Old Wine

My New Book, Following Christ

I wrote a book over the past year and a half or so, and it recently became available on
Amazon and other sources. I’m excited about it, and it’s the passion of my life right now.

The full title is: Following Christ-Rediscovering the Jewish Faith of Jesus. It makes the case that Jesus and his early followers remained entirely within Judaism. The only difference was that Jesus claimed to be the promised descendant of David who was to regather the tribes and reign from Jerusalem. Many people followed him during his lifetime, but his announcement of the kingdom was rejected by the temple leadership, who turned him over to the Romans to have him killed. But that was actually what God intended from the beginning. His death would take the place of the deserved punishment for people who embraced his gift.

The book makes the point that we can please God by living like Jesus did. And Jesus certainly lived according to all the commands that God gave his people through Moses, the Torah or Law. Why has most of historic Christianity distanced itself from these commands? The book goes into that, too. I think that you’ll find a great deal of insight in the perspective that this book presents.

I encourage you to get the book, read it, and if you like it, leave a review or rating. You can find it at https://www.amazon.com/  Following-Christ-Rediscovering-Jewish-Faith/dp/1958211621/ (remove spaces), or else at https://www.barnesandnoble.com/  w/following-christ-harry-buerer-ma/1144082616

Paul’s Calendar

Paul (and Jesus) based his calendar of activities on the biblical sabbaths and festivals. Acts states multiple times that it was Paul’s custom to worship in the synagogue on the Sabbath day, wherever he happened to be. (14:1; 17:2 etc.)

In Acts 20:6 it mentions that Paul sailed from Philippi after the Feast of Unleavened Bread, i.e. Passover. No doubt Paul had intended to be in Jerusalem for Passover in obedience to the command in Deuteronomy 16:16. We see in Acts 19:21 that Paul decided to go to Jerusalem, likely for Passover, but he was detained by events. In Acts 20:3 we see that “Because the Jews made a plot against him just as he was about to sail for Syria, he decided to go back through Macedonia”, putting him behind schedule.

A few days after this it mentions that he was in a hurry to reach Jerusalem before Pentecost (20:16), i.e. the Feast of Weeks, which was seven weeks after Passover. This was also one of the three feasts that Jewish men were to go to Jerusalem for. They had already missed the chance to get there for Passover.

Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians also seems to be focussed on Passover. In closing the letter (16:8) Paul mentions that he plans to stay at Ephesus until Pentecost (the Feast of Weeks), which gives the impression that it is around Passover when he is writing. This impression is reinforced by his mentions of Passover in the body of the epistle. He uses it as an analogy in chapter five. “Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast — as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.” (5:6-8) This analogy probably gets its effect from the fact that Passover is either about to happen or has just happened, so it is on people’s minds.

He also discusses the actual celebration of Passover at some length in chapter eleven. Since the Passover Seder includes quite a bit of liturgy before the meal is served, apparently some, probably Gentiles, are not waiting for the appropriate time, but are going ahead and eating right away. Paul rebukes them for this.

Another festival which is mentioned in passing to describe Paul’s itinerary is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which is only called “the Fast.” “Much time had been lost, and sailing had already become dangerous because by now it was after the Fast.” (Acts 27:9) We can see that Paul oriented his weekly and yearly schedules around the Sabbath and festivals that are commanded in the Torah.

Jesus also did the same. Luke 4:16 mentions that it was his custom to attend synagogue on the Sabbath. It is well known that Jesus’ final days before his death were the Passover season. He celebrated Passover with his disciples the night before he was arrested.

The gospel of John records other Passover occasions during Jesus’ ministry. In John 2:13 Jesus went to Jerusalem for a Passover early in his ministry. In John 6:4 it again says, “The Jewish Passover Feast was near.” And of course we’re all familiar with the Passover that Jesus celebrated with his parents when he was twelve years old. (Luke 2:41-50)

Jesus celebrated other of the biblical festivals as well. Almost the entire seventh chapter of John is devoted to Jesus’ activities at the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot) in the fall. In John 5:1 there is an unidentified “feast of the Jews” that Jesus goes to Jerusalem to celebrate. Jesus is even found in Jerusalem during Hanukkah, referred to as the Feast of Dedication in John 10:22.

