Saturday or Sunday Church?

[Soyeong]

Now that is a very long sentence. The Jerusalem Council did not countermand God - you just don't accept it. The 10 commandments were given to the Jews and includes ceremonial clauses that did not continue in the New Covenant - as they are not covered by Jesus's commandments or the few Mosaic laws that apply to Gentile believers.

Ruling against obeying what God has commanded would have been trying to countermand Him, but I agree that they did not try to countermand because they did not rule against anyone obeying anything that God commanded. In Jeremiah 31:33, the New Covenant involves following everything in the Torah, but you just don't accept it. In Matthew 4:15-23, Jesus began his ministry with the Gospel message to repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand, which was a light to the nations, and the Mosaic Law was how his audience knew what sin is (Romans 3:20), so repenting from our disobedience to it is an integral part of the Gospel message, which he prophesied would be proclaimed to all nations (Matthew 24:12-14), and commissioned his disciples to teach to the nations (Matthew 28:16-20). Jesus was not in disagreement with the Father about which laws we should follow and said nothing about editing the law down to just what would eventually be recorded that he repeated or about teaching his own commands, but rather he said that his teachings were not his own, but that of the Father (John 14:24). The Bible never lists which laws are part of the ceremonial law or refers to that as being a category of law.

The letter to the Gentile believers concerning keeping the Mosaic law (Acts 15:23-29) includes a greeting (v23), states the purpose of the letter (v23-27), and identifies which Mosaic laws the Gentiles are to keep (v 28-29). Its very short and doesn't go into any of the spin you are trying to inject.

Acts 15:19-21 Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, 20 but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood. 21 For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.”

James gave the the reason for needing to make the judgement in verse 19, the content of the judgement in verse 20, and the justification for the judgement in verse 21. The fact that the letter he sent didn't repeat the need for making making the judgement or the justification for it does not mean that they are not motivating factors for making it. In verse 21, James justified giving only four commands by pointing out that people in every city would continue to learn how to obey Moses by hearing him taught every Sabbath in the synagogues, so that is what he was expecting the recipients of his letter to do. There would have no point in him making that point if he was not expecting the recipients of his letter to do that, so this is not spinning or injecting anything, but is the straightforward reading of why he made that point in connection with the four laws.

There is no discussion even in the OT on the right and wrong reasons to be circumcised. Just do it when the boy is 8 days old.

God commanded baby boys to be circumcised on the 8th day as a sign of the covenant, but did not command baby boys to be circumcised in order to become saved. In Isaiah 45:17, it says that all Israel will be saved, which led Jews to mistakenly think that they would be saved simply because they were circumcised and didn't need to obey God's law, which is a position that Paul opposed.

Confirmation: Paul reiterates the crux of the letter to the Gentiles (i.e. Acts 15:28-29) years later in Acts 21:25. Still nothing there about the need to circumcise or congregating on the Sabbath to read the Torah.

There's no particular reason why the instructions for getting new believers on the same page would change.

In Galatians 2:14 we see that Peter lived like a Gentile by not following Jewish customs, Note that Paul openly chastised him for a different reason (i.e. hypocrisy).

In Acts 10:28, Peter referred to a law that forbade Jews to visit or associate with Gentiles, however, this law is not commanded by God anywhere in the Bible, and is therefore a man-made law. It was this law that Peter was obeying in Galatians 2:11-16 when he stopped visiting or associating with the Gentiles, and by doing so he was giving credibility to those who were wanting to require Gentiles to obey their works of the law in order to become justified, which is why Paul rebuked him and reiterated that was a justified by faith, not by works of the law.

In Acts 5:32, God has given the Spirit to those who obey Him, so obedience to God is part of the way to receive the Spirit, however, Galatians 3:1-2 denies that works of the law are part of the way to receive the Spirit, therefore works of the law are not in regard to obedience to anything that God has commanded. In Romans 3:27, Paul contrasted a law of works with a law of faith, so works of the law are of works, while he said in Romans 3:31 that our faith upholds God's law, so it is of faith, and again he directly contrasted God's law with works of the law. Furthermore, a law that our faith upholds can't be referring to the works of the law that are not of faith in Galatians 3:10-11.

Paul had Timothy circumcised to avoid petty, destructive confrontations with Judaizers - know any?

No, I've never seen anyone take the position that Gentiles need to become circumcised in order to become saved. Why would you think that I know any?

Paul also had his and his cohorts heads shaved in Acts 21:24 to avoid destructive confrontation with other Pharisee types.

In Acts 21:20-24, they were rejoicing that tens of thousands of Jews were coming to faith who were all zealous for doing good works in obedience to the Torah, which was in accordance with believing in what Jesus accomplished through the cross in Titus 2:14 where he gave himself to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for doing good works. Furthermore, Paul planned to take steps to disprove false rumors that he was teaching against obeying the Torah and to show that he continued to live in obedience to it. In Acts 6:13-14, they set up false witness who said that Stephen never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law, for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us, yet you act as though you think that what the false witnesses said of Stephen is actually true of Paul.

 

[Ceallaigh]

Quite a lot of work goes into putting aside orthodox Christianity for something else.

 

[Soyeong]

Quite a lot of work goes into putting aside orthodox Christianity for something else.

Indeed it does. I was strongly resistant to my current position and often used to use the same arguments that people commonly use against it, and it took me around 2-3 years of weighing the arguments before I was compelled to reach the conclusion that what I had been taught about the role of God's law was not correct, so it is not something that I did lightly, but orthodox theology didn't add up, which is why I try to make the strongest case for my position that I can. The NT authors considered the Psalms to be Scripture and to therefore express a correct view God's law, so I experiment with reading the Bible as though they were in complete agreement with everything the Psalms say about God's law instead of the negative slant that I had been taught and found that it made much more sense and had much more continuity than I had given it credit for.

