Tag Archives: Christianity

Does the Girl Next Door Have a Python Spirit?

November 25, 2013 James Pyles 24 Comments

It happened that as we were going to the place of prayer, a slave-girl having a spirit of divination (lit. python spirit) met us, who was bringing her masters much profit by fortune-telling. Following after Paul and us, she kept crying out, saying, “These men are bond-servants of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation.” She continued doing this for many days. But Paul was greatly annoyed, and turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her!” And it came out at that very moment.

–Acts 16:16-18 (NASB)

In Greek mythology, Python (Greek: Πύθων, gen.: Πύθωνος) was the earth-dragon of Delphi, always represented in Greek sculpture and vase-paintings as a serpent. He presided at the Delphic oracle, which existed in the cult center for his mother, Gaia, “Earth,” Pytho being the place name that was substituted for the earlier Krisa.

“Python (mythology)”
-from Wikipedia

My Religion Believes in That?

The Bible, and particularly the New Testament, is replete with tales of demon-possessed people who usually appear in the narrative on the occasion of being driven out of the human host by Jesus or one of his apostles. Up until now, I haven’t given any more thought to demon possession in the world today than I have seeing a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. If Cessationists such as John MacArthur believe that the overt manifestations of the Holy Spirit of God ended with the apostolic era, I can believe that the flip side of the coin is also true: the end of demonic possession and supernaturally evil activity on Earth at the closure of Biblical canon.

Imagine my surprise when this topic came up in Church last Sunday and I discovered that demonic spirits were alive and well in the world around us.

It wasn’t just one person, but many people at church, people I admire and respect, people who I believe to be “tzaddikim” (saintly people), were speaking of demons in a very real, credible, and present way.

Let me explain my hesitancy to go down this road.

The last person I knew who talked about demons blamed them for everything that went wrong in her life. If she lost her keys, it was because of a key-hiding demon. If her coffee maker broke, a demon was responsible for that, too. Anything that happened to anyone around her was also demon-caused. A teenage daughter of one of her friends ran away from home and fell in with a bad crowd, so naturally, she had become demon possessed (as opposed to being a rebellious teenager who ran away from home and fell in with a bad crowd).

You can see why that experience colored my perception of the existence of demons in the modern world.

But I was told a few things in church yesterday. For instance, demonic activity falls on a scale with mere influence on a person being at the low end and full possession and control being at the high end. That means at least some of the bad things that people do or that happen to them (apparently) does have a supernatural source.

I recall when I first became a believer, I was attending a different church. In Sunday school one morning, when the teacher asked for prayer requests, a woman behind me tearfully said that her family was under attack. I thought someone was harassing her household, like an angry neighbor or ex-spouse, but her next words were something about the Adversary (Satan) compelling her husband to gamble away the family’s funds. My immediate (but internal…I didn’t say a word) response was that maybe the “demon” was just her husband’s bad judgment. It’s more convenient to blame an external tormentor than to take responsibility for your own actions.

But maybe I’m being judgmental. You’re going to have to tell me.

What Do Christians Believe About Demons?

I discovered last Sunday, that there are even “symptoms” that can tell you if a person is demon-possessed. Here’s a list:

Overwhelming fear: the possessed person is always afraid to an excessive degree.
Aversion to anything Biblical/Spiritual: the possessed person can’t stand to listen to scripture being read or any reference to Jesus or God.
Pseudo-miracles: the possessed person is capable of supernatural acts.
Sexual compulsion: demons are sensual beings and are obsessed with all manner of sexuality.
Compulsion: the possessed person may exhibit other types of unhealthy compulsive behavior.
Involvement in the occult: the possessed person will likely be involved in the occult including witchcraft and necromancy (I’m combining two symptoms here since they are so alike).
Suicidal/Homicidal: the possessed person may try to severally injure or kill themselves or other people.
Inner voice: the possessed person will hear an “inner voice” which presumably is the demon.
Angel of Light: in seeming contradiction to all of the above, the possessed person can also appear as a very holy and good Christian, getting listeners to believe the one critical lie they’re telling among many other truths.

Fortunately on that Sunday, I was seeing a friend for coffee in the afternoon, a man who has been a Christian for over forty years and whose opinion I highly regard. I “mined his mind” for information on this topic and even he confirmed that demons exist. He said he had been at one exorcism (here in Boise) that he regarded as valid. We did talk about the differences between real and fraudulent experiences, and he acknowledged that some “exorcists” make quite a racket out of this sort of activity, just like fake faith healings, and other sorts of chicanery that occur on the fringes of the Christian world.

I also went online to see what I could find on this topic. Was this belief limited to certain denominations? Not according to About.com. Just about all mainstream Christian denominations believe that Satan or evil spirits can affect human beings in the world today. This includes the Assembly of God, Baptist, and Lutheran branches of the Church.

I had heard that even Bible-believing cessationist and rationalist John MacArthur believed demons were real in the present world, and not only did I find an article he wrote substantiating this, but I heard that John MacArthur had been physically attacked by a demon-possessed person in his own church.

A person in my Sunday school class said she was an eyewitness to the event and that the scary part was that the possessed person had been a member of the church for years and, previous to the attack, was considered in high regard as a Christian (I guess this demon was able to tolerate listening to teachings about Jesus, in contradiction to an item in the bullet point list above).

Unfortunately, a quick Google search didn’t find any documentation describing the attack, but apparently it’s well-known in some circles.

John MacArthur doesn’t believe the Holy Spirit can be manifest in our world today but believes he was attacked by a person who was physically inhabited by an evil, demonic spirit. I guess this goes a long way in explaining why he has accused a half-million Pentecostals and Charismatics of being influenced and maybe even possessed by demons instead of the Holy Spirit of God.

I’m not trying to beat up MacArthur or to ridicule the beliefs of who knows how many Christians, but I’m still dazed that I am part of a faith that accepts demonic influences and possession as facts in our day-to-day world.

What Do Jews Believe About Demons?

Demonic possession and many other matters related to the occult appear throughout the Bible. The Torah (see Lev. 19:26 and Deut. 18:14) forbids the Jewish people from becoming involved with any occult practice (not that these prohibitions stopped King Saul). What does Judaism today think about demons and demon possession (and yes, I know that the different streams of modern Judaism probably have different takes on this).

Belief in demons is thus generally present but very peripheral in the Jewish scheme. No representative thinker, for instance, ever thought of dubbing Ibn Ezra a heretic because he refused to believe in demons. Needless to say, sophisticated Jewish thinkers who did believe in the existence of demons did not think of these as little devils with forked tails breathing fire but as spiritual forces which God has unleashed in the world for purposes of His own, or as harmful psychological processes which take place in the human mind.

