Category: Messianic 101

Why Read The Torah?

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Oops! Last week when I posted Parashah Shemini, I was a week too early. I missed the fact that on the Shabbat after Pesach (Passover) we read a different portion of the Torah, specifically for that Shabbat. So, that means I am a week ahead, and as such, I thought we could use this week to review the reason why reading the Torah portion (called a Parashah, the plural is Parashot) is so important, especially if you want to be able to understand what is in the New Covenant writings.

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The Torah is the first five books of the Bible (most of you already know that) and they contain every, single instruction for how to worship God and how to treat each other that God wants us to know. In truth, it is really the only part of the Bible that is made up of the exact words God gave to us, with Moses taking dictation. Every single Torah is exactly the same as every other Torah- when the Scribes who are specially trained to write the Torah (called Sopherim) finish copying one Torah to another, they count every single letter to make sure there is nothing missing or added.

Yeshua taught from the Torah. That was the only scripture that existed. Of course, there were many traditional teachings, which became the Mishna and the Gomorrah (together they make up the Talmud.) But as for the written word of God, when Yeshua was teaching, he was teaching from the only scripture there was, and that was the Torah. And as far as Yeshua being the spotless lamb of God, i.e. a sinless person, he was sinless because he did everything that God instructed us all to do, which (again) is found in the Torah.

My point is that to understand what Yeshua taught, we need to first know what is in the Torah. Shaul (Paul) also taught only from the Torah; in fact, being a Pharisee trained by one of the greatest Rabbis in Jewish history, Gamaliel, he was a Torah expert.

The New Covenant writings have absolutely nothing in them that is “new.” I know, I know…you are going to quote from Ecclesiastes and tell me there is nothing new under the sun, and (of course) I will agree with you, which also proves my point about the New Covenant. Yeshua taught from the Torah, the Disciples of Yeshua taught what they learned from Yeshua, which was from the Torah, and Shaul taught what he knew from the Torah.

Let’s take a break for a minute and go over something important to know. In the letters from Shaul to the congregations of (almost exclusively) Gentile Believers he formed, he gave them a lot of leeway in how strictly they followed the Torah because they needed that. He was against requiring Gentiles to make a complete and immediate conversion to Judaism because he knew that paradigm shift in lifestyle would be too difficult and he would lose a lot of them. That is the same conclusion the Elders in Jerusalem came to, which you can read about in Acts 15. They gave only 4 immediate requirements, and that was never meant to be the only thing Gentiles had to do, just all they had to do for now. It was assumed (and you can see that plainly in Acts 15:21) they would eventually learn all the commandments in the Torah. This discussion, however, is for another time.

If you wanted to build a house, you wouldn’t start with the roof or the second floor, would you? In fact, you wouldn’t even start with the main floor until you had laid the foundation. The Torah is the foundation for the Tanakh, which is what many consider to be the “Jewish Bible”.  The books that come after Deuteronomy are either of historical nature (such as Joshua, Kings 1 and 2, Chronicles 1 and 2, Ruth, Esther, etc.) or they are prophetic books. But they all have one thing in common, and that is that they show us how well, or more often how poorly, the Chosen people lived within the covenant they had made with God. They also show how God always kept his side of the covenant, even when we kept breaking our side of it. And how willing God was, and still is, to forgive us when we repent.

The New Covenant writings start with the Gospels, which are the narrative of all the messianic prophecies we read throughout the Tanakh coming to fruition in Messiah Yeshua. His teachings, which we read in the Gospels, are all from the Torah, but what was different was not what he taught about the commandments, but what he taught about how we are to follow the commandments.

The Pharisees were teaching performance-based salvation, i.e. what we call in Judaism the P’shat, the plain language of the Torah. For example, when they taught do not murder, they meant to not kill someone on purpose, and that was all. Yeshua taught the Remes, the deeper, spiritual meaning of the law, so he said we know not to murder, but if we hate in our heart, that is murder.

If you aren’t familiar with the terms P’shat or Remes, look up the Jewish form of biblical exegesis called PaRDeS.

In order to understand what Yeshua taught, we need to know what the Pharisees taught so we can see the difference. Only reading the New Covenant is like reading the second book of a two-book story, without ever having read the first book. You might get some of the story-line, and may understand a lot of what is happening, but without knowing the background you will never really understand the characters or the way things got to where you “came in” to the narrative.

This is why it is important for anyone and everyone who professes to want to follow Yeshua to know what he knew- the Torah. After all, didn’t John say the Word of God became flesh and walked among us? He was talking about Yeshua, and the only Word of God (as we learned earlier) that existed then was the Torah, so Yeshua is the living Torah. That is why he could never preach anything against the Torah, because if he did then he would be a house divided against itself, and we all know what he said about that.

If you are a Believer and have not read the Torah, then you are cheating yourself out of knowing your Messiah. You cannot understand the depth of what Yeshua taught or understand anything in the letters Paul wrote if you do not know the Torah and, in fact, you really need to know the entire Tanakh. That was what they taught from, and that is where we learn about God, the Messiah and God’s plan for mankind.

It comes down to this: if you don’t know the Torah, you can’t really know Yeshua.

Thank you for being here; please subscribe and share these messages with others. I always welcome your comments, and next Friday we will be back on schedule with the Parashah readings.

Until next time, L’hitraot and Shabbat Shalom!

