It keeps coming up, so I thought we should have a thread for it, and other threads can quit getting sidetrached by it. Here are some little clips from another thread to get us started- (ME)- I have always loved visiting various churches, to see how different people believe and worship, and was not sataisfied that the Church in which I was saved and baptised had all the answers. I remember once reading that Jesus (as I called Him at the time) had spoken a parable about a foolish man who built his house on sand, and a wise man who built his house on a rock. The Christian interpretation tends to be that Jesus is the Rock. For me, it made me think of the foundation of Jesus' religion.. I thought of the prophecies in Revelations regarding antichrist, and the powers he will have, and realized that it is not enough to believe that Jesus is the Messiah based on the miracles he performed... Antichrist will have powers too, even over death. I needed more, and I realized the only way to prove to myself and to any naysayers that Jesus IS the Messiah is to look at the Messianic prophecies.... thus my love of Torah was born. Deuteronomy 6 is one bit of scripture that really showed me that I had a lot of work to do, and better get started... If I am to teach Torah to my children (someday when I have kids), I will have to study it when I rise and when I go to bed in the meantime. Not that I'm perfect at this, at ALL... I had a hard enough time keeping one-a-day bible studies on schedule. But I think Yeshua will forgive me.. It's the sort of thing he's known for Soldier_in_Christ- So, would you say that meats like pork are still tabboo? Just wondering, because in the NT several things that had once been sin are "made clean", in a sense, and are allowed. (ME)- I don't generally eat pork. I think G-d knew what He was doing when He gave us that rule. Pigs are not discriminating consumers, and they do not have the ability as other animals (and people) to sweat out any toxins. Not to mention it is about the fattiest meat out there, and we in America (as well as me personally) need to watch that kind of stuff. I just think everything G-d wants for us is really in our best interests, it's not just arbitrary rules just to have a bunch of rules. Besides, the way I interpret the corresponding passage (Mark 7, if memory serves?) Jesus was asked about His disciples not participating in ritual washing, and his response was simply that "It is not what enters a man's body that defiles him, but what comes from his heart." Most translations end the quote there (after the examples of things that come from the heart), and it is the author, not the Messiah which then interprets "Thus he declared all foods clean" mgarsteck- I believe you have misinterpreted why God had them not eat certain kinds of meats. It wasnt because that it was unhealthy. The reason for the restrictions on food was so that they would be a holy nation. The other nations around them ate that stuff and God wanted them to be Holy. (ME)- HaShem didn't exactly specify why we were to do this, or not to do that. We can guess, but it's all speculation. In the end, I think the important thing is to remember that it is just speculation, regardless of why we believe He gave us certain instructions. What is NOT speculation is that He did tell His people not to eat it. FiberglassButterfly- Actually...from what I have read everything God said not to do in the old testament he said because the things were unhealthy. Look at all the rules that were laid out about mold in a home, and look at how we know today that mold is bad for us. I believe God laid those things out to protect us. Just my opinion. IceTrey3- but the second part of the verse says"or print on your body" which applies to tattoos, but i think that since it is a leviticus law and can be said as irrelevent to todays times, like the one that talks about if u disobey ur parents u should be killed or the one that talks about a peace offering and if you don't eat it in three days ur and abomination (ME)- Right.. we don't need to worry about what the OT says because a) G-d was just kidding b) G-d isn't really infallible after all, and He changed His mind OR c) Despite what Paul says, there really IS a double standard depending on if you're Jewish or not ??? Soldier_in_Christ- im not objecting to what you say because im arguementative, but rather to increase my own understanding of the Gospel and the Lord. Now, continuing with the discussion on pork and meat, in Romans 14 it states: 3 Those who feel free to eat anything must not look down on those who don’t. And those who don’t eat certain foods must not condemn those who do, for God has accepted them. and 6 Those who worship the Lord on a special day do it to honor him. Those who eat any kind of food do so to honour the Lord, since they give thanks to God before eating. And those who refuse to eat certain foods also want to please the Lord and give thanks to God. Does this not mean that we can eat any kinds of food and still honour the Lord and obey Him? DHfan - doesnt it make sense that standards would change with circumstances? (i.e. OT times, saved by works, vs. NT and present times, saved by grace)

