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The Narrow Path · Lesson 5 · Drash and study questions

Water of Life

Parashat Ḥayei Sarah (Genesis 23:1–25:18) · Discussed Sunday, November 8, 2026

Yeshua’s teachings are living water. In our parashah Rivkah draws water at the well for a stranger and all his camels, and at another well Yeshua offers a Samaritan woman “living water.” This lesson looks at what the word “gospel” means, how the four Gospels were gathered, what happened to the lost Jewish gospels, the Didache and its Two Ways, how disciples carried their teacher’s words, and why Yeshua’s teachings are not an extra beside the message of salvation but the message itself.

All lessonsNext: Lesson 6 (coming soon)
Drash · Parashat Ḥayei Sarah

Living Water at the Well

About this drash. This drash goes with Lesson 5 of The Narrow Path, the study our teen and family group is reading together. The lesson gave us the theme, but the teaching here is our own. It is written from Benei Avraham’s beliefs, as set out in our Statement of Faith and taught in our classes. On some points we understand things differently from the study’s authors. For example, we believe Yeshua is the Messiah and the Son of God, sent by the Father, but not Hashem Himself. After the drash you will find the lesson’s study questions with our answers.

Parashat Ḥayei Sarah begins with a funeral. Sarah dies, and Avraham buys a cave in Ḥevron to bury her. Then Avraham, now very old, gives his servant one last job: go back to my family and find a wife for my son Yitzḥak. The servant is not named in this chapter. Jewish tradition says he was Eliezer, the servant Avraham once called “the steward of my house” (Genesis 15:2).

The servant travels a long way with ten camels. Where does he stop? At a well. “And he made his camels kneel down outside the city by the well of water at the time of evening, the time that women go out to draw water” (Genesis 24:11). Much of the story of Israel happens at wells. Yaakov meets Raḥel at a well (Genesis 29:10). Moshe meets his wife at a well (Exodus 2:15–17). And many years later, Yeshua sits down at a well too.

The test at the well

Before he does anything else, the servant prays: “O Hashem, God of my master Avraham, I pray You, send me good success this day, and show kindness unto my master Avraham” (Genesis 24:12). Then he asks for a sign. The right young woman will be the one who says, “Drink, and I will give your camels drink also” (Genesis 24:14).

That is not a small thing to offer. A thirsty camel can drink many gallons of water, and there were ten of them. The test was not about beauty or money. It was about ḥesed, kindness that goes beyond what anyone asks.

And Rivkah passes the test before the servant even finishes praying. He runs to meet her and says, “Let me, I pray you, drink a little water from your pitcher” (Genesis 24:17). She gives him a drink, and then she says, “I will draw water for your camels also, until they have finished drinking.” And she “ran again unto the well to draw, and drew for all his camels” (Genesis 24:19–20).

Rashi asks why the servant ran toward her. He answers from the midrash: the servant saw the water rise up from the well to meet her (Rashi on Genesis 24:17; Genesis Rabbah 60:5). The water came up to meet the woman whose heart was ready to give it away.

Another well, another stranger

Now go to the fourth chapter of Yoḥanan (John). Yeshua is tired from his journey, and he sits down at Yaakov’s well in Samaria (John 4:6). A woman comes to draw water, and Yeshua says the same thing Avraham’s servant said: “Give me to drink” (John 4:7).

But this time the story turns around. The one asking for water is the one who has water to give. Yeshua tells her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that says to you, Give me to drink; you would have asked of him, and he would have given you living water” (John 4:10). Then he explains: “Whosoever drinks of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:13–14).

In Hebrew, “living water” is mayim ḥayyim. It means fresh, flowing water from a spring, not water sitting still in a pit. Our parashah keeps returning to such a place. When Rivkah first sees Yitzḥak, he has just come from Be’er-Laḥai-Ro’i (Genesis 24:62), the well named for “the Living One who sees me.” Later Yitzḥak’s servants dig “and found there a well of living water” (Genesis 26:19).

The water is the word

What is this living water? The prophets tell us that Hashem Himself is the source. “They have forsaken Me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13). The sages add that water is a picture of Torah. Isaiah calls, “Ho, every one that thirsts, come you to the waters” (Isaiah 55:1), and the Talmud says, “water means nothing but Torah” (b. Bava Kamma 82a). When Israel went three days without water in the wilderness (Exodus 15:22), the sages said they had gone three days without Torah. That is why the Torah is read in the synagogue every Monday, Thursday and Shabbat, so that we never go three days without it.

