Author: Steven R. Bruck

What Religions and Lying Have in Common

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This is a simple post today, no video- just plain, old common sense backed up by the Bible.

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So, religion and lying: what they have in common is that both are designed to control others. 

Most people think that telling a lie is the way we avoid the truth. But it is a little deeper than that-  it is really a means of control designed to convince someone that there is a different truth than what they believe. As an example, I didn’t get a project I was supposed to complete done on time. You believe I am responsible, which is the truth but I tell you a lie: I say that a member of the team was late with their part and that prevented me from getting it done on time. If you believe me then I have, in effect, controlled you by changing what you believe to be the truth. I have made you believe a different “truth” than the real truth. 

Religions do the same thing. The truth is what God gave us, which is found in the Tanakh (the Old Covenant.) The Gospels confirm the laws of the Torah because that is what Yeshua taught his Disciples, and what they later taught the Gentiles who accepted Yeshua as their Messiah and were (thereby) converting to Judaism. 

Remember: Yeshua was and is Jewish, lived a Jewish lifestyle and those who followed him, by definition had to live a Jewish lifestyle, too. 

Where religion has tried to control people and give them a new belief system is in how leaders of different religions twist the truth of the Tanakh and the New Covenant (in Hebrew, B’rit Chasdasha) to make people believe what the leaders want them to believe.

For instance, in Judaism there are many additional rituals that are Rabbinic, i.e. found in the Talmud, which are not directly from God. Although I do not universally condemn these traditions, they do exercise a level of control over the Jewish people who are told they must conform to these activities to be “correct.”  God never required these, so to say we must follow them is to tell a lie and exercise a form of control. 

Christianity has, for the most part, totally ignored the Torah and misinterpreted much in the B’rit Chadasha to change the form of worship from what God commanded. For instance, they kept a “7th day Sabbath” but changed it from the way it had been celebrated; it should be from Friday eve to Saturday eve but they changed it to Sunday during the day only.

Another example of controlling lies within Christianity is how it has used Kefa’s (Peter) vision of the sheet in Acts 10 to do away with the Kosher laws by saying the vision meant all food is OK to eat. The truth is that his vision had nothing to do with food and was about allowing Kefa to bring salvation to the Gentiles, but I suppose the Christian leadership desired to eat pork rinds. 

One major aspect of lying that religion has in common is this: when you tell a lie, you have to keep expanding that lie. This is because there are always “loose ends” within a lie; you need to expand the lie as more people hear it and start to question the truth of it. As the old saying goes, “What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.” 

To me, this means if a religion is lying it will eventually need to “expand” itself, which will result in having to separate into different sects.

Within Judaism, there are 6 different sects: Chasidic, Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, and Messianic (although the other sects won’t recognize Messianic Jews as being Jewish- another lie  that religion has created to control people.) And within the Chasidim, we can probably list the Lubavitcher, also called Chabad, as a sub-sect. 

As for all the different sects and forms of Christianity, there isn’t enough server space for me to list them all. 

If we accept that a lie grows and grows, then all these religions that are supposed to stem from what God told Moses must be some form of a lie, right?  Now if you say what God told Moses is only for Jews, then you refute what Yeshua (Jesus) taught because the Apostle John called Yeshua the Living Torah- the Word that became flesh. If Yeshua is the Living Torah, then how could he teach anything that was against himself? 

So now that I have debunked, insulted and berated all of the Judeo-Christian religions, what is left for us? Simple- what is left is what God told us to do, what Yeshua told us to do, what Micah told us to do, what The Rambam (Maimonides) told us to do, what Shaul (Paul) told us to do, which is….to love God and to love each other.

God gave the Torah to the Jewish people to bring to the world:
(Exodus 19:6- “And unto Me you shall be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you are to speak to the Israelites.”

The commandments found in the Torah are what Yeshua confirmed in all his teachings. Accept that the Old and New Covenants are one Bible, one story, one narrative of the plan of salvation God has for his creation and accept that the “New” did not override or do away with the “Old”- it added to it. The covenants that God has made with us are not exclusive, they are cumulative.

The world was meant to obey the Torah, which I can prove by pointing out that God said not to add to or take away from the Torah:
(Deuteronomy 4:2-“You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.”

The Messiah was sent to the world to bring us all back to God, back to repentant obedience and to lead us into salvation. We are not to change anything God said, and anything that does change it is not from God but from Man. God gave us his rules for how to worship him and how to treat each other; men created religion in order to control people. 

What God gave us is the truth and what religion gives us is a lie. The challenge for each of us is to determine which is which.  