-Rabbi Dr. Louis Jacobs
“Do Jews Believe in Demons?”
MyJewishLearning.com

First and foremost it is important to know that absolutely everything in our universe was created by G-d, both what appears to us to be good and what appears to be evil.

Our concept of Satan is an angel created by G-d whose job it is to tempt us. As explained in the Book of Job, Satan cannot operate without G-d’s permission and directive.

There is room in our philosophy for a belief in demons and other malevolent forces but, again, they are creations of G-d and exist as tools to steer us in the right direction and to avoid pitfalls.

-Rabbi Azriel Schreiber
“Demons, Ghosts, and Evil Spirits”
JewishAnswers.org

So, generically, there is some belief in the existence of demons in Judaism, but it doesn’t seem to be raised to the level of concern I’ve discovered in some areas of Christianity, and like the concept of the “evil inclination” or yetzer hara, it is not something that is evil in an absolute sense, but was created (like everything else in the universe) by God for the purpose of guiding human beings “in the right direction and to avoid pitfalls.”

I did manage to find one rather “dynamic” conversation at Patheos.com about whether or not demons currently exist, but it seems that the overwhelming majority of Christians polled on this question absolutely believe in the existence of evil, demonic spirits.

I’ve got enough challenges in my life of faith without having to be concerned about unseen spiritual forces lurking in the etheric shadows just waiting to slice and dice me in some paranormal manner. Granted, as a person of faith, I have taken on board a belief in the supernatural by definition, but should I walk down the street each day wondering who in the crowd may be possessed by a demon? Feedback would be helpful. Just how worried should I be, or is all this some sort of ancient, theological holdover from a past that should have long since faded away?

If John MacArthur believes in the cessation of all revelation or demonstration of power from God’s Holy Spirit post-closure of Biblical canon, then why does he give credence to the (apparently) vast power of the Adversary to do harm to people in the here and now?

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The Didache in Retrospect, Part 1

November 25, 2013 James Pyles Leave a comment

Any community that cannot artfully and effectively pass on its cherished way of life as a program for divine wisdom and graced existence cannot long endure. Any way of life that cannot be clearly specified, exhibited, and differentiated from the alternative modes operative within the surrounding culture is doomed to growing insignificance and gradual assimilation.

-Aaron Milavec
“A Brief Commentary,” pg 39
The Didache: Text, Translation, Analysis, and Commentary

I think it’s safe to say that this comes from the “Commentary” part of the book alluded to in Milavec’s title. This is also my second and last commentary on Milavec’s rendition of the Didache. My first impressions were published a little over a week ago.

I’ve suggested that the Didache represents the codification of an oral tradition that comes from the original apostles or those close to them, perhaps even as a verbal expansion on the Acts 15 letter and instructions to the new Gentile disciples in the Jewish religion of “the Way.” This is only supposition of course, but the known history of this document and opinions of various scholars makes it worthy of investigation. After all, relative to Acts 15 the so-called “four essentials” are hardly sufficient to describe the length and breadth of education non-Jewish Messianic disciples would require to adequately approach a life of holiness.

As the above-quoted statement of Milavec attests, any culture or community must sufficiently communicate the requirements of its way of life to the next generation in order to sustain said-way of life. How many cultures have assimilated into the larger societal milieu because either the values of the culture were not sufficiently passed along or the subsequent generation chose to ignore them?

And so it is with very early Christianity, dating from the late first century to the late second century of the common era. If the Didache is the instruction guide for early Gentile believers in Jesus, then maybe we should be paying attention to it, for it represents something we don’t often consider: a Christian life outlined by those who were closest to the apostles and possibly by the apostles themselves, those who were closest to Christ.

So much has happened across Christian history in the last nearly two-thousand years. Much of it is nothing to be proud of. The Church expended considerable resources in persecuting Jews and other “infidels,” feeling self-justified that each drop of blood spilled was for the greater glory of the Lord.

There are those in the Hebrew Roots movement who reject Christian history entirely and strive to achieve the original Biblical template of worship, reasoning that the only valid template is a complete imitation of our Jewish fore bearers in Messiah. But if that desire is to be realized, then maybe the Didache can serve as a roadmap. The caveat for many Hebrew/Jewish roots people is that the roadmap doesn’t seem to lead to a place where there are no behavioral distinctions between Jewish and Gentile Jesus-worshiper.

But how reliable is this roadmap?

The sole complete manuscript of the Didache that has come down to us was discovered in 1873 by Archbishop Bryennios in the library of the Jerusalem Monastery of the Most Holy Sepulchre in Istanbul…

…Therefore, the Didache needs to be regarded as an anonymous document. As with so many books in the Christian Scriptures, one must allow for the probability that it did not originate with a single individual. Furthermore, given the manifest clues of orality within the Didache itself, one can be quite certain that it was originally composed orally and that it belonged to an extended network of persons who cherished and preserved it because it served to specify the standards of excellence guiding their Way of Life.

-Milavec, pp 41-2

There’s quite a bit of zeal in Milavec’s words but the oldest copy of this document we have, was discovered a mere 140 years ago. I’d like to believe that it is a very ancient text and that it was from a time when Paul was either still alive or had not long been deceased.

I’m going to go through my notes on Milavec’s commentary in linear fashion and see what nuggets we can uncover in this treasure.

Milavec’s analysis includes a description of the division of topics in the Didache:

Training program in the Way of Life (Did. 1:1-6:2).
Regulations for eating, baptizing, fasting, and praying (Did. 6:3-11:2).
Regulations for hospitality / testing various classes of visitors (Did. 11:3-13:2).
Regulations for first fruits and for offering a pure sacrifice (Did. 13:3-15:4).
Closing apocalyptic forewarnings and hope (Did. 16:1-8).

The Didache, according to Milavec, describes two “ways,” the Way of Life, and the Way of Death.

The notion that there are two well-defined paths would have been familiar to a Jewish audience (#1b, #1h). Psalm 1, for instance, contrasts “the way of righteousness” with “the way of the wicked.” The first-named are defined as those who “delight…in the law [Torah] of the Lord” (Ps. 1:2). Standing in this tradition, it is no surprise that the Jesus movement was known in some circles as “the Way” (Acts 9:2; 19:9, 23; 22:4; 24:14, 22). This was undoubtedly due to the fact that its members were trained in “the way of salvation” (Acts 16:17), “the way of the Lord” (Acts 18:25), or “the way of God” (Acts 18:26)…

-ibid, pg 45

So we see a very close association with the wording in the Didache and the underlying concepts of “Ways” and Jewish history mapping to, though not completely mirroring, the Torah. Yet there’s no completely separating the Torah from the Didache’s training of Gentile disciples, although a difference of application is evidenced in its pages.

