Reader challenges our article about Halloween

READER COMMENT TO OUR WEBSITE'S ARTICLE ABOUT HALLOWEEN:

For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: "Love your neighbor as yourself." To the pure, all things are pure... Titus 1:15

OUR RESPONSE:

If you are attempting to use those scriptures to justify participating in Halloween, then we suggest you stop reading the Bible "with" your understanding and read it "for" understanding.

You have quoted Galatians 5:14 "For the whole of the Torah is summed up in this one sentence: 'Love your neighbor as yourself'," and Titus 1:15; but you don't understand them. Paul, in his letter to Galatia, is writing to believers who have been misled and confused about how they are supposed to live now that they have the "Good News" of the Messiah. Please go back and read Galatians 1.

Galatians is the worst book of the NT for people to read when they don't understand YHWH or Yeshua. Out of context, as you are reading it, it sounds like your understanding is correct, that "the entire Torah is summed up in 'love your neighbor as yourself' ". But in context, knowing what was going on in Galatia, and knowing what Paul was saying, the meaning is completely different!

Paul is not "doing away with Torah"; rather he is quoting Leviticus 19:18. In Galatia, people were fighting and arguing with each other about how they should observe Torah. "You have to do it this way!"; "No! You do it this way!", etc. Paul was only saying "Knock it off!" He was NOT saying that all of Torah is accomplished by that one verse!

Yeshua said the GREATEST and most important commandment is "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind" (Matthew 22:37) - and Paul cannot negate Yeshua! In fact, Yeshua went on to say that ALL the commandments of Torah "hang" on that greatest commandment and on the second, "love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:39-40).

You have clearly not understood the verse you quoted! Similarly, you have not understood Titus 1:15 - again, out of context. Here's a suggestion: Don't read the New Testament anymore until you have read and studied the whole "Old Testament." Then and only then will you will have an understanding of Torah, and the "New Testament" will start to make sense.

In the meantime - I'll address your error about Titus 1:15:

It's Paul again, this time writing to Titus, giving Titus instructions on how to deal with believers in his community and appoint good leaders so they can properly teach. See Titus 1:4-9. When you read 1:15, Paul is talking about the Jews in the community who are teaching falsely (1:10). Paul is saying "[IF they] themselves were pure, then everything [they teach would be] pure."

But Paul goes on in the same verse: "But to those who are defiled and without trust, nothing [they teach] is pure — even their minds and consciences have been defiled. 16 They claim to know God, but with their actions they deny him. They are detestable and disobedient; they have proved themselves unfit to do anything good."

Thus, in context, you are wrongly taking part of 1:15, "To the pure, all things are pure", on its own to conclude it means what you thought it meant.

We, at The Refiner's Fire, highly suggest you read the entire Bible, every word, from cover to cover, BEFORE making any more assumptions.