That which is from God is “Truth”, and that which is from Man is “Religion.”

Yeshua and the Adulteress: A Prospective.

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Chapter 8 (verses 1-11) of the Gospel of John tells the story of the Pharisees and Torah teachers bringing a woman accused of having been caught in an adulteress affair to Yeshua. They were trying to trap Yeshua in a way that they could bring charges against him. Yeshua wrote in the sand, asked the one without sin to throw the first stone, wrote in the sand some more and all the accusers left. The woman was then able to leave.

I have heard some people use this story as a means to show that Yeshua is more about love than about obeying the Torah, and repeat that old, worn-out analogy of the hateful and violent God of the Old Covenant vs. the loving and forgiving Messiah of the New Covenant. 

Well, that’s not what we are going to discuss today. Today I want to talk about the unanswered question…what did Yeshua write in the sand? 

I think I know! 

Let’s start with some assumptions that are pretty safe to say:

  1. Yeshua probably knew they were trying to trap him;
  2. There was something fishy from the start because there was no man brought with the woman. If she was “caught in the act” there had to be someone else there, right?  

So here we are: all the people Yeshua was teaching are standing around and the woman is in the center of the crowd.  The Pharisees ask Yeshua what is to be done with her, and he starts to write in the sand, then says that the one without sin should throw the first stone. So, what might he have written?

I think he wrote from Exodus 20:19, the Ninth Commandment: 

“Do not give false evidence against your neighbor.”

After this, he stated whoever is without sin throw the first stone. I think he knew that throwing the stone would absolutely convict the thrower of a sin because these were Torah experts, and the Torah demands that a trial must be held first. Anyone who threw a stone would be violating the Torah. 

After this, he wrote again in the sand, and this time everyone started to leave until no one was left but the woman and Yeshua. This second time I think he wrote from Deuteronomy 19:16-20, which says:

“If a false witness rises against any man to testify against him of wrongdoing, then both men in the controversy shall stand before God, before the priests and the judges who serve in those days.  And the judges shall make careful inquiry, and indeed, if the witness is a false witness, who has testified falsely against his brother, then you shall do to him as he thought to have done to his brother; so you shall put away the evil from among you.”

If the reminder from the Torah about not giving false evidence, i.e. bearing false witness didn’t scare them off, then this one certainly would have made them think twice. And because it says “brother” that law would obviously hold true for “sister”, as well. 

I believe the woman was falsely accused from the start, and Yeshua was aware of this. I don’t have anything to go on but speculation, based on the fact that there was no man brought with her, and that we know from reading the Gospels that the Pharisees were not above using false witnesses to achieve their goals. And, even if she was an adulteress, this was not the proper setting for a trial and Yeshua was not in a position of authority with the right to judge her according to the Torah. 

One last thing that is important to remember: Yeshua never forgave her of the sin she was accused of. He simply obeyed the Torah, which says that there must be two or three witnesses when there is a capital crime committed (Deuteronomy 19:15.) Yeshua asked her where her accusers were, and she said there was no one; in accordance with the Torah, Yeshua said he would not accuse her, either. 

And when he told her to go, he said, “…and sin no more.” Maybe this was because Yeshua knew she was a sinner (aren’t we all?), maybe there never really was an affair, maybe there was an affair but she was seduced into the crime to setup Yeshua this way, in which case it makes sense they would catch and hold her and let the man go. Who knows? That could make an interesting Drash some other day, but today all I am talking about is what he wrote in the sand to make everyone go away. 

If Yeshua wrote the things in the sand that I have postulated here, then the entire story makes sense.

What do you think he wrote? 

Another Catholic Church Scandal

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No video today, and some of you may even have noticed this isn’t my usual day for posting. I had to write this because of what I read this morning in the paper. 

In the Florida Today paper there is a Catholic Priest who has been relieved of his flock pending investigation of sexual abuse when he was in a Pennsylvania diocese. 

It isn’t the sexual abuse I find disturbing, which it is, but the story about the way the visiting Priest addressed the congregation about it. 

Copying from what the paper reported, here is part of the Priest’s message:

“Our Mother (Mary) teaches us to pray in moments of desperation…in moments of need. “

He also said:

“Our Lady is a lady of hope…(God) will never abandon us, he’s never going to abandon this church…Mary help us, we are so lost…”

I read this and sighed because they are so lost.  Will God abandon those who have abandoned him? The Bible teaches us that when we reject God he will allow us to be on our own.  Did this priest pray to God for help? No, he didn’t. Did he pray to Jesus for help? No, he didn’t. Did he pray to someone that has no divinity, no authority, and who (in fact) Yeshua disowned before he died? 

