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Nobody’s Perfect, So Don’t Even Try

Does James 2:10 mean that Christians shouldn't try to keep God's law? In Paul's words, Heaven forbid!

Someone once tried to tell me…

For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. (James 2:10)

Good luck trying to become righteous before God through the law…I wish you the best.

This person was equating “righteous” with “saved”, which isn’t entirely wrong. It’s just irrelevant. Whether or not a Christian is obligated to keep God’s Law has nothing at all to do with whether or not it makes a person sufficiently righteous to merit salvation. Abstaining from murder doesn’t make one righteous in this sense either, but no one believes Christians are therefore free to commit murder.

This person is essentially saying, “You can’t keep the Law perfectly, so don’t even try,” which is precisely the opposite of what James was trying to say. Just three verses earlier, he quoted Torah (the Law) from Leviticus 19:18, “If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scriptures, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing well.” Does it really make sense to interpret James as saying “If you’re trying to keep the Law, you’re doing a good thing, but since you can’t keep all of it, don’t try to keep any of it”? How absurd!

No, James was saying, “It’s great if you love your neighbor, but don’t forget about all the rest of it.”

Nobody’s perfect. We’re all going to fall short of God’s standards (aka Torah). That’s why Yeshua’s sacrifice was necessary. But don’t take inevitable failure as permission to fail. It’s not.

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A Review of Yehuda Avner’s The Prime Ministers

The Prime Ministers isn’t a comprehensive history of Israel. It’s a collection of vignettes concerning an insider’s interactions with the country’s prime ministers up through Menachem Begin. It’s a very personal account that focuses on the personalities rather than the events.

There were some slow parts. (It’s a history, so you have to expect that.) But overall, this was a fantastic book. I loved it, especially the last half that focused on Menachem Begin. If only every world leader could have the kind of character, kindness, and realistic idealism that Begin possessed. The author’s portrayal of some of the biggest characters of the latter 20th century filled them out and made them more real to me. Carter, Reagan, and Shimon Peres dropped a couple of notches in my estimation, while Kissinger, Thatcher, and Begin all rose.

I’ve been reading a lot of biographies lately, and this book underscored a commonality I’ve seen among the great men and women of history. They’re just regular people with all the same flaws and motivations as the rest of us. There are a few things that set them apart: personal discipline, a clear vision, and the drive to make that vision real. If you can put those three things together, you can make things happen.

The Prime Ministers by Yehuda Avner

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We Are Not of This World

Leviticus 25:23-24

Ye are strangers and sojourners with me. God’s plan for the Promised Land was that it would be inextricably tied to a particular family. A tribe was allotted a defined region and within that region each family was assigned a particular piece of land according to the size of the family. Less productive land was assigned more generously. If a man died childless, there were provisions to ensure that his inheritance stayed within the family as much as possible. Within a few limits, what a man did with his land was completely up to him. Yet from this passage we can see that no one but God really owns the land. In fact, no one truly owns anything at all outright. Everything belongs to God and all authority, even that over our own bodies, is only delegated to us from Him. He blesses whom He will bless and He curses whom He will curse.

If you abuse the authority which God has given you, you should not be surprised when He takes it away. We speak in terms of “my” this and “your” that for the sake of simplicity, but in reality nothing is mine and nothing is yours. We are only strangers and pilgrims in our own lands.

We are only sojourners in this world and all we have is on loan from the Creator.
Harvest in the Promised Land. (Ruth and Boaz by Nicolas Poussin)
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Created to Become Unequal

Leviticus 21:1 And the LORD said unto Moses, Speak unto the priests the sons of Aaron, and say unto them…

On some sense, I am sure that everyone is created equal, but I have yet to define what that sense might be. From birth we are all different. Some are stronger, some are hairier, some have different parts, and those differences confer varying responsibilities and powers.

God holds the physical descendants of Aaron to a higher standard than he holds the rest of us. For example, he deals with their sexual immorality much more harshly. The daughters of Aaron must remain virgins until married. If they don’t, the penalty isn’t just stoning. It’s burning.

Aaron’s sons are held to a higher standard than his daughters. Emor gives a short list of things that a priest may not do that other of God’s people may:

  • Touch the corpse of anyone who is not an immediate relative.
  • Shave his head or disfigure his beard.
  • Marry a woman who has sex outside of marriage or who has been divorced.
  • Drink alcohol while serving in the sanctuary.
The High Priest has an even higher standard than that. He may not
  • Touch the corpse of even immediate relatives.
  • Marry a widow or any non-virgin.
  • Leave the sanctuary while performing the duties of his office.
  • Bring anything unclean into the sanctuary.

Paul alluded to this same concept when he told Timothy and Titus his standards for Church leaders. He never intended those lists to be taken as absolute laws for all believers. (Or even for all church leaders, for that matter! They aren’t priests serving in the Temple, after all.) He was illustrating how good leaders must have a different code of behavior. There is no sin in preparing and burying a corpse nor in having a rebellious child, but God said that his priests shouldn’t do those things.

