This is the third post in a study of Paul's letter to the believers in Rome. You can start at the beginning by clicking here.
The eleventh chapter of Romans contains some things that should shut the mouths of a lot of pastors and teachers who are out there blaspheming by teaching garbage like “replacement theology.” Let’s look at this first and then move to the next thing.
Paul introduces the chapter with this: “I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah, . . .”
There are many more passages that make it clear that God would never abandon Israel. Not the land, nor the people as a corporate body. In a previous post I spoke of God’s fulfillment of Israel becoming a nation on the exact day of the end of their last punishment for not keeping His Torah, May 14, 1948. We also have other prophecies about Israel that have yet to be fulfilled, such as Ezekiel 38 & 39. So if you hear some pastor or teacher telling you that the church has replaced Israel or gives you the telltale clues that they believe in “Dominion theology,” run for the exit.
Even though Paul is grieved by the number of his Jewish brethren who will not recognize Yeshua as Messiah, he reveals in verse eleven that the purpose is to spread the gospel to the gentile world.
Then Paul gives us this beautiful, vivid illustration of the Gentile relationship to the Jews and the Torah. Gentiles are like a wild olive branch that is being grafted in to the main trunk of a well established tree. This is truly a great picture. In the world of plants, there are some plants that barely last a season. They might live long enough to create seed and die for the next crop to germinate in the spring. An olive tree is one of the few species that lasts for centuries and even millennia. Yes. An olive tree can be several thousand years old. At least some of the olive trees in the very garden where Yeshua sweated drops of blood are still growing there today. An olive tree takes a lot of care to become established but once they are, they can produce quite a lot.
If you want to produce a new variety of olives quickly and easily, you can graft an existing shoot onto an older well established tree. You don’t rip out a well established tree to plant a new sapling. And olive trees, like most food producing plants require pruning and cultivation to be productive. The Messiah also used grape vines as an illustration of this principle. Paul uses the olive tree because in prophecy, the olive tree is understood to represent Israel, as well as the fig tree. In this letter, Paul warns the Gentiles to remember their status as being grafted in to the tree. The tree hasn’t been destroyed, and in fact, it is the roots of the tree that support and give life to the new graftees. He also states that if the non-productive branches of the tree can be chopped off and discarded, so can the newcomers. The newly grafted branches don’t change everything by becoming a part of the well-established tree. It can take a while for the graft to fully “take.” The existing old olive tree that is producing good fruit continues to produce good fruit because all the right things are being done by the Master Gardener and the tree accepts it. Another very, very interesting thing about olive trees is that an old, well established tree can be cut down, or even burned down, level with the ground, seeming to be totally destroyed, and yet it’s root system will put up shoots in a few years.
The eleventh chapter of Romans makes it clear that there is a partial blinding of Israel regarding the identity of Messiah until all those of the Gentile world are gathered in. But the zealous Pharisee named Paul understands that these Gentile converts are coming to the saving knowledge of Messiah AND to obedience to Torah. Without the obedience to Torah, the Jews would have nothing to be jealous about. In short, there is no new religion for the Gentiles who come to follow Messiah. Yeshua said, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments."
We must keep in mind that Yeshua Himself said He came to save the lost sheep of the house of Israel. In Matthew 15 we have the story of a Canaanite woman who comes to Yeshua to have her daughter delivered from a demon. Yeshua not only tells her that he was sent to Israel only, but he further insults her by saying that it is not good to throw the children’s bread to the dogs. Hyperbole? A set up? Sure. But it makes the point. God wants His chosen ones first and He has no intention of abandoning Israel.
Paul gets to the heart of the matter in verse 11 of chapter 11: “I say then, they did not stumble so as to fall, did they? May it never be! But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make them jealous.”
In order for us to feel the full weight of what Paul is saying here, we would have to be very familiar, or should I say well studied, in the Hebrew Scriptures. The book of Hosea is especially helpful here. The time of the prophet Hosea was more than 100 years before the Babylonian captivity; about 750 to 720 years before Messiah came. Adonai was so fed up with the idolatry of Israel that He commanded Hosea to go and find a prostitute to marry. This is to symbolize how God sees Israel’s idolatry. He severely punishes the Northern Kingdom to near utter annihilation. Adonai’s apparent mercy on Judah is because that is the line of Messiah and Judah seemed to try to hold to Torah. Taking the whole of at least the first two chapters, we see that God is so angered by that generation that He wants to divorce her until she turns from her harlotry.
Is it not interesting that God created this world with sex and marriage, reproduction and progeny and parenting to give us tangible, emotional ways to relate to Him? It is precisely because Adonai loves all of his created children that he chastises them to try to get them to come back to Himself. Chapter 3 of Hosea is so obviously prophetic about the conquering Messiah and the end times.
“For the sons of Israel will remain for many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, and without ephod or seraphim. Afterward the sons of Israel will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king; and they will come trembling to the Lord and to His goodness in the last days.” (Hosea 3:4,5)
This passage tells us a couple of very important things: A time would come, and we’ve seen most of it come to pass, where Israel had no real political or civil leadership of their own and no Temple for religious service to Adonai. Now, as I type this, there is increasing and fervent interest in Israel and among other Jews about Yeshua the Nazarene. Israel has been restored as a nation with self rule. The only thing we need to see now for the anti-Christ to be revealed is a Temple (2 Thess. 2:1-4).
In verse 17 & 18 of Romans 11, we read, “But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches [natural Jews]; but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you.” Some Christians need to read this verse every day for a month until it sinks in. This is one of the clearest statements in the New Testament to tell Gentile believers, “Hey, listen up, Yeshua did not come to create a whole new religious system. He came to make a way for you folks outside of Judaism to become a part of God’s Kingdom. That means you are supposed to learn God’s ways from them, the Jews, not them learning from you.”
Oh yes, I know that just shocks the snot out of most Christians who read that. But if you disagree, then search the Scriptures and show me the text that says that previous paragraph is wrong. For heaven’s sake; keep reading verses 19 through 29 and Paul is even more emphatic about warning Gentiles that the grafted in branches are merely that and that the ultimate purpose is the salvation of Israel.
So far, we’ve made it up to chapter 12 of Romans in three posts, and still I can’t find anything in Paul’s words (actually the words of the Ruach HaKodesh) that tell me that the Torah has become void or that we can disregard the commandments. This again is in keeping with the words of the Master Himself in Matthew 5:17-20. If you know something that I don’t, you can leave a comment, or email me. The address is in the sidebar.
You can move on to part IV in this series by clicking here.
