Parashah Vayyechi 2021 (And he lived) Genesis 48:28 – 50:26

In these final chapters to the Book of Genesis, Jacob dies at a ripe old age of 147. But before dying, he blesses the children of Joseph, placing his right hand on the head of Ephraim, the younger of the two, and telling Joseph that he is doing this on purpose, because the younger will be greater than the older.

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Jacob also gives a specific blessing to each of his children, renouncing Reuben for having slept with his father’s concubine, telling Levi and Simeon that their anger and violence was a sin (when they slew all the men of Shechem), telling Judah that he would be prince among the tribes and rule over them until the coming of Shiloh, which is generally considered to mean the Messiah (not all Jewish commentators agree that this is a messianic prophecy), and establishing what will become the identifying traits of the other sons.

He makes them swear to bury him in the cave at Machpelah, where his father and grandfather are buried, along with their wives. He then dies, is embalmed, and carried to the cave along with a giant retinue, and the whole country mourns for him.

When all are back in Goshen, the brothers of Joseph are concerned that now, with his father dead, Joseph might take revenge on them and they approach him promising to be his slaves, but he tells them that what they intended for evil, God turned to good so that many lives could be saved. Joseph promises his brothers to take care of them and their little ones. He tells them that one day God will bring them all back to their homeland, the land God gave to Abraham and makes them swear that when that day comes, they will carry his bones out of Egypt.

The book ends with the death of Joseph at 110 years of age.

חזק חזק ונית חזק!

(Be strong, be strong, and let us be strengthened!)

For me, one of the most meaningful messages for us from the story of Joseph is how God has a plan, for every one of us, but we never really know what it is until it happens.

I am pretty sure that when Joseph was thrown in the pit by his brothers, he wasn’t looking forward to the future, but was wondering if he would even have a future! Yet, he managed to end up as the second most powerful man in the known world and in a position to save God’s chosen people from extinction.

I find it interesting (because I don’t really believe in coincidence) that we are coming to the end of this story just as we are entering a new year. For just as Joseph didn’t know what plan God had for him until it happened, coming through this past year we all are somewhat concerned about what the future holds. Normally, we look forward to the new year, but right now I think most people aren’t looking forward to the new year as much as they are looking forward to ending the one we just came through!

So what does Joseph’s story have for us today? Simply this: we don’t know what God is planning for us, and we don’t know when it will come about, and we don’t even know if it will be easier or if we still have more fire to pass through. But, what we do know, what we can learn from Joseph, is that so long as we maintain our faith in God, which we demonstrate through obedience to his instructions, and trust that he is working all things for our good, eventually, then we will come out of this tsouris better than when we went into it.

Personally, I believe this horrible year is just the start. We have, as a country, kicked God out of nearly everything important, from our system of justice, to our schools, and even from society, in general. We are more concerned about offending sinful people and those who want to kill us than we are about offending God! And sooner or later, as we see throughout the Tanakh, when we reject God he will reject us. And for those who are still righteously faithful and God-fearing, we also see throughout the Tanakh how the innocent become collateral damage when the sinful leaders must be punished.

So, let us hope I am wrong and that we are coming out of the fire, cleansed of dross and purer than when this year started.

As we leave 2020 behind, pray that the light at the end of the tunnel is, in fact, the opening to a new and better place, and not actually an express train barreling down on us.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages to help this ministry grow, subscribe here and on my YouTube channel (use the link above), and remember that I always welcome your comments.

For those who celebrate the New Year, may it bring you joy and blessings.

Until next time, L’hitraot and Shabbat Shalom!

How Can Sinners be Allowed in Heaven?

During the Sermon on the Mount, as recalled in the Gospel of Matthew, (5:19) Yeshua says this (CJB):

So whoever disobeys the least of these mitzvot and teaches others to do so will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But whoever obeys them and so teaches will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven.

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Some versions of the Bible say the Kingdom of God, but the terms “Kingdom of God” and “Kingdom of Heaven” are considered to be the same thing, which is where those who are saved by the Messiah will be when the Tribulation is over and the new earth and new heaven are formed.

In other words, eternity.

When I read this, I have to ask myself, how can someone who not only sins but teaches others to sin be called the least in heaven? I mean, if you are a sinner teaching others to sin, how can you even be allowed into God’s presence?

