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John 17:21
That they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, One thing I have discovered in my life with God our Father is that it is always subject to change. Changes are constant in our lives especially when we endeavor to follow Him. Change is an unchangeable fact; it is inevitable because He doesn’t change. Because He doesn’t change we are the ones who have to do the moving and the changing in order to adapt to His unchangeable continuity. One time a man complained that he didn’t feel as close to God as he used to, when his friend asked him, “Who moved”. Broken friendships and marriages work much the same way; we must ask ourselves, ‘Who moved?” Or “Who changed their priorities?” God doesn’t, so when we feel further from Him than we used to we must have changed things somehow. The Creator of all things expressed His unchangeable nature when He gave His Name to Moses on the Mount. He introduced Himself then as”אהיה אשׁר אהיה” roughly translated as “I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE”, and meaning “I do not change” (Malachi 3:6). Many people have fallen into the trap that the God of the Hebrew Scriptures is different than the One of the Apostolic Scriptures. A thorough understanding of God’s Name as introduced to Moses on the Mount claims the exact opposite. A solid grasp on God’s unchanging nature spares us from falling into errant theology. Yeshua Himself directly disclaimed this theology of being different than the Father. He claims total unity of concepts with the Father when He says “even as we (the Father and I) are one, (John 17:11, 21). Yeshua teaches us that because He is on the ‘same page’ with the Father, if we go on the ‘same page’ with Him, we will also be on the ‘Same page’ with the Father. This reflects the standard Jewish Chassidic theology of approaching God through your spiritual mentor. God doesn’t change. He remains the same from creation until today. From the beginning His standards of mercy, grace giving, patience, goodness, compassion, and forgiveness have been the core of His being. Now, and just as it was in the past, His people have always been able to rely on these attributes in order to come in His Presence, but so are the rest of His Name’s attributes unchangeable: truth, justice, and retribution (Exodus 34:5-7). May we never forget it as we pray to Him who never changes. (You may notice I didn’t list ‘love’ as an attribute of God. It is a purposed omission in my listing. Love being abstract is better defined through the afore-mentioned attributes).
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1 Peter 3:5
For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands. I heard it said one time, “A woman can make or break a man”. Another axiom among modern feminists is that, “Well-behaved women rarely make history”. There is truth to that looking at some of the female heroes that populate the Biblical narrative. Pharaoh sees the Hebrew population getting too numerous. He enslaves them and decrees, “All male new-born must die.” In spite of all this, the Hebrew population continues growing. Sages tell a legend explaining the conundrum. They said that each day, as Hebrew wives would bring food and refreshments to their husbands, they would also wash and attire themselves all pretty, ready to have relations with them in the fields. They would go to their men with words and encouragement and comfort. The men despaired under the weight of Pharaoh’s decree, but through their initiative, Hebrew women nursed a little flames of faith that eventually turned into the fire that destroyed even almighty Egypt (b.Sotah 11b). God knew His creation when He said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him (Genesis 2:18)”. The Hebrew text literally says, “I will make him a woman to be against him”. The idea is of balance. It is another way of saying, “Behind every great man there is a great woman!” Truly, a woman ‘makes’ a man by balancing him. She gives him wise and fit advice, encouraging him when he is down and confused, reminding him of his divine earthly responsibilities. This helps him to properly focus and balance his life between dream and reality. On the other hand, she ‘breaks’ him by stealing his focus away from his divine dream, and towards herself. A woman destroys her man also when she nags him for his weaknesses or to the opposite, she fans him so he gets unduly lifted up in pride and sees himself as the focus of everything. The afore-mentioned legend about the women of the Exodus provides our women today with a good role model. At times when men feel crushed under the weight of their responsibilities, they need the intuitive and bracing care of their life-long partner working side-by-side with them to counter-act Pharaoh’s ungodly edicts. It is also two brave women who feared God above Pharaoh who refused to kill the Hebrew babies (Exodus 1:17-20). Even so today, our modern world has created a society where the weight of spiritual confusion is crushing. This often lures men into being discouraged and eventually distracted away from their spiritual responsibilities as fathers and husbands. May God give us great women who know how to use their godly lure to bring these men back into focus, into being the leaders that will bring the next generation to the Promised Land of the World to Come. "It is the had that rocks the cradle that rules the world"! Revelations 2:17
