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50 Days: Lessons in Acts and Patience

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Then some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called), and of the Cyrenians, and of the Alexandrians, and of those from Cilicia and Asia, rose up and disputed with Stephen. But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking. Then they secretly instigated men who said, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.” And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes, and they came upon him and seized him and brought him before the council, and they set up false witnesses who said, “This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law, for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us.”

And the high priest said, “Are these things so?”

–Acts 6:9-14, 7:1 (ESV)

When Caiaphas asked Stephen “Are these charges true,” he in effect asked, “Are you and your sect speaking against Moses, against the Torah, and against the Temple?

The charges were serious, and the trial had ramifications for the entire Yeshua (Jesus) sect (of Judaism). As a community leader over the assembly of Yeshua’s disciples, Stephen represented the beliefs of the whole community. If the court found him guilty of blasphemy or apostasy, they might turn against the whole sect.

Torah Club, Volume 6: Chronicles of the Apostles
from First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ)
Torah Portion Toldot (“Generations”) (pp 141, 143)
Commentary on Acts 7:1-60

Last Sunday, at the local church I attend, Pastor Randy’s sermon, as he covers the book of Acts, was specifically on Acts 7:1-19. Since the portion of Acts covered by Volume 6 of the Torah club for this coming week’s Torah reading is Acts 7, I thought it would be a good opportunity to compare what is being taught about Stephen and his defense to the Sanhedrin in my church vs. FFOZ’s viewpoint on the same event to see the similarities and differences. I didn’t get what I was looking for. Here’s why as outlined in the printed conclusions of the Pastor’s sermon last week:

Conclusion: Stephen’s sermon helps us to remember…

  1. The sovereign activity of God in choosing people, places, and timing in all things.
  2. The sovereign, abundant grace of God toward rebellious sinners always.
  3. The danger of hardening our hearts against God’s grace.
  4. The error of going through outward motions where our hearts are far from God.

While D. Thomas Lancaster in his Torah club study and Pastor Randy in his sermon series are covering identical material from Acts, the purpose and focus in each of their teachings are not at all the same. Lancaster is addressing the issue of whether or not the charges against Stephen were true; was he really speaking against Moses, the Torah, and the Temple as he had been accused of? Pastor Randy, on the other hand, was using Stephen’s “sermon” (it was actually a legal defense and not a “sermon” as we understand the term in the church) as an illustration of God’s grace and mercy to sinners who repent and turn back to God.

Kind of like trying to compare apples and oranges.

Maybe that’s a good thing, because the Sunday school class I go to after services addresses (though tangentially) the content of the lesson from the Pastor. What if the Sunday school teacher asked if the charges against Stephen were true and I answered based on Lancaster?

Of course, the allegations were not true, but was there any basis at all to the charges?

Stephen presented a pro-Temple, pro-Torah apologetic which, in essence, affirmed his orthodoxy within normative Judaism. He cited the biblically based origin for the authority of Moses and the Torah, and he told the story of the origin of the Temple. He went on to make a case for Yeshua, declaring Him to be the “prophet like Moses” who, like Moses himself, suffered His people’s rejection. In the same way, he drew in the Temple theme as he pointed out that Israel’s historical compromises with paganism contrasted against the sanctity of the true Temple. By the end of his defense, he turned the tables around. The accused became the accuser. He claimed that just as the nation of Israel historically rejected Moses, broke the Torah, and compromised with idolatry, the Jewish leadership had committed a similar crime by rejecting the appointed Messiah. (Lancaster, pg 143)

Notice that Lancaster says that Stephen accused the “Jewish leadership” of rejecting the appointed Messiah, not the “Jewish people.” Since thousands upon thousands of Jews in Jerusalem had accepted Jesus as the Messiah in the weeks and months following Pentecost, it would be very difficult to say that the Jews en masse had rejected Jesus.

Lancaster says that the charges against Stephen were absolutely false, but we tend to hear a different message in Christianity (although no such message was presented in last week’s sermon at my church):

Commentators regard it…as an ironic twist that the so-called “false charges” were actually true. For example, F.F. Bruce (from Bruce’s book, “The Book of Acts,” 1988, pg 126) says, “They are called ‘false witnesses’ because, although their reports had a basis of truth, anyone who testifies against a spokesman of God is ipso facto a false witness.” Numerous Christian commentaries insist that, contrary to what Luke tells us, the witnesses were not really false nor were their allegations really lies. From a traditional Christian point of view, Stephen must have taught against the Temple with its obsolete sacrifices, against the Torah with its cancelled ceremonial laws, and against the customs, i.e., the traditions of men. (Lancaster, pg 142)

Remember that I said not too long ago, quoting Pastor Jacob Fronczak’s article, The Five Solas: Sola Scriptura:

Even with the Masoretic traditions, though, many English readings of the Scripture can be divined from a single Hebrew text. Translation committees have to pick one. Many times readings are chosen to emphasize some Messianic prophecy which appears to point to Jesus Christ, while a Jewish translation committee might choose a different readings for the exact opposite reason. Both readings might be technically correct. However doctrinal presuppositions dictate which reading is chosen. In effect, then, when Christians have only an English Bible and no other tools, they are completely unable to interact with the Scripture – the original Greek and Hebrew texts. They are completely dependent on the work of the translator.

If our doctrinal presuppositions dictate how a passage in scripture is rendered from its original language into English (or any other modern language), the same can be true for how we interpret scripture. Even reading the ESV Bible’s translation of Acts 7:1-60, there’s nothing in the plain meaning of the text that indicates Stephen must have been speaking against Moses, the Torah, and the Temple. In fact, the vast majority of his defense reads like a simple history lesson, compressing the relevant sections of the Tanakh (Old Testament) into a few paragraphs. Stephen doesn’t appear to be denigrating the Jewish Torah and traditions but rather defending them. He only accuses the Sanhedrin of going against the Torah and teachings of Moses, in violation of what Jesus himself taught and defended.

