Tag Archives: Judaism

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.

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When the Jewish People are One

November 24, 2013 James Pyles 12 Comments

I am not Orthodox.

There. I said it.

Yes, I look like I am. I have a full beard, I am the rabbi of a traditional synagogue and don’t eat anything not kosher. But I am finally comfortable enough with myself and my Judaism to come out and say what has been lying underneath the surface for so many years.

I just can’t classify myself anymore as an Orthodox Jew.

Truth be told, as I look at the membership list of my congregation here in suburban Long Island I feel that none of my community is really Orthodox either.

Please allow me to describe to you my journey on how I reached this conclusion.

-Rabbi Mendel Teldon
“I Am Not Orthodox”
Opinion piece written for
The Jewish Week

And so begins the (you should pardon the expression) “unorthodox” commentary of Rabbi Teldon about Jewish identity from his particular perspective. I must admit, when I read this article, the first thing I thought of was Rabbi Dr. Stuart Dauermann’s article in the most recent issue of Messiah Journal called “The Jewish People are Us – not Them” (read my review of the article for more details).

As his story progresses, Rabbi Teldon relates how, during one Erev Shabbat meal in his home, he asked his (Jewish) guests, “Do you consider yourself Conservative, Reform, Orthodox, None of the above or Other?”

The first guest thought for a few moments and said “I’m not sure. My parents were Conservative, we were married by an Orthodox rabbi, but our kids went to a Reform temple for nursery. I didn’t fast on this past Yom Kippur but my daughter’s upcoming Bat mitzvah is going to be done by an Orthodox rabbi.”

The next guy said he is Reform since currently he is not a member at any temple but he takes his family to a Reform temple in Westchester every year for the high holidays. Since his parents are on the board of directors they get a good price on tickets so it is worth the schlep. Also, while he hadn’t studied much lately, he feels that his beliefs are more in tune with the Reform movements ideas of Tikun Olam.

The third scratched his head and said, “My friends ask me this same question when they hear I am a member at an Orthodox congregation. My response is “Other” since I don’t fall into any of those categories.”

Not being Jewish, I have no real basis for evaluating the question much less the answer, except in relationship (perhaps) with Dr. Dauermann’s article. Dauermann also discusses the nature of Jewish identity and the vital necessity of Messianic Jews to relate first and foremost as Jews. That point dovetails quite nicely with what Rabbi Teldon says next:

That is when it suddenly hit me.

I am not Orthodox since there is no such thing as an Orthodox Jew. As there is no such thing as a Reform Jew or Conservative Jew.

These terms are artificial lines dividing Jews into classes and sub-classes ignoring the most important thing about us all. We share one and the same Torah given by the One and same God.

That is, from my point of view, the essence of what Rabbi Dauermann was communicating in his article. Jewish identity is more than just a label, it’s more than just whether or not you were Bar Mitzvahed by an Orthodox Rabbi, attend the High Holy Days in a Reform shul, and have your kids go to Hebrew school at a Conservative synagogue. Jewish identity is transcendent across all of these “labels.”

Of course, the Jewish people sharing affiliation across those different Jewish institutions or religious streams might have a problem with a Messianic Jew attempting to enter their spectrum of Jewish experience (and I just violated Rabbi Dauermann’s “Us, not them” emphasis).

I was also reminded of this:

We are on more solid ground if we attempt to define the term “Messianic Jew” – a Messianic Jew is simply a Jewish person who believes in Yeshua. Messianic Jews have all sorts of theological views, ranging from attending shul weekly and treasuring Yeshua in their hearts as a crypto-faith and living out a more Orthoprax Judaism, to attending a Pentecostal church every week, and simply maintaining an awareness of their Jewish identity.

-Dror
“The shape of the Messianic Jewish movement”
rosh pina project

But all this introduces a level of complexity into the equation of Jewish identity and Jewish community. When trying to explain these concepts to my Pastor a few weeks ago, he asked me if Messianic Jews had more in common with Judaism or Christianity. He was getting at the idea that in Christ, we are all “one new man” (Ephesians 2:15) and are saved through Jesus on the cross, while most streams of Judaism deny Christ as Messiah and as the Son of God.