Jesus and all of his followers in the New Testament were proponents of Judaism and observed the biblical festivals which God had commanded. There is no mention of anybody in the New Testament celebrating Christmas, Easter, or any of the “Christian” holidays. There is one mention of “Easter” in the King James translation, in Acts 12:4, but it’s a mistake. The Greek word is “pascha” which is a transliteration of the Hebrew “pesach”, which means Passover.

Jesus does seem to encourage combining the celebration of Passover with his passion and death. During his last Passover Seder with his disciples, he points out some of the symbolic elements of the Seder, the unleavened bread and the third cup of wine, and applies them to his flesh and his blood. Then he tells his disciples that every time they eat “this” bread (the Passover matzah) and drink “this” cup (the third cup of Passover), they should remember his death until he comes.

It’s such a shame that most “Christians” have abandoned the observance of the biblical festivals. There is no warrant in the New Testament to do so. And taking scripture as a whole, it seems that God would be pleased if those who claim to follow him would take seriously the celebrations that he established for his people.

Why Prefer Acts?

The apostle Paul who is described in the Acts of the Apostles can be seen as very different from the Paul of the epistles. The Paul of Acts is very Torah-positive. His mentor in the faith, Ananias, was described as “a devout observer of the law”. (Acts 22:12) He had Timothy circumcised to affirm that he was Jewish through his mother. (16:3) He preached in Jewish synagogues everywhere he went. When he was in Jerusalem, he cooperated in a demonstration to show that he encouraged believing Jews to follow the law, and that he observed it himself, (21:24) contrary to false rumors that were going around about Paul’s teaching. (21:21) He spent the bulk of his trip to Rome repeatedly emphasizing to one audience after another that the charges against him were false, that he teaches only what the law and the scriptures say, and that his faith is the same as those opposing him. (24:14-16; 25:8; 26:6, 20-22; 28:17-20) In all this he seemed to echo Jesus, who insisted that “until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law.” (Matthew 5:18)

In some of Paul’s epistles, on the other hand, there are statements that have led some interpreters to think that Paul opposed the idea of believers, either Jew or Gentile, observing God’s law. That has become the default position of most of Christianity since the second century. This is in spite of the fact that Paul’s epistles say things like “For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.” (Romans 2:13) “Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.” (Romans 3:31) “Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God’s commands is what counts.” (I Corinthians 7:19)

It is true that Paul’s epistles, taken as a whole, make statements that seem both positive and negative toward Torah in approximately equal amounts, while the impression given of Paul in Acts is overwhelmingly Torah-positive. Which of these is the true representation of Paul and his attitude toward the law?

Many Christian interpreters have expressed a preference for the epistles of Paul as presenting his genuine viewpoints. The reasons they give are that the epistles are from Paul’s own hand. They also mention that the epistles were probably written earlier than the book of Acts. These reasons seem plausible on first examination.

On the other hand, I’m convinced that the book of Acts is a much more objective portrayal of Paul’s attitudes than his epistles. Acts was written to be an objective account of what happened, without any particular agenda. It was written as history.

The epistles, in contrast, were each written to individual congregations in response to specific issues. Paul’s discussion is in the context of those issues. Unless we understand accurately what problems Paul is writing to correct, reading his epistles is like hearing one side of a telephone conversation. For example, Galatians is often taken as teaching that obedience to the law is not necessary. In reality, the Gentile believers in Galatia are being tempted to think that they need to officially convert to Judaism, to be circumcised, in order to be pleasing to God. Paul warns them not to do this because it was prophesied that in the end times people from the nations will come to worship the God of Israel. If they convert to Judaism, they will no longer be people from the nations. That would defeat the purpose of the prophecies.

