SHEMA!
Shevat/Adar
1 5768 February
2008
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MA CHADASH? WHAT’S NEW?
Hebrew Classes
We are offering a 14-week Hebrew class for beginners on Saturdays,
beginning March 1 and ending May 31. The classes
start at 9:15 a.m. and end at 10:15 a.m. The cost
for the course is $100.00 for those who are not
part of the synagogue. Children 10 years old and
older can take the course. There will be a 50
percent discount for each additional member of
a family who registers for the course. To register,
make your check payable to “Congregation Shema
Yisrael” and indicate that it is for the Hebrew
class. Please include your name, address, phone
number and email address.
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TODAH RABAH! THANKS VERY MUCH!
Here at Shema we teach generous, cheerful giving, not giving
grudgingly or because we feel forced to give,
because the Lord loves a cheerful giver. We recommend
- we don’t demand, we only suggest - that 10 percent
is a reasonable amount to try and give if we are
able to do so, as so many have done before us.
All the tithe of the land, of the seed of the
land or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's;
it is holy to the Lord (Leviticus 27:30).
Messiah rebuked some Pharisees with these words:
Woe to you Pharisees! For you pay tithe of
mint and rue and every kind of garden herb, and
yet disregard justice and the love of God; but
these are the things you should have done without
neglecting the others (Luke 11:42). We
thank the God of Israel for those of you who give
generously to support your New Covenant Community
and also give to help the efforts of Shema.
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My Letter To The Editor Of The Messianic Times
Even though I have spoken out against errors that have gained
a foothold within the Messianic Jewish movement,
and have paid a price, I intend to continue speaking
for the truth. I will not be silent when there
is danger to Messiah’s precious and holy community,
which is the pillar of the truth. Accurately
interpreting the Word of God so that solid doctrine
and good theology are embraced is essential to
the well-being of God’s people. Ignoring false
teachings is terribly detrimental. If you
care for the Messianic Jewish movement, I ask
you, the friends and supporters of Shema, to be
my Aarons and Hurs and hold up my hands, and pray
with me and for me in this battle. Pray with me
that in 2008, old friends (but now theological
adversaries, about whom you will read in this
month’s article), Stuart Dauermann and Mark Kinzer
and their wing of the movement, receive some much
needed correction. I wrote a short letter to the
editor that was published in the recent edition
of The Messianic Times. This is the complete
version of that letter to the editor, responding
to Stuart Dauermann’s paper presented at the Borough
Park symposium.
Letter To The Editor
Most of us who, for any length of time, have been involved
in Messianic Judaism, know there are serious divisions
within the Messianic Jewish movement. A meeting
of Messianic Jewish leaders, convened by Chosen
People Ministries, which recently took place in
New York, exposed some of these divisions. I think
one of the purposes of the Borough Park Symposium
was to help unify the movement by the exchange
of ideas. Various people presented papers which
were followed by discussion. After starting to
read some of those papers, my conclusion is that
the symposium will not bring greater unity to
our fractured movement. But, it did help clarify
the reasons for some of our divisions, and it’s
a positive outcome when serious error is exposed
so that it can be corrected and those who are
teaching it can be removed from places of influence.
This response is limited to Stuart Dauermann’s paper because
Stuart remains an influential leader in our movement,
and because his ideas represent those of others.
For this symposium Stuart was asked to present
a paper on the topic, “What is the Gospel?” (This
paper is available online at www.boroughparksymposium.com.)
It is a simple, direct question that deserved
a simple, direct answer. Why? The Good News reveals
much about who God is. The Good News is central
to what God is doing and what we are to be about.
We must know what the Good News is.
What is the Good News? It is the simple message that the
Seed of the Woman, the long-expected Redeemer,
the One who is truly called Immanuel, who is fully
God and fully man, came to save mankind which
is dead in trespasses and sins! By means of His
incarnation, sinless life, death, burial and resurrection,
He has made salvation possible for Jews and Gentiles
who hear this Good News and believe it. This is
the simple Gospel. Every one of our children should
know this before they become a Bar Mitzvah. When
a rabbi no longer is able to articulate this,
but instead minimizes it, confuses it, undermines
it, or adds to it, something is seriously wrong.