After defining the Way of Life using the dual definitions the Didache turns its attention to “the training [required for the assimilation] of these words” (1:3). As explained above, the definitions of the Way of Life and the Way of Death served to frame the main attraction, that is the training program…of the Didache…devoted to this “training,” it is not surprising that the entire manuscript was, at some point in time, given the title “didache” …the Greek word…makes reference to the training that a master trainer (didaskalos) imports to apprentices or disciples.

-ibid, pg 47

I suppose this is stating the obvious, but consider. The Didache is known to be a training manual for the Gentile disciples in “the Way,” a Jewish religious movement organized around the knowledge of Yeshua as the Messiah and his teachings of righteousness. In the Didache’s case, this training in righteousness is specifically crafted for Gentile audiences. If the Gentiles were supposed to merely mimic Jewish Torah observance, this document would hardly be necessary. The training for a Gentile in Messiah would have been the same as for any “righteous convert” to Judaism.

And yet, the Didache not only was written exclusively for Gentiles who were not converting to Judaism, but who were considered Gentile co-participants (with the Jewish disciples) in the Way, and these Gentiles required a somewhat Torah-based but nevertheless separate set of training instructions from those given to Jewish disciples.

On page 48, Milavec outlines the likely format for such training, which would match one teacher or trainer with one disciple. This is atypical of ancient and modern discipleship models in Judaism, which would have one Master or Rabbi who trained multiple disciples in their teachings and methods.

However, on page 49, a very Jewish discipleship concept is presented:

Those who trained novices were not transmitting something of their own creation. Rather, such masters were “speaking to you the word of the Lord” (4:1), hence something they themselves received.

Traditionally, a disciple memorized the teachings of his Master so that when the disciple was sufficiently trained, he would become a Master, attract his own disciples, and pass on what he had previously learned. This pattern was repeated generation by generation, and so the pattern is repeated here. This also suggests that Gentiles were passing on what they had previously learned to new Gentile disciples (hence “something they themselves received”).

As one would expect, the training included heavy references to the teachings of Jesus:

In terms of an orderly progression of topics, however, the initial section dealing with praying for enemies and turning the other cheek would appear to be placed at the head of the training program…(but) when examined in detail…the “enemies” in this case were not highway robbers or Roman soldiers, but relatives and friends who had become “enemies” due to the candidates new religious convictions.

-ibid pp 49-50

For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.

–Matthew 10:35-36 (NASB)

Milavec states (pp 51-2) that the Decalogue or the Ten Commandments was adapted for a Gentile audience. This again supports the idea that portions of the Torah were adapted for or applied differently to the Gentile disciples rather than there being a single, identical application of Torah to both Jewish and Gentile members in the body of Messiah.

The framers of the decalogue (2:2) retained the linguistic structure in which the Lord delivered the Torah to his people on Mount Sinai (Ex. 20:1-17, Deut. 5:6-21)…

Since the novice could not have known what the Lord wanted him/her to be and do before this moment, the decalogue would not have been presented to the novice as a rebuke…no Gentile can be blamed for not having been raised as a Jew…On the other hand it can be presumed that the novice asked questions relative to the scope of each of the terms of the decalogue and reflected on his/her own life in contrast to the Way of Life.

So how did the decalogue apply to the life of the Gentile novice? It’s outlined in the Didache’s “Way of Life” which interestingly enough, according to Milavec, omits the first Five of the Ten Commandments (pg 52). However, their omission wasn’t indicative of lack of application, but a difference in application based on status. For instance, the fourth commandment, the omission of Shabbat observance, is described this way:

For gentiles, the Sabbath rest (Ex. 20:8-9) would have imposed an unworkable expectation since the Roman lunar calendar governing public life made absolutely no provision for a cessation of work on the seventh day (#4a). The “days of rest” named in the Roman calendar only occasionally coincided with the Jewish Sabbath…Since members of the Didache community depended on the work of their hands, the fourth commandment would have imposed severe economic hardships.

-ibid pp 52-3

Although Judaism was a legally recognized religion in the Roman empire and thus any Jew was entitled by law to observe the Shabbat in accordance with their faith, Gentiles who had not converted to Judaism could not observe the Jewish religious rest days or festivals. The Gentiles in the Way would not be allowed to claim a legal right to the Shabbat as non-Jews, and thus it would be a crime for them to abstain from the work required of them on the Saturday Sabbath.

This is not to say that the Shabbat was and is not a valid expression of devotion to God for Gentiles, but the status assigned to Gentiles in the Way established in Acts 15 afforded them a less stringent set of obligations to God, so that Shabbat could be observed if possible, but if not (which was in most cases), it was not treated as a violation of a commandment.

On the other hand, Milavec notes six “new” commandments applied to the Gentiles such as prohibitions against child cruelty and child sexual molestation. These were necessary since, although child mistreatment was unheard of in ancient Judaism, it was terribly common in Greek and Roman culture in the first and second centuries. So these prohibitions had to be explicitly spelled out. Other prohibitions were commandments against drug use and magic as well as abortion and infanticide. Again, these were practices common in the ancient Roman world but would not have to be articulated in Jewish legal code.

Didache 3:1 serves as a fitting opening to the five illustrations of how to avoid major infractions by keeping guard against minor infractions that might not be serious in themselves, but that form a slippery slope toward great infractions. In Jewish circles this would be recognized as erecting a “fence” (#1v).

-ibid, pg 58

Again, erecting a “fence” around the Torah by constructing more stringent restrictions than the written Biblical text records is a Rabbinic practice that is apparently reflected in the Didache, further attesting to its Jewish origins. I find this certainly interesting given how modern Christianity actually criticizes the Jewish Rabbinic system for it’s “man-made laws” and yet the very earliest Gentile Christians were taught using identical principles, perhaps even at the behest of the original apostles of Christ.

As Milavec’s commentary goes on for a bit more, I’m going to split my response in two and present the second part in tomorrow’s morning meditation.

Torah Portion

Vayeshev: The Blessing and the Curse of the Presence of God

November 22, 2013 James Pyles Leave a comment

“And it happened after these things that the cupbearer of the king of Egypt and the baker transgressed against their master, the king of Egypt.”

–Genesis 40:1

“I have set God before me always…”

–Psalm 16:8

Rashi brings the Midrash that the cupbearer was imprisoned because a fly was found in Pharaoh’s goblet of wine; the baker was imprisoned because a small pebble was found in the king’s bread.

