What Did Jesus Teach About Patience and Stewardship?

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

Leadership and Servanthood

This is the sixth part of my series on what Yeshua (Jesus) directed his Jewish disciples to teach the newly minted Gentile Messianic disciples to obey. It's also the fifth and last part of the series of Yeshua's teachings in the Book of Matthew on Leadership and Servanthood. To summarize Part V: What Did Jesus Teach About Being Good and Bad Fruit:

In a nutshell, we learn that as disciples and people responsible in the Kingdom, we must serve God and not ourselves. It doesn't matter how holy we look on the outside if we're unrepentant on the inside. We can't teach and lead if we're not willing to be taught and to follow Yeshua. We are condemned if we exalt ourselves and consider the superficial practices of religion more important than the true meaning of the Torah. If we want to obey Him, we must obey everything He teaches. God wants to gather us, but we will be alone until we wholeheartedly welcome Yeshua and bless his name.

That is what we can say about what Yeshua taught the Jewish disciples to teach the Gentiles disciples about what happens when disciples produce bad fruit. Remember though, he also told the Jewish disciples to teach the Gentile disciples "to obey everything I have commanded you". In order to understand what everything means, we need to press on. Even after we complete the lessons on leadership and servanthood, there are more teachings to study.

Chapter 25 of Matthew might not strike you as providing leadership lessons, but a leader and a servant should be prepared to fulfill their assigned tasks, even if they (or we) don't know when that task is to be fulfilled. Using three different parables, the Master teaches us the benefits of being patient, being obedient, and being prepared for his return to occur at any time, and the ghastly consequences of failing the Master. If we, as disciples of Yeshua, can't demonstrate faithfulness in waiting for the Bridegroom, how can we pass on our faith on to others and ask them to do the same?

At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep. -Matthew 25:1-5

This parable is so familiar, we almost don't have to read the rest. We know how the saga concludes, but it also reads almost like the beginning of a fairy tale and like many fairy tales, it holds a moral.

The disciples who could still remember Yeshua's lifetime on Earth were told that he was returning soon, and many believed they'd see him again before they died. They didn't. How many would-be Messiahs have come and gone since the destruction of Herod's temple? I've lost count. How many times have Christians been sure that Jesus was going to return at any second, but he didn't?

When I was eight years old, I had to get my tonsils out. I don't remember very much about it, except brief flashes of being in a hospital bed, my throat hurting, drinking apple juice, and playing some sort of board game. What I didn't realize at the time, during those fateful days of October in 1962, was that the world was holding its breath waiting to see how the United States was going to react to the news that the Soviet Union had installed a number of intermediate-range ballistic nuclear missiles 90 miles off our coast in Communist Cuba. History would call this moment in time the Cuban Missile Crisis.

What I also didn't know, though it would have had a more personal impact, was that my father, a Sergeant in the Air Force, was in a bunker next to a missile silo ready to launch a nuclear weapon if the order came through from President Kennedy. Thank God the order never did.

While I was eating ice cream in a hospital bed and realizing that it wasn't as fun as I thought it would be to have my tonsils out, I can only imagine that the Christian world was expecting Jesus to return at any split second. Certainly God wouldn't let the world be incinerated in a radioactive fire, wiping out all of humanity, letting His creation be utterly destroyed, without sending Jesus back as He promised, would He?

No, of course not. But it must have been one of those times in the history of the church when we were sure this was it and that Jesus would show up in the sky at any second. It was a time when we checked out lamps to see if we had oil or not. In a way, it must have been a little disappointing when Jesus didn't return right then. On the other hand, maybe we should always imagine someone's in a missile silo with his hand on a key, waiting for an order to come in to launch an atomic weapon. Maybe then, we'd keep our oil fresh and ready and not grow tired of waiting for the Bridegroom to come.

Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money. -Matthew 25:14-18

This is like how we try to teach children how to save money; educating them in the simple lessons of the savings account at a bank, including the idea that money in a savings account accrues interest at a specific rate. The rate isn't usually very much, but if you leave the money there long enough and keep adding to it, after a long, long time, your wee little investment turns into something impressive (banking disasters not withstanding).

This is a little different than the lesson of just "being prepared". We have to take something we're given and, on behalf of someone else, do something with it to increase its worth. Keep in mind though, like the parable of the bridesmaids, we're never exactly sure of when the Master is supposed to come back. When he does though, we'd better have our bank accounts in order. Yeshua doesn't just hand out "talents" because he has nothing better to do with his time.

