Category: Discussions

Categories
Discussions Torah

How we learn to walk by faith into God’s Promised Land (Numbers 13)

How to walk by faith into God's Promised Land (Numbers 13-15)
Torah reading Shelach: How we learn to walk by faith into God's Promised Land (Numbers 13-15)

Was the LORD setting up ancient Israel to fail by bringing the people to the border of the Promised Land, telling them to send in 12 spies then condemning that generation from being too scared of the opposition to go in? The Torah reading שְׁלַח Shelakh (“send,” Numbers 13–15) underscores the teaching of Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus) that God’s salvation must be faith-based.

We’ll find out that what was true at the time of the Exodus is true for each of us today when we leave our “house of bondage” and go to God’s kingdom of “rest,” i.e., freedom.

Categories
Discussions Torah

How should we respond to the LORD’s call: ‘Here I am, send me’ or ‘Send someone else’? (Numbers 4–7)

Why should we care about ancient instructions issued to the clans of Levi on how they were to function in a Tabernacle that no longer exists? A vow that can’t be completely fulfilled without the Temple? Judicial processes for jealous husbands that carry no legal weight today?

The Torah reading נָשֹׂא Naso (“carry, take” a census, Num. 4:21-7:89) teaches that part of the “wilderness” believer’s boot camp is to learn to be eager to step up for service.

Categories
Discussions Torah

God wants mercy more than rote obedience (Leviticus 21–24)

Our choices can cause irreparable harm to others, including the next generation. That’s a key lesson from the Torah reading אמר Emor (“say,” Leviticus 21-24).

The Holy One of Israel loves mercy more than rote obedience, and He loathes hypocrisy. God looks at our conduct, as well as the heart behind our actions. We can fool those around us, we might even fool ourselves, but we can’t fool God.

Categories
Apostolic Writings Discussions Torah

Yeshua took our sins away so we can enter God’s presence clean (Leviticus 16–20)

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement in the Bible, is a really good illustration of Heaven’s love for humanity. When we’re cleansed, we leave what it is we’re cleansed of behind. Just as ancient Israel was to leave Egypt and the practices of Egypt behind, we are to leave behind our old “chains” when Yeshua the Messiah (Jesus the Christ) has cleansed us of behaviors that keep us in bondage.

Learn more through this study of the Bible passage Acharei Mot-Kedoshim (Leviticus 16-20) and its close connection to Hebrews 3-10.

Categories
Discussions Torah

How the Messiah breathes life into ‘the walking dead’ (Leviticus 12–15)

Birth and “the walking dead,” aka lepers. The two couldn’t be more different. The first brings life into the world, and the latter is a mark of life that is headed out of the world. Yet in human body’s sometimes gross processes of fostering the new, we see similarities with the indeed gross processes that unravel the body, making it waste away.

The Torah readings תזריע Tazria (“she will conceive,” Leviticus 12–13) and מְּצֹרָע Metzora (“leper,” Leviticus 14–15) weave a thread of Heaven’s wisdom between the realms of life and death, showing us in stark imagery how Yeshua the Messiah (Jesus the Christ) indeed is making this happen: “The last enemy that will be abolished is death” (1Corinthians 15:26–27 NASB).

Categories
Apostolic Writings Discussions Torah

How to treat God, ourselves and others with respect (Leviticus 9–11; Mark 7)

The concept of ritual impurity is confusing to the gentile mindset. The Torah says that if one is “ritually impure” one can’t participate in the work of worship that happens in God’s house. It seems like God is punishing us for things that are beyond our control.

However, it is not a sin to be ritually impure, and God isn’t out to punish us for things outside our control. Everything God says in the Torah is there to teach us lessons about Himself — and about ourselves in the process.

In the Torah reading שמיני Shemini (“eighth,” Lev. 9:1–11:47), discover the things Heaven says make one fit and unfit to enter God’s Presence. Some of those things are out of our control living in a world under the curse since Eden, so Heaven has to transform us. Focus on what’s in our control.

Heaven is taking each of us and humanity on a journey to a new beginning: from bondage to rest.

Categories
Appointments With God Passover Torah Unleavened Bread

First-born identity in the Bible: Redemption or death (Lessons from Passover)

There are a lot of symbols in the Bible that God blended together for the redemption of the first-born of the womb, not only of human beings but also donkeys. They all point to the first and only born of Heaven: Yeshua the Mashiakh (Jesus the Christ).

The first part of this Bible study on the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread looks into two major lessons from four types leaven. This second part focuses on important lesson of redemption of the first-born.