As far as I can see, this is the only place where Yeshua makes this statement in all of the Gospels.

So what does it mean? As with any interpretation, we can’t just look at the sentence, but at how that sentence fits into the general lesson or thought. Just before this, Yeshua talks about how he did not come to change the law and that not one of the even smallest elements of the law, i.e. commandments in the Torah, will be changed. Later, he warns everyone that if they aren’t more righteous than the Pharisees they will never enter the kingdom of heaven. We also have to take into account the constant complaint Yeshua had about the Pharisees, which was that they taught their own man-made traditions and laws superseded the mitzvot (laws) of God, as God gave them to us in the Torah.

So, when we look at all sides of this, we can see Yeshua wasn’t saying that anyone is able to enter heaven if they sin and teach others to sin, but that those who obey and teach that man-made regulations are more important than the law, while not directly breaking that law, are going to be least in the kingdom of heaven.

Placing the importance of a man-made tradition or ritual in lieu of what God said is a form of disobedience that isn’t, by definition, a sin because you aren’t really breaking the law, you are just obeying it in a different way than God said you should.

Okay, what the heck does that mean? Let’s look at the example Yeshua gave in Matthew 15:3-6 when he replied to the Pharisees accusing him of breaking the tradition of N’tilat Yadayim (handwashing before eating):

Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?  For God said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’ But you say that if a man says to his father and mother, ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,’ he is not to ‘honor his father’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition

The Pharisees said Yeshua was teaching his people to break the traditions, and by doing so were, in essence, accusing him of breaking the law. His reply indicated that they were the ones breaking the law, and not the law of men but the law of God, by teaching that the law of men was more important than the law of God.

Let’s try this again: a korban is something devoted or offered to God, such as one of the sacrifices in Leviticus 1-7, but in this case, Yeshua wasn’t talking about something that was associated with sin or guilt. And although there is no specific Torah statement that to not offer a korban is a sin, still and all, you don’t renege on that offer. For instance, Hannah prayed for a child and offered the child as a Nazir to God; after Samuel was born, if she hadn’t delivered Samuel to Eli, the Cohen HaGadol, that would have been a sin. But, if she had only asked for a child and never devoted it to God, raising Samuel herself would not have been a sin.

Now, the Pharisees taught that once you offered a korban to God you couldn’t then give it to your parents, even if they desperately needed it because that would be a sin. And what Yeshua said was if they refuse to give to their needy parents that which they offered as a korban to God, then they were violating the 5th commandment.

How can these completely opposite opinions be reconciled? I believe the korban in this example that is being offered was not already offered but was intended to be offered. I justify this interpretation because most of the offerings made were of an animal or grain, so once given it was sacrificed, burnt upon the altar, and there was no way it could be retrieved; but, if someone tells their parents they can’t have something they need because it is devoted to God (or, more accurately, because I intend to devote it to God), that is where Yeshua said they break the law.

It is not a sin to intend to devote something to God, then change your mind because there is a greater need for it elsewhere. For instance, your parents.

So, what we have here is that this passage doesn’t imply when we sin and teach others to sin, we can still get into heaven. If someone does and teaches others that you can commit adultery, fornicate to your heart’s desire, totally disregard the Shabbat, or any such obvious disobedience to the laws God gave us in the Torah, they are not going to get a free pass to eternity in God’s presence. However, if someone is trying to obey and teach others to obey the law, but they are confused and teaching traditions of men instead of God’s way, which is what God-loving Christians have been doing for millennia, then they may still get into heaven, but they won’t be given front-row seats. Instead of a mansion, they may get a shack.

That reminds me of a story….

A Catholic Cardinal dies and goes to heaven. He is told he will be led to the place reserved for him, and as he is walking he sees beautiful mansions, and in one of them was someone he knew had been a New York City taxi driver.

As he is led, the mansions become houses, the houses become condos, and he is finally told, “This is for you.” In front of him is a small shack.

He asks the angel, “Are you sure? I devoted my life to God and was a Cardinal, so why am I in a shack and some hack from the Big Apple in a mansion?”

The angel said, “When you preached, people slept, but when he drove, people prayed.”