The Truth About Mark 7 and Acts 10 as They Relate to the Laws of Kashrut (Kosher)

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Let’s start with the Christian teaching that the Laws of Kashrut (Kosher laws in Leviticus 11) are not required for Christians. The two stories from the New Covenant most used to justify this are Mark 7:19 and Acts 10-11.  In Mark, which we discussed briefly in an earlier lesson, Yeshua was talking with the Pharisees about handwashing prior to eating, and how we will not make our food ceremoniously unclean if we don’t first wash our hands, which was a rabbinic (Talmudic) requirement. In this discussion, Mark states that Yeshua declared all food clean. This verse has been used to show that the kosher laws were overruled and abandoned by Yeshua. Nothing could be further from the truth: Yeshua wasn’t talking about clean and unclean as in what was allowed to be eaten, he was talking about a ceremony, a ritual. As far as declaring all food clean, what was “food” for a First Century Jew is not what the world considers food, today. In India, beef is not considered food; to some African tribes warm blood taken from a cow is considered food; to some other people, monkey brains are a delicacy. And for a Frist Century Jew, the items that are specified in Lev. 11 as forbidden are not “food.” So, all food being clean means that all those things which were allowed to be eaten were the food that was declared clean and, therefore, would not make us ceremoniously unclean if we did not first wash out hands before eating it.

The Book of Acts, Chapters 10 and 11 tells us about a dream (vision) that Kefa (Peter) had while sleeping. The vision had a sheet with all kinds of non-kosher animals on it, and a voice from heaven said to kill and eat. Kefa refused to do so, and each time he refused he heard the voice say, “Do not declare unclean that which I have made clean.” This happened three times. As soon as he awoke, there were three servants of a Roman Centurion named Cornelius at the door of the house, asking for Kefa to come to the Roman soldier’s house. This narrative is used to show that God told Kefa that it is now allowed to eat non-kosher animals. Again, nothing could be further from the truth: first of all, this is a vision and visions are usually interpretive and not to be taken literally. The narrative even tells us that Kefa didn’t understand the meaning of it. At that time, a Roman person’s house was an unclean place to a Jew, and to go into one would make one unclean. That means you would have to wash your body and clothes and would not be allowed into the Temple or even the Courts until after evening. But the true interpretation is that there were three times the sheets came down because there were three servants at the door, and that meant Kefa was to go with them. At the end of the chapter, we are told about the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) coming upon the Roman people in that house who accepted Yeshua as their Messiah. They were the “unclean” thing that God made clean because Romans (as I have said) were considered to be unclean people. And the fact that this had nothing to do with food is confirmed in Chapter 11 when the Elders, upon hearing what happened, didn’t say, “Yahoo!! Now we can go to Bob Evans for eggs and sausages!” but instead praised God that he made it possible for the Gentiles to be saved from their sins, as well as God’s chosen people, the Jews.

What is Really Important to Know?

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Yesterday I saw a post on Facebook asking what day Yeshua died on. I replied asking why the person wanted to know that. I said the day doesn’t matter, but what does matter is that he rose. I added we need to stay focused not on data, but on faith and not worry about details.

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I thought my point was clear enough but it wasn’t. I was told by a few people that I shouldn’t restrain someone from asking questions, that knowledge is the beginning of wisdom and I was being ungodly, and one person told me I was too “bossy” and who do I think I am telling people what they should do.

Let me begin with this simple truth: Yes, Virginia…there are stupid questions. And the people that, in my experience, defensively state that I should never stop someone from asking a question, are the ones who are just too lazy to research and find out for themselves what the answers are. They ask questions so they don’t have to think or make their own decision, and those are the sheep that get led astray so easily.

The kind of question I respect is one that starts with “I would like to know (whatever), and have researched it and think this is the answer. Can someone please verify or correct me?”

I believe what is important to know is anything that leads one to a proper understanding of who God is, who the Messiah is, and what we have to do in order to attain salvation through them. Things such as which day Yeshua actually died on, the correct pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton, or which calendar is really correct are not bad questions, but they do not answer what I call the Acid Test question:

“How does this affect my salvation?”

That is the most important question, in my opinion, that anyone can ask, and should be the very first thing we ask ourselves before we delve into the plethora of minutia that is available to us in the Bible.

Hebrews 11:1 says:

“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”

and Deuteronomy 29:29 says:

“The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.”

If we combine the meaning of those two passages what we end up with is that we will never know everything and we have to faithfully accept that, concentrating only on being obedient to God’s commandments. I would go as far as to say that one needs the strength that comes from humility in being able to say, “I don’t know and it really isn’t that important to me because it won’t affect my salvation.”

Of course, I have heard arguments against what I just wrote, the main two arguments being that it is wrong to stifle someone asking a question and that what I think is not important they know to be absolutely essential.

This ministry is a teaching ministry, and I have nothing against learning, which is evident because right on the home page of this ministry website is a quote from the prophet Hosea which says “my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” I have always been very interested in knowing everything I can about everything. I have always been the “Duty Expert” in every job I have held, and still love to learn. And the most important thing I have learned, which I like to believe came to me through the Holy Spirit, is that I don’t need to know everything.

My point is that the knowledge we need is not detailed minutia but the general knowledge of God, Messiah and the Torah.   All we really need to know is

  • The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the one true God ;
  • Yeshua is the Messiah he promised to send, whose sacrificial death provides us the means by which we can be forgiven of our sins;
  • The Torah is the set of instructions God gave to the world, through the Jewish people, which tells us how to worship him and treat each other and that we are to live according to those instructions as best as we can; and finally
  • To daily ask forgiveness for our sins, by means of Yeshua’s sacrifice for us.

If we know those four things, we know all we need to know to be saved.

