Rebuild by The Barking Fox

More Important Than Keeping the Rules

There is a common misconception that religion is all about doing the right things and avoiding the wrong things. Actually, it's more about identifying with the One who determined from the beginning what the right and wrong things are. 
Leviticus 25:1-27:34; Jeremiah 16:19-17:14; 2 Corinthians 3:1-6; Ephesians 2:19-22; 1 Peter 1:1-2, 2:1-12
Click here to download a transcript of this podcast: More Important Than Keeping the Rules
 
Since Yeshua’s followers have the revelation of Messiah, we should live in a way that sets us apart from the world. Peter says it like this:
So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture:
“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone,
a cornerstone chosen and precious,
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe,
“The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone,”
and
“A stone of stumbling,
and a rock of offense.”
They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
1 Peter 2:1-12 ESV
The Apostle certainly wanted his audience to understand how a follower of Messiah is supposed to act. That’s why he included the list of desirable behaviors in this passage and elsewhere in his epistle. It may be, however, that he was more concerned about his audience understanding why these behaviors are important. That’s the difference between the letter of the law and the spirit that gives it power. Those who live by the letter may be experts at keeping the rules, but their hearts – their motivations, attitudes, and desires – may be far different from what they show to the public. Those moved by the spirit may not keep the rules as strictly, but they never stray far from the Rule Maker. Because their identity is in him, they seek to be like him and receive his correction when he reminds them of the rules.
The rules, of course, are the commands, instructions, and laws our Creator imparted in the Torah. Christians these days are beginning to understand that the Torah as recorded by Moses is what Yeshua taught, both by word and by example, and which the prophets and apostles urged God’s people to learn and live by. We might think of Torah as the Designer’s specifications for us humans made in his image. The whole world will come to that realization eventually, as Jeremiah says:
O Lord, my strength and my stronghold,
my refuge in the day of trouble, to you shall the nations come
from the ends of the earth and say:
“Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies,
worthless things in which there is no profit.”
Jeremiah 16:19 ESV
This is why Israel is set apart from the nations. How are the nations to know how to behave and, more importantly, why they are to live according to God’s ways unless someone models it for them? That’s why God called Abraham to father the nation of Israel, which the Lord claimed as his own inheritance. Israel is holy to the Lord, distinct from all the other nations because it is God’s vehicle of redemption for all the nations.
Which gets us back to Peter’s letter. The way he writes indicates that his readers are no longer part of the nations in which they were born, but have become something different. Specifically, they become part of the Covenant Nation of Israel. That’s why he starts his letter like this:
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.
1 Peter 1:1-2 ESV
Why does Peter call these people “elect exiles of the Dispersion”? Exiles from where? Dispersed from what, and to what?
We know that the Jewish people were exiled and dispersed. God said that would happen if his Chosen People of Israel failed to keep his Covenant. They did, and God’s discipline happened. For many centuries, Christians assumed the Jewish people were cut out of the Covenant, and that the church had replaced them. Then God brought resurrection to the Jewish nation of Israel in 1948, and ever since then we’ve had to rethink our theology.
Perhaps the answer is in what Peter and Jeremiah have written. The nations – including the exiles of both Houses of Israel – are coming to the Lord to confess that we all have inherited lies and have lived like prodigals, dispersed all over the earth. Now the way is open to return to our Creator, enter his Covenant of Redemption, and take our places among his set-apart people.
That’s not just a reason to keep the rules. It’s a destiny.
 
Cover photo by David Kuvaev, October 23, 2023, on Unsplash.
Music: "Song of Glory,” The Exodus Road Band, Heart of the Matter, 2016.

Hope for the Smoldering Wick

The priests in the Temple are supposed to keep the light of the menorah burning continuously as a picture of God's enduring presence. What does that say about people who are called the light of the world, and whose bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit? 
Leviticus 21:1-24:23; Ezekiel 11:14-21, 44:15-31; Isaiah 42:1-4; Matthew 5:14, 12:9-21; John 4:1-29; 8:12; Ephesians 2:11-14; Revelation 2:1-7
Click here to download a transcript of this podcast: Hope for the Smoldering Wick
 
