Saturday or Sunday Church?

SabbathBlessings · Jul 27, 2022

BNR32FAN said:
Oh now your going to change the subject, you said the New Testament doesn’t delete the Old Testament. Everyone knows that circumcision was abolished in Acts 15 and Christ’s sacrifice abolished sin offerings. Both of those were deleted.

I said there is nothing in Acts 15 that says the Sabbath commandment is deleted. Circumcision is not one of the Ten Commandments, but the Sabbath is. This has been addressed previously in my posts so no need to go over it again.

SabbathBlessings · Jul 27, 2022

BNR32FAN said:
Oh now your going to change the subject, you said the New Testament doesn’t delete the Old Testament. Everyone knows that circumcision was abolished in Acts 15 and Christ’s sacrifice abolished sin offerings. Both of those were deleted.

So we can worship other gods, bow to images, vain God’s holy name, covet, steal, commit adultery etc. We appear to be reading different bibles.

Acts 15 is addressing a few items that were in contention. There is nothing that says the commandments of God ended so you are reading that into scripture, when scripture says otherwise.

Leaf473 · Jul 27, 2022

Soyeong said:
For example, it is not the case that if we love our neighbor, then we are somehow counted as obeying the command without realizing it. Rather, if we love God and our neighbor, then we won't commit adultery, idolatry, theft, murder, rape, kidnapping, favoritism, and so forth for God's other commands, so the command to love fulfills the other commands because it is inclusive of them and the other commands are examples of what it looks like to correctly obey the command to love.

This is where we see it differently. If I'm following what you're saying, then loving our neighbor means that we then attempt to keep the entire law. And that's what God wants.

But God has obviously made it impossible to keep many of the laws, since there is no Temple or identifiable Levites.

If, however, we simply look for the loosest possible reading of any law that is difficult or impossible to keep, then sure, we can try to keep the entire law.

Soyeong · Jul 27, 2022

SabbathBlessings said:
Do you still sacrifice animals for the forgiveness of sins, when Jesus died for our forgiveness of sins and sanctification when we repent and turn from sin to obedience to God? To me, when we still sacrifice animals, it is showing that the blood of Christ was not sufficient, when it is.

Hebrews 10 seems to disagree that we should still sacrifice animals.

Hebrews 10: 4 For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.
Hebrews 10:10 By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

In Acts 18:18, Paul took a vow involving shaving his head and the only vow that involves shaving our head that is described in the Bible is a Nazarite vow in Numbers 6, which involves making offering, including sin offerings. Furthermore, in Acts 21:20-24, Paul planned to pay for the offerings of others who had undertaken a similar vow in order to disprove false rumors that he was teaching against obeying God's law and to show that he continued to live in obedience to it. In Hebrews 8:4, it speaks about offerings that were still being made in accordance with the law, so offerings did not cease with the death or resurrection of Jesus, but only stopped because of the destruction of the temple, and if all of Israel had accepted Jesus as the Messiah, then the 2nd temple would not have been destroyed, and offerings would not have stopped. Laws in regard to temple practice that weren't followed after the destruction of the 1st temple were once again followed after the construction of the 2nd temple, so there is nothing about the destruction of the 2nd temple that means that those laws should no longer be followed when the the third temple is built (Ezekiel 44-46). It is absurd to suggest that obedience to the laws that God gave to testify about the nature Christ would be contrary to him instead of the other way around.

It appears God made the distinction between His commandments and all the other laws. God could have given all of the laws to be written by Moses, but God did not leaving it up to man to write His commandments on stone for their eternal nature and only kept the Ten Commandments inside the ark of the covenant whereas the law of Moses was written by Moses in a book and placed on the side of the ark. Everything God does is by divine design.

In Deuteronomy 5:31-33, Moses wrote down everything that God commanded without depart from it, so while I agree that there is a distinction between the Ten Commandments and the laws that were placed on the side of the ark, all of them were God's commandments. All of God's laws teach us how to express aspects of His eternal nature. 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 was giving instructions for how to do that, such as refraining from eating unclean animals (Leviticus 11:44-45), so by obeying those eternal laws we are acting in accordance with that aspect of God's eternal nature.

