Shabbat Study Thoughts on Devarini - Words
It is almost 3 a.m., and once again, I am scrambling to prepare myself to have intelligent relevant questions for today's Torah portion taught by Messianic Rabbi David Stone Jr. in Beaumont Texas. Messianic Rabbi David Stone Jr, once mentioned that he grew up in the Catholic faith, I had no idea that if you were not born a jew you could be a Messianic Rabbi or even a member of a Messianic Torah observant congregation - then I did some research and it turns out that many Messianic Torah observant people were not born Jews, but come from many different faith backgrounds.
This made my heart leap with joy. If you had peeked in my tiny kitchen window you would have seen a funny sight indeed as I danced joyfully around singing,
"I can be a Jew!You can be a Jew!We can all be Messianic Jews!C'mon ev'ry body sing-We can all be Messianic Jews!"
Shortly after that, I discovered people who were born Jews are not happy with people who are Messianic Torah observant believers calling themselves Messianic Jews. So.... perhaps the best description of my faith according to people could be MTO - though I'm not sure exactly how Torah observant I am,
Anyway, back to the scriptures recommended for today - or as some might think of it -these two days - Friday evening to Saturday evening.
Torah- Deuteronomy 1:1-3:22
Haftarah- Isaiah 1:1-27
New Covenant- Acts 7:51-8:4
and that the name of this particular section of the study is called "Devarim" which means "Words".
Reflecting on Devarim - Words
Interesting, how Our Father's timing is perfect. As I am typing this, I am listening to a Christian Meditation from YouTube on the following scriptures:
"Therefore, Every person who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock." - Yeshua Matthew 7:24
"Be doers of the word - James 1:22
As I listen to this meditation I am also put in mind of the scripture where Our Saviour states,
"Whoever hears the word of the LORD and obeys them - they are my brothers, sisters, and mother."
So, let's look in the book and see how we might be able to apply the words of today's scriptures into practice.
Thoughts on Deuteronomy 1:1-3:22
Have you ever wondered what Deuteronomy means? According to an article on the Christian Today website, Deuteronomy comes from the ancient Greek word Deuteronominion meaning "second law" or "copy of the law" so the English translators of this Hebrew book must have taken the name of this book from the ancient Greek translation! However, the Hebrew name for this book is Devarim or Words. This is from the first verse in Words.
The first verse of Deuteronomy is
Something I have often wondered is - why on earth when people translated the Bible from its original languages did they change the names of places and people? Something I treasure about the Blue Letter Bible is how easy it is to listen to the pronunciations of the original names of people and places in the Bible. I have written the scripture below to help me to try to learn the correct pronunciation of the people's and place's names in this passage:
These are the words which Mose (Moshay) spoke to all Yisra'el (Yeez rye ale) acrossYarden(Yardane) in the wilderness at Araba (Aravah), opposite Sup (Soof) between Paran and Topel (Towe phe) and Laban (Lah vahn) and Haserot (Hat say rowe f) and Dizahab (Deez ah hav)