We should do what God said we should do, the way God said we should do it, and always teach others to obey what God says in the Torah. The New Covenant writings are not commandments from God, they are commentary by human beings, referencing what God said in the Torah. What Yeshua was warning the people about in Matthew 5:19 is that you can disobey a commandment by God by following a man-made tradition that is actually designed to fulfill a commandment.

And, for the record, Yeshua never said all man-made traditions are bad- only those that are given precedence over God’s commandments.

So, nu? How can I know which is the right one to obey? The answer is you need to know which commandments are from God, and which are man-made, and the only way you will know that, for certain, is to read the Torah.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know, subscribe to this ministry here and also on my YouTube channel (use the link above), and remember that I always welcome your comments.

Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

God Doesn’t Micromanage

How many times have you heard someone ask, “How could God allow this to happen?” It’s a good question, considering that God can do anything, is everywhere all the time, knows everything, and hears everyone’s prayers.

Well, the answer is pretty simple: being able to do everything doesn’t mean God will do anything.

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God has a plan for the human species; he has told us what that plan is, and how it will come about, and even what to expect. The only thing we haven’t been told is when it will happen.

This plan, however, doesn’t rely on what we want or when we want it. Asking God to help you, to help someone else, or to help the country is fine, and often God will intervene if it fits within his plan. But if what we ask doesn’t fit in his plan, or isn’t going to make any difference, he may decide that it isn’t going to happen. Or, in some cases, what we would never want to happen will be allowed to happen.

Terrible things people do to other people, such as war, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Salem Witch Hunts, the Holocaust, the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, school shootings… are all acts of violence that are sinful and destructive. If God is really a loving and compassionate God, who is in charge, then how could he have allowed these things to occur? And what about all that is happening now?

Again, the answer is that he doesn’t micromanage the world. As horrible and significant as these events seem to us when they happen, in the long run, in the scheme of things over the millennia during which humankind will exist, they are just a momentary hiccup; a blip on the screen; a fart in the wind that stinks for a second, then is gone.

Our lives are nothing more than a mist (James 4:14) and what is our lifetime? Maybe 70 or 80 years? (Psalm 90:10) Even as long as Methuselah lived, when compared to eternity, his life passed quicker than the blink of an eye.

God may decide, in his perfect wisdom, to intervene for you when you pray to him. He may make something that is, even to us, relatively unimportant happen for you. For instance, many years ago I was a Salesman and was in a real slump. I prayed earnestly for God to help me get out of the slump, and asked that he show me I am doing right by helping me to make a sale. And the very next pitch resulted in a sale. Now, you may say that was a coincidence, but it wasn’t just the next pitch, it was the next three pitches. From no sales for a while to three in a row was enough for me to believe this was an answer, and I thanked God for his intervention. My need was so minor, so small a request, so insignificant in the stream of eternity, yet God did do that for me.

That isn’t micromanaging, though, because when God does intervene, it isn’t all the time. Anyone who has been a manager, a GOOD manager, knows that part of the job is to teach your people how to be managers, as well, and to help them develop their skills. Since most people do not learn by listening, you have to allow them to make their own mistakes, even when you see it coming a mile away, so that they can learn the hard way, which is (I believe) the best way. Very few people learn when told how to stay out of trouble, but when they get in trouble and suffer from it, they remember that. Oh, yeah…they remember that absolutely!

Micromanagers don’t allow that- they will never let someone make a mistake because they have to be in on everything. That’s why micromanaging denies people the opportunity to learn how to be better, and it makes them feel insignificant, unimportant, untrusted, and often results in losing good people instead of keeping them. In the long run, micromanaging is self-defeating.

I don’t want this message to go off on a tangent into management theory, but if you agree with my dislike for micromanagement, then you can also see why God will allow many things to occur, things which as a human being we can’t fathom the reason for allowing it.

We see things on a linear plane: we identify the world based on our personal experience and interpret events based on a finite understanding of the universe. We are in the flesh, stuck in here with a very limited ability to comprehend anything. God, on the other hand, is spiritual and infinite; he doesn’t work on a linear timeline. He sees the world, in fact, the entire universe, on an eternal level. We see the past and the present but God sees the past, present, and future. He knows what will happen and he will intervene as is necessary in order for his eternal plan for humanity to be fulfilled.

