What does it look like to live a Biblically accurate life?

Biblically Speaking

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Hello, hello Welcome everybody to biblically speaking. I'm your host Cassie and Bellino and today

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I am so honored to have dr James Sedlicek back again this time to discuss the

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Torah living and which parts of the Torah in the Old Testament Are we supposed to still live out today as Gentiles within the

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New Covenant of Jesus, you know The shellfish the linen clothing all of these rules, which ones do we keep which stones do we not?

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Is it an all -or -nothing situation? I feel like I've never gotten clarity on this. So dr. James Sedlicek, you are an honored guest

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You are always welcome back every time you come back on we have such great conversations You were just here talking about Revelation and understanding it through other

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Jewish texts. I'm so excited to see what we uncover today We've got a great list of questions, but how you doing?

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I'm doing great. How are you doing Cassian? I am doing great I'm always excited to get clarity in my faith

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Especially with the way that you simply lay out all of these explanations to give you a little bit of background

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The reason that this is a topic that we're going to talk about today is because in this journey

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I started discussing with all types of Christians and somebody pulled me aside and we had a long conversation on Living biblically, you know here we are biblically speaking

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But are we biblically living and if I am to truly follow the Bible doesn't that mean

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I should still obey what's happening in the Old Testament? And this includes all of the things listed in Exodus in numbers the types of festivals the type the types of food that we are

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And aren't supposed to eat. I feel like it always goes back to Leviticus, you know Man shall not lay with another man, but also should not eat shellfish

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So it gets a little muddy as an early Christian on well What do I not obey and what do

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I do obey if I'm gonna do this? I'm gonna do it. Well and I Think that I've heard whispers that there's a new covenant

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So I've had discussions with people and they've defended both sides of you know This is what the church tells us to obey.

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We're not even supposed to go to church. We're supposed to obey the Bible So let's stop, you know getting wrapped up in the

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Christianity of it all. Let's just focus on the raw text But I've also heard that you know, there's a new covenant when

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Jesus came around. So we're here today to get answers So, how do you feel about this topic? Have you been teaching on it?

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It's I've been intersecting with this topic more than teaching on it with especially teaching

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Christian things that's maybe not the best title but within Jewish understanding at Israel Institute So I teach for example

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Jewish New Testament I teach the Jewish Ness of the book of Revelation how to understand it better with with understanding what's going on in Jewish literature.

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I Also teach there the languages biblical languages and I teach the prophets the

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Hebrew prophets or Nevi 'im Which actually dovetails nicely with teaching

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Revelation but I also teach courses on Jewish background to the New Testament and Jewish themes as they develop across the canons and so I've intersected a bit with okay, so what does a

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Gentile do with this thing called the Torah and You get mixed answers Everywhere you look so that's the first thing

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I would say the answers are not clear -cut and we you mentioned mud There's a lot of mud in the water when it comes to this subject and when you mentioned

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Having the the church tell us what to do. Each person's church is telling them different things to do

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So it's like it keeps it muddy. And so there's several things I'll explore tonight

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One is the first of all the idea of what is the Torah? What is it for Jews and what is it for Gentiles second thing is the law of God?

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Universal and the law of God specifically for the Jews and then another theme to explore is the value of the

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Jewish rituals festivals and Thirdly that question did

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Jesus or Paul take the Torah and pitch it What am I supposed to do with those?

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Statements and you know, and I want to suggest a few things when we get to that topic Amazing.

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I'm prepared to talk about all of those things Perfect beautifully laid out. Thank you for that.

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That really sets us up nicely So Torah living you amazingly we had a moment a few episodes ago where you were the the lightbulb moment for me that the first five books of the

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Bible are the Torah and For me that really bridged My religion with my

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Jewish brothers and sisters and so right now I'm rereading the Bible Starting at the beginning and it is crazy the

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God that they experienced then, you know And I understand they had to bring them out of slavery and paganism polytheism all the things

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But the God that we experience in the Gospels is it's like night and day

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So, how are we to approach use apply the Torah as Gentiles and Jews in general?

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Yes, and a Lot of things get put in Jesus's mouth So I want to start with something that the

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Gospel of Matthew has in his mouth Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets

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I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them So whatever we land on in our understanding of the

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Torah We should not go to the understanding that Jesus somehow abolished it

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He was clear that that was not what he was doing and when you say abolish the law You mean like come in and say forget everything that God told

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Moses I'm writing new rules. He's not saying that he's not saying that and he's not saying pitch the

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Torah That that is that has been an interpretation and I understand how some of this develops

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Theologically because you know if you understand Galatians a certain way

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You're gonna want to say that about Jesus in the Gospels and we'll talk more about that text later

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I do teach Galatians as a course. I teach it as a Greek exegesis course as well for a different institution

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But there's there's some terms in there that are often Translated one way when there's a range of ways to translate them and when in when you take consider

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Paul within rabbinic Milieu he more likely would have been using that word a different way than what there's a translation issue

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Yeah There's a translation issue in the heart of Galatians that causes people to misread

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Jesus in the Gospels Now you think why does Galatians impact Matthew?

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Well, if you if you get into a habit of translating something a certain way You're gonna you're gonna misread it in other texts, too

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Alright, first of all, let's talk about the Torah what it is and How does it shape

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Jewish life and faith a lot of people will when you see the word Torah? It's a

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Hebrew word a lot of people Translating it just write law underneath that isn't the best translation in Hebrew language hook is law not

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Torah Torah is instruction and as soon as we realize that distinction between instruction and law

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Then we we stop misreading all those New Testament references to law

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Whoa? That's the first Wow That's the first point. So Torah is instruction

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Think about it is the story of God creating the heaven and the earth a law. No, it's a story.

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It's in the Torah What about the story of Abraham coming from er of the

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Chaldees over to find the land he does not know Is that a law? No, it's a story.

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Well, it's even hard to call that instruction Yeah, right. I would call it a story versus like God wrote out the

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IKEA instructions, right? it's not a kit that you put together with a little instruction manual, but there are

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Probably the best place where I have seen this in modern practice is people who do something called narrative theology and what they do is they look at the story and tell you what's going on in the story through a

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Theological lens and that is the way that the stories are instructions for us A lot of times we read them as if they're flat stories and we want to hurry pass them to the exciting parts

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It's like well, this is a boring story Why what am I supposed to get out of it?

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Well, a lot of times it is if you're asking the right questions in the story, you will learn things from it

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Abraham has a choice. What does Abraham choose when he has multiple options? And this is this is how you understand the beginnings of something called faith

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Because when it when you get down to it, how do you define faith in a mosaic environment to Israelites in the wilderness?

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How do you define faith? Well, you can define it by Note Abel's sacrifice noting

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Abraham's journey noting Isaac's faithfulness noting Jacob's Obedience and and you you start building a case for faith.

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What is faith? Otherwise, you don't have a way to explain such a theological concept.

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So you're instructing them by using these case studies these examples I like that.

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You said case study Most of the stories in the Torah can be case studies for developing theological thought

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Not just revealing God's character not just no even human God's expectations of humans are as well

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We can determine these from the stories and we can also determine things that are good against what is best

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In other words, there's characters that do things in the story They shouldn't have and one one person's reaction is well, that's in the

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Bible. It must be good No, what happened to them in the story? It was bad The point of the story.

