All posts by James Pyles

James Pyles is a published Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror author as well as the Technical Writer for a large, diversified business in the Northwest. He currently has over 30 short stories published in various anthologies and periodicals and has just sold his first novella. He won the 2021 Helicon Short Story Award for his science fiction tale "The Three Billion Year Love" which appears in the Tuscany Bay Press Planetary Anthology "Mars."
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The Loving Nazirite

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john-the-naziriteAfter this, Paul stayed many days longer and then took leave of the brothers and set sail for Syria, and with him Priscilla and Aquila. At Cenchreae he had cut his hair, for he was under a vow.

–Acts 18:18-19 (ESV)

In the days of the Temple, if a man or woman desired to take a special vow of separation to the LORD, he or she could take a Nazirite vow. The Torah lays out the specifications in Numbers 6. People undertook Nazirite vows for a variety of reasons, including healing, safe return, prayer for another, and simply to observe a time of sanctification. Rabbinic literature attests to the popularity of the vow in the late Second Temple period. The Mishnah dedicates an entire tractate to the subject. Nazirites were not uncommon among the disciples of Yeshua. John the Immerser and James the brother of the Master were lifelong Nazirites. Later in the book of Acts, Paul completes a second Nazirite vow along with four other disciples.

-D. Thomas Lancaster
Ki Tisa (“When you take”)
Commentary on Acts 18:11-23, pg 539
Torah Club Volume 6
First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ)

I know that over the years, there have been many commentaries written about the meaning of Paul’s vow and whether or not it was a Nazirite vow. Lancaster seems to think so and he has plenty of company. But why should you care and why am I writing about this now?

A lot of Christians are invested in de-coupling Paul and the early Jewish apostles from Judaism and Jewish practices. I think it’s important to “re-couple” the first century Jews in the Messiah with their Judaism and Jewish practices and then ask ourselves why would the next generation of “Messianic Jews” give up being Jews? The answer is, they wouldn’t. Why should they? Although Paul was accused of preaching against the Torah of Moses (Acts 21:28), it was a total lie. Paul never did such a thing (contrary to some theologies running around out there) and he certainly never admitted to doing so. We also don’t find Paul saying that his Jewish contemporaries were to keep Torah but their children and grandchildren would give it up.

But then again, we have this:

In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

–Hebrews 8:13 (ESV)

You could certainly spin that into saying the Jews were in the process of giving up their “obsolete” practices and replacing them with ones based on the New Covenant. The problem is, the New Covenant primarily reaffirms and expands upon all of the previous covenants God made with the Jews, including the Sinai covenant. If anything, the New Covenant should have strengthened Torah observance among the Jews, not deleted it.

So why does Christianity fight that interpretation and fight the idea that Paul could have possibly taken a Nazirite vow?

Many writers argue against Paul taking a Nazirite vow on the basis that the vow required the Nazirite to make animal sacrifices. These teachers are reluctant to think about Paul bringing a lamb, a ewe, and a ram as burnt offerings, sin offerings, and peace offerings. Contrary to that objection, James the brother of the Master later encourages Paul to complete his own Nazirite vow and pay the expenses of four other disciples in order to demonstrate that he walked “orderly, keeping the Torah” (Acts 21:24).

-Lancaster, pp 539-40

Sounds pretty Jewish to me.

Of course, post-Temple, there is no way to take a Nazirite vow or to perform the sacrifices, so many of the Torah mitzvot are unable to be observed by Jews today. We know that the Torah was originally given as a sort of “national constitution” of ancient Israel, defining all of the laws, social mores, and traditions of the Israelites in the Land. We know that when Messiah returns and builds the next Temple, that at least some of the Torah commandments related to the Temple sacrifices will be restored.

But what is the purpose of the Torah in Judaism in the meantime?

That’s like asking, what’s the purpose of a marriage license between a couple when the couple have to endure a lengthy physical separation say because of military service. Just because they can’t be together for a period of months or even years doesn’t mean they aren’t still married. It doesn’t mean that their marital obligations are completely done away with, even though some aspects of the relationship cannot be performed while they’re apart. The relationship endures between one period of togetherness and the next. Both husband and wife continue to wear their wedding rings. They both still refer to the other as “husband” and “wife.” They both stay faithful and do not enter into intimate relationships with other people.

Yes, I’m describing a pretty ideal situation relative to a separated married couple, but let’s look at the analogy. If a married couple who are forced to be apart, even for an extended period of time, are expected to remain faithful to one another and to practice specific behaviors based on their marital faithfulness, how much more should the Jewish people continue to remain faithful to God and to practice specific behaviors, the Torah mitzvot that can be performed in this day and age, based on their faithfulness to God?

The surest way to lose a skill or a relationship is to not practice it. The surest way for a Jew to lose faithfulness to God is to not practice the mitzvot, even though they can only practice a limited set of mitzvot due to “temporary separation.”

one-of-ten-virgins-oilBut the “couple” are getting closer again. Since 1948, there has been a Jewish homeland, Israel, in existence. Jews can make aliyah. They can return home. Yes, the Temple isn’t there yet. The Priesthood isn’t there yet. But then again, the bridegroom hasn’t returned home yet. When he does, he’ll rebuild the house, and the couple will move back in. But under certain provisions of the Abrahamic covenant that have been enhanced by the New Covenant, the “bride” won’t be only the Jewish people.

