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Torah Questions
14: 1-4

Torah questions DIG: What issues were causing the disunity in the church at Rome? Who was the stronger and who was the weaker? What might be an issue in your place of worship today? What is the “One Law” movement? Why does it threaten Jewish distinctiveness? But what about Gentiles who sense they are called by God to worship in Jewish ways?

REFLECT: How “weak” or “strong” are you in the faith? In what areas are you “weak” or “strong?” Why? Which issues of conscience is your place of worship dealing with? How do you personally deal with people who are causing disunity in your place of worship? What principle should guide us when we are dealing with differences of conscience?

We can have different opinions, but we shouldn’t be judging each other on issues of conscience; however, Isra’el’s national identity must be preserved.

The issue in this passage does not come from the behavior it teaches, but from identifying precisely who are the “strong” and “weak,” and drawing out the implications for each. The weak are believers, either Gentile or Jewish, who have not yet grown sufficiently in their faith to have abstained from various practices and calendar observations. Their behavior is irrational and emotional, linked to psychological needs, social pressures, superstition, or it may be simply a matter of habit. This is why Paul calls them weak.

Dear Kind Heavenly Father, Praise You for Your love that took our punishment on the cross and then gave us Your righteousness so we could live with You in your holy heaven. He made the One who knew no sin to become a sin offering on our behalf, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (Second Corinthians 5:21). Praise You for giving those who love and follow You the gift of being Your children. But whoever did receive Him, those trusting in His name, to these He gave the right to become children of God (John 1:12).

Praise You for being such a kind and patient Father! When Your child is being tested and needs wisdom on what to do, You never yell at him or scold him– instead You invite him to come to You to ask You for wisdom and You promise to give it.  But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all without hesitation and without reproach; and it will be given to him (James 1:5). Praise You for your example of chesed loving kindness. Praise You for always being with Your child; always being by his side ready to help. You are Awesome! In Yeshua’s holy name and power of His resurrection. Amen

The principle: Now as for a person whose trust is weak, welcome him – but not to get into arguments over rabbinic opinions, or halakhah (14:1). Halakhah are rules governing Jewish life and come from the Hebrew root to walk. The rabbis used the term to refer to the legal way to walk out the commandments of the Torah. It can also refer to the Oral Law (see the commentary on The Life of Christ, to see link click Ei – The Oral Law). A single halakhah is a specific ruling given regarding a particular issue, the halakhah being the ruling accepted and observed by the Jewish community. Conflict is usually a sign that the focus has been shifted to areas of conscience. When we focus on personalities, preferences, interpretations, styles, or methods, division always happens.352 We need to stay away from stupid and ignorant controversies – you know that they lead to fights (Second Timothy 2:23).

The application: One person who has the faith/trust/belief that will allow him to eat anything, obviously refers to the stronger, more mature believer who understands and exercises his freedom in Messiah. The Gospel of the B’rit Chadashah includes no dietary restrictions, Mosaic or otherwise. In his first letter to Timothy, Paul wrote: The Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods, which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth (First Timothy 4:13).

Several years after he began his apostolic ministry, Peter was still afraid to eat animals that were not kosher. It took three repeated declarations by the Lord in a vision to convince Peter to stop treating as unclean what God has made clean (Acts 10:15-16). The greater teaching of the vision was that Peter was not to call any person [that is, Gentiles] common or unclean (Acts 10:28).

But some Gentile believers, like some Jews, were troubled by eating certain foods, but for different reasons. Because of idolatry and immorality related to their former religions, they could not bring themselves to eat meat, or any other food, that had been used as an offering to a pagan deity. Like Peter, they were still spiritually weak in regard to such things. As a result, some Jewish and Gentile believers would eat only vegetables (14:2), taking no chance of eating meat they considered defiled by idols. Paul is not proposing that the Jewish dietary mitzvot have been abolished. The issue here is vegetarianism, not kosher halakhah.353

The one who eats anything must not look down on the “weaker” [believer] who abstains; and the abstainer must not pass judgment on the [believer] who eats anything, because God has accepted him (14:3). Paul chooses his words carefully in order to pinpoint the sin of each. The one who eats anything might take pride in having thought the matter through and freed himself from his fears and compulsions, and might look down on his “weaker” brother in the faith. But the abstainer is more likely to develop a “holier-than-thou” attitude and pass judgment on his brother as “careless.”354

The freedom in Messiah: The second reason every believer should accept every other believer is that the Lord sustains us all. A believer who is “strong” about matters that are not doctrinal or moral, and that are neither commanded nor forbidden in Scripture, is just as much in need of God’s strength as the who is “weak.” We are all weak in the sense that everything good and righteous we possess is a gift from God, never a product of our own wisdom or efforts.

