January 2018
Beshalach
Brit Hadashah Reflections 16
Torah portion Exodus 13 : 17 – 17 : 16
Haftarah portion Judges 4 : 4 – 5 :31
Brit Hadashah Mark 7 : 1 - 8 : 38
Hebraic understanding of the Gospel of Yeshua
Another challenge from the Pharisees! Yeshua’s disciples eating bread without washing their hands in the Pharasaically prescribed manner.
This is where an understanding of the “Hebraic” mindset is so vitally important to understand the message. Whilst it is hygienically advisable, it is not halachicaly prescribed that hands be washed before eating. It is part of Rabbinic tradition, but not part of Torah instruction.
Yeshua meets the challenge head on. He promptly reminds them of other ‘traditions’ which they observe which are not only Torah commanded, to respect, honour and support parents, but which they had circumvented by their tradition. Namely “Corban”. A ‘device’ by which they say that the benefit which would ordinarily accrue to parent support, is given for Temple service, hence they become exempt from parent responsibility.
Then Yeshua launched into an explanation for the benefit of the multitude of folk who followed Him wherever He went. Regrettably, this explanation, whilst perfectly clear to the Jews being addressed, has been used by gentile Christians to abrogate the Deuteronomy 14 dietary commandments of Torah.
Get your mind into gear! The explanation is quite simple. First and foremost, the audience was 100% Jewish. They were familiar with, and observant of, the Torah commands of Kashrut. All of them. So when He says “There is nothing that enters a man from the outside which can defile him”, He was specifically referring to the eating with unwashed hands, which was the complaint raised by the Pharisees. He goes further “but the things which come out of him, those are the things which defile a man”. A very pointed reference to the teachings of the Pharisees about the circumnavigation of the Torah with manmade traditions.
Then in expansive explanation “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, licentiousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man”. None of these things have any relationship to the intake of food. The reference in verse 19 regarding the “purifying all foods” is universally understood to be a reference to the function of the human dietary system wherein the goodness of food is absorbed and the ‘unclean’ or residue of food is purged. It has NOTHING to do with the ‘laws’ of Kashrut.
The healing of the Syro-Phoenecian girl is noteworthy. This event in Matthews gospel draws a comment from Yeshua about His earthly mission, which He said was ONLY to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel”. But it gives us an example of the widespread effect of Yeshua’s earthly ministry that even at this very early stage, non-Jewish people were exercising immense faith in Him, and received amazing blessing as a result.
Chapter 8 continues with Yeshua’s healing miracles, but also contains the account of an important dialogue between Yeshua and His disciples. His question was simple. “Who do men say that I am?” It was a reasonable question because we have read a number of times that where people did recognize His identity He quickly charged them to tell no-one.
They proffered many answers to the question. Some say “this”, some say “that”. In fact there appeared to be many “opinions” regarding Yeshua’s real identity. It seems likely that not much has changed has it? “He was ‘a good man’”. “He was a prophet”. “He was ‘whatever’”, we might hear today.
But then, in my mind’s eye, I can imagine Yeshua looking intently at those close disciples. “But who do you say that I am?”
It is a burning question. It required an answer. It still does. Mark records Peter’s response as both short and direct. “You are the Christ”. (a Greek translation of the Hebrew word ‘meshiach’ into ‘cristos’ and then English). “You are ‘the anointed One’”. Immediately, Yeshua instructed them to tell no-one about His identity. Why? I believe the reason is that just as Yeshua told Peter (recorded in Matthew’s gospel) that this revelation was of God Himself, and upon that confession of revelation Yeshua would build His church. So today, the identity of Yeshua is revealed by God, through the agency of His Holy Spirit, directly to each individual who is to be part of His Church. Not ‘the church’, His Church. And how do we know when we are members of His Church? Read Mark 8 : 34 – 38, Yeshua’s own words describing that membership.
