Like Asking Obama for Lessons on Humility
September 14th, 2009I Will Organize Your Life
I managed to get some work done on the book today. It’s not a great sign when someone who needs organization comes to me. I am not known for my hospital corners and neat files. But I’m managing. I’m writing an outline, and today I started an introduction, which, itself, is a lot like an outline. If you write the introduction to a book before you start the book, it ought to give you some idea which way you’re headed.
I’m still all excited about fasting, even though I hate it. I went to a barbecue and ate like a normal human being. That kind of self-control is new to me. If fasting will do that for me, I’m all for it. And it’s not just food. I’m doing better in other ways. Is this the answer to things like drug addiction and compulsive gambling? I have to wonder. It worked for me. Am I the only one who gets that kind of treatment? Presumably not.
Today I came up with a theory that if you fast, God won’t send you to hell, because you’ve already been there.
I’ll be shooting up to the church on Wednesday to talk about the book and drop off some junk. I won’t be as far along as I had hoped, but I’ll have a very good start.
The other night, I wanted to unwind, so I turned on the tube and looked at Daystar. This is like TBN, sort of. I hadn’t heard of it until earlier this year. They were interviewing a guy named Larry Huch (pronounced “huck”), and he was talking about the significance of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I can’t get used to Christians saying “ROSH huh shuh NAH”; all the kids I grew up with said “ROSH huh SHAH nuh.” Anyway, I keep talking about the Forty Days of Teshuvah, prior to Yom Kippur, and how the Jews believe this is like Lent. If you get it together during this season, repenting and praying and giving, God will bless you or refrain from punishing you in the new year, which starts in a couple of weeks. That’s the theory.
Larry Huch has written a popular book about such things. It’s called The Torah Blessing. I’m thinking of getting a copy. They were giving away copies to anyone who would pledge 25 bucks per month to Daystar, over the coming year. I don’t want it that bad, but I might buy one.
Seems like charismatics all over the US are going nuts over supporting Israel and learning about Judaism. Huch even claims the Bible says God will give prosperity to people who pray for the peace (probably “shalom,” which means more than peace) of Jerusalem.
My pastor is planning to have somebody blow a shofar in church. THAT is way out there. It shows the progress churches (some) have made in figuring out what really matters to God. The older, established churches tend to be hostile to Israel and Jewish interests, but the newer ones have a much better attitude. Jews may find us annoying, but we’re actually helping, to such a degree that the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (funded by Christians, run by a Jew) has a fairly powerful voice now before the Israeli government. We’ve flown hundreds of thousands of Jews to Israel. We feed old Israelis. We help poor Jews in the former USSR. God has helped us to get off our butts and get a lot done. It’s as great a gift as any of us could ask for.
The wild thing about it is that it was predicted by prophecy, and the people who believed the prophecy weren’t just Christians. The Jews themselves proclaim it. They note the passage that speaks of a day when ten Gentiles will grab the hem of a Jew’s garment and say “We will go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.” They talk of Isaiah’s prediction about Gentiles carrying the sons and daughters of Jews to Israel. That’s not just nonsense televangelists say to get people excited enough to send them money. Rabbis say it.
Fun times. Unless you go to a church that preaches replacement theology. To them, the Jews are just a bunch of jerks.
Daystar just signed a contract to broadcast Christian TV into Israel. Not sure how that’s going to work out. In Israel, the word “missionary” is pronounced with the same sentiment as words like “Nazi.” At least they’ll be able to see that someone on the planet is on their side. I’d guess that 95% of American Jews have no idea how supportive some branches of Christianity are. The figure is probably not much different in Israel.
John Hagee insists that Jews do not have to accept Jesus to get salvation. He makes a very good argument, based on the life of Joseph, whom he sees as a type of Jesus. I would love to believe it. Since I have never made any headway whatsoever toward converting a Jew, and since I have very low expectations of future success, I don’t know if it matters much.
One odd thing about the gospels: they claim the Jews said they wanted the blood of Jesus to be on them and their children. Isn’t this what Christians say every day about themselves? If you apply the blood of a sacrifice to yourself, aren’t you accepting the benefit of that sacrifice? It seems strange that it should be bad–an admission of guilt–for a Jew to apply the blood, while it’s very good for a Christian. This passage would seem to back up Hagee’s contentions. If someone calls you a Christ-killer, say, “I sure hope I am,” because if you aren’t responsible for the sacrifice, it can’t do you any good.
Here’s something really weird, since I’m writing about weird things. On Yom Kippur, the Jews sacrificed a goat. This goat had a red thread tied around its throat. A second goat with a white thread was sent into the wilderness to starve. After the atonement, the thread would turn from red to white. Between the time of Jesus’s death and the destruction of the temple, the thread did not turn white. The odd thing about this story is that it doesn’t come from Christians. It’s from the Talmud. It doesn’t refer to the death of Jesus, but it does refer to a period beginning forty years prior to the temple’s ruin, which is essentially the same thing.
Christians say it proves there was no longer any need for an animal sacrifice for atonement. Jews say the thread was just there to help the priests remember which goat was which, and that the miracle had nothing to do with the atonement. We disagree about what it means, but the testimony that it happened is not controversial, and it comes from Jews.
