idolatry – 11:3 Restoration

Breaking Torah. (Let me count the ways…)

“Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I am teaching you to perform, so that you may live and go in and take possession of the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you. ²You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.”
Deuteronomy 4:1-2

To the credit of the Hebrew roots/Torah observant community, we take the Word of God seriously and understand that He says what He means and means what He says. As a whole, we generally are very concerned with keeping Shabbat correctly, eating clean and observing the feasts. We try hard, though imperfectly, to follow all that is written in the Torah without adding or subtracting from those various commands and the different details scattered throughout the Torah.

In those major areas, we are pretty good at not breaking the Torah. But, there is one area where we break the Torah continually. We are so good at it that we don’t even think about it. Consistently, we add to the Torah, take away from it, and break multiple commands, without even thinking about it… Let me share a little of what the Father has been teaching me.

Difficult verses in the ‘Christmas’ story… p.2

Yesterday, we began a short series considering some verses from the ‘Christmas’ story that challenge the traditional theological narrative of Christendom. As I implied yesterday, these verses should pique our interest in a search for truth. I don’t know about you, but I don’t care what men say, I want to see what Scripture says….

Thy Kingdom Come

When someone talks about the Millennial Kingdom or the future eternal Kingdom, what comes to mind? Whose Kingdom is it? Who rules over it? Who was it promised to? Who actually gets it? Etc…. At the end of the Book of Revelation, what does the Kingdom look like and who is in it?

Scripture gives a very unified story that often does not match the narrative I was taught growing up. At least, the focus I heard in church was quite different than what Scripture says.

A beloved part of the ‘Christmas’ story is the angel’s visit to Mary. Here is part of the encounter and a difficult verse.

Gabriel, a messenger of God, visited Miriam (Mary’s real Hebrew name) and said,

^{Luke 1:31}And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus (Hebrew = Yeshua). ³²He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; ³³and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.”

Here, the messenger Gabriel affirms multiple prophecies that seem to get lost in the Christian perspectives of this promised Kingdom. This Son of the Most High will,

sit on the throne of David,
reign over the house of Jacob (aka, Israel),
forever.

What surprises many when they dig into these verses is that they lead directly to Ezekiel 37, a chapter most are at least partly familiar with. The first part of the chapter is Ezekiel’s vision of dry bones that leads to the mid part of the chapter on the two stick prophecy followed by a detailed account of this Kingdom the Messiah will rule over. Those shocking closing verses say, Continue reading “Difficult verses in the ‘Christmas’ story… p.2”

Visited a Crime Scene, Today.

Today, we visited the scene of a crime. It actually is one of the primary reasons I came to Israel. Next week’s Congress is vitally important in the process of restoring the whole House of Israel, but today was a required prerequisite. Without returning to the scene of the crime committed by our fathers against the Holy One of Israel, all of next week’s efforts would be for nought.

Today, we visited the ruins of the ancient temple build by Jeroboam at Tel Dan. The facts of the crime are simple: