Definition
Moadim (Hebrew: מוֹעֲדִים; singular: mo’ed) are the divinely appointed times or assemblies established in Lev. 23. The term means literally ‘fixed times’, ‘appointed assemblies’, or ‘set hours’ and refers to the seven feast-times of Israel as a prophetic calendar of God’s salvific acts in world history. For Jones, the moadim form the typological framework within which all pneumatological events — the outpouring of the Spirit, the resurrection, the consummation — are interpreted: God does not act arbitrarily but at precisely appointed moments.
Usage in the Corpus
Stephen Jones
Jones illustrates the moadim principle through the historical precision of the Pentecostal outpouring: God made the disciples wait until not only the right day but the exact hour had arrived. “The third hour of the day was the time when the priest in the temple was offering the Pentecostal offering of the two wave loaves baked with leaven (Lev. 23:17). The disciples would doubtless have preferred to receive the Holy Spirit sooner, but God made them wait for the appointed time — not only the right day, but even the precise hour of the day. This shows how important timing is to God himself.”
This moadim-principle extends over all major eschatological events: “For as the Feast of Pentecost was the appointed time, so also the Feast of Trumpets is the appointed time for the resurrection of the dead. The Day of Atonement is the appointed time for the Church to repent and mourn over its refusal to enter into the fullness of the Spirit, its ‘Promised Land.’ And finally, the Feast of Tabernacles is the appointed time for the change of our bodies.”
The moadim are for Jones the key to biblical hermeneutics: whoever understands the appointed times understands the pneumatological program of God. The Spirit does not operate outside the moadim — He is precisely bound to them. [Jones, The Laws of the Second Coming, Chs. 1 and 7]