What we need to do is to understand Paul and his teaching based on the book of Acts. He repeatedly identifies his faith as Judaism, the faith of Israel. (23:6; 24:14; 26:5) Every passage in the epistles that seems to teach that the law has become obsolete in Christ can be accounted for by taking into account things in the context that clarify the issue, or by translation changes that are needed for accuracy. You can count on the book of Acts for a valid description of Paul. Take that as a starting place and work to harmonize the epistles with it.

David Anointed Twice

One of the stumbling blocks to Jews considering Jesus to be the Messiah is the fact that he didn’t do most of the things that the Messiah was expected to do. The primary expectation of the Messiah (anointed one), based on the prophetic scriptures, was to set up the promised kingdom of God and reign from David’s throne in Jerusalem. Jesus certainly did not do that in the first century C.E.

Many of us who follow Jesus and consider him to be the Messiah believe that he will return and do exactly that at some point in the future. Jesus was a teacher of Judaism, and he announced the prophetic kingdom as being near, with himself as the king. When that kingdom was rejected by the Jewish leaders of the time, the plan changed. Jesus became the sacrificial servant described in Isaiah 53. But the plan for the kingdom was delayed until a future time.

This delay can be seen to be illustrated in the experience of David, the prototypical king of Israel, to whom it was promised that his descendants would retain the throne of Israel forever. (II Samuel 7:16) David was anointed by Samuel to be king when he was just a boy. Saul had recently been chosen as Israel’s first king. But Saul had disobeyed God’s commands on a couple of occasions. God rejected him as king, and sent Samuel to anoint one of Jesse’s sons as the next king. Jesse’s seven older sons were presented, but each one was rejected by God for the role. Finally David, the youngest, was summoned from watching the sheep, and anointed by Samuel as God’s choice.

Interestingly, it was many years before David actually assumed the throne. During the intervening years David played the harp for Saul, defeated Goliath, and was loved by the people to the extent that Saul became jealous and tried to kill him. These efforts were not successful, as David, in a way, defeated death. Many years later, as David and his followers were living among the Philistines, the enemies of Israel, Saul and his son Jonathan were killed in battle against the Philistines. David then was recognized as king over Israel, and anointed again to that position.

These events in David’s life could be taken to illustrate the past and future appearances of Jesus. He was proclaimed as the anointed Messiah during his lifetime. But he actually was killed and was resurrected. Those who claim to be his followers have often opposed the people of Israel. But many of us believe that the time is coming when Jesus will return and set up God’s kingdom over Israel. At that point, if not before, Jews will recognize him and embrace him as their promised Messiah. That is the message that his first century followers taught.

Just as David’s actual reign was delayed for many years after his anointing by Samuel, so Jesus’ kingdom has been delayed for thousands of years. But events such as the establishment of the state of Israel imply that maybe the time is coming soon for the kingdom to be established. As Jesus announced at his first coming, “Repent, and turn to God, for the kingdom is near.” He commanded his followers to pray for the coming of the kingdom. In the same way, we pray, “Return in mercy to Jerusalem Your city and dwell therein as You have promised; speedily establish therein the throne of David Your servant, and rebuild it, soon in our days, as an everlasting edifice. Speedily cause the scion of David your servant to flourish, and increase his power by Your salvation, for we hope for Your salvation all day.”

Moving from Secularism to Biblical Faith

Perhaps you are someone who hasn’t claimed to be an adherent of either Judaism or Christianity, or of any religious system. Many of the people addressed in the New Testament letters had been in that situation.

When Paul was in Athens (Acts 17:16-34), he addressed people in the town square. He saw that they had an altar “to an unknown God.” So he told them that he would explain this God to them. This was the God who created the world and everything in it. He also has moral standards that he expects humans to meet. Unfortunately, all people who ever lived (except Jesus) have broken God’s moral standards repeatedly, and deserve only God’s judgment. But the death of Jesus, the sinless servant of God, has paid for the sins of every person who accepts that payment for himself. (Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”)

God raised Jesus from the dead in order to affirm that he accepted Jesus’ payment for sin. For many centuries prior to that time God had been working primarily with a specific group of people, the Jews. He had called Abraham to leave his country and go to a new land. Even though Abraham had no children, God miraculously gave him a son in his old age. God promised that his descendants would become a great nation, they would be God’s special people, and God would give them the land of Canaan as their eternal possession.

