Circumcision of the Heart not the Flesh: The Highest Priority

Jewish Awareness Ministries ^ | April 1, 2022 | Rev. Mark Robinson

[CondoleezzaProtege]

The Bible is more concerned with the theological meaning of circumcision than its ethnic significance. First commanded to Abraham, circumcision in the Bible does not constitute the brit (covenant) itself, but is the most permanent ot (sign) of someone who undertakes to live in covenant with God. Without this commitment, circumcision carries only surgical meaning; and without circumcision, the Bible’s commandments that were intended to be suffused with higher religious dimension lose their value.

The circumcision of the flesh is also a picture of the greatest circumcision need – that of the heart... Only God can perform a circumcision of the heart.

Moses said, “And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live,” Deuteronomy 30:6.

Jeremiah 4:4, “Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest my fury come forth like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.”

To receive a circumcised heart, a person must first be willing to allow God to change his heart. When He does, that person has the ability to love God and keep His commandments...

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TOPICS: Apologetics
KEYWORDS: biblestudy; circumcision; flesh; heart; monkeypuppets; scripture; spirit

[CondoleezzaProtege]

28 A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical.

29 No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a person’s praise is not from other people, but from God.

- Romans 2: 28-29

[Flaming Conservative]

I can’t argue with your post, but based on your recent posts, what point are you trying to make?

[Pres Raygun]

Deuteronomy 30:6 is both a promise and a prophecy.
It is a promise made to the Israelites and is a prophecy that is still unfulfilled. Earlier in Deuteronomy Moses tells the Israelites to circumcise their own hearts, but later goes on to say that they will fail miserably and will be removed from the promised land. The first 5 verses of Deuteronomy 30, then go on to say that God will bring them back into the land and the He will circumcise their heart, so that they will love Him with all their heart, soul and strength. We are witnesses to this prophecy being fulfilled, with the regathering of God’s chosen people back to the land and the beginning of their hearts being circumcised, with 1 million Jewish believers in Christ, when there were virtually none 50 years ago.

[Sirius Lee]

I got my tip snipped as a tot. Still a lot of meat there, ladies. I mean plenty!

Sirius

[CondoleezzaProtege]

The spiritual trumps the physical. Always.

Christians fall prey to idolizing physical things, physical people, worldly ambition, worldly agendas — at the expense of deeper, spiritual understanding.

—At the expense of the teachings of Christ, which can be inconvenient, unrewarding (in the immediate sense) , unglamorous, and even “weak.”

The apostle Paul reminds us to focus on what is invisible.

“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:18

[CondoleezzaProtege]

Unfortunately, there has been a complacency among the baby boomer, so-called ‘Christian Right’ with oversimplified agenda-ridden readings of Scripture at the expense of the deeper spiritual message of the Bible and the overarching teachings and life example laid out by Christ.

For example: making God out to be someone who cares more about the ethnicity of His people, than the state of their hearts and souls. (Physical circumcision is considered an ethnic marker of Israel in particular.)

It’s this kind of racial emphasis that is sabotaging the inroads conservatives have made to younger people, which see the religious rhetoric underlying political agendas as manipulative and rightly so.

And it’s distorting the faith in the name of political expediency.

[cowboyusa]

The faith is Jewish.