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Korach 5770 – Place

Saturday, June 12th, 2010

Numbers 16:1-18:32
I Samuel 11:14-12:22
Romans 13:1-10

Order and hierarchy have been inherent in God’s plan from the very beginning, whether among the angels, in the Garden of Eden, among men, or within families. Although the laws that govern spiritual authority are not as readily subject to experiment and objective verification as the laws that govern chemical reactions, they are just as real and just as inviolable. A man who continually drinks dilute amounts of drano will eventually suffer from alkaline poisoning whether he learned the lessons of high school chemistry or not. He might get away with it for a short while, but the consequences of his actions will catch up with him. The same is true of those who reject spiritual authority. Women who reject the spiritual covering of their fathers or husbands, men who reject the authority of God’s anointed prophets and judges, children who reject the authority of their parents…They might live indefinitely believing that they have chosen their own path, that they have found freedom in self-governance. Really, they have left one service for another and gained nothing lasting in the transaction. After all, who is more free? The slave whose master will defend him and who trusts him with a great deal of autonomy? Or the escaped slave who has no resources, no shelter, and who has become an open and defenseless target for abuse and re-enslavement by another master? The latter may appear to have more freedom in the immediate sense of having no allegiance and no duty to a higher power, but in the long run, his available choices will be severely limited and possibly eliminated altogether.

Numbers 16:1-18:32
I Samuel 11:14-12:22
Romans 13:1-10

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Posted in Keeping Torah, Leadership, Parsha 38 - Korach, Theology, Torah | No Comments »

Sh’lach 5770 – How Quickly We Forget

Saturday, June 5th, 2010

Numbers 13:1-15:41
Joshua 2:1-24
Hebrews 3:7-19

There is something wrong with the human mind that we can witness God’s miracles one day and doubt him the next. Our faulty memory fills in the gaps with naturalistic explanations, with gloss and fuzz so that tragedy looms large, but promises fulfilled and prayers answered fade into obscurity.

With the pillar of fire and cloud right there in the camp, the manna appearing every morning, the plague graves still fresh, the Israelites doubted God’s power to bring them into the Promised Land. When they heard God’s judgment of their lapse, they compounded their lack of faith with disobedience. The end of fear–as it always is–was death.

Every one of us lives this same pattern of fear and forgetfulness. It is inherent in the fallen human condition. As a partial remedy, God gave us reminders of his actions, promises, and commands: the feast days, sacrifices, tzitziyot, etc. When we wonder what is the point of those things today, we have only to look in the mirror.

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Posted in Keeping Torah, Parsha 37 - Sh'lach, Theology, Torah | 3 Comments »

Behar 5770 Assignment

Monday, May 10th, 2010

Leviticus 25:10  And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan.

Leviticus 25:13  “In this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his property.

Leviticus 25:25  “If your brother becomes poor and sells part of his property, then his nearest redeemer shall come and redeem what his brother has sold.

Leviticus 25:39-41  “If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave:  (40)  he shall be with you as a hired servant and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee.  (41)  Then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return to the possession of his fathers.”

This week’s assignment: Set something right. Restore someone’s property. Give something back. Fix something that was broken.

You get the picture.

I’d love to hear from anyone who wants to participate with us. Check back here towards the end of the week for updates, and feel free to post a comment of your own.

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Posted in Assignments, Keeping Torah, Parsha 32 - B'har | 1 Comment »

Emor 5770 – Bride, Priest, Citizen

Monday, April 26th, 2010

Leviticus 21:13-15  And he shall take a wife in her virginity.  (14)  He shall not take a widow or a divorced woman, or profane, or a harlot, but he shall take a virgin of his own people to wife.  (15)  And he shall not defile his seed among his people. For I, Jehovah, do sanctify him.

2 Corinthians 11:2  For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy. For I have espoused you to one Man, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.

The High Priest was only to marry a virgin. There is nothing wrong with marrying a woman who is not a virgin, but the High Priest had to keep himself to a much higher standar– beyond simple right and wrong–because of his close contact with YHWH. He is also a type of the Messiah, for whom we are preparing ourselves as a bride. In practical terms, it is impossible for us to be pure. Everyone has sinned and therefore the whole body of his people has also sinned. Our theology is corrupt, our behavior is corrupt, our minds and hearts are corrupt. On what basis can Paul say that he intends to present the Church to Yeshua as a pure virgin?

Solely on the basis of Yeshua’s righteousness imputed to us through his blood which takes away our impurity. He more than covers us, more than forgives us. He cleanses us, making us whole and pure again.