Shabbat Shalom
RS
Bo
Brit Hadashah Reflections 15
Torah portion Exodus 10 : 1 – 13 : 16
Haftarah portion Jeremiah 46 : 13 – 28
Brit Hadashah Mark 5 : 1 - 6 : 56
Hebraic understanding of the Gospel of Yeshua
The Scripture passage this week has many accounts of the healing power which was exercised by Yeshau and His disciples. The first example being the demon possessed man from the Gerasene region on the Eastern side of Lake Genneseret. Gentile territory.
Everyone knows the gist of the story, but there is more to the detail than is obvious to Christian eyes. We are not told specifically why Yeshua chose to visit this area, but we know the result. The “Hebraic” mind sees this incident awash with ‘uncleanness’. The poor man was possessed by an ‘unclean’ spirit (in fact a legion of many spirits). He was found inhabiting an ‘unclean’ place where the dead were buried. (Those who have visited Jerusalem will know that the closed up Eastern Gate of the Temple was ‘guarded’ by the Ottoman Moslem occupants of Jerusalem by a vast cemetery, which remains to this day, because they argued that the Jewish Messiah would not defile Himself by passing through a cemetery on His prophesied return through that Eastern Gate). When the man was released from the bondage of those alien spirits, they found refuge in the 2,000 strong herd of ‘unclean’ animals, who promptly died when they went over a precipice into the water below.
The ‘Hebraic’ mindset, familiar as it was with ritual uncleanness, would not venture within a mile of this poor man without significant religious consequence. Yet, it appears almost as if Yeshua sought him out, as if to make a special point to those who witnessed the miracle.
The good news of this event is that the man returned to his home clean and in his right mind, speaking in all the mainly pagan region known as the Decapolis (today’s Jordan) about his healing experience. One might think that the local people, having seen the miracle, would bring their sick to Yeshua for healing. But they pleaded with Him to leave the district. Someone once uncharitably commented that somewhat like today, there are many who would rather have their pigs than their Saviour. So Yeshua promptly returned to the other side of the Lake where He was greeted by a multitude who were enthusiastic to see Him back again.
There is a lesson here for us. I have heard evangelists say that Yeshua is ‘pleading with us to accept Him as our Saviour’. He is the Son of the Living God. He offers us the gift of salvation, bought with His own blood. We are drawn to Him by the Holy Spirit of Almighty God. The ‘pleading’ should surely be ours, not His. I am confident in saying that no-one is pressed into that position by Him. In our story, He was asked to leave. And He did. It is not God’s wish that any should perish, but if that is our choice, He moves on. Ponder that thought as you read it in this passage of Scripture.
The healing ministry continued. The 12 year old daughter of Jairus, a ruler in the synagogue community, raised from death to life. The lady with a twelve year history of ritual uncleanness due to the ‘issue of blood’, getting worse each day. One can only marvel at the immense faith of this desperate lady (do not minimize the devastating effect of her condition on her social and community life). But she reached out and ‘touched’ the hem of His garment (probably a Tzitzit, the prayer shawl worn by observant Jews). Read the dialogue which took place between Yeshua and His disciples.
And all the while, the religious Pharisees, as we learned last week, attributing such miracles to Satan and in so doing, “blaspheming against the Holy Spirit”. O how careful we should be today to give glory to God for His marvellous works.
Our reading continues with the account of the vengeful death of John the Baptizer. Yeshua and His disciples were heartbroken. “Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while” He said. So they took a boat and moved to a quiet part of the shore around the Lake. But the multitude of followers guessed where they would go and ran around the Lake (Those who have visited Israel would know that it is relatively easy country to walk around in Northern Galilee).
With great compassion, Yeshua taught the people ‘many things’. But it got late and there was nowhere to buy food. This is where the Scriptures tell us about the 5,000 men who were present. There would have been many women and children present too. The multiplication of the five loaves and two small fish is another “Sunday School” favourite. And finally, we are told about Yeshua’s command of the wind and the waves. What a mighty Saviour we have.
