The blessings and dangers in Hebrew Roots

[FollowingHim]

As we realise that we have been taught incorrectly about what the Bible says about marriage, most of us also look into many other matters to find out how else we may have been deceived. For instance,

• Why is every single holy day the church celebrates (Sunday, Christmas, Easter) not in scripture, while there are a pile of holy days in scripture that the church completely ignores?
• Yeshua stated "If you love me, keep my commandments." (John 14:15). Given that He is the Word of YHWH, the one who spoke the Torah as well as the gospels, what are the commandments that He would wish us to keep?

Naturally, in this search, many of us are drawn towards the Hebrew roots of our faith. And this is a very good thing. Even just looking at the Bible from a different perspective like this helps us to learn many things about YHWH.

But some people end up going from orthodox Christianity -> Hebrew roots -> rejecting the Trinity -> rejecting Yeshua's divinity -> rejecting Yeshua as Messiah -> Judaism. This is a very real danger, we have seen people associated with this forum who have gone down this track.

How can something that is fundamentally good - simply seeking to better understand how YHWH would wish us to act - lead people to reject His Messiah?

The first few steps in this chain are entirely reasonable. Hebrew roots is simply an attempt to better serve our Father. The Holy Spirit / Ruach is not clearly stated to be a person in scripture, may be better understood as the power of God, and changing from a Trinitarian view to a Binitarian view (God = Father & Son, Ruach is their power) has absolutely no implications for salvation. Then rejecting Yeshua's divinity, in itself, also has no direct implications for salvation (we must accept Yeshua as Lord to be saved, but are not commanded to accept Him as God - I believe He is God and this can be clearly established scripturally, I'm just saying it's not strictly a salvation issue). However this point is the dangerous edge of the cliff, where it is very easy to slip off to the next step - rejecting Him as Messiah, and rejecting the salvation He is offering. Having rejected salvation by grace, Judaism provides the most Torah-based system available for attempting to earn salvation through works, so it is then adopted instead of Christianity.

Satan is very cunning, and he works through absolutely every route he can possibly find to turn people away from Yeshua. When people are focussed on "Jesus loves you" as the core of their Christian faith, Satan tempts them to accept absolutely anything, even sin, on the premise that "Jesus loves everyone". When people get focussed on what scripture really says about sex, Satan tempts them to push the boundaries so far they manage to find a scriptural justification for almost anything and then make a complete mess of their lives. And when people are focussed on trying to serve YHWH correctly (e.g. Hebrew roots), Satan tempts them with legalism, works-based salvation, and ultimately with a rejection of Yeshua's sacrifice and salvation by grace. Whatever good direction we start in (love, correct understanding of scripture, obedience), Satan has a plan to gradually and subtly steer our course away without us even noticing it is happening.

So the Hebrew Roots movement is fundamentally good. But Satan works on the people in that movement, just as he works on people everywhere.

We need to be able to recognise the small points at which his misdirection starts, so we can correct this early on, and stay on-track.

The big issue that I see is the distinction between following Torah, and following Judaism. The modern religion of Judaism is NOT the ancient religion of Israel - modern Judaism was developed by the Pharisees, based on both Torah and additional rabbinical decisions, and includes many additional rules that do not occur in Torah. For instance, Torah commands not to boil a kid in it's mother's milk. But Judaism extends this and commands not to eat any milk and meat within several hours of each other.

Jesus said to them, “Take heed and beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” ...
Then they understood that he didn’t tell them to beware of the yeast of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

See Matthew 23 for a more detailed outline of how He felt about their specific teachings.

So we are to follow Yeshua, and therefore obey as much of Torah as we personally understand He would wish us to obey (we hold a range of views on that). But not follow Judaism, or any other man-made religious system (Catholicism, Mormonism...).