YES- he did!! 

“Oh, wait a minute, Steve! When did Yeshua ever disown his own mother?” 

John tells us this happened in his Gospel, Chapter 19 verses 25-27:

“Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.  When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,”  and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.”  (NIV)

Essentially, Yeshua separated himself from the last “human family” he had before becoming the sacrificial lamb for all humanity. 

So when this priest said they are lost, he was more correct than he knows. There is absolutely no place at all in the Bible where Mary teaches anyone, anything. He says “Our Lady is a lady of hope..”; what happened to Jesus? And where is God all this time? Is there more hope for us in Mary than in Yeshua or God? In fact, when he called out to Mary to help them, he showed anyone who knows the Bible just how lost they really are- the epitome of the blind leading the blind. He was blindly calling for spiritual help to someone who can’t help them, ignoring the only One who can help them! Then, in the same breath, he says that One (God) will never abandon them, even though they clearly have abandoned him by praying to a human being.

And the congregation was (typically) blindly following. The paper says the message was well received by many, giving them hope. Hope in what? Where do they place their hope? In Mary? 

What about Psalm 33:20-22? We are told:

We put our hope in the Lord.
    He is our help and our shield.
 In him our hearts rejoice,
    for we trust in his holy name.
 Let your unfailing love surround us, Lord,
    for our hope is in you alone.

Don’t they read the Psalms in the Catholic church? Aren’t the priests trained in the entire Bible? 

Let’s go to the New Covenant…doesn’t Yeshua tell us the ONLY way to the Father is through the son?

How can the Catholic church leadership have missed all of this?

I am not saying this just to pick on the Catholic Church, although I have to say they do make it very easy to do so. No! I am trying to get them to open their eyes. They say they want to know why they have had such T’souris in the past 10 or more years? Well, I think it started much earlier than the past few years or decades. I started when they rejected God and Yeshua (except through lip service during the Mass) and began praying to their Saints, who are nothing more than people. It began when they filled their sanctuaries with graven images, knelt before them, and prayed to them. This is idolatry and unacceptable to God. They abandoned the path that Yeshua told them to walk, which is the same path along on which the Disciples led the Gentiles who accepted Messiah in the First Century. 

Instead, the modern church is following the ways of Constantine and subtle forms of pagan worship he introduced into the Canon he established at the Council of Nicene in the Third Century, which is the foundation for the modern Catholic church, as well as most of Christianity. 

As we come closer to the End Days, we see many Christians beginning to recognize the veil that has been pulled over their eyes, and they are beginning to know Yeshua for who he really is. And in doing so they want to learn and follow Torah, which is what he taught. They are rejecting the Constantinian doctrines and coming back to the style of worship that God commanded of us all.

I pray this continues so that as the Christians come to know their Messiah for who he really is, then the Jews will see that Christianity is becoming more like what it was when it started, i.e. Torah honoring people who have faithfully accepted Yeshua as the Messiah God promised to the world; to the Jew first, then to the nations. Perhaps when my Jewish brothers and sisters can see Gentiles who are praying to and worshiping God (alone) and honoring Torah, they will (finally) become jealous for their own Messiah. 

Pray for the Catholic church; but more importantly, pray for those 1.2 Billion or so Catholics throughout the world who are being led down the path to Sheol. Pray that their eyes open and their ears unclog so their hearts can become wise, and they can be saved before it is too late. 

Man oh man, do they ever need it! 

Parashah Ki Tavo 2018 (When you come) Deuteronomy 26 – 29

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As Moses finishes his Second Discourse (review of the laws) he starts the Third (and final) Discourse in Chapter 27, which is the enforcement of the laws.  This culminates in Chapter 28, the Blessings and the Curses chapter in which we are told what blessings we will receive for obedience, and the horrible litany of curses that will befall us for disobedience.

All of which happened: we were mightily blessed when we obeyed, and when we disobeyed we were even more mightily cursed. 

One interesting point of detail before we start: in 26:1 we are told to bring the first fruits of the land to the Cohen as a sacrifice to God, and in 26:12 it is referenced that this is the third year tithe. So if we are in the land for three years, why are the first fruits in the third year? In Leviticus 19:23-25 it says:

When you come to the Land and you plant any food tree, you shall surely block its fruit [from use]; it shall be blocked from you for three years, not to be eaten. And in the fourth year, all its fruit shall be holy, a praise to the Lord. And in the fifth year, you may eat its fruit.

