Author: Steven R. Bruck
Matthew 5:17 and The Beatitudes
I suppose we are all familiar with the Beatitudes, or as they are also known, the “Be-Attitudes”.
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Many are also familiar with Matthew 5:17, which is where Yeshua says he did not come to change the law, but fulfill it.
The problem with most traditional teaching is they end the verse here, but that is not the end of the verse- Yeshua went on to say nothing in the law will change, not a single stroke or yud until all things have come to pass. This part they like to leave out because it defeats the improper interpretation that Christianity has imposed on their members, that being that to fulfill the law meant it was completed, and thereby, done away with.
So let’s look at that verse in Matthew and identify the true meaning.
First off, whenever we interpret something from the Bible we need to use three tools of exegesis: Hermeneutics, Circles of Context, and the proper historical and cultural usage of the words and terms used.
Hermeneutics is, simply stated, the idea that whatever it says in the Bible here, it also says the same thing there, and everywhere. For example, we are told that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the one and only true God, which is confirmed, hermeneutically, because this is stated again and again throughout not just the Tanakh, but the entire Bible.
If, at some point, someone quoted a verse from the Bible and interpreted that as proving there was another God (not a man-made statue, but an honest-to-goodness real God different from Adonai) then, hermeneutically, we could argue against the validity of that interpretation.
The tool called Circles of Context means that when we interpret a verse or passage, it must be done so within the context of the sentence, the context of the paragraph, and of the entire passage.
With regard to the Epistles in the New Covenant, we also have to include the context of who is writing the letter, to whom, and why.
The third tool, proper cultural usage of the words and terms, brings us back to Matthew 5:17 and the word, “fulfill“.
During the First Century, when the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes talked about “fulfilling the law” it had nothing, whatsoever, to do with performance. It meant interpreting the law correctly.
Just as the use of the word “trespassing” with regard to the law had nothing to do with actually walking on someone’s property, but to misinterpret the law.
In the worst-case scenario, to trespass the law meant to sin.
In this message, I am saying my interpretation of Matthew 5:17 is that Yeshua said he came to properly interpret the law. And, that proper interpretation has nothing to do with performance but to give the people a deeper, spiritual understanding of the law.
Now, I have to justify that interpretation culturally, contextually, and hermeneutically.
Culturally, as I explained above, the word “fulfill” in this usage meant to interpret the law by teaching its spiritual meaning, and had nothing to do with the performance of the law.
Next, let’s look at the context of what Yeshua was saying. Matthew 5 begins with the Beatitudes, where he is telling the people that the meek and the humble will be blessed. Also, those who make peace and who suffer as a result of their pursuit of righteousness.
One very important (contextually, that is) statement Yeshua makes is Matthew 5:6, which says that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will also be blessed. This is important because the use of “fulfill” as a spiritual understanding of the law would, by its very nature, make the desire to obey part of one’s inner being. It would be more than just performance, it would be a deep, spiritual desire: it would feel like a thirst and hunger to obey.
Lastly, a hermeneutic justification can be found in Jeremiah 31:33, where we are told that the Torah will be written on our hearts. As such, the desire to obey would be integral to our being, like our heart pumping blood or breathing.
Not only that, but in Matthew Yeshua goes on to teach about adultery and murder, stating that we heard it said not to do these things, but he went on to say we shouldn’t even WANT to do these things.
Yeshua also talks about how uncleanliness comes from the heart, not what we eat (Mark 7:18), again teaching the law from a spiritual understanding and not just some physical activity.
Can you see how the meaning of “fulfill” in Matthew 5:17 makes sense when we consider it to be the spiritual understanding of the law? Yeshua’s statement about fulfilling the law as meaning he will teach us the proper, spiritual understanding is demonstrated throughout his teaching during the Beatitudes and is confirmed by the prophecies in the Tanakh (Jeremiah 31:31 and Ezekiel 36:26), as well as Mark 7:18 and other places throughout the Gospels.
