The Fall Feasts of God are Coming!

The seven appointed times/feasts of God in English and Hebrew

It’s mid September and Rosh Hashana (aka Yom Teruah) is right around the corner. Our community has begun making plans and preparing for parties, prayers, and even campouts!

I have never heard a single good reason for keeping the man-made holidays of Christmas & Easter instead of the God-made holidays of Yom Teruah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, etc.

Tradition, family and community, professional connections, personal memories… these are all powerful draws to the traditional Western holidays, but they aren’t good reasons to ignore God’s days altogether.

If you can’t bring yourself to give up the man-made replacements of God’s days, for whatever reason, you can still begin to keep the originals now. Even if you believe that Passover and Tabernacles are only memorials of things that have already happened, I promise that you will discover new meaning in keeping them.

Remember what has been in order to know what will be.

God Preserves a Remnant in the Midst of the Fire



Here is the full text of the passage:





Exodus 2:23-3:9

The Chiastic Structure of Exodus 2:23-3:9


Exodus 2:23-3:9

A1-v23 – People groaned because of slavery
B1—-v23 – God heard their cry for rescue
B2—-v8 – God came down to rescue them
A2-v9 – God heard the cry of the people



Level A: God hears the cries of his people



Level B: God will rescue his people



Level C: God honors his covenants


God is faithful. He keeps his promises.



Level D: Moses can only bring you so far




John 14:6


Level E: No one comes unless the Father calls him



John 6:44


Level F: God requires an answer



Level G: The bush doesn’t burn up




Psalms 104:16

Jeremiah 24:5

Israel is a luxuriant vine that yields its fruit.
Hosea 10:1a

Romans 11:24







What Bible Beliefs Really Matter?

What Bible beliefs really matter?

And what beliefs don’t?









What Bible Beliefs Don’t Matter?









What Bible Beliefs Matter?










Dogma as Identity


Deuteronomy 29:29

Isaiah 55:8-9




Bible Study Foundational Principle 3: The clear interprets the obscure.


Hebrews 7:18



To summarize:














What does Hebrews 7:18 mean, then?





The Clear Interprets the Obscure



Go back to Foundational Principle #2: Scripture Interprets Scripture.

Go back to the Common Sense Bible Study home page.

Understand the Bible, Rule #2: Scripture Interprets Scripture

I can rob banks without getting caught, jump off cliffs without getting hurt, and run through traffic without getting hit by a truck because I can do all things through him who strengthens me!

Right!? It says so right there in Philippians 4:13, just plain as day.

Of course, only the mentally unstable and the most virulent atheists would insist that Paul meant we could literally do anything at all. Yet people still quote that verse in all kinds of situations as if they did. If you are in this group, you are likely already a serious Bible student, and you know what Paul really meant. It probably seems silly to you that Paul meant we can do stupid, harmful things. But how do we know he didn’t?

Because Scripture interprets Scripture.

We know that Paul didn’t mean that we can commit sin through the power of Christ without penalty, because in 1 Corinthians 6:9, he also wrote, “Don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?”

But what about soccer games? Can we win every game through Christ who strengthens us? Apart from the logical conundrum of both teams claiming that God is going to help them win, we have to use the same principle of Bible study here too. Does Scripture say that Philippians 4:13 means we can win every soccer game through the power of Jesus?

Understand the Greater Context

In order to understand what any particular passage means, we have to understand what it meant to the person who wrote it and to the people to whom he wrote.

Paul was the penultimate Bible scholar. He probably had the first five books of the Bible (aka Torah) memorized in Hebrew and much of the rest of the Bible too. He spent decades studying with the greatest Jewish scholars of the first century. So in order to be confident that we understand what Paul meant by anything he wrote, we also have to be very familiar with the rest of the Bible, particularly the Old Testament.

Next, we have to understand the world and circumstances in which Paul wrote the Epistle to the Philippians. From chapter 1, we know that Paul was writing to fellow believers who lived in Philippi (v1), that he knew the intended recipients well and considered himself to be their spiritual mentor (v3-11), and that he wrote from a Roman prison (v12-14).

