Greetings in the love of truth and peace!
Tisha b’Av (the 9th of Av, which is the fifth Hebrew month in the Biblical order) is about over. The Jewish religion has made this day a day of mourning and fasting, almost to a degree greater than that of the Day of Atonements (Yom Ha-Kippurim), commemorating firstly the destruction of the first Temple. The second Temple was also destroyed at the same time, and other tragedies in Jewish history. God is apparently trying to communicate something to His people. The Rabbis say that only the Messiah can change the fast days connected with the destruction of the Temple to days of joy and gladness (Zech 8:18-19). That being so, I think that the anti-christ will do just that, as a proof that he has the privilege and authority of taking the rightful place of the true Messiah, and he will do it without any truth as to the reason for why the temples were destroyed and the other tragedies have occurred. They will celebrate the new building they have built and the restoration of sacrifices they hope will bring cleansing and forgiveness for all their sins. The true Messiah, Yeshua, has changed these days for the Jewish believer (Is 61:1-3) already now, and He will do so for the saved remnant when they know Him for who He truly is.
In the meantime, even as we pray and intercede for our people, we also have a testimony that Messiah has come and has given us joy in our God and His salvation and the newness of life. As an aside, these four fast days were instituted by the Jewish people for themselves, and God recognized them if not commending them. The Jewish people also instituted Purim and Hanukkah, and the Lord recognized them. Why should He not allow the Gentile segment of the Church the same privilege and honor to establish meaningful days/dates to commemorate, whether or not they are always done with the purest of motives? If all Israel is not Israel — and we do not dissociate ourselves from our unbelieving brethren in the flesh — then it is no strange thing that all the Church is not the Church.
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Thank-you, G, for replying.
Your objections are not new to me, and I have had to deal with them over the years. The conclusions I have come to satisfy me completely as a Jew, who believes in the death and resurrection of Messiah, and the New Covenant in His blood — meaning that it is established upon His death, the very thing which the Lord’s Supper reminds us of (1Cor 11:26) The New Testament is written by Israeli Jews, other than Luke and Acts, who received their status and authority by the Lord Yeshua Himself, and through whom the Holy Spirit has given us their teachings grounded in Yeshua’s (Jn 16:12-15; 17:20), and brings in the newness which His resurrection brings believers into (Heb 10:19-23). There is both continuity and discontinuity, and it is all rooted in the one true God and His Word. Our Hebraic roots are found in God’s covenantal promises, which as Jesus testifies, all speak of Him.
I will respond briefly to your points, just enough to help show that the common objections can not be applied dogmatically. My source for anything pertaining to our faith and practice comes from the whole counsel of God — the whole of the Bible — which is both a Tenach/Old Testament and a New Testament requirement (Is 8:20; 66:1-5; Mt 15:1-9; Rev 3:8).
(My responses follow the objection, and begin indented.)
At 12:56 PM 7/28/2009 -0700, G wrote:
1- Peter’s dream that all foods are clean. If you read the entire section, you will notice that Peter was confused. He later realized that the true interpretation was that the gentiles are “clean” and brought into the the vine. The “Kosher” foods are actually health instructions.
Peter may have been confused, given the new thing the Lord was showing him. We probably would have been, too. That Peter did come to understand that the unclean animals he was told three times to kill and eat did not pertain to Gentile people only (he didn’t begin to kill and eat them!), but to the more mundane thing of God breaking down the tremendous social barrier which the Law had set up between Jews and Gentiles because of dietary regulations, is clear from Gal 2:11-14. This event probably occurred after the Jerusalem Council established the guidelines for Gentile participation and equality in the Body of Messiah. Peter, who knew what God had shown him about food and Gentiles, was hypocritical and fearful of those Jewish believers who still had not understood fully how the gospel allows Jewish and Gentile believers to eat the same foods together at the same table, and frees Jewish believers to be sent throughout the world with the gospel to all peoples! Peter accepted this rebuke from Paul, and even commends him and the wisdom he had from God for all of us to pay heed to, despite the difficulties (2Pt 3:14-16).
“Kosher” foods were not given primarily for bodily health, but to distinguish between the unclean and the clean (Lev 11:47). I have no doubt that God’s ‘diet’ to Israel would have been healthy, yet I also have no doubt that the God of the Jews and of the Gentiles did not leave 99.9% of the world eating unhealthily. Foods do need to be properly prepared and cooked, but the New Testament ‘diet’ available to all believers, should we want or ever need, is given in Mk 7:14-20 and 1Tim 4:3b-6. God does not want His people to be in our own character like the unclean animals. The blood of the Lamb has made us ‘kosher’, and He wants us to show it.
