Archive for » June, 2012 «

Personal Shuv

Saturday, June 30th, 2012 | Author:

 They broke into weeping and said to her, “No, we will return with you to your people.”  Ruth 1:9-10  JPS

Return – Literally this verse reads, “No, it is with you that we return to your people.”  Eskenazi points out that the focus of the women’s concern is Naomi, not their personal plight nor their potential rescue.  They are committed to the relationship, not the results.

This is a good place for us to pause and ask ourselves if we have the same personal relationship burden.  Why do we pursue interaction with others?  What is the motivation behind our reaching out?  These two Moabite women are the paradigm of true hesed.  They are committed to the person.  If we have other motives, perhaps “winning souls” or “bringing them to the truth,” we might need to re-examine our focus.  Even the loftiest spiritual motives fall flat if they are not the result of complete commitment to the other person.  The relationship always comes first.

It’s easy for us to think that we have the other person’s best interests at heart.  With so much spiritual language in the evangelical air, we often think that the primary purpose of relating to others is to make sure they know Jesus and will find their way to heaven.  But I wonder if that actually demonstrates the character of God’s hesed.  Orpah and Ruth have nothing to gain by committing themselves to Naomi.  In fact, their commitment carries considerable risk.  They will be outsiders in Bethlehem.  They will be rejected and possibly abused.  After all, they are the “cursed” Moabites.  The chances of them ever finding a husband, and the accompanying security necessary for survival, are slim.  To go with Naomi is to accept a life of destitution and distress.  But it doesn’t matter.  Why?  Because they love Naomi.  They are not thinking of themselves.  They are not even thinking about normal precautions, about weighing the options, about projecting outcomes.  They are concerned only for this other woman.  What happens to them has no consequence.

Is that the kind of commitment you and I make toward loved ones?  Are we ready to be exposed, abused, rejected or distressed in order to demonstrate unfailing love toward another person?  I suggest that if we begin calculating the pros and cons, we no longer exhibit hesed, and if we do this with another human being, I doubt we can demonstrate hesed toward a being we cannot see.  The test of hesed shel emet (true hesed) is its demonstration here and now, among those like us.  If we fail with our fellow travelers, we can be assured we fail with the Holy One of Israel.

“It is with you that we return,” say Ruth and Orpah.  What do we say?

Topical Index:  return, hesed, Ruth 1:10

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Ruth Continues

Friday, June 29th, 2012 | Author:

If you are following the Ruth study, this link will take you to each of the posted audio files.

http://skipmoen.com/category/ruth/

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Yesterday and Today

Friday, June 29th, 2012 | Author:

For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.  Jude 4

Crept in unnoticed – Now how is this possible?  How can it be that some slip into the assembly to do harm and no one notices?  The Greek verb suggests that they settled in alongside (pareisduo – coming alongside twice – in duo – both in the open and hidden).  How did they get in?  Well, they must have said the right things.  They must have pretended to be worshippers.  They had to look the part.  If this reminds you of something in Genesis 3, don’t be surprised.  They were unnoticed because they appeared to share a common commitment.  But time will tell, and in this case, their true colors soon became apparent.

What were those true colors?  How did Jude conclude these people were the enemy?  He tells us that they turned God’s grace into licentiousness.  What does that mean?  Grace is the Greek word charis.  Its Hebrew equivalent is shamah – to rejoice, be joyful, be glad.  But in Hebrew thought, joy is both inward and outward.  The feelings result in action.  In particular, shamah  is the experience of God’s saving acts.  Joy comes when God delivers.  This is the sense that Jude has in mind.  God has saved us.  We rejoice.  But Jude sees the need for a warning.  Salvation does not mean life without obligations.  Our rejoicing entails a certain code of conduct – a path of righteousness.  Yes, we have joy because God has delivered us, but that does not mean we are free to do whatever we wish.  It means that we are free to obey His instructions.  Without the visible sign of obedience, we are pseudo-believers.  We might have a wonderful warm and fuzzy feeling on the inside, but we lack all the outward evidence that indicates God actually delivered.  You don’t get one without the other.