Everything else may be nice to know stuff, and interesting, no doubt, but not essential. The danger I see, especially with neophyte Believers, in asking too many detailed questions is the potential to become Gnostic, in other words, to think that without this detailed knowledge of numbers or dates or names we won’t be worshiping God properly and that the search for knowing details can often lead us away from being faithful.

Look…go ahead and ask your questions, absolutely try to learn all you can about the Bible, God and Messiah, and especially about what God expects from you. But temper your curiosity with the faithful acceptance that you don’t need to know everything, and always ask God to give you the wisdom to know what is and what isn’t important.

Knowing facts isn’t wisdom, but wisdom is knowing which facts you need to know.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe and share these messages with others to help this ministry grow.  I welcome your comments and look forward to the next time we are together.

Until then, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

 

Parashah Tzav 2020 (Command) Leviticus 6 – 8

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We continue receiving the instructions from God regarding the various sacrifices. We are told to maintain the fire on the altar, the daily burnt offering, what to do with the parts of the offering, which parts go to the Priests, who may eat of which parts, what to do with the ashes, and finally, the inauguration of the services and anointing of Aaron and his sons.

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Considering how close this reading is to the Passover Seder (which this year will be in just 5 days), I want to talk about something I have mentioned before in different messages but always bears repeating.

Let’s look at Leviticus 7:15, which is part of the instructions for the Peace Offering (I am using the Soncino edition of the Pentateuch and Haftorah):

And the flesh of the sacrifice for his peace offering for thanksgiving shall be eaten on the day of his offering.

Did you know there are actually three separate types of peace offering? They are:

  • Thanksgiving offerings, which are for deliverance from sickness or danger;
  • Offerings in fulfillment of a vow made in times of distress; and
  • Free-will offerings when the heart is moved to show gratitude to God

The unique thing about the peace offering is that it is the only sacrifice in which the one sacrificing partakes in the eating of the sacrifice. With all the other types of offerings, what is offered is reserved to the Lord and the Cohen making the offering; the Lord gets the best parts, and the Cohen takes a part of what has been offered as his payment, which he shares with his family.

But the peace offering is not just giving to the Lord, it is sharing with the Lord. It allows communion between man and God, bringing us together eating a holy meal while sharing each other’s presence.

During the Seder, we remember the sacrifice of the Passover lamb, and how its blood on the lentils of our homes saved us from the plague which killed all the firstborn. That sacrifice was not for sin or guilt but was a peace sacrifice because the one offering shared in the meat, and it saved us from danger.

Yeshua the Messiah (Jesus) sacrificed himself in order that we could have a way in which we could ask God for forgiveness, and his sacrifice occurred the day after the Passover Seder. Consequently, he has been called the Pesach Lamb of God, referring to the Passover sacrifice.

But that doesn’t make sense because the Passover lamb was not a sin sacrifice, and Yeshua died for our sins; his sacrifice replaced the need to bring an animal to the temple, which within a few decades after Yeshua’s death was completely destroyed, making sacrifice impossible.

Yet, the sacrifice of Yeshua was more than a sin sacrifice because his sacrifice provided more than just forgiveness of sin. His sacrifice also serves as a thanksgiving offering because once cleansed of sin we are able to come into communion with God; the parochet was torn, allowing us to enter into God’s presence. Not only that, but it saves us from danger, in fact, the greatest danger there is: the eternal consequence of sin.

Yeshua’s sacrifice is a double-edged sword: one side is the Yom Kippur sacrifice, which provides us forgiveness from our sins, and the other side is the Passover sacrifice, a thanksgiving offering that saves us from the danger of our sins and brings us into communion with God.

Two of the most important offerings that can be made to God: one to attain forgiveness of sin and the other as thanksgiving for salvation from danger. Only Yeshua, the Messiah, could have made this possible with one action, and only God could have given us a Messiah who was able to live a sinless life and thereby be an acceptable sacrifice.

What is left for us, today, is to accept that Yeshua is who he said he was, the Messiah God promised to send and to obey what he taught, which is what God said in the Torah.

One last note: in today’s reading God also specifies that when someone does not do all that is required regarding the peace offering then he will nullify the offering, and instead of communion with God it will be considered an abhorrent thing and not be accepted. Not only that, but the one who ignores God’s instructions will be cut off from his people and his iniquity will be on him.

The reason I point this out is that Christianity has been teaching Jesus died for our sins and therefore all sin is already forgiven and all that “Jewish” stuff in the Torah is not for those who follow Jesus. This is a lie and tantamount to violating the instructions for the thanksgiving sacrifice, which means that anyone who professes to follow Jesus but ignores the instructions in the Torah, will not have his or her offering (meaning Yeshua’s sacrifice) accepted. 

In other words, if you think that you are saved because Yeshua died for your sins, but you ignore what is written in the Torah, then Yeshua’s sacrifice will mean nothing for you.

God gave instructions in the Torah that tell us how to worship him and how to treat each other, and nothing Yeshua did or taught went against or changed any of those. If you want to be saved by the blood of the Passover Lamb of God, then you need to follow the instructions that the Lamb of God told us to follow. Don’t worry about what Paul or John or any of the Apostles said because they are not the Messiah!

Obey Yeshua, who taught to obey God, and his sacrifice will be accepted for you by God.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe, share these messages, and consider buying the books I have written. Actually, don’t consider buying them, just go ahead and buy them. If you like what you read in my messages you will like my books, too.

And remember that I always welcome your comments.

Until next time, L’hitraot and Shabbat Shalom!

Still Have to Ask, What’s in a Name?

