Carrie Wigal

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.  And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. – Genesis 1:3-4

Here we see God calling light into existence. He saw that it was good and he divided the light from the darkness. He separated the light from the darkness. He distinguished between the light and the darkness. He made a distinction between the light and the darkness. The action described here in Hebrew is “badal beyn”. When we look in Scripture to see what else has been “badal beyn”, we find the following:

>> The waters under the firmament / the waters above the firmament

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.  And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.  – Genesis 1:6-7

>> The day / the night

And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years:  – Genesis 1:14

>> The light / the darkness

And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.  – Genesis 1:4

…and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.  – Genesis 1:18

>> The holy place / the most holy
>> That which was holy / that which was common

And thou shalt hang up the veil under the clasps, and shalt bring in thither within the veil the ark of the testimony: and the veil shall separate unto you between the holy place and the most holy.  – Exodus 26:33

He measured it on the four sides: it had a wall round about, the length five hundred, and the breadth five hundred, to make a separation between that which was holy and that which was common.  – Ezekiel 42:20

>> The holy / the common
>> The unclean / the clean
>> The beast that may be eaten / the beast that may not be eaten
>> Unclean fowl / the clean

and that ye may make a distinction between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean;  – Leviticus 10:10

to make a distinction between the unclean and the clean, and between the living thing that may be eaten and the living thing that may not be eaten.  – Leviticus 11:47

Ye shall therefore make a distinction between the clean beast and the unclean, and between the unclean fowl and the clean: and ye shall not make your souls abominable by beast, or by bird, or by anything wherewith the ground teemeth, which I have separated from you as unclean.  – Leviticus 20:25

Her priests have done violence to my law, and have profaned my holy things: they have made no distinction between the holy and the common, neither have they caused men to discern between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my sabbaths, and I am profaned among them. – Ezekiel 22:26

>> You / your God

but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, so that he will not hear.  – Isaiah 59:2

For the longest time, I never paid much attention to the action of dividing/separating the light from the darkness in Genesis 1:4, but when I started studying Scripture to find out about when the day begins, this jumped out at me. At first I didn’t look up the Hebrew word for dividing/separating, I just read the verse and noted that this action is mentioned in several verses there in the first chapter.

It wasn’t until I looked up the Hebrew and sought out where else in Scripture this action is mentioned that I realized its significance.

Scripture clearly says, after the distinction between light and darkness was made, Elohim called the light “day” and the darkness he called “night”.

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.  – Genesis 1:5a

Then a few verses later, we find that Elohim put lights in the firmament of heaven to make a distinction between the day and the night. A greater light, which we know to be the sun, was to govern/rule over the day, and a lesser light, the moon, to govern/rule over the night.

And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years:  and let them be for lights in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.  And God made the two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.  And God set them in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.  – Genesis 1:14-18

This tells me there is a distinction between day and night, according to Scripture. I do not see anything in Scripture where this distinction between the two is removed and the whole day plus night is called day. Needless to say, there are many who insist the day includes the night, however that is not what Scripture says.

If I am in error, please somebody reprove me from Scripture.

I hate Christmas. I have not liked Christmas for a long time — well over ten years. When I was single, living on my own, I recognized this holiday was propped up by the entertainment industry as a time of warm & fuzzy feelings, but for me it was very empty.

This season wreaks of commercialism and I didn’t want any part of it. But year after year I’d put up a tree out of a sense of obligation and decorate it. I’d buy Christmas presents (on a very small scale), attend Christmas gatherings, eat lots of Christmas cookies, listen to Christmas music and watch lots of Christmas movies.

Then I’d remind myself that the real reason for the season was Jesus. I’d go to church, participate in the Christmas programs, go caroling, and read the Biblical account of Christ’s birth in Scripture — all with the hope of finding peace, joy and love during this horribly depressing, worldly holiday.

Then last year I chose not to celebrate the holiday. This was after a year of starting to keep the seventh day Sabbath set apart. I had spent the year studying the holy days in Leviticus 23 and started keeping them as best I could according to Scripture.

I started seeing the richness in these feasts and how *they* were truly all about Jesus. I saw how Jesus kept these festivals and Paul encouraged the gentile-turned believers to also keep the feasts. While I tried to share this with others, it was like nobody was interested.