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You mean like Jonah, for example, yeah running away to Joppa or Sarah not trusting

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God promised that she was gonna give birth sending her maidservant in you know, we often misread the stories because we're not

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Analyzing them in the in the lens of faith and faithfulness and when we see the failure in faith or faithfulness that is part of that story and whatever we pull from it, but the

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Instruction books there are some laws in them. I think there's 613 total commandments we think of the ten commandments, but there's a total of 613 in the book of the

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Torah In the five the five books of Moses, but the Ten Commandments are kind of like like a gold standard on Morality and then all of the other instructions and laws

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Related to the instructions are specific to governing how Israel is going to move forward so including civil practice legal practice

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Religious practice and there's a whole list of things that go into religion because you've got the worship and then you've got sacrifice and atonement

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Which is different and so you've got a lot of laws on how all of these things are done

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Dress code food and a lot of very specific things So just kind of want to think a little bit about the

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Torah is more than just one category of literature It's got stories. It's got laws.

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It's got some step -by -step instructions to Sacrifices have multiple steps and they're told in a step -by -step fashion.

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So you don't get the steps out of order or mess them up Yeah, I think it's a little difficult again.

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This is my Sunday school mind that takes things literally So you kind of expand it out with these explanations?

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But when I read that Aaron's sons were cast ablaze because they lit some unauthorized incense

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To me that seems like a you must follow this rule not a suggestion Yeah, I would say these are not suggestions, okay, so when you say instruction

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I definitely like interpret that as suggestions, but you're saying when they say Torah means instruction that means a spectrum of Legalities versus suggestions.

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Yeah, I would say there's a spectrum. Okay in in there as well because there's there's some wiggle room

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Okay in in places But there's not wiggle room for one area

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God and that is bringing unclean into the presence of the Holy Any any time you mix those two?

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It's kabam Flash it's it's a big problem So in God sets boundaries and we didn't think of this being part of the tonight's thing

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But the thing that goes wrong in the Garden of Eden is a disruption of the boundaries

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God put in place and so God sets more boundaries and more fine -grained boundaries within the

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Torah to within the the Mosaic Code and so Thinking about God and holiness as a system of interconnected

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Boundaries between things so there's a boundary between the Levites and the rest of the Israelites There's a further boundary between the ordinary

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Levite and the priest and then there's boundaries between in The temple between where people can be and where just select people can be and so you've got those boundaries

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Mixing those up as a problem so there's like inner circles within the inner circles that God and because and that's like from a purity standpoint of like God wants the

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Holy to remain holy like he's very strict about what seeps in and what seeps out There are certain things that cannot seep at all.

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Yes, and it's very specific about the ritual That must be performed by the priest prior to doing their priestly duty

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They cannot bring uncleanness or filth into the temple. They cannot yeah So all of that is part of it and the place where we see this in modern

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Societies outside the zone of religion is in medical practice. Oh Yeah, that's a great point you don't contaminate a wound you don't contaminate one patient with the other patients disease

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Oh, that's a great example Most of the restrictions in the workplace for the medical field are very parallel to this kind of thing in the

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Torah You don't mix things because it causes harm It causes destruction or it causes some kind of problem

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That is such a good headspace to put this in because for me I'm like, what can I not do and do or else?

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I'm gonna be set ablaze like it seems like a very restrictive Baseline for how to live and be a

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Christian that you almost don't want to even follow it But then you look at the medical practice and you have to follow those because I'm not about to get

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MRSA Yeah, and if the medical personnel are caught not following those rules, they are not treated lightly

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Yeah, so they must they must prevent Contamination and they must prevent infection any way that they can

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Do you think that speaks to like? the I want to say like the contagiousness of evil of sin of commonality like what is

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Being taken off the way that you were trying to avoid a viral Contagion in your home that is being also taken off to avoid any contagion in the tabernacle the contagiousness of sin

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And evil is a big theme in Jewish literature So the idea that evil can spread through a community is the same as uncleanness

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So let's say someone's a leper and they are unclean Well, they can't go around To all of the social gatherings shaking hands and hugging each other because what's gonna happen is the whole village is gonna have leprosy

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This is a necrotic skin tissue problem. Mm -hmm, and it's it's very contagious So there were rules to separate those people on the outer edges of the town

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Their family members would cover up carefully go set food down nearby step back

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So that the lepers could come out and get their food and go back into their tent or their

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Wherever they're staying there were there would be things like leper vils Little villages for lepers to live and if they got better than they came out they showed themselves to the priest

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They were declared clean and then after a few days, that's the quarantine period

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They were allowed to reenter society and you couldn't be more Similar with people who had covered and then waited the seven days post -fever and then began, you know

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Get back into society and declare Safe again was all of it accurate.

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Everybody's always in a fizz whether it was exactly accurate Well, we don't know but we know it helped some people and it worked in many

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Instances when you say we did it work like the leprosy quarantine period Now I was thinking about kovat, you know

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Okay, we're arguing whether yeah, the seven -day quarantine actually makes sense.

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Does it really work? I think I was fever free at three days. You might have been you know, yeah, it's we don't know all of the things

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But trying to tell people don't go out until you're fever free Means that 30 % of the people won't bother to pay attention

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So that's why they came up with seven days or in some nations four days. I forget who did seven who did four

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Anyway, it's it's because of that. They're trying to really trim down the numbers and and and those went away.

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Mm -hmm. So thinking about the Specific things. Well, first of all, let's think about universal things because the

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Torah doesn't begin with the Jews It ends with Adam the father of all humanity My mother of all humanity, of course, obviously, yes, and then it takes us through humanity's sin multi -generational problems the pre

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Noah's flood society and the mess that was there and then judgment so that we

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Understand that there's a problem in the human race called sin. There's a moral thing

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It's contagious in multiple generations. It gets really out of hand and then when judgment comes it's inevitable

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Then there's always well presumably always but generally a way to escape it

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But there's not many people that found it. It was Noah and his family and his sons and their wives

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It was eight people. It wasn't a lot of people. So anyway, Noah and his family come out and they're still not

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Jews This is still the human race as a whole then you go to Babel this is still all of the nations and then there's a mistake made there by the humans and God scatters them their languages and we're still not to Jews and then

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God calls Abraham Calls him to a place where he does not know Technically, he's not a

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Jew either, but he becomes the forefather of the Jews Until we get to Jacob Whose name was changed

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Israel then we can say okay. He's the first Israel light Israelite But Abraham is the father of faith that leads him there because he goes where he doesn't know

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God shows him He goes to to the land of Israel Isaac grows up there Jacob grows up there

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And so then Jacob eventually moves with his family to Egypt Once you get into Egypt a new problem is there the

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Israelites were connected to Joseph Originally who was famous who helped a lot of people but there came along a

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Pharaoh that didn't really care about this Joseph he decided to enslave all of the

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Israelites then there's the Exodus story the great escape and So what would you get through here to the story so far?

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You haven't had very many laws. You're all the way into Exodus Wow, I am got some

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Commandments. They were a few that is a lot of history with no official

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Jews Yeah, and so when you're when you're in Exodus and they come out of Egypt and Moses begins writing the

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Torah we can always quibble whether he wrote Genesis from older sources or whether he was putting his own spin on the

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Genesis events those those kind of quibbles do happen, but the The thing is is when

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Moses compiles this thing Jewish identity is in these texts, but from those earlier stories

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Yeah, the earlier stories simply set it up but their earlier Individuals are not

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Jews. They are they're part of the world population So what would you call everybody before sorry with the

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Israelites you said? Joseph was or yeah, Joseph was the official

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Israelite and then Moses kind of wrote the laws for the Jewish instructions What would you everybody with Tower of Babel and Noah you just call them the first humans or do they even have like a?

