Congregation Shema Yisrael

Update: Tim Hegg has published a detailed response to FFOZ’s theological shift on his site, torahresource.com. Look for the article “An Assessment of the “Divine Invitation” Teaching.” It’s available for download in PDF format.

For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell. -Acts 15:28-29

Traditionally, the Messianic or “One Law” movement has stated in rather strong terms, that except for certain minor portions of Torah, the Law of Moses and the Grace of Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus), are not mutually exclusive concepts in the lives of both Jewish and Gentile believers. The net result of such a theology, is a collection of Messianic congregations where both Jews and Gentiles wear a tallit in prayer, read from the Torah, keep the Leviticus 11 kosher laws (what would be considered “kosher-style” by Rabbinic Judaism), and celebrate (to the best of our ability without the Temple in Jerusalem) the Biblical festivals.

We tend to butt heads, both with Rabbinic Judaism, and with the traditional Christian church regarding our practices. Christianity states that the Law was almost completely replaced by Grace, and that in Jesus, all believers are free from Torah obligations, Jew (converted to Christianity) and Gentile alike. Judaism states that not only are Gentiles not obligated to conform to the Torah requirements, but in certain cases, they (we) are actually forbidden to observe the Law.

Goy she-shavat hayav mita” – “a gentile who rests [on the Sabbath] incurs the death penalty. -Sanhedrin 58b

I recently posted two articles regarding Gentile observance of the Torah on this blog, Reading the Jerusalem Letter and Galatia, both loosely referencing the book The Mystery of the Gospel, written by First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ) author D. Thomas Lancaster. Imagine my surprise at discovering FFOZ has reversed course, now stating that only Jews (including Jewish believers in Yeshua) are obligated to keep the Torah commandments; not Gentiles!

This has caused no small response in the Messianic community. I first learned about all this when I received an email newsletter from Tim Hegg’s TorahResource.com, stating that Hegg was terminating his relationship with FFOZ based, in part, on this shift (the other issue involved Hegg’s perception that FFOZ had begun to place aspects of the Jewish Oral Traditions on an equal level with the Bible, as illustrated in materials published in FFOZ’s Love and the Messianic Age). I also subscribe to FFOZ’s blogs on Facebook (if you don’t have a Facebook account, that link isn’t likely to open to anything useful), and started to see a number of what I considered “alarming” articles coming out of FFOZ, confirming a basic shift in their view of how Torah applies to the Jewish believer versus the Gentile believer.

If you belong to Facebook, you know that when an item is published, your “friends” can post back comments, and comments indeed were posted. I entered into a rather “spirited” conversation with FFOZ on the matter, stating that they now seemed to be advocating a “two-Law” position, creating two “classes” of believers, with the Jew holding the higher obligation to God’s Torah. The comments others made in general, were split between my understanding of the situation, and those who applauded FFOZ on this change. I’ve since had time to “cool off”, and have considered the situation with much more prayer and thought.

At this point, you probably want to get up to speed on the FFOZ position. The three most relevant blogs to review are a three-part series written by Lancaster: Part 1: The Tipping Point: Acts 15; 21, Part 2: Acts 15 Re-Examined, and Part 3: The Lone Voice of FFOZ. It will take you a little bit to get through all three blogs, so you might want to read them first, then return here, and read my blog in its entirety. It wouldn’t make any sense for me to try and “reinvent the wheel” by replicating all that material here.

A number of allegations have been leveled at FFOZ, not the least of which is that they “sold out” to major Messianic organizations, traditional Judaism, and/or traditional Christianity, by creating two laws, one for the Jew and the other for the Gentile (read: Moses for the Jew and Jesus for the Gentile). Only God can see into the heart, so I can’t attribute motives to the actions by FFOZ, but I can say that it did come as a total shock to me, and I did initially harbor some “less than kind” thoughts about the change. FFOZ is correct in stating that much of what we consider “Messianic theology” comes directly from their research and their publications. A great deal of the practice of Messianic Judaism, both in general, and specific to my own congregation, is founded on their writings. So, what is FFOZ actually saying now?

