Light In Torah

When the Israelites were preparing for entry into the Promised Land, the tribes ( matot ) of Reuben and Gad made their request to Moses to stay on the east side of the Jordan River for the sake of their businesses. Moses' immediate response, which caused him to relive the painful reality of the spies' debacle (Num. 13), at first blush, said NO! Like a father or husband who overrides a poorly thought-out vow or oath (Num. 30:3–8), Moses did not want His child (Israel) and God's wife, for whom he spoke, to suffer unnecessarily. Unity, not conformity, was Moses' high priority. He knew that a separation of the tribes would have a devastating effect on the nation as a whole. This was a reality that he was not willing to experience... again. When there is division—not diversity—within the body, it affects the whole body. Our connection to one another is vital! And that connection can only be growing and producing fruit to the proportion that we are abiding in the vine (John 1...

In Part 1 of our "new" study, we examined some "new" thoughts on last week's Torah portion— Pinchas  (Num. 25–30). Before we go further, let us examine the word our English Bibles translate as "new"— chadash . In common usage, it does not mean "new" in the sense of never having existed before. In Hebrew thought, there is nothing "new" in that sense under the sun. The adjective  chadash  describes something that has always existed but has been acted upon by nature or time to initiate a fresh cycle of productivity. For example, each year a wheat field produces a "new" crop; each month the same old moon enters a  chadash  phase; and each lap a runner takes around a track is described as  chadash , even though it closely resembles every lap before it. For the Redeemed of the Holy One, preparing for the  chadash  is not about starting over—it is about making necessary adjustments to account for environmental changes. As we know...

As we finished our Torah study on Shabbat, I went back and looked at the five primary focuses, each reflecting a distinct call from the Bridegroom of Heaven to His bride. In the opening verses, the narrative centered on the special covenant relationship Yahweh established with Phineas, son of Elazar, whose act of zeal stopped a plague and brought atonement for a great national sin. I called this the  Great Call to Zeal for God's House  (Num. 25). The focus then shifted to preparing the camp of the Redeemed for an imminent and bloody war with Midian— Time for God's Bride to Take Up Arms  (Matt. 11:11–12; Num. 26). Next, we see a building hunger among the camp to claim their inheritance in the land of the Patriarchs, illustrated by the daughters of Tzelofechad (Num. 27). Now the narrative shifts again, this time to the impending transition in earthly leadership from the rod of Moses to the sword of Joshua. Here is where we  Let Go of the Past and Finally Embrace the Br...

  This week's Torah portion teaches us a lot about Pinchas, legacy, and inheritance. The lessons will continue to come as long as we keep pressing into the functional, practical, and purposeful lifestyle of pursuing the Almighty God of all creation! This morning I got up at my usual early-thirty and reviewed the story of Pinchas and the oddities found in the text—the broken  vav  in the word  shalom  (Num. 25:12), the unusually small  yud  in Pinchas' name, and the connection between his selfless, sacrificial zeal for God and God's zeal for mankind, as well as the prophetic connections to Him who is known as the Prince of Peace (Isa. 9:6; John 2:15ff). Pinchas was not an Isaiah 29:13 man; for God's glory, may I not be either! Speaking of an Isaiah 29:13 man, our favorite character Ruth is the antithesis of the Isaiah 29:13 man—the person who keeps the instructions of God out of habit rather than humility of heart and devotion to His Word: "These people...

The spirit of Amalek is everywhere. But is he still physically present? Was the book of Esther the end of Amalek? And how do we recognize when he attacks us spiritually? According to Exodus 17:7, Amalek emerges whenever we begin to doubt that God truly cares for the details of our lives—especially when we are in need or feeling weak. These doubts often surface when we stray from the teaching of the Torah. And it is at those moments, as Deuteronomy 25 reminds us, that Amalek likes to strike. This is where the gospel becomes the remedy for our condition. Yeshua is the obedience that Saul failed to embody. Saul's partial obedience left Agag alive, but Christ's perfect obedience was complete.  It is finished —not  mostly  finished, not  nearly  finished. He did not bargain over which part of the  herem  to spare; He gave Himself entirely, without reserve. This is the Christ-centered heart of the story: the complete obedience that breaks the pattern and ful...