During that year I started taking a deeper look at Easter and Christmas. I discovered that not only was Jesus *not* born on December 25th, but this day marks the birth of other gods in ancient history. Then I started looking into the origins of the Christmas tree and how Christmas even began as a Christian holiday, and I found it all rather disturbing.

The reason I found it all disturbing was because I had already purposed in my heart that I would love the LORD my God with my *whole* heart, mind and strength. Jesus said this was the first and greatest commandment. When I went back to Deuteronomy to see the context of this command, I found the way to do this was to obey all his commands.

The first of the Ten Commandmants is to have no other gods in his face. Well, Christmas is clearly about other gods.

Scripture also teaches that we are not to worship God in the manner of the heathen. The story of the golden calf demonstrates this. While others may not see Christmas as a picture of the golden calf, I do. Out of love for my God, I choose to have nothing to do with Christmas.

I understand not everyone feels the same as I do, and I’m okay with that. But I, personally, don’t want to have *any*thing to do with Christmas anymore. That is why I’m now done with Christmas.

I’m finding that I might have made a mistake in not explaining our departure from church. I just spoke with someone who attended the same church we did for years, and they didn’t know why we left. She was surprised to hear that we were asked to leave.

Let me first explain, my reason for sharing this now is simply to inform folks of where our heart has been and is today concerning our fellowship with those whom we attended church for over three years.

When we first started attending this particular church, we were looking for a church close to home that was Biblically-based and allowed for the move of the Holy Spirit. The first day we attended, we felt right at home with the praise & worship, and we liked the fact that the message was centered on Scripture.

We also felt very welcome by the members we met that day. We were invited back to a Wednesday night meal, and we went. At the time I was pregnant and had two small children and a preteen, and clearly this church welcomed children.

We decided right away this is where we would remain. We became involved immediately. About a year later we decided to formally join as members, which was a shock to most people because so many thought we were members already.

We did not take our commitment to membership lightly…in fact, we never imagined not being there any longer. Read more »

I’ve been very familiar with the verse in Galatians 3:13 that says,

“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.’”

Paul was referencing this passage in the Torah/Law:

Deuteronomy 21:22-23 “If a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death and his body is hung on a tree, you must not leave his body on the tree overnight. Be sure to bury him that same day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not desecrate the land YHWH your God is giving you as an inheritance.”

I was also very familiar with the death and burial of Jesus/Yeshua. Each of the gospel accounts indicated he was hung on a tree, taken down at sunset and buried in a tomb.

But something I did not notice before in the Prophets concerning the Israelites being taken into the promised land was what specifically happened to each of the kings of the areas that were destroyed/conquered. Read more »

About a year or so ago, I started noticing when reading my Bible the Israelites were constantly being called to repent, to turn back to YHWH. They were continually being admonished for following after other gods or putting other gods in His face. I thought to myself, what is the deal here? Then I asked myself how are we like that?

In America it seemed to me that there weren’t any other “gods” or “idolatry” except when we glorify things or people, elevating them to a level higher than God. But other than that, we didn’t worship Baal or Asherah or anything like that. Those were things you saw in other parts of the world, not in America.

Some folks might worship nature or the environment but I didn’t think I was guilty of that. Some worship the almighty dollar, but I didn’t think I was guilty of that either. My greatest concern was making sure my priorities were straight, putting God before anyone or anything else.

But then as I continued to read my Bible, I kept thinking there is an *awful* lot of attention drawn to “idolatry” and/or “sexual immorality” in the entire Bible. If there is that much attention to it, it *must* be more pervasive than I realize. At some point I also came to understand that the constant reference to sexual immorality in the Scriptures often times means following after other gods.

Then I started thinking about the wide path that leads to destruction and the narrow gate that very few find. (Matthew 7:13-14) Could Christianity in its purest form really be the narrow gate? I mean, not just the ones that say they are Christian and go to church, but the ones who believe in Jesus and live a life that reflects that. There seems to be an awful lot of Christians to be considered “few”, I thought. Read more »

It has come to my attention that I might be offending people when I say “Read the Bible”, as if I was suggesting that people aren’t already reading their Bibles. If that is the case, I’m very sorry.