You can see why I might be a little hesitant to speak up in Sunday school later today as I did last week.

It’s another Sunday (as you read this) and church services start at 9:30 this morning. I’ll be there again, and I’ll go to Sunday school again, and I don’t really know what I’m going to say or do. Hopefully, nothing stupid, but there are no guarantees. I’ve said and done stupid things before, even when I knew better. Telling what I understand to be “the truth” is not always defensible if I know in advance that the result will be upsetting or harmful to others. Even if I chose to speak, I would have to do so in a way that was not accusatory or offensive to others.

There is a major difference between being critical, and having a positive influence on others by saying things with compassion and true caring. When you sound critical, the person on the receiving end is likely to deny your words, which will be perceived as an attack. And then you won’t accomplish anything.

-Rabbi Zelig Pliskin
“Daily Lift #634, Correct Without Being Critical”
Aish.com

So far, the only person at church who even knows this blog exists is Pastor Randy, and I don’t even know if he has visited here since our first meeting last week. Since it’s not likely anyone else at church knows I write these “morning meditations,” I’m more at liberty to express my thoughts and opinions here than I should be when in Sunday school.

Of course, this is only the second Sunday I will be back in church. I really need to learn to be more patient and not “shoot off my big mouth” just because the Sunday school teacher asks a question and no one answers. Silence isn’t always in invitation for me to “make noise” nor is it a reason to think that I can “correct” anyone else in their beliefs.

Maybe I should be paying more attention to what the Bible is telling me about what I need to do to make me a better person than what I think it says about making others better.

 

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57 Days: The Lord has Promised Good to Me

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Peace of mind is essential for obtaining many virtues. Its absence leads to all types of shortcomings. When you have peace of mind, you can use your mind constructively. Lack of peace of mind breeds anger and resentment.

The quality of one’s prayers and blessings is dependent on the mastery of one’s thoughts. Above all else, one’s ability to study Torah properly is based on having peace of mind.

-Rabbi Zelig Pliskin
“Daily Lift #628, Peace of Mind is Essential for Growth”
Aish.com

Every Sunday, my daughter has to be at work at 5 a.m. That means I need to wake up at four and get ready to drive her so she can be at work on time. After that, when I get back home, I can get in bed again if I want to.

And that’s just what I did. But church services start at 9:30, so I set the alarm for 6:30. Makes sense to me. Gives me time to wake up leisurely, read, study, check my blog, have breakfast, and figure out if I have any semi-dress clothes that will fit. Haven’t had to “dress up” in quite a while, but fortunately I know how to use an iron and I don’t clean up half bad.

Both my wife and daughter were already at work when I was ready to leave for church, so there was no one around to wish me luck.

Made it there about ten to fifteen minutes early, which is early enough (I figured) to find a parking spot, but not too early that I’d have to conspicuously hang around a bunch of people I don’t know. Found the men’s bathroom, which is an important task in attending any public social event. About four people greeted me and shook my hand before I even got to the entrance of the sanctuary. Saw Pastor Randy who also cleans up pretty good. He was encouraging as was everyone else I met. He sent around the teacher for the class my son and daughter-in-law attends at the church. B.J. just wanted to say “hi” because he knew I was David’s Dad.

Because I told Pastor Randy that my wife is Jewish, other people seemed to know. One woman introduced herself (I didn’t hear her name because of all the background noise hundreds of people make when they’re talking all at once) and told me she was a Jewish believer. More than a few people, including the Jewish woman, said they hoped my wife would come to church with me soon.

Which is kind of what I was dreading, and that will sound odd to most Christians, but let me explain.

My wife wouldn’t receive the kindness of Christian contact and an invitation to come to church as a particularly positive thing. While she’s been to church in the past, her Jewish identity as it currently exists, does not accommodate going to church or attending Christian functions, even though she also doesn’t attend many Jewish functions. I just hope no one tries to contact her independently (I haven’t written my address and phone number down on anything at church, but I’m not that hard to find, either). I tried to explain this to Pastor Randy yesterday, but I’m not sure how he received it.

OK, one issue to be concerned about, but hopefully I’m making it a bigger deal than it really is.

Everyone was very friendly. Lot’s of handshakes and “glad your here.” I know that the “corporate greet your neighbors” handshaking is a normal thing in churches, but I’m still shy enough for it to make me a tad nervous.

The order of service and music was about what I expected. In fact, I was surprised that I remembered the tunes so readily. Nothing mysterious or too difficult. Words were on the screen at the front of the sanctuary.

One Pastor read the text from Acts 7 and then Pastor Randy gave the lesson from that chapter (they’re going through the book of Acts right now, pretty much dissecting it, but the series is slightly ahead of where I am in my Torah Club study on Acts, so I couldn’t leverage Lancaster while listening to the sermon). The bulletin contained a sheet for taking notes about Stephen’s defense to the Sanhedrin, which I used. I was interested in how Pastor Randy would frame Stephen relative not just to the Sanhedrin, but to the rest of the Jewish people, and the nation of Israel as a whole.

He very much acknowledged that Stephen was a Jew, just as his “fathers and brothers” were (Acts 7:2). I won’t go through my notes on what Pastor preached about, but it didn’t reflect the traditional Christian view of Stephen rejecting the Temple, Law, or the customs of the Jewish people in favor of the grace of Jesus Christ. Stephen was portrayed as “convicting” the Sanhedrin of going against the Torah of Moses and being faithless to God, which is more consistent with how I’d read these verses. The sermon was worded to be more accessible to a Christian audience and there were a few times that I thought the message might have been “toned down” a bit for the sake of the people listening (but I can’t be really sure, of course).