Do any of things things make sense to you?:

To interpret God's word as speaking against obeying God's word.

To interpret servants of God as speaking against obeying what he has commanded, when all throughout the Bible, the prophets called for people to repent and to return to obedience to God's law, and even Jesus began his ministry with that message.

Interpreting the Bible as speaking against following the law that Christ taught by word and by example.

In 1 John 5:3, to love God is to obey His commandments, which are not burdensome, so does it make sense to you for the Jerusalem Council to rule that outside of a few commands, God's commandments are too burdensome, so Gentiles shouldn't love God?

To interpret people who believed that the Psalms are Scripture to be expressing views that are incompatible with the view that the Psalms are Scripture.

To interpret Paul as trying to abolish God's law and speaking against upholding God's law when Roman 3:31 says the opposite.

In Romans 7:22, Paul said that he delighted in obeying the Law of God, so does it make sense to you to interpret him as speaking against doing what he delighted in doing?

For Gentiles to what to join a new religion and then want nothing to do with following most of the practices of that religion.

To treat God as though He shouldn't be trusted to guide us in how to live through His law.

 

[Soyeong]

Under a good king 80% of the time? First it took a long time until there was a king, which was against God's will. And most of those kings were not good.

Indeed, the number of evil kings certainly outweighed the number of good kings, though to some extent they existed on a spectrum rather than being completely good or evil. In any case, the good kings tended to live for much longer than the evil ones did and more that counters being outnumbered by the evil kings. For example, if a good king reigned for 50 years and there were ten evil kings who all reigned for 5 years, then they would still be under a good king for 50% of the time even though the good king was outnumbered 10 to 1.

First there's more than Acts to go by.

Indeed, there is more than Acts to go by, but it still remains true that God word should not be interpreted as speaking against obeying God's word. The bottom line is that we much obey God rather than man, so even if it were a correct interpretation of the NT that they are adamantly against obeying what God has commanded, the we should be quicker to disregard everything that they said than to disregard anything that God has commanded. In Deuteronomy 13:4-5, the way that God instructed His people to determine that someone was a false prophet who was not speaking for Him was if they taught against obeying His law, so if you think that any of the NT authors did that, then according to God you should regard them as being a false prophet. You should be quicker to think that your interpretation of the Bible makes no sense, that it must be wrong, and that you must have misunderstood it than to think that it makes perfect sense to interpret servants of God as speaking against obeying what He has commanded and that they should be followed instead of God.

Second that article is a Messianic publication, so one can't necessarily expect an unbiased objective presentation. The same holds true for SDA publications like Amazing Facts. There's no Biblical evidence that any of the churches Paul wrote to were engaged in Torah practicing Judaism. I'm sure there was a transition period regarding Jews going from Judaism to Christianity, but the church did rapidly transition away from Judaism nonetheless. It seems the idea of being Messianic is to try getting back into that brief period when Jews were transitioning from Judaism to Christianity and staying there.

Anyone who tells you that they are unbiased is lying, so you should expect everyone to be biased, though the issue is whether they have allowed their bias to unduly influence their presentation. As far as I saw, there was only one person who was in question whether or not they were Messianic, but the point is still demonstrated that there have been Messianic believers throughout history since the resurrection of Jesus, so it is not something invented in the 1960's.

For example:

Galatians 5:19-22 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Everything that Paul taught against in the above verses are against the Torah and in accordance with teaching to practice Judaism. I agree that within a few hundred year Christianity distanced itself for the Jewish roots of its faith, so it is reasonable to evaluate whether or not that was something that was good to do. The open communication between Jews and Christians about the NT that has been revived in the last century has brought tremendous insight to it, so I'd highly recommend studying the NT from a Jewish perspective even if you don't agree with me about the role of the Torah.

 

[John Mullally]

Ruling against obeying what God has commanded would have been trying to countermand Him, but I agree that they did not try to countermand because they did not rule against anyone obeying anything that God commanded. In Jeremiah 31:33, the New Covenant involves following everything in the Torah, but you just don't accept it. In Matthew 4:15-23, Jesus began his ministry with the Gospel message to repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand, which was a light to the nations, and the Mosaic Law was how his audience knew what sin is (Romans 3:20), so repenting from our disobedience to it is an integral part of the Gospel message, which he prophesied would be proclaimed to all nations (Matthew 24:12-14), and commissioned his disciples to teach to the nations (Matthew 28:16-20). Jesus was not in disagreement with the Father about which laws we should follow and said nothing about editing the law down to just what would eventually be recorded that he repeated or about teaching his own commands, but rather he said that his teachings were not his own, but that of the Father (John 14:24). The Bible never lists which laws are part of the ceremonial law or refers to that as being a category of law.

Acts 15:19-21 Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, 20 but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood. 21 For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.”

James gave the the reason for needing to make the judgement in verse 19, the content of the judgement in verse 20, and the justification for the judgement in verse 21. The fact that the letter he sent didn't repeat the need for making making the judgement or the justification for it does not mean that they are not motivating factors for making it. In verse 21, James justified giving only four commands by pointing out that people in every city would continue to learn how to obey Moses by hearing him taught every Sabbath in the synagogues, so that is what he was expecting the recipients of his letter to do. There would have no point in him making that point if he was not expecting the recipients of his letter to do that, so this is not spinning or injecting anything, but is the straightforward reading of why he made that point in connection with the four laws.

There are multiple ways to analyze that which led to the Jerusalem decree in Acts 15:1-22. But the only thing that is material is the content of the decree (Acts 15:23-29).