Notice that Jude expressly indicates what kinds of behaviors deny the true inner experience of charis – shamah.  He uses the Greek word aselgeia, a word that Peter associates with Sodom and Gomorrah.  But perhaps we are too quick to relegate the meaning only to sexual immorality.  While this is the usual meaning, the word carries the idea of license, not simply sexual permissiveness.  In other words, Jude warns not to turn the goodness of God’s benevolence into an excuse for permitting any behavior we wish.  Grace comes with rules.  That doesn’t mean grace depends on rule-keeping.  That would be the mistake of associating God’s goodness with human achievement.  But just because God sheds abroad His grace on undeserving men does not mean that grace in action has no boundaries.  Grace is demonstrated by the change in behavior that accompanies its transformative character.  Grace, as Paul reminds us, is never an excuse for sinning all the more.

All of this seems perfectly reasonable.  At the human level, we love our children but that doesn’t mean we let them do whatever they want to do.  Love comes with obligations and expectations, not for the good of the parent but for the good of the child.  But notice what this implies.  It implies that there is an acceptable and recognized standard of conduct.  It’s no good trying to tell your children that they need to live according to the family expectations if you don’t tell them what those expectations are.  And that’s Jude’s point.  Those who are part of the assembly of the Messianic community have been grafted into the commonwealth of Israel and therefore, they have been given instructions that accompany what it means to be Israel.  To suggest that people can experience God’s grace and reject these instructions is contradictory – and Jude knows it.  That’s why he warns his flock about the destructive nature of those who teach that the rules no longer apply.

I suppose we should ask ourselves if we have turned God’s grace into permission to do what we want to do rather than what He wants us to do.  And, obviously, we aren’t talking about Sodom and Gomorrah anymore.

Topical Index:  grace, charis, shamah, joy, rules, Jude 4, aselgeia, licentiousness

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Ruth, Chapter 1:1-6

Thursday, June 28th, 2012 | Author:

Here is the audio file for Ruth 1:1-6.

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One Way

Thursday, June 28th, 2012 | Author:

Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.  Jude 3

The saints – It all begins with the date of this letter.  For some time, scholars have argued about the date of Jude.  Those who believe it must be later than the apostolic age suggest, on this basis, that the letter is pseudepigrapha, written by someone who wanted the work to appear important and therefore named the author as Jude, a brother of Yeshua.  But much of their supposed evidence is mere speculation.  The conservative view, that Jude did in fact write this letter sometime around 65AD, seems the most plausible and carries the most historical witnesses.  So, let’s suppose that Jude did write this before the Second Temple destruction in 70AD.  How does that help us understand what he is saying?

Jude deals with a problem already acknowledged in Corinth.  Certain religious people infiltrated the assembly and attempted to subvert the common understanding of the message.  In an explosion of metaphors and allusions, Jude condemns these people.  But notice who he is trying to protect.  He calls his audience “the saints.”  Actually, the Greek is tois hagiois, the holy ones.  Who would have been called “the holy ones” in the time before the destruction of the Second Temple?  It certainly would not have been “Christians” since that term wasn’t even in use yet.  From Paul’s letters, we know that Jude would have included the followers of the Way, a “so-called sect of Judaism.”  Notice what else Jude says about these people.  They have been the recipients of the faith which was “once for all” delivered.  We know that first century Messianic Jews and God-fearing Gentiles held a common code of conduct with all other Jews.  The only difference between these believers and the rest of the Jewish population was the claim that Yeshua was the Messiah, not that the common faith had been replaced.  So, if Jude says that the faith was delivered once for all to the saints, then he must include everyone who had heard Torah.  How else can we understand this verse in light of what we know about the Messianic community before 70AD?

Notice what Jude does not say.  He doesn’t say, “Contend for the Messianic status of Yeshua.”  He doesn’t say, “Evangelize and convert Jews.”  He doesn’t say, “Preach a message of pure grace.”  He says that the “common salvation” is tied to a faith that has already been delivered to the holy ones.  In other words, those who are practicing the one way, the way of Torah – those who would be called tois hagiois in the Messianic congregations – are those whose behavior establishes their claim to be citizens of the Kingdom.  That’s how you know who they are.  And that’s why Jude can go on to list behaviors which mark the detractors as the opposition.  In order to use behavior as a measuring stick, there must be a prior commitment to a common code.  And, of course, there was – a code that had not changed for sixteen centuries.