The Pastor made good use of his knowledge of Biblical Hebrew and Greek, gently suggesting that the NIV translation may not be entirely accurate. He spent a lot of time on the Abrahamic covenant, a favorite topic of mine lately. He also backtracked into Acts 6 and illuminated “trust and obey” to all of us. How do we know we trust God? How do we know our faith is genuine? Because if it is, we obey God. But what do we obey?

This is the $64,000 question from my point of view, since traditional Christianity usually says that works is dead and all we have to do is believe, while in Judaism, performing the mitzvot has center stage in a Jew’s life. The answer from the Pastor was, “good works.” Our faith is genuine if it produces “good fruit” (he didn’t actually say “good fruit,” but I thought I’d insert it here).

Pastor leveraged the Akediah (he didn’t say “Akediah,” but with his knowledge of Hebrew and having lived fifteen years in Israel, he must have been thinking it) to show us how faith, trust, and obedience are married concepts for someone who is truly righteous (he might have said, “for a tzaddik”). In going back to the original command God gave Abraham to leave Haran (Genesis 12:1), Pastor took the principle of obedience a step further in telling a story about some early Christian missionaries in India.

These missionaries were continually debating how they were to start out on their task, anticipating what might happen if they took this step or that. Finally, one of the missionaries said something like the following:

A Christian doesn’t have the right to demand to know where he is going. He must walk by faith.

Given everything I’ve been going through in anticipating “church,” he might as well have been talking to me.

Even as I wrote down the quote, I couldn’t help but marvel at how much of last week’s Torah portion had been inserted into Pastor’s message on Acts 7. He also included portions of Genesis 45 and Genesis 50, as he followed Stephen’s defense, which included references to the Patriarchs and the people of Israel.

Overall, the message was not only one of hope for Christians, that God is faithful and gracious even while we may have troubles in our lives, but that God has always been faithful and gracious to Israel and the Jewish people, even in the midst of their trials and suffering. God remains the constant for both Christians and Jews, and Abraham is the father for both the Christians and the Jews (and Pastor was careful to say that the Abrahamic covenant does not make the Christian “Jewish”).

After the sermon and closing song and prayers ended, it was time for Sunday school. I had chosen a particular class to attend, and Pastor Randy let Charlie, the teacher, know I was coming. Several handshakes later (I don’t mean to belittle this and actually, everyone was very friendly, but it will take me awhile to get used to so much human attention compressed into such a small space and time), I found where I could get a cup of coffee before class. The coffee ran out just as I was about to get a cup, so I didn’t have that delay before finding my classroom.

Consequently, I was the first to arrive. People trickled in and introduced themselves. The teacher and class members were mostly my age or older (I think one couple was a bit younger).  The first person to come in after me was an older gentleman named Dick. We got to talking and at one point he said something like, “It can be hard to find a church that gives you what you need,” and went on to say how fortunate they were to have a Pastor who preached the whole Word, including the Old Testament. He pretty much summed things up for me.

Class wasn’t as organized as I would have expected. I was glad it wasn’t heavily scripted, because that tends to stifle individual or creative response, but I saw that people struggled to respond when Charlie threw a question out among us.

I really, really had intended to be quiet, and just to listen and observe. That didn’t last very long and all of my old “reflexes” in addressing classroom questions and answers, built up over the years in my previous congregational experience, immediately took over.

In fact, I realized at one point, that instead of answering a question, I expanded on it and turned the question back to the rest of the class.

Oops.

I tried to tone it down after that, but I may have come close to crossing the line when I suggested that no matter how much God has chastised Israel, He has always brought them back, and will continue to fulfill His promises to them by bringing them back (not by restoring only a tiny remnant, but by redeeming Israel) to Him.

After class was over, I apologized to the everyone and particularly to Charlie for my being such a chatterbox. Not many of the other class members talked much, although during one of my monologues, I entered a dialog with one of the other fellows. Everyone was gracious about it and I hope I didn’t offend anyone. I didn’t think I’d get this “interactive” for weeks, but the wheels kept spinning in my head and once I opened my mouth, words started zipping out.

I was kind of interesting that all of the other students there were married couples except for one woman whose husband was on some sort of business trip in Turkey. I can see it’s going to be awkward to be going “stag” to church every Sunday.

Oh, both in the service and during Sunday school, I liked how the Jews weren’t blamed for rejecting Jesus or being bad examples, and in fact, the teachings emphasized how we Christians were expected to live up to the teachings of our Master.

At one point, Charlie, in discussing how Jesus dealt with faith or its lack as recorded in Mark 9 and 10, said, “If Jesus attended this church, what issues would he have to address here?” A little later he asked, “What would Jesus have to say to me” (about my failings)?

The experience wasn’t perfect, but then I expected that I’d feel out of place in an unfamiliar social environment. It was very “Christian” in all the ways I thought it would be, except that Judaism was treated much better relative to the Jewish Messiah and the Gentile disciples than I had imagined. The music lacked a certain punch, but that’s not really an issue for me compared to the other matters I’ve discussed, although they did introduce a bit of an “experiment” by having band sing “Amazing Grace” to the tune of The House of the Rising Sun (originally recorded by the Animals in 1964). It totally rocked.

Yes, I’ll go back next week for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that I’m curious as to how far I can enter Christian fellowship and how much I will be able to integrate and still keep the core of who I am as one of the world’s most unusual Christians. At this point, my only real reservation, as I said before, is how far some of the folks in the church will try to press me to bring my wife to services. I don’t think that part would go over well at all.