Post edited by: MattBob_SquarePants, at: 2006/12/26 12:57

(My reply to) Soldier_in Christ- Since we're talking about what Paul says, I feel I should preface this with the statement that I do not consider Paul to be a prophet. There is much we can learn from our brother Paul, but I do not believe these letters are the direct revealed Word of G-d. As to his message in this passage, I'm not condemning anyone. I'm not saying you're not a real believer or you're not a committed Christian, or you're going to hell if you don't keep Torah, or anything like that. Likewise, I would ask those who do not keep it not to look down on those like me. BUT as I've mentioned before, the Christian interpretation, that "The law" was too harsh, and Yeshua (Jesus) came to offer us an easier way does not stand up to scriptural scrutiny. In many ways, he called us to a higher standard, not a lower one. That's all I'm trying to do, as well; To call those who feel led to do everything which is pleasing to the L-rd to familiarize themselves with, and try to get their lives in accordance with Torah, which is the everlasting Word of the Living G-d. >Does this not mean that we can eat any kinds of food and still honour the Lord and obey Him? You can eat it and still be honoring Him in other ways. I don't see how you could be honoring Him BY the act of eating pork, but I'm open to rebuke or other perspectives, as I don't claim to have the final truth. Likewise, you can be obeying Him in other facets of your life, but the act of eating pork, (or shaving your beard, or working on the Shabbat, etc...) itself is not something we do in order to obey Him. He doesn't order us TO do these things. So, in my view, the best we can hope for with every Torah-breaking act we do is that HaShem will look upon these acts as being neutral. But then again, is there really a neutral? Yeshua said it both ways, those that are not for you are against you, and those that are not against you are for you, as well as You cannot serve two masters (G-d and self) and so forth. DHFan- doesnt it make sense that standards would change with circumstances? (i.e. OT times, saved by works, vs. NT and present times, saved by grace) (MY REPLY)- This is kind of a "strawman" argument (for those who understand debate lingo). See, it never really WAS about "saved by works". That's a Muslim concept, not a Jewish one. We were never saved by works. It was always grace. Think about it.. Imagine I'm an ancient Israelite, living my life by Torah. I commit some sin, and now I must make a sin offering. If I'm a shepherd, this means I must find my best lamb, perfect, spotless, without blemish. Had I used this lamb for myself and my family, this would be the best meat for my family, and the best wool for their clothes. But I can't use it for these purposes now. I deprive myself of it, in order to make the sin offering. What if I'm NOT a shepherd? Then I have to scrape up to acquire the lamb.. Not just any lamb, this must be the perfect lamb. I must offer the shepherd enough to make it worth his time to trade me the best lamb he has in his flock. And again, I do not gain meat for food, or wool for clothes from this transaction. This is all so that I can make a sin offering to the L-rd. Does any of this sound like the kind of thing that is an actual service to the L-rd, to further His kingdom? Heck no! These actions are not "saved by works" because these works aren't doing anything for G-d. They are not building up the empire of the L-rd. Rather, they are to dig us out of a hole we've gotten ourselves in. This hole must be filled before we can build on top of it. From OUR perspective, however, they are far more powerful. I am deprived of something of value, something which would feed my family for quite some time, something from which I could make a fair amount of textiles, something I could barter and get quite a good offer out of. I have to kill this perfect specimen, and understand that this animal is dying a meaningless and fruitless death because of MY sin... and I would understand that this is what I'm doing to G-d when I ignore His Word and commit sin. It is not much different today. One big difference is that while offering the lamb is a complicated and costly experience, and really makes me not want to sin for a long time (so I won't have to go through the sin offering for a long time), since we now have the Eternal Lamb to sacrifice, it seems to be a far less effective deterrant to sin. I'm not out anything if I sin, so I may be more tempted to sin next time. I may take a more liberal approach to what is or is not a sin. But I digress. I respectfully submit for your consideration that 'sin offering' was not for G-d's sake, but for ours. He commanded it, yes, but what does it benefit Him? It taught us a lesson, however, a lesson, that many today would do well to learn. It was always saved by grace. Leviticus can tell us the proper procedure to follow for a sin offering, but does it guarantee us that if we follow it to the letter, our sins our forgiven? If not, then it was definitely "saved by grace".. It was an exercise to make us feel the full magnitude of our sins, and to change our hearts, so that we may be prepared, so that we may know that our only hope is in the L-rd, in His lovingkindness, and His mercy, that He will perceive our change in heart, our trust in Him, and like Avraham, that He will count it to us as righteousness.