So the first fruits given unto the Lord after possessing the land could be only done in the third year. 

I have often written how Chapter 28 in this book is one of my favorites because it shows that God’s blessings are what he actively does for us, and his curses are really not active, but passive. In other words, God gives us blessings but when he curses, it is really just the absence of his blessings.  We live in a cursed and fallen world so when God isn’t blessing us (i.e., protecting us from the real world) we are subjected to the world as it is. 

But today I want to talk about something different. I want to talk about how much obedience does God really expect from us? I mean, really- no one has ever lived the Torah perfectly, except (of course) Yeshua, and he is the son of God and was filled with the Ruach Ha Kodesh (Holy Spirit) from birth. I know it says that the Spirit fell upon him like a dove in the Gospels, but it is clear from what we read in the Gospels that there was something unique and special about Yeshua from his birth and throughout his youth.

So, if no one can live up to the standards of the Torah, and God knows this, why require us to do everything that is in the Torah?  On the surface it seems really unfair, doesn’t it? 

But then again, we know God is fair. He wants us to live the Torah as he gave it, which he reminds us at the end of this book (“Do not add to or take away…”), but he knows we can’t. That is why he also gave us the sacrificial system outlined way back in Leviticus 1-7 (and repeated throughout the other books.) It is through the sacrifice of innocent blood that we can be forgiven of our sin.

That is really a wild concept- sin can only be forgiven through the shedding of innocent blood (Hebrews 9:22, based on Leviticus 17:11), which means the one who is guilty cannot shed his or her own blood to atone for their own sin. It must be the blood of another, an innocent. Perhaps that is why God created the animals that are acceptable for sacrifice- just so that we have something clean and innocent to atone for our sins? Hmm…maybe? Maybe the other things we get from them– food, milk, cheese, yogurt, clothing, etc.- is all just a perk?

Why would God give us commandments we can’t follow completely and create animals that are destined to be killed so that our sins can be forgiven? My answer is… I don’t know why. Really- I have no idea why we are given commandments we can never live up to and why the guilty are not allowed to atone for their sins with their own blood.

Perhaps, just maybe, it’s because God thinks and sees things from an eternal viewpoint and these things I am asking about are finite? Perhaps it is because the real horror of sin is that the sinner must live with the memory of a poor, innocent having to suffer because of what that person did?

Again, I don’t know. This is a sort of conundrum, an unanswerable question which will forever haunt us. I don’t even think there is an answer, but there may be a solution to the problem of trying to know why and never being able to: trust that God knows what he is doing, even when you don’t.

We have been reviewing everything that happened in the prior four books of the Torah in this last book, and we have been told that pork is bad and deer is OK; fruit trees must not be used for 3 years for first fruits but we still have to wait a full five years before we can eat the fruit- it is holy after three years but not allowed to be eaten for 5. The Red Heifer ashes are used to cleanse us but everything involved in creating the ashes makes us unclean. A woman is unclean for 7 days after giving birth to a boy but for two weeks if it is a girl.

In Judaism, we have different types of “laws”-  Mishpatim and Chukkim.  The Mishpatim are laws easily understood, such as do not kill and do not lie. The Chukkim are laws for which we do not understand the reason, such as why can’t we wear clothes of different types of material and why pork is unclean. The Torah tells us that Mishpatim are to be guarded but Chukkim are to be done.  This could mean that because we can understand the reason Mishpatim have been given, we must make sure that we do not change or rationalize why we should ignore them. With regards to Chukkim, because we cannot understand why they have been decreed, we really can’t justify or rationalize changing them so they should just simply be obeyed.

As an example, a “mercy killing” violates the Mishpatim not to kill, but we can rationalize by saying we aren’t really committing murder, we are doing a form of humane Tzadakah (charity.) However, since there is no reasonable or easily understood justification for not mixing wool and linen in a shirt, how can we rationalize disobedience? We just have to accept that’s how it is and this is what we must do, period; end of story; don’t slam the door on your way out.

That, of course, is very hard to do for us prideful, curious humans who need to know “Why” for everything. We question, we analyze, we change, we reject and we adjust things to fit our own desires. But God doesn’t allow us to do that, which may be one of the reasons we can never be completely obedient.

I think this is why Yeshua told us we need to pick up our execution stake in order to follow him. We must be ready to die to self, to kill our own curiosity and desire to know “why” in order to be able to accept the Ruach HaKodesh and be led by it. Yeshua also said we need to be like little children in order to enter the Kingdom of God; in other words, accepting, trusting, and unquestioning (although I think he meant kids older than 2 or 3 who can’t say anything without asking, “Why?”)

