The key words of the High Holy Day prayer liturgy are teshuvah, tefillah, and tzedakah, or repentance, prayer, and charity. In these three words is the essence of renewal. Renewal involves, first, repentance, or reaching more deeply into ourselves. Every man and woman possesses an innocence, a layer of pristine purity, that can never be tarnished or compromised. It is our ability to tap into this reservoir of blamelessness that facilitates our capacity to reinvent ourselves. In Judaism, teshuvah literally means, not repentance, but return. We are revisiting our pristine, primordial selves, our inner most essence, our true identity, that spark of God that animates every human life.

-Rabbi Shmuley Boteach
Judaism for Everyone.

Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement, the most solemn and holy day in the Bible’s calendar begins at sundown this year on Friday, September 17th and is based on this:

In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict your souls, and you shall not do any work … For on that day he shall provide atonement for you to cleanse you from all your sins before the L-RD -Leviticus 16:29-30

It is the one day in the year when the High Priest would enter the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle, and later the Temple in Jerusalem, and offer atonement for the entire nation of Israel. In modern times, it is the culmination of the High Holiday season which begins ten days earlier on Rosh Hashanah or the Biblical New Year. It is a day and a season when we reflect on how we have sinned against God and against other people and we strive to make amends through prayer, atonement, and acts of charity and kindness. We seek to repair our relationship both with God and with the people we have offended or sinned against.

As Gentiles in the Messianic or Hebraic Roots movement, why do we commemorate such an event when we know that Yeshua (Jesus) atoned for our sins once and for all? Why afflict ourselves when Yeshua took our punishment in our place? As a disciple of the Master, isn’t commemorating Yom Kippur an affront to his bloody, sacrificial death?

Read the rest of this entry »

The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. – 1 Corinthians 12:12-20

It’s not hard to figure out this metaphor, but living out the principle is easier said than done. Anyone with even the slightest idea about how a person’s body works understands that we have different parts that performs different actions. The heart pumps blood, the lungs take in air, the liver cleans out toxins, and so forth. Each part is specialized so a heart isn’t going to be expected to clean out last night’s beer party from our blood stream nor are the lungs going to be able to help us reach for a bottle of Tylenol. Adapting this back to the “body of the Messiah” (Christ) metaphor, each of us as believers has a specific job to do, sometimes in our congregations, sometimes in day-to-day life, that serves God and honors the Messiah. In my congregation, no one would mistake me for the guy that bakes great chocolate chip cookies, but I am the guy who usually shows up first on Shabbos and unlocks the door so everyone else can enter when they arrive.

This may seem like an old “sermon” to you, but perhaps it’s older than you think…

Read the rest of this entry »

That may seem like a rather odd question. You probably have already said something like “I worship God” or “I worship Christ”, but even within the body of believers, it might not be quite as straightforward as that. Some people worship religion or a set of religious practices rather than the God those practices are supposed to point to.

“None of the major religions is immune from fundamentalism. Indeed, with every passing day, even some segments of Judaism are seen becoming more extreme, not to mention the truly evil incidents of Islamic suicide bombers or Christian extremists who assassinate abortion doctors. In Judaism, centrist Orthodoxy has largely ceased to exist, and very religious Jews are becoming more judgmental of those who adhere to lesser standards of observance. In condemning whose who are less religious, they deify themselves and forget God, Who is the only judge.
Orthodox Rabbi Shmuley Boteach
Judaism For Everyone: Renewing Your Life Through The Vibrant Lessons Of The Jewish Faith

Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Mark Kinzer
Format: Paperback, 320 pages
Publisher: Brazos Press (November 1, 2005)
ISBN-10: 1587431521
ISBN-13: 978-1587431524

Recently, I was “challenged” to review Mark Kinzer’s book by several of members of Messianic Judaism who are adherents to the “Bilateral Eccelsiology” focus of the book. I’m a Gentile believer in the Jewish Messiah Yeshua (Jesus) and I have recently been re-examining some of the standard assumptions of what is usually called the “One Law” movement and my involvement within the movement. I’ll need to offer some brief definitions of terms before I proceed.

Despite how the term is sometimes used, Messianic Judaism refers specifically to the Jewish worship of the Messiah as revealed in Jesus Christ. This isn’t, from Messianic Judaism’s perspective, Jews who have converted to Christianity, but rather, Jews who have discovered the Jewish Messiah and who worship Him in a completely Jewish Biblical, traditional, and lifestyle context, including continued required obedience to the Torah.

