The Parable of the Sower is one of the most memorable of the Gospel teachings of Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus). The personal lessons of the four types of soil seem far removed from the sobering blessings and warnings for ancient Israel in Torah reading כִּי־תָבוֹא Ki Tavo (“when you come in,” Deut. 26:1–29:8). This study unearths the powerful insights just below the surface in both passages.
As Rosh Hashanah (aka Yom Teruah and Day of Blowing Trumpets) and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonment) approach, it’s a good reminder to be more forgiving of the small things that others do to annoy us. And what we do to annoy them.
We need to forgive those as we want to be forgiving. The Messiah forgives a massive amount of trespasses. The LORD covers over those egregious sins, so we can at least let go of the much smaller trespasses others do to us.
We may think we’re far removed from the horror show described in the Torah reading כי תבוא Ki Tavo (“when you come in,” Deut. 26:1-29:8), but each of us encounters stress that pushes off any mask from our true characters.
A key point in this passage is entering and living in the “rest” God gives us, fully realized through the Messiah and the Spirit. Like Israel’s move from Mitsraim (Egypt) to the Land, our entering God’s “rest” (Hebrews 3–4) is all about a change of identity, purpose and character.
This Bible study looks at the parallel reading for Ki Tavo: Isaiah 60, which Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus) quoted. The Exile, both literal and spiritual, is a time of darkness and desolation. When the darkness is great, the light is even easier to spot. Unfortunately, we tend to focus on the darkness. Most of our entertainment focuses on the darkness. God has shown us the Light of the world.