21

Contending for the Faith --

Avoiding "Jewish Fables"

Will Lead to True

Hebrew Roots

Paul’s Admonishment for Us Today

     We are to “earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the saints.” But who are we to contend with?  We are admonished to contend, but where is the battle today? 

     Once we truly realize what His true faith entails, we will have to fight for it!  For there are many false teachers out there who seem to know what they are talking about, but they know just enough “key phrases” to confuse their followers.  It was that same way the first century after the resurrection, during the age of the apostles.  We can learn from their dealings with those who would bring in another gospel.  

     Paul is concerned.  Timothy, “his own son in the faith,” newly filled with the Spirit, needs to be strengthened for the battle ahead in Ephesus.  Some there have departed from the sound teachings of the apostle about God our Savior, and have gone back to the hypocritical traditions that the Master warned against. 

     The apostle admonishes Timothy to charge them that “they teach no other doctrine” (I Tim 1:3).  These people who were teaching another doctrine, what were they teaching?   What  were  they doing that was so wrong that God would send an apostle’s word in writing to help straighten them out?  Find this out for then, and we find out some of the false teachings for our own day.

     In verse 4, Paul was telling him to tell them not to give heed to fables.  “Fable” is from the Greek word muthos, a tale, fiction (myth)—a fable.  So don’t pay any attention to the myths, tales, and fictions that they are spewing out.  But who was putting out these fables?  Who was teaching these falsehoods that were so against Paul’s writings and were “another doctrine?”  Who were they?

     They were those who were “desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm.”  Paul goes on to say that the law is important.  The law is made for the lawless and disobedient to show them their sin (I Tim 1:7-10). 

     Paul also states in Galatians 3:23-25 that we were kept under the law until faith came.  In other words, in our old Adamic state we could not keep from sinning; we could not but break the law.  But when His faith comes in our heart, faith that He through His resurrection power can keep us from sinning—when His Spirit comes to abide in us, then we are no longer “under the law.”  The law was our schoolmaster—TO BRING US TO HIS SPIRIT.  “The letter (the law) killeth.”  By it we can know sin and know the death sentence on a sinner.  But after we die with the Lamb of God, by faith we receive His Spirit within our hearts and HE within us helps us to keep His Ten Commandment law. Therefore, we are no longer under the law!  You are not under a law unless you are breaking it.  The law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified (just-if-I’d-never-sinned) by faith.  But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster (the law), which shows us like in a mirror our sins.  If our sins are gone, washed away, and we are indeed walking  in  the  Spirit,  in  a  newness  of  life,  then  we are no longer under the law because we are not breaking it.

     Paul was telling Timothy to beware of those who desire  to  teach  the  law.  They  had “swerved and turned aside unto vain jangling”—vain babblings that cannot bring the truth of the Spirit’s perfecting presence to their listeners.  These so-called teachers of the law were teaching “another doctrine” than the one Paul preached.

     Paul tells Titus to beware of the “vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision.  Whose mouths must be stopped” (1:10-11).  Paul tells him to “rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith; not giving heed to Jewish fables.”

Jewish Fables Were Teachings that Said a Person Can Work to Keep the Law and Be Accepted by God Because of It

     What were these fictitious teachings, these fabrications, these myths that were coming out of Judea at the time of Paul?  They were the teachings that a person can work to keep the law and by so doing, God will say, “Well done.  You are in.”  They were saying, “You have to do this.  You have to keep that.  You have to keep the feasts here or there.  If you don’t, God will not be pleased.

     But Paul taught that the only thing that pleases God is for His Spirit to reside and take over a human being.  And that can only happen by believing what God said that He has done for us.  Faith pleases God; it comes after our surrender to Him.  He likes us relying on His Spirit to overcome things and do things.  Us trying to do our best to keep the law, to do the torah—that doesn’t please God!  He is not impressed with us working for His approval.

     He knows that we cannot keep the law or any part of it on our own strength.  He said, “Without me ye can do nothing.”  Yet, look at us.  We are trying to please Him by our  works,  by our good deeds, by our keeping His feasts. 

     Concerning the feasts:  How does Yahweh look upon observing a feast of tabernacles when no one can agree when it should take place, or where, or with whom.  Does He just say, “Well, you don’t have the right date, but at least you are trying”?  Somebody will observe the Feast of Tabernacles on the wrong date.  Why?  Because there are many different dates and calendars. It may be that nobody  observes it on the right date.  Does this occur to anyone, or is it just me?

     If more time and effort were spent by Yahweh’s people in learning to walk in His Spirit and learning to become the sons of the living God shining forth as lights in the midst of this perverse and wicked generation—in other words walking like His elect, like His chosen ones—then this world would have what they need to fulfill His plan of reproducing Himself in this earth.  This is what the whole world is yearning and groaning for, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God!  Not a bunch of people, unsure of what they are doing, trying to keep a feast that is only a shadow of things to come—heavenly things, which heavenly things are we! 

     Paul made that extremely clear: “And you are complete in Him…” Watch out for traditions of men, which are after the elements of this world, and not after The Anointed One (Col. 2:10, 8).  After we have been buried with Him and our old selfish nature has died with the Lamb/Sacrifice, then our old self is dead, and through the “operation of God that raised up Yahshua from the dead, we too [Halleluyah!] can walk in a newness of life (Col. 2:12-13).  “He that is dead is freed from sin.”  “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?  God forbid.  Dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through the Spirit that we receive by faith in His resurrection!  Glory to Yah!  That is something to shout about!  And why, pray tell, doesn’t someone teach and preach that?

