Hebrew Gospel Pearls #29 – Amazing Grace

You are listening to Hebrew Gospel Pearls with Nehemia Gordon and Keith Johnson. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon's Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.

Keith: When I first met you in 2002, and we were talking about the Tanakh, and I said to you, “But Nehemia, you know what Yeshua teaches is to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself.” And you evangelized me. Do you remember what you said?

Nehemia: No!

Keith: Yes, you did!

Keith: Welcome to Hebrew Gospel Pearls 29. I’m calling it the “role up the sleeves series!” Why? Because we are here studying with Dr. Nehemia Gordon, PhD from Bar Ilan University. It’s not a joke for me; it’s something I take very, very, seriously. I’m very, very, honored to be able to study with you Nehemia, and I represent all of our study partners around the world. Say “the world”.

Nehemia: The world.

Keith: Who are joining with us in this process, we are already a couple episodes into season four. We’re now up to episode, as I mentioned, 29, and we’re going to get right into it.

Nehemia: Yeah.

Keith: We’re going to start Nehemia, with you giving us the Hebrew after I give us the English of two verses, folks. Oh! I’ve got to stop; I’ve got to tell folks something. What do I have to tell them?

We already have people who are preparing for our study together by going to the Red-Letter Series, they have to be Study Partners, and seeing the verses ahead that we’re going to be looking at. So, we have people right now who’ve actually gone through the process of going in, getting the information, the inspiration, revelation, and preparing in the comment section at both sites, so that we’re able to take that information and go from there.

So, we’re looking at Matthew chapter 5 verses 23 and 24 in English. I’m reading this, “Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.” Let’s hear it from you.

Nehemia: “Ve’im takriv korbancha la’mizbeach ve’tazkir” or, “ve’tizkor,” “she’haya lecha im chaverecha din ve’hu mitra’em mimcha me’ezeh devar, hanach korbanecha sham lifnei ha’mizbeach ve’lech le’ratzoto kodem, ve’achar kach hakrev korbanecha.” Very clear, right?

“If you bring your sacrifice to the altar and you remember,” or “you mentioned” is another possibility, we’ll get to that, “that you had some judgment with your fellow,” “with your friend,” “and he is enraged because of you because of some matter, leave your sacrifice there before the altar and go to appease him first, and afterwards bring your sacrifice.”

Keith: Awesome, awesome.

Nehemia: There’s so many things to talk about here.

Keith: Yeah.

Nehemia: But I think the first one I want to talk about is – what is the purpose of a sacrifice?

Keith: Excellent, excellent.

Nehemia: So, the Hebrew word for sacrifice is korban. Korban comes from the word karav which is “to bring something close.” That is, you’re presenting something, bringing it close to God. That’s a sacrifice.

Now interestingly, the Greek has for yikriv korban… and the verb for sacrifice is le’hakriv “to bring close”. So, you say, “makriv korban”, “bring close a sacrifice”, both the word “to bring the sacrifice” and the word for “sacrifice” itself – both are from the same three letter Hebrew root Quf-Resh-Bet, which means “close” or “to bring close”.

The Greek is prosagagei dora which is, “to offer a gift”.

Keith: Yes!

Nehemia: And so that’s the Greek here. For example, Leviticus 1:2, chapter 1 verse 2, “yakriv korban” is, prosagagei dora “to offer a gift”. So, it’s a different concept in Greek. What is the purpose of the sacrifice in the Torah? And we’ve talked about this probably in more detail than we’ll go into today.

Keith: Where did we talk about this?

Nehemia: Well, in the Torah Pearls that we did 10 years ago.

Keith: And we went over Leviticus?

Nehemia: It’ll be in Leviticus, in the first Torah portion, the portion of Vayikra.

Keith: Hours!

Nehemia: Do we talk about it for hours? I don’t even remember.

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: We actually now have a transcript of that. And when we did the transcript, it was very complicated, because first of all, there’s multiple people talking. And secondly, I’m told I talk fast. I don’t think I do, but people think I talk fast. And then I’m throwing in a lot of Hebrew words, so we needed to have someone who’s fluent in English to transcribe it, and who has a background in Hebrew. And we ended up having a process where we have two fluent Hebrew speakers, who are also fluent in English. One would transcribe it, and the other would check their transcription. And then we would have somebody check the English grammar, because these were native Hebrew speakers. So, I don’t know that the transcription is correct because I haven’t checked it myself, but it’s as correct as one could hope under the circumstances. So go check that out guys, Torah Pearls!