The analogy gets pretty hard to maintain at this point, but there’s a reason that the body of unified believers is called “the bride of Christ.” There’s a reason why the Gospels are full of “Jesus as bridegroom” imagery. Some of the details are still a little fuzzy, but we know that the bride and groom, who have been apart for so very long, are coming back together again.

The Jewish bride and the Jewish bridegroom will once again take up housekeeping. They have been faithful in their vows and faithful in performing all of the acts related to their marriage that were possible to keep while the house has lain in ruins. When the house is rebuilt, when David’s fallen sukkah, the Temple, is reconstructed by Messiah on the Holy Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the world will see just how vital the Torah of Moses is in the lives of the Jewish people, and the Torah will be perfect as taught and practiced by the perfect Messiah.

But until then, the Jewish bride does what she can to faithfully keep the mitzvot and to show her Jewish husband that she loves him with all her heart.

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Shammai, Peter, and Cornelius

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hillel_shammaiShammai’s school of thought became known as the House of Shammai (Hebrew: Beth Shammai‎), as Hillel’s was known as the House of Hillel (Beit Hillel). After Menahem the Essene had resigned the office of Av Beit Din (or vice-president) of the Sanhedrin, Shammai was elected to it, Hillel being at the time president. After Hillel died, circa 20 CE, Shammai took his place as president but no vice-president from the minority was elected so that the school of Shammai attained complete ascendancy, during which Shammai passed “18 ordinances” in conformity with his ideas. The Talmud states that when he passed one of the ordinances, contrary to the opinion of Hillel, the day “was as grievous to Israel as the day when the [golden] calf was made” (Shabbat, 17a). The exact content of the ordinances is not known, but they seem to have been designed to strengthen Jewish identity by insisting on stringent separation between Jews and gentiles, an approach that was regarded as divisive and misanthropic by Shammai’s opponents.

–Wikipedia

And he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean.”

–Acts 10:28 (ESV)

I suppose I could have called this blog post, “Things I Learned in Church Today,” but then, I’d have a lot of blog posts with the same title. I recently came across a “statistic” on a blog (it’s not based on any real data) that said the vast majority of Christianity, something like “99.99999999999%” is “anti-Judaic.” I’ll agree that the church has a rather poor track record relative to Jews, Judaism, and Israel, but that’s changing. I know because the church I attend is very pro Jews, Judaism, and Israel. It’s not just the Pastoral staff but the regular members, too. In my Sunday school class, the teacher, who by trade is an electrical contractor, opined on how much we Christians owe the Jewish people at the very start of class.

But what did I learn in church about Jews, Judaism, and Acts 10? I learned about something called the “18 measures.” Apparently, this was something debated between Hillel and Shammai and while the specifics of these “measures” crafted by Shammai are no longer known, two of them were said to be “anti-Gentile.” Pastor Randy came to speak with me right before services began and shared what he had found out during his research. He said that one of the measures of Shammai stated that it was “unlawful” for a Jew to enter a Gentile’s home because it would be possible for a corpse to be present without the Jew’s knowledge (resulting in ritual defilement: see Num. 19:11-16). This could include a dead person buried under the house, since it seems it was the custom in some households to bury the family patriarch under the structure.

Or was Shammai looking for excuses to keep Jews and Gentiles apart? After all, Israel was occupied by Gentile forces and the Romans never went out of their way to be friendly or courteous to the Jewish population. Quite the opposite in fact. The Jews had good reason to want to avoid Gentiles and particularly Roman soldiers.

Was this part of what Peter was thinking of when he was confronted by God with the news that he was to visit the household of a Roman Centurion? In the above-quoted passage from Acts 10, the greek word translated as “unlawful” as in “how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate…” isn’t the word for “Law,” but the word for “tradition.” Basically, Peter was telling Cornelius that it was against halakhah for a Jew to enter the home of a Gentile because the Jew might well become ritualistically “unclean.” God showed Peter the contradiction (in this case) between the prevailing halakhah of his day and the teachings of God that no human being is “unclean.”

I don’t know if Peter was specifically thinking of Shammai during this whole transaction, but it’s certainly within the realm of possibility.

But am I being too hard on Shammai?

Shammai is a much misunderstood character and you malign him with your words…. according to the Mishnah in Treatise Avot, one of Shammai’s favourite sayings was “Always receive all men with a cheerful expression on your face!” (Avot, chapter 1, para. 15)

-ProfBenTziyyon, 18 Jan 09
http://messiahtruth.yuku.com

I’m not trying to be hard on Shammai or for that matter, on Peter. I did think this was an interesting detail that works to “flesh out” the humanity and the lived context for Peter as he was faced with doing a very hard thing. About fifteen years earlier, Jesus gave his Jewish disciples the “commission” to make disciples out of the Gentiles, but as far as we know, that command received no attention until the Master spurred Peter into action using a vision (Acts 10:9-16).