Usually, it’s easy to see why Matthew connects aspects of Messiah Yeshua’s life to passages from Moses and the Prophets, but occasionally the connections are difficult to understand. One example occurs just after Yeshua healed a man’s withered hand on the Sabbath Day. That miracle brought a confrontation with some of the Pharisees, with the result that they began to conspire against Yeshua. Matthew then explains:
Jesus, aware of this, withdrew from there. And many followed him, and he healed them all and ordered them not to make him known. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah:
“Behold, my servant whom I have chosen,
my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased.
I will put my Spirit upon him,
and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles.
He will not quarrel or cry aloud,
nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets;
a bruised reed he will not break,
and a smoldering wick he will not quench,
until he brings justice to victory;
and in his name the Gentiles will hope.”
Matthew 12:15-21 ESV
It’s the part about the smoldering wick that seems out of place. Everything else in this passage Matthew quotes from Isaiah 42 makes sense. That chapter is one of several in Isaiah that describe God’s Servant, which we understand to be Messiah Yeshua.
One of the Jewish objections to the claim that Yeshua is the Messiah is that he didn’t do everything Messiah is supposed to do. They are right, but that’s not a problem for Christians since we understand what is not yet fulfilled will be accomplished at Messiahs Second Coming. Consider, for example, the smoldering wick which Messiah will not quench. We could interpret that as the light of God which is flickering in the wavering hearts of his people, or in congregations and assemblies that have lost that holy fire of his presence. On his return, however, he will deal with those smoldering wicks, such as the one in the congregation at Ephesus. According to Revelation, Messiah promises to remove the lampstand of the Ephesian church if they don’t repent and return to their first love. He issues similar warnings to other churches, essentially saying that they will lose their place in his Kingdom if they do not make the corrections he specifies.
That’s one level of understanding. We get another when we remember that Yeshua said we, like him, are the light of the world. This is the light of God’s Spirit – his presence dwelling not only with, but in his people. His people, both native born and grafted in, are the Covenant People of Israel. That’s why God promised to be with them even in their exile to all the nations of the earth, as we read in Ezekiel:
Therefore, say that Adonai Elohim says this: ‘True, I removed them far away among the nations and scattered them among the countries; nevertheless, I have been a little sanctuary for them in the countries to which they have gone.’
Ezekiel 11:16 CJB
This is another example of God keeping the Covenant for Israel when they were unable or unwilling to keep it themselves. The sanctuary is the place set apart for God’s presence. We study the Torah to learn about this holy place as depicted in the Tabernacle and the Temple. A key component of the holy place is the menorah, or lampstand, which the priests are to tend so the light never goes out. That light is the symbol of God’s Spirit and a visible assurance that he will always be at work in the earth to accomplish his redemptive purposes.
What happens, though, if the light of his presence is extinguished? If that could happen, then the world would be a very dark and hopeless place. That’s why God could not let the sanctuary light go out even when his people let the Covenant lapse, when the Temple was destroyed and the Levitical priesthood prevented from doing their holy work, and when the two Houses of Israel were cast out of the Holy Land.
The Jewish part of God’s people had the advantage of carrying the Torah with them, along with the priests and Levites who continued to teach the people how to live by God’s ways. The other tribes, however, would have been completely without hope had not God pursued them and remained with them after a fashion. That’s what he meant by being a “little sanctuary” for them. The light they had, small and smoldering as it was, could at least be preserved in cultural memory of a God who would one day rescue them and bring them back from exile.
That’s the testimony of the Samaritan Woman. She may not have known the ways of Torah or been acceptable in Jewish society, but she knew that Messiah would come and fix everything one day. The smoldering wick in her heart was fanned into flame when Messiah declared himself to her. She was just the first of multitudes in whose hearts the smoldering wicks of the little sanctuaries kept the spark of hope alive through the ages.
It’s the same hope in Jewish hearts, preserved through their desperate efforts to remain true to Torah even in the face of extinction. Now the sparks in those hearts are fanned into flame at the national resurrection of Israel and decades of unmistakable evidence that God is still at work fulfilling his promises to Abraham’s seed.
This is how the glory of the Lord fills the earth, and how he extends the redemptive covenant to every tribe and tongue and family on earth. It’s the work of his grace, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. That’s how the smoldering wicks keep on flickering with the spark of godly hope.
 
Cover photo by Don Kaveen, Colombo, Sri Lanka, March 6, 2022, on Unsplash.
Music: "Song of Glory,” The Exodus Road Band, Heart of the Matter, 2016.