Topical Index:  saints, hagios, Torah, Jude 3

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Hidden Love

Wednesday, June 27th, 2012 | Author:

See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God; and such we are.  For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.  1 John 3:1  NASB

For this reason – Did you notice that John claims the world doesn’t know us because we have experienced the love of the Father?  Does this call into question most of what we have been taught about God’s love?  Have you heard the usual claim that once God’s love takes over in your life, the world will see it and want to know more?  Doesn’t John imply just the opposite?  How do we make sense of this backwards statement?

It seems to me that we must first recognize what John says is true – regardless of our theological platitudes.  When God’s great love saturates our lives, we become unexplainable oddities in the world.  We just don’t fit anymore.  We act against expectations.  We think in different ways.  We stand outside the paradigm and are outlaws to the world’s economy.  It is God’s love that makes us strange – so strange that we often appear insanely fanatical and are written off because of this.  Yeshua said much the same thing when he warned his followers not to expect any sympathy from the world.  In fact, the world is our enemy.

And that is precisely the basis for our insanity.  Because we love our enemies.

Adin Steinsaltz says, “Love begins when this caring is not only an objective appraisal, but becomes a personal attachment, when the object is not just ‘a thing’ or ‘a person’ that is judged by itself, but when one becomes involved in the relationship.”[1]  And relationships require involvement and time – lots of time.  “Love is something that people have to learn,” says Steinsaltz.  He notes that any relationship that provides gainful benefit to the subject (the one loving) is not selfless love.  Such love, common to most of our involvements, actually functions as a means for enhancing our own image.  If we love because we recognize the other as loveable, doesn’t that mean that we gain something of personal value from the arrangement?  Steinsaltz remarks, “What matters is the relationship, not the benefits derived from it.  My beloved exists, and therefore all is well.”[2]

My observation is that most people love in order to be loved.  It is the mutual equation of gratification that matters.  But this certainly isn’t true of God.  God loves – and in His relationship with the creation, all is right with the world.  God loves us – and it is the relationship that matters, nothing more or less.

Perhaps we have missed the point entirely.  Perhaps our attempts to love our enemies are not based in the joy of their very existence but rather in our desire to “bring them into the fold.”  The transparency of our exchange equation causes them to recognize that we do not love them because they are, but rather for what we wish them to be.  Can you imagine if God determined to love on such a basis?

The world does not know us when we love others simply for the joy of their existence.  Such love defeats all exchange value and reflects the face of the Creator.  But until this love is hidden in our hearts, we are recognized for what we really are – religiously converted exchange takers.

Topical Index:  love, relationship, 1 John 3:1, for this reason, hidden


[1] Adin Steinsaltz, Simple Words, p. 189.

[2] Ibid. p. 200.

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A Word from the Lord

Tuesday, June 26th, 2012 | Author:

And as for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for any one to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him.  1 John 2:27  NASB

Have no need – Let’s just read this verse without its context, culture or theological history.  Why not?  Many do.  Doesn’t it clearly say that you don’t have to study or debate or concern yourself with all the scholarship?  All you need is the “anointing.”  In fact, doesn’t John guarantee that you already have this anointing, and therefore you “have no need” for any teachers?  You’re saved.  You have the Holy Spirit (is He a “possession” of yours?).  What more do you need?  Apparently, nothing!

Did John really endorse what I call the “Holy Spirit epistemology” in this verse?  Did John really mean that no further instruction is necessary?  Just pray and wait for illumination, right?  Perhaps we need to back up a few verses and look at John’s opening statements.  What we find changes the meaning of this very convenient verse.

Let’s start with verse 24.  It’s obviously connected since John is introducing the topic of abiding.  In verse 24 he writes that we abide because we continue to exercise a faith based on what we heard from the beginning.  In fact, John implores us to let the original message have its full impact in our lives.  Of course, John uses Greek terms to express Hebrew ideas.  So when he says “heard,” you can be sure that he doesn’t mean “just listen.”  To hear is to obey.  So abiding is not merely acknowledging or taking notes or storing information away for a rainy day.  It is doing what you have heard.