That God’s standards for some people might be different than his standards for others only surprises the inheritors of the so-called Enlightenment. Many good things have come from the philosophical and theological revolutions of the past, but some things have also been lost and corrupted.

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The Elegance and Depth of Torah

The elegance of Torah

One characteristic of what computer programmers refer to as “elegant” code is that it accomplishes much with little. In other words, a complicated process reduced to a few simple lines of instruction. One can usually tell a novice programmer by the convoluted nature of his code.

Torah is like an elegantly written piece of software. While it seems at times to be just a long list of dos and don’ts, in reality, it is a simplified portrayal of deep and nuanced concepts. A set of instructions on what to do in a particular circumstance often (always?) opens into a multi-dimensional framework of truths concerning the nature of God, man, redemption, and spiritual health and sickness, but only if you look at it from the right angle. Here are just some of the characteristics that a passage contains greater mysteries than appear on the surface:

  • Unusual Hebrew spelling.
  • Altered Hebrew characters, whether in size, shape, position, or orientation.
  • Thematic parallels with other passages.
  • Parallel or mirrored structure, often called a chiasm.
  • Numerological and pictographic double-meanings.
  • Puns and cognates.

At Ashrei, Rabbi B discusses some of the deeper meanings of “clean” and “unclean” in Leviticus 11-15 (aka the Torah portions of Sh’mini, Tazria, and Metsora), and how these concepts contain real and applicable spiritual import for people in ages and cultures.

It is in the most unlikeliest of places that we often discover the most precious of treasures. From time to time I hear from people who read the Bible how they skip certain sections when reading because those sections seem tedious and boring, or even irrelevant. When expressing this sentiment they often cite the lengthy genealogies or the detailed laws concerning sacrifices or laws pertaining to cleanliness.

Although I understand and sympathize with the sentiment somewhat, I often respond by reminding them that “All Scripture is given by inspiration of G-d, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of G-d may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (cf. II Timothy 3:16). And all means all, including the passages we are about to consider in this and subsequent posts.

I believe that G-d’s Word is inspired, literally “G-d-breathed,” all of it. Not just some of it, or just the part starting with the Gospels, but all of it, very single word, every single syllable. I also believe that in the beginning was the Word, that the Word was with G-d, that the Word was G-d, and that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (cf. John 1). That being said, I believe that we can find the Messiah being proclaimed on every page of the Bible. Let’s begin by taking a look at one of those long, tedious, and detailed sections of the Torah and see what we might discover.

Read the rest here: The Leper Messiah. (The linked blog is no longer online. Sorry! http://mayimchayim10.blogspot.com/2016/05/it-is-in-most-unlikeliest-of-places.html)

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What Killed Ted Cruz’s Presidential Campaign?

Nails in the Cruz campaign coffin:

1. Primary marketing shenanigans.
2. Glenn Beck’s lunacy.
3. Endorsements from Bush, Graham, et al.
4. Delegates shenanigans.
5. Collusion with John Kasich.
6. Carly Fiorina VP pick.

Much of this was SOP for political campaigns of the last 20 years, but taken as a whole in this particular election cycle, it’s almost like failure was planned.

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Self-Refuting Antisemitism

If you reject the Jews because they killed Jesus, you must also reject Jesus.A few thoughts on half-witted antisemitism:

1. The term “Judeo-Christian” doesn’t refer to rabbinic Judaism, but to the faith lived and taught by the Jewish prophets, the Jewish Messiah, and the Jewish teachers who came to be known as Christians.

2. Rejecting the Jews because they “killed Jesus” is self-refuting. Jesus IS a Jew. God killed Jesus. You killed Jesus. If you reject the Jews because they killed Jesus, then you also must reject God, your neighbor, yourself. More significantly, you must reject Jesus, because, if He is who Christianity claims Him to be, nobody could have killed Him without His help.

3. Words change meaning over time. Get used to it. The English language exists because the English people changed the pronunciation and usage of German, Celtic, Latin, & Greek words over time. The word “antisemite” doesn’t mean “opposed to all descendants of Shem”. That’s the literal meaning of the Greek and pidgin Hebrew roots, but it’s not how the word is used. It means “opposed to the physical descendants of Jacob and adherents to the cultural and religious system known as Judaism.”

