Rabbi’s Reflections – Thursday, April 2, 2020
Shalom *|FNAME|*,
Psalm 91:4 He will cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you will find refuge. His faithfulness is body armor and shield.
“He will cover you….” The rest is details. The concept of “covering” here is “shielding protection.” Protection is what Psalm 91 is all about; it’s what this world of virus mitigation is all about. Allstate Insurance calls themselves “the good hands people.” Well they borrowed that from God who has the whole world in His hands.
The idea of “finding refuge” is a poetic carry-over from verse 2 where we already read “He is my refuge.” A “refuge” is a place of protection in a storm. “His faithfulness” is “Amito” in Hebrew. It means “eternal truth.” This also hearkens back to verse 2, “evtach bo,” meaning “I will count (depend) on Him.”
“Because He is faithful…” This goes both ways. We refer to God as faithful, but by the time we get to verse 14 God refers to us as faithful. Have you ever heard the phrase, “I got ‘dis?” Well, “dis” is one time you don’t want to got ‘dis yo-sef.
Week 14
Memory Verse: Psalm 19:14 Also keep Your servant from willful sins. May they not have dominion over me. Then I will be blameless, free from great transgression.
66 3/30 Monday: Judges 6-7
67 3/31 Tuesday: Judges 13-14
68 4/1 Wednesday: Judges 15-16
* 69 4/2 Thursday: Ruth 1-2
70 4/3 Friday: Ruth 3-4
Question of the day: Who is Ruth, really?
Answer: Ruth is Ruth. She is the great-grandmother of King David. She is not Jewish. She was from Moab. That’s who she is in the flesh, but in the spirit she is all of us. Before you go, “Wait a minute, Rabbi,” read the rest of this.
We have no trouble seeing the significance of Ruth to non-Jews, but what about Jews? Yes, even Jewish people have some identity in Ruth.
Rabbi Trail: Before I go on, let me say that I read these two chapters today as if for the first time. I cried my eyes out with passion for the sweet story of how Ruth attaches herself to the promises of God, and in so doing, becomes the great-grandmother of King David and part of the direct lineage of Yeshua. End RT.
No matter what our background is, we all need to be rooted in the promises of God. Jewish people and non-Jewish people have a heritage in faith. Read all of the “by-faith” statements found in Hebrews 11. Ruth is making a marriage level covenant when she affirms Naomi in saying, “Let nothing but death separate us.” This is a picture of our covenant with Yeshua.
And now, here it is… one of the best verses of Scripture for Messianic Jewish theology. Ruth 1:16 Ruth replied, “Do not plead with me to abandon you, to turn back from following you. For where you go, I will go, and where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God my God. Before anyone mistakes my meaning, let me say this. I don’t mean that anyone has to become Jewish. But we do have to love what God loves, and God loves Israel. Israel He calls the apple of His eye (Zechariah 2:8).
The Lord God is watching to see those who make the identification (both Jewish people and non-Jewish people) to be one of His people, part of the one new man. Ephesians 2:11 Therefore, keep in mind that once you—Gentiles in the flesh—were called “uncircumcision” by those called “circumcision” (which is performed on flesh by hand). 12 At that time you were separate from Messiah, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 BUT NOW in Messiah Yeshua, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of the Messiah. 14 For He is our shalom, the One who made the two into one and broke down the middle wall of separation. Within His flesh He made powerless the hostility— 15 the law code of mitzvot contained in regulations. He did this in order to create within Himself one new man from the two groups, making shalom, 16 and to reconcile both to God in one body through the cross—by which He put the hostility to death. 17 And He came and proclaimed shalom to you who were far away and shalom to those who were near— 18 for through Him we both have access to the Father by the same Ruach. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household.