In answer to this simple question Stuart presented a 48-page
paper which revealed some of the reasons for the
serious divisions within our movement. I would
like to comment on Stuart’s paper and then make
some recommendations.
Stuart refuses to give a clear simple definition of the Good
News. In fact, he advises us against having a
simple definition of the Gospel. He claims that
most of us are confused about the Gospel, particularly
the Evangelical Church and Jewish Missions. “Conditioned
by evangelicalism and Post-Enlightenment conceits,
we may at first think that defining the gospel
is a straightforward matter, and simple, really
... I advise against this approach! The gospel
should not and cannot really be defined in the
same manner as other terms” (p. 22). In fact,
he claims that “it is and always will be more
than we can grasp and define” (p. 23). When describing
the Gospel, he says it is “fundamentally a report
we have received and which we pass on, an authoritative,
empowered, but always fragmentary report
concerning God’s saving intervention in Jesus
Christ” (pp. 22-23; emphasis mine).
Stuart distorted the Gospel in other ways. He claims that
we can’t know who will be saved and who will be
lost (p. 38). Pleading humility and agnosticism
on the issue of the salvation status of Yeshua-rejecting
Jews, Stuart writes: “I must demur, especially
in the case of God’s chosen people, whom he hardened
for his purpose, but who remain beloved for the
sake of the fathers. The full outworking of the
drama of the Jews and the Holy One is obscured
from our view. A cloud of incense obscures our
view of the mercy seat - by divine design” (p.
37). Why does Stuart want this ambiguity where
none should be tolerated? Being able to determine
who is saved and who is lost is possible for us
to know and is not complicated. John gave
us some simple tests to determine if someone is
saved or lost, Heaven-bound or Hell-bound (see
1 John 2:22-23; 1 John 4:14-15; 1 John 5:9-12).
According to these clear and simple tests,
the various non-Messianic Judaisms and their adherents
fail.
He distorted the Gospel by minimizing the need for “individual
soul salvation” (p. 10) and a “one-by-one gospel”
(p. 9). He minimizes the need for individuals
to hear and then accept the Good News for salvation
(see Romans 10:8-16). He claims that the Good
News must be good news for all Israel (the collective),
and if it isn’t, it somehow isn’t valid or worthy
or properly understood. He makes the absurd statement
that unless the Good News is good news for all
of Israel, it can’t be good news. This ignores
the truths that not all Israel is Israel, and
that God has always worked through the elect,
the chosen ones among the chosen people, the faithful
remnant (see Romans 9:6-7).
He claims that Gospel-rejecting Judaism is in a different
category from other non-Christian religions -
implying that it is significantly different regarding
salvation than those religions (p. 11).
He minimizes/ignores that the Good News is predicated on
bad news. He says that the news that Jews who
reject Yeshua are lost is “unwelcome” and “oppressive”
(p. 42). But the Good News is based on the truth
that the whole world, including the Jewish people,
is perishing. Those who refuse to acknowledge
the bad news of our lostness, can no longer clearly
declare the good news of the salvation provided
by Yeshua (see below, 1 in the Notes
- “The Bad News and the Good News”).
He minimizes the reality that people are going to Hell. He
claims that the proclamation about Hell was not
part of the apostolic message. But that is a word-game
and false. The Messiah’s emissaries may not have
always used the word “Hell”, but they always operated
with the knowledge that the world was estranged,
alienated from God and eternal life. If they didn’t
specifically use the word “Hell”, they used other
synonymous concepts for the same reality - being
lost, being in need of salvation, being in need
of a Savior, being dead in trespasses and sins,
the Second Death, the Lake of Fire, etc.
