Tag: Leviticus 23

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Appointments With God Atonement

Yom Kippur: Messiah reveals righteousness above the Torah

Yom Kippur: Messiah reveals righteousness above the Torah

Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) is unique among the appointed times of the LORD. It’s the only holy day in which the people do very little, while one man, the high priest, does everything. Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus), our high priest, sacrificed Himself for us and carried our sins away too, as the symbols of Yom Kippur memorialize. All the people are asked to do is humble themselves, do no work and bring an offering to the Tabernacle/Temple.

Without a Temple, what can we bring to God? It’s not about following the Torah to the letter with a physically perfect abstinence from food and water, but as Yeshua taught us, it’s about caring for those around us as we want them to care for us.  The Torah is a covenant of life, not of death.

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Discussions Torah

Leviticus 23: Witness what Messiah has done, is doing and will do

Like the pattern of the Tabernacle reveals the character and plan of the God and the LORD’s Messiah, the pattern of the LORD’s appointed times (מוֹעֲדֵי יְהוָ֔ה mo’adey YHWH) in Torah reading אָמַר Amar/Emor (“say,” Leviticus 21–24) gives us memorials in time for the patient care of Heaven toward us and our role in the LORD’s appeal to the world.This time, we’ll take a look at the overview of the annual appointments of the LORD, outlined in Leviticus 23. Didn’t the LORD say He hated them (Isa. 1:14)? So why should we care about them?

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Appointments With God Discussions Trumpets

When God calls you, move without hesitation

Banner Photo: "The Snake", Larne. “The Snake” is the local name for the path connecting the Promenade to the Bankheads, in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. This is the view from the Bankheads. "It is steeper than the photo suggests. The chap in the foreground made an excellent ascent without hesitation or deviation." Photo by Aubrey Dale, used under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.

The reason for the high holy day of Yom Teruah, the Day of Blowing (Trumpets) aka Rosh HaShanah (New Year), is not as obvious as all the others. As we “look under the hood,” we find that it calls us to accept godly change without hesitation.

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Appointments With God Discussions Pentecost/Shavuot

Pentecost: Invitation to Heavenly lifestyle for all nations

The 3,000 believers are “harvested” at Shavuot (Acts 2) as the first fruits of the wheat harvest. (Photo by Michael Illuchine/Freeimages.com used via Creative Commons License)

The annual celebration of שבועות‎ Shavuot, aka Πεντηκοστή Pentecost, is connected historically and lessonwise to the annual memorials of Pesakh (Passover) and Matzot (Unleavened Bread) by the 50 days in between. God’s instructions for Shavuot are connected to a harvest, but we can glean from its linkage to the giving of the Ten Commandments at Sinai (Exodus 19-20) and to the widespread outpouring of the Spirit (Acts 2) deeper roots in the lessons of salvation in Pesakh and sanctification in Matzot.

The message of freedom from the past, contentment in the present and strength for the future is not just for the whole world, and not just Israel. Learn how Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus) is the thread Heaven has woven through all these reminders.

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Discussions Torah

Leviticus 21–24: A great High Priest fit for saving the world

In the Messianic Age, Messiah Yeshua is the one and only High Priest, forever. But the descendants of Aaron/Zadok will not be pushed to the unemployment line. (Photo by Tijmen van Dobbenburgh /Freeimages.com via Creative commons license).

Rules about “clean” and “unclean” in Leviticus 12–15 (Torah portion אמר Emor, “say”) apply primarily to the priests of Israel, and they are object lessons to teach us about “our great High Priest,” Messiah Yeshuah (Christ Jesus). Priests were held to a higher code of conduct than the regular native-born Israelites, and that will be the case in the Messianic age, too, as described in this week’s parallel reading, Ezekiel 44:15–31.

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Appointments With God Chanukah Pentecost/Shavuot

Shavuot (Pentecost): Spirit-transformed to follow God’s Law

Colorized photo of a wheat harvest in Pennsylvania in 1943. Photo by John Collier, public domain photo.

Shavuot for Jews. Pentecost for Christians. We can have a great dialogue with our brethren in faith in the Holy One of Israel about the lessons taught in this memorial of the revelation of God. The Word was spoken and written at Sinai, become flesh in Yeshua the Mashiakh (Jesus the Christ), and put into action by the transformation of the Spirit.

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Discussions Torah

Leviticus 21–24: How the High Priest deals with death

The first tombs in the Bible were caves. This burial cave was found in the Bitan Aharon nature reserve. Photo by supplied by David Padfield © Padfield.com and released under a Creative Commons License.

In the Torah reading אמר Emor (“to say, speak or tell”), we will spend most of our time together discussing how God instructed the High Priest and the priestly line to respond to the reality of death around them. We will also ponder how God teaches us to give and receive charity and the difference between legalism and obedience in keeping Torah and God’s appointed times, aka the festivals of Yisrael.