I don’t think I can adequately answer such a question without being Jewish. I don’t have a lived Jewish experience and a unique identity as a part of Israel. In Christianity, we are taught to revere Jesus above all else and our culture and identity is defined by our beliefs.

Jewish identity and covenant relationship with God is established at birth (with the exception of those who convert to Judaism, “Jews by choice”) and, as Rabbi Teldon said, are defined by the Torah and by God. Any Gentile can enter or leave Christianity, but a Jew is born a Jew and even if they reject that heritage, they can never leave and become an “unJew”.

Historically, as Rabbi Dauermann brought out in his article, Jews have always been required to make a choice when coming to faith in Yeshua as Messiah. Either surrender all Jewish identity, practice, and culture, or forget about becoming a disciple of Jesus and lose (or never attain) your salvation.

I seriously doubt that any Christian past or present has any idea what they were asking of Jewish people who desired to have a relationship with the Jewish Messiah. How can you ask a Jew to leave his covenant people in order to honor the capstone of Jewish history, the Messiah, Son of David, who is utterly devoted to his covenant people Israel?

Then we come to a recent debate in the blogosphere on Jewish apostasy, and by that, I mean Jews who previously were believers within a Messianic Jewish context, denouncing Jesus and re-entering another Jewish religious community. General Christian and Hebrew Roots consensus says that any Messianic Jew who desires to live a completely Jewish lifestyle in honor of his fathers, in honor of the Torah, and in honor of Messiah significantly risks leaving Yeshua-faith because, somehow, living as a completely observant Jew among completely observant Jews and focusing on Messiah are mutually exclusive experiences.

Rabbi Teldon’s commentary may seem heartwarming when applied to any other Jewish population, but Christians consider having Messianic Jews making transitions across multiple corridors of (non-Messianic) Judaism as a severe threat which will result in those Jews leaving Yeshua-faith for “dead” Jewish worship. Even many Gentiles in the Hebrew Roots movement who believe as non-Jews, they are obligated to “observe” Torah, are at least hesitant about if not actively critical of Jews in Messiah who want to actually live as Jews and among Jews. Go figure.

I wrote a review a few days ago on one of John MacArthur’s presentations at his Strange Fire conference, and at the end of my review, I brought into question who Christians should be focusing upon, God the Father, Jesus the Son, or the Holy Spirit? Christianity, including Hebrew Roots, insists that the only valid focus of Christian faith must be Jesus Christ, but if that’s true, do we simply disregard the God of Genesis, the God of Abraham, the God of Jacob, and the God of Moses? Even at the end of all things, the Bible specifically mentions only “the throne of God and of the Lamb” (Revelation 22:3).

I don’t see how it can be reasonable to ask a Jew to stop being Jewish in order to worship the God of Israel and Messiah, Son of David, King of the Jews. What are Jewish families in Messiah supposed to do, shop at the mall on Saturday afternoon and serve shrimp at their daughter’s wedding?

Oh, not everyone thought Rabbi Teldon’s article was heartwarming. Here are a couple of comments from the blog post:

Dear Rabbi Mendel,

Will you daven in a shul that is not Orthodox? Will you sit next to a woman who is also davening, and consider yourself yotse? Will you pray in any shul, regardless of denomination? Do you recognize those with non-Orthodox smicha as rabbis? Do you count women in a minyan? Will you daven, in tefilla b’tzibur, if there are women forming the minyan of ten? Will you share a pulpit with a woman who is a Rabbi in doing a wedding, or leading a service? I imagine that you would say yes to all of the above, since you have publicly claimed you are not an Orthodox Rabbi. If you cannot say yes to all of the above, I encourage you to publish an apology and a detraction of your public statement about being not being an Orthodox Rabbi. If you cannot say yes to all of the above, to claim one is not Orthodox is both disingenuous and inaccurate.

Thank you.

