The births of Yokhanan ben Zakharyah (John the Baptist) and Messiah Yeshua are amazing in that they illustrate how God planned throughout time to “pitch His tent” among mankind in a physical way and hadn’t abandoned the work He started in Israel. God foretold of the coming of a herald for the Messiah via the prophet Malachi announced the arrive of that messenger to Yokhanan’s father, a righteous priest in a priesthood led by wicked men. The coming of the herald and the Messiah followed a specific plan. The seven “oracles” in Luke 1-2 show that the same plan God put in place at the beginning of time still was active even at a dark point in Israel’s history.
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).
In Matthew 5-7, Messiah Yeshua gave us a reality check on whether our lives are trending toward the righteousness that God seeks. In Matthew 7, Yeshua tells us how to “judge” with mercy and discernment. Matthew 12, shows us Yeshua’s practical application of this principle.By the strict definition of the Torah, the apostles were guilty of threshing grain on the Shabbat. Yet, Yeshua, rather than confirming the harsh edict of the Pharisees, comes to their defense and turns the tables in favor of mercy.
Many believers in Yeshua — and those who don’t believe in Yeshua who purposefully misappropriate His words to justify their own ends — use Matthew 7:1-5 as a blanket prohibition on using any discernment between good and evil. However the later texts of the same chapter show that Yeshua doesn’t want us to walk around without any sense of judgment or discernment. He wants us to discern and judge with mercy and compassion.
Did the Father give us believers to Yeshua (Jesus), or did we come to Yeshua? What is the “first love” of a Christian? How is this lost, and how can it be reclaimed?
The overarching theme of Chanukah is dedication and rededication of the physical temples of God. Yet the prophets’ warned that God can’t be contained in buildings (1 Kings. 8:27; 2 Chr. 6:18; cf. Jer. 7:1–7), even ones He ordered built (Ex. 25:40; Heb. 8:5). And Messiah Yeshua told a woman in Samaria that worshiping God “in spirit and in truth” doesn’t have to be in a building (John 4:20-24).
The apostles Paul and Peter taught that the physical bodies of believers, especially their minds, are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19; 1 Pet. 2:4–8). As such, believers are interconnected with one another through the Spirit and Messiah in a mutually supportive network (Rom. 12:3–13; 1 Cor. 12:12–26).
Paul said we believers also are “ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Cor 5:20). The need for unified “good news” is so important that the Messiah prayed, “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me” (John 17:20-21). Earthly leaders of nations recall their ambassadors or consuls general if they are not “one” in message and attitude with the leader. Yet many believers in the Messiah haven’t learned such “earthly things” in their treatment of other believers, and thus are working against the message of “heavenly things” (John 3:12).
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Studies from Matthew
Because of limited disk space on the server. most of the Hallel Fellowship Bible studies from Matthew in 2006 and 2007 have been archived offline. If you are interested in these studies, please let us know via the Contact page.
The Christ-like life is compared to a race, but it’s not a cut-throat competition against our fellow believers. We are to help one another reach the ultimate goal. The “fruit of the Spirit” that are given to us by God to help us and others in this life are not a “grab bag” that we can pick and chose which fruits we want. We should want them all and use them all and we should share them with our fellow believers and the world at large. We are also called to understand that God is the same yesterday, today and forever. He has one plan for the salvation of man, not two, three for four versions.
Paul’s discussions of circumcision, mainly in Galatians, Philippians and Romans, have been interpreted as being condemnation against the Torah, because the Law calls for circumcision for newborns and those wanting to participate in key parts of worship of God.
However, it must be remembered that circumcision by the first century A.D. had become an “identity marker” separating Jews from non-Jews. Like observance of Shabbat, circumcision was listed among the “works of [the] law” in the Dead Sea Scrolls that defined those separate from the corrupt religious system around the time of the first century. The rite of circumcision could be behind the division between Jewish and “unconverted” non-Jews that Paul dressed down Peter and the Galatian congregations in chapters 2 and 3 of this letter.