At the beginning of a chapter with three parables about God’s seeking to bring back to the Kingdom of God those who are “lost,” Yeshua demonstrated how God makes the “unholy” “holy.”
We are in danger of making God’s name common and of no repute — i.e., “taking it in vain” — if we reject those who He is calling to Himself just because they don’t have the same understanding we have.
The binding of Yitskhak was more of a test of our belief than it was for Abraham or Yitskhak (Isaac). It’s also a “shadow” of the suffering in Gethsemane of the ultimate “one and only son,” Yeshua the Mashiakh (Jesus the Christ).
Many wonder why the Book of Esther is in the Bible, because the name of God is not mentioned in it. Yet, actually God is mentioned throughout the account. The main people in the book also are symbols for God, God’s Messiah, Israel and the Adversary, aka haSatan.
Abraham seals a contract with King Abimelech for a well and seals it with a seven-fold oath in the form of seven ewes.
Yeshua’s schooling of a Pharisee member of Israel’s ruling council on allowable actions on Shabbat seems disconnected from the parables that follow in Luke 14. Yet they all are threaded together with learning God’s view on justice, compassion and mercy then honoring God through lifelong commitment to those principles of the kingdom of Heaven.
Not honoring God by seeking that change of “glasses” for seeing the world — and seeing the One through Whom the change would come — doomed much of Israel to be scattered and regathered repeatedly.
On the surface, Paul’s message about Sarah and Hagar in Gal. 4:22-23 doesn’t make sense. After all, we all know how a man and woman come together to make a child.
Sarah symbolizes Heaven, and Hagar symbolizes the Earth. In the last days, God will glorify Jerusalem.
Yeshua (Jesus) the Messiah said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 15:24 NASB). Rather than replacing Israel, believers in Yeshua as the Messiah have joined Israel, the name for God’s people who have been and will be repeatedly scattered and regathered because a “deal” between God and Israel that was ultimately sealed with the blood of Yeshua.