In this case however, if Peter has responded to halakhah rather than God, the good news of Christ would never have come to Cornelius and his household and arguably the rest of us would have suffered the same fate. Or God would have chosen a different messenger, but He chose Peter. It was Peter who had to grow beyond his prejudices and perhaps only a Jewish apostle could deliver the Gospel to the Gentiles. I mean, the angel (Acts 10:3-6) could have told Cornelius everything he needed to know, but it was more than just information that needed to be delivered, it was the forging of new connections and relationships. While Cornelius, a Roman Centurion, was a “God-fearing man, who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation,” God had a far better destiny for him as one of first Gentiles to ever receive the Holy Spirit and be reconciled to God. Peter, for his part, and his Jewish companions needed to be witnesses and to see for themselves that “God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” They needed to see that even the Gentiles could receive the Spirit and be saved, even as the Jews had done.

This, as much as anything else in the Bible, was an incredible miracle, because God so loved the world.

What biases and prejudices prevent you and me from doing the will of God?

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The Fragmented Body

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fragmented-bodyPaul’s two epistles to the Corinthians grant us an up-close and personal portrait of the Corinthian community he was leaving behind. They were a diverse community of Jewish believers, God-fearing Gentiles, and recently converted pagans. They were not perfect people.

They struggled to maintain cohesion after Paul left. They often differed in their opinions and practices regarding such matters as gender roles, sexuality, use of spiritual gifts, and the doctrine of the resurrection. Some found it difficult to adapt to Judaism’s strict standards of modesty in dress and conduct. Sexual immorality was a problem. The Corinthian leadership struggled with censuring members who were engaged in immorality. A lack of qualified leaders to serve as judges in civil suits encouraged the community to use secular courts. The Corinthian believers misused ecstatic utterances and allowed charismatic antics to disrupt worship services. Philosophical monotheists among the Corinthians chafed at the prohibition on things sacrificed to idols and struggled with the concept of a literal resurrection of the dead. Visits from other apostles led to factionalism. Some among the Corinthians began to question Paul’s authority and apostleship. In his letters, Paul addresses these issues and several other problems with genuine pastoral concern.

-D. Thomas Lancaster
Ki Tisa (“When you take”)
Commentary on Acts 18:11-23, pg 538
Torah Club Volume 6
First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ)

Sound familiar? No? Consider a recent discussion in the comments section of Derek Leman’s blog. Although the topics and themes aren’t really the same (no apparent problem of sexual immorality, for example) the dynamics and the diversity of populations and opinions on all things spiritual and philosophical is very much in evidence. You have the same mix of Jewish and non-Jewish believers with a few converts tossed into the mix. That brings in a diversity of background, education, perspective, and identity into a single container which, in both ancient and modern examples, is the community of the Messiah; the body of Christ.

And after 2,000 years, we still are having a tough time getting along.

Not that the Corinthian “church” was completely representative of all believing first century communities, but whenever you involve dissimilar populations in a common group, especially a religious group, you are asking for a few “strongly worded” debates. And that’s what we experience today on the blogosphere when we come together (virtually) to have some of the same interactions that the ancient Corinthians did in the days of Paul.

Actually, there’s quite a time gap between the ancient mixed Jewish/Gentile “church” and the modern one. After the schism between Judaism and Christianity, each religion, for they became separate religions, went their own way, only getting together for a pogrom or an inquisition every now and again. The problems of the Corinthian religious congregation faded away into history…until quite recently.

Now that we’re trying to put our theological humpty dumpty back together again, we’re finding out that it would be easier to take an omelet and put it back into the broken egg-shell than it is getting different factions of Messianic Judaism, Hebrew Roots Christianity (and it’s variants), and more traditional Christianity (or Christianities) to come to any sort of agreement.

I know I’ve written about this before and used Lancaster’s Torah Club commentaries to do it, but in reading this past week’s Torah club chapter right on the heels of Derek’s blog post, the similarities jumped out at me again.

Doesn’t anyone else out there see it?

Was there ever a peace between the Jewish and the Gentile believers? We see strife looming largely in the Messianic world right there around 50-53 CE when Paul was the most active in his “missionary travels.” In Acts 18:1-17, Paul experiences a “split” in the synagogue at Corinth and half the Jewish membership follows Messiah right out of the synagogue and into a building next door. There were actually two competing synagogues, one Messianic and the other not, strongly contending with each other. There wasn’t unity over the Messiah in the local Jewish community let alone between Jews and Gentiles.

But then again, not all Jewish communities experienced the message of Messiah the same way.

And they came to Ephesus, and he left them there, but he himself went into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews. When they asked him to stay for a longer period, he declined. But on taking leave of them he said, “I will return to you if God wills,” and he set sail from Ephesus.

–Acts 18:19-21 (ESV)

FallingApartIt seems the synagogue in Ephesus was much more unified in its reception of Paul’s teaching on the Messiah and I’m sure he would have rather spent more time in this particular setting, but he wanted to get to Jerusalem in time for Sukkot.