But there’s really two purposes of sacrifice here, one is thanksgiving and the other is atonement. And the Greek, where it talks about dora, which is a gift, I think that really only reflects the idea of a thanksgiving offering and not an atonement offering. Which is really interesting because what is the context here? Whether you’re reading in the English from the Greek or seeing what the Hebrew has to say here, the idea here is that you’re coming before the altar and there’s some aspect of repentance, and the message of I think what Yeshua is saying is, “Before you can get right with God, you have to get right with your fellow man.” Isn’t that how most people understand it?

Keith: Absolutely.

Nehemia: Okay. So that reflects a concept of sacrifice where it’s not a thanksgiving offering, it’s actually an atonement sacrifice. Now there is this claim, this thought, that sacrifices are only for unintentional sin, and I don’t know that we have entirely the time to get into all of that, but I want to look at Numbers 15:22 to 31, if we’re going to talk about sacrifices. And maybe we’ll just read verses 30 to 31. Can we look at that? Can I get you to read that? Numbers 15.

Keith: Absolutely. Now, here’s the deal Nehemia. I just wanted to tell you, I’m very excited about this; I changed my English Bible! What did you say you wanted me to read?

Nehemia: Well, we’re going to look at Numbers 15. I don’t think we’re going to read the whole… well let’s read it, starting with verse 22.

Keith: 15 in verse 22? You probably didn’t hear about this; this is my grandma’s Bible (My Grandmother’s Bible).

Nehemia: Is it really? I don’t know that story.

Keith: Yeah, I won’t go into great detailed whole story, we did a whole series.

Nehemia: You did?

Keith: You probably didn’t even see this series.

Nehemia: Never heard of it. Where is it? On your website somewhere?

Keith: No, no, it’s The Name of God Pure and Simple, on Shabbat Night Live. I did a whole series.

Nehemia: Oh, you did it here?

Keith: And I used this Bible.

Nehemia: In this studio.

Keith: My grandma’s Bible, this is a 1901 version, so it’s got stuff in here like, you know… pretty cool.

Nehemia: Like what?

Keith: Lots of stuff.

Nehemia: That’s cool.

Keith: Anyway, tell me, what’s the verse?

Nehemia: Numbers 15:22, because here it’s talking about unintentional sin.

Keith: Okay 22 until what?

Nehemia: We’re going to go through 31.

Keith: Oh my goodness! And now I’m reading the Old King James here guys, on purpose. “If ye have erred, and not observed all these commandments, which the LORD hath spoken unto Moses, even all that the LORD hath commanded you by the hand of Moses, from the day that the LORD commanded Moses, and henceforward among your generations; then it shall be, if ought be committed by ignorance…”

Nehemia: Meaning “If anything.”

Keith: Right. “Ignorance without the knowledge of the congregation, that all the congregation shall offer one young bullock for a burnt offering, for a sweet savor unto the LORD, with his meat offering, and his drink offering, according to the manner, and one kid of the goats for a sin offering.”

Nehemia: So what it’s describing is there’s something that the congregation does that’s a sin, and it’s unintentional. Now, how do you do something unintentionally? What does that mean? So, I think there’s two major possibilities – we talked about this in Torah Pearls as well, I think we did – so one unintentional sin is I do something that I don’t realize is forbidden by the Torah: that’s an unintentional sin. Or there’s another scenario where I know that’s forbidden by the Torah, but I don’t realize I’m doing it.

Let’s take for the example, I didn’t have a Torah education and I didn’t realize it’s forbidden to eat shrimp, and so I’m eating shrimp, and somebody says, “Wait, you’re not allowed to eat that shrimp, it’s forbidden in the Torah.” That’s unintentional sin. Another scenario is I know shrimp is forbidden and I’m eating something, and I think it’s…

Keith: Somebody offers it to you.