Through this group of people, God communicated how he wanted them to live and to worship him. He made many promises to this people, including that in the last days he would bring them from all over the world to the land he had promised them, and he would establish a kingdom for them, ruled by a descendant of King David.

Jesus was born as a descendant of David, and he announced to people that he was the promised king. The word “Christ” means “anointed one”, after the ritual that was used to establish someone as the king of Israel. Jesus did not come to start a new religion, as many people seem to think. He came in fulfillment of the words of the Jewish prophets who predicted this end-times kingdom.

When the Jewish leaders rejected his offer of this kingdom, his role and message changed. At that point he became the ultimate sacrifice for the sins of humanity. After his resurrection, although he assured his followers that he would set up this kingdom eventually, he ascended to heaven, leaving his followers to spread the good news of how he had paid for the sins of anyone who would accept that payment for himself.

Maybe you have a hard time accepting the idea that an infinitely small and dense piece of nothing exploded for no reason, and became the universe that we see. Maybe it’s hard for you to believe that the complexities of life and the unique intelligence of humans happened entirely by random chance. Don’t worry; you don’t have to accept that. The Bible tells us that there was a God who created the whole thing, perhaps by initiating the “big bang”. It also tells us that this God loves and cares about each one of us, and wants us to acknowledge and worship him.

In the years after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, God had his followers spread the message to people outside of the nation of Israel. The Jews continue to be God’s special people, but the rest of us who are not Jews are invited to join with Israel in becoming God’s greater people. Many people have accepted that invitation.

Unfortunately, in the centuries after Jesus, many of his followers were misled, due to heavy Roman taxes on Jews, to repudiate God’s people Israel and the instructions that God had given to them. As a result, much of Christianity took a wrong turn that affects them to this day.

I recommend that in finding a group of believers in Jesus to worship with, you try out a local Messianic congregation. Another option is to meet in a home study group. One I particularly recommend is the Torah Club system, sponsored by First Fruits of Zion. These groups can help you to learn about Jesus in his Jewish context, and how to follow him as a disciple. Embrace the God of Israel, the people of Israel, the faith of Israel, and the Messiah of Israel. May God bless you in your journey of discovery.

Moving from Judaism to Biblical Faith

It’s a shorter move from Judaism than from Christianity because Jesus and all his immediate followers were proponents of biblical Judaism. They affirmed Torah. They worshiped in synagogues and the temple. Paul called his version of faith, “the Way”, which was considered a form of Judaism. (Acts 24:14) He spends the last few chapters of Acts insisting that what he is teaching accords with the law and the prophets. (26:6, 22)

Jesus, too, when asked if he was teaching something new, something different than the prophets and rabbis taught, responded by saying that you don’t fix an old coat with a new patch and you don’t fill an old wineskin with new wine. (Luke 5:36-37) The old coat and wineskin represented the Judaism of his day and he was denying that he was adding anything new. The only thing he was declaring was how he fit into that package, as the Davidic king that the prophets announced.

If your present faith is Judaism, there are two things I would recommend in order to embrace the Tanakh that Jesus taught, as well as the New Testament. The first is to take Torah seriously. Only you know what your current relation to Torah is. Jesus preached almost exclusively to Jewish audiences, and his message was, “Repent”, i.e. get right with God and his commands, “for the kingdom of heaven (God) is at hand.” (Matthew 4:17) The kingdom was subsequently delayed because the leaders didn’t accept it. But it will come, and Jesus wanted his followers to live in light of that coming.

