We are preparing to keep God’s Feast of Pentecost which will occur in just over a week. What is its specific meaning? We know that it was the day when God’s Holy Spirit was first given to a multitude of people, thousands in fact, of those whom God was calling to be a part of the New Testament Church. In contrast to this, in the Old Testament congregation of Israel, only very few had God’s Spirit. So this is a very important day signifying the beginning of the New Testament Church. But is there more to it than that fact?

The word Pentecost comes from the Greek word pentekoste, meaning fiftieth, which basically means that fifty days were counted to know when it was to be observed. In the Old Testament, Pentecost is called the Feast of Weeks, again because seven weeks or Sabbaths were counted from the wave sheath offering which was brought on the Sunday, which fell during the Days of Unleavened Bread, and fifty days later, the festival of Pentecost was observed, again on a Sunday.

Leviticus 23:15-16 gives these instructions: “And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering: seven Sabbaths shall be completed. Count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath; then you shall offer a new grain offering to the LORD.”

So that is how the date is determined from year to year, but the meaning of the day is alluded to in the next verse.

Leviticus 23:17 reads: “You shall bring from your dwellings two wave loaves of two-tenths of an ephah. They shall be of fine flour; they shall be baked with leaven. They are the firstfruits to the LORD.”

This theme of firstfruits is mentioned in Exodus 34:22: “And you shall observe the Feast of Weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest….”

Also, in Numbers 28:26, firstfruits is again mentioned: “Also on the day of the firstfruits, when you bring a new grain offering to the LORD at your Feast of Weeks, you shall have a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work.”

But during the Days of Unleavened Bread, the sheaf was also called the firstfruits of your harvest (Leviticus 23:10). So, there are two times of the year where firstfruits are specifically mentioned. The first is at the beginning of the barley harvest during the Days of Unleavened Bread and the second is at the wheat harvest on the Feast of Weeks. (Exodus 34:22). Ruth 2:23 informs us that the wheat harvest follows the barley harvest.

However, to find out the meaning of firstfruits, we need to go to the New Testament.

In 1 Corinthians 15:20, we read: “But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” And in verse 23 of the same chapter, it says: “But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming.”

There are two passages that indicate that Christ was both our Passover and also that the wave sheath offering symbolized Him. The first is 1 Corinthians 5:7: “….For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.” The second, which occurred on the first day of the week, on the day when the wave sheath was offered, is John 20:17: “Jesus said to her, ‘Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father, but go to My brethren and say to them, “I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.”’” So the wave sheath offering pictures Christ again as the firstfruits.

Who else is called firstfruits in the New Testament? James 1:18 tells us that “Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.” Therefore, firstfruits is a description of both Jesus Christ and the brethren, members of the Church of God.

Going back to Leviticus 23:17, we note that there were two loaves baked of fine flour and leavened. Obviously, anything offered to God was to be of fine quality, but why two loaves and why were they leavened?

When the Church began on the Day of Pentecost, Peter was speaking to the whole house of Israel exclusively. Acts 2:36 tells us: “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” But God was soon to show that the Church was also to include Gentiles by having Cornelius and his relatives and close friends baptized. Acts 11:18 reports: “When they heard these things they became silent; and they glorified God, saying, ‘Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life’”.

The fact that the two loaves were waved before God as holy to Him (Leviticus 23:20) shows again that both Israelite and Gentile members of God’s Church were to be harvested as God’s firstfruits.

The bread used at the Passover was unleavened, picturing Christ being free of any sin. But as humans, we all sin and therefore are pictured as leavened. 1 John 1:8 shows us this. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

So, to answer the question asked previously, the meaning of the Feast of Pentecost or day of firstfruits is to show that the members of the Church of God are symbolized as firstfruits. We are to be called both from Israelites and Gentiles which is why there are two loaves. And because we are still human, we do commit sin at times, which is why the loaves at this time are leavened. This should give us great encouragement. When we sin, as we will from time to time, we can obtain forgiveness of our sins (1 John 1:9) and go on towards our perfection, so that finally, the leavened loaves will become unleavened

God specifies the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23. It consists of a number of components which, considered as a whole, make up this fruit, and actually are characteristics that everyone who has God’s Spirit will display in their lives to one degree or another.

The second component of this fruit is joy. So, what is joy? The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines joy as “the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires.” This implies that when things are going well, or expected to go well, we can be joyful.