SabbathBlessings · Jul 27, 2022

Soyeong said:
In Acts 18:18, Paul took a vow involving shaving his head and the only vow that involves shaving our head that is described in the Bible is a Nazarite vow in Numbers 6, which involves making offering, including sin offerings. Furthermore, in Acts 21:20-24, Paul planned to pay for the offerings of others who had undertaken a similar vow in order to disprove false rumors that he was teaching against obeying God's law and to show that he continued to live in obedience to it. In Hebrews 8:4, it speaks about offerings that were still being made in accordance with the law, so offerings did not cease with the death or resurrection of Jesus, but only stopped because of the destruction of the temple, and if all of Israel had accepted Jesus as the Messiah, then the 2nd temple would not have been destroyed, and offerings would not have stopped. Laws in regard to temple practice that weren't followed after the destruction of the 1st temple were once again followed after the construction of the 2nd temple, so there is nothing about the destruction of the 2nd temple that means that those laws should no longer be followed when the the third temple is built (Ezekiel 44-46). It is absurd to suggest that obedience to the laws that God gave to testify about the nature Christ would be contrary to him instead of the other way around.

In Deuteronomy 5:31-33, Moses wrote down everything that God commanded without depart from it, so while I agree that there is a distinction between the Ten Commandments and the laws that were placed on the side of the ark, all of them were God's commandments. All of God's laws teach us how to express aspects of His eternal nature. 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 was giving instructions for how to do that, such as refraining from eating unclean animals (Leviticus 11:44-45), so by obeying those eternal laws we are acting in accordance with that aspect of God's eternal nature.

Do you sacrifice animals for the forgiveness of sins?

Leaf473 · Jul 27, 2022

SabbathBlessings said:
The apostles kept the Sabbath and were commanded to observe and teach others the things that Jesus commanded them. Matthew 28:20

Thankfully God gives us a shield through His Word so we will not be deceived, because we are warned the devil deceives the whole world and even the elect if allowed.

Isaiah 8:20 20 To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

I know thatat the apostles often attended a synagogue after the cross, I'm not aware of a post-cross commandment for them to keep the Sabbath. I am aware that the Sabbath commandment is repeated in books like Hebrews, but to me it's not clear if that means to keep it the same way as was done in the old Covenant.

In Acts 15, the apostles don't quote the scriptures of the laws that they say the gentiles are to keep. And they clearly believe they have the ability to say which laws the gentiles are to keep, they come up with four. And they list them.

Peace be with you, my sister, good to hear from you again.

Ceallaigh · Jul 27, 2022

Soyeong said:
Jesus did not come to start his own religion, but rather he came as the Jewish Messiah of Judaism and he practiced Judaism by setting a sinless example of how to walk in obedience to the Torah and by spent his ministry teaching his followers how to obey it. In Acts 21:20-24, they were rejoicing that there were tens of thousands of Jews who were coming to faith who were all zealous for the Torah, and Paul planned to take steps to disprove false rumors that he was teaching against the Torah and to show that he continued to obey it, which means that Jews coming to faith were not ceasing to obey and that that from the beginning there were people who misunderstood Paul as teaching against obeying it. Furthermore, this means that there was a period of time between the resurrection of Jesus and the inclusion of Gentiles in Acts 10 that is estimated to be around 7-15 years during which all Christians were Torah observant Jews, so Christianity at its origin was the form of Judaism that recognized Jesus as its prophesied Messiah. In Acts 24:14, Paul confessed that according to The Way, which they call a sect, he worshiped the God of our fathers, believing everything laid down by the Law and written in the Prophets, so The Way could not be referring to a sect of a religion other than Judaism, and that is the religion that Paul continue to practice as a Torah observant Pharisee (Acts 23:6). The Nazarenes are Christians who continued to be Torah observant.

