What Did Jesus Teach About the Torah, Part 3?

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. -Matthew 28:19-20

This is the eleventh part of my series on what Yeshua (Jesus) taught his Jewish disciples to teach the newly minted Gentile disciples to obey. It is also the third part of my series that specifically focuses on what Yeshua taught about the Torah (the Law) that can be applied to non-Jewish disciples. Before continuing, let's review the summary for Part 2 of What Jesus Teaches About the Torah:

In a nutshell, Yeshua taught that the Torah commandment to not murder includes not denigrating another person. "Do not commit adultery" is not just a matter of refraining from extramarital sex, but a prohibition of even looking at another woman with lustful desire and intent. Although Torah allows divorce, no married couple should remove the bond between them created by God except under the most serious circumstances. It is better to take no oath at all than to take an oath before God and then fail to complete it. Even if you are in the right to sue another, consider the consequences before proceeding. Loving those who love you is easy. Loving someone who doesn't love you is from God.

While each of these commandments has their source in the Torah of Moses, Yeshua brings the correct and original understanding of each of these statements to his Jewish disciples and, through the Matthew 28 directive, to the Gentile disciples; to us. However, there's a problem.

In my previous conversations with Messianic Jewish adherents to Bilateral Ecclesiology, Divine Invitation (as defined by First Fruits of Zion or FFOZ), and to others aligned with the specific teachings of organizations such as the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations (UMJC), the only standard they believe is valid for Torah observance by Gentile disciples of Yeshua is found in Acts 15, in what we now call "the Jerusalem Letter". Let's take a look at it.

We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul - men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell. -Acts 15:24-29

This letter seems to have been written in response to a situation described by Paul in his Galatians letter. Here's a small sample:

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. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth? That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. "A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough." I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion will pay the penalty, whoever he may be. Brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves! -Galatians 5:2-12

Paul appears to be describing a group of Messianic Jews who were struggling with the idea that Gentiles could enter the community of Messianic faith and become disciples and worshipers of the One God without actually converting to Judaism (circumcision is the shorthand Paul is using to describe conversion). If Gentiles were being instructed that they could only become disciples by becoming Jews, it would completely undo everything Yeshua had done and taught, according to Paul. Yet, it was understandable that many of the Jewish disciples of Yeshua would have a tendency to not want Gentiles to share the status of full disciples with them.

In that place and time, Jews generally believed that any sort of contact with a Gentile would make a Jew unclean. Even being in a Gentile's house would be like touching a corpse. There were already many Gentile God-fearers worshiping in Jewish synagogues (see Acts 17 for examples of God-fearers worshiping with Jews in Thessalonica, Berea, and Athens), but their status would not have been as equals before God among the Jews, even though Gentiles too were created in the image of God.

Peter was only convinced to visit the home of the Roman God-fearer Cornelius after having a vision on a rooftop where God explained to him that Gentiles were in fact not unclean (see Acts 10:9-22). The following shows what a total shock it was for Jewish believers to witness Gentiles also being accepted as Messianic disciples and receiving the Spirit:

While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God. -Acts 10:44-46

Witnessing Gentiles being accepted as disciples of the Jewish Messiah and actually receiving the Holy Spirit just as the Jewish disciples did in Acts 2, was a completely mind-blowing experience for many of the Jewish disciples who witnessed the event. Imagine how difficult it was for the hundreds or thousands of Jewish Messianic disciples of that time to believe that Gentiles could receive the Spirit, since they had not seen this event with their own eyes. Were they willing to take Peter's and Paul's word for it? Were they be willing to take the Jerusalem Council's word for it?

Some of them obviously were not willing, hence Paul's comments to the Galatians and the necessity of the Jerusalem letter. But let's get back to the problem.

While Acts 16:4-5 describes the response of the Gentile believers to the delivery of the letter, given what Yeshua taught in Matthew 5:21-48 and the directive Yeshua gave to the Jewish disciples in Matthew 28:18-20, are we to believe that the conditions James and the Council wrote in their letter to the Gentile disciples were the only behavioral changes the Gentiles had to make? How could the Gentiles make sense of these directives if they didn't have access to the larger body of scriptures for context? Even assuming a different set of behavioral expectations for Jews and Gentiles in the synagogue and as believers, how could Gentiles understand this difference and why it exists if they didn't have access to the larger body of scriptures, and particularly to the teachings of the Messiah, to whom the Gentile believers were to be disciples and students?

Also remember this:

"It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. For Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath." -Acts 15:19-21

Somehow, the fact that the Torah of Moses was read in the synagogues on every Sabbath factored into the way the Council crafted their letter in response to the Jewish believers who had erroneously been attempting to get the Gentiles to convert to Judaism as a requirement of worshiping God.

