Christ spent his ministry teaching his followers to obey the Torah by word and by example and being a Christian is about being a follower of what he taught, not about refuse to follow what he taught. The problem that Paul had with the Judaizers was not that they were teaching Gentiles how to follow what Christ taught but that they were wanting to require Gentiles to become circumcised in order to become saved/justified, so I completely agree with Paul opposition to them. Everything in the Torah is either in regard to how to love God our ourselves neighbor, so love can’t supersede it. If someone thought that they just needed to love God and their neighbor, so they didn’t need to refrain from murder, theft, breaking the Sabbath, kidnapping, or favoritism, then they would have an incomplete understanding of what it means to love God and their neighbor, so love needs to be informed by the Torah.
Knowing God.
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I think the main problem is the phrase "obey the Torah", which Jesus did not do or teach.
Instead, he reaffirmed some of the moral precepts in the Torah and explained how they jibed
with his command to love everyone.
Jesus also inspired the writer of Hebrews to say that the Torah or OC has been superseded by the Gospel (Heb. 7:11-10:10).
If you are a Messianic Jew, I encourage you not to revert to Judaism/Torahism.
In Matthew 4:15-23, Jesus began his ministry with the Gospel message to repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand, which was a light to the Gentiles, and the Torah was how his audience knew what sin is (Romans 3:20), so repenting from our disobedience to it is a central part of the Gospel message. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact likeness of His character (Hebrews 1:3), which he embodied through his works by setting a sinless example for us to follow of how to walk in obedience to the Torah and we are told to follow his example (1 Peter 2:21-22) and that those who are in Christ are obligated to walk in the same way that he walked (1 John 2:6). So Jesus spent his ministry teaching his followers to obey the Torah by word and by example. Morality is based on God’s character traits, so Jesus graciously teaching us to embody the moral precepts that the Torah was given in order to teach us how to embody is not doing something other than teaching us to obey the Torah. The Gospel calls for us to obey the Torah, so it does not supersede it.
Psalm 19:7-11 “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.”
I would think that anyone who agrees that the above verses accurately describes the Torah would jump at the opportunity to get to experience following it even if they had no obligation to do so and would urge other people to also delight in following them in accordance with spreading the Gospel, so I don’t see a good reason why you would urge anyone not to follow Christ’s example of following those instructions.
And by carefully learning from every source God has given us to know about Him, not by picking and choosing what we will accept as insightful.
I know that you think we should "obey the Torah", but again, Jesus did not do or teach that we must do that to be saved.
Instead, he reaffirmed some of the moral precepts in the Torah and explained how many prophecies jibed with his claim
to be Messiah and His command to love everyone. You DO realize the Torah/Law includes many more laws than the Decalogue?
The reason I urge you to supersede the Torah/OC with the NT/Gospel is because Jesus commanded such per Heb. 7:11-10:10, and
He warned Messianic Jews not to revert to legalism/Judaism per Gal. 1:6-9.
These are three substantially different claims:
1.) Jesus taught to be doers of the Torah.
2.) Jesus taught that our salvation requires us to be doers of the Torah.
3.) Jesus taught that our salvation requires us to be doers of the Torah in order to earn it as the result.
The Bible supports 1 and 2 while denying 3. For example, in Matthew 7:21-23, Jesus said that only those who do the will of the Father will enter the Kingdom of Heaven in contrast with saying that he would tell those who are workers of lawlessness to depart from him because he never knew them. In Luke 10:25-28, Jesus affirmed that the way to inherit eternal life is by obeying the greatest two commandments of the Torah. Jesus saves us from our sin (Matthew 1:21) and it is by the Torah that we have knowledge of what sin is (Romans 3:20), so Jesus gracious teaching us to be a doer of the Torah is intrinsically the way that he is giving us his gift of saving us from not being a doer of the Torah and it is contradictory for someone to think that they need salvation from sin while also thinking that they have no obligation to obey the Torah.
Again, Jesus teaching to follow the moral precepts that the Torah was given to teach us is not teaching something other than the Torah. The goal of everything in the Torah is to teach us how to love, so Jesus teaching us to love is not teaching something other than the Torah.
Indeed.
In Deuteronomy 13, the way that God instructed to determine that someone is a false prophet is if they speak against obeying the Torah, so if you agree that Paul was a servant of God, then you should be opposed to you interpreting him as speaking against obeying the Torah, and if you think that he should be interpreted as speaking against obeying the Torah, then you should be opposed to you considering him to be a servant of God. While I agree that the book of Hebrews inspired by God, not all interpretations of it are inspired by God and there are certain interpretations of it that should lead someone to conclude that it was written by a false prophet who was not inspired by God.
Paul taught the same Gospel of the Kingdom/Grace that Jesus taught that is based on the Torah (Acts 14:21-22, 20:24-25, 28:23), so you should not interpret Galatians 1:6-9 in a way that turns it against the Gospel that Jesus and Paul taught.
