1483 - Q & A - A Shabbat Day's Journey?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Each weekday, Dr. Crisp will be discussing biblical passages, people, places, and prophecy. Tune in daily to start your day right and deepen your understanding of how to better walk the way and enjoy the journey. Here's your host, Dr. Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Welcome to On the Way. This is Tony Crisp, and this is Podcast 1483. Well, it's Friday, and today I'm going to try to do my best to answer a question that's been asked to me many times over the years, but recently from a listener that listened to one of the earlier podcasts this week and wanted to know what is a Sabbath day journey. And I want to answer this for two reasons. Number one, I want to answer the question, but also want to help you to understand a greater point. First of all, as far as a Sabbath day journey, from all I can determine, it is a little over six tenths of a mile. I would say to be more exact, six point two. And that is basically two thousand cubits. Now there's a reason for that. In the Old Testament, in the Tanakh, in the Torah specifically, you have this particular distance measured out a couple of times. For instance, it is in the book of Numbers, chapter 35 and verse 5, and that describes Levitical boundaries, that is, from the center of town or from town. The Levites, as you know, had a boundary around major cities. The Levites were not given an inheritance, a land inheritance. You know, all of the tribes Joshua gave an inheritance to from what is modern day Jordan, from Lebanon in the north, all the way to Egypt in the south, on both sides of the Jordan River. And these allotments were given out. But the Levites, because they were priests, they did not get an allotment. They were given cities. And because they had sheep brought, and they had bulls and cattle brought, they had produce brought, all of those things for offerings, many times they would then become shepherds of some of those sheep that were not offered, and they would breed sheep for offerings, because many people were coming from great distances, and they could not bring sheep, and so they were bred in and around Jerusalem. As a matter of fact, the Levitical line of Jerusalem went all the way south of Bethlehem to Migdal Eder, to the Tower of Eder. That is how we know that the sheep that the shepherds were watching over the night Jesus was born, these were Levitical sheep that would be born in that week, and the next year they would be yearlings and they would be offered as first year sheep at the Passover the next year in Jerusalem because people came from all over the earth and they couldn't bring this livestock with them. And so they brought money and they bought it so that they would have a lamb without spot and without blemish. All to say they were given boundaries where they could do this, and it went up to about a half a mile outside the city limits. In the book of Joshua, you have this same measurement that is delineated when two thousand cubits or about a half a mile was the distance between the ark that was carried by the priest and all of the tribes. The closest tribe would be two thousand cubits behind that ark when they went into the Jordan River and so forth. There is, to my knowledge, no rhyme or reason for that, except God wanted a distance, a healthy distance to be between the holiness of the ark and the people. And so this became a measurement that people would have related to holy things. And so God wanted his people to stay put during Shabbat. And so this became a measurement, not from the Torah, but from tradition, that if they did not travel more than half a mile, then that would mean that they would not be going to their normal work or they wouldn't be making long distances and be walking and traveling on Shabbat, and that encouraged people to stay close. And so the rabbis issued this ruling. And it is in the Mishnah, which is part of the Talmud. The Mishnah and the Gemarah are part of the Talmud. The commentary on the law and the commentary on the commentary is the way I would say it make up the Talmud, which is basically a rabbinical law. Some of the things in there are healthy, other things are not. But we do know it is mentioned in the book of Acts. In the book of Acts, chapter one, we see that this is mentioned in relation to the distance outside of Jerusalem where Jesus took the disciples on the day of his ascension. And it was about a Sabbath day journey. The Scripture mentions that in the book of Acts. Now this is important simply because in Acts 112 they made their way back to the confines of the city in this upper room where they had been lodging and staying. And the Bible says that it was a journey, it was near Jerusalem, and it was about a Sabbath day journey. Now it's interesting as you read the scriptures that there are many things that these people were observing, that is, these people, the disciples, that were not specifically laid out in the Torah. For instance, have you ever noticed that in Luke chapter 24, when Luke is talking about the resurrection and the women coming and telling all of the disciples, in verse 13 of Luke 24, it says, Now behold, two of them, that