Category Archives: Hebraic

How Torah Improves One’s Life & an Understanding of the Bible

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Boy reading from a gevil parchment scroll. This one is written on goat skin.

A New Way of Life

Coming to an understanding of YHVH Elohim’s Torah-laws and then adopting a Torah-compliant lifestyle coupled with viewing the Bible through a Hebraic perspective and context has numerous positive benefits in one’s life. A pro-Torah approach to one’s life is more than just…

  • Changing which day you go to church on.
  • Changing your eating habits.
  • Celebrating different holidays.
  • And, if you’re really into it, growing a beard and wearing blue fringes or tassels. 

Pursuing a Torah-centric lifestyle will not only change some aspects of your lifestyle, but will also change how you view the Bible, how you view Yeshua or Jesus, Elohim or God, yourself, the Jews, the land of Israel as well as your thinking about a lot of other things, and how you view yourself and your fellow Christians. It will also vastly deepen and broaden your understanding of the Bible in ways you could never imagine. Let’s briefly explore a few of these areas.

The Main Lifestyle Changes Include

  • Observing the seventh day Sabbath
  • Celebrating the biblical feasts
  • Adopting a biblically kosher diet

But as we are about to learn, this is only the beginning.

A New Perspective on the Bible

A pro-Torah and Hebraic view of the Bible opens up multiple new vistas in one’s understanding of the Bible. Here a few of them:

  • A more traditional  Greco-Roman, Western, caricaturized view of Jesus gives way to a more accurate Hebraic or Jewish and Middle Eastern view of the real and authentic Yeshua.
  • One learns that Yeshua in his pre-incarnate state was the God of the Old Testament and the one who interacted with the patriarchs, Moses, the children of Israel and the prophets. As such, he is the One, as the Word of Elohim who would eventually became flesh, who gave the ancient Hebrews his Torah-law.
  • One learns that the thesis-antithesis paradigm of the Old Testament Torah-law or law of Moses model versus the New Testament grace model is a false and church-invented construct, and that the concepts of law and grace are not antithetical as the mainstream church teaches but are complimentary and indivisible issues, and are, in reality, two sides of the same coin.
  • One gains a deeper understanding of who and what the church is. The church was neither birthed nor spontaneously combusted on the day of Pentecost. Rather the church is a long term continuation of YHVH’s relationship with his people going back for thousands of years and continues to this day and involves all of the saints.
  • A new and greater holistic view of the Bible emerges versus only seeing the Scriptures in a seemingly disparate, disjointed and unrelated parts and pieces. The pieces of this vast puzzle finally begin to fall into place and a much more glorious and expansive picture than ever imagined emerges.
  • A Hebraic or Eastern view of the Bible replaces a limited and somewhat cartoon Greco-Roman and Western Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant view.
  •  One begins to understand the Bible through Hebraic block logic rather than Greek step or syllogistic logic. 
  • One gains a deeper understanding of the rules of biblical interpretation including understanding Scripture in its whole Bible, linguistic, historical and cultural context. One also learns about the four levels of understanding the Bible known as the PaRDeS method (i.e., the simple, hinted at, allegorical and mystical levels). One also gains an understanding of and an appreciation for the concept of exegesis over eisegesis when correctly interpreting or rightly dividing the Word of Elohim.
  • A better understanding of biblical history and future events including the Hebraic understanding of cycles emerges.
  • One gains a new understanding of Paul and the real issues facing the New Testament church. The controversial issue that Paul was dealing  with was not the law versus grace and whether or not YHVH’s Torah-law was relevant to Christians. Rather, the issue was about a works-based salvation versus salvation by grace through faith. In Paul’s writings, the validity of the Torah-law was never the issue contrary to what mainstream Christianity has falsely taught over the millennia.
  • One gains a whole new perspective and understanding of Old Testament Bible prophecies as one learns who the ancient players were and who their modern descendants are and how that relates to end times Bible prophecy.
  • One learns who the two houses of Israel were and who their modern descendants are and how that relates to each of us regarding our future destiny as it relates to the establishment YHVH’s kingdom on earth.

