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Travel Notes

The Biblical Feasts

6/9/2020

 
Biblical Feasts summary
Feasts are more than just great times. They bind communities together around shared concepts and experiences in common. Like a wedding feast celebrates around our common support of the union of these people. Likewise the feasts that God instructs his people to observe, bind them together too, around concepts core to their identity. And because these core concepts are fulfilled in Jesus, they are also about our identity too.
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Due to our communion services, many of us already know how Passover relates to our life in Christ (the prophesied Messiah). Likewise, so do the other Feasts of the LORD, instituted in Lev23:1-44. Num29:12-34. Deut14-16.
1) Christ is the spotless Passover lamb, whose blood saved us from death, and from slavery to sin.
2) Christ is the Unleavened Bread, broken, wrapped, and buried to return later. 
3) Christ is the First Fruits of the resurrection. 
4) Christ is given at Pentecost /Feast of Weeks /Second Harvest, to gather Gentile believers as a second harvest. 
5) Trumpets will announce Christ's second coming, the start of the new age to come.
6) On Atonement Day, Christ will cover us when he Judges this mixed up world. 
7) Then Christ Shelters with us, as he has in the wilderness of this life, as he did as God in the flesh,  does now by his Spirit, so he will dwell with us in the Heavenly feasting to come. 
​
Although not all Christians observe these feasts, we can celebrate that Israel's core Scriptural feasts are fulfilled by the Messiah who grafts us in to His Story. Thus these feasts can bind us together very deeply.
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New Life Church in Fremantle made these cards about Christ in the Calendar of feasts. I added the 8th.

Israel's Fall Feasts

5/9/2020

 
Christians benefit from a closer look at the Biblical Fall Feasts, because, among other things, they foreshadow Christ's work in days to come. We have hindsight to help us see how Christ fulfilled Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, and Pentecost. We need foresight to see how he will fulfil Trumpets, Atonement, and Shelters. 
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Feast 5) The shofar Trumpets signal an arrival, like a communal alarm clock. The time has come: a new Sabbath, or that a bridegroom is now coming for his bride. 
In this feast the trumpets sound to signal: a new yearly cycle of faith; the anniversary of Creation; God providing a ram in place of Isaac; and God descending to give the Law to his people. 
It is also a reminder to prepare for the Day when this age will end, to ponder, repent, pray. Hence ten 'Days of Awe’ follow the feast of Trumpets leading up to the Day of Atonement when the Trumpet will sound again. 
Christians are further reminded that on that Day the Trumpet will sound and Jesus will physically return. So how will we be ready? We can also remember that Jesus is our ultimate Sabbath, our Bridegroom, The Creator, and the bringer of the New Covenant, the fulfilment of this feast. 

Feast 6) The Day of Atonement is actually a fast. It calls to mind Judgement Day, at the end of which the shofar signals the closing of the Book of Life, in which we want our names written. So Atonement Day focusses on how our sins are to be atoned for, or ‘covered,’ on that Day.
Since the destruction of the Temple in 70AD, the Temple priests can’t make the Levitical sacrifices of atonement, so there is a lot of repenting and prayer for God’s mercy on this day. 
Christians know how our sins will be covered on Judgement day by Christ's sacrificial work at Passover. Plus The Judge on that Day will be none other than Christ himself. So we best trust what he has done, in order to have our names written in His Book of Life. 

Feast 7) The Feast of Shelters (or Tabernacles /Tents) celebrates God-with-us, just as God travelled with the Hebrews when they slept under makeshift tents in the wilderness in Exodus. For a week meals are taken outside under simple shade. This reduces dependancy on consumerism by celebrating his presence. And that’s why we feast on our finest and favourite foods over these 8 days.
Because the feast starts on the first Sabbath after the Day of Atonement, it foreshadows God-with-us forever after the Day of Judgement - Heaven, where God will be with his people, in the ultimate way.
Christians also know that Jesus is ‘God is with us,’ as Emmanuel in the flesh, by his Spirit now, through death, and in Heaven forever. 


