Today’s Orthodox Churches vs. “The Way”

At first, the Christian church was considered the next step from the Rabbi’s teaching. The division was only between those who believed the Christ who died for our sins and was the Messiah promised was the man who had been born in Bethlehem or was still to come. Both went to synagogue and both worshiped God the Father as the same God. Other than that , all Christians and orthodox Jews believed the same thing about God. Paul's working through the priests persecuting Christians was not the norm for the average person.

Paul (as a Christian) always went to synagogue, special churches for only those who believed Christ had come hadn’t been established, yet.

Many Christians had not heard, yet, about Paul’s teaching against Jewish practices we call Judaism. Ideas we consider simple fact today would have outraged and shocked them. We are taught that God took back the blessings that He created for certain days of the week and year like the days for the feasts or the Sabbaths. I don’t know of a Christian today who believes that God blesses the three prayer times of the day (morning, noon and evening).

History has been filled with the persecutions of the Jews by the Christian church. Today no Christian would go to synagogue.

Who is right?

If this is so far out of reality, it is really something that is not of God at all, why don't you explain yourself? The people who lived in the same century Christ lived in didn't think it was out of reality, they thought you were out of reality.

Once, during a trip to Orlando my wife wanted to attend an SDA church on Saturday morning. I did a mapquest search to get the address of the closest church. Apparently, the directions were out of date and it was now a Hindu temple. My wife insisted that we go in anyway to spread the word of God. She gave the gentleman in charge some Christian literature about salvation to read while we were saying prayers. Afterwards she gave a $20 dollar donation and he gave us each an apple and a little glass of tea. He was most kind and gracious and was reading the literature still while we were leaving. It was quite the experience. Never been to a synagogue though.

The division at the earliest was between Christian Jews and non-Christian Jews. The non-Christians believed, incorrectly, that their Messiah had not yet come. The fact that they still believed in God the Father became irrelevant when they rejected Jesus as Christ.

Paul went to synagogues to convince unbelieving Jews about Jesus as Christ. He did not attend them as a ritual practice after he was saved.

The Bible says nothing about God taking back the blessings that He created for certain days. Rather, it says that Christians are no longer under the Law... any of it. God blesses those in Christ who pray, but we aren't constrained to only three times a day.

When you understand that gentiles were never under the Law, perhaps you will stop arguing that gentile Christians should follow it to obtain blessings that were never promised to them. Every promised that God made is "yes and amen" in Christ, not in adherence to the Law.

If you were a contemporary of Paul, would you refuse to go to synagogue with him?

Are you saying that the Jews reject the idea of a Messiah? It is my understanding that their rejection is of human who was Christ as being the messiah, but they believe in a Messiah. There is a difference.

There seems to be a huge misunderstanding of what scripture means by "under the law". Scripture tells us we are to obey the law just that our obedience is not what determines our salvation.
Romans 2:13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.

How in the world do you come to that conclusion?

We CANNOT obey the Law. It is impossible. As Paul and James make clear, and as I have said to you many times, you either obey completely, or you fail completely. There is no middle ground. The blessings of the law are contingent upon complete obedience, not pick-and-choose obedience.

[QUOTE="Dino246, post: 4040562, member: 223333"
We CANNOT obey the Law. It is impossible. As Paul and James make clear, and as I have said to you many times, you either obey completely, or you fail completely. There is no middle ground. The blessings of the law are contingent upon complete obedience, not pick-and-choose obedience.

[/QUOTE] This does not mean we are not to do the best we can to obey the law. Paul explains in Romans 17:14 to 20.

Romans 7:14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

Its strange how every thread goes back to the question of the Law. Those who have a certain interpretation of what that Law means, then either join or start some sort of "group" with others who see it the same way yet all is one body. Some also call others "legalists" if they don't see it the same way. Yet when my kids were young, if I told them to clear up their bedrooms, just because they did it, doesn't make them a "legalist". They either did it because they knew what would happen if they didn't (fear of the law) or they knew it was right to do it in the first place (showed respect for the law). Either way they did it. I guess when people use the word "work" they can either think of "work" as a drag or "work" as a labour of love.

