The Northern Lights—The Heavens Declare YHYVH’s Glory!

Nathan and Sandi recently experienced a once in a lifetime spectacular display of the northern lights or aurora borealis while on a cruise ship off the coast of southern Canada. The lights were so bright that they were visible all of the way to the southern US. Please enjoy this short, awe-inspiring and dramatic video-documentary of our experience.

 

Leviticus 25:1—26:2 Parashat Behar (A Gospel-Oriented Torah Study)

This is a gospel-oriented Torah study. Our goal is to connect the good news of Yeshua the Messiah (the gospel message) to its Hebraic, pro-Torah roots or foundations. The information given here is more than head knowledge. Understanding and wisdom (the right application of knowledge that is based on truth) is taught thus making biblical truth practical, relevant and applicable to your daily life. The truths of the Bible not only have the power to transform your life here and now for the better, but eventually to take you past the veil of death and into eternity.

This Torah study is subdivided in sections by topic in a magazine format thus making it easy to watch at several sittings.

Free written study guides are available for downloading at https://www.hoshanarabbah.org/parshio….

May you be blessed as you watch this video.

 

“No Return to the Law” (?)—Galatians 2:19 Explained

Galatians 2:19, Died to the law. For this chapter, the heading in the New King James Bible says, “No return to the law.”

Is this really the point that Paul is making in this chapter as this, to many Christians, seems to indicate?  In determining the exact meaning of a Bible verse that is open to several possible meanings, it is important to keep a key concept in mind. Both in the initial written language or subsequently translating from one language to another several factors determine the author’s true meaning. These include word order (syntax), punctuation, the multiple meanings of a particular word, and, finally, the specific word/s a translator chooses when translating, not to mention the translators pre-existing biases (called translation bias). For example, it a translator already believes that the law of Moses has been done away with because this is what normative Christianity teaches, then this view or biases will likely inform how he translates a Bible verse. The is also the profit motive and acceptability of one’s peers can also be a major influence. For example, if an individual translator or team of translators spends years translating a Bible, they may hope to eventually sell this Bible in order to be remunerated for their time and effort. Thus, in consideration will be the marketing of the product. With regard to the Bible, what will be the largest potential market to purchase your Bible? Those who believe that the law of Moses is valid today or those who believe that it is not? The answer is obvious. All of these factors can drastically effect how a Bible verse is translated, the words chosen in the process and the subsequent meaning of a sentence. 

Verse 19 is a case in point.

For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. (vv. 19–20, KJV)

For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God. (NKJV, NASB)

For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. (NIV)

The way this verse reads, along with extra-biblical chapter heading that suggests that the law has been abrogated, can cause one to come to the conclusion the law of Elohim is now, to one degree or another, invalid. But is this what Paul is really saying in this verse? First, let’s read how some other Bibles translate this verse to determine if this is the only translation option.

For through the Law I died to the Law and its demands on me [because salvation is provided through the death and resurrection of Christ], so that I might [from now on] live to God. (AMP)

For under the Law I “died”, and now I am dead to the Law’s demands so that I may live for God. (Phillips)

for I through law, did die, that to God I may live; (YLT)

I through law to law died, that to God I might live. (J.P. Green)

For through Torah I died Torah, in order to life to Elohim. (The Scriptures)

For it was through letting the Torah speak for itself that I died to its traditional legalistic misinterpretation, so that I might live in direct relationship with God. (CJB)

For under the Law I “died”, and now I am dead to the Law’s demands so that I may live for God. (J.B. Phillips)

When I tried to obey the laws in the Scriptures, those laws killed me. As a result, I live in a relationship with God. (Names of God Bible)

For when I tried to keep the law, it condemned me. So I died to the law—I stopped trying to meet all its requirements—so that I might live for God. (NLT)

For I am in the Torah. To the Torah I die that to Eloah I live. (Hebraic-Roots Version from the Aramaic by James Trimm)

Besides, I through law Law died by Law, so that I might live by God. (Diaglott, 1942 by Benjamin Wilson)

For through the Law I died to the Law that I might live for God. (James Moffatt, 1924)

car c’est par la loi que je suis mort à la loi, a fin de [in order to] vivre pour Dieu. (Louis Segond—French)

porque [because] yo por [for, by, on behalf of, because of] la ley soy muerto para [to] la ley, al fin [finally] de vivir para [to live for] Dios. (Reina-Valera 1569, 1960—Spanish)

Next, let’s look at the actual meanings of the words in the original language.

For I through/after/by means of/on account of [the] law died to [the] law that/so that/in order that I might live to/for God.

