HHMI Newsgroup Archives
From: heb_roots_chr@mail.geocities.com
Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 1997 1:03 AM
To: Hebraic Heritage Newsgroup
Subject: Help in teaching our Hebraic Roots
From: "Marsha Stevenson"
To: <heb_roots_chr@geocities.com>
Subject: Need information
Eddie,
I have been very blessed by your balanced perspective in this newsgroup.
I've noticed that some of my friends, who have studied the Jewish roots of
our Faith, seem to have become bound by legalism. Legalism is a problem of
both Christianity and Judaism. My friends may have had this tendency toward
legalism before they started studying our Jewish roots, but regardless,
this is something that concerns me.
From Eddie:
**************
Marsha, I share this concern. That is why I have taken so much time and energy on this newsgroup to discuss this issue so that our
members aren't guilty of making the same errors.
We embrace our Hebraic Roots to INCREASE our knowledge and our understanding of the MESSIAH NOT to replace Him with Rabbinic
Orthodox Judaism.
From Marsha:
****************
I have many friends who are young in the Lord, who wear the name
Episcopalian or Catholic or Russian Orthodox proudly. I don't feel it is my
job to try and change them, I couldn't if I wanted to. I feel that I am to
speak the truth in love when God opens my mouth to do so. I want my friends
to experience the mighty grace of Yeshua.
You see, my husband and I had been in a box for so many years, only
fellowshipping with people who were like us, other Christians who seemed to
walk after the way of the Lord. Through different circumstances, God took
my eyes off these people and put them back on him. He also has given me His
eyes to view others who are not like me. I feel that this world is a
mission field to bring the Love of the Messiah to those He has chosen. I
have Jewish friends who need the Messiah also, and at one time I thought my
first mission was to them, but the Lord changed this. What I want to say is
there are gentiles out there who need the Messiah just as bad as Jewish
people do.
From Eddie:
**************
This is the HEART of Hebraic Heritage Ministries. This is PRIMARILY a ministry to the BODY OF MESSIAH to teach them and allow
them to understand the Hebraic/Jewish roots of our faith. My compassion is for my people (those in the body of Messiah) also yet I
also love the Jewish people and the nation of Israel with passion as well.
From Marsha:
****************
My heart is grieved by a friend of mine who believes we are better than
those we are trying to minister to. How can we be effective in bringing
people to Yeshua, if they can't see His love in us? If all they see is a
lawful attitude they could never live up too?
From Eddie:
***************
This is so true. Others are won by PRAYER and our LOVE. MORE than anything else, our LIVES are a GREATER witness that what we say
or say we believe. And we must also remember what is says in Romans 11:18 as it is written:
"Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest NOT the root, but the root thee"
Haughtiness against the Jewish people and against other believers is vanity. We are to speak the truth in LOVE (Eph 4:15)
From Marsha:
****************
I want to concern myself with keeping the Torah, celebrating the feasts,
and staying away from our pagan roots, but how do you bring the truth to
Baby Christians about these things without killing their zeal for Yeshua. I
will not treat them as lawbreakers!
From Eddie:
**************
You have the right heart. FIRST, recognize their faith in Messiah and respect that ALWAYS. Secondly, PRAYER is a
MIGHTY weapon to bring a breakthrough. Thirdly, allow the Holy Spirit to lead and guide you in all that you say and all that you do. Fourthly,
speak the truth with love and compassion. REMEMBER that there was a day when you didn't quite understand the significance of your Hebraic
Roots and the Sabbath and Festivals also. Yet, God still loved you and sustained you by His GRACE. We should treat and view others with
this same understanding.
From Marsha:
****************
Maybe you could address my concerns. I also need for another friend, who is
in ignorance, about how Doctrine came into the Christian church? He made
the comment that it was because they succeeded to mix Judaism and
Christianity. I told him that it was because they mixed Paganism and
Christianity! Could you give me a short synopsis on how wrong doctrine came
into the church? I would appreciate any information I could give him.
From Eddie:
**************
In short, because Christianity distanced itself from it's Jewish roots and became successful in bringing the non-Jew to Messiah
who was steeped in paganism. Rather than changing and worshipping according to the Jewishness of the faith, they thought it better to
Christianize pagan practices.
The history briefly went this way.
Yeshua/Jesus, the disciples and the 3,000 saved in the book of Acts 2 were Jewish. Faith in Yeshua/Jesus as Messiah was a JEWISH
faith. In the first century, many Jews believed that Gentiles would embrace the Jewish belief system when Messiah came. This was long
taught in Judaism. As we see in Acts 15, when the non-Jew began to accept Messiah the issue became HOW to incorporate a non-Jewish
believer in a Jewish Messiah into a Torah observant faith whose customs go back thousands of years. Most of Judaism believed that the
non-Jew would have to "convert" to Judaism and follow the Torah in order to become a member of the family of God.