Nehemia: …white fish or something, and I find out later that they mixed some shrimp in there. So those are two types of unintentional sin; that’s what Numbers is talking about here.

Keith: Wow.

Nehemia: And in that situation, you need to bring certain types of sacrifice, sin offerings. Let’s read verse 25.

Keith: Okay.

Nehemia: It says, “The priest will make an atonement for all the congregation of the children of Israel, and it shall be forgiven for them; for it is ignorance.” The Hebrew doesn’t say “ignorance”, it says “shgagah”, which is unintentional sin or accident. “And they shall bring their offering, a sacrifice made by fire unto Yehovah, and their sin offering before Yehovah, for their ignorance.” Again, their unintentional sin. “And it shall be forgiven all the congregation of the children of Israel and the stranger that sojourns among them; seeing all the people were in ignorance,” or they acted “be’shgagah”, that is, without intention.

Now here’s the key, “And if any soul sin through ignorance, then he shall bring a she goat.” So, in other words, now it’s the individual, before it was the congregation. We’ll skip ahead, same thing basically, bring the sacrifice. Verse 30 to 31 is the key.

Keith: Got it.

Nehemia: “But the soul that does anything presumptuously.”

Keith: What does presumptuously mean?

Nehemia: “Whether he may be,” and in the Hebrew it says “be’yad ramah”, “with a high hand”.

Keith: Aha, yes!

Nehemia: Alright?

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: “God, I know it’s forbidden to eat shrimp, I know You forbade that, and I know this is shrimp, and I’m still going to do it because I don’t care what You have to say, God.” That’s “be’yad ramah”, “with a high hand”.

“So, anyone who does anything with a high hand, whether he be born in the land, or a stranger, the same reproaches Yehovah,” that is, that person is “blaspheming”, is literally what it could be translated as, or he’s cursing God through his act, “that soul shall be cut off from his people. Because he has despised the word of Yehovah, and has broken His commandment, that soul shall utterly be cut off; his iniquity shall be upon him.”

So if you do something intentionally, where you know it’s a sin and you just don’t care, you doing it “be’yad ramah” – and I’m going to get back to “just don’t care”, because I want to be careful here with what it says – the sacrifice doesn’t help you.

Now, there is a difference between two different types of things that are not accidental, and “yad ramah” I don’t think applies to both of them. One of them is, “Yeah, I know it’s a sin and I just don’t care because I don’t care what God has to say.”

Keith: Yeah.

Nehemia: The other is, “In a moment of weakness I do something I know I’m not supposed to do.” I once had this conversation with my father. My father was an Orthodox rabbi, and I said to him, “There are certain people in your congregation who you know they sin. You have adulterers in your congregation, and they were caught in adultery, and they still come to your congregation. Why do you treat them differently than people who choose a certain lifestyle that is a sinful lifestyle?” And my father… I’ll never forget this, because he was quoting Yeshua…

Keith: How old were you when you asked this question?

Nehemia: I don’t remember, I think I was an adult.

Keith: Okay! I was like “goodness gracious”.

Nehemia: Because I knew he was quoting Yeshua without realizing it was Yeshua. My father said, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” And I’m like, “He’s no idea he’s quoting the New Testament!” But his point was – and it’s a profound point I think, he’s 100% right – I think that’s what “yad ramah” means. There’s a difference between, “I sin in a moment of weakness” or “I sin because I am weak” versus, “I sin, and I declare what I’m doing to be righteous”. That’s what “yad ramah” is. “Yad ramah” is “I’m sinning, and you know what? God has to accept what I do, and so do you.” That’s “yad ramah”, “to do something with a high hand”. That’s what God says here. That’s not going to be forgiven. That’s not going to be forgiven unless there’s genuine repentance. The sacrifice requires repentance as well, as we will see if we have time, but the sacrifice is useless to someone who does it “be’yad ramah”, who says, “You have to accept my lifestyle. God has to accept it too, or God is hateful.” Well, God forbade it. “Well, God better accept me, because He’s all love, and He’s required to accept me.” That’s to do something presumptuously, that’s to do it with a high hand, and that is the place where it says, “Yeah, the sacrifice is of no help to you. You bear your sin.”