What we should carry away with us from this parashah is that we will not ever understand why God wants us to do all the things he requires of us.  Furthermore, even when we understand the “why” of certain Mishpatim we are not to rationalize disobedience. Overall, whether we understand the reasoning for a commandment or not, we should obey all of God’s commands without question.

It’s this simple- he’s God, we’re not, so we do what he says.

Why I Post the Things I Post

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When I write these messages, which I prefer to the term “posts I try to take the biblical requirements for how we are to worship God and act towards each other and put them in a modern-day light. 

I also try to identify and debunk the wrong teachings that proliferate throughout the Christian world, as well as within Judaism, too. 

The reason for this is because the Bible is about how we should worship God and how we should treat each other. Too often I see people talking about things in the Bible that they take out of context and interpret in a way that works with the lifestyle they want to live. Of course, this has been happening since the first time God told us what he wants of us.

Jews still hold a “legalistic” view of the Torah and have been taught that Jesus started a new religion; Christians (pretty much) have been taught to completely ignore the requirements in the Torah because those are only for Jews. And within both Judaism and Christianity there have, over the centuries, been different sects and religions formed, each of which has their own rules of “this not that, and these not those.” All of these different religions and sects within a religion have the same goal- to act in the way the person who started that sect/religion wants to act. 

GOD HAS NO RELIGION!! He has his rules, laws, and commandments which tell us how to worship him and treat each other which are not just for Jews- they are for everyone. 

God gave the Torah to the Jewish people to bring to the world, which is why he told Moses that they will be a nation of priests for him (Exodus 19:6.)

All these different religions are man-made. As we have been told, “Seek and ye shall find”: when it comes to the Bible, everything we ever need or want is in there, somewhere, and if we look hard enough we can take enough things out of context and put them together to justify the Bible says to do just about anything.

My goal is to let people know what God really wants of them and try to give practical ways to live as God wants us to in our everyday lives. I believe that the Torah is still valid; Yeshua never did away with it. What he did was to teach the deeper, more spiritual meaning behind the laws that are there.  The Torah is the ultimate Catch 22: we can become righteous (saved) by perfect obedience to the Torah, but no one can be perfectly obedient to the Torah. 

So, Nu? Now what? 

Now what we do is to try to do our best, trust in God’s faithfulness to keep his promises (which he has shown throughout the Bible he will do) and ask for the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) to guide us. We must read the Bible every day to learn about God, and to confirm for ourselves that every time our fathers failed to do as God said they should when they were repentant and called upon God for forgiveness, he forgave them.

God will let us fall to learn how to get up, and he is always there to give us a helping hand when we humbly and repentantly ask for it. 

One last thing: you will note that I do not do what the “popular” sites do, which is to preach only about God’s love and forgiveness. Salvation is not really a “come-as-you-are” party and the idea that “Once saved, always saved” is nothing more than Satanic propaganda. People who “want their cake and to eat it, too” are the ones that fall for this. Since most of the world is composed of people who are self-absorbed and hedonistic, these religious organizations and leaders preach to our flesh saying that you are fine as you are; just ask for forgiveness and you are forgiven and set for eternity. They appeal to our basic nature- lazy and selfish.  That is why they are so popular. Just listen to the rhetoric of the “Mega-churches” and you will hear all about the rosy-colored world of God’s love and forgiveness. 
But will they preach about tithing? Will they talk about Yeshua telling us we must lift up our execution stake and carry it if we wish to follow him? Do they tell us that salvation is easily attained but really hard to keep, or even that if we fail to be repentant or obedient we can throw our salvation away? 

Of course not- that would cause them to lose many of their followers. But it would be the truth. What they say about God’s love and forgiveness is true, but it is not the whole truth about God or salvation through Messiah. 

I try to tell it as it is, and I may be wrong. I am only human. But I try to justify whatever I say with showing where it is in the Bible and also ask for confirmation or correction from those reading what I write. I tell you all that you should not take my word for it, but check out everything I say for yourself. After all, I may be wrong! How will you know if you don’t check it out? And if I am, you are obligated to correct me. Proverbs 12:1 and 12:15 both say that a wise man loves correction, and I would certainly want to be wise. 

Just make sure you are nice about it. 

Thank you for visiting my site, reading my work, and especially for subscribing. If you aren’t already a subscriber, please do so if you like what you read. All that happens is that you get a notification of my posts.  And I’ll also ask, again, that if you like what you read here please share me out. 

Blessing to you and yours. 