Clearly this is an allusion to the path of the Tanakh.  In fact, when we realize that John had no other Bible than the Tanakh, when we put aside all of the New Testament documents, then we are left with the obvious conclusion that what his readers heard “from the beginning” could only be the teaching of Moses, as James clearly states in Acts  15:21.  Put the verse in its context.  The reason John’s readers can abide without teaching is simply because they have God’s instructions in hand.  They have the Tanakh and the community.  Furthermore, John’s statement echoes the proclamation of Yeshua in the gospel (John 14:26), “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my Name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”  If the Spirit is sent from the Father, can we imagine that He would not carry the Father’s message?  If He comes in order to bring the teaching of Yeshua to mind, can we imagine that Yeshua’s views of the Tanakh’s instructions would somehow be altered by the Spirit?  Of course not.  The Father, the Son and the Spirit teach the same thing.  John insists that any teacher who does not convey this consistent message is a false teacher (see verse 23).  His readers have no need of anyone who contradicts the same message preached from the beginning.

The context suggests that John is referring to those who are teaching contrary to what his readers already know to be true.  His readers have no need of any of these kind of teachers.  They have the Spirit, and the promise of the Messiah, to countermand anything such false teachers would say.  The Greek indefinite pronoun, tis, can also be translated “someone,” as in “you have no need of someone to teach.”  But this is not the same as saying that they have no need of any instruction at all.  John’s polemic against those who claim to be teaching the truth, but who in fact are denying the message of Yeshua, does not eliminate all teaching, as the translation “someone” demonstrates.  “Holy Spirit epistemology” that denies the need for instruction is fallacious, especially if it stands in contradiction to “what you heard from the beginning.”

I might suggest that the NASB choice of “any one” rather than “someone” pushes the reader toward the belief that study and consultation is unnecessary.  I hope that this wasn’t the reason for choosing “any one.”  But our contemporary penchant for spiritual individualism and our tendency to ignore history feeds this idea, to our detriment.  John would never have suggested that study was unnecessary.  Neither would he suggest that a believer can be all that God intended if he is separated from biblical tradition and community.  We must shift the paradigm if we are to read the text in its context.  And shift we must!  Otherwise, we can all retire to the armchair and hope that God speaks personally to each of us.

Topical Index:  Holy Spirit, epistemology, instruction, teach, 1 John 2:27

 

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Revising the Text

Monday, June 25th, 2012 | Author:

He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.  Isaiah 53:3  NASB

Despised and forsaken – In Messiah Journal, Special Supplement of 2011[1], Steven Lancaster and James Monson examine the Isaiah scroll found among the Dead Sea scrolls.  They discover that some traditionally interpreted passages which rely on the much later Masoretic text are not the same in this much older Isaiah scroll.  Their discussion of the entire “servant song” of Isaiah 52 and 53 requires more than 60 pages of detailed analysis, but one passage in particular should catch our attention.  It is the verse above, the well-known and often repeated passage about the rejection of the Messiah.  Lancaster and Monson demonstrate that the older text (and therefore most likely the more accurate one) does not include the idea of the Servant’s rejection, so popular among Christian musicians and story-tellers.  Rather, the older text means that the servant was unremarkable and ignored (disregarded).  “Rather than a sense of ‘scorn,’ we translate nivzeh as meaning that the exalted servant was ‘disregarded,’ i.e., that he gave no evidence of exulted status.  Moreover, to those who knew him, he was chadal ishim, ‘lacking the importance of me.’  This interpretation of the Hebrew, while perhaps troubling to those emotionally attached to the traditional translation, fits the context of this opening division of the son far better and sets this statement within that context, for indeed the community ‘gave him no thought!’”[2]

The Isaiah scroll also alters the meaning of the phrase “like one from whom men hide their face.”  Lancaster and Monson show that the Isaiah scroll should be translated, “as one concealing his face.”  The point is that the Servant disguised his true identity, not that the people turned away from him.  It is the servant, not the people, who conceals the truth.  This is exactly what the gospels say about Yeshua and what Paul reiterates in 2 Corinthians 4:3-6.  The Isaiah scroll makes it clear that the reason the community did not recognize the exalted status of the Servant is the result of the Servant’s deliberate concealment, not the community’s lack of spiritual insight.  The scroll goes on the say “we disregarded him,” (not “we did not esteem him”), indicating that the community did not have any reason to think of him as other than an ordinary man.