Now remember that we're dealing with two general classes of Gentile disciples: those who had been God-fearers, had a familiarity with the synagogue, and had heard the Torah taught on Shabbat, and those who had just come out of pagan worship and hadn't a clue what was going on. The former population were already somewhat "on board" with having faith in God and they already loved the Jewish people. The latter population came to faith through hearing Paul or another Messianic emissary, but largely had no understanding of God, the Messiah, and Judaism, beyond what would have been common knowledge in the diaspora.

It must have been quite a shock when the Gentiles were originally told (erroneously) that they had to convert to Judaism and take on board the whole of Torah obedience and halacha; behaviors and concepts that were likely completely mysterious to them, confusing, and maybe even a little terrifying. Becoming a Gentile disciple of the Master would have seemed an overwhelming task for someone coming out of paganism if conversion to Judaism were a major requirement. How could they possible ramp up to speed in any reasonable amount of time and come to an understanding of all the commandments, equal to born Jews who had been hearing the Torah since childhood? You might not get any Gentile converts to the Messianic faith at all if they had to face that sort of chore. What to do?

In this context, the Jerusalem letter makes a great deal of sense. James could be saying, "Let's calm the Gentiles down". And to the Gentiles, the letter could say, "Don't worry, guys...you don't have to do everything all at once." But does the Jerusalem letter override what Yeshua said in Matthew 5 and Matthew 28? Of course not. If James (and interestingly enough, the Holy Spirit) had contradicted Yeshua's teachings, then the Apostolic Scriptures wouldn't be worth the paper they're printed on. So what do we do and how do we understand all this? The clue is here:

For Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath. -Acts 15:21

If Yeshua expected what he taught the Jewish disciples to obey to be transmitted to the Gentile disciples, then the Acts 15 letter cannot be the totality of what a Gentile disciples were to learn and obey. Based on my previous conclusions, Yeshua directly taught the correct interpretation of portions of the Torah, specifically from Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. The only way for the Gentile disciples to make sense of Yeshua's teachings and to put them in proper context, was for the Gentile disciples to be able to study the original portions of the Torah they were expected to understand and obey.

Conclusion: What do we learn about Yeshua's Torah teachings as connected to the Jerusalem letter to the Gentiles?

1. Yeshua taught the correct interpretation to a number of Torah commandments as seen in Matthew 5.
2. Yeshua specifically directed the Jewish disciples to teach the Gentile disciples to obey everything Yeshua taught, as seen in Matthew 28.
3. Some Messianic Jewish disciples were teaching the new Gentile disciples that the only way to become disciples of the Messiah was to convert to Judaism, as described in Paul's Galatians letter.
4. Paul and the Messianic authorities in Jerusalem correctly taught that Gentiles do not have to convert to Judaism in order to be Messianic disciples.
5. In order to calm the Gentile disciples down and to tell them that they did not have to take on board a totally Jewish obedience to the Torah, a letter was sent out as recorded in Acts 15.
6. Acts 16 shows how the letter was well received among the Gentiles.
7. Matthew 5 and 28 and Acts 15:21, as well as Acts 17:10-15, show that Gentiles were expected to learn, understand, and obey at least some of the Torah commandments outside the direct context of the Jerusalem letter.

There's no way around it. The Acts 15 letter cannot be the total and absolute limit of a Gentile disciple's behavioral compliance to God. At least some portions of the Torah of Moses must be included for the Gentiles to even make sense of who the Messiah is and what righteous living really means as an expectation of God.

Notice though, so far, I haven't presented one line of evidence that could support the idea that Gentiles are supposed to wear tzitzit, pray with teffilin, or to keep the totality of the 613 commandments (or at least that portion that's possible to keep outside of Israel and without a Priesthood or a Temple) as understood in rabbinic Judaism. So far, what I've found (but I'm not done, yet) is that, according to the teachings of Yeshua and the Jewish disciples, Gentiles, when they have become Messianic disciples, are required to change their behaviors based on more than just the Acts 15 letter. However, the Gentiles do not necessarily have to obey each and every Torah commandment exactly as a born Jew is required (and in fact, we see that Gentile conversion to Judaism in order to become a disciple is not only not required, but severely frowned upon).

We're getting rather deep into this topic, and so far, not many folks have been responding, although Judah Gabriel has started his own blog post to comment on this portion of my study. My conclusions aren't precisely lining up with either the understanding of the One Law/One Torah congregations nor the teachings of the Messianic Jewish adherents to Bilateral Ecclesiology (as defined by Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations or UMJC) or Divine Invitation (as defined by First Fruits of Zion or FFOZ).

I want to assure you that I'm not expending all this time and energy just to be disrespectful and offensive to people who don't share my exact viewpoint, so please don't take what I'm writing as some sort of slap in the face. I really am trying to make sense of what the Bible is saying to Gentiles without "drinking the Kool-Aid", so to speak, of any particular group's theology. Once married to a theology, having an objective viewpoint can be something of a challenge. If I can present this information while standing even a little bit outside my own assumptions, then perhaps I, and everyone else reading my blogs, can learn something new.

Needless to say, to be continued.