Baruch HaShem!! 

Is the “Israel of God” a What or a Who?

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Don’t forget to look for the publishing of my newest book, “Parashot Drashim- A Commentary on the Weekly Torah Readings for Both Jews and Gentiles” due out in September.   

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“Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation.  Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule—to the Israel of God.”

This is the ending of the letter Shaul (Paul) wrote to the Messianic community he had started in Galatia.  His letter was written for a specific purpose, which has been terribly misunderstood, pretty much since the time he wrote it. It has been used as a polemic against circumcision, as well as justification that Torah observance is just for the Jewish people.  

The worst usage of this line has been by Replacement Theologists, who claim that “Christians” are now the Chosen people of God, who rejected the Jewish people as his because they rejected his son.

Poppycock.  But that is for another time. 

I always found this one line to be very confusing, and have tried to figure out what he could have possibly meant by writing that. I am glad to say that finally, after having read this particular letter too many times to count, a revelation came to me recently about what it could mean.  

That’s one of the best things about reading the Bible over and over: suddenly, one day what you couldn’t understand for years will be made clear to you. I like to think that this happens when God thinks you are ready for it. 

So, nu?  What’s the big revelation? I’ll let you in on it…Shaul wasn’t talking about a who; he was talking about a what!

Let’s go back to the reason for writing this letter. The members of this congregation were being “Judaized”, meaning the Gentile converts to Judaism were being told they had to undergo B’rit Milah (circumcision) in order to be saved. This was under the system called “Legalism”, which was being proliferated by Believing Jews who were infiltrating the new Messianic communities composed of Gentile Believers. Shaul was never against obedience to the Torah; he was against this legalistic approach to it.

Let’s stop here for a moment to make sure we’re all on the same page. Legalism was the belief that no one could be “saved”, i.e. found to be righteous in God’s eyes, unless they obeyed the Torah commands. Under legalism, faith is secondary to performance. Shaul’s constant battle against Legalism is why he has been so misunderstood. Shaul never said not to obey the Torah at all, he said not to obey the Torah as the means to become righteous. 

This letter was to get the Galatians back on track by obeying the Torah as a result of faithful obedience and not resulting from a system of performance-related salvation.  That’s why he said being circumcised was useless to them if they were doing it to be legalistically obedient. He never said they shouldn’t be circumcised, just that they shouldn’t do it as a means of gaining salvation.  

I always have known there was a battle going on in Galatia; the new Believing Gentiles were wrestling with legalism vs. faith. I understood that this dynamic was the reason Shaul contacted them. And my revelation came when I suddenly remembered what “Israel” means.  We are told this in Genesis 32:29 (taken from the Soncino issue of the Chumash)- 

And he said: ‘Thy name shall be called no more Jacob but Israel; for thou hast striven with God and with men, and hast prevailed.” 

The comment notes in the Chumash state that the name “Jacob” meant “the Supplanter,” who prevails over others by deceit. “Israel,” on the other hand, is said to be a title of victory, probably “a Champion of God.” The children of Israel, the Israelites, are Contenders for the Divine, conquering by strength from Above. 

Remembering what “Israel” means I realized why Shaul called the Galatians “the Israel of God”: he was identifying them as ones battling with both men and God. They were being wrestled with by men who wanted them to be legalistic in their actions, and with God who wanted them to show faithful acceptance and not try to earn their salvation through performance. The Galatians were just like Jacob: on the one side they had to deal with men (as Jacob had to deal with Esau) and on the other side they had to deal with faith in God (Jacob wrestling with the angel, representing his faith in God to save him from Esau.) 

The “Israel of God” could be used to describe each of us as we struggle with our faith in God and Messiah Yeshua against worldly pleasures and our naturally sinful tendencies and desires. Christians also wrestle with the (usual) teaching that the Torah is only for Jews against the faithful obedience that God has required of all who worship him. 

To the Replacement Theologists out there, sorry; the “Israel of God” is not meant to be Christians. It isn’t really who someone is, it is what condition someone (or some people) are suffering through. And that condition is wrestling with our iniquity and with God’s will for our lives. Obedience to Torah is only one form of this battle between flesh and spirit, which was the message Shaul was addressing to the Galatians.

As we wrestle with our salvation, being pulled between earthly desires and spiritual fulfillment, we also go through that same “Israel” experience the Galatians did. Let us fight the good fight so that we, too, can be the “Israel of God”- one who has conquered by strength from above. 

A Conversation with Shaul of Tarsus

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Before we begin, please watch for my latest book, Parashot Drashim A Commentary on the Weekly Torah Readings for Both Jews and Gentiles coming out soon. 