Our tzaddikim (righteous ones) never lost sight of being in God’s presence. Everything that transpired was contemplated as to how it applied to their service of God. The story is told of one such tzadik, the Alter (Elder) of Kelm who once found a small chip of wood in his bread. This immediately brought to mind the story of the king of Egypt’s baker who was imprisoned for allowing a pebble to be in the king’s bread. The Alter cogitated, “A defect in a person’s bread is hardly grounds for so severe a punishment. No one will be punished for this chip of wood in the bread, especially since it was totally accidental. Why, then, was the king’s baker punished so harshly?”

Dvar Torah on Vayeshev
based on Twerski on Chumash
by Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski
quoted by Rabbi Kalman Packouz at Aish.com

A tzaddik is a holy or righteous person who, as Rabbi Packouz states, does not lose sight of being in the presence of God. There’s a reason most of us aren’t tzaddikim or “righteous ones.” It is extremely difficult (forgive me for saying this) to keep our thoughts on being in the presence of God every waking hour. Even if it is our most heartfelt desire, sooner or later our concentration will waver, our mind will wander, and we’ll start thinking and then doing things without an awareness that God is also present with us.

This is what separates someone like Joseph from you and me. Even when he was alone and knew he would not be caught, he still refused to take advantage of very appealing opportunities. For even if his human master was away, he was always in the presence of the Master of the Universe.

After a time, his master’s wife cast her eyes upon Joseph and said, “Lie with me.” But he refused. He said to his master’s wife, “Look, with me here, my master gives no thought to anything in this house, and all that he owns he has placed in my hands. He wields no more authority in this house than I, and he has withheld nothing from me except yourself, since you are his wife. How then could I do this most wicked thing, and sin before God?” And much as she coaxed Joseph day after day, he did not yield to her request to lie beside her, to be with her.

One such day, he came into the house to do his work. None of the household being there inside, she caught hold of him by his garment and said, “Lie with me!” But he left his garment in her hand and got away and fled outside. When she saw that he had left it in her hand and had fled outside, she called out to her servants and said to them, “Look, he had to bring us a Hebrew to dally with us! This one came to lie with me; but I screamed loud. And when he heard me screaming at the top of my voice, he left his garment with me and got away and fled outside.” She kept his garment beside her, until his master came home. Then she told him the same story, saying, “The Hebrew slave whom you brought into our house came to me to dally with me; but when I screamed at the top of my voice, he left his garment with me and fled outside.”

–Genesis 39:7-18 (JPS Tanakh)

Of course, Joseph wasn’t always a tzaddik.

At seventeen years of age, Joseph tended the flocks with his brothers, as a helper to the sons of his father’s wives Bilhah and Zilpah. And Joseph brought bad reports of them to their father.

–Genesis 37:2 (JPS Tanakh)

As his father’s favorite son, Joseph could get away with almost anything, so much so, that his brothers learned to hate him and finally conspired to kill him. Thus began the long descent of Joseph from favored son to slave and the finally to prisoner in Egypt.

It is said in some circles of Judaism:

Before a person experiences a miracle – נס – , he is given a trial – ניסיון. There is no ascent (aliyah) without a prior descent (yeridah). The lower the descent, the higher the potential ascent.

And so it was for Joseph.

But what about you and me? Remember, while we have more than a few Biblical examples of people who started out in difficult circumstances only to rise mightily by the hand of God, there is also a certain amount of midrash involved in the commentaries I’m using. Can we say that for every difficulty or misfortune we encounter, we will ultimately spring back with the same force or greater, ascending exalted heights for the glory of God?

Probably not. The apostle Paul, while a highly respected Rav and tzaddik in his own right, died a cruel and unrecorded death among pagan Gentiles in Rome at the hand of Caesar. How many righteous ones, both Jewish and Christian, have suffered and died with no reward in this world? How many never thought of a reward in this present life, but only looked to Heaven?

For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.

–2 Timothy 4:6-8 (NASB)

Paul too was a man who was always aware of being in the presence of God, standing before the Throne of the Master of the Universe. It was being in His Presence that was most rewarding to the apostle, much more than any reward he could ever receive in mortal life. His crowns are in Heaven.

Rabbi Packouz concludes his commentary like this:

The Alter concluded, “It was because when one serves or relates to the king, the standard of perfection is much greater than when relating to other people. One must exercise much greater caution to prevent any defects. In serving the king, even a small defect is a major offense!”

“I am in the service of the King of kings,” continued the Alter. “Is my behavior before Him without defect? Have I been cautious enough to avoid even accidental infractions?”

On the surface, we might wish always to be in the presence of God, but consider this. God watches every move and every mood. You cannot so much as twitch without God noticing. Then too, if you are always in His presence, that includes when you drive to work, when you discipline your children, when you talk to your neighbor, when you talk about your neighbor behind their back, and particularly when you are alone, for no one displays more of who they really are than when they’re alone and they think no one is watching.

The only difference between a tzaddik and the rest of us is that the tzaddik knows he or she is in the presence of God constantly. The rest of us are also constantly in God’s presence, but we aren’t always aware of that fact, or we don’t want to always be aware of it.

Joseph became Prince of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh in power and majesty in that ancient land. But this was only after suffering great trials, and in those trials, always being aware he was in God’s presence. Only when he didn’t succumb to the temptations of lust, anger, and despair was he elevated to great heights, but even then, only for the glory of God and to serve the desperate and the starving…and only to ensure the continuation of Jacob and the Children of Israel.

Nearly two years ago, for Torah Portion Vayigash. I wrote something similar as related to our Master, to Messiah. Jesus also suffered many trials in his mortal lifetime as a humble teacher who could have risen to King, but in the presence of God, allowed himself to be degraded, crucified, and murdered.

But he rose to the most exalted place at the right hand of the Father, to be glorified and with the promise of one day returning as King to defeat Israel’s enemies, restore the Holy Land to glory, return the exiles to their nation, and to rule us all in justice and peace.

Any one of us may be called upon to serve the King at any moment, not in exalted glory, but as a humble and even humiliated servant. How we respond to suffering, hardship, and shame in the presence of God may determine how we will be allowed to continue to serve Him…or if we will be allowed to do so.

When you believe you are living inside of an unobserved and unguarded moment, that is the time to realize the truth. You are never alone. God is always there. You are always before the Throne. That can either be a blessing or a curse, depending on how you choose to use that moment.

Good Shabbos.

