Strange Paths

This, then, is the line of Jacob: At seventeen years of age, Joseph tended the flocks with his brothers, as a helper to the sons of his father's wives Bilhah and Zilpah. And Joseph brought bad reports of them to their father. Now Israel loved Joseph best of all his sons, for he was the child of his old age; and he had made him an ornamented tunic. And when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of his brothers, they hated him so that they could not speak a friendly word to him. Once Joseph had a dream which he told to his brothers; and they hated him even more. He said to them, "Hear this dream which I have dreamed: There we were binding sheaves in the field, when suddenly my sheaf stood up and remained upright; then your sheaves gathered around and bowed low to my sheaf" His brothers answered, "Do you mean to reign over us? Do you mean to rule over us?" And they hated him even more for his talk about his dreams. -Genesis 37:2-8

Have you ever wondered what Joseph's life would have been like if he was never kidnapped? What would Joseph have been like if he'd stayed warm, safe, and happy with "Daddy dearest"? What would have happened to Joseph if he'd never been an almost murder victim, a kidnap victim, a slave, and a prisoner in a foreign land? It's not hard to imagine.

Joseph would have grown up spoiled and selfish, thinking only of himself. Jacob seemed blind to the resentment that his other sons had toward Joseph due to a father's favoritism for the oldest son of his most beloved wife. Let's see how Joseph's life was altered by the events we know so well.

When Joseph came up to his brothers, they stripped Joseph of his tunic, the ornamented tunic that he was wearing, and took him and cast him into the pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it. Then they sat down to a meal. Looking up, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, their camels bearing gum, balm, and ladanum to be taken to Egypt. Then Judah said to his brothers, "What do we gain by killing our brother and covering up his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, but let us not do away with him ourselves. After all, he is our brother, our own flesh." His brothers agreed. When Midianite traders passed by, they pulled Joseph up out of the pit. They sold Joseph for twenty pieces of silver to the Ishmaelites, who brought Joseph to Egypt. -Genesis 37:23-28

For the first time in his life, Joseph was alone and without his father's protection. Jacob wasn't there and in fact, had no idea where to look for the missing Joseph (and Joseph couldn't know that his father would be told he was dead). Joseph was in the hands of foreign slavers taking him to a destination far from his home. Perhaps for the first time in his life, Joseph was completely out of control of what was happening to him. The Torah doesn't record these events, but was this the first time Joseph turned to God?

When Joseph was taken down to Egypt, a certain Egyptian, Potiphar, a courtier of Pharaoh and his chief steward, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him there. The LORD was with Joseph, and he was a successful man; and he stayed in the house of his Egyptian master. And when his master saw that the LORD was with him and that the LORD lent success to everything he undertook, he took a liking to Joseph. He made him his personal attendant and put him in charge of his household, placing in his hands all that he owned. And from the time that the Egyptian put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the LORD blessed his house for Joseph's sake, so that the blessing of the LORD was upon everything that he owned, in the house and outside. He left all that he had in Joseph's hands and, with him there, he paid attention to nothing save the food that he ate... -Genesis 39:1-6

By the time Joseph enters into slavery in the house of Potiphar in Egypt, it's almost as if he's a different man. Gone is the selfish brat who always told tales on his brothers. He demonstrates such honesty, integrity, and competence, that an Egyptian Chamberlain turns over control of his entire household to a Hebrew. God blesses everything Joseph touches. For God to turn to Joseph, did Joseph first turn to God?

So Joseph's master had him put in prison, where the king's prisoners were confined. But even while he was there in prison, the LORD was with Joseph: He extended kindness to him and disposed the chief jailer favorably toward him. The chief jailer put in Joseph's charge all the prisoners who were in that prison, and he was the one to carry out everything that was done there. The chief jailer did not supervise anything that was in Joseph's charge, because the LORD was with him, and whatever he did the LORD made successful. -Genesis 39:20-23

While life as a slave wasn't brutally difficult for Joseph, he was still a slave. Now things are worse. He's a prisoner and unlike the modern American court and prison systems, Joseph has absolutely no rights. He could be executed tomorrow, or die of old age in prison. But even here, God blesses him and Joseph continues to follow the strange path of his life that has been mapped out by the Creator.