Showing posts with label Messiah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Messiah. Show all posts
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Some Good News
Via my good friend, Rabbi Michael Bugg's blog comes this encouraging story:
The Messianic ministry Revive Israel located just outside Jerusalem reports that its staff and partner ministries have experienced an upsurge in interest among secular and religious Israelis in the person and ministry of Yeshua (Jesus).
In their latest newsletter, Sahar S. writes that a group of 40 young Israeli college students recently visited the Revive Israel offices to ask questions regarding Jesus and the New Testament for a course on Israeli history and culture.
“They were surprised to discover that the promise of a new covenant is written in the Hebrew prophets (Jeremiah 31). The biggest news to them was that Yeshua loved the God of Israel and that His teachings were focused on a fulfillment of the moral law in the Ten Commandments (Matthew 5),” said Sahar.
“A number of them came with pre-conceived ideas and even anger towards Messianic Jews. At the end of the meeting a young religious man came and admitted that his perspective had changed about who we are – Israeli Jews who believe in Yeshua.”
The group was reportedly surprised at the level of kindness shown by the Messianics despite frequent harassment of and attacks on believers in Jesus in Israel.
I would like for my "Sunday brethren" as Rabbi Bugg calls them, to realize that those pre-conceived ideas and anger come from the idea that Messianics are traitors who have bought into the "Christian" view of who Messiah is and what He taught. In many ways a distortion created by centuries of man-made church doctrine that does not properly understand the New Testament.
Since the gospel is "first for the Jew, and then for the Gentile," we would do well to make sure we have a proper understanding of Scripture and ask ourselves, "If the Jews are hostile to the gospel that I am preaching, is it because of the gospel itself, or is it my interpretation of it?"
If you are preaching a gospel that distorts Yeshua's message and tells people that they can disregard the Torah, Jews have every right to declare that you are preaching a false gospel, and promoting a false Messiah.
The Messianic ministry Revive Israel located just outside Jerusalem reports that its staff and partner ministries have experienced an upsurge in interest among secular and religious Israelis in the person and ministry of Yeshua (Jesus).
In their latest newsletter, Sahar S. writes that a group of 40 young Israeli college students recently visited the Revive Israel offices to ask questions regarding Jesus and the New Testament for a course on Israeli history and culture.
“They were surprised to discover that the promise of a new covenant is written in the Hebrew prophets (Jeremiah 31). The biggest news to them was that Yeshua loved the God of Israel and that His teachings were focused on a fulfillment of the moral law in the Ten Commandments (Matthew 5),” said Sahar.
“A number of them came with pre-conceived ideas and even anger towards Messianic Jews. At the end of the meeting a young religious man came and admitted that his perspective had changed about who we are – Israeli Jews who believe in Yeshua.”
The group was reportedly surprised at the level of kindness shown by the Messianics despite frequent harassment of and attacks on believers in Jesus in Israel.
I would like for my "Sunday brethren" as Rabbi Bugg calls them, to realize that those pre-conceived ideas and anger come from the idea that Messianics are traitors who have bought into the "Christian" view of who Messiah is and what He taught. In many ways a distortion created by centuries of man-made church doctrine that does not properly understand the New Testament.
Since the gospel is "first for the Jew, and then for the Gentile," we would do well to make sure we have a proper understanding of Scripture and ask ourselves, "If the Jews are hostile to the gospel that I am preaching, is it because of the gospel itself, or is it my interpretation of it?"
If you are preaching a gospel that distorts Yeshua's message and tells people that they can disregard the Torah, Jews have every right to declare that you are preaching a false gospel, and promoting a false Messiah.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Pursuing Knowledge
Perhaps because there is so much stuff, or garbage, in the world that passes for knowledge, there seem to be many churches in the breathless "charismatic" wing that eschew good scholarship for feelings and for things that can neither be measured for their quality or abundance. I've been in far too many congregations that avoid scholarship like it's leprosy.
The dumbing down of the modern western world has been going on for decades now. It used to be fairly subtle because it had to be. Today, people are so devoid of real knowledge that the vast majority of people not only don't know what to believe, they just don't care. This is a problem that stems directly from language being hijacked by evil forces. Whether we care to admit it or not, propaganda is just as important in warfare as bullets or bombs. The Vietnam war is the most perfect modern example of that.
We live in a world where "science" is now an abused word. The vast majority of people not directly associated with a scientific field don't understand it at all. It used to be that science was the pursuit of truth. This is no longer the case. Today the only time truth wins out in regard to scientific inquiry is if enough hard data gangs up on and beats the living snot out of some guy with a theory. And the problem there is; if nobody is there to see it happen, did it happen? Other than reality forcing its way into the mind of some "researcher," stuff that gets referred to as science is really just somebody's agenda being touted with select supporting data. Any data that doesn't support the story line of the "researcher" get dismissed. Data that seem to support the idea being pushed get enhanced or worse.
Again, I lament the fact that there was a time when debate was a cherished tool in education. Back when education meant teaching students not what to think, but rather, HOW to think. How do you recognize a false premise? How do you recognize when someone is making a bad argument by sticking two premises together that have nothing to do with each other? How many adults, let alone children have ever heard of the word syllogism? What is even worse is that we now have people with graduate degrees in some scientific fields who have graduated without the benefit of being educated in logical thought processes. If they are in the hard sciences, they may experience the truth of the process in the results, but they would be hard pressed to explain or describe the process.
Another problem is specialization. So many fields of science are highly specialized. Most people have no idea what a big problem this creates. Without truly great thinkers to connect the dots, much of scientific knowledge is never put to its best possible use. The flip side of that coin is the fact that scientists in a particular field can specialize into oblivion, meaning that there is no real value to their research and any knowledge gained is superfluous. No, I don't buy into the idea that knowledge for knowledge's sake is sufficient. And yes, let me burst your bubble: There IS such a thing as a stupid question.
Specialization in the world of science has also created the problem of not daring to question. An ear, nose, and throat specialist will not question the diagnosis of a gynecologist even when common sense might suggest that something isn't quite right. Meanwhile at the other end of the specialization spectrum we have the broad title of "scientist." The way this gets abused is when a report comes out telling the world that "Ten thousand scientists have signed on to a resolution calling for reduction in global green house gases," or some such rot. With some investigation we find out that among the ten thousand "scientists" a handful have degrees in some hard sciences such as astrophysics or biology, but have no formal training in meteorology or climatology. All the rest are trained in the soft sciences such as sociology, anthropology, psychology, etc. Some of them might even simply have advanced degrees in theology.