Being able to do everything doesn’t mean you will do anything, and God’s choice to allow us to manage ourselves is how he runs his business. As the ultimate manager, God has given us his Employees Handbook, which we call the Torah, and when we act in accordance with the corporate culture and lifestyle, we will receive bonuses (they are called blessings) and have a long and prosperous career, resulting in the best retirement plan that could ever exist, anywhere.

Oh, one other really great thing about how God manages humanity: you get to choose who you will work for! There are two Supervisors God has running the show: one is Yeshua (Jesus) and the other is Satan. We get to choose who we will work for.

Yeshua has rules and regulations that you are supposed to follow (the Torah) and he will help you overcome your failings to be a better human being. He will give you rewards on earth as you improve, but you get nominal pay and sometimes the job is very difficult, requiring great sacrifice. His retirement plan is for you to live in peace and joy, basking in the glory of God, for all eternity.

Satan, on the other hand, will allow you to do whatever you want to do. He will give you worldly power and rewards that you probably wouldn’t get working for Yeshua. However, his retirement plan places you outside the presence of God and you will suffer burning torture in hell throughout eternity.

So, nu! God has provided two different career paths for you, and although he is managing everything, he will not micromanage your life or your choices. It’s all up to you, but don’t ever forget this caveat: your choice is not set in stone until after you stop working (die), so when you choose your Boss try to remember that your retirement is going to last much longer than the job.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe (both to this website and my YouTube channel), share these messages with everyone you know to help this ministry reach more people, and I always welcome your comments.

Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Parashah Vayyiggsh 2020 (He came near) Genesis 44:18 – 48:27

When we left the last parashah, Benjamin had been found guilty of stealing the cup from Joseph, and the brothers followed Benjamin, under arrest by Joseph, back to Joseph’s house.

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Now, Judah comes before Joseph and relates how important Benjamin is to Israel and that if he doesn’t return, his father will likely die of a broken heart, having already lost his favorite son earlier. Judah says that he guaranteed the safety of Benjamin and begs Joseph to take himself as the bondsman, allowing the boy to return to his father. for there is no way that Judah could return to Israel without Benjamin to watch his father suffer.

At this final show of concern and self-sacrifice, Joseph is no longer able to contain himself and after having the Egyptians leave him alone with his brothers, he reveals himself to them. After a moment of complete surprise and disbelief in what they heard, they do recognize Joseph, who tells them not to be afraid or angry at themselves for what they did to him because it was really God directing their actions so that Joseph could come to the position he is in, now. He tells them to bring his father and all their belongings to Egypt because the famine will go on for another 5 years.

Pharaoh is told that Joseph’s family is coming, and after they meet with Pharaoh he gives them the best pasture land in the country, the land of Goshen.

We are now told the lineage of the 12 tribes up to that point so that we know the total number of people in Israel’s family that entered Egypt. At the end of this reading we learn how Joseph was able to make Pharaoh not just ruler, but the owner of all of Egypt- the land, the people, and all they owned by having the people trade their property, possessions, and eventually themselves to Pharaoh in exchange for grain when they were completely out of money. Thanks to Joseph, the land of Egypt belonged to Pharaoh, and all the people were sharecroppers.

To me, one lesson from this parashah is obvious: God has a plan, and whether we have a life of joy and peace or one with suffering and abandonment, it is all for a reason. Joseph went from favored son to slave, wrongfully accused of a terrible crime and imprisoned unjustly, but later raised to such a high standing in the land that he was revered and admired by all.

And why Joseph? What did he do that was so great? In truth, he was a little snitch, reporting on his brothers to their father and getting them in trouble, then being so naïve (or was it prideful?) to tell them that they will one day bow down to him? Really? These are the acts of a wonderful leader?

No, of course, they aren’t. Perhaps that is why Joseph had to suffer as he did, not as punishment but to smelt away the dross so that the pure gold could come out. The one thing that was great about Joseph, pretty much from the moment he was enslaved, was his faith in God and his honesty. He showed merit and moral strength, and later he came to understand (as he told his brothers) that what they did for evil, God turned to good.

Much of the world is celebrating a holiday today that is designed to give glory to God and thanks for sending the Messiah. There are those who feel that this holiday is sinful because of the date we celebrate it, which used to be a pagan holiday. Be that as it may, it is never wrong to give thanks to God.