And another comment…

What do you expect? He’s a Lubavitcher. For Lubavitchers, every other Jew from unaffiliated to Satmar is classified as either Lubavitcher or not-yet-Lubavitcher. Everyone is conversion fodder to them. If one regards O/C/R as affiliations, he’s not affiliated with any of the other Orthodox orgnaizations – Lubavitch institutionally does not join with other Jewish institutions.

Except that Orthodoxy, according to R’ Micha Berger, is not a movement, but an attribute a movement can have. OU, Agudah, Lubavitch organizations, they’re all Orthodox because of their adherence to certain ideas. IOW, this is a marketing move. Since R’ Teldon finds that his congregants eschew labels, he’ll eschew labels too. Doesn’t change what he believes.

In the Messianic Jewish and Hebrew Roots movements, the concept of Jewish identity is fiercely discussed, but it’s obviously a matter of concern among all of the other Judaisms as well.

I think Rabbi Teldon has the right idea. I think that the core of being Jewish must cut through all other distinctions. When the Nazis came for the Jews, it didn’t matter what the synagogue affiliation (if any) of their victims were. Jews were simply herded into cattle cars and taken away as slave labor or to the gas chambers.

While there may be some “bumps in the road” between different Jewish streams regarding who is or isn’t considered Jewish, no other form of Judaism attracts masses of non-Jews like Messianic Judaism. This has been a really BIG “bump in the road” for Jewish Messianics who desire a truly Jewish life and worship experience.

Derek Leman, who like many other congregation leaders in the Messianic movement, oversees a congregation of mostly non-Jews, and yet he also sees the need for “Jewish” Messianic Judaism, as he blogged recently. Naturally, his blog post generated a lot of discussion in the comments section, since many non-Jews associated with the movement and certainly most traditional Christians, are at least confused about why Judaism is such a big deal, to outright offended at the suggestion that Jews converting to Christianity is not God’s real plan for them.

Gentile involvement in Messianic Judaism, although well established historically, results in an interruption of Jewish community that Rabbi Teldon and those at his Shabbos table couldn’t possibly imagine. And yet, without Gentile Christian involvement and support, the vast majority of Messianic Jewish communities would not be able to exist. On top of that, most Jewish people I know in the Messianic movement originally came to faith within a Christian church context. It would seem that continued Christian Gentile involvement or crossover into Messianic Judaism is inevitable, regardless of the other problems this raises.

But God, one by one, calls back each of His Jewish children to stand before Him at Sinai and to recall the Torah of their fathers. God speaks to each Jewish person, reminding them of who He is and who they are in Him.

The apostle Paul probably understood this dilemma best. He was a Jew, a Pharisee, of the tribe of Benjamin, circumcised on the eighth day, zealous for the Torah, the Messiah, the Temple, and Hashem. And yet, he associated with many, many Gentiles. Yes, he always went to the synagogue first whenever he entered a town in the diaspora, and he told of the good news of Moshiach to the Jews first, and also to the Gentiles.

And yet, the Biblical record testifies that as Paul lived and eventually died among the Gentiles, he never compromised who he was as a Jew, nor was he required to make such a heinous compromise by Messiah in order to be an emissary to the Gentiles. If anything, Paul’s Jewish “credentials” underwent the most strenuous scrutiny and the apostle clung to who he was as a Jew with outstanding fidelity (see Acts 21 and subsequent chapters for multiple examples).

It was a difficult road to walk, and it is no wonder that Jews in the Messianic movement today struggle to find a path. If only it could be as Rabbi Teldon relates. If only the binding link between all Jews could be Hashem, and Torah, and the promise of Messiah, who is realized among Messianic Jews. A Messianic Jew living as a Jew among other observant Jews should never violate zealousness for Moshiach at all. It never once dimmed Paul, the Jewish emissary to the Gentile’s vision of the Messiah King.

I know both Christians and Jews will disagree with me in all that I’ve said. But when I read the Bible and factor in the historical, cultural, linguistic, and yes, Rabbinic (proto-Rabbinic) context of Paul’s world, that’s how I see him. I see Paul as a shining example that a Jew who is zealous for Torah does not have to compromise his observance or his Messianic faith in order to honor the King and to worship Hashem.

