Following. I remember following my son Dave (or attempting to) on a backpacking trip with Young Life in British Columbia. We were on Day 1. We were heading up the mountain on an old logging road that was covered with thick alders...like giant, thick sticker bushes you had to push through and Dave was in front of me. It was raining. It started to get cold. We were hungry. It was miserable and only morning of Day 1! I was trying to keep up. There was barely a trail. All I could see was Dave's blue rain coat ahead of me. For a few seconds I would see him, then he would disappear into the thicket and the mist. I would feel lost, unsure of where I was going...then that blue rain coat would reappear. Thankfully. Like grasping in the mist to make sure I was still on the right path. Thank goodness for that blue raincoat! (This trip was infamous...and there's a song all about it called Alder Roads by Dave Beck)
I have to admit that my experience of following Jesus (Yeshua is His name in Hebrew) over the course of my life has been like our hike up Alder Road. Sometimes the way seemed clear and I could see Him. A lot of the time it has been more like trying to grasp at someone walking through the mist. But I would have to say that since I have been on this journey of returning to the Hebrew Roots of the faith, following has never been more clear. And the view is amazing. And everything is beginning (I mean everything) to make sense. From a Hebrew perspective.
What does "Hebrew Roots" mean anyway? Good question. I didn't know. Then I found out. Now some of this was familiar to me, given my years of Bible study and 3 trips to Israel over the last 12 years. But most of it was not.
Returning to the Hebrew Roots of the faith means to study and view the Bible through the Hebraic lens. That makes sense to me given nearly all the writers of the entire Bible were Hebrews! A Hebrew is a descendant through the line of Abraham, Issac and Jacob. Jacob who's name was changed by God to Israel had 12 sons...creating the 12 tribes of Israel. The Jewish people descended from one of those tribes, Judah. Jesus, or Yeshua, His name in the original Hebrew language, descended from the tribe of Judah, so He is Jewish as well!
Why does this matter? Well, when I started exploring history, in the first 3-4 centuries after Yeshua was crucified and rose again, I learned that many changes were made to "The Way" (the original name of our faith in Yeshua) that "Romanized" the faith, making it hardly recognizable from what Yeshua and the early disciples practiced. Including renaming it to Christianity. And a good part of these "romanized" doctrines and practices that we engage in today are not found in the Bible. In addition, our western point of view and culture emanates from the Greek/Roman mindset. We naturally will read/study the Bible through that lens rather than a Hebrew lens from which it was written and in many cases, that looses and changes the meaning.
I can imagine your reaction right now. I know what mine was. Disbelief. I didn't want to believe this or accept it. I was kind of squirming in my chair. It doesn't sit well. At all. It creates a cognitive dissonance. Part of me did not want to accept it.
But I plunged on. Getting back to the Hebrew Roots of the faith then, is getting back to the original meaning, intent and practices that Yeshua taught and practiced as did his disciples and followers for 1-200 years until many of these things were outlawed because the practices were Jewish. If I want to truly follow Yeshua, which is what He is inviting me to do, I want to know what that really means. So, I go back to the Hebrew Roots of the faith. And interestingly enough, I am also reminded that I have been "grafted in" to the vine of Israel (Romans 11) and am an heir of Abraham's (Galatians 3 :29) as is every one who believes on Yeshua for salvation. That makes me a Hebrew too. Adopted into the family.
So how did I come across all of this? What got me started on this path? As I look back there are several markers that I believe were very significant.
In November of 2010, a little over a year ago, while doing a study on the book of Daniel, I was led to begin submitting my life under the Father's authority every day, on my face even. Now this wasn't my idea. It was a Beth Moore study, and she was sharing the impact it had on her life. It was something she had begun to do and Daniel was certainly our role model as He prayed 3 times a day on his face. I had felt restless in my faith, off and on for years. I really desired to let God have authority over my life, so I began to submit to Him daily. Things began to shift. Everything was about to change.
First I began to see that there have been times in my life I have too quickly held to theories or ideas as "truth", only later to find some refuting evidence. Now this could be in any realm such as nutrition, psychology, scientific theories, or spiritual/biblical thought. In December 2010 I was attending a training for consulting therapists, and something I had been taught previously about the brain and taught in my couple workshops was pretty much refuted by a neuro biologist. The trainer asked us what our take away from that discussion had been and I shared that I'd made an intentional decision from that point on to hold theories "lightly" until more fully substantiated. I believe this was a small shift that not only helped me be more open to question other long held stands of my own, but also become a better Barean. A Barean were people from Barea who Paul describes in Acts 17:11-12 as examining the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul taught was true. They didn't just take his word for it. The scriptures they were examining was the Tanach (what we call the Old Testament) as the New Testament had not yet been written down. When I started to come across information that was different than some of my long held Biblical convictions or beliefs, instead of just dismissing them or too quickly adapting them, I began to examine the scriptures on my own. I consulted Strong's Concordance from which both a Hebrew and Greek understanding/definition of the words are found in the original Greek and Hebrew. I learned about Hebraisms and how the Hebrew mindset is different from the Greek/Roman mindset under which I have been cultured, educated and raised being a westerner. I kept studying.
In the midst of this, in February 2011, our small group was watching a DVD series by Ray Vanderlaan, an in-depth Bible teacher who covers the cultural, archaeological, and especially the Hebrew or Jewish context of the scriptures. He was teaching on the Essenes, a Jewish sect who withdrew into the wilderness out of the Greek/Hellenized culture of Jerusalem/Israel about 150 years before Christ was born. They wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls. A thought that Ray shared was how they approached and lived life from a Hebrew mindset rather than a Greek mindset. One important aspect of a Greek mindset is "all about me" and living life in pursuit of my own happiness. This definitely resonated with my experience living in the USA and my tendencies The Hebrew mindset is all about God and living life with Him at the center, in pursuit of His desires. This really spoke to me. I took note, and wrote it down.