The Talmud also asks why the words of Torah are compared to water. Its answer: water flows down from a high place to a low place. In the same way, Torah stays only with a person who is humble (b. Ta’anit 7a).

So when Yeshua offers living water, he is offering the word of God, the teaching that gives life. He said it plainly: “the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). When some disciples left him, Shimon Kefa (Peter) answered, “Master, to whom shall we go? you have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). At Benei Avraham we believe Yeshua is the Messiah and the Son of God, sent by the Father. His teaching does not replace the Torah. It leads us deeper into it, the way a spring leads you back to the river it comes from.

This is the point of our lesson. Yeshua’s teachings are not an extra that sits beside the good news. They are the living water. A person who never drinks them will stay thirsty, however much he says he believes.

Drink, then become a spring

Yeshua said something even more surprising. Living water does not stay inside the one who drinks it. “He that believes on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38). The one who drinks becomes a well for others.

The Mishnah tells how Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai praised two of his students. Rabbi Eliezer was “a plastered cistern that does not lose a drop.” He remembered everything he was taught. Rabbi Elazar ben Arach was “a spring that keeps growing stronger” (m. Avot 2:8). He did not only keep what he was given. He made it flow. Both are good. But a disciple of Yeshua is meant to be a spring.

That is what Rivkah was. She did not just fill her own pitcher and go home. She kept running back to the well until a stranger and ten camels had enough. Her kindness made her the mother of Israel. The prophets say that one day the whole earth will drink like that: “living waters shall go out from Yerushalayim” (Zechariah 14:8), and “with joy shall you draw water out of the wells of salvation” (Isaiah 12:3).

Your well

So here is the question Parashat Ḥayei Sarah asks us: Are you drinking? Not once a year, but every day. Read the words of Yeshua. Learn one of his sayings by heart. Come back to the well the way Rivkah did, again and again.

And then ask a second question: Who is thirsty near you? A friend who is lonely. A parent who is tired. A stranger who needs a kind word. You do not need ten camels to practice ḥesed. You only need to say, like Rivkah, “I will draw water for you also,” and then do it.

The last page of the Bible ends with an open invitation: “And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Revelation 22:17). The well is open. Come and drink.

Sources quoted in this drash

Tanakh

  • Genesis 15:2: “And the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damesek.”
  • Genesis 24:11–20: the servant at the well, his prayer, and Rivkah drawing water for all ten camels: “I will draw water for your camels also, until they have finished drinking.”
  • Genesis 24:62: “And Yitzḥak came from going to Be’er-Laḥai-Ro’i.”
  • Genesis 26:19: “And Yitzḥak’s servants dug in the valley, and found there a well of living water.”
  • Genesis 29:10 and Exodus 2:15–17: Yaakov and Moshe meet their wives at wells.
  • Exodus 15:22: “And they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water.”
  • Isaiah 12:3: “Therefore with joy shall you draw water out of the wells of salvation.”
  • Isaiah 55:1: “Ho, every one that thirsts, come you to the waters, and he that has no money; come you, buy, and eat.”
  • Jeremiah 2:13: “They have forsaken Me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.”
  • Zechariah 14:8: “And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Yerushalayim.”

Brit Hadashah

  • John 4:6–14: Yeshua at Yaakov’s well: “the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”
  • John 6:63, 68: “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” and “Master, to whom shall we go? you have the words of eternal life.”
  • John 7:37–38: “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believes on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.”
  • Revelation 22:17: “And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.”

Jewish tradition

  • Rashi on Genesis 24:17 (from Genesis Rabbah 60:5): the servant ran to meet Rivkah because he saw the water rise up to meet her.
  • b. Bava Kamma 82a: “water” means Torah (Isaiah 55:1); after three days without water (Exodus 15:22), the Torah is read every Monday, Thursday and Shabbat.
  • b. Ta’anit 7a: words of Torah are like water: as water leaves a high place and flows to a low one, Torah stays only with the humble.
  • m. Avot 2:8: Rabbi Eliezer is “a plastered cistern that does not lose a drop”; Rabbi Elazar ben Arach is “a spring that keeps growing stronger.”

These are our answers to the Lesson 5 study questions for The Narrow Path, our teen and family Torah study: 21 study questions, 3 “Thinking About It” prompts, two reading assignments and two prayers. The questions are summarized in our own words. Each answer gives the main point first, then supporting sources from the Tanakh, the Brit Hadashah and Jewish tradition, and from church history where the question is about the early church.