I won’t pull any quotes from Derek’s blog (you can click the link and read through the comments yourself) but it seems as if the same old debates are being continually recycled. Things haven’t changed a whole lot in twenty centuries. Human nature after all, is human nature. I guess that’s why the Bible is still relevant after the passage of so much time. We’re still the same old creatures we’ve always been, stirring up the pot and making a mess out of the message of the good news.

The Messiah came and then he left. And after he left, his apostles and disciples struggled to keep the new Jewish sect of “the Way” afloat while integrating a large Gentile population in the diaspora along with whoever among the Jews would accept that Yeshua (Jesus) was Moshiach. In the end, it fell apart and all of the broken pieces have been shattered and scattered across the landscape for almost 2,000 years. Recently, we’ve been trying to put them back together again with limited success. We’re encountering pretty much the same barriers that Paul did in his “mixed population churches.” Maybe the “bilateral ecclesiology” people are on to something after all. No mix, no mixed up community.

But I don’t think that’s how it’s supposed to work out, at least not in an extreme and absolute segregationist sense. Paul didn’t seem to demand that the Gentiles form their own churches, although that’s how things ended up. Here we are, trying to forge new or renewed relationships to pave the way for Messiah’s return. But it seems that it will take the Messiah to teach us to get along, share our toys, and play well together.

We live in a broken world. There are religious Jews who cry out, “Moshiach now!” Given the sorry state of affairs in his “Messianic community,” maybe we should be shouting the same thing. Nothing else we are doing seems to be working out.

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The Jesus Covenant, Part 11: Building My Model

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building-my-modelFor this reason I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles—assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.

–Ephesians 3:1-13 (ESV)

Why is Paul doing this to me? No, he’s not doing this to me, but why did he say, “this grace was given (to Paul), to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ…”

But why is he bothering to preach the unsearchable riches of Messiah to the Gentiles? I mean, why go through all the trouble?

Oh yeah. There’s this:

Now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” And he said, “Here I am, Lord.” And the Lord said to him, “Rise and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul, for behold, he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.” But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name.” But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel.

–Acts 9:10-15 (ESV)

Jesus declared Saul (Paul) to be his “chosen instrument…to carry my name before the Gentiles…” So Jesus had this in mind all along.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

–Matthew 28:19-20 (ESV)

I’m indebted to Marc’s comment on Derek Leman’s blog for making me think of Ephesians 3 in relationship to the “mystery” of the New Covenant for Christians and to Proclaim Liberty’s comment on my own blog for attempting to take my investigation of the “New Covenant connection” one step further. film-noir-mystery

It seems clear that Messiah intended the Gentiles to be made into his disciples and that through him, we would be saved. He specifically commissioned Paul to be the emissary to the Gentiles and to preach the Gospel to us. Those facts are indisputable as we see them presented in the scriptures, but the “mechanics” of how we enter into any sort of covenant at all with God through Messiah remains a “riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma,” to paraphrase Winston Churchill. I’ve been forced to reduce it down to a simple formula just to keep from going crazy. It is obvious to me from my reading of the Abrahamic covenant that the nations were always intended to benefit in connection to the Messiah.

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

–Genesis 12:1-3 (ESV)

To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ.

–Galatians 3:15-16 (ESV)

I created a detailed breakdown of the covenant God made with Abraham to illustrate that of all the provisions God created in the Abrahamic covenant, only one of them (see Genesis 12:1-3) has anything to do with the nations being blessed by Messiah. That provision is the starting point for my understanding of my connection to God through Christ. My simple formula for understanding “the Jesus covenant” is this:

  1. God creates a provision in his covenant with Abraham that allows the Gentiles to be blessed through Messiah (Abraham 12:1-3).
  2. The New Covenant (Jer. 31, Ezek. 36) renews, affirms, and amplifies all of the previous covenants God made with the people of Israel and the people of Judah which, by definition, includes the Abrahamic covenant.
  3. Messiah alludes that the (new) covenant is poured out in his blood (death), (see Mark 14:22-24, Luke 22:19-20) for all people.
  4. Paul interprets the Abrahamic covenant provision referring to Gentiles as Messiah being our connection to God (see Galatians 3:15-16).
  5. Paul describes the process of Gentiles being made co-heirs to the Messianic promises through Messiah as a mystery (Ephesians 3:1-13).

Somehow in all of that is enough of a connection from the days of Abraham to the apostolic era (and forward in time to us) for me to be able to say that I really am attached to God in a (more or less) demonstrable way through Messiah Yeshua; through Christ Jesus. And as Proclaim Liberty states:

I can point to Zechariah and the Sukkot celebrations incumbent upon non-Jews in the messianic era. Remember that their participation was a requirement for rain upon their lands. Midrashically, there is a lot of significance to be derived from the concept “rain”. In fact, all manner of benefits upon non-Jews specifically can be derived from it. Combine this with Is.56 and Yehezkel 31 & 36 references, and one begins to see the formulation of a special vision for non-Jews — much better than mere “crumbs off the floor” (and, by the way, “dogs under the table” generally eat offerings from the childrens’ willing hands rather than from the floor).

