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What is a genuine kinsman-redeemer?
“‘If a fellow countryman of yours becomes so poor he has to sell part of his property, then his nearest kinsman is to come and buy back what his relative has sold. ‘Or in case a man has no kinsman, but so recovers his means as to find sufficient for its redemption, then he shall calculate the years since its sale and refund the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and so return to his property.” (Leviticus 25:25–27 NASB)
The overall lesson of the kinsman-redeemer from the the Torah reading בְּהַר Behar (“on mount” [Sinai]; Leviticus 25) and elsewhere in the Bible is this: As long as it’s in your means to help someone, you should help them. But if you go in to debt, borrowing money to help your kinsman, you are not really helping them, or yourself. You are just transferring debt from them to yourself.
It’s like being a lifeguard. If you have no training in water rescue and you impulsively put yourself in danger to help a drowning person, both of you could die. If you go into the water without a plan or without a real understanding of how to bring the other person safely out of their predicament, you might make things worse because now there are two people who need to be saved, not just one.
If you jump in the water to help someone and they try to drown you, you have to push them away and reorient yourself so you can save them from the water and yourself too. If you start to drown, who will help you at that point? You should not presume that someone else will help you.
“Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you.” (John 15:13–14 NASB)
We belong to God, and although we may rent ourselves out to an employer to earn a living, God is our permanent owner and redeemer.
How to build up a family to live with forever
As we studied in the Torah reading Emor, Shavuot and Sukkot are more closely related to the Jubilee cycle than any other Feasts.
- Shavuot is seven weeks plus one day = eight days
- Sukkot is seven days plus one day = eight days
- Shemitah is seven years plus one year = eight years
This cycle of 7 + 1 = 8 must be very important considering how often God repeats this cycle throughout the Biblical calendar.
After First Fruits, we started counting something called the “Omer” leading up to Shavuot. In the Gospels, we are told the First Fruit was the Messiah Himself and the counting starts from the Resurrection to Pentecost. The First Fruits of wheat grains is wheat sheaves. The First Fruits of sheep are lambs. The First Fruits of human beings are babies. Wheat produces wheat, sheep produce sheep and human beings produce human beings. People do not produce wheat and sheep, we harvest them.
- Shavuot: Counting People
- Sukkot: Gathering Nations
- Schmittah/Yobel: How you treat people; Living in Eternal Life
In Acts 2, at the first Shavuot after the resurrection of Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus), the Spirit was given from God in special measure to His disciples who had gathered in the Temple on that day. Whoever, God places His Spirit upon are our brothers and sisters, regardless of genealogy or biology. God’s spirit can’t inhabit a cherry, a mouse or a tree. These things have life but they don’t have spirit. He didn’t have to put His Spirit in mankind, but He chose to do so.
Counting the Omer is not primarily about counting wheat or sheep. It’s about counting people, who God created in His image. People are of immense value to God. It’s not that cats, dogs, cows, etc. aren’t important but they aren’t of the same substance and same value as human beings. God gave us the ability to create things in a way that none of the animals can do. Only God can create something from nothing, but God gave us raw materials and with those raw materials, we have created many things with the information we have.
God doesn’t count people because He is bored but because His is building a family. We value our fellow man because God values people. God loves people and we are called to love people as He loves them. God helps people and we should help people too. If you have God’s Spirit in you, you have life in you, not just breath, but real life.
If you have God’s Spirit in you, you have His promise of eternal life, if you endure to the end with Him. God wants us to choose life, but He will never force us to do so. As long as we walk in His ways, we can be secure with Him.
At Sukkot, we live in a rickety booth decorated with leaves for seven days, eat some food and fellowship for a week. At Shavuot is counting people, but the counting at Sukkot is a little different. During the festival of Sukkot, 70 animals are sacrificed during the festival. The number 70 represents nations, not individual people. At Shavuot, God is marking and putting His name on individual people, but at Sukkot, God is gathering and collecting the nations together from the four corners of the earth. God is building His family.
Redemption is a one-time purchase. God redeemed the innocent first born of Israel with the death of the innocent first born of Egypt. We all belong to God because He created us but not all people have chosen to follow God. Those who believe in God and have chosen to follow God, God will put His name on them and they become His people. Yeshua, an innocent person, died on our behalf, and His death redeemed us from our sin.
Salvation is an ongoing process. Every day that we walk in obedience to God is a walk in salvation.
“For they are My servants whom I brought out from the land of Egypt; they are not to be sold in a slave sale. ‘You shall not rule over him with severity, but are to revere your God.” (Leviticus 25:42–43 NASB)
In the Shmittah, or Yobel, the people and the land live in a Shabbat, in a time of rest. Since God owns us, we will not treat each other as slaves but as fellow servants of God. We rest and allow others to rest as God allows us to rest.
Summary: Tammy