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Philadelphia Philadelphia stayed always faithful to Christian faith till end of its history. During the reign of Tiberius (AD 14-37) Philadelphia…
Posted on 06/24/2014 2:13:28 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Recently, a friend emailed me with a very common claim, namely, that, “Paul hijacked Christianity with no personal connection with Jesus and filled his letters with personal opinions.” This could be rephrased in the more common claim: Paul invented Christianity.
This claim is especially common among Muslim apologists who use it in an attempt to explain why the Qur’an simultaneously affirms Jesus as a true prophet while also contradicting the Bible at every major point. However, since my friend is not a Muslim and is not coming at the issue from that angle, I will just deal with the question more broadly.
My friend alleges that some of the “personal opinions” of Paul that were interjected into the New Testament include: “slaves obey your masters; women not to have leadership roles in churches; homosexuality is a sin (though there is Old Testament authority for this last, Paul doesn’t seem to base his opinion on it).”
“None of [of the above] were said by Jesus and would perhaps be foreign to his teaching,” he wrote. “I think Paul has created a lot of mischief in Christianity, simply because he wrote a lot and his letters have survived.”
Let’s deal with this point-by-point.
No personal connection to Jesus
Paul, in fact, did have a personal connection to Jesus. This is revealed in the famous “Damascus road” accounts in Acts 9:3-9, Acts 22:6–11 and Acts 26:12–18. Paul refers back to this experience elsewhere in his letters, though it is only laid with this level of detail in Acts, written by Paul’s traveling companion Luke.
The only way one can maintain that Paul had no connection to Jesus is to rule out the conversion experience of Paul a priori based on a presupposition. Of course, I can argue that such a presupposition is untenable, but that would take an entire post to itself. For the sake of brevity, I would just point out that it is illogical to employ such reasoning. It would go something like, “It didn’t happen because it couldn’t happen because it can’t happen therefore it didn’t happen therefore Paul had no personal connection to Jesus.”
Personal opinions
Yes, Paul does interject his personal opinions into his writing! However, when he does, he clearly delineates what he is saying as his personal opinion as an Apostle.
For instance, in dealing with the issue of marriage in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul clearly distinguishes between his own statements and the Lord’s.
In 1 Corinthians 7:10, Paul says, “To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord)…” and in 1 Corinthians 7:12, Paul says, “To the rest I say, (I, not the Lord)…” This example shows that Paul was not in the business of putting words in the mouth of Jesus. Paul had no problem showing when he was giving his own charge and when it was a statement made by the Lord Jesus, as it was in this case (Matthew 5:32).
Yet it is important to note that other Apostles recognized Paul’s writings as Scripture from the earliest days of Christianity, as seen the case of Peter (2 Peter 3:15–16).
Paul’s “personal opinions” and the Law
Out of the three examples, two are directly from the Mosaic Law. Obviously the Mosaic Law couldn’t have stated that women should not preach in the church because the Church did not yet exist and wouldn’t for over 1,000 years.
The claim that there is only Old Testament authority for the last of the examples is false. The same goes for the claim that Paul does not base his statements on the Law.
It is abundantly clear that Paul actually does derive his statements on homosexual activity from the Law.
For instance, in 1 Timothy 1, Paul mentions homosexuality in the context of the type of people the Law was laid down for (1 Timothy 1:9-11). This short list indicts all people, just as Paul does elsewhere (Romans 3:23), showing that all people require the forgiveness that can only be found through faith in Jesus Christ.
When Paul deals with it elsewhere, he mentions it in the context of other activities explicitly prohibited by the Law (1 Corinthians 6:9-11), again going back to the idea that the Lord Jesus Christ sets apart (sanctifies) His people and justifies them.
As for the command for slaves to obey their masters, this is regularly claimed to be objectionable by critics. By way of introduction, is important to distinguish between what we have in our mind about the institution of slavery as Americans and the institution of slavery as it existed in Paul’s day. After all, Paul explicitly listed “enslaverers” (or man-stealers) in the same list mentioned above (1 Tim 1:10). Since the entire institution of slavery in the United States was built upon the kidnapping of people, it is clearly radically different from what Paul spoke of. Furthermore, the stealing of a man was punishable by death under the Mosaic Law (Exodus 21:16). The practice of slavery in America would never have existed if the Bible was actually being followed.
