JEWISH ROOTS

I have been doing some reading of books written by a Jew who converted to Christianity and then married a gentile who became an Anglican vicar. In her story she brings out some pertinent points about Judaism and compares them with Christianity.

One thing that is very obvious is the lengths that Jews go to in their attempt to keep the law. She compares this with Christianity and is surprised at the lengths some Christians go to…to keep the law.

Not the Jewish law by the way but the Christian law. One that they have invented for themselves to make them appear holy and because they can’t trust themselves to be led by the spirit and what the word of God says. The writer was a happy go lucky Jewish girl but when she was converted and joined up with a non denominational free church she found that there was just as many laws there as in Judaism. Originally, Judaism had about 73 laws and then the Rabbis added another 200 and yes you have guessed it, so that they could control the people.

I find this a bit strange as the scriptures tell me that Jesus came to fulfil the law not to make us keep on keeping it. I guess all this is part of the cultural traditions that man has invented to enable certain people to control the majority (funny how that keeps coming up).

The other thing that was noticeable is that in my discussions about what the New Testament Church did, I point out that they met in homes. However, some people insist that the New Testament Church met in the synagogue; therefore it is OK to meet in public buildings.

First, they didn’t meet as a church in the synagogue. They met to tell other Jews about Jesus, so it was for evangelistic purposes and they met in the synagogue as Jews not as Christians bearing in mind that they were not giving up their Jewish way of life. Apart from the fact that gentile Christians were not allowed in the synagogue unless they had converted to Judaism. Second, if a person is going to insist that going to the synagogue was part and parcel of New Testament Church life, I would like to know why they only take the parts that suit them and ignore the rest.

Things like having an upper balcony where all the women sit and the lower seats reserved for men only. Why the men in the congregation are not allowed to challenge the speaker as they are in the synagogue as he is speaking. Why women pray as only men pray in the synagogue. Why the congregation talk as much as they like at any part of the service. Why meetings don’t last for hours as the synagogue services do. Why every meeting doesn’t include a meal as the synagogue services do.

If you are going to insist that the synagogue service is an example of Christian worship in the New Testament, then you should follow through and do it like the Jews did in the synagogue bearing in mind that Christianity was originally a sect of Judaism.

The other thing that was very noticeable is how we have emasculated the Jewish Passover by turning it in to religious ritual called communion.

The Jews meet together every Sabbath evening for a meal together as a family. Part of that meal is bread and wine. The Passover meal celebrated once a year is a meal that the whole Jewish community get involved in. They have bread and wine as part of their celebration. What is important in both cases are not the bread and wine but the meal and the fellowship which is how the New Testament Church viewed and practiced it.

She believes that our bread and wine religious ritual has taken all the life out of the experience to the point that she and her husband decided to introduce the Jewish Passover to their church so that they would eat together as a family, not just go through some meaningless religious ritual.

The basis for our faith is not Greek, Roman or Western. It is Jewish and if we want to be informed about our way of life, we are not going to do that with any authenticity by referring to modern day concepts and who said what 400 years after Christ. We have to go back to our roots in Judaism and what is recorded in the bible.

Now how difficult is that?