Focus Section 1

The Gospel

Study question 1

What is the word “gospel” shorthand for?

Answer: The good news about the kingdom of heaven: the coming reign of the Messiah that Yoḥanan the Immerser announced, Yeshua proclaimed, and his disciples carried on. The Hebrew idea behind it is besorah, good news, and the good news is that Hashem reigns.

Tanakh

  • Isaiah 52:7: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that brings good tidings, that publishes peace; that brings good tidings of good, that publishes salvation; that says unto Tziyon, ‘Your God reigns!’”
  • Isaiah 61:1: “Hashem has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek.” Yeshua read this verse in the synagogue of Natzeret (Nazareth) and said, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears” (Luke 4:21).

Brit Hadashah

  • Mark 1:14–15: Yeshua came “preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent, and believe the gospel.”
  • Matthew 24:14: “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.”

Jewish tradition

  • Targum Yonatan on Isaiah 52:7: the ancient Aramaic translation renders “Your God reigns” as “the kingdom of your God is revealed.” The good tidings are the kingdom.
Study question 2

After Yeshua’s death and resurrection, to whom did his disciples first bring the message?

Answer: To the people of Israel, beginning in Jerusalem. Only after that did the message go out to Samaria and to the nations.

Tanakh

  • Isaiah 2:3: “For out of Tziyon shall go forth the Torah, and the word of Hashem from Yerushalayim.”

Brit Hadashah

  • Luke 24:47: “And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.”
  • Acts 1:8: “You shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”
  • Acts 3:26: “Unto you first God, having raised up His Son Yeshua, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.”
  • Romans 1:16: the good news “is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believes; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”
Study question 3

How did Shaul (Paul) widen the reach of the message?

Answer: He invited people from the nations to turn from idols to the God of Israel and to repent in Yeshua’s name, sharing Israel’s hope without first having to become Jewish. He argued from the Shema itself: if there is one God, He is God of the nations too.

Where Benei Avraham stands: we agree that Gentiles do not have to become Jewish to be saved, and that living as a righteous Gentile (a Noahide or a ger toshav) is an acceptable path. But when it is possible, we encourage Gentiles to take on the whole Torah, convert and join Israel.

Tanakh

  • Deuteronomy 6:4: “Hear, O Yisrael: Hashem our God, Hashem is one.”
  • Isaiah 49:6: “I will also give you for a light to the Gentiles, that you may be My salvation unto the end of the earth.”
  • Zechariah 8:23: “Ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, ‘We will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you.’”

Brit Hadashah

  • 1 Thessalonians 1:9: “How you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.”
  • Acts 26:20: “That they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance.”
  • Romans 3:29–30: “Is He the God of the Jews only? is He not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also: Seeing it is one God.”
  • Acts 15:19–20: the apostles decided not to trouble “them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God,” but to write that they abstain “from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.”
Prayer

Father in heaven, help me not only to believe the good news but to live it. I want to start fresh on the path of repentance today. Cleanse me from my sins in Yeshua’s name and help me walk the narrow path.

Comment: This is the lesson’s prayer in our own words. It joins believing and doing, as Yaakov (James) does. “Start fresh” is the language of teshuvah, turning back to Hashem. Every day can be a new beginning, because His mercies are new every morning.

Sources

  • James 1:22: “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.”
  • Lamentations 3:40: “Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to Hashem.”
  • Lamentations 3:23: “They are new every morning: great is Your faithfulness.”
Focus Section 2

The Gospels

Study question 1

Why are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John called the “canonical” Gospels?

Answer: Because they belong to the canon, the recognized collection of Scripture: a small library of books that came from the community of the apostles. The Greek word kanōn means a measuring rod or standard. By the late second century these four were already accepted as the Gospels.

Brit Hadashah

  • Luke 24:44: Yeshua speaks of what “was written in the Torah of Moshe, and in the prophets, and in the psalms,” the recognized Scriptures of his day.
  • 2 Timothy 3:16: “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”

Jewish tradition

  • m. Yadayim 3:5: the sages debated which books “defile the hands,” that is, are holy Scripture. Rabbi Akiva defended the Song of Songs: “All the writings are holy, but the Song of Songs is the holy of holies.”