This is not an easy distinction to make always. But I find a good measure of when someone has moved from following Torah to following Judaism is when they start using the title "Rabbi". The title Rabbi does not appear anywhere in Torah, it is a Pharisaical tradition, and means "master" or "teacher". Yeshua specifically instructed us to not call any man Rabbi (Matthew 23:8). So this means that when someone chooses to use the title Rabbi, they are demonstrating that they at least subconsciously place Jewish tradition as more valid than the words of Yeshua. In itself, using this title is fairly harmless - it's just a word. But I think it is a very early indicator of Satan's very slight misdirection, indicating the beginning of what may be a slippery slope.

What other early indicators of risk are there? How can we dig deeper into scripture to understand how to best serve Yeshua, while recognising the moment Satan nudges us or others onto a path that will ultimately lead us away from Him?

 

[aineo]

So we are to follow Yeshua, and therefore obey as much of Torah as we personally understand He would wish us to obey (we hold a range of views on that).

This touches on a series of questions I find myself asking in spiritual conversations:

1. Does God want us to be sinful? (obviously, the answer is no)
2. What is sin? (usually a Christian will say, "Disobeying the commands of Jesus.")
3. What are the commands of Jesus, specifically? This is where the conversation often gets interesting. The answers very from stuttering and stammering to "the Ten Commandments". The point of the whole series of questions is to point them to the Torah - that is where sin is defined. Jesus is our Redeemer, but His redemption doesn't make sin "okay", it just means he redeemed us from it.

Sorry, that was not answering your question at the end, but my mind kept going there when reading this.

Now, to your question: Though it goes along well with what you've already written, I think a clear indicator of risk is an attitude of condemnation toward others which is usually combined with no signs of love. That can happen with anyone, no matter what their understanding of the Bible is, but it seems that those who have begun to dive deeper seem more inclined to be judgmental.

 

[FollowingHim]

I think a clear indicator of risk is an attitude of condemnation toward others which is usually combined with no signs of love. That can happen with anyone, no matter what their understanding of the Bible is, but it seems that those who have begun to dive deeper seem more inclined to be judgmental.

I often listen to Hebrew Nation Radio, which is a great resource, including shows that delve into topics most people wouldn't be willing to touch. One of the presenters (@Mark C) is a member of this forum, and directly teaches on polygamy when it is relevant to a topic he is speaking on in his teaching messages, while everyone else seems to just avoid the topic as far as I have heard. But it is a real mixed bag, because it seems to be a collection of everyone willing to offer a regular radio show from a Hebrew Roots perspective. So it includes people with many different attitudes.

For example, to contrast a few individuals, Barry Phillips ("Reconnect" and "Foundations for Life" teaching segments), is a former pastor and often speaks positively about his past in standard denominational Christianity, clearly seeing himself as simply on a journey with no point in that journey being perfect but all points containing a genuine intention to serve YHWH. Bonnie and Ron (the "Wake Up" morning show presenters) are comfortable using "Jesus" and "Yeshua" interchangeably for ease of conversation as they interview people from various denominational backgrounds whenever they have a message they feel would be helpful for the audience to hear.

On the other hand, Steve Berkson ("Now is the time" teaching segment) is extremely critical of anyone who thinks differently to himself, the other day I was listening to him and he started ranting how the audience should completely ignore anything that any pastor who doesn't completely follow Torah says, and then stated, and I quote, "...until you realise that I am right and everyone else is wrong...". Seriously, he actually said that, I was completely blown away! ("Understanding the Ruach/Spirit - Part 2" for anyone who has paid for access to the archives, towards the end of the segment). Incidentally Mr Berkson also calls himself "Rabbi", which raises another red flag. I do think he's slipping off the deep end.

We must use discernment, and not trust anyone else (e.g. whoever chooses the content of a radio station) to correctly discern for us.

 

[andrew]

It seems that those who have begun to dive deeper seem more inclined to be judgmental.

If "dive deeper" means "dive deeper into scripture study and conclude that Jesus intends all his disciples to be Torah-observant", so "deeper" is equivalent to "more Torah-observant", then I absolutely agree, but I would question your loaded framing of what "deep" means.