The vast masses of people who've never been educated beyond high school level, which in the past twenty years means they are barely literate in functioning, have no clue where to begin in questioning what is and is not scientific. Which means that if the media tells them that "scientists say that if we don't reduce carbon emmissions to X levels by Y time, the planet will suffer catastrophic results," the people will just accept that crap because, well, "scientists" said so.
One of the biggest myths ever perpetrated on the world is the idea that scientists always pursue truth without allowing any other agenda to influence them. Scientists are fallible human beings with emotions. They want to be liked as much as anyone. They also want to get paid and live comfortable lives. And scientists will believe what they want to believe, even in spite of evidence, just like people without advanced degrees. This is true to the Nth degree when it comes to evolution.
There have been millions of scientists in the world since Sir Isaac Newton, but how many of them have ever stood out? How many have ever become household names? Bet you can't name more than three. I'm sure Einstein comes to mind. Why? Because his pronouncements radically transformed the world of physics. He was lucky enough that his discoveries made so much sense in explaining the physical world and were also provable. But more importantly, his ideas did not gore anybody's sacred cows. Had his ideas been too radical compared to the prevailing "accepted" theories, who knows how long it might have taken before his theories caught on.
For those who really pursue truth, it can be extremely lonely out on the edge of the frontier. Not only is it lonely, it can be downright dangerous. It was dangerous for the founding fathers to stand up to Great Britain in their day. It's dangerous today to stand up and say to the ignorant masses in this country that there is no magic ATM behind the capitol building in Washington DC pumping out billions of dollars for us to keep going the way we are going. It's dangerous to stand up to the union goons who have landed their "secure" jobs in government who believe that the people out there working in the real world should have to struggle to pay their big salaries and benefits.
It's not easy to stand up in a congregation of Christians and say, "You know what? You just aren't getting this right."
Many times, my lovely wife and I have lamented that we wish we didn't know everything we know now. It's no fun at all not having anyone to worship and fellowship with because the vast majority of people who call themselves Christians just want to believe what they want to believe and not learn anything more. I can relate to how lonely the prophets must have been when God gave them a message that made them seem like nothing but doom and gloom party crashers compared to all of their contemporaries who were speaking nothing but positive and pleasant things.
Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus The Christ) said that the end times (ahchereet hayameem) would be like the days of Noah. Noah had many months to build the ark and preach to the people. He tried to get them to turn from their wicked ways, but in the end, only he and his sons and their wives escaped. According to the book of Jasher, about 700,000 people perished in the flood. (The Bible itself refers to the book of Jasher as being authoritative, and so far, I have found nothing in it that contradicts Scripture.) This tells me, along with much of Scripture that there are going to be many, many people surprised in the end to find out they weren't really saved at all.
Ever since I became saved and was subsequently disillusioned about the hoaxes of evolution, leaders who are still touted as heroes, and doctrinal heresies in the Church, I have made it my mission to always question. Question everything. "Is this really true?" "Am I willing to suffer the slings and arrows of being called extreme because I won't go along with everybody else?" "Am I deceiving myself?" "HOW do I know this is true?"
"Am I willing to give up eternal bliss in the future in order to be liked and popular in this life?"
The vast majority of people simply will not tolerate any challenges to the conventional and accepted tradition in the churches. "Don't confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up!"
The dumbing down of the modern western world has been going on for decades now. It used to be fairly subtle because it had to be. Today, people are so devoid of real knowledge that the vast majority of people not only don't know what to believe, they just don't care. This is a problem that stems directly from language being hijacked by evil forces. Whether we care to admit it or not, propaganda is just as important in warfare as bullets or bombs. The Vietnam war is the most perfect modern example of that.
We live in a world where "science" is now an abused word. The vast majority of people not directly associated with a scientific field don't understand it at all. It used to be that science was the pursuit of truth. This is no longer the case. Today the only time truth wins out in regard to scientific inquiry is if enough hard data gangs up on and beats the living snot out of some guy with a theory. And the problem there is; if nobody is there to see it happen, did it happen? Other than reality forcing its way into the mind of some "researcher," stuff that gets referred to as science is really just somebody's agenda being touted with select supporting data. Any data that doesn't support the story line of the "researcher" get dismissed. Data that seem to support the idea being pushed get enhanced or worse.
Again, I lament the fact that there was a time when debate was a cherished tool in education. Back when education meant teaching students not what to think, but rather, HOW to think. How do you recognize a false premise? How do you recognize when someone is making a bad argument by sticking two premises together that have nothing to do with each other? How many adults, let alone children have ever heard of the word syllogism? What is even worse is that we now have people with graduate degrees in some scientific fields who have graduated without the benefit of being educated in logical thought processes. If they are in the hard sciences, they may experience the truth of the process in the results, but they would be hard pressed to explain or describe the process.
Another problem is specialization. So many fields of science are highly specialized. Most people have no idea what a big problem this creates. Without truly great thinkers to connect the dots, much of scientific knowledge is never put to its best possible use. The flip side of that coin is the fact that scientists in a particular field can specialize into oblivion, meaning that there is no real value to their research and any knowledge gained is superfluous. No, I don't buy into the idea that knowledge for knowledge's sake is sufficient. And yes, let me burst your bubble: There IS such a thing as a stupid question.
Specialization in the world of science has also created the problem of not daring to question. An ear, nose, and throat specialist will not question the diagnosis of a gynecologist even when common sense might suggest that something isn't quite right. Meanwhile at the other end of the specialization spectrum we have the broad title of "scientist." The way this gets abused is when a report comes out telling the world that "Ten thousand scientists have signed on to a resolution calling for reduction in global green house gases," or some such rot. With some investigation we find out that among the ten thousand "scientists" a handful have degrees in some hard sciences such as astrophysics or biology, but have no formal training in meteorology or climatology. All the rest are trained in the soft sciences such as sociology, anthropology, psychology, etc. Some of them might even simply have advanced degrees in theology.
The vast masses of people who've never been educated beyond high school level, which in the past twenty years means they are barely literate in functioning, have no clue where to begin in questioning what is and is not scientific. Which means that if the media tells them that "scientists say that if we don't reduce carbon emmissions to X levels by Y time, the planet will suffer catastrophic results," the people will just accept that crap because, well, "scientists" said so.
One of the biggest myths ever perpetrated on the world is the idea that scientists always pursue truth without allowing any other agenda to influence them. Scientists are fallible human beings with emotions. They want to be liked as much as anyone. They also want to get paid and live comfortable lives. And scientists will believe what they want to believe, even in spite of evidence, just like people without advanced degrees. This is true to the Nth degree when it comes to evolution.