—–

Ezekiel 44:23  And they shall teach My people to discern between the holy and common, and between the unclean and the clean.

1 Peter 2:4-5  For having been drawn to Him, a living Stone, indeed rejected by men, but elect, precious with God;  (5)  you also as living stones are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

We have become the bride of Messiah, and we have also been made priests, not of the orders of Aaron or Melchizedek, but that of all believers. From the beginning, when Israel was chosen from among the nations, she was chosen to be God’s bride and a nation of priests to the world. Set apart and made holy, we are tasked with teaching the world the difference between unclean and clean, drawing them closer to their creator and interceding on their behalf.

—–

Leviticus 22:18  Speak to Aaron and to his sons and to all the sons of Israel, and say to them: Any man of the house of Israel, or of the strangers in Israel, who offers his sacrifices for his vows, for all his free-will offerings, which they will offer to Jehovah for a burnt offering…

Leviticus 24:22  One judgment shall be for you whether an alien or a native; for I am Jehovah your God.

1 Peter 2:9-10  But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for possession, so that you might speak of the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;  (10)  you who then were not a people, but now the people of God, those not pitied then, but now pitied.

We are the bride of Messiah, we are a nation of priests, and we are citizens of the Kingdom of God.  We have been reborn into the nation of Israel, wild olive shoots grafted into a cultivated tree. As citizens, whether physically circumcised or only spiritually, we are expected to behave ourselves as children of the King, not flaunting privilege, but obeying a higher standard.

Posted in Keeping Torah, Parsha 31 - Emor, Theology, Torah | No Comments »

Shallow Sunday Theology

Friday, April 23rd, 2010

Sunday: Since Jesus came we don’t have to make animal sacrifices at the Temple to earn our salvation. Now it’s free! He made the sacrifice once for all time.

Shabbat: Doesn’t the Letter to the Hebrews say that the blood of bulls and goats never took away anyone’s sins and that Gideon and David and all the other ancient Israelites who lived before Jesus were saved only by faith in a future Messiah and not by animal sacrifices at all?

Sunday: What’s your point?

Shabbat: Exactly.

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Posted in Keeping Torah, Messianica, Theology, Torah | 3 Comments »

Tazria-Metsora 5770 – Assignment

Saturday, April 17th, 2010

2 Kings 7:8-9  And when these lepers came to the edge of the camp, they went into a tent and ate and drank, and they carried off silver and gold and clothing and went and hid them. Then they came back and entered another tent and carried off things from it and went and hid them.  (9)  Then they said to one another, “We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news. If we are silent and wait until the morning light, punishment will overtake us. Now therefore come; let us go and tell the king’s household.”

The four lepers had a major windfall. They expected death and found life and riches instead. They could have kept on gathering and stockpiling with no one the wiser, but they remembered their starving brothers and shared their knowledge, bringing life to the entire city.

Romans 6:20-23  For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.  (21)  But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.  (22)  But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.  (23)  For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Tazria and Metsora are about things that cause separation from God, i.e. spiritual death, among his people. Even if they are already saved, already members of “the king’s household,” they might not know that their actions adulterate their life with death. When we were slaves to sin, we were not bound by any considerations of righteousness. But now that we have been set free from sin, we are bound to obey God, i.e. to do what is righteous. Therein lies life. We are not set free and given eternal life just to sin, but to obey a different master. Continuing in sin will only put us in bondage again because sin separates us from our Creator. Disobedience brings death. Once we know that there is a better way, that there are choices and actions that increase our separation from the world while decreasing our separation from God, like the four lepers in 2 Kings 7, we are bound by love for our neighbors to share that knowledge.

This week’s assignment is to look for opportunities to share your knowledge of greater life, to tell someone how to reduce the separation engendered by disobedience and to draw closer to the Creator.

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Posted in Assignments, Keeping Torah, Parsha 27 - Tazria, Parsha 28 - Metsora, Torah | 1 Comment »

You, the Pot, and the Bread of Life

Saturday, April 17th, 2010

2 Kings 4:40-41  And they poured out some for the men to eat. But while they were eating of the stew, they cried out, “O man of God, there is death in the pot!” And they could not eat it.  (41)  He said, “Then bring flour.” And he threw it into the pot and said, “Pour some out for the men, that they may eat.” And there was no harm in the pot.

John 6:51  I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

Acts 10:15  And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.”

