Holy Hormones Bible Study: Teaching — not Entertainment
Grape juice or the Finest Vintage?
FEAST OF UNLEAVENED BREAD #3
Disclosure: I’m not a Messianic. I’m an NT Saint who has been exposed to my OT Heritage.
This looks like it will become a long series so the usual preamble will not be included in each post. Enough to say, “There will often, not always, be a lot more detail than in the usual Medium fare.”
Also, the topics will come in the order they will come; rag-tag manner may be the best description. Every effort will be made to prevent the progressive posts becoming too congested but no promises made. If you happen to like what you read, there’s more to be found here.
Spring is coming
It is time to think about the Crucifixion, and address some of the apparent ambiguities in the Narrative. There is no intention here to get mixed up in the robust debate but to try and diffuse the annual shouting matches by throwing the Written Word of the Living Word of God into the mix in an effort to differentiate between L-A-W and L-O-R-E.
The topics covered so far are:-
FEAST OF UNLEAVENED BREAD #1 Is the First day the 1st day?
FEAST OF UNLEAVENED BREAD #2 What bread is used in the Feast of the Unleavened Bread?
- THIS IS MY BLOOD
Was wine a component of the Passover in Egypt?
Neither ‘wine’ nor ‘vine’ are mentioned associated with the Rescue from Egypt, so it wouldn’t be expected to be part of a Passover meal. However, ‘wine’ is a Key Component for the Last Supper and Communion so it cannot be ignored.
Wine or grape juice?
It is not unusual for New Testament Saints to postulate that the wine of Passover was actually grape juice. However the circular calendar displaying the Lord’s Feasts shows that Passover happens early in the Northern Spring (March-April), during the barley harvest, while the table of crops shows that the grape harvest occurs during late August through September. Without refrigeration the grape juice would be wine for the next spring about six months later.
But wine fermentation involves yeast (leaven)
This apparently presents a problem because of the prohibition of leaven for the modern Passover Meal. But not so. The following is a question and answer on the subject from the Rabbinical website Cherbad.org.
Question to Rabbi:
Why is it permitted to drink wine on Passover when it is fermented with yeast? Isn’t yeast forbidden on Passover?
Answer from the Rabbi:
Of the hundreds of species of yeast, the Passover prohibition only applies to yeast which is a product of one of the following five grains: wheat, barley, oat, spelt, or rye. Yeast which is the product of grapes, or its sugars, is not considered chametz (leavened food).
So what?
I don’t really know what but the Holy Spirit placed it in the Scriptures for some reason. It was surprising for me to find that the Bread of the Last Supper, symbolic of the Body of Christ, was made with leaven. It is just as surprising that the Wine, symbolic of His Blood, also contained leaven — but there was/is something different about it. You may have the answer to a question that hasn’t come to mind, yet, so don’t brain fart it out. (Detail is soooo good.)
You may have noticed
The word, ‘Seder,’ has not been used. There will be a deliberate effort in this series to avoid using a number of trigger words (such as days of the week) until absolutely necessary because of the reflex reactions they prod. As Ravi Zacharias (am I allowed to utter that name?) wisely said, “We have become a society which hears with our eyes and thinks with our emotions.
The forgoing evidence has not been presented to convince any reader but to allow a personal decision to be made. There is much more to know about this subject. Perhaps you’ll pay another visit, sometime.
All Glory to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
(We all have a plank in our eye. It’s bigger than we think.)
