Tag: Hebrew Roots

Why is this so hard?

Paradigm shifts are rarely easy. And, for those on the cutting edge, they can be particularly difficult.

Many readers are in some stage of ‘coming to’ or beginning Torah observance, and the whole process is challenging. But, why? In theory, this should be easy, right? Read the Scriptures. See truth. Walk in it.

As humans, we tend to act like pack animals. We have way too much of a herd mentality. Deep inside, whether a lie of the adversary or voice from our flesh, we do not want to be different or perceived as ‘outside’ the fold. We even know that Yeshua clearly taught that following Him was the antithesis to crowd following.

Yet, we follow. Comfortably. And, justify it.

In truth, this should be simple, but we make it hard. Too, hard. We should simply say, ‘Abba, You call, I haul! Just show me truth in Your Word and I’ll walk in it.’

That’s it! No dickering or negotiating. No checking with men and their doctrines. No worrying about what the neighbors or family members will say.

Just see it, believe it and walk it out.

I pray each of you cease to negotiate the price. Stop trying to find the easy path. Give up on pleasing the folks around you. Just focus on the Word and what it actually says.

Selah!

Restoring kol Israel: The ‘lost’ first post…

I’m sitting here staring at my screen.  Writing feels a bit like blood letting. Yet, my brain is totally full and I have no idea where to begin, which string to pull first so the dam will beak.

For weeks, months even, I have been pondering the many facets of the restoration of kol Israel. One might call it a minor obsession because it is where my thoughts go when nothing else pressing is at the forefront.  Among those thoughts, I have been juggling the hot potatoes that few have the courage to touch, subjects that draw extreme ire and irrational unbiblical pushback. Post titles float across my mind, titles like Feminism and the Destruction of Western Culture, or Patriarchy, God’s Solution that Everybody Hates, or Where have all the Men Gone and Why don’t they Care?

Most whom I have conversations with concerning the restoration of Israel, the return of the whole House of Israel and what it will look like, have a lilting dreamy character to their voice until they understand that to be successful, we must divorce ourselves from Western Greek influences.  It is one thing for most to erase Christmas or Easter and the many unbiblical elements absorbed from the nations, but it is another matter entirely to realize that future Israel will Continue reading “Restoring kol Israel: The ‘lost’ first post…”

“…mindsets are difficult to change…”

On several recent trips to Israel, I have watched with interest the construction of a high speed rail from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The rail, significantly, connects Ben Gurion Airport to Jerusalem via a non-stop, 28 minute luxury trip for just 11 NIS. Very, very convenient and nice. I can’t wait to ride this ‘magic carpet made of steel‘ at Shavuot.

The Jerusalem Post Magazine has a fantastic article about the rail line as well as a mild chiding of the Israeli media for their incessant negative reporting surrounding the line, inspite of excellent service, wonderful experiences and glowing reports from users. I read the article and it only increased my excitement to ride. You’ll have to check it out yourself…

But, the article had a few lines that jangled my thoughts. The author very nicely recounted aspects of Theodore Herzl’s vision and the fulfillment that even this high speed train is a part of. One quote that really caught my attention follows,

Continue reading ““…mindsets are difficult to change…””

Sifting…sifting…sifting


“For behold, I am commanding,
And I will sift the house of Israel among all nations
As grain is shaken in a sieve,
But not a ]kernel will fall to the ground.
10 “All the sinners of My people will die by the sword,
Those who say, ‘The calamity will not overtake or confront us.’

Amos 9:9-1

Recently, I have been pondering sifting, bread making and walking in the ways of the King.

We are yet a ways away from Shavuot, but one of the marks of the holy day was/is the waving of the two loaves before Yehovah, a waving that I believe represent the House of Israel and the House of Judah. The process for making the bread involves many detailed steps, one of the final ones being sifting. The flour was sifted, by tradition, thirteen times before it was fine enough for so holy a purpose.

For the grain of flour, being ground and sifted, sifted and sifted, must have felt like an eternity, but for those grains being included in the final loaves, it must have been gloriously worth it. They had been sown, grown, reaped, threshed, winnowed, parched, crushed (ground) then sifted, sifted and sifted before testing, baking and finally waving. At each step of the way, fellow grains, might we say, ‘friends and family’ fell away until they were left in the final pure and perfected hands full that would be used.