Paul also exhorted his readers to buy their freedom if they could (1 Corinthians 7:21) and instructing the master of a runaway slave to treat him as “no longer as a bondservant but more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother” (Philemon 11). Paul grounded his statements in the defense of “the name of God and the teaching.” Paul said that bondservants should “regard their masters as worthy of all honor,” not just for the sake of doing so, but so there might be no chance to slander the name of God and the gospel.
The fact is that Paul knew the Law quite well (Philippians 3:5-6) and the Law does deal with slavery.
Ultimately, the claim made by my friend requires more fleshing out on his end and some evidence on his part in order to be more fully dealt with.
Paul’s teachings foreign to Jesus’ teachings?
This is another common claim. First off, one must ask if this statement implies that Jesus would simply have to repeat everything Paul said and vice-versa or else they would remain foreign.
The fact is that there is nothing contradictory between Paul’s writings and Jesus’ teaching. One must wonder why Luke – a traveling companion of Paul and the author of Luke-Acts – would have no problem writing the gospel that bears his name if he perceived such a contradiction. Furthermore, one must wonder why this apparent conflict was lost on the earliest Christians, including the Apostle Peter, who viewed Paul’s letters as Scripture (see above).
In affirming the Law (Matthew 5:17), Jesus affirmed all that Paul that was clearly grounded in the Law. Furthermore, if there was a real contradiction between Paul’s writings and the teachings of Jesus, Paul would have been rejected, instead of accepted as he has always been.
The Christian community existed before Paul became a Christian, as is clearly seen by the fact that he was persecuting Christians (Acts 8:1,3), and he even met with the leaders of the early church. They did not reject Paul, but instead affirmed what he had been teaching (Galatians 2:2,9). This makes it even clearer that Paul could not have invented or hijacked Christianity.
As for the claim that Paul has had such a large impact “simply because he wrote a lot and his letters have survived,” all one has to do is look at the other early Christian writings that survived in order to see that is not a valid metric.
We have seen that the claim that “Paul hijacked Christianity” is without evidence. While I have taken the burden of proof upon myself in responding to this claim, in reality the burden of proof would be on the one making the claim in the first place. No such evidence has been presented and no substantive evidence can be presented since Paul did not invent Christianity or hijack Christianity or anything similar to it. Instead, Paul was an Apostle of Jesus Christ commissioned to spread the gospel, something that he clearly did by establishing churches and penning many letters under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that we can still read today.
When one reads the gospels and the other writings contained in the New Testament, the message is cohesive and clear: all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Ro 3:23), God demands complete perfection (Mt 5:48) and all we have earned through our sin is death (Ro 6:23) and hell. Yet God offers the free gift of eternal life to all who repent and believe (Mk 1:15, Ro 10:9–11) in Jesus Christ, who died as a propitiation (Ro 3:25, Heb 2:17, 1 Jn 4:10) for all who would ever believe in Him (Jn 6:44) and rose from the grave three days later, forever defeating sin and death. Those who believe in Him can know (1 John 5:13) that they have passed from death to life (Jn 5:24) and will not be condemned (Jn 3:18), but will be given eternal life by Jesus Christ (Jn 6:39-40). Paul and Jesus in no way contradict each other on what the gospel is, in fact the four gospels and Paul’s letters (along with the rest of the New Testament) form one beautiful, cohesive truth.
OUCH!
But there just may be some eternal ones...
And just WHERE are those 7 Catholic churches today??
"Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamos, and to Thyatira, and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea."
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Philadelphia Philadelphia stayed always faithful to Christian faith till end of its history. During the reign of Tiberius (AD 14-37) Philadelphia…
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yes but nothing.
Close doesn't count. If it's not Scirpture, it's not Scripture and if it's not named in Scripture, it doesn't matter whose opinion it is, it isn't named in Scripture.
as opposed to the phrase The body of Christ is an organism, which you keep repeating over and over again as if you learned it somewhere ..., perhaps here as it is a hallmark of this denomination/sect that dates only to the 19th Century ...
