If the United States of America are in decline as a superpower, it is not the fault of the Communist Chinese, the Russians or the European Union. It is our own fault. The diagnosis and the remedy of this decline are the Torah portion כי תבוא Ki Tavo (“when you come in [to the Land],” Deut. 26:1–29:8).
There’s more to “you shall not covet” (Exodus 20:17) than lusting after other people’s stuff and spouses. That’s the lesson of Torah reading תבוא Ki Tavo (“when you come in,” Deuteronomy 26:1–29:8), which wraps an elaboration of the Ten Commandments that spans most of the book.
Under the hood of the instructions about the thanksgiving ceremony for first fruits of the Land’s crops and the third-year tithe is this message: We also are to be grateful for what the LORD has placed in our hands and use it to produce a “bumper crop” for the Kingdom.
The first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread pictures the beginning of a new living way. But that new living way was not joyous when Israel left Egypt — days of affliction — and our departure from our “house of bondage” isn’t either. They were learning to live in a way, and so are we. God writes His law deep in our hearts, which flow with “living water.” We are to grow in grace and knowledge as we get older. We never stop growing, even when we are very old.
There are four lessons from Shavuot, aka Pentecost and the Feast of Weeks: 1. We are to have the same mind as is in Messiah Yeshua. 2. There are two different types of Firstfruits, and yet they are both “first.” 3. There was a delay between Yeshua’s call to the Jews vs. the Gentiles, and that is a good thing. 4. If you ask God for understanding, He will answer. Details are important, but they aren’t the only thing.
Humans and donkeys have something very important in common, according to the words of God: Both have to be redeemed by the blood of a lamb. The purpose of the memorial of Unleavened Bread is to remind us those who trust God have crossed over and what was before is destroyed and is gone. The past is destroyed just as the Egyptian army was drowned into the Sea.
When we accepted Yeshua as our Savior, we chose Him as our first-born. We have made Him first in our hearts.
The judgments that God gave Moshe (Moses) to teach the Israelite people tell us a lot about God’s character and personality. We learn how God sees us as well. It’s a difficult section to go through because these judgements cover so many issues that aren’t related directly to one another but these things have been written down for us to learn. These judgements are written for us so we can avoid incurring them on ourselves.
The Feast of Weeks, called Shavu’ot in Hebrew and Pentecost in Greek, commemorates the harvest of the second crop of the year, wheat. It’s connected to the Firstfruits of the harvest at Passover time. Yeshua is called the firstfruit of the resurrection of the dead.
God loves the world but He shows His love in a different way than we might think. We must not hoard the mysteries of the kingdom of God all to ourselves.