Here's First Fruits Ministries sermon for the Sabbath on 11/30/2024, called: "Community, Part 6: Our Order of Service":
https://firstfruits.cc/blog/20....24/12/02/community-p
Please watch it if you missed it. This is one of the most important and fundamental pieces of this series. It is the sermon to share with new people from this point forward.
I've been watching several videos on the origins of different Christian denominations lately. One thing that stands out for every one of them: they see the left hand side of the comic as what is happening in the Bible. Or, in other words: Yeshua/Jesus came and brought a new religion: Christianity. The ways taught in most of the Bible are no more.
What I find sad about it is when you look into why the different denominations broke off from each other, they are all over different interpretations of what a Christian life should look like. Why is this? Because unlike in the OT, we never have a list of "here is what to do, here is what not to do" in the NT. The closest thing, and what most people will point to is either the greatest commandments or those given in Acts 15. Both of these instances, though, point to commands in the Law.
If we would all go back to what the Bible says on how we are supposed to live, how YHWH pointed out someone who follows Him shall live, we might not have all these different denominations we do today.
If you haven't read it before, go and read Psalm 119 and Ecclesiastes 12:13.
https://thestraightandnarrow.cfw.me/comics/871
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120224
WORD FOR TODAY “What is the living water”: Joh 4:14 but whoever drinks the water I will give him will never be thirsty again! On the contrary, the water I give him will become a spring of water inside him, welling up into eternal life!"
SPOKEN VERSE FOR TODAY: Pro 10:7 The memory of the righteous will be for a blessing, but the reputation of the wicked will rot.
“Faith comes by hearing” positive frequencies spoken out loud hourly.
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In Genesis 29:4-8, Jacob appears to engage in small talk with the Shepherds of Haran, but there isn't a single idle letter in Torah. This conversation is prophetic of Yeshua's frequent interactions with the religious leaders of his day: "The time for the regathering hasn't come yet. Why are you standing around chattering among yourselves when you have a flock to attend?"
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Introduction and the Historical Background of the Intertestamental Period
The timeline of the TaNaK ends with the Yehudym newly re-established in their land. During the time from Malaky to the coming of Moshiach, the people of Yisrael lived under six different governments: the Persian Empire, the Greek empire, the Ptolemies of Mitzrayim, the Seleucids of Syria, self-rule under the Maccabees (Hasmonean’s), and finally under the rule of the Roman empire. The following is a brief chronology of those six intertestamental eras.
The Persian Empire (549 - 330 1B.C.E). Cyrus (559 - 530 B.C.E.) inaugurated the Persian Empire with his conquest of Media in 549 B.C.E., and Bavel in 539 B.C.E. Cyrus’ policy was to allow peoples exiled by the armies of Bavel to return to their homelands, rebuild, and reinstitute their forms of worship. From 538 to 430 B.C.E., many Yehudym returned to eretz Yisrael, where they restored Yerushalayim, rebuilt the Heykal, and re-established their lives in relative peace. Those Yehudym who remained in Mesopotamia largely assimilated there and enjoyed prosperity. The very last historical narratives in the TaNaK recount this period.
Greek rule: (331 - 320 B.C.E.). When Alexander "the Great" of Macedonia (336 - 323 B.C.E.) conquered and annexed the Persian Empire, very little changed for the Yehudym. Alexander’s rule, though brief, was nevertheless formative for all of Western culture. He extended the use of the Greek language throughout the Mediterranean world and the Near East. He founded the city of Alexandria in Mitzrayim, which became a Greek cultural center for several hundred years. During his reign, Alexander was recognized as a deity, setting a precedent for later rulers of Greece and Rome. Following Alexander’s death, his top generals struggled for dominance, each in their own realms, and by the year 320 B.C.E., the divisions among them were settled. The two of these kingdoms that most impacted the Yehudym were Mitzrayim, under thePtolemies (323 - 30 B.C.E.), and Syria, under the Seleucids (321 - 64 B.C.E.).
Mitzry Rule: (Ptolemies 320 - 198 B.C.E.). Yisrael fell under the control of the Ptolemy I of Mitzrayim sporadically between 320 and 301 B.C.E. and subsequently Mitzry control was settled for a century. The Ptolemies had a generally peaceable relationship with the Yehudym. Ptolemaic rule brought Greek peoples and culture to the nation of Yisrael. However, this “hellenization,” as it has been called, eventually became an existential challenge to Yehudy culture and religion. The Greek translation of the TaNaK or “Septuagint,” was begun during this time (c.285 B.C.E.), and was finally completed sometime during the late second century B.C.E.
