April 9th, 2020

1st Day of Unleavened Bread

Greetings to each of you,

As far as I have been informed, everyone is well and safe! For that we truly thank God for His protection, His calling and all that He does for each one of us every day!

I received some questions regarding why we keep the Passover a day before the Jews do, which is the day marked on most of the commercially produced calendars these days.

First off, don’t get confused by commercially printed calendars as the ones printed overseas now start the week with Monday and end with Sunday as the 7th day of the week.

Keep in mind that when the sun goes down on the 13th it is now the 14th. No waiting until midnight as the world counts time because God set the days from sundown to sundown or from even to even. Some translations say evening to evening. All meaning the same thing!

It is quite the long study to see how all of this works out but the scripture tells us to keep the Passover on the 14th of Abib (Nisan after the month was renamed during Ezra’s time) And this is why we wait until the Sun goes down on the evening of the 13th, which is what Christ did in the new testament when He sat down (at the appointed time) with the disciples.

I do some astronomy work these days and have been learning for over 20 years now but on the night of the Passover this year the Moon was a 14 day moon exactly! So that made it the 14th day of Abib and in total agreement with God’s instructions for the Passover.

The Jews do today just what they were doing in Christ time and that being they roll Passover and the 7 days of Unleavened Bread all into what they call “Passover Week”.

In reading of the New Testament you will see some language that makes the timing seem confusing as they say things like “the day of Passover being at hand” but now that you know they roll the whole week together as one and do not separate out the 7 days of ULB and make Passover a separate event, you see why that language was used.

And that adds more understanding to Passover as it was and is an event that we do in Memorial, and because it is not a day, it is not a Holy Day. It is an Event!

Just because the Jews have the Oracles of God does not mean they keep them. I have a set of 1911 encyclopedias but I can tell you for sure, I do not know all the information that is in them. I just am the keeper of them, preserver if you will.

Now let’s put a nice bow on this and wrap it all up:
It starts when God gives the Authority to the Tribe of Levi to establish a Priesthood for the children of Israel. In setting up this Authority God also sets up “Laws” concerning the Priesthood, the tabernacle, the offerings (the sin offering, the grain offering, the drink offering), even the sacrifices and so on. And when you read that the “Law was done away with” this reference is to the Law concerning the Priesthood and not the 10 Commandments!

One of the things that God gave the Priesthood the authority to do was to determine the beginning of months. They did this by the sighting of the new moon crescent and then passed that information throughout their land by the blowing of the Trumpet or by messenger. They had the responsibility/Authority to carry out this task and God honored how they did it. Even when the postponements were added years later!

So after Christ comes he sets up a new chain of Authority which we find In Heb 1:1. He established that He is the Head of the Church and that He ordains certain areas of responsibly/Authority to see that His Church is lead by truth, cared for, feed and counseled as the need arises.

There is a section of Scripture that says “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in Heaven”. This has to do with issues like making sure we are following as close as possible the instructions given to us in how we Worship and what days we hold Sacred, as well as rightly dividing the Word of God.

We do this through multitude of counsel so that one person’s strong opinion does not override God’s inspired purpose. However from time to time there will be such a person who will not follow good council or submit to Authority and they go out on their own and draw away others to themselves. God says He hates this and these people will be held accountable for leading others astray!

Having said all of that, this does not release any of us from our personal responsibility to read the Scriptures and to be lead by God’s Holy Spirit! In doing so, we will be able to discern the fruits of the spirit and not get lulled into following a person who is self serving and self deceived.

Scripture says “you will know them by their fruits” and that is so true today.

So as we go through this week of Unleavened Bread let each of us look at the fruits in our own lives and ask this. Are they puffed up fruits or are they good fruits?

I can honestly say that I don’t see a lot of bad fruit in our Church Family. Our efforts as a Church are standing for truth, helping one another, meeting with one another when we can and speaking kindly to one another.

I know this Passover was quite different for most of us as was our case here at home. We felt a different kind of vulnerability and a connection with the Children of Israel when they were told “not to go out until Morning”. It was a different sense of appreciation knowing that God has passed over our previously committed sins. We can let those go!

Hold fast what you have, not that we have all knowledge but we have Christ, His sacrifice and His promises!

Till next we meet, In Christ Name.

Dave Campbell, Pastor