The following statement by the servant who just hid the Master's money in a hole in the ground is particularly stunning:

"Then the man who had received the one talent came. 'Master,' he said, 'I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.' -Matthew 25:24-25

Wow! The guy makes it sound like the Master didn't have any right to that money in the first place and that he was being unfair delegating the responsibility of investing his wealth to his servants. Guess he hadn't heard about this parable:

"But he answered one of them, 'Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?' -Matthew 20:13-15

The parable of the workers in the vineyard is a favorite of mine because it reminds me that, even though I didn't come to faith in Yeshua until my 40s, I am just as much a son of the Kingdom as a person who accepted Yeshua at age 20. Yet I used to worship at a church that judged how "good" a Christian you were by how long you'd been a believer. If your family had been attending that church for three generations or more, you were definitely in the "in" crowd. It's funny how God's people can behave in such a completely contrary manner to the teachings of the Christ they swear they love.

Getting back to the guy who thought it was a good idea to take his talent and bury it in the ground, we see that we are expected to take whatever we are given, no matter how great or how small, and to put it to work for the Kingdom, not just hoard it like Midas and his gold. Wealth of any sort isn't wealth unless you invest it and making even a single disciple for the Master is a good return.

So far, we've been distinguishing between two general types of believers: prepared and unprepared, investing and hoarding. Here's two more. Type one:

"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' -Matthew 25:34-40

Type two:

"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'

"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'

"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'

"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." -Matthew 25:41-46

The teaching is very plain and we've seen it in past blog posts on Yeshua's lessons on leadership and servanthood. Feed the hungry. Give the thirsty something to drink. Welcome the stranger into your midst. Clothe those without adequate clothing. Take care of a sick person. Visit the person in prison. If you do this for someone...anyone, it's as if you've done it for the Messiah himself.

Please notice that Yeshua didn't say to only feed and clothe and welcome people who showed the right background, whose family have been Christians for three generations, or who were only Jewish believers. Yeshua himself said that he didn't come for the healthy but for the sick, so hanging out just with our buds isn't what he wants us to do. He also said that even pagans and tax collectors are nice to those people who are nice to them first. Don't play favorites.

How can you take the news of salvation to the unsaved if you only associate with the saved? How can Messianic Judaism take the Good News of the Messiah to the world if they only speak of Yeshua within their own walls and to only their own Jewish inner group? How can Gentile One Law or One Torah groups bridge the gap between themselves and their neighbors if they pay attention only to their own congregation or if they focus only on how "unfair" they think they're being treated by Jews in the Messianic movement?

Conclusion: Yeshua teaches us to be prepared and proactive with what he gives us and to offer what we have to give to anyone in need. Specifically though, what did Yeshua tell his Jewish disciples to teach the Gentile disciples to obey about patience, good stewardship, and serving in his name?

1. Be prepared for Yeshua's return at any time. Keep your life and your soul in good order. Don't get lazy.
2. No matter what Yeshua gives you, invest it in other people. Salvation isn't an exclusively personal gift. It's meant to be spread around. Don't be stingy.
3. Don't just help your own group and don't just be nice to your friends. Feed the hungry. Clothe the naked. Care for the sick. Welcome the stranger. If you do that for them, you have served the Master personally.

Being a leader isn't being a big shot. It isn't having a title, a fancy education, or being an ethnic type. That stuff only works in the secular world, not in God's world. In God's world, people are leaders when they're servants. People are greatest only when they're least. People are the strongest when they comfort the weakest. There's another way of putting it:

Who is wise? He who learns from every person. Who is strong? He who subdues his personal inclination. Who is rich? He who is happy with his lot. Who is honored? He who honors others.
-A well-known Mishnah in Avot (4:1)

This is the last lesson from the book of Matthew on Yeshua's teachings on leadership and servanthood, but it's not the last lesson he taught. The journey of exploration in my blog will continue as we strive to understand Yeshua's direct command to the Jewish disciples regarding their responsibilities of leadership and servanthood in making disciples of all nations teaching them (us, we Gentiles) to obey everything Yeshua taught the Jewish disciples.

What Did Jesus Teach About Being Good and Bad Fruit?