However, that has not been the standard doctrine that has been taught for most of Christianity, s Christianity branched off from its roots fairly early, which I think most likely had its start with Claudius' expulsion of the Jews from Rome in around 43-53 AD, and which Gentiles not wanting to come back under Jewish leadership upon their return, which led to meeting in house churches. The Early Church Fathers had some shockingly anti-Semitic things to say, so they did not understand the role of the Jews or of the Torah, but it is these sort of tensions between Christians and Jews who were not followers of Christ also caused the two groups to polarize. In Shabbat 116b, the Talmud speaks about an account between a rabbi and a Christian philosopher, where the rabbi countered them by referencing Matthew 5:17, which is still a familiar conversation that is being had today.

Growing up I was taught to have an extremely negative view of the Torah, so I understand why that is a mainstream view within in Christianity because that is what they are taught, but through studying the Jewish cultural and historical context of the Bible, I became aware of how the NT is systematically interpreted with a negative slant towards the Torah. In Psalms 1:1-2, blessed are those who delight in the Torah of the Lord and who meditate on it day and night, and I even had these verses memorized as a kid, for some reason it just did not click earlier that the extremely negative view of the Torah that I had been taught was the opposite of the extremely positive view of it that is expressed in the Psalms, and if I was going to continue to believe that the Psalms are Scripture, then I needed to align my view of the Torah with them. The NT authors certainly considered the Psalms to be Scripture, especially with them being the OT book that is most quoted in the NT, so it is not unreasonable to think that they were in complete agreement with everything the Psalms say about the Torah, so I experimented with interpreting the NT as though that were the case and I found that it made much more sense and had much more continuity than I had given it credit for. So I reached the conclusion that the negative view of the Torah that I had been taught was wrong, and this has landed me in a position that is contrary to what is taught by most of Christianity, which is not something that I do lightly, but my choice has been increasingly affirmed. So I now use agreement with the Psalms as a test to determine whether someone has a correct view of the Torah.

In Jeremiah 31:33, it directly states that the New Covenant involves God putting the Torah in our minds and writing it on our hearts, so I no longer see why people think that the New Covenant does not involve obeying it. People should be quicker to think that the NT doesn't make sense and that they must have misunderstood it than to think that it makes perfect sense to interpret as speaking against obeying what God has commanded as if obedience to God were somehow a negative thing when all throughout the Bible, it calls for people to repent and to return to obedience to God, and even Jesus began his ministry with that Gospel message (Matthew 4:17-23).

So the idea is that Christians are supposed to be practicing Judaism.

SabbathBlessings · Jul 27, 2022

Leaf473 said:
I don't know what the apostles often attended a synagogue after the cross, I'm not aware of a post-cross commandment for them to keep the Sabbath. I am aware that the Sabbath commandment is repeated in books like Hebrews, but to me it's not clear if that means to keep it the same way as was done in the old Covenant.

In Acts 15, the apostles don't quote the scriptures of the laws that they say the gentiles are to keep. And they clearly believe they have the ability to say which laws the gentiles are to keep, they come up with four. And they list them.

Peace be with you, my sister, good to hear from you again.

So Gentiles can worship other gods, vain God’s holy name, covet, steal, etc that was not addressed in Acts 15?

Isaiah 56 shows the Sabbath is also the covenant to the Gentiles Bible Gateway passage: Isaiah 56 - New King James Version

The apostles kept the Sabbath decades after Jesus ascended back to heaven- why? Paul said keeping the commandments of God is what matters 1 Cor 7:19. The Sabbath is a commandment of God. Amen!

For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him.
- Acts 13:27

And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next sabbath.
- Acts 13:42

And the next sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God.
- Acts 13:44

For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day.
- Acts 15:21

And on the sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down, and spake unto the women which resorted thither.
- Acts 16:13

And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures,
- Acts 17:2

And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks.
- Acts 18:4

Soyeong · Jul 27, 2022

Leaf473 said:
This is where we see it differently. If I'm following what you're saying, then loving our neighbor means that we then attempt to keep the entire law. And that's what God wants.

