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It has been a while since I have been able to write. It seems to have been a struggle from within. There are ‘dry’ times in a person’s walk with The Lord, and this has certainly been one for me. I ask first for my Father’s forgiveness, and second, I ask you to pardon the lack of dedication.

When I first started this site, over a year ago, I decided to try it for one year. I did not know if anyone would read anything I wrote. I did not know if anyone would ever even see the website. I am happy to say that there have been visitors from over 44 countries, and we gain subscribers every month. To think that someone in a small town in Kentucky can have something laid upon his heart, and it spread all over the globe in a relative short time, is more than incredible. It is truly miraculous. And it is all to The Lord’s Glory! I humbly thank The Lord, and ask His divine blessing upon this newsletter and this website that is dedicated to His Name and the Name of Yeshua.

 

This weeks Reading/Parashas is ‘Nasso” or ‘Make an accounting’ and covers ‘Numbers 4:21–7:89’. It talks about assigning the Levite Families their respective responsibilities and goes into certain details pertaining to a man ‘thinking’ that his wife has been unfaithful, and how to deal with that. It covers the offerings of the Leaders of the 12 Tribes to The Tabernacle, and talks about 2 things that we are going to discuss….. The Nazirite Vow and The Aaronic Blessing.

When we look at the Nazirite vow, we discover a few of things. First, that it covers the abstinence of wine and ANY products of the vine. Second, you cannot cut your hair during this vow. Third, you cannot come in contact with a dead body.

Christians in general are not comfortable, nor very familiar with vows. Yeshua forbade taking oaths, but not vows.

This reading states that “All the days of his abstinence he is holy to God”. God takes this vow pretty serious. There are very particular steps that must be done in order to perform this vow properly. A lot of which falls at the end of this vow….

” ^13This is the ritual for the nazirite: On the day that his term as nazirite is completed, he shall be brought to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. ^14As his offering to the Lord he shall present: one male lamb in its first year, without blemish, for a burnt offering; one ewe lamb in its first year, without blemish, for a sin offering; one ram without blemish for an offering of well-being; ^15a basket of unleavened cakes of choice flour with oil mixed in, and unleavened wafers spread with oil; and the proper meal offerings and libations.

^16The priest shall present them before the Lord and offer the sin offering and the burnt offering. ^17He shall offer the ram as a sacrifice of well-being to the Lord, together with the basket of unleavened cakes; the priest shall also offer the meal offerings and the libations. ^18The nazirite shall then shave his consecrated hair, at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, and take the locks of his consecrated hair and put them on the fire that is under the sacrifice of well-being.

^19The priest shall take the shoulder of the ram when it has been boiled, one unleavened cake from the basket, and one unleavened wafer, and place them on the hands of the nazirite after he has shaved his consecrated hair. ^20The priest shall elevate them as an elevation offering before the Lord; and this shall be a sacred donation for the priest, in addition to the breast of the elevation offering and the thigh of gift offering. After that the nazirite may drink wine.

^21Such is the obligation of a nazirite; except that he who vows an offering to the Lord of what he can afford, beyond his nazirite requirements, must do exactly according to the vow that he has made beyond his obligation as a nazirite.”

Now, why am I so interested in this? Well, let’s move forward to Acts…..

“21     and they have been told about you, that you are  teaching all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children nor to walk according to the customs.

 22     “What, then, is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come.

 23     “Therefore do this that we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow;

 24     take them and purify yourself along with them, and pay their expenses so that they may shave their heads; and all will know that there is nothing to the things which they have been told about you, but that you yourself also walk orderly, keeping the Law.

 25     “But concerning the Gentiles who have believed, we wrote, having decided that they should abstain from meat sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication.”

26     Then Paul took the men, and the next day,  purifying himself along with them, went into the temple giving notice of the completion of the days of purification, until the sacrifice was offered for each one of them. “

This section of Acts tells us so very much. If you read all of this carefully, and without the glasses of interpretation that have been laid upon so many of us, you learn quite a few things.

First off, we see that Paul has returned to Jerusalem. He is confronted by the Jerusalem Apostles and told that there are some very bad rumors going around about Paul. Rumors that they must quell. What are these terrible rumors? Well, they are rumors (untrue things) about Paul teaching the Gentiles to forsake Moses. Telling them not to circumcise their children and to NOT walk according to The Law. Please keep in mind that most of time that you see the phrase THE LAW in the Bible that what you are really reading is TORAH. So, Paul is being accused of teaching the Gentiles not to walk according to The Torah. Hmmmmm. Isn’t this what most of us have been taught? Yes it is. But what ‘does’ the Apostles have to say about that? They want put down that rumor. They want it to be apparent that it is UNTRUE. What they ask Paul to do is to go to the Temple with 4 men that must have been too poor to pay for the sacrifices necessary at the time to end a NAZIRITE VOW, and to pay for their offerings/sacrifices and to offer sacrifices for himself. What does that include? It includes an offering/sacrifice of 1 Sheep as an Elevation Offering, 1 Ewe as a Sin Offering, 1 Ram as a Peace Offering and a Basket of Loaves as a Meal Offering.

