It’s For Horses-9 Cheshvan 5771

I’ve been having a little trouble with one of my knees. It gets a little sore from time to time. Carrie, bless her, always wants to make things better, if possible. So she got me some liniment to rub on it. It supposed to help. As I looked at the directions, she asked me what I thought. I responded, “It’s for horses.” She told me that that didn’t matter, what did it say to do? So sarcastically I said, “Start at the hoof…”

You know, that is the majority of scripture though. It doesn’t really apply to us as Gentiles. The majority of the text, including the ‘Apostolic Writings’, is to the people of Israel. So how do we use it? Do I just apply it using the general directions and make changes where it doesn’t seem to fit? Should I take everything literally? How do I know the difference? If I don’t know exactly what they’re talking about should I just replace it with what seems to make sense? I know these are things a lot of us have gone through or are going through. Or worse, have yet still to go through.

I shared in a recent article how Carrie spent a lot of time researching our ‘church’ history and was a little shocked to find out what brought about the separation between Jewish believers and the Gentile believers and how, unfortunately, the church has grown up in the footsteps of their Gentile fathers. Now, lest anyone be misled, I love my brothers and sisters in Messiah, but it does sadden me, and occasionally irritates me, that a lot of believers don’t really care where their faith started. They are happy to be blissfully ignorant of their faith, interpreting scripture from a 21^st century viewpoint being helped out by lots of modern theologians without a Hebrew name in the bunch.

Our faith started in Judaism and Judaism is the only religion of Scripture. Jews wrote the text of the apostolic writings with a Hebraic mindset and needs to be understood from that understanding. The things written were about real issues that were going on and we need to know what those were. Without these understandings we are only speculating and in reality making a G-d of our own design. One example being the Sabbath Day which has been removed from Christianity, replaced by Sunday, and given such high regard one might think it was actually a commandment.

Eph 4:4 There is one body and one Spirit--just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call-- one Lord, one faith, one immersion, one G-d and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

I read this passage everyday in our prayer time and often wonder; one body, one faith? Where? When? When we actually apply the product according to the directions.