There are many examples in the Bible of people expressing joy. Two of them are in the book of Ezra. This was a time when the temple had finally been finished after a great amount of local opposition and around twenty years since King Cyrus had made his decree that the temple was to be rebuilt. It was also a time between a little over a month before the Passover, and just after the Passover. Ezra 6:16 states: “Then the children of Israel, the priests and the Levites and the rest of the descendants of the captivity, celebrated the dedication of this house of God with joy.”

As well as that, they had finally received favour from the king of Assyria. Ezra 6:22 tells us: “And they kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread seven days with joy; for the LORD made them joyful, and turned the heart of the king of Assyria toward them, to strengthen their hands in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel.”

So, after many years of opposition, trials, setbacks and difficulties, things were finally going well for them, and the people were joyful. Just like in the definition above. God had blessed them and made them joyful.

Both the apostle Paul and Titus were also joyful when things were going well in the Church. 2 Corinthians 7:13 reads: “Therefore we have been comforted in your comfort. And we rejoiced exceedingly more for the joy of Titus, because his spirit has been refreshed by you all.”

The apostle John also repeated this sentiment in 3 John 4: “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.”

This joy was mainly because of happy events in the present. There is an additional definition of joy that I found on the internet. It is the meaning used many times especially in the New Testament, and explains:  “Joy… remains even amidst the suffering… Joy is an emotion that’s acquired by the anticipation, acquisition or even the expectation of something great or wonderful.”

The greatest example of someone having this type of joy would be in Hebrews 12:2, describing Jesus Christ: “… looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Anticipating the beating and crucifixion that He had to endure was not something that would make Christ happy in itself. He had joy because He knew that the suffering He was going to go through would enable God’s Family to be vastly expanded—a great and wonderful result.

At this time approaching the Passover, we are reminded of just how much He suffered, and that this suffering was for us in this age and for all others in the future, and this can help us to be joyful as well as thankful. Following this example of Jesus, the next quote would likewise apply to us. James 1:2-4 states: “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.”

Again, trials are not usually pleasant, but when we consider the intended outcome of trials, the patience and perfection (the marginal reading for “perfect” is “mature”), we can have joy because of the end result of those trials. They lead to eternal life as God beings with God the Father and Jesus Christ.

With the knowledge that Jesus went through extreme trials for us, and that we go through trials for our perfection, we can indeed be people of joy. We should remember and be encouraged by Psalm 16:11 in which David tells us: “You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures for evermore.”

The heading of this Editorial is taken from Ephesians 5:20, being a part of the list of instructions the apostle Paul is giving the Ephesian brethren concerning how they should live Christian lives.

In some countries, including the United States and Canada, there is a specified day for observing Thanksgiving. While this is right and good to keep, God wants us to be thankful always, for our whole life, and when we understand it fully, even carrying over into our eternal life.

In God’s Word, the first mention of the term “thanksgiving” is in Leviticus 7, verses 11 to 15. A peace offering could be offered for thanksgiving. Verse 12 tells us: “If he offers it for a thanksgiving, then he shall offer, with the sacrifice of thanksgiving, unleavened cakes mixed with oil….” It will be noticed that thanksgiving was a sacrifice to God.

In this case, the person giving the peace offering as a thanksgiving, was coming before God with a reason to be thankful. It could be an event or situation in their life that they were thankful for—probably, after some kind of blessing they had received. It was the person’s choice of whether and when to give it. This sacrifice of thanksgiving was to be given at the person’s own free will (compare Leviticus 22:29).

There are a multitude of examples in the Bible of people giving thanks. And usually giving thanks was accompanied with praising God.

King David had many reasons to thank and praise God: for deliverance from his enemies, for God’s great works and for His mercy. One interesting occurrence of thanking God was for providing great physical blessings to the people of Israel when they gave in preparation for the building of God’s temple (see 1 Chronicles 29:13-14).

King David knew that giving thanks and praising God was so important that he arranged groups of Levites to thank and praise God every morning and every evening as a formal ceremony (compare 1 Chronicles 23:30).

Solomon, David’s son, also arranged musicians and singers to praise and thank God at the dedication of the temple (2 Chronicles 5:13).

Later, at the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, the Levites again sang praises and gave thanks to God when the foundation of the house of God was laid (Ezra 3:11). They also gave thanks when the walls of the city were dedicated (Nehemiah 12:27).

Daniel thanked and praised God for giving him wisdom and the revelation of the king’s dream, thus saving Daniel, his three friends and many others from death (Daniel 2:23).