A New Perspective About Yourself

As one embraces the Torah and the Hebrew roots of one’s faith…

  • A new and fuller perspective on the biblical definition of sin emerges. One learns that YHVH’s Torah-law defines sin, not church traditions and the rules of men. This is both liberating and sets one’s life on a more solid spiritual foundation based on the Truth of the Bible as opposed to the unbiblical traditions of men.
  • One gains a new and fuller perspective and understanding on who you are as a grafted-in Israelite. You are no longer a Gentile who is without God and without hope, but are part of the commonwealth, nation, citizenship and covenants of Israel. You are a redeemed Israelite and the literal offspring of Abraham and you are part of YHVH’s chosen people along with our Jewish brothers. This is an enormously empowering concept!
  • One obtains a new and fuller understanding of what holiness is and how to become holy. The Bible defines what people, things, practices or times are holy, not men.
  • Your physical diet improves. This is because one becomes a label reader and discovers that one has not only been eating biblical non-kosher foods, but a lot of unhealthy junk and chemical ingredients as well. By eliminating these toxic substances from one’s diet, one’s health will improve because one stops eating physical junk food.
  • One’s spiritual diet will improve. One becomes a spiritual label reader and begins to compare what the mainstream church is teaching or not teaching compared to what the Bible really says. As a result, one stops feeding from the toxic mixture of truth and lies that are emanating from the pulpit, which is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and one starts feeding from the whole Truth of the Bible, which is the tree of life. Thus, one’s spiritual health improves as one stops eating spiritual junk food.
  • One gains a deeper understanding of what it is to be the temple of the Holy Spirit and what it means to live a sanctified and holy life.

A New Perspective on Some Other Things

One gains…

  • A new love for the land of Israel.
  • A new love for the Jewish people.
  • A new love for YHVH’s lost and scattered sheep of the house of Israel. 
  • An expanded and deeper understanding of the gospel message including Yeshua’s remarriage to his Israelite bride and why he had to die on the cross to pay the sin price for his adulterous wife.
  • A fuller understanding on what it is to be the bride of Yeshua and how to prepare for and qualify to be his glorious and immortalized bride.
  • An understanding of the heavenly and temporal rewards that one will receive as a result Torah obedience versus not obeying YHVH’s Torah.
 

Is the Hebrew Roots Movement a Cult or “the Faith Once Delivered”?

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Boy reading from a gevil parchment scroll. This one is written on goat skin.

Jude 3, Contend…for the faith…once…delivered.

Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. (Jude 1:3, emphasis added)

In recent year there has been great awareness brought upon the subject of non-Christian cults by Christian apologetic organizations whose mission it is to defend the “historic Christian faith” against teachings they consider to be contrary to the Bible and to traditional or normative Christian theology and tradition.

Many well-meaning and sometimes misguided Christians in their zeal to protect Christian beliefs from the onslaught of cult groups who are attempting to missionize those around them including Christians have developed a fortress-like mentality where they deem everything a cult that does not agree with their understanding of the “historic Christian faith”. Yet many of these same Christians would be hard-pressed to give a dictionary definition of the word cult or to define it in terms of the sociological, psychological and theological perimeters laid out by those Christian theologians who have been pioneers in the area of cult awareness, Christian apologetics to cultists and defining what a cult is.

The author has a unique perspective on the subject of cultism having been born and raised in a name-brand cult till age 30 where upon leaving the cult he became an ordained Christian evangelist in a major Christian (Protestant) denomination where he evangelized those bound up in cultism.

Let us first define from Webster’s Dictionary the word cult:

  • 1) a particular system of religious worship; 
  • 2) an instance of great veneration of a person, ideal, or thing; 
  • 3) the object of such devotion;
  • 4) a group or sect bound together by devotion to or veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc…
  • 5) religion that is considered or held to be false or unorthodox (Webster’s Encyclopedia of the English Language, Random House, 1983).

How does the late Dr. Walter Martin, author of the famous book, The Kingdom of the Cults and founder of the anti-cult, Christian apologetic organization, The Christian Research Institute in southern California define a cult. In the above-named book on page 11, quoting a Dr. Braden, Martin writes: “A cult…is any religious group which differs significantly in some one or more respects as to belief or practice from those religious groups which are regarded as the normative expression of religion in our total culture [emphasis added].”

To properly answer the question stated in the title of this article, Is the Hebrew Roots Movement cultic or is Christianity a cult? We must ask and explore the following questions: What is normative? No doubt, whatever the majority is believing at a particular point in history could be called normative. But is the majority always right? Who is the majority now? Was it always the majority? These are questions that need to be asked and addressed when defining the word “cult.” 

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What’s so significant about the shofar and its sound?

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Exodus 19:16,19 Voice of the trumpet [shofar]. In Jewish thought, the Scriptures speak of three great shofar blasts that have historical and prophetic significance: the first, last and great or final shofar blasts. These are: 

The First Trump (or shofar blast) occurred on Shavuot at the giving of the Torah (Matan Torah) at Mount Sinai (Exod 19:16, 19). This shofar blast was of heavenly origin and is the first time the Bible records the sound of the shofar being heard.

The Last Trump (or shofar blast) occurs on Yom Teruah (the Day of Trumpets/Shofar Blasts, commonly called Rosh Hoshana) is the day of the awakening blast calling the saints to prepare their spiritual garments in preparation for the coming Messiah or Bridegroom. This shofar blast corresponds to the last trumpet blast of Revelation 11:15 after which the resurrection of the righteous occurs (1 Cor 15:51–53).