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The title for today’s message comes, obviously, from the play “Romeo and Juliet” by William Shakespeare. The point is that a name doesn’t really identify or dictate the type of person whom the name is assigned to. Juliet proves this later by pointing out that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

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Too many people have become zealous, actually to the point of being obsessed, with the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton, the 4-letter word which God spoke as his name, as well as with the titles people have historically used to refer to יהוה, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

There seems to be little argument that the name God told Moses means “I am“, and in the context of a sentence (since Hebrew words are properly interpreted only by considering the context of the sentence they are within) it could also mean “I will be.”

So what the Tetragrammaton means is “I am that I am“, or “I will be that which I will be.”

No matter how we pronounce יהוה, it will always mean the same thing, which is that God is who he is. The name isn’t the important thing because no matter what we call God, whether Adonai, God, Lord, El, Yah, El Elyon, Adonai Tz’vaot…whatever…God will always be God.

And here is the most important thing that many “Holy Namers” forget: God knows the hearts and minds of his children, and when we pray to him, no matter what title or name or pronunciation we use, God knows who he is and who we are praying to.

I submit to you that when someone says using the term “Lord” means we are praying to Ba’al, or that when we use the title “God” we are praying to a false Semitic deity, these people are insulting the true God of Israel. They are implying that Adonai (which, by the way, means Lord) is incapable of determining who we are praying to. They are saying God is so prideful as to ignore a prayer from someone just because they call him what they have always known him to be, i.e. God or Lord.

In the Bible, we read how many referred to Adonai as the invisible God of the Hebrews.  In the Book of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar refers to him as the God of Daniel, and the Philistines recognized Adonai as the God of the Jews. These people didn’t worship Adonai or even know what to call him, but they knew who he was. And when they called him an invisible god or the God of the Hebrews, it didn’t change who he was or who they believed him to be.

God is God no matter what you call him.

And this is the crux of the problem with people who insist on using their name for God: they have forgotten who God is. They have become so obsessed with the words “God” or “Lord” or the pronunciation of the Holy Name that they have forgotten all about the one who these names refer to. They now worship a name instead of the one who the name refers to.

I am not saying that a “Holy Namer” is wrong in their pronunciation, but I do say they are wrong in requiring others to use only the names they think are “right”, and that anything else is wrong and represents paganist prayer. Who are they to tell someone who they are praying to? Do they know the person’s mind? Do they see what is in that person’s heart?

Are they like Adonai, God Almighty, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob so they can say what is a proper prayer and what is not?

If you are someone who has is obsessed with what name is correct for God, please consider that we can pray to him any old which way we want to, and so long as our prayer is heartfelt and genuine, he will listen. He is not so stubborn and prideful about what we call him that he will turn away someone who is genuinely seeking him out, just because they use a word some other people use to mean someone else.

If I call a rose a tulip, clearly I am using the wrong name, but the rose is still a rose. I cannot change what a rose is by calling it a tulip, and if I hold up the rose and say, “This tulip smells wonderful!” people will understand what I mean, despite my using the wrong name for the flower.

And I would still be correct in saying that the flower smells wonderful.

Those of us who know the one, true God will always know who we mean, despite which title or word is used to describe him. But for those that do not know him, who are first learning about him, to teach them this wrongful idea that God must be called by a certain word or pronunciation, is no different than teaching that God can’t know what we feel and what we mean when we pray to him.

The idea that Adonai will ignore someone who is praying to him because of how they pronounce his name or which title they use for him is to teach a lie and is unfair to God! It totally ignores who God is.

If anyone says when using “God” or “The Lord” or not using their pronunciation of the Holy Name is really praying to a pagan god, that person is a liar. And they are insulting God.

I believe God knows who we mean when we pray to him, and whatever I call him doesn’t change who he is.

Thank you for being here; please subscribe, share these messages with others, and check out my website. I have written three books (so far), and if you like what I say in my ministry, you will like reading my books, as well.

Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Parashah Vayikra 2020 (He called) Leviticus 1 – 5

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I should start off wishing you all a Happy New Year for yesterday was the first day of Nisan (which used to be called Aviv) and is what God declared to be the first day of our year.

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We have come to the central book of the Torah. These first 5 chapters define the sacrificial system, starting with a description of the different types of sacrifice, followed by the specific procedures for the sins of an individual and for the sins of the community.

All that God has instructed us to do regarding sacrifice is not possible for us to do anymore, not since the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. The reason we had to do these sacrifices at the temple was because of God’s instructions, which were that we are not to sacrifice anywhere we want to, but only at the place where he puts his name (Deuteronomy 12:.13). 

Each type of sacrifice, whether for sin, for guilt, for thanksgiving or the wholly burnt sacrifice is described in minute detail. God even accounts for those who cannot afford the required animal, allowing for them to substitute a different animal, one they can afford to give. This idea of being allowed to provide a substitute is something that will eventually provide for our salvation, many years later.

Every detail of how to perform the sacrifice is given in these chapters, but what I believe to be the most important part of the entire process is not explained.

The sacrifice is more, much more than just the spilling of blood. The physical actions we do, i.e. bringing the animal, killing it, dividing it up, splashing the blood and burning it on the altar are just physical things. We read throughout the Tanakh how these were being done but were, in many cases, unacceptable to God. In fact, through the prophet Amos God said that he hated the sacrifices and songs we made unto him (Amos 5:21-23), so if God wants us to perform these sacrifices, but in some cases, he says that he hates them, what was different? What was missing?

What was missing is something that is still missing today in many churches and synagogues: genuine repentance.