Pure speculation on your part.
Denominations are not the living body of Christ.
They are organizations which have set themselves up and called themselves churches.
The body of Christ is built of individual believers.
1 Corinthians 12:27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
Not corporately, individually.
*Yes but*... nothing.
Close doesn't count. If it's not Scripture, it's not Scripture and if it's not named in Scripture, it doesn't matter whose opinion it is, it isn't named in Scripture.
as opposed to the phrase The body of Christ is an organism, which you keep repeating over and over again as if you learned it somewhere ..., perhaps here as it is a hallmark of this denomination/sect that dates only to the 19th Century ...
Pure speculation on your part.
Denominations are not the living body of Christ.
They are organizations which have set themselves up and called themselves churches.
The body of Christ is built of individual believers.
1 Corinthians 12:27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
Not corporately, individually.
The Catholic and Orthodox churches are the only churches with the historicity to reach back to the Apostles.
So what? There are other religions that are far older. If age it the determining factor in truthfulness or validity, there are other religions which can out do the Orthodox and Catholic.
These churches have a membership that comprises perhaps almost a fifth of all human beings.
Only when it's convenient for the numbers game. I hear that when one leaves the RCC that that person's name is never removed unless they officially request it in writing.
That means that *I* am still being counted as part of that 1.2 billion strong, as are multitudes of other Catholics who left after being born again.
The hypocrisy in that claim that's constantly being thrown out there is that there are cultural Catholics, there are the likes of Pelosi, Kennedy, Chavez, etc who you guys own when it comes to the numbers game and turn around and disown as having ex-communicated themselves when it comes to pointing out the liberal voting patterns of the majority of Catholics, and there are those who left of their own accord, who you all own only when it's convenient.
Yes, writings from 110 count, even when not included in the Canon. The Early Fathers provide valuable insight, confirmation, and historicity. 110 is extremely relevant to the phrase "catholic church." Pure speculation on your part.
No, it isn't. You keep repeating it because you learned it somewhere other than the Bible. There are denominations, who don't want to be called denonimations because of their origin, that use it. Denominations are not the living body of Christ. They are organizations which have set themselves up and called themselves churches. The body of Christ is built of individual believers who were called out publicly under the supervision of apostolically appointed bishops and elders. History, laying on of hands, directly from the twelve Jewish Apostles led by the servant of the sheep Peter, given their commission directly, personally from the Messiah. Lather, rinse, and repeat in unbroken succession. That is the only genuine church on this earth, and one of its hallmark is unity, hence the word "catholic" adopted as early as 110. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. 19And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Prayer for all Believers 20Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; 21That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. But as God hath distributed to every man, as the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk. And so ordain I in all churches.
So what? There are other religions that are far older. If age it the determining factor in truthfulness or validity, there are other religions which can out do the Orthodox and Catholic.
An unbroken line of succession to the Jewish Apostles, not some other Gentile religion, whether ancient or modern. Only when it's convenient for the numbers game. I hear that when one leaves the RCC that that person's name is never removed unless they officially request it in writing.
It is more than a numbers game; it is an indication the Catholic and Orthodox churches took the Gospel to the four corners of the earth (as have some other mission oriented ecclesiastical communities).
That means that *I* am still being counted as part of that 1.2 billion strong, as are multitudes of other Catholics who left after being born again.
I think you could count yourself as a wandering Catholic, angry and in rebellion at what you perceive to be the holy catholic apostolic church.
The hypocrisy in that claim that's constantly being thrown out there is that there are cultural Catholics, there are the likes of Pelosi, Kennedy, Chavez, etc who you guys own when it comes to the numbers game and turn around and disown as having ex-communicated themselves when it comes to pointing out the liberal voting patterns of the majority of Catholics, and there are those who left of their own accord, who you all own only when it's convenient.
Wheat and tares; it is not enough to be baptized into the faith; one must persevere and bear fruit.
Verse 5 is the critical verse there. “Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised AND required to keep the law of Moses.”
Since we know that the council decided not in the favor of the Pharisees assertion (this is clear from the text) then we also know (again from verse 5) that we are not required to keep the law of Moses.
