Resources
Frances
News in Brief, 4 October 2019
Review: The Way of Salvation
Paul Luckraft reviews ‘Derech Yeshua: The Way of Salvation’ by Daniel Nessim (2013, Chosen People Ministries).
Do Not Uncover...
Torah Portion: Deuteronomy 26:1-29:9
Ki Tavo (‘When you enter [the land]’)
This week’s Torah portion starts to draw Deuteronomy towards a conclusion with instructions for the feast of first fruits and tithing in the third year. The last part of chapter 26 reads a bit like the vows of a marriage ceremony - but this is between God the husband and Israel his holy bride.
Then in chapter 27 come some practicalities about how to keep God’s covenantal laws in mind, setting up a centre of worship at Shechem between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, with the laws written on stones overlaid with plaster for all to read and an altar set up for offerings.
The Levites were then to speak out to Israel the consequences for keeping or breaking the covenant - a series of blessings and curses, respectively - concluding with the instruction to “therefore observe faithfully all the terms of this covenant, that you may succeed in all that you undertake” (Deut 29:8).
A Curiosity
In the middle of the first set of curses I found a curiosity: “Cursed be he who lies with his father’s wife, for he has removed his father’s garment” (Deut 27:20).
This translation is taken from the Jewish Study Bible. The King James translation is similar but modern versions, though they give a straightforward understanding that it is wrong for a man to have sex with his mother, seem to lose something. Let me explain.
Cross-references to this verse include Deuteronomy 23:1, which says “No man shall marry his father’s former wife, so as to remove his father’s garment” and Leviticus 18:8, which says “Do not uncover the nakedness of your father’s wife; it is the nakedness of your father”. These cross-references led me to that strange incident at the end of the account of Noah, in Genesis 9:23-24, where Ham saw his father’s nakedness but Shem and Japheth covered it.
The lesson that I draw from all these passages is God’s concern that the father of a family (and by implication, the family itself) should not be deeply humiliated by such breaches of trust which are tantamount to stripping someone naked in public to humiliate them.
God Humiliated
In Hosea, it was the wife who by prostituting herself uncovered the Prophet’s nakedness, giving a picture of the greater atrocity being enacted by Israel, deeply humiliating God in front of the world. And yet God stretched out to forgive and redeem. By coming in the person of Yeshua the Messiah, God chose to take my place, being stripped naked and deeply humiliated before mankind to pay the sentence that was my own due.
And now today, what is such a large part of Yeshua’s Bride doing compromising with humanism or the New Age, getting into bed with Islam and so on? By these actions Yeshua is being deeply humiliated again. But be warned, when Yeshua comes the second time it will be in glory, to judge.
In the words of Hebrews 2:3: “…how will we escape [God’s judgment for disobedience] if we ignore such a great deliverance?”
Author: John Quinlan
Old Testament references from the Jewish Study Bible. New Testament references from the Complete Jewish Bible.
Breaking the Law
How to pray in times of constitutional upheaval.
Losing a Christian Venture
The demise of Thomas Cook.
Brainwashing Our Children
Tail wags the dog as pupils take to the streets in protest.
News in Brief, 26 September 2019
Studies in Jeremiah (33)
The God of Creation is a god of action.
Review: Revelations of Jesus Christ
Simon Pease reviews ‘Revelations of Jesus Christ from the Book of Revelation’ by Philip Wren (Christian Publications International, 2019)
Ki Tetze
Torah Portion: Deuteronomy 21:10-25:19
This week’s Torah Portion encompasses a varied group of instructions to Israel regarding anything from marital relationships to what to do if you stumble on a bird’s nest. Running through the instructions are common threads which reveal God’s nature and heart for his people, including justice (fairness in relationships, not taking advantage of people), compassion (care for others, including the most vulnerable) and purity.
God’s Attention to Detail
This call to purity is nowhere more visible than in Deuteronomy 22:9-11, whose verses at first glance appear relatively unconnected and perhaps a little strange:
“You shall not sow your vineyard with different kinds of seed, lest the yield of the seed which you have sown and the fruit of your vineyard be defiled. You shall not plough with an ox and a donkey together. You shall not wear a garment of different sorts, such as wool and linen mixed together.”
The prohibition on mixing seed demonstrates that God has appointed particular places for everything he has created, including the smallest and seemingly inconsequential things. As he said through the prophet Isaiah: “Does he [the farmer] not plant wheat in its place, barley in its plot, and spelt in its field?” (Isa 28:25)
Yoking an ox with a donkey would have been cruel for the donkey, a slighter beast with less strength and a different step. God encourages compassion for the beasts of the field but we are also reminded of Paul’s instruction to believers to “not be unequally yoked with unbelievers” (2 Cor 6:14). Notably, oxen were clean animals while donkeys were unclean.
Finally, blending together plant fibres (e.g. linen) with animal fibres (e.g. wool), which differed markedly in just about every way (e.g. strength, washability), would not have made for good quality garments and may have defiled people’s worship by causing them to sweat in God’s presence (e.g. Ezek 44:17-18).
God’s Appointed Order
In these verses, we catch glimpses of God’s heart: the significance and beauty of order, compassion for his creation, and practical concerns too. But these verses are also united by another principle: the importance of respecting God’s designated boundaries.
We live in the era of ‘trans’: transgenderism, trans-speciesism, even trans-humanism is on the horizon. Today it seems every boundary is made to be transgressed, every distinction to be blurred, every separation to be confused. But God’s people have always been called to preserve his created order with its given distinctions and relationships – each of which paints a picture of the most crucial distinction and relationship of all: that between humanity and God. After all, it was man’s sinful desire to usurp God’s authority and glory – “ye shall be as gods” – which precipitated the Fall.
With this in mind, we see in Deuteronomy 22:12 a command to Israel to make tassels on the four corners of their garments. This is a reference back to Numbers 15:37-41, where God told Moses that it was his purpose that the people would look at these tassels and thereby be reminded to obey all of his commands and not to chase after the lusts of their own hearts and eyes.
Likewise, let us today “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Yeshua, the pioneer and perfecter of faith” (Heb 12:1-2).
Author: Frances Rabbitts
