Flocks

Is there more than one "right" way to worship God and to honor the Jewish Messiah if you're a Gentile? Funny question? Maybe the question isn't so funny. Consider how many churches there are in the world and how many different denominations they represent. While it is true that some of those churches believe they are the only "true" church and the rest of them are "posers", many Protestant churches believe that most other denominations are true worshipers of Christ, despite the various theological differences (and I recently wrote an article called Ecumenical to try and address this point, at least in terms of "Messianics").

I have a feeling that I'm about to "reinvent the wheel", but this is part of the restructuring process I'm undergoing in response to deconstructing my general assumptions about my faith. I've previously remarked that we know a great deal about Temple worship from the Torah, but almost nothing about how synagogue and early Messianic/Christian worship services were conducted. I have sometimes wondered why there is this lack of detail regarding the latter in the Apostolic Scriptures. God seems to be exquisitely specific about information He wants people to know, right down to the details of the Kohen Gadol's robes and every tiny element that comprised the construction of the Mishkan. These aspects (from my perspective, anyway) are direct representations of what exists in the Heavenly Court, where Yeshua is our High Priest, so I can appreciate the level of detail involved in creating an Earthly representation. What does that mean though, for worship venues that are not the Miskhan or the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and specifically for Gentile worship places?

I've been told that the synagogue service is something of a representation of the Temple service and acts as a "substitute" since no Temple currently exists in Israel. According to Wikipedia quoting the Talmud (tractate Berachoth 26b), each "...service was instituted parallel to a sacrificial act in the Temple in Jerusalem: the morning Tamid offering, the afternoon Tamid, and the overnight burning of this last offering." So in the modern Jewish synagogue service, we have a picture of the Temple service representing the desire of the Jewish people to fulfill all of the commandments of God "...as in days of old, and as in previous years" (Malachi 3:4).

Did any of that float over to the Gentiles when we were grafted in? Let me back up a second.

Before and during the Earthly lifetime of Yeshua, we know of a group of Gentiles who attached themselves to Israel and who we call "God-fearers". These God-fearing Gentiles became aware of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob from their contact with the Jewish people and became convinced that the Hebrew God was and is the One true God of all Creation, including the non-Jewish people. Many of these Gentiles did not respond to this awareness by seeking conversion to Judaism (during the Roman occupation of Israel, it might have been somewhat hazardous for a Gentile to request and undergo conversion). These particular individuals and perhaps their families, began worshiping at their local synagogues, both in Israel and in the diaspora. They had no official and particularly no covenant standing in the synagogue or among the Jewish people, but no one among the chosen of God could have argued that Gentiles were not also created in God's image and did not also benefit from God's blessings. This response to God by a minority of Gentiles in that world was likely a realization of this:

See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the LORD my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to take possession of it. Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, "Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people." What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the LORD our God is near us whenever we pray to him? And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today? -Deuteronomy 4:5-8

While Israel, suffering under the harsh lash of the Roman occupation, was not a "perfect" nation, and even though they labored under a religious leadership that was corrupt and in Rome's pocket, Jews did then what they always did, particularly when under duress, which was to humbly seek the will of God and offer devotion to Hashem, Master of Legions, awaiting His rescue and salvation. This unparalleled faith and sanctity of heart and action was not lost on at least some of the Gentiles who witnessed it, including this fellow:

When Jesus had finished saying all this in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum.There a centurion's servant, whom his master valued highly, was sick and about to die. The centurion heard of Jesus and sent some elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and heal his servant. When they came to Jesus, they pleaded earnestly with him, "This man deserves to have you do this, because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue." So Jesus went with them. He was not far from the house when the centurion sent friends to say to him: "Lord, don't trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and that one, 'Come,' and he comes. I say to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it." When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, "I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel." Then the men who had been sent returned to the house and found the servant well. -Luke 7:1-10

For the God-fearer in the Jewish synagogue, worship services were synagogue services. They would have done what most of us would do if we were guests in a house of worship not our own. I imagine that the "rules" for Gentiles would have been similar to what we find on the Judaism 101 website.

Non-Jews are always welcome to attend services in a synagogue, so long as they behave as proper guests... During services, non-Jews can follow along with the English, which is normally printed side-by-side with the Hebrew in the prayerbook. You may join in with as much or as little of the prayer service as you feel comfortable participating in. You may wish to review Jewish Liturgy before attending the service, to gain a better understanding of what is going on. Non-Jews should stand whenever the Ark is open and when the Torah is carried to or from the Ark, as a sign of respect for the Torah and for G-d. At any other time where worshippers stand, non-Jews may stand or sit.

