Update: January 22, 2025
Be like a disciple from 2,000 years ago...
Connect your life with the Bible.
Some people today that consider themselves a modern day disciple think that the Tanakh, aka the Hebrew Bible is old. Some even say the Torah, God's teaching and instruction has been done away with.
They tend to call it the old law of Moses, when what Moses did was write down what he was told to write by Almighty God.
Moses was the scribe, so were the Prophets after him.
The original disciples didn't think anything written 1,500 years or even 500 years before their day was old or done away with.
That fact is embedded in the books now known as the "Gospels."
Two disciples on the Emmaus road learned a big Bible lesson as they were schooled on the Hebrew Bible like a window into the Word of God.
Luke wrote about that journey saying "Jesus explained and began at Moses and all the prophets... and expounded unto them in all the Scriptures, the things concerning Himself." (Luke 24:27)
King David set the stage when he wrote: "Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your Torah." (Psalm 119:18)
It seems that a man named Augustine of Hippo may have considered those two verses when he wrote this:
“The New Testament lies hidden in the Old, and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New.”
You may have never heard of Augustine, after all he likely wrote that c. 396-430 AD, but his quote summarizes a window to understanding the Newer Testament’s integration of the Word of God and the first trip Messianic prophecies of the Hebrew Bible.
Take a look at just a few of the many connections from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John:
Update: January 19, 2025 which is Tevet 19
It's said by some Bible scholars that the meaning of the number 19, revolves around God's perfect order concerning judgment in the Bible. Nineteen can also be seen as a number of transition and change.
The Hebrew Bible is alive and engaged with the significance of numbers that nevr age.
I can’t imagine the joy of the families of the first of three Israeli hostages released today on the 19th under a cease-fire agreement in Gaza. On October 7, 2023, the war in Gaza ignited when some 3,000 Islamic Jihad Hamas terrorists violently stormed into southern Israel. Those Amalek-like Hamas madmen viciously massacred at least 1,200 Jewish civilians and then abducted 251 people.
Like the Amalekites that attacked from behind targeting the weak as well as women and children, as the Israelites were leaving Egypt (Deuteronomy 25:17-19, Exodus 17:8-16). Hamas is now known for their brutal tactics and their attack on the vulnerable.
Today's three freed hostages are Romi Gonen, Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher.
You can read their report at The Times of Israel.
It just so happens that the Haftarah (The Prophets) portion of the ages old Torah reading for this week just so happens to be וארא "Va'era" which means "and I appeared."
The reading includes the Ezekiel 28:25-26 prophecy that will be read aloud in homes and synogogues all around the planet this week.
Ezekiel wrote this …
Thus says the LORD, “When I gather the house of Israel from the peoples among whom they are scattered, and manifest my holiness in them in the sight of the nations, then they shall dwell in their own land that I gave to my servant Jacob.And they shall dwell securely in it, and they shall build houses and plant vineyards.They shall dwell securely, when I execute judgments upon all their neighbors who have treated them with contempt.
Then they will know that I am YHVH their God."
Who are the contemptable neighbors of Israel today?
Hamas and there are others too.
They all have a big time sword of judgment problem that's been described in the Bible for a very long time and it includes Messiah's second trip assignment to wipe evil off the face of the earth.
The prophetic stage was set when the shepherd David wiped out Goliath the Philistine when he defied the armies of the living God.
Yeshua (Jesus) described the coming battle against evil when he said,
"Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword." Matthew 10:34
February 22, 2025: Today is Shevat 24 and it is believed that the last of the known six living hostages that have been held as slaves since October 7, 2023 have been set free in liberty today after over 70 weeks by Hamas terrorists in Gaza, but today they are in Israel.
According to the Times of Israel:
"Hostages Tal Shoham, Omer Shem Tov, Omer Wenkert, Eliya Cohen, Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed were released from Hamas captivity and returned to Israel on Saturday, in the largest single day of releases since the current hostage-ceasefire deal took effect. They are believed to be the final living hostages scheduled for release in the current first phase of the deal, with only four more hostages, all believed to be dead, set for release on Thursday.
The terror group paraded five of the six freed hostages on stages in propaganda-filled ceremonies in two locations in Gaza, handing them over to the Red Cross, while al-Sayed was released separately to the humanitarian organization later in the day, without a ceremony.
The men all looked frail and many had noticeably suffered dramatic weight loss.
Shoham, Shem Tov, Wenkert and Cohen were all taken captive on October 7, 2023 during the Hamas-led attacks and massacres, and had been held as hostages in Gaza for over 500 days.
Mengistu and al-Sayed both entered Gaza on their own accord in 2014 and 2015, respectively, and had been held captive by terror groups in Gaza for around a decade each.
The releases came hours after Hamas finally returned the body of Shiri Bibas; Israel said she had been brutally murdered by her captors along with her two small sons, Ariel, 4, and baby Kfir, whose bodies were returned on Thursday."
Is it any wonder that the Haftarah portion on this Sabbath from Jeremiah 34:8-10 reads in a simliar way to today's headlines? The situation was different in
"The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to make a proclamation of liberty to them, that everyone should set free his Hebrew slaves, male and female, so that no one should enslave a Jew, his brother.And they obeyed, all the officials and all the people who had entered into the covenant that everyone would set free his slave, male or female, so that they would not be enslaved again.
They obeyed and set them free."
The last of the living hosatges were held over 70 weeks, but I could not help to be reminded of what Daniel recorded:
“Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression..."
Once again, the Hebrew Bible is alive and engaged, it's not old.
