About six months ago, a friend and I were having a conversation about “entertainment centre” churches and evangelism without discipleship. We don’t agree on everything (who does?), but in principle we both believe in doing what the Bible says. It came around to the fact that while there are some people who truly love YHVH and want to serve Him, they try to go about it their own way, rather than YHVH’s way.
We should serve and worship YHVH the way He wants to be served and worshiped, which can be found in the Bible. I think that all too often we try to follow YHVH’s way in our own way.
Most christians will agree that we should do the following:
Love YHVH with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.
Love our neighbour as ourself. (Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.)
Live as Yeshua lived.
Keep the 10 commandments. (On this, there is more variance.)
At the same time. They will argue that the Torah has been abolished, which it hasn’t:
But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of a letter in the Torah to become void. – Luke 16:17
“Don’t think that I have come to abolish the Torah or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete. – Matthew 5:17
Does it follow that we abolish Torah by this trusting? Heaven forbid! On the contrary, we confirm Torah. – Romans 3:31
Furthermore, all four things above are rooted in Torah. Yeshua himself said the following regarding the first two on the list:
“Always treat others as you would like them to treat you; that sums up the teaching of the Torah and the Prophets. – Matthew 7:12
He told him, “‘You are to love YHVH your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.’ This is the greatest and most important mitzvah. And a second is similar to it, `You are to love your neighbor as yourself.’ All of the Torah and the Prophets are dependent on these two mitzvot.” – Matthew 22:37-40
Living like Yeshua lived would require following Torah since He Himself lived according to Torah. In fact, He completed it (lived and interpreted it perfectly), as He said in Matthew 5:17 (above).
As for the 10 commandments, they are a part of Torah, as are the first two commands (Love YHVH & love your neighbour). In fact, Yeshua says that on these two commands hinge the rest of the Torah and the Prophets. Take, for example the 10 commandments, the first four concern loving YHVH and the last six concern loving your neighbour.
This concept could easily be extended to the rest of Torah. In fact, Rabbi Hillel is attributed to have made a very similar comment to the ones Yeshua made in Matthew 7:12 and Matthew 22:37. He is supposed to have said That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary. Go and study it.
Obviously that was not a new concept brought by Yeshua, rather one that was probably common knowledge at the time.
As can be seen, Torah tells us how to love YHVH and our neighbour. The problem is that when we remove Torah from the picture, we try to come up with our own ways to do YHVH’s way. This, I think, has led to a lot of division and strife. It has also led to the development of “holidays” such as Christmas and Easter which are not Biblical and are, in fact, pagan. Reality is that Sunday worship and Christmas, amongst other things, were created by the Catholic church to separate the “Christians” from their Jewish roots.
That isn’t to say that the exact solution to absolutely every problem is found explicitly in Torah or that it dictates exactly how we are to live, down to every minor detail, but rather that it was given by YHVH to be our guide. As for me, I choose to serve and worship YHVH his way rather than my own way. What about you?
Today… February 22, 2010.