The chief steward assigned Joseph to them, and he attended them. When they had been in custody for some time, both of them — the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were confined in the prison — dreamed in the same night, each his own dream and each dream with its own meaning. When Joseph came to them in the morning, he saw that they were distraught. He asked Pharaoh's courtiers, who were with him in custody in his master's house, saying, "Why do you appear downcast today?" And they said to him, 'We had dreams, and there is no one to interpret them." So Joseph said to them, "Surely God can interpret! Tell me [your dreams]." -Genesis 40-4-8

While it may not seem important at the time, Joseph's ability to interpret dreams, God's gift to him, will be the key to the rest of Joseph's life, but years would pass before he realized this. In the meantime, he lived the life of a prisoner, never knowing which day would be his last.

"Accordingly, let Pharaoh find a man of discernment and wisdom, and set him over the land of Egypt. And let Pharaoh take steps to appoint overseers over the land, and organize the land of Egypt in the seven years of plenty. Let all the food of these good years that are coming be gathered, and let the grain be collected under Pharaoh's authority as food to be stored in the cities. Let that food be a reserve for the land for the seven years of famine which will come upon the land of Egypt, so that the land may not perish in the famine." -Genesis 41:33-36

Standing before Pharaoh, Joseph could either finish interpreting his dream and then be sent back to prison, or he could act on his own behalf, perhaps for the first time since he entered the land of Egypt. But was this the selfish Joseph attempting to feather his own nest, or the act of a man who knew that by God's grace, he could save all of Egypt...and the world?

The plan pleased Pharaoh and all his courtiers. And Pharaoh said to his courtiers, "Could we find another like him, a man in whom is the spirit of God?" So Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Since God has made all this known to you, there is none so discerning and wise as you. You shall be in charge of my court, and by your command shall all my people be directed; only with respect to the throne shall I be superior to you." Pharaoh further said to Joseph, "See, I put you in charge of all the land of Egypt." And removing his signet ring from his hand, Pharaoh put it on Joseph's hand; and he had him dressed in robes of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck. He had him ride in the chariot of his second-in-command, and they cried before him, "Abrek!" Thus he placed him over all the land of Egypt. Pharaoh said to Joseph, "I am Pharaoh; yet without you, no one shall lift up hand or foot in all the land of Egypt." Pharaoh then gave Joseph the name Zaphenath-paneah; and he gave him for a wife Asenath daughter of Poti-phera, priest of On. Thus Joseph emerged in charge of the land of Egypt. — Joseph was thirty years old when he entered the service of Pharaoh king of Egypt. — Leaving Pharaoh's presence, Joseph traveled through all the land of Egypt. -Genesis 41:37-46

From spoiled son to the ruler of the most powerful nation in the civilized world, second only to Pharaoh in less than 15 years. Yet in order to rise to greatness and to hold the fate of many nations in his hand, he had to give up a life of comfort and favor and be dragged through the mud, learning valuable lessons about himself and about God.

Besides, although you intended me harm, God intended it for good, so as to bring about the present result — the survival of many people. And so, fear not. I will sustain you and your children." Thus he reassured them, speaking kindly to them. -Genesis 50:20-21

It's only now, after Jacob's death, do we really see if Joseph has changed. He could have his brothers killed now and take his revenge, but he spares them and remains faithful to God's purpose in his life. Here we see that the true test of Joseph isn't as a house slave or a prisoner, but as one of the most powerful men on earth. He could have turned his back on God and taken comfort in the power he wielded as Victory of Egypt, but he resisted temptation. His greatest struggle of faith wasn't in the face of extreme hardship, but when standing on the pinnacle of the world.

We only cry out to God in our pain and we often abandon Him after He rescues us. How many of us are like Joseph, who even in the ease of our lives, never forgets that we owe it all to God and not to our human efforts?

What Did Jesus Change: On Earth as it is in Heaven?