He maximizes the benefits of the good things that God put
within Judaism, minimizing the rejection/disobedience/punishment
aspects for failure/rejection/unbelief. He states
that “along with Mark Kinzer, I believe Judaism
to be (sic) a house still inhabited by Yeshua
even though he is yet to be recognized and explicitly
honored by the majority of those living there”
(p. 12, footnote). Stuart is guilty of trying
to justify a Gospel-rejecting Judaism, a Yeshua-rejecting
righteousness that does not submit to the righteousness
of God (Romans 10:3). This deadly theological
mixture of truth and error will not save our people.
It will only falsely assure our people that they
are OK, and keep them away from faith in the Messiah
who alone can save them.
He challenges those who declare the emptiness and inadequacy
of Jewish religious practice and faith (p. 28),
who proclaim the “futility, vacuity and impotence
of the Jewish way of life” (p. 29). He challenges
those who believe that those Jewish people who
reject the Messiah, who refuse to love Him and
follow Him, are not fundamentally spiritually
lost (p. 8). He accuses those of us who are trying
to declare the truths about the inadequacies of
non-Messianic Judaism of being hostile to our
people. “Most of us are well practiced in bashing
Jews and Judaism”. But, those of us who tell our
people that non-Messianic faith is inadequate
to attain that which is most important - salvation
- should not be criticized any more than the prophets
and Messiah and apostles who loved our people
enough to tell us the truth. It is the false
prophets who didn’t tell us the truth about our
sinful condition, but told us pleasant lies -
that all was well with us when things were not
well.
He maximizes his desire to be accepted by the non-believing
majority and minimizes the inherent offense of
the Gospel. He doesn’t want to offend the majority
of our people with the message that the One who
is despised and rejected must be loved and accepted
in order for us to be saved. There is no encouragement
for us to pick up our cross and boldly proclaim
the truth, shouting from the housetops to our
people the truths that Messiah has whispered to
us. He does not encourage us to have the willingness
to go outside the camp bearing Messiah’s reproach.
He calls us back to covenant faithfulness to the Sinai Covenant,
not acknowledging that it is a broken covenant.
He considers the Sinai covenant as being fully
in force (p. 41). He calls us to covenant-faithfulness
based on Torah-observance (“Torah obedience of
all Israel”, p. 45) while ignoring the reality
that the Sinai Covenant is a broken covenant.
This is legalism.
What is Stuart trying to accomplish?
What is his agenda?
Stuart is minimizing the Gospel and maximizing the good that
can come from Yeshua-forsaking Judaism to open
the theological door to the “Wider Hope” - the
teaching that people are saved apart from personal
acceptance of the Gospel. He is trying to create
another Gospel by which the religious Yeshua-rejecting
majority of our people are partakers of the benefits
of salvation.
He wants the Messianic Jewish community, and Jewish Believers,
and the Jewish Missions community to be committed
to Messianic congregations and a Torah-centric
life. This is a goal that I am sympathetic to.
I want to see Messianic Jews relate to the Torah
and the Sinai Covenant - broken though it is (see
below, 2 in the Notes - “Being Pro-Torah”)
- but Stuart is going about it by embracing the
false teaching of legalism.
Stuart wants the non-Messianic Jewish community to perceive
us as being supportive of our people. This is
a goal I agree with. There are many areas of cooperation
and commonality and there are many ways we can
affirm and support our people - but without compromising
the integrity of the Gospel. We should commend
our people when we can and for what we can, and
we should stand by our people - but not at the
expense of minimizing/toning down/compromising
the Gospel and giving a message of false hope
that non-Messianic Judaism will save, or atone
from sin, or bring justification, righteousness,
etc.
So What Do We Do About Those
Who Are Teaching Serious Error?
I hope that all who love the Word of God and sound doctrine
will recognize that these are very serious errors.
There are important theological boundaries we
must stay within. Stuart has transgressed some
of those boundaries.
It is essential to our movement’s well-being that we not
tolerate error or those who teach serious error.