Hopefully, going forward when you hear people say that Yeshua completed and did away with the law in Matthew 5:17, you will be able to help them see the truth. Culturally, hermeneutically, and contextually it is obvious that Yeshua taught the Remes, the deeper, spiritual meaning and understanding of the Torah. That is why so many people said no one ever talked as he did, and that he talked like someone with authority.
There are three types of authority: legal, technical, and assumed.
Yeshua was the son of God and the Messiah- that covers the legal authority.
He knew the Torah, inside and out, and not just what it says but why it says it- that’s as technical as you can get.
And finally, he had an assumed authority because he did miracles that only someone empowered by God could do.
As you continue to study the Bible, no matter how long you have already been at it, if you aren’t already very familiar with the tools I have talked about today (and I would also include learning the Jewish system of exegesis called PaRDeS), then please go to my website and look under the Blogs tab called Series Teachings for a lesson I posted a while ago about how to properly interpret the Bible.
Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know. Subscribe to my website and YouTube channel, buy my books and join my Facebook group called Just God’s Word (please make sure to read and agree to the rules).
That’s it for today so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!
Video for Matt 5:17 and the Beatitudes
Is Your Need to Know Something Really Something You Need to Know?
I’m back from a week’s vacation on the Royal Caribbean ship Symphony of the Seas: Donna and I are refreshed and looking forward to going out again in May on a Norwegian Cruise Line ship.
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As some of you already know, I was a First Lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps, and one of the duties I had while on a 6-month Mediterranean exercise was as the Classified Materials Custodian. That meant all of the classified materials, codes, papers, etc. were my responsibility (if any of you have ever read the book or seen the movie called “The Falcon and the Snowman,”, the classified materials that were stolen and sold to the Russians were the things for which I was in charge of protecting.)
So, why so much about me? It’s just to let you know that one of the things I learned when being trained for that job was the three parts of what having a Top Secret Clearance authorization is all about.
First, you need to have a clearance level, then you need to have access to the information, and finally (here is the thing we will talk about today), you must have a need to know.
By now you should be either falling asleep or asking yourself, “What does any of this have to do with God or the Messiah, or anything biblical?”
That’s a fair question, and here’s my answer: too many people are trying to learn things that God doesn’t want you to know, and even if you have the clearance (meaning biblical knowledge) and the access (meaning given understanding by the Ruach HaKodesh, the Holy Spirit), you do NOT always have the need to know.
“Need to know what, Steve? What are you talking about?”
What I am talking about is how to pronounce the name of God
What I am talking about is when the Apocalypse will actually begin.
What I am talking about is whether or not Yeshua (Jesus) is also God or a separate entity, altogether.
What I am talking about is any topic or event in the Bible whose details are not given to us.
Will knowing the details of any of the things mentioned above make you any more “saved”?
Will you have a seat of honor at God’s table if you can pronounce the Tetragrammaton the way God pronounced it to Moses?
Whether you know if Yeshua is God or not, will you get extra credit points on your salvation report card?
Can you see why I am so adamant about not needing to know? No? Have you ever heard of Gnosticism? I found many different definitions of it, but my understanding of it (if I am really off-target, someone please correct me) is that Gnostic belief states there is special knowledge that we must have in order to be saved. This is a simplistic understanding, and there is a lot more to it, but generally, they believe that we are ignorant of information, hidden in the Bible, that we must know in order to be saved.
Gnosticism is considered heretical by mainstream Christianity, and as far as Jews are concerned, I’m not sure we care about it at all because, well, it’s a Christian thing. We Jews have enough confusion with HaLacha to also worry about secret knowledge, but I am sure there is some sect or offshoot within Judaism that also believes it is necessary to know about things that aren’t mentioned in the Tanakh. In fact, now that I think about it, the Talmud adds a lot of drek to some biblical events to explain them.
In any case, my suggestion is that when you feel you HAVE to know every little detail regarding a certain event, or when things will happen or how to pronounce a name or the relationship between God and Yeshua or between people… just let it go.