From all of these various translations and alternate word meanings, we see that this verse could read very differently than, for example, how the NKJV and KJV translators render it. What do we make of this? What is the truth of the Bible?

Let’s return to the basics to gain understanding, and then to rightly “divide” or interpret this verse. 

The Bible tells us that sin is the violation of YHVH’s Torah-law and that the wages of sin is death, thus we are all legally dead because we all have sinned. Yet we know that Yeshua has paid the wages or death penalty for our sin, and thus we are freed not from obeying the law, the violation of which brought upon us the death penalty to begin with, but from the penalty of the law. That is to say, the penalty for violating the law and obedience to the law are two completely separate or different concepts. Normative Christianity conflates these two. It asserts that because we have been redeemed or freed from the penalty of the law, we are now freed from the law itself. This, of course is an absurd and illogical conclusion that violates the rest of Scripture, including the writings of Paul, which upholds the validity of YHVH’s Torah-law in numerous places as the standard of righteous and love that all saints are to follow.

To say that the law has been done away with because Yeshua died on the cross is like saying that because someone paid the fine for my speeding violation, I am now legally free to speed as fast and as often as I like because the speeding law is now invalid. What? This makes no sense! How did the payment of my fine for violating the speeding invalidate the speeding law? It did not! The penalty and the law itself are two different things. The same is true for YHVH’s Torah law as it relates to Yeshua’s dieing on the cross to pay for our sins.

 

Free Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread Educational Resources

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.

The Biblical Calendar

The Biblical Feasts in General

Passover

The Feast of Unleavened Bread

Playlist of Videos on the Biblical Feasts

 

Extra Biblical Books, Jewish Mysticism et al or Sola Scriptura?

There is a curious fascination among many Hebraic minded people to seek for truth and hidden knowledge outside of the Bible. This has led many people to delve into many extra-biblical books such as the Dead Sea scrolls, the Book of Enoch, the Apocrypha and other intertestamental writings, and rabbinic Jewish writings including the Talmud and Zohar. What are we to make of these writings, and how do we evaluate truth from error? This video presents some guidelines to follow in separating the wheat of truth from the chaff of humanistic mythologies and the dead end spiritual paths found in many extra-biblical books.

 

How Torah Improves One’s Life & an Understanding of the Bible

Boy reading from a gevil parchment scroll. This one is written on goat skin.

A New Way of Life

Coming to an understanding of YHVH Elohim’s Torah-laws and then adopting a Torah-compliant lifestyle coupled with viewing the Bible through a Hebraic perspective and context has numerous positive benefits in one’s life. A pro-Torah approach to one’s life is more than just…

  • Changing which day you go to church on.
  • Changing your eating habits.
  • Celebrating different holidays.
  • And, if you’re really into it, growing a beard and wearing blue fringes or tassels. 

Pursuing a Torah-centric lifestyle will not only change some aspects of your lifestyle, but will also change how you view the Bible, how you view Yeshua or Jesus, Elohim or God, yourself, the Jews, the land of Israel as well as your thinking about a lot of other things, and how you view yourself and your fellow Christians. It will also vastly deepen and broaden your understanding of the Bible in ways you could never imagine. Let’s briefly explore a few of these areas.

The Main Lifestyle Changes Include

  • Observing the seventh day Sabbath
  • Celebrating the biblical feasts
  • Adopting a biblically kosher diet

But as we are about to learn, this is only the beginning.

A New Perspective on the Bible

A pro-Torah and Hebraic view of the Bible opens up multiple new vistas in one’s understanding of the Bible. Here a few of them:

