What Then Say You
Welcome to the show! In this podcast my wife and I have candid conversations about various topics that will encourage and at times challenge you! The greatest conversations ever had are typically amongst friends in an intimate setting. This is the venue in which the Holy Spirit often works to separate the chaff from the wheat in our lives if we are being honest with ourselves. We hope as you peer behind the veil and join us that you take what you hear and consider it with Gods word in your own life.
What Then Say You
Rededicating The Temple Within| Day 3
Ever felt like your inner life is louder than your prayer life? We take a fresh look at Hanukkah—the Feast of Dedication—and discover a surprising mirror for Christian practice today. Instead of arguing for legalism or ritual for ritual’s sake, we trace the story of a defiled temple reclaimed for God and ask what it means when Paul says our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit.
If you’re ready to evict the noise and tend the flame, this conversation offers a grounded path forward rooted in Scripture, history, and honest self-examination. Subscribe, share with someone who needs a reset, and leave a review telling us: what’s the first idol you’re ready to lay down this week?
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What Then Say You - YouTube
Hey, good morning, good evening, good afternoon, whatever time it is that you are tuning in, uh, we are on day three of an epic journey, and I just want to put out a quick disclaimer, right? Um, this whole this whole time that I'm talking about Hanukkah, um, and I'm talking about Jewishness and the roots of our faith, I just want you to understand, um, especially, you know, if you're new to the faith or or in general, that this is not me uh calling you to, you know, practice Hanukkah or become a Jew or go down any of those paths of um legalism um in regards to salvation. This is not a salvation issue. This is merely um just diving deeper into our heritage as believers, um, our heritage as as Christians in general. You know, a lot of times on Sunday service in your everyday church, oftentimes the pastors will talk about certain festivals that were had and feasts that were had, um, and there's a lot of old language, a lot of Hebraic language that's not often really expounded upon, and we kind of gloss over it. You know, if you think of Yom Kimpur or the Feast of Lights or any of these types of feasts, and you know, how often do you hear that in a church, uh sermon or service in general? Um, but yet, you know, words like tithing, we use that word, right? Even though we find its origin in Leviticus. Um, and and and sometimes, sad to say, a lot of the older practices, a lot of the legalistic practices and observances that we find in the Old Testament are used because it has an advantage to the modern day church. Um, and so as we explore Hanukkah, this isn't about any of that. This is simply about being able to partner um with our extended family, you know, and and we pray that every um you know Orthodox Jew and Jew alike that's not of the Messianic Jewish community that does not acknowledge Yeshua the Messiah as our Lord and Savior, that Jesus Christ is the atonement, he is the Kaporah, right? Like those that don't know Jesus yet, we pray that they do. We pray that they that they come to know who he is so that they too can receive salvation, and that is, and they can kind of break free from a lot of the legalism that they live in and hopes for salvation and in hopes for the Messiah. The good news is the Messiah has come, right? He is risen, right? Like as American Christians, as we celebrate Christmas, we're celebrating this idea that Christ is born, our Savior has come, and we hope that our extended family, when I say that because you know we're grafted in um to God's chosen people, we are called to be the light. We are called to now, you know, represent and serve as ambassadors to the kingdom of heaven. What a great responsibility. And so another thing I realized um with talking with the wife, you know, is just that in in your Bible it might not even say Hanukkah. Hanukkah in you know is the in Hebrew it means dedication, right? So this would be the feast of dedication as it might read in John 10 for you. Um in today's verse, uh today's reading that every Jewish believer and every Messianic Jewish believer out there that read it today is in November is in Numbers chapter 7, 24 through 35. And it says, On the third day, Elob the son of Helen, prince of the children of Zebulum, his oblation was one silver platter, the weight whereof was a hundred and thirty shekels, one silver bowl of seventy shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary, both of them full of fine flour, mingled with oil for a meal offering, one golden spoon of ten shekels, full of incense, one young bullock, one ram, and one male lamb a year old for a burnt offering, one male of the goats for a sin offering, and for the sacrifice of peace offerings, two oxen, five rams, five male goats, five male lambs a year old. This was the oblation of Elub, the son of Helen. On the fourth day, Elizar, the son of Shador, prince of the children of Reuben, his oblation was one silver platter, the weight whereof was a hundred and thirty shekels, one silver bowl of seventy shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary, both of them full of fine flour, mingled with oil for a meal offering, one golden spoon of ten shekels, full of incense, one young bullock, one ram, one male lamb, a year old for a burnt offering, one male of goats for a sin offering, and for the sacrifice of peef offerings, two oxen, five rams, five male goats, five male lambs, a year old. This was the avalation of Elizar, the son of Shador. Why am I reading this? Whew, this camera's kind of heavy. Um a couple of reasons. Again, that's what every Jew is reading around the world right now. And as believers, as we tap in and lock into, you know, Jesus was a Jew, right? Like Yahshua was his name, right? When we lock into some of the things that he celebrated, some of the things that that he focused in on, and it's just kind of cool to dive into that historical reference point. But, you know, today, one thing that God