To the one who conquers … I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.' The Book of Exodus in Hebrew is called ‘Shemot’, meaning ‘names’. It is the Book of ‘Names’. “Names’ is the first principal word that appears in the book’s narrative and Judaism names the Books of the Bible using their first main word. The names of the different people involved in the scenarios of the book appear little by little, but what we discover the most is the Names of God. In the Book of Genesis the narrative and the patriarchs introduce us to certain ways to call God, but in the book of ‘Names’, God Himself introduces His Names first to Moses who asks, "If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name' (Exodus 3:13) ‘and to Pharaoh who challenges Moses’ message from God with, "Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go (Exodus 5:2)?” God answered Moses’ question by showing His great power to conquer in order to save and Pharaoh by showing His great power to conquer in order to destroy. In our Western philosophically Greek culture, we look at names as a sound bite by which we call people. Sad to say, this is also the way we look at the Name of God: an identifying sound bite to which He should answer when called upon. In the Semitic world of the Bible, Names refer to what you are, to what you where created to be. Names describe who you are, the reason and circumstance of your birth; your qualities and/or properties. By knowing your name people know something very important about you. In Exodus, the Father and Creator introduces Himself by many names, not as sound bite we are supposed to use to make sure we are addressing the right person, but as a memorial of what He did, does, and will do in the future. Yeshua said that the Name of the Father should be hallowed, sanctified (Matthew 6:9), meaning set aside for particular uses. When Yeshua said that, He was quoting part of an ancient Jewish prayer referring to the Jewish practice of only using the Name of God in the precincts of the Temple, during times of devoted prayer, and never in a common fashion or discussion. Since that time when Yeshua followed that practice and also taught the disciples to follow His example and simply call God ‘Father’ (Matthew 6:9), Western believers have twisted the Jewish application toward protecting God’s name into the idea of a rabbinic conspiracy to hide it for themselves. This idea born from anti-Semitism still lingers. Today each of us has a name given to us by our parents. In this world where truth is hidden under the fiction of a physical veil, this name may or may not have anything to do with us. In the World to Come, Yeshua has promised us a new name revealing to the world our properties, our qualities, in a sense who we really are (Revelations 2:17). Come to think of it, it may a scary thought for some of us! At that time, we will be fully known even as we have been fully known (1 Corinthians 13:12). May it be soon Abba, even in our days! Matthew25:31-32
"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, … Before being ‘gathered to his people’ (Genesis 49:33), Jacob/Israel uttered his last prophetic outbursts. While he addressed his sons, Jacob/Israel prophesied of many things, especially of the return of the Children of Israel to the Promised Land. Already the tension between the House of Pharaoh and the Children of Israel was mounting. The famine was over for twelve years already. The Children of Israel had every right to return to their ancestral land; they were not Egyptians. Yet, they had to ask permission to leave Egypt and bury Jacob. This permission but with the company of dignitaries who probably required a military battalion, and leaving their little one behind, a foreshadow of what another Pharaoh later attempted to impose on the Children of Israel (Genesis 5). The relationship between Pharaoh and Joseph is remarkable. Joseph is brought to Egypt as slave, first to Potiphar even while he was in prison, then to Pharaoh. We are never told that he was given his freedom. Joseph offers his gift of wisdom and prophecy to Pharaoh, and becomes a leader in Egypt. Egypt owes its survival to that slave, a non-Egyptian who insisted on being faithful to his God. This story repeats itself through Daniel and Queen Esther. We can even see it in King David who was brought to Israel’s courts as the servant of disobedient King Saul. As such, the world often values the gifts God’s people have to offer, so they bring the anointed to their courts, as captives. The problem is that the true Children of God cannot live in captivity. The Spirit of God cannot operate under the ruling of Man. It is like the story of the king who hears the beautiful song of bird, but gets upset when the bird stops singing after he puts it in the captivity of a cage. It is also like trying to put a firefly in jar to enjoy its glow, eventually it stops shining. God has a plan though, not through Joseph, but through Judah. Jacob/Israel prophecies, The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples (Genesis 49:10). Judah is at the origin of the word ‘Jew’. Technically speaking, a Jew is a descendant of Judah, the others are Children of Israel/Jacob, and those before Jacob are called ‘Hebrews’, after Abraham, the first one ever called by that name (Genesis 14:13) To Judah then was prophesied a kingly scepter who would never depart from him, a scepter where the roles were reversed. Whereas in Egypt the nations attempted control over God’s people, (and throughout history the world has incessantly continued attempting domination on those who can only be ruled by God), the promise to Judah is of an eternal scepter that will this time dominate over the nations, as it is written, to him will be the obedience of the people, meaning, of the nations of the world.. The Davidic monarchy came to a stop with the Babylonian captivity, but through the Judean Jew Yeshua Judah’s scepter will be revived in the end of Days when Yeshua will come to reign over the whole world and establish His Kingdom when righteousness will cover the earth as the waters cover the seas. May it be soon Abba, even in our days! Hebrews 11:16