Understand the Immediate Context

In chapter 1 and the first half of chapter 2 Paul discussed the purpose of suffering for the sake of the Gospel and what a great witness it is to suffer without resentment and to keep working for the Kingdom of God despite persecution. He then praised Timothy and Epaphroditus for their hard work and perseverance despite their own hardships. In chapter 3, he continued the theme of rejoicing through suffering, adding a few words of condemnation for those who had turned away from the faith.

In chapter 4, Paul first told the Philippians to set aside their personal differences and join with their fellows who have worked to further the gospel. He thanked them for their concern over his plight and for the financial assistance they had provided for his ministry. This is where we find the verse in question, but no verse exists in isolation. Every line is written as part of a greater whole.

Understand the Genre and Structure of the Passage

Here is the structure of the passage, Philippians 4:10-20:

  • v10 – Gratitude for concern
  • v11 – Contentment in whatever situation
  • v12 – Low and high, any and every, plenty and hunger, abundance and need.
  • v13 – I can do all things through him who strengthens me
  • v14 – Gratitude for concern
  • vs15-20 – Gratitude for financial assistance

If you are familiar with the concept of chiasms, you might have noticed something interesting in this outline. A theme in verse 10 (gratitude) is repeated in verse 14, a theme in verse 11 (whatever situtation) is repeated in verse 13 (all things), and verse 12 contains what almost reads like a poetic Hebrew parallelism.

To make it more plain:

A chiasm in Philippians 4:10-14 illustrating Paul's intent in "I can do all things through him who strengthens me." Let Scripture interpret Scripture.

If verse 14 reflects verse 10 and the four clauses of verse 12 all echo each other, it follows that verse 13 reflects verse 11. In other words, Paul meant “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” to mean essentially the same thing as “I have learned to be content any situation.”

Put It All Together, Letting Scripture Interpret Scripture

The overarching theme of the Epistle to the Philippians is perseverance through suffering, a theme which is carried through the trials of Abraham, the slavery of the Hebrews, the testing of Job, and all the other writings of the Old Testament, not to mention the sufferings of Christ himself.

The context of the letter, the structure of the passage, and the testimony of the rest of Scripture all tell us that Philippians 4:13 means “I know that I can persevere in the faith through good times and bad because God is with me.”

Does that mean God won’t help you win your soccer game or survive jumping from a cliff on a dare? Nope. Maybe he will. It only means that this verse doesn’t apply to those situations.

I chose this passage because it was relatively easy to parse, so it served as a good example to demonstrate Scripture interpreting Scripture. In general, you will want to follow this plan:

  • Be familiar with the whole Bible before being too confident in your ability to interpret any particular difficult passage.Know the historical context and the genre (letter, history, poetry, etc.) of the book or passage you are studying.
  • Know the contents and purpose of the book (or passage for long books with distinct divisions).
  • Dissect the passage to be sure you know the theme and structure.
  • If there are uncertain words, check to see how the same Hebrew and Greek words are used elsewhere in Scripture.
  • This should work for most passages, but be flexible. Be prepared for ambiguity, hyperbole, and even sarcasm. Although every book in the Bible was inspired by God, the authors were still humans communicating with humans, and they wrote like it.

Go back to Foundational Principle #1: The Bible Was Written to Be Understood.

Go back to the Common Sense Bible Study home page.

Understand the Bible: Rule #1

Common Sense Bible Study Foundational Principle #1: The Bible was written to be understood.


Principle #1: The Bible was written to be understood.



Real Meaning



Real Language


Real People



Up next… Foundational Principle #2: Scripture Interprets Scripture.

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How to Treat a Destitute Brother

You shall open wide your hand to your brother... Charity among believers

Bad things happen. It rains on the just and the unjust alike, and fellow believers will come on hard times. We’ve all known someone (and probably know someone still today!) who is so poor that he can’t afford the basic necessities of life. He’s homeless, wears worn out clothes, or can’t afford to buy food for his family.