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

Leadership and Servanthood

This is the fifth part of my series on what Yeshua (Jesus) directed his Jewish disciples to teach the newly minted Gentile Messianic disciples to obey. It's also the fourth of a series of Yeshua's teachings in the Book of Matthew on Leadership and Servanthood. To summarize Part IV: What Did Jesus Teach About Humility and Mercy:

In a nutshell, we learn that Yeshua taught his Jewish disciples and we Gentile disciples that in all our dealings with people, regardless of our relative position in our congregations, communities, and in life, we are to act humbly, to value everyone, to realize we are all important and unique to God, to be forgiving, and to grant as much mercy to others as God has granted to us.

That is what we can say about what Yeshua taught the Jewish disciples to teach the Gentiles disciples about humility and mercy. Remember though, he also told the Jewish disciples to teach the Gentile disciples "to obey everything I have commanded you". In order to understand what everything means, we need to press on. Even after several blog posts, there are more teachings to study.

Matthew 23 is often referred to as the Seven Woes chapter and seems to be one of the most critical commentaries Yeshua (Jesus) makes about teachers of the law and Pharisees. This is one of the places where traditional Christianity gets the idea that all Torah teachers, scribes, and Pharisees were evil and bad and, in fact, one of the passages that Christianity refers to when it supports the position that the teachings of God were replaced by the grace of God, as if the Word and God's grace were somehow mutually exclusive. Of course, they can be made "mutually exclusive" if we emphasize one and minimize or completely do away with the other.

It seems the more accurate lesson to be learned from the Seven Woes is what happens when leaders who should be servants instead appoint themselves as "lords" over the rest of us; that is, lords over those people who only want to sincerely follow God.

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: "The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. -Matthew 23:1-4

It would have been within the rights of the Messiah and King to overthrow the corrupt religious leadership in the Jerusalem of the First Century CE, but Yeshua taught obedience rather than insurrection. However, he defined the difference between obeying the teachings of Torah and imitating the actual behavior of the corrupt "blind guides" who did not practice their own teachings but rather, created additional burdens for the people to bear, beyond the Torah of Moses.

This is usually where Christianity and much of the Messianic, One Law, and Two House movement states that the Oral Law is a fiction created by the Rabbis in the post-Bible era, but many of the commandments in the written portion of the Torah don't explain how to actually obey the commandments. Here's another way of looking at it from my previous blog post What Did Jesus Change? Ritual:

Torah can be considered both written and oral. Remember, Moses was on Sinai with God for 40 days, so they must have talked about something. Actually, the oral law makes a certain amount of sense, once you realize that many of the commandments in the written Torah don't explain how to obey them (just how does one wear fringes on the four corners of a garment?). In that, the oral law modifies the written law so that it is "operationalized", describing the mechanics of how to perform the various commandments.

In all likelihood, Yeshua wasn't speaking against the Oral Law, what was given to Moses by God but not, at that time, written down, but rather those requirements that went above and beyond the mandates of God and indeed, those directives that actually contradicted the Torah (see Mark 7:1-5).

Why would the religious leaders of Yeshua's day do such a thing?

"Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them 'Rabbi.'

"But you are not to be called 'Rabbi,' for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth 'father,' for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called 'teacher,' for you have one Teacher, the Christ. The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. -Matthew 23:5-12

Human beings in First Century Jerusalem were just like human beings today. We all tend to want to be admired and some people want and even feel they "need" to be leaders, to be acknowledged as leaders, to be looked up to, fawned over, called by exalted titles, and praised by other, "lesser" men and women. That kind of flies in the face of teachings about being a servant and demonstrating humility and mercy. Yeshua also made his point by saying the following:

Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. -Matthew 7:15-17

It's one of the dangers in modern Messianic and One Law congregations when we put on tzitzit, tefillin, and let other people call us "Rabbi", particularly when we don't have the educational background in Torah, Talmud, and particularly when we lack humility. Even if we start out sincerely desiring to serve God and to serve people, the attention we receive in leadership roles can turn our heads and our gaze away from God and to that person we see in the mirror.