The Greatest Blood Pressure Check

Part of staying healthy is checking our blood pressure from time to time. Since God says the life is in the blood, this might probably involves something more than simply staying physically healthy.
Leviticus 16:1-20:27; Amos 9:7-15; Matthew 26:26-29; Romans 3:21-26; Hebrews 10:1-7
Click here to download a transcript of this podcast: The Greatest Blood Pressure Check
 
It used to be that only the older people in my life monitored their blood pressure. Their doctors wanted to make sure their blood pressure readings stayed in a healthy range, neither too high nor too low. That meant little to me other than that it was an issue of concern for my elders. Then one day I realized I had become an elder when my doctor started to educate me about my own blood pressure. Now I’m checking it regularly, not just to please my doctor, but to partner with him in keeping me healthy.
The spiritual lesson here is in the balanced perspective on blood: what it is, what it does, and whose responsibility it is to use it the right way. For most of my life, I knew blood was essential to life, but I didn’t know exactly why. The general knowledge of blood carrying nutrients and oxygen throughout the body was enough. I didn’t need to know what nutrients, or how much oxygen, or even what constitutes healthy blood. I still don’t need to know much more than that, and most people don’t, unless they are afflicted in some way that impairs the blood’s ability to keep the body running. Disease will do that, but aging does it also. That’s why it’s wise to cease being an observer, and start being an active agent in keeping my blood flowing properly.
In other words, establishing and maintaining the status of the blood is something we do in partnership with God, just like everything else in life. We don’t sit back and let him do it all, and we don’t rush in and try to do it all on our own. We learn and we do as our Creator directs.
As Christians, we have learned to appreciate the blood of Messiah Yeshua. We know that his blood activates the New Covenant and opens the way to a relationship with our Creator. That’s usually that’s where our understanding ends. It hasn’t really mattered that much up to now that we don’t understand the finer points of why Messiah’s blood is necessary, or how it works. Now, however, our Creator-King is bringing together Jews and Christians, the two halves of his covenant people, to carry forward the next stage of his Kingdom restoration. That’s why it’s important to start learning from each other about subjects like the spiritual function of blood.
Let’s start with a familiar passage from Paul’s letter to Yeshua’s followers in Rome:
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law [the Torah], although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Romans 3:21-26 ESV
Paul uses a big word in this passage: propitiation. Some modern translations of his Greek substitute atonement for propitiation. That’s easier to understand, but it’s not quite what Paul meant. To get to his meaning, we should find out what Moses meant when he used the Hebrew equivalent of the Greek term. We see an example in Leviticus:
The Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they drew near before the Lord and died, and the Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron your brother not to come at any time into the Holy Place inside the veil, before the mercy seat that is on the ark, so that he may not die. For I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat.”
Leviticus 16:1-2 ESV
The mercy seat, or kaporet, was the golden covering over the Ark of the Covenant. That is the place where the blood of the sin offerings is applied on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. It’s where God is appeased and his justice satisfied, which is the meaning of propitiation. Atonement is related to propitiation, but it refers to different function of the blood. Moses addresses that later in Leviticus:
If any one of the house of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn among them eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life. Therefore I have said to the people of Israel, No person among you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger who sojourns among you eat blood.
Leviticus 17:10-12 ESV
Atonement is what a person brings as an offering to make amends for an issue that has caused separation from someone else. It’s the price of reconciliation. That might mean covering the guilt of an offense or cleansing from ritual impurity. For the atonement to be effective, however, there must be a propitiation that satisfies the demands of justice, whether it’s God’s justice, or the satisfaction required by someone we have wronged. There can’t be reconciliation if the offended party isn’t ready to be reconciled.
This is the picture we receive from the Levitical system. As the writer of Hebrews says, this is a shadow, or form, of the reality that is brought to pass by Messiah. He is simultaneously the one who satisfies the demands of our Creator’s justice, and the one who brings the offering of reconciliation on our behalf. The life really is in the blood – in his blood. Our part is to live the life he purchased for us in obedience to him.
And that is the greatest blood pressure check of all.
 
Cover photo by Vitaly Gariev, September 24, 2025, on Unsplash.
Music: "Song of Glory,” The Exodus Road Band, Heart of the Matter, 2016.