How much should I help? At what point does help stop being helpful? How should I give charity? Should I donate to an organization? Should I give charity at all?

These are hard questions, and probably can’t even be answered thoroughly without an intimate knowledge of the person’s specific circumstances, but the Bible does give us some basic guidelines on how to help someone in need. Leviticus 25 gives one of the clearest sets of instructions.

“If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger [ger: a foreigner living in Israel, whether a naturalized Israelite or a temporary visitor, such as a migrant laborer] and a sojourner [toshav: an Israelite who is temporarily landless], and he shall live with you. Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.


Leviticus 25:35-43

This passage isn’t talking about someone who can’t afford a new television or a nice car. It’s good to be generous to all people, especially to those less fortunate than yourself, but that’s not the issue at hand here. These instructions concern someone who is truly destitute, in desperate need of food, clothing, and shelter for himself or his family.

The basic rules for dealing with a destitute brother can be summarized as below.

The Treatment of a Poor Israelite

  1. Support him like a ger and a toshav. See the Leviticus quote above for more detail on what ger and toshav mean. There are a number of rules given for how to treat a ger, and only a few about a toshav, but all of the rules for the toshav are included with the ger, so we only need to talk about the ger. I’ll go into more detail below on exactly how we are supposed to support them.
  2. Do not lend to him interest. If he asks to borrow money or material, give it to him if you can spare it, and don’t demand any interest. Elsewhere, we are told to lend to our brothers on the honor system, without expecting repayment. (See also Deuteronomy 15:7-11.)
  3. Sell food to him at cost. God has additional rules on providing the poor with food, but, at the very least, we are forbidden from selling food to the destitute for a profit. This doesn’t mean we have to give every person who claims to be poor a steep discount at the grocery store. Remember that these rules apply to the truly destitute, to those who can’t afford to buy even the most basic foods, not to people who can afford rice and beans, but prefer pizza and ice cream.
  4. If you buy him as a slave, treat him as a hired worker, and release him in the 7th year with generous gifts. Slavery is nominally illegal in the United States today (except as punishment for a crime), so this law doesn’t apply directly. A person could certainly borrow his way into a very bad situation, especially with non-dischargeable debt, like student loans, but even in those cases, he only has the threat of slavery (prison) hanging over his head, and strictly speaking hasn’t sold himself. (See also Deuteronomy 15:12-18.)

The first rule is meaningless without further explanation, so I’ll go into that more below, and the fourth rule doesn’t apply in today’s United States. However, rules two and three apply, but are followed so rarely as to be almost unheard of.

The only people who give interest free loans to the poor are close family members, but God says that everyone who has the money to lend should be ready to do it. Not only should we lend freely, but we must be ready to forgive the loan in the shemitah year no matter how much he has repaid. How bizarre and revolting that feels to American sensibilities!

Yet this is how God wants his people to treat one another.

There are many places where you can buy new clothing at (or near) wholesale prices and used clothing at far below retail, but there aren’t many places where you can buy food at cost. Grocery stores will often reduce the price of goods that are near the end of the shelf lives, but they don’t reserve those products for the destitute. They are sold on a first-come, first-serve basis, just like the rest of their stock.

Some restaurants and grocery stores will donate old or excess products to charities, but that’s not exactly the same thing. Giving away food is fine–and even commanded–to an extent, but that shouldn’t be the only option available to the poor. Handouts and government welfare programs shouldn’t be the primary means of supporting the poor. Jobs and low-cost necessities promote better habits while maintaining self-respect.

So what about the ger?

The Treatment of a Ger

Remember that a ger is a foreigner who has joined himself to Israel, but has no land of his own, or else a foreigner who is temporarily living with Israel. Some of these commandments also include the toshav, who is a temporarily landless or itinerant Israelite, but there are no rules for a toshav that do not also apply to a ger.

