Yep, that's right, I'm moving. I wanted a blog with some more custimability, so now I'm over here: http://brit-chadasha.blogspot.com. I've already got several of the main articles moved.

I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do with this blog; we'll just have to wait and see.

Shalom.

I got asked a couple of questions the other day about the Sabbath, and I think they do a good job of illustrating the differences between following the Torah and keeping the Torah legalistically, i.e., after the manner instructed in the Talmud. The first had to do with my assertion that the Biblical Sabbath never changed from the seventh to the first day:

Would this make keeping the Sabbath on Sunday wrong or sinful?

Insofar as we define sin as "missing the mark" (the literal translation of both the Greek and Hebrew word), yes: It misses the mark of correct Biblical understanding.

Fortunately, it's not the unforgiveable sin, and we are saved by God's grace, received in trusting Yeshua the Messiah, not by keeping all of God's Appointed Times in just such-and-such a way. I don't generally make it an issue except with two groups of Christians:

1) Those who want to rag on me for supposedly following rabbinical traditions instead of the Bible--my point to them is that if they're going to follow church tradition where it does conflict with Scripture, they shouldn't hassel me about following Jewish traditions in instances where they don't.

2) Those claiming that their denominations traditions are the original apostolic church, e.g., Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. My point to them is that a) God rates obedience over lineage, and b) the Apostles were Torah-observant Jews (cf. Acts 21:20ff), not Roman Catholics.

To which she followed up by asking, Do you mind telling me how you keep it? That is, do you keep it more or less in the manner it was kept during the time of Jesus?

Oh, most certainly not!

Understand, at the time of Yeshua, the rabbis had added so many rules to define just what constituted "work" that they had literally turned not working into a heavy burden. It was so bad that when Yeshua miraculously healed people on the Sabbath, they accused Him of sinning!

I have no desire to return to that.

I strive to keep Sabbath after the simplicity taught by our Lord. I never do overtime on the Sabbath (thankfully, God has given me a job where I can control my hours), nor do I try to catch up on any of my chores around the house. Laundry can wait another day. :)

I go to synagogue, i.e. church. Since God has not granted that I live close by, that means about a 20-30 minute drive. That would definitely be frowned upon by the Orthodox, but in this case, I have to go by the Lord's take that "it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath."

Thus, when I preach in prison or teach the youth group on the Sabbath, even if it means being on the road for 30-90 minutes, I don't see myself violating God's command any more than a priest ministering in the Temple (Mat. 12:5) or a rabbi circumcising a child (John 7:22).

Other than that, I relax, I read, I visit with friends. I'll occassionally chat with friends on FR and elsewhere online, but I make it a general rule not to let debates carry over into the Sabbath; they too can wait another day.

Yeshua teaches us that, "The Sabbath came into being for man's sake, and not man for the sabbath's sake" (Mark 2:27). That is, the Sabbath, a day to set apart from the pace of the rest of the week, a day to sleep in, to relax, and to be with God and your family and friends, is a blessing, not a burdensome religious duty.

Shalom.

Yeah, I know, I don't update for weeks, and then I have to update with a big downer. Sorry, but this is important: The Coming War of Mass Destruction by By William Mann,
Lt. Col. USA (Ret):

There are many voices "crying out in the wilderness: Make way for the coming of the Lord." But the 'lord' these voices cry for is not Jesus Christ, but rather the Mahdi, the 'messiah prophet' who will establish Islam where all the infidels will be slain once and for all. . .

It is time for the people of Western Civilzation to wake up to the threat. Islamic Fascism is similar to Nazi Fascism. One must first dispel the notion that the Islamists want a peace or "truce" with the West any more than Hitler wanted accommodation with the Jews or a negotiated settlement with Great Britain and America. Popularly and optimistically, we Americans would like to think that when the devil goes down to Georgia that some fiddle player named Johnny will beat the devil at his own game and that the devil will be sent packing. Well, sadly, there is no fiddle to be played against this evil and there is no Johnny. Such popular notions misapplied to life and death situations lead to actions that lead only to needless death and destruction. Add nuclear weapons to this toxic brew and we are talking serious devastation people! . . .

I believe that John Kennedy was prophetic as well as presidential when he warned America about the "twilight battles" against the forces of evil. He asked that we bear any burden, go anywhere and oppose any foe of free peoples.

I don't think we are able to meet this challenge right now. We are not able not because we are not capable, we are not able because we are walking in our sleep and caught in a "do-loop."

You really need to read the whole article. We're risking being caught with our pants down because we don't want to be honest withourselves about who the enemy really is here: Not just some individual Muslims, but Islam itself.

I'm a huge fan of Chris Carter's Millennium series. It was very good at asking the right questions, even if it didn't get all the right answers. In one episode, a young man who had kidnapped a busload of children to keep them safe says, "People always think wars happen in the future, when they really happen in the past. The fighting is just the inevitable outcome of events already set in motion."

I think we're already at war; the major part of the fighting just hasn't started yet.

I've believed for a very long time that there would be a major world war with Islam, and that it would be from the ashes of that war that the Antichrist would appear. (I may have to do a prophetic series someday soon.)