Why is the radical (though it might not seem so at first) change important?  Christian teaching about Jesus has focused on the sinful obstinacy of the people, claiming that anyone who had “eyes to see” should have recognized Him as the Messiah.  From this position, Christian theology often asserts that the Jews were “spiritually blind,” either because of sin or because of an act of God.  But the Isaiah scroll says something very different.  It says that the Servant himself kept his true identity secret.  Only those who diligently sought him saw the truth – and, as we know from the gospel accounts – even they lacked unmistakable evidence.

Does this change your view about why Yeshua wasn’t universally proclaimed as the Messiah by his own audience?  Does it give even more meaning to his statement that only those whom the Father draws will find him?  Does it alter your perception of the later Christian idea that the Jews were personally culpable?  Does it give you a new view when reading the gospels?

The idea of blindness to the Messiah takes on spiritual and theological significance only when the Church begins to develop an anti-Semitic polemic.  If the Isaiah scroll represents the thinking of the first century, we should not have expected anyone to exclaim, “He is the Messiah!”  No wonder Yeshua can say to Peter, “Flesh and blood did not reveal this to you” (Matthew 16:17).

Now do you see?

Topical Index:  Isaiah 53:3, despised, forsaken, esteem, disregard, Matthew 16:17, Servant

 

[1] Messiah Journal, Issue 107, Special Supplement, Spring, 2011

[2] Lancaster and Monson, p. 22.

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Church and Synagogue

Sunday, June 24th, 2012 | Author:

To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours:  1 Corinthians 1:2  NASB

Church – Slow down!  Take your time reading each word of this verse, asking yourself what these words would have meant to the assembly in Corinth.  Notice a few remarkable connections.

1.  Paul does not address the assembly as “the church of Jesus Christ.”  Do you find this startling?  Wouldn’t you expect Paul to speak about the church of Jesus if his message were anything like the Christian message we hear today?  No, Paul addresses the assembly in Corinth with terms that had immediate meaning to these people.  They were not an assembly focused on Jesus.  They were the qehelah (or synagogue) in Corinth, an assembly that retained traditions that reached back to Sinai.  This assembly was God’s assembly.  Yeshua operates within God’s assembly.  Since we know that Paul taught in the synagogue in Corinth, his address to these believers cements their continued connection the Israel.  Same God.  Same people.

2.  Did you notice the phrase “saints by calling”?  This is nothing more than an explication of the inherent meaning in the Hebrew term qehelah.  Qahal is “to call out for a purpose.”  The assembly that results from answering this call is the qehelah.  It isn’t an accidental gathering.  It is called for a specific reason.  Since Paul connects that calling with “the assembly of God,” we are confident that the purpose expressed at Sinai is the same purpose assigned to this Corinthian assembly.  Continuity in calling means continuity in purpose.

3.  “Call upon the name” is a technical phrase that first appears in the fourth chapter of Genesis.  In the ancient Semitic world, this phrase means “submitting to the name of the one called as the lord and master of life.”  In other words, it is a well-known Hebraic expression that implies ownership.  The one called upon owns the one calling.  Paul asserts that Yeshua is Lord.  He uses an ancient Hebrew expression, converted to Greek, to communicate this idea.  Obviously, Paul intended his audience to make this connection since he reiterates it in the next phrase.  But this implies that these people understood the ownership principle of the Tanakh.  They understood that the Lordship of Yeshua operated within the assembly called by God.  The mystery of Daniel 7 jumps from the page here.

4.  “Their Lord and ours” demands that we supply the reference for the pronoun.  Who are the “their” Paul refers to?  He answers, “all who in every place call upon the name.”  And who would that be?  Certainly in the time Paul wrote this letter the vast majority of those who called upon the name Yeshua HaMashiach were Jews, not “Christians.”  In fact, none of those who called on the name would have considered themselves Christians.  To suggest that these believers were “Christians” is to import an anachronism (a label that belongs to a later time period).  They were followers of the Way, a sect of Judaism.

Very little reflection is required to notice that these opening remarks often seem to be in conflict with the nature of the Church today.   How did all that happen?

