in Acts 21 because he
really had developed an anti-Jewish mindset toward his heritage--to teach such a lie--is
heresy. There are people who don't understand Jewish ministry and teach this lie, which
would mean that Paul's martyrdom in Rome all happened as a result of hypocritically play-acting
the role of a Jew in the Beis Hamikdash (Temple) in Jerusalem. There are people who don't
understand Paul. They think he had already decided that these Jewish identity markers were of negligible value for the sustenance
and survival of the Jewish people as a people and therefore forbidden to messianic
Jewish believers. Any teacher who sets forth such a "Pauline" doctrine is teaching false
doctrine and has forgotten Rav Shaul's warning in Ro 11:18. When one discusses the Torah,
there is more to talk about than legal justification.
If a Messianic Jew is law-free in terms of legal justification, does this mean that the Torah should have no other place
in the life of a Messianic Jew? Rom 7:4-6 and Gal 2:19 cannot be used to rob the
Torah of its G-d-ordained Jewish peoplehood-sustaining function. Goyim who have no interest in seeing Jewish people remain Jewish are shortsighted in
trying to abolish the Shlichus to the Jews in Gal 2:7. Gentiles are equally shortsighted in
denying Jewish believers the right to build messianic synagogues with Torah services since, if
Jewish people without messianic synagogues do not survive assimilation, then the promise of Romans chp 11
cannot be fulfilled, because the Deliverer will not have any surviving Jews left to receive the Ro 11:25-27 deliverance. Why did G-d have a Shlichus to the
Jews and another Shlichus to the non-Jews if G-d wanted all Jews to assimilate and live and identify as non-Jews?
Go back and look at Gal 2:7-9 again. We are not rebuilding the middle wall of partition. G-d wants the Jewish people
to survive as a people. This is what we teach at our school. Non-Jews who love the Jewish people understand this teaching. The wild branches are not to boast against the natural ones. The Romans were developing a contempt for
the Jewish people and the
Corinthians wanted to pretend that the faith started from them, but Rav Shaul reminds them that salvation is
of the Jews. Many latently anti-Semitic westerners, evangelistic sluggards when it comes to Jewish people, refuse to admit that the hard center of our faith is Spirit-filled
Judaism. True, Rav
Shaul preached the Besuras HaGeulah and not the bris milah (Ga 5:11). This was true for two reasons. He was sent to Goyim, number
one. And secondly taking the yoke of 613
mitzvos via the bris milah and for the sake of salvation through legal
justification was a dead-end street, meaning the person thus deceived has fallen
from grace (Ga 5:4) and has
come to see that Moshiach died for nothing (see Ga 2:21). However, as an
identity marker the bris milah was given to Timothy whose mother was Jewish (Ac 16:3), disproving the rumor
about Rav Shaul denying to the Jewish People these Jewish identity markers (Ac 21:21). Kashrut is not at
issue in Rav Shaul's presentation of the Besuras HaGeulah in Romans, since
sectarian abstinence from meat and wine (Ro 14:21) was not halakhah in
the sect (Ac 24:14)of Judaism
known as HaDerech to which Rav Shaul submitted his preaching. In Ro chapter 14 Paul chooses vegetarianism, a
non-issue for Torah-observant messianic Jews, so that he can create a point of
common ground to bring Jews and non-Jews to agreement on matters of Kehillah
social ethnics. Notice here that it is not the Torah-observant messianic Jew
that Paul places in the spotlight of contention. No, it is the messianic
vegetarian, and not just any messianic vegetarian, but one who is perilously
weak in justifying faith (Ro
5:1) and who needs loving and sensitive handling by both the other messianic
Jewish and non-Jewish believers. So this is Paul's carefully laid out test case
for his ethics exposition. Remember, his Shlichus is to the non-Jews (Ga 2:9) and he has no interest
in coaxing Torah observant messianic Jews away from Shul on Shabbos--this was
where Rav Shaul himself, if undeterred, was in attendance preaching! Rather
Moshiach appointed Rav Shaul to build up non-Jews in the Messianic faith, and
this means also that some messianic Torah observant Jews needed building up
because they were weak in justifying faith (Ro 5:1) in "believing" (Ro 15:13) that Moshiach is the
Mesharet Bnei HaMilah (Ro
15:8), just as some uncircumcised were weak in justifying faith (Ro 5:1) in terms of "the
righteousness of faith that Abraham had in his uncircumcision" (Ro 4:11). See Ro 9:1-5 for Rav Shaul's high
view of the value of his Jewish heritage, for from this source came his Moshiach, the Goel Redeemer of the Jewish People. As a
religious Jew, Rav Shaul was familiar with Lev 15:16 in the Torah,
that an impure person must immerse himself in a Mikveh, but when he came to faith in
the Moshiach Adoneinu, he did not do the Mikveh immersion (Ac 9:18) as a mitzvah earning him
merit, because he knew himself to be under grace, and he gives these warnings
in Galatians 5:4 and Romans 11:20-23 against anyone who would use the Jewish religion
or any religious act as a way to earn merit for salvation, for if salvation came through meritorious
mitzvahs rather than faith in the Goel Redeemer then Moshiach died for nothing. See also the warnings in MJ 3:12; 10:26-29; 2K 2:20-21 and Yn 15:6. Nevertheless, Rav Shaul worshiped in a Messianic Jewish community wherein the Mikveh
and the rest of his Jewish faith were used in the Ruach Hakodesh to praise the saving grace of Moshiach the Zoon
Foon Der Oybershter, though not as mitzvahs to gain merit toward salvation. Anyone who quotes Gal. 4:8-10, Col.2:16-17, or
Romans 14:5-6 to prove that the Jewish festivals
are forbidden to Jewish believers in Yeshua is
reading the Bible entirely out of context. Paul
is not addressing these epistles to Jewish believers
who are celebrating these days in the name of Yeshua;
therefore, his words cannot be taken out of context
as criticism of believers who are celebrating these
days in the name of Yeshua. Moreover, in the book
of Acts we see Paul himself hurrying to Jerusalem
to celebrate the festivals. (See p.30 Everything You
Need To Grow A Messianic Yeshiva.)