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They didn't have names that stayed in history where their name got recorded. Well Genesis lists a few tribal names

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Related to the nations, but they're just called the nations And so the term in Hebrew is the nations and this was what existed after Babel and everybody scattered

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There were a certain number of nations formed. Yeah, these nations were just always called the nations

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You wouldn't call them ancient Near Eastern Probably be the ancient Near East cultures

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Eventually, but not all of them. Some of them would have moved far beyond what we recognize as ancient

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Near East Of course would have been moved into South Africa. Some would have moved to what we call

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Asia Some would have moved to Russia and across to what is now Europe So the people's moved from from the different nations that came from Babel So the way to understand the

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Torah is it is some specific instructions to Jews because they are being called out and Separated from the nations and then there is some connection points back to the nations

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So this this document that we call Torah has two components What is specifically to those called out from the nations and then what is back to the nations?

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And so this is one thing that I don't see verbalized much in the New Testament debates whether Gentile Christians Need to pick up their

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Torah and read it and live by some of it or not You know those debates don't usually bring this up But within the

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Torah there was always things that were for Jews specifically and things that were for humanity as a whole

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Because this story has come down through all of humanity until God began to call out

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Abraham So you've got you've got two pieces to the Torah and it's tricky

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Deciding as you read through it what belongs to each part So I'm relying mostly on Jewish scholarship what they would see as central to their own

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Necessity and what was central to humanity as a whole There are many ways to decide what pieces go to whom

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I couldn't begin to unravel all of the different ways There's not just one. So that's good to know

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Yeah, and it can be tricky wading through what does a Gentile need to do in the

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Torah? It isn't it isn't a clear -cut subject that explains my confusion. Yeah, sure.

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It's not a clear -cut subject However, I think two extremes should be avoided one is to do everything

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That's in the Torah because some of the things in the Torah are specific to Jewish identity if you're not a

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Jew Unless you're gonna go join a Jewish synagogue and become a Jew You probably ought to leave those things for Jews to do so obvious, but I needed you to say that to understand it

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Yeah, so for example, I'm not sitting here with a yarmulke on I've got my headset on now it

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There's a difference if you're gonna go fellowship at a Jewish synagogue because you don't do

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Unfellowshipping things while you're having fellowship Romans 14 is a good instruction manual for that sort of thing

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But if you decide you want to go fellowship at a Jewish synagogue learn something about Jewish Practices and adhere to those practices in order to have fellowship wearing of the yarmulke would be ordinary for me

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If I was in a synagogue, but as a Gentile follower of Christ I wouldn't want to I've even thought what about show -and -tell, you know, people don't know these things

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Maybe I could put on everything and show them what it's like Well that can be fine, but there's also some context where it can be offensive

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What do you mean show -and -tell like you put on the yarmulke and go to church and show people what a tall it is and show

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Them what a what a yarmulke like a Christian Church and show them the Jewish And it could be a helpful culture exposure

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But then the question is if I'm in a class teaching world religions Am I gonna do that for every faith group and I probably am not

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So this is one of those honesty check questions If you're not gonna dress up as every faith group on the planet to explain them to somebody you probably shouldn't do it

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To just mimic Jews It can be offensive. Not all

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Jews are offended by it But there have been incidences where some offenses have been understood from it.

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So Don't just go doing everything in the Torah and trying to pass yourself off as Jewish If you're not be honest be honest with yourself what you are who you are and what you're trying to accomplish

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If you decide to have fellowship at a synagogue then a deeper level of practice is culturally necessary So certain clothes certain attitudes certain statements you should say

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That kind of thing if you went to visit the Queen of England when she was around you wouldn't go in Saying all kinds of nonsense.

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You would need to learn the proper decorum in the court to speak to the Queen, right? so the same thing would happen to any member of any other faith, so You learn what is

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Typical and socially acceptable and how not to be offensive It helps to have a guide know somebody get to know somebody and you can learn how not to be offensive

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But that's that's the first thing I would say the other extreme is to take the Torah put it on a shelf

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Never open it and never do anything inside it which as a Sunday school Christian I did many many have and I have had excellent teachers

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Teach me that the only thing I needed to worry about was Matthew to Revelation and they weren't sure about Revelation, okay

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It's it's common. It's commonly taught and I Tried to make sure in my own education path that I gave equal attention to both the

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Hebrew Bible and the Greek New Testament both in my language preparation and in my

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Understanding of the contents of what's in each I I just did that because I thought why not

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It seemed to be a good double the workload. Why not? Yeah, there's that but the the payoff is that I immediately and Repeatedly was able to connect dots between the two that a lot of folks who were just in one or the other weren't talking about So that's that's the other thing and just to reiterate because we talked about this a couple episodes

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Like a while ago is when you go into either becoming a pastor or a theologian You only study the

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New Testament or you only study the Old Testament There's no because I think like a common churchgoer thinks that a pastor knows the entire

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Bible and how it works And that's just not how the education is set up No in seminaries most seminaries anywhere a

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Person goes let's say they take the gold standard while they're there Not everybody does but let's say they take the gold standard.

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That is a masters of divinity That is the degree for pastor preparation

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Probably for 500 years and that's the gold standard in the master of divinity program you would typically be an

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Old Testament major a New Testament major a theology major a practical ministries major a counseling major more or less lately those five things are not the same thing and Depending on which track you did

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The other four are almost foreign subjects to you Oh in a masters of divinity you only pick one of those five

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One of the five that is standard and probably 96 % or better of our pastors in training

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That's what they had to choose from and do you think they typically go towards like the ministries route?

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It depends because practical ministries is very appealing Because it helps helps you do a lot of functions of a pastor better Mm -hmm.

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So what that one's appealing and you can divide that one further into adult ministry or youth ministry

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They have tracks for both which is fine. So in that case, you're not even touching the Old Testament not much

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You may touch on topics that are contained in the Old Testament But you're not learning the biblical languages or how to explain the

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Bible as a whole That's that piece of the educated process or content area that is missing.

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So to bring us back today We can't take all of it and we can't take none of it.

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But yeah as a Gentile today I still want to be obedient and As you said at the beginning

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Jesus came to fulfill the law. So which part do I need to obey? Do I need to start doing my my

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Jubilee? Do I need to start planning for that or my festival of firstfruits? Let me let me go into what's specific to Jews and what is universal first the the the meats vote or the 613

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Commandments as we mentioned earlier are primarily understood as part of the covenant between God and Israel So it is a it is part of the these are covenant stipulations.

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In other words, there's an overarching covenant and these are the Amendments that's not the best word the line items that belong to that covenant

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So we have to understand that individual laws are Elements of a much bigger covenant so it applies uniquely to Israel So within this there's the ritual observances the dietary laws sabbath

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Specifics the the circumcision and for an issue that comes up in the

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New Testament. This is one that does circumcision versus Uncircumcision, it's a big thing.

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And so paying attention to the whys That Paul and some others are suggesting to the

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Gentiles not to go get circumcised. It's because In Jesus's body he made a way for both

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Jews and Gentiles To come to God That's the language that's there.

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And so if a Gentile is saying, oh, let me go get circumcised It's as if he already has a way to God this way so why is he trying to go this way when he doesn't have to they're like a way to read the scripture and be like Okay, shellfish just for the

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Israelites. Okay Homosexuality universal or my reason goes wrong and like I'm characterizing that the wrong way.