Let me share with you what I believe the sacrificial system should entail:

  1. We must sin. After all, if we do not sin, there is no need for a sacrifice to gain forgiveness, so for the sacrificial system to work, we need to sin (not that I suggest you should sin, only that this system is designed for when you sin);
  2. We must recognize and confess that we sinned. In today’s reading we are told that when we sin, whether or not we know it, we are still guilty. But to be forgiven, we must recognize that we did commit a sin. Too many people are taught that what God says is sin isn’t really sin anymore because the times have changed, or because all those laws were done away with by Yeshua. That is a total lie, but that topic is not something which we will be covering today;
  3. We must repent of our sin. This is probably the most essential part of the entire process because we can recognize and even confess that we sinned, but if we aren’t sorry we did it, then there can be no forgiveness, no matter what we do. It is repentance, more than anything else, which God is looking for from us. Not just that we are sorry we sinned, but that we are sorry we failed to do as God said we should. Repentance is not just feeling sorry we did wrong, but feeling sorry that we disobeyed God because in our hearts we should want to be obedient children. And, for the record, feeling sorry because you were caught does not count as being repentant;
  4. We must present a sacrifice. This step of the process was to be done with one of the prescribed animals but has been replaced by Yeshua. This is what is meant by the term “He died for our sins”; Yeshua’s sacrifice did not remove the sacrificial system or the laws that created it, but simply replaced the need to bring an animal to the temple in Jerusalem. This is one of the most misunderstood truths about what Yeshua did as our Messiah. Nothing of the Torah was removed or done away with, only the need to bring an animal to the temple when asking for forgiveness. Every step of the process I am describing here is still valid and necessary if one is to ask God to forgive their sins. And now, the last step is;
  5. We must ask for forgiveness. I know that seems to be an obvious step, but it is the one step that everything else before it leads up to. Forgiveness is available, and not only is God willing to forgive, but he desires to forgive. God wants every sinner to turn from his sin and live (Ezekiel 18:23), but forgiveness is NOT automatic. God will not automatically forgive us, so if you have been taught that because of Yeshua all your sins are always forgiven, you will be very unpleasantly surprised when you come before the Lord on Judgment Day. There is no such thing as once forgiven, always forgiven.

The truth is that God will always forgive us when we confess our sins, are genuinely repentant and ask for forgiveness by calling on the name of Yeshua, whose sacrifice was made as an eternal substitution for the animal we must bring to the temple.

Yeshua’s blood is the substitution for the blood of the sacrifice we are supposed to supply. It was never supposed to be our own blood, but the blood of an innocent. While the temple existed, that blood was supplied by a sacrificed animal and had to be performed for each and every sin we committed. Because of Yeshua, we do not have to bring an animal to the temple in Jerusalem.

That is why God sent the Messiah.

Throughout the Bible, we are told, over and over, that God knows our hearts and our minds, and whereas in today’s reading he outlines the physical steps of the sacrificial system, what really matters to him is not what we do, but why we do it.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with others, subscribe and check out my entire website.  And remember that I welcome comments and conversation.

Until next time, L’hitraot and Shabbat Shalom!

Missionary Work is Selling

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For the first half of my life, I thought the last thing I would ever want to do is be a Salesman. I, along with almost everyone I knew who never sold anything, thought that career was slimy and dishonest.

Besides that, who would want a job where you never knew how much money you would make?

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After surviving a failed business attempt, bankruptcy, and needing cash but also needing to be close to home to help with the high-risk pregnancy my (then) wife had (that was in my previous life), I ended up taking a local sales job selling baby pictures to people in their home. I was able to set my own appointments and work whenever I wanted to, so long as I made a certain quota, and I was paid on commission, only. That means if I don’t sell, I don’t eat.

During the next two years, after having several different sales jobs with different products (all commission only), I was much better trained and experienced, and that’s when I realized selling as a career was much more challenging and fun than I ever expected it to be. And I didn’t have to be a slimeball or liar or cheat.

And more than that, you wanna know something? I was making more money, more regularly, than I ever did as a “suit” working on Wall Street!

So, what does this have to do with God or missionary work? Everything.

Whether you like it or not, or whether you think sales is a bad career choice or not, the truth of the matter is that everyone is selling something at all times. If you are in a meeting, you have to sell your ideas. If you have a business you have to sell yourself to potential clients so they use you and not someone else. If you are a parent, you (sometimes) have to sell your children on why they should do the right thing. If you are interviewing for a job, you have to sell yourself as the product the employer wants to have.

One way or another, we are all in Sales, and the one thing I know from my experience is that Sales is not about talking, it is all about listening.

Those people who major in Marketing should change their major to Psychology because that is what Sales really is. It is knowing how to get people to bond with you, to open up to you, and to be able to get them to decide that what you want them to do is what they want to do, even when they don’t know what they want to do. And as an honest salesperson, you teach them what they need to know to make a proper and qualified decision; qualified meaning based on information, and not on their feelings, alone.

The mega-churches know all about how to sell God, but they don’t sell obedience to God. They know that people are self-centered and selfish, so they tell you all about the wonderful blessings God has for you when you do what they say God wants you to do, which is usually nothing more than to be a “good” person because all those hard things to do are just for Jews.

That is the psychology behind selling: find out what the person wants and explain how your product provides that for them. People want the easy way, and telling them that God will bless them if they are a good person sounds easy enough, right? The problem is that it is not selling the truth because it may be an easy way, but it is the wrong way.

In order to be a successful missionary, you have to know how to sell. The product we have to sell is salvation, eternal joy in God’s presence and peace of mind while alive. We are trying to get people to not sell their souls to the world but to devote their lives to God. It is a hard product to sell correctly because it involves self-discipline, sacrifice, and determination.