How often the process of following the Father, of growing in obedience has felt like crushing and sifting. How many along the way seemed like they would walk this path forever only to turn back at some level of refinement.

Many times I have looked around and been despondent at the ones who gave up or turned back, much like the thousands and thousands in Gideon’s original reaping. The sifted ones numbered a scant 300, yet Yehovah used them unconventionally to destroy a HUGE army of the fearsome Midianites

Do you feel like you are being sifted? Has the Father led you through one new test and new revelation after another until you feel as though you have no friends left yet you know the Father is leading and teaching and you cannot turn back? Fear not! Eventually, the sifting will end. Will you be left in the pile having submitted yourself entirely to the Father and His Word and ignored the tongue wagging of self righteous men?

If you have written the Father a blank check, be reminded, you no longer have a right to count the cost. Now, He has your permission to crush, sift, repeat.

If you’ve never asked to be sifted, I dare ya! It’s the only way to get closer to Him!

Instructing God in righteousness…

The other day my wife, Kelly Clayton Rambo, showed me a meme that was on her Facebook page. I read it and immediately stated the corollary back to her…

“Righteousness, even if contrary to the traditions of men, is still righteousness, regardless of what everyone else thinks!”

While I have no idea who Russell M Nelson, the assumed author of the quote at left, is, I do know the quote is true. Scripture says so in multiple ways, but the most significant is,

Whatsoever thing I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add to it nor take away from it.

Deut. 12:32

See? The two initial statements above, Nelson’s and mine, state in part the same truth. Let’s look at them in a little more detail.

“Sin, even if legalized by man, is still sin…” Man can’t change God’s Law by ignoring, overwriting, legislating or even erasing it. His Law is eternal and unchanging. To paraphrase God about some of His prophecies, ‘If you can make the sun stop coming up, or the sea cease to rush to shore, then you may be able to change the Torah.’ Murder is still murder, regardless of what the general populace believes, the government legalizes or how many copies of the Bible you burn. Murder (or, insert any other action condemned by God) is sin. Period.

The corollary for this is also true. Righteousness is righteousness, even if you don’t like it. Maybe people who keep the Feasts of the Lord, something He commands on multiple occasions, rankle you. Maybe it really irritates you that they choose to ignore, or even point out the verifiable pagan roots of some holidays. So? Keeping them is still righteousness, whether you like it or not. Same for Shabbat. Same for God’s everlasting dietary restrictions in Leviticus 11.

What is particularly interesting is when ‘believers’ don’t like a fellow follower of the Word because that follower actually does or believes what the Word clearly teaches. Imagine: someone studies the Word and sees that going to Jerusalem for the feasts is a commandment and begins to actually keep it while others, who may not understand or be convicted of that commandment, tear them down or separate from them. Does that action in any way undermine or change God’s commandment? No, it just exposes the sin and rebellion in the heart of the divisive.

How about a believer who separates from another because believing what the Bible says about a matter is ‘bad for public perception or public relations.’ Division and shunning is better than truth? Really? Pray tell what you think the Father’s opinion is of that course of action. I don’t see a single example of righteous men suppressing truth that ended well. In fact, the righteous in Scripture, prophets, apostles and the Messiah Himself, were willing to die for the hard truths, traditions and customs of men be damned.

Bottom-line: Sin is sin only if God says that it is sin. Righteousness is defined by Scripture, therefore, if Scripture calls something righteous, then we can’t call it otherwise. And, if God never calls something ‘unrighteous’ then we can’t either.

This really is simple stuff, yet people get wrapped around the axle. Do Bible stuff in Bible ways. Everything else is just religion and ‘religion’ is man-made rules for self-righteousness which, if based on man’s self made rules, is, by definition, sin!

So, do we instruct God in righteousness, or does He, the Lawgiver and Judge instruct us?

Meditate.

Baby, It’s Cold Outside….

