Apr 09 2008
Gentiles and Torah?
Our perspective to the Torah, and Torah observance, should always be to inquire “how much can I love God, and others today?” The entire Torah and Prophets “hang” from “love God” and “love people!” This means that not a single commandment is outside of the category of love! Thus if we desire to love, if we wish to love as Messiah himself loved, then love demands and requires that our behavior conform to the Torah that Messiah himself lived, and now desires to live through us. There isn’t a minimum to love. Love is the maximum. Do you see it now? Do you agree that only doing the maximum, one can love - and to fail in any measure of the maximum, is to in fact… NOT love? It is to fall short of the mark. And that, friends, is the definition of sin. Sin therefore is failing to love according to God’s standard of love: the Torah. It as simple as that.
If the entire Torah is about how to love God and love people as God desires, then why wouldn’t a believer in Messiah desire to conform their behavior accordingly? If Yeshua is the standard of love by which the rest of the unbelieving world is judged, then how much more should one who is saved from the condemnation coming to the world, should imitate the Messiah who is Himself the Living Torah made flesh living in them!
For love to be fulfilled, requires obedience to the Standard of Love: Yeshua, the Messiah, the Living Torah made flesh, who never sinned once, and loved God and others in full accordance with the Torah.
To say one isn’t “required” to keep kosher, is to say one isn’t “required” to imitate the Messiah! And to say one isn’t “required” to imitate the Messiah, is to say that one isn’t “required” to love God and love others. That’s the ultimate conclusion of this line of thinking, and I hope now you see that it for what it is. The conclusion is inescapable. The conclusion nullifies the commandment to “love the Lord your God,” and “love your neighbor as yourself.”
And this is why there is so much confusion on the matter. Imitating the Messiah is not seen in this way of how he loved God and others as defined by the Torah, but that is in fact the very definition of the Messiah! If we have Messiah living in us and through us, we will conform to what He does through us. Yeshua is still Torah observant. He lives in us, and by his standard of love (because NO commandment is outside the category of loving God or people) if we submit to His lordship, we WILL choose to love God he does, as defined in total, by the Torah. This includes the weightier commandments of justice, faithfulness, and mercy; as well as keeping the Sabbath, keeping kosher, wearing tzitzit, and helping a neighbor’s overburdened donkey, and all the other commandments in the Torah.
Quit thinking that as a “Gentile” you do not have the right nor the responsibility as a believer to love God and others as God defined through His Son, Yeshua. The whole world will be condemned for failing The Standard. Believers are fully enabled to meet it because of the One who lives in them. You can, and should love God and others as Messiah himself modeled for you. Shalom.
And if you are a believer in Messiah, you are not a “gentile” in the sight of God and men, but rather now you have been removed from the world, the nations, gentiles, into the People of God, His Children, Israel. You are from the nations, but now no longer of them. By all definitions, you are Jewish according to faith, action, and identity. But that is another thread.
i find you very amusing in your idea a gentile following god’s commandments will become jewish. do i get the beanie? i would call it an enlightened christian. but of course i have a jewish friend who to my shock and awe ordered extra bacon on his already bacon laden hamburger at our brewery hangout. so much for kosher! i wasn’t the only one questioning why we were exempted from the dietary laws, followed by why sabbath was changed to sunday. you and me against the world? yeah, unless one wants to turn adventist. and, i am sorry but i cannot convert to a vegetarian! but i definitely could live off bagel and lox, pickled herring and krapfen. yep, i am austrian born and raised but fled to the states at age 19, and i have probably less family to show for than any holocaust survivor. i just have a sister in italy. it is all good! and as you may guess now, i was raised the roman catholic way. no regrets at all, it just made me wonder what all these denominations were about and are acceptable. and when i met bob and told him about central european history (i am an old history buff and major too) searching for his mother who had died at islip mental ward and he could not get any family information as adopted child in NY, funny how we old viennesae children found things in common. so much for jew and gentile! we drink to it every time we meet! to me life is about being a loving caring and respectful person. maybe if we can toss the hatchet about jews killing the messiah, the genocide caused by one maniac and come to terms huh? isn’t this one of the commandmends????? fact 1: we are all a apart of the old testament as we are all part of god’s creation. with it old testament, torah whatever we call the book is our reality. as far as i am concerned, go back and read cause jesus didn’t come to destroy but to fulfill! and if you are still a few chapters behind here, it is ok. i still respect you and accept you. and i enjoyed the info on paul. i already have a hard time with this mohamed guy who copy pasted judaism and christianity to make islam but changed it when business went sour and he needed money. so, now we have a hate the west religion. after that paul had a vision too? can we stick with the people who knew JC? wearing tzitzit, and helping a neighbor’s overburdened donkey? nawwwwwwwww, elain on seinfeld would not do that! thank you! shalom my friend