  1. May celebrate some feasts and must celebrate others. (Exodus 12:48-49, Leviticus 16:29, Deuteronomy 16:1-17, 26:1-19)
  2. Required to keep the weekly Sabbath. (Exodus 20:10, 23:12, Deuteronomy 5:14)
  3. Not to be treated like a slave…unless he is a slave. (Exodus 22:21, 23:9)
  4. Not allowed to eat blood. (Leviticus 17:12)
  5. May eat animals that died of natural causes or was killed by another animal. (Leviticus 17:15, Deuteronomy 14:21)
  6. Abstain from sexual immorality. (Leviticus 18:26)
  7. May glean the corners and leavings of the fields. (Leviticus 19:10, 23:22, Deuteronomy 24:19-21)
  8. Love him as yourself. (Leviticus 19:33-34)
  9. Must not blaspheme the name of God. (Leviticus 24:16)
  10. May worship and bring offerings. (Numbers 15:14-16, Numbers 19:10, )
  11. Must keep and be protected by the same standards of justice as the native-born. (Leviticus 24:22, Numbers 15:26, 35:15, Deuteronomy 1:15-16, 24:17, 27:19)
  12. Give him food and clothing if he needs it. (Deuteronomy 10:18-19, 14:29)
  13. Must keep all the commandments (Deuteronomy 31:9-13)

How Charity Works in God’s Kingdom

There are times for outright charity, times to make things available to whomever is willing to do the labor, and times to hire and offer produce at a discount. Which option is appropriate in any given circumstances will depend on the individuals involved, and nobody can know that except those individuals. There is no one-size-fits-all solution that can be dictated from thousands of miles away. Charity should be local and almost always voluntary. (That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give to people far away, only that you should start near at home.)

Note also that Biblical charity comes with some strings attached. Everyone in Israel is expected to keep God’s commandments, and those who refuse are to be cut off. In some cases that might mean exile or shunning, and in some it might mean death. I’m not saying that charity should be dependent on perfect behavior or that anyone should keep a score sheet to determine eligibility. What I mean is that no Israelite should ever be expected to support financially an enemy of God or Israel.

To be eligible for charity from Israel, one must be eligible to live among Israel, which primarily means keeping God’s appointed times and Sabbaths, and abstaining from sexual immorality, idolatry, and blood. Interestingly enough, the three prohibitions are the exact same requirements that James and the council of Jerusalem gave for new converts to come into fellowship in Acts 15.

God requires his people to give charity generously. Although he didn’t specify any penalty for not giving to the poor, he commanded it multiple times. The Prophets, Yeshua, and the Apostles all repeated those instructions.

Give to people you know personally. Give to charities that uphold God’s standards. Give to the poor, widows, orphans, and sick. Charity is not an option for God’s people, but charity shouldn’t be indiscriminate and irresponsible, either. Whenever possible, it should be local, personal, and relational.

The Importance of Primary Sources

The importance of primary sources in finding the real truth.

Let’s pretend for a moment that there’s a newspaper out there that employs unbiased reporters and never confuses reporting with opining. I know that’s a stretch, but let’s pretend anyway. We’ll call it The Daily Truth.

If you want to know what’s been going on in Congress you have four choices:

  1. Read the Congressional Record, which is a play-by-play created by people who were there and participating.
  2. Read the Politics section of The Daily Truth, which may or may not include reporting by people who were present at the events, but certainly includes narrative based on the Congressional Record.
  3. Read the Opinion page of The Daily Truth, which includes personal opinions about the news reported in the Politics section written by people who definitely weren’t there.
  4. Check Facebook, which is like the Opinion page in the junior high student newspaper. You’ll be lucky if anyone even knows The Daily Truth exists, because it’s not allowed on Facebook.

Now, the Opinion page will certainly have content relevant to current events and even to specific and important political issues, but opinions aren’t facts. If you want to know what actually happened as opposed to what some pundit thinks about what happened, you only have two reasonable options: the Congressional Record and the Politics section of The Daily Truth, and most of the Politics section is probably written by people who don’t have any first-hand knowledge of the events they’re reporting.

So, if you want to get the bare facts–or as close to the facts as possible–then you have to go to the primary sources.

What is a primary source?

