Fathers and Sons (by menorahguy)
A father gives commands to his two sons.  The Father was wise, knowing what is best for His boys, out His love for them he told them what they must do to be blessed and live that would be pleasing to Him.  The 1st son wanted to please his Father, so he did all that He commanded, out of love for his Father.  The second son saw the commands as a burden, he complained, he even went so far as to call his Fathers commands “chains of bondage”.Â
Only a rebellious son would make such accusations.
05 July 2009
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Great studys Will!!!
This is one of the longest commented blogs I’ve ever read.!!
Okay, I made a few notes as I read from like post # 130-345
The Word of YHVH was spoken in the beginning, saying, “let there be light”.
The Word of YHVH was spoken at Mnt Sina.
The Word of YHVH came to Elijah.
The Word of YHVH came to Isaiah.
The Word of YHVH came to Jerimiah.
The Word of YHVH came to Ezekiel. Etc Etc.
The Word of YHVH said to walk in Yah’s ways and to keep His commandments.
The Word of YHVH took up flesh and walked amongs us.
The Word of YHVH said, “If you love me, keep my commandments”.
The Word of YHVH is eternal.
The Word of YHVH is the name that is written on Messiah in Revelations.
It is said my some in Judaism, that the “Name” of YHVH is actually, all of the letters of the Torah pronounced in one large name.” Hence the beginning and the end. No one can say this name, but we can learn what this name is saying. In Hebrew the word for name is “shem”. It doesn’t mean the articulation of certain sylabols, but rather authority. His “name” or “authority” is the Word of YHVH.
Acts 15 does infact point to the dietatry commands. Not eating a strangled animal, and not eating blood are specific procedures on how to “kosher kill” an animal.
Everyone seems to be mixed up reguarding the word “keep”. “Keep” doesn’t mean to do, it means to guard. “Shemah, or Hear, carries the meaning to Hear and Do, as Paul says, ‘not the hearers only of the Law are justified, but the doers”. To gurad the 10 would mean to not let one of them be defiled, or made common. There is no temple… NOW, but there will be, so Judah has “kept” or guarded the torah commands pertaining to the Temple. An unmarried man must “guard” the commands pertaining to his wife, and intercourse, so that when he marries, he can do them even though he cannot do them at this very moment.
Romans 14 is entirely about “doubtfull disputations. I smoke a pipe. Is that sin? Some may say yes, some may say no. Does the Word say yes or no? It’s a doubtful disputaion. So let’s keep the context of Rom 14 to things that are not “correctable” through Scripture, such as smoking, gambeling, drinking, birthdays, mothersday, fathers day, the fast of the ninth of Av, the 4th of July etc.
2,000 years of the greatest minds Christianity has to offer. 70 ad, Jerusalem sacked, and the temple destroyed. There are texts that say the belivers in Yeshua fled before they were surrounded and killed. This put a strong end to “meeting in the synoguges”. Not too far in the future, you have a complete apostate church in 325 AD. The dark ages were not good times. The reformation was just the beginning of coming back to the Scriptures. By this point, anyone who is searching for truth in the Scriptures has to erase the pretexts that the dark ages, and romanism placed upon them. This has been a VERY slow process. The Word, was not available to avearge layman for many years, and the study tools we have today we not availble to the average man 150 years ago. The Job of “teaching” Scripture, stayed in the hands of the elite few for hundreds of years. We are truly looking at a time when the average man, can learn Hebrew and Greek, and study the Bible like never before. It is no longer need to have a “man of the cloth” to tell you what the Bible says.
Shuman, I believe the reason you were not getting much dialoge, is you do not seem interested in the Text of the Bible, but rather a gut feeling you have. I’m not saying that Ruach or Wind of Yah doesn’t blows on us, giving us direction. What I am saying is that with your method of “worship” you get things like the florida hoopla and the “toranto blessing” and countless other “spiritual” encounters. Many heathan religions believe in an inner voice as well. We are told to “test” the spirits. Test them against What? What standard must they speak of? Even the Demons believe, and shutter. They announced Him as the son of God, but they are FAR FROM HIM.
Even the Rabbi’s say in Talmud, “Without faith, the letters of the Torah are just Black ink on White paper.”
Ask any Jew today “what is Torah”, they will say the Oral and the Written, but they do not divide the two, they say they are one. Paul made a distinction in Galations:
Gal 3:10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.
Let’s look at the text he is quoting, notice if he added any words, to get a point across.
