If Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) is merely a time to fast, and get your ticket punched with your messianic family and friends, you are wasting your time and theirs.
This time is not just a time to afflict one’s body by abstinence from food and water, but more importantly, a time to afflict one’s soul by facing up to your sins, transgressions and iniquities and giving them over to the Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus), so He can heal your heart and soul.
Blowing a trumpet is meant to draw attention to a particular event. Whether it’s a call to arms or a call to remembrance, when one hears a trumpet or shofar blast, it’s a sound that cannot and will not be ignored.
Yom Teruah — the Feast of Trumpets — the first of God’s fall appointments is a call to repentance and to prepare to face God in judgment, which is memorialized 10 days later on Yom Kippur — the Day of Atonement.
One can’t help but connect Trumpets to the seven trumpets of Revelation. And in this study, we will see more deeply the connection between this festival and God’s preparation of the Commonwealth of Israel (Eph. 2:11–22) to face the final judgement.
We often think that the walk of Torah only concerns itself with one’s relationship with God and one’s relationship with others. This is not true. An observant reading of the Torah shows us that God also concerns Himself with how we treat the land that sustains us. That’s a key lesson of the dual Torah reading of בְּהַר Behar (“on mount” [Sinai]) and בְּחֻקֹּתַי Bechukotai (“in My statutes”), which covers the last three chapters of Leviticus.
God promised the land of Israel as a special inheritance to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and they were expected to respond by treating the land itself with dignity as much as He expected them to treat Him and their neighbors with dignity.
Sins against the Land are atoned by exile, not by blood. Learn more through this Bible study.
We love great actors when they’re on the screen or stage, but they’re odious when they fill the pews or the pulpits. A key lesson in the Torah reading אָמַר Emor (“say,” Leviticus 21–24) is that those in the service of the Creator of Heaven and Earth (Ex. 19:6; 1Pet. 2:5, 9; Rev. 1:6; 5:10) must deeply respect what they’re bringing closer to the Presence: “good gifts” of the heart cry of humankind. And those who bring those gifts must not pretend they’re transparently offering their best, what Heaven has set aside in them from normal ways of an Earth in need of healing.
Parallel to that lesson in Emor is an overview of the key weekly and annual appointments of Heaven with Earth. Two key dates among them are the weekly Shabbat (Sabbath) and the annual Shavu’ot (Pentecost). Both are tied to the Yobel (Jubilee), an ever-50-years reminder that Heaven has an eternal home for humanity and that the path home requires a declaration of freedom from the past.
From these lessons Heaven has provided in time, we can come to understand how Torah is the “law of liberty” (James 1:25; 2:12) that guides us on how to be free in His Kingdom, brought to reality by Yeshua haMashiach (Jesus the Christ). That’s not only freedom from physical debts but also freedom from spiritual debts that we have piled upon ourselves. Learn more through this Bible study.
Interpretations of the book of Revelation are numerous, but one key to understanding the mysterious imagery is to find where the same images appear earlier in the Bible. Discover in this study on the Feast of Trumpets how the account of the Exodus and the writings of the prophets Joel, Zechariah, Isaiah and others reveal how the seven trumpets of Revelation point to judgment starting at the house of God.
Selfless love. Righteousness. Mercy. These teach us how to be strong in our walk through life, how to keep from wandering from the path that the God of Israel has shown as the way life works best. These three show us what the point of our journey through life. They are the key lessons from the LORD’s appointments with humanity, further explained in the Torah reading פינחס Pinchas (“Phinehas,” Numbers 25:10-30:1). Discover why chief among those appointments and the entry point for new believers is the weekly Shabbat (Sabbath).
Another key lesson in Pinchas is about the man after whom this reading is named. This junior priest, who would later be known as the “anointed for war,” looks forward to the coming Day of the LORD, when Yeshua (Jesus), the Messiah, the Melchizedek high priest, will serve on Earth side by side with the legacy of the Aaronic priesthood.
Shavuot, aka Pentecost, is connected historically and ceremonially to the annual memorials of Pesakh (Passover) and Matzot (Unleavened Bread) by the 50 days in between.
God’s instructions for Shavuot are connected to a harvest, but we can glean deeper meaning from its thematic linkage to Pesakh, to the giving of the Ten Commandments at Sinai and to the widespread outpouring of the Spirit on the 120 believers of Yeshua haMashiakh (Jesus the Christ):
* Pesakh: Be freed from bondage. (Justification)
* Matzot: Be purged of the mindset from the former life. (Sanctification)
* Shavuot: Learn what it means to be be adopted into the family of the Bondage-Breaker, live it out and offer the invitation to others. (Sanctification)
The message of freedom from the past, contentment in the present and strength for the future is for the whole world — not just Israel.