Syrian Rule: (Seleucids 198 - 142 B.C.E.). When Seleucid King Antiochus III of Syria (223 - 187 B.C.E.) won the Yehudym territories from the Ptolemies in 198 B.C.E., he continued to tolerate the Yehudy religion and the rule of its priesthood over both civil and religious affairs. But these policies ended when his son, Antiochus IV Epiphanies, took the throne in 175 B.C.E. Antiochus Epiphanies sought to ruthlessly impose unified hellenistic culture and religion on the entirety of his kingdom. He gave the Yehudy Koheyn Gadol’s position to the highest bidder sympathetic with his reign. Finally, in 167 B.C.E., during his return to Syria after a humiliating defeat in Mitzrayim at the hands of the Romans, Antiochus lashed out at Yisrael by brutalizing its people, banning the Yehudy faith, and murdering all of the Yehudym who refused to give up their faith and traditions.
The heat of this unwarranted persecution forged Yehudy resistance. A Koheyn in the city of Modin named Mattithyahu, followed by his five sons (nicknamed the Maccabees, “hammers”), led a revolt against Syrian rule. In 164 B.C.E., that revolt succeeded in temporarily gaining Yisrael’s freedom. The Heykal was restored to service by the Maccabees and rededicated on the 25th day of the 12th solar month, 164 B.C.E. This day is now celebrated as the festival of Chanukkah, which means “Dedication.” Antiochus Epiphanies died during this period while on a campaign to reassert his rule in Persia. One of Mattithyahu's sons, Yehudah Maccabeus, was killed in 160 B.C.E. in one of a series of battles that brought the Yehudym once again under Seleucid rule. However, with Antiochus dead and a new ruler in Syria the Yehudym were not immediately subjected to such fierce religious persecution as they previously had been.
Semi-Independence: Hasmonean Dynasty (142 - 63 B.C.E.). In 142 B.C.E., Syria granted Yehudah partial independence. For most of the following century the Yehudym were self-governed under the Hasmonean Dynasty, the descendents of the Maccabees. However, as time went on, the Hasmonean’s began to compromise their faith and traditions, and to embrace hellenistic perspectives and policies in order to better integrate with the nations surrounding them. In violation of Torah law, the ruler of Yisrael also became the Kohen Hagadol. Not surprisingly, given this concentration of power, corruption and abuses quickly arose among the Hasmonean rulers. The party of the P'rushym (or "Pharisees") came into ascendancy at this time, opposing hellenization and the absolute power of a single ruler as koheyn-governor. The Tzadoqym (or “Sadducees”), descendants of Aharon Hakohayn, Moshe's brother, also arose, supporting hellenization and the power of the new Kehunnah which they controlled.
Roman Rule: (63 B.C.E. – 135 CE). Throughout the first century B.C.E., Rome steadily increased its power over the Mediterranean world. In sixty-three B.C.E. the Roman general Pompey made Yisrael a vassal-state of Rome, and Yehudym independence was no more. When Hyrcanus II, the last Hasmonean ruler, finally died in 40 B.C.E., an Idumean named Herod was well-positioned to take limited control of Yehudah. He was supported in Rome by Octavian and Mark Antony and strengthened by his marriage to the Hasmonean Princess, Miriam, the granddaughter of Hyrcanus II. So Herod the Great became king in 37 B.C.E. and reestablished a separate great Kehunnah - the "Kehunnah Hagadolah." By the turn of the first century CE, the Pax Romana - the militarily enforced "Peace of Rome" - was fully established, and Yisrael was firmly in its grip under the rule of Herod’s successors.
It was in that time and under the Roman hegemony that Yehoshua, our blessed Messiah, was born in Bethlehem, raised in Natzereth, and came into his ministry throughout the land. But, that is another story. This present one begins with Mattithyahu and his sons, kohanym of YHWH Most-High, as they were living in peace in the city of the Modim under Syrian rule…
Sabbath Keepers Fellowship & Prison Ministry
August 2017
I really hate it when people are against tithing. A lot of people just use it as an excuse to financially contriute little if anything at all. Tithing is just giving 10% of your income and offerings are funds over and above the 10%. (I'm not referring to the 2nd tithes and 3rd tithes and the more complex tithing system practiced in the temple. Our taxes takes care of much of that). You can choose another method of funding if you really want to, but I don't see why one would need to go through the troble of that just so that they can call it something other than tithing.
I also think we need to be very careful when we say that something in Scripture no longer applies to us. Some things genuinely don't apply to us, but if we dismiss too many things as not applying to us, then we end up with Scripture that we profess to believe in, but has no power to change our lives becase we dismiss too much of what it teaches.
Thought for Today: Monday December 02
Do not fear that your life will come to an end, but rather fear that it will never truly begin without YHVH.
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