As in Peter’s vision, the lesson of Elisha’s miracle does not concern food, but people. First, we are the pot and Yeshua is the flour. Once we are made clean, our families and communities must become the pot, while we must be the flour.

Today is the 14th day of the omer.

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God Is Not Binary

Saturday, April 17th, 2010

When God made mankind, he put them in the Garden and told them they could eat from every plant, right?

Genesis 1:29  And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.

Genesis 1:1-2:3 is a summary of creation week. Genesis 2:4-25 tells the same exact story but from a different vantage point. It’s hazy regarding the passage of time, leaves out some details, and adds some others. That doesn’t mean the two accounts are contradictory, only that they have different foci.

There is one problem, however. There is an apparent contradiction between Genesis 1:29 and 2:16-17.

Genesis 2:16-17  And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden,  (17)  but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Which is it? Can man eat every plant or not? The answer is yes!*

There is no contradiction. The confusion is not in the words, but in the reader who treats them like a mathematical text. Genesis was written to be understood by ordinary people. It’s bare meaning had to be accessible to shepherds and farmers, so it was written in the same basic language that they themselves used. When a subsistence farmer says, “Let’s get all these fields planted,” does he mean every single field in existence? Of course not. Does he even mean all of his own fields? No again. He only means all the fields that are supposed to be planted at this time, and he expects that everyone to whom he is speaking will understand that. The ancient Hebrews knew the story of the Garden of Eden and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. When they heard it read, “I have given you every plant that grows on the earth,” they didn’t need to hear “except for this one” to understand that there was at least one exception.

We don’t need to hear it either. Instead, we need to understand that God and his words recorded in the Scriptures are holistic. They are a unified whole (echad in Hebrew) with depth and height and breadth. We cannot understand the words of Paul or John without understanding Moses and Isaiah, because the latter are a foundation and framework for the former. Likewise, since we do not live within the cultural context of Moses or Isaiah, we cannot completely understand their words either without Paul and John to finish the walls and trim. Scripture is a house, not a line.

* Consider Genesis 9:3 and Leviticus 11 with this principle in mind.

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Posted in Keeping Torah, Parsha 01 - Bereishit, Parsha 26 - Sh'mini, Theology, Torah | 1 Comment »

No Longer Foreigners

Tuesday, April 6th, 2010

Ephesians 2:19  Now therefore ye are no more strangers (xenos, meaning “alien” or “foreigner”) and foreigners (paroikos, meaning “resident alien” or “sojourner”), but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God…

Putting it another way, “Now therefore you are no longer gentiles or even sojourners, but fellow citizens with the holy people and members of the house of God.”

Put yet another way, “You have become Israel, united as one people with Judah.”

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Sh’mini 5770 – Self-Directed Worship

Tuesday, April 6th, 2010

Leviticus 10:1  And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, and put incense on it, and offered strange fire before YHWH, which He had not commanded them.

Leviticus 10:16-20  And Moses carefully looked for the goat of the sin offering. And behold, it was burned! And he was angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, the sons of Aaron left alive, saying,  (17)  Why have you not eaten the sin offering in the holy place, since it is most holy, and He has given it to you to bear the iniquity of the congregation, to make atonement for them before Jehovah?  (18)  Behold! The blood of it was not brought within the holy place! You should indeed have eaten it in the sanctuary, as I commanded.  (19)  And Aaron said to Moses, Behold, this day they have offered their sin offering and their burnt offering before YHWH. And such things have happened to me. And if I had eaten the sin offering today, should it have been accepted in the sight of YHWH?  (20)  And Moses heard, and it was good in his eyes.

Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, spontaneously worshiped God by offering incense, and they were destroyed for it. Aaron disobeyed God by not precisely following the rules of the sin offering. Nadab and Abihu were destroyed, while Aaron was justified. God appears to have acted arbitrarily and unfairly.

This appearance is due to our limited vision. God sees through us. He knows us all the way down to the heart and bone. Nadab and Abihu were not destroyed for an act of spontaneous worship. They were destroyed for acting presumptuously. They said in their hearts, “We know what God really wants. We can improve on the worship he commanded.” Aaron was not destroyed, despite his disobedience, because he said in his heart, “I am full of sorrow and anger and am not able to atone for the sins of the people with such sin in my heart.” Instead of eating some of the sacrifice and using the blood to atone for Israel, he burned it all, sending everything directly to God. Although he was disobedient, he acted out of humility and reverence, while his sons acted out of pride.

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Posted in Keeping Torah, Parsha 26 - Sh'mini, Theology, Torah | No Comments »

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