Communion or the Lord’s Supper is a ritual that has been vital to all Christian churches since the beginning, yet there is a proper biblical way to observe it of which many Christians are unaware. Plus, many people take communion in an unworthy and irreverent manner and as a result are bringing the divine judgment of sickness and even premature death upon themselves as Paul the apostle warned us about. We discuss this important issues in the teaching.
This and other videos by Nathan are available as podcasts on Spotify and Apple podcast under “Hoshana Rabbah.”
If this message has been a blessing to you, please consider showing your appreciation by making a donation to Hoshana Rabbah at http://hoshanarabbah.org/blog/. Thank you!
“Don’t take away my bacon!” is the cry of many Christians who decry the biblical laws of clean and unclean meats. “Those Old Testament laws are done away with,” they continue. But let’s step back, take a deep breath, and for a moment put on the shelf what we’ve been taught in our churches. Let’s take a second look at WHY Elohim called eating pork, shellfish and the like an abomination, and why he deemed his dietary laws a holiness issue. This is an overlooked aspect of true biblical holiness that has to do with how we view our bodies as the holy temple of YHVH, and how the biblical dietary laws are a pathway to a transformative mindset on how we view ourselves as being holy, set-apart, and as having been called out of the world and its ungodly ways to be a chosen and peculiar people unto YHVH.
This and other videos by Nathan are available as podcasts on Spotify and Apple podcast under “Hoshana Rabbah.”
If this message has been a blessing to you, please consider showing your appreciation by making a donation to Hoshana Rabbah at https://www.paypal.com/donate?token=Y…. Thank you!
Obedient and truth-seeking disciples of Yeshua will want to love him by keeping his commandments (John 14:12), and by teaching and doing everything he commanded (Matt 28:20). They will be following Paul’s example to imitate Yeshua the Messiah (1 Cor 11:1) as well heeding John’s admonition “to walk just as [Yeshua] walked” (1 John 2:6). This applies to the important biblical ritual of communion as well. How can we celebrate communion just as Yeshua did it? How closely is your typical mainstream Christian church following Yeshua’s commandments when it conducts a communion or the Lord’s supper? We shall discover the answer below.
With regard to obeying YHVH’s commands, symbols and memorializations figure prominently in YHVH Elohim’s spiritual economy. Why is this? They are teaching aids. Physical humans need physical things to help them to comprehend spiritual truths and ideals. Using symbols, commemorations and memorializations is a method of teaching and relates to pedagogy, which is “the method and practice of teaching, especially as an academic subject or theoretical concept.” A effective teacher endeavors to build bridges of understanding between what the student knows and what the teacher wants to teach the student— between the known and the unknown, between what the student understands now and what the teacher wants his students to learn. A successful teacher learns the skill of building bridges of understanding with his students to bring them to a higher level of understanding. The same is true of YHVH Elohim as we works with humans to teach them about spiritual things.
On a spiritual level, YHVH Elohim, our Heavenly Teacher, employes similar pedagogic or teaching techniques as he endeavors to bring men to a higher level of understanding heaven’s spiritual truths and realities. The use of symbols and memorials as teaching tools is essential to this process of teaching and learning.
The Bible is full of symbols and memorials that represent or point to something else and act as teaching aids to assist humans in learning about Elohim and what he requires of us. For example, the very name of the Creator, YHVH (Yehovah), is a memorial, symbol or remembrance (Heb. zeker from zakar) of who Elohim really is (Exod 3:15). His name is a way for humans to connect with him. The same is true of each of our names. Our name is a label, a pointer, a symbol of who we are, but it’s not really us. Similarly, eating unleavened bread during the Feast of Unleavened Bread is a memorial (Heb. zikrown from zakar) of coming out of Egypt and putting sin out of one’s life (Exod 13:9). The twelve stones on the high priest’s breastplate were memorials (Heb. zikrown from zakar) of the twelve tribes of Israel (Exod 28:12). The grain offering that was made on the altar of sacrifice in the Tabernacle of Moses was a memorial (Heb. azkarah from zakar) or remembrance that prophetically pointed to Yeshua the Messiah’s death on the cross and the fact that he is the bread of life (Lev 2:2). Blowing shofars on the Day of Trumpets is a memorial (Heb. zikrown from zakar) of many things past, present and prophetically including the second coming of Yeshua and the firstfruits resurrection (Lev 23:24). In fact, the whole Tabernacle of Moses, the Levitical priesthood, the sacrificial system, the Sabbath and biblical feasts is a complex system of memorials, remembrances and symbols to point humanity to the higher, upward spiritual path, which eventually brings him to Yeshua the Messiah. This is so abundantly clear in the Bible. Why don’t more people see this? Why do so many Christians and their leaders have such an apathy, even antipathy for these things? It’s mind boggling, especially in view of the fact that these teaching aid memorial and symbols were ordained of Elohim himself!
The overarching purpose and meaning of the Hebrew word zakar and its derivatives is something that “gets men to think about something, to meditate upon something, to pay attention to something, to remember something, to mention something, to declare or proclaim something or to commemorate something” (see The TWOT on the meaning of zakar).
