David committed a series of sins that started out minor and culminated in the most egregious of sins of adultery and murder. This tragedy sets up a series of later tragedies that nearly take David off the throne permanently but they also harken back to the story of Adam and Eve and their fall from grace.
Category: Discussions
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).
This text could be called the “leprosy” text, except that it’s about more than examining one’s skin. There are spiritual applications, too. An example is the need to examine our hearts to see if we have surface sin or deep ingrained sin that we need our High Priest Yeshua to diagnose and atone. Sometimes we need to isolate ourselves and contemplate the issue deeply for seven to 14 days to wrestle with the issue.
God calls us “priests and kings.” But there is only one true High Priest, Yeshua, and He is the one who declares us “clean” or “unclean.”
What do the following six important women in the Bible have in common? How did their experiences shape the future of the people of God?
The phrase “unclean” and “abomination” are different words. The reason that God introduces certain animals clean and fit to eat versus unclean and unfit to eat is a lesson to us to look at the character of the animals. The length of a woman’s purification is twice as long for a female child as a male child. Liberals claim this is about a lack of thankfulness for the female child, but the real issue is the health of the mother after childbirth.
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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.