Posts Tagged Salvation
The Shepherd’s Supervision
Posted by James in Uncategorized on September 26th, 2009
You are all sons of God through faith in Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus), for all of you who were baptized into Messiah have clothed yourselves with Messiah. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Messiah Yeshua. If you belong to Messiah, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. -Galatians 3:26-29
As believers in Yeshua, we attach ourselves to him and to the Father; the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob. We have “faith” in the Father through the Son, but what is faith? Sometime ago, I wrote an article for this blog called What is Bitachon?. Bitachon is a Hebrew word that describes in amazing detail, all of the components that make up having true faith and trust in God. When we use the word “faith” in English, we tend to miss the full meaning of what God is asking of us.
Emunah is a component of Bitachon, defined as an “awareness of Hashem (The Lord; Hebrew: “The Name”) as all-powerful and in absolute control.” According to Dr. Menachem Kellner in his article for My Jewish Learning, “In the Torah, faith in God means trust, not belief in particular propositions”. I’ve already included the link to Dr. Kellner’s article, so you can read it in full. However, in short, Dr. Kellner gives Abraham as an example of emunah, when Abraham, at the Word of God, uprooted his entire family, and travelled to the Land he did not know (see Genesis 12:1-6).
The world is full of hardships and difficulties. No doubt, each of you reading this blog has crises, grief, worry, or lament in your lives. I know there are many of those experiences in my life and my heart as well. There are times when I can’t sleep. There are times when I weep, and pour out my very spirit at the feet of God, begging him for mercy and compassion. There are many, many things in my life; and in all our lives that we have no direct control over, yet those things seem to land on us like an avalanche of granite. Where is our hope?
Who Really Goes to Hell? The Gospel You’ve Never Heard
Posted by James in Uncategorized on March 29th, 2009
Author: David I Rudel
Format: Paperback, 204 pages
Publisher: Biblical Heresy Press (February 15, 2009)
ISBN-10: 0981826601
ISBN-13: 978-0981826608
I first heard about this book on the blog of a fellow named Aaron called Honest Uncertainty. Well, actually I started following Aaron on twitter, but that’s beside the point right now. After reading Aaron’s review, it seemed like the book really needed a deeper going over and, long story short, I requested and received a review copy from the author David Rudel (thanks, David). Here’s what I found out.
Although there are a few websites and a blog that support the book, I wanted the text to speak for itself first, and so bookmarking the relevant URLs, I pressed on. The first thing about the book that I (and practically anyone, I imagine) noticed was that it has the world’s longest title: “Who Really Goes to Hell? The Gospel You’ve Never Heard: What a Protestant Bible written by Jews says about God’s work through Christ (A book for those in the church and those offended by it)”. Egad. Why not just put the entire text of the book (it’s only 204 pages) on the cover and be done with it? I can only guess that the author and the publisher felt that the long title was needed to “hook” the reader, but then I’m guessing.
Speaking of the publisher, they have a rather unusual name: Biblical Heresy Press. Usually the word heresy isn’t taken in a very positive light in Christian circles, so I thought the explanation from the publisher as to how they made such a name choice would be interesting, but that wasn’t the focus of my review or this blog post. Under the publisher’s logo were the words, “The Bible is best read with your own eyes…preferably open”. I couldn’t agree more, but in what spirit were those words written? I continued turning pages.
Speaking of URLs I decided not to visit until after reading the book, the footer on each page of the book contained a URL not listed elsewhere. I’ll talk about it more at the end of this article. I really wanted the book to be my first presentation to the author’s and publisher’s content.