Sound teaching is one of the most valuable things
in the world because it brings good. One of the
most dangerous things is false teaching, because
it is so terribly destructive to human life. Those
who minimize the Gospel, make it complicated or
unclear, water it down, substitute another gospel,
or add other things to the Good News do a disservice
to God, distort the truth, dishonor God and His
Word, confuse the lost, and harm Messiah’s community.
Those who do these things are seriously confused
and may even be lost. They are certainly not fit
to be teachers who are in the position to influence
others.
Rabbi Paul tells us to judge ourselves - to discern if we
are staying within theological and moral bounds
and if not, take the appropriate action. We must
not be like the rest of our society - overly permissive,
with low standards, afraid to confront, willing
to tolerate that which should not be tolerated,
slowly decaying, slowly being cooked like the
frog in the increasingly hot water that never
jumps out of the pot. We must embrace sound
doctrine and reject false teaching and teachers!
No more tolerance for that which must not be tolerated!
The conveners of the Borough Park Symposium should not have
remained silent when Stuart taught his errors.
Something should have been said at the Symposium
to correct those errors; otherwise, by their silence,
they will be perceived as supporting his errors.
But better late than never. I ask the conveners
of the Borough Park Symposium, because they gave
Stuart a public platform which he abused, to publicly
disavow Stuart’s errors.
I ask other leaders to no longer give Stuart and those
who share his errors a platform to influence others
and spread further confusion within our movement.
If our movement is to be restored to health, so that we can
be all that the Lord wants our precious movement
to be, and enjoy the blessing of God, we need
to cling to sound doctrine - good, wholesome,
solid, reliable, faithful teaching - and reject
that which is bad.
Notes
1. The Bad News and the Good
News
We need to realize that apart from the redemption and salvation
provided by God - by having faith in God, and
offering the appropriate sacrifice, first a temporary
atonement provided by the sacrifices at the Temple
in Jerusalem, and then the ultimate atonement
provided through Messiah Yeshua - the whole world
is going to Hell. And here’s why: at the very
beginning of human history, our first parents
rebelled against God. After being warned not to
eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and
Evil, our first parents rebelled against God.
They sinned and ate from the Forbidden Tree.
They believed the Father of Lies more than they trusted the
word of the Heavenly Father. They sided with the
god of this world rather than the God of Heaven.
By doing so, they joined forces with Satan in
his rebellion. This one sinful rebellious act
enabled Satan, sin, and death to take control
of humanity. The whole world came under the Devil’s
authority. John tells us that the whole world
lies in the power of the wicked one (1 John 5:19).
Human beings in their natural condition are under
the authority of the domain of darkness, that
powerful, evil, demonic kingdom that is in rebellion
against God, and filled with lies, deception,
deceit, chaos, rebellion, and death. They share
Satan’s doom in the Lake of Fire that was prepared
for him and the fallen angels that rebelled with
him.
From the moment that Adam and Eve rebelled against our wonderful
Creator, everything changed. Their sin and rebellion
affected every aspect of their nature. Their body,
their soul, their will, their mind, and their
spirit, had become corrupted. Their orientation
toward God, who is HaMakor - the Source
of Life - changed for the worse. Instead of drawing
nearer to God, Adam and Eve ran away from Him.
They were alienated from Him. Adam and Eve were
exiled from the Garden of Eden, and forbidden
to eat from the Tree of Life. They were headed
toward death - the First Death and the Second
Death - Hell.
The results of what our first parents did were passed on
to all of their descendants like a deadly virus.
That corruption of body, soul, and spirit was
passed on like a horrible degenerative disease
to all of their billions of sons and daughters.
Here is the human condition according to King
David: The Lord has looked down from Heaven (thoroughly
searching with His all-seeing eyes) upon the sons
of men, to see if there are any who understand
(they don’t), and who seek after God (they don’t
seek Him sufficiently). They have all turned aside
(and missed God and salvation). Together they
have become corrupt. There is no one who does
good, not even one.
