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To: Jack Hydrazine

Paul and Christ’s teaching on this are clear. There can be a benefit to remaining single and serving God for both men and women. Now this may not fit with your understanding of the Torah or with your religious beliefs, but that is what is written from the teaching of Christ and Paul.

Paul went into detail on the subject and said that there was no general command to remain single (though there were commands about whom one could marry), but rather that remaining single was permitted and being married was permitted. Christians are allowed to stay single or get married. If they stay single, they must be celibate. If they marry, they must marry another Christian.

If you believe God wants all of His followers to marry, fine. There are more significant issues of faith distinguishing traditional Christianity from modern Judaism.

There was a time when Christianity was largely regarded as a sect of Judaism. After the diaspora and later, after people persecuted Jews under the banner of Christendom, Christianity became a predominantly Gentile religious system, and both Judaism and Christendom began to splinter into various sects. What seems to be common among them is how each one thinks they most faithfully represent the original tenets of their faith.

If I only believed the Hebrew scriptures and did not accept the Greek scriptures we call the New Testament, I would be inclined to agree with your point of view. God said it was not good for man to be alone, so He made Eve. The New Testament does not contradict this as a general principle, but clarifies that there are exceptions to the rule. The Hebrew scriptures support this as well:

Isaiah 56:3-7
Do not let the son of the foreigner
Who has joined himself to the Lord
Speak, saying,
“The Lord has utterly separated me from His people”;
Nor let the eunuch say,
“Here I am, a dry tree.”
For thus says the Lord:
“To the eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths,
And choose what pleases Me,
And hold fast My covenant,
Even to them I will give in My house
And within My walls a place and a name
Better than that of sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
That shall not be cut off.
“Also the sons of the foreigner
Who join themselves to the Lord, to serve Him,
And to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants—
Everyone who keeps from defiling the Sabbath,
And holds fast My covenant—
Even them I will bring to My holy mountain,
And make them joyful in My house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
Will be accepted on My altar;
For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.”

Christ quoted from this passage after overturning the money-changers’ tables and driving out the sacrificial animals from the temple courtyard. This was the only part of the temple in which Gentile proselytes could be present, but the Jewish leaders had turned it into a stinking zoo. There was no place for Gentile worshipers, but Christ reproved this before it was fashionable to oppose racism. In fact, Christ’s reproof against the racism of the contemporary Jewish leaders was what got Him into the most trouble with them.

The Messiah was expected by these contemporaries to liberate Israel from the oppression of Rome. Expectations were high because many interpreted Daniel 9 to mean that the arrival of the Messiah had to take place then. But Jesus came proclaiming a different kind of liberation and salvation. Even His own disciples expected Him to lead them into a military victory. After all, what army could stand against someone with the power to raise the dead? He spoke about wars and war strategy. His disciples asked when He would establish His kingdom. So, when He died on the cross for the sins of mankind (or Daniel says, He was cut off but not for Himself), it was not something they expected (even though He had told them beforehand and it was written in the scriptures). And when He rose from the dead and His disciples were eye witnesses to this, they were also surprised to be told that the Gospel of the Kingdom must be preached to the Samaritans and Gentiles. The Gospel proclaimed this message with the commands to repent and believe for salvation from our sins.

Paul wrote a great deal explaining how God’s plan involved mysteries concealed in the Hebrew scriptures. To the modern Jew these may seem like a made up religion. It does not seem to line up with the understanding of the heroes of their scriptures like Abraham, Moses, and David. Did God break His covenants with these men? No. Are the Jews God’s chosen people? Yes. Then why does it seem they have been cast away in favor of the Gentiles under the doctrines of Christianity?

It is because God chose Israel to bring salvation to the whole world. Did God pick Israel to be His people because of their exceptional wisdom, numbers, strength, or righteousness? No.

Deuteronomy 7:6-8
“For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

Deuteronomy 9:4-7, and 13
“Do not think in your heart, after the Lord your God has cast them out before you, saying, ‘Because of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land’; but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out from before you. It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you go in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God drives them out from before you, and that He may fulfill the word which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Therefore understand that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people.
“Remember! Do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that you departed from the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord. “Furthermore the Lord spoke to me, saying, ‘I have seen this people, and indeed they are a stiff-necked people....’”