Why do people need to remember something or to stop and think about something? Simply this. In the busyness of life, people forget a lot of things that they should remember, meditate on, ponder, be thankful for and learn from. The fact that people tend to forget important things is the whole reason we have national holidays, statues, gravestones, war medals, a national flag and anthem, birthdays and anniversaries, photo albums and other manmade traditions. These are culturally important to humans and add meaning and depth to life. They help us to stay connected to past, significant events. They aid us in remembering where we have come from and who we are. None of us just spontaneously combusted, or appeared out of nowhere as if some cosmic hand just dropped each of us down onto this planet non-contextually and without a past history. Biblically, the same can be said of a Torah scroll, the Bible itself, the Sabbath, the biblical feasts, the cross as a symbol of something, the ritual of baptism and Passover, which had embedded in its observance the Lord’s supper (1 Cor 11:20), communion (1 Cor 10:16) or the Lord’s table (1 Cor 10:21). All of these remembrances or memorials are designed to cause us to pause and stop and to reflect on something that is beyond us (in the past or future) or above us. The memorialization of past events should cause us to better appreciate those who have gone before us—our past history—and be thankful for our present blessings. Such reflections can help us not to repeat the mistakes of past generations and at the same time learn from their wisdom. Simultaneously, things that memorialize future events (like the Sabbath and the biblical feasts) should encourage us onward and upward in our spiritual journey. They strengthen our faith and give us hope for tomorrow. Symbolic rituals like baptism and communion can help us to connect to present realities that relate to our upward spiritual walk and our relationship to Yeshua the Messiah—our Master and Savior.
What Does Communion Memorialize?
So what does the Christian ritual or sacrament of communion called “the Lord’s supper” memorialize? To its credit, the mainstream Christian church understands the basic meaning of communion quite well. But let’s review this basic understanding, while, at the same time, adding some Hebraic or whole Bible background information. This will hopefully help us to appreciate more fully this glorious sacrament, which, sadly, due to its frequent occurrence in many churches, can become banal ritual that is easily taken for granted.
The winds of false doctrines are blowing ferociously in the Messianic/Hebrew roots movement as money-grubbing false teachers peddle heresies based non-biblical sources and lead people away from the Truth of the Bible and the basic message of the gospel. This is the leaven of the Pharisees, false doctrines and hypocrisy that Yeshua warned his true disciples against. He prophesied that the deceptive delusions of false teachers claiming to be speaking for him would intensify as his coming draws near. Beware! This teaching is a wake up warning to all those who have ears to hear and eyes to see!
This and other videos by Nathan are available as podcasts on Spotify and Apple podcast under “Hoshana Rabbah.”
If this message has been a blessing to you, please consider showing your appreciation by making a donation to Hoshana Rabbah at http://hoshanarabbah.org/blog/. Thank you!
How many of you have eaten leavened bread during a Christian communion service? Did you know that the Bible forbids this. Why is this? Because it is blasphemous and dishonors and profanes the body and life of Jesus/Yeshua. This sinful practice typifies many ungodly traditions in the church. It’s time that Elohim’s people woke up and turned away from these and other traditions of men by which the Word of Elohim is made of none effect in the church!
This and other videos by Nathan are available as podcasts on Spotify and Apple podcast under “Hoshana Rabbah.”
If this message has been a blessing to you, please consider showing your appreciation by making a donation to Hoshana Rabbah at http://hoshanarabbah.org/blog/. Thank you!
Shalom Torah-truth seekers and lovers of Yeshua the Messiah. The emails are coming in asking us about the dates for the upcoming biblical feasts of YHVH based on the visible crescent new moon and abib/aviv barley in the land of Israel. Well, the reports have come in from Devorah Gordon at https://www.facebook.com/datetree/ and others from Israel, so now we know.
Our family will be celebrating the Passover seder starting the late afternoon and going into the evening of Sunday April 13. The first high holy day Shabbat of the Feast of Unleavened Bread will be on Monday April 14, and the last high holy day Shabbat of the Feast of Unleavened Bread will be on Thursday, April 20.
If you have any more questions about YHVH’s biblical feasts or the biblical calendar, please go to the search button at the top this page and type in key words such as “biblical calendar” or “biblical feasts” or “Passover” or “Feast of Unleavened Bread”. Numerous articles and videos that I have made in the past will come up and likely answer all of your questions. Instead of having to re-invent the wheel over and over again by answering the same questions the people have over and over again, I have made these articles and videos available for your convenience to freely access whenever you like.
May YHVH bless you as you learn to walk as Yeshua and his disciples did. A whole new world of revelation will open to you, your faith in Yeshua will be strengthened and your love and understanding of the Word of Elohim will be deepened beyond measure.
Many of us are busily preparing our hearts and homes to celebrate the Passover which is immediately followed by the Feast of Unleavened Bread the next day. For those of us on the visible new moon/abib barley calendar, this year Passover occurs on Tuesday, April 23 and the first high holy day Sabbath of the Feast of Unleavened falls on Wednesday, April 24 with the seventh day of this feast, another Sabbath, occurring on Tuesday, April 30.
Over the years, I have prepared many teaching resources to help people to understand the importance or YHVH’s biblical feasts and along with their historical significance, their relevance to his people today as it relates to the gospel message and our walk with Yeshua along with any of their prophetic implications.
To help you to celebrate these current feasts with meaning and purpose, here is a list of links to some of these free resources.
