Warm hellos once again friends, brethren, fellow laborers, spiritual family, and scattered children of God from here on the Gulf Coast. My wife and I pray and hope this finds you doing well, and that again your week has been blessed.

I trust you all had an inspiring Passover, NTBMO, and first day of Unleavened Bread.

My wife sends me quotes on occasion that I often find to be thought provoking and appreciate. One such quote again brought some thoughts to mind.

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” –Socrates

As we daily eat unleavened bread during these days the focus is clear, putting Christ in and becoming a “new creation or creature”. “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new”. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

In addition to this quote, I can’t help but think about how quickly these Feast of Unleavened Bread days will come and go! We’ll in a couple days be in the countdown to Pentecost. While most of the citizens of the United States are focusing on or counting down the days and weeks to the upcoming presidential election, I hope more importantly we are looking forward to the upcoming Day of Pentecost and what God revealed about its significance.

The name Pentecost is found three times in the Greek Scriptures translated from pentekoste meaning “the fiftieth day” according to the Online Bible Greek Lexicon. The Hebrew Scriptures label this day as the “Feast of Weeks” in five different passages beginning with Exodus 34:22.

Most of us realize that there is controversy concerning how to properly count the days and weeks to arrive at right date for Pentecost. Most of the Jewish community observes the feast of Weeks on a fixed day of the Hebrew calendar month, Sivan 6. The Rabbinical method of counting begins with day after Nisan 15, the first annual Sabbath. The first day of the count for them is a fixed day of the first month, Nisan 16. Because the length of Nisan is fixed at 30 days, the second month Iyar is fixed at 29 days and Sivan is fixed at 30 days, Pentecost always falls on the same day of the third month or on Sivan 6.

However, the Jewish Karaites begin the count with the first day of the week as day one of the count to 50. Let’s examine the instructions in the Pentateuch.

The count is related to determining when what is termed the “wave sheaf” was offered. “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When you come into the land which I give to you, and reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest. ‘He shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted on your behalf; on the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it.” (Leviticus 23:10-11)

There is no mention above of the month or day of the month when this ceremony was to take place. What is stated is that the wave sheaf ceremony could not be done until Israel entered the land of Canaan. The Hebrew word translated “Sabbath” in verse 11 is shabbath (Strong’s 07676). This word shabbath is introduced at the beginning of the chapter. “Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. . .” (Leviticus 23:3) The first and seventh days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread are described as holy convocations (v.7-8) but the word “Sabbath” is not specifically applied to them. This makes it clear that the word “Sabbath” should be interpreted consistently from Leviticus 1-22 as the seventh day of the week or as the weekly Sabbath.

Therefore the day of the week on which the “sheaf of the first fruits” was offered is the day after the weekly Sabbath or the first day of the week that we name Sunday on the Roman calendar.

The next question is how does one determine when this Sunday takes place on the Hebrew calendar? There’s no month or day of the month mentioned in connection with this ceremony. We’ll explore this next time in our weekly study of God’s Word.

Well, as I mentioned last Friday in my letter, “Let us live each day, removing sin, by and allowing Christ to live in us, which must continue to be our focus, and in spite of all we see in this world right now, we must not take our mind or thoughts off of God and His plan and promises!”

Arms up friends! Our sincere prayers and thoughts are with you daily. Thanks in advance for your heartfelt prayers for us.