But God has obviously made it impossible to keep many of the laws, since there is no Temple or identifiable Levites.

If, however, we simply look for the loosest possible reading of any law that is difficult or impossible to keep, then sure, we can try to keep the entire law.

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 is nothing wrong with not following laws that can't currently be followed. When the Israelites were in exile in Babylon, the condition for their return to the land was to first return to obedience to God's law, which required them to have access to the temple, which had just been destroyed, so when there are laws that can't be obeyed, we should nevertheless be faithful to obey as much as we can.

God's laws form a fractal pattern that is structurally the same at different scales, such as where the earthly pattern of the temple is based on the dimension of the heavenly pattern. The Levites were priests and had duties like putting God on display, helping people to navigate atonement, interceding on behalf of others, and distributing resource to those in need, though there is also a sense that Israel is a kingdom of priests, so we can still perform those duties at other scales as a nation, as a community, as a family, and as an individual, so we can still follow many of the same principles that the temple was intended to teach us even without the temple, which to some extent is what Jews have continued to do in its absence.

This is what was taught to early believers:

Didache 6:1-3:
Against False Teachers, and Food Offered to Idols. See that no one causes you to err from this way of the Teaching, since apart from God it teaches you. For if you are able to bear the entire yoke of the Lord, you will be perfect; but if you are not able to do this, do what you are able. And concerning food, bear what you are able; but against that which is sacrificed to idols be exceedingly careful; for it is the service of dead gods.

Soyeong · Jul 27, 2022

MMXX said:
So the idea is that Christians are supposed to be practicing Judaism.

Indeed, I don't see room for interpreting Acts 24:14 as referring to The Way as being a sect of a religion other than Judaism. Christ practiced Judaism, everything that he taught was in accordance with it, being a Christian is about following Christ, and Jews who were becoming followers of the Messiah did not see themselves as converting to a different religion.

Soyeong · Jul 27, 2022

SabbathBlessings said:
Do you sacrifice animals for the forgiveness of sins?

There is no temple.

SabbathBlessings · Jul 27, 2022

Soyeong said:
There is no temple.

So then we agree? The law to sacrifice animals for the forgiveness of sins ended when Jesus became the perfect Lamb sacrifice, the Lamb without blemish and through His blood He can cleanse us of all unrighteousness, when we repent and turn from our sin and walk with Him in obedience.

The temple is our bodies and a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit 1 Corinthians 6:19 and there is the heavenly Temple. Revelation 3:12, Revelation 11:19

Ceallaigh · Jul 27, 2022

Soyeong said:
Indeed, I don't see room for interpreting Acts 24:14 as referring to The Way as being a sect of a religion other than Judaism. Christ practiced Judaism, everything that he taught was in accordance with it, being a Christian is about following Christ, and Jews who were becoming followers of the Messiah did not see themselves as converting to a different religion.

So Christianity has been in grievous error practically from the beginning.

Soyeong · Jul 27, 2022

MMXX said:
So Christianity has been in grievous error practically from the beginning.

Not quite from the beginning and I'm not sure if the error is grievous. A lot of what is taught in the OT is repeated in the NT, so even if someone is doing everything commanded in the NT, then they are doing good, though I think that we are called to more fully follow Christ's example.

Soyeong · Jul 27, 2022

SabbathBlessings said:
So then we agree? The law to sacrifice animals for the forgiveness of sins ended when Jesus became the perfect Lamb sacrifice, the Lamb without blemish and through His blood He can cleanse us of all unrighteousness, when we repent and turn from our sin and walk with Him in obedience.

The temple is our bodies and a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit 1 Corinthians 6:19 and there is the heavenly Temple. Revelation 3:12, Revelation 11:19

Laws that weren't followed after the destruction of the 1st temple were once again followed after the construction of the 2nd temple, so there is nothing about the destruction of the 2nd temple that means that those laws have ended. The sacrificial laws have always testified about Christ and we should live in a way that testifies about Christ to the extent that we are able. Indeed, our bodies are temples at a smaller scale, though if I recall correctly, 1 Corinthians 6:19 is using a plural "y'all", and in either case, that is not a replacement for the earthly or the heavenly temple, but following the same pattern at difference scales.