[b]MattBob_SquarePants wrote:[/b] [quote]From OUR perspective, however, they are far more powerful. I am deprived of something of value, something which would feed my family for quite some time, something from which I could make a fair amount of textiles, something I could barter and get quite a good offer out of. I have to kill this perfect specimen, and understand that this animal is dying a meaningless and fruitless death because of MY sin... and I would understand that this is what I'm doing to G-d when I ignore His Word and commit sin. It is not much different today. One big difference is that while offering the lamb is a complicated and costly experience, and really makes me not want to sin for a long time (so I won't have to go through the sin offering for a long time), since we now have the Eternal Lamb to sacrifice, it seems to be a far less effective deterrant to sin. I'm not out anything if I sin, so I may be more tempted to sin next time. I may take a more liberal approach to what is or is not a sin. But I digress. [/quote] i do think that that statement ^^ has a really good point, and that it is so much easier to fall into the temptations of sin repeatedly today, then it was in old testament times, but i don't believe that we were saved by grace in old testament times... "He came into the very world he created, but the world didn't recognize him. He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God" -John 1:10-12 To me, this sort of implies that at the moment that the son of God stepped onto the earth, he stretched out his arms and began accepting people by faith alone... that this was some sort of change.

hex- The passage you cite refers to a gathering of the Non-Jewish (or non-religious Jewish) believers being joined into the family of Israel. I don't see how it deals with being saved by faith or grace. Can you explain a little more, please? Jim- Sorry, but that's not something I'm gonna change to accomodate my brethren. "Jesus" is barely better than a slave name, a twisted version based on Greek and Roman culture, and in this case, it renders the name meaningless. 'Yeshua' literally means 'He saves'. And boy, how He does! Hallelujah and Baruch HaShem! I'll stick to the name His family called Him, the name with meaning, rather than the empty name chosen later by those who hijacked His religion. *EDIT* (I'm pretty sure He didn't speak English anyway, and I'm not convinced He spoke Greek as a habit)

Post edited by: MattBob_SquarePants, at: 2006/12/26 18:02

that passage, if you read John 1:1-14, basically describes in summary (obviously) the period of time from pre-creation till the birth of Jesus Christ. What I was trying to get across is that I believe when it says "he gave the right to become children of God," this talks not just about people becoming part of the family of Israel, as you say, but also in retrospect that when Christ came to walk on the earth, those people being accepted into his family obviously believed in him, and therefore were given salvation not by works, but just by believing (saved by faith)... am I making a little more sense? I don't believe that the world was originally that way before the coming of Christ though. I think that works were needed in order to recieve salvation before Christ was crucified. He died for our sins, and we were given the gift of eternal life by solely grace/faith. The main reason for God to send his son to live among us on the earth was for that purpose: to save all people from our sins.