Outside the Camp

How do we cope with the messy things in life? It helps if we realize that messiness is more the rule than the exception - and that God has a remedy.
Leviticus 12:1-15:33; 2 Kings 5:1-19, 7:3-20; John 10:14-18; Hebrews 13:11-13
Click here to download a transcript of this podcast: Outside the Camp
 
Parents know that children get messy even when they’re not trying. When they’re little, they have diapers that need changing, noses that run, dinner plates that mysteriously end up on the floor, and face plants into mud puddles. When they’re older, they have sports uniforms that get stained with mud, blood, and grass, and they make kitchens and bathrooms explode. That’s why many parents give up any hope of having nice things in a clean house until the children grow up and leave.
But then they come back with grandchildren.
It’s not just children. Life is messy. Those times when we get cleaned up and make ourselves presentable are rare. We used to make a big deal about dressing up for church every week, and for traveling, and even going to work. Times change, though, and we have a much more relaxed standard of what’s acceptable. Even so, there is a standard, and those who can’t or won’t measure up to it might find themselves cast out of polite company.
The middle chapters of Leviticus explain why a person can be excluded from society. Often it’s because of the normal messy things of life, such as giving birth to a child, or in sickness when nasty things start leaking out of our bodies. In those cases, separation from people is a good thing. What new mother, for instance, would want to be out and about immediately after delivering her baby? And what sick person would want to endure the discomfort and embarrassment of sharing their condition with others? That’s why God specified what to do in those messy times, and what it would take to be reintegrated into community life.
God also explains how to be ritually cleansed for participation in the Temple service. The protocols for drawing near to the Lord’s table – his altar – are still in force. One day, perhaps soon, we’ll understand better what that means when there’s a new Temple in Jerusalem. For now, it’s enough to understand that our God is holy, set apart from his creation, and that he expects us to approach him with reverence.
It’s helpful to remember why our Creator is set apart. That’s the result of the decision by our first ancestors to challenge the Creator’s protocols and establish standards of their own. Each generation has made similar choices. The Creator responded by establishing the barrier of separation between us and him. The separation was for our own protection, so that we would not be annihilated through unfiltered exposure to his infinite purity in our impure state.
And yet, God never intended that the separation would endure forever. There are lessons we had to learn through the messy process of separation and maturity. That’s why he couldn’t overlook our messiness and welcome us back with open arms until something made us clean. It’s the same reason a mother tells her child covered in mud and sweat to take a bath before she lets him give her a kiss. She also reminds him to stay off the furniture. The boy may chafe at his mother’s instructions, but in time he’ll realize that she’s trying to keep her home in order for the good of the whole family.
This is why God gave Israel the Temple protocols. The sacrifices and purification rites provided a measure of sanctity by which the people could draw near and get a glimpse of what life will be like when we once again are allowed to walk with our Creator through his garden in the cool of the day. Israel was supposed to model this lesson for the whole world, and in fact they did. They still do. That’s one of the reasons the God of Abraham has gone to great lengths to preserve the Jewish people as the visible remnant of Israel and proof that he not only exists, but comes through on his promises. The camp of Israel in the form of the Jewish State has been reconstituted on the land God gave to Abraham and his descendants, just as God promised.
So where does that leave us who aren’t Jewish? In a sense, we are outside the camp in the unclean places of the world. That’s the picture we’re supposed to see from those passages about leprosy and the outcasts afflicted with it. It’s not about a skin condition; it’s about a heart condition. Sometimes people get so messy in their ways of thinking that they can’t help but make the wrong choices out of habit. They get so wrapped up in a chronic condition of ickiness that no one, not even their Maker, can stand to be around them. They are removed from the camp, so to speak, unless and until they can be cleansed and rehabilitated.
That’s all of us, of course. We can’t get into the camp because we’re one big mess from head to toe. The only way we can even know we need to be cleansed is if someone from inside the camp comes out to help us.
That’s what our Messiah did, as the letter to the Hebrews says:
For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.
Hebrews 13:11-13 ESV
This letter is to us. We become Hebrews when we cross over with our Messiah to the place where we are cleansed and made new. Then he invites us to join him as he continues his work outside the camp gathering all the lost sheep still wandering in the unclean places.
One day very soon, the gathering will be finished and our Good Shepherd will lead this flock into the camp and join them to the flock already there. In the meantime, we’ve still got work to do here on the outside.
 
Cover photo by romboide, San Marcos, Guatemala, August 18, 2022, on Unsplash.
Music: "Song of Glory,” The Exodus Road Band, Heart of the Matter, 2016.