It's why we need to learn the substance and fabric of what Yeshua taught us to obey before we even consider the form and mechanics of how to practice our roles and our worship. It's why I've chosen this form of learning and teaching the lessons of the Master. But let's continue. First woe:

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. -Matthew 23:13-14

Translation: As teachers and religious "authorities", if you not only refuse to be a part of the Kingdom of Heaven by obeying God, but prevent others who want to go in from doing so as well, you are opposing God. Second woe:

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are. -Matthew 23:15

Translation: Teaching someone to be a disciple of your order, denomination, or discipline does that person no good if what you teach them to obey is not from God, but from you. If you do this, "woe to you". That can't be good. Third woe:

Woe to you, blind guides! You say, 'If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.' You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred? You also say, 'If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gift on it, he is bound by his oath.' You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred? Therefore, he who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. And he who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it. And he who swears by heaven swears by God's throne and by the one who sits on it. -Matthew 23:16-22

Translation: You have a case of messed up priorities. What's more important, the "stuff" we use in worshiping God or God? Also reminds me of this:

Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.' But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God's throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one. -Matthew 5:33-37

Translation: Don't shoot off your big mouth and don't make promises you can't keep, especially using God's Name. Keep it simple. Just say you'll do something, and then do it. Fourth woe:

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices — mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law — justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. -Matthew 23:23-24

Translation: Another priority mess up. You "sweat the small stuff", putting the mechanics and the ritual of Torah obedience ahead of the actual fabric and substance of Torah: justice, mercy, charity, humility, grace. Do you think that the most important thing in your life and what's most important to God is how you tie your tzitzit, lay your teffilin, and how well you pronounce prayers in Hebrew? When's the last time you visited a sick person in the hospital or donated canned goods to your local foodbank? You can obey the Torah form and the Torah substance. Do all of Torah, not elevating one part over another. Fifth woe:

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. -Matthew 23:25-26

Translation: It doesn't matter how "holy" you look on the outside if inside, your true nature is self-indulgent, greedy, full of envy and hate. Especially now, with Yom Kippur just days away, repent of your sins. Return to God. If you clean out what's inside you, the outside will take care of itself. Sixth woe:

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. -Matthew 23:27-28

Translation: Yeshua is saying the same thing as he did in the previous "woe". Remember, you can fool people with your outer appearance, but "God, who knows the heart (Acts 15:8) sees the unrepented sin that dwells within you. Seventh woe:

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, 'If we had lived in the days of our forefathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.' So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of the sin of your forefathers! -Matthew 23:29-32

Translation: Just because you build churches, synagogues, and memorials to saints and prophets doesn't mean that your motives are pure and that, given a chance, you wouldn't have rejected those holy people in order to further your own ambitions.

I remember being part of a Bible study in a church I used to attend many years ago. We were studying the 40 years of wandering in the desert by the Children of Israel and the struggle of the Jewish people to obey God and to follow His ways. One older gentleman in the class remarked that if we (Christians) were there instead of the Jews, we would have been obedient. The words in the "seventh woe" immediately came to mind and it's sad because I know that he truly believed what he was saying. He just didn't realize what it was like to be in that place and that time. Another way of putting it is to say:

Blowing out someone else's candle doesn't make your's burn any brighter -Anonymous

Yet what Yeshua says in condemnation and anger is also said with pain, anguish, and longing. What he says of Jerusalem, I believe, he also says of us:

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'" -Matthew 23:37-39

Conclusion: This lesson addresses the theme of how servanthood and leadership can be corrupted and used to serve our own ends at the expense of those people who depend on us to be salt and light. What did Yeshua tell his Jewish disciples to teach the Gentile disciples to obey when we discover we are producing "bad fruit"?

1. If you're not willing to give up your arrogance and hypocrisy in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, don't prevent those who want to obey God from entering, too.
2. Don't "convert" someone to your way and don't teach unless you are teaching what God says and not just what you want to say.
3. Don't make your practices and your religious clothes and your prayers and "sacrifices" more important than obeying the Torah of doing justice, mercy, and charity. Obey all of God's teachings.
4. Just say something and then do it. Don't make a big deal out of "swearing" to do it.
5. It doesn't matter what you look like on the outside to impress others if your insides are full of sin. Clean out your sin and don't worry about appearances.
6. Don't believe you are better or more holy than others, especially when all the while, you just want to serve yourself rather than God. Stop fooling yourself.
7. Despite all your sins and faults, God loves you and wants to gather you in to Himself. However, you won't see Him until you are ready to accept Him; you won't see Messiah until you accept what Messiah teaches.