This is often compared and contrasted with the One Law movement which is usually characterized as a primarily Gentile worship form that believes both Jews and non-Jews are equally required to be obedient to the Torah and with both groups expressing their worship and lifestyle in at least a quasi-Jewish Biblical, traditional, and lifestyle context.

Now, back to the review.

Read the rest of this entry »

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. -Colossians 3:5-11

Sometimes I look at this verse, look at my basic character and nature and wonder what happened. I think I had an expectation that once I’d accepted Christ/Messiah, that God would flip a light switch and I’d be a completely different human being in an instant. I sort of expected that I’d wake up the next morning, look in the bathroom mirror, and see a completely different face (maybe one that had even shed a few pounds). Oddly enough, that didn’t happen.

I suppose you could say that the fault is mine. There are believers and churches out there that would say I simply lack sufficient faith or that I have not really accepted “Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord of my life.” Maybe you could say that, but there’s another way to look at this situation.

Read the rest of this entry »

These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. -1 Corinthians 10:11-13

In 1985, Manuel J Smith’s classic self help book When I Say No, I Feel Guilty was published. This runaway best seller spoke to the horde of human beings who feel like slaves to other people’s criticisms, needs, and desires and believe they have to try to conform to every wish of the people around them in order to be accepted, worthy, or significant. This usually comes at the cost of being devalued by yourself and everyone else, and never being able to stand up and realize your own dreams and desires. Being driven by continual guilt over your shortcomings, real or imagined (or imposed by other people) is not how God intends for us to live.

There’s another kind of guilt that inhabits the lives of at least some believers…the guilt we feel when we experience the temptation to sin. We know from scores of examples in the Bible that to defy the will of God is to sin, but is the temptation to sin a sin itself?

Read the rest of this entry »

Dogma: 1 a : something held as an established opinion; especially : a definite authoritative tenet b : a code of such tenets, as in pedagogical dogma c : a point of view or tenet put forth as authoritative without adequate grounds
2 : a doctrine or body of doctrines concerning faith or morals formally stated and authoritatively proclaimed by a church.

Theology: 1 : the study of religious faith, practice, and experience; especially : the study of God and of God’s relation to the world
2 a : a theological theory or system, as in Thomist theology and a theology of atonement b : a distinctive body of theological opinion, as in Catholic theology.

Bible: 1 capitalized a : the sacred scriptures of Christians comprising the Old Testament and the New Testament b : the sacred scriptures of some other religion (as Judaism).

Map: 1 a : a representation usually on a flat surface of the whole or a part of an area b : a representation of the celestial sphere or a part of it
2 : something that represents with a clarity suggestive of a map, as in the Freudian map of the mind — Harold Bloom.

Yes, I know I’m throwing a lot of dictionary definitions at you, but it’s important to start here, so you can understand the point I’m trying to make. Many years ago, when I was in graduate school, one of my instructors likened psychological and counseling theories as the map to the territory of human behavior, psychology, and psychopathology. We can’t really know what goes on in another person’s head, but we can develop maps (theories) based on what we observe. Anyone who has used an old fashioned map (before the days of GPS devices) knows that the map is only an approximation of the actual territory you’re travelling or plan to travel. Sometimes details are left off because of space limitations or on occasion, some part of the map doesn’t match the territory at all.

What if I told you that the Bible is the map and not the territory? What if I told you that your theology was a map of a map?

Read the rest of this entry »

“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”. -John 10:14-17

Most of you reading the title of this blog article probably answered “yes” immediately upon reading it. Why would I even ask such a ridiculous question? I’m not dense (usually). I know that God loves all of humanity; each and every one of us, Jew and Gentile alike and is “not wanting anyone to perish..” (2 Peter 3:9).

Yeshua, as quoted by John, also said that he has “other sheep that are not of this sheep pen” and that he “must bring them also” into the flock and they (we) “shall be one flock” with “one shepherd”. The common interpretation of this passage is that Yeshua intended to bring both Jewish and Gentile believers into the fold, so to speak, and we would all belong to him as one unified “flock”. He does draw a distinction between the Jewish “pen” and the Gentile “pen”, making it clear that certain ethnic and perhaps covenant differences would remain, but is one pen more important, more loved, and just plain better than the other?

Let me explain.

Read the rest of this entry »