The Great Trumpet or Final Trumpet (or shofar blast called the Shofar HaGadol) is blown on Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) signifying the Elohim’s day of judgment and the return of Messiah Yeshua as the King and Judge of the earth. At this time, it seems likely that he will destroy Babylon the Great with its new world order religious, political and economic system (Rev 19:1–21 cp. Rev 18) just before the establishment of his millennial kingdom (Rev 20:1–10). Historically on the Day of Atonement, the jubilee trumpet sounded in Israel on the fiftieth year. At this time, the captives were set free, debts were forgiven and all land was returned to its original owners. Matthew says that Yeshua the Messiah will return with a great sound of a shofar (trumpet, Matt 24:30–31; 1 Thess 4:16). Perhaps this is a reference to the shofar ha-gadol when Yeshua returns to earth, will set the spiritual captives free from enslavement to the enslaving economic, religious and political tentacles of end time Babylon the Great.

What’s So Mystical About the Sound of the Shofar?

The Shofar

The ram’s horn shofar is a uniquely biblical instrument. Although the enemies of Elohim’s truth have misappropriated, counterfeited or perverted much of what is found in the Bible, so far as this author knows, the shofar is one thing that Satan, the adversary of all that is good, and his followers have left alone. It’s like the proverbial “hot potato” that’s too hot to touch. Why is this? What is it about the shofar that causes Elohim’s enemies to leave well it alone? Let’s explore the mystical qualities of this biblical instrument of divine origination that has the ability to stir the human heart at its deepest level, to pierce the heavens, to bring man back to Elohim and vice versa, and to send spiritual shock waves through the devil’s camp.

The Word Shofar Defined

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Blow that shofar!

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Psalm 81:3, Blow the trumpet [Heb. shofar] at the time of the New Moon [Heb. chodesh], at the full moon [Heb. keseh meaning full moon or concealed, covered—scholars disagree as to its meaning and the origin of the word], on our solemn feast day [Heb. chag] — NKJV. The ArtScroll Stone Edition Tanach translates this verse alternatively as follows,

Blow the shofar at the moon’s renewal, at the time appointed for our festive day.

The origins of the Hebrew word keseh behind the phrase “full moon” is uncertain and there is debate among the experts on this subject. Some Hebrew lexicons relate it to a Hebrew root word meaning “to conceal, to cover” (e.g. Gesenius; Strong’s number H3677 cp. H3678), while others tell us that it means “fullness; full moon” (e.g. Brown Driver Briggs Hebrew Lexicon; cp. The TWOT; Strong’s). BDB tells us that the origin of keseh is unknown and that it may be an Aramaic loan word meaning “full moon.” Gesenius in his lexicon states that the etymology of keseh isn’t clear, but he favors the idea of the moon being covered or concealed in darkness as opposed to being covered in light (i.e., in its full moon state). 

The only other usage of keseh in the Scriptures is found in Prov 7:20, which gives us no clue as to the exact meaning of the word.

Orthodox Jewish scholars tell us that keseh means “to conceal or to cover.” They say that the only biblical festival that occurs at the time of the new moon (biblically, when the first sliver of the new moon becomes visible) is Yom Teruah (or Rosh HaShanah), which occurs on the first day of the seventh month (in late summer). At this time, the moon is nearly completely covered or concealed except for a small, visible sliver.

The next phrase in this verse speaks of a solemn feast day, which is the Hebrew word chag. This word refers to the three pilgrimage festivals, which are Passover and the Feast (or chag) of Unleavened, the Feast (or chag) of Weeks or Pentecost and the Feast (or chag) of Tabernacles (Exod 23:14–16; Deut 16:16).

Jewish scholars relate the word chag to Yom Teruah (which they say refers to Rosh HaShanah, see The ArtScroll Tanach Series Tehillim/Psalms Commentary on this verse). The problem with this interpretation is that the Scriptures never call the day of the new moon (rosh chodesh) a chag, nor is Yom Teruah technically a chag either in the strictest sense of the meaning of the word and its usage in Scripture. Therefore, the word keseh, if it means “concealment” must be referring to both the new moon day (the first day of each month, and to Yom Teruah, which occurs on the first day of the seventh month), while the chag must be referring to the three pilgrimage festivals.

Those scholars who take the word keseh to mean “full moon” say that the phrase in this verse containing this word refers to the pilgrimage festivals (Passover/Feast of Unleavened Bread, Feast of Weeks, and Feast of Tabernacles), which all occurred on or very near the time of the full moon.

Whichever interpretation you side with, the bottom line is this: The Scriptures command us to sound the shofar at the time of the New Moon, on Yom Teruah and during the three pilgrimage feasts. (See also Num 10:10.)