Monday, October 24, 2016

How I found my way to Torah

For those who didn't know this, I was "saved" in a Baptist church, back in January 1995. Before that, I had never given God or the Bible much thought (although He tried His best to get me to find my way to Him throughout the course of my life). But once the Ruach smacked me between the eyes in that little Baptist church, I suddenly couldn't get enough of the Word, and I studied everything I could possibly get my hands on (the Bible and all kinds of workbooks).

However, it didn't take me long to realize "something was missing in the church." Consequently, I was NOT getting any satisfactory answers from my pastor or Bible study teachers, who seemed to ignore the OT and pushed me toward the NT - specifically, the writings of Paul, which seemed to negate everything YHWH had commanded and what Yeshua had taught (which, of course, wasn't so, because the problem was in the myriad Bible translations AND the failure to use the "Hebrew mindset" while studying Scripture).

Still, EVERYTHING in every church I ever attended over the next three years seemed to be based on what "Paul said" - never mind what YHWH commanded and the Yeshua taught. PAUL was the important one - never mind that Paul wasn't God!

And so, I kept questioning the pastors and wondering why there were so many different "denominations" and how they were able to have their own interpretations of Scripture, with each one insisting THEIR interpretation was the "right" one....

For some reason, none of the various "denominations" or their teachings made any sense to me, especially when it came to Torah obedience, which they all insisted was a "curse." Back then, I had never even heard of Torah, but I "felt" that, since we were all ONE IN CHRIST, we should all be doing at the very least the Seventh Day Sabbath and the Feasts. After all, God had commanded ALL to do them, not just "the Jews." (There were no "Jews" when the Seventh Day Sabbath REST was established!) God said in various ways that ALL are to do as HIS people do - and He even said it FOUR TIMES in a row in Numbers 15:13-16!)

So, what was the problem???

What stuck with me was that, one day I came upon the scripture where Paul said, "Does this mean we negate the law? May it never be! On the contrary, we ESTABLISH the law!" (Romans 3:31 - also, see my article on this issue.)

Well, that blew me away, and I realized that pastors apparently couldn't see the significance of that statement - and so I asked YHWH to help me understand, not only that statement but EVERYTHING my human mindset could possibly understand.

Three years after I "got saved" He caused me to find my way to a Messianic Torah study, where the Bible suddenly began to make sense …

And the rest his history.

2 comments:

  1. Shali, it appears many Christians hide behind "what Jesus did" or "what Paul says." There is definitely more to it than "believing Jesus" or "Paul says," especially when Paul's writings are taken out of context.

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