Should the Bride of Christ Return to its Hebrew Roots?

[GoldenEagle]

My concern is when people take things to the extreme and say that everyone to be a Christian must partake of these feasts.

Likewise, it grieves me when Christians treat the Feasts as bondage and respond in arms against Gentile-Christians celebrating them for any reason.

The Hebrew roots we need to pursue is biblical understanding. Looking at the old testament the way the apostles read and taught the OT. We should have never left our Hebrew roots when it comes to biblical understanding. The scriptures are more than history and literature and for the most part that is the way we have been taught them. It isn't wrong to learn that way but we will never see the depth and flow of scripture thinking in those terms. We need to take things further.

So yes, the bride needs to return to her Hebrew roots.

There is so much sense and logic in your comment.

I agree with Zemke especially this sentence in bold. Once again my concern is for people not to become legalistic about it. And of course the other concern is for those who do this to not fall away from the faith in Christ.

"...the Greeks desire knowledge."

The Christianity we grew up with is a Greek-based religion, built and established upon knowledge.

The Ancient Jewish faith (which is different from modern Judaism, in case you didn't know), was - believe it or not - established on experience. This is how Eastern thought works. If you notice the OT speaks more of man's experience with God than it does teaching. Even the Torah is rooted and grounded on experiences, if you look closely.

I believe this is more along the lines of what Selene meant. We need to read the Bible though Hebrew eyes rather than Greek eyes.

I hope you understand that of which I speak.

I agree context is important. Yet God's Word is alive and meaningful today.

But what of people who take an extreme on this view? That everything is about experience? The Creator (through God's Word) no longer becomes the focus but rather what can be experienced through creation and the human being (possibly labelled mysticism or spiritualism?). There is a tendency to move away from God's Word when one relies more and more on one's experience. There is even the possiblity of turning away from the faith or rejecting God altogether.

[nebula]

The Christianity we grew up with is a Greek-based religion, built and established upon knowledge.

The Ancient Jewish faith (which is different from modern Judaism, in case you didn't know), was - believe it or not - established on experience. This is how Eastern thought works. If you notice the OT speaks more of man's experience with God than it does teaching. Even the Torah is rooted and grounded on experiences, if you look closely.

I believe this is more along the lines of what Selene meant. We need to read the Bible though Hebrew eyes rather than Greek eyes.

I hope you understand that of which I speak.

On this (bolded) point, I agree with you, Neb, but to say, it is totally bad, I don't know, I've got to go away and think on it.

I didn't say it was totally bad.

[nebula]

My concern is when people take things to the extreme and say that everyone to be a Christian must partake of these feasts.

Likewise, it grieves me when Christians treat the Feasts as bondage and respond in arms against Gentile-Christians celebrating them for any reason.

The Hebrew roots we need to pursue is biblical understanding. Looking at the old testament the way the apostles read and taught the OT. We should have never left our Hebrew roots when it comes to biblical understanding. The scriptures are more than history and literature and for the most part that is the way we have been taught them. It isn't wrong to learn that way but we will never see the depth and flow of scripture thinking in those terms. We need to take things further.

So yes, the bride needs to return to her Hebrew roots.

There is so much sense and logic in your comment.

I agree with Zemke especially this sentence in bold. Once again my concern is for people not to become legalistic about it. And of course the other concern is for those who do this to not fall away from the faith in Christ.

"...the Greeks desire knowledge."

The Christianity we grew up with is a Greek-based religion, built and established upon knowledge.

The Ancient Jewish faith (which is different from modern Judaism, in case you didn't know), was - believe it or not - established on experience. This is how Eastern thought works. If you notice the OT speaks more of man's experience with God than it does teaching. Even the Torah is rooted and grounded on experiences, if you look closely.

I believe this is more along the lines of what Selene meant. We need to read the Bible though Hebrew eyes rather than Greek eyes.

I hope you understand that of which I speak.

I agree context is important. Yet God's Word is alive and meaningful today.

But what of people who take an extreme on this view? That everything is about experience? The Creator (through God's Word) no longer becomes the focus but rather what can be experienced through creation and the human being (possibly labelled mysticism or spiritualism?). There is a tendency to move away from God's Word when one relies more and more on one's experience. There is even the possiblity of turning away from the faith or rejecting God altogether.

I do not mean to advocate any extremes.

What I hear time and time again, though, is the devaluing and denouncing of experience.