That explanation isn't perfect since in first century Israel, it is unlikely that there would be a bilingual siddur (Hebrew/Greek in this case) but perhaps in diaspora synagogues, there were language accommodations available. In any event, the overarching emphasis in the instructions for guests or God-fearers would be to behave respectfully and within the bounds of not being members of the covenant. For the Gentiles involved in that context, there most likely wasn't any disagreement on this point.

One of the purposes of Yeshua's "becoming flesh and dwelling among us" was to, in essence, open the door for Gentiles to enter into the Kingdom of God by directly attaching us to Israel as alien, but grafted in, branches. If Yeshua didn't change something relative to a Gentile's covenant relationship to God, then his birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension would have meant little or perhaps nothing at all, at least to the vast majority of the world's population. If the only way for a Gentile to fully access a covenant relationship with God, rather than forever remain a God-fearer, was to convert to Judaism, why would Paul have said this:

Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. -Galatians 5:2-5

A plain reading of the text seems to indicate that Gentiles do not have to convert to Judaism to have access to God and that, in fact, it was Messiah himself who came to give Gentiles that access. They (we) are not required to covert in order to have relationship and by ignoring Paul's words and being determined to convert, we are not only disregarding Paul, we are throwing away the meaning of Yeshua's death.

OK. Gentiles have access to God that is more than what a God-fearer had. After all, Cornelius was already a God-fearer when God told Peter to go to the Roman's home. Cornelius and all his Gentile household received the Holy Spirit before the very the eyes of Peter and his Jewish companions (Acts 10:44-48) showing them and us that there was and is life for a Gentile with God that is more that what the ancient God-fearers experienced.

The $64,000 question is just how much more of a life? In practical terms, does baptism by the Holy Spirit make Gentiles full covenant members and Israelites along with the Jews? That's the big argument going on right now.

From a One Law (OL) perspective, the answer is "yes". Gentiles, after receiving the Spirit and being grafted in to Israel become Israelites. They were and are obligated to all of the 613 commandments, all of halacha, and are every bit a part of the Jewish lifestyle, without having to actually convert to Judaism. This is where Messianic Judaism (MJ) parts company with One Law, since MJ maintains that, based on Acts 15 and Acts 21, Gentiles who became Messianic by way of the Spirit had only a subset of Torah obligation. Interestingly enough, the people who had previously functioned as God-fearers most likely were already complying with those requirements in order to be able to worship in the same synagogue as Jews.

The real problem is that, while MJ can tell "Messianic Gentiles" (for lack of a better term) what they are not obligated to, relative to believing Jews, they can't really define, beyond the confines of the Jerusalem letter, what distinguishes a believing Gentile's life and religious practice from a pagan or secular Gentile. It doesn't seem, from MJ's viewpoint, that we have changed very much, if at all, in terms of our practice. We operate more or less in the same manner as the ancient Roman and Greek God-fearers. Do Gentiles not have a practice that makes them Holy to God and sets them (us) apart from the unbelieving nations? I don't have a definitive answer to that one, but the Apostolic Scriptures may provide a clue in its very lack of detailed information about Gentile worship activities.

I've made my way through most of Bruce Chilton's Rabbi Paul: An Intellectual Biography and Chilton suggests something I'd never thought of before. He suggests that Paul and James may have had significant disagreements about a Gentile believer's status relative to Israel. Chilton doesn't put it in these terms, but basically, he says that James, as head of the Jerusalem Council, took a stance very similar to that of modern day Messianic Judaism, while Paul's framework may have approached what we think of as "One Law" for Gentiles, but not in the way you might expect. I know this is a radical suggestion and I can already feel the various MJ readers of my blog preparing their rebuttals but hear me out.

The split between James and Paul according to Chilton's book, was specifically based on how close a grafting Gentiles receive on a spiritual level. It didn't seem so much that Paul expected believing Gentiles to take on the full "burden" of Torah in order to achieve equal with the Jews, but quite the opposite. Paul wrote that the meaning and force of the Torah was overshadowed by the grace of Messiah. The key problem with how James and the Jerusalem Council might have seen Paul was that he was advocating for Gentiles to be completely equal to the Jews in the covenant promises without any Torah obedience or conversion requirement at all. Gentiles then, could enjoy equal covenant status with the Jews before God, and yet be completely independent of oversight by the local synagogue and perhaps be even independent of Jerusalem.