Then Moses set up the courtyard around the tabernacle and altar and put up the curtain at the entrance to the courtyard. And so Moses finished the work. Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. Moses could not enter the Tent of Meeting because the cloud had settled upon it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. -Exodus 40:33-35

I must confess, this passage is one of my favorites; the moment when the Divine Presence descends upon the Tabernacle and God dwells physically among His people. I always imagine it happens at night. Three million people are surrounding the tabernacle, each with their tribe, their clan, and their family. Something comes down from the heavens but no human being could possibly describe it. This Presence, which seems to have substance and a physical nature, rather than being like spirit or mist, lowers itself upon and then into the tabernacle. Suddenly, the darkened tent that Moses just completed ignites with a brilliant light, dazzling, amazing, and terrifying all of the witnesses to the event. In an instant, these people, all of whom willingly and wholeheartedly accepted God's Torah at the foot of Sinai, realize that their God is now dwelling among them.

But it wasn't the first time.

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?" He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid." -Genesis 3:8-10

Adam and Eve (Havah) don't seem particularly surprised to find God "walking" in the Garden, they are only startled because they don't want Him to "see" that they're naked. Before the expulsion from Eden, Adam and Eve took it for granted that God was with them and it wasn't an amazing thing for God to talk to them and for them to talk to God. Of course all that changed, and since that change, mankind has struggled to overcome the separation, and to establish and continue to have a relationship with God. Certainly, we don't have the same relationship as the one He intended; the one He had with Adam and Eve, nor the one we will eventually have again.

No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever. -Revelation 22:3-5

Of course, that event is yet to come. But what did Yeshua (Jesus) change between the end of the Exodus and the end of Revelation? To understand the answer, you have to read this.

Central to Judaism is the belief in the coming of the Messiah, a time which God's light will shine openly in the world. The Jewish apocalyptic vision is of an eternal era of peace and brotherhood on the earth, rather than in the heavens. When a Jew speaks of the world-to-come, he or she means this world the way it will be when it is perfected.

Rabbi Shumely Boteach
Judaism For Everyone: Renewing Your Life Through The Vibrant Lessons Of The Jewish Faith

You probably noticed that Rabbi Boteach's description of the Messianic Age is substantially similar to what we read in Revelation 22. However, one of the reasons that rabbinic Judaism rejects Yeshua as the Messiah is that, in Yeshua's coming in the first century, he didn't accomplish the "Messianic goal" of repairing the world but instead, "died on a stake as a criminal". However, as believers, we also know that he lived among us:

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God - children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. -John 1:10-14

We could almost change the translation to say The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, summoning both the image of the tabernacle in the desert and the holiday of Sukkot...a temporary dwelling of Heaven on Earth. But if Yeshua came the first time to show us how to experience the divine within our midst, why did he leave?

On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: "Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit." So when they met together, they asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" He said to them: "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." -Acts 1:4-8

It's as if Yeshua is saying his work comes in two stages. Stage one is to recover the lost sheep of Israel so that they (through the commandment in Matthew 28) can disciple the world, bringing all mankind to God, or at least as many of us as are willing. Part two then, once the Age of the Gentiles has been made full, is to wage the final battle and, like the second bookend in a pair (the first being in Genesis), God will live among us again as He did in the beginning.

Yeshua came to open the door, not only to the lost of Israel, but the rest of the planet. He came to put all of us on the same playing field, as far as the love of God is concerned and as far as human access to God is concerned. We see in Acts 2 the Jewish apostles receiving the Spirit but the same Spirit is received by the Gentiles in Acts 10. This level playing field is what Paul describes in Galatians 3:28 ("neither Jew nor Greek") and our common bond is described by Paul in Romans 11 ("grafted in"). The specific means by which Gentiles and Jews access God may be different at the level of the individual commandments representing covenant relationships (though I haven't gotten that far in my analysis yet), but the "big picture" view is one of two peoples who are loved, cherished, and nurtured by "one shepherd" in "one flock" (John 10).

This change that Yeshua made only makes sense if Gentiles and Jews didn't have the same access to God prior to the Messiah's earthly coming. In the beginning, all people enjoyed equal access to God but once we were expelled from the Garden, all people suffered from the same separation from God. God, as part of His plan, chose for Himself, a subset of humanity to become a light to the rest of us. His chosen people, being people, weren't perfect (and of course God knew this all along) and the light didn't shine as well as one might have desired. Nevertheless, the Jewish people kept the Shabbat and the Torah for a thousand generations while the nations of the world were worshipping figures of wood, stone, and metal and tossing their (our) babies into the fire of Moloch.

