1 Corinthians chapter 3
Today we are walking in: The Hebrew Roots Of The Faith
Proverbs 20:6
Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness: but a faithful H529 man who can find?
FAITH
Today we look to the word FAITH-- H529- emuwn--faithfulness, trusting, faithful
The Torah testifies...............
Deuteronomy 32:20
And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith H529
The prophets proclaim..................
Habakkuk 2:4
Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith H529.
The writings bear witness............
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The Hebrew Roots of the Christian Faith
"Do you not know that you are the temple of Yah and that the Spirit of Yah dwells in you?" (1 Corinthians 3:16)
When the Most High says that you are the temple of the Living Yah, He is imparting His desire to dwell within you. He says that you and your lineage are a house of Yah. Your Commonwealth inheritance wasn't only to be born again. It also meant that you would continue to walk into what Yah has already prepared for you-the Torah. And when you are following the Torah in a systematic, Spirit-filled way, it is called the Realm of Life. When you step into this realm you will maximize your productivity, you will multiply, and the Most High will make fruitful all of the things that you put your hands to. You will prosper spiritually, physically, financially, and emotionally.
It now becomes abundantly clear why the enemy has propagated so much deception and debate about the Word of Yah, and why the Torah been presented as "legalism" rather than lifestyle. Remember, these are not salvation issues! The Torah can never save you. Salvation is not of works, but ONLY in Jesus Christ, Yahusha HaMashiach.
Just as Jesus did not carry a King James Version of the Bible, He also did not celebrate Christmas and Easter, or instruct any of His followers to do so. These "holidays" were incorporated into Christianity some 300 years after the resurrection of Yahusha. The Biblical Holy Days have not changed since they were given and recorded in Leviticus Chapter 23. They are the Feasts and Festivals of the Most High called Moadim in Hebrew-Feasts that include Passover, the Day of Atonement, and the weekly Sabbath.
Most churches today do not even teach about the Biblical Feast Days. Many believers consider these Feasts to be 'Hebrew' only, and have absolutely no familiarity with the Biblical Feasts and the specific blessings they contain. As I've stated, when your confession matches your conduct, it's called the glory of Yah. The Church wants to experience the glory, yet we're trying to obtain it without any regard to Yah's Teaching and Instruction (Torah), and faith requires an instruction.
So how did we get here? How did we come to believe that the "Church" began in Acts Chapter 2, when in fact, the Church and Acts 2 come right out of the Torah? The great outpouring of the Spirit was a perfectly timed fulfillment of the Feast of Shavuot (Pentecost)-the fourth Biblical Spring Feast (Leviticus 23). The Apostles and those gathered with them were keeping the Commands of Yah. Three times a year, on the Feasts of Pesach (Passover), Shavuot (Pente-cost), and Sukkot (Tabernacles), the men of Israel were instructed to come up to Jerusalem. They were following this exact instruction of the Torah, at exactly the right time, in exactly the right place-and Yah met their obedience with a miracle!
The Early Church
Rabbi Stanley Wagner holds a PhD in Hebrew history and is recognized as one of the foremost authorities on the history of Israel. Rabbi Wag-ner, speaking at a National conference, stated his five-point rule regarding Israel:
1. You can say you love Israel
2. You can say you love the People of Israel
3. You can say you love the Yah of Israel
4. You can say you love the Land of Israel
5. BUT, if you don't love the Torah (Yah's teaching and instruction) and you teach against it, you will be anti-Semitic and history has shown you will eventually turn your back on the Hebrew People!?
In the 2nd century A.D., an influential and charismatic individual named Marcion taught that the Yah of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob-the Yah of the Torah-was a "law-giving" Yah, and that Jesus came down to set us free from this law, and Jesus came to bring us Grace! Marcion taught a two-Deity principle which identified two separate Yahs—a wrathful Yah of the Old Testament and a forgiving Yah of the New Testament. Even though Marcion's writings were later condemned as heresy, and Marcion himself was xcommu-nicated from the Church, his teachings contrasting Law and Grace heavily influenced the early church fathers.
In the 4th century there was a man by the name of John Chrysostom (344-407 AD) who was a Bishop of the Church of Antioch ... However, John Chrysostom hated Jews. He blamed the entire Hebrew people for the death of Jesus and sought to separate Christianity from its Hebrew Roots. John Chrysostom gave a series of eight sermons in which he spoke violently against the Jews. These sermons were put into a written format and widely circulated. Although many early church fathers spoke harshly against the Jews, John Chrysostom was the most vicious. His sermons fanned the flames of anti-Semitism and would become the teaching and practice of the church for the next 1,600 years.
Sixteen hundred years, just think about that. Nearly two millennia of time and Chrysostom's sermons still permeate Church doctrine and teaching today!
From Marcion and Chrysostom, continuing with Origen, Eusebius, Constantine, St. August-ine, and St. Thomas Aquinas, from century to century, differing philosophies, theologies, and events influenced the early Church fathers to view and teach the Torah as something nega-tive. Because they themselves had become disconnected from the Hebraic background of the Scriptures, they actively sought to sever Christianity from its Hebrew roots-especially the Torah. Origen, as still taught in many seminaries today, is considered to be a preeminent Greek scholar and theologian. Origen was merely a man, but looked upon himself as a Yah, even castrating himself based on this misconception.
Origen's primary student, Eusebius, propagated Origen's flawed teachings about the Torah, further distancing believers and primary Church doctrines from the Hebrew roots of the Christian faith.
Because of their background and education, the early church fathers of the second, third, and fourth centuries, misunderstood and misinterpreted many of Paul's sayings, which they used to establish differences between Christianity and Judaism that cannot be supported in the Bible. These Greek-Christian scholars became leaders of the emerging Gentile dominated church and their false theology contrasting law and grace as opposing means of salvation became official church doctrine.
After Origen and Eusebius, Church history would again dramatically shift under the Roman Emperor Constantine who "legitim-ized" Christianity as the official state religion of Rome. As Emperor, Constantine faced the complex problems of indoctrinating a predominantly pagan and polytheistic (multiple Yahs) Rome into the still emerging tenets of Chris-tianity. To make Rome's "new" religion more palatable to the people of his empire, Constantine changed the Sabbath Day to Sunday at the Council of Nicea, c. 325 A.D., and enacted other sweeping changes which combined pagan idolatry worship with the Torah—a process called syncretism.
Constantine replaced the Biblical Feast of Passover with a formalized celebration of Easter —a day syncretized from a pagan festival at the Spring Equinox honoring the Babylonian fertility Yahdess Ishtar. December 25th, a longstanding pagan celebration of Saturnalia (Win-ter Solstice, also believed to be the birthdate of the pagan Yah Mithra), became Christmas and a commemoration of the birth of Jesus.
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