pressed heavy on my spirit to kind of talk to us about is um, you know, dedication, feast of the dedication. We are dedicating the temple, right? Now, granted, Maccabees had um overcome the the Greeks in that time, and um they had you know the Greek king at the time, the Antioch or whatever his name was, he had um he was sacrificing all types of weird things in the temple. Like he was basically being blasphemous in every area possible, right? And when the Maccabees came along and revolted against that, they took back the temple and they turned it back holy, right? And so the dedication that you see in Numbers by Moses when they were dedicating the tabernacle, right? This is the standard dedication to consecrate the temple. Now, interestingly enough, we got some New Testament text that I want to dive into today. This is in we're in 1 Corinthians chapter 6. Now, we know in Corinthians, Paul is going in on the church of Cornet for some of the things that they had gotten into and the things that they were doing. But I really want to highlight in verse 16, going down to verse 20, it says, Don't you know that your body is a part of the Messiah? So am I to take parts of the Messiah and make them parts of a prostitute? Heaven forbid. Don't you know that a man who joins himself to a prostitute becomes physically one with her? For the Tanakh says, the two will become one flesh. But the person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit, run from sexual immorality, every other sin a person commits is outside the body. But the fornicator sins against his own body. Or don't you know that your body is a temple for the Holy Spirit who lives inside of you, whom you receive from God? The fact is, you don't belong to yourselves, for you were bought at a price, so use your bodies to glorify God. Wow. Let's tie the parallel. So we're celebrating Hanukkah, Jews, right? We as Christians, we're acknowledging Hanukkah, we're learning about Hanukkah, we're learning about the rededication of the temple. Our bodies are now because we believe in Jesus Christ, because we've accepted Yeshua the Messiah as our Lord and Savior, and we've come into an agreement with him on these things, the Holy Spirit is poured out amongst us, and now the temple resides inside of us. Now every believer who professes his name, the temple, is you. The temple is is now the dwelling space of the Holy Spirit, which convicts you and corrects you and teaches you and reproofs you and educates you on all things that you need to know about living out this faith. And so it's the light of dedication, it's the feast of dedication, dedicating the temple. How can we as Christians, how can we as believers in our faith now respond to this message and to respond to this thing that's happening across the world right now? Well, we can look at our temple. We can ask ourselves have we taken up idols and residence inside of our temple? Are we putting things inside of our temple that is taking away from God's holy space? Are we doing things in general? Are we living a life in general to where the Holy Spirit's voice has gotten muffled because of all the other many lowercase G gods that we have in our hearts and that we have have we have we built up inside of our own bodies? Right? We can go to the macro. The church is commonly referred to as the body of Christ. Hmm. So the temple is within the church. How many idols are there? How many things have been postured up? How many things have taken place that that was belonging to the Holy Spirit and now is our is our guiding light? What's guiding us in our day? Is it the word of God? Is it the promptings of the Holy Spirit? Or is it the news? Is it social media? Is it whatever's trending? Is it what is it whatever the thing is for the day, right? Sometimes we get so caught up in our day that the voice that we hear most is the self-voice, right? It's it's the voice, it's we've become our own gods. We've taken place in our instead of our own temple. We've shut down the Holy Spirit's convictions and said, yeah, but I'd rather. Yeah, but I'd rather do X, Y, or Z. I'd rather spend my money on this, I'd rather watch this and do that instead of listening to the soft, gentle voice that is of the Holy Spirit. Remember, his burden is easy and the yoke is light. And we've traded that for a taskmaster called the world. We've traded that for a taskmaster called the flesh. Because the flesh is incessionable, right? Like it's never quenched. You will always need more, you'll always want more, you'll always have this desire that says that you're unfulfilled, right? And the spirit says, my burden is much easier than that. Why would you choose yourself? Why would you choose self-government over the fact that that I'm the King of King and Lord of Lords? That I can I can tell you exactly what you need to do in your day and how to do it. Why would you choose the harder? And so that's just something to think about today, right? As we reflect again on whatever Jewish believer is doing, whatever per whatever you know, messianic Jew when they're when they're celebrating and and and remembering, you know, um the feast of dedication, right? Or Hanukkah. And then we look internally to ourselves and our temple. Is there a rededication that needs to happen? Does that dedication need to happen by force, like the Maccabees in this instance? You know, I I would like to argue that in the word it says you'd rather enter the kingdom maimed than not at all. Maybe some things need to be cut off. Maybe some things need to be violently overc over overcome by way of the Holy Spirit. You won't be able to do it by yourself. You won't be able to do it of self-will, because if we could do it and rededicate it by force without any help, then we wouldn't need God, right? But our helper, the great counselor, the Holy Spirit, is there to help us overtake and overcome all the many lowercase G guides that we've set up inside of our temple. His resting space, his place that's supposed to be holy, his place that's supposed to be pure, his place that's supposed to be continually being perfected in pursuit of righteousness. That's where we're at. So I will see you guys tomorrow. Dwell on that word, and I pray that you guys have a blessed and wonderful day.