How to Enjoy God

What does God expect of us, and what do we expect of Him? We spend a lot of time trying to imagine what He is thinking about us, but maybe we should pay more attention to doing what He says - not out of fear, but because He is worthy.
Leviticus 9:1-11:47; 2 Samuel 6:1-19; Job 1:20-22; Mark 10:35-45; Luke 17:5-10; John 15:12-17; Acts 13:4-11, 14:19-23
Click here to download a transcript of this podcast: How to Enjoy God
 
Christians emphasize that everything changed at the Cross. That is true. The blood of our Savior sealed the promises that his Father, our Creator, made to redeem this earth. His victory over the grave ensured that the resurrection would become reality for all who call upon the name of the Lord. And yet, Messiah’s accomplishments did not change the way God does business with humanity.
This is, after all, the same Almighty God who took drastic action on those who stepped out of line, regardless whether they lived before or after the Cross. We might think of the priests Nadab and Abihu who died at the moment of their consecration when they offered unauthorized fire before the Lord. Uzzah also comes to mind. He’s the man who died because he touched the Ark of the Covenant to keep it from falling off the ox cart on which the Israelites had placed it. Then there’s King Uzziah, who was stricken with leprosy when he tried to do what only the priests are supposed to do by offering incense in the Temple. After the Cross, we read of Ananias and Sapphira, who lost their lives when they lied to the apostles about the offering they presented from the sale of their land, and of Elymas the magician who was blinded because he spoke as a false prophet in opposition to the ministry of Paul and Barnabas.
With those examples in mind, what are we to think of this teaching by Yeshua?
“Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’”
Luke 17:7-10 ESV
This sounds more like the supposedly “angry God” of the Old Testament rather than the Jesus whom we like to call our friend. Yeshua’s words might even make us think of what the pagans do to appease their gods in hope that they will bless the harvest, protect from natural disaster, or simply leave the people alone.
Yeshua didn’t mean any of that, of course. We have a better idea of what he meant when we see in the previous verses that he was answering a specific question:
The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”
Luke 17:5-6 ESV
It seems the answer to cultivating faith the size of a mustard seed is in service to our God – the same kind of devoted service that prompted Job to cling to his Creator even when he had lost everything, saying only, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21)
That’s not a hopeless cry from the fatalistic worshipper of a capricious God, but the desperately hopeful proclamation of one who has lived in relationship with his Creator. Job had no understanding of why such unthinkable horrors had fallen on him, but he knew the only way through it all was by clinging more tightly to the only One worthy of service. It’s the same kind of desperate hope that kept Aaron focused on the holy task of inaugurating the Tabernacle even after his two oldest sons died before his eyes. That same hope inspired Paul and Barnabas to proclaim, “through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22), and continue ministering after an angry crowed stoned Paul and left him for dead.
The difference isn’t actually what happened at the Cross, but what happened when the God of the Universe initiated his covenant of redemption with Abraham, the father of Israel. At that moment, the relationship between the Almighty and humanity shifted from one of patron and client to one of covenant partners. Abraham believed and obeyed God, and in that way became the friend of God. That friendship moved God to keep the covenant even when his human partners proved unfaithful and inconsistent. The seal of the covenant was and is the blood of Messiah – the Messiah who came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
That’s the context of serving the Living God. We do it because it’s what our Lord taught us to do by his example. We don’t do it because we’re seeking a reward or recognition; we do it with the assurance that we are his regardless what may happen. In serving him, we learn to do as he did for others, just as he said:
"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another."
John 15:12-17 ESV
This is the essence of the Kingdom of God. It’s what he intended from the beginning. Protocol still matters, for he is the Holy God. We don’t presume on our relationship as friends, as if he were our “bestie” or “homey” ready to cater to our every whim. Neither do we cower in fear of an unreachable Deity seeking any occasion to smite us. The answer is somewhere in the middle: entering his house with reverence, respecting his rules, and learning to enjoy him as he enjoys us.
 
Cover photo by Anastasia Kravtsova, September 24, 2020, Stary Oskol, Russia, on Unsplash.
Music: "Song of Glory,” The Exodus Road Band, Heart of the Matter, 2016.

