I lean toward controversy at times. This time it's in regard to what I'll call the Christian version of Jesus.
It's the Jesus I always thought of when I was a child growing up in our church. Granted, in one's adolescence all kinds of things are believable and there is only so much that a child can get in one sitting from a Sunday school lesson on flannel board.
My problem isn't with the fact that what I was taught was colored by the teacher or the preacher so much as with the fact that as I have studied more about my Savior and Master Y'shua, I began to have real questions that weren't answered very well by the teachers and preachers.
It wasn't too long ago that I began to learn about the Jewishness of Jesus. The fact that he wore tzitzit, celebrated the festivals, taught from a more eastern philosophical mindset than a Greek and western one, really began to reveal to me the person of Jesus in a new light.
Anyone searching this out should be encouraged to listen to the teachings of Ray Vanderlaan and the popular church series he has produced.
But more than that, as you begin to discover the true religion of Jesus and the hierarchy of the first century Judaisms teaching model. You will see, as I did, that Jesus was an incredible Rabbi!
You will see that He taught the Torah and how to do it with love in one's heart for G-D and man. You will delight in learning that anyone who called him/herself a disciple of Jesus would have followed him anywhere, memorized his words, mimicked his body language - one would have done whatever was necessary to become like his Rabbi.
As a matter of fact, it is well-known in the Judaisms of then and now that if you want to know the teachings of a Rabbi, simply look at his students or disciples. And this is what grieves my heart.
I read Romans where Paul speaks about his great love for his ethnic brothers and how he desired that they would all recognize the Messiah as Jesus. I read how he says that the end result of a gentile coming to believe in Jesus as Messiah is to bring glory to G-D and strike the heart of his ethnic brothers to a jealousy of sorts.
And so what bothers me is that what his ethnic brothers of today see in the modern day church with it's 2000 years of trappings looks very little like Jesus's life. If Jesus kept the Torah, anyone who claims to be a follower of Jesus ought to do his or her best to keep the Torah too.
Now many of my friends in the modern Christian church would say that they don't believe that the Torah is "done away with", but that it has been "renewed" by Jesus. they would say that they believe we should keep the 10 commandments. They would say that we should do all of the "moral law".
You see, there is a theological supposition that somehow the Torah has been split into 3 parts and that Jesus taught that we ought to do the moral, but not the ceremonial or the civil law. The problems with this are many. But I will address two: How are we to keep the 10 commandments and not keep the seventh day sabbath? And if Jesus taught us not to do all of the Torah, He is in danger of being a lawbreaker himself.
According to most modern day Christian teaching, believers are supposed to keep the 10 commandments - all, that is, except the Sabbath. Christian theologians will point to the two references in the New Testament which seem to show how the early believers met on the first day of the week. But, the first day of the week was believed to begin at sundown on the Sabbath!
Think about this: The only place to hear the scriptures (Torah) read was at the synagogue. And the only time to hear it read was Sabbath. The believers would then meet together at the end of the day to fellowship and discuss the scripture passage read that day after sunset.
But a bigger problem with the idea that Jesus did away with the seventh day Sabbath is the fact that while prophesying about the destruction of the temple, He specifically tells his disciples that they ought to pray that their fleeing of Jerusalem during the destruction of the temple would not happen during winter or on a sabbath.
Certainly Jesus, who so closely walked with His Father - knowing and doing only G-D's will, would have realized that after His death, his followers weren't supposed to keep the sabbath, right? WRONG! Jesus knew that after His death Jerusalem would be ransacked and the temple destroyed, but he didn't know the sabbath would be done away with!
Now any person will realize here, that Jesus fully expected his disciples to continue to keep the seventh day Sabbath. But, it seems that we have been taught by many Christian teachers through the centuries, many intelligent and sincere teachers, that Jesus "did away with" the Sabbath. But a closer examination of the text demonstrates otherwise.
Now the main concern in my mind regarding all of this is that Deuteronomy 13:1-5 warns G-D's people about prophets and dreamers of dreams whose dreams come true and who perform great wonders but who lead the people away from their G-D:
"...you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him." (Deut. 13:3,4)
What startled me about this verse is that I believe that this is the impression that many Jewish people have of Jesus. WHY??? Because Jesus performed signs and wonders, Jesus prophesied truthfully, but what most Jewish folk don't know is that Jesus instructed his followers to follow after G-D and keep his commandments. All of His commandments.
The reason they don't see this is because those that claim to be Jesus' disciples proudly proclaim that Jesus did away with the Law (Torah).