God commanded baby boys to be circumcised on the 8th day as a sign of the covenant, but did not command baby boys to be circumcised in order to become saved. In Isaiah 45:17, it says that all Israel will be saved, which led Jews to mistakenly think that they would be saved simply because they were circumcised and didn't need to obey God's law, which is a position that Paul opposed.

No one in the NT is teaching that people are saved by keeping the law - re-read Galatians.

In Acts 10:28, Peter referred to a law that forbade Jews to visit or associate with Gentiles, however, this law is not commanded by God anywhere in the Bible, and is therefore a man-made law. It was this law that Peter was obeying in Galatians 2:11-16 when he stopped visiting or associating with the Gentiles, and by doing so he was giving credibility to those who were wanting to require Gentiles to obey their works of the law in order to become justified, which is why Paul rebuked him and reiterated that was a justified by faith, not by works of the law.

I disagree. Paul's rebuke to Peter in Galatians 2:14 does not mention anything related to justification by faith or anything about the works of the law.

In Acts 5:32, God has given the Spirit to those who obey Him, so obedience to God is part of the way to receive the Spirit, however, Galatians 3:1-2 denies that works of the law are part of the way to receive the Spirit, therefore works of the law are not in regard to obedience to anything that God has commanded. In Romans 3:27, Paul contrasted a law of works with a law of faith, so works of the law are of works, while he said in Romans 3:31 that our faith upholds God's law, so it is of faith, and again he directly contrasted God's law with works of the law. Furthermore, a law that our faith upholds can't be referring to the works of the law that are not of faith in Galatians 3:10-11.

No disagreement.

No, I've never seen anyone take the position that Gentiles need to become circumcised in order to become saved. Why would you think that I know any?

I did not say that. Just after contributing to the Jerusalem decree in Acts 15, Paul has Timothy circumcised in Act 16:3. That was odd because in the Jerusalem decree, Gentile believers were not commanded to be circumcised and here his half Jew / half Greek companion was circumcised. My point is that that was done to try to avoid unnecessary conflict with the Judaizers.

In Acts 21:20-24, they were rejoicing that tens of thousands of Jews were coming to faith who were all zealous for doing good works in obedience to the Torah, which was in accordance with believing in what Jesus accomplished through the cross in Titus 2:14 where he gave himself to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for doing good works. Furthermore, Paul planned to take steps to disprove false rumors that he was teaching against obeying the Torah and to show that he continued to live in obedience to it.

If you go to the next verse Acts 21:25, it is very clear that Paul was not teaching the Gentiles to keep the Mosaic law, outside of the 4 items mentioned in Acts 15:29.

Acts 20:21 but they have been informed about you that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children nor to walk according to the customs. 22 What then? The assembly must certainly meet, for they will hear that you have come. 23 Therefore do what we tell you: We have four men who have taken a vow. 24 Take them and be purified with them, and pay their expenses so that they may shave their heads, and that all may know that those things of which they were informed concerning you are nothing, but that you yourself also walk orderly and keep the law. 25 But concerning the Gentiles who believe, we have written and decided that they should observe no such thing, except that they should keep themselves from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality.”​

In Acts 6:13-14, they set up false witness who said that Stephen never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law, for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us, yet you act as though you think that what the false witnesses said of Stephen is actually true of Paul.

This is a laughable accusation.

 

[Ceallaigh]

Indeed it does. I was strongly resistant to my current position and often used to use the same arguments that people commonly use against it, and it took me around 2-3 years of weighing the arguments before I was compelled to reach the conclusion that what I had been taught about the role of God's law was not correct, so it is not something that I did lightly, but orthodox theology didn't add up, which is why I try to make the strongest case for my position that I can. The NT authors considered the Psalms to be Scripture and to therefore express a correct view God's law, so I experiment with reading the Bible as though they were in complete agreement with everything the Psalms say about God's law instead of the negative slant that I had been taught and found that it made much more sense and had much more continuity than I had given it credit for.

Do any of things things make sense to you?:

To interpret God's word as speaking against obeying God's word.

To interpret servants of God as speaking against obeying what he has commanded, when all throughout the Bible, the prophets called for people to repent and to return to obedience to God's law, and even Jesus began his ministry with that message.

Interpreting the Bible as speaking against following the law that Christ taught by word and by example.

In 1 John 5:3, to love God is to obey His commandments, which are not burdensome, so does it make sense to you for the Jerusalem Council to rule that outside of a few commands, God's commandments are too burdensome, so Gentiles shouldn't love God?

To interpret people who believed that the Psalms are Scripture to be expressing views that are incompatible with the view that the Psalms are Scripture.

To interpret Paul as trying to abolish God's law and speaking against upholding God's law when Roman 3:31 says the opposite.

In Romans 7:22, Paul said that he delighted in obeying the Law of God, so does it make sense to you to interpret him as speaking against doing what he delighted in doing?

For Gentiles to what to join a new religion and then want nothing to do with following most of the practices of that religion.

To treat God as though He shouldn't be trusted to guide us in how to live through His law.

It makes plenty of sense to me. I've known of several, a very knowledgeable and intelligent several, who left orthodox Christianity for something else, or left Christianity altogether for something else.

For Gentiles to what to join a new religion and then want nothing to do with following most of the practices of that religion.
To treat God as though He shouldn't be trusted to guide us in how to live through His law

I've spoken with more SDAs than Messianics, but the whole thing with not obeying the law, seems to mostly be about Saturday vs Sunday. And not eating pork and shellfish. But mostly about Saturday. When it gets pointed out that they don't obey all of the law, they say those are all shadow laws so they don't apply today. I'm pretty sure I heard a well known Messianic here say the same. So then it seems to be more like practicing semi-law. Or surface law. Where nowhere close to the 613 Mitzvahs are adhered to. And I have a feeling most SDA, and once orthodox Christian Messianics, could not recite more than 50 out of 613 Mitzvahs off the top of their head. And again, they will say most of those laws don't apply any longer.

