During the time before His crucifixion, Y'shua spent considerable effort contending with the Pharisees about their interpretation of God's law as given by Moses. In these encounters, there are several key phrases: "You have heard it said..." and "It is written..." What to these phrases signify and what does that mean to us today?

The visions of the lampstand, the flying scroll and the woman in the basket. Zechariah, seeing future things with which he had no experience used contemporary images to describe them. The word translated 'woman' also could be translated 'fire'. In our understanding, evil fire in a 5 gallon container with a lead cover might be a nuclear weapon.

In constructing the Tabernacle, God asked for the finest materials and the best craftsmen to produce a work of beauty. The world around us is being turned into ugly. Our cities have become homeless camps, our architecture has devolved into concrete boxes, our young are mutilating themselves. All of this ugliness is designed to dispirit the people of God and make them easier to manipulate. The message is that your selfishness is all that stands in the way of utopia. This is nothing more than enemy propaganda. Beauty is important and spiritually uplifting. God wants your talent and initiative to follow His example in improving the world.

In this first series of visions the Lord tells Zechariah that He is displeased with the nations who have chastened Israel. Although their actions were initiated by God, they went beyond their brief. God assures the prophet that He will once again bless Israel because of her repentance. He will remember His covenant and will deal with the nations appropriately.

The impulse to worship idols is still with us today. The form has changed from from biblical times. We no longer fashion calves of gold as in Exodus or offer sacrifices to Baal as in 1 Kings but we still turn away from God to other means of meeting our desires. In both the Exodus and Kings examples the people's hearts were hardened toward God. It took Moses and Elijah, two hard men whose hearts were soft toward God to set matters right again. Today too many soft men with hard hearts are leading religious institutions and many have gone astray.

The group of Psalms from Ps 60 to Ps 108 heavily refer to Joseph and the Northern Kingdom of Israel. In these three Psalms we see evidence of two Messiahs, one from Joseph and the other from Judah.

The Bible over and over tells believers to 'fear not.' That is true in context but not in general. The choice in life is between fear of the world or fear of God. The choice is binary, there is no other option. If one chooses the fear of God, the fear of the world becomes a non issue.

Psalm 110 introduces the idea of a priestly king. Heretofore priests have come from Levi and kings from either Judah or Ephraim. This change and the reasons therefore are explained in the Book of Hebrews.

I read a comment by a pastor I respect saying that the Sabbath had been 'nailed to the cross' and that he celebrates the 'resurrected Sabbath.' Is this sound doctrine? Is there any scriptural support for such a belief? Does it matter?

When I was young in the faith, I had real trouble finding someone who could give me a coherent explanation of the Gospel.