is, these disciples, were traveling the same day to a village called Emos or Emmaus, which was seven miles from Jerusalem, and they talked together of all the things that had happened. So it was that while they conversed and reasoned, that Jesus himself drew near and went with them. Now the reason that's important is because why were the disciples leaving out early in the morning after they had already heard that Jesus was alive, why were they still in Jerusalem? This was the first day of the week. This is what it says in Luke chapter 24 and verse 1. Why did these disciples stay in Jerusalem then all of a sudden after the women came and reported, remember it was very early dawn before they went to the tomb, so it was very early that these disciples started back to their homes. I'll tell you why. It's because the Shabbat was over, and they stayed in Jerusalem until Shabbat was over. Why? Because they had been there for Passover, for Prasak. And they stayed over after the Passover until after the Shabbat. And it was the first fruits offering, and they could, it was the first day of the week, and so they could head back home. Now, this is what religious Jews did then. That's what religious Jews now. I'm talking about Orthodox, ultra-orthodox, those who are observant Jews, they're very particular about this. And the reason that I'm telling you this is because these kind of things are mentioned over and over again. And I've said this over and over again that the disciples were primarily religious Jews. And Jesus was a religious Jew, not in the sense of never contradicting Talmud, but he never contradicted Torah. If you look at John 10, the scripture says, now it was the feast of dedication in Jerusalem, and it was winter, and Jesus walked in the temple on Solomon's porch. Now what was Jesus doing in Jerusalem in the wintertime? Because he would have been in the Galilee most of the time, and in the Galilee, around the Sea of Galilee, it's much nicer than the weather. He wasn't there because of the weather. He was there because of the feast of dedication. Now in Greek that's the word which means to renew. In Hebrew it is the word Hanukkah. It's the feast of dedication. Now that is not a Levitical feast. That's not a feast of Torah. That is a feast that took place, a day and a happening, an event that took place during the intertestamental period in those four hundred silent years when God was getting the world ready to receive Messiah. Now this is important. This happened in 167 BC, 167 years before Jesus was born in Bethlehem, that you have this story of the Maccabees and the rededication, the capturing and rededication of the temple. This is called Hanukkah, dedication, renewal. And you know the story of Hanukkah. I'm not going to go into this now because I'll talk about it in December when we get closer to Christmas because they're very close this year in the calendar. And so I'll talk about it then, but I want you to understand something. Jesus was observing Hanukkah. And why wouldn't he? It was a great victory for the Jewish people. And Jesus was a Jew and is a Jew. And for those of you who think that he's not, you need to read the last chapter, if no other chapter, the last chapter in the book of Revelation, the last chapter in the New Testament, where Jesus said, I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to witness of these things. I am the root and the offspring of David. David, King David, was Jewish. Of course he was. Jesus said, I was before David, and I am after him. All I'm saying is he is Jewish, and Jesus observed all of the Moadim, he observed all of the festival dates. Many of them we have record of him doing that. He did many things that are not recorded in Torah that he did. He went to the synagogue every Shabbat. All you have to do is look at Luke chapter four, and you'll see that after he came out of the wilderness, he came into his hometown of Nazareth, and as was his custom on Shabbat, he went into the synagogue. And he participated in the synagogue worship and rituals. Now the synagogue is not in Torah. The synagogue again didn't come about until that intertestamental period, and it was called the Bait Knesset in Hebrew, still is today, the house of assembly. And then it is synagogos, that is going up together. Together we go up. That's the idea that came from the Greek language, and so it is brought over into our language today because of the Greek New Testament. And that's where we get the word synagogue in Hebrew. It's Bakoneset. So Jesus went into synagogue. He did all of those things. I told you the story in the book of Acts, chapter 10, where Peter had this sheet coming down with all the creepy crawler, unkoshered, non-kashrut, all of these unclean animals. And the voice from heaven said, Rise and eat three times. And Peter said, I have never done that even since my youth. In other words, he was kosher, he was koshrut. Now that's not your ordinary Jew. Peter was a religious Jew. And people say, well, he fell at the feet of Jesus and said, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man. Of course he is, just like you are, just like I am. But that doesn't mean that we can't be religious. And so he was an observant Jew. The sons