I am just back from 3 days in the hospital for back surgery, and am not allowed to shower until this afternoon, so I am not doing a video today because I look really scrubby.

If you ask me, one of the most misunderstood things in the New Covenant are the Epistles Shaul (Paul) wrote to the congregations he had formed throughout Asia.

The early Gentile leaders of Believers in Yeshua, after all the Apostles had died, so misused and misinterpreted these letters that they formed a totally different form of worship than the one Yeshua lived.

I want to share my understanding of Shaul’s ministry and how he used two of the drashim (parables) from Yeshua’s teachings to be able to bring pagans into a righteous lifestyle.

First off, we need to remember that the Gentiles were practicing the Roman religion, which was a hedonistic, drunkard, and sexually perverse lifestyle. In other words, it was a lot of fun, and to ask someone to give that up, all at once, would only result in most of those who were initially interested apostatizing.

This is what the parable of the Sower of the Seed tells us- some will hear the word and accept it, but the weeds will grow around the young growth and choke it. Shaul knew this and that is why he never forced a total conversion to Judaism (which was the religion they would be learning as they followed Yeshua’s teachings). In fact, that is why he was so angry with the Believing Jews in Galatia, who were undermining his work there by forcing the neophyte, Gentile Believers to undergo B’rit Milah (circumcision) in order to be saved.

Shaul also knew the parable of the enemy who sewed tares in the field of wheat. The tares were not recognizable as tares until they had grown so much that they were now interlaced with the wheat, and the owner of the field said to let them grow because tearing them out would also tear out the wheat. He said they would be separated at the harvest.

Shaul was following that idea, but instead of bad seed in a good field, he was planting good seed in a bad field, and hoped that by not making it so obvious (by requiring total conversion to Torah obedience), the good seed would grow in the tares and when the harvest came (Judgement Day), the good seed would be separated and survive.

The Elders in Jerusalem confirmed and supported this program of ministry in their letter (Acts 15) to these new Gentile Believers because they said all the new Believers had to do, NOW, was obey those 4 commands (three about not eating unclean food, and no more fornicating). What most Christians never were taught (and people never read the Bible to verify what they are told) was that James also said these new Believers will eventually learn what the Torah says at Shabbat services.

In other words, let them start slowly and adjust at their own pace to this paradigm shift in lifestyle, or we will lose them to the “weeds” of their past life.

So, Shaul went throughout Asia, telling both Jews and Gentiles about Messiah Yeshua, but he did not require the Gentiles to convert to Judaism. He required the basics- love God and love each other, which Yeshua said were the two most important commandments in the Torah.

For the record: modern Christian teaching says these are the only commandments Christians have to obey, which is wrong. Yeshua never said these were the only commandments, just that they are the most important.

Can you see now how Shaul, using the parables of seeds being sewn in the field, designed a program for missionary work that used the wisdom of those drashim to create a gradual integration from a pagan lifestyle to a righteous one?

And this is why Christianity has gone so far off course from what Yeshua taught- they just didn’t get it, and decided since they don’t have to become Jews overnight, they can change what they want to. They started with the 4th Commandment, changing the Shabbat, then rejected the Holy Days in Leviticus 23, ignored the requirements for food in Leviticus 11, and by the Third Century had created a totally man-made religion that has nothing whatsoever to do with God’s word or Yeshua’s teachings, other than to love one another.

And I can tell you this, for certain: loving one another isn’t enough.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know. Subscribe to this website and my YouTube channel, buy my books (if you like what you get here, you will like my books), and join my Facebook group called “Just God’s Word” (but please make sure you click that you agree to the rules, or you can’t come in).

And remember that I always welcome your comments.

That’s it for now, so l’hitraot and (an early) Shabbat Shalom!

We refer to God as our Father in heaven, right? So, today when I ask who your Daddy is, I am referring to the one in heaven.

If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.

God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the father of Yeshua the Messiah, and the creator of the Universe and everything (and everyone) in it, told us in the Bible how he wants us to worship him and to treat each other. The only place in the entire Bible where you find these instructions is in the first 5 books, called the Torah- there is no other place where God gives us different laws and commandments.

I ask you, then, if God has told you what he wants you to do, and even confirms these things by promising to bless you when you do as HE says (Deuteronomy 28), where did all these other religions come from?

I mean, if you follow a religion that is not what God said to do, but rather what some human being says to do, then isn’t that human being now your “Daddy”?

If you practice any of these religions, then this is your daddy:

Protestantism/Lutheranism– Martin Luthor is your daddy.

Calvinism– John Calvin is your daddy.

Mormonism– Joseph Smith is your daddy.

Mennonite– Menno Simons is your daddy.

Baptist– you have two Daddy’s- John Smyth and Thomas Helwys

Seventh-Day Adventists– you have no daddy, but you do have a mommy named Ellen G. White

Jehovah’s Witnesses– your daddy is Charles Taze Russell

Roman Catholicism– Supposedly Jesus is your daddy, but when we read the Gospels, he never said to do any of the things that Catholic churches say to do! So, then, if you are a Roman Catholic, or any denomination of Catholicism, who is your daddy, really?

The answer is that Catholics have had many daddy’s- none of whom was Jesus.

Paul was one of the first ones, since many of the letters he wrote to congregations have been used, or should I say mis-used, to create Christian doctrine. The rest of your paternal lineage comes from the different Popes and Christian councils created by men.

For the record, none of Paul’s letters are ever mentioned by Paul, whose real name is Shaul, to be something he heard directly from God. The truth is, when you read those letters with an open mind, i.e., without already knowing what they are supposed to mean, you will see that they are simply managerial directives to the congregations that were having both spiritual and interpersonal relationship problems.

There you have it! I haven’t annotated every different denomination of every different Christian religion because, well- I don’t have enough server space to store all that.

And, just in case anyone is asking why I haven’t included Judaism, I believe that Jews, especially the Orthodox and Chasidic, have any number of daddy’s, all of which are found in the Talmud. What a shame! Even the “purest” religion, the one that is supposed to be based exclusively on what God said in the Torah, has added so many man-made tenets and traditions and ceremonies that we are no better than everyone else.

I hope that I have made my point- if you follow any religion, and I mean ANY religion- then your daddy is not the one in heaven, it is some human daddy who is probably leading you down the wrong path.

God has no religion; men have created religion in order to have power over other men.

So, nu? What are you supposed to do now?

I suggest you start, if you haven’t already done so, by reading the Torah.

Reject the idea (if your religion has told you) that the Torah is only for Jews and try to live within its regulations and commands as best as you can. Remember that when you fail (because we all do) you have Yeshua ha Mashiach as your means of receiving forgiveness.

If you prefer to stay with what you have been used to, that is (of course) your right to choose. I am not telling you what to do, only what to do if you want to obey God.

I have said this often, and I will continue to say it: when you come to the Throne of Judgement (which we will all do) and say to God, “But I was just doing what they told me to do!”, I can’t speak for the Big Guy in the heavens above, but I think he might reply with something to this effect:

“I know you were doing what they told you to do, my child, but it’s what I say that counts.”

In life we can’t choose our Daddy, but when it comes to how we worship God we can, so… choose wisely!

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know. Subscribe to this ministry on my website and my YouTube channel, buy my books, and join my Facebook group called “Just God’s Word” (but please make sure you click that you agree to the rules, or I cannot let you in).

And remember that I always welcome your comments.

That’s it for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!