More on Samuel's OP tomorrow, I hope. I have a birthday to go celebrate....

 

[Clay Vessel]

For those who haven't seen it yet, The Way is a good documentary film (released in August) which features the Hebrew Roots movement. Based on everything the producers [interestingly] left out, I think it's a great film for people of all denominations in terms of getting back to the basics of the faith (vs. prevailing traditions).

Website: https://www.thewaydoc.com/

Sample Link:

 

[The Revolting Man]

I am clumsily moving more towards Torah observance but Samuel is right, there are some extreme dangers involved. I have observed that the crossover point is the Apostle Paul.

When people start to look into the Law and observing it they automatically, and somewhat understandably, assume that Paul is the enemy. It's sad because a willingness to question religious orthodoxy should extend to the most incomplete teachings in all of the faith, those surrounding Paul. Scripture is an integrated whole and an even cursory look into Paul will expose that, but it is so intimidating and daunting at first that a lot of questioners just decide to reject him upfront and not deal with it.

2 Peter says that Paul's writings are difficult and that you can lose your salvation in them and I'm afraid that many people do. We've seen it on this board. I've seen it in the broader community and it comes down to a lack of faith in God's ability to write a book and have it be consistent. If He can't write (or edit) a book then He can't save your soul and if He can't save your soul why would you care what portions of what He said may or may not be accurate?

So I say anytime someone wants to limit Paul to a lesser level of scripture or deny his Apostleship or minimize his ministry then that teacher is to be rejected. Paul's writing support and even encourage Law keeping.

The other issue here though is that Paul encourages and supports Law keeping, not Jewish traditions. There's nothing wrong with Jewish traditions just like there's noting wrong with Christian traditions. Many of them having nothing to do with scripture though. I am always a little leery of anyone who gets too wrapped around the axle about using Hebrew words or specific names. On one hand there's noting wrong with it if it is meaningful to you but to get dogmatic about it is strange. God confused the languages after all. It almost feels like an indictment of Him to get so upset about Hebrew versus Greek.

As a side note I want to say that the Words of Jesus Only movement is extremely dangerous, at both of it's extremes. I am sure there are many good Christians who are living authentic Christian lives under the influence of this kind of teaching (#notallwordsofJesus) but many, many people have been led astray by this teaching.

And just for all the Paul haters, he did not say it was okay to eat food sacrificed to idols. He said the exact opposite, he said don't do it. Read the damn Book, not what the internet says about the Book.

 

[ke4ke]

Hello,

I have quite a bit I can say about all of this (in favor). For now I'll suggest two things.

1 God's Law is not just commandments. It also includes statutes that explain them and judgments. This must be fully understood especially when confronted with scripture such as: "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes", Romans 10:4. If one realizes that Paul is actually referencing the judgment part of the law and not contradicting his own statements such as: "But we know that the law is good if a man use it lawfully", 1 Timothy 1:8, then it all becomes much easier to understand. Romans 10:4 should be understood in this context: "For Christ is the end of the judgment of death for righteousness to every one that believes". Romans 10:4

Colossians 2:14 "Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross."
The English is not clear, but in the Greek it is all about debt. It is our debt of sin that is nailed to the cross with Christ.

2 Let scripture define it's own terms. One that really upsets people is food. People do not like to be told what they can't eat. For 50 years we have incorrectly been told fat is bad, it's really sugar and things that turn to sugar quickly once eaten. Well scripture is very precise with respect to what it calls food. Scripture never uses the phrase unclean food since such a thing does not exist. So when one reads 1 Timothy 4:3 one must use God's definition for food, not just anything one can put in their mouths. Has anyone ever noted where 1 Peter 1:16 is quoted from? "Be Holy, for I am holy." I believe it to be significant. It comes from Leviticus 11. It is right there in the section of health laws concerning food. By the way, the word unclean is not in Romans 14:14.

Hope this helps,

Tim

 

[babe]

A brief review of the topic here informs me that we have some serious thinking going on.