One of the reasons why I continually say to read the Bible, is because I believe we need to continually read our Bible. Many may already be doing that, and that’s great. My charge to read the Bible is because I want to encourage people to always go back to the Word of God. The Truth is found there.

When I was first questioning “obedience to what?”, I would read whole books at a time. It’s not that I never read them before, but I felt like I was missing something. So, I’d read it again. Then, I’d read it again. Then, when I felt like the LORD was telling me something, I’d read it again with that thought in mind.

When I started sharing my thoughts with others, they would say to me, “You need to read Galatians.” or “You need to read Romans.” Now, of course I’ve read those books before…in fact I had read them fairly recent to their charge for me to read them. BUT, I’d go ahead and read them again. I wanted to see something I might have missed.

One of the beautiful things about God’s Word is that it’s alive! It literally speaks to us. Read more »

What does the Bible have to say about the Dietary Law concerning Unclean Animals vs. Clean Animals?

Leviticus 11 gives specific instructions from YHWH “concerning animals, birds, every living thing that moves in the water and every creature that moves about the ground.” He gave them to Moses and Aaron so that they might tell the Israelites what they may or may not eat.

Deuteronomy 14:3-21 provides a listing again of what the children of YHWH are permitted to eat and what they are told not to eat.

In both of these accounts they are reminded that they are a people holy to YHWH their God.

What the Bible doesn’t have to say about it… Read more »

Paul writes to Titus and explains to him about appointing elders in every town. After he lists a variety of character traits, he says (in 1:9),

“He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.”

The question that stands out to me is, “What is the trustworthy message Paul is referring to here?”

Verses 10-12 says,

“For there are many rebellious people, mere talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision group. They must be silenced, because they are ruining whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach — and that for the sake of dishonest gain.”

My next question is found in this passage, “What is the teaching that ought not to be taught?” Read more »

I noticed something long before I started keeping the Sabbath. One of Jesus’ biggest beef with the Pharisees seemed to be their adding to the law of God. They had all these added rules, laws and traditions that were never recorded in the written Law of Moses.

Because of this and my huge lack of knowledge concerning the actual written Law, I was very confused about which laws were “Jewish” laws and which were God’s laws. But I discovered a remedy to my confusion. It’s called “Read the Bible“. If it’s not in the Bible, then it’s not God’s Law. Pretty simple, really. Yet, I missed it for so long.

What do I mean?

SABBATH KEEPING: Tradition of Man vs. Law of God

For example, did Jesus ever break the Sabbath commandment? No. He was perfect, right? He was the spotless Lamb of God, who obeyed all of God’s Law completely.

Yet, why were the Pharisees giving him grief over the things he was doing on the Sabbath (ie healing the lame, allowing His disciples to pick/eat grain, etc.)? Because he was breaking their Jewish law…not the Law of God. How do I know this? Well, besides the fact that I know Jesus perfectly obeyed his Father’s teachings and instructions, I’ve read the Law of God, and those added rules are not in there. Read more »

Have you ever been reading in your Bible and something stands out to you, and you ask, “What does this mean?”

Maybe you’ve read that passage a gazillion times (okay, maybe not that many, but a lot), and you think you know what it means, but you realize there’s a word or phrase in there that you’ve always kind of just glossed over in the past because you didn’t really know why it was there. I’ve done that. Too many times, I think.

Up until a year or so ago, when I would come across words/phrases/verses I didn’t understand, I’d ask those whom I hung around with — the ones I knew read their Bibles, too. Either they’d say, “I don’t know” or they’d give me their take on what the whole passage was saying. I was usually content with their answer or I’d just shove the question into the back of my mind and move on.

Lest you think I’m not that spiritual, I will point out that many times when I would come across those questions in my personal Bible study, I would ask God for the answer as well…but I didn’t always wait on Him to get an answer.

It was much easier to ask someone who I could physically see and hear, or that’s how I used to think. Now, I realize…I’d rather get the correct answer than just any ol’ answer. So now, I wait on the LORD for the understanding of His truth.

What do I mean when I say, “wait”? Read more »