Five hundred years after Saul's  almost  obedience, the book of Esther opens in the court of King Ahasuerus in Susa (Persia). In that court, a man rises to prominence. His name is Haman. And Scripture identifies him in a way no careful reader should miss: "Haman the Agagite"—a descendant of Agag, the individual king Saul was commanded to kill and failed to kill completely. The line that Samuel was supposed to execute. Unfortunately, Agag already had children. That line continued through five centuries into the court of Persia. Haman devises a plan—not to defeat Israel in battle, not to contest territory, but to exterminate every Jewish person in the empire: every man, woman, and child, on a single day. He purchases the decree with ten thousand talents of silver. He sets the date by casting lots. He posts it across every province. And Mordecai and Esther must decide whether to go to the king to spare the Jewish people. The rest of the story you know. But here is what must ...

I originally had three confirmations about Amalek that I was supposed to write about. Then I landed in 1 Samuel 25 and 2 Samuel 1—and there is Amalek again. Make that four. Here goes part two. Amalek has a way of showing his ugly head over and over again. During the period of the judges, they raided alongside Midian and Ammon. They are described like locusts covering the land (Judg. 6:3–5). And each time they return, it is at the moment of maximum vulnerability—when Israel is weakest spiritually. That is the pattern. They do not fight when the fight is fair; they strike when the tail is exposed. Then comes 1 Samuel 15—the moment that changes everything. Not just for Saul, but for the next five hundred years of biblical history. By the time of Saul, the decree of Exodus 17 had been on record for centuries. Moses wrote it down. Joshua knew it. The elders knew it. And now Samuel comes to Saul with a command: "Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in...

I just finished fourteen weeks of an intense study on the grace of God, His pride in our obedience, and an expanded understanding of blood, atonement, cleansing, purity laws, the temple services, ritual cleansing, clean and unclean laws, and our modern-day relationship to it all. We covered a great deal. Over the past week, I have had three specific encounters—the last one at my daughter's church here in Austin, Texas. Each dealt with one particular topic: God's forever enemy, Amalek. Most people read the book of Esther as the story of a brave woman, and it is. But underneath that story lies another that began five hundred years earlier—with a command that one king nearly obeyed, almost—and because he obeyed only partially, a descendant of the man he spared rose to power in the Persian Empire. Within days, he came close to killing every Jewish person alive. No Jews, no return from exile, no temple, no Messiah. The entire line of redemption was almost severed—not by an enemy fro...

There is a second question hiding in the first question from yesterday's study. If He did not become impure, does that mean He never kept the purity laws—never brought sacrifices for impurity, never went to the  mikveh , and so on? Does it mean that? Drumroll, please? I do not know. But here is something to think about, especially for the critic who would wave all of this off and say, "Of course He was never subject to that impurity nonsense—He did not do that legalism!" Remember what we learned about the  tzaddik —the righteous one. One thing we always find is true: the  tzaddik  is  with  his people. He identifies with them. He does not hold himself above them; He is down in the middle with them. Now think about who Yeshua was understood to be—the Messiah of Israel. A teacher with students, living in public, constantly watched, and measured against everything the people expected of a faithful Son of the covenant. The Messiah of Israel was never imagined a...

We have established that there are two things which cannot become unclean: living water, which cleanses and cannot be defiled, and the words of Torah, which cannot be contaminated by impurity. Impurity simply cannot reach them. Did you make any connections in your mind with who represents both of these? Let me review a thought from the Gospel of John, chapter 1: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:1, 14). Yeshua is the Word, and He is also the source of living waters. So we have learned that when God acts and speaks, when He meets His people, His Word—His own presence and action in the world—both maintains its purity. The Word of God, which is compared to fire, cannot be touched by impurity. And now that the Word is in a body, walking the roads of Galilee, John gives us another connection to Yeshua and water. At the Feast of Tabernacles, the priest performs the great water-drawing c...

In our last two studies, we drew parallel comparisons between Yeshua, living water, and the Word. We saw that even death—the most profound event that could render someone ceremonially unclean—cannot affect living water or the Word of God. This week, in the Torah portion  Chukat , the prophetess Miriam dies (Num. 20:1). We are now forty years after the children of Israel left Egypt, and an entire generation has died off in the wilderness, leaving the entire community of Israel unclean. At the beginning of this Torah portion, we are introduced to the red heifer—a ritual that specifically deals with counteracting the effects of death within the camp of Israel. And as I mentioned a few studies ago, the red heifer is back in the news. This morning, it is only fitting that we pay tribute to this woman, who is responsible for the entire Torah—God's instructions—that we have today. How, you might ask? If it were not for Miriam, there would have been no Moses. Not only was she responsible f...