I'll probably find some things to study and learn more about.

First of all, who is Jesus? Pretty hard to make that out as someone other than the Messiah.

Paul, in writing the epistle to the Hebrews, quotes Psalm 110:4, indicating that Jesus is the Adonai "lord" sitting at the right hand of the tetragrammatonORD generally understood by folks of that age as Jehovah, or Yahweh.

Looking at the wind-up scene in Daniel, where the "Ancient of Days" sits for the final judgment, the Messiah is brought there and then crowned somehow, for some purpose, at that time, clearly in the future even today.

Jesus in New Testament accounts denies that his doctrines are his own, but attributes them His Father, saying He came not to do His own will, but the will of His Father. Jesus also states that we, if we follow His teachings, will become like the Father one day, and know Him as we are known.

I claim some Jewish roots genealogically, on the male line, but having dabbled in the archaeology of Israel a bit, I note that our texts come from the time of Solomon, who sent his horsemen around the land breaking up all the altars of local priests to force everyone to come to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices at his temple. Some of our texts do bear the marks of an earlier age, but they are Job, the Book of Ruth, and only parts of the Torah. I have virtually infinite admiration for William Tyndale and maybe even Jerome as scholars who wanted to render the scriptures into contemporary language and form them to a current understanding, but I think we need to bear in mind the difficulties of translations and the dangers of unquestioning reliance on things that have come to us through mortal hands. I am troubled by things I consider to be antiquated nonsense or mere ritual, as much as I am troubled by the so-called Pharisee scholar abandoning the Law wholesale to adapt the message of the Gospel to the gentiles.

So if we just assume that Christian baptism confers adoption status to all, where does that leave us with Old Testament prophecies of the restoration of Israel, of the actual tribes of Israel? I could make it out that Paul was the beginning of the Apostacy, and back it up with some historical documents not generally credited in Christian scholarship, and show that in Jerusalem, for some fifty years after the crucifixion, a stronger strain of theology held to the emphasis on the validity of the Jewish faith, and held that Jesus was the Messiah, without changing the focus from the nation of Israel. Probably, I mean. It would be the labor of a lifetime to really stretch things to that case. And there is a similar body of historical documentation dedicated to the universal redemption of mankind. . . . .

 

[The Revolting Man]

There is so much to like and so much to dislike in what you say. I will try to respond she I can sit down at the computer.

 

[FollowingHim]

Fully agree with Zec. I lost count of how many cans of worms you opened in that one post, and I'm not sure how many I want to dive into! I'll let Zec dive into the worms first.

 

[Shadowjak's Dancer]

I agree with the main thrust of the Messianic movement, but I see a few fatal issues.

I do not see how the movement as a whole can latch on to the Torah, Festival, eating clean, and tassels whilst generally ignoring how Yeshua and his disciples actually walked.
In my years in this walk, I have noticed how we generally wait for people to "come out" of the Church/Babylon/lies of our fathers/whatever your group calls it. Why don't we go out and fulfill the Great Commission?
It is how He lived, and the charge He left unto His disciples. Our return to a Torah Messiah can't be one where we don't set ourselves about the work He has given us..

 

[The Revolting Man]

... I note that our texts come from the time of Solomon, who sent his horsemen around the land breaking up all the altars of local priests to force everyone to come to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices at his temple. Some of our texts do bear the marks of an earlier age, but they are Job, the Book of Ruth, and only parts of the Torah. I have virtually infinite admiration for William Tyndale and maybe even Jerome as scholars who wanted to render the scriptures into contemporary language and form them to a current understanding, but I think we need to bear in mind the difficulties of translations and the dangers of unquestioning reliance on things that have come to us through mortal hands. I am troubled by things I consider to be antiquated nonsense or mere ritual, as much as I am troubled by the so-called Pharisee scholar abandoning the Law wholesale to adapt the message of the Gospel to the gentiles.

