Just recently Pastor John McCarthur said, “I am a Christian because of the Old Testament.”
And THAT is a potent understanding for Christians. He makes this statement while having an involved discussion with Ben Shapiro just a few days ago. The context of this statement is that John McCarthur is a Jewish Christian attempting to persuade a Jew of Christianity.
Myself, as one who believes in Yeshua (Jesus) as the Messiah and keeps the Torah, my main concern is not to convert Jews but to tell Christians that the Bible teaches that all believers are expected to keep the Torah. That Yeshua did, the Apostles did, and that the Book of the Acts of the Apostles settles this issue clearly. There are many passages of scripture that make this clear. I added as much as needed for the sake of context, but I recommend you read the whole of chapter 15.
"This is entirely in harmony with the words of the prophets, since the scriptures say:
After that, I (יהוה) shall return and rebuild the fallen House of David; I shall rebuild it from its ruins and restore it. (Amos 9:11, Isaiah 61:4)
Then the rest of mankind, all the pagans who are consecrated to my name, will look for the Lord (יהוה), says the Lord (יהוה) who made this known so long ago. (Isaiah 45:5-7)
Acts 15 States:
"I rule, then, that instead of making things more difficult for pagans who turn to God, we send them a letter telling them merely to abstain from anything polluted by idols, from fornication, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood.
For Moses has always had his preachers in every town, and is read aloud in the synagogues every sabbath."
Acts 15:17-21
This last verse is a clear reference to the Law of Moses a.k.a., the Torah. This was a time when the Word of Yah was only in scroll form and not everybody had one on the shelf. It was a time when, if you asked what the Word of Yah was, everybody knew that if was the Law of Moses, the Torah. The New Testament was not compiled until centuries later. These verses are essentially saying new believers must abstain from these four things right away, because they will learn the rest as they learn from Moses each week from the Torah reading.
In order to support what I am transmitting to you I want to give you a little of my own history:
I come from a Spanish Apostolic heritage, though I myself was only on the fringe. My Dad was the eldest child in a Pastoral family, and His dad (my grandfather Ruben) was a son in a Pastoral family. My mother’s parents regularly attended Spanish Apostolic services, and so this is how my parents met.
After my parents married, they left their parents and bought a home of their own. Since my parents didn't raise me in the faith it's safe to assume they mutually decided to leave the church and God, this was in the early seventies. At that same time there was one of the most powerful moves of the Spirit happening in the modern world, and my parents had walked away from their faith. I was only exposed to my Apostolic roots through my Grandmother Christina, and though I was often at her home, I didn't go to church, this is why I say fringe.
By 1980, I was seven years old and this is when the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob touched me. Respecting my desire to seek God my parents set me up with a nearby Baptist Church with a great children’s ministry. This church had a purple bus that gathered all of the children of the nearby neighborhoods for Sunday School. I say all of this because though my parents didn’t directly raise me as a Christian until they divorced when I was 15, The LORD יהוה put me on a journey to seek His ways starting at the tender age of seven.
The strongest influence of the LORD (יהוה) in my life came from the songs we learned in Sunday School. That was when I heard about Abraham, what American doesn’t know this song?
Father Abraham had many sons,
and many sons had Father Abraham!
I am one of them and so are you so let’s just praise the LORD
The music was like a beautiful stream of the Spirit of יהוה flowing into my soul.
With that personal history now expressed, speaking to Christians I would say this:
I am a Torah observant believer now because of my first journey as a Christian.
I have been a student of the bible since my youth. I learned the Bible from the point of view of Wesleyan, Nazarene, Pentecostal, Assemblies of God, Baptist, Methodist, Apostolic, and non-denominational churches, among others. I have studied eastern religions and beliefs such as Confucianism, Buddhism and other more Idolatrous eastern religions; I have even learned the ways of Orthodox Judaism practicing for around 3 years. I have spent time studying the various Qumran texts widely know as the Dead Sea Scrolls. These many avenues of my journey have cultivated in me a better perspective of scripture as a whole.
God expects all of His children to adhere to His divine instruction, His holy covenants i.e., Torah observance. He knows the end from the beginning, He knows how to keep His children safe and strong in these last days. The scripture says the Books (plural) will be opened, all of the books of the bible not just Matthew, or Timothy, or John, but the Torah which the Law of the God of the Bible, aka the Pentateuch (Torah), the beginning of all Yah’s Covenants with man.
“And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works."
Revelation 20:12
Many people will surely be able to get into heaven by grace, but we will still be judged by our works, works meaning what we did with God’s Word. I and my wife with me have spent many a year wrestling with the Angel of the LORD (יהוה) if you will. Just like Jacob did that terrible night before he crossed the Jordan to face his angry brother Esau.
That night he obtained a new name, and a new identity. He was no longer called Jacob (Supplanter, deceiver) but Israel (One who has wrestled with God and obtained favor with God and man). This is a much better reason for living, not for pleasure, not for money, not for power or fame. To put it in Christian terms: to put away the old man and put on the new, letting the love of יהוה be shed abroad in our hearts by His Word, His Covenantal Word.
Proverbs says, “get wisdom and with all your getting get understanding.” The Torah is wisdom. What else does proverbs say about wisdom?
“She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors.”
Proverbs 8:3
What does the Torah say?
“You shall write it upon the doorpost of your house and on your gates.”
Deuteronomy 6:9
For many centuries many understood this to mean the Ten Commandments, and that is why the Ten Commandments were written on doors and at the entrances to cities at the gates all throughout the ancient and even modern world.
If you are a Christian, I would ask you to consider that there is more. More to consider, more to understand, more to walk in. That this more is not burdensome, it is righteous, it is not any words added or subtracted by men, but it is the pure word of יהוה, the Torah.
If you are a Christian who used to be Jewish I would say that though you may know Judaism the religion, you may also consider the "more" to which I refer. Having experience in both Christianity and Judaism, I now can discern clearly the true way as never before.
I will be regularly posting to this blog to make myself available to children of YAH, believers that are seeking the more that I am speaking of. If you are hungry for more feel free to subscribe. You can also send emails with questions, comments or just to connect with me.
Shalom,
Ephraim
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