Before I start I just want to tell you how much I appreciate your tone and thoughtful responses. This is how it should be... we won't always agree, but we can be kind to one another, we serve the same God through the same Messiah. Thank you!
As for people believing wrong things about Jesus: Well, I believe people are motivated by their own sins or personal life to think wrong things about Him.
That is troubling. I generally find that most people who call him Lord but who come to conclusions that differ from others love him and simply have reached a different conclusion. For example.... the Acts 15 letter.... I imagine that your take is that this was what was accepted of the gentiles. After all, most of Christianity takes it that way. So I ask you, is it your sin that has caused you to take this wrong understanding about God's intention? Don't get mad at me... give me a second to explain.....
The debate among Jews in that day was what was expected of a proselyte (convert) … those that adhered to the teachings of Beit Shamai believed that one must those four things listed in Acts 15 AND they needed to know all 613 commandments AND be circumcised. This was the position of the men who confronted Paul and Barnabas in the first couple of verses of Acts 15. The other school of Pharisaical teaching, was Beit Hillel (where Paul attended, by the way) and they did not believe that one needed to know all the commandments or be circumcised at first... instead, they came up with a list of 4 things that would act as a starting point and then they would go and learn the rest over time. What the Acts 15 counsel did was simply reverse a bad decision and make it so new believers did not have a great weight placed on them... instead, they had a place to start and then they would be expected to go and learn and grow, hence:
Acts 15:19 Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God,
Acts 15:20 but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood.
Acts 15:21
For Moses has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath."
See, they give the list of 4 things and then say that Moses (an idiomatic reference to God's law) is read in the Synagogues every Sabbath. In other words, go be a disciple (a student)... which is what we are called to do. We don't learn it all at once, we start small and work up. The Acts 15 letter wasn't the finish line, it was only the starting point.
As for me asking if you not understanding this was because of your sin... that was kind of offensive, wasn't it? Now you know how I felt and how others reading felt when they read you make the same statement about those who don't reach the same conclusions you do.
The Bible does not talk about cars, but we know cars exist.
Nowhere does the Bible say it is wrong to study the different aspects of truth within God's Laws.
Agreed Jason...but when we come up with terms and phrases that help us understand God, that isn't bad because we are not “God” and need to do what we have to in order to come to certain understanding. BUT.... when we take those terms and use them to make doctrine, then we have gone too far. God does NOT break His law in 3 parts, man does in order to understand God's law. The bible doesn't do that.... He gave the law, it included how we act in relation to Him and each other, how the priesthood was to act, how a woman acts on her period, or how we function if there were a Temple, which there isn't.
You may not realize this or not, but I believe all of God's laws are moral laws at their core.
I agree, and even more, I think each command reveals His heart. After all, if He says to avoid something or refrain from something and/or He calls something sin... that is because it stands in contrast to His name – His character, reputation, and authority. And when He gives permission to do something, it is because it stands in harmony with His name.
I know Sabbath keeping and baptism are primarily ceremonial laws. Yes, at the heart they are moral laws because they are commands that come from God. They are things that God wants us to do. But to ignore that they are ceremonial when in fact they are ceremonial is to put on horse blinders for no good reason. I can recognize a truth and it is not wrong to do that.
I think you and others (and this is not meant condescendingly) don't understand the Hebraic idea of love. John wrote, “this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments.” So love then leaves the realm of a fuzzy warm emotional feeling and enters the realm of action... of the emotion being expressed in obedience and works. NOT unto salvation... but as a son of God, a part of His family, we simply follow His house rules because we love Him and belong to Him and He is Lord and we are not. You call the Sabbath ceremonial but God called it an EVERLASTING sign between Him and His people. See the difference, you have placed one tag on it... but God placed a different one. Why not call it what HE calls it?
And... the Feasts were designed to teach and mainly about the work of Messiah. The Spring feasts when you study them will speak of his first coming and the fall feasts speak of his return. Before them all... listed first and separate... the Sabbath. What does it teach us? Well, to an eternal God, “a day is as a thousand years” is meaningless... He is ETERNAL, time has no bearing at all on one who exists outside of time. It was a keygen Jason, a day is as a thousand years.....
6000 years of decay, death, disease, toil, sweat, hard work all pictured in 6 days of work, sweat, and decay. And then 1000 year reign of peace and restoration... pictured in the say God set aside for us to rest. The Sabbath continues to point to what it was always designed to point to... the coming Kingdom.
Actually, the whole of the commands in Old Covenant does not apply to you. For even the moral laws (like do not commit adultery, etc.) were attached with death penalties if you disobeyed them.