Guess I’ll see how it all works out week by week, day by day, by God’s grace.

The Lord has promised good to me…
His word my hope secures.
He will my shield and portion be…
as long as life endures.

-John Newton (1725-1807)
Amazing Grace

 

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57 Days: Life is Burning with God’s Desire

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Woman in fireFirst contact is a term describing the first meeting of two cultures previously unaware of one another. One notable example of first contact is that between the Spanish and the Arawak (and ultimately all of the Americas) in 1492.

Such contact is sometimes described later by one or both groups as a “discovery”, particularly by the more technologically developed society. In addition it is generally the more technologically complex society that is able to travel to a new geographic region to discover and make contact with the generally more isolated, less technologically developed society, leading to this frame of reference. However, some object to the application of such a word to human beings, which is why “first contact” is generally preferred. The use of the term “discovery” tends to occur more in reference to geography than cultures…

-quoted from “First contact (anthropology)”
Wikipedia.org

It’s both unfair and inaccurate to say that my meeting Saturday morning with Pastor Randy was a “first contact” situation, both because I have previous history in the Christian church and because having lived for fifteen years in Israel, Pastor Randy was more than familiar with anything I had to say about Jews and Judaism. That’s a severe abbreviation of why my nearly two-hour conversation with him wasn’t a “first contact,” and there are a great many reasons why our talk was both informative and illuminating, at least on my side of the equation.

I’m glad I went.

I had a feeling I would be. Not knowing what to expect as I walked into the church’s front door, I am comforted by what actually happened, though it wasn’t quite what I thought it would be.

If I had to sum up my response to my conversation with the Pastor, I’d have to say that I feel “understood” in terms of my concerns regarding my “cultural” re-entry into the church, as well as my personal and family issues associated with being intermarried.

But Pastor Randy also put on the spot a few times, although very gently, and I actually appreciate that he did, since who doesn’t want to be challenged in their (my?) faith community? For instance, something I think I’ve been missing in terms of “hearing” God is that I study the Bible a lot but don’t just read it enough. Does that sound confusing? It did to me, but then I thought about it for awhile and it started to make sense. I tend to read the Bible for the purpose of either studying something or doing research for a blog post, but I never really just immerse myself in scripture for its own sake, and to hear what God is trying to say to me. Maybe I can’t do that anymore without writing about it, but it certainly seems like it could be true. I used to do that; I used to just read the Bible, but somewhere along the way, I set that particular behavior aside, replacing it with studying to achieve some pre-set goal or lesson plan. I suppose it’s the difference between riding a bicycle to commute to and from work, or to lose an extra ten (or twenty, or more) pounds, as opposed to riding a bike along the greenbelt for the pure pleasure of taking in the glory of God’s autumn “artwork.”

I also realized, although Pastor Randy may not have intended to communicate this, that my talking to God “Tevye-like” in a continuing dialog, may have put my relationship with God in an unbalanced state, so to speak. I gave up more formal prayer when I gave up other traditionally “Jewish” religious practices, and I think now that I may have put my siddur away needlessly. No, a Baptist Pastor didn’t actually suggest that I pray from a siddur, but he did say that formal prayer is something that Christians could take as a benefit from Judaism. We don’t get a lot of practice appreciating the immense and august majesty and awe associated with anticipating our twice daily approach to the throne of the King.

I can’t recall everything that was said during our conversation, nor would it be beneficial to try to recount every detail here. I did come away with some realizations, information, and decisions. Here are a few of them.

I volunteered to do something for the church. I won’t say what it is right now, but the church’s need came up in conversation and it seemed to “fit” my interests and skill sets.

I seriously renewed my desire to visit Israel, not in just some dim “someday” future, but in less than a year as a potential goal.

I will be going to church and Sunday school tomorrow (this morning, as you read my “meditation”). No one was more surprised by this revelation than I.

I specifically asked about the level of supersessionism at this church, and according to the Pastor, on a scale of zero to one-hundred, it is set at a firm zero.

Given everything that I’ve just written and all that I recall about my conversation with Pastor Randy and its results, how much of all this did can I reasonably believe God arranged to happen?

Not only the pirouettes of a leaf as it falls off a tree, the quivering of a blade of grass in the wind, each and every detail of existence brought into being, given life and directed every moment from Above

—but beyond that:

Every nuance is an essential component of a grand and G-dly scheme, the gestalt of all those vital minutiae.

Every moment burns with the pulse of G-d’s desire.

Meditate on this. And then think:
How much more so the details of my daily life.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Every Detail”
Based on the teachings of the Rebbe, Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
on the central teaching of the Baal Shem Tov
Chabad.org

Will You cause a driven leaf to tremble?

–Job 13:25 (NASB)

While I sometimes feel as if I am a “driven leaf” trembling before the awesome winds of God’s will, in fact, I also believe that the nuance of “every moment burns with the pulse of G-d’s desire.” I suppose that’s a lot of meaning and expectation to pack into a meeting with one Pastor that lasted just under two hours, but that’s how I’m choosing to interpret it. This “morning meditation” is being written on Saturday and published early Sunday morning so further revelations are unrealized but soon to be experienced.

When my wife came home later in the day, she asked about how my meeting went, which in and of itself, surprised me. I wasn’t sure how “covert” she wanted me to keep this side of my life. I told her some of the things I’ve written above and others that I haven’t. She was a little surprised that there were a couple of people tangentially involved in the church that she knows. I think she’s more comfortable about me attending a church than any sort of “quasi-Jewish worship venue” as I had in the past. I definitely think she’s more comfortable in my attending a church than either of the local synagogues.