This is supposed to be a happy time of the year, with all people desiring peace, goodwill towards others, and joy. However, many people are depressed and saddened because they don’t have family, or can’t afford to buy presents, and some have a diagnosable seasonal disorder that brings on feelings of depression and gloom.

Suicides are usually higher during this holiday season than at any other time of the year!

I believe the reason is a lack of faith. Even those who profess to believe in God and the Messiah feel depressed because of their worldly situation. This year, 2020, has seen the past 9 months with the world in turmoil and fear from the COVID-19 virus epidemic, and some states in the U.S. have actually outlawed Christmas, in a way, by ordering people to stay in their homes and gatherings to be limited in number.

Just like Joseph, we are enslaved unfairly and in prison, feeling alone and abandoned. That is why we need to take this other lesson from the parashah: God is in charge, and even though we can’t see why this tsouris is happening, we must maintain our faith and continue through with the moral dignity, honesty, compassion for others, and fearlessness that Joseph showed until we are released from this situation.

The bad news is that we may not find that release soon, or it might even get worse. We may be “COVID-ed” for the rest of our lives, having to wear masks everywhere and not being allowed to have a party or go to an event if there are more than 10 people there.

But I don’t think that will happen: I believe that this coming year, 2021, will see more freedom to socialize. Not because COVID will be cured (the truth is it will never go away), and not because people will get fed-up with all the drek and mismanagement of the pandemic, which they pretty much are, already, but simply because nothing of this world lasts forever. The political party that will be in charge will have to do something to bring the economy back and relieve the tension felt throughout the country, and that is when we will all sit back and say, “Remember when we had to…”

Maintain faith in the face of adversity and trust that God will bring you through it, and in the meantime, even though we are up to our mouths in muck and mire, we must keep ourselves honest in all we do.

One last lesson from Joseph is that no matter where we are, or what is happening to us, or how long we suffer tsouris in our lives, we must always strive to be who God wants us to be, which may not be visible until after the dross is washed away.

Thank you for being here, please subscribe and share these messages. For those celebrating this holiday season, may you be blessed with the peace and joy that God has for all those who glorify and honor his name and the name of Yeshua ha Maschiach.

Until next time, L’hitraot and Shabbat Shalom!

Why I Believe the Gospel of John Isn’t.

Isn’t what? Well, isn’t a Gospel, meaning a truthful description of who Yeshua was and of his ministry. I also don’t believe it was written by a Jew, or, at least, by a Jew who was writing to Jews.

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John has long been recognized as being very different from the other Gospels; Matthew, Mark, and Luke are written as historical narratives that relate to the events in Yeshua’s life. John, on the other hand, while mentioning events in Yeshua’s life, is written as a spiritual revelation, and instead of plain language is full of overly spiritual double-talk:

I am he, and he is me; you see me, you see him, and I know him and he knows me but you don’t know me so you don’t know him, but if you knew him you would know me, yadda-yadda-yadda…

The thing about the Book of John that really gets my goat, and yes- this is a personal peeve– is that it seems to be written by a Gentile, to Gentiles, and has many subtle anti-Semitic undertones. And, frankly, I’m not the only one who feels that way.

Only in the Gospel of John do we hear Yeshua refer to the Torah (when talking to the Pharisees in John 10:34) as “your law”. If Yeshua was the word come to life, then why would he differentiate himself from who and what he is? If Yeshua was a Jew, he would never say “your law” when referring to the Torah; he would say “the law” or “the Torah”, but not talk about it as if he had no relationship to it or that it had no meaning to him.

And in the other three gospels, the term “the Jews” is used about 16 times, total within all three, but in John, that term is used some 67 times! When you are talking about your own people, do you refer to them as “those (whatever) people”? Of course not- if you are Jewish, you say “my people” or “them”; if you are Italian and talking about other Italians, you don’t say “those Italians”, you say “them” or “us” or some other term that recognizes your attachment and solidarity with them. But we don’t see that in John- instead, we see Yeshua talking to the Pharisees and Sadducees about the people as if they are different from him.

In the other gospels, it is clear that the real enemies of Yeshua are the power elite, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, but in John, it seems that all the Judeans are against Yeshua.