The Spectrum of Redemption

Redemption is one of those words we repeat in the context of our faith, but do we know what it means? More importantly, do we know how it connects us across time, distance, and culture to the heart of our Redeemer - and to the others he is redeeming? 
Psalm 103:6-13; John 4:22, 19:7; Acts 6:33-42; 1 Corinthians 1:10-17, 5:1-8, 15:20-28
Click here to download a transcript of this podcast: The Spectrum of Redemption
 
Paul teaches that, “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed,” and therefore we should celebrate the feast of Passover. Many followers of Messiah Yeshua now do exactly that. They have found that Passover isn’t merely a Jewish feast, but is actually a living remembrance and faithful demonstration of the redemptive story God initiated through Abraham and the nation of Israel long ago.
Surprisingly, Paul’s Passover comment appears in the context of a rebuke. He upbraids the Corinthian believers for tolerating, and even boasting about, a scandalous incident of sexual impropriety. This comes on the heels of his harsh criticism of the divisions within the Corinthian community of faith, with factions proclaiming their attachments to Paul, Apollos, Peter, or Messiah. We surmise that these factions acted arrogantly toward one another, each upholding their revered teacher as superior to the others. Being so divided, they were open to the grievous immorality Paul addressed. That’s the context of his Passover declaration:
Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
1 Corinthians 5:6-8 ESV
What the apostle means is that Yeshua’s followers have missed the point, not only of the feast, but of their redemption. As he says,
Is Christ (Messiah) divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
1 Corinthians 1:13 ESV
This is the core of our Christian faith handed down through the ages. Our connection to the Creator comes through his initiative in connecting to us. We could not reach him on our own, but he fixed the problem by becoming human like us, paying the penalty for our transgression, and defeating death so that we could, though him, gain eternal life. We were not only saved from destruction, but redeemed to join with our Creator and serve him for eternity.
This is the beautiful hope we sing about in our hymns, spirituals, gospel songs, and worship sets. It’s what we’re supposed to remember at this time of year, when we observe Passover, eat unleavened bread, and celebrate our Messiah’s resurrection as the firstfruits of those who sleep in death.
The irony of our faith is that we received it from our Jewish brethren, but they do not share it. That is, they do not share the reverence for the Divine Messiah even though they celebrate the same redemption story at this same time of year. The sad irony is that we, though brethren in the faith, regard one another as strangers and outcasts.
John summarizes the Jewish position on this matter is his gospel. He records the Jewish leaders declaring, “We have a law, and)according to that law he ought to die because he has made himself the Son of God.” (John 19:7) That is still the Jewish position, and it’s why traditional Christian evangelism has little impact on observant Jews. This wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction to the upstart rabbi from Galilee, but a response to the Babylonian exile. The exile happened because of blatant idolatry practiced by both Houses of Israel. When the Jewish exiles returned, they determined to guard against that error – an insidious error in a world where Pharaohs, kings, and Caesars claimed to be gods. Messiah would come from God, but to the mainstream sects of Second Temple Judaism, it was inconceivable that Messiah would be God in the flesh.
That is the baggage our Jewish brethren carry. It may be that God chose to reveal Messiah to uncircumcised Gentiles because they did not have that baggage. The good news that God had come down from heaven to redeem the world found fertile soil in pagan hearts. We know from the Christian transformation of the ancient world, and from our own testimonies, that the message is true. If it were not, then it would have come to nothing long ago.
And yet, we have baggage of our own. When we listen to those wonderful songs of faith, we hear about going to heaven, crossing the Jordan, entering Beulah Land, walking golden streets in the New Jerusalem, and other expressions of our eternal hope. It is right to sing of such things, but what Yeshua said to the Samaritan woman applies still to us:
You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.
John 4:22 ESV
We know the King, but we have little knowledge of his Kingdom. That’s why, through the ages, we have looked to Rome, Constantinople, Moscow, London, Salt Lake City, and other places as the temporal centers of our Christian faith. Jerusalem, if we think of it, is a spiritualized place in the age to come, not the physical capital of the very real nation of Israel in the land God promised to Abraham and his descendants.
That is our baggage, and the reason we desperately need the connection with our Jewish brethren. They have always known that God’s redemptive promises involve an actual people, a body of laws and instructions established by the Creator, and a geographical location. We know this is true because the Jewish people, as the visible remnant of Israel, have clung tenaciously to the Torah, have survived to be resurrected as a nation, and have returned to the land God gave their ancestors. If this were not of God, then they would have ceased to exist long ago.
This is the spectrum of redemption. At one end are the people to whom God has revealed his King, and at the other are the people to whom he has revealed his Kingdom. The revelations have matured separately for reasons only our God fully knows. We are blessed to live in the time when those revelations are becoming one. This is the moment of redemption for Israel and the nations which all creation has awaited since time immemorial. As always with the things of God, we can choose what to do with it. Let us choose wisely.
 
