Building on the Foundation

  Under the Old Covenant, God taught His people to offer Him the firstfruits of each harvest in the Promised Land.This included, as we saw previously , the two primary grain crops: barley and wheat. Because the Creator showered upon His people an abundance of all things, it was only fitting to offer an expression of gratitude to Him! As we also saw previously , God’s people offered the firstfruits of barley as a wave sheaf when beginning the count to Pentecost. Fifty days later, on the Day of Pentecost itself, they offered the firstfruits of wheat as wave loaves. In that same post, we examined God’s ordained process of preparing the wave sheaf. All this begs a follow-up question: What, exactly, was a wave offering? A wave offering both began and ended the count to Pentecost. The Bible mentions several other wave offerings, too. So what were these “wave offerings,” how were they offered, and what was their purpose? Types of Wave Offerings In Leviticus 23, where we discover the wave ...

  Yeshua is our High Priest and mediator of the new covenant as Hebrews chapter 4 through 9 talks extensively about. This fact brings up a question— since He became our High Priest, did our Messiah follow His own law for the sanctification of the High Priest according to the prescribed manner for Aaron and his sons? It would seem logical as He gave Moses detailed instructions for consecrating Aaron and his sons, nothing that God does is random— everything has a purpose. When it comes to the ceremonial law it is a shadow to help us understand the reality of the spiritual. The first instructions given for the consecration of the priests is found in Exodus chapter 29. There is so much in this chapter that it is beyond the scope of this study, most of it will have to be a topic for another day. But to answer my question, I want to focus on the aspect that can give us an answer, that is, the length of time the priests had to stay in the tabernacle of meeting for their consecration. If ...

It’s easy to forget where our protection and salvation come from, especially in this day and age of seeking out human leaders to come and save us. The election cycle is all about pointing out the evils of the other party while ignoring their own and trying to convince the people that they are the only ones who can save them. It works, too. People become polarized and they are confident that their candidate is the only good one who could possibly lead the country well. Unfortunately, they are all evil. God sets up kings and tears them down according to His purpose for them, but that doesn’t make them righteous or even good. They are unrighteous and immoral men, so why do Christians seek to have them rule over them?  There is a story in the first book of Samuel that we should carefully consider before choosing a candidate this year. The first king of Israel was about to be selected, and God picked a man to please the people. He was tall, good-looking, humble, and an excellent warrior...