The Mission
Quite often I receive emails asking for interpretation of biblical passages. Â I am honored that you would consider asking me for my views. Â This leads me to clarify what At God’s Table and Today’s Word is really attempting to accomplish.
My work is an evolution in understanding. Â What I knew yesterday is only a platform for what I am learning today. Â It is a springboard for what I will learn tomorrow. Â Today may require me to abandon what I knew yesterday. Â Tomorrow I may have to do the same.
What this means is that I do not find much comfort in dogma or doctrine.  What this means is that I am often confronted with biblical material that requires me to put aside my past beliefs.  What this means is that I have to trust the character of the God I serve, not the accumulation of information that I presently have about the God I serve.  What this means is that I will often be mistaken, misdirected, confused and concerned, but I will not abandon the quest to know Him, no matter where it leads.
My faith does not depend on a creed, a statement of beliefs or a collection of doctrines. Â Since all of these are but human attempts to probe the depths of an infinite God, I know they will all ultimately fall short of knowing Him. Â I am human, finite in perspective, limited in my grasp of my role in the cosmos. Â In the end I have only what Qohelet offers. Â “Fear God and keep His commandments.”
I am glad to offer my perspective on your questions, but that is all it is – my perspective. Â It may be carefully considered, well reasoned and biblically sound, but it is just where I am now at this moment in the long journey toward His presence. Â I am eternally grateful to those of you who have elected to come along with me as we explore, discover and revise. Â But I am just like you – agonizing over not yet knowing, hoping to see Him in the light.
Skip, thank you so much for sharing that! Sometimes in my pursuit of Him I get so lost in what I am hearing today versus what I thought I knew yesterday. And even on this journey I am sometimes afraid of what I may learn tomorrow that I thought was true but am now questioning. Many times all I can do is come back to “Abba, show me more of You because I trust You” and then let Him lead me from there.
Thank you for your openness and honesty in sharing with us and in your pursuit, bringing us along! Know that your labor is not in vain. It is helping many of us!
How long have we longed for true leadership. Thanks Skip.
Skip,
First a question. Where exactly does God’s Word fit into your quest?
Do you view it as God’s “specific” and “definitive” Word to man?
Or is it more of a hazy picture, as seeing through a glass darkly?
And if so, why, do you suppose?
Second is a word of thanks for your sincere heart and deep and dedicated
scholarship. Most often I concur with you, even as your findings challenge or
stretch my prior notions and convictions.
Then, there are moments when I can’t find my heart and spirit going there.
God only knows why!
My keen appreciation, none the less.
Ah, Richard, the ENTIRE journey is to understand the revelation of YHWH in Scripture. I long ago realized that no man is capable of providing answers to the ultimate questions. The answer must come from a revelation from outside. God provided that revelation. Now it is incumbent upon me to understand it and apply it.
Thank you for this post Skip. I have often had these same thoughts and feeling, but never quite able to express them as eloquently as you have. I have started a home study recwntly for those new to the idea of pursuing to keep Torah. I want to post this on the wall. May I use this to express to others what I have otherwise been able to express. With proper referencd of course. Thank you and Shalom.
Of course. It all belongs to the community of followers anyway.
Wise thoughts from a wise man…. As you know Skip, my wife and I so appreciate you and your ministry. Thank you so much as we too seek to be in closer relationship with the creator of the universe.
skip, I appreciate your humble approach to the information you are sending out. That is why I trust you. Keep it coming 🙂 I did run across this verse yesterday and I think I know the answer, but would like your comments on it. Mark 7:19 (NASB)
19 because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and is eliminated?” (Thus He declared all foods clean.) This is in the NIV also. I don’t believe that Jesus declared all foods clean. I am interested in your comments.
Bob
Google Tim Hegg’s Technical Note on Mark 7:19b for a full explanation of the mistranslation of the Greek text.
I just love you Skip! This why what you do is so amazing, a heartfelt thank you from my family and I!
Thank you, Skip, for these gentle reminders. And thank you to the rest of the followers of the Way for theirs. As my wife likes to say, the goal is to always be learning. The minute we feel we are experts in anything is usually the moment we trip and fall.
AMEN! Your humility and honesty is a breath of fresh air. I love the freedom that you have in your journey to go deeper and deeper still with the Lord. Thank you for that example. ~ Gaynor
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!! This post was deeply liberating for me. It put words and definition to what I had always felt within me. I know i’m quiet in this community but I do read and am massively impacted by the paradigm shifts I receive from your journey and discovery towards Him.
with Love and gratitude,
Alice
I knew another person, ‘pastor’ who had much this same approach, i respected him and looked up to him and considered his insights heavily. Over time he became enamored with his own understanding, undergirded by others who draped themselves around him like so much decor and his ‘insights’ became his own brand of dogma and doctrine.
then he got a degree, went from ‘pastor’ to ‘doctor’ and now everything is in stone. Sad, because i truly admired him and now, it’s hit or miss when i listen to him.
All that to say i appreciate your insights, from the gut, and i’m grateful for the few friends i’ve got that also follow you. We enjoy a good, spirited debate of things every once in a while and we laugh because now that we an understanding the hebraic world view and we’ve gone through some of your Galatians teachings we don’t feel like debating is either sinful or unholy.
