With the Christmas season already upon us (thanks to advertisers) there is a lot of “chatter” on Face Book regarding the pagan origins of this holiday (‘holiday’ meaning man-made, whereas ‘holy day’ is God-ordained) and how Constantine used it to bring the pagan Romans under the Christian banner, so to speak, by substituting this holiday for the pagan one.
But did you know that he wasn’t the first leader to do something like this?
Yeshua (Jesus) taught from the Torah, which was very familiar to the Jews in the First Century, so why is it, then, that we are constantly told no one understood His messages? Even the Apostles, His closest friends and followers, had to ask for an explanation.
Perhaps it was because He was teaching the “advanced” course, and they were all still just learning the basics?
A wonderful movement in Christianity that is gaining momentum is the Hebrew Roots movement. Basically, this is made up of Christians (mostly Gentiles) who are discovering the roots of their faith, the “real” Jesus (Yeshua) and the truth that the Torah has not been done away with, but is still valid for them, and all who accept the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as well as the Messiah God promised to all, Yeshua (Jesus) as their Messiah.
But some of the wrong attitudes inherent in “Constantine Christianity” are being seen in this new movement.
In the Parashah Toldot, Jacob offers to buy Esau’s birthright for a bowl of lentil stew, and Esau agrees.
So, nu? Who did wrong? Was it Jacob for trying to buy his brother’s birthright, or was it Esau for selling it?
And what could this mean to us regarding our salvation through Messiah Yeshua?
We all know the story of Jacob stealing the blessing from his brother, Esau.
But…did he really steal it?
This time of the year people are all focused on the birth of Messiah, but His birth is not the thing we should really care about. We aren’t saved by His birth, and we aren’t saved by His death, either. What we are saved by is the resurrection, which proves that His sacrifice was accepted.
How can we be resurrected before we die?
Maybe what is being resurrected isn’t our body, but something else within us.
In this parashah both Sarah and Abraham come to their deaths, and Isaac gets a wife. Abraham has told his servant to make sure that his son never goes back to the place where they came from, and this theme is repeated throughout the bible.
What’s so bad about going back to Egypt?
Abraham tells God He shouldn’t treat the wicked and the righteous the same way, but in Matthew we are told that God does treat them the same way, so which is it?
God tells us the answer.
Many people over the centuries have been taught that salvation came to the Gentiles through Messiah, and that Peter was the first Apostle to the Gentiles bringing them that salvation.
But was this really the first time a Gentile was able to gain salvation with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob?