The 19th Psalm says
that the simple are made wise by the
testimony of Hashem, which testimony is
"sure." In fact,
G-d's Word is called
תמימה
temimah (perfect). (Tehillim 19: 7[8])
This means it is factually without
error. G-d is not the author
of any lie or falsehood or misrepresentation of reality or false witness
to the truth. The Bible is
verbally inspired. This means
that literally every word is breathed out in the very breath of the Ruach Hakodesh and that man
lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of Hashem.
The Bible is the solid rock that will
never pass away. Whatever is in the Bible is just what G-d wanted to be
said and not the mere whim of human will. See 2K 1:21. In the Scriptures are spiritual
words taught by the Ruach Hakodesh to those believers who have the Ruach Hakodesh. See 1C 2:12-16. See 2Ti 3:16 and Mt 5:18.
We have no other written authority. The words of the Hellenistic Jewish Synagogue of
the First Century that comprise the last 27 books and the Hebrew and
Aramaic words that make up the first 39 books are without error in the
original autographs and have been preserved in the extant copies so that
we have the infallible and inerrant authority that is able to make us wise
unto salvation. See 2Ti 3:15.
Blessed is the man
who over G-d's Word does not
stumble. Just as it was
possible for a proud disciple of the Jerusalem rabbis to look at the
Galilean Carpenter and not "read" him but instead despise his lowly
peasant appearance ("There was no special beauty or form to make us notice
him or desire him" Isaiah
53:2), so there are proud readers who see apparent but not actual
discrepancies in the Scripture.
For example, when you are reading Matthew 27:9 you might
think that the text has a mistake until you realize that this is a
composite citation (Jer 18:2-6; 19:1-2,4,6,11; 32:6-15; Zech 11:13) from
Zecharyah and Yirmeyah.
And just as some turned away from the incognito King, Rebbe Melech HaMoshiach, so one's
wicked heart might lead one to turn away from Matthew 27:9, but in both
cases the error is not in what is read but in the
reader.
Blatant disregard for the inerrant Tanakh
will cost the soul of the one making deathbed viddui (confession of sin)
of these words from the Talmud,
"May my death make kaparah for all my sins." rather than
"T’hei mot
haMoshiach kaparah al kol avonotai" "May the death of Moshiach make kaparah for all my sins." If the following six words from the Talmud
תְּהֵא מִיתָתִי כַּפָּרָה עַל כָּל עֲוֹנוֹתָי.
[סנהדרין
פרק ו,ב]
כִּי נִגְזַר מֵאֶרֶץ חַיִּים מִפֶּשַׁע עַמִּי
Let's repeat this so that there can be no confusion or question.
There are two confessions here. Each contains six little words. One Jewish confession is the holy
inspired Word of G-d and one confession is not the inspired Word of G-d.
Confession of the Talmud instead of the Tanakh will cost one his immortal
soul. Here are the words from the Talmud:
"May my death make kaparah for all my sins." Here are
the Words from the inerrant Tanakh: "Kee neegzar may-eretz chayyim
mee-pay-sha amee." So from these inerrant words we confess "T’hei mot haMoshiach kaparah al kol
avonotai," which translates into English: "May the death of Moshiach make kaparah for all my sins."
Now if
תְּהֵא מִיתָתִי כַּפָּרָה עַל כָּל עֲוֹנוֹתָי.
[סנהדרין
פרק ו,ב]
כִּי נִגְזַר מֵאֶרֶץ חַיִּים מִפֶּשַׁע עַמִּי
So we primordially and
perennially, with disastrous consequences for ourselves, forsake the
words of G-d and receive the contradictory words of
HaSatan.
By the time we get to 2 Corinthians chp 11 we
see that Satan wants to corrupt and ruin by means of Bible-opposing
"knowledge," the so-called "deeper things of Satan." Instead of staying
with the Word that was preached, the temptation of the Corinthians was to
"go beyond what was written" and to be seduced by extra-Biblical knowledge
(see Gen 3:5). Notice
that Eve's "Bible" only has seven words in it. The seven words in her "Bible"
warn that death will be the result of her moral autonomy, of her getting her "knowledge" of good and
evil, in other words, from a certain lethal tree rather than from the "Bible" her husband has been
given wherein the meager content of seven words ("oo-meh-ETZ ha-DAH-aht tov va-rah loh toh-KHOHL mee-mehn-NOO" ...of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil you shall not eat from it) will nevertheless tell her
how to live and not die. But in the hands of the evil Serpent this "Bible"
can be twisted and used to deceive her so that she hands herself over to a
rival authority, a
Bible-opposing authority, with fatal results. Anything that rivals and
opposes G-d is an idol, and in the Book of Revelation we see that the
believers will give up
their lives as martyrs rather than compromise with the idolatrous
religion and way of
life of the pagan society of the last days. It is fair to say that one
cannot be a believer unless one repents from all idolatry. Whoever tries to
keep his idolatrous life will lose it.
SEE HOW EASY IT IS TO READ
THROUGH THE BIBLE
HAVE YOU MADE THAT VERY
IMPORTANT FIRST STEP OF OBEDIENCE TO THE MOSHIACH?
DO YOU KNOW THE
DERECH HASHEM [REQUIRES LITERACY IN HEBREW]?
ARE YOU DEPRESSED [THIS IS
IN ENGLISH]?
ARE
YOU JEWISH? HAVE YOU BEEN BORN AGAIN?