There’s a lot I’ve left out such as the prophesy of Amos (Amos 9:11-12) referring to the “Gentiles who are called by My Name,” and of course, “my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples…” (Isaiah 56:7), but you get the idea.

Somehow, in some way, God has made a lasting provision for the people of the earth to be able to become attached to Him through the Messiah. Messiah directed the Jewish apostles to make Gentile disciples. Peter witnessed the Gentile Cornelius receiving the Holy Spirit and thus salvation without having to convert to Judaism. Paul was specifically commissioned by the Master to be his emissary to the nations and to preach the gospel of Christ to the goyim. Putting it all together should present us with a path for the Gentile to God. path-to-godIt’s there. It’s all there. It’s just hard to nail down the specifics.

My commentary on Brother Yun and Pastor Saeed Abedini shows us that being a faithful Gentile servant of God is more about faith, heart, devotion, and drive than the little bits and details we find in the Bible that make us (me) crazy, or the petty bickering we often find ourselves embroiled in on the Internet.

What is the purpose of the Torah in the lives of Jews today? When Messiah rebuilds the Temple in Holy Jerusalem, what role will the sacrifices play in the Messianic age? These are vitally important questions and they cannot be left in the mud waiting for the Messiah to come and pull them out, clean them off, and present them to us in pretty wrapping paper and tied up in a bow. But especially for the “Gentiles who are called by His Name,” it’s equally important to answer the basic questions, “Who am I?” Where do I belong?” “Does God care about me?” “What is my role in the Kingdom of Heaven?”

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

–Matthew 25:34-40 (ESV)

If we Christians are searching for our “Torah,” I can think of no other teaching that we need to start out with than those words of the Master. If we are searching for covenant, we have it in Messiah. Having a relationship with God is like being married. While the marriage certificate is important, it isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on unless we actually live out the relationship in love and devotion. As time passes, the “marriage” grows, matures, and finally realizes its own magnificent potential, which was created by God for us through Messiah.

Addendum: One more valuable piece to this puzzle can be found by reading Gifts of the Spirit Poured Out on all Flesh.

Torah Portion

Ki Tisa: The Doors of the Temple

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moses-and-the-tabletsFraming the epic events of this week’s sedra are two objects—the two sets of tablets, the first given before, the second after, the sin of the golden calf. Of the first, we read:

The tablets were the work of G‑d; the writing was the writing of G‑d, engraved on the tablets.

These were perhaps the holiest objects in history: from beginning to end, the work of G‑d. Yet within hours they lay shattered, broken by Moses when he saw the calf and the Israelites dancing around it.

The second tablets, brought down by Moses on the tenth of Tishri, were the result of his prolonged plea to G‑d to forgive the people. This is the historic event that lies behind Yom Kippur (the tenth of Tishri), the day marked in perpetuity as a time of favor, forgiveness and reconciliation between G‑d and the Jewish people. The second tablets were different in one respect. They were not wholly the work of G‑d:

Carve out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.

Hence the paradox: the first tablets, made by G‑d, did not remain intact. The second tablets, the joint work of G‑d and Moses, did.

-Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
“Two Types of Religious Encounter”
Commentary on Torah Portion Ki Tisa
Chabad.org

I don’t know if this seems so mysterious to me, even if I hadn’t read the rest of Rabbi Sacks’ article. I’ve always imagined that many of the acts of God were really committed through a “partnership” between Him and humanity. Certainly (in my opinion) the Bible is less of a document dictated by God into the ears of its passive writers and more of God stirring the spirit within each of the authors, allowing those people to pour out their witness, their drive, their passion onto the rest of us. God didn’t tell Paul word for word what to put in his letters, nor do I suspect that He personally crafted the Psalms or the Proverbs. Humanity must have a stake in what is holy or we can’t be part of it at all.

Hence Moses and God at Sinai with the tablets.

Hence Liu Zhenying, also known as Brother Yun, in China.

My mother had never learned to read or write, but she became the first preacher in our village. She led a small church in our house. Although my mum couldn’t remember much of God’s Word, she always exhorted us to focus on Jesus. As we cried out to him, Jesus helped us in his great mercy. As I look back on those early days, I’m amazed at how God used my mother despite her illiteracy and ignorance. The direction of her heart was totally surrendered to Jesus. Some of today’s great house church leaders in China first met the Lord through my mother’s ministry.

At first, I didn’t really know who Jesus was, but I’d seen him heal my father and liberate our family. I confidently committed myself to the God who had healed my father and saved us. During that time I frequently asked my mother who Jesus truly was. She told me, “Jesus is the Son of God who died on the cross for us, taking our sins and sicknesses. He recorded all his teachings in the Bible.”

I asked if there were any words of Jesus left that I could read for myself. She replied, “No. All his words are gone. There is nothing left of his teaching.” This was during the Cultural Revolution when Bibles could not be found.