The second thing I would recommend is that you open your mind to the possibility that the teaching of Jesus and the rest of the New Testament is continuous with Judaism. Jesus offered a kingdom that the prophets announced. When this kingdom was rejected, as God knew it would be, Jesus took the role of the ultimate sacrifice for the sins of mankind. This is totally consistent with the Hebrew scriptures. The whole sacrificial system pointed forward to the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.

When Isaiah writes abut the servant of God, he seems to be speaking of Israel as a nation. (Isaiah 41:8) But on the other hand, he seems to be speaking of an individual who represents the nation. (Isaiah 42:1) Both aspects of this servant are illustrated in Isaiah 49 where verse 3 seems to speak of the nation of Israel, and verses 5 and 6 seem to be speaking of an individual. As we go on to chapter 53 we see a description that fits Jesus perfectly. I’m not going to cite the entirety of Isaiah 53, but I urge you to read it. The role of Jesus in being the lamb of God (John 1:29) who bore the sin of many (Isaiah 53:12) is the core message of the New Testament.

In the book of Acts and the New Testament epistles the opportunity to turn to God because of what Jesus had done was opened up to non-Jews as well. The prophets reported that in the last days people from the nations would embrace Israel’s God and worship him. That is why Paul and the other disciples of Jesus urged the Gentiles not to become circumcized and convert to Judaism. (Acts 15; Galatians) If they converted, they would be Jews, and not people of the nations any more. Since the last days began, according to Paul, with the resurrection of Jesus, it was important to Paul that these new worshipers of God continue to be people from the nations, and not Jews. He did say that once they embraced the God of Israel, through Jesus, they would be like wild branches grafted into the Jewish olive tree (Romans 11) and become part of the covenant people of greater Israel. But they continued to be Gentiles, people of the nations.

I am not recommending that you “convert to Christianity.” Since the second century C.E., traditional Christianity has mostly abandoned the Torah and God’s promises to Israel. But the New Testament doesn’t support that. The early believers worshiped in synagogues, and if you’re happy with your synagogue, there’s no reason you should leave it. But the early believers also met together in homes, besides their synagogue meetings. If you can find a Messianic Jewish congregation, you may want to try them out. Another option is to connect with a Torah Club sponsored by First Fruits of Zion. These are small groups that meet in homes and follow a guided study that examines the Jewishness of Jesus and his followers. I recommend them highly.

Even though “Christians” from the second century on have separated from Judaism and been in the forefront of persecuting Jews, they don’t represent Jesus or the teaching of the New Testament in that regard. Israel continues to be God’s chosen people. Paul and other New Testament writers predict that eventually the Jewish people as a whole will recognize Jesus (Yeshua) as their promised Messiah. (Romans 11:25-29) Then the promised kingdom will come, with Messiah reigning from the throne of David in Jerusalem. May it come soon.

Moving From Christianity to Biblical Faith

Christianity as we know it didn’t exist during the ministry of Jesus and his apostles. It came about during the late first and second century when the pressure of the Fiscus Judaicus, the Roman tax on Jews, motivated non-Jews who believed in Jesus to distance themselves from Judaism. Nevertheless, Christianity gets some important things right, particularly the importance of faith in Jesus and his sacrificial death as payment for our sins.

While Christianity has correctly identified the Messiah of Israel, the issues where it has historically struggled are with the People of Israel and the Faith of Israel. It has not typically recognized Jews as co-religionists with it. It has commonly downplayed the grafting into the Jewish olive tree that Paul discusses in Romans 11. And it often doesn’t portray Jesus the way the New Testament presents him, as a practitioner and teacher of Judaism and Torah observance.

If you have a background in traditional Christianity and you want to move toward biblical faith and practicing the life that God commanded for his followers, good for you. A key is to learn to see the New Testament from a Jewish perspective. Don’t necessarily leave your church home, at least not right away. But if you can find a Messianic congregation to worship with, that could be a big help in developing a Jewish perspective on Jesus. Some Messianic congregations, however, seem to exist for the sole purpose of converting Jews to Christianity. This is not good nor appropriate. You will do much better if you can find such a congregation that exists for the purpose of helping you to live and worship in a God-pleasing way, following God’s instructions throughout the Bible.