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Well There's a couple of things that have several scholars have used For example if it's addressed in the

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New Testament and the Old Testament It probably still matters and I know most people aren't comfortable with probably but that's the way that it's verbalized in Scholarship and that's because nobody wants to be a hundred percent certain

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They're right at least not scholars not the real ones. So they would say it's plain to claim God there Yeah, it's most likely still matters to Gentile Christians Now some things that rabbis through the centuries we're talking about pre

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New Testament and post New Testament for Gentiles to do There are seven

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Noah I'd laws we can find that can find traces of them in the stories of Noah Which predate the

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Jews which predate Babel, which means it applies to all human everywhere Okay, that's a good

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Idolatry no given to Noah, yeah, in other words the stories of Noah provide examples of doing these things well

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Okay. Okay. I'm back with you. Yeah, and so no idolatry worship God and God alone

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No idols that one is universal We see it in stories before there are such thing as Jews and we see it come up again and again in the

32:57

New Testament Most of the little phrases we have trouble understanding in Revelation have to do with mixing idols with With the the new

33:06

Christian fellowships get them out of here. Don't have anything to do with idols stay away prohibition of murder murder was a problem in Cain and Abel's story and murder is a problem in the

33:19

Abraham narratives as well And you can see that it isn't the right thing to do Before you ever get to Exodus and Moses and the

33:27

Ten Commandments So this is a is a command that's understood for all people everywhere theft prohibition of theft prohibition of sexual immorality

33:39

Now this one is tricky to define outside the Torah outside of the

33:45

Mosaic formulation Because the way people used to be married in antiquity is different than how people are married today and how

33:55

Divorces worked in antiquity is different from how they work today There's some muddy areas there that are not easily solved but at a minimum it meant faithfulness to somebody as opposed to unfaithfulness and That's the thing that Rabbis from antiquity all the way to present have been linking with idolatry unfaithfulness in marriage unfaithfulness to God and they've they've been linking those two discussions some of the exact nitty -gritty details

34:28

Are not always brought up, but the basic idea of unfaithfulness in marriage that one is that's the piece of it

34:36

That's emphasized the most heavily Blasphemy the prohibition of saying that God is evil or that something about God is unholy

34:45

Mixing what is holy with the profane. That's the two things that you got to keep separate the unclean and the holy

34:52

Wouldn't that mix with idolatry as well? Yeah, it's it's a problem with idols.

34:57

That's mixing the unholy with the holy Yeah, it goes back to that system of boundaries. And so Whatever boundaries

35:05

God has created for his own being we should respect those whether we're Gentile or Jew and That's and whatever boundaries

35:13

God has created for our own behavior next to our fellow man We should respect those because we should respect that our fellow man is made in God's image just like we are

35:23

So if I say I'm worshiping God, I don't need to worry about the

35:28

Torah, but I can go murder my neighbor Well, then you can go killing off the image of God and you still worship

35:36

God It's like there's something at odds with yourself here on this. So it's it really doesn't work.

35:42

It's interesting It seems like almost the idolatry the murder the blasphemy the adultery you can do all of those actions to God You can

35:52

Spiritual adultery is often the bigger theme when you start seeing it in rabbinic literature So I think maybe

35:58

I'm looking for clues on like how to you know, navigate this when you read it I'm like, okay, which one applies to me is can

36:05

I do this to God? Do you think that's like a good? Tag for me to use. Yeah, I think that's a good principle a lot of times in Theological reading

36:15

I've used this thing There's a specific application here But there's an underlying universal principle and as soon as you identify that universal principle

36:25

It's much easier to know what to do with each specific circumstance. It's the universal principle and for me

36:31

It's you don't mix the holy with the unholy if you got unholy going on you need to get that stuff cleaned now go

36:41

Be in fellowship with holy we have to think about spending time with God the same way we do with going to grandma's

36:49

Dinner everybody set out the nice tablecloth the plates and you're not going to go in there with your muddy boots and put them on The table it's not gonna work.

36:58

And so You have a holy event to go to or be part of or be in fellowship with get ready

37:05

The other one is a marriage metaphor. You see them the marriage and The wedding feast which is part of the marriage ceremony in Jewish custom

37:15

And I think in many cultures customs have a feast after the wedding, right? well you have the bride and groom are the ones who

37:23

Get together and plan this thing and set up what's gonna happen and how it's gonna happen Who's gonna sit where if you go in and you want to pick your own table?

37:32

And you want to sit between the bride and groom put your feet on the table. You're probably gonna get escorted out.

37:39

Yeah Yeah, and we have to think that some human divine interactions are like that God's got his way

37:47

He wants us to do it. Let's just do it that way It's it's not that hard. All right, so we have prohibition

37:54

Just like the last thing on that. I think that is such a great explanation That you just have to take at face value

38:01

There is no room for well, I think God can and this is like an extreme version and it's up for debate

38:07

I'm not saying that this is the rules but like well, God can love me in my sweatpants at church I've definitely worn sweatpants at church.

38:12

Okay, I'm not gonna say that I've never done that but it is like the extreme Example of that of like well,

38:17

God can take me in this way because it's God and God loves me So anything goes because he loves me whereas in some circumstances there is a decorum

38:27

Yeah, and we also have to remember that when the Israelites walk out of Egypt God didn't land all this on them at once Oh, what do you mean?

38:35

This was stuff that was gradually Revealed and practiced and trained the whole time.

38:41

They're in the wilderness. They're still not in Israel It's 40 years of preparation to go into Israel and do some of these things.

38:47

Some of them were in waiting I guess when I read the original like Moses goes up.

38:52

He gets the Ark of the Covenant. He comes down He sees that they're already worshiping something else. Three thousand people are slayed

38:58

He goes back up God gives him a new one to me. That's like the span of six months. Am I reading that wrong?

39:03

There are some things that happen rapidly But that not every single clause of the

39:09

Torah is something they can actually do yet There are some things that have to wait until they get into the land and do yeah

39:16

I imagine building the tabernacle according to these exact dimensions took quite a while and The Feast of the

39:22

Firstfruits one of the first we're going to talk about those a little bit But the Feast of the Firstfruits you can't do that till you harvested something

39:29

You can't harvest anything in the wilderness. So you've got to wait 40 years to be able to do that one.

39:34

Wow. Yeah, so it's like some of this stuff is Coming over time and there's the other thing is is to a certain degree

39:45

God helps us get ready for the next phase and so trusting them to help us get ready for that is is

39:52

Part of the journey You've got a sermon in there somewhere, yeah, I think sometimes people think okay.

39:59

I read the list I'm gonna do the list to the best of my ability. Ah, that's horrible trying to do all this stuff

40:06

You're gonna have an overload and a meltdown it's like Maybe take a step back and realize that all of us are people in process we're in process and approach this honestly and Realize that for Gentile Christians some of this is muddy water.

40:23

How much do I do? How much do I not do? So you're saying that sometimes that's a process. Yeah, that's like a sanctification process that we're in We're not supposed to get it right on day one.

40:32

We won't yeah, we won't so assuring. Wow So the other thing is in Jewish understanding of the

40:40

Torah Gentiles are invited to do these things So keep that in mind as well

40:45

Now eating meat from a living animal and by that we mean an animal that still has its blood in it

40:53

So this was prohibited in Noah's day to like a bloody steak. Is that literally what we're talking about?

41:00

That's tricky. It's tricky to get into because there's some Noah given this is a command

41:05

God gave Noah when when he opened up meat as a Part of the food humans should eat

41:11

Noah 9 4 or Genesis 9 4 in the story of Noah He says do not take of the animal while its lifeblood is still in it now.

41:20

Mm -hmm. That's the question What is what is that usually and do not eat animals that are strangled? Well, what what is the deal with strangling if you if you do strangle an animal the blood doesn't run out and the blood sits

41:32

In the meat so that when you cut it up and cook it you're gonna have lots of blood in there

41:38

So the Jewish approach to this was Cutting of the animal in a specific way so that it bleeds out

41:45

So that the blood is not in the meat and then you can eat your steak Why can't you eat blood?