Church history

  • Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.11.8 (about 180 CE): there are four Gospels, no more and no fewer, like the four winds.
  • Athanasius, Festal Letter 39 (367 CE): the earliest list that matches the 27 books of the Brit Hadashah.
Study question 2

What is the basic idea of the Gnostic gospels?

Answer: That the God of Israel, the Creator, is a lower, lesser god who traps souls in the physical world, and that a heavenly savior (to whom they gave Yeshua’s name) brings secret knowledge, gnōsis, so that souls can escape the body and return to a higher spiritual god. This denies the very first chapter of the Torah, where Hashem makes the physical world and calls it very good.

Tanakh

  • Genesis 1:31: “And God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good.”
  • Isaiah 45:18: “God Himself that formed the earth and made it; He has established it, He created it not in vain, He formed it to be inhabited.”

Brit Hadashah

  • John 1:3: “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.”
  • 1 John 4:2–3: “Every spirit that confesses that Yeshua the Messiah is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesses not that Yeshua the Messiah is come in the flesh is not of God.”

Church history

  • Nag Hammadi library: most known Gnostic texts come from a collection of books found buried in Egypt in 1945.
  • Irenaeus, Against Heresies: written largely to answer the Gnostic teachers of the second century.
Study question 3

What happened to the lost Jewish gospels used by the Jewish followers of Yeshua?

Answer: They disappeared along with the early communities of Jewish believers who used them. Only small pieces survive, quoted by church writers.

Brit Hadashah

  • Acts 21:20: those communities were once large: “You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the Torah.”

Church history

  • The Gospel of the Hebrews, the Gospel of the Nazarenes and the Gospel of the Ebionites are known only from quotations in Origen, Eusebius, Epiphanius (Panarion 29–30) and Jerome.
  • Jerome, On Illustrious Men 3: says he saw a Hebrew Matthew in the library at Caesarea.
Think about it

Is the Acts of the Apostles a gospel or not?

Answer: Not in its form, but it is full of the gospel. A Gospel is a memoir of Yeshua’s life and teaching. Acts is the second volume of Luke’s work, about the apostles. But it opens by calling Luke’s Gospel an account of all that Yeshua “began both to do and teach,” which suggests that Acts tells how he went on teaching through his disciples. Acts preaches the same message of the kingdom from start to finish, and it even keeps a saying of Yeshua found in no Gospel.

Brit Hadashah

  • Acts 1:1: “The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Yeshua began both to do and teach.”
  • Acts 8:12: “But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Yeshua the Messiah, they were baptized, both men and women.”
  • Acts 28:31: Shaul was “preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Master Yeshua the Messiah.”
  • Acts 20:35: “Remember the words of the Master Yeshua, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
Focus Section 3

The Lost Teachings of the Messiah

Study question 1

Where and when did Archbishop Philotheos Bryennios discover the Didache?

Answer: In 1873, in the library of the Jerusalem Monastery of the Holy Sepulchre in Constantinople (Istanbul). He found it inside a small bound manuscript, copied in 1056, that held several early writings, and he published it in 1883. Before then, scholars knew the Didache only from brief mentions. Most scholars date it to the late first century, which makes it one of the earliest writings of the followers of Yeshua outside the Brit Hadashah.

Church history

  • Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.25.4: lists “the so-called Teachings of the Apostles” among books read in the churches but not counted as Scripture.
  • The Jerusalem manuscript (1056): the only complete copy of the Didache known, now in the library of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem.
Study question 2

What is the full title of the Didache?

Answer: The Teaching of the Master through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations. Didachē is Greek for “teaching.” Its short title is The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. The words “to the nations” show who it was for: Gentiles coming to faith in the God of Israel.

Tanakh

  • Isaiah 2:3: the nations say, “He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths.”

Brit Hadashah

  • Matthew 28:19–20: “Go therefore, and teach all nations … Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.”
  • Acts 15:19: the apostles wrote to “them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God.”
Study question 3

What do the first chapters of the Didache pass on?

Answer: The core teachings of Yeshua, gathered and put in order for new believers from the nations who were preparing for immersion. Chapters 1–6, called the “Two Ways,” closely follow the Sermon on the Mount: love your enemies, turn the other cheek, go the second mile. Only after teaching “all these things” does the Didache say to immerse, preferably in “living water,” that is, flowing water.

Brit Hadashah

  • Matthew 5:44: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.”
  • Luke 6:29: “And unto him that smites you on the one cheek offer also the other.”

