Discerning Wisely To Rejoice In The Torah: Or One

Of The Greatest Misunderstandings Ever

by Ken Pullen

ACP

Sunday, June 1st, 2014

One of the greatest tragedies among the people professing to be believers is the grave misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the Torah.

When someone speaks or writes the word “Torah” those who think they know what the word means most likely have the word “Law” come into their minds, or hearts. Torah is not law as the vast majority of people have come to (mis)understand.

Torah is not law.

I am not only a firm believer in God our Father and Jesus the Lord and Messiah – Yeshua – and the complete inerrant Word of God, I am a firm believer in taking the time to get things right when it comes to our Father, our Redeemer and Lord, Yeshua, and the complete inerrant Word of God.

To do this we all must invest the time and energy into discerning wisely seeking the meaning of our Father’s Word given to us by His Spirit to the men who were chosen to write the Torah, or the complete Word of God from Genesis 1:1 through Revelation 22:21.

We need to not only read words but to understand the words we read.

We need to not only read words but to understand the words we read in context.

Take the time to learn what comes before, what comes after, who is saying what, and to whom are they saying it? In context of place and time. And this is not something to be thought of as a task, or a chore, or something unnecessary. This is vital to know and grow spiritually closer to our Father in heaven and to be a true disciple, a true believer, an understanding believer of our Lord and Savior, Yeshua, Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God.

Take time to look into the Etymology of a word or words.

Let’s take just a short bit of time to finally come to an accurate understanding of what the Torah is.

Here is the Etymology of the Hebrew word Torah as described by Jeff A. Bennar of the Ancient Hebrew Research Center:

“The word Torah comes from the Hebrew root word “Yarah”, a verb which means “to flow or throw something”. This can be a flowing of an arrow from an archers bow, or the flowing of a finger to point out a direction. Nouns are derived from the verb by making one or two changes to the verb root. In this case the Y (yud) is replaced by an O (vav) and an M (mem) is added at the front of the word to form the noun “Moreh”. A Moreh is “one who does the flowing”. This can be an archer who flows an arrow, or a teacher who flows his finger to point out way the student is to go in the walk of life. Another noun is formed the same way except that a T (tav) is placed at the front of the word instead of an M and we have the word “Torah”. Torah is “what is flowed by the Moreh”. This can be the arrow from the archer or the teachings and instructions from the teacher.”

A Hebraic definition of Torah is  “a set of Instructions, from a father to his children, violation of these instructions are disciplined in order to foster obedience and train his children” “.

Let us look at Scripture, the instruction to us from the Word of God:

“My son, don’t forget my teaching [Torah], keep my commands in your heart: for they will add to you many days, years of life and peace.”

Proverbs 3:1-2 Complete Jewish Bible

The fear of Adonai [God our Father and Creator] is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline. My son, heed the discipline of your father, and do not abandon the teaching [Torah] of your mother;”

Proverbs 1:7-8

The purpose of a parent’s [Adonai, Almighty God our Father and Creator in heaven] Torah is to teach. To bring the child into maturity. To nurture the child into growth on the right path. If the Torah is rejected, or neglected, or rebelled against – if there is disobedience to the Father and His Torah [teachings and instructions] the child suffers the consequences of rebellion and disobedience and the child is punished by the Father.

“How happy the man whom you correct, Yah, whom you teach from your Torah, giving him respite from the days of trouble, till a pit is dug for the wicked!”

Psalm 94: 12-13

If the child out of respect, honor, and a sincere heart seeks to follow the teaching and instruction [Torah] of the Father yet falls short of expectations the child is counseled by the Father through the Father’s love, instruction, and teaching [Torah] to learn from their falling short and to grow closer to perfection of following the Father’s instruction [Torah] out of the child’s love, respect, honor, and admiration for the Father.

Laws are set by governments. A list of rules handed out by governments to men and women which must be rigidly adhered to. A violation of the rigid rules is met with punishment. As law is set and carried out by governments there is no room for teaching or instruction, for growth and learning. A law is either broken, in which case punishment is doled out according to the law, or the law is not broken.