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The Challies Chronicles: John MacArthur Tests the Spirits

November 21, 2013 James Pyles 3 Comments

The second day of the Strange Fire conference began with John MacArthur preaching a message titled “Testing the Spirits.” It was based on 1 John 4: “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God…”

-Pastor Tim Challies
“Strange Fire Conference: John MacArthur Tests the Spirits,” October 17, 2013
Challies.com

This is a continuation of my Challies Chronicles series, reviewing the live blogging of Pastor Tim Challies on John MacArthur’s Strange Fire conference. Based on a conversation I had last week with my Pastor and what I wrote in a previous blog post, I’ll try to exercise more restraint or at least be a little more even-handed in my responses to this topic.

As far as the above-quoted statement goes, I couldn’t agree more. I’ve seen more than few people in church (not necessarily the one I go to now) attribute their emotional states to an influence of the Holy Spirit. Typically, if a person is facing a tough decision and they pray about it, and then, when they consider one of their options and they experience “a peace” about it, they say that was confirmation from the Spirit that it’s the right decision.

Well, maybe.

And maybe the person just feels at peace with the decision they’d prefer to make, not whether or not it is in the will of God. After all, who says God is in the business of always making us feel good or giving us our heart’s desire constantly. From my experience, God tends to guide people into areas of challenge and difficulty, not on board the gravy train to Heaven.

But let’s see what else Pastor Challies has to say about this presentation by MacArthur.

There are many places in the New Testament where we are told to test all things and this is critical because Satan and his demons exist and because they operate a kingdom of lies that dominates the world. Satan has been allowed to run loose in this world and he and his agents are disguised as angels of light. We should not be surprised that Satan operates 99% of the time in false religion, in lies and deception. He is not the one behind the corruption in sinful society—the flesh takes care of that. He is behind the false systems of belief that pervade this world.

MacArthur said that many Christians get spiritual warfare all wrong and turned briefly to 2 Corinthians 10:3ff where we see that the weapons of our warfare are not human and that we cannot rely on anything concocted by man. Our weapons must be divinely powerful. Why? Because we must be engaged in the destruction of fortresses. The picture here is that human weapons are no match for a huge and impregnable fortress. We are assaulting formidable edifices and cannot use pea-shooters. These fortresses are speculations, ideas, psychologies, and religions. Spiritual warfare is not about running off demons, but battling for the mind.

I have to admit that I am confused about to what extent MacArthur believes the Spirit of God intervenes in our world? How much of what goes on around us can we attribute to God vs. other influences, most of all being human influences, including our personal, internal states?

MacArthur seems to imbue evil spirits with a great deal of power on the surface, but then he says, “These fortresses are speculations, ideas, psychologies, and religions. Spiritual warfare is not about running off demons, but battling for the mind.”

So really then, “spiritual warfare” isn’t actually battling in a supernatural realm, but dealing with our own thoughts and feelings as well as the stuff that goes on around us in the world every day like cults, new age philosophies, and other institutions. OK, I get that you can’t trust politicians or Scientology. Of course, since he mentioned it, MacArthur’s track record dealing with psychology is pretty sketchy from my point of view.

He is also an advocate of Nouthetic Counseling, which stresses the Bible as a sufficient tool for counseling people with mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety. MacArthur does not reject all forms of psychological theories and techniques, though he considers some psychology and psychiatry as contrary to the Bible.

MacArthur has argued that “True psychology (i.e. “the study of the soul”) can be done only by Christians, since only Christians have the resources for understanding and transforming the soul. The secular discipline of psychology is based on godless assumptions and evolutionary foundations and is capable of dealing with people only superficially and only on the temporal level… Psychology is no more a science than the atheistic evolutionary theory upon which it is based. Like theistic evolution, Christian psychology is an attempt to harmonize two inherently contradictory systems of thought. Modern psychology and the Bible cannot be blended without serious compromise to or utter abandonment of the principle of Scripture’s sufficiency….

–Wikipedia on MacArthur

By the way, that point of view of mine comes from a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology, a Master’s degree in Counseling Psychology, and fifteen years of post-graduate practice, so it’s not like I don’t have a basis for my opinion. I don’t think counseling psychological disorders absolutely requires that the therapist be a Christian or that the counseling techniques be strictly based on the Bible.

Sure, MacArthur isn’t specifically referencing Nouthetic counseling but since he brought the topic up, I think the it becomes relevant to the current discussion.

But I do believe that people more often than not, create their own problems. They don’t need to look to a supernatural cause right away. When any of us have some sort of difficulty in our lives, the first person we should consider is the one we see in the bathroom mirror every morning.

The architect of it all is Satan, the arch-deceiver.

On the other hand, MacArthur is saying that all of these human caused problems have a supernatural source.

And his solution?

What is our responsibility as Christians? It is to smash these ideologies, to crush these fortifications, and to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Once again, we need to remember that we are engaged in a battle for how people think. (emph. mine)

Sorry. Got caught up in the martial language there for a minute.

I’m OK with “obedience to Christ,” but I’m a little worried about “a battle for how people think.” Who is supposed to control my thinking, the Jesus of the Bible, or a particular movement in Christianity? I would prefer the former and turn myself over to God than to man, but that may not mean I’ll always agree with MacArthur or others like him on everything. If I don’t, would he think I was being influenced by Satan? I don’t know. I’ve recently called myself a Christian who studies Messianic Judaism, so I imagine he’d have an opinion on that.

When the Great Awakening broke out, there was much debate about what was and what was not a true work of the Spirit. Jonathan Edwards went to 1 John 4 and MacArthur closely followed Edwards’ The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God…

We are all responsible to assess anything and everything that is claimed to be a work of the Holy Spirit. These are timeless tests for all movements, all preaching, and all preachers. What is truly of the Holy Spirit will conform to these marks.

MacArthur lost me at the Great Awakening. My primary orientation when trying to understand God is the Bible. I’ve recently been chastised by a good friend for not knowing Christian history, but how much authority should I insert into particular events in the history of Christianity vs. the Bible in trying to understand the work of the Holy Spirit?

This is one of those times when my not being a “typical Christian” doesn’t work out so well.

The context for this passage is the work of the Spirit (see 3:24). While the working of the Holy Spirit is invisible, the manifestations of his work are visible. We know Christ abides in us because the Spirit he has given is manifested in us. What is the Spirit doing in us? MacArthur provided a long list. The Spirit creates a desire for repentance, a hatred of sin, a belief in the gospel, a love for Christ, a desire to be a slave of Christ, a delight in Scripture, a longing for obedience, joy in trials, love of other believers, desire for fellowship, illumination of Scripture, a heart of praise, worship as a way of life, increasing Christ-likeness and much more besides.

I’m reassured a bit since MacArthur does believe that the Holy Spirit does have an influence and a tangible impact on our day-to-day lives, prompting us to repentance, inspiring love of Messiah, supporting us in our trials, and so forth.