Now, what does a person who sins, what do they do? Well, we have repentance. It talks about repentance in Deuteronomy 4:25 to 31, an interesting… let’s see what it says there… 25 to 31. Can you read it?

Keith: Okay. I’m sorry, I’m sorry Nehemia.

Nehemia: No, worries.

Keith: I thought you were tap tapping. Give it to me again.

Nehemia: Well, I’ve got it here.

Keith: Deuteronomy, which one?

Nehemia: 4:25 to 31.

Keith: 25 to 31, “When thou shalt beget children, and children’s children, and ye shall have remained long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and make a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, and shall do evil in the sight of the LORD thy God, to provoke Him to anger.” Boy! That sounds like what we talked about.

Nehemia: Yeah, we’ve quoted that, a similar verse of that actual verse.

Keith: How far do you want me to go?

Nehemia: To 31.

Keith: I love how he says, “I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto ye go over the Jordan to possess it; ye shall not prolong your days upon it but shall utterly be destroyed. And the LORD shall scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the LORD shall lead you. And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.”

Nehemia: So, these are people who have lived long in the land and they’ve become corrupt, and they sin through idolatry and they’re exiled from the land, they’re punished. Now, it gives them a way back. Let’s hear what that way back is… it doesn’t say anything about sacrifice. Let’s see what happens.

Keith: Do you want me to keep reading 29?

Nehemia: Yeah.

Keith: “But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find Him, if thou seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

Nehemia: So, sacrifice isn’t part of this picture, this is not unintentional sin. This is people who sin because they wanted to, they sin because their neighbors were worshipping idols, and they said, “Well, we want to worship our god with an idol too, or maybe we want to worship that other god so those people will accept us.” And those people, they can find God, they can return to God, but they have to seek Him with all of their heart and soul. Keep going.

Keith: “When thou art in tribulation,” say tribulation.

Nehemia: Tribulation.

Keith: “and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the LORD thy God, and shalt be obedient unto His voice; for the LORD thy God is a merciful God; He will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which He swore upon them.”

Nehemia: So here in verse 30 is actually something really important, which is, “return to Yehovah” and return there, that word in Hebrew is the word “repent”. In later Hebrew, we have the form “tshuva”. In Biblical Hebrew it’s just “shuv” without the Tav at the beginning, but it’s the word “repentance”. So, there is a process of repentance in the Torah that doesn’t involve sacrifice, and why does that work? I mean, because if we sin, surely God should just carry out the judgment. You should just die for your sin, right?

But Exodus 34:6 to 7 of… we’ve taught on this in the past, Moses asked God, “What are Your attributes? What are Your characteristics?” And God says, “Yehovah! Yehovah! Yehovah is Yehovah!” “El rachum ve’chanun,” “A God who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faith,” etc. So, there’s mercy, there’s grace, and God has that; that’s part of God’s characteristics.

Jeremiah 7:25 to 26 also addresses this issue, “From the days your fathers left the land of Egypt until today, and though I kept sending all My servants, the prophets to them daily and persistently, they would not listen to Me or give ear. They stiffen their necks, they acted worse than their fathers.” And so, we have this process where Israel is just… they want to sin, they like sinning.

Ezekiel 18:21 to 23 talks about this idea of repentance, “Moreover, if the wicked one repents of all the sins that he committed and keeps all My laws and does what is just and right, he shall live, he shall not die. None of the transgressions he committed…” Now, these are intentional transgressions; this is the person who sacrifices won’t help him. That’s part of Yeshua’s message here. Sacrifice is not a panacea; sacrifice is not a get out of jail free card. You can’t just bring a sacrifice and still be a sinful person. And if you have an issue with your neighbor and you bring a sacrifice, leave the sacrifice, walk away, and go make sure you’re right with your neighbor. It says, “None of the transgressions he committed shall be remembered against him; because of the righteousness he has practiced, he shall live.” So, this is a person who turned from sinfulness to a life of righteousness. It’s true repentance, nothing to do with sacrifice, and this is a theme throughout the Tanakh.