Cover photo by Vlad ION, March 27, 2022, Snegiri, Moscow Oblast, Russia, on Unsplash.
Music: "Song of Glory,” The Exodus Road Band, Heart of the Matter, 2016.

Navigating the Narrow Path

This path of life our God wants us to walk is filled with hazards. The most dangerous hazards are the ones that look perfectly safe, but lead us off the path. 
Leviticus 6:8-8:36; Jeremiah 7:21-8:3, 9:23-24; Malachi 3:1-4:6; Proverbs 6:16-19; Matthew 5:14-16, 7:12-23; John 8:12, 13:34-35; 14:15
Click here to download a transcript of this podcast: Navigating the Narrow Path
 
Did you ever notice that the path of the Kingdom is easy to miss? Even those who are walking on God’s path seem to be ever in peril of slipping off. Stray too far to one side and there’s a tendency to lapse into lawlessness. Stray too far to the other side and the danger is legalism. These are labels we throw at people who don’t believe as we do, and whose lives reflect values we deem incompatible with true service to our Creator.
What exactly is true service to our Creator? The answer is in the Torah he gave to Moses. The Torah is more than law; it’s the body of instructions, commandments, and standards of righteous conduct God first explained to Israel so that his chosen nation of priests could carry it to the world. That’s what being the light of the world is all about, as Israel’s Messiah Yeshua said both of himself and of his followers. And yet we, just like our Hebrew spiritual ancestors, still tend to miss the point – which means we tend to emphasize our particular interpretation of righteousness as the only correct one.
Here’s an example. For most of Christian history, and even today in much of the church, the emphasis has been on what Yeshua and the Apostles taught, not on Moses and the Prophets. The Torah, and especially the so-called “ceremonial law” of sacrificial offerings and ritual cleanness, has been considered irrelevant. What we have missed is that Yeshua and the Apostles drew from Moses and the Prophets, including the instructions about the Temple service and priesthood. Since there has been no Temple and no functioning priesthood for nearly 2,000 years, we have lost the best example of what it means to be holy, separated to the Creator. That brings us to our present day, when certain segments of the church emphasize God’s saving grace to the point that even the most egregious errors are justified or ignored. That partially explains why 67 million or more babies have been aborted in the United States since 1973, including those lives lost since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. The truth is, no law can prevent people from doing whatever they want if their hearts are set on it.
Abortion isn’t the only problem, of course. There are many things God calls abominations, meaning practices that grieve his heart, but we categorize them into “acceptable” and “unacceptable” abominations. The unacceptable abominations are the ones we don’t admit to doing, but the acceptable ones are what everyone does, or at least excuses. Maybe it would be better if we ask God what’s on his list, and whether any of them are acceptable. His list of abominable categories is in Solomon’s proverbs:
There are six things that the Lord hates,
seven that are an abomination to him:
haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
and hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked plans,
feet that make haste to run to evil,
a false witness who breathes out lies,
and one who sows discord among brothers.
Proverbs 6:16-19 ESV
It’s interesting that some of the most obvious things on our “unacceptable abominations” list don’t appear on God’s list. That doesn’t make those things any less grievous to him, but it does give us reason to consider whether we really understand and practice God’s priorities. If we don’t do that from time to time, we end up doing things he never intended, and miss completely what matters most to him. He explained that to ancient Israel through his prophets. Here’s an example from Jeremiah:
Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’ But they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and the stubbornness of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward. From the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day. Yet they did not listen to me or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck. They did worse than their fathers.”
Jeremiah 7:21-26 ESV
Jeremiah delivered this message to Judah in the days after the great revival under King Josiah. The Temple was still operating according to the procedures Moses had explained in Leviticus. The priesthood and the Levites knew their jobs, the sacrificial offerings were going up daily, and the people thought all was well. Yet the façade of holiness masked the lawless core of the people and the nation, just as it did in the days of Messiah Yeshua, when he spoke similar indictments.
The lesson for us is this: there is no substitute for loving the Lord and obeying his commands. Messiah Yeshua said as much when he said if we love him we would keep his commandments, and gave as his most important commandment that we love one another as he has loved us.
It’s good to understand what the priests do and discuss how things will be when the Temple is in operation again, but that’s not as important as learning how our God wants us to live, and then making the effort to live that way. That’s how we get ready for that day when the Lord whom we seek comes suddenly into his temple.
 
Cover photo by Joyce G, September 16, 2020, on Unsplash.
Music: "Song of Glory,” The Exodus Road Band, Heart of the Matter, 2016.