The opposite is a common tactic among those who believe keeping the Mosaic law is still required today. They will state, “The council of Jerusalem only decided the issue of whether or not one needed to be circumcised. Not whether or not the law of Moses was still for today”.
But we have verse 5, and the conjunction “AND” there that clearly shows BOTH topics were on the table, if not clearly stated later in the passage so what. It’s clearly stated in verse FIVE. That is the correct context for the council of Jerusalem.
But this is what one gets, when one “reads the Bible for oneself”, divorced from all historical and/or traditional teaching and guidance: confusion. We get an “invisible church” that is “unified” in “all the important doctrines”...
Except of course whether or not one is under the law of Moses today.
< sarc >That’s not an important doctrine. It’s trivial. It’s so trivial in fact, some will spend days arguing the point, if not weeks and months, and some will get so heated over the issue that their posts will be pulled. Yes, I spend days and weeks arguing unimportant topics. I get my posts pulled all the time for trivial matters. < /sarc >
That depends upon how you look at it - Betrothal is legally marriage, but is only the promise - until the consummation, it is not realized.
The question was not about whether this means one will persevere in faith, but whether faith appropriates justification.
Certainly the Lord fulfilled the Law in its fullest intent, going beyond what the letter of the law of Moses said,
Murder was always in the heart, not the action.
No, murder was also action, and only that was penalized, while the Lord Jesus expanded love of brethren to enemies, contrary to the hatred of enemies enjoined as in "Thou shalt not seek their peace nor their prosperity all thy days for ever," (Deuteronomy 23:6) "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." (Matthew 5:44)
And divorce was also restricted.
Your point is not lost on me - but you might digest the fact that the spirit of the law, in every instance wherein Yeshua interpreted, was stricter than the letter - Even thinking of murder IS murder
Thanks for affirming my point that you just combated, that "the Lord fulfilled the Law in its fullest intent, going beyond what the letter of the law of Moses said,"
But Torah is not merit based. Every single OT person I can think of was saved by grace through faith.
Wrong, they were saved by grace by faith in the mercy of God, looking toward Christ, while the Law condemned them. For you deny what the Holy Spirit says about salvation under the Law in contrasting it under grace,
For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith. And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them. (Galatians 3:10-12)
Rather than "if a man do, he shall live in them," (Neh. 9:29; Ezek. 20:11) under grace,
"to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." (Romans 4:5)
For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. (John 1:17)
Wrong answer. The law cannot be added to nor taken from.
It is you who is in error, as we are taking about the letter, not its intent, and the new covenant is distinctly stated to be,
Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. (Hebrews 8:9; Jer. 31:32)
Details to follow.
No, the traditions and doctrines of men are not based upon the law. If it were that they were true to the law, they would not be traditions and doctrines of men.
Yes, they were based on the Law. Such things as "the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things" (Mk. 7:7) are easily seen to be derived from purification statutes upon which principal baptism was based, but went beyond them in making doctrines of them, and grievous to be borne. In such a case only what God affirmed was enjoined, thus the baptism of John was of God, and not of men.
I am keeping kosher because YHWH said to. And if we love YHWH we will keep his commandments.
Wrong, you are a heretic who denies the manifest nature of the New Covenant, with the distinctions it makes btwn types of laws, and the literal observances thereof, obedience under which constitutes obedience to the Lord who instituted that Covenant with His own sinless shed blood!
For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: (Hebrews 8:7-8)
In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away. (Hebrews 8:13)
Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience; Which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation. (Hebrews 9:9-10)
Details to follow.
That borders on insolence. Paul is not saying the merely being circumcised places one under the Law, but being circumcised in submission to the Judaizers signified submission to the Law as means of justification, that one must keep the Law en toto in order to be saved.
It wasn't meant to be insolent, but merely snide. But your interpretation is correct - And I do not keep Torah as a means of justification (I know who my redeemer is), but rather, as an expression of love for YHWH. What then?
To be consistent, you must hold that saving faith is only that which literally obeys all the ordinances of Torah entoto, as able, and thus you are substantially no different than "certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying, That it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses." (Acts 15:5)
. ... obedience to Christ means keeping the Torah including 7th day Sabbaths keeping, feasts, dietary laws etc. Do you consider this what obedient saving faith is or not?