2- Paul’s comment about the sabbaths was not for the Sabbath (7th day). Yeshua is Lord of the Sabbath and he never changed it. The sabbaths represented are for the festivals. (e.g., the first and last days are sabbaths).
I don’t know how you can limit Paul’s teachings on the Sabbath to only those which begin and end YHVH’s own ‘festivals’. Those sabbath days were important to Him, as well. It is interesting that in all the accounts in which Yeshua comments on the continuing relevance of the [10] commandments, He does not mention the 7th day Sabbath. He Himself is God’s Sabbath rest, and ours, too. We are to cease from our own works (Heb 4:10), and to do the work of God. While Jesus was alive, He had no reason to change the day, for the day after the Sabbath is “the day that YHVH has made, and we shall rejoice in it”, and it speaks to His resurrection (Ps 118:22-24; Mt 21:38-44). Praise God for the resurrection of Yeshua, for this is to justify those who believe! The Holy Spirit is fulfilling the Word of God — from Moses, the prophets, the Lord Messiah, His apostles — even if people and councils and churches do not realize or recognize it. It is very revealing that all these ‘Jewish concerns’ — Sabbath and food regulations — receive no emphasis in the epistles of the apostles to the circumcision — Peter, John, and James; nor in the letters to the churches representing the whole Body of Messiah throughout the age by the Head of the Church and the King of Israel!
3- The Roman Catholic church which was the church brought about by Constantine. Proposed in 317 AD and accepted by the Council of Nicea in 325 AD. All its rituals are of pagan origin. It also removed the commandment about idols and split another to make ten.
Many of the pagan rituals of the RCC are similar to pagan rituals which Israel herself already did before, and which the prophets rebuked and called them to repentance for centuries (Jer 7:18; Ezek 8; etc). Living in Israel even today places us in the middle of tremendous idolatries and superstitions by the most religious of the people. Nonetheless, just as YHVH God has never let go of His covenant claims upon Israel, despite her gross idolatries, neither has Yeshua/Jesus forsaken His purchase of all who confess Him to be the Christ/Messiah, the Son of God (Mt 16:15-18). We see this clearly in His letters through John to the seven churches, and the Thyatira church does sound very much like the RCC. He is calling us and them to repentance, or else face certain judgment, for He still has authority over all of us, just as He still does over Jewish people and Israel, and is still calling them/her to repentance back to the Father through faith in Him (Lev 26:40-45; Zech 12:10-14; Mt 23:37-39).
4- You must understand Jewish Culture to truly understand the meaing of both the Tenach and B’rit Hadashah. Some of your interpreataions are from the “Christian” hijacking of the Jewishness of the Bible.
I am Jewish, and have always been conscious of my identity and culture. It is not my intention to be ‘hijacked’ by either Judaizers or Hellenizers, for the gospel is neither Jewish nor Greek, but of God in Messiah from Above. No flesh will glory in His presence. But to assume that one must understand Jewish Culture in order to ‘truly understand’ the Bible is arrogant. Do only the learned, the wise, the mighty, and the noble know God and His ways? (1Cor 1:20-25) Has God left most of the world’s inhabitants through most of the centuries who have never known a Jew — and when Israel was not a nation in its own land and culture — ignorant of knowing Him and His ways? Even the prophets and angels did not always know exactly what God was doing and when! The religious leaders of Yeshua’s days and following ridiculed and dismissed the apostles as unlearned and mere Galileans, and thought that Yeshua Himself was only a carpenter’s son who did not sufficiently understand their religion and customs. Learning can be interesting and useful, but it can also become a snare, and there is much which is falsely called ‘knowledge’. (1Tim 6:20-21)
It is also wrong to presume that anything which the ‘Christians’ have interpreted is inadequate to those of us who are Jewish. Does God only reveal truth to and through Jews? Are only Jewish believers able to teach all other believers? This thinking is a recipe for pride and envy, and for even mocking the many great contributions which God has graciously and bountifully blessed the world with through these sons of Abraham by faith, and filled with the same Holy Spirit which He gave first to the Jewish believers. This attitude does not promote the unity and equality of Jewish and Gentile believers in Messiah, and of the one new [corporate] man who is also the Bride of Christ. It is a cause of division and discord amongst the brethren. We Jews have shown that we do not always know what we are talking about, yet, as the natural branches, we should be learning to be merciful to those who have been grafted in contrary to nature. We will be judged more severely. We all have much to learn in knowing God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ whom He sent!
We must all be reconciled to God and to His thoughts and ways. This is sanctification, and the Holy Spirit is thankfully still at work in us to finish what God has begun.
All in all, bless you and all “fighting” for the spread of the Gospel in Israel.
G.M.
Thank-you, and God bless you, too.
Howard