If you can’t easily find such a congregation to worship with, another avenue is to find a weekday Torah Club meeting. First Fruits of Zion (ffoz.org) sponsors Torah Clubs all over the world, and that is a great opportunity to interact with others who are trying to become disciples of Jesus in a biblical way.

Acts 15 seems to give a model for non-Jews to move from a Gentile lifestyle to one that follows God’s Torah. There seem to be two elements to this model. Start following Torah little by little, a few issues at a time. And also, be getting regular training in how to expand your obedience to God.

An easy way to begin is to read older posts in this blog. Clicking on the menu item “Chronology” will give you links to all the posts since this blog was started. That will give you a chance to internalize the concepts involved.

A good place to start your Torah observance is with the Sabbath. This command was important enough for God to include it in the ten that he spoke from Mt. Sinai in Exodus 20. And yet most Christians have ignored the Sabbath that God gave, the seventh day of the week, and have treated the first day of the week as something special. Even if you keep attending your Sunday church, you can start treating the Sabbath day as holy. From sundown on Friday evening until sundown on Saturday, avoid working your job or business if possible. Avoid doing regular tasks and use it as a day of rest. Reading the Bible or other spiritual material, or doing things for relaxation are appropriate.

The biblical festivals may be something that you haven’t given much thought to in the past. Begin by just being aware of when they occur on the calendar, the festivals of Pesach (Passover), Shavuot (Pentecost), and Sukkot (Tabernacles), as well as Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur. As you learn more about them, you can start observing them in appropriate ways, either alone or with your group. The minor holidays of Purim and Hanukkah, although not commanded by God, are appropriate to observe as well.

A good thing to take note of is the list of things that God commanded his people to avoid eating. You can find this information in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. If you want to study further on this issue, a good book to read is “Holy Cow! Does God Care About What We Eat?” by Hope Egan.

To learn continually more about following God’s commands, read the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) regularly. The five books of Moses give the basic history and instructions for how to live. The prophets are important to read to see the future that God has planned for Israel and his Gentile followers. I recommend reading the New Testament from a translation like David Stern’s “Jewish New Testament”. Traditional translations often have a lot of Christian assumptions built in. Reading Paul’s epistles is tricky, since most of Christianity has misunderstood parts of them for centuries. The author of II Peter points out that Paul’s epistles are hard to understand, and that people have distorted them and been carried away by the error of lawless men. That is exactly what has happened with many interpreters. Recently Mark Nanos, a Jewish scholar, has pioneered understanding Paul within Judaism. I recommend reading anything by Mark Nanos, especially “The Mystery of Romans”.

For further education, you can do online study with courses at the college level. Two sources I would recommend for this are Torah Resource Institute (torahresource.com) and Israel Bible Center (israelbiblecenter.com). Both of these organizations offer a lot of fine training in biblical backgrounds.

Wherever you are on your pilgrimage, the important thing is to love God and want to please him. Take a step or two in the right direction and he will continue to lead you as you walk with him.

Jesus as Torah

The gospel of John begins with the words, “In the beginning was the Word.” (John 1:1) This is clearly intended to allude to the beginning of the book of Genesis and the statement, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) But what is this Word that he is talking about?

The passage in John goes on to say, “and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (1:1b) This last phrase is a little problematic in that the first occurrence of “God” comes with the definite article (“the”), while the next one doesn’t. Literally it’s “And the Word was with (toward) the God, and God (theos) was the Word.” In the following verse the statement is repeated with the definite article. “This one was in the beginning with (toward) the God.” (1:2) Why is the article left off the statement about the identity of the Word?

The Watchtower translation (New World Translation) translates this phrase, “And the Word was a God.” Grammatically this might fit the absence of a definite article, but it seems to contradict the rest of scripture, especially passages like Deuteronomy 6:4 that state that God is one. It seems to me that the best way to translate it is something like, “And the Word was divine.” In this case it’s almost like an adjective, attributing the quality of divinity to this Word.