Messiah is the lynchpin, the capstone that holds all believers together, Jewish and Gentile alike, but there is a dimension possessed by Jews in Messiah that we non-Jewish disciples, by definition, cannot apprehend. God created at Sinai an identity and an experience of what it is to be Jewish in community with other Jews that is unique to the living descendants of Jacob. The Messiah means a great deal to Christians, and we would be hopelessly lost and separated from God without him. But he is even more than all that to the Jewish disciples.

Messiah is the culmination of the prophesies from the Tanakh which all speak of the personal, community, and national redemption of all Jews and of Israel. Messiah is the link that allows the people of the nations to come alongside Israel and share in the prophetic blessings. To demand that a Jew in Messiah stop being Jewish and stop participating in Judaism is to deny Biblical prophesy, deny God’s sovereign plan for Israel and the world, and frankly, when we are dumb enough to make such a silly demand, we Gentiles are shooting ourselves in the foot (remember, the Jews would offer sacrifices to God for the atonement of the nations of the Earth, and the Romans destroyed that atonement in 70 C.E.). Without Jewish Israel and Judaism, what links us to Messiah and to salvation at all?

Someday, Messiah will be the capstone, not only for the (mixed) body of Messiah, but for all Jews everywhere, as they flock to Jerusalem to celebrate the return of the King. We Gentile believers will also celebrate, but it is our job to help conduct the exiles back to their Torah and their Land in accordance to the will of our Master and the will of Hashem.

The party will be first and foremost for the Jewish people, the nation of Israel, the Holy people of God who He gathered to Himself at Sinai. We of the nations who are called by His Name are grafted in by a faith learned from Abraham and through the grace of Messiah and the providence of God.

Rabbi Teldon ended his article with these words:

When we are able to focus on the fact that while we have differences but a family truly remains connected eternally, it will reconfirm what we already knew: Am Yisroel Chai!

There must be a way for this to be accomplished also for Messianic Jews, because they too are part of the family, regardless of other differences. Paul is part of that family, as are James, Peter, John, and for that matter, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Messiah is part of that family, and he leads that family and that nation, for he is, first and foremost, the Jewish King.

How can Gentile believers in the Church not understand that being Jewish is a gift and demand that Jews return that gift to their Father in Heaven in exchange for Gentile Christianity? Someday what Rabbi Teldon describes will become an overwhelming reality in a way we cannot possibly imagine. Someday Messiah will bring all of his people, all of Israel home. And on that day, I and my other non-Jewish brothers and sisters will line the highway leading up to Jerusalem and loudly, jubilantly applaud the return of the lost remnant of Judaism, and cheer in joy and gratitude that the will of God has finally come to pass…

…and we will bless God that we among the nations were allowed to humbly be a part of it all.

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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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?

A Sketch of Christian Fundamentalism

November 18, 2013 James Pyles 27 Comments

Christian fundamentalists, who belong in the center field of Biblical theology, find themselves grouped by the media in the same category as militant political extremists, fascists, snake handlers, and Islamic fundamentalists. It’s about time somebody called foul!

The term “fundamentalism,” as Bible-believing Christians use it, identifies a system of beliefs that are foundational, or fundamental, to the Christian faith. Coined at the turn of the twentieth century, in an era of emerging, aggressive theological error, the term still stands as a watershed between truth and apostasy.

-from the pamphlet
“Fundamentally Sound: Understanding Our Faith”
Regular Baptist Press: Building Lives by the Book

(Note: I just want to point out that when you do a Google image search on “Christian fundamentalism” or “Christian fundamentalists,” the results are never pretty).

A Challies Chronicles Interlude

I’ve been trying not to mention my Pastor and my church to any extent in my blog posts to avoid even the hint that I am being critical of either, but there’s no other way to write this “meditation.” Pastor brought to my attention that I might not quite understand the term “fundamentalism” and have even been using it in a pejorative manner. He also explained some differences relative to how Reformed theology is understood.