His major critique of the charismatic movement is that it focuses undue attention on the Holy Spirit and does so at the expense of Christ. Any true preacher will be Christ-dominated and present him in an accurate and exalting way. It is a matter of sound theology and also a matter of preeminence. Where you see any deficiency in the nature and preeminence of Christ, this is not the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit’s ministry is always to point you to Jesus Christ. Anyone who pollutes the gospel or distracts from the Son to the Spirit is not operating in the Spirit.

The devil would never want men to have more honorable thoughts of Christ and for that reason loves to draw attention away from Christ to a false image of the Holy Spirit. And all the while he pretends to draw attention to Jesus. A true work of the Spirit exalts the true Christ. If the charismatic movement was a movement of the Spirit, it would be Christ-dominated and everyone in the movement would be bowing the knee to the true Christ in belief of the true gospel.

According to leading charismatics, a distinctiveness of the charismatic movement is the preeminence of the Holy Spirit. They have a passion to experience the Spirit’s presence and power. But if the Spirit is the person sought, his work has been rejected. In this movement Christ is obscured, Scripture is depreciated, and a preoccupation with experience is elevated.

Sorry for the numerous and lengthy quotes, but there’s a lot going on here. I know time and again, I’ve been told to focus on Jesus, only Jesus. I can see that if, as a believer, I want the Holy Spirit to do this dramatic thing or that dramatic thing, or some other dramatic thing, that I’m probably caught up in a religion of sensation and that I’m way off-balance. I get that.

But when told to only, only, only focus on Jesus, I wonder where did God the Father run off to? I mean, MacArthur and a lot of other Christians talk about the Holy Spirit, and they talk lots and lots about Jesus, but where is God? I know. In a trinitarian view, all of them are God, but if that’s true, doesn’t focusing on any one aspect of the trinity make us unbalanced? If it’s possible to focus too much on the Spirit, is it also possible to focus too much on the Son?

I almost never, ever hear anything spoken among Christians about God the Father or, as He would be expressed in the Tanakh (older Jewish scriptures known in Christianity as the “Old Testament”), Hashem. But Jesus talked about Him all the time.

Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.”

–John 5:19 (NASB)

In that day you will not question Me about anything. Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you.

–John 16:23 (NASB)

Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You…”

–John 17:1 (NASB)

I’m saying all this not to be a theological pain in the neck, but to point out that Jesus always re-directed the attention of his disciples to the Father.

The charismatic movement fails this test of exalting Christ above all. MacArthur said, Show me a person obsessed with the Holy Spirit and I’ll show you a person not filled by the Spirit. Show me a person obsessed with Jesus Christ and I’ll show you a Spirit-filled person.

I learned in the Bible to always pray to God in the name of the Messiah. Am I wrong? Am I supposed to pray to Jesus? Am I supposed to be “obsessed” with Jesus so I can “prove” that I’m filled with the Spirit? MacArthur said to “exalt Jesus above all.” I can’t believe he means to exalt the Son over the Father, does he?

I agree we need to be mindful of anything we consider a supernatural experience or a “movement of the Spirit.” I’m not much of a spiritualist and I’m certainly not a mystic (although the writings of the mystics make wonderful metaphors). I like reading and I like studying. I think I’m “wired” to go in that direction. But I’m also wired to pay attention to what I read, which most certainly includes the Bible.

I know MacArthur is trying to make a point and the scope of his presentation, his conference, and his book probably don’t allow for answering more broad-based questions, but inadvertently, he brought this subject up so now I think he should have to deal with it.

The Bible doesn’t elevate Jesus above God the Father just as it doesn’t elevate the Spirit above the Father. MacArthur says that overindulging in the Spirit of God to the detriment of everything else God is leads to error, and I completely believe it. But how does MacArthur avoid the same problem when he demands that we should obsess on Jesus to the exclusion of God the Father?

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Standing on the Jewish Foundation of the Bible

November 20, 2013 James Pyles 24 Comments

It shall be that at every New Moon and on every Sabbath all mankind will come to prostrate themselves before Me, says Hashem.

–Isaiah 66:23 (Stone Edition Tanakh)

Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day—things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.

–Colossians 2:16-17 (NASB)

On the surface, these two passages of scripture seem to contradict each other, at least according to traditional Christian interpretation. I pulled them from yesterday’s review of The Promise of what is to Come series episode What Day is the Sabbath, produced by First Fruits of Zion. I published my review a day early (usually, my reviews of the show appear every Wednesday morning) because I wanted to build on a specific point and attempt to arrive at a personal conclusion.

For some time now, I’ve been trying to explore what I consider inconsistencies between the ancient Jewish scriptures, also known as the Tanakh or the Old Testament, and the later scriptural writings, also refered to commonly as the New Testament. If we’re supposed to have one, unified Bible that is all “God breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16), that is, if everything we read from the first chapter of Genesis to the last words in Revelation all originate from the same source, from God, then everything in the Bible must be internally consistent and provide a single, cohesive revelation from God to humanity.

Human beings artificially divided the Bible into “Old” and “New Testaments,” not God, and we’ve applied many more divisions, filters, interpretations, and traditions to how these texts are now understood in “the Church.” But I have to remind myself that, like Judaism, Christianity isn’t a single, monolithic entity. There are many “Christianities,” just as there are many “Judaisms,” each with its own theology, set of doctrines, and sacred interpretations. Sure, there’s significant overlap. The fundamentals of the Christian faith should be shared by all valid Christianities, in spite of other differences, but the multiple ways different Christian streams understand what the Bible is saying are dizzying.

However, the problem I’m confronting now is more basic than just different denominational biases. I am attempting to resolve a more fundamental (sorry for employing that word so much) problem. Using the above-quoted scriptures, how are we to reconcile the apparent contradiction between the prophet Isaiah, who tells us that in the Messianic Age, all human beings will worship God on every Sabbath and every New Moon, and the apostle Paul, who says (apparently) that Sabbaths and New Moons are mere shadows of what is to come (presumably in the Messianic Age), and the substance (or meaning or fulfillment) is in Christ? It seems as if Paul is undoing what Isaiah prophesied.

We have some options:

Both scriptures are correct but traditional Christian interpretation of Paul is flawed, leading the Church to come to a false conclusion. A new paradigm is required to understand Paul and Isaiah (and the entire Bible) within the same Judaic context.
The Christian doctrine of progressive revelation allows for Paul to provide additional meaning to Isaiah’s prophesy, expanding upon our understanding of the earlier text.
In Christ, the function of the Law was fulfilled at the cross, and thus later prophesies and holy scriptures replace or supersede earlier texts, with the later texts (on the right side of the cross) always “winning” in any apparent contradiction.
The Tanakh or the Jewish holy scriptures were the only revelation of God given to man through the Jewish prophets. The later apostolic writings, and especially Paul, were a distortion of the teachings of Jesus and created a new, non-Jewish religion that was ultimately called Christianity.
The Bible is broken and unreliable.