A primary source is a record of events by someone with first-hand knowledge. Examples include meeting minutes, personal diaries and letters, and first-hand accounts of historic events.

A secondary source is opinion about a primary source. Examples include most news articles, history books (not written by witnesses), academic papers, documentary videos, and commentary.

A Facebook post is a quip about headlines about opinions about primary sources.

Secondary sources can be interesting and informative, but they will never be anything more than opinion about someone else’s reporting of the facts. If you want to know the actual facts, and not opinions, you have to go to a primary source.

Of course, that doesn’t mean secondary sources are useless.

All translations of primary sources are, to a great extent, secondary sources, because translations are always affected by the knowledge and biases of the translator. Many words in one language have no direct equivalents in other languages, and sometimes the same word can have multiple meanings. If you were to translate a personal letter from Russian to English, you would have to make some guesses about what the author meant by some phrases. You would have an even harder time with translating across very different cultures in different eras.

Dictionaries, encyclopedias, commentaries, etc., are almost always secondary sources and can have huge disparities in their reliability.

The solution is to consult primary sources whenever possible and to consult several secondary sources when necessary. Make it your habit to compare Bible translations, Hebrew and Greek dictionaries, and commentaries. Over time, you will cultivate a good feel for which of these resources are reliable, which are interesting, and which are safe to ignore completely.

Even then, remember that the most reliable secondary source is still someone’s opinions about a primary source. They might be excellent opinions, but they’re still just opinions.

See this guide from the University of Massachusetts Boston for more information: description and examples of Primary vs Secondary Sources.

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Be Aware of Your Assumptions when Reading the Bible

Everyone assumes.

That’s not a bad thing in itself. We have experiences and we’ve been taught things about the world, and we use this information from our past to help us understand what we experience in the present and what we expect from the future. We will never know everything there is to know about any event in our lives or that we read about, but we make assumptions about things that we can’t see based on what we have seen in similar circumstances before.

If you see a masked figure running from a bank, the movies you’ve watched, the news you’ve read, and your personal experiences with masks and banks will probably lead you to assume that the person has just robbed the bank. You’d probably be right.

Without assumptions, we’d be paralyzed by every new event. We would never be able to make decisions about anything because we’d have to analyze every detail and every detail about those details.

Unfortunately, our assumptions aren’t always right. Maybe there’s an employee costume party going on at the bank or the running figure was a horribly disfigured man late for an appointment with his plastic surgeon. Neither explanation seems likely, but they’re both possible.

The farther a situation is from our personal experiences, the more likely it is that our assumptions about it will be wrong. The passing of only a few decades or a few thousand miles can mean dramatic cultural changes.

Consider the differing experiences of farmers across the world in the same year. The work of a coffee grower in Indonesia, a Chinese rice farmer, a corn farmer in Iowa, and a greenhouse grower in Massachusetts has significant similarities. They plant, cultivate, harvest, and sell, but the differences are also significant. One might be a technician with an advanced degree in botany or biology, while another might be an illiterate slave. They speak different languages, use different tools and methods, have different values, follow different growing seasons and development cycles. They would not use the same vocabulary to record their life stories, nor the same metaphors to communicate their thoughts about God.

War, mass migrations, changes in language, economic conditions, technology… the potential complications can get…um…complicated. Now, extend that across thousands of years, a hundred generations and dozens of genocides, the rise and fall of empires and religions.

Welcome to Bible study.

The Bible was written over the course of 1500+ years, in multiple languages, by people with vastly different personal experiences and assumptions about the world. When you read it, you need to be aware of the historical, cultural, linguistic, and personal context of the original text, and even more aware of your own presuppositions.

If you approach the Bible wearing your modern American assumptions over your eyes, you are going to see much that isn’t there, and you will miss much that is. Your study will tend to reinforce what you think you already “know” rather than reveal what actually is.