There have been millions of scientists in the world since Sir Isaac Newton, but how many of them have ever stood out? How many have ever become household names? Bet you can't name more than three. I'm sure Einstein comes to mind. Why? Because his pronouncements radically transformed the world of physics. He was lucky enough that his discoveries made so much sense in explaining the physical world and were also provable. But more importantly, his ideas did not gore anybody's sacred cows. Had his ideas been too radical compared to the prevailing "accepted" theories, who knows how long it might have taken before his theories caught on.
For those who really pursue truth, it can be extremely lonely out on the edge of the frontier. Not only is it lonely, it can be downright dangerous. It was dangerous for the founding fathers to stand up to Great Britain in their day. It's dangerous today to stand up and say to the ignorant masses in this country that there is no magic ATM behind the capitol building in Washington DC pumping out billions of dollars for us to keep going the way we are going. It's dangerous to stand up to the union goons who have landed their "secure" jobs in government who believe that the people out there working in the real world should have to struggle to pay their big salaries and benefits.
It's not easy to stand up in a congregation of Christians and say, "You know what? You just aren't getting this right."
Many times, my lovely wife and I have lamented that we wish we didn't know everything we know now. It's no fun at all not having anyone to worship and fellowship with because the vast majority of people who call themselves Christians just want to believe what they want to believe and not learn anything more. I can relate to how lonely the prophets must have been when God gave them a message that made them seem like nothing but doom and gloom party crashers compared to all of their contemporaries who were speaking nothing but positive and pleasant things.
Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus The Christ) said that the end times (ahchereet hayameem) would be like the days of Noah. Noah had many months to build the ark and preach to the people. He tried to get them to turn from their wicked ways, but in the end, only he and his sons and their wives escaped. According to the book of Jasher, about 700,000 people perished in the flood. (The Bible itself refers to the book of Jasher as being authoritative, and so far, I have found nothing in it that contradicts Scripture.) This tells me, along with much of Scripture that there are going to be many, many people surprised in the end to find out they weren't really saved at all.
Ever since I became saved and was subsequently disillusioned about the hoaxes of evolution, leaders who are still touted as heroes, and doctrinal heresies in the Church, I have made it my mission to always question. Question everything. "Is this really true?" "Am I willing to suffer the slings and arrows of being called extreme because I won't go along with everybody else?" "Am I deceiving myself?" "HOW do I know this is true?"
"Am I willing to give up eternal bliss in the future in order to be liked and popular in this life?"
The vast majority of people simply will not tolerate any challenges to the conventional and accepted tradition in the churches. "Don't confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up!"
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Not Wanting To Know
This is the third installment that started with Why I Am Not A Christian. Part Two is Making A Case. If you haven't read Knowing God, Parts 1 - 5 this probably won't make enough sense to you.
Something I’ve never heard preached from a pulpit, or taught in a Sunday School class, is a lesson on the nature of God. I once got a small taste of a lesson tucked in a teaching by the late Dr. Walter Martin. It came up because you can often run into people who get their kicks by trying to come up with nonsensical, stupid questions to trip up believers. If I had the power to enforce a rule in Christendom, it would be that new believers are not allowed to attempt evangelizing on their own unless they can pass a test on how to deal with most of these objections. I know that it’s not practical and will never happen, but this goes along with why the Church has so many things wrong today. I want to start building my case by starting with the nature of God, but I think I need to explain this problem first.
It is easy to see why a non-believer looks at the vast array of denominations; Roman Catholic, Episcopalian, Methodist, Lutheran, etc. and thinks, “Those stupid Christians can’t agree on anything.” Who can blame him? Then you look at the cults of Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Unitarians, etc., and if you really know some basics about the Bible you wonder how did those people get so screwed up? The extremes to come out of these outliers are people like Jim Jones of the Guyana massacre, and David Koresh of Waco, Texas.
All of these denominations, even though some of them are so mainstream and ineffectual in society, have one common thread. They lack a proper hermeneutic. This is a fancy word for the logical, methodical way of interpreting Scripture. In a nutshell, it’s the proper method for determining what the Author meant to say so that you thoroughly understand it. It is sorely lacking in just about all the churches I’ve ever been in. I readily admit that humans are imperfect, and the imperfection of all human institutions are multiplied by the interaction of humans. But I also have to ask, “How long would Microsoft last if only a few of its employees could agree on how the software is supposed to work?” How long would you last at your job if you ignored the instructions and just made up procedures? Not only some that didn’t have anything to do with your job, but some that actually contradicted the mission of your employer?
How did denominations like the Seventh Day Adventists create bizarre offshoots like William Russell who created the Jehovah’s Witnesses and David Koresh? How do you get a Fred Phelps spewing his vile, hateful garbage and casting a pall upon all who claim allegiance to Christ? How did we end up with Christmas, which no God-fearing Christians in America would have considered celebrating prior to the 19th century? How did Christians come to calling Sunday the Sabbath instead of the seventh day as it had been since Adam and Eve? No hermeneutic and virtually no discipleship.
How many times has it happened to you, where you had to explain to someone, “Not only is that not what I meant, that’s not even what I said!” I sometimes wonder if God just has a recording in heaven that just plays that sound bite over and over.
Something I’ve never heard preached from a pulpit, or taught in a Sunday School class, is a lesson on the nature of God. I once got a small taste of a lesson tucked in a teaching by the late Dr. Walter Martin. It came up because you can often run into people who get their kicks by trying to come up with nonsensical, stupid questions to trip up believers. If I had the power to enforce a rule in Christendom, it would be that new believers are not allowed to attempt evangelizing on their own unless they can pass a test on how to deal with most of these objections. I know that it’s not practical and will never happen, but this goes along with why the Church has so many things wrong today. I want to start building my case by starting with the nature of God, but I think I need to explain this problem first.
It is easy to see why a non-believer looks at the vast array of denominations; Roman Catholic, Episcopalian, Methodist, Lutheran, etc. and thinks, “Those stupid Christians can’t agree on anything.” Who can blame him? Then you look at the cults of Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Unitarians, etc., and if you really know some basics about the Bible you wonder how did those people get so screwed up? The extremes to come out of these outliers are people like Jim Jones of the Guyana massacre, and David Koresh of Waco, Texas.
