Hello Grafted In Reader,
Today is Thursday, June 6, in my corner of blogland. Year 2024.
Interestingly, this day celebrates a milestone in the U.S. military history as related to WWII. Next week, those who adhere to a Hebraic perspective of faith will recognize that God gave the Torah to His people on Mount Sinai. This occurred within three months of the Children of Israel departing Egypt.
Centuries later, at the Festival of Pentecost or Shavuot in Hebrew, God visited if you will the assembled in Israel by his Spirit enabling messengers to proclaim his Words in their respective tongue. In both cases, God gives something of himself and still is doing so in a myriad of ways!
The New Covenant Scriptures describe this second event in a book titled "Acts Of The Apostles". See the second chapter.
Pentecost or Shavuot along with June 6, being D-Day in Military terms, have in common people being attentive to what was occurring around them; people engaged in hearing and observing the activities occurring around them.
As a result of Pentecost or Shavuot, the message of God's grace and goodness would within two centuries, be expanded to include the entire globe at that time. Arguably, this is occurring today.
This week, I began reading a title by Dr. Jeffrey Seif, "To The Ends Of The Earth". You can find this online at sites like Amazon, GoodReads, and the paid reading site, everand.com.
The author provides us a summary at the end of his second chapter worth tending to.He asserts that early church history was largely influenced through Jewish men and women embracing God's message and being significantly involved in its expansive outreach for some time. See Below from his text:
Chapter 2 Jerusalem-Based Messianic Judaism
In sum, it is to be observed that a vibrant Messianic Jewish movement flourished in Judea before the first Roman war and that it was established there afresh immediately after the debacle. The ancients also note that the movement flourished in Judea till the second Jewish-Roman war. Though there had been a vibrant Jewish expression of Messianic faith, things began to change. Over time, and owing to the Gospel’s expansion to non-Jews in the broader culture, the Empire was “Christianized” by a Roman church that saw itself alone as
representative of the New Chosen People of God! In the wake of this, Messianic Jews were denigrated and displaced, seen only as the reigning church’s ancient vanquished rival, leftover fruits from a condemned system. Jewishness was despised—the message of Israel’s Messiah was framed exclusively in non-Jewish terms and given a non-Jewish expression. This situation prevailed well into the present modern era and is now slowly being addressed by bold women and men bent on investigating legitimate biblical forms of Jewish faith."
Today, let us ask God to enable us to be brave, courageous, decided and steadfast in our God-given convictions. May our lives be such that people notice we can do much because God gives us each the strength to do so.
Happy Summer if you observe this season now; Happy Winter if you on the other hand, are observing this season now.
To those with a faith practice, Happy Pentecost or Shavuot. See your calendars for 2024 for date of this Hebraic Holiday.
Thank you for dropping by. Let's visit often!
Mellow Rock
David C. Russell, Author
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