It all started with the Apostle Paul … who wrote:
"Do, we then nullify Torah by faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we establish Torah." (Romans 3:31).
That is the very verse that caused me to realize "something was wrong in church" – in January 1995, just months after Abba opened my spiritual eyes to Him and HIS Truth!
I realized this because, I had tons of questions as I was reading my way through the Bible; but every every time I asked my Baptist pastor something (such as, "Since we're all one in Christ, why aren't WE keeping the Seventh Day Sabbath and Feasts?), his answers always included things like, “That was just for the Jews and the death of Jesus abolished all that. Today we live under grace alone. You need to realize, Carmen - it’s Jesus plus NOTHING!”
And then, he would send me to the writings of Paul, many of which seemed to negate "the law"...
I tried my best to believe my pastor, but some of the things he said simply didn’t “feel right” to me! Paul wasn’t divine, and I wondered WHY he would have had the authority to change what Jesus had taught, or what his Father had originally commanded to be done "forever" and “throughout your generations."
Jesus himself had even said so in Matthew 5:17-20, via certain phrases that smacked me square in the face in the realization that “everything that must happen" had NOT happened yet; and that "heaven and earth had NOT yet passed away”…
The bottom line was that one day, I finally admitted to myself that my beloved pastor – with his Masters in Divinity and decades of pastoring - had clearly been MISUNDERSTANDING something!
And so, I began to a little "church hopping" to see what other pastors had to say, and to find out how THEY would answer my questions! But, their answers weren't much different. SOMETHING seemed to be "missing" in ALL the churches I checked out!
Despondent, I came home one Sunday and literally threw myself face-down onto the floor, begging God to SHOW me exactly why I kept having this nagging feeling about the things being taught in churches. I was sick and tired of having pastors tell me I should stop trying to "put myself back under the law!"
I mean – WHAT was supposedly WRONG with God’s LAWS??? WHY would He suddenly reverse everything He had commanded and allow “Christians” – just because they were non-Jews – to NOT obey His “forever” commands? WHY would God have sent His Messiah to give different rules to Christians?
It dawned on me that Adam and Eve weren’t Jews! Neither was anyone else until the third Patriarch, Jacob had a son named Judah (where the term “Jew” originated!) Yet, THEY ALL had rules to follow….Yet, Christians were somehow so special that THEY didn’t need any rules and were to simply “just believe in Jesus plus nothing” as pastors were insisting?
I did NOT buy that!
Well … God didn't respond immediately (which was very disappointing); however, for approximately six months, I kept hearing this little voice in my head, telling me to sell all my possessions and move to a certain place in another State! (Trust me - I did NOT want to move - much less, be forced to sell my house and all my possessions! The words,"This CAN'T BE FROM GOD!” kept reverberating in my mind.)
But, it WAS from God (and down deep, I KNEW that), and so I finally gave in, sold everything I owned, except my car, my clothes and some personal items - and moved.
Unfortunately, He caused me to wait a a whole YEAR for “something to happen” to let me know I had really heard that voice … but … NOTHING. No job, no new friends, nothing. I was super unhappy – even despondent and left wondering if perhaps I was just crazy, believing that God would actually tell me to sell everything, leave all my friends, and move...
But one day, just like that - BAM! – everything changed! Through some really unexpected circumstances, YHWH caused me to end up working in a place I really didn’t care for, but where I clearly needed to be, because it was there I met a guy who opened my eyes to the idea of Torah and caused me to end up in a Messianic Torah study led by a Rabbi who taught things I had never heard before, basically negating many of the things I had learned in Christian churches!
Around the same time, YHWH also caused me to meet my future husband in that same place I didn’t care for – a man who accepted YHWH/Yeshua/Torah and married me in April of 2000.
What I wish to convey with my very condensed testimony is that, when you KNOW YHWH is speaking, pay close attention! Do NOT ignore Him, no matter how “odd” His Plan might seem or feel to you! I am pretty sure that, had I chosen to ignore Him all those years ago, He would have left me right where I was, never really learning or growing – much less having the privilege of being a preacher of His WHOLE TRUTH! Halleluyah!
I have a question somewhat relating to your post: was Hebrew the original language of the earth up until Babel? I've been pondering this lately.
ReplyDeleteThe answer depends on who you ask. Many scientists will talk about a human "proto-language". The oldest known language is supposedly Sanskrit from about 5000 BCE. All Eastern hemisphere languages seem to have come from it.
ReplyDeleteHebrew seems to be about 3-4000 years old and is considered in most scholarly circles as the "holy language", and the original (lost) Torah is thought to have been written in Hebrew.
We know the exodus was about 1476 BCE and the earliest form of the Torah had to be recorded about that same time which means both the spoken and written Hebrew had to exist at that time. We are told that the Tablets were written by the "finger of God" (Exodus 31:18) so perhaps Hebrew was the original civilized language.
Yet...at the time of the exodus the Hebrews were fleeing Egypt where they were captives for 400+ years. So what language did Egypt use? Was that the earliest language? It all gets very difficult to study. Indeed, many linguists regard the search for a ‘first’ language as utterly pointless for we can never know.