-Brother Yun (with Paul Hattaway)
Chapter 2: A Hunger Fulfilled, pg 26
The Heavenly Man: The Remarkable True Story of Chinese Christian Brother Yun

brother-yunIt seems as if God leaves “gaps” in his plan for humanity that only human beings can fill. There would be no stone tablets without Moses, and there would not have been many of “today’s great house church leaders in China” without Brother Yun’s mother. Brother Yun first came to faith at the age of 16 in 1974. As mentioned above, this was during the Communist “Cultural Revolution” and Christianity was illegal in China. If a person were found to be a Christian and particularly to possess a Bible (they were almost non-existent in China in the 1970s), the Bible would be burned and the person imprisoned and tortured, the Government demanding that the Christian renounce his faith. Often prisoners died under torture or through some other means while in captivity. Nevertheless there were courageous souls in China, including in impoverished Henan Province, who knowing next to nothing of who Jesus is and anything that was written in the Bible, still believed, and prayed, and had faith.

I’ve only just started this book, but as I tore into the opening pages, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the early churches that Paul had started and nurtured. In one sense, having visits from Paul and reading his letters for support, the former pagan believers and God-fearers turned disciples seem much better off than 16-year-old Liu Zhenying and his family. His mother had come to faith as a young woman thanks to Christian missionaries, but this was before the Communists came to power. The Christian missionaries…all Christian missionaries had either been put in prison or forced out of China by 1950, so whatever faith and learning Brother Yun’s mother possessed, atrophied and finally died…or almost.

Still the “early church” in the first century may not have experienced too much more of an advantage than the church in China in the mid-1970s. If there was a Jewish synagogue in the community that welcomed or at least tolerated the Gentile disciples of “the Way,” they could sit and hear the Torah and the Prophets being read and taught, daven the traditional prayers, and share some fellowship with the Jewish community. If not, such as with Lydia and the devout women in Philippi (see Acts 16:11-15), the Gentile believers would have to meet together without such support or encouragement and carry on as best they could. Full knowledge of the scriptures would probably not be available, and worship of God would be a matter of what could be remembered from the synagogue. But worship would be much more about the faith and endurance each of the worshipers could summon by the grace and Spirit of God.

God and man in partnership, meeting somewhere in between life, death, and infinity, bringing the Kingdom of Heaven a little bit closer to earth one day at a time.

The Jewish mystics distinguished between two types of divine-human encounter. They called them it’aruta de-l’eyla and it’aruta de-l’tata, respectively “an awakening from above” and “an awakening from below.” The first is initiated by G‑d, the second by mankind. An “awakening from above” is spectacular, supernatural, an event that bursts through the chains of causality that at other times bind the natural world. An “awakening from below” has no such grandeur. It is a gesture that is human, all too human.

-Rabbi Sacks

On 1 September 1901, a large ship docked in Shanghai Port. A young single lady from Norway walked off the gangplank onto Chinese soil for the first time. Marie Morsen was one of a new wave of missionaries who, inspired by the martyrdoms of the previous year, had dedicated themselves to full-time missionary service in China.

Monsen stayed in China for more than thirty years. For a time she lived in my county, Nanyang, where she encouraged and trained a small group of Chinese believers that had sprung up.

Marie Monsen was different from most other missionaries. She didn’t seem to be too concerned with making a good impression on the Chinese church leaders. She often told them, “You are all hypocrites! You confess Jesus Christ with your lips while your hearts are not fully committed to him! Repent before it is too late to escape God’s judgment!” She brought fire from the altar of God.

-Yun/Hattaway, pg 19

christian-devotionI’ve spent a good deal of time on my blog lately talking about Jewish identity, Torah obligation, healing the rift between the different shredded bits of flesh that, if put back together, would become the body of Christ, but sometimes it’s just good to “get back to basics.” What if you didn’t know what you know? What if you had never even seen the Bible? What if you only knew just little bits and pieces about who Jesus is and what he’s supposed to mean in your life…and yet you still possessed a dynamic, consuming, passionate faith that could lead you anywhere God called you to go?

So far, that’s what I’m finding in Brother Yun’s book. Maybe that’s what was taking place in the lives of many of the former pagan Gentiles who had come to faith but who, unlike the God-fearing Gentiles, had never spent much time in a synagogue, never seen a Torah scroll, and who had only bits and pieces of information about the foreign “Messiah” who died, not just for the Jews, but for the Greeks, the Romans, and everyone else in the world.

Brother Yun’s story also reminded me of another prisoner.

“[A]fter all of these pressures, after all of the nails they have pressed against my hands and feet, they are only waiting for one thing…for me to deny Christ.”

–Pastor Saeed Abedini
from a letter he wrote as a prisoner in Iran

People are put in prison for their faith and we believers on the blogosphere argue about theological minutiae. Men and women are beaten and tortured just because they’re Christians, and you and I complain at each other about whether or not a Gentile Christian should wear a kippah or pray with a siddur. What we consider “problems” and what we “whine” about on our blogs is nothing. There are real men and women of faith out there who know what it is to encounter God who really don’t care if they get a Shabbat rest as long as they are called to serve the Lord.