All of these denominations, even though some of them are so mainstream and ineffectual in society, have one common thread. They lack a proper hermeneutic. This is a fancy word for the logical, methodical way of interpreting Scripture. In a nutshell, it’s the proper method for determining what the Author meant to say so that you thoroughly understand it. It is sorely lacking in just about all the churches I’ve ever been in. I readily admit that humans are imperfect, and the imperfection of all human institutions are multiplied by the interaction of humans. But I also have to ask, “How long would Microsoft last if only a few of its employees could agree on how the software is supposed to work?” How long would you last at your job if you ignored the instructions and just made up procedures? Not only some that didn’t have anything to do with your job, but some that actually contradicted the mission of your employer?
How did denominations like the Seventh Day Adventists create bizarre offshoots like William Russell who created the Jehovah’s Witnesses and David Koresh? How do you get a Fred Phelps spewing his vile, hateful garbage and casting a pall upon all who claim allegiance to Christ? How did we end up with Christmas, which no God-fearing Christians in America would have considered celebrating prior to the 19th century? How did Christians come to calling Sunday the Sabbath instead of the seventh day as it had been since Adam and Eve? No hermeneutic and virtually no discipleship.
How many times has it happened to you, where you had to explain to someone, “Not only is that not what I meant, that’s not even what I said!” I sometimes wonder if God just has a recording in heaven that just plays that sound bite over and over.
America is filled with unaccountable, independent churches. Baptists can be very big on this concept. In such a church, you can just raise your hand and tell the congregation that you feel led by the Holy Spirit to start a ministry and preach the gospel, shortly after having become a convert. Chances are, everyone will be enamored with your gusto and zeal and will encourage you. It is unlikely that the elders will take you aside and thoroughly question you to find out how much you know. To see if you actually understand correct doctrine and are ready to take on the schemes of the enemy. The reasons the elders don’t do that is because not only are they unconcerned about what error you might fall into and then pass on, but they don’t know the answers either. Remember what I said about my story when it came to searching for answers. (See: Knowing God) Most church leaders ignore Paul’s instructions on ordaining leaders in the congregations. It is important to note that the only reason Paul had to write these instructions to the churches in the gentile areas, was because it was simply understood and a way of life for the Jewish believers who had been practicing Torah for centuries.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses began because William Russell took the basics from Ellen B. White and the Seventh Day Adventists, but decided that he alone knew better how to interpret the Bible and set the standards for doctrine. David Koresh did basically the same thing but was far less concerned with decorum. In both cases, their followers succumbed to the cult of personality and the gift of charisma.
Why am I spending so much time and space on this background? So as to contrast it with the Master Himself. Let’s carefully consider the facts. Based on Scripture, Yeshua was clearly of miraculous conception and the Spirit of God was upon him from that time on. The event of his being in the Temple asking questions, most likely following His Bar-Mitzvah coinciding with Passover, demonstrates that He knew His identity even then. See Luke 2:41-52. Why did he wait until age thirty to begin his ministry, keeping His identity as Messiah a secret? The timing of fulfillment of the prophecy in Daniel is not a sufficient answer.
I believe He did so out of respect for the traditions of the elders. Do not be bamboozled into thinking that all traditions were held in contempt by Yeshua, but only those that were used to negate Torah. He didn’t start His ministry until age 30 because he would have seen as an arrogant upstart otherwise. A Jewish boy was expected to memorize Torah by the age of 13 and his Bar Mitzvah into adulthood. There was no concept of adolescence in most of history. From that point, a young man is expected to keep his mouth shut and keep learning by listening to the debates of all the men over age 30. Only after all of this intense, thorough, and yet informal “schooling,” and having reached the age of 30, he could start offering his opinion on the Tanakh as being authoritative, and yet opinions were almost always given “in the name of” (authority) of a much greater sage.
Back to my original issue about understanding the nature of God. This is important because it would seem that most of Christianity seems to endorse the idea that God changed everything when Messiah came. Where is the evidence for this? Most all of the Torah and the Prophets is about giving us a picture of who the Messiah is and what he would do. In both His first advent and then His second, in which the misunderstandings of the roles of Meshiach ben Yosef and Meshiach ben David has served to prevent most of the Jews from accepting the one Christianity calls Jesus of Nazareth.
When you think of Scripture as the autobiography of God and see the amazing supernatural evidence to that effect, you have to take seriously that He means what He says and He is careful about choosing the words. Yeshua even made a point about the tense of the words when questioned by the Pharisees. Also it should be logical that an omnipotent God can see to it that most of His word gets passed down through the ages accurately (see: Knowing God, Part 5).
My point is to ask the logical question, “Would the God of the Bible give mankind His Torah, His instruction book, repeat over and over that these instructions and commandments were forever and everlasting, and then send His Son to say, “Hey everybody, all that stuff that Daddy told Moses? Y’all can just ignore that stuff now.” As I’ve already shown, Yeshua didn’t say that. In fact, He said just the opposite.
To say that the God of the Bible would have one system of rules for one set of people and then another almost non-existent set of rules, or rather just two completely indefinable rules for some other people, would mean that He is a capricious god like what the Romans and Greeks believed in. I can’t seem to come up with any other word for that kind of thinking other than blasphemy. If that seems to harsh, maybe you can suggest another idea? And please don’t think I’m just trying to be mean. If this is the first time you are being challenged to think about this, I’m sure it’s uncomfortable. Let me assure you that God does not hold us accountable for what we don’t know, or for being deceived and unaware of the deception. However, once you’ve been confronted with the facts and you still insist on going your merry way, you’ll have to discuss it with your Creator.
I was at a church where a woman interjected herself while I was answering a question about Torah, saying that we didn’t need to worry about Torah, to which I asked her how she dealt with Matthew 5:17-19, quoting it to her, but before I could finish, she said, “I’m not going to listen to that, and I’m not going to read it.” Even after all the encounters I’ve had over the years, I was still a bit stunned.
The next installment is "Getting The Big Picture."
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Knowing God: Part 4
Before you continue reading this fourth part, you should have already read parts 1, 2, and 3, and you especially need to read my answers to Paul in the comments sections of part 2. One of my great pet peeves is people who claim to be disciples of God, Yeshua, Jesus, yet ignore the directive that we are to be prepared to give to any man an answer for the hope that lies within us. I dealt with his responses in brief, but if you need more clarification or additional information or would like to add something to the mix, jump in. I may want to bring it up in the next segment.
To say, "You just gotta have faith." doesn't cut it. First of all, it's not necessary, and secondly, it's contrary to what is expected by the Bible itself. Thirdly, it reveals a complete misunderstanding of what real faith is.
All of this is important, because as I alluded to earlier, believing in any god just to believe in something would be silly. That's right; I'm calling BS on the idea that all paths ultimately lead to God. Which is why the question of whether or not the Bible speaks the truth about every aspect of this world and it's history is vitally important. It's why prophecy is so important. No other "holy" book repeatedly makes the claim to put it to the test the way the Bible does. Please notice the incredible contrast between the Bible and all other religious books when it comes to authorship.