In an effort to be fair, and to cement this in my memory, I decided to construct a little summary of “what is Christian fundamentalism.” I won’t go into the history (though I took copious notes of Pastor’s discussion), however, after a series of annual conferences held by leading Christian thinkers from America and Canada starting in 1890 and extending to 1930, the “Fundamentals of the Faith” were established, recorded, and published. The first five were fully agreed upon and the sixth was debated and later added. Here’s the list as we have it today:

The Inspiration and Authority of Scripture: God authored the entire Bible — every word of it and every part of it (2 Tim. 3:16). The Bible is God’s Truth (John 17:17). It is without error!
The Deity of Jesus Christ: He is fully God as well as fully man. He has always existed as God, and He always will be God (John 1:1; 20:31; 1 Tim. 3:16).
Christ’s Virgin Birth and Miracles: Jesus was born of the virgin Mary (Isa. 7:14; Matt. 1:18-25) and was sinless (Hebrews 4:15; 1 Peter 2:22). He performed miracles to authenticate His credentials as Israel’s Messiah (John 20:30, 31).
Christ’s Blood Atonement for Sin: Jesus shed His blood as the payment for our sins. Without the shedding of His blood, there would be no remission of sin (Romans 3:24-26; Col. 1:13, 14; Heb. 9:14-28; Rev. 1:5).
Christ’s Bodily Resurrection: Jesus arose bodily from the grave, triumphing over death and assuring believers of their future resurrection (Luke 24:1-12, 34-38; 1 Cor.15:1-20).
Christ’s Personal Return: Jesus assured His disciples that He will come again (John 14:1-3). Angels announced His return (Acts 1:1), and the apostles taught that He will return (1 Thess. 4:13-17; Titus 2:13; 2 Peter 3:1-10; 1 John 3:2).

This describes the core beliefs of fundamentalist Christianity and as far as I can tell, these six points are generally accepted by most if not all Christians. In fact, if you dispute any one of these points, according to a fundamentalist point of view, you can’t really be called a Christian.

It’s funny how much the topic of apostasy has come up in the Christian, Hebrew Roots, and Messianic Jewish areas of the blogosphere lately.

I don’t doubt that many of you out there will have something to say about this list. I copied it word for word from the aforementioned pamphlet, so as far as it goes, I’m just transmitting information, not engaging in editorial commentary (that comes later).

It all sounds so simple on the surface, but even accepting those six points, there’s still room for a huge amount of variability beneath the overall Christian “umbrella.” As I mentioned to my Pastor last Wednesday, everyone who claims Yeshua-faith as well as religious Jews who deny Yeshua (Jesus) was/is the Messiah all state that scripture supports their positions. Even when considering the rules of Biblical interpretation, there is always the filter of interpretive tradition each religious stream in Christianity and Judaism utilizes to color understanding and meaning. No one has pure, unbiased access to the Bible.

We are all on a journey attempting to discover truth, attempting to achieve ever higher fidelity to the original, that is, the truth of God, and yet we all fall short. This isn’t to say we should all give up, and it isn’t to say that we can’t come closer to truth as we continue our efforts, but achieving the mind of God is like traveling at the speed of light. To do so would require the expenditure of infinite energy and would result in us laboring under infinite mass.

In other words, no matter how hard we try, and what technologies we use, pushing an object in space faster and faster and faster will get us (marginally) closer and closer to the light speed limit, but we will not only fail to ever achieve it, we will probably fall significantly short of our target.

But that doesn’t mean we will ever stop trying, and in fact, NASA continues to look into developing warp drive.

People of faith continue to strive to break the bonds of our humanity in an effort to touch the Divine. The moral equivalent of developing “warp drive.”

My Pastor suggested that it might be helpful for me to listen to some sermons and to gain some actual experience and perspective on Christian thought and Christian leaders. We discussed John MacArthur, R.C. Sproul, Steven J. Cole, and Chuck Swindoll.

I didn’t tell Pastor this (but since he reads my blog posts, he’s about to find out), but I gave up listening to sermons on Christian radio well over a decade ago. Even as a “young Christian,” I found some of the sermons too elementary, some too confusing, and most too critical of Judaism and Israel to be of much help. Sooner or later, the speaker would say something that would make my blood boil, and my commute home from work would be shot as would my mood when I got home.

