Jun 12, 2010
Posted on Jun 12, 2010 in Personal | 0 comments
Today I had an opportunity to teach at an event in a public park, hosted by a friend of mine, Justin McDade. The event started with a group of young girls involved in an expressive worship dance group. Next, I sang a few songs and then spoke. And rounding it out was my friend Justin who spoke and sang as well. I feel we need to create medals for the poor souls who sat through the entire event in an outdoor amphitheater with absolutely no shade in 90º+ temperatures without melting into the concrete.
I spoke on Becoming a Disciple of Yeshua. It seemed to go over well, and was possibly an entry point for people to look into the Jewishness of our Messiah and our faith. Ultimately, I hope the end-goal was that people become more passionate about studying Scripture and more devoted as a disciple of the Master.
Apr 13, 2010
Posted on Apr 13, 2010 in Miscellaneous, Personal | 2 comments
Yes, opportunity has knocked and I need your help. A friend of mine has started a church in our capital city which is very information/media driven. They are very open to new ideas and are very culture-centric. They have started a new blog series called “CityView” and invited me to be a guest blogger on their site in a few weeks to present my perspective on any topic I choose. The concept behind CityView is as follows:
Faith is everywhere. or lack of faith. Either way, there’s a bigger conversation occurring in our city than just a single church or a single faith perspective. Instead of becoming an insular community, we hope that [name of church] can be a place that listens to & engages in the broader faith conversation in our city. CityView is our first shot at doing just that. We’d love for you to share your faith perspective with us in this new blog series.
Whether we agree on this perspective is not the point. The point is that I am going to be able to blog about anything at all and I was wanting to get ideas from anyone out there who wants to give me their input. If you had a chance to stand up to the mic at a Sunday-going-church, what would you say? I would really like for you to submit your thoughts as to what you feel are some important “points” that need to be addressed in greater Christendom from a Messianic perspective. Please submit your thoughts in the comments section of this post.
Rules for submissions:
- Be nice
- Be nice
- Be nice
Apr 8, 2010
Posted on Apr 8, 2010 in Nusach, Personal, Pesach | 2 comments
Long after Passover my youngest two children will still be singing the Seder Semanim, the song that lists the 15 different steps of the Passover seder (Kaddesh, Urchatz, etc.). For some reason they just love to sing that song! So… To capture their zeal and sweet voices, I recorded them singing their current favorite tune. Here is Boaz (age 5) and Einya (age 3) singing for you. I hope you enjoy it half as much as I do.
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Mar 28, 2010
Posted on Mar 28, 2010 in Apostolic Writings, Miscellaneous, Personal | 0 comments
I had coffee with a friend of mine a few weeks ago and we began to discuss the Scriptures and our beliefs. I’ve only really gotten to know him over the last year or so. He is curious as to my beliefs and has approached me a few times to lovingly debate a few points of doctrine/theology. Although we disagree on many points, we have a mutual respect for each other’s faith and can speak frankly with one another without jeopardizing our relationship (a rarity). As we got into our discussion, however, I realized that he held to a position I haven’t been exposed to in a number of years. It goes something like this:
The Tanach (the Old Testament) represents a lot of stories of faith, and examples of how we should live our lives in obedience to God (in some vague way, as we will see by the next component). And the Gospels, Acts, Hebrews and Revelation are not written as a documents of instruction, therefore they are not “prescriptive” but only “descriptive” in their content, and therefore cannot have any theological bearing in the life of a believer. Wow… I was really dumfounded for a good while, as I mulled over this implications of how his theological perspective had essentially stripped out 90% of the authority of the Scriptures, relegating “prescriptive” or “authoritative” Scripture to the (misunderstood) writings of Paul and possibly the epistles of Peter, James, John & Jude (and even then I’m not sure if all of them hold equal weight with the Pauline epistles according to this theological premise).
This theological supposition seems to be heavily taught in missions-based organizations, because of opposition they have received over the years that their missionary methods were not practiced by the first believers. In other words, it’s not found in the book of Acts. I just did a quick search on the net for the phrase “book of Acts descriptive not prescriptive” and found a blog from a seminary student returning from a class on missions that said it point blank:
The book of Acts is not presented as a prescriptive book. That is, it is not presented as a manual on how a church should be run (you’ll find a lot of that in the epistles) or missions should be conducted. It describes what did happen, not what should/must/will happen in every time and culture.
I think this represents a snapshot of the theological pulse of our seminaries. It was this concept that was ingrained in my friend, and totally blocked our communication. If you’re interested, the passage of Acts in discussion was the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) in which the Apostles presented their ruling on the minimum requirements of non-Jews entering into the faith. The gist of my argument with my friend was that the minimum level of Torah observance was put forth by the Council in Acts 15, and that we should at least be keeping these four basic boundaries as a bare minimum, whether we agreed on the whole of Torah or not. He was in total disagreement, using the argument that since Acts was not “prescriptive” but “descriptive” the ruling of the Council had no bearing in the life of a modern day believer.
Again, Wow…
Here we have a contrast as to the authority of the Apostolic Council making a strong line in the sand for the entire Yeshua faith community verses the Pauline epistles, which were written for a specific purpose (almost always a response to a specific issue) to a specific group of people. Yet this theological position supplants the authority of James, the brother of our Master (and steward of his throne at that time) and the original Apostles of our Master. [editor's note: I am not saying the Pauline epistles are not authoritative. I believe they are, and have a greater appreciation for them now than ever. I am only suggesting that "if" there was a priority, then the Apostolic Council would be first in line, rather than Paul's addresses to specific situations and specific people which do not apply to us as directly as much as the Apostolic decree.]
Does anyone else see a problem with this? Has anyone else ran into this? Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to bridge this gap in our communication?
Mar 14, 2010
Posted on Mar 14, 2010 in Personal, Site Changes | 9 comments
Well… blogging has not been a priority at all for me over the last year or two. However, I’ve been enticed by a few people, including my wonderful wife, to get back at it… at least on some level. Over my absence, I have been working to provide for my family, and keep from being viewed as an “authority” on any topic (for which some seemed to think). I am not an authority and do not claim to be. There is much I do not know, and as each day passes I find myself more and more in the negative balance of knowledge.
I hope that you will be able to enjoy my posts, but realize I have a 99% chance of being wrong on anything about which I write. I write, however, in order to express my observations and insights for the present moment, and these perspectives can changevery rapidly. There are many things about which I have blogged over the last half a dozen years with which my perspective has changed. I have almost removed these posts many times, but have kept them so that 1) I can remember my journey, and 2) you can possibly see it as well.
Not only are there outdated posts, but several broken links. I really apologize for this, but I just don’t have the extra hours in the day to go through each post / page and find everything that’s broken. So… please help me on this. If you click on something that interests you, and get a broken link (or content that is unexpected), please send me an email and let me know, so that I might have some kind of an idea of priority for fixing these things. Thanks in advance!
In case you’re wondering, the event that spurred me to pull the trigger was the opportunity to be a part of the Messianic blogosphere in relationship to the J-BOM (Jewish Book Of the Month). I am nearly ready to post my first review, and I look forward to participating in the Messianic community each month in this continuing dialog.
May Hashem bless you, and may He give me strength to not fall short at the task at hand. Your prayers are certainly appreciated.