Deu 27:26 Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them. And all the people shall say, Amen.
What did Paul add to Due 27:26? “which are WRITTEN in the book “. Here paul is making the distinction between “Written” and “Oral”, something Jews don’t do even to this day.
Please, research what the flavor of religion was during Paul’s day. It was NOT pure Torah keeping, but the cammandments of MEN.
Yah says to rest on Shabbat, He even says not to work your animals on Shabbat. Man comes along and tells you HOW to rest on Shabbat, what is concidered “work” and what isn’t. They add traditions to Shabbat that must be kept. There are over 1,500 Shabbat commands in The Talmud, there are only a max of 7 in the Torah. Not too hard. Shabbat points to Yah as the Creator, we give Him honor every Shabbat we keep, “For in six days YHVH created the heavens and the earth, and on the 7th day He rested”. baruch hashem YHVH!!
IHi gang, It was a long night. I began digging into guy’s like Polycarp, Mercion, and Tertulian last night.
I think I can see where some of this “church history” is coming from.
Most of my copied discoveries are from a Church of God source. Some have concluded therefore that perhaps it is biased toward Sabbatarian views. Alright then…. maybe I’ll look for other sources…
I found there to be precious few sources outside any Catholic ownership so naturally now I might reject them because of my suspected prejudiced bias.
It seems that as you study, one finds even examples of much disagreement even between “church father” that were contemporaries. There was much to conclude evidence suggesting that unity far from reached between them in many cases. Polycarp was certainly no proponent of Mercion (called him Son of Satan… or something like that)
I have found that many Catholic historians acknowledge that these gentiles indeed had very little displayable Jewish foundation. Yet that Polycarp was indeed a student of John/Yochanan and thus probably had a more hands on experience with Jewish learning.
I find Polycarp a defender of keeping Passover on 14 Nissan.
I find Marcion proclaiming Jews to be damned above all things along with their “old” testament.
I find that Jews along with Romans also had a great part in Polycarp’s martyrdom. (sound familiar?) And I find that these types of Jews were most likely the number one reason many “church fathers” chose no part of “synagogue life” as we come to think of it.
I find that it is interesting that all of the original writings and un-commented on material from any of these church fathers is (so far) in every case exclusively under ownership of the Catholic Church. (to which I find myself mumble “how convenient”)
So what to do…..
———————————————————————————-
Well, so far I do what the apostles did…. meditate upon the scripture. Here is what I conclude thus far:
1. Jesus expressed STRONG desire for unity in his body.
2. God had commands that in context (Numbers 15 etc.) expressed a desire for Israel to attract nations to be like them, but for Israel never to behave like them…. or …. it was o.k. in God’s eyes for nations, sojourners, and outsiders to go and be with and look like Israel BUT it was NOT o.k. for Israel to go to and look like those nations…. especially when it came to worship.
3. Jews (the same Jews that executed Peter, James, boiled John, stoned Stephen etc. and did this to other Jews that believed in Jesus/Yeshua… NOT ALL Jews) in this first century were zealous at some point and very prejudice against gentiles…. gentiles such as Polycarp were martyred just like Jews such as Stephen.
4. Gentiles (whom many many many were raised within a system of Paganism or were from families that were) as a result were, due to out right rejection by the above mentioned Jews, either rejected or simply did not embrace “the synagogue.” In Acts 15 we see James encourage his brethren to allow them to come…. but perhaps his stated desire never was realized as hoped???? And this was directly due to the immovable “Judaisers” that spared no expense at their seeking to fowl up and stumble these new gentile believers … I am sure this animosity between guys like these Jews and guys like Mercion and his ilk was fueled by both sides broad brush prejudicing the other.
5. Jewish historians: I find my challenging friend (Chris) to have a prejudice (sorry if the wrong choice of words) toward guys like Josephus due to what currently appears to be solely for the reason of him being Jewish. Therefore I feel like he will reject Josephus observations of how “churches/synagogues” operated within his scope, much in the same way I seem to want to reject the reports in possession of and in ownership by the Catholic church. So perhaps we are at an impass…..?
6. Local context: It is suggested by the Catholic authors I’ve read that possession of and study of “Jewish” scriptures may possibly been a difficult task by any of these men due to what became popular prejudice (you’d be prejudice to if people calling themselves Jews were trying to have you killed and you didn’t even read their language…) I feel broke hearted by this as the scriptures that these church fathers may have had much difficulty studying on their own are not “Jewish” they are God’s Word… Much like the vehement war the Catholic Church waged against any written scripture that was not done in Latin/Greek was to be destroyed due to the same but opposite prejudice.
