How would you explain the “feasts to the Lord” to someone who asked you why you observe them (1Tim. 3:15)? What is so important about observing Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) for believers in Yeshua as the Messiah?
Category: Appointments With God
This month is referred to as the “ingathering” at the end of the year or the end of the cycle of seven appointments with God, the “feasts to the Lord.” What do these times mean? How do we give an answer to someone when they have questions?
Shavu’ot is a holiday celebrated 50 days after the Feast of Firstfruits. By this time, most of the harvest is gathered, prepped and stored. But God told His people in Leviticus 23 that they were supposed to leave a remnant behind for the “poor and the stranger.”
Traditionally, the book of Ruth is studied during Shavu’ot in most Jewish congregations. We have studied the surface story of Ruth in the past, but this study will dig deeper. Ruth had no right to an inheritance from God. She disregarded her birth family and follows her mother-in-law, Naomi, and Naomi’s God for the rest of her life.
There are three main classes of interpretation: 1. Yeshua is heralding the “end of Torah” and the “beginning of Grace.” 2. Yeshua was simply correcting unwarranted additions to the Torah. 3. Yeshua is talking about a “higher standard” for the Torah.
In chapter 10, use of two silver trumpets is explained, such as calling together the people to celebrate the New Moon and other appointed times. In chapter 11, the people of Israel call out for more than meat and manna, and God curses the cravers with copious quail followed by a plague.
The events of this chapter occurred during the first month of the second year after the children of Israel left Egypt. There’s the provision for a “makeup Passover” for those unavoidably out of the country or “unclean” at the time of Passover and purification of the Levites as the primary “firstborn” of Israel in God’s eyes.