Yeshua came to show us how to live a perfect life in an imperfect world. He showed us what it could be like for the divine to live with the secular and still remain divine. Yeshua showed us that God can be among His people and His Spirit can dwell within us, as if each person were a walking, talking tabernacle in the desert. The Talmud also states that the Divine Presence rests with Jewish people individually or in small groups, so this concept isn't solely Christian:

"Whenever ten are gathered for prayer, there the Shekhinah rests" -Talmud Sanhedrin 39a

"when three sit as judges, the Shekhinah is with them." -Talmud Berachot 6a

"The Shekhinah dwells over the headside of the sick man's bed" -Talmud Shabbat 12b

"Wheresoever they were exiled, the Shekhinah went with them." -Megillah 29a

When Yeshua's disciples asked him to teach them to pray, this is what he said:

"This, then, is how you should pray:
" 'Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.'
For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. -Matthew 6:9-15

One of the reasons I believe Gentiles are attracted to a Jewish worship form of the Jewish Messiah is described in the words of Rabbi Boteach, which I previously quoted. We seek a world in which the Holiness of God isn't in some far away Heavenly place but rather lives among us, here in our day-to-day lives, whether we're praying in church, are working at our jobs, or are eating an ice cream cone.

Holiness doesn't exist just in the Heavenly Court but anywhere on Earth where we live a holy life by the power of the Spirit and in each and every act we make at every moment in our existence. Yeshua showed us that we don't have to go to the Heavens to find God, God finds us on Earth.

Gentiles and Torah

I've been pondering the Messianic Jewish/Bilateral Ecclesiology (MJ/BE) position on the portions of Torah to which Gentile believers in Yeshua are believed to be obligated. Over the past month or so, I've been publicly airing my issues and concerns about Gentiles (well, me anyway) as related to a Hebraic worship of the Messiah. I understand that most non-Jews who have come to faith in Jesus express their worship in the various denominations of the Christian church, but there is a population of us who seem called out to a different expression; one based on a position not entirely filtered through the lens of 20 centuries of post-Biblical Gentile theology and tradition, which often includes supersessionism.

While I now believe it is impossible, or at least extremely unlikely, that we can ever re-create the first century church in the modern era, we can re-evaluate our understanding of the Bible and attempt to glean more of the intent of the original authors relative to their context as Jews with a Jewish worldview of God, faith, and how Gentiles fit into it all as a result of Yeshua's command to make us all disciples (Matthew 28:19-20).

To the best of my understanding, the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations (UMJC) view of an authentic Jewish worship of Messiah Yeshua is largely based on Orthodox Jewish worship and theology. Without performing a detailed examination of how they see their foundation, I will assume that, except for having faith in Yeshua as the Jewish Messiah, all the congregations affiliated with the UMJC understand the Torah, Oral Law, and all other aspects of Jewish life in Messiah as identical to the Orthodox perspective. Remember, this is an assumption, since I cannot know how every UMJC congregation is organized. I'm also going to assume that UMJC affiliated synagogues agree with and are modeled on the propositions outlined in Mark Kinzer's book Postmissionary Messianic Judaism: Redefining Christian Engagement with the Jewish People.

With those assumptions in place, let's take a look at what I've been told is the length, depth, and breadth of the Torah to which all believing Gentiles are obligated. You'll find it in Acts 15:23-29:

With them they sent the following letter: The apostles and elders, your brothers, To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia: Greetings. 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.

According to MJ/BE, that's it. That's the entire portion of written Torah Gentiles must obey. Seems kind of incomplete, doesn't it? Actually, there's more. From the MJ/BE perspective, at least from what I've been told within the various comments in the Messianic blogosphere, Gentiles are obligated to a larger Torah, but it's the one written on our hearts.