Part of the Jewish response is that Jewish followers of Jesus continued to use the temple. But not all sacrifices were for atonement. There were all sorts of things that went on at the temple. Christians who study this stuff believe sacrifices will continue in the Messianic Age, in the rebuilt temple, in spite of the fulfillment of so many things. They believe this because the Bible predicts it, and because some sacrifices have nothing to do with erasing sin.
Go ahead and read the Jewish response to the Messianic interpretation. It’s no threat to a Christian’s faith. All it proves is that two sets of people can agree on the facts and disagree completely on what they mean. I present the story because it’s of value to Christians.
And now I have to deliver banana nut bread to my sister.
September 14th, 2009 at 11:08 PM
“how the Jews believe this is like Lent”… um, I think that it’s Christians who believe that Lent is like the 40 days of tshuvah, which predated Lent by some 1300 years.
.
Thread was tied around the horns, not neck. In practice, to prevent its return to human habitation, the goat was led to a cliff outside Jerusalem and pushed off its edge.
.
Many of the Temple miracles did not occur in the Second Temple nor in or after Herod’s time, not just in the 40 years prior to the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans. There was no Ark of the Covenant. More here: http://www.simpletoremember.com/articles/a/the_second_temple/
September 15th, 2009 at 8:18 AM
“Thread was tied around the horns, not neck.”
.
Had no time to proofread.
September 15th, 2009 at 8:21 AM
There’s an interesting trend in nutrition about intermittent fasting. Instead of the prevailing idea that people who want to lose weight should eat many small meals throughout the day, intermittent fasting says we should fast for around 16-24 hours and eat one big meal. Lots of theories about why it’s healthier, mainly that insulin levels only fluctuate once a day meaning fewer chances for the body to pack on fat.
So, not only spiritual benefits but somephysical as well, which is not entirely unexpected.
September 15th, 2009 at 1:05 PM
There seem to be enough references to OT Jewish figures and heaven that there has to be a way for Jews to get there.
Perhaps full faith in YHWH / G-d (which Christians understand as triune, but Jews view as utterly singular) works for the Jews – you must believe on the correct G-d and they do (we viewing Jesus being an integral part of G-d, but the Jews not seeing it that way).
I don’t know precisely how it works, it is above my pay grade.
September 15th, 2009 at 6:06 PM
km,
.
It would be a nasty piece of Divine cruelty for God to have created a system of intricate laws which could not be met. He understood that humans aren’t perfect and would always make mistakes and therefore created a tshuvah process for reconciling with Him and different methods for reconciling between man and his fellow.
.
A focus on perfection and never sinning is alien to Jewish scripture and seems, to us, to be a recipe for feelings of perpetual inadequacy and guilt, the antithesis of the goal of serving God with joy and doing His will by following His commandments. Each time a Jew does a scriptural mitzvah, he is 100% in synch with Divine will. Any ideology that would steer a Jew away from observance even an iota would be against God’s will. Some sins are, indeed, beyond the pale (murder, idolatry, incest) and would require a massive effort to demonstrate real repentance (according to Jewish law, these sins can’t be in a human court punished without meeting very strict rules of evidence, but we believe that the Supreme Judge will ultimately require the perpetrator to come to justice in this world or the next). Some rationalizations of sin may make it nearly impossible to repent. The problem is that there are many things that appear to be kosher but aren’t.
.
If you launch a rocket to the moon and are 1% off in your calculations, you miss a huge target by many miles.
.
Jewish law is pretty clear that immersing in a mikveh while holding anything invalidates the immersion. This applies to holding onto ideological barriers, too.
.
Regarding animal sacrifice, they clearly weren’t needed at the time of Daniel’s prophecies, among other prophets, when there was no Temple.
.
Proof that prayer can substitute for animal sacrifice — Hosea 14: “Forgive all iniquity, and accept that which is good; so will we render for bullocks the offering of our lips.”
.
King Saul lost his monarchy for overvaluing sacrifices versus obedience — I Samuel 15:22: “Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices, as in hearkening to the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.”
.
I’m going to read Ecclesiastes again in 3 weeks as is traditional every Sukkot. The penultimate quotation: “The end of the matter, all having been heard: fear God, and keep His commandments; for this is the whole man.”
,
The whole point of Isaac’s binding was to transform humanity where the norm was human sacrifice into a monotheistic paradigm that rejects the concept from that point in time, forward. The divine plan for sacrifice was to guide humanity to reject human sacrifice and then to substitute animal sacrifice and then to substitute prayer. From Moses to the end of the Second Temple, poor people were enabled full repentance not with animal offerings but with a handful of grain, a “minchah” offering. Animals that aren’t kosher were never fit for sacrifice. You may find noteworthy in your examination of fasting that sacrifices are always of foodstuffs.
.
Wars were once fought over access to calories that could make or break a nation.
.
There were also, as you said, offerings for things not sin-oriented. A thanksgiving offering, for instance, was entirely voluntary.
.
Nowhere in Jewish scripture is there an “until the messiah comes and then you don’t have to do these commandments anymore” referring to the 613 do’s and don’ts for observant Jews and the 7 for observant Gentiles. Scriptural references to “eternal” and “for all your generations”, by definition, must refer to corporeal human existence for all time and through the end of the End of Times.
September 15th, 2009 at 7:03 PM
Let’s not wander off into an argument over who has the right messiah. There are sound Christian responses to any claim you can make, and it is a waste of time to debate matters of faith.