Pork Eating

Questions from the congregation

Someone answer these two questions. I am curious and a little bit confused and just need some clarification. Maybe I’m over thinking I don’t know but maybe someone a little more educated than we can explain. Please don’t criticize just asking so I know it says in the Bible that you should honor your mother and your father and that your days upon the earth will be longer so let’s just say if your mom or dad offer you pork and you know in the Bible, you’re not supposed to eat pork in this instance what do you do? 

April Tucker

This is not what honoring your parent means. It is one of those “build the community/society” verses. One can only truly honor parents who honor God. If the whole community is honoring God, then there will never be a problem.

There are as many answers to this as there are Messianics. Some will say that “pork is an abomination and therefore never touch it.” Others will say that “the relationship is more important, eat the pork, it only makes one unclean.” There is no easy answer. Other than that, always bring your own food.

There is no way out of the hypocrisy. This is what Paul meant by working out your salvation with fear and trembling.

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; Phil. 2:12 

Unclean

If we carefully look through the Torah we soon realize that we are perpetually unclean. But there is a remedy. We have to wait till the sun goes down and take a bath before going to the temple.

24   “And by these you shall become unclean; whoever touches their carcass shall be unclean until the evening, 25 and whoever carries any part of their carcass shall wash his clothes and be unclean until the evening. 26 Every animal which parts the hoof but is not cloven-footed or does not chew the cud is unclean to you; every one who touches them shall be unclean. 27 And all that go on their paws, among the animals that go on all fours, are unclean to you; whoever touches their carcass shall be unclean until the evening, 28 and he who carries their carcass shall wash his clothes and be unclean until the evening; they are unclean to you. Lev. 11:24-28

But there is a slight problem here, there is no temple. We are now the temple and are perpetually clean in Messiah.

Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for any one to make others fall by what he eats; Rom. 14:20

Who is my Father and my Mother?

48 But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” 49 And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother.” Matt. 12:48-50

Tradition

1   Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, 2 “Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” 3 He answered them, “And why do you transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him surely die.’ 5 But you say, ‘If any one tells his father or his mother, What you would have gained from me is given to God, he need not honor his father.’ 6 So, for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God. 7 You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: 8 ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; 9 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’”Matt. 15:1-8

Ephesian 2:15

Question from the congregation..

What does Paul mean in Ephesians 2:15 when he says…

15 Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; Ephesians 2:15

Answer

This is addressed to the Church that was in Ephesus. Which was mostly made up of Gentiles. We must remember that we are reading someone else’s mail, and we may never completely understand the rationale for what is written.

Verse 11 starts with a “therefore” so we must consider what came before, which goes through the idea that we are one, both Jews and Gentiles, “by grace through faith.”

Although Paul is speaking of the Law, he only mentions one (in particular) circumcision. Circumcision is the one law given to be a sign of the covenant, and forever separated Jews and Gentiles. [Gen. 17]

Human hands make circumcision, and the dividing wall or the partition was also made by man’s hands. Only one who was physically circumcised could move beyond the Court of the Gentiles and into the temple precincts and participate in the ceremonies. The uncircumcised were not allowed. 

FYI: This partition was a creation of the rabbis and was not original to the Torah.

Messiah’s sacrifice took away the need for the ceremonial law: that is the laws pertaining to the priestly and sacrificial rites. Which Paul calls “the law and the commandments and the ordinances.” Peter states this quite clearly in that, “Christ died once for all.” [1Pet. 3:18 ]

Paul, in making this statement, stresses that God made one congregation. That it is only through the work of Messiah that the one congregation can meet the commission to leave “the passions of our flesh.”[v3] Just as the Father and Son are one we should be one.

. . . that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. John 17:21 

The rest of Ephesians is on how this will Work

Throughout the Old Testament, the terms stranger and sojourners are put for those who are not part of the Commonwealth of Israel. But now that is no longer valid. All are built on the Foundation.

So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, Eph. 2:19-20

Seeking the New Jerusalem

The Old Jerusalem

We are often asked by people if we have been to the Holy Land, Jerusalem, or Israel. As if this were some kind of proper goal. Some kind of pilgrimage which must be accomplished in ones life time.

FYI: Dispensationalist teach that a literal physical kingdom has been delayed or  is yet future and therefore Israel must again rebuild the temple and resume sacrifices.

Just in case some haven’t noticed God abandoned that place and the rituals that were in it, for a more spiritual habitation, our souls. We no longer have need of a religion of form and custom. Ours is a religion of faith and action. We no longer look to physical manifestations, we walk in a mystical sacred devotion of our convictions.

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; 1Cor. 6:19

John Bunyan was right when he wrote his great Pilgrim’s Progress, ours is a spiritual walk or halakh. It is fraught with pit falls and false trails that we must avoid, or not having avoided them, make our way back to the right and true path that leads to the Jerusalem from above.

What Comes from the Man Nailed to the Cross? Torah!

We recently received this question and thought that others might be interested.

yes or no?  Torah – תורה

From right to left: Tav, Vav, Resh, and Heh.

In ancient Hebrew, the letter Tav was two lines crossing one another, or a cross. The letter Vav was, and still resembles, a nail. Resh is the symbol for a head or a man. And Heh, drawn as a single line with two others branching off it – one from each side – could be seen as “what comes from”.

So what is Torah then?

Torah is “what comes from the man nailed to the cross”.

Our Answer

None of us are that familiar enough with paleo-Hebrew letters. But the letters have changed a lot through history. (One of our books has a chart)

However it is clear  from history and archeology that in spite of the inherited churches iconography, the cross was an “X” and not a “†.”

Finding hidden meaning in the letters or the number they represent is part of Kabbalah, i.e. Jewish mysticism, and we’d stay away from it. There are so many things in the Old Testament that point to Messiah, why look for ones in the letters of words? The answer always come back to people who want to thinks they know some “hidden” knowledge. That there are secrets only the “in” people know. This is the Mystery Religions and/or Gnosticism. None of this ever leads one to the true Spirit, therefore it never leads to truth.

There are many thing hidden in plain sight in the Bible why look for things that were never intended.

FYI: The modern Tav “ת” always look like a fish hook to me. I’m sure some creative person could make it “fishers of men” with a little effort.

There is a love story hidden in the Cycle of Levitical Feasts.

There is the formula for figuring out soli/lunar epacts in Daniel 12.

In the book of the Revelation the Lord’s Day is Yom Kippur.

The erotic love poem of the Song of Songs references the Vater Covenant.