of Zebedee were observant Jews. The disciples were observant Jews. And they were in Jerusalem for a reason, and that was Passover and Pentecost when Jesus was crucified, rose from the dead, and then sent the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. They were going up to prayer in the temple on the day of Pentecost. After that in the book of Acts, over and over again, we're going to see that this is what they did. And so the Sabbath day journey was something that was brought about to try to help the people to stay close to home so that they wouldn't get caught up in everything. Because God was serious when he said, I want you to remember that I am the creator at least one day a week. And there's nothing wrong with that, everything right about it, whether you're a Jew or a Gentile, because we need to remember that God is the creator of heaven and earth, and he is our creator, and we're accountable to him, and we need to pay attention to how not only Jesus did things because he was a Jew, he didn't just do things because he was a Jew. Remember he's the creator. And it would do us all good to stop and remember that. When we get to heaven, according to Revelation chapter four and Revelation chapter five, and that is the order numerically and in the content of the book of Revelation, the first thing we're going to do when we get to heaven is not praise Jesus, that he's the Lamb of God, worthy as the Lamb that was slain. We're going to praise God that He is the creator and the sustainer of life, and that we wouldn't be there had He not created us. Yes, we wouldn't have been there had He not saved us. But the reality is that we are children of Adam and we need to be redeemed. But we need to understand that God created the heaven and earth and he created man and everything in the universe. And this is a big deal. And our nation has gone to hell in a handbasket, is the old saying, simply because we have not just forgotten Jesus as Savior, but our nation, our educational system, everything else. It was not taking prayer out of the schools that ruined and started the downfall. That was a symptomatic outcome. No, we started when we started teaching evolution in the twenties after the Scopes Monkey trial, and we began to teach hypothesis and theory as fact, to where you teach error long enough and people begin to believe that it's true even though it's a lie. And so I want you to understand that a Sabbath day journey is a Talmudic thing, it is not a Torah thing, but many of the things that are in Talmud, whether we like to admit it or not, are pretty good things. For instance, when people say, Well, why the Talmud? Well, ever since Moses has come down from Mount Sinai with the tablets and said you shall do no work on Shabbat, people have been trying to figure out what work is. You see, God many times told what to do, but he didn't tell how to do it. Why? Because he gave us a mind and a heart, and even though we are corrupt, God can guide us and help us to make good decisions. And so have the Jews taken it to extreme? Of course they have. Have they taken it to where they have replaced mitzvahot and doing good deeds for the blood sacrifice of Messiah? Yes. But what I am telling you is this. We cannot throw out the baby with the bathwater. There's some things that are good even though they're tradition. And so when we talk about tradition, how do we know Jesus kept some traditions but not others? What was the difference? From what I can tell in the scriptures in my own research and comparing Scripture with Scripture, Jesus did traditional things when it enhanced and encouraged his walk and knowledge of God as an example to us. Jesus knows all things as the God man, yes. But we also know that Jesus Himself said that the Father has put some things into his own power. And so I cannot get into the mind of God, but I do know this, that Jesus did keep traditional things, and he kept those things because he wanted to be an example to us to help us to understand that everything, the Bible is not complete in detail, but we can learn to do some things that will help us, and they're just tradition, but they do help us and enhance our walk with God, and if that's true and it doesn't contradict Scripture, why wouldn't we do it? And so these are the things that we need to just think through and not be so hasty to just dismiss anything that doesn't fit into our paradigm because you see we have our own traditions and we have our own templates, and I can prove that to you if I talk with you 30 minutes. And so I pray that this has been helpful to you. I hope you had your question-answer about Shabbat and the distance is 2,000 cubits, and that comes right out of the Talmud, right out of the Mishnah. For on the way, this is Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Thanks for listening to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Tune in every weekday for information on biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Fridays are for your questions. Email your questions to questions at TonyCrisp.org. Then just listen for your question to be answered on Friday's podcast. That's questions at TonyC R I S P dot org. Thanks for listening and have a blessed day on the way.