In the Torah reading Lech Lecha (“go forth,” Genesis 12–17), we see some key motifs from Abram/Abraham’s life that are repeated or echoed elsewhere in Scripture. Yeshua the Messiah (Jesus the Christ) is the ultimate expression of these messages from Heaven.
Though separated by roughly 4,000 years, the “preacher of righteousness” who led his family to “rest” through the Flood foreshadowed the Righteous One Who would bring rest to the world. Here are several reasons why the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah.
At the end of the book of Vayiqra (Leviticus) in dual Torah reading בהר Behar/בחקותי Bechukotai, we look back at the journey through the parable of the Tabernacle. At the end of the book of Shemot (Exodus), the LORD moved into the newly created Tabernacle, and everyone had to get out. “And He called out” (Vayiqra) from the Tabernacle at the beginning of Leviticus for the people of Israel to draw near to Him. Vayiqra teaches how God is helping us move closer to Him and to each other.
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.
Here’s the lesson of Yom haKippurim (Day of Atonement): The LORD wants us to enter His “rest.” He wants our old way of life to be covered over and the guilt taken away, so we can enter His presence.
This study of the combined Torah reading אחרי מות Acharei Mot (“after the death”) and קדושים Kedoshim (“holinesses”), covering Leviticus 16–20, will be focusing on Hebrews 4:14–10:39. This which dives deep into the role of Yeshua (Jesus) as our High Priest, so we can learn Heaven’s lessons in the parables of the Tabernacle and Yom haKippurim.
Our sins affect other people, including our children and grandchildren or as Scripture says, “to the third and fourth generation.” We aren’t punished for our parent’s sins, but we have been affected by them. We suffer when other people sin.
The ancient House of Israel were so far gone, so utterly unrepentant that God’s only recourse was to send 90% of them to the grave and the other 10% into exile. The exile will end only when Messiah Yeshua returns to the earth.
What does childbirth have to do with leprosy? Why do new mothers and babies need sin offerings? How is leprosy connected to gossip and slander? In this study of Leviticus 12–15, we will be taking a step up and a step back the topics discussed. Some of it is unsettling, and it is easy to lose ourselves in some of the more distasteful details, while forgetting the important life lessons the Holy One of Yisra’el is communicating to us.