Later in Fevruary I reveived an email from a frenid asking me to checkout a teaching on the blood moons diocvered by Mark Biltz at El Shaddai. Ministries. This really got my attendtion as he discovered a unique and rare pattern of blood moons on NASA's website lining up on Passover and Sukkot (spring and fall) in 2014 and 2015.
Upon visiting the El Shaddai website and others I noticed messages and themes about returning to the Hebrew Roots of the faith. I thought at first they were Messianic Jewish congregations (and some of them were) but soon discovered these were believers who had formed congregations and were returning to following the Torah.. In other words, they were returning to the beginning and following the commandments and instructions that Yshua followed and commanded. And this was happening all over the USA and all over the world, in ever increasing numbers, especially over the last 10 years.
Not too long after, I came across a book on a website I was visiting called "The Hebrew Yeshua vs The Greek Jesus" by Nehemiah Gordon, a Dead Sea Scrolls Scholar and Semitic language expert. That familiar phrase "hebrew vs greek" was surfacing again. I took interest and downloaded it on Kindle. Gordon explores how the modern Greek text of Matthew depicts "another Jesus" from the Yeshua portrayed in the ancient version of Matthew written in it's original Hebrew. (They have discovered Matthew was originally written and translated from Hebrew and have a copy in Jersusalem.) When Matthew was translated into Greek from the original Hebrew, it was through a Greek/Roman mindset as well as having a antisemitic bias. (Everything Jewish was outlawed and expunged.) It was an excellent example of how in the translation or even transliteration process, from Hebrew to Greek and then to English the original meaning can be lost and in some cases, changed, resulting in a different meaning. This has occured as well when the New Testament was written in Greek, unable to translate the Hebraisms as well as the differnces between Hebrew and Greek thinking and culture. (And then consider Greek to Latin and Latin to English!)
The Greek Jesus is portrayed (and I've been taught) as opposed to Torah and that's why He challenged and disputed with the Pharisees and Saducees (religious leaders/scholars of His day). But Gordon shows how Jeshua (Jesus) was in fact living out the Torah as prescribed in the whole Tenach perfectly and the religious leaders were not. The pharisees/saducees were practing additional man-made laws that they had added (like protective fences around the Torah to protect it) and placing these burdens on the people, laws that God never intended. Plus they were counting on following the law for salvation instead of faith in God and repentence.
In our modern translation we can get the idea (and indeed it is taught) that Yeshua was against Torah (the first 5 books of the Bible) but what we find, over and over, is that he was admonishing the religious leaders of the day because they were not following Torah, God's instructions, (Which is what Torah means), but their own man-made traditions and doctrines which they added. He had come to turn the hearts back towards the Kingdom and the ways of God the Father....repent....return...return back to the beginning of your faith. Return to following Torah. Yeshua is the Word of God, and the Torah is His word. He is Torah.
I began to see there are huge reasons to study scripture from a Hebrew mindset and understand what the words mean in Hebrew and from a Hebrew perspective if I want to follow Yeshua. Turns out Judaism and Christianity both got off tract and here we are today. Christainity has gotten it wrong by sutracting from the faith the very instructions of God in Torah so then not following the wayYeshua lived, though believing in Him. In addition, Christianity had added all kinds of man-made religious practices and rules that are not Biblical or part of God's instruction. Judaism has gotten it wrong in that they are still practicing man-made laws added and Rabbinical Judaism places the word of the Rabbi above God. They also do not beleive that Yeshua is the Messiah. They should be on the exact same page. Turns out they will be in the future as it is prophesied all over the Bible. Could that be what's beginning to happen with the Hebrew Roots movement? And the fact Jewish people are believing on Yeshua as the Messiah in amazing numbers? I wonder.
A really striking thought which became obvious to me once I heard it, is that what we call the New Testament was not written at the time that Yeshua was teaching and preaching. Nor was it written when Paul, Peter, James and others penned their letters and the Gospels to the various believers. They were all referring to the Torah and the Tanach (the entire Hebrew scriptures or what we call the Old Testament). So when Jesus was saying "If You love me you'll obey my commands" it makes sense that He was talking about the whole of scriptures, specifically the Torah. I was reminded that He taught in Luke 24 that all the scriptures from Moses to the prophets spoke of Him.
Wow. I had a lot to think about and a lot to learn. I began to study, and study some more. The more I studied, the more there was to study. What began as a trickle, became a flood. The earth was moving beneath my feet. You know, when your world view is pulled out from under you. I experienced a full range of feelings. Astonishment, deep sorrow, grief, anger, excitement, disbelief, overwhelmed, thrilled, repentant, recommitted, flooded, consumed, compelled, humbled, unworthy, and the list goes on.
This is but a thumbnail sketch of what transpired in the early days/months of this journey. But this was only the beginning. Big changes were on the horizon.
Here is a short 3-part article that gives an excellent overview:
http://thewatchman.org/en/2007/10/the-hebrew-movement-part-1/
http://thewatchman.org/en/2007/10/the-hebrew-movement-part-2/
http://thewatchman.org/en/2007/10/the-hebrew-movement-part-3/
Want a couple of websites to begin to learn more?
http://moedtorah.blogspot.com/
http://elshaddaiministries.us/index.html
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