This helps us understand why there are two New Years in the Jewish calendar: the religious-year cycle of teaching starts with Trumpets, but the calendar-year starts just before Passover. Some people start their spiritual lives at the beginning with Creation and the Old Testament (Jewish), but some start with Jesus the Passover lamb (Christians). 
The religious annual cycle begins with Creation, the First era:
  • Trumpets recall Creation, God speaks; a ram for Isaac; the Law of Moses.
  • Atonement is made (or foreshadowed) through the sacrifices
  • Shelters thanks God for his presence and provision.
  • Passover, & Unleavened Bread recalls God's action through the Exodus.
  • First Fruits celebrates bringing in the first harvest
  • Pentecost celebrates the second harvest.
And thus people lived... until the New era.
  • Prophets Trumpet the Messiah / Christ
  • Exiles show the need for Atonement, because Judgement Day does come
  • Christ Shelters with us in person (Scriptural clues even suggest Jesus' birth around the time of Shelters: God-with-us in the flesh.)
  • Passover - Christ makes the necessary sacrifice for sin & death to pass over us
  • Unleavened Bread - Christ's sinless body, broken and buried, to return later
  • The First Fruits of the resurrection harvest, is Christ
  • At Pentecost, Christ's Spirit descends for the second harvest - of Gentiles.
And thus people live now… until the Final era!
  • Trumpets will herald Christ's return
  • Christ's Atonement covers us on Judgement Day
  • His people will Tabernacle with Christ in the new heaven & earth
And thus people will live - forever.
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Whether you start with Creation, or start with Christ, the Feasts commemorate the whole of history, from the very beginning to the very end of the age.​ 

Noel Vose & Community

3/9/2020

 
“What house are you in?” ask students at the school at which I’ve recently begun regularly teaching. I wasn’t officially given a house, but I find myself gravitating to Vose house. Why? Those of us who knew him know why - he had a gravitational pull…

1) Noel loved us, all, in a specific, enthusiastic, enlivening way, that made each of us feel better than we were before the encounter. It’s as though he’d studied you & devised just the right gift for you, every time we met. Sometimes just a word or catching the eye would do it. He became more than my theological principal, he gave me great advice as a single man, and ultimately presided at my wedding. Once over dinner he pulled out a Robert Browning poem for us! Specific. Enthusiastic. Enlivening. Inspiring. Pr27:17 iron sharpens iron
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2) Noel had a way of dignifying normal life. We college boarders saw each others’ bad hair days, and once Noel asked my friend for a razor to shave because he’d left his at home. He was not embarrassed because he was genuinely humble. He knew that his little moments were just as significant as his global work. His gracious attitude was the same in all circumstances, everything was a gift from Christ. From the podium to the kitchen he was Christ's grateful servant. This inspired the community with integrity from top to bottom. Lk16:10 faithful in little things

3) Noel kept Christ at the centre of the community. Without this, communities inevitably drift. But Noel’s communities stayed true. He would often remind us that the college was to teach us to “think theologically,” because through Scripture we get to know Christ. Noel knew both intimately, which is why often you could tell he was led by the Spirit to say just the right thing, to have that gracious humility, to love that enlivening way. If everyone bathed in the Word and the Spirit like that, counselling services would become redundant. Eph5:26 washed with the word

Each house at this school has a theme, Courage, Character, Compassion, and that of Vose house is Community. This might surprise if you only knew Dr GN Vose from his Wiki page, looking at all his academic achievements and the Theological College he started. But that College was a Vose-like - no, Christ-like - community. It pulled people together. And I’ll warrant that same enthusiastic community was a hallmark of Noel's presidency of the Australian Baptist Union, and then of the Baptist World Alliance: he pulled people together. Noel regenerated discussions between Baptists and Mennonites in a way that hadn't happened since 1630! He planted a new church at 70! Community was his legacy. Back then we used to tease him about being "The Pope of the Baptists.” But he kind of was - in the best sense of “papa,” building up all of us who came to orbit around his truly Christian community.

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