Leaf473 · Jul 27, 2022

Hopefully everyone here agrees that the scriptures talk about commandments, ordinances, laws, statutes, judgments, etc.

Myself I'm not sure if those are distinct categories or similar to our English expression: rules and regulations.

The thing I wanted to note here is that one person that I'm talking to on a different thread says to keep the statutes and commandments, but not the judgments and ordinances.

But another person earlier on this thread, I think, talked about keeping at least some of the judgments and ordinances.

I haven't read anything here or in the scriptures that says how to separate an ordinance from a statute, from a commandment, etc.

BNR32FAN · Jul 27, 2022

SabbathBlessings said:
All found in Exodus 20

Nothing in the scriptures actually support this assumption of your’s because that wasn’t the only commandments Moses received while he was on Mt Sinai. God kept on giving commandments to Moses on Mt Sinai on into chapter 24.

BNR32FAN · Jul 27, 2022

SabbathBlessings said:
You don’t seem to understand the New Covenant, Christ accomplished so much from His sacrifice but what He did not do is end all the laws as shown Hebrews 8:10 so we can sin freely, otherwise we would not need Grace and we would all be lost because we would have no need for a Savior. I am not the one who seems to be able to help, so I pray for your understanding.

Again another strawman your creating as a diversion from the actual discussion. I never said anything implying that all the laws have been abolished. Paul specifically stated that we don’t have to observe the Sabbath days in Colossians 2:16. You say that doesn’t include the Saturday Sabbath which is a Sabbath day (day of rest). If Paul didn’t intend to include any particular Sabbath days in that statement then he would’ve had to mention that in his statement. Your saying he didn’t mean all Sabbath days but that’s not what he said.

SabbathBlessings · Jul 27, 2022

Soyeong said:
Laws that weren't followed after the destruction of the 1st temple were once again followed after the construction of the 2nd temple, so there is nothing about the destruction of the 2nd temple that means that those laws have ended. The sacrificial laws have always testified about Christ and we should live in a way that testifies about Christ to the extent that we are able. Indeed, our bodies are temples at a smaller scale, though if I recall correctly, 1 Corinthians 6:19 is using a plural "y'all", and in either case, that is not a replacement for the earthly or the heavenly temple, but following the same pattern at difference scales.

To me it seems like if the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ that His blood is perfect for the forgiveness of sins when the blood of animals is not so it seems disrespectful to continue killing animals for forgiveness of sin, like His sacrifice was in vain if we still needed the blood of animals.

This is where we will have to agree to disagree. I don’t believe the scripture is referring to a literal second temple but a spiritual one.

Soyeong · Jul 27, 2022

Leaf473 said:
Hopefully everyone here agrees that the scriptures talk about commandments, ordinances, laws, statutes, judgments, etc.

Myself I'm not sure if those are distinct categories or similar to our English expression: rules and regulations.

The thing I wanted to note here is that one person that I'm talking to on a different thread says to keep the statutes and commandments, but not the judgments and ordinances.

But another person earlier on this thread, I think, talked about keeping at least some of the judgments and ordinances.

I haven't read anything here or in the scriptures that says how to separate an ordinance from a statute, from a commandment, etc.

The mishpatim are laws in regard to righteousness and justice that straightforwardly make sense why God commanded them that are based on the principle of treating others the way that we want to be treated, which are often found in other cultures. The chukim are laws that don't straightforwardly make sense why God commanded them and no explanation is given for them, such as the laws in regard to red heifer in Numbers 19. These laws invite us to ponder what God is teaching us about His eternal nature through them, and we have no greater opportunity to express our faith than by still obeying what God has commanded even when we don't ultimate discern a reason for why He commanded it. The edot are laws in regard to testimony or remembering a certain event, such as Passover.

Saturday or Sunday Church?

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