[GoldenEagle]

I do not mean to advocate any extremes.

What I hear time and time again, though, is the devaluing and denouncing of experience.

I see. Okay gotcha.

Possible to explain a little further this part in bold?

[Guest yod]

Since the Bride of Messiah is New Jerusalem, then anyone who considers themselves to be part of the Bride needs to be found there. Even the "church""

[nebula]

I do not mean to advocate any extremes.

What I hear time and time again, though, is the devaluing and denouncing of experience.

I see. Okay gotcha.

Possible to explain a little further this part in bold?

Several times in theological discussions and debates, as soon as someone mentions what they learned through experience, some posters will devalue and denounce experiences as valid for learning.

Basically, when experience goes against someone's theology, they will denounce the validity of experience, claiming that experience should never trump "the Word" - when in reality the accuser is convinced that his theology is "the Word" and not a possible misinterpretation or misapplication of the Word.

A theology that doesn't hold up to experience, I think, needs to be re-evaluated.

But again, people can't separate what the Word actually says verses their theology of the Word.

Sorry if I sound like I'm rambling a bit.

But God is Someone to be experienced, not a concept to be theologized.

Yet churches don't teach us how to experience God.

[nebula]

There is nowhere in Scripture where we are to take Jewish traditions as a way to interpret Scriptures.

I present you with this:

The Feast of Tabernacles is an eight day festival* that begins at sundown on the first day of the feast (see the Jewish Calendar from Judaism 101).

The Gospels record that our Lord Jesus not only celebrated the festival, but He took traditional elements of the celebration and applied them to His own life and mission. We find this particularly in John 7 and 8 where Jesus uses two traditional symbols from the Feast of Tabernacles celebration, water and light, to help the people understand who He is and what He offers.

In order to understand Jesus' teaching here, we need a bit of background from Leviticus 23. There, Moses instructed the people that the first day and the eighth day of the festival were to be special days of rest, set apart from the others. But the seventh day became known as Hoshana Rabba, "the Great Day." My people developed special observances and traditions to mark this special day in Israel. The most spectacular of these was the water drawing ceremony.

Imagine a whole parade of worshipers and flutists led by the priest to the pool of Siloam (where Jesus told the blind man to bathe his eyes after He put clay over them). The priest has two golden pitchers. One is for wine. He fills the other with water from the pool. As the flutes continue to play, a choir of Israelites chants Psalm 118. The whole procession heads back to the Temple through the Water Gate. A trumpet sounds as the priest enters the Temple area. He approaches the altar where two silver basins are waiting. He pours wine into one of the basins as a drink offering to the Lord and water from the pool of Siloam into the other.

The whole ceremony, with the parade and the flutes and the singing, was such a joyful occasion that one of the ancient rabbis wrote: "Anyone who has not seen this water ceremony has never seen rejoicing in his life."

The ceremony was to thank God for His bounty and to ask Him to provide rain for the crops in the coming year. Today, many people take water for granted. We simply turn the tap and voilà—water! Not so in the Middle East during the first century. Water was often scarce. The people were very much aware of their dependence on God for the rains that were so vital for the preservation of life. No wonder the prophets came to see rain as a symbol of salvation and the work of God's Holy Spirit:

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean… (Ezekiel 36:25).

No wonder then that Jesus stood in the Temple on this great day of the feast and cried out:

If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water (John 7:37-38).

Read more here

[Massorite]

Should the Bride of Christ (the Church) Return to its Hebrew Roots?

I'm also interested in Scripture that backs this line of thinking.

In Christ,

Jon

Ground Rules:

Let us remember humility, as Believers we are heirs of God with Christ. (Philippians 2:3; 1 Peter 5:5, Romans 8:17) Remember we are to seek restoration with a spirit of gentleness. (Galatians 6:1) We are to be kind and tenderhearted to one another. (Ephesians 5:32)

No we should not return to our Hebrew roots. However we should return to our Christian roots which are the doctrinal beliefs, love and the ministries of the early church.

Because God is calling us back to basics. The early church Christians had something within themselves that looked so wonderful to the pagans that pagans would convert even though they knew that they might be fed to lions or jailed or beaten, tortured, used as torches at Roman parties and afflicted by all manner of horrible things. The pagans wanted what the Christians had but today the pagans want nothing to do with what the Christians have because the body of Christ has lost its integrity in the eyes of the world.