I’m not saying that many of the topics of our various debates are not worth the zeros and ones they’re printed with on the web, but I am saying that we tend to take those topics (and ourselves) way too seriously. Rabbi Sacks says:

An “awakening from above” may change nature, but it does not in and of itself change human nature. In it, no human effort has been expended. Those to whom it happens are passive. While it lasts, it is overwhelming; but only while it lasts. Thereafter, people revert to what they were. An “awakening from below,” by contrast, leaves a permanent mark.

temple-prayersEven if God chooses to “awaken us from above,” it probably wouldn’t last. I suspect that’s why we don’t see grand and astonishing miracles performed right before our amazed eyes. Miracles wouldn’t matter. In a day or a week, we’d be complaining about the same old stuff again. Only when we are open to being “awakened from below,” when we become willing partners with God, even a God we know almost nothing about, will we see miracles that will make a difference within us and more…miracles that will make a difference in the world. Am I being too dramatic?

About a week and a half ago, a friend of mine gave me Brother Yun’s book as a gift. In the western countries, we tend to take our faith for granted. We don’t have to fight for it. We’re not persecuted. Going to church isn’t a crime punishable by being sentenced to prison. Having a Bible and reading it in public won’t get us dragged off of the streets by the police and tortured in some government office.

God could accomplish everything He wants to do all by Himself. He needs nothing from us. But if He did it that way, we would have no ownership of Him, His plan, and His purpose in our lives. He acts only for our own sake, not for His. But we too must act, for a passive faith in a vain one. It is said that Messiah will build every part of the next Temple in Holy Jerusalem and construct it…all but the doors. It is said that one who puts up the doors of a house, even if he has built no other part of it, becomes owner of the house. We are expected to pull our weight, to take our part, to help repair our broken world. We are also expected to participate and be involved in what God is building, in raising David’s fallen sukkah.

We will put the doors on the Temple, and then it will be a house of prayer for all the peoples. If we didn’t, it would be God’s house, but we would be strangers in it. We are not called to be strangers, but sons and daughters of the Most High.

Everything can be done with joy. Even remorse can be with joy.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Everything!”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

Good Shabbos.

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Commentaries and Cautionary Tales

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study-in-the-dark‫לא שנא בדרבנן ולא שנא בדאורייתא – קמח‬

Tosafos (earlier 55a) explains that this rule, that under certain circumstances, one should refrain from pointing out a fellow Jews’ transgressions and not to rebuke a sinner, is only applicable where the offender will most certainly not listen to the words of rebuke which are addressed to him. However, if there is any possibility that the person will change his ways, then the observer has the responsibility to instruct him not to sin.

Rema (O.C. 608:2), however, writes that if the nature of the unlawful behavior is in the realm of a halachah which is not explicit in the Torah, then the obligation to intervene depends on whether or not the person will respond or not, as Tosafos says. Although the law is derived from a verse, being that it is not explicitly stated, we only proceed to rebuke the offender if there is a chance he may listen and change his ways. However, if the halachah is one which is explicit in the Torah, then we must rebuke the sinner even if we are certain that he will not listen to our words.

The rationale for the ruling of Rema is found in Rashba (Beitza 30a). He writes that a halachah that is not explicit in the Torah might be looked upon lightly by some people. We should assume that the violator is mistaken is considering this halachah as not important, but the fact is that if we were to correct him, he probably will disregard our rebuke. It is in this situation that we say, “It is better that he not be told, and that his actions remain inadvertent, than for us to make an issue of it and for his continued actions to be a more intentional violation of halachah.” However, if the person is disobeying a halachah which is explicit in the Torah, we cannot assume that his actions are inadvertent at all. We will not make matters worse by exhorting him to desist from his sinful ways, because he is already acting defiantly. We can only hope to improve the situation and to remedy the person’s observance.

Daf Yomi Digest
Distinctive Insight
“Rebuke to the receptive”
Shabbos 148

I had just commented on one of Derek Leman’s blog posts in what promises to be yet another endlessly circular debate on whether or not Paul ever intended for the non-Jewish disciples of Jesus to be obligated to the full weight of the Torah commandments when I read the above-quoted commentary. As you can tell from the wording in my last sentence, I consider most of these conversations to be a futile waste of time, but on the other hand, they are so incredibly compelling (“Someone is wrong on the Internet”) that I still stick my nose in unbidden from time to time (and usually get it chopped off).

Obviously, the Daf commentary on Shabbos 148 is meant to apply within a Jewish halakhic context, but for the purposes of this discussion, I’m artificially applying it to a wider audience and loosening up some of the definitions (“wrong” doesn’t necessarily mean “sin”).

I very recently referred to all people and particularly all people of faith as “poor, blind, naked, stupid human beings who think we’re a whole lot more cool and smart than we really are.” Apparently that message didn’t get out because if it had and if it were taken seriously, then I suppose we might pause in the middle of our “self-important” debates to consider who and what is really important in the grander scheme of things (i.e. the Kingdom of Heaven).

A key element in why it’s easy to lack gratitude is because human nature is to take things for granted when we get used to having them. To master gratitude we need to stop taking things for granted and to increase our thoughts of appreciation.

The Creator keeps bestowing His tremendous kindnesses on us each and every day when we are awake and when we are asleep, whether we are aware of them or not. There are so many things in our lives that we take for granted.