Let’s handle the easy items first and then proceed to the more challenging points.

Item 5 is what atheists would say. The Bible is a series of ancient tribal writings and can no more be considered as originating from a Divine supernatural being than any other “holy book” ever written in human history. Christianity and Judaism are fantasies and superstitions that have no place in the modern age.

Item 4 is what traditional observant Jews would say, including groups such as Jews for Judaism. A Jewish man named “Yeshua” or “Yeshu” may have lived in the late second Temple period and taught along with many other itinerant Rabbis, but if he thought he was the Messiah, his death proved he was not. The Tanakh is the extent of God’s revelation to mankind. The New Testament is a radical distortion of the teachings of Jesus, and Paul, in writing letters directly contradicting the Torah and the Prophets, was a liar, hypocrite, and a traitor to the Jewish people, to the Torah, and to God.

Item 3 is the most traditional, historical Christian interpretation. Jesus fulfilled the Law at the cross, and when he died, the Law died with him, along with any prophesies that contradict the later Gospels and Epistles. This is called supersessionism or replacement theology and it has been the bedrock for Christian interpretation of the Bible for nearly 2,000 years. Although the Christian Reformation may have changed a good many things, this foundational conceptualization and interpretation of scripture remained intact. Later events, and especially the Holocaust, have resulted in “the Church” softening its perception of Jews and Judaism to a much less anti-Semitic position, and many Christian denominations are now pro-Israel, but the fundamental Christian doctrine that the Law is dead continues unchanged.

Item 2 is something of a variation of item 3 but it has to be handled delicately. The idea is that, over the vast span of Biblical history, God continually revealed more and more about Himself and His plan to human beings. Abraham only knew so much about the plan of God. God revealed more to Moses. God revealed more to Isaiah. And God provided His ultimate revelation in the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the second part of the Trinity. Paul, as Christ’s special emissary to the Gentiles, was able to reveal, through the Spirit, even more than the previous prophets, thus adding much more meaning and dimension to the Biblical narrative of God’s plan as a whole. In this interpretation, the scripture from Isaiah 66:23 is incomplete and Paul added more to our understanding than Isaiah ever had access to.

That would work out fine except for one thing. Christianity still understands Paul as contradicting (apparently) Isaiah. No matter how you spin it, sooner or later, progressive revelation must believe that later revelations not only add meaning and dimension, but in cases where a later revelation seems to contradict an earlier one, the later revelation is always correct. In other words, the later revelation supersedes or replaces the earlier revelation, thus making items 2 and 3 close cousins if not sibling interpretive methods.

And that brings us to item 1.

Periodically, I have been accused of being wishy-washy. I’ve always seen a life of faith as a journey of discovery. God places us on a path and sends us in a direction. We have a “map” of the territory ahead, but we all know that the map isn’t literally the territory. What we find on the trail should always provide unique details and experiences that make the journey necessary, otherwise, we could all just sit in the comfort of our homes, read the map, and know everything there is to know. There would be no need to study, pray, worship, or “wrestle” with God. The Bible would be a simple narrative, like reading a novel or even a children’s story. One or two passes through the book, and we know everything there is to know. God is reduced to a finite number of words on the printed page.

But that obviously isn’t true, otherwise we’d all agree about what the Bible says and there would be only one interpretation of the Word of God possessed by all human beings of faith.

In traveling the road of faith as I have, I occasionally manage to annoy some people or to frustrate them. Most other “religious bloggers” or “religious” people in general don’t think that a life of asking questions is sufficient. They want definite, concrete answers, and they want to hold onto them unswervingly, not exploring, not journeying, but always possessing the destination in the palm of their hands. They always want to be “right.”

And they want me to do all that, too.

Alright. If I’m to be pushed into a corner and you want a definite answer from me, here it is.

I believe in item 1. I believe the Bible is a single, unified document that represents God’s revelation to mankind, primarily through the Jewish prophets and apostles. I believe where ever we experience a fundamental contradiction in the Bible, such a contradiction does not actually exist. Using the television episode What Day is the Sabbath as my example, I believe that Biblical contradictions between how Christians and Jews understand the Sabbath are a result of incorrect interpretation based on anti-Semitic and anti-Jewish doctrine that was originally developed in the first several centuries of Church history and that hasn’t changed very much in almost two-thousand years. Such traditions have been so ingrained in Christian thinking among nearly all streams of the Christian faith, that it never even occurs to most kind, compassionate, intelligent, well-read, devoted believers, including many Pastors and New Testament scholars, to question those extremely ancient and I believe faulty assumptions.

They can’t possibly imagine that their interpretative traditions are wrong.

I’m not trying to sound like the old T.V. show The X-Files, but I believe the truth is out there. I believe that later Christian viewpoints such as The New Perspective on Paul have merit and are enabling believers to view the apostle in a different light, one where we can read him as not contradicting the earlier prophets or abandoning Judaism.

Movements such as Hebrew Roots among Christians and Messianic Judaism among Jewish believers, are embracing this paradigm shift and taking a fresh look at the Bible, especially the apostolic scriptures, peeling away hundreds of years of stale doctrine, and learning to see Paul as a Jew, as a Pharisee, and as a zealot for Torah, the Temple, the Messiah, and the God of Israel.

People want me to make a stand, so I announce my platform. I suppose it shouldn’t come as a total shock, but I’m tired of being considered noncommittal. You don’t have to like it and you don’t have to agree with me, but I believe a pro-Jewish view of Paul and a Judaic interpretive lens is the correct way to read the later, apostolic writings and to heal the divisions we have historically carved in our Bibles, especially “between the Testaments.”

Yesterday, I partly quoted Boaz Michael when I said:

He also said, and this is very important to me, that studying the Bible, all of it, from a Jewish cultural, national, historical, ethnic, and traditional perspective “makes our Bibles consistent and upholds the Biblical truth that God doesn’t change.”

God doesn’t change His mind. When He said the Sabbath was an eternal sign of His covenant with Israel, He wasn’t lying, and this wasn’t some sort of cosmic “bait and switch.” Refactoring our understanding of the Bible to accommodate a Judaic and pro-Jewish perspective on scripture is the only way to view the Bible as a single, unified revelation of God. There is no need to throw out “Biblical sufficiency.” The languages of the Bible still say what they say, and the Bible remains a record of God’s interaction with man and a guide to holy living. The only thing we must change is our tradition about how we interpret the Bible.