41:52

Is it because blood is just as a whole considered unclean or is there like a bigger element there? It's a bigger element

41:58

It has to do with life and the meaning of life and if you're consuming life while you've killed something

42:04

You have mixed the metaphor of life and death and you shouldn't mix life and death It's it's it's got a lot to do with life and death

42:13

And so if blood is supposed to be the source of life don't make it become a celebration of death

42:18

So if life blood flows out of an animal let it go to the ground and just eat the meat

42:23

Well, how does that pertain to a woman's menstruation? That's there's differences But in Leviticus that becomes an issue for uncleanness and if you think about the ancient world and People's bathing customs and things like that.

42:39

There's it's easy to imagine how there could be some medical Uncleanness that comes in so that was more like hygienic versus this is more like symbolic of life and death.

42:48

Yeah So blood is the life force and it for any way that we can we should respect it as a source of life and not

42:57

Use it as some other thing I can see how maybe people can start Idolizing blood then like the women that like paint blood on their face and do weird things with that like that becomes an idol

43:07

Well, they're pagan rituals some of them not all of them involved drinking a bowl of blood from the sacrifice animal

43:14

And so in God's Word that is prohibited Because it's the direct celebration of death while you're living.

43:22

Yeah, and and It kind of gives us a way to think about you know, how do we treat animals?

43:30

Do we treat them as a resource or do we respect the fact that they have a life and that comes in there?

43:36

And this is something told to Noah and it's interesting because in the New Testament When they're trying to sort out in Jerusalem what

43:43

Gentiles should do versus Jews this one comes up again It comes out of the

43:49

Jerusalem Council to be given to all churches Do so we shouldn't be eating bloody steaks

43:55

Well the bloody steak part. That's the tricky thing What is the difference between a rare steak and a steak engorged with blood?

44:03

There is a big difference and you may not know you may have to ask Somebody who's cooking it was was this animal drained?

44:12

This is more preparation. It's in the preparation. Got it. Okay having a rare steak. It's gonna have some red juice

44:18

It doesn't mean that it's you know blood that was left in the meat never very interesting most butchers are gonna drain it because it's sanitary and it's easier to preserve the meat if you do so They're very interesting

44:32

Blood in the steak. So for a Gentile to abide by that law that's actually pretty easy to do and the other one is to have

44:41

Governance and a fair way of executing judgment and justice and even though the specifics might differ

44:48

There are several traits of human government that are in the Torah that a lot of governments today actually use democratic process trained judges

45:00

No bribes to the judge or they lose their job all kinds of things that are Exactly what

45:07

I read in the Torah and yet this is how you decide cases and what's fair And so there was there were restrictions in the

45:15

Torah that they didn't violate But within the realm of where they could make decisions the village elders did these things democratically

45:22

So the idea of establishing a local government County level city level town level that is representative of your population and democratic in its process was normal and It's specified in the

45:36

Torah and and today many governments do this And so we imitate a lot of the things in the

45:41

Torah without actually thinking that we do and so a fair system of judgment a fair system of trial and a representative system of Legislation and so those are all in the

45:54

Torah as well Now the exact details of it are different because they have to appoint certain people from each tribe and then within each tribe from each clan

46:03

So in most of our societies, we don't know what tribe or clan we're from so we just randomly elect people as we choose

46:11

But we also don't have tribal and clan lands the way that Israel did and so that's

46:20

Still very similar and it's still doing a lot of the things that are in the Torah So I'm thinking in some areas of legal some areas of judicial some areas of moral we have direct commands even before the time of Moses or Stories that it gave examples of these things and that we also see them pop up again in the

46:41

New Testament so the ones that do pop up I would take those as Mandatory if you see them popping up in Noah's day you see them in the

46:51

Torah you see them in the New Testament They are Inside the covenant and outside that covenant

46:58

Well, wouldn't you just say to that person like wouldn't it be fair just to read the New Testament then and obey what pops up?

47:05

Well, you can do that to an extent but one of my later points is going to be that there's going to be a lot

47:12

Of the Bible we just won't understand unless we have familiarized ourself with some of the

47:18

Torah Oh Bring us back to the education aspect of it. Okay? Yeah, and the

47:25

Torah has a lot of things that were never mandated to Gentiles in the

47:30

New Testament that are actually quite useful and I want to highlight some of those things so we covered the

47:37

Noah hide stuff the ones that were around from Noah's day to Through to the

47:42

New Testament thinking about the festivals and the holy days and things like that.

47:49

So Chronologically, we have Pesach and I'm starting in April rather than in Rosh Hashanah But Pesach is there

47:58

Unleavened bread is next first fruits Shavuot That's the

48:03

Feast of Weeks. We often call it Pentecost Rosh Hashanah Jewish New Year Yom Kippur Day of Atonement Sukkot the day of the

48:13

Feast of Tabernacles Hanukkah and Purim Purim is the one that lands usually in February or March So you've got those that's that's a chronological order of them.

48:25

But what are they for? What do they do what can I benefit from by doing them or at least

48:32

Familiarizing myself with them first of all when you read your New Testament these events are connected to almost every event in the

48:41

New Testament and If you don't realize what they are or the chronological cycle of them

48:47

Then it's very hard to understand why Jesus is saying half the things he does Yeah, I don't even because you can think of like Passover and maybe

48:56

Yom Kippur and definitely the Sabbath but I don't remember him ever referencing the Jubilee or the first fruits for the

49:02

Day of Trumpets and Some of the theology that Paul is saying in his letters don't make sense unless we know some of the others

49:10

And so Jesus mentioned some Paul mentioned some John in Revelation ties some of these together in the prophetic vision and so It's good to know not only what each one is but be familiar with the cycle and For a

49:25

Gentile Christian some of these are excellent to participate in to help us

49:31

To remind us regularly throughout the year of what God has done and will do for us

49:39

So it's okay as a Gentile to Celebrate this. Yeah, there isn't any one of them that a

49:45

Gentile can't celebrate But there's the Gentile doesn't have to celebrate them to be obedient There's never been a requirement for a

49:53

Gentile to celebrate these okay, but they're always welcome to and It's interesting when

50:01

Gentile Christians want to use the label Christ follower I'm a Christ follower.

50:07

Sometimes I'll ask them. Oh, so you've been to Hanukkah and it's like no, I've never done that before I Said oh, but you said you were a

50:15

Christ follower Jesus went to Hanukkah and it's in the Gospel of John if you're gonna follow

50:20

Christ follow Jesus do what Jesus did There are some things that you might know that he did one of the things

50:27

Jesus was known for is Fulfilling the Torah doing the Torah. There's some we'll get more to this on the next segment but there's some words that are often poorly translated and because we have a

50:39

I want to call this a knee -jerk reaction Every time we see the word law knee -jerks.

50:45

Oh, that's the Torah It isn't always there's so many different things to call law that we need to be aware of a wider array of possibilities and Torah's best translation isn't law.

50:57

It's instruction So even if law sometimes gets used to translate Torah It's it's done so because it is an option to translate it that way if the focus is on The legal code then many times people use that word to refer to the

51:13

Torah, but you talk to rabbis generally today That are English -speaking

51:19

You're gonna find out that there's a little aversion to saying law for Torah and and and it's not the best

51:25

Translation because you're only talking now about the 613 Commandments perhaps you're not talking about all of Torah anymore

51:33

And so it's it's not the best translation and it's not what law in the

51:39

New Testament always means it doesn't always mean Torah so we'll say more about it, but the the

51:46

Passover To not know what Passover is or Pesach It becomes very difficult to interpret the last week of Jesus's ministry in all four of the

51:58

Gospels Jesus is Participating in Passover as he has the

52:03

Last Supper of Jesus as he enters into his trials and all of this This has been

52:09

Passover week this is this is what's going on that week and catching the details for what is

52:16

Jewish Passover to a Jewish person and Connecting it to what's happening in Christ's final week is so insightful to understand what is happening there

52:26

So we have this in Exodus 12 13 also Deuteronomy 16 the the details on how to Commemorate but what's it for it's there to commemorate getting out of Egypt Leaving slavery behind also divine providence when there doesn't seem to be a way in sight

52:45

How you're going to get out of slavery? Truly all Moses is almost killed as a baby.

