Tag: Zoar

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Apostolic Writings Discussions Torah

Hospitality as resistance: How to shine light into the world’s darkness (Genesis 19; Luke 17)

Adobe Firefly AI oil palette knife style image of a man comforting a downcast man. Text says, "Hospitality as resistance: How To shine light into the world's darkness (Genesis 19; Luke 17.)"

This study of Genesis 19, Isaiah 17–18, and Luke 17 emphasizes the LORD’s active involvement in human affairs and the need for spiritual discernment of people’s needs around us and how to respond to those needs. It explores the parallels between the days of Noah, Lot and the coming Day of the LORD, underscoring the importance of hospitality, readiness and heeding the warnings of the prophets. We delve into the teachings of Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus) on inconveniencing ourselves to alleviate suffering and how the transfiguration, where Yeshua’s glory from the Kingdom of God, reminds us what our mission on Earth is.

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Discussions Torah

Genesis 18–19: How to show hospitality in an hostile world

Abraham and Lot offer the world concrete examples of radical hospitality. Both of them had an overflowing love for their fellow man that was stronger than the fear and “stranger danger” that holds most of us back from helping those in need.

Many focus on illicit behavior, but Sodom’s utter lack of hospitality and its culture of fear is why God wiped them off the map, destroying them so utterly that their lush valley is now an ocean of salt.

Torah reading וַיֵּרָא Vayera (“[and] he appeared,”) is a fair warning to us in our day. We must be careful when responding to the strangers in our midst with fear rather than love.

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Discussions Passover Torah

Genesis 19: ‘Righteous’ Lot flees destruction of Sodom, impregnates his daughters

From threats of homosexual gang rape of two of God’s messengers to Lot’s offering his two virgin daughters to the mob to Lot’s wife dying from looking back at the destruction of Sodom to Lot’s daughters’ conspiring to get their father so drunk he would get them pregnant, chapter 19 is full of controversy for the modern mind. Actually, there are a lot of parallels between this account and Israel’s miraculous departure from Egypt after Passover.