Important: When Yeshua said, "You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former" (Matthew 23:23), he is arguing against choosing the Law over Grace and arguing against choosing Grace over the Law. He is saying there's nothing wrong with the practice of what Christians call "ritual" (wearing tzitzit, keeping Kosher, ceasing work on the Shabbat, and so forth) and in fact, he's saying that the "ritual" practice should be kept and we should also do the "grace" part of Torah (visiting the sick, giving to the poor, giving honor to the aged, and so on) as well. In other words (pay attention!) the teaching of the Law and the teaching of Grace are not mutually exclusive; they are part of the whole Torah!

In a nutshell, for today's lesson, we learn that as disciples and people responsible in the Kingdom, we must serve God and not ourselves. It doesn't matter how holy we look on the outside if we're unrepentant on the inside. We can't teach and lead if we're not willing to be taught and to follow Yeshua. We are condemned if we exalt ourselves and consider the superficial practices of religion more important than the true meaning of the Torah. If we want to obey Him, we must obey everything He teaches. God wants to gather us, but we will be alone until we wholeheartedly welcome Yeshua and bless his name.

Note: My next blog post will be the final lesson on Leadership and Servanthood, but there are other lessons to learn from the Master as well. There is much that Yeshua taught the Jewish disciples to teach we Gentile disciples to obey.

What Did Jesus Teach About Being Salt and Light?

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

Update: February 13, 2011: As part of my Discipleship and the Torah class, I've made an audio recording of a class discussion on this lesson. Enjoy.

Leadership and Servanthood

This is the second part of my series on what Yeshua (Jesus) directed his Jewish disciples to teach the newly minted Gentile Messianic disciples to obey.  It's also the first of a series of Yeshua's teachings in the Book of Matthew on Leadership and Servanthood. To summarize Part I: What Did Jesus Teach About Gentiles:

In a nutshell, we learn that Yeshua taught that Gentiles have a place in the kingdom of heaven through faith and their place will be at the feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. What teachings are the Gentiles supposed to obey? The teachings of faith in Yeshua and perseverance in approaching the Throne.

That is what we can say about what Yeshua taught the Jewish disciples to teach the Gentile disciples about Gentiles in the Kingdom. Remember though, he also told the Jewish disciples to teach the Gentile disciples "to obey everything I have commanded you". In order to understand what everything means, we need to press on. After all, we've just scratched the surface.

I'm not sure what to call this collection of teachings. I loosely refer to these lessons as "leadership and servanthood" since the two concepts are intertwined, but it's really about how to be a good example, especially when you are given a responsibility in the Kingdom and, by definition, if we're in the Kingdom, we have a job to do for God.

Yeshua taught a lot on this topic. All of Matthew chapters 23 and 25 are dedicated to the theme of being a responsible steward of what we are given. Even containing his teachings in Matthew to "leadership and servanthood", I could write an enormously long blog post. Today, I'll stick with the simple topic of being "salt and light". The rest of the leader/servant teachings will follow.

Let's see what we can find out about how this teaching applies to Gentile believers and indeed, to all believers everywhere. Also recall, that the Gospel of Matthew is our specific guide book in this series. Here we go:

"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.

"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven". -Matthew 5:13-16

Salt and light are metaphors that say the same thing. Once you have the message of God and of the Messiah, you can't just keep it to yourself, you have to spread it around. If you fail to be "salt" (spread the message; be a living example), you aren't good for much. If you put your light under a bowl, you condemn those around you to walk in darkness.

In other words, once you accept discipleship under the Messiah, as a student, a servant, and an example, you have a responsibility to express what you know and what you have learned, if through no other means, than by living your life in the Messiah's footsteps, walking where he walks and doing what he does. This very much mirrors a couple of other passages that were specifically directed to Israel (emphasis added):

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

Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.

See, darkness covers the earth
and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the LORD rises upon you
and his glory appears over you.

Nations will come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

-Isaiah 60:1-3

God always intended for Israel to be a "light" and an example to the world of how to live a godly lifestyle and an existence as servants of the Great King, obeying his righteous decrees and laws. The nations (Gentiles) as supposed to be drawn to Israel to learn the ways of God. Today's Messianic Jewish movement shouldn't be surprised that a ton of Gentiles have come flocking through their doors to learn about the God of Jacob.

In the last days
the mountain of the LORD's temple will be established
as chief among the mountains;
it will be raised above the hills,
and all nations will stream to it.