52:52

He barely makes it, you know by a miracle floating on a basket in a river full of Crocodiles he somehow isn't eaten and then a princess of Egypt finds him and then his story begins

53:06

So he's he's got this to start with and then he murders a guy I mean and he's known for the murder.

53:13

They're hunting for him He has to flee the country not an optimal hero for the story chances are he won't get to do anything but yet he's the one

53:21

God calls he comes back to Egypt and he stands down the mighty Pharaoh with his brother at his side

53:29

Aaron and they they do what God says and The gods of Egypt are defeated one by one in in a showdown in front of Pharaoh then the

53:40

Israelites walk out after the tenth plague even then it's uncertain they get out there

53:45

They come up against the sea and then there's Pharaoh's army right behind them. There isn't any reason

53:51

They should have succeeded and it when we realize that there isn't any reason that they should have succeeded

53:56

Then it we begin to see how much they had to depend on God for the answer when

54:02

Jesus is saying Father if it be your will take this cup from me We have to realize that he may not be able to unsee or fully see how

54:13

God has got his back It's this it's mirroring the same dependence on the divine for an answer because this thing looks humanly impossible.

54:20

Wow And even mention being dead and rising again. I mean that's that whole thing

54:26

No, I I just spoke with I just spoke with dr Gary Yates and we were talking about Moses and he's like well

54:33

Moses is such a prominent figure because the Exodus is Such a huge event people Being freed from slavery

54:41

Walking to the promised land. We don't see an event that big until the resurrection. So you saying that This was occurring during Passover It's no accident.

54:51

It's no accident that these two things are coinciding. Yeah, I can't think it's accidental

54:57

It's is the end of the world gonna happen on Easter because that's one certain thing Well, it's one of the options some people have thought but I don't know

55:09

Of course Wow the Interconnectedness and the complexity of God is just awe -striking.

55:14

We have next is the feast of unleavened bread its purpose It has to do with haste

55:20

Everything needs to be done in a hurry. This was what they ate and packed for the flight out of Egypt Well, you don't have time to make the bread rise before you bake it when you got to do things in a hurry

55:32

So you don't do things that cause the bread to need to be raised So it's unleavened bread.

55:38

It's flat bread. It's like a cracker when you cook it, right? So this is where you can go to a store and get matzah matzah is the

55:46

Jewish unleavened bread They sell it in boxes all the time Some people take it for communion because it is the actual bread that was used

55:55

It's not the rice wafer that most churches have or the little I don't know what it is

56:00

But it's a little cracker about that tall and it's square and I'm not a hundred percent.

56:07

Sure It's unleavened because it looks like it raised up a half -inch. I don't know Anyway, a lot of folks are doing various things with it, but it's supposed to be unleavened bread at the

56:18

Passover So when Jesus breaks bread and drinks wine with his disciples It's matzah that he's making and it's that bread.

56:26

So what is the purpose of this bread? It's it's all about things are done in a haste. And so when he's finished

56:33

Well at some point in the meal, what does he tell Judas to do go and hastily do what you got to do?

56:39

But it's it's the theme of the bread is haste and it's like this stuff should catch our eye and and realize

56:48

Yeah, these things connect but it doesn't catch our eye because sometimes Translations in the

56:53

New Testament are different than the old and we don't catch them because you only read your New Testament yeah, and then the other one is we don't realize that these events have significance in the moment and all of these events in Jesus's ministry are connected to the

57:10

Jewish cycle of Rituals and feasts. I am so grateful for you to point these things out.

57:16

I don't know if my mind could have wrapped That far from the Old Testament to the New Testament. So thank you for spelling this out.

57:22

You're welcome So the purpose of the matzah or the or the unleavened bread the festival is called

57:28

Chag HaMatzot Matzot is plural for matzah, but It's the point of it is to let go have some spiritual

57:36

Preparation and let go of pride puffiness and ego and when Jesus goes out to the garden and says not my will but thine preparation spiritual preparation letting go of self and letting

57:49

Focusing on what God wants instead of what we want. It really does all point back to Jesus Oh my lord feast of the first fruits be

57:56

Kareem This is also in the same time period as Passover, but its purpose is gratitude for agricultural harvest

58:04

Now this is not the harvest of vegetables This is an early harvest of one of the grains that you can make bread from and so it happens in April It happens early in the year

58:18

And so it's a time of offering God what came first and then being thankful for what you have and so a lot of times the idea of thanksgiving the idea of dependence on The divine providence sending the rains on time because that very first harvest can go bad

58:38

Because if those early rains don't hit when they should you're not gonna get that early harvest in you got to wait for the next

58:44

Because it'll because it won't even sprout or because it'll go rotten it nothing will happen You don't have enough moisture in the soil to make anything happen.

58:52

So you miss it. You miss a whole cycle and so it's the first barley harvest actually the same one that's mentioned in the story of Ruth and just to Kind of connect some things here when

59:03

God was bringing people together to be the ancestors for the divine King Divinely appointed

59:09

King David. He's bringing them together at this first fruits. Oh my gosh

59:14

Yeah the end of the and so when Jesus is joining himself with his disciples and he's talking about I'm about to go away and Someone's coming a spirit is coming who will teach you all things well, this is happening at the same time

59:31

Ruth and Boaz are getting to know each other and They're going to bring forth David. Eventually.

59:37

She brings forth Obed who begets Jesse who begets David? But that's the story of Ruth the reason we have it in the

59:44

Bible is it's a origin story for David How did David get here? Who were his ancestors?

59:50

Oh, we got this story of Ruth and this is the the best one to point to for David's origin story

59:56

And so we have that in it and things happen. The whole story goes down at the bakery

01:00:03

That's that's when it happens and farmers would bring their produce to the temple. And again, we're talking about that first barley harvest

01:00:10

Next is the feast of Shavuot This that word means weeks plural because it's seven weeks after the first one when we started

01:00:19

So seven weeks plus one day, right? So it's 50 days and this word in Greek means

01:00:25

Pentecost Well, what happens at Shavuot? It commemorates the giving of the

01:00:31

Torah on Mount Sinai That was the main festival for that and because that's a 40 days

01:00:37

Because that's when Moses was on Mount Sinai at this time of the year Getting the

01:00:42

Torah getting the first part of the Torah from God And so the feast of Shavuot celebrates that moment so the feast of Shavuot 50 days exactly after Passover, so you go seven weeks and Then the next day is the the big day.

01:01:00

It celebrates divine revelation It celebrates the covenant of between God and Israel It traditionally involves an all -night

01:01:08

Torah study Which is culminated in the morning and it also connects to the next harvest which is wheat

01:01:15

So the barley harvest is done. The wheat harvest is now ready So the time between your first barley harvest and your first wheat harvest is about 50 days

01:01:25

This is when the Holy Spirit fell on the disciples who were up all night to Fasting and praying for the reception of the

01:01:34

Spirit But the Holy Spirit falls on them on this day on the day of Pentecost or the end of the

01:01:40

Shavuot And so they get anointed with the Holy Spirit on the day of wheat harvest for the festival of the weeks

01:01:48

Yes during the time of the festival weeks. Is it also at the same time that Pentecost occurs Pentecost?