So if we just assume that Christian baptism confers adoption status to all, where does that leave us with Old Testament prophecies of the restoration of Israel, of the actual tribes of Israel? I could make it out that Paul was the beginning of the Apostacy, and back it up with some historical documents not generally credited in Christian scholarship, and show that in Jerusalem, for some fifty years after the crucifixion, a stronger strain of theology held to the emphasis on the validity of the Jewish faith, and held that Jesus was the Messiah, without changing the focus from the nation of Israel. Probably, I mean. It would be the labor of a lifetime to really stretch things to that case. And there is a similar body of historical documentation dedicated to the universal redemption of mankind. . . . .

The fist thing is always that if our Bible is at all inaccurate then the whole question is moot. If it is largely a fiction of dynasty builders around 1000 B.C. then none of it, not polygyny, not Torah, not Hebrew roots or even salvation mean anything. The whole of scripture is built on itself, it is self-referential and claims no authority other than itself. If scripture is untrue then what restoration of Israel are we talking about? The one scribes and Pharisees made up to legitimize a exceptionally successful tribal chieftain? It's either true, or it's false. If it came to us through mortal hands then it is not true because it claims to be the God breathed truths that the whole of creation is founded on. There is no middle ground here.

So if you honestly believe scripture is tangled web of fabrications, half-truths and outright lies that we have to pick the threads of truth out of then I think you're wasting your time. You can never be sure of what is true and what is not and so can never be sure that what you are doing is pleasing to God or not. And let's be honest, if He can't write and edit a book then He can't speak the universe into existence. If He can't write and edit a book then He can't rule over Hell and Death. If He can't write and edit a book then He can't raise Himself from the dead or save me from my sins so why would we care about the book at all? We have to accept scripture as delivered to us or we have nothing.

Now it is completely true that the New Testament church we hear so many modern Evangelicals waxing longingly for considered itself a fulfillment of Judaism and maintained a Jewish identity. I have read that early Christian converts considered themselves converts to Judaism with the addition of the risen Messiah. It is also completely true that much of the theological drifting that followed stemmed from a very limited and even dishonest reading of Paul as well as some pretty craven groveling to the Roman Empire that was repaid as it should have been.

However, and it's a big however, there can be no arguing that if we lose Paul we lose so much of what is beautiful and transcendent in the New Testament. I don't think it's coincidental that there are so many parallels between Moses and Paul or that both Testaments have such a seminal figure, Moses who taught us works while demonstrating faith and Paul who taught us faith while demonstrating works.

When scripture is read literally and simply, commands taken at face value, principles applied as delivered different sections taken as they were intended; history treated as history, laws treated as laws, songs treated as songs, etc. then you will wind up at a simple, easily digested guide to life.

For instance, you mentioned the tassel thing, read literally you will see that command is to Israelites living in Israel. The command didn't even apply when it was written but came into effect when the Israelites came into their inheritance in the land flowing with milk and honey. There is certainly nothing wrong with others wearing tassels, but it's not a command for them. Sabbath observance has the same issues. Some people get militant that it is a sin to go to church on Sunday while most of them will merrily trip off to a Wednesday night prayer meeting without any sense of irony. But what does God say about the Sabbath? He says to keep it holy by not working. He doesn't say anything about when to go to church. In fact I would point out that going to church is a lot of work and you probably shouldn't do it on the Sabbath.

So this is the danger in Hebrew roots, that in rejecting the traditions of men that make null the Word of God, we will accept a whole nother set of traditions that also make null the Word of God, this time literally but having us repudiate God's actual Word, like the writings of Paul of whatever section challenges our beliefs. The enemy of our soul will try to ensnare us many ways, if he can't get us one way he'll try to use our momentum to get us the other way.

Now the idea of a restored literal Israel is one you are completely right about. Replacement theology is hard for me to accept and I believe that as we move closer to the events surrounding Christ's Second Coming we will see more and more of the Lost Tribes come to light. They clearly factor into End Times prophesy, something I can't say for America or indeed most of the western world.