I see the Law like this. It is there to show us how useless we all are as no one can do it. It is there to make us run for Jesus as the only Saviour. The world is on fire and the only "way out" is Jesus Christ. There are still those who have to "work out" their own salvation in fear and trembling. Paul came to the Corinthian church in “weakness and fear, and with much trembling”

Do you see trying your best to do what God tells us we need to do "working out our salvation"? Or do you see trying to obey the law as doing only what is right because we belong to the Lord?

To me it seems a strange conclusion to come to to discard the law because we are both Christians and humans. That would say we must discard the idea of eternal life because we are not Gods or that we would not accept the forgiveness we have in Christ.

Hey Blik. I actually didn't say that. Working out your salvation from “fear and trembling” is the first conviction that we have sinned (because we realise that we cannot keep the Law and have been self righteous) and realising that there is only God's righteousness and forgiveness in Jesus Christ because we cannot forgive ourselves and our own “righteousness” is rubbish.


We lose our conviction to condemnation when we realise that Jesus can forgive sins where others who do not believe in him, have no forgiveness for sins, even if they lie to themselves and they might forgive themselves by other means as they justify themselves in their own self righteousness. But their own heart convicts them which God sees. Lying to oneself is the first problem.


I said realising we are “useless” at keeping the Law is the first realisation. I didn't say we should not respect and love the Law, or break it. I just said that the fear of God is the beginning of all knowledge as that is when we are first convicted that we have sinned in the first place.

And by the way, all I say is all in Love so we can work it out. I try and see it your way, you try to see it mine. We can then reason together my friend.

Now law obedience is resolved, what about thinking over our beliefs verse the beliefs of the first church?

According to the history I have read of it, it died out after about 500 years yet it was how people who lived closest to the time of Christ thought.

It seems to me that if God did something so important as changing the way and time He wants to be worshiped He would do more about it than put the words concerning how we are to think of seasons in scripture more than one vague verse about it. At that time the pagans were using the seasons and Sunday as part of their worship.

The trouble is that you have misinterpreted how the early church viewed and interacted with the Law. You have a wrong picture, and therefore a wrong conclusion.

The early church did not seek to follow the Law. They understood that our righteousness is in Christ, not in adhering to the Law. They got on with preaching the gospel and living it rather than focusing their effort on obeying a legal code to which they were no longer bound.

you are stuck in first century dear friend. they did that in first century go to synagogues for many reasons because they were jews themselves and also to persuade their brethren to the faith.

as time went on and more and more gentiles joined church, they went to synagogues less and less because they dont grow up in judaism. it was a natural transition.

"Stuck in first certury"!!!!~ I am stuck in learning to know God and how God operates in our world, this requires history. God started revealing Himself at creation not in this century.

Even since Christ lived on this earth culture has changed. Mary Magdalene did not have hot running water, she lived a different life than we do and adjusted to her life in many different and also the same way we do. To understand Christ requires also understanding the world has it had developed at the time He lived here.

A better knowledge of the church that resulted from the people who knew Christ better than you and I because they lived in the same culture He did is to be closer to Christ who is our all in all.

Plenty of Messianic Jews go to services on Saturday if that's what you are talking about.

It is not REQUIRED for Gentiles to live according to the ceremonial aspects of the Mosaic Law, though.

These include days and dietary laws.

Other elements of the Mosaic Law are moral and nature, and a believer who is being conformed to the image of Jesus would not want to disobey those as they reflect the image of God.

But, believers are not Jews. Judaizers are those that claim this.

They claim that observing ceremonial elements like days and diet are required for the New Covenant believer. Some even go so far as to claim that you need to get your foreskin snipped to be acceptable to God.

Hogwash!

Those individuals are Judaizers and Paul anathematized them in Galatians.

If a Messianic Jew wants to continue observance of days and dietary elements of the Mosaic Covenant, without claiming others are required to observe them, this is fine, but those who claim all must observe them are Judaizers and fall under Paul's anathema.

Such individuals probably don't know Jesus, and thus don't know the Father. They don't believe in justification by faith alone, therefore they are accursed.

This is regardless of how religious they appear, with their external observances. Their heart has not been changed.

Do you believe that the Law was God's way of fully revealing His character?

Or, do you believe that the Law was part of God's plan to reveal His character fully in Jesus Christ?

They are not compatible views. The first will lead you to slavery and condemnation; the second, to redemption by faith.