As we were finishing up the oneg after Shabbat last night, someone at the table brought up the recent brouhaha over the song titled Baby It’s Cold Outside.  In their introduction they said that they weren’t sure about the subject or lyrics and that apparently, some were associating the song song with sexist or sexual harassment and/or possibly pedophilia. Nobody at the table knew the truth of the matter, and because of the potential for it heading into areas that we didn’t want to go, we decided not to explore the topic publicly.

So, this morning, after a cup of coffee, I had a few minutes to privately open that can and see what the issue is.  While I no longer celebrate Christmas, avoiding the incessant shop-inducing music, prevalent even in the grocery store, is nearly impossible.  Therefore, hearing that a song from the mid-1940’s is being vilified, is of interest.

A quick search of the internet revealed multiple articles that cleared the matter up rather quickly and exposed again one of the great problems not just in our culture, but in Christendom as a whole and even, to a degree, the Hebrew roots movement.  This song and the current debate are worthy of exploring and understanding.  There is a lesson here.

As background, apparently a Cleveland radio station Continue reading “Baby, It’s Cold Outside….”

Denying Yeshua

In recent months I have watched with some dismay as multiple people around me have strongly considered or actually taken the leap and converted to Judaism.  The move itself is not so problematic except that the conversion process generally demands a firm denial of Yeshua as the Messiah and that is monumental.

My journey out of a Christian pulpit and to the Hebrew roots of the faith began when I started to evaluate many of the traditions I had been handed.  Each traditional understanding of Scripture, handed down from Christian theologians for up to 1600 years, had to be evaluated against what Scripture actually said.  And, central to it all was the looming question regarding Yeshua/Jesus as the Messiah.

I knew coming into the study that Christianity had some things very wrong, but experience told me that somethings were right.  The key was to tease out the valuable elements and leave the rest behind. I was a bit perplexed as I began exploring many sources of information to find that Judaism, like Christianity, was filled with traditional interpretations that simply do not add up to Scripture.  Continue reading “Denying Yeshua”

o/ Can I get a witness? o/

So, I’m learning a new job that will have me doing some classroom instruction.  Typically, I can be anywhere in western SC with a class that will last four days or so.  Yesterday, as I shadow my trainer, I began with a class of 12, just north of Greenwood.

This morning, while setting up, I asked if there were any questions and a hand immediately went up.  The late 20’s lady hesitantly said, “Uhm, what, uhm, are those string things you have on your side?”

I smiled, inside and out, and took three minutes to quickly explain my background, what my tzitziot are, what they mean and where I get that from Scripture (Numbers 15:37-41).  At least seven of the students were very interested with one even asking to look more closely and ask follow on questions.

There is a debate that has gone on for a long, long time as to whether this command is a private or corporate command.  I.e., do I tuck them in and let them remind only me, or, as a peculiar people, do I wear them out as a reminder to others to keep the commandments and as a witness to who I am as a keeper of the Commandments.  Personally, I have always worn them out and been convicted of such.  I do not intent to fuel the debate so much as say, “If they had been tucked in, would I have had opportunity to give a witness to the veracity of the Torah and walking as the Messiah?”

Shalom!!

How RtB changed a man’s life and marriage

The tension between them was visible and he was clearly not comfortable.  My wife and I sat to the left of them for dinner on the first evening of the Second B’ney Yosef North America Summit in Mesa AZ.  His somewhat pointed and at times combative conversation with the gentleman to his right was curious, particularly because he was aggressive towards the Messianic perspective, yet he was in attendance at a BYNA event!

I listened a few minutes and realized his wife was ‘all in’ and he, not understanding even RtB ad FB clickbasic Hebraic thought, was here to protect her.  Later, I found out she was fervently praying for him and was happy that he had even come to dinner.  His plan, as I understood it, was to not participate at all.

My passion is to compassionately and clearly explain what we believe, and why, from the Scriptures.  I have a Masters of Divinity and ten years of experience in the pulpit of a Presbyterian church, yet the Father opened my eyes and showed me much more than the Reformed traditions I was reared with.  When this gentleman we were providentially seated next to mentioned his Presbyterian background, I had my opening.

We talked about twenty minutes in a conversation that began tensely Continue reading “How RtB changed a man’s life and marriage”