“How do you feel about churches mixing Old Testament with New Testament? It makes little sense to me.”
The Bible is
one coherent message from multiple authors. It is meant to be mixed.
Most
Christians regard their Messiah as a great Hippie Philosopher. Most Orthodox
Jews regard their Messiah as an imperative end times savior and one that walks
and preaches pure Torah.
What does
the Bible say? Let’s examine two traditional (Orthodox) Jewish Sabbaths from
the first century (this pattern occurs the same way today).
but the
others went on from Perga to Pisidian Antioch, and on Shabbat they went into
the synagogue and sat down. After the reading from the Torah [five books of
Moses] and from the Prophets [called the haftorah reading], the synagogue
leaders sent them a message, “Brothers, if any of you has a word of exhortation
for the people, speak!” So Sha’ul stood, motioned with his hand, and said: Acts
13:14–16 (CJB)
Now when he
went to Natzeret, where he had been brought up, on *Shabbat* he went to the
synagogue as usual. [After
the Torah readings concluded] He stood up to read [the haftorah], and he was
given the scroll of the prophet Yesha‘yahu. Unrolling the scroll, he found the
place where it was written,
“The Spirit
of Adonai is upon me;
therefore he
has anointed me
to announce
Good News to the poor;
he has sent
me to proclaim freedom for the imprisoned
and renewed
sight for the blind,
to release
those who have been crushed,
to proclaim
a year of the favor of Adonai.”
After
closing the scroll and returning it to the shammash, he sat down; and the eyes
of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on him. He started to speak to them:
“Today, as you heard it read, this passage of the Tanakh was fulfilled!” Luke
4:16–21 (CJB)
These two
examples highlight how scriptures illuminate scriptures. There is a sequence of
a Torah reading from Moses that cites the Law, then a haftorah reading that
illuminates the Torah reading and then everybody discusses the readings until
the Sabbath ends.
Without
multiple references, most Bible discussions are out of context and create new
doctrines never intended by God.
If you
destroy or impugn the foundation, what happens when the winds and waves buffet
you? Your house will crumble.
We will then
no longer be infants tossed about by the waves and blown along by every wind of
teaching, at the mercy of people clever in devising ways to deceive. Ephesians
4:14 (CJB)
This is why
unstable pastors twist God’s word so often. Once a modern pastor disconnects
the older writings from the newer writings, they destabilize the whole body and
building.
And think of
our Lord’s patience as deliverance, just as our dear brother Sha’ul also wrote
you, following the wisdom God gave him. Indeed, he speaks about these things in
all his letters. They contain some things that are hard to understand, things
which the uninstructed and unstable distort, to their own destruction, as they
do the other Scriptures. 2 Peter 3:15–16 (CJB)
Trust me,
people aren’t stupid. They can smell dogma. They can discern when pastors are
twisting scriptures and making stuff up. Many of them lose their faith or walk
out when pastors make dogmatic sand castles.
Shalom!
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