I really recommend the video for this one. To watch the video of this interview, click on this link: Watch the video.

Steve: Today we have a special guest. He is a classically trained Pharisee who studied under the great Rabbi, Gamaliel. He is a Benjamite, and like his namesake from that tribe, received a calling from God to lead God’s people.  His letters to the Messianic communities he organized throughout Asia make up the majority of the New Covenant writings, and also have contributed to much confusion regarding Gentile observance of the Torah commandments. 

I am sure you have guessed by now who we have in the studio today: that’s right, it’s that little ol‘ tent maker from Tarsus, Shaul. 

Shaul, welcome to Messianic Moment. 

Shaul: Todah, Steve. It’s a pleasure to be here. 

Steve: My first question is this: how do you feel about most every Bible titling Acts 9 as “Paul’s Conversion on the Road to Damascus?” 

Shaul: I hate it!! First off, my name is not “Paul”- that is a Greek form of my name. Your name is Steven- how would you feel if I called you “Esteban?” That’s your Spanish equivalent, but it’s not your name, is it? Next, I never converted to anything. My whole life, before my acceptance of Yeshua and afterward, I lived as a Pharisee. The only difference was that when I learned (the hard way, I should add) the truth about Yeshua I stopped persecuting my brothers in Messiah and joined them in helping other Jews come to faith. Eventually, I went mainly to the Goyim (the Nations) to bring them to faith, as well. But I never stopped talking to my fellow Jews.

This whole idea that there were Christians when I was organizing the kehillot throughout Asia is ridiculous. That term was just starting to be used at the end of the First Century. There were two religions when I was a kid: Judaism and Paganism. When Yeshua came, there were still only two religions: Jews who accepted him as Messiah, Jews that didn’t (but they were all still Jews worshiping as Jews do), and the Pagans. When I was walking all over the world, there were Jews who rejected Yeshua, there were Jewish Believers, there were the Gentiles who did T’shuvah and accepted Yeshua (converting to Judaism), and (you guessed it)…Pagans.  The Believers didn’t “officially” through practice become a different religion from Judaism until Constantine made it that way.

Steve: Thank you for clearing that up for us. Now, let’s get right to the question that comes up often, and one you had to deal with throughout your ministry: Do you, or do you not, believe Gentiles that accept Messiah Yeshua need to obey the Torah? 

Shaul: Oy vez mear! Again? OK- let me try to answer this for you in two parts. First off, we need to remember that the Gentiles I talked to were pagans whose religion was based, in essence, on hedonism. They could drink to excess, have sex with anyone (and anything) they wanted to, and eat themselves into oblivion. The most basic, self-centered and physically pleasurable experiences a human can have were the foundation stones of their religion.  For those that were willing to repent of their sins and turn to Yeshua for forgiveness, the culture shock was tremendous. Even the most fervent of those doing T’shuvah would find it difficult to go from hedonistic pagan to observant Jew overnight.  That’s why the Elders in Jerusalem only had them do 4 things immediately. We all figured they would get around to the other 609 commandments in Torah as they became more accustomed to living a holy lifestyle. So, what I was against wasn’t the Torah, but trying to force feed it to these new converts all at once.  

Steve: That makes sense, but there are so many things you wrote about, such as in Romans where you say uncircumcised or circumcised makes no difference, and also in the first letter to the Corinthians, it seems you told them they can eat whatever they wanted to.  What’s with that? 

Shaul: Look- the most important thing I wrote to the Corinthians was in the passage you guys have annotated as Chapter 9:19-22.  I told my congregation in Corinth that I would be whatever I had to be and say whatever I had to say to get out the Good News of Messiah. So what I really mean is that the ends justify the means- no matter what I say, so long as I bring people to Messiah and help them find the forgiveness and salvation that is offered by God through his Grace in Yeshua ha Maschiach, so be it! As for what to eat and the other things, you need to consider that there were many Believing Jews who did not agree with me , or the Elders, that the Gentiles converting to Judaism needed to have some level of dispensation (Oy! I hate using that word, but it fits here) with regards to their observance of Torah. As I said earlier, following Yeshua was a real game-changer for them.

So, nu? Where was I? Oh, yeah…what I wrote in my letters

So what I was against wasn’t Torah, but the idea that you needed to obey Torah to be saved. Again, we all figured that they would eventually learn all the commandments, so I just took them bit-by-bit., but too many people misunderstood what I was doing and that led to them thinking that Gentile Believers didn’t need to obey what’s in the Torah. Never did I say that or mean that. Never!  