For instance, how many of the 613 Mitzvahs do you know from memory? And how many of them do you adhere to?

 

[HIM]

As I stated earlier, the only portion of Acts 15 that is material to the Gentile believers concerning keeping the Mosaic Law (and to todays church) is what is written in Acts 15:23-29. This letter frees Gentile believers from having to keep the 10 commandments! Jesus commanded us to love God supremely and our neighbor as ourselves.

No the reasoning behind the letter is of import also.

And you forgot a verse. Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang, depend all the law and prophets.

The issue is with whatever unorthodox gobbledygook someone is trying to spin from scripture, rather than with scripture itself. One can tack on numerous proof texts to unorthodox gobbledygook, but that's just putting lipstick on a pig.

No the issue is you can't support your views other than to say that you follow what others have believed.

Quite a lot of work goes into putting aside orthodox Christianity for something else.

That is what happens when one reads the Bible themselves rather than follow what another teaches without actually searching to see if the what is being said is true.

It makes plenty of sense to me. I've known of several, a very knowledgeable and intelligent several, who left orthodox Christianity for something else, or left Christianity altogether for something else.

I've spoken with more SDAs than Messianics, but the whole thing with not obeying the law, seems to mostly be about Saturday vs Sunday. And not eating pork and shellfish. But mostly about Saturday. When it gets pointed out that they don't obey all of the law, they say those are all shadow laws so they don't apply today. I'm pretty sure I heard a well known Messianic here say the same. So then it seems to be more like practicing semi-law. Or surface law. Where nowhere close to the 613 Mitzvahs are adhered to. And I have a feeling most SDA, and once orthodox Christian Messianics, could not recite more than 50 out of 613 Mitzvahs off the top of their head. And again, they will say most of those laws don't apply any longer.

For instance, how many of the 613 Mitzvahs do you know from memory? And how many of them do you adhere to?

It was asked before who compiled the 613. You said God. That is not true men did.
And you were also asked when was the New Covenant first given. After trying to get you to read the Bible for yourself we finally conceded and told you where to look. Deut 29:1 and 30:10-14.

In Chapter thirty of Deut. it tells us what God has placed in our heart in respect to the New Covenant.
What does it say?

 

[Leaf473]

Then do think that Jesus establish the New Covenant for purpose of undermining anything that he spent his ministry teaching? Or that anything in the New Covenant is not is contrary or not in accordance with the Mosaic Covenant?



In Exodus 20:6, God wanted His people to love Him and obey His commandments, so obedience to everything in the Law is Moses is because he first loved us.



Jesus was born under the law (Galatians 4:4), so that included Deuteronomy 4:2. Furthermore, in Deuteronomy 13:4-5, the way that God instructed His people to determine that someone was a false prophet was if they taught against obeying the Torah, so if Jesus had done that, then according to God, we should regard him as a sinner and false prophet rather than our Savior.



There are a number of instances where Paul makes it clear that he is giving his own opinion rather than a command from God.



Having consensual sex with a woman generally involves holding onto them. Forcing someone to marry their rapist would not be just.



Paul distinguished between eating meat from the altar, which we are not permitted to do, and eating meat that had been sacrificed to idols that was later sold on the market, which we are permitted to do.



Imagine what it would have been like for a Gentile who was a new believer who was unfamiliar with Christianity. They would want to be learning about what is expected of them in this new religion and about how to follow Christ, but there are a ton rules that are overwhelming and they don't know for sure whether things they previously didn't see anything wrong with doing is now forbidden. Depending on who they sit next to they might hear different things about what they should be doing or they might be told that they need to follow certain traditions like fasting twice a week, or they might be getting criticized for doing something that they didn't think was wrong. It might be very overwhelming for them and they might leave before understanding what Christianity is all about, and Jews might be getting swamped with questions from all these new believers, so in order to avoid that, they wanted a set of rules that all new believers should be told to follow so that they were all on the same page with the understanding that they would continue to learn about how to obey Moses over time by hearing him taught every Sabbath in the synagogues. This is not saying that they should ignore some of the instructions in the Torah, but that they should be given some slack as they are starting to learn how to obey the Torah and not need to worry about knowing everything that they will ever need to know on day one.

(a long post, I plan to answer it in several posts.)

I think Jesus established the New Covenant so that we would keep the spirit of Torah, but not the letter. If that is undermining his ministry, then the answer to your question is Yes. I don't think it undermines anything.

Something we are told after the cross that, imo, is not in accordance with the letter of Torah is that each man is to have his own wife. But according to Torah, a man is to marry his dead brother's widow. That would mean he may end up with two wives... or more.

 

[Leaf473]

Then do think that Jesus establish the New Covenant for purpose of undermining anything that he spent his ministry teaching? Or that anything in the New Covenant is not is contrary or not in accordance with the Mosaic Covenant?



In Exodus 20:6, God wanted His people to love Him and obey His commandments, so obedience to everything in the Law is Moses is because he first loved us.



Jesus was born under the law (Galatians 4:4), so that included Deuteronomy 4:2. Furthermore, in Deuteronomy 13:4-5, the way that God instructed His people to determine that someone was a false prophet was if they taught against obeying the Torah, so if Jesus had done that, then according to God, we should regard him as a sinner and false prophet rather than our Savior.



There are a number of instances where Paul makes it clear that he is giving his own opinion rather than a command from God.



Having consensual sex with a woman generally involves holding onto them. Forcing someone to marry their rapist would not be just.



Paul distinguished between eating meat from the altar, which we are not permitted to do, and eating meat that had been sacrificed to idols that was later sold on the market, which we are permitted to do.



