TACKLING CHRISTIAN ATTITUDES ABOUT TORAH!
PART 2

By Rabbi Moshe Yoseph Koniuchowsky (B'nai Yahshua Synagogue)
(Updated 12-31-99)

We continue our fictional saga of "Pastor Duped" and his First Church of the Misled. Having just completed an antinomian attack last Sunday, Pastor Duped now returns to his pulpit, to further display his ignorance of the eternal relationship between the Torah (5 books of Moses) and saved children of Israel (Judah and Ephraim) believers. Pastor Duped is mystified and troubled by the fact that no Jews attend his church. He is puzzled by their failure to respond to his type of Gospel, which has been totally divorced from its rich Hebraic roots. The following examples are some highlights (or should we say lowlights) from today’s sermon:

Example One: Romans 14:5-6: One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it to the Master; and he who does not observe the day, to the Master he does not observe it. He who eats, eats to the Master, for he gives Yahweh thanks; and he who does not eat, to the Master he does not eat and gives Yahweh thanks.

Mistranslation: Jews and Ephraimites should not be stuck on the seventh day Shabbat worship command. Romans 14:5-6 makes it clear that under the New Testament all days are alike. Saved Israelites need not be legalistic and shouldn’t be stuck on celebrating the "Jewish" Sabbath.

True Understanding: For 2, 000 years these verses have been butchered, often times intentionally, to discourage Israelite (Jews and Israelites) believers from maintaining a Hebraic identity. The shocking truth of the matter is that these verses taken in context do not refer whatsoever to Shabbat observance or Sun-Day observance. Starting with verse one of Romans 14 and reading through verse 6, it is abundantly clear that what is being discussed are eating habits, as well as fasting habits. Rav Shaul tells us not to judge another brother or sister who eats only vegetables or one who may eat everything. Certain believing vegetarians (verses 5 - 6) set aside a certain day of the week for eating certain foods. Other believing vegetarians ate vegetables every day. Some believers refrained from certain foods. Others ate only meat. Rav Shaul instructs us not to pass judgment upon another regarding either food preference or a day chosen to eat that food.

Comment: Where did the church get the idea that Rav Shaul, a Torah observant Jew, was forbidding Shabbat observance for saved Israelites, encouraging believers to "pick their own" worship day! Obviously, these verses discuss eating preferences, not Sabbath keeping.

Example Two: Galatians 2:11-14: Now when Keefa (Peter) had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed; for before certain men came from Yaakov (James), he would eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the Gospel, I said to Peter before them all; "If you, being a Jew, live in the manner of Gentiles and not as the Jews, why do you compel Gentiles to live as Jews?"

Mistranslation: Rav Shaul rebuked Shimon Keefa (Peter) for keeping kosher, in Galatians 2:11-14. Since Keefa was wrong to eat and practice kosher laws, he was properly rebuked for legalism. If Peter was wrong to be legalistically kosher, it is also wrong for modern day believing Israelites to observe kashrut (kosher laws).

True Understanding: A careful study and close-up of the text indicates nothing of the sort of conclusion reached by Pastor Duped. Was Keefa rebuked by Paul? Yes he was! However, he was rebuked for lack of character, integrity and hypocrisy. Keefa would fellowship and break bread with non-Jewish brethren, and then discontinue that fellowship as soon as Messianic Jews showed up. He was telling Keefa that he should have been living like a Jew (i.e. keeping kosher) and was being hypocritical in his personal life. Therefore, how could he compel non-Jewish believers to keep kosher or live like a Jew, when he wasn’t? Thus, Keefa is rebuked for hypocrisy by compelling non-Jews to live like himself, when his own life was not Torah compliant. Keefa’s sin was not in keeping kosher! It was hypocritical behavior that led him to withdraw from fellowship with non Jewish believers (returning Ephraim and non-Israelites believers), as soon as believing Jews showed up at Antioch, to show everyone how kosher he was, when he in fact was not practicing such in his own personal life. Thus according to Rav Shaul he lost the right to be a witness in this mitzvah and furthermore was using a supposed kosher obedient lifestyle to withdraw from gospel fellowship, thus violating the gospel principal of table fellowship and unity as well!

Comment: Rav Shaul sought to preserve unity. This was his great concern. Isn’t it interesting that the historically anti-Semitic church has inserted its anti-Jewish bias wherever and whenever it can? They have told Jewish believers for the last 2,000 years, that keeping kosher was personally rebuked by Rav Shaul, (Paul). That is exactly the opposite of what Acts 21:21-25 states about Rav Shaul himself.

Example Three: Galations 5:1-4: Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Messiah has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Messiah will profit you nothing. And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised, that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. You have become estranged from Messiah, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.

Mistranslation: Anyone who becomes physically circumcised as a believer is legalistic, backslidden, wrong and in bondage. Furthermore, any believer allowing himself to be circumcised has no profit from Messiah, is in bondage and worst of all (v. 4), has fallen from grace.

True Understanding- The circumcision Rav Shaul forbids is not the penis, which is the eternal token to all the male Israelite offspring of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! Rather he forbids non-Israelites from being or becoming or converting to the nation of the circumcision, as a prerequisite for salvation. In other words, the Galatian heresy was that Jewish believers were telling returning Ephraimites and non-Israelites that THEY WERE NOT OR COULD NEVER BE SAVED BY FAITH ALONE, without an outward act of physical circumcision or physically becoming part of the Jewish nation via some conversion process! This was and still is heresy and is addressed by Rav Shaul, since the gospel is to "whosoever will." To prove that this is the correct application, Rav Shaul would be a major hypocrite, if he told non-Israelite and returning Ephraimite believers not to be penis circumcised, when he himself physically circumcised Timothy, who was not an Israelite in Acts 16:1-3. Therefore, if he did what he supposedly told the Galatians not to do, then he was a hypocrite of the highest order, who did not write under inspiration. Since you and I know that not to be the case, it must be our initial misunderstanding of what he is teaching, that lies as the problem of arriving at our faulty conclusions. Remember that if the premise is false, so must the conclusion be as well! He forbids circumcision to Judaism, i.e. "becoming circumcised by conversion" and reaffirmed that conviction in First Corinthians. 7:18-20. He would never and did not ever forbid penis circumcision which is a token of the Abrahamic Covenant that predated Torah by some 500 years, to Timothy who was a non-Israelite based on having a Greek father.