Categories
Apostolic Writings Discussions Torah

How to pray for the enemies of Heaven (Leviticus 16–18)

Korach and his merry band of insurrectionists used populist propaganda, revisionist history, blame shifting and faux humility to instigate a popular uprising against Moses and Aaron to return to Egypt to die there so they could avoid suffering God’s judgement that they would die in the wilderness over the course of 40 years.

The people followed along because they would rather blame Moses and Aaron for their lack of faith and their eventual death sentence than themselves for their failure to take what was promised to them.

Fast-forward about 1,500 years: Israel’s leaders who confronted Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus) about His ministry repeated some of the same arguments and found themselves on the wrong side of history, just as Korach, Dathan and Abiram did.

But the real lesson of the Torah reading קֹרַח Korakh (Numbers 16–18) is how Moses, Aaron and Yeshua responded to the attacks on their authority. They didn’t ask God to take out their enemies, but interceded in prayer for them. God asks us to do the same.

Categories
Apostolic Writings Discussions Prophets and Writings Torah

Cost of freedom: Why plagues are necessary at the Exodus and Day of the LORD

https://hallel.info/wp-content/uploads/210123-Parashat-Bo-Exodus-10v1-13v16.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:21:45 — 56.2MB)Subscribe: RSS Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. 1Corinthians 10:11 NASB The gavel falls, and the sentence is prison. The citizen turned felon doesn’t want to […]

Categories
Apostolic Writings Discussions Torah

Joseph and Jesus teach how to heal relationships for a better family and planet (Genesis 45; Luke 24)

We may be jealous of a favored family member or co-worker and carry that bitterness into how we act around that person. We may regret what those feelings drove us to and the damage caused in the relationship.

In this Bible study, we explore the dramatic reconciliation of the biblical leader Joseph with his brothers, recorded in the Torah passage Vayigash (Genesis 44:18-47:27), is an emotional journey from jealousy and abandonment to repentance and reconciliation.

Another rejected, favored son of Israel, Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus), also reunited with those close to Him after His resurrection, and in the case of Paul turned hate into passion to serve.

Categories
Apostolic Writings Discussions Prophets and Writings Torah

Reconcile by your actions, not just words (Genesis 32–33; Obadiah; Matthew 5)

“Love is a verb.” That couldn’t be truer than in the Hebrew of the Bible. And we see that lived out in Jacob’s heartfelt and wallet-open reconciliation with his brother, Esau, as recorded in the Torah section וישלח Vayishlach (“he sent,” Genesis 32:3–36:43). This study will explore the parallels with the teachings on reconciliation by Yeshua (Jesus) in the Sermon on the Mount and the prophetic warnings about unforgiveness that echo down to the Day of the LORD in Revelation 18.

Categories
Apostolic Writings Discussions Prophets and Writings Torah

Living in the ladder days of Jacob’s stick-with-it deliverance (Genesis 29–31; Hosea 12–14)

In Genesis 28-31, the transformation from Jacob the deceiver to Israel the overcomer is a lifelong journey and one that the book of Revelation underscores is essential for those who enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Discover in this study of the Torah reading ויצא Vayetze how our entry into the kingdom of the Messiah calls for a lifetime journey from slavery to freedom.

Categories
Apostolic Writings Appointments With God Discussions Trumpets

How the 7 trumpets of Revelation are revealed through the Torah and Prophets

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.

Categories
Apostolic Writings Discussions Torah

Our behavior with others shows how much we really love God (Deuteronomy 5–6)

Long before Yeshua’s arrival on Earth in the 1st century, another special anointed one led Heaven’s ambassadors to humanity out of slavery and toward freedom, foreshadowing a greater Prophet Who would take humanity the distance to the Kingdom of God. In the Torah reading וָאֶתְחַנַּן Va’et’chanan (“and I pleaded,” Deuteronomy 3:23–7:11), we see the beginning of Moshe’s (Moses’) explanation of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20; Deuteronomy 5), a lesson that stretches almost to the end of the book.