Church history

  • Didache 1–6: the Two Ways, drawn largely from Yeshua’s teaching.
  • Didache 7:1: having first taught all these things, immerse “in living water.”
  • Didache 8:2–3: pray the Master’s prayer three times a day. Chapter 16 calls the reader to be ready for his coming.

Jewish tradition

  • m. Mikvaot 1:8: the highest kind of water for immersion is mayim ḥayyim, living (flowing) water.
Read it

Read the Didache

The lesson asks you to read the Didache for yourself.

Comment: It is short. Chapters 1–6 take about ten minutes to read, and free public-domain English translations are easy to find. As you read, notice how much of it you recognize from the Sermon on the Mount, and how little it says about doctrine. It is a guide for how to live.

Sources

  • Matthew 7:24: “Therefore whosoever hears these sayings of mine, and does them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock.”
Focus Section 4

The Two Ways

Study question 1

With what words does the Didache begin?

Answer: “There are two ways, one of life and one of death,” and there is a great difference between the two ways (Didache 1:1). It echoes the choice the Torah sets before Israel, and the narrow and broad ways of Yeshua.

Tanakh

  • Deuteronomy 30:19: “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your seed may live.”
  • Jeremiah 21:8: “Behold, I set before you the way of life, and the way of death.”
  • Psalm 1:6: “For Hashem knows the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.”

Brit Hadashah

  • Matthew 7:13–14: “Wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leads to destruction … strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leads unto life, and few there be that find it.”

Jewish tradition

  • m. Avot 2:9: Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai told his disciples, “Go out and see which is the good way to which a person should cling.”
  • Dead Sea Scrolls, Community Rule (1QS 3–4): describes two spirits and two paths, of light and of darkness.
Study question 2

Into what two parts does the Didache divide the Way of Life?

Answer: Love for God and love for neighbor: “first, you shall love God who made you; second, your neighbor as yourself” (Didache 1:2). These are the two great commandments Yeshua named. The Didache then adds the Golden Rule in its negative form: whatever you would not want done to you, do not do to another.

Tanakh

  • Deuteronomy 6:5: “And you shall love Hashem your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”
  • Leviticus 19:18: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am Hashem.”

Brit Hadashah

  • Matthew 22:37–40: “You shall love Hashem your God with all your heart … You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Torah and the prophets.”

Jewish tradition

  • b. Shabbat 31a: Hillel summed up the Torah for a would-be convert: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary. Go and learn it.”
Study question 3

What is the Didache mainly concerned with?

Answer: Passing on the teaching of Yeshua as the narrow path that leads to life. It says little about doctrine, creeds or arguments over faith and works, and a great deal about how to live. Its “Way of Death” (chapter 5) lists the behaviors Yeshua warned against: murder, adultery, theft, false witness, hypocrisy, greed and arrogance.

Tanakh

  • Micah 6:8: “He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does Hashem require of you, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”

Brit Hadashah

  • Mark 7:21–22: “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit.”
  • Matthew 28:20: “Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.”

Jewish tradition

  • m. Avot 1:17: “Not study but deeds are the main thing.”
Think about it

The Didache was written for people who lived about 1,900 years ago. What would a modern version need to include?

Answer: The Way of Life would not change: love Hashem, love your neighbor, and live the Sermon on the Mount. What would change is the list of examples. A modern “Way of Death” might name online slander and gossip, pornography, cheating at school or work, anger in comment sections, and greed dressed up as “success.” A modern Way of Life might add guarding what we watch and read, honoring parents, a Shabbat rest from screens, and hospitality to the lonely. The Didache already did this in its own day: it applied Yeshua’s teaching to Roman life, for example by forbidding abortion and the abandoning of newborn babies (Didache 2:2), which were common then.

Tanakh

  • Ecclesiastes 1:9: “And there is no new thing under the sun.” The sins are old; only their forms change.

Brit Hadashah

  • Romans 12:2: “And be not conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
Focus Section 5

Sayings Gospels

Study question 1

How were Yeshua’s words first passed on?

Answer: By word of mouth, as an oral tradition. His disciples memorized and repeated his sayings and stories, as the disciples of every Jewish teacher did. Shaul even uses the Jewish language of receiving a tradition and handing it on.

Tanakh

  • Deuteronomy 6:7: “And you shall teach them diligently unto your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way.”