That is a good intention, and mine is for you to see synonyms for the surrendered life in this part of my creed:
4. Thus, every person who hears the NT Gospel needs to repent and accept God’s justification in Jesus as Christ/Messiah the Lord or Supreme Commander (Luke 2:11, John 14:6, Acts 16:31), which means trying to obey (Phil. 3:12, 1John 1:8) His commandment to love one another (Matt. 22:37-40, John 13:35, Rom. 13:9)—forever (Matt. 10:22, Psa. 113:2).
5. Then God’s Holy Spirit will establish a saving relationship with those who freely accept Him (Rev. 3:20) that will eventually achieve heaven when by means of persevering in learning Truth/God’s Word/sanctification everyone cooperates fully with His will (John 14:6, 17&26, Rom. 8:6-17, Gal. 6:7-9, Eph. 1:13-14, Heb. 10:36, 12:1, Jam. 1:2-4).
You agreed that the Torah/Law includes many more laws than the Decalogue, but you do not seem to agree that many of the other laws were Levitical or amoral, so obeying them is not required and they are superseded by the NC/Gospel per Heb. 7:11-10:10 and Galatians, especially Gal. 4:21-31.
May I suggest you do a deep dive into those passages and see how you come out the other end?
Then we can continue this discussion by making progress rather than looping. Thanks.
At no point does the Bible lists which are the non-moral parts of the 613 laws or state that only parts of them are non-moral. The position that there are are non-moral parts of the 613 laws would mean that we can be acting morally while disobeying those parts, however, there are no examples in the Bible where disobedience to any of God's laws is stated to be moral and I see no justification for thinking that it can ever be moral to disobey God. Morality is in regard to what we ought to do, we ought to embody God's character traits, and all of the 613 laws of the Torah were graciously given in order to teach us how to embody God's character traits, therefore all of the 613 laws of the Torah are inherently moral laws. Legislators give laws in accordance with their understanding of morality, so to claim that some of God's laws are not moral laws is to claim that God made a moral error about what ought to be done when He gave those laws and is therefore to claim to have greater moral knowledge than God.
The God who has the character traits that the Torah was given in order to teach us how to embody has not been superseded by the God of the NC/Gospel and neither Hebrews 7-11-10:10 nor Galatians 4:21-31 supports that He has been superseded.
If God had saved the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt in order to put them under bondage to His Torah, then it would be for bondage that God sets us free, however, Galatians 5:1 says that it is for freedom that God sets us free, so you are not correctly identifying what Paul was speaking against in this passage. In Psalm 119:142, the Torah is truth, and in John 8:31-36, it is the transgression of the Torah that puts is into bondage while the truth sets us free. Moreover, the Torah came through the line of the free woman, not the line of the bondwoman, so that should influence how Galatians 4:21-31 should be interpreted.
Yes, discerning moral laws is enabled by the indwelling HS rather than by reading the Torah.
God's law/HS indwells believers (Rom. 5:5), and Paul lists some of what will be the fruit in Gal. 5:22-23.
The Torah was given to the Jews, and again I ask whether the reason you cling to it rather than accept Heb. 7:11-10:10 and
Gal. 4:21-31 is because you are a Messianic Jew, who is tempted to be a Judaizer/to revert to seeking salvation via obeying the Torah.
Some believers only have only book knowledge of God because they don't have eyes to c or ears to hear Him . He is literally everywhere , all day every day . Some people just don't seem to get that , every single nice thing that they have in this life , they only have it because He gives them it , food , shelter , a job , a family , their health etc etc , the list is endless . All they need to do is look outside at the sky , how beautiful is it ? , different every single day and always stunningly beautiful . God is everywhere , every beautiful thing , every kindness , every smile , God is in every good thing ! It is amazing to me that some people just don't understand that God's Lovingkindnesses r everywhere every day . We just need to open our eyes and our hearts to perceive them .
So did I. I had never come across "conniption" before.Thank you , I learned a new word today.
Thank you , I learned a new word today
I've heard it before, but now that I look at it...
I'm wondering if the phrase 'don't get nippy with me' is a derivative of "conniption."
There is that in the USA also, and it means the same thing alluding to Jack Frost nipping at your nose. I edited my post's quote to clarify the phrase better saying, "don't get nippy with me." .... maybe I'm remembering it wrong and it's "don't get 'snippy' with me"...
Love is one of the fruits of the Spirit and all of the 613 laws of the Torah are in regard to how to love, so the Spirit leading us to love is not leading us to do something that is not in accordance with the Torah.
I accept those passages, but not all interpretations of them. According to Deuteronomy 13, the way that God instructed to determine that someone is a false prophet is if they speak against obeying the Torah, so if you agree that Paul should be considered to be a servant of God, then you should be opposed to your interpretation of those passages and if you think that your interpretation of those passages is correct, then you should be arguing in favor of not accepting those passages.
new law can you elaborate please?
why do you lie about cutting a hand or plucking an eye?
are you for real you think God asked people to do this really? wake up! do you also believe that at communion the wine transforms in blood and the wafer turns into the flesh of Christ? These are metaphors why do you teach all these false things here? you say in the O.P to know God, well you don't know him at all.
sorry to be direct but prove what you say or stay silent it is preferable than to teach false doctrine.
can you define the new covenant according to the words of GOD of Jesus?, I bet you cant, please try me, give me specifics but you wont. You do not Know God only pretend to.