Jews hold a "man seder" to bring back men to the faith. What is the Biblical key to holding firm in the faith?
Transcript
[Darris McNeely] It’s the season of the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread. I was reading an article in the Wall Street Journal just a few days ago, how within the Jewish community they have started a tradition to try to get Jews back into keeping their Passover service, which they call a Seder. They were having what they call a “man Seder”, where lapsed Jewish men were invited back to take part in a kind of a quasi-religious ceremony that they were calling a man Seder. And instead of having the traditional meal and accoutrements of the Jewish Seder meal, they offered steak and scotch. A steak and scotch Seder. It’s a bit alliterative there, I think.
And I happened to think about it and I realized, you know, every community of faith, every church, every religion, has people who have lapsed, who’ve fallen away and somehow need to be stirred up to come back, and the Jewish religion is no different in that way. But there’s a connection to what God does say about the Passover and about His entire way of life that I think is instructive for those of us who take the Bible as it is, believe it, and seek to live by every word of God.
When you go back to Exodus chapter 13, you read the account of the original Passover and the Exodus which entered into the period of the Days of Unleavened Bread and look at what God says there to Israel, not just to the Jews, but to Israel and by extension to us today, to all mankind, to all who want to follow God in spirit and in truth. As He brought the Israelites out of Egypt, He told them in verse 3, through Moses, “Remember this day in which you went out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand the Lord brought you out of this place. No leavened bread shall be eaten” (Exodus 13:3-10).
It goes on to talk about the seven-day period of unleavened bread. But there in that first instruction is the word “remember”. Don’t forget.
And it’s an age-long problem among the people of God. Is it your problem? I hope not. Because when we come to the Passover, the Days of Unleavened Bread, and our entire worship of God, we want to always remember what God tells us to do, and faithfully observe and do that. We want to remember. We don’t want to get to the point where we need some modern gimmick or trick or system to try to bring us back to faith. We want to stay faithful with God, completely. Remember what God has done at all times in our life. And doing that will help us be faithful in our walk with God.