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Winning the War

Jay’s Plan for Winning the “War on Terror”

  1. Forget about Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, etc. They have nothing to do with our national security. The invasion(s) was stupid, and continuing a stupid course is just adding stupid to stupid. Define a clear objective, achieve it, and bring the troops home. The End.
  2. Homeschool. Focus on faith, literacy, math, and science. Music and art are nice too, but they shouldn’t be the educational focus for most people.
  3. Stay close to home. Don’t move to the other side of the country after graduation from school, but stay close to your extended family. Strong families make a strong nation.
  4. Have babies. Lots and lots of babies. The race goes not to the swift but to the most prolific breeders. Seriously.
  5. Back off on the meds. God created the world for our use, but medications shouldn’t be for everyday use except in extraordinary circumstances. Moderation in all things. You will be smarter and healthier. Your kids will be smarter and healthier. They will be less tempted to shoot people.
  6. Men be men, and women be women. Men, cover your wives and families and teach your sons to do the same. Women, get under that cover and teach your daughters to do the same. Believe it or not, we will all be happier.
  7. Keep God’s Law. In return, he promises big families, good health, secure borders, military victory, productive land. Really, what else do we need?
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Imperfection Is Part of the Plan

Nobody starts out complete. IMPERFECTION is part of God’s plan.
Leviticus 12:3
And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.

No human being, including Yeshua, has ever been born complete.

When God created the world, he said it was good. It was perfect, but not in the way you might think. Perfection can imply an untouchable, changeless quality, but the world was meant to change. Adam was put in the Garden not only to care for it, but to subdue it, to change it.

Mankind too was created imperfect by design. We are flawed, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, and that’s exactly the way that God intended to create us. However, he did not intend for us to remain in that state. On the eighth day of his life, a baby boy begins his transformation into the man he is to become, and his initiation is accomplished through pain inflicted by the hand of another man. Again, by design.

We are born in pain and grow to maturity through pain. Without it, we would live and die in infancy, never knowing who God intended for us to become. Without experiencing the sorrow of death and separation, we can never experience the full measure of life.

When God or man bars the way with trial, don’t waste time crying over facts, but consider how they can be used and overcome, like the last one, and the one before that, and the one still to come. With each victory gained through struggle over suffering, you will be one step closer to the perfection that God intended you to achieve.

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The Restorative Power of Jesus’ Blood

Man was created to be an intermediary between Heaven and Earth, to govern the lower creation in deference to the higher. To accomplish this role we were given bodies with physical and spiritual components. Our flesh and spirit are intended to work together for maintaining, encouraging, and healing the natural world in communion with our Creator and one another.

When Adam sinned, he introduced signal pollution into both of these communication channels, the upward and the downward. We are no longer capable of effectively stewarding God’s Creation, forced into a situation in which we must extract our sustenance from it without inflicting too much damage. We are no longer capable of seeing God face to face. We must have prophets, teachers, intermediaries of all kinds to go up the mountain for us, because we are unable to endure the divine presence. His voice alone is enough to destroy us.

As a partial and temporary remedy to our spiritual injuries, God gave the sacrificial system, detailed most famously in the book of Leviticus. The khat’at (sin offering) in particular illustrates this point most clearly.

The bronze altar of the Tabernacle had horns on each of the four corners representing a connection to Heaven. The blood of the khat’at animal was collected by the priests and then the High Priest would paint these four horns with it, thereby purifying the entire altar. The remaining blood was poured out at or around the base of the altar, making the altar holy and atoning for (covering) it. The blood on the horns (the connection point with Heaven) and the base (the connection point with Earth) served as a sort of signal filter, temporarily removing the noise from our corrupted spiritual communications and allowing the altar to function on a higher plane.

We are like that altar, intended to be a connection between heaven and earth. Yeshua’s blood, shed on Passover, atones for the sins of all who repent and believe in him, restoring our relationship to God and enabling us to communicate with Him. Since we still inhabit fallen bodies and live in a fallen world, we continue to struggle with sin. We fight our evil inclinations daily, repenting for our failures, and continually appealing to God’s grace for His mercy. Ongoing, unrepented sin causes a breakdown in spiritual communication until we can no longer hear God’s voice at all.

We were created for a purpose, but if we are living in sin, we are incapable of fulfilling our purpose.

We were created for a purpose, collectively and each of us individually, but if we are living in sin, we are incapable of fulfilling our purpose. Ramses had wealth, fame, and greater military and political power than any other man on earth, yet his great contribution to history is as the Pharaoh whose defiance of God brought Egypt to the brink of extinction. By clinging to our sin, whatever great contribution we might have had to God’s Kingdom could be reduced to an object lesson in what not to do.

I’m not saying that perfect behavior is a condition of salvation. If it were, no one on earth could be saved. I am only addressing our ability to act effectively as God’s emissary. (Deliberate rebellion against God’s commands is something else entirely, and will have to wait for another day.)

Our great hope, the point of our faith, is that in the day of the resurrection, our bodies will be made new despite our personal failings, and we will be permanently transformed along with our relationships to Creator and Creation. We will be enabled to resume our intended place in God’s order as the connection point between Heaven and Earth. Nature will no longer fight us and we will commune freely with God and peacefully with each other.

That day can’t come quickly enough.