At this point, it’s like a new (or renewed) swimmer looking at a swimming pool and considering a return to swimming after an absence of many years. The first question is, where should I dive in; the deep end, the shallow end, or somewhere in the middle? Should I just jump off the side, use the high dive, or slowly walk down the stairs? Who knows? Not being sure of the best course, I’ve selected a likely point of entry and will “get my feet wet” tomorrow (today, as you read this). I’ll make adjustments as I experience the water. I think there’s a wise, though forgetful “sage” who has a relevant piece of advice for this occasion.

Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. What do we do? We swim, swim.

-Dory (Ellen DeGeneres)
Finding Nemo (2003)

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60 Days: There is Still a Light that Shines

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Inner lightWhen you come to a place that seems outside of G‑d’s realm, too coarse for light to enter, and you want to run away—

Know that there is no place outside of G‑d, and rejoice in your task of uncovering Him there.

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

The soul above awaits the time it will be privileged to descend into a body. For the soul senses how much it can accomplish here below; it can attain the level of “delighting with G-d.” So what is everyone waiting for?

“Today’s Day”
Shabbat, Cheshvan 15, 5704
Compiled by the Lubavitcher Rebbe
Translated by Yitschak Meir Kagan
Chabad.org

Given what I’ve been writing about in these past few days, the quotes above seem rather fitting. There is no place we can go that God cannot enter with us, ironically including into the church.

I’ve been experiencing a little “push back” (no, not at home) about my decision to re-enter Christian fellowship, as if Christianity was a step backward and that some other philosophy or theology were more evolved for the non-Jewish believer. I can’t say that the path I’ve selected is for everyone, I can only say that it is right for me, at least the “me” who exists today and needs to face a certain set of challenges.

Jewish mysticism sees the soul in Heaven awaiting “assignment” to a physical body so it can enact the will of God in the world of human beings. In a sense, that’s sort of how I feel right now, waiting to enter into the world of the church to see if I have anything to contribute to the body of Christ. I also (and I’ve said this before) must be careful to communicate that I’m not entering the church with “ulterior motives” but rather, to add whatever uniqueness of expression and perspective God has gifted me with to the ekklesia of the Messiah as it exists in my own little corner of the planet.

One of the reasons some people choose to attend a particular church is that they are “fed” there. I’ve never been really sure of what that meant (I’m not very good at “Christianese”) but I suppose it has something to do with the teaching or the level of emotional or spiritual support provided by the Pastoral and teaching staff. I don’t think I’m going to church to be “fed” as such, but I do believe that Christian fellowship will give me something that I’ve been sorely lacking.

O, God, who will dwell in Your tabernacle, who will rest on Your holy mountain? … One who speaks the truth in his heart … who swears to his own hurt but will not retract.

–Psalms 15:1-4

In their mind’s eye, people believe that they are acting as truthfully as possible. We all know, however, how easily we can deceive ourselves. Since truth may be elusive, how then can we know that we have the truth?

There is a useful litmus test. We can know that we have the truth when we have the courage to feel the pain of accepting the truth. People lie because they think the lie will be less painful or costly for them than the truth.

People often fail to grow because they are reluctant to face the painful truth that they have done wrong. We have an innate tendency to avoid pain, and therefore we are apt to conjure up rationalizations that justify our behavior. These rationalizations are nothing but lies ― sometimes clever and convincing, but lies nonetheless. Facing the truth and accepting the pain that comes with it requires courage.

People who “speak the truth in their heart,” says the Psalmist, do not retract their word even if it is to their own hurt. On the other hand, those who constantly seek to change everything to conform to their maximum comfort are only lying to themselves.

Today I shall…

try to be courageous and not automatically withdraw from everything that is painful. I shall try to examine my actions to make sure I am not sacrificing truth for comfort.

-Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski
“Growing Each Day, Cheshvan 13”
Aish.com

While I don’t experience the church or Christians as a “painful truth,” in fact, I most likely have been denying myself an experience that I need in order to grow spiritually. It’s easy to say that the church is “such-and-thus” in some negative sense, and to let that be the excuse to keep me away. It’s also easy (but not as easy) to visit a church, and to say to yourself (and others) that “these people aren’t me,” or “I can visit them, but I’m not one of them.” Playing the “superiority card” at the church is no way to contribute to the body of believers, even if you (or I) think that they are less than what they can be and should be.

In the “Today’s Day” lesson for Friday, Cheshvan 14, 5704, we find:

“From G-d are man’s steps established.” (Psalm 37:23) Every one of Israel has a spiritual mission in life – which is to occupy himself with the work of construction, to make a “dwelling-place” for G-d.

That statement doesn’t actually apply to the church or any body of worship so much as it does to the individual and how we establish a “dwelling place” for God within us and within the world, but it still fits. If the Messiah dwells among us when two or three are gathered in his name, (Matthew 18:20) then it behooves us…it behooves me to gather with others so that he may be with us…and with me. Serving God isn’t particularly being served by God, but serving others and summoning the Spirit so that it may dwell within those who need it. There are so many who would hoard the gifts of the Spirit for themselves, but that’s not what we were taught. We can only be who God made us to be by being together and by joining others.

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

–Matthew 5:14-16 (ESV)

This teaching of the master is not unlike what we see presented from a more contemporary Jewish Rabbi.

G‑d did not give you light that you may hold it up in the middle of the day.

When you are given light it is in order to accomplish something, to do something difficult and novel.

Go take your light and transform the darkness that it may also shine!

It feels a little egotistical to say that I’m going to take my light and let it shine among my fellow Christians, but I feel as if the Master is commanding us to do just that; to share and to love and to be with each other. More than that, we are to place that light on a hill and let the rest of the world experience it as well. That’s pretty hard to do in isolation and I don’t think just “blogging light” cuts it. We have to uncover the light, we have to shine the light.