WOW! This doesn’t sound like what we hear at Church does it?

Why would Paul go and do this?

Why would Paul, knowing the completed work of Our Lord Yeshua do these things?

BECAUSE GOD SAID TO!

I think it is difficult for us to fully understand all these things. Yes, Yeshua was / is the ultimate sacrifice and that work is totally complete. Do we need a Sin Offering besides Yeshua?

NO.

Just as Jesus said on the Cross, ‘it is finished’.

But at that time, God had left the temple standing, and these were the statutes that God put in place for that Temple. It is apparent that Paul and the Apostles kept these statutes pertaining to The Temple as long as The Temple stood. I am of full opinion that when the third Temple is constructed that the sacrifices should and will begin anew. It is Commanded. This is not a negotiation that we make with God. We don’t get to choose what we want to do and what we do not. I for one will not argue with the Word of The Lord.

Do we ‘walk’ our way to Heaven? Heaven forbid!

We ‘walk’ our way to obedience, to worship, to love, to Blessing.

Do you see in Acts, that the Apostles and Paul were still operating under The Commandments? If they were not, then they would have reinforced that Paul was teaching the Gentiles not to ‘walk according to The Commandments’. Instead they had Paul go out of his way and at great expense prove that HE WAS NOT TEACHING that these things were invalid.

“But concerning the Gentiles who have believed, we wrote, having decided that they should abstain from meat sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication.”

What they are saying here, as in Acts 15, has to do with the fact they are telling the Gentiles to walk in accordance. Sometime I will get into Acts 15 more fully. But if you will do the investigating yourself you will see that the items they are speaking of come right out of Leviticus.

This same scenario is present in the trial of Stephen. The Bible states that there were FALSE witnesses stating that Stephen was speaking incessantly against this holy place and the Law. For the Bible to say that they were false witnesses, then Stephen could NOT have been speaking against The Law / Torah.

Even Peter said that the words of Paul are confusing. But when someone wants to speak against the keeping of the statutes and commandments of The Lord, they always quote Paul. Some of Paul’s writings can be taken (out of context in my opinion) that way. But if you look in Acts and at the actions of the Apostles and Paul, it is easy to see that they indeed lived by The Word of God, the whole Word.

 

 Now, onto the Aaronic Blessing.

22     Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,

23     “Speak to Aaron and to his sons, saying, ‘Thus you shall bless the sons of Israel. You shall say to them:

24     The Lord  bless you, and  keep you;

25     The Lord  make His face shine on you, And be gracious to you;

26     The Lord  lift up His countenance on you, And  give you peace.’

27     “So they shall  invoke My name on the sons of Israel, and I then will bless them.”

 We have all heard this many times, but I would like to expand upon it according to the Hebrew interpretation….

The Lord  bless you, and  keep you – may God give you many blessings, such as those mentioned in Deut. 28:1-14. May your possessions increase and may you live long. And may God safeguard and protect those Blessings that He has given you so that no one may take them from you.

The Lord  make His face shine on you, And be gracious to you – This refers to The Light of The Torah, or in a Messianic sense, The Light of The World – Our Savior Yeshua. Also in the sense of enlightening you so that you may see His Hand at work in your life and the world. May you find favor in the eyes of others by having knowledge of The Lord and His Ways.

The Lord  lift up His countenance on you, And  give you peace – May He suppress His anger. May we be able to walk with our heads up, knowing that we in ourselves are unworthy. Messianic- knowing that The Work HAS been done on our part, that through Yeshua, we are worthy. As for Peace, one may have all things in this world, prosperity, health, food and drink, but without Peace it is all worthless.

 

I hope that this newsletter has given you some things to think on, to make you turn to your Bibles to look at these things for yourselves. I realize that some of the things I am putting forth go against a lot that has been taught in the Christian Church, but I pray that you look to The Word and not to a man. For we must all look to The Holy Word of God.

 

 In the Name of Yeshua,

May Hashem bless you, and keep you,

May His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you,

May Hashem lift his countenance upon you, and give you peace

 

Until next time,

Tony and Robin