I listen to the 1960s “oldies” station now and am much happier on my drives.

I’m a guy sitting on a fence. I go to a Christian church, but I think like a “Messianic” (however you want to define the term). More to the point, I think and enjoy Biblical lessons that focus on understanding scripture from the Judaic thought process, linguistic, social, ethnic, and yes, Rabbinic context of the times when those scriptures were authored, and from the viewpoint of the intended Jewish (in most cases) audience.

Knowing the original languages isn’t enough, because how we interpret what was actually being said has been stripped of most of its contextual meaning. From a Messianic viewpoint, you can’t read the teachings of Jesus without, in some cases, summoning up Hillel and Shammai, who taught a generation before Christ. They were Jewish teachers, Jesus was a Jewish teacher. In many ways, Jesus had a lot more in common with Hillel and Shammai than he has with MacArthur, Sproul, Cole, and Swindoll. I’m not trying to be mean or insulting. It’s a statement of fact. Jesus wouldn’t call himself a “Christian.” He wouldn’t say that the Law was “nailed to the cross.” He wouldn’t disdain the Shabbat, New Moons, or other Biblical festivals.

To understand Jesus, or Paul, or Peter, or James, it makes more sense to seek out sources closer to them, not only historically and linguistically, but culturally, ethnically, ethically, as well as in terms of what Jewish traditions and interpretative methods were in play in that place at that time.

I’m not sure how men like MacArthur or even the very user-friendly Chuck Swindoll would approach such a context. I don’t want to be unfair, but I do want to be realistic.

This all goes back to Boaz Michael’s book Tent of David and my recent review of who I am and what I mean within the cultural and theological context of Christianity as an institution.

So far, I see one of three outcomes of my “church experience:”

I stay at church and “assimilate,” becoming a “regular Christian” and abandoning any mental, emotional, theological linkage with Messianic Judaism, Hebrew Roots, and any “Judaic” viewpoint on the Bible.
I stay at church but maintain my current perspective, even expanding it though self-study and contact (real or virtual) with others who share my basic viewpoint, generally being a curiosity, a pain in the neck, or ideally, a refreshing conveyer of the Messianic perspective within the church environment.
I give up on Christianity as an institution entirely, leave church, and pursue a life of faith as an independent “free-agent.”

As the end of my first year in church approaches (or has it arrived by now?), I feel like I’m crossing some sort of milestone or threshold. A year in church as resulted in me learning more about the history and institution of Christianity, but it hasn’t diminished the perspective I possessed when I went back to church a year ago. If anything, having to debate my perspective has driven me to do even more reading and studying, strengthening my belief in a Jewish Yeshua and the continuance of Jewish Torah observance for all Jews of faith, including Jews in the body of Messiah.

Every time I enter into such a brain bending set of debates and discussions, I have to get away for a while afterward and be alone with God. God may not be entirely knowable, but He isn’t confusing, either. He is a listener. He doesn’t have much to say most of the time when I pray, but it’s good to be able to tell Him how crazy religion makes me sometimes.

I’m glad He’s there. I’m glad I can remember that regardless of all the religious preachers and pastors and rabbis and sages rolling around human history and the current theological landscape, there is an eternal God who is the point of everything everyone is trying to do. In the end, it doesn’t matter who wins the arguments. In the end, God reigns supreme. In the end, God will stop listening and start talking. Then, if we are wise even to the slightest degree, we will stop talking and listen.

It’s in moments like these that I continue to pursue God, moments when it is dark and quiet, and the only sound is the passage of my voice to the Heavens. God listens. Being with Him is very peaceful and comforting. The chaos of human religion seems miles away.

I’ll return to my review of the Strange Fire conference soon.

In the meantime, tomorrow’s latest review of an episode of First Fruits of Zion’s television series and Wednesday’s follow up on that content continues the discussion of who I am as a believer. I said above that I was sitting on a fence. Wednesday, you will see me hopping off and I will show you on which side of the fence I land.

"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