But what is this Word, and why is it described as a “Word”? Later in verse 14 we have the statement, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (1:14) So whatever this Word was, it received embodiment in Jesus when the time came. But there must be a reason that it’s referred to as “Word”.

I propose that what John is getting at here is the idea of Torah, God’s law. We are all familiar with Psalm 119 in which virtually every statement pertains to God’s Torah, and many synonyms for it are used, including “commands”, “statutes”, “precepts”, “decrees”, and “word”. God’s word is his Torah, his standard of right and wrong and his instructions to his people to live in a certain way.

We have a previous example of a particular characteristic of God portrayed as a being in itself in the early chapters of Proverbs. Here Wisdom is anthropomorphized as a woman whose acquaintance should be made. There is even similar language about being involved in creation. “By wisdom the LORD laid the earth’s foundations, by understanding he set the heavens in place.” (Proverbs 3:19) “The LORD brought me forth as the first of his works, before his deeds of old; I was appointed from eternity, from the beginning, before the world began. When there were no oceans, I was given birth, when there were no springs abounding with water; before the mountains were settled in place, before the hills, I was given birth, before he made the earth or its fields or any of the dust of the world. I was there when he set the heavens in place, when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep, when he established the clouds above and fixed securely the fountains of the deep, when he gave the sea its boundary so the waters would not overstep his command, and when he marked out the foundations of the earth. Then I was the craftsman at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence.” (Proverbs 8:22-30) It seems to me that this is what John is trying to do with the concept of “Word” in John 1.

I think that it’s also significant that the Torah is specifically mentioned in the John passage in a parallel construction with Jesus. “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” (1:17) Christians often look at this verse as a contrast because of the history of Christanity abandoning the law in the second century. But it’s really a continuity. And there’s really no reason to mention the law in this context unless it is to shed further light on John’s concept of the Word.

So God’s Word, his Torah, his standard of right and wrong predates the creation of the universe. And Jesus instantiates this standard. Jesus is God’s living Torah, his Word.

Jesus Misunderstood

The Jesus that is portrayed by most churches and Christians is significantly different from the Jesus of the New Testament. He is often portrayed as someone whose Jewishness is unimportant, who taught people not to follow God’s law (Torah), and who rejected the Jewish people. None of this is true. This kind of Jesus could not possibly be embraced by faithful Jews and those who believe the Hebrew scriptures.

Jesus’ Jewishness was central to his identity. He was a religiously observant Jew all his life. His family followed the instructions of the Torah strictly, having him circumcized on the eighth day, bringing him to the temple for the purification ritual, and making annual trips to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. Torah was God’s standard of right and wrong, and if Jesus had not followed it completely all his life, he could not be a sinless sacrifice as a payment for our sins.

Also critical was that Jesus was a descendant of David in the Jewish kingly line. The geneologies in the gospels are to establish that he was descended from David and an heir to the throne. There were many mentions in the Hebrew prophets that God would have one of David’s descendants on the throne of Israel forever. When Jesus’ conception and birth was announced, this was the central theme; he was to be the Davidic king of the Jews.

When Jesus started preaching, one of the first things he did was to affirm God’s law in no uncertain terms. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:17-19)

During his lifetime he worshiped and taught regularly in the synagogue; he observed the biblical festivals, and when he healed people, he directed them to go through the rituals that were prescribed by the law given by Moses. He told people that the Pharisees sat in Moses’ seat and people should do as they say, although they themselves did not always set a good example. Several times he criticized them for not following the law closely enough.

When Jesus began preaching, his primary message was that the end-times kingdom of God (kingdom of heaven) was “at hand”, and that he was God’s designated king for it. He performed miracles of healing and other kinds to demonstrate that he was indeed the promised king.