It is in my case. Yeshua is our example. That means we do what he did. That is what obedience to the Rabbi is - As perfect an emulation as one can produce.
The "it is in my case" is equivocation - "A statement that is not literally false but that cleverly avoids an unpleasant truth." (The Free Dictionary) It should be obvious this is not dealing with issues such as infants or the ignorant, but obedience to Christ by those who can hear and obey His voice, as per my reference, (Jn. 10:27,28) and if obedience to Christ means keeping the Torah including 7th day Sabbaths keeping, feasts, dietary laws etc. for you, then it means it for all such as who can hear and obey the Scriptures.
Meanwhile, by ignoring covenantal distinctions past and present, you must enjoin literally keeping the Law upon men as Enoch. But if such could be righteous before the Sinaitic covenant was given, so can those under the New Covenant which is not according to that.
Which essentially makes you a modern day heretical Judaizer.
That is nonsense. Peter is not talking about having to wear anything or just keeping the "additions or changes to Torah, endorsed by the elders,"
The yoke of a Rabbi is his interpretation of Torah, which the disciple is bound to strenuously keep, and duty bound to emulate (sometimes on pain of death) ). Is it your position that Peter was strenuously keeping Yeshua's interpretation of Torah by *not* keeping Torah? It is ridiculous! What then can the 'yoke we could not bear' be?
This is indeed ridiculous. Your response was to the yoke "which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear," and thus it was you who made that yoke being that of another rabbi, but which remains non-sense, for again, the context is not that of rabbinical additions, but,
But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying, That it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses. (Acts 15:5)
And thus the contrasting requirements was not that of releasing the Gentiles from such things as the washing of cups, while keeping all feasts, dietary laws etc., but that of Noahide essentials, keeping the primary moral law (idolatry is the mother of all sin) and the primarily offensive practice of eating blood.
Under the Law every time a man had marital relations, or even touched a dog or cat (or anything that walked upon its 4 paws) left one unclean till the evening. (Leviticus 11:27; 15:16) That's a lot of "unclean time," in addition to the constant sacrifices. Thus Peter's words,
Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? (Acts 15:10)
Peter himself had been told to violate the dietary laws in Acts 10, regardless of any denial, and further proof that this referred to abrogating observance of the ceremonial law is seen in the reiteration of the sentence of Acts 15 by James in Acts 21, in contrast to Paul showing that he was one who "keepest the Law" such as in undergoing temple washing, for in contrast he states,
As touching the Gentiles which believe, we have written and concluded that they observe no such thing , save only that they keep themselves from things offered to idols, and from blood, and from strangled, and from fornication. (Acts 21:25)
Thus it is incontrovertible that this "yoke" is what Peter referred to no matter how much you try to spin it to refer to rabbinical additions, the rejection of which was already a foregone conclusion.
And as for meats and drinks, diverse washings, and carnal ordinances: What meats? What drinks? What diverse washings? What carnal ordinances? Specify please.
A valid question indeed.
Meats and drinks:
Hebrews 9 is clearly referring to ordinances under the Law, in which the Temple was center, and its ordinances extended in principal and by precept into daily life, and which Heb. 9 says were in force "until the time of reformation," in which dietary laws, which were not originally part of obedience to God, where typological of New Covenant spiritual realities, such as "leaven" representing hypocrisy. (Mt. 16:12; 1Cor. 5:7)
Are ye so without understanding also? Do ye not perceive, that whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him; Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats? (Mark 7:18-19)
I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean. (Romans 14:14)
Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. (1 Timothy 4:1-5)
Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, that eat, asking no question for conscience sake: For the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof. (1 Corinthians 10:25-26)
On the morrow, as they went on their journey, and drew nigh unto the city, Peter went up upon the housetop to pray about the sixth hour: And he became very hungry, and would have eaten: but while they made ready, he fell into a trance, And saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth: Wherein were all manner of fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat. (Acts 10:9-13)
But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean. And the voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common. (Acts 10:14-15)
Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. (Genesis 9:3)
Diverse washings.