It’s just really cool to learn from you.
Oh Skip, as the saying goes….Welcome to the group! Or I can just say ME TOO!
Thank you for what you send to us, hungry, thirsty children of the most high God that we want to understand.
Thanks Skip!! I appreciate your willingness to be transparent and true to the mission. I find it difficult at times to keep the voices of the past (doctrine and dogma) in their place. Its very comforting to know that we can participate in a community that truly understands the sovereignty of God and will hold steadfast to growing in an understanding of His Ways. You have been a huge a blessing to me and many others at TCC. Thanks for your leadership!
Thank You Skip. Wouldn’t it be amazing if all of us who hold to this could be in one place in fellowship together?
Eventually we will be.
Amen!
Hi Skip,
I have not been posting much in recent weeks but I am still here enjoying and pondering your prolific output every day! Naturally I also enjoy the comments of the TW group too.
It takes courage to do what you do in challenging your readers to take a second look at their belief systems and evaluate them for error. Really, nothing different than what we are told to do in the Word – “prove all things, hold fast that which is good.”
For what its worth, I will state the obvious. Any church or group that publishes their “statement of beliefs” set in cement has mostly lost a critically important dynamic. At its highest level that dynamic is spiritual growth! The symptomatic evidence is noticeable all over mainstream Christianity. Belief systems set in concrete stifle the work of the Holy Spirit in the individual! Since World War 2 church attendance has mostly declined particularly in Europe as the church failed to adequately answer the question: If there is a God, whey did HE allow Auschwitz, Treblinka and Buchenwald etc.,? But decline would have happened anyway because hierarchical structures are not a good way to run a church. The average Catholic or Protestant believer cedes the questioning and proving of their beliefs to their “experts” – their theologians and their church traditions. The fallout is brethren become jaded, even bored thinking that there is little new to discover about their God or even worse yet – fail to question if perhaps their beliefs might be shot through with theological errors!
Skip, I am not quiet as enamored as you seem to be about Judaism, but I have for many years marveled at the simplicity of their organizational structures in keeping it local: Torah, family, synagogue, school, Shabbat and Festivals, and a culture of discussion for those who want it. It is a wonderful example and a model for fledging Messianic communities.
I want to let you know that I am eternally grateful for having found TW and this community of truth seekers. No question, growing in grace and knowledge of HIM is a progressive upward path, a little steep and painful at times, but there is really no other way. So, thanks for being there and for being such an inspiration and provocative guide to all of us along the path.
Shalom
Thanks for all you do Skip. I love your humble approach to Scripture and the many facets of the revealed truth of God. I feel honored to have found someone like you who has more knowledge than me and can help me pursue the knowledge of God and His Kingdom. Your TW is one thing I try to do each day along with my other studies of Scripture. I love reading the writings of someone who is willing to change when he encounters truth. That is what I am trying to do too. I appreciate being able to be a part of this community and walk this road along with the other people who read your insights. Blessings and Shalom to you and yours. May all your travels be easy and productive for the Kingdom.
To me, the most dangerous teacher (or person for that matter) is the one who thinks he knows it all!
Keep learning, Skip, and keep sharing what you learn.
Thank you! We often hear the reassuring words that we need to “get to know” God, or that we need to “study” the word or to “know” the word, or that we should “stay on the path” or even “get back on the path.” However, the underlying subtext is that once we accept the Lord, we somehow automatically know everything. To admit that our relationship with God is like our relationship with anyone else in that it is an ongoing, lifelong learning somehow makes us suspect. To admit that we don’t know it all, that we have questions or–worse–doubts is close to heresy. So thank you so much for the encouragement some of us have found in your expression of your personal adventure.
Skip,
You have, as far as I can tell, removed all the barriers between yourself and your readers. That has resulted in me talking with you personally on the phone, listening to you personally via a Masters class, receiving emails regarding a few things and receiving personal comments via your TW blog.
Those few instances are galaxies away from ANYONE else that I have read about, watched or listened to.
So, what I’m trying to say is, thank you for sharing your life. Even though it is just your opinion, I value it greatly and above many others for the simple fact that you present it as just that, your opinion. (Your researched opinion, that is!) Others have presented their ‘opinions’ as a final doctrinal statement with apparent little, if any, room to discuss, debate or question. You, on the other hand, present the ‘maybe’s,’
the ‘possibly’s,’ and the ‘could it be’s’ in such a way that motivates me to desire a more critical gauge regarding previously settled issues.
As a result, I may be more unsettled on more issues, but the ones I am settled on, I know more fully, more completely and with more understanding. Thus, I stand more firmly on the foundations of life as reflected in a more biblical worldview. A large part of that has resulted from reading, struggling, digesting, wrestling and arguing with the things you write from a critical and loving and truth seeking heart.
Thank you.
Thank you for blazing the path Skip. Our little group here in Centralia WA. is a few steps behind you. It’s tough going some days, but we are too far into the thick of it to turn back now. So glad it’s you in front, brother.