As we start the new cycle of Torah readings, the congregation will be focusing on other areas of the Scriptures. Here’s where we’re going next.
Category: Apostolic Writings
These studies cover the writings by the closest shelakhim (apostles) of Yeshua haMashiakh (Jesus the Christ). Commonly called the “New Testament,” this standard canon includes the four Gospels, the letters and the Apocalypse (Revelation).
This is the second part of a study on how we go into the Creator’s presence by way of the Messiah and how the Creator’s presence goes into us and through us into the world around us by way of the Messiah. Yeshua’s ministry on Earth fulfilled God’s desire to dwell with us, not to be foreign to us. A heart transformed, such as King David’s, welcomes the Kingdom of God and the fact God can see everything in us. The Holy One provides us a way out of temptation to forsake Him when we cry for help from Heaven’s tag team of comforters, Yeshua the Son of Man and the Spirit.
Teachings of Sukkot and Shemeni Atzeret (Tabernacles and the Eighth Day) and of Yeshua’s ministry on Earth are that God desires His dwelling place to be with us — better, within us — not foreign to us. A heart transformed welcomes the Kingdom of God and the fact God can see everything in us. The Holy One provides us a way out of temptation to forsake Him when we cry for help from Heaven’s tag team of comforters, Yeshua the Son of Man and the Spirit.
What does it mean to be “in Christ,” and what does it mean to have “Christ in you”? We go into the Creator’s presence by way of the Messiah. The Creator’s presence goes into us by way of the Messiah.
Among the biblical symbols of Sukkot (festival of Tabernacles, or Booths) is the tent, the temporary dwelling. It reminds us of who we are, where we’ve been and where we’re going. The sukkah is also a visual representation of how to have “Messiah in us” and to be “in Messiah” at the same time.
Forgetting that the high point of God’s calendar — יום הכפרים Yom haKippurim (Day of Atonement) — is all about the work of the High Priest and not of the congregant leaves one with the impossible, “terrifying” task of being his own sin sacrifice (Heb. 10:26–27). This study takes a whirlwind tour of the Letter to the Hebrews and what it tells us how Yeshua haMashiakh (Jesus the Christ) is the embodiment of the lessons and message of the “Day of Coverings.”
When the LORD is moving you out of your old life, it’s a one-way trip, like the first exodus celebrated at Pesakh (Passover). There is no looking back or carrying a lot of baggage that would tie us to that old life. Part of Pesakh is the spiritual discipline of eating מצה matzah (unleavened bread), through it and with the counsel of the Lamb of God and apostle Paul, we find out the remaining parts of our old way of life — the “old leaven” — God wants to drain out of us.
Yosef (Joseph) a betrayed brother turned slave turned prime minister in Mitzraim (Egypt). Daniel a war captive turned wise man turned second to an emperor in Babylon. יהודה המכבי Yehudah ha-Makabi (Judas Maccabeus) a priest of Yisrael turned leader of a successful insurrection against the Seleucid empire’s campaign of forced conversion. Yeshua ha-Mashiakh (Jesus the Christ) in the Temple during the Festival of Dedication. These four accounts may seem to quite disjointed, but the conjunction of the Torah reading מקצ Miketz/Miqetz (Genesis 41:1-44:14, “from the end”) and the celebration of Chanukah/Hannukah helps underscore that ongoing lessons from both help us understand what Yeshua meant by “the one who endures to the end, he will be saved.” (Matthew 24:13 NASB).
Some teach that the Day of Atonement (יוֹם הַכִּפֻּרִים Yom haKippurim, “Day of Coverings”) is a day when the people of God plead their case that their good will outweigh their bad on Heaven’s scale. Rather, God’s word teaches that we can have sober, humble, repentant confidence in what God’s Mashiakh (Christ) has done to cover and remove ours mistakes, disobedience and treason.
One of the key themes of the Bible book of Leviticus is the Tabernacle as Heaven’s way to bring those “far off” from God’s presence near by the spilled life of the substitute, the sin offering. This also is the key theme of the book of Hebrews, but it takes the message further in showing Who always has been doing the real work of reconciliation, with and without an earthly Tabernacle or Temple.