Jesus Christ, in a number of occasions, gave thanks before providing food for His disciples and many others (Matthew 15:36). He also thanked the Father for hearing Him at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11:41). What may be surprising is that He thanked His Father for hiding understanding from the wise, but revealing it to babes (Luke 10:21).

The apostle Paul was another person who often mentioned that he was thankful. In many of his epistles, he thanked God for the members in various Church congregations and prayed for them continually. This is mentioned in nine of his epistles.

He thanked the Father and Christ for putting him into the ministry (1 Timothy 1:12), and for giving the victory and repentance to the members. He was also thankful that some members had risked their lives for him (Romans 16:3-4).

He mentioned many times that we are to be thankful in all things—even in persecutions. But he also gave a warning that in the last times, men would be unthankful, among many other negative characteristics (2 Timothy 3:1-2).

Christ Himself remarked on this when He healed ten lepers. Only one, a foreigner, returned to thank Him for such a remarkable healing (Luke 17:15-18).

When we look at the characteristics of the Church of the Laodiceans, we see that they think they are rich and wealthy and have need of nothing (Revelation 3:17). A person with this attitude is very unlikely to be thankful to God for what they have.

There are many more examples that could be mentioned, but this gives us a summary of many of the things we should be thankful for, and warnings of being unthankful.

When we think of the opening Scripture in Ephesians 5:20, we see that we are commanded to give thanks for all things—both the good things and things we may consider not so good. But Paul reminds us that all things work together for good to those who love God (Romans 8:28). This shows that even things that we may consider not so good are for our benefit in God’s overall scheme of things. So, it is profitable to find something good in every situation and thank God for it.

Again, let’s look at the example of Daniel. When his life was threatened if he prayed to any god or man except the king, he prayed and gave thanks before his God three times, as his custom was (Daniel 6:10). It was more important for Daniel to pray to God and thank Him than to be concerned about his own life.

To be thankful requires humility and overcoming lust and greed. It entails appreciation for what we have rather than lusting after what we do not have. God knows that our human nature is filled with vanity, selfishness, lust and greed; and of itself, it is not thankful. Thankfulness gets our mind off ourselves and acknowledges God’s hand in our lives. We acknowledge that we did not achieve anything by ourselves.

So, we should always remember that what we have; what we are; and especially the understanding of God’s plan for our eternal life are all blessings from God, directly or indirectly. Accordingly, we should give God thanks always for all things.

We read in 1 Corinthians 13:13 where the apostle Paul stated that there are three important things in life, faith, hope and love. Of course, as he said, the greatest of these is love.

Of the three, hope is mentioned in God’s Word significantly less often than either faith or love. So how important is hope?

Hope is not wishful thinking, like hoping a rich relative will die and leave us a fortune. That is more correctly termed inappropriate desire rather than godly hope. But real hope is mentioned in Hebrews 11:1 in this way: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” And this hope is extremely important to us.

In the book of Job, while he was suffering great affliction, Job felt he was without hope. He believed that God was destroying him for no reason. Yet even in his time of great despair, he realised that after his death, God would call him and he would answer, that God would desire the work of His hands (Job 14:14-15). This shows that even while he felt hopeless in his physical life, he knew there was hope for him in the resurrection.

In the book of Psalms, there are many mentions of hope by David and other writers—hope in God, in His mercy and judgements, in His Word and salvation. Their lives were based around that hope.

In the 37th chapter of Ezekiel, God states that the bones, representing the whole house of Israel, figuratively say, “Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off.” And yet, God shows there was hope for them as He will open their graves and they will live, and He will also put His Spirit in them. He would also bring them into the land of Israel (Verses 11-14). Their hope was not lost even though that was their belief.

There are many other prophecies where God gives hope to the houses of Israel and Judah, to bring them back from their captivity to their former homeland. One specifically to the house of Judah during their time in captivity in Babylon is in Jeremiah 29:11-14. God thought to give the house of Judah a future and a hope and to bring them back to their own land.

The apostle Paul is an outstanding New Testament example of hope. At the beginning of his calling, God explained what his commission would be, but He also showed him, “how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake” (Acts 9:15-16). At the very beginning of his calling, Paul (he was then known as Saul) was made aware his life was not going to be easy.

Here are some instances of the trials and the reason Paul endured them. When he was standing before the council after declaring that he was going to preach to the Gentiles, his defence was, “concerning the hope and resurrection of the dead I am being judged!” (Acts 23:6). Again, in Acts 24:15, Paul’s hope was in the resurrection of the dead.

