The item in the photo should be familiar to many of us, though it is not widely used anymore. It would be familiar to Jesus, and his disciple Matthew who likely owned one of his own, since he was a tax collector. The item is an abacus which predates Christianity by many centuries. There are also various versions of this instrument used in counting. For example, it may have been more convenient in the Old West to use knots in a rawhide string if one had to count several thousand cattle entering a stockyard than use an abacus, which would have been more than required for that task. Abacuses were used for all four basic arithmetic functions (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) as well as calculating square and cube roots. They were found across the old world from present day Spain to Singapore. Eventually they were replaced by slide rules and calculators and more recently computers. But the abacus was concerned with numbers, which people thousands of years ago based their societies on, especially as far as trade and commerce were concerned.
Some of the most important numbers
Probably the first number of importance to humans was Pi or π, which we know today as 3.14159 (ad infinitum.) Ptolemy who lived c. 100 – c. 170 A.D. came up with a very close approximation to it. π is considered fundamental to understanding circles, from which wheels are constructed to operate machines.
Today, we have discovered many more important numbers. For example, the speed of light which is 186,282 miles per second. By the seventeenth century, scientists were certain that the speed of light was finite and unchanging, and measurements came close to what we know it is today. This gave Einstein the information he needed for his famous equation E = mc2.
Another important number is the fine structure constant expressed roughly as 1/137. Without this number, life on earth and our universe, itself would not be possible. It is more complicated than I want to go into here, but you can read about it at this website. People say that math is a language. In this case, the number 137 is a number (word) that would be immediately familiar to any alien civilization in our galaxy.
And speaking of alien civilizations, 1420 as in 1420 megahertz is the frequency that is emitted by hydrogen, the most common element in the universe. Scientists involved in the search for life elsewhere in our galaxy focus on that frequency as they listen for intelligent signals. In fact, of all the frequencies used by radio, television, microwaves, cell phones, military operations, etc., 1420 is reserved around the world for this one purpose (to search for intelligent life elsewhere.) Thus, no company or country can broadcast on that frequency per international law.
Biblical numbers
Jesus spoke of numbers in his ministry. In Matthew 18:12-14 he says:
If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.
Note that Jesus is saying that one sheep or one person is as important as the ninety-nine others. Today, that might not always hold true. The loss of a sheep (or ten) might be written off as the cost of doing business. Then, maybe, this sheep is a nuisance. It always gets into trouble. It’s the “runt of the litter.” Maybe it’s just not cost effective in terms of profit margin to keep chasing it, or maybe it’s too inconvenient. Climbers on Mt Everest routinely leave people to die as they summit the peak. Read this heartbreaking story here. In a military operation, the loss of one third of a battalion is considered acceptable if the stakes are high enough. But notice that Jesus doesn’t include any caveats. What he is saying is “Just do it!” He’s saying (as I understand him) that no one is expendable. They may be disabled, delinquent, on drugs, or perhaps have made a mess out of their life and the lives of others around them. Jesus affirms the value of all of us. We may not be shepherds, but we are our brother’s and sister’s keeper.
The number “40” is found in the Gospels and elsewhere. For example, it represents the number of days and nights that it rained during the Great Flood of Noah’s day. It represents the number of years that the Children of Israel wandered to and fro in the wilderness after leaving Egypt. It represents the number of days that Jesus was fasting while being tempted in the wilderness before he began His ministry, and it represents the number of days between Jesus’ resurrection and ascension.
The last numerical equation I want to mention is when Jesus speaks of the statement “seventy times seven” in Matthew 18:21-22. Here, Matthew writes:
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”
Now, I tend to (whenever possible) believe the Bible literally. It is not written in some mysterious code. It was written for ordinary people and for their edification. There is allegory, of course, and the Gospels are filled with parables. There is also a good deal of mysticism or symbolism in books such as Revelation that we don’t understand (or at least I don’t.) Here, in this these verses, I don’t believe Jesus is speaking concretely. Seventy times seven equates to 490. Is that the number of times that we should forget someone who is truly sorry for what they’ve done, and then trun our backs to them when they’ve reached 491? I mean, who is even counting? You? Me? God? We knew that there is no limit to God’s love and mercy. One of the most compelling evidences of this is in Psalm 103:
Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. 2 Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits— 3 who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, 4 who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, 5 who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
6 The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.
7 He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel: 8 The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. 9 He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; 10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. 11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; 12 as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
13 As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; 14 for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. 15 The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field; 16 the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. 17 But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children— 18 with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.
Notice in the early verses that God forgives all of our sins if we ask Him to. Our foolish sins. Our willful sins. Our secret sins that we carry like a monkey on our backs, hoping they’ll never be exposed. It doesn’t matter to God, because He cares more about our relationship to Him than this or that. In verse four we read that God rescues us from our circumstances, like the prodigal son in the Gospels was rescued from the mud of the pigsty. Verse six tells us that God is just. Sometimes the wheels of justice don’t work as quickly as we’d like. But, there is a final reckoning in this life or the next. However, as Shylock was warned in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, we need to be circumspect and temper justice with mercy. Here is what Portia said to Shylock about this:
(Laura Carmichael, of course, is familiar to Downton Abbey fans.)
In verses 8-10, we know that God does not “fly off the handle.” He is not arbitrary and capricious. He is slow to anger, but quick to forgive and forget if a person comes to Him with a broken heart and desire to amend their life. Elsewhere in Scripture, the Holy Spirit is described as a sort of Spirit of restraint. Our lives would be much more miserable and tragic if the devil had full rein to do as he pleases on Earth. God remembers that we are flawed people, not perfect. The author of Hebrews says in Chapter Four:
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.“
Jesus spent thirty-three years in the flesh, confined to a mortal body. He knew the warmth of a hug and what the spikes on a Roman whip felt like. And because of this, we can know that those who trust in Him have salvation and mercy when the cosmic or heavenly scales are finally balanced. This is Portia’s implicit hope and it should be ours as well.
Verses 13ff. remind us that our existence on earth is only for a very short period given the timespan since the Big Bang. Germans have a word for it. Augenblick. Some creatures such as Mayflies life less than twenty-four hours. Field mice live eighteen months if they are lucky. Some tortoises live almost two centuries. We as humans fall somewhere in between. But while many people have no hope for life after life, the Bible tells us that there is something else that awaits us. Something wonderful. And we can prepare, we must prepare for this in the here and now.
