Category: Torah
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‘Original Sin’: The Conundrum We Cannot Do without
It’s rare that you can prove a biblical truth through direct observation of human behaviour; here is one. But that doesn’t make it any easier to explain it. First part of two.
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Holy
Could you define the word holy? Explain it to someone who is a new believer? The word is like a butterfly: not easy to catch!
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Water and the Feast of Tabernacles
What does water have to do with the feast of booths or tabernacles, those seven days in which devout Jewish people live in huts in remembrance of their desert wanderings?
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Tabernacle Furniture: What Does It Mean?
Most of the furnishings of the tabernacle are not hard to understand. But what is the meaning of the lampstand and of the so-called showbread or ‘bread of the presence’?
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Toledot in Genesis – What Are They and Why Do They Matter?
To define the structure of a book, we may have more than one valid option. Sometimes, a different way of looking at it opens new insights into meaning and message. This is certainly true for Genesis. You can also watch this content as a VIDEO PODCAST or listen to it as an AUDIO PODCAST A…
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The Image of God: Much More Than a Pious Idea
As a phrase, “the image of God” appears only once in the Bible, in Genesis 1:27. In the OT, the idea is also referred to in Genesis 5:1 and 9:6. That is not much. As a result, there is an interpretational challenge. Throughout the centuries, interpreters have debated without agreement what, exactly, this image consists…
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Sacrifices and Purity Laws: Do We Need a Red Heifer?
For the first time in many (many) years, I taught the book of Numbers this January. I often get asked what my favourite book of the Bible is. My answer has never been: “Numbers!” But I must say, as I spent time reflecting on this book, it grew on me. Or perhaps more accurately, it…
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Out of Egypt
Where did the Israelites cross the Red Sea? Or did they? Perhaps it would be better to ask: What did they cross? Questions like these have been a puzzle for biblical scholars. For many today, however, all of this belongs to the realm of legend and myth; none of it happened, and there is therefore…
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The Conquest of Canaan (Boyd Project 1)
I am launching a project that will take me several issues to complete. The subject is a big one: what some people refer to as the violence of God in the Old Testament (OT). Gregory Boyd has written a voluminously fat book about this: The Crucifixion of the Warrior God: Interpreting the Old Testament’s Violent…
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Do You Love the Law (David Did)? (Part 2)
Last month, I formulated a New Testament understanding of the law. Paul is emphatic that Christians are not “under the law,” because they have died to the law – all of it, not merely certain sections. It is possible to come away from such an exercise believing that the Old Testament law is therefore just…
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Do You Love the Law (David Did)? (Part 1)
What, if anything, is our relationship with the Old Testament law? I was recently asked to teach an introduction to the Torah, the first five books of our Bible, in YWAM Heidebeek’s Bible for Life course. This gave me an opportunity to wrestle anew with this important question – important because it concerns a sizeable…
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Giving Deuteronomy a Second Chance
I often get asked what my favourite book of the Bible is. The real answer is (it is not the one people want to hear): I don’t know. A number of books come to mind but which of these would be my favourite is hard to decide. Here is what I do know: Deuteronomy is…
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The Lost World of Genesis 1-11
I am shamelessly paraphrasing the title of a book by John Walton on Genesis 1, because it fits so well with the point I want to make in this issue. This point is: the world in which the early chapters of Genesis were written was very different from our world. Or more accurately, since it…
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Do the Feasts of Israel Have Prophetic Significance?
While writing on blood moons for September of this year, I ran into an idea that I had heard before, but have not paid much attention to recently: the Old Testament feasts foretell in some detail the course of salvation history. More specifically: the spring feasts were fulfilled in Christ’s first coming; the fall feasts…
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Seven Reasons to Read Leviticus
According to Torsten, a good friend with whom I worked in the School of Biblical Studies for many years, this is the most important book in the Pentateuch. I disagree, of course. My wife thinks it is Numbers; for this reason I did an earlier issue giving six reasons to read Numbers. If you ask…
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Six Reasons to Read the Book of Numbers
When Was the Last Time You Read the Book of Numbers? I read the book to write this letter, of course, just so that I could have Uncle Sam point his finger at you! Seriously though, this book is worth reading. Whoever decided to publish it under the title “Numbers” did not understand much about…
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The Power of Story: How Paul Quotes Deuteronomy 30 in Romans 10
Things I Am Learning from N.T. Wright’s Colossal Book on Paul, Part 2 In Romans 10, Paul contrasts works-based righteousness with righteousness based on faith, illustrating both by quoting a verse from the Torah. For righteousness based on works, he cites Leviticus 18:5 (ESV): You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a…