A fifty-year anniversary is very special. For married people, it is their “Golden Anniversary.” Fifty years is such an amazing stretch of time to celebrate an event.
So it was for God’s people. It used to be called a “Jubilee Year.” The root of word in Hebrew means, “to split the ears” with a trumpet blast that announces the beginning of this sacred period. Those held captive were to be set free. Land was returned in that year to the original owner. Jesus applied the term to himself and his ministry in Luke 4:19.
Jesus ushered in a time Jubilee, which will never end. It’s like a Sabbath that goes on and on. Even so, it’s good to stop, pause and rest at times in the day, those moments when we stop doing some activity and are about do begin another. I like to call these “Mini-Sabbaths.” These are like a saying in a soda commercial, “The pause that refreshes!”
The Saturday passages follow the reading list that Jewish people use in their synagogue worship throughout the world. They are taken from
“The Torah,” the first five books of the Bible from Genesis to Deuteronomy that are read each year beginning with autumn.
These Firestarters are from a new edition of The Bible Through the Seasons being developed for families with children. For the Firestarters in the original edition, I recommend the ebook. You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or table! Check the menu options at the site for more information.
The Bible Through the Seasons 