Israel was chosen like Jonah. God knew Jonah would run the opposite direction from where God sent Him. So God had already, in His sovereignty, prepared a storm, a fish, a vine, and a worm to teach Jonah and us His heart. Nineveh repented because they learned how the God of Israel was stronger than Dagon when they learned Jonah had been swallowed by the whale and was rescued from it by God. This would not have happened if God had picked a more cooperative prophet to deliver the message. Jonah’s disobedience cost him a price, but God used it to save a city which would have otherwise been destroyed. God can turn evil into good, just as He did with the evil Joseph’s brothers did to him. The sign of the prophet Jonah was fulfilled in Christ. Jewish and Gentile leaders (figuratively representing mankind) cooperated to put Christ on the cross, but this was done according to the sovereignty of God to fulfill all of the promises, covenants and prophecies since the world began. And He transformed this great evil and curse into His blessing and goodness and mercy for all nations.

God cares for people. He does not want people to remain in their sin and perish. God chose Israel to be the guardians of His law. He chose Israel to be the nation into which Messiah would be born. He also knew that Israel’s stubbornness and rebellion would result the message of salvation being spread around the world. He knew that His blessing and favor on the Gentiles would provoke Israel to jealousy, much as Jonah was offended that God did not destroy Nineveh as He had intended. Yet, God will soon bring all of Israel to salvation as He has promised (as in Daniel 9). Until then, He always has had a faithful remnant among Israel. That remnant today is made up of Jews who recognize the Messiah to be Jesus, Who is the Savior of the world.


148 posted on 04/14/2014 8:47:22 PM PDT by unlearner (You will never come to know that which you do not know until you first know that you do not know it.)
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To: unlearner

How can any Christian understand what Paul was saying when they don’t even know the questions posed to him? Was he talking to Jews or non-Jews? How can they interpret his words correctly if they haven’t even studied Torah like Paul or Christ did? When Christ says something kabbalistic (or anything else) how do Christians know how to interpret it when they don’t even know Kabbalah? They just make up their own interpretations from what I have seen.

You gotta study Torah from the Hebrew to understand what they were saying.

When did Christianity come into existence exactly? How do you define one? Because they believe that a rabbi can be God? No man can be God and God cannot be man. If any one tells you that it’s a plain out lie. Plenty of false messiahs come around from time to time claiming to be God. In the end times the false messiah that will be propelled to the world stage at the end of days will claim he is God. That’s a no-no to do such according to God Himself.

Just because you overcome death with the help of God does not make you God. Just because you have the Spirit of God on your shoulders does not make you God. Messiah does not equal God. Ask Moses. He was the first Messiah and he never, ever claimed to be God. Some Jews wanted to deify him while he was alive but they knew the rules. Even some Jews today within Chasidism who believe that Rebbe Schneerson was the Messiah, who passed away in 1994, believed that he should be accredited with being God. Ain’t happening.

You simply cannot put God in a box. He is infinite, omniscient, omnipresent, indivisible, so on and so forth. He is Spirit as defined by Judaism and defined by your New Testament in John 4:24. It doesn’t define Him as man or anything physical. But once you go down the path of saying one man can be God it opens the door to anyone claiming they can be God or a god, too. Just ask the Mormons.

He is so close because He is Spirit. This gives Him the chance to have a neshamah-to-neshamah (spirit-to-spirit) relationship with any and all here on Earth. That’s closer than anything physical that can happen. When I say, “be real” does that mean be more physical? No! Of course not. It means be truthful with me. Truth is not physical. It never has been and never will be. God is the truth.

Torah is the original Good News. Study it and you’ll understand why. Nothing can replace it and nothing can substitute for it - not even the New Testament.

There is only one God, one Torah, one people to lead the rest of humanity back to the truth. And no man can be savior of the world. Only God can be that because He has said so.

If and when the Messiah shows up ask him if he is God. The real Messiah will say no.


149 posted on 04/14/2014 9:22:18 PM PDT by Jack Hydrazine (Pubbies = national collectivists; Dems = international collectivists; We need a second party!)
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