We have to be the light.

Let it be, let it be
Ah let it be, yeah let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be
And when the night is cloudy
There is still a light that shines on me
Shine on until tomorrow, let it be…

-Paul McCartney
Let It Be (1970)

Let it be.

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61 Days: Preparing for Re-entry

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I see church as a less than ideal environment for anyone who wishes to follow Torah…I see the need for rescue missions but for everyone in churches…I think they all need to be rescued — rescued from anti-Judaic doctrines…I see those anti-Judaic Christian doctrines as negatively affecting both Jews and gentiles. There is only one faith and it’s a Jewish faith — it’s the Judaism proposed by Yeshua and the authors of the New Testament.

-a comment from Peter
on Gene Shlomovich’s blog post
One Law Gentile Has a Change of Heart

I’m probably going to regret this, but I really can’t avoid writing this “meditation,” especially given the angst-filled missive I posted yesterday. But in having my conversation over at Gene’s blog, I realized that I’ve been just as guilty of misjudging Christians and been treating the church just as unfairly as I think Peter is. However, he’s right in that he can at least go to a church without writing a month’s worth of daily blogs exposing his every doubt and misgiving, as opposed to me dragging my heels every inch of the way between here and the nearest chapel.

Peter suggests that Christians need to be rescued out of the church and returned to…what?

Well, let’s go back a step. Rescued from what?

rescued from anti-Judaic doctrines…

So you get a small army together, raid a local church during Sunday services, scoop everyone up in a big net, and fly them via helicopter to…where? A late Second Temple era “ekklesia?”

But they don’t exist and frankly, we don’t know how to replicate one. Even if we did, is that our goal? To transport all 21st century Christians back in time twenty centuries to the first “churches” established by Paul in the diaspora? To what end?

OK, I get it. If the Gentiles never stopped worshiping the Jewish Messiah with the Jewish disciples, chances are supersessionism would never have developed and we’d all be hunky-dory together, Jews and Gentiles all praying to Jesus, right?

Well, maybe not.

So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!

Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them. For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches.

But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off. And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.

–Romans 11:11-24 (ESV)

What picture is Paul painting here? This letter was addressed to a congregation of disciples in Rome that included both Jews and Gentiles. He’s “toggling” back and forth between each population in this letter, trying to keep each group from playing the “superiority card” against the other. He’s telling both the Jewish group of disciples and the Gentile group of disciples not to get too cocky, because God is the final judge of who will be on the root and who will knocked off, and for that matter, who will be put back on again. The “glue” was (and is) faith, not simply being Jewish or being non-Jewish.

But even this early in the history of “the church,” the friction between Jewish and non-Jewish disciples was evident…and this was a combined congregation, with Jews and Gentiles worshiping together, breaking bread, fellowshiping, davening together.

On the one hand, both the Jews and Gentiles in Rome would have been part of the Roman culture, but on a deeper level, Jews, no matter where they live, have their own culture, apart from the surrounding goyim. Chances are, the “Messianic” Jews lived in a Jewish section of Rome, apart from the Gentile disciples. Chances are, there were a thousand other cultural, ethnic, lifestyle and halalaic differences between the Jews and Gentiles that, while they were held together in their faith in the Messiah, they were also separated in these many other ways. Why do you think Paul had to write “neither Jew nor Greek” to other churches as we see in Galatians 3:28?

Often, we miss these matters when reading the New Testament, but the struggle to integrate the non-Jewish nations and the various cultures they represented into the worship of the God of Israel must have been an enormous task for the Jewish disciples who were, at that time, the leaders and mentors of the ekklesia of Christ. Friction between the Jews and the various people groups from the nations was inevitable from the beginning. Maybe that’s part of the reason Paul wrote to the Roman Gentiles, ” a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.”

The partial hardening upon Israel has to come! If the Messianic (Christian) faith had remained exclusively or primarily Jewish at that point in history (and especially if the Gentile disciples were expected to take on the full yoke of the Law as a minority of Hebrew Roots practitioners believe today), then either the Gentiles would not have accepted Jesus in such great numbers or, they would have “reinvented” the faith anyway, alienating the Jews and recreating the Jewish Messiah as the Goyishe Jesus.

Does that mean that part of God’s plan for integrating the nations into faith and trust in God through the Jewish Messiah was a separation between Jews and Gentiles? It certainly could be seen that way. Does that mean we must always be totally separate and even hostile toward one another? Absolutely not. The budding Messianic Jewish movement of the past few decades, which is now gaining increasing traction, is evidence that we can interface and fellowship while retaining our national and cultural distinctions.

I’m quite familiar with the history of supersessionism in the church and the long centuries of enmity between Jew and Christian and thankfully, that is slowly ending. But is the “cure” for this supersessionism to remove the Christians from the church and to include them in a Jewish synagogue setting, attempting to integrate them into modern Jewish cultural and religious practices?

Or is there another way?

What about Christians who are not supersessionist staying in the church or returning to church? What about being members of a church so that the church can become more aware of its heritage and its connections to ancient Judaism; so it can begin to recognize the face of the Jewish Messiah King as the actual face of Jesus Christ?

I launched Going Back to Ekklesia a day early because I needed to write this “sequel.” I needed to firm up my commitment to return to fellowship with other Christians and not treat them as an “alien other” that I’m just “visiting” but not actually a part of. If I am to champion the cause of Christianity to those “Christians” I encounter who disdain the name, then I must belong to the group of people, the church, who have faithfully followed the cause of Christ.

