Video Blog

I’ve decided to begin recording some videos answering the common objections I hear when I tell people about the Torah. In this first video, I tackle the objection “We don’t need to keep the Law because we’re saved by Jesus!” I do this by answering two very basic questions: “what is salvation?” and “how were the people before the coming of Jesus saved?”

Part 1 – What is salvation?

Part 2 – How were the people saved before the coming of the Messiah?

How sweet the sound

If you know me and have talked to me about the Bible then you know that I believe that the whole Bible is authoritative for holy living. In other words, all of God’s commandments in the Torah are still just as authoritative today as they were in Bible times. Some Christians misunderstand and think that this means Believers who are endeavouring to keep the Torah’s commandments are trying to earn their salvation. Recently at work, I’ve been speaking with a woman who is interested in the Torah perspective and has brought up that usually the Torah perspective teachers don’t bring up grace. Additionally, a prominent believing Jewish singer has recently publicly stated that he has left the Messianic movement and even went as far to say that Believers who are trying to keep the Torah might not be saved. His opinions are coming from his reading and misunderstanding of the Apostle Paul’s epistle to the Galatians.

I can’t speak for other Torah submissive Believers; I can only speak for myself. Am I endeavouring to learn and obey Torah to get saved? Am I trying to gain God’s favour by trying to keep the Sabbath? Am I scoring some points with God because I’m trying to keep Kosher? Is there any good work that a person can do to gain merit in God’s eyes?

To Whom Shall We Pray?

It happened that while Yeshua was praying in a certain place, after He had finished, one of His disciples said to Him, “Master, teach us to pray just as Yochanan also taught his disciples.” (Luke 11:1)

Recently, I spent a great deal of time with a Pentecostal group. There were, of course, times when we would pray together and I was reminded of some things that I had thought about in the past in regards to prayer. What I’m about to address brings up many questions regarding the nature of God and what theologians call Christology. Christology is the study of the person of Christ, that is, the Messiah. I by no means think that I have even begun to truly understand the nature of God and the nature of the Messiah. No one fully understands the nature of God. To understand the nature of God would mean that you were on the same level as God. The reason why we don’t understand the nature of God is because we are the creation and He is the Creator. That being said, it is our duty to understand what the Bible says about the nature of God and respond to the truth accordingly.

Dissecting Dispensation Theology

One of the most pervasive theologies in the Evangelical movement is that of Dispensation Theology. Dispensational Theology has become so ingrained in Christian thinking that most don’t even realize they believe in it. Essentially, Dispensation Theology can be broken down into the belief that God deals with different people in different eras in different ways. There are many flavours of Dispensation Theology but most would agree that the main line of demarcation between the dispensations is the cross of the Messiah. Previous to the cross, there was a different way of salvation and different expectations of obedience from God. Not only that, previous to cross, God viewed Israel as His people and, subsequent to the cross, God viewed the Church as His people.

Perhaps on the surface, this theological paradigm makes everything fit together but when put under scrutiny it betrays some major deficiencies. In the following survey of the different facets of this theology, I’m not going to hold back. The following views (which are in bold) are what dispensationalists believe once you strip off the theological jargon:

Cat Got Your Tongues?

When it comes to Biblical issues and practices, sometimes emotion can blur the lines between what we experience and what’s actually in the Bible. Perhaps none more emotionally charged is the issue of “speaking in tongues.”

Firstly, let me point out that I grew up in a Pentecostal church. Growing up, I was proud to be Pentecostal. I was always intrigued with people speaking in tongues and being “slain in the Spirit.” When God radically changed me in the spring of 2004, I became even more zealous for all things Pentecostal. When I read 1 Corinthians 14, I did what most Pentecostals do, I assumed that the modern day “tongues” phenomenon was what was happening in Corinth. Within the paradigm of this interpretation, I eagerly desired to speak in tongues (as it would seem Paul indicated in 1 Corinthians 14:1). Within a couple of months, I began to speak in tongues. At first it was few “words” but it eventually developed into a couple of different patterns. I was completely sincere and I genuinely thought that the Holy Spirit was speaking through me.

Within the past couple of years, though, as I’ve begun to study the pertinent passages a little more deeply, I’ve stumbled upon a couple of things that makes this “tongues” experience inconsistent with the Bible. Let’s begin in Acts 2, and see if we can figure this out.

Bad Hermeneutics

Growing up in the Pentecostal movement and now having a Torah-based perspective has left me wondering how it was that I could have misinterpreted the Bible. There are many things that I wasn’t taking into account but I’d say the main interpretative mistake I was making was having the “New Testament” be more authoritative than the rest of the Bible. Simply speaking, taking the Torah seriously and literally was not even a thought that entered into my head as I interpreted the Bible.

The dispensational paradigm I was studying within didn’t allow me to simply accept the whole of God’s Word as authoritative. If the Torah said “keep the Sabbath,” I had to filter that through what I thought the New Testament had to say about the issue. It wasn’t enough that God Himself simply commands the Sabbath to be kept in a specific way; I had to find the “deeper meaning.”

Additionally, I didn’t really seek to find the historical and cultural context of the Gospels and Epistles. So, not only was I interpreting the Torah through the New Testament, I was interpreting the New Testament as if it was written by modern day Evangelical Christians.

The fact that there are explicit examples of Yeshua, Paul and the Apostles keeping the seventh-day Sabbath and participating in the Temple/Synagogue model of worship didn’t even make a dent in my thinking process in regards to my own life.

Too often, we as Believers, have tried to make the Bible fit our lives. It’s time to make our lives fit the Bible!