Shabbat Shalom
RS
Va’era
Brit Hadashah Reflections 14
Torah portion Exodus 6 : 2 – 9 : 35
Haftarah portion Isaiah 66 : 1 – 24 :13
Brit Hadashah Mark 3 : 1 - 4 : 41
Hebraic understanding of the Gospel of Yeshua
We ended last week with Yeshua declaring Himself Lord of the Sabbath. In our day, a most “Hebraic” pronouncement. This week’s reading finds Yeshua again attending the synagogue on the Sabbath. Surely anyone can see that Yeshua was as Jewish as it is possible to be, and yet some appear to have difficulty accepting His Judaism. In these early chapters of Mark’s gospel we find Yeshua emphasizing, by healing, His Messianic credentials, and at the same time ‘rattling the cages’ of the religious community by challenging their practice of putting great high fences around the Torah. Sabbath observance is a foundation stone of Judaism, but man-made restrictions regarding these observances are, to many of us, quite ‘over the top’.
I distinguish between Pharasaic Judaism, with its strict man-made rules of observance, and Messianic Judaism, which recognizes Yeshua as Messiah, which I believe was the Apostle Paul’s conversion experience on the Damascus Road. (Acts 9). And which I believe should be embraced by all who claim to love Him. (Read John 14:15 and John 15 for a refresher).
So Yeshua healed the man with the ‘withered hand’, taught in the open air to many thousands of His disciples on the shores of Lake Kenneret, and then went to quiet place, a local mountain, and called to Himself those 12 men in whom He could see the right spirit and attitude ‘that He might send them out to preach’. He chose those 12 men to be His close disciples. These men were entrusted with the “power to heal sicknesses and to cast out demons”. But this ‘power’ was to bring glory to God, not for self-aggrandisement or self-enrichment. I cannot help but compare the situation today, where the exercise of such power, when evident, is most often attributed to the person exhibiting that power. It causes difficulty for that person to remain walking “humbly before his God” doesn’t it?
The Scribes and Pharisees present had witnessed Yeshua’s healing miracles. But they were so enraged by His evident association with healing and forgiving sins, a power which only God Himself could exercise (Isaiah 43:25 and Jeremiah 50:20), that they sought to “destroy Him”. They went further, by attributing His miraculous healings to the power of Satan. This drew from Yeshua, that often mis-understood saying “.. but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness ..”. Mark then qualifies this with the statement that it was because they had said “He has an unclean spirit”.
The situation was unique to that time. Yeshua Himself was present healing sicknesses. The Pharisees were present as eye-witnesses to those healings. And yet, they steadfastly and stubbornly resisted the evidence of His Messianic qualification. Many thousands of others did not. It was their total rejection of His identity as Messiah, coupled with their weak attempt to attribute the healings to Satan, which constituted their ‘blasphemy against the Holy Spirit’.
The question arises “how, today, is the Holy Spirit blasphemed?” Bear in mind that we are dealing with an unforgivable act. There are plenty of people around praying for healing in Yeshua’s Name. There are many who boldly attempt to exercise the ‘gift of healing’. Well, there are at least two ways of ‘blasphemy against the Holy Spirit’ which we learn from our reading today. Firstly, to attribute healing, when prayed in Yeshua’s Name, to Satan. Secondly, stubbornly rejecting the identity and person of Yeshua, when the Holy Spirit is present convicting us of the truth that He is the Son of God. Now I want to be crystal clear here. I have written a number of times in these ‘reflections’ that worship of God is what we DO, not what we say. So it is simply not good enough to merely assent with your mind that Yeshua is the Son of God (even the demons in our reading today said that). The Holy Spirit is blasphemed when we know the truth, but blatantly and stubbornly reject His call to follow Him. (Read John 14:15 and John 15 again).
Finally, it is noteworthy in our reading today that immediately following this, Yeshua changed tack. He began teaching the people by parables.
“And with many such parables He spoke the word to them as they were able to hear it. But without a parable He did not speak to them. And when they were alone, He explained all things to His disciples.”
Be blessed again as we read this Scripture passage, asking the Lord to reveal truth to us that we might be careful not to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit.