But the remaining influence of the flesh often tempts liberated believers to think legalists are so rigid and self-righteous that they sacrifice not only much personal joy, but also limit their effectiveness to the Lord. On the other hand, the same fleshly influence tempts legalists to believe that liberated believers are self-centered and loose-living, and therefore, cannot serve the Lord effectively.355

Being well aware of those tendencies, Paul confronted both groups with the stinging rhetorical question: Who are you to pass judgment on someone else’s servant? It is before his own Master, namely , namely Yeshua Messiah, that each believer will stand or fall; and the fact is that every believer will stand, because the Lord is able to make him stand (14:4). Earlier in the letter, Paul posed a similar rhetorical question: So, who will bring a charge against God’s chosen people? He asks: Certainly not God – He is the one who causes them to be considered righteous! Who punishes them? Certainly not the Messiah Yeshua, who died and – more than that – has been raised, is at the right hand of God and is actually pleading on our behalf (8:33-34)! For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor other heavenly rulers, neither what exists nor what is coming, neither powers above nor powers below, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God which comes to us through the Messiah Yeshua, our Lord (8:38-39).

Yeshua Himself assures those who belong to Him: My sheep listen to my voice, I recognize them, they follow me, and I give them eternal life. They will absolutely never be destroyed, and no one will snatch them from my hands (John 10:27-28). The closing benediction of Jude’s brief letter reflects that promise, reminding believers of the one who can keep you from falling and set you without defect and full of joy in the presence of His Sh’khinah (Jude 24). Truly, the Lord sustains His own.356

Torah Questions: The Psalmist of Isra’el implores Ha’Shem, “Open my eyes, so that I will see wonders from your Torah” (Ps 119:18). Is this a prayer that Gentiles can pray? Or can only Jewish people speak these words? I believe that Gentiles can, and should, pray this prayer with devotion. This is because the Torah is relevant to Gentiles. Many sections of the Torah are not directly applicable to Gentiles (just as there are many sections of the Torah that are not directly applicable to men), but there are hundreds of other commandments that are directly applicable. There are at least twenty purposes of the Torah. They include:

  • To serve as the foundational revelation of God
  • To remind us of God’s love, grace and power seen in acts of creation and redemption
  • To teach us how to love God and our neighbor
  • To teach us how to worship God
  • To establish the oneness and sovereignty of God
  • To teach us to be holy as God is holy
  • To point out sin so that we might repent to God
  • To train us to exercise faith in God
  • To train us to be obedient to God
  • To reveal the heart and priorities of God
  • To reveal the wisdom and knowledge of God
  • To train us to meditate on the Word of God
  • To establish the order of God’s creation
  • To uphold God’s standards of justice and compassion in society
  • To draw the nations to God
  • To foster unity among God’s people
  • To give our children a heritage from the Lord
  • To point us to Messiah and His death, resurrection and return
  • To prepare Isra’el to fulfill God’s calling
  • To preserve Isra’el as a distinct nation by God’s design

The Torah serves all of these purposes and most of them are directly applicable to Gentiles. A Gentile’s love for Torah commandments should include, above all, a commitment to Torah ethics. These are centered on the Shema – love for God and love for neighbor.

But Gentiles do not have a covenantal responsibility to keep those aspects of Torah that were given by God to serve as “boundary markers of identity” for the Jewish people. This relates to the last point on our list of purposes of the Torah – to preserve Isra’el as a distinct nation by God’s design. Consider that if all Gentile Christians lived as Jews. The Jewish people would cease to exist as a certain people who keep themselves separate; their customs are different from those of all other people (Esther 3:8). Certainly, it is not God’s will for the Jewish people to cease to exist!

Stated another way, the God of Isra’el is a God who loves diversity and we see this diversity reflected in the order of creation. Consider the different kinds of plants and trees, birds and animals, and their many colors. Humanity is divided into male and female, Isra’el and the nations. The biblical model from beginning to end is that the kingdom of God is a table fellowship of Jews (in all their diversity) and Gentiles (in all their diversity) whose relationship with one another is supposed to be characterized by interdependence and mutual blessing.

Those who teach that all Gentile Christians are supposed to live like Jews by embracing Jewish “boundary markers of identity” have embraced a teaching that Paul condemns in his letter to the Galatians, referring to its adherents as those who pervert the Gospel of Messiah (Galatians 1:7). The modern day expression of this teaching is the “One Law” or “Hebrew Roots” movement. This movement is toxic for the following reasons: (1) It preaches a different gospel (Galatians 1:6) by claiming that Gentile Christians have to live like Jews in order to be faithful to God; (2) It is anti-Jewish because it opposes Jewish distinctiveness; (3) It is anti-Christian because it opposes Gentile Christian distinctiveness and claims that the Church is apostate if it does not live out Isra’el’s way of life; (4) It causes division in Messianic synagogues and Christian churches; (5) It is energized by a critical spirit and a gnostic-like quest for secret knowledge; (6) It is based on pseudo-scholarship; (7) It leads to weirdness and strange teachings, for example, Gentiles dressed up as Orthodox Jews, the belief that all Christians are members of the lost tribes of Isra’el, the view that Paul is a false apostle, rejection of the divinity of Yeshua or the triune nature of God, and so on.