God says, “’Is it my desire that a wicked person shall die?’ says the Lord Yehovah, ‘Is it rather that he turn away from his ways and live?’” So, there’s this idea in the Tanakh that God wants you to repent, and those sacrifices, those help when you have the unintentional sin, and in some cases intentional sins, certain types of intentional sins. But ultimately you need to have repentance, and Yeshua is addressing… this is something the Prophets said, they talk about, the Prophets, “Do I want these rivers of blood?” And then famously, Samuel said to Saul, “God wants obedience not sacrifice.”

So people think, “Oh, I’ll just get a get out of jail free card, I’ll bring the blood of the animal and that blood will cleanse me,” and Yeshua’s saying, “That blood’s not going to help you if you’re still sinning. Don’t try to get right with God if you’ve got something where you’re not right with man.”

Keith: So Nehemia, I just want to say something here. What I find interesting about the verse is a theme, and the theme is… please allow me to use an image, can I just use an image? Please don’t be offended.

Nehemia: What’s that?

Keith: When I first became a part of the church, I heard this verse from Yeshua that said, “To love God and to love people.” I remember our youth pastor. The youth pastor stands up and he says, “How are you going to remember this?” He says, “It’s the sign of the cross.” What’s the sign of the cross? Now just bear with me, you’re going to like this.

Nehemia: Okay!

Keith: The sign of the cross was, there’s a vertical relationship – your relationship with God. Now this was me early… listen folks, I am an unchurched guy, I didn’t know the church, I didn’t hear about the church until I was 14 years old, so for me this was brand new stuff.

Nehemia: Okay.

Keith: He says, “First you have to have a relationship with God that’s vertical, then you have to have a horizontal relationship, that’s with the people around you.” And I remember thinking about that, thinking, “Is that really necessary?” And the more that I grew in my faith, I was like, “Man, it’s so much easier for me to have this relationship with God, it’s so difficult to have a relationship with people!” And this idea that if you had this gift that you’re bringing, that you’re bringing it to God, He would say, “Leave to rest that there, and go and take care of business with someone else.” I mean, it almost seemed like that was just too radical, but is that something beyond what Yeshua taught, in other parts of the Tanakh?

Nehemia: I would say there’s definitely here a major… this is interesting, there’s this major split between Judaism and Christianity. And Yeshua, especially what He’s teaching here in the Sermon on the Mount, is on the side of Judaism. And Christianity is almost alien to what He’s teaching.

Keith: Yes!

Nehemia: So the Christian ideal – and by Christian, I know some people say, “Well, they weren’t Christians.” Well, that’s what people thought were Christians.

Keith: Right, right.

Nehemia: In the earliest centuries of the Christian movement, the ideal was to be a monk who lives out in the mountains in a cave and has no interaction with the world.

Keith: That’s spiritual.

Nehemia: That’s the ideal; that’s true spirituality. Everything else is of the world, and you’re participating in the world, you’re of the world, and you’re lacking your spiritual pursuit. In Judaism, and this, I think, is a correct representation of the Tanakh and what Yeshua was teaching, the ideal is that you’re part of the human community…

Keith: Come on with that.

Nehemia: You’re part of the community you live in, and you interact with people every day, and you overcome your desire to sin. My desire is to gossip, my desire is to be jealous, my desire is to covet, and what Yeshua is teaching and what the Tanakh teaches is you live within that world, and you overcome those things. And you’re not always perfect, and that’s why we have repentance, that’s why we have mercy, that’s why we have grace.

Keith: Now, I’m going to tell you something, and I think I might have told this before, but I’m going to say it again. I was embarrassed when we started, when I first met you in 2002, and we were talking about the Tanakh, and I said to you, “But Nehemia, you know, what Yeshua teaches is to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself.” And you evangelized me! Do you remember what you said?

Nehemia: No.

Keith: Yes, you did!

Nehemia: I evangelized you? Okay.

Keith: You evangelized me, and you said, “Keith, do you know where that verse comes from?” And I’m saying, “What do you mean? It came from Yeshua!” And what did you tell me?

Nehemia: It’s from Leviticus 19:19 and Deuteronomy 6:4.