Concentrate on the things that are important, such as what God wants you to do, how God wants you to worship him and treat each other, and what Yeshua said regarding God’s word. Forget about what people say is important or (even worse) no longer important; just concentrate on what God tells you, which you will find ONLY in the Torah!
God had told us all that we need to know, and Moses confirmed this in Deuteronomy 29:29 when he said (CJB):
Things which are hidden belong to Adonai our God. But the things that have
been revealed belong to us and our children forever, so that we can observe
all the words of this Torah.
One last thing: I am not saying do not study the Bible or try to understand God better. That is not what I mean, at all. What I am asking you to do is concentrate on that which affects your salvation and not be turned aside by the pseudo-intellectual pursuit of becoming a biblical scholar. It doesn’t really matter if you can quote a verse exactly from the Bible or where that verse is located; what is important is that you know what that verse is about.
When writing these messages I spend half my time searching for the verse I need to show what I already know the Bible says. It isn’t important to me to know where any verse is located because I can always find it.
Where God says something is not as important as knowing what he says.
All I need to know is what God tells me he wants me to do. I don’t need to know why he says it, I don’t need to know where he says it, and I certainly don’t need to know what some human being says he means by it.
All I need to know is that I should come to God as an innocent, trusting child who doesn’t question but simply believes what God tells me he wants me to do in the Torah, and try my best to do that.
I hope you feel the same way.
Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know. Subscribe to my website and YouTube channel, buy my books and join my Facebook discussion group called “Just God’s Word” (please make sure to read and accept the rules).
That’s it for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!
Video for Is Your Need to Know Something Really Something You Need to Know?
Taking a Break
I wil be taking a break for the next week and won’t be posting again until Tuesday the 14th.
My wife and I will be celebrating our 24th wedding anniversary next week, and as we have been doing for the past 24 years, we will be celebrating it on a big ship, somewhere out in the Caribbean.
So have a blessed week, and don’t expect to see anything from me on Facebook or Messianic Moment after tomorrow.
Paul and the Prophets- Final Lesson
In the previous two lessons, we discussed the similarities and the differences between Paul and the prophets of the Tanakh, and now I am going to try to bring it all together.
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All of these activities are written down in the Bible and are considered scripture. But what is scripture? Is it what God says? Is it what Yeshua says? Or is it also what any human may say?
Well, according to Webster, scripture is what is included in the Bible, or simply “a body of writings considered sacred or authoritative.” So, if someone includes some writings in a book as an authoritative narrative (such as the Gospels or the Torah), that is all it needs to qualify as “scripture.”
The Bible was put together by men (sorry, no women were involved) and these men decided, looking at all the different writings available to them, which should be considered “scripture”.
Of course, we are told that they were divinely inspired to choose the right things.
From what I could find in researching the Internet, the first “Bible” (all 66 books) was put together by St. Jerome sometime around 400 CE. The Tanakh books are considered to have been written by the people the books are named after, except (of course) for the Torah, which was written by God, dictated through Moses.
As for the New Covenant, there were many scrolls that were available, and the general consensus is the Canon of Trent (1546) is where the Christian canon was first accepted, based on the Synod of Hippo Regius, held in North Africa in 393 AD.
So, why all this hubbub about scripture?
The reason is that what I am about to say may upset some people who consider the entire Bible the word of, or should I say the word from, God.
In truth, the Bible is a compilation of many writings, some of which are the direct word of God, such as the Torah. As we discussed earlier, that’s the only place in the entire Bible where we are being told directly from God what we should do.
The books of the Nevi’im (Prophets) contain both what God said (to the prophets to tell the people) and a historical narrative of the events that occurred during those times.
The other writings in the Tanakh called the Ketuvim (Ruth, Job, Song of Songs, etc.) were originated from men. There is, unquestionably, some divinely inspired wisdom, but still and all, it is scripture only because it is included in the Bible.