The Protocol of Reconciliation

Somewhere between cheap grace and letter of the law is the path our Creator has charted for us to be at peace with Him and with others. 
Leviticus 1:1-6:7; Isaiah 43:21-44:23; Luke 17:1-4; 1 John 2:1-6
Click here to download a transcript of this podcast: The Protocol of Reconciliation
 
Not long ago I caused offense to a good friend. It happened in a public meeting when I asked a question of the speaker. Although I tried to word my question carefully to avoid offense and misunderstanding, the offense came all the same. My friend was so wounded that she couldn’t help but speak out loudly. At that instant, I and everyone in the room knew that something was wrong, and that my words were the cause.
I was not able at that moment to deal with the offense. Our speaker was already answering me, and when he was done he turned to another question. Nevertheless, a little voice inside my head kept telling me, “You’ve got to make this right.”
There was never a question about dealing with my trespass; I was definitely in the wrong and my friend needed to be made whole. The question was when and how. Since the offense happened in a public forum, it was proper that my corrective action be public as well. That’s why I determined to address the issue as soon as I had the microphone again.
As one of the hosts, I was expected to step in as soon as our guest was finished with his presentation and introduce the next item on the agenda. That gave me the opportunity to acknowledge my error to the group and apologize to my friend. She graciously forgave me, and all was made right.
I hope that I never offend my friend, or anyone else, again. However, the probability is that at some point someone will find something I say or do disagreeable and take offense. It might be that their offense is not because I have done something wrong, but because I have done something right and they don’t like it. If so, then there is little I can do to fix the problem. However, it’s just as likely that I will be in the wrong, and if so it’s up to me to go through the protocol of repentance and reconciliation. We learn that from Messiah Yeshua in teachings such as this one Luke recorded in his gospel:
Then He said to the disciples, “It is impossible that no offenses should come, but woe to him through whom they do come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones. Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him.”
Luke 17:1-14 NKJV
As always, Yeshua was expounding on principles God first explained through Moses. The Torah is filled with instructions about how to make things right with God and with other people, but we tend to get bogged down in the details and miss the principles behind them. The first chapters of Leviticus, for example, contain instructions for the various offerings the priests are to present to God on the altar. If we’re not paying attention, we’ll miss the fact that everyone among God’s people of Israel at some point is required to bring an offering. The priests present the offerings on the altar, but it’s the people who bring them. There are designated sin offerings for the priests and leaders, for common people, and for the congregation as a whole. The context of these offerings is in atonement for something done unintentionally or in ignorance – in other words, an offense that happens by mistake, like the one I caused for my friend.
The principle is that offenses must be made right both with God and man. Leviticus establishes a protocol for this, of which the offerings on the altar are only one part. The altar protocol will be reestablished when there is a new Temple in Jerusalem, but it’s as yet unclear whether it will be only for Jewish people, or for anyone who wants to bring an offering. Even so, the protocol still applies to everyone, and especially to all who are included in the Commonwealth of Israel, both Jews and Greeks, as Paul says.
Lest there be any doubt, compare these instructions from Moses with Yeshua’s teaching. It might help to pay attention to how much, or how little, is said about bringing a sacrificial offering:
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “If anyone sins and commits a breach of faith against the Lord by deceiving his neighbor in a matter of deposit or security, or through robbery, or if he has oppressed his neighbor or has found something lost and lied about it, swearing falsely—in any of all the things that people do and sin thereby—if he has sinned and has realized his guilt and will restore what he took by robbery or what he got by oppression or the deposit that was committed to him or the lost thing that he found or anything about which he has sworn falsely, he shall restore it in full and shall add a fifth to it, and give it to him to whom it belongs on the day he realizes his guilt. And he shall bring to the priest as his compensation to the Lord a ram without blemish out of the flock, or its equivalent, for a guilt offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him before the Lord, and he shall be forgiven for any of the things that one may do and thereby become guilty.”
Leviticus 6:1-7 ESV
We Christians know a little about atonement, or propitiation, as in Messiah Yeshua “is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). Yes, Jesus paid it all, as the hymn says, but we still have the responsibility to do our part. The protocol of reconciliation isn’t simply a ritual God created, but a mark of our obedience and maturity in him.
 
Cover photo by mark tulin, Palm Springs, California, July 27, 2021, on Unsplash.
Music: "Song of Glory,” The Exodus Road Band, Heart of the Matter, 2016.