One really big difference is that in the other three, Yeshua never makes the absolute claim that he is the Messiah, except to his Talmudim (Disciples), whereas in John, he says it outright to the Samaritan woman (John 4:26) and makes claim to being one with God multiple times, and also claims that he is the son of God, whereas in the other gospels he refers to himself as the Son of Man.

In my experience, John is the only gospel that is used when people try to justify that God, Yeshua, and the Ruach HaKodesh are all one-and-the-same entity.

One of the most valuable tools in biblical exegesis is called Hermeneutics, which is the idea that the Bible does not contradict itself. We all have been told, over and over, that God is the same today, yesterday, and tomorrow and many believe the Bible to be infallible, and the perfect word of God, directly from God.

For the record, I don’t buy that for a moment, but that’s a different message.

So, if the Bible is infallible and God’s word is perfect, then hermeneutically we can prove John’s gospel is not scripture because it is so different, and does contradict what we read in the other gospels. In John, Yeshua claims to be the Messiah to many people but not in any other gospel; in John, Yeshua’s ministry seems to be only one year but the other gospels make it about three years; in John, Yeshua is tried before the Pesach meal but in the other three, it is after; in John, Yeshua claims to be not just the son of God but God, himself, yet in the other gospels he calls himself the Son of Man.

John was most likely written at the end of the First Century when more Gentiles were converting to this new sect of Judaism than Jews who were accepting Yeshua as their Messiah. And when Jews did accept Yeshua as the Messiah, remember that this was not a conversion: there was no conversion of Jews to Christianity: the early “church” was a synagogue, and the Gentiles who accepted Yeshua as Messiah were learning how to live a Jewish lifestyle, just as Yeshua lived. The truth of the beginning of what we call Christianity today is that the only conversion was from paganism to Judaism, or at best, a sect of Judaism. From the turn of the first century until Constantine created modern Christianity (about 325 CE), there were Jews, those Jews and Gentiles who accepted Yeshua as the Messiah, and pagans. The Believing Gentiles were learning about the Torah and how to live as Yeshua did, although the Gentiles that were taking command of the movement began to leave Judaism and form different worship, such as changing the Shabbat to Sunday (Ignatius of Antioch in 98 CE) and misinterpreting the letter sent by the Elders (Acts 15) as meaning Gentile Believers were excluded from following Torah.

John was, in my opinion, either written by a Gentile using John’s name, or if John, a Jewish follower and Disciple of Yeshua, did write it, he wrote it so that Gentile Believers could separate themselves from Torah and worship Yeshua not just as the Messiah, but as God, as well. That opens the question of why a Disciple of Messiah would reject his own religion.

Many Christians I have known feel that John is the best Gospel, and when I was first open to learning about Yeshua, I was told to read John before any other gospel. Now, some 20 plus years after coming to accept Yeshua and knowing the entire Bible very well, I know that the Gospel of John is an anti-Semitic and separatist book designed so that Gentiles can feel comfortable rejecting the Torah and Judaism as separate from Yeshua, what he taught, and to worship Yeshua as God.

There are many out there who will find this message not just disturbing, but maybe even blasphemous, and that is too bad. I doubt many Gentile Believers who were raised Christian (any denomination) can understand how a Jewish person, Believer or not, feels reading this gospel. The other Gospels are fine because they don’t hate Jews, but the Gospel of John is full of subtle, Jew-hating terminology.

If it was up to me, I would throw the Gospel of John, along with nearly all the Epistles of Shaul (Paul) out of the New Covenant. I would keep Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts, Romans, Hebrews, James, and Revelation, and deep-six the rest, or have them in a separate volume, like the Apocrypha.

I hope that no one is offended, but I understand there might be a sense of wanting to defend this gospel because, well, you just need to! “Why?” “Because, that’s why!”

If that’s how you feel, maybe you should consider why you feel that way. I mean, really, if the Gospel of John is verifiable and hermeneutically validated as scripture, you wouldn’t need to say “because” as the reason to defend it, because “because” is not a reason. 

That’s my message for today. It is my opinion, you do not have to agree, but if you do agree, I would appreciate you letting me know with a “Like” or something similar, even a comment. And if you think I am out of my mind, please comment as well, but be nice.

In the meantime, thank you for being here; please share these messages (if you dare), and until the next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!