Surviving through Trials, Prospering by Faith

Leviticus 25:1-7

And if you say, ‘What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we may not sow or gather in our crop?’ (21) I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years. (22) When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating some of the old crop; you shall eat the old until the ninth year, when its crop arrives.
Leviticus 25:20-22

Every seventh year, called the Shemitah, God wants the land to rest from laboring for mankind. He promised that if his people allow the land to rest in that year–no sowing or reaping–then he would provide a triple harvest in the sixth year, enough to still be eating it in the ninth year.

This can all be a little hard to grasp when you don’t live in an agrarian culture, so I charted it out to see why we would need a triple harvest in the sixth year when we are only supposed to skip planting and harvesting in one year.

  • The GREEN BARS represent the time from planting until harvest.
  • The YELLOW BARS represent the harvest period.
  • The BLUE BARS represent the time in which that year’s grain harvest is stored and used.
  • The GRAY BARS represent the periods in which the fields are left fallow or are growing other crops.

The barley crop is in a darker shade than the wheat.

As you can see, the barley and wheat crops are planted beginning around the month of Cheshvan, roughly around October, and grow for 4-8 months before harvesting. The barley begins to ripen around the end of Adar and the beginning of Nisan, which is around March or April.

According to Leviticus 23:10-14, no barley from the new harvest may be eaten until after the wave offering that is done a few days after Passover. This wave offering is sometimes called Early Firstfruits.

The wheat harvest begins almost two months later at the beginning of the month of Sivan, just before the holiday known as Pentecost, Shavuot, or Later Firstfruits.

Each of these harvest periods lasts from one to two months, and that grain has to last until after Passover the next year. The crops from year 5 are stored and eaten up until the harvest of year 6.

Barley and wheat were the primary staple crops of the ancient Near East, including Israel. They were the main source of calories for almost everyone. Although God allows the people to eat what grows of its own in the 7th year, he does not allow mass harvesting for sale or storage, and there wouldn’t be a lot of grain growing on its own. Since there is no planting or harvesting in year 7, the harvest from year 6 has to last at least two full years or people will begin to starve.

If the people follow this plan, God promised that there would be a triple harvest in the 6th year. Why triple if only two years are required to get through the Shemitah year? Because a double harvest is the bare minimum to survive, and God wants to reward his people for their faithfulness. He doesn’t want us to barely get by.

In its plainest sense, this law only applies to those living in the land of Israel, and it requires that you leave your fields fallow in the 7th year and only eat what you have stored up and what grows on its own without cultivation. Don’t buy fresh produce at the grocery store. Don’t import avocados and tomatoes from Mexico. Just trust divine Providence.

However, the principle applies more broadly: God rewards those who trust in him and demonstrate their trust by keeping his commandments, even when they don’t make sense.

The rewards of the Kingdom of God are not stored up for the religious, the popular, the powerful, or even for those who suffer the most. There is nothing virtuous about self flagellation. No, the rewards of the Kingdom are stored up for those who trust in God.

I’m not saying that you will always be rich. Sometimes God makes you poor, like in the seventh year, so you’ll learn to trust in him more. Sometimes he makes you sick or takes away everything you have, like Job, but he only does it so that you will have the opportunity to grow into the great man or woman of God that he knows you can be.

Consider Joseph. When he was young, he was tactless and possibly a bit foolish, but he trusted God. Despite that trust, his brothers betrayed him and sold him into slavery. In Egypt, he was abused, slandered, and imprisoned.

He thought he would become the patriarch of a large and wealthy family. Instead he became the top prisoner in a dungeon, and a servant to white-color criminals. Despite many years of injustice and misery, Joseph kept his faith that God was in control and that justice would ultimately prevail.

But then Pharaoh had a nightmare that no one could interpret, and one of those criminals remembered the young Hebrew seer who worked in the prison. Joseph was brought up from the pit and–after thirteen years!–rewarded with status and wealth beyond anything he had ever dreamed.

It’s hard to see the finish line when your course is through valleys, jungles, and swamps, but if we could always see exactly what reward lay at the end, we’d have no need for faith.

Great trials build great faith, and great faith brings great rewards, but the timing and the forms of trial and reward are God’s to decide, not ours.