01:01:54

Yes. Yes Pentecost is the name of the 50th day. So it happens right there. There's there's

01:01:59

Preparations there's like some type of you know, how like a lot of Christians celebrate Lent Well, it's kind of like this through Shavuot and then the 50th day is the main celebration

01:02:11

So once once the wheat harvest comes because mostly your wheat harvest is the one you're gonna turn into bread the most

01:02:18

So it's like now you break out and you have some kind of celebration, but there's an all -night

01:02:24

Torah study in the night Prior to the morning and so it's like the disciples who are in the upper room

01:02:32

Fasting and praying they are participating in this Anticipating something new so on the celebration of the day

01:02:40

God speaks to Moses with the Torah The Holy Spirit speaks through the disciples to everyone else.

01:02:48

This is so meta to listen to disciples Celebrating an ancient festival and now us

01:02:55

Celebrating Passover that occurred when disciples were celebrating a different festival like this is now

01:03:03

We celebrate Easter at the same time that they were celebrating Passover. This is wild It's stacked.

01:03:11

This is insane every time Christians partake of communion at church They are celebrating

01:03:18

One piece of the meal Jesus was celebrating with his disciples in the Last Supper Jesus was celebrating the

01:03:25

Seder service which belongs to Passover and it's a long meal It's got four moves throughout the the course of the meal

01:03:34

But it's at the third course where he would have stood up and said this about the wine and the wafer

01:03:41

But these words are not part of the typical Seder service They're part of a marriage vow and he uses them in the middle of this because this is the way he's

01:03:51

Inaugurating with his disciples a new pact or treaty or covenant as we call it.

01:03:56

They're like Take my body is part of a Jewish marriage. Oh, yeah

01:04:03

Yeah, and it's a pledge between the spouses in a marriage vow And so that's the words that Jesus is using between himself and his disciples

01:04:13

And this is why years later Paul is talking about the groom and the bride with Christ and the church

01:04:20

Sorry, that like made me so emotional to hear. I don't know what that was. Whoa Paul uses two metaphors frequently to talk about Jesus and the church

01:04:29

He talks about the head of the body and then he also talks about the bride in the groom And yeah

01:04:35

What Jesus does in the middle of that Seder service is evoke the words of a marriage vow joining himself to his believers

01:04:43

Wow, I have never known that That is so beautiful. Wow, and so it's like today modern

01:04:49

Jewish wedding ceremonies will use those verses from the Seder service No, not necessarily.

01:04:55

They will use the traditional wedding vows and they'll use Seder service as a separate thing

01:05:01

So what Jesus did there is he brought words from the marriage vow and used them during the third course of the

01:05:08

Seder service So he mixed two things because he was trying to do something different that night But your typical

01:05:15

Jewish ceremony would keep the marriage vow in just the wedding ceremony and then have the

01:05:20

Seder meal as its own Thing so they would keep them as separate things, but that's that's the words of it

01:05:26

And so what I would invite Christians to do Gentile Christians to do is at least once Celebrate the whole

01:05:34

Seder service with your communion do that once bring somebody in that knows what it is

01:05:40

Usually any of the Messianic Jewish groups can do this quite well and they're comfortable doing it

01:05:46

You may find someone that's not Messianic Jewish different group of Jewish that might be willing to do it But I know the

01:05:52

Messianic Jewish groups are comfortable doing it. Most of the ones I know are

01:05:57

Messianic Jewish So participate in a full Seder service Would this be during Easter then or before Easter?

01:06:04

Yeah, it would be around Easter time it would be during Pesach or the Passover and If they do it, they will be sure to reenact

01:06:14

Jesus's version of it. Oh my gosh, I can't handle that And it's wonderful. You should do it at least once I would say do it more than once but Definitely do it once so that you have an idea what communion is even all about Because most people have no idea they're doing it, but they don't know what it is or what they're doing

01:06:32

So or even what it's a part of but the communion service Holy Communion Eucharist Whatever name you're used to calling it

01:06:39

Lord's Supper the two things that are done in Christian Circles is you have the wine you have the wafer you have a few words to say for both a moment to reflect

01:06:50

Internally on preparing oneself for God and then you take the the wafer in the wine

01:06:55

This is such a small part of the Seder service you should you should get the whole experience that's that's that's what

01:07:03

I would say because a Lot of connections between things are lost the way things are explained typically in Christian churches, right?

01:07:11

So with all these festivals I think that it was very clear at the beginning that you were essentially saying listen as a

01:07:17

Gentile you don't have to but I think It's nice to it's a nice to have Especially when you see the understandings overlaps between the

01:07:24

Old Testament and the new I feel a lot less Convicted as a

01:07:29

Christian that hasn't celebrated any of these festivals, but also a lot more excited to actually celebrate them

01:07:35

It's a very approach, you know and I think it was through that connectivity and that overlap and the stacking that you really mapped out and I Don't think

01:07:43

I would have figured that on my own I don't think that's preached enough and so I'm really grateful for the awareness because now

01:07:48

I Feel like I can celebrate these things With the full awareness of why and how and I'll have an answer to my mother when she asked am

01:07:56

I becoming Jewish? You know what? I mean, I can do that within my Christian faith now while still honoring what

01:08:02

I am and honoring what I'm not Do you think like what would be your biggest? Message to the Christians that are trying to honor because I think the

01:08:08

Jewish they know they're they kind of stay within their lane They know exactly, you know the Torah, but I think as Christians since the

01:08:14

Torah is included What would be your message to them as far as you know Knowing what they are knowing what their art and not offending anybody but still obeying

01:08:23

God I think the healthiest approach to Investigate these things as a group is to investigate them with the idea

01:08:31

I'm doing this to help identify better with Jesus Because he knew this and he did this in order to do certain things but if I do this and I could better understand what he was trying to tell everybody and That brings us right back to that Matthew quote that he was not to abolish the law.

01:08:49

He was here to fulfill it. Yeah And there's two more festivals Sukkot and Hanukkah and Sukkot is one of my favorites.

01:08:57

It's the Feast of Tabernacles No, it's alright It's it's it's quite alright Because this is the one where people go out and they build a tent or bring a tent and they stay in it for a few

01:09:07

Days and that sounds very bizarre to us. It's like how is that religious? It sounds like camping But it's like it's celebrating the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness

01:09:18

When they were headed to somewhere they knew where they were headed, but they weren't able to enter Their kids would get to go in but not them.

01:09:26

And so they were Celebrating the let's make sure our kids get there. Even if we can't

01:09:32

Oh Wilderness, but we're gonna make sure our kids get there Why do I feel like that's not said outright and the thing is is

01:09:40

Jesus had some important words to say because it's Sukkot You're celebrating several of the key wilderness things the

01:09:48

Ten Commandments particularly the water from the rock and the manna from heaven That's the three big things that you celebrate and in the

01:09:56

Gospel of John. This is what Jesus is doing. He's at Sukkot When he says

01:10:02

I'm the bread of life. I'm the living water That one will keep you spinning but when

01:10:10

Jesus is saying these things they're not abstract things These are connected to the festival. He's at and the feast he's celebrating and don't they get misconstrued as cannibalism.

01:10:20

No No, it's not cannibalism It's taking people's attention and saying you're focused on the literal bread and that literal water

01:10:30

But I want you to re -steer your focus to the spiritual one, oh my gosh, my wheels are spinning

01:10:37

Leave off the Hanukkah and the Purim only because they were not in the

01:10:42

Torah. They come later They're very important festivals as well Purim celebrates the theme of surviving persecution

01:10:50

The book of Esther is all about the first Purim and then Hanukkah is the last one that's added to the list

01:10:57

But it occurs before Purim in the calendar It is a celebration of rededicating the temple after somebody desecrated it and brought the unholy thing in like in Exodus in in numbers 164

01:11:13

BCE a Greek general Killed all the priests of the temple and brought in a statue of Zeus and said you're gonna worship this instead of God Yeah, that's what

01:11:22

Hanukkah is about Hanukkah is about the fasting and praying for the oil to come from Egypt so that they could light all the candles and Rededicate the temple back to God.