Jesus did not come to start a new religion and he did not do so. When he was asked whether his teachings were new, he pointedly denied it, saying, “You don’t fix an old coat with a new patch and you don’t fill an old wineskin with new wine. They would tear and ruin them. Besides, everybody knows that old wine is better.” (Luke 5:36-39 paraphrased) Jesus’ message was entirely Judaism, with the addition of the fact that he was the designated king of the kingdom of God.

When this offer of the kingdom was rejected by the Jewish leaders, his immediate mission changed. He was still the king, but the kingdom was delayed to a future time. His immediate task became being the ultimate sacrifice for the sins of God’s people. This was foreseen by God and predicted in the Hebrew scriptures as well.

His death and resurrection, as foreseen by the prophets, inaugurated the new covenant that Jeremiah spoke of. This covenant will not be completely in effect until the future kingdom but it initiated the prophecied time when people of the nations would join with Israel in worshiping Israel’s God and following his commandments.

The teaching of Jesus, as well as all his immediate followers, was that of Judaism as taught in the Hebrew scriptures. He embraced Torah and the prophecies of a future kingdom of God on earth. May we who claim to follow Jesus do the same.

The Prodigal Son

In Luke 15 we have three parables that Jesus told, the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. In the case of the sheep and the coin the issue is simply the single-minded searching for the lost item and the rejoicing upon finding it as a metaphor for the rejoicing in heaven over a sinner who repents.

The story that we have called the prodigal son, on the other hand, gives a lot more detail and builds more of a plot. Perhaps there is more in the symbolism of this story than meets the eye.

To recap the story, a man has two sons. The younger son wanted to receive his inheritance early so he could go live it up. He did, and he went to a far country and squandered it all in wild living. Being broke, he took a job feeding pigs, and the pigs ate better than he did. Finally he resolves to come home and apologize to his father. His father, out watching, saw him coming and ran to embrace him. There followed a big celebration. The older brother, who had remained with the family, was jealous at all the attention that his brother got. The father assured him that he was still loved and the rest of the inheritance was his, but it was still right to celebrate the return of his brother.

It doesn’t take a big stretch to imagine that the older brother represents the Jews to whom Jesus is telling the story. He expects them to absorb the lesson of rejoicing when a sinner repents. If this is true, then perhaps the younger brother is intended to represent Gentile believers in Jesus. As it happens, the trajectory of the Gentile church follows pretty closely the story of the younger son.

As I’ve explained in other posts, in the late first century Rome imposed a heavy tax on Jews, the Fiscus Judaicus. Gentile believers, under the instruction of Paul and others to no longer live like Gentiles (Ephesians 4:17), were embracing much of the culture of Judaism, which God had commanded his people to follow, but were doing so as Gentiles, not converting to Judaism. But the way that Rome determined who should pay the tax was by people’s lifestyles. Who lived like Jews?

Understandably the believing Gentiles didn’t want to be taxed as Jews, since they were not Jews. Over a period of time they began to separate and contrast themselves with Judaism. They chose new holy days and rejected the Sabbath and festivals given by God in scripture. They abandoned much of the law that God gave his people, justifying it by misinterpreting some of Paul’s words. And they began to identify themselves as “Christian”, a religion in contrast to Judaism. They began a process of hating and persecuting Jews that was to last for many centuries.

This trajectory of Christianity and its departure from the instructions that God gave his people seems to parallel the younger son in the parable who left home and got into all kinds of trouble. His feeding of pigs recalls the departure of the church from God’s instructions for eating, where pork is prohibited as food. The effect of the church’s departure from God’s instructions continues to this day.

But if we consider the parable to be prophetic, there is coming a day when the church will realize its error and return to God. The Father is watching every day for that repentence to take place. That’s one of the main reasons that I started this blog, to encourage Christians to return to the scriptures and the faith that was embraced by the first century followers of Jesus, which was essentially biblical Judaism, with the addition that the identity of the promised Davidic king (Messiah) was to be Jesus (Yeshua) of Nazareth.

Repent and return to God. He will be ever so happy that you do.