Keith: The Old Book with all of those laws, what are you talking about? I mean, I’m telling you, when that happened… and again, this idea that He’s talking about, making a relationship with God, and making a relationship with each other, that you would literally slow down, then stop what you’re doing as your religious act… I mean, it’s almost like…

Nehemia: You know, this is something we were taught growing up, that there’s two types of commandments, there’s “bein adam le’chavero”, “between a man and his fellow”, and “bein adam la’makom”, “between man and God”.

Keith: Amen.

Nehemia: Those are two types of commandments, “between man and man” and, “between man and God”. And what Yeshua was saying is, “Don’t think you can get right with God if you’re not right with man. If you’ve wronged your fellow, you can ask God for all the repentance in the world you want.”

Keith: Yeah.

Nehemia: “You can bring all the sacrifices you want, you got to make it right with men first.” There’s this famous story of this Nazi who is on his deathbed in one of the camps. He’s a guard, and they bring one of the Jewish prisoners, and he says, “I’m about to die, and I have to ask you to forgive me. I have the blood of tens of thousands of people on my hands, tens of thousands of your fellow Jews, that I killed. Now I’m about to face God and I know this is wrong. Would you forgive me?”

And the Jew said to him… imagine a Jew is standing before a Nazi guard, and he’s saying, “No.” He says, “I can’t forgive you, because you didn’t kill me.” Not yet. “You need forgiveness from every one of those people whose blood you shed.” And that’s what Yeshua is teaching here – if you have done wrong to another human being, you need that person to forgive you before God is willing to forgive you. That’s what Yeshua’s teaching, which is a profound teaching.

Keith: Now Nehemia.

Nehemia: Yeah.

Keith: This whole series we’re calling Studying with Dr. Nehemia Gordon PhD, from Bar Ilan University. There are some words in these next two verses, one of them, our study assistant, Nelson, came up with that I thought is just phenomenal. We have a bunch of notes…

Nehemia: Oh! This is really powerful!

Keith: I’m just telling you, there’s some things right now, I’m not trying to, you know, but tell me, where do you think? I mean, we’re at 25 minutes right now.

Nehemia: So, I think they’ll have to be in the Plus section. Before we go, before we end the public section, I want to quote a man on TikTok named John Brown.

Keith: Excellent.

Nehemia: And there was this woman who was talking about how she was doing a teaching on the Sermon… a study on the Sermon on the Mount, not even teaching! And this comes up in my TikTok feed, and he posts something that was so profound I took a screenshot and sent it to you. And John Brown wrote, he said, “The Sermon on the Mount is not the Gospel. We live in the New Testament Epistles.” In other words, “We don’t want to hear.”

Keith: “We don’t need to hear about that.”

Nehemia: We don’t even care what Yeshua said. We don’t live our lives by what Yeshua taught in Matthew chapters 5 through 7. We don’t live in the Sermon on the Mount, we are now in a new dispensation, and that dispensation, this new period of history, ceased with the death of Jesus on the cross, and now in this new period of history we’re living in the era of the Epistles. Meaning the writings of Paul primarily. I’m sure he doesn’t want to hear too much about James, right?

Keith: Yeah, right.

Nehemia: So, I thought that was incredible.

Keith: Yeah.

Nehemia: That somebody would say that so clearly; now I don’t know who John Brown is, that might not even be his real name, but I think it reflects the view of many Christians, that, “Yeah, until all was fulfilled, everything that Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount is no longer relevant, or certainly not binding, that’s not the world in which we live.” And when you look at this passage which is talking about bringing sacrifice before the altar, I understand where they’re getting that idea. They’re saying, “Well, we don’t even have sacrifices, nobody brings sacrifices anymore.” But in the time of Paul, they were still bringing sacrifices!

That’s the whole point in Acts where they say, “People say you’re teaching against the Torah. Come to the Temple and perform a ceremony where people know that you’re not teaching against the Torah. Show them that.” So, in 70 AD, or CE, it’s true the Temple was destroyed, but there was a 40-year period or so, approximately, after Yeshua’s earthly ministry, as it’s called, until the Temple was destroyed, where there are people who believed in Yeshua who were bringing sacrifices. And there were people who heard the Sermon on the Mount and they said, “Wow, I’ve got the sacrifice I brought, and I realized I wronged my neighbor.” Now what do you do after there’s no more sacrifices to bring?

