Should Christians Study the Torah?
Often Christians think that the “Old Testament” is virtually irrelevant today, since the doctrines of the Church are made explicit in the New Testament writings. However, this is a serious mistake, as the following facts will demonstrate:
1. Yeshua and all His apostles were Torah-observant Jews. The Scriptures that they studied, loved, and quoted were the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings, in other words, the Jewish TaNaKh. Indeed, Messiah quoted from the scroll of Deuteronomy (from the Torah) more than any other book in the Scriptures. As a child, Yeshua would have studied the Torah and memorized it with other Jewish children. In addition, each morning God the Father taught God the Son. Adonai ELOHIM had given Me the ability to speak as a man well taught, so that I, with My words, know now to sustain the weary. Each morning He awakens My ear to hear like those who are taught (Isaiah 50:4).
When asked what was the greatest commandment of YHVH, Yeshua quoted the Shema: Love ADONAI your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength (6:5), and then He added the commandment: Love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18). Both of these mitzvot come directly from the Torah.
Indeed, Yeshua said that He did not come to abolish the Torah or the Prophets, but to fulfill them (see the commentary on The Life of Christ, to see link click Dg – The Completion of the Torah). When He was further asked which ones, He replied by citing the Ten Words (see the commentary on Deuteronomy Bk – The Ten Words) and appealed to the man to follow Him (Matthew 19:18-21).
2. Messiah said that the TaNaKh plainly testifies of Him (John 5:39). As His followers, we should understand what this means and how we indeed bear witness of Him (Matthew 2:2 and 27:11). In addition, studying the Torah, we can more fully appreciate the glory and grace as revealed in the Person and Ministry of our Lord. For example, we can more fully savor the role of the sacrificial system and how Yeshua fulfilled all of ADONAI’s holy requirements on our behalf as our Great High Priest (see the commentary on Hebrews Ay – Messiah’s Qualifications as our Great High Priest) of the B’rit Chadashah.
3. When two disciples were on their way to the town of Emmaus discussing the implications of the crucifixion of Yeshua three days earlier, who but the Master Himself appeared alongside them and taught them from the TaNaKh? Then, starting with Moshe and all the prophets, He explained to them the things that can be found throughout the TaNaKh concerning Himself (see the commentary on The Life of Christ Mh – On the Road to Emmaus). Again, as His followers, we should likewise be able to recount how Yeshua is revealed in the TaNaKh.
4. The “Church” was born on the Jewish holiday of Shavu’ot (Pentecost) among the Jewish people in Jerusalem. Peter’s sermon during the festival (see the commentary on Acts An – Peter Speaks to the Shavu’ot Crowd) was entirely Jewish, quoting from the Prophets and David, which would have meant little to any Gentiles if they were present at all. It is likely, therefore, that the 3,000 people who were saved that day would have all been Jewish. The earliest members of the new messianic community met regularly in the Temple. Note that Peter and John are recorded to have gone to the Temple for prayer during the time of the afternoon sacrifices (Acts 3:1). Even after they were imprisoned for preaching the Good News, and miraculously escaped, an angel told them to go, stand in the Temple court and keep telling the people all about this new life (Acts 5:20)! This produced much spiritual fruit, and twenty-five years later, tens-of-thousands (or a minimum of twenty-thousand Jewish believers in Jerusalem alone not counting the rest of the country) Jewish people were believers – and were zealous for the Torah. They saw no contradiction in their faith in Yeshua and their zealousness for the Torah (Acts 21:17-20).
5. Later, when the Jerusalem Council wrote their letter to the Gentiles regarding their relationship to the Torah (see the commentary on Acts Bt – The Council’s Letter to the Gentile Believes), they advised them to at first abstain from those things that would make them abhorrent to the Jews, with the assumption that they would later go on to study the Torah of Moses and other scrolls (books) in the TaNaKh.
6. Paul was raised a Torah observant Jew who studied under the famous Rabbi Gamaliel in Jerusalem (Acts 22:3). Rabbi Sha’ul (see the commentary on Acts Bm – Paul’s First Missionary Journey) was well established in the Jewish leadership of his day, and even had a relationship with the Sanhedrin High Priest of Isra’el (Acts 9:1-2). But even after his conversion on the Damascus Road (see the commentary on Acts Bc – Sha’ul Turns from Murder to Messiah), he still identified himself as a Jew. In Acts 23:6, he confessed: I am (not was) a Pharisee. He even declared that concerning the observance of the Torah he was blameless, which indicates that he took the Nazarite vow (Acts 18:18), lived in observance of the Torah (Acts 21:23-24), and actually offered sacrifices in the Temple (Acts 21:26). Notice that Paul not only paid for his own sacrifices in order to be released from his Nazarite vow, but also paid for the sacrifices of four other Jewish believers! Notice also that this was performed at the explicit request of James, the head of the Messianic community in Jerusalem, and the half-brother of Yeshua.
Paul regularly attended synagogue: After passing through Amphipolis and Apollonia, Sha’ul and Sila came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue. According to his usual practice, Sha’ul went in; and on three Shabbats he gave them drashes from the Tanakh (Acts 17:1-2). And when Paul later wrote to the Gentile churches: All Scripture is God-breathed and is valuable for teaching the truth, convicting of sin, correcting faults and training in right living (Second Timothy 3:16), he was referring to the Jewish Scriptures, since the B’rit Chadashah had not yet been compiled for the Church.
Indeed, to understand Paul’s writings, we need to remember his training as a rabbi when he quotes the Scriptures in his writings. For example, when he wrote: And they all drank the same drink from the Spirit – for they drank from a Spirit-sent Rock which followed them, and that Rock was the Messiah (First Corinthians 10:4), he was quoting from a story later written in the Talmud (see the commentary on The Life of Christ Ei – The Oral Law), that from the time that Moshe struck the rock at Horeb and brought forth water until the death of Miriam (Numbers 20:1), this water-giving rock “followed the children of Isra’el through the desert and provided water for them each day” (Taanit, 9a Nava Metizia, 86b).
7. Many Christian denominations profess to believe in the authority of both the “Old Testament” and the New Testament Scriptures, while, in reality, relegating the study of the 39 books (or the TaNaKh) to the dustheap of history. Ask yourself, “When was the last time my pastor taught through any of these 39 books?” If the TaNaKh is taken seriously at all, it assumes the intent of the text is also applicable to the Gentile Church.
This is both shortsighted and inconsistent, since it is impossible to understand the B’rit Chadashah writings while ignoring the cultural and theological context of which it is a part. Not only that, it must be remembered that the Greek text and the B’rit Chadashah derives its authority and reliability from the Jewish Scriptures, and not the other way around. Too many Christian theologians go at this backwards, reading the B’rit Chadashah (and especially ideas credited to Paul) as the interpretative filter for the study of the Hebrew text. Theologians of the Western traditions must consciously remember that there are three rules when interpreting Scripture: Context, context, context. Replacement theology and implicit anti-Semitism have no place in biblical interpretation.
So yes, for these and many other reasons, it is important, even vital, for Christians to study the Torah as part of the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27).15
Leave A Comment