This is where some of you may be feeling a little discomfort, having been taught by everyone you know, love, and respect that every single part of the Bible is God-breathed, God-ordained, or God-inspired.
I am of the opinion that it isn’t. The only place in the entire Bible (Genesis through Revelation) where God dictates exactly what he wants us to do is in the Torah and the writings of the Prophets, specifically what he tells the prophet to say to the people, and nowhere else.
This is the main similarity between Paul and the prophets: they were both divinely called to bring people into communion with God.
This is the main difference between Paul and the prophets: what the prophets said was directly from God but what Paul said was not.
The bottom line is this: Paul’s letters are considered scripture because men said they should be included in the Bible, and whatever is in the Bible is, by definition, scripture. The important thing to note here is that scripture is NOT necessarily direct from God. In fact, most of the Bible is an eyewitness narrative of events that occurred, recorded by men, and determined to be authoritative by men.
Paul’s letters are originated from Paul and were nothing more than managerial directives to Gentile Believers, first learning about the Torah, to get them back onto the path of righteousness without forcing them to totally convert all at once.
When we read what the prophets told the people, we are hearing from God, but when we read the letters Paul wrote to his congregations, we are hearing from Paul.
Christianity has, for the most part, rejected what God said in the Torah and through the prophets; instead, they have used Paul’s letters as the foundation of their religion, along with the many Christian holidays, rituals, ceremonies, canon, and laws that are ALL man-made.
What we call “Judaism” is directly from God, and what we call “Christianity” is from men misusing Paul’s letters, which he wrote on his own initiative.
The final lesson about Paul and the Prophets is this: the prophets spoke God’s word which they received directly from God; Paul quoted what God told Moses and the prophets, but he tweaked it so that the Gentiles he was teaching only leaned a little at a time.
The biggest similarity between Paul and the prophets is that they both tried to bring people into communion with God so they could be saved; the biggest difference is that the prophets spoke what they heard from God, and Paul spoke what he knew from the Tanakh.
You know, as we finish this lesson, the one thing that Paul and the prophets had in common, more than anything else, is that they were both doing God’s work in the world, and both being rejected and persecuted for doing so.
Maybe, going forward, that is the best thing for us to take from this teaching series: when you do God’s work, whether you hear it directly from God or are working from your own knowledge of what God has already told others, expect to be rejected and persecuted by the ones you are trying to save.
Thank you for being here throughout this teaching, and I hope it has been edifying to you.
Please share this teaching with everyone you know and subscribe to my website and my YouTube channel. Buy my books, like my Facebook page and join my Facebook discussion group called “Just God’s Word” (please make sure you read and accept the rules).
That’s it for now, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!
Video for Paul and the Prophets- Final Lesson
Parashah Mishpatim 2022 (Rulings) Exodus 21 – 24
God now gives Moses the laws making up a Penal Code, covering indentured servitude, murder (the difference between intended and accidental), kidnapping/ human trafficking, torts, payment for loss of time, and other crimes. http://www.messianicmoment.com/video-for-parashah-mishpatim-2022/
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God also outlines the laws and punishment for moral offenses, such as seduction and sodomy. He outlaws witchcraft, polytheism, and finishes with the laws and ordinances regarding loans and pledges.
God also defines how we are to act towards each other and even towards our enemies, to be just and fair in all court cases, and not to allow our own dislike of a person to interfere with treating that person and their property with justice.
God also decrees the three annual pilgrimages to the temple, which are the Feast of Unleavened Bread, first fruits, and the harvest festival; today, these are known as Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot.
The parashah ends with Moses, Arron (and his sons), and the 70 Elders being called to the mountain which Moses, alone, ascends and he remains there for forty days and nights.
To clarify some of the terms in the Torah which we discuss here, and you may have heard elsewhere, the main word we hear a lot of is mitzvot, which means “laws”.