Adonai, God our Father and Creator gives us His children His Torah in the same way a parent gives instruction, teaching [Torah] to their children.

As believers, if we come in truth and are the salt of the earth, and we are a light unto the world, and we are truly disciples of Jesus the Lord and Messiah, we can then only come together taking the necessary time to discern wisely and learn and heed the instruction, the teachings [Torah] of the Lord our God, our Father, and of Yeshua, our Lord and Savior, the Son of God. And we cannot live in divisiveness pushing aside and away the foundations of our trust. We cannot afford to break the lightest, or least of the commandments of our Lord. If we continue on misinterpreting and misunderstanding what the words within the Word of God we read truly mean for us, and if we refuse to grow and remain as immature babes capable of only ingesting watered down milk we permit room for evil to work and to enter in. We permit room for false teachings to enter in – and the grave and terrible misinterpretations and misunderstandings which came about and have continued to grow regarding Torah, all of our Father’s instruction and teaching for us to mature and grow by, to grow closer to Him by our diligent and sincere study is proof before our eyes and hearts that false teachings have entered in long ago and taken root and the darkness of their falsehood have blotted out the Light and Truth and their darkness has made it nearly impossible for those professing to see clearly in the light.

Let us be light. Let us return to as the words of teaching of the whole, complete, life-giving, spirit raising, soul saving Torah given to us by the Spirit of the Lord our God. As a gift from Him.

As Dwight A Pryor, Founder and President of Center for Judaic-Christian Studies spoke of five things we need to do regarding Torah during a 2006 conference when discussing Matthew 5:17-19 of the Torah;

Reassess

Repent

Rejoice

Renew

Respond

We need to REASSESS our view of the Torah and be aware of many Christian based bias against Torah because they lack understanding and discernment. They do not know Torah is the complete Word of God we have from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21.

We need to REPENT of our negative attitudes and neglect of the Torah. Many own a Bible. Many own a copy of our Father’s teachings [Torah] given to us to give the gift of life, the gift of the best possible life here now and throughout eternity! The Torah has not failed. The flesh, men and women in and of the flesh have failed – but the Torah, the teachings of our Father in heaven have never failed at any time, nor will they. The Torah, the complete Word of God from Genesis 1:1 through Revelation 22:21 will always be. For eternity. For Jesus the Lord and Messiah is the Word come in the flesh to die for the sins of all people, and to arise from the dead the third day fulfilling the prophets, fulfilling the Word as He is the Word – and Yeshua, Jesus the Lord and Messiah did not come to rebel against, to abolish, to remove or defile the Word of God, the Torah. He would be rebelling against Himself! He came to fulfill the Torah. To make it complete in its CORRECT INTERPRETATION.

We need to REJOICE over the Torah. We need to return to the Torah and rejoice, be enthralled, be made anew and alive through our diligence to the Torah – the instruction of our Father in heaven. And to rejoice in His discipline and chastisement when we go astray and through His love for us, His children, He disciplines and chastises to bring us CLOSER to Him. We need to correctly interpret and understand chastisement = love. Not to interpret discipline and chastisement as something to avoid, something unsavory and to no longer practice as the world defines those things. The world is always wrong and following the world’s definitions leads to death. Our Father in heaven, Yeshua our Lord and Messiah are always right and Their ways lead to life. It’s very clear and very simple.

We need to RENEW our minds and spirits over the Torah. When we read, study, and pray upon Torah [the teachings of God our Father with the complete Scriptures being His divine inerrant instruction] we become renewed by the Spirit of God if our hearts are right and contain no  iniquity. If we come in trust and love and yearning to grow closer to our Father and His ways, His will in our lives.