Many peoples will come and say,
"Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the house of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
so that we may walk in his paths."
The law will go out from Zion,
the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

-Isaiah 2:2-3

Many nations will come and say,
"Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the house of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
so that we may walk in his paths."
The law will go out from Zion,
the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

-Micah 4:2

And many peoples and powerful nations will come to Jerusalem to seek the LORD Almighty and to entreat him." This is what the LORD Almighty says: "In those days ten men from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the hem of his robe and say, 'Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.' "
-Zechariah 22-23

It's by design. No wonder Yeshua came "for the lost sheep of Israel". He had to "turn on the light" among the Jews, so to speak, so that the Gentiles would see it and come. No wonder Paul went "first to the Jew". As an emissary to the Gentiles, he first had to "turn on the light" among the Jews, so the Gentiles would see it and come. This is prophesy, gang. I'm not making this up.

If strict Messianic Judaism then pushes the Gentiles back out the door rather than discipling them as commanded by the Messiah, how is that teaching us to be light and salt? How is that shining their own light and maintaining their own saltiness? How is that teaching the Gentile disciples to obey everything the Messiah taught?

Conclusion: What did Yeshua tell his Jewish disciples to teach the Gentile disciples about being light and salt; that is, about sharing "the message of the Good News"? We are only referencing one passage in Matthew, so the list isn't long...but it's important:

1. You are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. If you've accepted discipleship as a Gentile (or a Jew) under the Messiah, these are your roles by design.
2. If you've been made salt, don't stop being salty because you lose your worth to the world. In other words, do your job by spreading the salt around. Don't waste it or you'll be wasted.
3. Don't put you're light under a bowl to hide it. If you were designed to shine, go to the highest hill you can find so you can shine your light as far as possible. People will see the light and praise God.
4. By inference, Messianic Jews as the original salt and light, need to share that salt and light with the Gentiles, discipling them (us) and teaching them (us) to do the same. Tag. Your it. Pass it along.

In order to understand the Matthew 5:13-16 teaching, I had to reference several passages from the Tanakh, so again, part of the valid Torah study for Gentile disciples isn't limited to the New Testament and specifically not just to Acts 15 and 21. The synagogue in Berea was comprised of Jews and Gentiles who studied Torah together and probably for the same reasons I just pointed out.

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

One of the things we can infer about what Gentile disciples are suppose to learn from Yeshua and what we're supposed to obey is a directive to examine the Scriptures ... probably all of them. How else are we supposed to understand what else we are being taught to obey? Yeshua's teachings don't exist in a vacuum. They exist within the context of the entire Word of God. To understand what Yeshua is teaching us to obey, we have to understand what the Torah says. The Torah is the necessary lens by which we must look at the teachings of the Master in order to gain a correct understanding of our duties to him.

Putting it another way, Matthew 25 is a collection of Yeshua's parables about the topic of using our gifts wisely, specifically the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30). This is obviously something we are meant to take to heart. If someone gives you a gift and tells you that you must use it, then use it. If you don't know how to use the gift, read the instruction manual. Then you'll know and then you can do. A requirement of obeying Yeshua for Gentiles then, is reading and studying the Torah...the Bible...all of the Word. There's no way around it.

In a nutshell, for today's lesson, we learn that Yeshua taught that once we, as Gentile disciples, accept him as our Master and begin learning his lessons through being taught by Yeshua's disciples and by Torah study, we are supposed to pass the word along through the example of our lives and through our good deeds (Matthew 5:16) so that those seeing our light will praise God in Heaven. Learn from disciples. Learn from the Bible. Do good deeds. Be salt. Shine your light. Don't hide under a bowl.

Blackball?

I've heard in the Denver area a non-Jewish MJ congregational leader was told he should resign because he was not Jewish. I've heard in the Atlanta area any MJ congregation not run by a Jew is blackballed by their area MJ association. I think it is time to bring these and similar actions out into the light and clean house. I believe this blog in its small way is has brought one such injustice out into the open...If an organization is not showing the love of Messiah Yeshua then it is time for such organizations to repent and change their ways or close as people of the light seek the light. -Anonymous comment at Kineti L'Tziyon

Well that's certainly an interesting revelation, if true. Considering the commentor has chosen to be anonymous doesn't improve the likelihood that this statement is factual, but it doesn't mean these events aren't actually occurring, either. True or not, this information does bring up a topic that's been on my mind since I started this blog: authority.