Same principal as above, "There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him." (Mark 7:15) Again, the context of Heb. 9 are the ordinances under the Law, centered around the Temple, which includes temple purification and which in principle and by precept extended into being "unclean unto the evening." But which were typological of NT fulfillment, in which the believer is "washed" by faith in the sinless shed blood of the Lord Jesus, and thus has " boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus." (Hebrews 10:19)
Outside of baptism which signifies death and resurrection, nowhere is ritual washing enjoined upon Christians, though they may do so, as with Paul,
And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law. (1 Corinthians 9:20-21)
Carnal ordinances.
Similarity, these refer to typological ordinances "imposed on them until the time of reformation," but in general, and which Col. 2 speaks of, in which circumcision is "the circumcision made without hands," baptism answering to that, (vs. 11,12) as the believer having being dead in his sins and the uncircumcision of his flesh, God raised the believer up together with the Lord, and having forgiven them all trespasses; Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against him, which was contrary to him, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross. (Colossians 2:13-14)
Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ. (Colossians 2:16-17)
Thus this is not talking about extraScriptural ordinances, which were certainly not a foreshadow of Christ, but those of Scripture as regards typological laws which were a shadow made by the body of Christ, and when the person who made the shadow appears, you look to the reality, not the shadow.
One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. (Romans 14:5)
In addition, believers are not to be taken in by those who also added to these laws such things as esoteric angelology and likely the invocation of angels, and false asceticism. (Col. 2:18-22) The Catholic Encyclopedia admits that a further reinforcement of Marian devotion “was derived from the cult of the angels, which, while pre-Christian in its origin, was heartily embraced by the faithful of the sub-Apostolic age." (Catholic Encyclopedia > Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary)
In contrast to perpetuating shadows of Christ in ceremonial ordinances, or looking to angels, all is found in Christ, "For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:" (Colossians 2:9-10)
I think you are claiming salvation by a faith which requires keeping the dietary laws, feast keeping, 7th day sabbath, etc. If not, say so.
No, Torah keeping has nothing to do with salvation. Loving YHWH means keeping his commandments, and following Yeshua means copying him as an example. In both cases, that includes Torah.
But while works do not actually earn eternal life, following Christ is what faith does (and repents when convicted of not doing so), and thus as caring for the brethren is one of the primary "things that accompany salvation," (Heb. 6:9) and those who habitually are forsaking the assembling of believers together (Hebrews 10:25) are testifying against having faith, then it follows that not keeping the ceremonial law would also be the latter, if this is necessarily part of obedience to Christ as you contend.
But instead it is clearly stated, despite the Judaizer spin, that dietary laws are abrogated, as are those re holydays, the new moon, or the sabbath, and rather than being enjoined, going back into such is only rebuked.
But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. (Galatians 3:23-24)
Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. (Galatians 4:3-5)
But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. (Galatians 4:9-10; cf. Rm. 8:3)
Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. (Galatians 5:1-2)
Thus nowhere is obedience to the ceremonial law and the sabbath enjoined under the New Cov., but requiring it is reproved, Stop trying to compel God's holy word to conform to your latter day Judaizers. May God give thee and them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth;
In terms of the letter of the law...they were, but ultimately they were’nt just like the “legal expert” who tried justifying himself. Christ used the example of the Levite and Priest because he was trying to breach the “expert”’s conscience.
Christ had railed against pharisees about this type of “legal” finagling at other times, such as the apparent tendency of some by using the law and traditions of men to avoid “honoring their father and mother” and not seeing to their financial and physical needs. Now the Law, if attention had been paid to the two greatest commandments, would have been served had they done what was required of them. Instead they substituted their own interpretations and traditions of men there-bye attempting to justify what was not lawful in the cardinal, back to the bare bones sense of the Law.
Christ, by using the example of the priest and rabbi in the parable, fingered the conscience of the “expert” who had to admit that it was the Samaritan who showed mercy who had, by conscience, followed the true spirit of the law.
Whether intentional or not it makes no difference. >> No, my intent is to follow Yeshua -<<
First of all His name in the English language is Jesus.