Imagine what it would have been like for a Gentile who was a new believer who was unfamiliar with Christianity. They would want to be learning about what is expected of them in this new religion and about how to follow Christ, but there are a ton rules that are overwhelming and they don't know for sure whether things they previously didn't see anything wrong with doing is now forbidden. Depending on who they sit next to they might hear different things about what they should be doing or they might be told that they need to follow certain traditions like fasting twice a week, or they might be getting criticized for doing something that they didn't think was wrong. It might be very overwhelming for them and they might leave before understanding what Christianity is all about, and Jews might be getting swamped with questions from all these new believers, so in order to avoid that, they wanted a set of rules that all new believers should be told to follow so that they were all on the same page with the understanding that they would continue to learn about how to obey Moses over time by hearing him taught every Sabbath in the synagogues. This is not saying that they should ignore some of the instructions in the Torah, but that they should be given some slack as they are starting to learn how to obey the Torah and not need to worry about knowing everything that they will ever need to know on day one.

About Exodus 20:6

Yes, the people of God have always loved, that's always been the greatest commandment.

The question is what other commandments do we keep, and how do we go about keeping them?

 

[HIM]

And this then leads to the idea that the laws that God writes on our hearts in the New Covenant are the statutes and commandments. But not the judgments and ordinances.

Am I following what you're saying, and have said in the past?

Hi Leaf. The following verse states that a new covenant is about to be given

Deut 29:1 These are the words of the covenant, which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant which He made with them in Horeb.

Then in Deut 30:10-14 He gives it. He says we are to hearken unto the voice of the Lord to keep His commandment and statutes written in the Book of the Law.

Deut 30:10 If thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law, and if thou turn unto the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul.
Deut 30:11 For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off.
Deut 30:12 It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it?
Deut 30:13 Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it?
Deut 30:14 But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.

The fact that these verses in Deut are paraphrased in Romans 10 tells us that need to be under consideration.
Rom 10:6 But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above: )
Rom 10:7 Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead. )
Rom 10:8 But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;

 

[Soyeong]

About Exodus 20:6

Yes, the people of God have always loved, that's always been the greatest commandment.

The question is what other commandments do we keep, and how do we go about keeping them?

At the very least, keeping the Sabbath holy Exodus 20:8-11 is directly connected to what it means to love God in Exodus 20:6. The Bible often uses to same words to describe the nature of God as it does to describe the nature of God's law, such as with it being holy, righteous, and good (Romans 7:12), and it could not accurately be described as such if it were not God's instructions for how to express those aspects of His nature. So when we express aspects of God's nature through our obedience to His commands, we are expressing our love for those aspects of God's of God's nature, which is why there are many other verses in both the OT and the NT that connect our love for God with our obedience to His commandments. In John 14:23-24, Jesus said that if we love him, then we will obey his teachings, if we don't love him, then we will not obey his teachings, and that his teachings are not his own, but that of the father, so he is not saying that we need to prove our love for the Father by doing whatever He wants so much as he is saying that all of the commands that the Father has chosen to teach us was specifically commanded for the purpose of teaching us how to love or not love aspects of who he is. In other words, Jesus is the exact expression of God's nature (Hebrews 1:3), so if we love aspects of his nature like love holiness, righteousness, goodness, justice, mercy, and faithfulness, etc., then we will live in a way that expresses those traits in obedience with God's instructions for how to do that in accordance with the example that he set for us to follow.

For example, in 1 Peter 1:16, we are told to have a holy conduct for God is holy, which is a quote from Leviticus where God gave instructions for how to do that, such as keeping His Sabbaths holy (Leviticus 19:2-3) and refraining from eating unclean animals (Leviticus 11:44-45), so when we follow God's instructions for how to have a holy conduct as He is holy, we are expressing our love for God's holiness, while someone who refuses to follow those instructions is expressing that holiness is not an aspect of God's nature that they love, and if God were not holy, then it wouldn't make a different to them. Naturally, there are some aspects of God's holiness that we can't express our love for because of the destruction of the temple, but we can have the attitude of desiring to learn about those aspects of His nature and longing for a time for when we can get to express our love for God by doing them rather than an attitude of being glad that the temple was destroyed so we no longer have to do those things.

 

[Leaf473]

Then do think that Jesus establish the New Covenant for purpose of undermining anything that he spent his ministry teaching? Or that anything in the New Covenant is not is contrary or not in accordance with the Mosaic Covenant?



In Exodus 20:6, God wanted His people to love Him and obey His commandments, so obedience to everything in the Law is Moses is because he first loved us.



Jesus was born under the law (Galatians 4:4), so that included Deuteronomy 4:2. Furthermore, in Deuteronomy 13:4-5, the way that God instructed His people to determine that someone was a false prophet was if they taught against obeying the Torah, so if Jesus had done that, then according to God, we should regard him as a sinner and false prophet rather than our Savior.



There are a number of instances where Paul makes it clear that he is giving his own opinion rather than a command from God.



Having consensual sex with a woman generally involves holding onto them. Forcing someone to marry their rapist would not be just.



Paul distinguished between eating meat from the altar, which we are not permitted to do, and eating meat that had been sacrificed to idols that was later sold on the market, which we are permitted to do.