  • A more traditional  Greco-Roman, Western, caricaturized view of Jesus gives way to a more accurate Hebraic or Jewish and Middle Eastern view of the real and authentic Yeshua.
  • One learns that Yeshua in his pre-incarnate state was the God of the Old Testament and the one who interacted with the patriarchs, Moses, the children of Israel and the prophets. As such, he is the One, as the Word of Elohim who would eventually became flesh, who gave the ancient Hebrews his Torah-law.
  • One learns that the thesis-antithesis paradigm of the Old Testament Torah-law or law of Moses model versus the New Testament grace model is a false and church-invented construct, and that the concepts of law and grace are not antithetical as the mainstream church teaches but are complimentary and indivisible issues, and are, in reality, two sides of the same coin.
  • One gains a deeper understanding of who and what the church is. The church was neither birthed nor spontaneously combusted on the day of Pentecost. Rather the church is a long term continuation of YHVH’s relationship with his people going back for thousands of years and continues to this day and involves all of the saints.
  • A new and greater holistic view of the Bible emerges versus only seeing the Scriptures in a seemingly disparate, disjointed and unrelated parts and pieces. The pieces of this vast puzzle finally begin to fall into place and a much more glorious and expansive picture than ever imagined emerges.
  • A Hebraic or Eastern view of the Bible replaces a limited and somewhat cartoon Greco-Roman and Western Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant view.
  •  One begins to understand the Bible through Hebraic block logic rather than Greek step or syllogistic logic. 
  • One gains a deeper understanding of the rules of biblical interpretation including understanding Scripture in its whole Bible, linguistic, historical and cultural context. One also learns about the four levels of understanding the Bible known as the PaRDeS method (i.e., the simple, hinted at, allegorical and mystical levels). One also gains an understanding of and an appreciation for the concept of exegesis over eisegesis when correctly interpreting or rightly dividing the Word of Elohim.
  • A better understanding of biblical history and future events including the Hebraic understanding of cycles emerges.
  • One gains a new understanding of Paul and the real issues facing the New Testament church. The controversial issue that Paul was dealing  with was not the law versus grace and whether or not YHVH’s Torah-law was relevant to Christians. Rather, the issue was about a works-based salvation versus salvation by grace through faith. In Paul’s writings, the validity of the Torah-law was never the issue contrary to what mainstream Christianity has falsely taught over the millennia.
  • One gains a whole new perspective and understanding of Old Testament Bible prophecies as one learns who the ancient players were and who their modern descendants are and how that relates to end times Bible prophecy.
  • One learns who the two houses of Israel were and who their modern descendants are and how that relates to each of us regarding our future destiny as it relates to the establishment YHVH’s kingdom on earth.

A New Perspective About Yourself

As one embraces the Torah and the Hebrew roots of one’s faith…

  • A new and fuller perspective on the biblical definition of sin emerges. One learns that YHVH’s Torah-law defines sin, not church traditions and the rules of men. This is both liberating and sets one’s life on a more solid spiritual foundation based on the Truth of the Bible as opposed to the unbiblical traditions of men.
  • One gains a new and fuller perspective and understanding on who you are as a grafted-in Israelite. You are no longer a Gentile who is without God and without hope, but are part of the commonwealth, nation, citizenship and covenants of Israel. You are a redeemed Israelite and the literal offspring of Abraham and you are part of YHVH’s chosen people along with our Jewish brothers. This is an enormously empowering concept!
  • One obtains a new and fuller understanding of what holiness is and how to become holy. The Bible defines what people, things, practices or times are holy, not men.
  • Your physical diet improves. This is because one becomes a label reader and discovers that one has not only been eating biblical non-kosher foods, but a lot of unhealthy junk and chemical ingredients as well. By eliminating these toxic substances from one’s diet, one’s health will improve because one stops eating physical junk food.
  • One’s spiritual diet will improve. One becomes a spiritual label reader and begins to compare what the mainstream church is teaching or not teaching compared to what the Bible really says. As a result, one stops feeding from the toxic mixture of truth and lies that are emanating from the pulpit, which is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and one starts feeding from the whole Truth of the Bible, which is the tree of life. Thus, one’s spiritual health improves as one stops eating spiritual junk food.
  • One gains a deeper understanding of what it is to be the temple of the Holy Spirit and what it means to live a sanctified and holy life.

A New Perspective on Some Other Things

One gains…

  • A new love for the land of Israel.
  • A new love for the Jewish people.
  • A new love for YHVH’s lost and scattered sheep of the house of Israel. 
  • An expanded and deeper understanding of the gospel message including Yeshua’s remarriage to his Israelite bride and why he had to die on the cross to pay the sin price for his adulterous wife.
  • A fuller understanding on what it is to be the bride of Yeshua and how to prepare for and qualify to be his glorious and immortalized bride.
  • An understanding of the heavenly and temporal rewards that one will receive as a result Torah obedience versus not obeying YHVH’s Torah.
 

Looking for Shabbat Fellowship?

Are you looking for a way to fulfill the Torah command to gather together on the Sabbath with like-minded believers for instruction, Bible study, fellowship, prayer and worship, but you have nowhere to go? Donna Nash and Nathan Lawrence invite you to join us on Shabbat for our live online gathering, which we call Congregation Elim Online.

If you are interested, please email Nathan at hoshanarabbah@earthlink.net or hoshanarabbahblog@gmail.com. Please state your name and where you live (i.e., state and/or country) along with a brief testimony of how you came to Yeshua and the spiritual journey that led you to a more Hebraic and Torah-centric orientation to your faith walk.

We meet nearly every Shabbat at 1:30 US Eastern Time.

Hope to see you there!