[First posted in 2012, shortly after we started this website. When a visitor clicks old posts, it gives us the opportunity to review it and decide if it is still relevant to our ever-developing current understanding and convictions. This week, Israel is again in the news, battling it out with an old old enemy that refuses to allow it to exist. Hence, this repost.—Admin1.]
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Question:
What are we Gentiles supposed to be doing in the meantime?? That is, while we’re waiting for the the Jews to get their act together and save the world…
Answer: Sinai 6000 Perspective
For starters, let’s get a few things straight. This is how we have figured it out for our group:
- Israel was not “chosen” to “save the world” but to model the lifestyle God requires for people to be able to live together in harmony and peace, with an OTHER-centeredness and GOD-centeredness. TORAH spells that out; take care of the underprivileged, the poor, the stranger among you, the widows, the children, be kind to your slaves, etc. The reason for having wealth is to be in the position to bless others; that’s how God takes care of His world.
- Israel’s “chosen-ness” is spelled out as early as Deuteronomy 7 and 9, nothing about them deserves being chosen; it’s GOD’s sovereign choice, He formed them historically and genealogically; they didn’t “get it” until after they lost the land, the Temple, the kingdom during the Babylonian exile, when the only thing they did have was the Torah. And that’s when the pendulum swung the other way; they got totally Torah-focused, observant, fenced God’s commandments with their own man-made rules and traditions to avoid violating them. Eventually they did fulfill their mandate to be the ‘light to the gentiles” . . . the Hebrew Bible was attached to the “New Testament” and is there to be read by all; unfortunately, who’s REALLY reading, and if they are, who TRULY UNDERSTANDS?
- With chosen-ness is grave responsibility . . . as it is with freedom is responsibility . . . Israel fails over and over, according to their own history recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures. What nation would write about their failures the way Israel has done in TNK? You’d think they’d edit that to make themselves look good, instead they look sooooooooo bad! By the time they do get it right, the persecution gets worse and guess who does the persecuting worse than anyone else, the Christians! Hitler points to Christian writers like Martin Luther, etc. to justify his agenda to annihilate the Jews
- An excellent book to read on the heavy responsibility of being God’s Light-bearer to the gentiles is Jonathan Sack’s To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility.
Q: So while Jews can’t get their act together what do we gentiles do?
If we’ve learned TORAH, we obey! It’s as simple as that. For every little thing you learn and do, that’s one more person doing what’s right, whether or not Jews get their act together. You become a light-bearer yourself.
Hanukkah, the Jewish festival is not one of the original 7 feasts of Leviticus but—if you truly understand its significance not only to Jews but to gentiles, this festival of lights is a good introduction to deeper truths. The hanukkiah menorah [9 stem] has that center light which is called the “servant candle” or if done with original olive oil, it’s the “servant light.” The servant [Isaiah 40-50] is Israel, God’s light-bearer. They did succeed through the preservation of God’s original revelation in Torah [5 books of Moses], and through the witness of their history and position in world current affairs, that the God on Sinai continues to work His Will through them. The re-established nation of Israel is secular, yet it is the only country that observes Shabbat — the commandment that testifies to Who is the Creator, the same self-revealing God on Sinai.
Our problem is, our exposure to Torah has been through Christian teaching, infused with New Testament theology that goes TOTALLY counter to original Torah. Christianity invented original sin, need for a savior, Satan and fallen angels, virgin birth, etc. , an EXCLUSIVE theology decided upon by councils of men.
Jesus supposedly teaches in the Gospels that if you as much as look at another woman, you’ve already committed adultery . . . not so . . . we’re always exposed to temptations around us, so thoughts and inclinations will crop up all the time but we don’t have to succumb. We are given FREE WILL and FREE CHOICE, just like Adam and Eve, Cain . . . God’s warning to Cain says it all . . . sin is crouching at your door . . . but you can dominate it . . . God didn’t say you are helpless because you inherited Adam’s sinful nature, etc. etc. {Read Ezekiel 18 that says children don’t inherit their father’s sins, each is responsible for his own].
Deuteronomy and Joshua say “choose today whom you will serve” . . . it’s always a choice. But people have to be enlightened with Torah to have a choice, and to understand it. You’ll never understand “Old Testament” as taught by Christianity, you will understand many ways to understand OT through Jewish teaching. And that’s why it’s good to start over and learn from the rabbis. Our Sinai 6000 group have gone the rounds in Jewish websites; we don’t get “confused” at all, the Jewish perspective is simply so different from the Christian. It’s time to start learning from them. But your study should not end there, with the Jews . . . we are gentiles; there are instructions specific to Jews and there are others that are universal to all nations, to gentiles. Learn which is which by reading the context of isolated passages used as prooftext. We have many articles here to help you through that process of relearning how to read the Hebrew Scriptures. Please avail of them.
NSB@S6K