Imagine what it would have been like for a Gentile who was a new believer who was unfamiliar with Christianity. They would want to be learning about what is expected of them in this new religion and about how to follow Christ, but there are a ton rules that are overwhelming and they don't know for sure whether things they previously didn't see anything wrong with doing is now forbidden. Depending on who they sit next to they might hear different things about what they should be doing or they might be told that they need to follow certain traditions like fasting twice a week, or they might be getting criticized for doing something that they didn't think was wrong. It might be very overwhelming for them and they might leave before understanding what Christianity is all about, and Jews might be getting swamped with questions from all these new believers, so in order to avoid that, they wanted a set of rules that all new believers should be told to follow so that they were all on the same page with the understanding that they would continue to learn about how to obey Moses over time by hearing him taught every Sabbath in the synagogues. This is not saying that they should ignore some of the instructions in the Torah, but that they should be given some slack as they are starting to learn how to obey the Torah and not need to worry about knowing everything that they will ever need to know on day one.

About Jesus being born under the law,

Right! Everything Jesus taught before he ascended and taught through his apostles after that is in accordance with Torah.

I don't see in Torah that it is stated that women must be quiet in church. So Paul must be using a loose interpretation of the Torah in 1 Corinthians 14, "...as the law says." And I'm fine with a loose interpretation.
_____________
PS I'm also fine with women talking in church.

 

[Leaf473]

Then do think that Jesus establish the New Covenant for purpose of undermining anything that he spent his ministry teaching? Or that anything in the New Covenant is not is contrary or not in accordance with the Mosaic Covenant?



In Exodus 20:6, God wanted His people to love Him and obey His commandments, so obedience to everything in the Law is Moses is because he first loved us.



Jesus was born under the law (Galatians 4:4), so that included Deuteronomy 4:2. Furthermore, in Deuteronomy 13:4-5, the way that God instructed His people to determine that someone was a false prophet was if they taught against obeying the Torah, so if Jesus had done that, then according to God, we should regard him as a sinner and false prophet rather than our Savior.



There are a number of instances where Paul makes it clear that he is giving his own opinion rather than a command from God.



Having consensual sex with a woman generally involves holding onto them. Forcing someone to marry their rapist would not be just.



Paul distinguished between eating meat from the altar, which we are not permitted to do, and eating meat that had been sacrificed to idols that was later sold on the market, which we are permitted to do.



Imagine what it would have been like for a Gentile who was a new believer who was unfamiliar with Christianity. They would want to be learning about what is expected of them in this new religion and about how to follow Christ, but there are a ton rules that are overwhelming and they don't know for sure whether things they previously didn't see anything wrong with doing is now forbidden. Depending on who they sit next to they might hear different things about what they should be doing or they might be told that they need to follow certain traditions like fasting twice a week, or they might be getting criticized for doing something that they didn't think was wrong. It might be very overwhelming for them and they might leave before understanding what Christianity is all about, and Jews might be getting swamped with questions from all these new believers, so in order to avoid that, they wanted a set of rules that all new believers should be told to follow so that they were all on the same page with the understanding that they would continue to learn about how to obey Moses over time by hearing him taught every Sabbath in the synagogues. This is not saying that they should ignore some of the instructions in the Torah, but that they should be given some slack as they are starting to learn how to obey the Torah and not need to worry about knowing everything that they will ever need to know on day one.

About Paul giving his own opinion,

Sometimes he says that, yes. Everywhere he doesn't, I assume it's a command of the Lord.

 

[Leaf473]

Then do think that Jesus establish the New Covenant for purpose of undermining anything that he spent his ministry teaching? Or that anything in the New Covenant is not is contrary or not in accordance with the Mosaic Covenant?



In Exodus 20:6, God wanted His people to love Him and obey His commandments, so obedience to everything in the Law is Moses is because he first loved us.



Jesus was born under the law (Galatians 4:4), so that included Deuteronomy 4:2. Furthermore, in Deuteronomy 13:4-5, the way that God instructed His people to determine that someone was a false prophet was if they taught against obeying the Torah, so if Jesus had done that, then according to God, we should regard him as a sinner and false prophet rather than our Savior.



There are a number of instances where Paul makes it clear that he is giving his own opinion rather than a command from God.



Having consensual sex with a woman generally involves holding onto them. Forcing someone to marry their rapist would not be just.



Paul distinguished between eating meat from the altar, which we are not permitted to do, and eating meat that had been sacrificed to idols that was later sold on the market, which we are permitted to do.



Imagine what it would have been like for a Gentile who was a new believer who was unfamiliar with Christianity. They would want to be learning about what is expected of them in this new religion and about how to follow Christ, but there are a ton rules that are overwhelming and they don't know for sure whether things they previously didn't see anything wrong with doing is now forbidden. Depending on who they sit next to they might hear different things about what they should be doing or they might be told that they need to follow certain traditions like fasting twice a week, or they might be getting criticized for doing something that they didn't think was wrong. It might be very overwhelming for them and they might leave before understanding what Christianity is all about, and Jews might be getting swamped with questions from all these new believers, so in order to avoid that, they wanted a set of rules that all new believers should be told to follow so that they were all on the same page with the understanding that they would continue to learn about how to obey Moses over time by hearing him taught every Sabbath in the synagogues. This is not saying that they should ignore some of the instructions in the Torah, but that they should be given some slack as they are starting to learn how to obey the Torah and not need to worry about knowing everything that they will ever need to know on day one.

About Deuteronomy 22:28,

Again, it doesn't sound consensual to me, but maybe you're right.

I think the law was designed by God to have someone authorized by him to give the meaning of the law. Otherwise, everyone just goes with their own ideas about what it means.

 

[Leaf473]

Then do think that Jesus establish the New Covenant for purpose of undermining anything that he spent his ministry teaching? Or that anything in the New Covenant is not is contrary or not in accordance with the Mosaic Covenant?



In Exodus 20:6, God wanted His people to love Him and obey His commandments, so obedience to everything in the Law is Moses is because he first loved us.