All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) -Romans 2:12-15

This is sort of like saying "let your conscience be your guide". I don't know if Paul intended to apply that comment to just Gentiles who have come to faith in Yeshua or to all Gentiles everywhere (pagans, atheists, and so on), but a quick review of human history seems to show that people aren't beings of great conscience or morality. True, you could argue that the historical view simply indicates there is sin in the world, but whatever God has written on our hearts doesn't seem to be amazingly evident.

It also matters, as I just said, if Paul is applying that "writing on the heart" to just Gentile Yeshua-believers or to all humanity. If the latter, then the only thing that functionally changes for a Gentile when he becomes a believer is what is written in the Acts 15 letter and everyone, Yeshua-believer or not, will be ultimately judged by the writing on our hearts. If the former, then, in addition to the Torah presented in the Acts 15 letter, when we Gentiles receive the Holy Spirit, God's Torah is, at that moment, written on our hearts and we gain a new understanding of our lives in Him and become a "new person".

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! -2 Corinthians 5:17

MJ/BE says that Gentile believers don't need to be obligated to the written Torah because, as Paul says in Romans 2, Gentiles are obligated to and will be judged by the Torah that is written on our hearts. We don't need the physical, written, Torah or the Oral Law, or any of the other Jewish understandings of the will of God given to the Children of Israel at Sinai or developed over the subsequent thousands of years by the Jewish sages. Those understandings, according to MJ/BE, represent the unique obligations the Jewish people have to the Torah and to God and that Jews who do not fulfill their obligations are subject to consequences that Gentiles will never have to face.

The big, fat, furry question sitting in the middle of the room with us is, if the majority of the Torah that Gentiles are obligated to is written on our hearts, just exactly what is written there?

Let's get back to some of the assumptions I previously made about MJ/BE relative to Orthodox Judaism. In Judaism (the non-Messianic kind), Gentiles do not have to become Jews through conversion in order to worship God or to merit a place in the world to come (a Christian would say "go to heaven"). According to Jewish tradition, Noah, from whom all humanity issues forth, was given seven laws by God. These are the laws that all of humanity is obligated to obey. You've probably heard of them before but I'll list them here again:

1. not to commit idolatry
2. not to commit blasphemy
3. not to commit murder
4. not to have forbidden sexual relations
5. not to commit theft
6. not to eat flesh cut from a living animal
7. to establish courts of justice to punish violators of the other six laws

Found at mechon-mamre.org.

The following quote from the same site renders a particular detail that you may not have gotten before, even if you have been aware of the Noahide Laws:

These commandments may seem fairly simple and straightforward, and most of them are recognized by most of the world as sound moral principles. But according to the Torah only those Gentiles who observe these laws because God commanded them in His Torah will enjoy life in the World to Come (emphasis mine): If they observe them just because they seem reasonable or because they think that God commanded them in some way other than in the Torah, they might as well not obey them so far as a part in the World to Come is concerned.

If we assume that the MJ/BE viewpoint of Judaism and of Gentiles must be consistent with larger Judaism (and Dr. Kinzer makes this point abundantly clear in his aforementioned book), then MJ/BE must believe that A. the Noahide Laws apply to all Gentiles, whether they have faith in Yeshua or not, and B. that Gentile compliance to the requirements of the Noahide Law must be based on a reading of and an understanding of those laws as presented in the Torah! Wow!

From an Orthodox point of view, that means Gentiles are responsible for reading and studying those portions of the Torah that directly apply to them. The whole "written on our hearts" part isn't sufficient from an Orthodox point of view and I am not sure an Orthodox Jewish sage would even think of Gentile compliance to the Noahide laws in those terms. If you "blend" the Orthodox principles with the MJ/BE understanding, you could reasonably believe that the Noahide Laws are both written on our hearts (since they are practiced in one way or another in most human societies) and written in the Torah for human benefit.

Let's apply that back to the Acts 15 letter. If, as traditional Judaism believes, Gentiles must learn, understand, and accept those portions of the Torah that apply to them in order to operationalize those laws in our lives, then it seems we can reasonably expand that principle to the portions of Torah outlined in the Acts 15 letter. Let's take a simple example. Murder.

Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man. -Genesis 9:6

According to traditional Jewish understanding, this is the commandment given to all mankind to not murder, as opposed to the commandment not to murder listed in Exodus 20 which is specifically aimed at the Jewish nation. Seems simple enough. Genesis 9 tells all mankind not to murder and Exodus 20 gives the commandment specifically to the Children of Israel. Now let's consider something not quite as obvious.

The Talmud contains many references to righteous gentiles whose behaviour is held up as a model for all people. The example of Dama ben Netina is known to all Jewish children (Kidushin 31a): ‘They asked R. Eliezer how far one should go in honoring parents. He said to them: Go and see how one idol worshipper in Ashdod honored his father, and Dama ben Netina was his name. The sages wished to purchase gems from him for the Ephod [for a tremendous profit] … but the key [to the box containing the gems] was under his father’s pillow [while his father was sleeping] and he did not trouble his father [by waking him even though he gave up a tremendous profit].’ Dama was rewarded for his virtue the next year when a red heifer [required for the Temple service] was born in his flock. When he sold it to the sages he told them that he knew that they would pay any price he asked for it, but he asked only for the amount he had not earned the previous year when he refrained from waking his father.

Wait a minute. I didn't see anything in the Seven Noahide Laws or the Jerusalem letter about honoring parents, yet this portion of the Talmud (I collected a list of all the references to Gentiles in the Talmud on my congregation's blog some time ago) seems to indicate quite strongly that even an idol worshipper in Ashdod could be held up as an example of how far to go in honoring one's parents. But where do we get that from?

Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you. -Exodus 20:12

True, this is one of the commandments Moses brought down from Sinai to the Children of Israel and it specifically mentions "living long in the land that Hashem is giving you" (the Children of Israel). On the one hand, you can say the commandment must only apply to the Children of Israel since, as far as I know, Gentiles aren't inheritors of one square inch of the physical Land of Israel. On the other hand, if the Talmud considers it a righteous deed by a Gentile, even an idol worshipper, to honor his or her parents, and Gentiles are allowed, and in fact required, to study those parts of the Torah that apply to them, how much of a stretch do I have to make to be able to study Exodus 20:12 as it applies to me? No, I don't mean the "Land" part, but the "honoring my parents" part. Sure, it's written on my heart. I'll agree to that much, but as Paul said:

What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "Do not covet." -Romans 7:7

While we may have an inate sense of right and wrong based on a spiritual process we commonly call a "conscience", reading the specifics of that conscience within us is a little like trying to read the pages of a book that's at the bottom of a swimming pool when you're treading water six feet above. How many people who were atheists became convicted of their sins, not only through the process of accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior and receiving the Holy Spirit, but specifically by reading the portions of the Bible that talk about adultry, coveting, and theft? If you ask human beings to try and determine what the will of God is for our lives almost completely from a spiritual or internal sense, are we always going to get it right? Maybe Spider-Man has a sense that tells him when danger is near, but mere mortals often confuse spiritual communication with their various emotional states. Consider these words:

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. -1 John 4:1-3

As soon as it was night, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. Many of the Jews believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men. -Acts 17:10-12

According to John, you test the spirits by what they have to say about the Messiah. If the spirits acknowledge that Messiah Yeshua came from God in the flesh, that spirit is from God. However, the Bereans (apparently including "prominent Greek women and many Greek men") tested Paul by checking everything he said against the scriptures to make sure he was "preaching" consistently with the Word of God. Can we not verify the Torah written on our hearts by checking it out in the scriptures?

I was going to put all of my research into one blog post and present it here, but I've been told that I can get really long-winded and wordy and it's tough for people to find the time to read the blogging equivalent of War and Peace. I do have significant material to present in relation to Gentiles being allowed and required to study the parts of Torah that apply to us, even in the Messianic age, and we still haven't settled on exactly what parts of Torah apply to Gentiles. We've seen what the Jerusalem Council had to say on the matter and we've seen how traditional Judaism applies the Noahide Laws as a requirement for Gentiles. We have further seen that, in the Talmud, honoring one's parents is considered righteous for Gentiles as well as for Jews.

I believe there's much more to learn and understand about Gentiles, the Torah, and the Messiah which I'll address in my next blog post.

Blessings.