I choose not to adhere to a tradition of Biblical interpretation that, by definition and having long been established historically, must rewrite the Old Testament to fit the New Testament as understood by the Church. Christianity has found it necessary to invent man-made ways to retrofit the prophets to map to a Jesus who denies Judaism and an anti-Torah Paul. God’s “eternal covenant” can’t be “eternal” if the Church must interpret Paul as saying it’s temporary. The Church’s fundamental matrix for understanding the Bible is flawed because it denies the unchangability of God and even under the most benign and apparently pro-Israel perspective, must replace or at least significantly “spin” portions of the Messianic prophesies of the Tanakh in order to make sense of a non-Jewish Messiah who is not part of Judaism and does not uphold the primacy of his people Israel.

Nothing else makes sense. Christians can pepper me with this individual verse and that individual verse from New Testament writings, but in the end, the Bible isn’t just a list of verses we can “cherry pick” to fit an outmoded doctrine, it’s a single thing or unit made up of all of its elements, an “Echad.” If all the elements aren’t unified, then the Echad must disintegrate and collapse in upon itself. I don’t believe the Bible does that, so the problem lies elsewhere…with human beings.

It’s time to do this better before the bridegroom comes and finds our lamps are without oil.

Who am I? I’m a Gentile Christian who studies Messianic Judaism. I also go to church, and I’m trying to build bridges between the different members of the body of Messiah.

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FFOZ TV Review: What Day is the Sabbath?

November 19, 2013 James Pyles 4 Comments

Episode 20: It is often thought that somewhere in the New Testament the Sabbath was changed from Saturday to Sunday. But did the unchangeable God really change the day of rest? In episode twenty viewers will learn that not only has the Sabbath day not changed but Jesus himself was faithful to keep it and taught about it. The Sabbath is an eternal covenantal sign between Israel and God. Thus, while Gentiles are not required to keep it, they are welcomed to do so throughout the Scriptures.

-from the Introduction to FFOZ TV: The Promise of What is to Come
Episode 20: What Day is the Sabbath? (click this link to watch video, not the image above)

The Lesson: The Mystery of the Sabbath

I thought this episode would just be a “rehash” of material I already knew about the Sabbath. To some degree it was, but First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ) teachers Toby Janicki and Aaron Eby managed to flesh out the meaning of the Shabbat for the nation of Israel and to some degree, Christianity as well. Since this show primarily is addressed to traditional Gentile believers, no doubt some of the material came as a bit of a surprise.

Toby starts out relating his Sunday school experience as a child when he was required to memorize the Ten Commandments. This, of course, includes the fourth commandment to observe the Sabbath. Many Christians believe that the Ten Commandments are still in effect for the Church, but either disregard the Sabbath entirely, or believe it was changed from Saturday to Sunday, and that all of the Torah restrictions involving work on the (Sunday) Sabbath were eliminated by Jesus.

Toby asks the questions, “Why don’t Christians keep the Sabbath,” “Was the Sabbath changed from Saturday to Sunday,” and “Is the Sabbath even valid anymore?”

And he said to them, “Shabbat was given for the sake of man, and not man for the sake of the Shabbat. Therefore, the son of man is master even of the Shabbat.”

–Mark 2:27-28 (DHE Gospels)

According to Toby, Christians typically use these verses to support the position that Jesus teaches man no longer has to keep the Sabbath since “Shabbat was given for the sake of man.” But Jesus also said that he didn’t come to abolish the Torah, which by definition, would have to include the Torah commandments related to the Sabbath:

Do not imagine that I have come to violate the Torah or the words of the prophets. I have not come to violate but to fulfill. For, amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one yod or one thorn will pass away from the Torah until all has been established.

–Matthew 5:17-18 (DHE Gospels)

If you haven’t done so already, or you just don’t believe Jesus didn’t cancel the Torah, please view the FFOZ TV episode The Torah is Not Canceled, which I reviewed several weeks ago. It provides necessary background for what Toby and Aaron are teaching in the current episode of this series.

To understand how Jesus approached the Sabbath, we have to understand the larger context of what he means by “the Shabbat being made for man rather than man for the Shabbat.”

And it happened that He was passing through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples began to make their way along while picking the heads of grain. The Pharisees were saying to Him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” And He said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his companions became hungry; how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the consecrated bread, which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests, and he also gave it to those who were with him?” Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

–Mark 2:23-28 (NASB)

Toby brings up an important point that Jesus is debating with the Pharisees about what is and is not permitted to do on the Sabbath, not whether or not the Sabbath remains valid. Neither side in this argument is invalidating the Sabbath, merely dialoguing about what constitutes “work” on this holy day. Rabbis have been having similar debates for hundreds and even thousands of years. The Talmud is replete with Rabbinic discussions and disagreements over what is permitted to do on Shabbat and a wide variety of other matters related to the Torah mitzvot. The discussion recorded in Mark 2:23-28 is no different, and yet Christianity, not seeing this transaction from a Jewish perspective, universally fails to comprehend its meaning.

In the specific example above, Jesus is citing a portion of the Bible when David and his men ate bread permitted only to the Levitical priests. They did so because they were starving and had no where else to turn for food. Jesus is saying that the Shabbat is a gift, not a straitjacket, and the specifics of performing a type of work that is normally forbidden on Shabbat must not overrule the higher principle of preserving human life, well-being, and dignity.

Jesus had a number of similar debates with the Pharisees on this topic, including whether it was permitted to heal a non-life threatening disability on Shabbat (Matthew 12:9-14).

For more context on the debates Jesus had with the Pharisees on the Shabbat, see my review of D. Thomas Lancaster’s book The Sabbath Breaker: Jesus of Nazareth and The Gospels’ Sabbath Conflicts, also published by First Fruits of Zion.

At this point in his presentation, Toby said something I didn’t expect. We generally consider the phrase “Son of Man” as Jesus used it, to refer to himself, the Messiah, however, Toby applied it differently in the context of Mark 2:23-28. He suggested that “Son of Man” is an equivalent term for all humankind. Thus, he presents the words of Jesus as saying that the Sabbath was created as a gift for all people and that all people everywhere are “Lord of the Sabbath.”

For me, this creates certain problems, since, as I said before, the “Son of Man” is generally considered as a title for Messiah, and Toby’s interpretation seems to create a separate meaning for only this situation. It also may contradict what he establishes later in this episode, since if the Sabbath is created for everyone, Jew and non-Jew, and we are all “lords” of the Sabbath, what does that mean for Gentile Shabbat observance today?

"When you awake in the morning, learn something to inspire you and mediate upon it, then plunge forward full of light with which to illuminate the darkness." -Rabbi Tzvi Freeman