The proper way to do this is, just as with any sales job, first and foremost you have to know your product. To tell people about God, you have to know God; and you won’t ever get to really know him listening to other people tell you who he is. God has told us everything we need to know about him in the Torah, and that is where you need to start. Whatever God wants you to know about him, he will lead you to see in his Word as you read it more and more.

Now, when I say you need to know about God I don’t mean passages in the Bible about God, but who God is, what he wants from us, and what he is willing to do for us when we obey. Don’t tell people about hell or damnation because frightening people into something never works in the long run. For someone to truly make a decision they will stick with, they have to believe whatever they do is their idea; so, once you know about God, your next step is to ask questions.

Too many people in missionary work talk and talk and talk. They tell people what they are doing wrong, what they should be doing to be right, and flood them with spiritual statements that a non-spiritual person really cannot grasp.

In other words, they talk them to death…literally, because the more they talk, the less the people want to listen, and the attempt to teach them what they need to know to be saved is wasted.

To be able to help someone find God, you first have to find out what they believe they are missing in their life. Do not assume anything about them, and to get them to open up to you, you need to relate to them. People who are not spiritual will not relate to someone who can’t talk in their language or who spiritualizes everything they say.

The best salesman in the Bible was that Jewish tentmaker from Tarsus, Shaul (Paul) because he was willing to relate to everyone on their level:

1 Corinthians 19: 19-23 (CJB):  For although I am a free man, not bound to do anyone’s bidding, I have made myself a slave to all in order to win as many people as possible. That is, with Jews, what I did was put myself in the position of a Jew, in order to win Jews. With people in subjection to a legalistic perversion of the Torah, I put myself in the position of someone under such legalism, in order to win those under this legalism, even though I myself am not in subjection to a legalistic perversion of the Torah.  With those who live outside the framework of Torah, I put myself in the position of someone outside the Torah in order to win those outside the Torah — although I myself am not outside the framework of God’s Torah but within the framework of Torah as upheld by the Messiah.  With the “weak” I became “weak,” in order to win the “weak.” With all kinds of people I have become all kinds of things, so that in all kinds of circumstances I might save at least some of them.

Shaul knew that in order for people to listen to him, they needed to trust what he says as true, and in order to get them to trust what he says, they need to trust him. And that comes from bonding, one person to another. They can have respect for his knowledge or because he was a Pharisee, or even just because he suffered so much for his belief. All of that is helpful, but it won’t get anyone to change their mind.

If you want to help people find God, you first have to let them find you, trust you, and bond with you, and the best way to do that is to ask them about themselves, shut up and listen.

When I taught people how to sell, I told them two things:

1. People don’t mean what they say, they mean what they do; and
2. When you ask the right questions and listen to their answers, they will tell you how to close them.

With regard to missionary work, this means asking them what they feel they are missing in their life, what they want, and how they think they can get it. Then once you know what they think they want, you can begin to show them how, in YOUR life, God has supplied these things for you. And don’t worry if they want something you never did- you can always find a relatable subject because most everyone wants the same basic things: love, appreciation, and security. This is why you need to know psychology because basic wants and needs are part of Maslow’s work about Self-Actualization.

I could give extended teaching on this subject but have done enough for the moment. Maybe too much, since everyone has a limited attention span. You might have noticed that most of my messages run 6-8 minutes, which is because after 10 minutes or so people zone out.

So, if you want to be able to talk about God to anyone, start by asking them questions. You will save more souls with careful listening than you ever will with enthusiastic preaching.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with others, Also don’t forget to subscribe. I also welcome any and all comments.

If anyone would like me to expand on this subject and make it a teaching series, let me know.

Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

God Denies Original Sin Exists

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Before we can start this discussion, we should make sure we all know what the term “Original Sin” means.

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

There are many different definitions, and I found that Wikipedia did the best job. Here is what they say:

Original sin, also called ancestral sin, is a Christian belief in a state of sin in which humanity has existed since the fall of man, stemming from Adam and Eve’s rebellion in Eden, namely the sin of disobedience in consuming the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Theologians have characterized this condition in many ways, seeing it as ranging from something as insignificant as a slight deficiency, or a tendency toward sin yet without collective guilt, referred to as a “sin nature”, to something as drastic as total depravity or automatic guilt of all humans through collective guilt.
Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon first alluded to the concept of original sin in the 2nd century in his controversy with certain dualist Gnostics. Other church fathers such as Augustine (354-430) also shaped and developed the doctrine, seeing it as based on the New Testament teaching of Paul the Apostle (Romans 5:12–21) and 1 Corinthians (15:21-22) and the Old Testament verse of Psalms 51:5.

That’s a mouthful, or for those watching the video, an eyeful, but it is pretty good, overall, in identifying what we all knew already, which is that “Original Sin” is a Christian doctrine.

But wait a minute! Are you saying that Jews do not believe in original sin?  How can that be, if David in Psalm 51 says we are all shaped in iniquity, and that his mother conceived him in sin?

In fact, within Judaism – Talmudic Judaism, that is – there is a condition called the Yetzer Hara, which is an evil inclination and we are all born with it. It drives us to selfishness and material desires, which will (unchecked) lead us to do evil. The Yetzer Hatov, the good inclination, comes to us when we are about 13 years of age and it controls the Yetzer Hara. In Freudian language, the Yetzer Hara is like the Id, and the Yetzer Hatov is like the Ego.

The main difference between the Jewish view and the Christian view is that Judaism says we are born with the potential to become a sinner, and Christianity says we are born sinners, already, because of the “fall”.

Well, what does God say?