It comes down to this. Jews, whether Messianic or Rabbinic, continue to be obligated to obeying as much of the Torah as can possibly be observed (minus the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, the Levitical Priesthood, the Sanhedrin, and so forth), and probably Halachah, the Oral Traditions, and so on. Gentiles are encouraged to observe as much of Torah as they feel lead to, but have no God-given obligation to keep the same observances as the Jews. FFOZ believes Gentile believers are not obligated to observe the commandments for:

• Circumcision
• The Shabbat
• The Festivals
• The Dietary Laws

Circumcision is a “given” for me, as I’ve always interpreted this commandment as being specific to the Jewish people. Actually, there are a number of commandments that don’t apply to Gentiles, such as all of those directed at the Levites, but I always thought that Shabbat, the Festivals, and the food laws were binding on the Goyim, once we took up the mantle of the Messiah, and recognized him as Lord of our lives. After all, he is Lord of the Shabbat as well.

FFOZ stops short of saying that Gentiles are forbidden to keep the Torah commandments (remember, Rabbinic Judaism does believe Gentiles are actually penalized if they keep, for example, the Shabbat, and that it’s only for the Jews). FFOZ states that, while we Gentiles are encouraged to observe as much of the Torah as we feel called to, in order to enjoy the blessings attached to them, we are not obligated to do so, and incur no penalty for not observing them. This means for we Gentiles, among other things, that we can go shopping on Saturday, and enjoy a big, heaping plate of shrimp scampi and bacon (not that I ever ate that combination on one plate, even before I started keeping kosher-style).

That last statement was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, as FFOZ continues to state Gentile believers do benefit from continued observance of Torah, but only the Jews must keep Torah. While both Jewish and Gentile believers observe Torah out of love, in addition, the Jews keep Torah out of duty, as part of the specific covenant between God and the Children of Israel. It seems then, that being “grafted in” isn’t quite a complete “grafting”. FFOZ tends to minimize this interpretation, but their position, while completely consistent with the Scriptures from their point of view, does create some theological, and especially some practical problems.

Actually, it would have created some problems back in the days when the Jerusalem council wrote their now famous letter, as recorded in Acts 15. Both then and now, you have a group of Jews and Gentiles, gathering together in a “Jewish” context (then in the synagogue, and now in whatever venue we can rent or otherwise access), worshiping at the same service, saying the same (liturgical) prayers, reading the same Torah portions, and eating the same food. From the FFOZ point of view, only the Jewish worshipers in the First Century would be wearing tzitzit (and this may well have been so). If the First Century Gentile believers had trouble with the Hebrew prayers, they may well have been silent, listening to their Jewish counterparts pray in Hebrew. Certainly eating together would have been a big deal, as a Jew wouldn’t even sit at the same table with a Gentile, if the food present wasn’t Leviticus 11 kosher, not to mention the additional hallalic requirements for food and drink.

Today, most Messianics (Jews and Gentiles) don’t read Hebrew well enough to pray the liturgy completely out of a standard Siddur. My congregation provides a transliterated version of the prayers in addition to the Artscroll publication of the Sefard Siddur, so that we can at least approximate the pronunciation. Jews and Gentiles both wear tallitot in prayer, but not all of them. Many of the Gentile male members don’t wear a tallit. Our congregation stresses keeping the commandments as you are called, rather than being dogmatic about what you must and must not do. Of course, when I attended my local Reform synagogue, not all of the Jewish members read Hebrew well enough to use the Siddur, and at least half of each service was said/sung in English.

We are rather “dogmatic” about food, but only keep “kosher-style”, meaning that we share foods at Oneg that are Leviticus 11 kosher, but otherwise, don’t comply with the Rabbinic kosher standards in any other way. While we “keep” the Shabbat, we drive to and from services, and at least some of our members are obligated by their employers to work some Saturdays. At least on occasion, some of our members buy goods and services at some point between Friday night and Saturday night. That said, I know members of the local Reform synagogue that go out to eat Saturday afternoon, but only at restaurants where they have an account that can be paid later, so they don’t have to handle money. Some people who attend the local Chabad do drive to services on Friday night and/or Saturday morning, though the more observant, arrive at shul on Friday before sunset and spend the night.