Jesus was born under the law (Galatians 4:4), so that included Deuteronomy 4:2. Furthermore, in Deuteronomy 13:4-5, the way that God instructed His people to determine that someone was a false prophet was if they taught against obeying the Torah, so if Jesus had done that, then according to God, we should regard him as a sinner and false prophet rather than our Savior.



There are a number of instances where Paul makes it clear that he is giving his own opinion rather than a command from God.



Having consensual sex with a woman generally involves holding onto them. Forcing someone to marry their rapist would not be just.



Paul distinguished between eating meat from the altar, which we are not permitted to do, and eating meat that had been sacrificed to idols that was later sold on the market, which we are permitted to do.



Imagine what it would have been like for a Gentile who was a new believer who was unfamiliar with Christianity. They would want to be learning about what is expected of them in this new religion and about how to follow Christ, but there are a ton rules that are overwhelming and they don't know for sure whether things they previously didn't see anything wrong with doing is now forbidden. Depending on who they sit next to they might hear different things about what they should be doing or they might be told that they need to follow certain traditions like fasting twice a week, or they might be getting criticized for doing something that they didn't think was wrong. It might be very overwhelming for them and they might leave before understanding what Christianity is all about, and Jews might be getting swamped with questions from all these new believers, so in order to avoid that, they wanted a set of rules that all new believers should be told to follow so that they were all on the same page with the understanding that they would continue to learn about how to obey Moses over time by hearing him taught every Sabbath in the synagogues. This is not saying that they should ignore some of the instructions in the Torah, but that they should be given some slack as they are starting to learn how to obey the Torah and not need to worry about knowing everything that they will ever need to know on day one.

About meat sacrificed to idols,

Is it then in line with Torah to support idol temples by buying their meat?

I would think not. I would think serious Tora keepers would be in the land of Israel where there weren't those temples. And it was easy to find meat not sacrificed that way.

I believe the law requires all males to visit Jerusalem three times a year. Jesus did this when he went to Jerusalem for the feast of Tabernacles. It doesn't make sense to live very far outside of Israel imo.

 

[Soyeong]

It makes plenty of sense to me.

Please explain how those things make sense for you.

I've spoken with more SDAs than Messianics, but the whole thing with not obeying the law, seems to mostly be about Saturday vs Sunday. And not eating pork and shellfish. But mostly about Saturday. When it gets pointed out that they don't obey all of the law, they say those are all shadow laws so they don't apply today. I'm pretty sure I heard a well known Messianic here say the same. So then it seems to be more like practicing semi-law. Or surface law. Where nowhere close to the 613 Mitzvahs are adhered to. And I have a feeling most SDA, and once orthodox Christian Messianics, could not recite more than 50 out of 613 Mitzvahs off the top of their head. And again, they will say most of those laws don't apply any longer.

For instance, how many of the 613 Mitzvahs do you know from memory? And how many of them do you adhere to?

When the Israelites were still wandering the wilderness for 40 years, they were given a number of laws that had the condition "when you enter the land...", so there can be legitimate reasons for not following certain laws, though there can also be illegitimate ones, but we should have an attitude of them longing for a time when we can have the delight of getting express our love for those aspects of God's nature by following those laws rather than an attitude of being glad that we don't have to obey them. David said repeatedly throughout the Psalms that he loved God's law and delighted in obeying it, so if we consider the Psalms to be Scripture and to therefore express attitude towards God's law, then we will share it, as Paul did (Romans 7:12). For example, in Psalms 1:1-2, blessed are those who delight in the law of the Lord and who meditate on it day and night, so we can't uphold the truth of these words as Scripture while not allowing them to shape our view of it.

Even when the law was first given to Moses, there wasn't a single person who was required to keep all 613 of them, and not even Jesus kept the laws in regard to having a period or to giving birth. Some laws were only given to the King, the High Priest, priests, judgement, men, women, children, widows, those who are married, those who have servants, those who have animals, those who have crops, those who are living in the land, those who are strangers living among them, and those who have tzaraat, while others were given to everyone. The only way that we should no longer follow a law is if what it teaches us about God's eternal nature is no longer true, so there is a difference between someone saying for example that some laws don't apply to them because they aren't growing any crops and saying that those laws should no longer be followed. Around 1/3 of the laws are in regard to temple practice and governing the conduct of the Levitical priesthood, so there is nothing wrong with not following these laws when there is not a temple in which to practice them. When the Israelites were in exile in Babylon, the condition for their return was to first return to obedience to the Torah, which required them to have access to the temple that had just been destroyed.

I am by no means and expert of the law and it is something that I am still learning how to obey. By reading the books of Moses, we can have a general idea of what is instructed by it without having those books memorized, and the availability of reference books and commentaries that we can look up if we have a question on a particular issue takes pressure off needing to memorize everything, though it would still be good to memorize it. In the same way, there are 1,050 commands in the NT, the people who have those memorized are few and far in between, and who knows how many can recite 50 of them, but as we continue to study the NT, we can nevertheless gain a good understanding of what those commands are, and we can look up something if we have a question.

In 1 Corinthians 5:6-8, Paul spoke in regard to how Passover foreshadowed Christ by drawing the connection of him being our Passover Lamb, however, instead of concluding that Passover is a shadow law that we no longer need to keep, he concluded that we should therefore continue to keep it, which is also Paul distinctly teaching them to practice Judaism. In Colossians 2:16-17, Paul emphasized the importance of continuing to keep God's holy days by saying that they are foreshadows of what is to come, so we should continue to live in a way that testifies about what is to come by continuing to keep them rather than a way that denies what is to come, which is also Paul teaching them to practice Judaism. Jesus was a Jew who set a perfect example of how to practice Judaism by living in sinless obedience to the Torah, so it is not clear to me why you have a problem with saying that his followers should follow the same religion that he followed in accordance with his example.