Brit Hadashah

  • 1 Corinthians 15:3: “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received.” See also 11:23.
  • 2 Thessalonians 2:15: “Hold the traditions which you have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.”
  • 2 Timothy 2:2: “The same commit to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.”

Jewish tradition

  • m. Avot 1:1: “Moshe received (kibbel) the Torah from Sinai and handed it on (masar) to Yehoshua.” These are the same words Shaul uses in Greek.
  • b. Chagigah 9b: one who reviews his learning a hundred times is not like one who reviews it a hundred and one times.
  • b. Eruvin 54b: Rabbi Preida repeated a lesson 400 times for a slow student.
Study question 2

According to Eusebius, in what language did Matthew gather the sayings of the Master?

Answer: Hebrew. Some scholars think “Hebrew” here may include Aramaic, since both were spoken in Judea in Yeshua’s day.

Church history

  • Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.39.16, quoting the early writer Papias: “Matthew compiled the sayings in the Hebrew language, and each interpreted them as best he could.” See also 3.24.6.
  • Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.1.1: Matthew wrote “among the Hebrews in their own dialect.”
Study question 3

What is a sayings gospel?

Answer: A gospel made up only of the sayings and teachings of Yeshua, without the story of his life, miracles, death and resurrection.

Brit Hadashah

  • Acts 20:35: Shaul quotes a saying found in no Gospel: “Remember the words of the Master Yeshua, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
  • 1 Corinthians 7:10: “And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Master.” Shaul knew and passed on Yeshua’s sayings.

Church history

  • The Gospel of Thomas: in its surviving form a collection of sayings, though much of it was changed later.
  • “Q” (from German Quelle, “source”): scholars’ name for a possible collection, mostly of sayings, used by Matthew and Luke.
Look it up

Luke 1:1–4

The lesson asks you to read how Luke describes his own sources.

Comment: Luke names two kinds of sources. First, written accounts: “many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration” (verse 1). Second, spoken testimony from “eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word” (verse 2). He then wrote “in order” so that Theophilus could “know the certainty” of what he had been taught (verses 3–4). “Ministers of the word” describes people whose job was to carry the tradition, just as the lesson explains.

Sources

  • Luke 1:1–4: “Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word; It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto you in order, most excellent Theophilus, That you might know the certainty of those things, wherein you have been instructed.”
Focus Section 6

Discipleship and the Oral Tradition

Study question 1

Instead of writing books, how did the rabbis pass on their teachings?

Answer: By word of mouth, through their disciples. A teacher’s students were his “books.” The very first teaching of the Mishnah’s Ethics of the Fathers is to raise up many disciples.

Tanakh

  • Isaiah 54:13: “And all your children shall be taught of Hashem; and great shall be the peace of your children.”

Jewish tradition

  • m. Avot 1:1: the Men of the Great Assembly said, “Raise up many disciples.”
  • m. Avot 1:4: “Let your house be a meeting place for the sages; sit in the dust of their feet, and drink in their words with thirst.” This fits our lesson’s theme of water.
  • m. Avot 1:6: “Make for yourself a teacher, and acquire for yourself a companion.”
Study question 2

What were the four main jobs of a disciple?

Answer: 1. Memorize the teacher’s words. 2. Learn the teacher’s interpretations of Scripture, how he read and applied the Torah. 3. Imitate the teacher’s actions, learning by watching how he lives. 4. Raise up more disciples.

Tanakh

  • Psalm 119:11: “Your word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against You.”

Brit Hadashah

  • Luke 24:27: “And beginning at Moshe and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.”
  • 1 Corinthians 11:1: “Be followers of me, even as I also am of Messiah.”
  • 1 John 2:6: “He that says he abides in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.”
  • Matthew 28:19: “Go therefore, and teach all nations.”

Jewish tradition

  • m. Avot 2:8: Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai praised his disciple Eliezer as “a plastered cistern that does not lose a drop.”
  • b. Berakhot 7b: serving a teacher is even greater than studying with him, because the disciple learns from how he lives.
Study question 3

For whom does a fully trained disciple of Yeshua raise up more disciples?

Answer: Not for himself or herself, but for Yeshua. We make disciples of the Master, not followers of ourselves.

Tanakh

  • Isaiah 42:8: “I am Hashem: that is My name: and My glory will I not give to another.”