Then the apostles and elders, with the whole church, decided to choose some of their own men and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They chose Judas (called Barsabbas) and Silas, two men who were leaders among the brothers. 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. -Acts 15:22-29

This is what is traditionally known as "the Jerusalem Letter" and is at the center of much discussion in the Messianic/One Law-One Torah/Two House community. I'm not writing this particular post to explore the meaning of the letter but rather, the Jerusalem Council's right to send it and expect that it be adhered to by the Gentile Messianic congregations in the diaspora. I mean, just because James and the gang in Jerusalem send out a letter, why should anyone listen to what he has to say?

In that place and at that time, the Gentile Messianics had a lot of reasons to take the letter from Jerusalem seriously. Jewish and Gentile faith in Yeshua as the Messiah had a single source: the Jewish disciples of Yeshua. James (Ya'akov, actually) was the half-brother of the Messiah (same Mom; different Dads) and despite the fact that Yeshua said that Peter would be the rock on which the "church" would be built, James was the Council's leader and chief authority.

Gentiles would have no idea what a "Messiah" even was without the Jewish disciples to inform them (with the possible exception of the Gentile God-fearers who had already been worshiping in synagogues for quite some time). There was only one central, Messianic authority structure in the mid to late 1st Century of the Common Era: the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. While there seemed to be some disagreements within "Messianic Judaism" such as between James and Paul and, as we see in Acts 15:36-41, between Paul and Silas, from a Gentile believer's point of view, "salvation comes from the Jews".

How times have changed.

Since the initial schism between Jewish and Gentile believers in the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, "Christianity" has split more times than Microsoft stock back in the heyday of Bill Gates' creation. Right now, there are so many "Christianities", and for that matter, more than a few "Judaisms", that we can't point to a single authoritative source that presides over them all unless we consider God Himself and even then, each of these faith groups has a rather different take on God and who they are in relation to Him.

Let's get back to "blackballing". How does that work?

Hypothetical situation (which actually may be a real situation): Let's say that an organization of Jewish people is created by Jews who are Messianic. That is, these are Jews who have come to faith in Yeshua (Jesus) as the Messiah. Further, these are people (I have to make a few assumptions here since I don't know any of them personally and their background information is hard to come by) who were raised in ethnically and religiously Jewish homes and who have a fully realized and lived Jewish experience from birth through adulthood. They really, really want to maintain that Jewish experience in their Messianic faith without turning into "Christians" and being relegated to the Gentile church, where they'd be required to give up "being Jewish".

What do to? This collection of Jewish people form a organization that has both educational and administrative branches and develop Messianic synagogues, modeled on an Orthodox Jewish framework, where Jews can be Jews, worship as Jews, live as Jews, and be Messianic. So far so good. However, there are a couple of problems.

The first problem is not all Messianic Jews worship or conceptualize their faith on a strict Orthodox Jewish model. While one of the foundational structures in strict Messianic Judaism is the concept of "boundaries" between Jewish and Gentile believers, the concept of "Fellow Heirs" held by other Jewish Messianics can make things really confusing. Some Messianic Jewish people are more accepting of Gentiles entering their sheep pen than others, so some Jews in some Messianic Jewish congregations aren't going to agree with the "strict" Messianic Jewish interpretation of scripture or of practice.

That brings us to the other problem: Gentiles. Frankly, if Yeshua hadn't muddied the waters at the end of the book of Matthew (particularly Matthew 28:19-20) by insisting that Gentiles also become Messianic disciples, strict Messianic Judaism would work out just fine as a faith group of Jewish people, by Jewish people, and for Jewish people. There would be no Gentile Messianics to "shake up the tree", so to speak.

However here we all are (more or less) together. Oh yeah, I was going to talk about "blackballing". How does that work?

Now that our hypothetical Messianic Jewish organization has been established (let's call it "SMJ" for "Strict Messianic Judaism"), congregations of Jews want to join. Usually, you only join or align yourself with an organization if you agree with their beliefs, goals, and purpose. If you bring yourself under the authority of SMJ, for example, you are agreeing with all of their tenets of faith, theology, bilateral ecclesiology, and saying you'll "play by their rules". Here's where you could justify blackballing.