 

[John Mullally]

No the reasoning behind the letter is of import also.

The only portion of Acts 15 that applies to the Gentiles is the letter in Acts 15:23-29 - which is also termed the Jerusalem decree. The Jerusalem decree had to be simple and concrete (and it was) and easy to understand as most people in that time were uneducated and the Gentile believers were new converts. The Jerusalem decree stands on its own - its the only guidance the Gentiles received from the apostles concerning which portions of the Mosaic law they need to observe. The meat of this Jerusalem decree (i.e. which portions of the Mosaic law must be observed by the Gentiles) was repeated by Paul years later in Acts 20:25 - so that confirms my point.

The deliberation that transpired to construct the letter in Acts 15:1-22 is termed the Jerusalem Council. Some choose to pick portions from the Council to effectively add to the letter - wrong. They say the Council was (a) only considering Circumcision, (b) the Council assumes that Gentile believers meet every Sabbath to hear the law, and/or (c) the Council was merely pointing out that no one is saved by keeping the law. If any of these points had any validity, the letter would have been constructed differently.

a. Although circumcision is the primary consideration, whether or not the Gentiles were to keep the Mosaic Law was also a topic of discussion per Acts 15:5.
b. As to Gentiles needing to gather on the Sabbath to hear the reading of Moses - that is not mentioned in the Jerusalem Decree or anywhere in the NT - if it was important it would be mentioned.
c. Justification by keeping the law is refuted multiple times in the NT and is not hinted at anywhere in the letter.​

 

[Soyeong]

About meat sacrificed to idols,

Is it then in line with Torah to support idol temples by buying their meat?

I would think not. I would think serious Tora keepers would be in the land of Israel where there weren't those temples. And it was easy to find meat not sacrificed that way.

I believe the law requires all males to visit Jerusalem three times a year. Jesus did this when he went to Jerusalem for the feast of Tabernacles. It doesn't make sense to live very far outside of Israel imo.

Judaism has strict guidelines for how to slaughter meat in a kosher way, and even today practicing Jews will only purchase meat from a kosher deli or eat at a kosher restaurant, which would also exclude the possibility of eating meat that had been previously offered to idols. Even if they ordered a clear animal, if it was prepared on the same grill that had been previously used for pork, then that would be a problem. So the problem comes with a sudden influx of Gentiles who are unaware of these rules, where if a Jew was eating at a community meal and didn't know how the meat had been slaughtered, then they might be of the opinion that only vegetables should be eaten rather than risk eating something that had previously been sacrificed to idols, and they might pass judgement on those who chose to eat everything at the meal and in turn be resented (Romans 14:1-3).

So Paul needed to make a ruling about about what exactly qualifies as idolatry when it comes to eating meat that had been sacrificed to idols and he drew the line at participating in the altar. If anything this would be supporting the local meat vendors rather than the local pagan temple, but again Paul said nothing about financial support, but about whether it was permissible to eat meat that had been sold on the market.

Yes, there are laws that apply to those who are living in the land.

 

[Soyeong]

About Deuteronomy 22:28,

Again, it doesn't sound consensual to me, but maybe you're right.

I think the law was designed by God to have someone authorized by him to give the meaning of the law. Otherwise, everyone just goes with their own ideas about what it means.

Deuteronomy 17:8-13 “If any case arises requiring decision between one kind of homicide and another, one kind of legal right and another, or one kind of assault and another, any case within your towns that is too difficult for you, then you shall arise and go up to the place that the Lord your God will choose. 9 And you shall come to the Levitical priests and to the judge who is in office in those days, and you shall consult them, and they shall declare to you the decision. 10 Then you shall do according to what they declare to you from that place that the Lord will choose. And you shall be careful to do according to all that they direct you. 11 According to the instructions that they give you, and according to the decision which they pronounce to you, you shall do. You shall not turn aside from the verdict that they declare to you, either to the right hand or to the left. 12 The man who acts presumptuously by not obeying the priest who stands to minister there before the Lord your God, or the judge, that man shall die. So you shall purge the evil from Israel. 13 And all the people shall hear and fear and not act presumptuously again.

 

[Soyeong]

About Jesus being born under the law,

Right! Everything Jesus taught before he ascended and taught through his apostles after that is in accordance with Torah.

What was taught after his ascension should not be interpreted as being contrary to or not being in accordance with what was taught before his ascension, otherwise that would undermine the point of his ministry.

I don't see in Torah that it is stated that women must be quiet in church. So Paul must be using a loose interpretation of the Torah in 1 Corinthians 14, "...as the law says." And I'm fine with a loose interpretation.
_____________
PS I'm also fine with women talking in church.

It is good to keep in mind that Paul's letters were not written to us, but were written to specific congregations in order to answer their questions or to address issues that they were facing, so not everything that Paul said was intended to be taken as general advice for everyone in every situation. By the standard of the Torah, which Paul repeated in 2 Corinthians 13:1, everything should be established by two or three witnesses, and the Bible tends to be fairy repetitive, so a good rule of thumb of whether something was intended to be taken as general advice is if we find it repeated elsewhere in the Bible by a different author.

For example, in the 1st century, it was a common practice for men and women to worship separately, and this is something that is still practiced today in more traditional churches. So if a woman were wanting to ask a question to her husband, then she would not have been speaking quietly to the person standing next to her, but rather she would have been projecting her voice across the room, which would have been very disruptive, so he encouraged women to wait until they got home to ask. Likewise, in the 1st century, it was much more common for men to be taught to study the Torah while women were taught how to do domestic duties, so Paul can look at who is in the community and make a ruling for that community that women there were not qualified to teach men, but if we remove these things from their context and try to apply them in a modern context, then we can end up misunderstanding what Paul was saying.