Yeshua
required his disciples to do things, not believe things. What kind of things
did Yeshua want his disciples to do?
(1) Learn
– The word “disciple” comes from the Latin word discere which means "to learn." The educational model in
Yeshua’s movement involves being engaged in face-to-face interactive discussions.
Yeshua would have been much more interested in the quality of a disciple’s
questions than answers.
(2) Time-Tested
Values – Yeshua didn’t use the word values, but that is the best word in
our language, in my opinion, that describes what he taught. He lived in a world
dominated by Late Second Temple Period Israelite culture. It was not a democracy.
There was no “separation of religion and politics.” Rabbinic Judaism didn’t
exist. Yeshua didn’t focus on religious rituals or prayers. His teachings were
about relationships: relationships of
people to Yahweh & relationships of people with each other. The values he
taught were about how to have those relationships. They fall into two
categories: TZEDAQAH (righteousness) and MISHPAT (justice). They are introduced
in the opening accounts of Genesis and are repeatedly taught throughout the
Hebrew Scriptures. They are time-tested values.
(3) Eternal
Life Based on Actions – Matthew 25:31-46 records Yeshua’s “Salvation Message,”
meaning how to have eternal life. According to Yeshua, those who do TZEDAQAH
(the righteous) will enter eternal life. What did they do? They fed the hungry,
clothed the naked, visited the sick, etc. They did what Isaiah taught in
chapter 58, Ezekiel taught in chapter 34, and many other places in his
Scriptures. For the Creator, taking care of human life was his top priority and
that was the top priority of Yeshua too.
(4) Religious
rituals are useless without TZEDAQAH and MISHPAT – This is another theme
that appears in Yeshua’s teachings, a theme that is also repeated throughout
the Hebrew Scriptures. Cain and Abel were involved in a religious ritual and
that led to the first murder. The people in Isaiah 58 were involved in religious
rituals – fasting and prayer -- while at the same time ignoring the living
conditions of those around them. Without acts of TZEDAQAH, their rituals and
prayers were ignored.
Paul
taught a Gospel that he claimed he had been chosen -- before he was born -- to
deliver to mankind. He made it clear that Yeshua didn’t teach it and Yeshua’s
apostles didn’t know it. It was a Gospel
of Glorification.
(1) Glorification
-- A mysterious process by which people with flesh and blood living or resurrected
bodies will be transformed into Spirit-Beings with glorious spiritual bodies
and become spirit-beings with citizenships in heaven, where they will live
forever.
(2) God
foreknew and predetermined those who will be glorified. -- God foreknew and
predetermined those who will be glorified to share the likeness of the image of
his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brothers (Romans
8:29-30).
(3) Paul’s
Gospel required for Glorification -- God will call those he predetermined
to be glorified through Paul as he proclaims his Gospel.
(4) Righteousness
by answering Paul’s call. -- God will justify (make righteous) those who
answer Paul’s call. It is a mystical experience done to a believer.
(5) At
some unknown date in the future God will glorify the justified. – This will
take place when Christ descends from heaven. The dead in Christ will rise along
with the justified that are alive. They will all be caught up together in the
clouds and experience, simultaneously, a transforming immortalization and
receive their new glorified spiritual bodies.
(6) The
justified will go to heaven. -- The glorified will then be taken to heaven
where they will live with God forever. Nothing is said about everyone else or
what happens on earth.
Later
Christians removed the “foreknew and predetermined”
part of Paul’s message and replaced it with things like freewill, church
membership, correct beliefs, having an emotional experience, etc. Today, there
are thousands of Christian denominations, many more independent churches and
even more individualized Christians who have Buffet Belief Systems (they pick
and choose what they want from other Belief Systems and create their own) – and obviously they do not agree on what to
believe.
We
have had almost 2000 years of Christian religions based on modified versions of
Paul’s Gospel that produced crusades, inquisitions, endless protests, heated conflicts
and church splits over beliefs. Needless to say, if Christians had followed
the teachings of Yeshua and adopted his values which place the protection and
preservation of human first – those things
would not have taken place. So why is Paul’s Gospel still so popular?
(1) Most Christians aren’t aware of the
histories of their religion or Values of Yeshua.
(2) No church that I know of teaches
Yeshua’s Values Message as their Salvation Message.
(3) Paul’s Gospel is easy! A person
doesn’t have to do anything but “believe” to go to heaven.
Of
course, the serpent in the Garden of Eden persuaded Eve and Adam that all they
had to do to become like God was take a bite of a piece of fruit!
What
does Yahweh care about? It is you and your life, and the lives of everyone
else. What does he want people to do? Based on what Yeshua taught, our
conclusion is that he wants people to reveal his image through their words and
actions in their daily lives by doing acts of righteousness and justice.
(1) If you consider this information important
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Shalom,
Jim
Myers
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