Luke 1:31 and lo, thou shalt conceive in the womb, and shalt bring forth a son, and call his name Jesus (Iésous);
Iésous - Definition: Jesus; the Greek form of Joshua; Jesus, son of Eliezer; Jesus, surnamed Justus. 2424 Iēsoús – Jesus, the transliteration of the Hebrew term, 3091 /Lṓt ("Yehoshua"/Jehoshua, contracted to "Joshua") which means "Yahweh saves" (or "Yahweh is salvation"). [http://biblehub.com/greek/2424.htm]
God dealt with those who think everyone should speak the same language at the tower of Babel. And it is not respectful to disrespect the words the Holy Spirit inspired the writers of the New Testament to write. Now if you don’t think the New Testament as we have it in the original Greek is the infallible written words of the Holy Spirit than you have nothing to debate anyway. Acts 2:21 says, "But everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." God knows who calls upon his name, whether they do so in English, Portuguese, Spanish, or Hebrew. He is still the same Lord and Savior.
Now you claim your intent is to follow Jesus. Well, you have a problem in that you proclaim that we should follow Him as He lived prior to His death, resurrection, and ascension. As many here have been trying to show you from scripture things changed after His death, resurrection and ascension. Your posts and words discredit what He did for us.
In support of your above statements the following:
Philippians 1:
3 I thank my God upon every remembrance of you,
4 Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy,
5 For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now;
6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:
Romans 8:
28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
31 What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?
32 He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?
33 Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth.
34 Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
36 As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I know no such thing. The only thing you have done is injected the fact that there are word puns in the New Testament. Well, la te da! There are word puns in the Old Testament also. The whole “word pun” thing goes back to a Hebrew version of the gospel of Matthew called the Shem Tov written by a Jewish Rabbi somewhere around 1380. A man who does NOT believe that Jesus is the messiah. It’s been promoted by one Nehemiah Gordon who also denies that Jesus is the Messiah. Your sources are riddled with holes and the subject of an entirely different conversation. Needless to say your evidence is conjecture at best and based on those who not only deny that Jesus is the Messiah but also deny that the New Testament that we have in the Greek is a corrupted text even though the Greek texts are much older and evidence is that even the Shem Tov was translated from the Greek.
>>All you have to do is explain those tiny little Hebrew (and Aramaic) word puns hidden beneath the Greek...<<
I have to do no such thing. I have to take the New Testament as written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and understand it with His guidance.
He also learns what the actions and sacrifice of his master was meant to accomplish. He also listens to what the Holy Spirit which the master sent to inspire the apostles to write said. Something that those who attempt to put us back under the law entirely fail to understand.
But we have Tradition! is the cry. But if you want to see what fables tradition can entail, see some of the Talmud and http://sacred-texts.com/jud/loj/index.htm
Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to inspire what the apostles wrote.
John 14:26 26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
Yet those who would put us back under the law refuse to accept the words of that Holy Spirit.
>>You might have a point if ever I had preached justification or righteousness by keeping Torah.<<
Oh please. If not for justification or righteousness for what then?
Ah yes! The old “fulfill” meme that falls flat on it’s face under scrutiny.
Matthew5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
Fulfill – To bring into actuality; effect: fulfilled their promises. To carry out (an order, for example). To measure up to; satisfy. See synonyms at perform, satisfy. To bring to an end; complete.
To bring to an end because they have been satisfied just as Paul states.
Romans 10:4 For Christ is an end of law for righteousness to every one who is believing,
Jesus fulfilled all the requirements of the law for us because we are totally incapable in this earthly flesh. We have been clothed with the righteousness of Christ and can appear before the Father having been cleansed and purified.
The apostles cleared up all that dietary and carnal law keeping long ago and those who would attempt to put us back under them nullify the grace of God and the death of Christ.
Galatians 2: I do not make void the grace of God, for if righteousness be through law -- then Christ died in vain.
The intended distinction concerned the opposition’s diminished intelligence apart from the physical consequences it frequently delivers.
Beautifully said!
I, too, enjoy bacon as well as pork tenderloin, chops and the shoulder I intend to roast for a wonderful Fourth of July pulled pork sandwich! YUM!
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