Monday, January 05, 2009

I feel a trend movin' in.

Ban Ann Coulter? Why would any network ban Ann? I'll tell you why: Ann called NBC out on their one sided biasness, their gross negligence in reporting, and their blatant swooning for the Liberal Left.
Now, before you say, "I thought he was done with political blurbs..." let me just say that I have to ween myself off of these things. Especially when the world has gone amuck; to the point of letting the cheating, lying, vulgar, hate-mongering atheistic human called Al Franken win a race that he so clearly cheated his way into. I could win any race as long as I was allowed to find the difference I need in votes in people's car trunks and basements...*spit! spit!*
I am telling you, this is just a taste of things to come - the Left is in power, and before we know it, they will be subsidizing pant suits and copies of the Communist Manifesto. God help us all.
We are going to be bailing out newspapers that nobody reads, and taxing bullets so much that those with guns won't be able to shoot.


Sunday, January 04, 2009

I don't do that... it was given to the Jews.

So, I posed a question on The Carpenter's Shop's group on Facebook the other day, and even though we have 27 members online, there have been no responses; I have yet to find out if it is the question its self, or just that nobody has seen it...

At any rate, here is the question, and I will add my commentary as I go:

Nearly every Christian I know agrees that we, as believers, are part of the "New Covenant" written of in Jeremiah 31:31. The scripture goes like this;

31 “Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them,[a] says the LORD. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

The question is this - which tribe are we from, Israel or Judah? The last I checked, neither one of my parents were Jewish, nor were my wife's... so is my family left out of the equation?
I ask this with a hint of tongue in cheek, because I know that I am grafted in. However, it is worth asking just exactly what it is that I am grafted in to. Paul says that we have been grafted into Israel in Ephesians 2 and Romans 11. What does that mean, and why am I bringing it up? Because about three times a week, I am asked questions on why I do certain things, like observing a Saturday Sabbath, or Passover, or eating kosher, and when I tell them that I believe that the 'Old Testament' Law is still valid for believers today, the response is usually, "I thought those things were for the Jews" or "wasn't that given to the Jews?" And occasionally, "you aren't a Jew - why bother?"
There is a hundred pound gorilla sitting in the middle of this question that desperately needs to be addressed!
If we are not to do certain things in scripture because they were 'given to the Jews,' then where and how do we draw the line; because when that logic is followed through, we can not partake of the Covenants, promises, or the blessings that were given to Israel. As a matter of fact, when that logic is carried through, it annuls thae book of James and Hebrews as well. James was written to "the twelve tribes scattered abroad" and Hebrews was written to, well... the Hebrews. Both books were given to the Jews. See my point? To take it further, the entire concept of a Messiah was given to the Jews in a set of Jewish books - a Jewish Messiah who will some day rule and reign from a Jewish king's (David) throne, in the Jewish capitol of Jerusalem! I say all of that to say this; I think that we have grossley missunderstood just exactly what is for the Jews or for the Gentiles. In the Western world, we believe that the Ten Commandments are valid in our lives... except for the one about Sabbath. We believe that all children should honor their parrents, yet we have the nerve to split up one of God's sentences that says
'Every one of you shall reverence his mother and his father, and you shall keep My sabbaths; I am the LORD your God - Lev 19:3

Bear with me here, because this is vital to my point. Notice the words and and My. "And" means just that - and; plus, in addition to, also.
Again, most Christians agree that kids should honor their mother and father; but I ask you this: who has the right to seperate that sentence? What man has the authority to say that one is for Gentiles, and the other for Jews? Are they both not His commandments? This leads me to the word "My."
We have been taught that the Saturday Sabbath commandment was given to the Jews, but look at the scripture, and tell me who's Sabbath it is. Evidently it is His Sabbath. Of course, Yeshua said that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, but who's is it? I believe that it is His Sabbath to give to whomever He seems fit - in this case, it is "man." Notice again, that Jesus never said that the Sabbath was made for the Jew, not the Jew for the Sabbath; He didn't even say that it was made for Israel, but man.

What about the verse that says that there is no longer Jew or Gentile in Christ?
To that, I would like to say, amen! There is no longer Jew or Gentile in Christ! That brings me back into the equatinon that I mentioned earlier - that is comforting, because it allows me back in!
What about that though? Let me make a suggestion...
As I said earlier, we are serving a Jewish Messiah, who will sit on a Jewish throne, in Jerusalem, the Jewish capitol of Israel. We have obtained all of this information from ancient, Jewish books, written in Hebrew. The rest was written in Greek, by Hebrews (there is question as to wether or not Luke was a Gentile; I believe he was a Jew - more on that later).
Again, we in the West have made this scripture to mean not that there is no longer Jew or Gentile, but that there is no longer Jew.
Think about it; we thiink that there are certain things that were given only to them, and becasue there is no longer Jew or Gentile, they should no longer have to do the Jewish things. I ask you this - how many times do you see God telling the Hebrews not to do the things in the Torah... and how many times do you see Him telling them not to do the things of the Gentiles? The answer: He never tells them to stop observing Torah. He repeatedly tells them not to behave lilkke the Gentiles. Why, when all of us are lumped together, would God change His mind, and request that all of His people act like the Gentiles whom He has so consistantly warned Israel about? He wouldn't. He is never changing.

I hope that you are getting what I am trying to say. We are able to partake in that Covenant that was given to the two houses of Israel because we have been grafted in. Grafted in to Israel! We are now partakers in those things because we have "been made near" to the promises and Covenants that we were once so far removed. We are grafted in as His "Chosen People." Remember, Jesus said that "you did not choose me, but I have chosen you." This makes us His "chosen people" as well!
I think that we need to rethink the "it was given to the Jews" mindset. After all, if we follow through on the logic behind it... what other choice do we have?