It seems that God agrees that the sins which our parents perform will also fall on our children because in Exodus 20:5 God says this:

You shall not bow down yourself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

So it appears, at first glance, that God is going to make the children suffer for the sins of their parents. This fits in with the Christian idea of original sin, but not really with the Jewish Yetzer Hara, so did the Rabbis get it wrong?

But (again) wait a minute!  Look at what God says in Ezekiel 18:1-4:

The Lord’s word came to me:  What do you mean by this proverb of yours about the land of Israel: “When parents eat unripe grapes, the children’s teeth suffer”?  As surely as I live, says the Lord God, no longer will you use this proverb in Israel!  All lives are mine; the life of the parent and the life of the child belong to me. Only the one who sins will die.

So the Rabbis were right when they said we are born with the desire to sin, but not already in sin. But now what happens to original sin? I mean, when God told this to Ezekiel, that was sometime between 590 and 571 BCE. That was something like 800 years before Augustine said we all are born sinners because of the sin of Adam and Eve.

And what about what God says in the Second Commandment?

The main conflict seems to be between what God tells Moses, i.e. that he will cause the children to suffer the sins of the fathers to the third and fourth generation, and what God tells Ezekiel, which is that the children won’t suffer for the parent’s sins.

What happened? Did God change his mind?

No, God didn’t change his mind; the conflict isn’t with God, it is within our understanding of what God meant when he gave the second commandment to Moses.

Let’s look closer at what God said about the children suffering: he said that the iniquity (sin) of the fathers will be visited on the children “…of them that hate me.” In other words, if the children follow the parent’s rejection of God, worshipping other gods and disobeying the Torah, then God will visit on them the same punishment that he visited on their parents. The rest of that verse states that God will be merciful to the thousandth generation of them that love him. The real meaning is that those who hate God and teach their children to do so will cause their children to suffer the same punishment they do for 3-4 generations, but those that worship God correctly and teach their children to do so will be rewarded for a thousand generations.

Now we can see that these two verses (Exodus and Ezekiel), which seem to contradict each other, are actually saying the same thing. If you do the bad things your parents did, you will get the same punishment they did, but if you follow righteousness, whether or not your parents were righteous won’t matter because each person will be held accountable only for what they do, themselves.

I think the Rabbis got it right in the Talmud when they say we are all born with the Yetzer Hara, which the Bible calls “iniquity”, which can overcome with the Yetzer Hatov.

As for the Christian belief in original sin, well…God says that doesn’t exist, and if God says it ain’t so, then it ain’t so.

If you have been brought up believing that you are born a sinner and that your infant child has to be baptized because it is already under sin, don’t worry about it. We are all born with the inclination to sin, but we are not born sinners, already. Really, do you think God would send an infant to eternal hell and torture?

I don’t think so.

What we are born with is the desire to sin, but we are not born as a sinner, already. We are not accountable for ourselves until we are old enough to know good from evil, and in both Judaism and Christianity that begins at about 6 years old, when parents (hopefully) start to send their kids to a religious school.

Now that you know the facts about original sin, make sure that you do what is right in God’s eyes, and even more important than that, make sure you teach your children to do what is right, as well.

Children are not held accountable for what their parents do, but if you do not teach your children the right way to live and worship, then you are setting them up to be punished by God.

Thank you for being here; please share these messages with others and subscribe. I always welcome your comments.

Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

 

The Sin Yeshua Refused to Forgive

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Do you recall the story about the adulteress brought before Yeshua? You can find it in John 8:3-11 (CJB):

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

The Torah-teachers and the P’rushim brought in a woman who had been caught committing adultery and made her stand in the center of the group.  Then they said to him, “Rabbi, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery.  Now in our Torah, Moshe commanded that such a woman be stoned to death. What do you say about it?”  They said this to trap him, so that they might have ground for bringing charges against him; but Yeshua bent down and began writing in the dust with his finger.  When they kept questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “The one of you who is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”  Then he bent down and wrote in the dust again.  On hearing this, they began to leave, one by one, the older ones first, until he was left alone, with the woman still there.  Standing up, Yeshua said to her, “Where are they? Has no one condemned you?”  She said, “No one, sir.” Yeshua said, “Neither do I condemn you. Now go, and don’t sin any more.”

When I last read this it occurred to me that there was no forgiveness given for the sin the woman was supposed to have committed. No one should be surprised that this situation was a set-up to disgrace and trap Yeshua; in fact, the Bible story tells us that is exactly what was being done. And the fact that the woman was caught in the act of adultery but the other party to that sin was not there is a clear indication that the whole thing was somewhat shady.

Of course, Yeshua didn’t fall for this trap. We know from what we read in the Gospel accounts that by reason of the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) Yeshua knew what people were thinking, and although we will never know what he wrote in the sand, his actions were designed to show the accusers that he knew exactly what was going on.

I believe the woman was actually committing the sin of adultery, if for no other reason than the fact that it was the Pharisees who brought her before Yeshua. You see, to accuse someone of a crime that was not committed is a violation of the 9th Commandment about not bearing false witness. So, even though their intention was to trap Yeshua, I don’t think that a Pharisee would have violated one of the Big Ten just to trap Yeshua.

For the moment, let’s look past the actions of Yeshua and the men who brought her, and look to the woman. When Yeshua asked her who was there to condemn her, she said no one, but nothing else. She did not confess her sin, she did not ask for forgiveness, neither did she say one word about being falsely accused. If I was brought before someone and falsely accused, the first thing I would have said was that this was a frame-up. But this woman said nothing, and I believe her silence spoke volumes.

When Yeshua said he would not condemn her, he was obeying the Torah. In Deuteronomy 19:15 it says this (JPS Tanakh):

A single witness may not validate against a person any guilt for any offense that may be committed; a case can be valid only on the testimony of two witnesses or more.