Yes and no... adultery is still a sin, the spirit of the letter revealed by Yeshua who said to even look in lust was adultery, so don't make it sound like that isn't a sin anymore. But the punishment? We do not live in a Torah based society, nobody has since before Christ was born. We live in a secular nation with no authority to administer punishment based on what God says is or is not sin.
Again, while all laws or commands from God are moral at their core, the primary action of the command determines what kind of Law or Command it is. So any laws or commands that specifically involve you in partaking of some kind of ceremony or ritual is a ceremonial law.
Ritual.... as in a customary observance or practice? Or a prescribed procedure for conducting religious ceremonies? So you mean like meeting every week at the same time? Singing together, praying together, hearing a sermon...each week, over and over throughout your life? That is ritual... so which one is wrong? Which do we avoid? The ones Christianity has said, “well that is old?” How about the ones our model... messiah himself... the ones he did? But those are the old ones! Did he not commit adultery so we could? Did he not murder so we could? Did he not eat catfish so we could? We begin to lose biblical integrity when we maintain that paradigm, Jason.
No. Tithing is simply about giving. Giving so as to help others is a love issue or a moral issue. Tithing (Which is an OT command that is no longer valid anymore) would fall under the moral laws section. For it would fall under loving the brethren because tithing went to Levites back in the Old Testament. Tithes went to Levities so they can dedicate their lives completely to God in helping others to make sacrifices for God and to help others worship God. You are helping the worship of God and His people by tithing if you were an OT saint back in the day.
Overall I don't really disagree with you I am just taking this section out to make this statement.... don't forget that ALL of the Law and Prophets (ALL OF IT) hangs on loving God and loving neighbor. So like you said, “at its core it is moral,” to which I agree. But something can be a ritual, repetitive, and still be moral. Do you pray before or after your meals? That is a ritual... do you give a % of your income? If yes, that can be a ritual but also moral because it is a command that fell on loving God. ALL the Law hangs on those two.... imagine two nails... one says “Love God” and the other says, “Love neighbor.” Every commandment can be written on a piece of paper and then hung on one or the other EVEN IF right now we don't understand how with some of them.
But after Christ's death, there is no more tithing laws anymore because there is no more Levitical priesthood. Jesus is our heavenly high priest now.
Two different priesthoods Jason. The Levitical priesthood was TO ISRAEL, the priesthood after the order of Melchizedek (of which Yeshua is head) IS ISRAEL and to the nations. The Levitical currently has no job because there is no Temple and we are in the nations under secular rule. But I can show you at least 3 verses where God specifically calls the Levitical priesthood an everlasting order. The WEIGHT has been transferred from one to another... that is what the Hebrews verse is saying. When you look up the word for “changed” in Hebrews 7:12 ( μετατίθημι G3346) means “to transfer” not change. Both are everlasting, God said so even if that stands outside our current understanding.
Well, I care what people believe because proper belief and or faith determines a person's good standing with God or not. It begins with a broken heart and a proper understanding of God's Word (Which leads to proper and righteous action).
Amen... the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit and a contrite heart. What that means is that the “sweet aroma” that went up before God wasn't the burning flesh of the animal... it was the heart condition of the Israelite who made that sacrifice knowing that his sin caused the death of that animal. That is the heart condition God seeks and that messiah had as he considered us.
I roll my eyes whenever somebody says that all we need to do is obey the 10 Commandments. For one, there are 613 commands in the Old Testament. Two, the Old Covenant as a whole or package is no longer binding to believers.
I can prove otherwise if you want to hear it. As for the 613... never has 613 applied to any one person including messiah. For example, included within the 613 is one about a woman on her cycle separating herself from others. He isn't a woman... that one doesn't apply. Or included are the commandments that pertain to Levites... but he is Judah not Levi so they don't apply. Some commandments deal with work animals, but I don't see him using any so they don't apply... you get the idea.
I believe only 9 out of the 10 Commandments apply to believers today; And even then, these moral laws are not attached with capital punishment if you were to disobey them. Believers today are not set out to hand out death sentences to other believers if they disobey certain laws of God anymore.
Again, you live in the nations under secular rule... you don't live in a society that uses God's law as the law of the land like Israel did for a time. The punishments were no different then the US law in that.... we too have do's and don'ts and there are punishments attached. However... the US has hundreds of thousands of laws, perhaps millions when you factor in tax laws... all God had was 613 of them and most didn't apply to you. Which is the real burden? By the way Christianity acts, it is God's law that is the burden despite that fact that God Himself (who is good, and love, and light, and perfect) is the AUTHOR of it.
We adhere to man's laws with hardly a grumble anymore... but God's laws... that's the real bondage.
Shalom brother.
Ken