Jump to Conclusion (sake of time)………………….
My personal conclusion looks something like this…. It is apperent and much recorded that guys like Tertulian, Mercion, and Polycarp did not and could not have possessed what we now hold in our hands…. THE BIBLE ….
That being said… let it sink in….. What an amazing time we now live in, where we not only have THE BIBLE in a nice neat package, but a 37 year old guy in rural North Idaho can look at a computer screen and find 27 different versions of it as well as study foreign languages at the click of a mouse…. as brilliant as I am sure they were…. these church fathers and Josephus DID NOT HAVE WHAT WE HAVE….
So what does that mean?
It may mean that we know more about context from this view than even they did when it comes to scripture. Not to mention, that we don’t need to fear being stoned to death for possessing it. We can indeed take time to study it.
In this study (now that we have what we have)… will we side with Jesus and God (see 1 and 2) in wanting to establish a unity that perhaps guys like Mercion hated and Polycarp seemingly wanted and Josephus already took for granted within the “synagogue life.”?
Perhaps we may respectfully disagree with the early church’s desperate choice to create a Sunday sabbath. There is much to suggest that they indeed did not possess ALL that we do in scripture packaged knowledge, therefore that decision may not have been thought of to be at odds with the true intent or desire of God and His Messiah.
Without this pakaged product and the time to actually study it and unwillingness on both sides (Jew and Gentile) to at least TRY it and see… perhaps the church fathers could not make the leap that BEING GRAFTED INTO THE COMMONWEALTH OF ISRAEL (if they even had this letter to study anywhere but in Ephesus) may not have been something they could fathom or even if they did try to do so, “false Jews” would not allow for them to practice and experience this… (are you with me Chris?) Perhaps we today may never fully know what it must have been like to be them … on either side.
We see for thousands of years that once the Jews and unbeleiving Romans stopped killing “saints” for whatever they deemed an offence worthy of excecution…. that THE CHURCH began to destroy many attempts at bringing the BIBLE to the common people….. WHY?
I submit that at some point we need to just ponder that perhaps Satan himself is none other to blame for all of the prejudice and wall building destroying well intended believer’s attempts at unity….
Perhaps Jesus point about the gates of Hell not prevailing against it… does not exactly LOOK the way some here want to see it.
If I am to decide upon this ongoing current argument… I must side with the Jewish apostles whom did indeed study and meditate upon the scriptures themselves. Upon this context I can visualize the UNITY Christ spoke of.
It’s all over the “new testament” once you begin to “see” it. Torah was indeed for both Jew and Gentile both in the “old” and “new” testament. Torah was also the foundation spoken of by Paul and Jesus. It is indeed the “starting point” that God himself MADE to be the foundation. If you do not have a compass, how can you be sure north is north? If you do not have a witness in Torah, how can you be sure Jesus was truly the Messiah and Paul was indeed telling the truth? I beleive Paul is Misunderstood by unwilling to believe Jews and therefor twisted in order to look like a bafoon…. AND I beleive Paul is twisted by Gentiles who are eager to seperate their faith from a faith that is indeed rooted in the PEOPLE…. THE LAND… and THE TORAH of —ISRAEL—. Just like Peter said in 2 Peter 3:16-17…. his words are indeed twisted …
So if Peter can himself admit to seeing the twists…. what can we indeed trust…?
I am sorry, Chris, but I must side with the Scriptures as they relate to the PEOPLe, the LAND, and the TORAH of Israel, vs. the interpretation of well intended men (whom maybe we will never know which ones worshipped on Sunday or Shabbat) who may not have had the opportunity to see them (scriptures) as we now do. And for that reason may not have had the privilege of the context of the land, people, and torah as we may now have. Perhaps THIS very fact may be why the prophets wanted to live in these days…?
God is indeed desirous of UNITY… but he has indeed provided a foundation and a “compass” for what He expects that unity to “look like” and it is found in His teachings and instructions for His people Israel…. Israel is in fact what you are grafted into and Israel is the sheepfold and Israel is indeed the Bride. Even if the Jews don’t see this due to blindness … you have an opportunity to be an Israel to glorify God and do it sooooo much better with the Holy Spirit than the unbelieving Jews ever could without Him.
Shalom.
Well we are all wine bibbers. I was drinking Cabernet last night too. How funny.