Once everyone left, and Yeshua was alone with the woman, no accusation could legally be made against her, so Yeshua obeyed the law and told her to go.

But – and here’s the important part- he never said she was forgiven. In fact, he told her not to sin anymore. That statement (to me) clearly shows that she did sin, he knew she sinned, but since she never confessed her sin or asked for forgiveness, he didn’t give it. In my opinion, I think the woman had no intention of stopping her adulteress ways, which is why Yeshua warned her not to sin anymore.

In other words, she got off on a legal technicality and the judge told her she might not be so lucky the next time.

You might be thinking, “OK, so this is interesting, but what does it have to do with me?”

Everything! The lesson we learn from this story is that even though forgiveness is available to us, we must confess our sin and ask for that forgiveness. And if the confession is not a truly repentant one, God will not be fooled because he knows your heart and what is in your mind.

If you have been taught that because Yeshua died for your sins they are automatically forgiven, you have been taught a lie. No sin is automatically forgiven. Ever. We must first and foremost feel repentance: if you really aren’t sorry for the sin you committed, there is no chance of being forgiven. Next, your repentant attitude should cause you to confess your sin before God, which will then put you in a position to ask for forgiveness, which now, since the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, can only be given by means of the sacrifice which Yeshua made on our part.

Even though Yeshua did forgive some people’s sins when he was performing his ministry, he is the Messiah, the Intercessor for all of us, and after his sacrifice, it is now only God who can forgive sin. Yeshua provided the means for forgiveness, but he is not the one who forgives anymore. Only after we accept Yeshua as our Messiah, repent, confess and ask God for forgiveness in Yeshua’s name, will we be able to receive forgiveness of sin.

And we need to repent, confess and ask forgiveness for each and every time we sin.

The “Once saved, always saved” policy is something some person created, and it is not a policy that God recognizes.

Thank you for being here and please don’t forget to subscribe. Share this ministry with others and I always welcome your comments.

Until next time, L’hitraot, Baruch HaShem…and don’t forget to wash your hands!

Those With Faith Have No Fear and Those With Fear Have No Faith

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Do you think that fear is the lack of courage or is courage the lack of fear? I have always heard, and agree, that courage is when we overcome our fear.

Fear is an instinct, it is designed to help us survive, but when we let our fear rule us that is when we have lost ourselves to the enemy.

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

The enemy of God uses fear: fear of loss is the strongest of all fears, but there is also fear of pain, fear of death, fear of loneliness, fear of success, and there is even fear of being afraid. When your fears are controlling you, they are called phobias.

Courage is how we overcome the basic and instinctive fears that we have. There are different ways that people can find courage, and I believe the best way is through faith in God.

Humans want to be in control of themselves and what happens in their life, and I think when people don’t believe in God or believe he exists but they don’t think it is important to follow his instructions, they believe that way because they don’t want to cede control to him. They fear losing control and that fear is why they have no faith.

I also know people who say they believe in God and are faithful but go through life afraid of everything. They won’t drive on the highway, they won’t take a plane ride, and they won’t try to improve their condition or even try to do something different. These people are afraid of living.

And yet, they believe they are in control. Oy!

The Bible is rife with verses that should encourage us, meaning to literally put courage into us. Verses such as these:

Psalm 32:8…I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.

Romans 8:31…What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

Joshua 1:9…Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.

Psalm 23:4…Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

Psalm 27:1…The LORD is my light and my salvation— whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life— of whom shall I be afraid?

And this is just a small sampling.

To place our faith in God means, more than anything else, to accept his sovereignty and to trust him to always take care of us. That doesn’t mean we will never have tsouris in our lives: we need to have trials and tribulations because gold is only made pure after going through the fire. We can be anxious and even afraid of the suffering, but we must not be ruled by that fear. Again, fear is normal and we cannot help but feel it. That doesn’t mean we should be afraid of the fear or allow it to rule us: we gain the courage to overcome and control our fear through our through faith in God, knowing that even as we suffer he is working towards reducing or relieving that suffering.

Suffering, loss, and emotional trauma can, and often does, overwhelm people; we can find the strength to survive from our steadfast knowledge and faith in God, believing absolutely that he is always there to prevent our destruction.

Faith is not something that God will give us, and the kind of faith that comes from some miraculous event is fleeting, and (I believe) dangerous because a faith that is the result of a miracle is a faith that could be turned to Satan, who is capable of performing miracles. In fact, aren’t we told in Revelation that the prophets of Satan will perform many miracles and that many will be turned from the true faith?

Faith is a choice; it is a conscious decision to believe. It isn’t something we can see or feel (Hebrews 11:1), and our faith is strengthened when we follow the instructions God gave us in the Torah (James 2:14.)

When we choose to cede control of our lives to God and faithfully trust God to always take care of us, no matter what, we can be confident and encouraged because, well… who can beat up God?

(I just thought about something: when I said to “faithfully trust”, that’s actually redundant, isn’t it?)

Too many people today put their faith in technology or in someone in politics, or even in a sports figure or a newspaper. They trust quickly in what they hear and what they see, not thinking for a moment how easily those senses can be fooled.

Trust in God, choose to believe in what you will (probably) never see in this lifetime, and stick to that faith no matter what anyone else tells you. When you trust in God and demonstrate that trust through following his instructions, you will be given confirmation that your faith is well-founded.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe and share these messages with others. Check out the books I have written (available on Amazon or through my website) as well as some of the videos in my Picture Album of my vacations and other events in my life.

Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!