Take hope, though. There are some gloomy stormclouds on the horizon, but God is still on His Throne, and, to pick another Millennium quote, "When the Evil One walks the earth, rejoice! For our Lord is soon to come."

Shalom

I found this on FreeRepublic, and thought that it hit the nail on the head. The article in full can be read here. Here are just the first few paragraphs:

"One of the 613 Mitzvot is 'tikkun olam,' to heal or repair the world," declares the Social Action Committee of a Massachusetts temple. The assertion is characteristic of the widespread ignorance these days about Jewish basics, not to mention the misrepresentation of the term tikkun olam.

There are indeed 613 mitzvahs, or religious duties, in the Torah, but none of them is tikkun olam — a phrase that, of late, is as frequently invoked (Google reports 226,000 references) as it is erroneously defined.

The term has its roots in the Mishna, the earliest Talmudic source-material, where it is employed as the philosophical principle behind a number of rabbinic enactments intended to avoid social problems. For example, the institution of a legal mechanism that can circumvent the sabbatical year's automatic cancellation of debts is justified by the concept of tikkun olam. As is the requirement that divorce documents include the signatures of the witnesses. Similarly, whenever tikkun olam is invoked by the Talmud, it refers to actions taken by rabbinic authorities to address communal concerns.

The phrase also has an eschatological meaning, as in "lisakein olam bi'mal'chus Shadai" ("to repair the world through the kingdom of G-d") clause in the Aleinu declaration recited at the end of every Jewish prayer service. There it refers to the end-point of human history, when idolatries will disappear from earth and "every knee will bend to You" and all nations "will give honor to the glory of Your name."

And then there is tikkun olam's meaning in Jewish mystical literature, where it is used to refer to the cosmically redemptive power of personal actions, in particular the performance of mitzvahs, both ethical and ritual.

In recent years, though, the term has been widely employed by a number of Jewish groups and individuals in a novel way, made to mean the embrace of any of a variety of social, political or environmental causes — including, as one, tikkunolam.com, asserts, arms control, reproductive rights and campaign reform. Gay and lesbian rights are another item on that group's list, although the only quote from Leviticus cited is "Love thy neighbor as yourself." (Other pertinent verses in that book seem to have been overlooked.)

I strongly suggest reading the whole article. You might also find the FR commentary to be of interest; as one poster has already pointed out, the true concept of tikkun 'olam parallels Sha'ul's statement:

Let every soul be subject to the higher authorities. For there is no authority but of God; the authorities that exist are ordained by God. So that the one resisting the authority resists the ordinance of God; and the ones who resist will receive judgment to themselves. For the rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the bad. And do you desire to be not afraid of the authority? Do the good, and you shall have praise from it. For it is a servant of God to you for good. For if you practice evil, be afraid, for it does not bear the sword in vain; for it is a servant of God, a revenger for wrath on him who does evil.
--Romans 13:1-4

Shalom.

This is a bit off-topic for this blog, but it's my blog, so there:

Back in the day, I used to spend a lot of time debating evolutionists. These days, I prefer to just sit back and watch them try to ignore away the problem of abiogenesis (how life could come from unlife). But every once in a while, I read something like the following, and it just begs a response: "Until IDers can demonstrate the existence of a Designer (and address who designed the Designer), I'd say that the idea of ID (because it's not a theory) is baloney."

One wonders if we should apply such a standard to the field of archaeology:

"Look! I've found clay tablets containing the writings of an advanced pre-Sumerian culture!"

"Don't be silly; there's no evidence of an advanced pre-Sumerian culture!"

"It's right here, in the tablets. What, did you think these writing marks made themselves?"

"Look, first you have to produce evidence of an advanced pre-Sumerian culture--then maybe we'll consider whether your tablets might have been written by them."

"The tablets are the evidence!"

"That's just circular reasoning! You have to come up with independent evidence of this advanced pre-Sumerian culture first, or you're just employing a culture-of-the-gaps approach."

"Okay, so what about these cuneform tablets from the early Babyonian period that attest to this pre-Sumerian culture? They're called the Iddites."

"Oh, that's just ancient legend! You can't take those seriously. Everyone knows that the Iddites are just a myth. Besides, just because you're an Iddite-enthusiast, you think everything points to them. Why couldn't it be Berkley's Creaites or Smith's Desites?"

"It could; I'm not saying on the basis of the evidence thus far that this tablet had to come from the Iddites, though I tend to favor that hypothesis of course. But the fact is that it shows evidence of design--"

"What evidence? I just see a bunch of scratches."

"You think that this scratch that looks like a cat happened in five separate places on this tablet by accident?"

"It could have. Given enough time, anything is possible."

"That's not true, and even if it were, the far more likely explanation is that this tablet was carved by an intellegent being."

"Not if no such being exists."

"Okay, but why should we believe that he doesn't when we're both standing here looking at his handiwork?"

"Oh, no, no, no. Nice try, but you can't get me to try to prove a negative. You have to prove that this Iddite or Creaite or Desite or whatever exists first, then we can discuss whether he or she wrote this tablet. Sheesh, you don't know anything about how science works, do you?"

Shalom.