Human beings are “sons of disobedience” - disobedient children.
By our very nature, by inherent predisposition,
we are disobedient to God. We live according to
this sinful world’s corrupt values, satanically
empowered, indulging the lusts of the flesh and
the lusts of the mind - physical sins and mental
sins - and are by nature children of wrath, deserving
of the righteous wrath and punishment of an infinitely
holy God. Humans beings who are only born once
in this world are mere human beings - flesh -
not spirit. They are of this world, not of the
next. They are perishable - not imperishable.
The entire world of human beings (Jews and Gentiles)
is perishing, decaying, and headed for destruction
like a rotten piece of fruit (John 3:16).
These Truths Apply to the Whole
World - Jews and Gentiles
In Adam, all die. In Messiah, all are made alive. Just as
the Fall affected all men and all men died, all
human beings - Jews and Gentiles - need the God-sent
Savior. All are saved the same way - through the
proclamation of the Good News, the Gospel. The
apostle to the Gentiles affirmed that the Gentiles
are completely lost. They are excluded from the
commonwealth of Israel. They are strangers to
the covenants that contain the promises of salvation
and reconciliation. They have no hope and they
are without God.
The Jewish people are not exempt from the need to embrace
these realities. In fact, the opposite
is true. We are more responsible to believe these
Torah-truths - not less responsible. To whom
much is given, much is required. The more one
knows, the more is expected of him, and the greater
the punishment for failure. We are entrusted with
the Oracles of God, which contain the Messianic
prophecies and all the symbols and signs and principles
that point us to King Messiah. In our Torah, we
were specifically warned not to reject the great
Prophet who would come, who would be like Moses
(Deuteronomy 18:15-19); if we did, God would hold
us responsible and would severely punish us. When
Messiah came, He came to us. He was one of us.
He did His great miracles and gave His exalted
teachings to us!
The Son of God, who is always right and can’t be wrong, said
to Jewish people who were immersed in Judaism
that, now that He had come into the world, He
was the Way - which means that there is no other
way. Non-Messianic Judaism is not the way. Can
Islam provide the Way? Buddhism? Being a good
person? The answer is, categorically, no! Yeshua,
who cannot lie, said that He is the Truth - which
means that there is not enough truth to save you
anywhere else. Having a zeal for God, but not
having the knowledge of the truth about Yeshua,
and the righteousness that believing in Him provides,
is not enough. It leads to Hell. Israel has pursued
righteousness the wrong way, and stumbled over
the Stumbling Stone, by not placing their faith
in Messiah (Romans 9:31-33). Yeshua, who is never
wrong, said that He is the Life, which means that
apart from Him you will not live forever with
God. Yeshua, who is infallible, said that apart
from placing faith in Him, no man could get to
the Father (John 14:6).
Yeshua said to a group of Jewish leaders (men who believed
in God, who knew the Torah, who went to the Temple
in Jerusalem and offered sacrifices), “Unless
you believe that I am He, you shall die in your
sins” (John 8:24). And if the Chosen People who
reject Yeshua are lost, where does that leave
followers of the non-Bible-based religions like
the Buddhists, Muslims, or Hindus; those who have
embraced erroneous ideologies like secular humanism?
Simon Peter stood before the Sanhedrin and declared to the
leading priests, scholars, and rabbis of Israel
that there is salvation nowhere and in no one
other than Yeshua of Nazareth (Acts 4:12). It
doesn’t get much clearer than that! Judaism apart
from Yeshua can’t save anyone.
Paul, perhaps the greatest theologian of all time (apart
from Messiah Yeshua), made it crystal clear that
if during our earthly life we personally confess
with our mouth that Yeshua is Lord, and believe
in our heart that God raised Him from the dead,
we will be saved. But, the inverse truth is equally
clear: if during the earthly phase of our life
we don’t confess with our mouth and believe in
our heart, we will be lost. The rabbi from Tarsus
had great sorrow and unceasing grief in his heart,
because he knew the lost state of his beloved
Jewish people who didn’t believe in the Messiah
that God sent and commands us to believe in.