Other ancient texts do not claim any single persons as authoring them on behalf of God. For example, the Hindu Vedas are compilations of oral tradition prior to the first century CE. They don't contain prophecy and they don't claim transcendent authority. Islam claims authority on the idea that God handed one, lone illiterate Arab an entire written text. Same kind of story with Joseph Smith.
In contrast, the Tanakh, or Old Testament, has only the first five books penned by one man, giving great historical detail that can and has been scrutinized for thousands of years. [We will revisit this scrutiny later.] Then the rest of the collection is written by multiple authors all claiming inspiration by the one and only Creator. We are talking about more than 30 authors, some separated by hundreds of years, contributing to an unfolding revelation. The Hebrew prophets were big on recording history just as it was, in drastic contrast to the scribes of kings of other societies. The "histories" of other societies are most often stories according to how the king wanted it told. Hebrew scribes described their kings warts and all. The Bible itself puts an enormous burden on the Bible to be proven as having a divine source. Think carefully about that. I can't count the number of people I've encountered who say they would like to see some evidence that God exists, but when I start giving them examples of clearly fulfilled prophecy, then history doesn't exist for them anymore. History written by secular historians about Egypt or Greece or Rome is never questioned, but then those histories don't require you to think about your own mortality. God took the hardest route, not trusting His story to just one man to deliver it to the world. He chose many authors, separated by time and geography to record His message so that no mere human could take credit for it, or mess it up, for that matter.
If you've ever tried to write a story, let alone a novel, you would know that one of the most difficult things about writing fiction is keeping track of all the details about which you wrote and not making a mistake that will make you look stupid. This is hard enough if you are the only one doing the writing. Now imagine that you are being told to write things that make absolutely no sense to you about future events, or about things that you should have no reason to know about. Then, over hundreds of years, all the writings of yourself and a dozen other men have to never conflict with each other. Let's say that, each of you contributes, not just a few, but many predictions concerning the identity and activities of one man, along with many other predictions about future events, but let's just concentrate on that one man.
The promise of a Messiah came as soon as the fall took place. From then on out, Torah would gradually keep revealing different aspects of who that Messiah was supposed to be. Then later, more prophets would arise and give more details, furthermore, the Psalms, mostly written by King David, add details. Most of it alluded to the details, and some of it was direct and clear, but all of it designed to be a mosaic that would become an almost impossible I.D. card for the One to come. The Vedas don't do that. The Quran doesn't do that. There's no other writing in the history of the world that sets itself up to predict that the Creator Himself is going to come and set things straight and provides this huge volume of coded text that says, "Many will come and go, but the real Anointed One has to meet all these criteria in order to be real." The reason I don't go into a long list of the examples is because it would take pages and pages, and for the purpose of making my ultimate point with this long essay, you just need to stipulate to the possibility. If you think you can debunk any of the above, knock yourself out, the list of intellects that have tried and failed before you is long and distinguished.
Which brings me to just one good example that makes the point. A man named Josh McDowell. Like myself, Josh grew up hating religion and Christianity specifically. In college, he set out to put an end to this stupid mythology about God and the Bible once and for all. Man plans and God laughs. What was produced from all of the thousands of hours of research was a two volume tome called Evidence That Demands A Verdict. It was a magnum opus of exactly the opposite of what McDowell set out to do. It systematically goes over objection after objection, evidence after evidence, laying it all out like a trial in a court of law. It is a far more in depth and scholarly work, involving much more evidence than Lee Stroebel's, The Case For Christ. Stroebel was also a militant atheist who wanted to put an end to the God myth. Let this serve as a warning to atheists, agnostics, adherents to other false religions: If you like your beliefs as they are, you best not go digging for the truth lest it rock your world.
Of course, McDowell didn't stop there, because once you've been confronted with the overwhelming truth, you can't just sit there and remain neutral about it. He went on to produce more writing and do his best to evangelize. One of his great little books is called More Than A Carpenter, and it focuses only on the identity of Jesus of Nazareth (Yeshua Netsri) as the Messiah. He took just 200 of the prophecies that the promised Messiah would have to fulfill in order to be deemed the Messiah, but McDowell chose those that Yeshua would not have had direct control over; place of birth, parentage, the things others would do to him, etc. Then McDowell let an independent actuarial firm do the math for him. The result? The odds of one man meeting the requirements of the 200 prophecies came to 1 in 10 to the 17th power. If you're not a math or science geek, that's a 1 with 17 zeros behind it. 100,000,000,000,000,000. One hundred thousand times one trillion. McDowell understood that the average person can't really wrap their head around that figure, so he needed a visual.
Take the entire state of Texas. I remember how big it is because I moved from Florida to California and then back again in a Ryder truck on Interstate 10. Driving about nine hours a day, it took about three days to cross. They put governors on those trucks and that was back during the national 55 mph limit. Texas is so big you could put the entire population of the planet in the state with each person having a little less than a square yard. Crowded, I know, but it makes my point. Now fill the state of Texas with enough silver dollars to cover it to a depth of two feet, but before you do that, you get to wrap one silver dollar with some red duct tape and mix it in, then they all get poured out over the state. Now we put you on a C-130 and take you up to about 30,000 feet and you can direct the pilot to take you over any given area of the state, and when you are ready, you can do your HALO jump, then you have to open your parachute at the right altitude and land in the right spot so you can reach down and pick up that one red-taped silver dollar out of the sea of dollars.
Still not impressed by the math? Scientists regard pretty much anything beyond the odds of one in 50 million as being impossible. So that means Yeshua exceeded the realm of possibility by 20 billion times. If that doesn't grab your attention, you are probably wasting your time here. And you should be making the very most of what time you have in this life, because, to paraphrase the great mathematician Blaise Paschal; if you skeptics are right and I'm wrong, then eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die and that's the end. I will have gained nothing more than to have led a better life for morality's sake. But if the Bible is right and you're wrong - boy, does it ever suck to be you!
In my case, after all of my research, my logical mind pretty much convinced me that it doesn't really matter a lot how I "feel" about the Bible or religion. I didn't have a Damascus road experience, but I didn't need one. No mystical vision, no audible thundering voice. Facts are facts, and facts are stubborn things. Facts are assembled to come to conclusions, and a group of conclusions results in other conclusions. Let me walk you through the main points in a logical fashion
This Jesus guy stepped into history and lived like no one else before, and no one else since. The fact that millions have chosen peaceful martyrdom* rather than recant their belief for over 2,000 years is one thing. But the testimony of those who didn't even believe in Him is even more compelling. Flavius Josephus is a prime example. The testimonies of those who actually walked with the Rabbi of Nazereth constantly appealed to eyewitness accounts.