But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. A wealthy man who we will name Rav Shlomo was wondering about a certain Rabbi who by choice lived in a very austere manner. The conversation went somewhat like this,” Rabbi, how can you speak so of God’s bounty; you yourself seem to live like a pauper and have hardly anything in your house. Look at me, my house is beautiful and well furnished!”. “But Rav Shlomo”, said the Rabbi, “When you travel, do you carry all your furniture with you?”, “Of course not!” replied Shlomo, “I take a traveling bag; but when I am at home I live comfortably”. “Ah, that is it Shlomo, I am not home yet, I am not home!” When Jacob knew that his time had come, he told Joseph his son, “Deal kindly and truly with me. Do not bury me in Egypt, but let me lie with my fathers. Carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their burying place (Genesis 47:29-30)”. Jacob spoke of death using the term, ‘lie with my fathers’, a Hebrew expression we also find in Abraham and David (Genesis 25:8; 1 Kings 2:10). It is an early expression referring to life in the hereafter and the World to Come. It was very important for Abraham to bury Sarah in the Land. It was very important also for Jacob and Joseph to be buried in the place God had promised to His Children. This shows that the patriarchs did not look at death as the end of anything but rather as the continuation of life where God’s promises are fulfilled, but in a somewhat different dimension. Yeshua also confirmed (before His death and resurrection) that the patriarchs were alive (Matthew 22:32). You see, those gone before us are not dead, they are only resting, sleeping! At the end of his sojourn on the earth, Jacob yearned to return to his ancestral land. He didn’t even want his bones to remain in Egypt. This has to do with a belief in resurrection. The type of resurrection the patriarchs believed in was not just a spiritual one, but a very physical one with flesh and bones like Yeshua’s resurrection where He said, “A spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have (Luke 24:39)”. That is why it was important to them to be buried in the Land. Even today devout Jews pay thousands of dollars to be buried in Jerusalem’s Old Cemetery. They say that those buried there will be first ones to see the returning Messiah! And what can we learn from that? Have we settled down in this world, in this dimension, in this absurd, temporal reality? Do we live for what we can get today in this world? Or do we use this life to prepare towards the more substantial and eternal reality of the world to Come? Do we feel ‘home’ here, or do we yearn with Jacob and the patriarchs, “Carry me out of Egypt (Hebrews 11:10; 14-16)?” Prisoner in this dimension of time and flesh, like the homing pigeon the soul of the true Child of God constantly yearns to be reunited with the spiritual roots that gave it birth. This is the meaning of the Hebrew word ‘Dror’: ‘Freedom’; freedom to go home! May we all at the opportune time be found with our fathers in our ancestral home, in the eternal dimension of the World to Come! John 10:16
And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. Retelling the life story of Joseph we have played with the very important midrashic messianic analogy equating Joseph to Messiah. This has led us to observe that Benjamin represented the Jewish people who did not reject Messiah/Joseph. Continuing the same methodology in the story, we are confronted with Jacob introduced to his grand-children conceived through Joseph by an Egyptian mother. At first, he does not know who these Egyptian looking kids are. When he finds out, he adopts them as his own. The idea of redemption through adoption is a main theme throughout the whole Bible. Starting with Abraham, each of us is an adopted son (Romans 9:4-5). In adopting Joseph’s son as his own, Jacob accomplished a tricky maneuver. His showing favor to Joseph had already caused him much trouble, so this time, instead of openly giving Joseph the right of first-born, Jacob confers this honor to the first born of his true chosen bride and love of his life, Rachel by adopting as his own the two sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh, thereby causing them to receive each an inheritance. This not only has the effect of these sons and nephews becoming brothers to their father and uncles, but for Joseph to receive the double-inheritance which is conferred to firstborns. These could be compared to the offspring of Messiah while in Diasporah exile. Jacob actually says of Ephraim that he will become ‘the multitude of the nations’ (The Hebrew text uses the definite article ‘the’); in Hebrew, this is the same expression used in Romans 11:25, ‘a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the ‘fullness of the Gentiles’ (in Hebrew: the multitude of the nations) has come in.’ Judaism teaches that when Israel was evicted from its land by the Romans, Messiah went to exile with them. Just like Joseph, while in exile Messiah has been busy raising Himself an offspring among the Gentiles, an offspring to be adopted alongside the Jewish people (Ephesians 1-2). Today Judaism and Christianity are seen as two different religions, one who accepts Messiah and the other who doesn’t. The truth of the matter is that Christianity started as a sect of Judaism within Judaism. Christianity without Judaism did not exist for the first three hundred years after Yeshua and the apostles. The tragedy is that today if a Jew wants Messiah he is told to ‘convert’ and become a Christian. It is strange because the big question and novelty for the disciples in the early days of the Nazarene movement was if a non-Jew could be accepted as a follower of Messiah. In the adoption of Ephraim and Manasseh, we see that in actuality, in Messiah non-Jews are grafted in the olive tree of Jacob/Israel, not Israel in the Gentile Roman ‘Christmas tree’ (Romans 11). We also foresee Joel’s prophecy that at the end of time God will pour His Spirit upon all flesh (Joel 2:28), not just Israel. In that day, there will truly be one shepherd and one flock. May it happen soon Abba, even in our days! |
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