The book of Acts regards how God through His Holy Spirit and the events that happened in the days of the early church blew this
belief out of the water.
We have the story in Acts 10 where Cornelious (a non-Jew) was instructed by God to go to Peter's house. Being a Torah observant
Jew, Peter held to the belief that letting a non-Jew into his house would make him ritually unclean. So, as Cornelious was obedient to
God and went to visit Peter, God gave Peter a dream about "clean and unclean animals" which Peter later understood to mean that what God
had called clean (the non-Jew) Peter was not to call unclean. This story has NOTHING to do with the dietary laws.
During the early days of the church, the Jew and the non-Jew worshipped together in the synagogue. The Book of Acts regards that
there were MANY disputes in the synagogue because some Jews accepted Yeshua/Jesus as Messiah and others did not. If was inevitable that
a split would happen and it did.
This began to come to a climax when their was a Jewish revolt against Rome in 66 A.D. (C.E.) which lasted unto 70 A.D. (C.E ...
Common Era) when the Romans put down the Jewish revolt. Those who instigated the Jewish revolt rejected that Yeshua/Jesus was Messiah
and attempted to overthrow Rome with Messianic expectations. This created a problem with the Jews who DID believe that Yeshua/Jesus was
Messiah. They refused to fight against Rome because they believed that Yeshua/Jesus was Messiah. This created division among the Jews
who believed in Messiah and those who didn't.
In around 92 A.D. (C.E), there was a line added to the daily synagogue prayers which said, "May God curse the heritics" referring to
the Jews who were attending synagogue and believed that Yeshua/Jesus was Messiah as compared to the Jews who did not believe that
Yeshua / Jesus was Messiah. This created further division.
Meanwhile, there was another Jewish revolt against Rome in 135 A.D. In this revolt, Rabbi Akiva proclaimed Bar Kochba as the
Jewish Messiah. Rome won this war, the Jews who didn't believe that Yeshua/Jesus was Messiah didn't particate in the war against Rome
either because this war was based upon the Messianic expectations of the Jews that a political Messiah would arise and defeat Rome.
Following this war, the Jews were sold into slavery by Rome and began to be scattered into all the regions of the Roman Empire.
Rome made laws against observing the Torah.
Meanwhile, there were more and more non-Jews accepting Yeshua/Jesus as Messiah who had no Torah knowledge. Because of their
existing pagan religions and belief systems there arose great debate on various Biblical doctrinal issues. Because many of the Jews were
sold into slavery and Rome made laws against observing the Torah, the non-Jewish believers in Yeshua/Jesus as Messiah and the "church
fathers" began to adopt Anti-Semetic doctrine against the Jews and against the Torah. Thus the departing from the roots of Christianity
and embracing anti-Torah and anti-Semetic theology got a head of steam going that still exists today within Christianity.
During these early years, Rome persecuted the Christians and threw them to the lions. Yet, the more that Rome persecuted the
Christians the more that Christianity grew and flourished. With the coming of Constantine (around 300 A.D.) after he supposingly saw a
vision of a "cross to go and conquer", Rome decided that if you can't beat them you might as well join them. So, church and state began
to merge and this formed the beginning of the merger of church and state that became known as Roman Catholicism.
By this time, some of the doctrinal debates in Christianity needed to be dealt with. So, the emporer of Rome called various
councils to decide these issues. These came known as your Catholic councils where various Christian doctrine became "binding" even in
many cases by death to the heritics.
This is a preview of your history that led to departing of Hebraic roots of Christianity. It reached it's lowest point in the
Middle ages and through the Protestant Reformation, God began to restore truth's back into the church that were lost. He is still
doing this today with our modern Hebraic Roots Movement.
From Marsha:
****************
A definition of true Judaism would be helpful.
From Eddie:
**************
Faith in the God of Israel and His Messiah as the means of our salvation and the keeping of His Torah in Spirit and in truth.
From Marsha:
**************
Congratulation on your upcoming wedding!
Thank you so much,
Marsha
Stevenson
From Eddie:
**************
Thank you
*************************************************************************
>
> Thank you for another week of studying and learning together about the rich Hebraic Roots of our faith !!!!
>
> Shabbat Shalom !!!
>
>
> Eddie Chumney
>
> *************************************************************************
>
>
Return to
Newsgroup Archives Main Page
Return to our Main Webpage
�2011
Hebraic Heritage Ministries International. Designed by
Web Design by JB.