As an exercise, choose a day to not take anything for granted. Look at everything as if it were new. Look at everything as if this were the first time that this positive thing was happening. Look at all that you own as if you just bought or received them today. Look at what you have as if it were invented recently and you are one of the first people on the planet to get it.

Hopefully this exercise will give you the experience of what it’s like to not take things for granted.

-Rabbi Zelig Pliskin
“Daily Lift #744: Don’t Take Things for Granted”
Aish.com

illegal-christianityIt seems that one of the things we’re taking for granted in all of these debates is God. Not that we shouldn’t examine, explore, and discuss our faith and how we understand worship and lifestyle, but I think we’re missing the big, big picture. Recently, I’ve started reading a book called The Heavenly Man: The Remarkable True Story of Chinese Christian Brother Yun written by a Chinese Christian with New Zealand missionary Paul Hattaway. Yun tells his story of coming to faith in Christ at age 16 in a family that was extremely impoverished and in a China where it was illegal to be a Christian.

Yun recounts one of the earliest events when he was captured by law enforcement agents in China for preaching at a gathering of Christians:

I was made to kneel down in the dirt while officers punched me in the chest and face and repeatedly kicked me from behind with their heavy boots. My face was covered with blood. The pain was unbearable and I nearly lost consciousness as I lay on the ground.

They lifted me up and made me stagger down another street. They were determined to make an example of me to as many people as possible.

-Yun/Hattaway, pg 63

I’ll talk more about Brother Yun and the “loss of focus” I believe many of us have been suffering from in tomorrow’s “meditation,” but after reading the Daf commentary and seeing the birth of yet another blogosphere debate this morning, I didn’t want to wait.

In my own little world, I meet with my Pastor every Wednesday night and we discuss many things. We continue our own debate on the function and purpose of “the Law,” both in its original and ancient context and in the world of Judaism today. Pastor Randy lived in Israel for fifteen years, has many Jewish friends, and is deeply devoted to the Jewish people, so it’s not as if he’s a stranger to these topics. And yet we continue to debate how the Torah applies in Judaism and what “Torah” even means.  As people of faith, we all struggle to find our own focus when we read the pages of the Bible, trying to discover the message God has delivered about the past, present, and future.

While our discussions have been very productive thus far, Pastor Randy suggested we turn future meetings toward a specific topic, namely D. Thomas Lancaster’s book The Holy Epistle to the Galatians. I’ve been meaning to re-read it again since I feel I didn’t really “get it” the first time, and Pastor Randy wants to read it but since his reading list is so incredibly vast (he has read up to one hundred books in a single year, so as a reader, I’m definitely an “illiterate” amateur by comparison) that having a “reading partner” will add motivation for him to address Lancaster’s work. I think it’s one way to bring some of the matters we have been talking about into greater clarity.

Maybe it seems like I’m talking out of both sides of my mouth, eschewing Internet debates on controversial Biblical matters but engaging in such conversations in my personal life, but some things seem to be more accessible and “relatable” face-to-face. Also, our conversations don’t involve “the usual suspects” in the blogosphere who always present the same point of view and who always expect everyone else to change their minds except them. That has to include me whenever I participate in these web discussions and that’s why I think those transactions miss the point.

I’ve already experienced some shifting in my viewpoints and more than a little illumination as a result of my Wednesday night talks, and I suspect that my own meager offerings to the conversation may have influenced some of Pastor Randy’s perspectives as well. But that’s what a conversation does…it’s not just a venue for us to teach, it’s an opportunity to learn, to let ourselves be changed, to grow, to be open to encountering God.

It’s also an opportunity to revisit the essentials of faith, which we will definitely not encounter on someone’s web log. God is encountered personally, in actual contact with real human beings, and in the presence of the humility and nakedness of our own spirits.

christianity-is-IllegalIn reading Brother Yun’s book, I’m witnessing the struggle to spread the message of the Gospel in Communist China in the 1970s and early 1980s (which is how far I’ve gotten in my reading so far). Many people coming to faith are illiterate farmers. The vast majority have never even seen the Bible since possession of one would be illegal (although supposedly that has changed in recent years). Most only have a vague idea of who Jesus is except that he’s God’s son who died to take away our sins and illnesses. They meet in secret in small house churches. They baptize in the middle of the night, sometimes in winter, cutting holes in the ice in rivers, trying to avoid the police, arrest, imprisonment, and torture. It will never occur to them that some other Christians in the western nations think that they’re “obligated” to wear tzitzit, keep kosher, and observe the Shabbat. They’re too busy risking their freedom and their lives trying against all odds to worship Jesus Christ, to love one another, and to spread the word of hope to the hopeless.

I’m hardly one to say that I’ve risen above all of the bickering and debating, but I really think we need to stop and put a few things back into perspective. If all the things we argue about aren’t for His Glory; if they aren’t for the sake of Heaven, then they can only be for our own gratification and the desire to be “right.”

Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people. For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people. But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.

–Titus 3:1-11 (ESV)

Commentary and cautionary tale as found in midrash and in a Pastoral epistle from Paul. Blessings.