Non-Messianic Jewish people are lost. The Jewish people are
without Temple, without sacrifice, basing their
religion on a broken covenant that cannot save.
Non-Messianic Jews have been broken off from the
Olive Tree of Salvation and Blessing.
We Can’t Save Ourselves from
Hell
Not only is the whole world alienated from God, utterly lost,
unsaved, unrighteous, under the authority of Satan,
without hope, and headed to Hell, but we are completely
incapable of changing this situation on our own.
Just as we are incapable of saving ourselves from
the First Death, we are totally incapable of saving
ourselves from the Second Death. Sin has so alienated
us from God, and so corrupted our nature, that
we are in a state of spiritual death. We are dead
in our trespasses and sins. Dead people are incapable
of giving themselves life!
Salvation cannot come from anything
having to do with human effort or how good a person
one is. We can never be good enough, or righteous
enough, or religious enough. There are not enough
good things that we can do, not enough money we
can give, not enough mitzahs we can fulfill, nor
merit that we can earn that will enable us to
avoid the Lake of Fire. Salvation from sin, death,
Satan, and Hell, and restoration to God and life
cannot be accomplished by man. All human efforts
will prove inadequate. We can’t redeem ourselves.
We can’t restore ourselves to God, no matter how
hard we try.
Only
God Can Save Us
But what we are utterly incapable of doing, God is completely
capable of accomplishing! God had a plan to make
salvation from Hell possible. As soon as Adam
and Eve sinned, the Lord provided a substitute,
an innocent animal whose life was sacrificed and
whose blood was shed. Those who had faith in the
one true God, and offered a sacrifice, could be
forgiven. Centuries later, the Lord made covenants
with Israel. If we placed our faith in God and
obeyed His Word, and offered the korbanot - the
sacrifices that enabled us draw close to God -
we could be forgiven. But those sacrifices were
temporary, and were effective only when accompanied
by faith, and only until the Final and Perfect
Sacrifice came - the Lamb of God, the sacrificed
Messiah, who is able to fully take away the sins
of Israel and the entire world.
God the Father sent the eternal, self-existing Son of God,
who was with the Father, from Heaven to Earth,
and He became a man. He allowed Himself to be
whipped, beaten, spit on, humiliated, stripped
naked and crucified! By dying in our place, by
bearing our sins on the cross, by satisfying all
the claims which a holy God had against us, by
taking on Himself the curse for breaking God’s
laws, by becoming the ultimate sin-offering, He
has dealt with the problem of sin fully and eternally.
Because of the Son of God’s ultimate sacrifice and the perfect
atonement He accomplished on the cross, God’s
ability to forgive all of our sins is infinite
and perfectly complete. Because of His one, perfect,
final, and complete sacrifice, whoever believes
in Yeshua has forgiveness for all his sins. Not
one of our rebellious acts is left that will be
held against us, that will drag us down to Hell!
When we draw near to God by
drawing near to Yeshua, we are delivered from
the domain of darkness, and transferred to the
Kingdom of His beloved Son. We are delivered from
these dark, demonic, deceiving powers. We are
removed from under the authority of the god of
this world, and given a new citizenship, in a
new kingdom, under a new authority. We no longer
share the Devil’s final destination.
When we draw near to God by drawing near to Yeshua, our old
sinful, willful, God-independent nature, predisposed
to rebel, starts losing its power. We are no longer
dominated by the old human nature that was hostile
to God, but we are in the Spirit - led to do the
will and the deeds of God’s Holy Spirit.
When we are born again, we are given new life, a new heart,
and a new mind that are compatible with a holy
God, and a new nature that wants to serve Him,
and not rebel against Him. Instead of being children
of wrath, children of disobedience, we become
the children of God - the Almighty’s very own
beloved sons and daughters! Without being born
again, we can’t enter the Kingdom of God; we will
wind up in Hell. But with Messiah’s spiritual
rebirth, we will experience eternal life in God’s
Kingdom.
