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Sacred Dining: Pre-Meal Blessings for Community Gatherings
Although the blessings in the Didache are extensive, they do not contain any of the themes that we would expect to be present in a Eucharist ceremony. Namely, the text does not mention the suffering, death, or resurrection of Yeshua; sin, sacrifice, atonement, or forgiveness; the final Passover meal; or Yeshua’s blood, Yeshua’s body, the new covenant, or the phrase “in remembrance of me.”
7-minute read
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FFOZ at MJAA and UMJC 2018
Messianic Judaism is our mission field. Our mission is to bring Messianic Jewish teaching to Christians and Jews, and that includes Messianic Jews. Many people at the conference expressed a desire to go deeper into the Bible, and they could see that the Torah Club could help them do that.
4-minute read
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From Despair to Hope: The Month of Av
Even at the beginning of exile and the destruction of the Temple, God promises that one day the Messiah will come and redeem Israel. The story is not so much about predicting when the Messiah will be born but to point out that even in total darkness there is light in the distance.
7-minute read
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Remembering Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles
The date the the death of the Apostle Paul has been preserved in the Syriac Church tradition. The source is called “The Book of the Bee.” It was compiled in the twelfth century by Solomon, the Bishop of Bassora and preserves a lot of very Semitic-sounding material, which may indeed go back to the early Jewish believers.
6-minute read
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Earthquakes, Gaza, and Holocaust Law
A swarm of around thirty tremors rattled northern Israel in the last couple weeks as the violence continued at the Gaza border protest. Plus, archeologists unearthed the gate of a city that might have been Bethsaida. This and more in the Weekly Israel News Recap (Without the Rhetoric).
6-minute read
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Pray as the Lord Commanded
The Master’s rulings on prayer are much the same as they are for fasting. We are not to make an ostentatious show of our prayer life. Furthermore, the hypocrites that Yeshua criticized as those who “heap up empty words” were Gentiles, not Jews. It is hypocrisy and showmanship that the Didache urges us to avoid, not traditional Jewish prayer, worship, or liturgy.
7-minute read
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Judgment and Mercy: The Hands of God
A simple person might think that God is confined to the realm of heaven. This of course would be heresy. One may likewise be tempted to think that the one place that he wouldn’t be is in hell. But this isn’t what the Bible teaches.
9-minute read
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Job, Gentiles, and the Ninth of the Month of Av
Many non-Jewish disciples of Yeshua with whom I come into contact express a lack of interest and disconnect with these fast days and the traditions that surround them. They dismiss them as “traditions of men” that are “not biblical, just Jewish” as if somehow just because they are Jewish they are not for us or, worse yet, are not important.
6-minute read
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Instructions Concerning Immersion
The instructions are completely devoid of theological or mystical teachings about being born again or the death of Messiah. They read more like a section out of the Mishnah than from one of Paul’s epistles.
5-minute read
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UN Honors Israeli Doctors amid Gaza Violence and a Crisis on the Syrian Border
To prepare for the impending crisis on the Syrian border Israel is sending both troops and aid missions. The Gaza border violence continued this week even though global attention has dwindled, and the UN is honoring a team of Israeli doctors. This and more in the Weekly Israel News Recap (Without the Rhetoric).
8-minute read
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The Fast of Tammuz
Three weeks before the fast of Tisha b’Av is the Fast of Tammuz. This is traditionally associated with the “fast of the fourth month” in Zechariah 8:19 and takes place on the seventeenth of the fourth month. It is said that this day is the anniversary of Moses breaking the first set of tablets at Mount Sinai upon seeing the Golden Calf.
4-minute read
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The Satanic Deception
Satan has deceived the whole world in his efforts to isolate and annihilate God’s covenant people. We must not rely on public opinion to form our worldview but rather renew our minds by seeing through the lens of Holy Scripture, which will dispel the lies of the enemy.
11-minute read