Within Judaism, there are three types of Mitzvot: Mishpatim, Chukkim, and Eidot. Mishpatim are easily understood laws, such as the prohibition against theft and murder; chukkim are ceremonial laws, such as the laws of Kashrut (Kosher) and family purity. The reasoning for chukkim isn’t always as obvious as with the mishpatim. Eidot (testimonials) are laws that come somewhere between the mishpatim (obvious) and chukkim (not so obvious), such as eating matzo during Passover and the wearing of Tefillin.
There really is only one thing I want to talk about from this parashah, and that is the subject of obedience.
Over the millennia since God told Moses what he expected (or better yet, demanded) from the Israelites, there have been many other religions that have come out of the Torah. And not just out of the Torah in terms of the Torah being the source document, but totally out of the Torah, as in not having anything at all to do with it!
Christianity does, for the most part, ignore most of the Torah, taking from it the 10 commandments (and in some Christian religions violating the 2nd Commandment) and leaving the rest behind. That’s mainly because what we call Christianity today has nothing to do with Christ, i.e. Yeshua the Messiah: almost every single rule, dictate, regulation, holiday, and ritual associated with Christianity is man-made and not the way Yeshua lived or worshiped.
That being said, even within Judaism many of the commandments, laws, ordinances, and regulations God gave us have been twisted around due to Halacha (the Walk), which are the rabbinic rules for how we are to perform and obey these laws. The problem is that in the Talmud, the rabbis have identified their own methods for obedience, more often than not adding to the way to perform these laws in our everyday lives. And in some cases, as Yeshua pointed out to the Pharisees, the rabbinic regulations are given precedence over what God said to do.
Of course, the people who created these laws and regulations thought they were doing what God wants, but when you read the Talmud, which starts off with the Torah, and read all the different theological battles and opposing interpretations of the Torah portion they are discussing, you can’t help but realize Halacha is made up of individual beliefs and not God-dictated performance.
But within Christianity, you don’t see the Torah, at all.
So the lesson today is this: God tells us what we are to do, taken as dictation from God to Moses, in the Torah. These first five books of the Bible are God-directed instructions.
The prophets were given dictation from God, so what the prophets wrote and said to the people; and, even if there was some individual method of speaking involved, what we read in the books of the prophets was basically God-dictated messages repeated by the prophet.
Anything else, such as the other books of the Tanakh and the entire B’rit Chadashah (New Covenant) are nothing more than man-made rules. The Talmudic and Christian rituals and practices are not (exactly) what God said to do.
Here is the simple truth about the way the world is today: there are too many religions that profess to be worshiping of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, most of which accept Yeshua as the Messiah God promised to send, but worship any old way they want to, ignoring, rejecting, and even ridiculing the way God said we should worship.
God has no religion! God told us the way he wants us to worship and how to treat each other, and he did that by dictating it to Moses, who wrote it down so there wouldn’t be any confusion or misunderstanding. God gave it to the Jewish people, who he chose to be his nation of priests (Ex. 19:6) so they could teach it to the world.
So, if you want to worship God and do so in the manner he wants you to, then all you need to know is here in the Torah. Anything else you are told by your Rabbi, Priest, Minister, Pastor, or whatever, is man-made and useless drek that won’t score you any salvation points.
For me, with regards to the rules, holidays, rituals, etc. that are man-made, if it doesn’t overrule or go against what God said, I can decide if I want to obey or not.
Here’s the bottom line: when you come before God on Judgement Day (and you WILL come before him), and say:
“But I did what they told me I should do.”
I can’t speak for God, but I expect he might say something like this:
“My child, I understand you did what they told you to do, but it’s what I say that counts.”
I don’t know about you, but I do NOT want to hear that when I am standing in front of his throne. I hope to hear something like, “Well done, good and faithful servant”, so for me, that means paying attention to the Torah commandments, regulations, laws, and ordinances.
What do you want to hear when you come before the Lord Almighty?
Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know. Also, please subscribe to this ministry and my YouTube channel, buy my books, and I always welcome your comments.
That’s it for this week, so l’hitraot and Shabbat Shalom!