William,
You were right about the unity. Many people do not pay attention when Yeshua said:
Matthew 15:24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”he came to the lost sheep of Israel. -> He was not talking about the Jews in general, but the 10 lost tribes of Israel.
Matthew 10:6 Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.
Luke 15:4
“Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?
The kindom was (and still is) divided. The House of Judah + Benjamin are in Israel right now and the House of Israel is among the nations. Yeshua came and many from the 10 tribes believed in him.
For Judah the 10 tribes are no longer part of their people, they call them gentiles.
Romans 9:25
As he says in Hosea: “I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people; and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,”
Like you said in your text, even though the Jews do agree, all that receive Yeshua is as israelite. I am having a hard time explaining this…You must read and understand Hosea to understand what I am saying.
The parable of the prodigal son is about the House of Judah and the House of Israel. Even though the House of Israel went to the nations and commit idolatry, when they receive the Messiah they are received back with much love (lost, dead -> found) by the father. Yeshua came to unite the 2 houses.
Is it possible that people that were never of the seed of Abraham to accept Yeshua and be part of the people of God? YES! YES! It was always like this and many are coming to the knowledge of God through Yeshua, but Yeshua’s “mission” was to unite the two houses. Again, must read Hosea to understand.
God purged the 10 tribes , called them “not my people” “not my son” but later He calls them “my people” “my son”. This is what the NT says about “you have no God, you were not a people, but now you are”. See that the branches are not of another kind of plant, it is still a branch of an olive tree, although wild, it is still olive.
When I understood about the lost tribes being brought back everything in the NT made much more sense. “The time of the gentiles” means all the lost sheep is found.
Comments please ..
No comments at all?
I am not sure about the Parable of the prodigal referring to Judah and such but its and interesting thought.
Interesting. Can’t comment a lot about the 10 tribes and such, and I think this is what you want answered Roberta. But to me your observance is interesting.
Hey Shuman!! How u doing bud?
Ephraim and Judah come to mind, they will be one stick. Interesting take on the parable of the prodigal son.
Eze 37:19 Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which [is] in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, [even] with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand.
When Paul is making a reference to the Israel of God , and One new man in Christ. May be he is referring to this prophecy.
Gal 6:15 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.
Gal 6:16 And as many as walk according to this rule, peace [be] on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.
Eph 2:15 Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, [even] the law of commandments [contained] in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, [so] making peace;
Eph 2:16 And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby:
Eph 2:17 And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.
Eph 2:18 For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.
Eph 2:19 ¶ Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;
Eph 2:20 And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner [stone];
Eph 2:21 In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:
Eph 2:22 In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.
Hey Chris,
Sorry about my judgmental tone earlier, I have since read Galatians , and realize that I can never establish my righteousness in keeping of any law, but rather the law of Christ in me, the hope of Glory.
I think a lot of religions that deny the power do so by trying to establish their own righteousness rather than His.
Jer 23:6 In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this [is] his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
God forbid I should offend his grace. Christ is Torah in me.
Thank you very much for your replies.
Here is the references I was looking for:
http://bible.cc/1_peter/2-10.htm
No sweat Clearvoice!! I think you are a great brother!! Iron sharpens Iron!
clearvoice -
Exactly! Althought there are 10 tribes lost they are many times called Ephraim, because they are larger in number.
This is recorded on the blessing of Jacob in Genesis 48:17
When Joseph saw his father placing his right hand on Ephraim’s head he was displeased; so he took hold of his father’s hand to move it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s head.
Joseph said to him, “No, my father, this one is the firstborn; put your right hand on his head.”
But his father refused and said, “I know, my son, I know. He too will become a people, and he too will become great.
Nevertheless, HIS YOUNGER BROTHER (Ephraim) WILL BE GREATER THAN HE, AND HIS DESCENDANTS WILL BECOME A GROUP OF NATIONS.”
On Genesis 49, again Jacob blesses Joseph with fruitfulness which fell upon his sons.
The two women Yeshua Heals when the ruler of the synoggue are also a shadow of the House of Israel and he House of Judah. There is a woman who had an issue of blood for “12″ years. Then there is a “12″ year old girl who dies. The woman was exiled if you will, outsied he camp and was unclean. The girl was in the synogogues and was thought to be dead. The Woman represents Israel in that she was exiled, and she has become defiled. The Giirl represents Judah, as she is thought to be dead. But Messiah will revive Her, and give her the true bread from heaven (in the story Messiah says to get her something to eat).
The whole Bible has multiple levels of understanding. They just cannot be opposed to one another.