JULY 5, 2023 Deuteronomy 30:6 And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live. Everyone who professes faith in the One, True God and His Son, strives to love Him with all their heart — […]
JULY 4, 2023 Deuteronomy 30:3 The Lord your God will bring you back from captivity, and have compassion on you, and gather you again from all the nations where the Lord your God has scattered you. Where there is repentance there is restoration. When God’s people repent with all their hearts and determines to return to Him and to His […]
JULY 3, 2023 Deuteronomy 30:1-3 When all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God drives you, and you return to the Lord your God and obey His voice with all your heart and with all your soul … that the Lord your God will bring you […]
JULY 2, 2023 Deuteronomy 29:29 The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. As we discussed in the previous devotion, there are different ideas as to what was meant by the words above. Today I want to present another view […]
Religion is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, faith in God, trust in Messiah and obedience to God's commandments is the narrow path that leads to life. It brings peace, joy and purpose to existence. On the other hand, religious convictions can become a source of strife, enmity and hatred between people and nations.
Parashat Pinchas is named for Pinchas (Phinehas), the zealous grandson of Aaron the priest who turned aside the LORD’s wrath by publicly skewering two flagrant transgressors. The LORD rewarded Phinehas with a “covenant of peace.” He became the progenitor of the priestly line.
The LORD said, “He was jealous with My jealousy among them, so that I did not destroy the sons of Israel in My jealousy” (Numbers 25:11). The Hebrew word kin’ah (קנאה), which we ordinarily translate as “jealousy,” also means “zeal,” a better translation in this context.
This explains why the Master had a disciple named “Simon the Canaanite” in the King James Version of the Bible. The Greek text of Matthew and Mark introduce one of Yeshua’s disciples as “Simon the Canaanean (Καναναῖος).” Translators and scribes stumbled over the unusual word. Some scribes mistakenly tried to correct it as “Simon man of Cana.” The King James translators chose to translate it as “Simon the Canaanite.” Thanks to the error, Simon has the embarrassing honor of being the only Gentile disciple among the twelve—and a Canaanite at that!
Actually, the mysterious Greek word attempts to transliterate of the Semitic kanana (קנאנא), which means “the Zealot.” The anti-Roman, Jewish revolutionaries of first-century Judea called themselves Zealots. Luke recognized the word and translated it as “Simon the Zealot.” In modern vernacular, we would call him Simon the Terrorist.
Judea and Galilee were filled with political and religious zealots who regularly resorted to violence to advance their purposes. They emulated Phinehas, and used his story to justify terrorism.
Terrorists like the Zealots prove that zeal can be misplaced. Paul is another example of misplaced zeal. Prior to his Damascus road encounter, Paul pursued the believers with a Phinehas-like zeal. In his epistle to the Philippians, he mentioned his history as a persecutor of the believers as evidence of his “zeal” for God.
Rather than imitating Phinehas, we do far better to emulate the Master who was zealous for His Father’s house (John 2:17) and for His Father’s will. We should imitate the first-century Jewish believers who were “zealous for the Torah” (Acts 21:20). We should be “zealous for good deeds” (Titus 2:14), and zealous for Messiah and the kingdom. This means ruthlessly rooting out from of our lives those things that lead us to sin and cause us to stray.
Pinchas – פינחס : “Phineas” Torah : Numbers 25:10-30:1 Haftarah : 1 Kings 18:46-19:21 Gospel : Mark 11:27-12:37
JULY 1, 2023 Deuteronomy 29:29 The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. The traditional understanding of this verse is that there are certain issues and truths that God keeps to Himself and those He has revealed to mankind in […]
JUNE 30, 2023 Deuteronomy 29:19 And so it may not happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he blesses himself in his heart, saying, “I shall have peace, even though I follow the dictates of my heart”—as though the drunkard could be included with the sober. Far too often, people delude themselves into thinking […]
JUNE 29, 2023 Deuteronomy 29:18 That there may not be among you man or woman or family or tribe, whose heart turns away today from the Lord our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations, and that there may not be among you a root bearing bitterness or wormwood. Moses explained to the people that giving undue attention and […]
JUNE 28, 2023 Deuteronomy 29:16-17 For you know that we dwelt in the land of Egypt and that we came through the nations which you passed by, and you saw their abominations and their idols which were among them—wood and stone and silver and gold. Having lived in Egypt, Israel was well acquainted with […]
JUNE 27, 2023 Deuteronomy 29:14-15 I make this covenant and this oath, not with you alone, but with him who stands here with us today before the Lord our God, as well as with him who is not here with us today. This is a very powerful statement. Moses declared that the covenant presented to the fathers before them, and that which was being presented to […]