I apologize to anyone who I’ve offended by my previous comments, particularly in my hesitation at joining fellowship. I realize now, by seeing the church through another’s eyes, that I was being woefully unfair and unkind. I ask that you accept me as a fellow brother in the faith, though I probably won’t always talk as you’d expect a Christian to express himself (just read my blog posts to see what I mean). If my personal “wall of separation” is to come down, then I’m the one who has to remove it.

I have no illusions that I’m so powerful or smart or cool that my single contribution will be some sort of “big deal,” but if nothing else, I’ll remove any sort of dissonance from my statements and I’ll have something “real” to talk about.

Whatever comes your way today, whatever situation you walk through, you are safe in God’s hands. Any storm that swirls around you swirls around Him. He is your Shield, your Strength, your Rock, your Fortress. Nothing is getting through without His permission. We may not always understand why He allows what He allows, but we can cling to the blessed fact of His everlasting love.

–Marie

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62 Days: Going Back to Ekklesia

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And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things.

–Acts 5:11 (ESV)

Acts 5:11 is the first time that Luke uses the word “ekklesia” to describe the community of disciples. Christians might be surprised to learn that the word “ekklesia” does not literally mean “church.” Biblical Greek has no word equivalent to our English word “church.” The word “ekklesia” translates the Biblical Hebrew word “Kahal.” Kahal means “assembly,” “congregation,” or “community.” The word ekklesia is interchangeable with “synagogue,” and it appears hundreds of times in the Greek version of the Tanach (Old Testament) to describe the congregation of the people of Israel.

from Torah Club, Volume 6: Chronicles of the Apostles
Torah Portion Vayera (“And he appeared”) (pg 97)
Commentary on Acts 4:32-5:42
Produced by First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ)

What?

Of course, I’ve heard that before, but maybe some of you reading this haven’t. My understanding of the word “ekklesia” is that it can be any collection of people who have gathered for a common purpose. It can as easily be a group of people who have gathered together for a riot or a lynch mob as to worship the God of Israel. A rather startling revelation for anyone who thought that “ekklesia” was a brand new word, something revolutionary for its time, the invention of the Christian church. (Only the Darby Bible Translation, World English Bible, and Young’s Literal Translation render “ekklesia” as “assembly” in Acts 5:11 according to Biblos.com. The other Bibles use the translation “church.”) D. Thomas Lancaster continues his Torah Club commentary on the subject.

By translating the term as “church,” our English Bibles have done us the great disservice of making us think of the church as an entity different, distinct, and outside of Judaism and the Jewish people. The “church” is not a New Testament innovation. When we read the word “church” in our English Bibles, we need to remember that it denotes the assembly of the messianic community within the larger Jewish nation, not something outside of Israel. (pg 97)

So, from Lancaster’s description, we see that the early “Christian church” of the Jewish disciples of Jesus was indeed not some new creation, but a continuation of the Jewish community that they had belonged to since the days when they were first called to follow the Messiah. It was a Jewish community no different from the other communities of the various sects of Judaism that were common in that day.

It almost makes it sound as if Christianity and Judaism are the same thing, but as I previously mentioned, in the modern era, Christians do not practice Judaism.

But our Christian faith was once very much a Judaism, as we see in the early chapters of Acts. I recently talked about this as well, but I’m sure you’re aware that a lot of water has flowed under that particular bridge, and we’ve been taken away from the foundations of the beginning of the Christian faith.

But during the time I’m discussing here, there was no “Christian faith” as we understand the concept. There was just another sect of Judaism that believed it was following the Jewish Messiah. That’s actually not incredibly unusual, as over the long centuries of Jewish history, there have been many would-be Messiahs who have attracted many followers. All those Messiahs and all of those followers have faded away…all except one.

But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held in honor by all the people, stood up and gave orders to put the men outside for a little while. And he said to them, “Men of Israel, take care what you are about to do with these men. For before these days Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him. He was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing. After him Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him. He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered. So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!”

–Acts 5:34-39 (ESV)

For nearly 20 centuries, there were no Jewish followers of Jesus, at least none who retained a Jewish ethnic, cultural, and religious identity and lifestyle. Even today, halakhically Jewish disciples of the Jewish Messiah are few in number. Many have abandoned their Jewish identities and have joined “the church,” and they are, for the most part, indistinguishable from the Gentile Christians around them. Some are in the synagogues today and quietly worship alongside their Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform brothers in Jewish community. Very few worship in authentic Messianic Jewish communities, mainly because such communities are extremely difficult to establish and maintain. The overwhelming majority of followers of Christ are Gentiles and they worship in the thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of Christian churches in this nation and around the world.

So I’m looking at trying to connect to a church, an “ekklesia,” although as we saw above, “ekklesia” doesn’t mean “church.” But modern convention says that “church” is the only place I have left to go if I want to be a part of the community of the body of Messiah (they’ll call him “Christ” of course).

If I were to print this blog post out and take it with me to my meeting with the Pastor this Saturday (I had to move the appointment time back one day), I wonder what he’d say? I wonder what the church’s board of directors would say if they read it? What would any of the church members say if they could read this commentary about “the church?” Would they find a kindred spirit in me at all, or only some “religious oddball?”

As far as the nature, meaning, and implication of the word “ekklesia” in relation to Acts 5:11 and the early community of disciples of Jesus, I’m not an “oddball” at all, but there’s 2,000 years of Christian culture to address. The “church” isn’t just the community of Christ in the 21st century, it is the collection of all of the doctrines, theologies, dogmas, and philosophies that have been incorporated into what it is to be a Christian and what Christians understand and believe.