I’m not saying that keeping Torah doesn’t matter, but I am saying that, both in the time of the Apostles and now, keeping Torah was never done with absolute perfection, nor was it practical to hold Jewish and Gentile believers to widely different set of standards, at least during communal worship. I know that both the Jews and Gentiles at my congregation would “implode” if I had the nerve to bring a hot, steaming bowl of pork and beans to share at Oneg. Of course, what I eat at home or at a public restaurant could be a different story, but I’d feel like a hypocrite, keeping one set of standards with my congregation, and a separate set privately.

The question of Gentile obligation to the Torah has been before me for longer than you might imagine. When God called me to this style of worship, study, and faith, I approached it like everyone else; I started doing what everyone around me was doing. That’s exactly what I did when God first called me to be a believer in Christ and I started going to church. I looked around at what the more “experienced” Christians were doing, and began to base my “church behavior” and general lifestyle on their standard.

We assume a great deal when we start worshiping as a Messianic. We (Gentiles) start trying to pray in Hebrew, or something that roughly sounds like Hebrew. At some point, we put a kippah on our head (if we’re a guy) when we enter the congregation for services. Eventually, some of us start wearing a tallit gadol during Shabbat services, and sometimes in private prayer. A few of us habitually wear a tallit katan under our clothing, as a constant reminder of the commandments. Up until now, we Gentile believers justified our response based on materials written by the FFOZ teaching staff (probably most of them, by D. Thomas Lancaster).

Stepping away from FFOZ for a moment, and taking a critical look at the fact that Gentiles in the Messianic movement have accepted a set of assumptions, what if we did away with those assumptions? What if a bunch of Gentiles, really, really wanted to create a congregation that adhered to the expectations of God, as recorded to the Bible, as well as humanly possible. Right now, any Christian church or Jewish synagogue, has a pre-set organizational and theological model for how they practice their public and private worship lifestyle. What if you only had the Bible?

That was the point of me constructing and beginning to teach a class called What are the 613 Commandments? The premise of the class is, if we, as Jewish and Gentile believers in Yeshua, believe that the Law isn’t dead, what portions of the Torah apply to us? What portions of the Torah apply to Jews in the diaspora (believers and otherwise)? What portions of the Torah apply to Gentiles in the diaspora? What Laws are dependent on the existence of the Temple, the Priesthood, the Sanhedrin, living in Israel, being a Jew living in Israel, or being a Jew at all? If a law doesn’t seem to apply now, will it apply again in the Messianic age? Most of all, just how far can Gentiles take being “grafted in”?

So far, the class has “assumed” that being grafted in, made Gentiles equal members of the covenant promises and most of the covenant obligations, without having to convert to Judaism. We’ve interpreted being “grafted in” and being equal members (remember “…neither Jew or Greek…”) as, for example, wearing tzitzit to remind us of our obligation and devotion to God. We’ve interpreted being “grafted in” as keeping the Leviticus 11 food laws. We’ve interpreted being “grafted in” as devoting one seventh of our week to God, and putting away the things of our usual work, as much as life in the diaspora would allow, and to the best of our own abilities, in order to follow our convictions.

In the past 11 months, the class has only gone through about 60 of the 613 commandments. Class meets about twice a month for two hours a meeting, and discussions can be extremely lively. I record the class sessions and post them to the web as mp3 files, since I’ve gotten a few requests from people outside of Boise who want to hear the content (anyone can contact me and request the links). At the end of the class, and that will be a few years from now, I want to be able to look back at the conclusions of the class and, using those conclusions, establish just what a Jewish and Gentile Messianic congregation would look like, if we used a detailed examination of the commandments as our only guide for obeying God and living a righteous lifestyle.

While the FFOZ position is intriguing, it’s important; actually it’s vital to remember, that only God sets the final standard for our lives, and it’s that standard we need to aim for. We walk with God all our lives, forging a relationship with Him, and based on that, a relationship with our environment, one step at a time. It’s why we study the Bible, and not just read it. It’s why we study the Bible, and not just read (and take for granted) commentaries and opinions of scholars. Paul commended the Bereans for not taking the accuracy of his teachings for granted, but checking everything he said against the Scriptures. Also, consider this:

“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me – just as the Father knows me and I know the Father – and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life – only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” -John 10:14-18

One flock and one shepherd, he said. Two separate flocks (Jews and Gentiles) becoming one. The picture Paul paints of being grafted in goes like this:

Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring! I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I make much of my ministry in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them. For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? If the part of the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; if the root is holy, so are the branches. If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.” Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either. Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off. And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree! -Romans 11:11-24

Paul differentiates between the cultivated and wild olive branches. While nourished by the same root, the nature or character of the branches remains the same. Wild is still wild and cultivated is still cultivated. This at least means that Gentiles remain Gentiles and Jews remain Jews, while both are fed by the root of the Messiah. So much for Gentiles being “spiritual Israel”, but I don’t have a problem with that part. What I do see is that we are all sheep in one flock. Some are spotted, some have stripes, and some are just fleecy white, but we are all in one flock together, listening to one shepherd’s voice, following him where he goes, and resting where he rests. We all eat the same food. We gain sustenance from the same nourishment. It’s like the line the Dad, Gus Portokalos (played wonderfully by Michael Constantine) delivers near the end of the film My Big Fat Greek Wedding:

You know, the root of the word Miller is a Greek word. Miller come from the Greek word “milo,” which is mean “apple,” so there you go. As many of you know, our name, Portokalos, is come from the Greek word “portokali,” which mean “orange.” So, okay? Here tonight, we have, ah, apple and orange. We all different, but in the end, we all fruit.

This was the solution to all of the cross-cultural chaos, hysterically introduced in the film when Toula (Nia Vardalos) and Ian (John Corbett) fell in love and decided to get married. Both families were radically different, hardly able to get along with each other in the same room for more than a few minutes at a time; literally “apples and oranges”, but they, like us, in the end, “are all fruit”.

FFOZ recently republished The Mystery of the Gospel as Grafted In, which has presumably been “retrofitted” to recognize FFOZ’s current position on Torah observance for the Jew and for the Gentile. The vast majority of FFOZ’s materials have been and remain directed at the Gentile Messianic believer, and they now “encourage” Gentiles to keep the Torah, not out of obligation to the commandments, but out of love to God and the Messiah.

I always imagine that, when Messiah returns, we will go to him with our love, and our devotion, and our Torah practices, and he’ll kindly but firmly straighten us out, helping us understand how a righteous lifestyle is really lived. I imagine that cartoon light bulb going off over millions (I pray it will be that many) or more heads simultaneously, and we’ll all say in unison “Ah! Now I get it!”

When we become believers, we embark on a journey of faith. How we enact that faith can look different, sometimes very different, from person to person, and from congregation to congregation. It can look different, depending on where you live on Earth, your culture, your language, and at what point in history you live. Yes, how we worship, and how we live out a righteous lifestyle does matter to God, and it matters to us, but we aren’t going to get it perfect. We’re aiming at a goal, but our eyesight isn’t the best (remember “…looking through a glass darkly…”)

To me, living a righteous lifestyle is part of the journey of faith we take with God and with Yeshua. We have the Spirit stirring us from within, and the Bible talking to us from without. We have each other and we have God. As we learn and grow, in knowledge, in wisdom, and in spirit, we become closer to God and hopefully, by His will, closer to the lifestyle He wants us to lead. In the end, we may “zig” occasionally when we should have “zagged” in our practice, but its our faith and devotion that defines us and how we let our light shine in the world, and not the minutiae of how we tie our tzitzit or if we believe we should wear them.

It’s not a matter of who is obligated and who is only encouraged. It’s not a matter of who must obey Torah and who just wants to. We do this, Jew and Gentile alike, not because it’s a set of rules, but because we love Him, though He loved us first. Whether you are a Jew or a Gentile, God’s Word; His preferred lifestyle for His redeemed community, is devotion, not just duty. Once you get your motivation straight, as long as you continue focusing on the walk with God and developing the relationship, the rest will take care of itself.

Endnote: No, I don’t have a final decision about what this all means, although I am certain Gentiles must adhere to more than just the four conditions in the Acts 15 letter (not murdering, coveting, or committing adultery immediately spring to mind). I’m going to continue to do what I always have, as I continue to consult God through prayer, and to study and discuss these matters. A few years from now, my class will have completed going through the 613 commandments as I previously mentioned. I’ll review the results then, and perhaps, some further enlightenment will emerge.

Shalom.