Marianne Dacy offers the following:  “ . . . Christianity, in order to define itself, closed its ranks to Jewish practices, the process of separation being one of gradual dejudaisation.  Thus, in order to be Christian, one was obligated to reject Jewish law and Jewish practices.”[1]

“Certainly, those Christians who continued to hold on to Jewish ritual laws such as circumcision, food laws and other practices not assumed by the church, were ostracised and eventually driven out from orthodox Christianity. The new religion, (for that is what Christianity became), soon would not long tolerate members who professed to be Christian, yet, retained Jewish practices.  The Jewish-Christians also came under gnostic influences and were considered to have embraced beliefs that were unacceptable to the developing mainstream church.  Eventually the Jewish-Christians disappeared as a movement.  The isolating of the Jewish-Christians was part of the process of the separation of the church with Judaism.”[2]

The bottom line is this:  we must know the history of our faith!  Few of us actually know how our faith developed.  We don’t know what social, political and religious pressures caused theological transformations.  We know only what our contemporary churches tell us.  But that leaves so many gaps that it becomes difficult to see how we can still be grafted into the commonwealth of Israel and serve the same God who revealed Himself at Sinai.

Topical Index:  church, calling, ekklesia, qehelah, 1 Corinthians 1:2


[1] Marianne Dacy, The Separation of Early Christianity from Judaism, p. 258.

[2] Ibid., p. 48.

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The Truth from the Inside

Saturday, June 23rd, 2012 | Author:

But even though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed.  Galatians 1:8  NASB

Contrary – There is a marginal note concerning the translation of this preposition (para) in the NASB.  There should probably be a marginal note in every English translation.  That’s because the preposition para is usually found in spatial contexts (like “out of” or “from” or “along side”).  The marginal note reads that this preposition in Galatians might be translated “other than” or “more than.”  This recognizes the use of the preposition with a certain kind of Greek noun (called the accusative) where the meaning shifts from spatial to comparative.  But it still takes the context to translate the word as “contrary.”  It could just as well be that Paul meant “a gospel more than” or “a gospel other than.”  The idea that this alternative good news must be against the first declaration is interpretive license.  All that is really required is that it be different.

Why is this important?  Because Paul is reflecting and alluding to a very old declaration of the Tanakh found in Deuteronomy 12:32.  “Whatever I command you, you shall be careful to do; you shall not add to nor take away from it.”  In Hebrew (the Hebrew text is 13:1), the negative is lo, the strongest possible sense of “not.”  In fact, the Hebrew text says more than “whatever I command you.”  It says, “kol-hadavar”.   All the words (things).  You shall remove nothing.  You shall add nothing.  Isn’t this precisely what Paul says?  Paul, the rabbinic Pharisee, knew that the revelation given to Moses was untouchable.  It cannot be changed!  No matter who says so.  In fact, if Paul actually proclaimed a message more than or other than the revelation given to Moses, he would have uttered a curse on himself in the eyes of every Jew and every Gentile proselyte in Galatia.  Does that make any sense to you?

Today we Christians are quick to apply Paul’s pronouncement to Mormons who believe that an angel from heaven provided a “new” revelation to Joseph Smith.  We quickly point to Paul’s statement when we encounter Muslims who believe that a spirit revealed “new” material to the prophet Mohammed.  But we don’t think that Paul’s proclamation actually applies to us!  We think that somehow Paul’s reference to Moses’ warning can’t be true of “Christians” in spite of the fact that we have certainly added to and taken away from the revelation given to Moses.  Somehow we think that Paul would not have included “believers” who worship on Sunday, celebrate Christmas and Easter, eat whatever they wish, tithe to an organized religion and pay little if any attention to ritual purity requirements.  We think that “Jesus” changed all this.  But if He did, wouldn’t He also be under the curse?  If Jesus actually preached a gospel that was more than or other than God’s revelation to Moses, would Jesus Himself be accursed?  You can’t have it both ways.  Either Paul curses himself and Yeshua and all the others who were supposed to have converted to Christianity, or Paul held that same revelation as Moses and it is we who have changed it.

Forget Maroni and Mohammed.  Let’s begin with Moses.  Does Paul expect us to set aside Moses’ warning or does Paul intend us to adhere to it?  It’s really that simple.  Who is accursed now?

Topical Index:  contrary, para, more than, other than, Deuteronomy 12:32, Galatians 1:8

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