In many of his epistles, he taught the resurrection of Christians to glory, the glory of God (Romans 5:2). He also taught that, “we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:7). See also Titus 1:2.

Paul gives a long discussion of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15. Some were saying there is no resurrection. If this was true, then all who have died in Christ have perished. They have no hope. He goes on to say, “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable” (Verse 19). Also he says, “If the dead do not rise, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!’” (Verse 32).

He points out earlier in this chapter, if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not risen. But since there had been hundreds of witnesses to Christ’s life after His resurrection, including Paul himself, then he knew the resurrection was indeed a fact.

This hope was what enabled Paul to be willing to go through all the sufferings he experienced. 2 Corinthians 11:23-28 gives a listing of some of the things he suffered, finally leading up to his death as a faithful witness.

In what many believe to be his final epistle (his second letter to Timothy), he sums up his life in God’s service.  He mentions many who had left the church (2 Timothy 1:15), and that, in the future, others would be turned aside to fables (2 Timothy 4:3-4).

Because he knew he was soon to be put to death, he stated, “The time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing” (2 Timothy 4:6-8).

This was his belief, that his faith in God and Christ gave him his personal hope of eternal life. And this hope enabled him to carry out his part in the Work of God, no matter what trials and sufferings he experienced. He saw the wonderful reward that was awaiting him and others who also believed.

There are a number of other prophecies in God’s Word of many being offended and falling away from God’s Truth, especially at the end times. Because of this, we should follow the apostle Paul’s example of having unwavering hope that will enable us to continue to do our part in God’s Work, finish our race and achieve salvation and eternal life.

Hope is extremely important for us, for without it we could easily give up. But with it we can indeed endure to the end and receive our glorious resurrection.

We read in Matthew 10:22, after listing a number of warnings of trials: “… But he who endures to the end will be saved.”

Endurance is a very important concept for us living God’s Way. In fact, it is essential. At first thought, endurance may be considered similar to perseverance and yet God gives greater emphasis to endurance than He does to perseverance. In the Bible, perseverance or persevere occurs about 9 times while endure or enduring occurs over 30 times, not counting the over 45 occurrences in italics. When we look at endurance, it certainly includes the element of perseverance but it entails much more.

A definition of perseverance is to continue on, even though there may be difficulties and failures on the way, whereas endurance is more like surviving pain or hardship or opposition.

Matthew 24:9-13 is a very important message for the end-time Church, although it has applied during much of the history of the Church. It shows the importance of enduring:

“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. And then many will be offended…” Some versions have “fall away” in place of “be offended.” According to Ellicot’s commentary, the reference to “the many” points primarily to “believers in Christ” who found a stumbling block which caused them to be offended. Continuing: “… betray one another, and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love [agape or godly love that true Christians have] of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved.”

This passage shows that we may have to endure trials such as tribulation, killing, hatred, deception, offences, betrayal and lawlessness. But it ends on a very positive theme, an absolute promise from God who cannot lie, that the person who endures to the end through all of this shall be saved. “Shall,” in contractual terms, means: It is mandatory, it must happen.

Let us focus on our example, Jesus Christ. In Hebrews 12:2 we read, “… looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

When we look at His life, we find that it required great endurance. His life was threatened a number of times, even from when He was a young child. He had to fight the temptations of Satan. He was accused of blasphemy and even called illegitimate. He was accused of casting out demons by Beelzebub. He went through an illegal trial whose guilty outcome was already predetermined. And to top it off, He was beaten and executed in a manner usually applied to the worst criminals. In those days, it was a shameful thing to be crucified.

So why did He do it? Why did He come to earth and take the form of a human, knowing all this was prophesied to happen to Him? As we just read, it was for the joy that was set before Him. The joy of making possible that many brethren would join the God Family. He and His Father knew that this was the only way possible, and the outcome was so wonderful that no trial was too much for Him to achieve this outcome.

So how does this apply to us? We also have to endure many trials in life. But the outcome is stated in Psalm 16:11: “You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures evermore.” There is a wonderful life set out before us if we endure. Nothing could be more worthwhile.

God certainly offers us help and He gives us a promise in Romans 8:38-39: “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

We have God’s promise of help. We read what the apostle Paul said in Philippians 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” We can also have faith in God who shows no partiality, that we can endure to the end through Christ who strengthens us.