One Law, or Hebrew Roots Doctrine (see the commentary on Galatians Ak – The Hebrew Roots Movement: A Different Gospel): One Law doctrine is based on the idea that everybody everywhere ought to be keeping the Torah given to the Jews at Sinai. In their view, the Torah wasn’t intended just for Isra’el, but for everyone. Moreover, neither the coming of Messiah, nor the atonement provided in the New Covenant changes anything in terms of what they see as the universal human need to relate to God through mitzvot of the Torah. Accordingly, One Law teachers, as embodied today in the Hebrew Roots movement, are highly critical of what they see as the historical error of the Gentile Church in not keeping “the laws” which God gave to Moses and Isra’el at Mount Sinai. Of particular concern to them seem to be “the laws” pertaining to Shabbat and festival observance, as well as the dietary commandments. Those Gentile Christians who don’t necessarily see the need to follow such “laws” are considered as “pagans.”

One Law doctrine holds that the true “Hebrew roots” of the faith are to be found in keeping all 613 commandments of the Torah given to Moses given at Mt. Sinai. Their mission, as it seems, is to promote observance of “the law” as the means of restoring the body of Messiah to the supposed true Hebrew roots of the faith, which are to be found in the Sinai covenant. This mission takes on particular urgency in the end-times. One Law proponents advocate, therefore, the urgent need for all Gentile believers to depart from “paganism,” and to return in zeal to the “true Hebrew roots” of their faith, which is supposedly to be found in the legal observance of the Torah. In recent years, they have bombarded the internet with their teachings. Some of them are very savvy when it comes to this.

The Issue: Followers of “One Law, One People” movement insist that everybody ought to be Torah observant. Since everybody does not keep the Torah, they typically see their Torah observance as some kind of evidence of their chosen-ness. They believe they have special knowledge like the Gnostics, whose writings flourished among certain Christian groups until about the second century, when the Fathers of the early church denounced it as heresy. However, the “One Law” doctrine is causing just as much trouble today as the Gnostic doctrine did in the early Church. Not only does it breed a sense of legalistic pride, but there are deeper concerns. Almost inevitably, “One Law, One People” teaching is associated with the idea that people who keep the Torah given to Isra’el actually ARE Isra’el. This idea is usually advanced by myths about the “lost tribes.” The followers of “One Law” typically begin to identify Isra’el in Bible prophecy as somehow pertaining to them. Most of them think of themselves as belonging to the northern kingdom of Isra’el, as represented in the prophecy of the two “sticks” referenced in Ezeki’el 37. Thus, they see Torah observance as their duty as members of “the people Isra’el.”

The question of Isra’el identity always seems to be related to this doctrine of One Law. Thus, not only is it wrong on its face, theologically, but it is deeply and intimately intertwined with Replacement Theology. Obsession with the Torah, and with Isra’el identity, has caused many Hebrew Roots groups to take on the external look and feel of being Jewish. In Hebrew Roots conferences and in local congregational groups, for example, it is commonplace to hold meetings on Shabbat and during the Levitical feasts. In their meetings, they typically employ traditional articles of Jewish worship like davidic dancing, Jewish liturgical prayers, and shofar- blowing. It is common for people to be wearing kippot and tzitzit, using Hebrew slogans on their banners, displaying the magen David, and even participating in Torah processions. It’s not an intrinsically bad thing to use Jewish symbolism and expression by Gentiles. However, such usage by legalistic, Gentile groups, many of whom think they are the true Israelites, and who are often critical and divisive toward the Gentile church, can cause much offense and/or confusion in both the Jewish and Christian community. Both the Jewish and Christian communities may not be able to see the distinction between the Messianic Jewish community and the Hebrew Roots camp. Due to their external appearance, and the imitation of Jewish expression, there is potential that the practices and beliefs of these Hebrew Roots groups could wrongfully be attributed to Messianic Jews.

But what about Gentiles who sense they are called by God to worship in Jewish ways? Gentiles who are called by God to be members of Messianic Jewish congregations are called to embrace the lifestyle of these synagogues, not as Messianic Jews but as Gentile followers of the Messiah. They are Gentiles who practice Messianic Judaism, or, Messianic Gentiles. So, one the one hand, “calling” is the operative term here since most Gentiles are not called to join Messianic synagogues and live out Jewish lifestyle. But on the other hand, Gentile Christian churches are not violating God’s will if they do not keep the Sabbath on the seventh day, observe the Jewish festivals, and so on. The Gentile wing of the Church should appreciate its Jewish origins, its Jewish Scriptures, its Jew-Gentile identity and its Jewish Messiah, but the Gentile wing of the Church should not be viewed as deficient if it does not follow distinctly Jewish customs.357

At the end of the book of Ezeki’el, the prophet speaks of life during the Messianic Kingdom (Ezeki’el Chapters 40-48). He tells us that not only will the Promised Land be divided as an inheritance for each of the twelve tribes, but there will be also be Gentiles involved in the inheritance as well. He says: You are to distribute this land among yourselves according to the tribes of Isra’el. You are to allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the [Gentiles] who have settled among you and who have children. You are to consider them as native-born Israelites; along with you that are to be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Isra’el (Ezeki’el 47:21-22). What a wonderful thought – that there will be a remnant from among the Gentile nations who will so desire to be identified with Isra’el that the God of Isra’el will even grant them a physical inheritance within the Land of Isra’el.