     That is the reason that Paul said, His Spirit within us is the reality—the reality that all those things in the law pointed to.  “Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day.  These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ (Colossians 2:16).”  And Christ is found in us.

     Does this mean we can’t look at the shadow (the calendar, the feasts, etc.) and learn more about the reality of the Spirit within us?  Absolutely not!  However, I believe that we should put things in priority.  Since it is obvious that Yah’s people can’t agree on a date for the feasts, and everyone pretty much believes that they are right, then let’s put the emphasis on what matters most: His Spirit and His truth.  And then look at the feasts, not as the crown of our year, but as the shadow of our Reality (Spirit) within.  We should put our center on Him and not turn His feasts into a vacation with religious overtones, which is what it has turned into in many circles.  But, by all means, we should “keep the feasts,” even as Paul said, but he also said, “Let everything be done decently and in order.”  Let us remember that He in us is the reality of the feasts spoken of in the old books.  So let’s keep the feasts,  waiting on Yahweh to renew our strength. If we are trying to keep the feasts to please Him then we have missed it, for only faith can please Him.  Let us remember that we are complete in Him.  He in us is the Master of the Sabbath and certainly, the Master of the Feasts.  Let us wait on Him.  For me, I will not judge as to the feasts, for we all have a ways to go to get to the unity of the faith.

       This trying to do things to please God is the danger that Paul warned Timothy and Titus about.  Watch out for those who point people to using their own strength in order to please God.  The teaching of the law will do just that.  The law brings us to a knowledge of sin, but once sin  has  been  repented  of,  and  we  believe  that  He  has given us a new heart and a new spirit, then we keep that law by His Spirit within—through us just believing that God is doing it.  “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” 

     Abraham became righteous in Yahweh’s eyes by believing Him.  When we do this we are the children of Abraham.  Only one thing pleases God—our old self dying and receiving His Spirit into our hearts.  We are complete in Him.  We cannot do anything to please Him except believe Him when He says we can walk in a newness of life.

It Is Not What We Can Do, but Who He Is in Us

     This “working hard to be sure to keep the law in hope that He will accept us”—these teachings are part of the “Jewish fables” Paul warns us to avoid.  For they will lead us away from His Spirit, or even seeking His Spirit.  Look at our conversations.  If they are not worldly, then they have to do with what we can do to please God.  When was the last time you heard someone yearning aloud for the gifts of the Spirit to operate in their lives.  Who shouts with joy, “It is no longer I that lives but the Spirit of Yahweh living inside me!”  Who talks that way?  Our words betray us.  The point: there is nothing we can do to please God!  This is the Jewish fable. The core of Judaism’s teachings is “Try to keep the law of Moses, and because we are God’s chosen people, we are special and will rule the world someday.”  There is nothing about the Spirit in its message.  It takes the Spirit out of the picture. 

This teaching will lead you to seeking out, on your own strength, things you can do to be pleasing to Yahweh.  That is not sound doctrine!  That’s not what He wants!  It is not what we do in and of our own strength, but who He is in us. 

     So the whole “Back-to-our-Hebrew-Roots-Movement,” though seemingly harmless, has some pitfalls, if it is not based on sound doctrine.  It can be dangerous—especially for those who do not know the difference between “Hebrew” and “Jewish.”   Many think   that “going back to their Hebrew roots” means studying Judaism!  Judaism is not the religion of Moses, David, and all the prophets in scripture!  Judaism, in Paul’s time and in our time, is based on the Babylonian Talmud, which is totally against our Savior and King Yahshua. 

     The Savior denounced Talmudic teachings, and He pronounced woes upon the Pharisees who taught them.  They had asked him why did not His disciples walk according to the tradition of the Jewish elders by eating with unwashed hands.  He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypo-crites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.  Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.  For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tra-dition of men…Mark 7:6-7.  To the Pharisees, the Saviour was explicit as to what He thought of them.  Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.  He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.  When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the  father  of  it.  And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not. John 8:40-41. Here we see the Master Himself  exposing  Jewish  fables  and  falsehoods.  “In vain you do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men,” He said. 

     The Talmud is vulgar and blasphemous.  Because of what we have been taught, the following may seem preposterous.  Here are some quotes from it.  It says that the  Savior’s  mother  was a whore: “She who was the descendant of princes and governors played the harlot with carpenters” (Sanhedrin 106a). It says also that the Saviour was a sorcerer (Sanhedrin 43a).

     The  point is  this:  We  must  not be deceived by Judaism’s trappings, thinking that by learning of them that we are getting closer to Yahweh.  If we want to look at our Hebrew roots, then we need to trace out the true descendents of Abraham, who are a multitude of nations in the earth today, according to the promises to Abraham in Genesis 17:1-8.  “Many nations and kings shall come out of you and your offspring, Abraham.”  The Israelis make up only one nation today.  Who are these “many nations” who are to receive the Abrahamic Covenant?  You want Hebrew roots?  Dig that one out, and you’ll get to the Root of the true Hebrew tree.  Our true Hebrew roots will lead us to the Spirit of Yahweh Himself, who is taking up His latter day abode in us, His temple! 

       Let us avoid Jewish fables, for they will lead us away from His Spirit.  Our true Hebrew Roots are traced back to the faith of our father Abraham who just believed God.  And Yahweh through His grace and mercy, began to look at Abraham as righteous in His sight.  And Abraham, moved with profound awe and reverence of Yahweh, did those things that were pleasing in His sight; he obeyed by faith, by Yah’s abiding presence within.

     To illustrate this erroneous teaching, I am enclosing a letter I wrote to Angus and Batya Wooten concerning the “Messianic Israel” message  they teach.  It is not based on sound doctrine and is a Jewish fable.