Steve: I understand. Yet, even today there is still confusion with your letters to your Gentile Believers regarding what they need to do and don’t need to do. Can you please explain again for us this whole idea of being “under the law?”  

Shaul: No problem. Let’s start with this: righteousness, from God’s view, is sinlessness. If you have no sin you will be perfectly righteous. That means if someone could live the Torah exactly as it says, never violating so much as a stroke of the Torah, then that person would be righteous, or as you like to say today, he would be “saved.” Here’s the problem with that- no one can live the Torah perfectly! If someone could, then we’re all screwed because there would be only three people in heaven: God, Yeshua and that one jerk who ruined it for everybody else. 

Now for the second thing.  Pretty much all the Jews at that time didn’t accept the fact that no one could ever live the Torah perfectly and believed righteousness was only possible through perfect Torah observance. This is what the Pharisees I was (am still am) a member of taught the people. Let’s call that school of thought “Legal Righteousness”, which is almost the opposite of what God offered through Messiah, which we can call “Faithful righteousness.”  It was this “faithful righteousness” that Avraham Avinu demonstrated.

So, because we can’t live the Torah exactly, God sent his Messiah to help us overcome ourselves. Messiah Yeshua was, is, and always will be the ONLY human being who was both “legally” and “faithfully” righteous because he lived the Torah exactly and had total and perfect faith in God. That’s why God sent him to us!- so that through his righteousness we could be seen as righteous, also. Righteousness is not possible for us except through the Messiah, and especially so after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. That’s why more than ever it is faith in God and Messiah Yeshua that saves us, not special knowledge or traditional practices. But that doesn’t mean we can ignore God’s commandments. 

Steve: I can see that a little more clearly now. Let me restate this for our audience… you are not against following the Torah and did not tell your congregations they don’t need to. You only said what they needed to hear in order to keep them on the right path, which would result in a gradual conversion to Judaism. Is that right? 

Shaul-: Tov Meod– you got it!!  And I was against those that were confusing my congregations with the legal righteousness the Pharisees were teaching. I always expected that my people would eventually observe the Torah because Yacov was right. 

Steve: I’m sorry…Yacov? 

Shaul: Yeah, Yacov. You know, James. He said that faith without works is dead, which means that once you faithfully believe in God, you have to show that by your change of lifestyle. If someone truly doesn’t want to sin, and the Torah is the User Manual for not sinning, then by definition someone who has really done T’shuvah will live in accordance with the Torah. I told my people they could take it slowly because if I shoved Torah down their throats, they would have upchucked it and gone back to their old ways. 

Steve: It seems that you constantly fought against that- every letter in the New Covenant that you wrote to a congregation was addressing the problems they were having with adjusting to giving up their paganistic ways and becoming Jewish. 

Shaul: Exactly. Oy- what a mishigas they made of things. I had to constantly keep them on track, and these Yiddisher nudniks that kept telling them they had to obey everything really got my goat. If you read Galatians you will see just how mad I was. I would’ve paid the Mohel, myself! 

Steve: Yes, frustration castration, right?

Shaul: Absolutely!

Steve: Well, our time is almost up and I really want to thank you for coming all this way to answer these questions for us. Is there anything you would like to add before we close?

Shaul: Just this…listen, people, keep your eyes on the finish line. Once I learned the truth, I fought for the rest of my life against people trying to figure it out and believing that they just had to know what everything meant in order to be righteous. That’s how I started out, and believe-you-me, none of that matters. All that matters is what Yeshua said- love God and love each other.  When people love each other they don’t care about anything except the way they feel when they are together, and they only want to make the one they love happy. You wanna know how to make God happy? Do what he says.  Too many people today want to know everything: did Yeshua exist before people, how does God pronounce his name, which commandments don’t matter anymore, and many other things that all boil down to nothing more than a new form of some Greek-thinking, Gnostic legalistic drek. All that matters is this: do you believe in God? Do you believe that Yeshua is the Messiah? If you say “Yes” to both of these, then love God and each other and don’t sweat the small stuff. It won’t help you to stay saved, but it can lead you to wrong thinking. 

Steve: Well, words from the wise to the wise. Let those that have ears listen.  Thank you, again, Shaul, for being here with us and we look forward to seeing you again in the Olam Haba. 

Shaul: Zeit gesunt, Bubbie. 

Steve: If you liked this program, please comment and let us know. You can also suggest a guest for future interviews. In the meantime, l’hitraot! Baruch ha Shem!!