Keith: We’ve got to talk about that.

Nehemia: Well, in the Tanakh… we’ll talk about that in the next half.

Keith: We have to, we have to.

Nehemia: We’ll talk about that in the next half.

Keith: Folks! I hope you take advantage of this!

Nehemia: What’s so important about that, what John Brown is saying is, “We don’t live in that world. We don’t have sacrifices; we don’t have altars.” But it’s still relevant today. All you have to do is understand what Yeshua said for the period of altars; how does that apply today? And that’s the key to understanding this, not just in the context of today…

Keith: Yeah.

Nehemia: … but the context of 71 AD, the context of 135 AD, and the context of 2022. That’s what you need to understand that the answer for that is in the Tanakh.

Keith: This is why Studying with Dr. Nehemia Gordon PhD from Bar Ilan, is no small thing. I appreciate that Nehemia. We’re going to go to the Plus section. In the Plus section you become a Premium Member at BFA International, and you have access to everything, including biblical Hebrew course, so many things.

But, again, for you folks that are listening right now, I just did an exercise. Nehemia didn’t play with it too much, but my friend Brian, I call him “Gib Master”. He owns an Android and I asked Nehemia to open up his Apple phone, and he opened his Apple phone, and I’ve got my Apple phone. For those of you that are listening right now that are not our Study Partners, not rolling up the sleeves, we have created an entire free app for you to have access to episodes 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, and 31 of our public episodes.

People around the world – Africa, Asia, you take your phone, you go to BFAFLIX. In fact, I want your people…

Nehemia: Wait, that’s a…

Keith: Just a second now.

Nehemia: Wait, it’s a cute thing, it’s like Netflix, but BFAFLIX?

Keith: No… it’s hot! No, BFAFLIX, Biblical Foundations Academy. You can do either one, in the Android store, which Brian just did, it took him two seconds. You don’t have to have your email, you don’t have to have your credit card, you don’t have to register, all you do is get it. You have access to everything free; we don’t track you; we’re not looking for you.

And why did we do this, Nehemia? Because we are on platforms where they do that very thing! We want to be able to get to a place where people have access to it without agenda, same thing at the Apple store, same thing with BFAFLIX. Everyone make sure that you do that right now, click it, and you’ve got the free app.

Nehemia, is there anything else you want to say? We’re about to go to the Plus.

Nehemia: There’s a whole lot we want to say, but we’ll have to save it for the Plus section!

Keith: We’ll save it for the Plus folks, please understand.

Nehemia: Yeah.

Keith: We’re giving you, our free folks, as much as we can right now, but we’re going to move to our rolling up the sleeves Study Partners. You become a BFA Premium Member, or Nehemia’s Wall supporters.

Nehemia: Support team studies, yeah.

Keith: And as a result, they have access. Nehemia, you already know the story. Go ahead and say a prayer.

Nehemia: Father, thank you so much for giving us this opportunity to come before You, and giving us this system of sacrifice, and the system that You teach us in the Tanakh, what we can do when there’s no sacrifice, and letting us understand that we must be right with our fellows, to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, and in the same way, love Yehovah our God with all our heart, all our soul and all our essence.

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: Amen.

Keith: Father, thank you so much for the challenge that Yeshua has put forward to us, that even as we approach You, even now in this prayer. As I come before You to offer a gift of prayer, I have to ask myself the question, is there anything going on out there that I need to get right with others? And I will continue to take this message and apply it in my life. I pray that those that are listening will do the same. Thank you for the entire Tanakh, that has a message of both love for You, and repentance, change, shifting, molding, shaping, all the things that take place that we have in our lives that we can do to make our relationship with You whole and true. Bless this process, we ask in Your name. Amen.

Nehemia: Amen.

You have been listening to Hebrew Gospel Pearls with Nehemia Gordon and Keith Johnson. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon’s Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.

We hope the above transcript has been a helpful resource in your study. While much effort has been taken to provide you with this transcript, it should be noted that the transcript has not been reviewed by the speakers and its accuracy cannot be guaranteed. If this teaching has been a blessing to you, please consider supporting Nehemia's research and teachings, so he can continue to empower people around the world with the Hebrew sources of their faith!