Brit Hadashah

  • Matthew 23:8: “But be not called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Messiah; and all you are brethren.”
  • 1 Corinthians 1:12–13: “Every one of you says, I am of Shaul; and I of Apollos … Is Messiah divided? was Shaul crucified for you?”
  • John 3:30: Yoḥanan the Immerser said, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”
Prayer

Father in heaven, write my Master Yeshua’s teachings on my heart, and make me into a living book of his teachings.

Comment: This is the lesson’s prayer in our own words. It asks for the promise of the new covenant: Hashem’s Torah written on the heart. Proverbs uses the same picture, and Shaul calls a faithful community a living letter. We become the book other people read.

Sources

  • Jeremiah 31:33: “I will put My Torah in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts.”
  • Proverbs 3:3: “Write them upon the table of your heart.” See also 7:3.
  • 2 Corinthians 3:3: “Written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.”
Focus Section 7

The Teachings Are the Message

Study question 1

How are Yeshua’s teachings related to the message of salvation?

Answer: Yeshua’s teachings are the message of salvation. They map out the repentance that brings the kingdom, enters it, and leads to the resurrection and everlasting life. They are not a side topic. This does not make his death less important. Jewish tradition taught that the suffering and death of the righteous bring atonement, and how much more the death of the righteous Messiah. His death opens the way, and his teaching is the way.

Tanakh

  • Isaiah 53:5: “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”

Brit Hadashah

  • John 6:68: “Master, to whom shall we go? you have the words of eternal life.”
  • Matthew 7:24: “Therefore whosoever hears these sayings of mine, and does them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock.”
  • John 12:48: “The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.”
  • 1 Corinthians 15:3–4: “That Messiah died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.”

Jewish tradition

  • 4 Maccabees 6:28–29: the martyr Elazar prays, “Make my blood their purification, and take my life in exchange for theirs.”
  • b. Moed Katan 28a: the death of the righteous brings atonement.
Study question 2

How would the popular way of presenting the gospel change if Yeshua’s teachings were taken out of the Gospels?

Answer: Not at all, and that is the problem the lesson points out. A message that could lose everything Yeshua taught and stay the same has drifted away from the message he gave. He sent his disciples to teach people to keep his commandments, not only to know facts about him.

Tanakh

  • Ezekiel 33:32: “For they hear your words, but they do them not.”

Brit Hadashah

  • Matthew 28:20: “Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.”
  • Luke 6:46: “And why call you me, Master, Master, and do not the things which I say?”
Study question 3

Even with the weight they placed on his death and resurrection, what remained “the main concern” for the early believers?

Answer: Passing on the teaching of Yeshua. The first community held fast to the apostles’ teaching, Shaul measured sound teaching by the words of the Master, and the Gospels themselves are mostly teaching: the Sermon on the Mount, the parables, and the long talks of John 13–17.

Brit Hadashah

  • Acts 2:42: “And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.”
  • 1 Timothy 6:3: sound teaching consents to “wholesome words, even the words of our Master Yeshua the Messiah.”

Jewish tradition

  • m. Avot 1:17: “Not study but deeds are the main thing.” Learning is meant to lead to doing.
Think about it

What are some practical ways I can begin to put the teaching of Yeshua first?

Answer: Do the four jobs of a disciple, a little at a time. Memorize one saying of Yeshua each week; start with the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3–12) and review it a hundred and one times. Learn by reading the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7) once a month, along with the weekly parashah. Imitate by choosing one teaching and doing it this week: go the second mile, pray for someone who wronged you, or give in secret. Teach it at home, and share one teaching with a friend or with your family at the Shabbat table.

Tanakh

  • Deuteronomy 6:7: “And you shall teach them diligently unto your children.”

Brit Hadashah

  • Matthew 5:41, 44: “And whosoever shall compel you to go a mile, go with him twain” and “pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.”
  • Matthew 6:3–4: “But when you do alms, let not your left hand know what your right hand does: That your alms may be in secret.”

Jewish tradition

  • b. Chagigah 9b: reviewing a lesson a hundred and one times is better than a hundred.

Scripture quotations are our own translation: the King James Version in modern English, with Hebrew verse numbers and Hashem for the Divine Name (LORD), Torah for “the law,” Hebrew names (Moshe, Yoḥanan, Avraham, Shaul), Messiah for “Christ,” and Master for “Lord” when it refers to Yeshua. Abbreviations: m. = Mishnah, b. = Babylonian Talmud, Rambam = Maimonides, Ramban = Nachmanides. Rabbinic sources are given in short translation or paraphrase.

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