And we need to RESPOND to the instructions of Yeshua, Jesus our Lord and Messiah. All His teachings. We are not to pick and choose and then redefine and alter. Scripture warns us what happens to one who does such a heinous and terrible thing. We need to HEAR the words of Yeshua our Lord and Messiah. And through HEARING, or reading of Jesus the Lord’s instructions we grow in the Spirit and distance ourselves from this world as we grow more spiritual. We gird our loins against the wiles of the devil. We prepare ourselves adequately for the battle at hand. We must HEAR and RESPOND to the instructions of Yeshua, Jesus the Lord and Messiah, through His teachings [Torah].

It is my hope and prayer anyone coming upon this and reading this will cast aside the misunderstandings and misinterpretations which perhaps were carried for many, many years, and all of us will join in Jew and Gentile, as unified believers in the body of the Church, with the Lord and Messiah, Yeshua, Jesus as our Head.

All our days…spent rejoicing, renewing, and responding to His teachings and the gift from our Father in heaven, the Torah, the living Word of God.

Psalms 1

Don’t Pay Attention To Stories

by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam

“Neither give heed to fables…” (1 Timothy 1:4)

As the present-day English reader comes upon the word “fables” in the Authorized Version, he is apt to think of Aesop’s Fables, but these were illustrations, while the original word muthois means simply stories, including stories of imagined incidents or events.

There are two types of stories that have exerted an amazing influence upon twentieth century Christendom. One is the novel, the other the promotional story. In considering the above passage, this writer examined the contents of the popular Christian periodicals coming to his desk and was astonished to find how many of them were largely filled with fiction and with stories written to promote projects or viewpoints. The Apostle says about such stories that they raise questions but do not answer them, for stories really prove nothing. This is also true of many Christian films.

Many Christian novels have indeed exerted a savory influence upon their readers — when they have been founded upon Scriptural truths and principles. Obviously, however, an author can make his novel “prove” exactly what he wishes to prove, for the novel involves us in a world of make-believe. Thus a novel can be dangerous to Christian faith and practice.

The promotional story holds, perhaps, an even more prominent place in our popular Christian magazines. No one can object to factual reports of what God has wrought, but too many of these stories are nothing more than promotional efforts. Many of these “success stories” are so successful that thoughtful readers question their validity and are apt to lay them aside without even finishing them. Less discerning readers, however, are often deeply moved by them.

We are well aware that our objections are not popular, but we are not trying to be popular; we are trying to help sincere Christians find their way back, step by step, to renewed spiritual power. This power has been too long frittered away by substituting the will of man for the Word of God.

“The detour is always rougher than the main road.”

~Vance Havner

DON’T STAY AT SHILOH!

by Vance Havner

So the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad.
I Samuel 1:18

Hannah had not been eating and she had been sad (v. 7). But now she had poured out her heart to God, and had entered into a covenant with Him, and she trusted Him for the answer to her prayer. Notice that she did not run up to Shiloh every day and “agonize” and pray the same prayer over and over. It would have looked very religious, but it would have been rankest unbelief. Instead she “went her way, and did eat,” and resumed a normal life, “and her countenance was no more sad.” She did not live in alternate hope and fear, she lived happily with a glad face. Some of us need sorely to learn a lesson from Hannah. It is no mark of piety to return to Shiloh every day fasting and weeping. Faith settles with God and then eats a good dinner and goes its way looking happy, not hoping but believing. Nervous, uncertain souls, forever begging God, are really unbelievers. Faith takes His Word for it and lives normally and happily.

PURPOSEFUL PRUNING

by Vance Havner

Every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
John 15:2

“Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.” The beloved child is chastised and the fruitful branch is pruned. Many a troubled soul in an hour of distress has fancied itself the object of God’s displeasure. But it is the fruitful branch that feels the knife. The unfruitful branch is taken away and burned. Many a saint in adversity has feared that he is perhaps a stranger to grace, forgetting that it is the bastards, not sons, who escape the Father’s discipline.

There is a purpose in the pruning, “that it may bring forth more fruit.” Not the feverish stepped-up production of this machine age but the natural, spontaneous fruitfulness of the branch that draws its life from the vine. Too much of our religious productivity is ground out by the methods of this age. The true Christian abides and abounds, and to him the Father-Husbandman’s pruning is part of he process.