What I think is ingenious about how God worked all this out (as if I'm qualified to judge - HA!) is how he had different people with completely different experiences testifying to what He did. Thomas was even invited to stick his hand in the spear wound of a resurrected man, even though he should have remembered about Lazarus. Thomas makes me feel better about all the times I still have doubts because I tend to forget what has happened in the past. Rabbi Paul needed to be struck blind for three days to think about the events that had taken place in Jerusalem and gain a new understanding of all the stuff he'd studied under Gamaliel.
I think about all this in depth. Here was a man who fulfilled prophecies that were hundreds or thousands of years old. He did miracles, and even though the religious leaders didn't want to accept Him as Messiah, they couldn't deny the miracles. They couldn't explain away Lazarus. Then the man rises from the dead and leaves the tomb, even though there was a heavy guard. Nobody can produce a body to prove the disciples wrong, but more than that, Rabbi Paul, who used to jail the very followers of the guy, is now saying that if you don't believe him about Yeshua having risen from the dead, go ask any or all of the 500 or so people who have seen and talked to Him since then. The silence from those who wished to see the whole matter die was deafening. You would think that if all the events of Jesus' life was just a big hoax, the Jewish Talmud would have laid out all the evidence, explained how he was just another false prophet and been done with it. Instead the best they could say was that he was the bastard son of a Roman soldier and that Jewish girl, Miriam.
In the "normal" world of megalomaniacs, someone who claimed essential oneness with the Creator of the universe would be expected to do all kinds of crazy stuff and demand slavish obeisance. Instead we get the most altruistic form of a human being beyond our fallen comprehension, in the form of a humble carpenter from the Galilean hillside. So, let me see . . . What are my choices here? What should I do?
Somehow it just seems like a no-brainer to take seriously the words of a man who did all of that. When Yeshua basically said that He had come to fulfill Scripture, and that all of it was still in effect and would remain so until heaven and earth passed away and beyond, I think it wise to obey and keep studying to see if there is something I might be missing. That doesn't just mean studying Scripture and ignoring the natural world and all of its evidence. That's the coolest thing about real science for me. There isn't a single established fact of science that differs with the Bible. I love taking on the challenges because with each iteration my faith only grows stronger. I will admit that some of the same old arguments that have been refuted can get tiresome, but I am reminded of the faces I've seen when I have shared this information and the many thanks I've gotten from people who wallowed in doubt because they didn't know and didn't know who to ask.
Don't take anything for granted. Don't just take anybody's word; not even mine. Search for yourself, but really search and be honest about it. Test everything.
Next I hope to delve into problem of trying to have a Messiah apart from the Bible. Or maybe I'll deal with Equidistant Letter Sequencing code embedded in the Torah. We'll see.
Knowing God: Part 5 continues here.
To say, "You just gotta have faith." doesn't cut it. First of all, it's not necessary, and secondly, it's contrary to what is expected by the Bible itself. Thirdly, it reveals a complete misunderstanding of what real faith is.
All of this is important, because as I alluded to earlier, believing in any god just to believe in something would be silly. That's right; I'm calling BS on the idea that all paths ultimately lead to God. Which is why the question of whether or not the Bible speaks the truth about every aspect of this world and it's history is vitally important. It's why prophecy is so important. No other "holy" book repeatedly makes the claim to put it to the test the way the Bible does. Please notice the incredible contrast between the Bible and all other religious books when it comes to authorship.
Other ancient texts do not claim any single persons as authoring them on behalf of God. For example, the Hindu Vedas are compilations of oral tradition prior to the first century CE. They don't contain prophecy and they don't claim transcendent authority. Islam claims authority on the idea that God handed one, lone illiterate Arab an entire written text. Same kind of story with Joseph Smith.
In contrast, the Tanakh, or Old Testament, has only the first five books penned by one man, giving great historical detail that can and has been scrutinized for thousands of years. [We will revisit this scrutiny later.] Then the rest of the collection is written by multiple authors all claiming inspiration by the one and only Creator. We are talking about more than 30 authors, some separated by hundreds of years, contributing to an unfolding revelation. The Hebrew prophets were big on recording history just as it was, in drastic contrast to the scribes of kings of other societies. The "histories" of other societies are most often stories according to how the king wanted it told. Hebrew scribes described their kings warts and all. The Bible itself puts an enormous burden on the Bible to be proven as having a divine source. Think carefully about that. I can't count the number of people I've encountered who say they would like to see some evidence that God exists, but when I start giving them examples of clearly fulfilled prophecy, then history doesn't exist for them anymore. History written by secular historians about Egypt or Greece or Rome is never questioned, but then those histories don't require you to think about your own mortality. God took the hardest route, not trusting His story to just one man to deliver it to the world. He chose many authors, separated by time and geography to record His message so that no mere human could take credit for it, or mess it up, for that matter.
If you've ever tried to write a story, let alone a novel, you would know that one of the most difficult things about writing fiction is keeping track of all the details about which you wrote and not making a mistake that will make you look stupid. This is hard enough if you are the only one doing the writing. Now imagine that you are being told to write things that make absolutely no sense to you about future events, or about things that you should have no reason to know about. Then, over hundreds of years, all the writings of yourself and a dozen other men have to never conflict with each other. Let's say that, each of you contributes, not just a few, but many predictions concerning the identity and activities of one man, along with many other predictions about future events, but let's just concentrate on that one man.
The promise of a Messiah came as soon as the fall took place. From then on out, Torah would gradually keep revealing different aspects of who that Messiah was supposed to be. Then later, more prophets would arise and give more details, furthermore, the Psalms, mostly written by King David, add details. Most of it alluded to the details, and some of it was direct and clear, but all of it designed to be a mosaic that would become an almost impossible I.D. card for the One to come. The Vedas don't do that. The Quran doesn't do that. There's no other writing in the history of the world that sets itself up to predict that the Creator Himself is going to come and set things straight and provides this huge volume of coded text that says, "Many will come and go, but the real Anointed One has to meet all these criteria in order to be real." The reason I don't go into a long list of the examples is because it would take pages and pages, and for the purpose of making my ultimate point with this long essay, you just need to stipulate to the possibility. If you think you can debunk any of the above, knock yourself out, the list of intellects that have tried and failed before you is long and distinguished.