We draw near to God by coming to know that Yeshua is the
Son of God, the Savior, who came into this world,
and died, and rose again. When we consciously
place our faith in Him, and believe in Him, and
trust in Him, we identify with Him. We are immersed
into Him. We become bone of Messiah’s bone, flesh
of Messiah’s flesh. We are in Messiah, and Messiah
is in us, and God the Father is in Messiah Yeshua.
We are in the heart of Yeshua, who is in the heart
of the Father. We have the incredible privilege
of being joined to Him in whom dwells all the
fullness of God! The Father sees us joined to
Messiah and sees His dearly beloved Son! The Father
sees us joined to Messiah, and behold, we are
whiter than snow! The Father sees us joined to
Messiah and He sees all the beauty and grace and
righteousness of the Lord Yeshua. The Father sees
us joined to Messiah and declares that we are
righteous.
The various Non-Messianic
Judaisms cannot accomplish these good things connected
to salvation; only a Judaism that embraces personal
faith in the Messiah can.
2.
Being Pro-Torah
While it is clear that nobody (Jewish or otherwise) can be
saved by the works of the Law, and that the Covenant
upon which much of the Torah is based is a broken
covenant (there is no Temple and therefore no
sacrifices by which we may draw near to God and
obtain eternal life), nevertheless the Older Covenant
mediated by Moses and its laws are extremely valuable.
The Torah guides the life of the Jewish people.
It teaches us the right things to do and gives
us a good way to live. It helps us live an authentic
Jewish lifestyle. It keeps us from assimilation
and helps us remain part of the Holy People. In
fact, Paul commands Messianic Jews to not become
uncircumcised (1 Corinthians 7:18), which means
not to seek assimilation into the prevailing Gentile
culture, but to continue their Jewish way of life.
The early Messianic Jews had a favorable view
of the Law, and many were zealous to live in accordance
with it (see Acts 21:20-26). We know from history
that Messianic Jews continued to live a distinctly
Jewish, Torah-based lifestyle for centuries after
the time of Yeshua. Assimilation is a major problem
for Messianic Jews, and history reveals that Messianic
Jewish families who don’t live a Jewish lifestyle
will almost always assimilate and lose their Jewish
identity within a few generations.
There is no incompatibility between being “zealous for
the Torah” and being a Messianic Jew. I am
pro-Torah, while recognizing that the Covenant
made at Sinai is a broken covenant. I am pro-Torah,
since all Scripture is “Torah” (literally, “teaching”
or “instruction”). I am pro-Torah, recognizing
that all Believers are in some sense to fulfill
the Law (Romans 8:4), but not all of us are obligated
to fulfill the same requirements of the Law (for
example, Gentiles need not be circumcised). I
am pro-Torah, recognizing that Messiah returned
us to the Torah’s original intent regarding issues
such as a man being married to only one woman.
I am pro-Torah, accepting the fact that Messianic
Jews who choose not to keep every aspect of the
Law, particularly the ceremonial laws, will not
lose their salvation. My personal experience is
that I have become more observant over time, but
it was a process for me that took years. Therefore
I encourage Messianic Jews to identify with and
embrace their Jewish heritage, which in large
part is based on the Torah; and I encourage Messianic
Jews to be gracious to each other regarding others’
level of Torah observance.
Shalom!
Rabbi Loren
SHEMA!
(Hear!)
is the newsletter of
Congregation Shema Yisrael
P.O. Box 804 Southfield MI 48037
Phone: 248-593-5150
Email: Shema777@aol.com
Website: www.shema.com
Services: Saturday 10:30 a.m.
Wednesday 7:00 p.m.
at the facilities of Bloomfield Hills Baptist
Church
3600 Telegraph Road in Bloomfield Hills
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