Shabbat Shalom
RS
Shemot
Brit Hadashah Reflections 13
Torah portion Exodus 1 : 1 – 6 : 1
Haftarah portion Isaiah 27 : 6 – 28 :13 and 29 : 22, 23
Brit Hadashah Mark 1:1 - 2 : 28
Hebraic understanding of the Gospel of Yeshua
The gospel of Mark is the shortest, and probably the first written, account we have of life in Israel when Yeshua walked this earth. Mark does not ‘beat about the bush’! He starts with “.. the gospel of Messiah Yeshua, the Son of God”. No qualification, no apology, no ambivalence, no ambiguity, ‘because I met Him, walked with Him, learned from Him and I was there when He left this earth and ascended to His Father in Heaven’, he might be saying.
Then he began his story, it’s like a ‘once upon a time’ opening. Having established that Messiah Yeshua is the subject, he takes a step back to tell us that John, Yeshua’s cousin, was the personal fulfilment of prophecies that indicate that the way would be prepared for Messiah. Look at Exodus 23:20, Malachi 3:1 and Isaiah 40:3. (references which are made very convenient for us today, but at the time of Mark’s writings there were no chapter and verse divisions in the parchment scrolls of Scripture).
And what was the message of John as he ‘prepared the way’? Repent and be baptized for the remission of sins. We may be tempted today to think of water baptism as a relatively modern invention of the church. But it is a practice which was instituted when God gave Torah, His instruction for righteous living, to Moses. It was a preparatory ritual of cleansing for those who were to appear before a holy God. And to understand the Hebraic tones of the gospels, we need to know what the sin is from which repentance is required. In our churches we are usually taught that ‘that sin’ is some personal misdeed or attitude. Well, that could be right, BUT, ‘the sin’ (‘chata’ a Hebrew word which means ‘to miss the mark’) which our Bibles teach, is the blatant neglect of “Torah”, God’s instructions. Yeshua taught that He was sent ‘only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel’. (see Matthew 10 and Matthew 15). They were following what He called the ‘traditions of men’ rather than the Torah of God which was given to Moses. Hence they were ‘lost’.
Additionally, we are informed that as He was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum (now a well preserved and excavated tourist site in the Galilee), that those present were astonished at His teaching, because He taught with a freshness of insight, and with an authority of His own, not, as was commonly taught by other teachers, in the name of some previous Rabbi.
When Yeshua was confronted by the paralysed man let down through the roof of Peter’s house, obviously knowing why he was brought there by his friends, He chose to say “Son, your sins are forgiven you”. Now the religious men there, familiar with the Scriptures, knew that this was an act of God alone (see Isaiah 43:25 and Jeremiah 50:20). So, to them, this appeared as a blasphemous statement. Then Yeshua, discerning their thoughts, addressed the paralytic man, “.. arise, take up your bed and go to your (own) house”. Clearly illustrating His credentials as both healer and forgiver of sins. God Himself in a human body.
Then follows the calling, as a disciple, the hated tax gatherer Matthew, called Levi in Mark’s gospel, and had a meal with him and other tax collectors. Bringing from Yeshua His famous remark “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance”. Tax gatherers were a hated clan, their very occupation requiring them to be official thieves and robbers. And as servants of the Roman rulers, even more despised. Yeshua’s words in Mark 2: 21,22 give us an insight into His motivation for selecting as his disciples men who had no ‘religious’ baggage. The ‘new wine’ is the revelation of Himself, His person, His identity, His calling, His mission. The Scriptures are full of clues and references to His coming, both then, and on a future occasion. Many of them, and many of us, are blinded by the ‘religious’ teaching we have received, so that we cannot recognize Him as He is, and what His requirement is of us. I have said in previous ‘reflections’ that we worship God in what we do, not in what we say. It is how we live our lives, not in what we say we believe. Yeshua called these fishermen and tax collectors to Himself and they were immediately transformed from a previous lifestyle to a new lifestyle, it showed. It is quite “Hebraic” in its outworking. It’s a doing thing.
Our reading concludes with an unequivocal reference to the Sabbath Day. The fourth commandment says “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy (set apart)”. Yeshua says He is the Lord of the Sabbath, and that the Sabbath was made for man, for man’s benefit and delight, for man’s rest and pleasure. Enjoy it in His company.
Shabbat Shalom
RS