Say a congregation that has previously put themselves under the authority of SMJ does something insane, like allowing Gentiles to be called up to read the Torah or even (gasp) putting a Gentile in a role of leadership (and let's say these are acts that are strictly against the rules established by SMJ). SMJ would be within their rights to go to said-congregation and tell them to knock it off. They would further be within their rights, if the congregation didn't "knock it off", to restrict, censure, or otherwise disciple the leaders of the congregation up to and including kicking them out of the SMJ organization. This is the short definition of the term blackball, or more formally:

1 : to vote against; especially : to exclude from membership by casting a negative vote
2 a: to exclude socially : ostracize
   b : boycott

Thus, if the errant congregation continued to refuse to come into line with the practices and beliefs of SMJ, SMJ removes them from their organization and perhaps even "spreads the word" that this particular congregation is no longer part of the group or even, is no longer a valid Messianic congregation.

The problem for our hypothetical SMJ is that they can only exercise authority over those congregations who have voluntarily joined the SMJ ranks, paid a fee, and agreed to comply with SMJ practices. Consider how many Messianic Jewish/One Law-One Torah/Two House congregations, home fellowships, loose associations, and family gatherings that exist out there. SMJ may disagree with those groups and even periodically engage them in debates in the Messianic blogosphere, but they can't actually make an impact on them in any authoritative manner.

Unlike James and the Jerusalem Council, there currently is no single authoritative source for Messianic and Christian worship and practice, thus SMJ cannot impose their will on any non-aligned group. It would be like the President of the hypothetical SMJ organization walking into a Baptist church on Sunday morning during services and delivering a written manifesto to which the church would be expected to adhere. After all, "salvation comes from the Jews" so why shouldn't SMJ, representing the Jewish source of Messianic salvation, expect that any group or organization who professes faith in Yeshua/Jesus come under SMJ authority?

Because SMJ isn't the sole source of authority. The Gentile Baptist church has their own authoritative organization. Remember the schism and all the various and sundry splits and schisms that have occurred in the faith over the past 2000 years or so? Lots and lots of authorities have been created over these many different faith groups.

No one has actually said so, but I suspect that in the back of the minds of at least some folks in the Messianic movement, they imagine that, if not now, at some future date, they will be in a position of authority to drive the practices of all of the congregations, churches, and groups who profess Yeshua or Jesus as Lord, Savior, and Messiah. Imagine believing that and then continuing to encounter Jews and Gentiles who are "Messianic" yet who keep on disagreeing with you and who keep on engaging in practices with which you find completely problematic. How would that make you feel?

Think about it.

Do I care what is or isn't said or done in a Baptist church, in a Lutheran church, in an Orthodox Synagogue, or in a Messianic Jewish (a la SMJ) Synagogue? No, not particularly. We may disagree on some issues and we may have different religious practices, but I have absolutely no say in what those other groups think or do. I have no authority over them nor do I want any authority over them. Yet, assuming there is some sort of "SMJ" group out there practicing "blackballing" on other groups who have not come under SMJ authority, why would they care what other non-aligned groups do, and even if they do care, what can they do about it (at least that's morally, ethically, and Biblically valid)?

Of course, I have not one shred of evidence to establish that the comments registered by "Anonymous" are at all true, so this may be a moot point. There is no one, central authority for Christianity or Messianism in the world today. Groups can establish an authority over congregations who agree to come under that authority, but that's the extent of their influence. They can attempt to persuade others, publish papers, write blog posts, author books, create podcasts, but we on the other side of the wall (so to speak) can choose to agree or disagree. When the Messiah returns, he will establish the authority. Until then, we can acknowledge, at least in theory, that we are one flock listening to one shepherd, but in fact, there are a lot of "sub-shepherds" running a lot of different sheep pens, with each pen, apparently, jockeying for position.

One final note, lest you think I'm trying to start a war. I really don't think things are as dire as the picture I've just painted. In order for my increasingly hypothetical "SMJ" organization to behave in the way I've described. they would have to be more interested in establishing and maintaining power and authority over human beings for their own sake and "glory" than they would be in establishing and maintaining the glory of God and the righteousness of Yeshua over the Earth. If different people and organizations disagree, it doesn't mean they're "power hungry" or want to "lord it over" other people. After all, how can any organization who calls themselves "Messianic" ignore the fact that the Messiah's metaphor for leadership was acted out when he washed the feet of his own disciples (John 13:1-17) and that anyone who wants to be first should make themselves last?