Tag: Torah Portions

Messianic Torah Portion Vayetzei means “and he left”. This portion chronicles Jacob’s departure from the land of Canaan into the land of Haran to find a wife. Jacob made a deal with God when he left and had many lessons to learn in his 21 year away. When he returns, he is a changed man who properly credits Yahweh for his deliverance and wealth. Along the way, we have a lesson on idolatry. Jacob was not raised to be an idolator but he had to live in the land of false gods for 21 years. At the end of the journey, he rightly credits the God of Abraham for his blessings and rejects idolatry. The sages associate this passage to the rejection of idolatry and we connect this to Paul’s work in Ephesus, teaching that gods made with hands are no gods at all. The lesson for us with Messianic Torah Portion Vayetzei is that we also must reject idolatry despite being immersed in a culture of false worship.

The Torah is the Foundation

The book of Revelation quotes or alludes to the Old Testament no less than 505 times. The book of Revelation only has 404 total verses. Did you know this? Did you know that to understand what the future holds we must study the bible from Genesis 1 all the way through?

This path we are on is a fundamental re-orientation of our thought process with respect to Christianity. Almost all of us learn the NT first then think the OT is like a glossary of terms or just a place to look to bolster the information in the New Testament. This is backwards. The Torah is the foundation that informs the NT. Learning the bible in the order in which things happened, i.e., starting in Genesis and really learning the Tanakh, then learning the New Testament, is what the first century Christians did. The Messiah did not come to start a new religion but to build on existing faith of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Isaiah, Ezekiel, etc.

As we discussed in last week’s Torah portion, the order Paul refers to in Romans 13 was established through the Torah. When Paul wrote that people must be subject to governing authorities, we see that begin when Abraham gave a tenth to Melchizedek. Abraham was a known leader who had just won a military battle and still gave proper respect to one whose rank was higher than his. Abraham also made the deal for Sarah’s tomb in a public setting, insisting on paying full price with witnesses, so there would be no doubt of his ownership of that land.

When Paul went on to talk about honoring authorities for the sake of conscience, that also harkens back to Abraham’s servant who was trusted to bring back a bride for Isaac. Abraham could not do this work himself, so he made his servant swear to do it. His servant could have gone rogue, kept the camels and gold, and never came back. Or came back and lied. But that’s not what happened. Abraham’s servant did what was right in the sight of YHVH and Abraham even when nobody would have known he did wrong.

You see that honoring authorities is a virtue established in the earliest parts of the Old Testament. Paul was not issuing some new edict but rather re-iterating an existing biblical truth. Those of us who study the Torah while believing in Yeshua the Messiah have put the truth back in the proper order. The Torah informs the rest of the Old Testament, the Old Testament in total informs the New, and we look for the return of the Messiah who will establish peace by ushering in an orderly kingdom based on the truths we hold dear that are established from Genesis to Revelation.

Our challenge, though, is re-orienting our minds. Most of Christianity has been taught the New Testament is the foundation and the rest of the bible is just handy to have when it bolsters a point of doctrine or makes a point we want to make. It’s incredibly difficult to rebuild a foundation, especially one that is this ingrained into us. It’s akin to learning a second language. For many years, everything you learn of the foreign language will be compared to your native tongue. In fact, you may never get to the point where you can completely break from using your native tongue as the foundation. Remember how I said that the book of Revelation quotes or alludes to the Old Testament at least 505 times? This is not unique to the book of Revelation. The Gospels refer to the OT almost constantly, too. So do the letters and epistles. If you want to understand the New Testament, you must first understand the Old. This is a tall task, but as the Messiah said, believing in Him is founded on Moses…. Because Moses wrote of Him! Shalom and have a blessed week!