Breaking news...Time, for Shavuot (PDF and Podcast)
Shavu'ot (Pentecost) - An Overview
This talk with notes was originally given at Cornerstone Christian Church, Headington, Oxford on Sunday 15th May, 2010.
Click here to download the presentation in Adobe PDF format (562KB)
Listen to the talk:
Or click here to download the MP3 file (42MB)
Shavu’ot has a fundamental Biblical mandate:
“Count off seven weeks from the time you begin to put the sickle to the standing corn. Then celebrate the Feast of Weeks to the Lord your God by giving a freewill offering in proportion to the blessings the Lord your God has given you.”
~ Deuteronomy 16: 9-12 ~
Shavu'ot [Hebrew: "shavua" = "week", singular; "shavuot" = "weeks (plural"] is a festival that celebrates the time when the first fruits of the Seven Species with which Eretz Yisroel (the Land of Israel) is blessed were harvested and brought in elaborately decorated baskets to the Temple, and is also known as Chag Ha-Bikkurim (the Festival of the First Fruits). Shavuot is also the wheat harvest festival - Chag HaKatzir (the Feast of Harvest). The beginning of the wheat harvest throughout the land of Israel was preceded by the offering of two loaves as a meal-offering in the Temple.
God said that, “These are the Lord’s appointed feasts, the sacred assemblies you are to proclaim at their appointed times.” ~ Leviticus 23:4 ~
And Leviticus 23 describes a total of 8 appointed times of the Lord along with the weekly Sabbath. 7 times are set apart as festivals or feasts. The 1st 4 refer to the paschal sacrifice, feast of unleavened bread, feast of the First Fruits, and the day of Pentecost. The others all occur in the sacred 7th month of Tishrei.
As Glaser reminds us, God is Lord over all time, and the festivals are His…
“The feasts of the Lord were not given to enslave the Israelites but to free them to reflect on the Person, plan and attributes of the Holy One of Israel.
Through those special days, they were to recognise that He is Lord of every moment and must rule over every second of their lives.”
This study takes a look at an overview of Shavu’ot before looking at the strong links in the New Testament:
“When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.
They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Ruach HaKodesh and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.”
~ Acts 2: 1-4 ~