Which brings me to just one good example that makes the point. A man named Josh McDowell. Like myself, Josh grew up hating religion and Christianity specifically. In college, he set out to put an end to this stupid mythology about God and the Bible once and for all. Man plans and God laughs. What was produced from all of the thousands of hours of research was a two volume tome called Evidence That Demands A Verdict. It was a magnum opus of exactly the opposite of what McDowell set out to do. It systematically goes over objection after objection, evidence after evidence, laying it all out like a trial in a court of law. It is a far more in depth and scholarly work, involving much more evidence than Lee Stroebel's, The Case For Christ. Stroebel was also a militant atheist who wanted to put an end to the God myth. Let this serve as a warning to atheists, agnostics, adherents to other false religions: If you like your beliefs as they are, you best not go digging for the truth lest it rock your world.
Of course, McDowell didn't stop there, because once you've been confronted with the overwhelming truth, you can't just sit there and remain neutral about it. He went on to produce more writing and do his best to evangelize. One of his great little books is called More Than A Carpenter, and it focuses only on the identity of Jesus of Nazareth (Yeshua Netsri) as the Messiah. He took just 200 of the prophecies that the promised Messiah would have to fulfill in order to be deemed the Messiah, but McDowell chose those that Yeshua would not have had direct control over; place of birth, parentage, the things others would do to him, etc. Then McDowell let an independent actuarial firm do the math for him. The result? The odds of one man meeting the requirements of the 200 prophecies came to 1 in 10 to the 17th power. If you're not a math or science geek, that's a 1 with 17 zeros behind it. 100,000,000,000,000,000. One hundred thousand times one trillion. McDowell understood that the average person can't really wrap their head around that figure, so he needed a visual.
Take the entire state of Texas. I remember how big it is because I moved from Florida to California and then back again in a Ryder truck on Interstate 10. Driving about nine hours a day, it took about three days to cross. They put governors on those trucks and that was back during the national 55 mph limit. Texas is so big you could put the entire population of the planet in the state with each person having a little less than a square yard. Crowded, I know, but it makes my point. Now fill the state of Texas with enough silver dollars to cover it to a depth of two feet, but before you do that, you get to wrap one silver dollar with some red duct tape and mix it in, then they all get poured out over the state. Now we put you on a C-130 and take you up to about 30,000 feet and you can direct the pilot to take you over any given area of the state, and when you are ready, you can do your HALO jump, then you have to open your parachute at the right altitude and land in the right spot so you can reach down and pick up that one red-taped silver dollar out of the sea of dollars.
Still not impressed by the math? Scientists regard pretty much anything beyond the odds of one in 50 million as being impossible. So that means Yeshua exceeded the realm of possibility by 20 billion times. If that doesn't grab your attention, you are probably wasting your time here. And you should be making the very most of what time you have in this life, because, to paraphrase the great mathematician Blaise Paschal; if you skeptics are right and I'm wrong, then eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die and that's the end. I will have gained nothing more than to have led a better life for morality's sake. But if the Bible is right and you're wrong - boy, does it ever suck to be you!
In my case, after all of my research, my logical mind pretty much convinced me that it doesn't really matter a lot how I "feel" about the Bible or religion. I didn't have a Damascus road experience, but I didn't need one. No mystical vision, no audible thundering voice. Facts are facts, and facts are stubborn things. Facts are assembled to come to conclusions, and a group of conclusions results in other conclusions. Let me walk you through the main points in a logical fashion
This Jesus guy stepped into history and lived like no one else before, and no one else since. The fact that millions have chosen peaceful martyrdom* rather than recant their belief for over 2,000 years is one thing. But the testimony of those who didn't even believe in Him is even more compelling. Flavius Josephus is a prime example. The testimonies of those who actually walked with the Rabbi of Nazereth constantly appealed to eyewitness accounts.
What I think is ingenious about how God worked all this out (as if I'm qualified to judge - HA!) is how he had different people with completely different experiences testifying to what He did. Thomas was even invited to stick his hand in the spear wound of a resurrected man, even though he should have remembered about Lazarus. Thomas makes me feel better about all the times I still have doubts because I tend to forget what has happened in the past. Rabbi Paul needed to be struck blind for three days to think about the events that had taken place in Jerusalem and gain a new understanding of all the stuff he'd studied under Gamaliel.
I think about all this in depth. Here was a man who fulfilled prophecies that were hundreds or thousands of years old. He did miracles, and even though the religious leaders didn't want to accept Him as Messiah, they couldn't deny the miracles. They couldn't explain away Lazarus. Then the man rises from the dead and leaves the tomb, even though there was a heavy guard. Nobody can produce a body to prove the disciples wrong, but more than that, Rabbi Paul, who used to jail the very followers of the guy, is now saying that if you don't believe him about Yeshua having risen from the dead, go ask any or all of the 500 or so people who have seen and talked to Him since then. The silence from those who wished to see the whole matter die was deafening. You would think that if all the events of Jesus' life was just a big hoax, the Jewish Talmud would have laid out all the evidence, explained how he was just another false prophet and been done with it. Instead the best they could say was that he was the bastard son of a Roman soldier and that Jewish girl, Miriam.
In the "normal" world of megalomaniacs, someone who claimed essential oneness with the Creator of the universe would be expected to do all kinds of crazy stuff and demand slavish obeisance. Instead we get the most altruistic form of a human being beyond our fallen comprehension, in the form of a humble carpenter from the Galilean hillside. So, let me see . . . What are my choices here? What should I do?
Somehow it just seems like a no-brainer to take seriously the words of a man who did all of that. When Yeshua basically said that He had come to fulfill Scripture, and that all of it was still in effect and would remain so until heaven and earth passed away and beyond, I think it wise to obey and keep studying to see if there is something I might be missing. That doesn't just mean studying Scripture and ignoring the natural world and all of its evidence. That's the coolest thing about real science for me. There isn't a single established fact of science that differs with the Bible. I love taking on the challenges because with each iteration my faith only grows stronger. I will admit that some of the same old arguments that have been refuted can get tiresome, but I am reminded of the faces I've seen when I have shared this information and the many thanks I've gotten from people who wallowed in doubt because they didn't know and didn't know who to ask.
Don't take anything for granted. Don't just take anybody's word; not even mine. Search for yourself, but really search and be honest about it. Test everything.
Next I hope to delve into problem of trying to have a Messiah apart from the Bible. Or maybe I'll deal with Equidistant Letter Sequencing code embedded in the Torah. We'll see.
Knowing God: Part 5 continues here.
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