Derek Leman’s recent blog post Congregation Lift: The Principle of Aiming High included the following:

In evangelical Christianity (and I was totally immersed as a student at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, where I got my B.A. in Bible and Theology) I found a principle I came to completely reject. It was the principle of aiming low. In church after church, chapel service after chapel service, the supreme height of Christianity was presented as “getting saved.” Christians lived for getting into heaven. Every sermon had to tell people how to gain access to the place of white clouds and harps. The “born again” experience, interpreted shallowly as “getting in,” was the be-all, end-all, the graduate degree of faith. Whenever deeper subjects came up (discipleship, serious commitment to giving and serving) these were optional add-ons for the few who were called to be more than “saved.”

Church teaching always aimed low. Get them saved. Tell them over and over again. Preach 52 sermons a year that, no matter which Bible text was used, ended up being about afterlife admittance. And this was called “the gospel,” even though it has absolutely nothing to do with the word gospel (euangelion) in the New Testament. The people in the pews were viewed as probably incapable of any higher life with God. So appeals to things like giving, serving, serious pursuit of holiness, were extras to which people would be vaguely invited to discover outside of the weekly 60-minutes for God event.

This makes my “spider-sense tingle” or, put another way, screams “Danger! Danger, Will Robinson” at me. It scares the heck out of me. What am I getting myself into?

Fortunately, Leman goes on to say:

Now, this is not actually Christianity. In my opinion, what goes on in the 60-minutes-for-God event in most church buildings is not Christianity. True Christianity, I would argue, is a beautiful thing. What keeps good people in low-aiming evangelical popular churches? I think it is the fact that small, inner circles of Bible readers in these places all find something deeper than what is presented in the 60-minutes-for God events.

That still makes it sound like finding “true Christianity” is about as simple as locating teeth in the beak of a hen or finding the proverbial needle in a haystack.

But I have to start somewhere.

I once employed an Internet meme stating that “One does not simply learn Torah in a church,” and was promptly, though indirectly chastised by none other than Boaz Michael, who along with his wife, does attend a church in a small town in Missouri. Apparently, the “weightier matters of the Torah” are indeed to be found in the church, or at least in some churches.

My point, a point for congregational life, is this: the Bible and the great thinkers and teachers of Judaism and Christianity, aim high, not low.

What does aiming high in congregational worship, teaching, and discussion mean? It means that leaders are educated and expected to have read other opinions and to be familiar with a broad range of ideas. The “what it means to me” approach to Bible teaching is a disaster. It means that the prayers and songs should call to a deep devotion and a wise faith. It means complexities and realities of suffering, of the failure of goodness to produce a pain-free life, of the highest goals of loving sacrificially, should be the core of the teaching. It means people at all levels of learning and practice should be challenged.

I guess I’m just trying to “psych” myself up for this Saturday. I worked up the nerve yesterday to tell my wife about my appointment and she took it pretty well. I looked for any signs of “discomfort” in her facial expression and body language and listened closely to her vocal tones, but everything indicated that she was calm and accepting of my position. So why do I feel like I just pounded another nail in the coffin of whatever shared faith experience we used to have?

It doesn’t help to have just discovered (literally, as I’m writing this) that people in middle age (i.e. “me”) are the “group making the biggest exodus out the back door of their churches,” according to information I read on Michelle Van Loon’s blog. Lovely. As I’m trying to get back in, all of my age-mates and peers are going back out.

Feinberg’s list of things that push older members out the door tags the usual suspects (changing worship styles, lame small groups, politics, communicators in the pulpit instead of pastors), though I believe that some items on her list torque those over 65 differently than they might if a person was in his or her early 40′s. For instance, Boomers developed church services heavy on entertainment and light on organ music and choirs; older Gen X-ers, now in their forties, came of age in an era when worship style wars had already been fought in many corners of Protestantism. For instance, I appreciate some hymns, but prefer thoughtful, organic modern worship music. I have a long history of breaking into highly inappropriate giggles if I visit a church and find my sung worship accompanied by bombastic organ music (and is there any other kind?).

Organ music? Lame small groups? Communicators instead of pastors? Oy!

Van Loon continues:

That said, those in the second half of life simply can’t freestyle their spiritual lives. God calls us to community, though our relationship with that community can and should change as we mature. (Wouldn’t it be wonderful if church leaders were willing to consider how to better facilitate spiritual growth for those in the second half of life?) Illness, the needs of aging parents and travel change our relationship with regular Sunday morning church attendance. Others find what they have to offer others is better received in contexts (non-profits, missions organizations) other than that of their local church.

I can see there’s no going back to the simple concept of “ekklesia” as Luke describes in Acts: the community of disciples who meet, pray, teach, share, and worship. To be part of a community is to meet the community where they are. It would be nice, as Van Loon says, if “church leaders were willing to consider how to better facilitate spiritual growth for those in the second half of life,” but how is the church supposed to meet me where I am, or is that even the point anymore? Who is supposed to be serving who and why does one even go to church?

So though I disagree with Feinberg on one hand, I agree with her on the other. She’s right: those of us who are older are called to mentor those younger than us, and to give ourselves away in generous, selfless service.

I can’t imagine, “oddball” that I am, even getting that far. In fact, I’m still trying to find out why I’m “going back to church.” I don’t really expect or need to “be fed” by the church, but I can hardly imagine they’d trust me to do any feeding, particularly as a “newbie.” I don’t know that I want to do any feeding. Teaching is draining and as a teacher or just a person, I’ve been wrong before, and I don’t want to take others down a wrong path with me. Maybe, I’ll just see if they need their carpets vacuumed once a week and that will be my Christian “mitzvot,” my way of giving back to a community that seems about as familiar to me (especially reading Van Loon’s blog) as the surface of one of Saturn’s moons.

What am I doing anyway?

Edit: I posted this a day early (it was supposed to be tomorrow’s “morning meditation”) because I had something of an epiphany. You’ll see what it’s all about in tomorrow morning’s blog post.