Post edited by: hexisxmyxrefuge, at: 2006/12/26 21:54

RE: Yeshua/Jesus Y'all gotta understand that me and Jim have this thing... He gives me grief all the time, so I gotta give him a little back. It's mostly in fun. I do mean what I say, but there is more to it, as well. I have always believed that proper nouns just don't translate, and I think it's a kind of cultural elitism to try to force them to. As I say, it often strips the meaning from the name, and it wouldn't be that hard to respect the actual name. The capitol of Russia is Moskva. The capitol of Israel is Yerushalayim. The Son of G-d is Yeshua. But, of course, when we pray "in Jesus' name" G-d knows what we mean, and if that's someone's biggest failure, they're in pretty good shape. :) Hexis- Wow, very impressive! Your intepretation of the beginning of John seems like common sense in a way. It probably does to you, too. But a lot of people want to put implications and interpretations into scripture, instead of reading what's there. I don't want to derail the conversation, just wanted to say Kudos! for keeping it simple. What you say does clarify your beliefs, thank you. I do disagree (mildly), because of something I only barely touched on. To say that we are saved by works.. That implies a certain type of works, right? "Good works" ? I just don't see slaughter and sacrifice itself as qualifying as a "good work". I tend to agree with Soldier in Christ, that it doesn't neatly fit into either package. But I am convicted that it is oversimplifying things to say that in pre-Messianic times we were 'saved by works'. And also as I said, this is because I have not found a promise from G-d "Do this sin offering and your sins are forgiven". But we can agree to disagree, and I'm glad that we can have the discussion. I also want to say to you or anyone else, please don't hold back your opinions because you think someone else has studied the subject more. One theme that glares at us from the New Testament is that we are all equals in His Kingdom(i.e. "Call no man Rabbi, call no man Father"). SiC- I learn from a lot of different places. I subscribe to a few Messianic magazines.. My favorite is Messiah Magazine, published by First Fruits of Zion.. and there's another really great one I get called Ascend, I don't immediately recall who puts that one out, but I would say those are both GREAT starting points for someone who wants to learn about Hebraic perspectives, without getting overloaded. MM usually has a couple of deep reading, study-worthy articles, and some quicker reading articles as well. And then I've also taken a couple of Hebrew classes (both Biblical and Modern Hebrew) at my local synogogue. This has been a great resource, not just to learn and read the language, but to allow me to meet and talk with Jewish people about various issues. I think in my first Modern Hebrew class, we spent as much time talking about culture, traditions, the Bible, etc.. as we did learning Hebrew :) And we in Indy are blessed to have another local synogogue with a free library and bookstore inside, I've made great use of that. There's plenty on the internet, as well. I can recommend ancient-hebrew.org for the more scholarly among us (I admit I have to be in the right frame of mind to be able to wrap my mind around some of that stuff). I also have two books from Jeff Benner, who runs ancient-hebrew.org, and drove 7 horus (one way) to hear him give a seminar.. Highly recommend that, if you get a chance, but you'll get more out of it having some foundation in Hebrew. And there are plenty of congregations with great resources, as well. I can't seem to find the ones I know on google, but PM me and I can get you links from my home PC, or just google things like "Hebrew Roots" or "Messianic Judaism", and I'm sure they'll come up with a ton of links (some good, some bad, like with any web search, I always recommend independant verification). Hope that helps. Mister Nathan- It's older than Spanish. Yeshua (yeh-SHOO-wah) was made into Yesus (yay-SOOS) by a Greek culture that said masculine names couldn't end in a vowel. Then when Latin was invented, I don't know what happened, I guess they needed some words to try out their new letter on ("J"). The logic is that in Hebrew, the wording is exactly the same. I can say "Do you know Yeshua?" and I am saying this with the same words as if my intent is "Do you know that He Saves?" Anytime I refer to it, it is a direct literal meaning, a word that could be used in common conversation to indicate "he saves".. See, we think our names have meaning in English, too. I can look in a book and see that my name "Matthew" means "Gift of G-d"... But if I want to say "Gift of G-d" I will not use "Matthew" in conversation to say this.. "Oh your new baby is so beautiful! Thank the Lord for this Matthew!" I will say "blessing" or something else. It's a distant meaning.. Same thing. Since "Jesus" is a translation of "Yeshua", yeah we can say that distantly, it still means "He saves".. but when we say the word "Jesus" we are referring only to the person, and the idea is only an extension of that. I hope that makes sense. But, per above, I was kind of giving Jim a hard time with that, though I do believe it all. So don't read too much into it. Arius- :) I'm glad you are able to make sense of it! I'm afraid I'm a much better student than I am a teacher :P I look forward to discussing it further with you, and I hope you will post when you come across things worth sharing! I'll be checking Half-Price Books for both of these titles next time I go.

[b]MattBob_SquarePants wrote:[/b] [quote]Hexis- Wow, very impressive! Your intepretation of the beginning of John seems like common sense in a way. It probably does to you, too. But a lot of people want to put implications and interpretations into scripture, instead of reading what's there. I don't want to derail the conversation, just wanted to say Kudos! for keeping it simple. [/quote] thank you, i'm amazing arent i?;) [quote]What you say does clarify your beliefs, thank you. I do disagree (mildly), because of something I only barely touched on. To say that we are saved by works.. That implies a certain type of works, right? "Good works" ? I just don't see slaughter and sacrifice itself as qualifying as a "good work". I tend to agree with Soldier in Christ, that it doesn't neatly fit into either package. But I am convicted that it is oversimplifying things to say that in pre-Messianic times we were 'saved by works'. And also as I said, this is because I have not found a promise from G-d "Do this sin offering and your sins are forgiven". But we can agree to disagree, and I'm glad that we can have the discussion. [/quote] like i said to Soldier in Christ, I agree with him... I just wasn't sure how to say it. I believe that in order for the pre-Messianic people to attain salvation, they had to maintain some sort of works (ex. sin offerings), but i think the balance fell in between saving by grace and saving by works... I highly doubt any of us will understand this for sure until we achieve salvation ourselves. My new question however, is when did this change from partial to complete salvation by grace take place? Would it have been at the moment of the birth of Jesus Christ? (sorry, it's habit, i'm not going to call him Yeshua) or was it the night he was crucified? [quote]Mister Nathan- It's older than Spanish. Yeshua (yeh-SHOO-wah) was made into Yesus (yay-SOOS) by a Greek culture that said masculine names couldn't end in a vowel. Then when Latin was invented, I don't know what happened, I guess they needed some words to try out their new letter on ("J"). [/quote] there is no "J" in latin, thank you very much... it's been my foreign language elective in school for the past 2 years