Dust and Genesis

To those who curse me, let my soul be silent; and let my soul be like dust to everyone.

Those words are part of the final paragraph an individual says at the end of the Shemoneh Esrei prayers as found in the Artscroll Siddur: Nusach Sefard. They speak of a deep humility, not only in the presence of God but in the presence of all other human beings. I suppose by virtue of the fact that I'm blogging here, I'm not allowing my soul to be silent and in expressing opinions, can I, or any other blogger in the realm of faith, be said to have our souls be like dust to everyone?

Probably not. And yet, something inside of me won't let me be silent. Vanity? Ego? The American need to "have my say?" I can't dismiss those possibilities and remain honest with myself, with anyone who may stumble across this blog, or with God. Therefore, I'll continue to chronicle my personal journey on the path, looking for illumination, and trust that there's a higher purpose for the words I'm posting to the web. I can't promise that everyone will agree with what I say here or that I'll completely avoid offending someone, however this blog isn't an exercise in political correctness. Remember, you were warned.

I suppose I should say here that there are those who may consider it inappropriate for me as a Gentile to quote from or reference in any way a Jewish siddur. I am sorry if this disturbs anyone, but despite the fact that I’m not Jewish, I find myself drawn to the beauty of these prayers.

I also need to say that I'm not writing the blog "at" anyone, although I do admit that recent conversations with members of particular factions within the Messianic Jewish movement have inspired my personal re-evaluation of my faith and how it's expressed. At the risk of sounding egotistical, this really is about me, however, I suspect, it's also about a lot of other non-Jews who are trying to find answers to the questions I'm posing here. In other words, try not to take anything I say personally.

Now let's continue.

I'm taking this opportunity to re-examine my faith beginning at a fundamental level. To turn a phrase, I'm taking it "back to formula". I'm not quite going to the basement level though. I'm willing to keep a few assumptions.

I'll assume that the Bible containing the Old and New Testament texts (or Tanakh and Apostolic Scriptures, if you prefer) is indeed the inspired Word of God and that, as it was originally given, those texts were and are the documented history of God in relation to people.

I'll also accept from those texts, that the Jewish people, the nation of Israel collectively and individually, are the chosen people of God and that they have a unique, covenental relationship with God that is not shared by the rest of humanity. This relationship is well documented in the Bible and in fact, the vast majority of the Bible speaks to the relationship between God and the Jewish people.

For me then, the question is, do non-Jewish people have a relationship with God or can we in some sense, request such a relationship, albeit one that is outside the covenant between God and Israel? More basically, does God only care about what happens to people who are Jewish or does he care about humanity as a whole as well? More personally, do I matter to God in even the smallest degree?

Let's look at some details. Has God ever had a relationship of any sort with people who aren't Jewish? If you go far enough back in the Bible, the answer is "yes".

No one will argue that the oldest members of Judaism are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. There were no Jews before them. That means the first people God created, Adam and Eve, weren't Jewish. This is important because God had a personal relationship with Adam and Eve. They talked to God and God talked back...one to one.

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?"

He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."

And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"

The man said, "The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it." -Genesis 3:8-12

While this passage from Genesis doesn't describe the highest point in the lives of Adam and Eve, it certainly shows that a direct conversation was taking place between God and Adam and further more, that it mattered to God what Adam and Eve did and didn't do. They weren't irrelevant to God as living beings and in fact, they were special among all of the other living creations of God. Only human beings could disobey God and disappoint God.

I know what you're thinking. Things didn't work out so well for the non-Jewish creations of God prior to the days of Abraham and in fact, God brought a flood to the earth to destroy all living beings because their sin was so great. Only Noah and a few others were spared, along with just enough animals to repopulate the planet once the flood subsided. But let's consider Noah for a moment.

This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. -Genesis 6:9

Noah was a righteous man. By definition, he wasn't Jewish. God talked to him and he talked to God. He obeyed God and in that obedience, he was responsible for all living land and air creatures (as far as I'm aware, he didn't have huge aquarium on board the Ark) surviving the flood.

God can have a relationship with non-Jews. Non-Jews can be righteous. Non-Jews can obey God and walk with God. As it says in Genesis 6:22, Noah did everything just as God commanded him. After the flood subsided and Noah, his family, and all living things could come out of the Ark again, Noah did something interesting.

Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: "Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. -Genesis 8:20-21

Noah built an altar and sacrificed clean animals and birds as burnt offerings on it. We usually associate that sort of behavior with the Children of Israel in the days of the Tabernacle and later the First and Second Temples. Interesting.

This isn't the first time the Bible records non-Jewish people offering sacrifices to God. Genesis 4:1-4 describes the sacrifices offered by Adam and Eve's sons Cain and Abel (and subsequently, the world's first murder, unfortunately). Thus Gentiles were able to talk to God, have God talk back to them, listen to God, obey God, be considered righteous by God, and to offer animal sacrifices to God which God could then accept or reject, depending on the motivation of the person offering the sacrifice.

In other words, Gentiles, before and at least right after the flood, had a relationship with God...at least some Gentiles did. This means that Gentiles who choose to listen to God and obey God are not insignificant to God and in fact are noticed and may even be considered important to God. Certainly the sins of Gentiles were significant to God since they resulted in the flooding of the whole Earth (or just the populated areas of the Earth, depending on whose theology you consider).

So far, so good. If God can have a relationship with Adam and Noah, maybe He'll be willing to have a relationship with Gentiles today, too, including me.

Looks like God is even willing to bless Gentiles:

Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands. Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. -Genesis 9:1-3

It was from Noah's immediate family that the human population of the Earth was restored. Among Noah's children, Shem would be the ancestor of the Semitic peoples including the Jews. All the peoples of the Earth would come from Noah's line.

God "chose" Adam in the sense that He created Him. I don't know the process God used to create human life and if God "chose" Adam as a personality or if Adam was a generic "anyman". God did choose Noah specifically in response to Noah's righteous walk with God. Now God chooses Abram.

Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. The LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To your offspring I will give this land." So he built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him. -Genesis 12:6-7

This is the first time God makes a promise that will ultimately result in the Land of Canaan being the sacred inheritance of the Children of Israel (Abram's offspring through Isaac). Remember, Abram who subsequently is called Abraham by God, did not start out life as a Jew nor were all of his children considered Jewish. Yet he did establish a relationship with God as the One God of the Universe. He's also a model, like Noah, of righteousness through faith.

Then the word of the LORD came to him: "This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir." He took him outside and said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars — if indeed you can count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be."

Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness. -Genesis 15:4-6

Paul references this moment in Abraham's life in Romans 4:3 to illustrate that man is justified by faith, not by actions. Of course, Paul also referred to Abraham as "our forefather", so was he only talking to a Jewish audience and not including the Gentile believers? But I'm getting ahead of myself. Or am I?

Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham's faith was credited to him as righteousness. Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. And he is also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised. -Romans 4:9-12

There's at least a hint here that justification by faith is available to both Jewish and Gentile believers, according to Paul. To recap, up until the time of Abraham, it was possible for non-Jewish people to have a relationship, even a relatively close relationship with God. Did that change with the ascent of Abraham, Issac, Jacob, and Jacob's children? Did God so love the Jewish nation that He stopped considering everyone else? Were the Gentile nations relegated to being only "the bad guys" in the larger Biblical saga?

I don't believe so, but I'm forced to follow the Biblical narrative, step by step, tracing the lives of the Jews and Gentiles recorded there, trying to see where the relationship of Gentiles with God came from and what eventually happened to it. Did the covenant promises of God to the Jewish nation result in only Jews being loved, considered, and cared for by God? Is the rest of humanity just an exceptionally large field of dry grass that will eventually be thrown on the fire as the Jews enter the life of the world to come when Messiah returns?

So far, there are indications that it doesn't have to be this way particularly if you consider Paul's words in Romans, but I don't want my first "dusty" article on this topic to be overly long. I'll end my own narrative and analysis here at Genesis 15 and at Romans 4, but there's more to come. I hope to understand that the existence of non-Jewish humanity isn't completely irrelevant to God and that my own existence in the world and my worship of God isn't in vain. Will I succeed and can I find evidence for this in the Bible? We'll see shortly.

Stay tuned.