This may, according to Chilton, account for the various beatings and the stoning Paul had to endure (including being left for dead). While the message was eagerly accepted by diaspora Gentiles, the diaspora Jews and, when they finally heard about it, the Israeli Jewish believers, were "less than amused" by Paul's teaching an apparent lack of distinctiveness between Gentile believers and the Jewish faithful. This may account for Paul's problems upon his returning to Jerusalem (Acts 21 and beyond) as well as the punishments he put up with in the diaspora.

It's important to remember that Chilton's perspective is primarily a Christian one, though he is considered an expert in both early Christianity and Judaism. He also speaks of Paul's "conversion" on the road to Tarsus, though he may not mean conversion from Judaism to Christianity so much as conversion from non-Messianic to Messianic Judaism. Still, his perspective is expected to be a bit "off" relative to the modern Messianic Jewish understanding of Paul. Nevertheless, his material should be taken into consideration and may provide important clues in the history of Gentile "acceptance" into the body of Messianic faith.

While I can't take a position of exactly what Paul did or didn't believe on these matters, Chilton's book at least opens the door to the possibility of a lack of absolute consistency in how Gentile believers were considered and treated by Jewish Messianics. That, coupled with a lack of specific requirements for Messianic Gentiles beyond the aforementioned Acts 15 and Acts 21, leaves a gap in which multiple, varied worship and lifestyle practices may have become available to Gentile Yeshua-worshipers.

I sometimes remark in my teachings, that God is wise to provide concrete, material reminders of His commandments, in the Shabbat, the Festivals, and even at the level of tzitzit and mezuzah. While these, and other practices, may not be required by God of believing Gentiles, I imagine that in the first century, as is true today, at least some Gentile believers saw the wisdom of some of these commandments and "went the extra mile", even in secret, in order to facilitate a more personal connection with God.

I have no concrete evidence to present on this matter, but I know human nature. It would have been almost impossible for first century Gentile worshipers to not be drawn to some of the Jewish-specific practices, particularly if they had Jewish mentors or an experience in synagogue worship. What Gentile Messianics in the 21st century are experiencing isn't unique to the modern age. In fact, Chilton believes that Paul failed to discourage his followers in Galatia from adhering Jewish practices, which they continued performing, even after Paul was long dead.

The letter to Galatia established his (Paul's) position in Ephesus, but it failed to move its intended recipients. More than a century after Paul, there is excellent evidence that the Galatians were in fact keeping the calendar of Judaism, celebrating Easter in a tight correspondence with Passover, and observing regulations of food purity. -from Bruce Chilton's Rabbi Paul: An Intellectual Biography (page 195).

If, as in Deuteronomy 4:6, Gentiles are expected to see Israel's relationship with God and say, "Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people", why wouldn't at least some of them (and us) want to emulate what the Torah teaches in Deuteronomy 6:4 and beyond?

Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. -Deuteronomy 6:5-7

Yeshua said the following to his Jewish audience, but I don't see how it doesn't or shouldn't apply to Gentiles as well.

"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." -Matthew 22:36-40

How far any of the specific Torah commandments are applied in obligation to Gentile believers as opposed to voluntarily available, I cannot say. I know that the Shabbat can be a time of rest for me, just as it is for my Jewish neighbors. Perhaps I don't keep it in the same way or to the same degree as an observant Jew, but neither am I commanded to specifically ignore the Sabbath. Without turning myself into a caricature of a Jew, how much more in God's commandments is available to me, not necessarily out of an obligation, but out of a desire to express love of God? Moreover, what is the higher observance, to comply to Torah or any part of it because you have to...or because you want to?

Afterword: I'm not saying that Jewish people are Torah observant only because they have to, but the bottom line is that the covenant obligation exists. There may be some Jews who comply only out of fear, but that's certainly not God's desire. Beyond the obligation, there are many Jewish people who keep Torah for the sheer joy of obeying and serving God and perhaps they're a model for the rest of us. If it turns out that Gentiles bear a smaller portion of Torah obligation (though beyond just a couple of slices of the book of Acts), we can still offer God a larger amount of our behaviors, our gifts, our devotion, and our love than what's required. While Yeshua said, "If you love me, you will obey me", anyone who has ever been a parent knows that we feel a greater love from our children, not just when they do what we tell them to do, but when they offer us more, just because they love us.