Oopps... my bad. That's where I have next to no knowledge. I have a very zealous apathy for all things Roman. In that case, I have no idea how "Yesus" became "Jesus". I'll have to look into that when I get home (unless somebody beats me to it?). Maybe it WAS a spanish thing. *shrug*

unless Yesus got changed to Iusus, then Jesus... a lot of the "I"'s in latin got changed to J's when Spanish, French, and other languages developed off of it... e.g. Julius Caesar was originally Iulius:side:

[b]MattBob_SquarePants wrote:[/b] [quote] DHFan- doesnt it make sense that standards would change with circumstances? (i.e. OT times, saved by works, vs. NT and present times, saved by grace) (MY REPLY)- This is kind of a "strawman" argument (for those who understand debate lingo). See, it never really WAS about "saved by works". That's a Muslim concept, not a Jewish one. We were never saved by works. It was always grace. Think about it.. Imagine I'm an ancient Israelite, living my life by Torah. I commit some sin, and now I must make a sin offering. If I'm a shepherd, this means I must find my best lamb, perfect, spotless, without blemish. Had I used this lamb for myself and my family, this would be the best meat for my family, and the best wool for their clothes. But I can't use it for these purposes now. I deprive myself of it, in order to make the sin offering. What if I'm NOT a shepherd? Then I have to scrape up to acquire the lamb.. Not just any lamb, this must be the perfect lamb. I must offer the shepherd enough to make it worth his time to trade me the best lamb he has in his flock. And again, I do not gain meat for food, or wool for clothes from this transaction. This is all so that I can make a sin offering to the L-rd. Does any of this sound like the kind of thing that is an actual service to the L-rd, to further His kingdom? Heck no! These actions are not "saved by works" because these works aren't doing anything for G-d. They are not building up the empire of the L-rd. Rather, they are to dig us out of a hole we've gotten ourselves in. This hole must be filled before we can build on top of it. From OUR perspective, however, they are far more powerful. I am deprived of something of value, something which would feed my family for quite some time, something from which I could make a fair amount of textiles, something I could barter and get quite a good offer out of. I have to kill this perfect specimen, and understand that this animal is dying a meaningless and fruitless death because of MY sin... and I would understand that this is what I'm doing to G-d when I ignore His Word and commit sin. It is not much different today. One big difference is that while offering the lamb is a complicated and costly experience, and really makes me not want to sin for a long time (so I won't have to go through the sin offering for a long time), since we now have the Eternal Lamb to sacrifice, it seems to be a far less effective deterrant to sin. I'm not out anything if I sin, so I may be more tempted to sin next time. I may take a more liberal approach to what is or is not a sin. But I digress. I respectfully submit for your consideration that 'sin offering' was not for G-d's sake, but for ours. He commanded it, yes, but what does it benefit Him? It taught us a lesson, however, a lesson, that many today would do well to learn. It was always saved by grace. Leviticus can tell us the proper procedure to follow for a sin offering, but does it guarantee us that if we follow it to the letter, our sins our forgiven? If not, then it was definitely "saved by grace".. It was an exercise to make us feel the full magnitude of our sins, and to change our hearts, so that we may be prepared, so that we may know that our only hope is in the L-rd, in His lovingkindness, and His mercy, that He will perceive our change in heart, our trust in Him, and like Avraham, that He will count it to us as righteousness.[/quote] I probably didn't use the exact right terminology there with the "saved by works" thing, but the circumstances for being saved were different than they are now, am i right?... so, if how you are saved (technically) are different, wouldn't certain other things change, like restrictions or standards... i dont think that God changed his mind, the ciscumstances did (i.e. Jesus' death on the cross) sorry for the absence guys... christmas vacation for the week