01:11:33

They had to clean everything. They had to go through all the ritual purifications of the temple Before they could open the temple back up for atonement, but Egypt and a

01:11:43

Roman God there's quite a timeline between that no Yeah, there's nine days. That's why there's nine candles on the

01:11:48

Hanukkah candlestick This was same time the Egyptian desecration and the Roman God bringing in a statue of Zeus This is these are happening

01:11:57

There's a Greek desecration the Egyptians didn't desecrate but they provided the oil to repair

01:12:04

To restock the oil of the temple with so it could be rededicated. Oh my gosh

01:12:10

Yeah, and so that's Hanukkah and it's called sometimes the festival of lights simply because of the lighting of the candles

01:12:19

It's not a Christmas tree that's getting lit it's the candles that are getting lit in the temple So it's called festival of lights and in John's gospel

01:12:27

Jesus went to festival of lights He went to the Hanukkah that was being celebrated in his day 200 years or almost 200 years after Wow, oh my gosh, what would we do without you?

01:12:42

I mean truly like for the people that don't hear this podcast or the people that hear this podcast And they want to share it with their loved ones.

01:12:49

Do you have kind of like a Practical step for people to like better navigate the

01:12:55

Bible because obviously the Bible is not gonna be simple it's never gonna be a simple world navigation, but like how do we

01:13:03

Fix the problem of people going down the route of misinterpretation here first practical thing

01:13:09

If you're not reading the Old Testament read it. That's the first step if you get stuck at parts of it

01:13:14

Okay, move on to the next part. There's a lot to be Gleaned just by reading through it in English if you want to focus just on Torah and then eventually some of the other things fine

01:13:24

But at least become familiar with what's in the books before Matthew in your

01:13:30

Bible the second thing is Don't automatically rule out Torah following It's not something that has been properly understood at least the debates around whether Gentile Christians should follow the

01:13:44

Torah Or not have often been based on Assumptions about what Paul and Jesus were dealing with rather than clear understanding

01:13:52

So another thing on the practical level is this is just a practical thing in learning.

01:13:58

Don't get so concretely set That the one answer that you've processed is the right answer and it's a hundred percent, right?

01:14:07

Yeah, right 60 % of the time when looked at sideways and you have to realize that other factors are in the picture and these things are integrated and so That would be my first and I'm speaking mainly to American Christians when

01:14:24

I say that because a lot of our upbringing has been this is what we believe in our organization

01:14:31

You believe that you're our member What is it I agreed that I believed it but what is it nobody can explain it to you

01:14:38

Yeah, it's like it's a list of statements is what it becomes and it's like, okay, where's the meat?

01:14:44

Where's the yeah? There's the stuff that it and so we have we have become used to this idea that if it's scientific

01:14:52

I get to use my mind and if it's religious I don't that's the first I Don't approach anything in the

01:14:59

Bible with with without thinking through it critically and Analyzing it using reason the use of languages and all of this.

01:15:07

I Can't say that but it's 100 % scientific what I do There are some connections that I see that I can't always explain why they're connected

01:15:16

But I don't approach it Irrationally as if I read this word and I process these words in my mind and now

01:15:24

I got this idea what it means It must be that a hundred percent true and I need to exercise a faith muscle and say, okay,

01:15:32

I believe that Belief anyway. Yeah, I think I mean if I were to defend who what

01:15:38

I think is the common reason people do that It's because they're erring on the side of not being blasphemous

01:15:44

They're erring on the side of well I don't want to step foot into my Jewish religion if that's gonna dishonor my

01:15:50

Christian religion So I'm just gonna keep two feet out versus like well, it's okay if I'm Inquiring, you know because I think it's like well, it's my faith like I don't want to dishonor my

01:16:00

God So I'd rather just stay out and stay in the New Testament The other thing I would suggest is don't be afraid to do something

01:16:06

Jesus did. Oh That's good That's real good.

01:16:11

I would say that The other thing I would say is whether you participate in the

01:16:17

Jewish festivals and feasts or not Become familiar with all of them and their cycle Because that will help you understand why

01:16:26

Jesus is doing which miracle he's doing and where he's at when he's done it and it also helps us understand the moves of the early churches

01:16:34

Paul and the other apostles are developing things in the early church and It will help us see things in Revelation that don't make sense unless we understand this

01:16:44

Do we need to have another revelation conversation? Yes or no? Maybe I left some things we left some things on the paper.

01:16:51

We didn't talk That's what I would I would just say Encourage you to explore the connections between the

01:16:58

Torah and the New Testament Beyond even just talking about the festivals and the feasts but as far as moral things go if it's mentioned in both as things that Christians shouldn't do in the

01:17:09

New Testament Jews shouldn't do in the Old Testament Noah shouldn't do before there was a such thing as Jews.

01:17:16

My hunch is is that's ones for all humanity to do Thank you, this is amazing I think

01:17:21

I entered into this conversation with anxiety the sanctification gap But this is this was more than I could ask for as it always is with you.

01:17:29

Dr. James Henlissac Thank you so much for coming on this show. I I'm so excited for our future conversations

01:17:34

I know we discussed a couple before the call and then we have you know, so many exciting things this show

01:17:39

This episode is gonna air after our live Q &A, which I'm just gonna speak retroactively went amazing

01:17:46

But I'm excited for more conversations on this and I hope that anybody listening got as much clarity on this topic as I have but do you have any announcements in the new year because this is it'll air in January that you want people to know about that they

01:17:59

Can attend to learn more get in contact with now we talked about earlier setting up a date in January for a

01:18:06

Q &A Now that was related to the last podcast. Not this one. Yes, I want to set one up for this one or with No, no, let's keep it separate because one that one that will be will be revelation

01:18:21

This will be Torah, but I'll coordinate with that coordinate that with you offline But any other like like I want to plug your work

01:18:28

I want to you know platform what you're doing if people want to connect not just through biblically speaking sure So I have a website that people can check out but it's uh, it's just my first and last name

01:18:40

I can add it to the show notes. Is it just James Henlissac calm? I think that is what it is

01:18:45

I'm, just double checking there. I do a lots of different things One of the things that I I've posted there is like some things

01:18:53

I'm doing in academics Yeah, it is James Henlissac calm and I critically evaluate tools for people that are studying

01:19:01

New Testament Greek language, especially and I'm thinking of expanding it actually to include some of the

01:19:09

Things related to Torah and some of the topics that we talked about tonight But within within there

01:19:16

I think the way I have it set up is a little bit on the clunky side where it bounces you out to a

01:19:21

WordPress site Once you click the link, it takes you out to a WordPress site But I've written excerpts of some of the critical evaluations like I'm constantly evaluating

01:19:33

About four books a year and publishing those critiques So I try to get a synopsis of those and put them on my website.

01:19:40

So okay, it's it's under one of the tabs I think it's under it's under one of the blogs actually, so I think you have to click on blog

01:19:49

To get to it. Oh, yeah My my research blog is just me general as a scholar anything and everything goes there

01:19:55

Then there's Greek resources and New Testament resources that I've critically evaluated Amazing.

01:20:01

I'll link your website in the show notes So anybody can check that out and see the critiques if they want to go a level deeper with you

01:20:06

But James, thank you so much for giving me so much of your time and so much of your knowledge on this topic This is so clarifying for me and you're always welcome back and I definitely will see you soon

01:20:17

I'll book you for a couple more just and I appreciate your your wisdom in the new year. So thank you so much

01:20:22

Thank you to Cassian. It's pleasure being on this podcast and and it's a pleasure conversing with you.