for the way we view God as our Master.  God is not human authority. She reiterated the point made in the homework that our God is gracious, loving, forgiving and merciful. Janet pointed us to David, a man who knew the Lord this way through his own experiences. She stressed that we may learn a lot about the Lord through reading and studying His Word but to truly know Him we must acknowledge Him as Lord of our lives.

Wrapping it All Up

What we learned in the homework and in class gave me a wonderful and freeing picture of God as my Master. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. God is our Adonai. Who He is and what He does has not changed.  He is kind, compassionate, loving, merciful and gracious.  He delivers us and gives us strength.  He will not abuse His authority over us. Choose to believe the Word of Truth!  Our God is worthy of our trust!

“How great You are, O Sovereign Lord! There is no one like you, and there is no God like You, as we have heard with our own ears.“ (2 Samuel 7:22)

When we study the scriptures, the Word of Truth, how can our heart not be filled with joy!!